Warhammer 40K Tabletop VII: Common Sense is not RAW.

[Gruffard]

*snipe* Then I'll narcissistically (man that word was hard to work out ) respond with "Emperor Guide My Quasi-Arbitrary-Number-Cube"

But seriously I dunno. Maybe something about Hammer paper rock? Like 'Hammernator, Kroot, Grot'

Alright, I'll stop.

(Warhammer 40K Tabletop VIII: The Imperial Infantrymans Uplifting Inane Chatter?)

I vote the "Emperor Guide My Quasi-Arbitrary-Number-Cubes", but the "Hammernator, Kroot, Grot" isn't bad but I remember doing something similar to it before.

[DaedalusMkV]

How about "Dice Gods of Chaos, grant us your power!"

DoW quote, reference to what we're currently discussing, thematically appropriate and not as clumsy as the Hammernators thing. Though I do like the Quasi-Arbitrary-Number-Cube one. Good times.



So, it will soon be time for me to get back to my weekly gaming, and I'm having trouble deciding which army I should bring with me to the city to use for the next couple of weeks; recently I've been feeling like taking my (fully painted, uniquely among my armies) Tau off of their dust-covered shelf and giving them some gamey love, but doing so will require a lot of effort in fixing damaged skimmer bases and the like. Alternatively, I could try out a very different army list than usual for my Chaos, bringing out some Plague Marines and Thousand Sons to replace my Terminators, Land Raider and Berzerkers and then swapping my Chaos Lord with a (much scarier) Daemon Prince. Finally, I could bring out my Imperial Guard, with all of their hordy goodness, and which I have several opponents asking for rematches against on a fairly regular basis.

So, what do you guys think I should do? I'm always open to the suggestions of random strangers who I have never met, especially when I can't make up my mind myself...

[Gruffard]

Tau. Not that I am bias or anything... Because.... Oh flying tanks are cool!

EDIT: Also, cause painted armies roll better. and you said that they are an all painted army.

[MountainKing]

Tau. Not that I am bias or anything... Because.... Oh flying tanks are cool!

EDIT: Also, cause painted armies roll better. and you said that they are an all painted army.

But Eldar also have flying tanks. He could play those, if he had them.

[Winterwind]

But Eldar also have flying tanks. He could play those, if he had them.

Speaking of which, how well does a mechanized Eldar list work? Like, Fireprisms and Night Spinners for heavy support, as many Vypers as possible for Fast Attack, and Wave Serpents and Jetbikes for all (or almost all) infantry?

I won't be starting that any time soon, mind - I'm not nearly done with my Chaos Space Marines, and I have no less than two-and-a-half Fantasy armies waiting to be put together, too, but sooner or later, I want to start an Eldar army, and mechanized was one of the themes I was thinking about.

[Trixie]

I vote the "Emperor Guide My Quasi-Arbitrary-Number-Cubes", but the "Hammernator, Kroot, Grot" isn't bad but I remember doing something similar to it before.

How about "Trixie's Terrific Thread of Terror"?

[Incomp]

Speaking of which, how well does a mechanized Eldar list work? Like, Fireprisms and Night Spinners for heavy support, as many Vypers as possible for Fast Attack, and Wave Serpents and Jetbikes for all (or almost all) infantry?

I won't be starting that any time soon, mind - I'm not nearly done with my Chaos Space Marines, and I have no less than two-and-a-half Fantasy armies waiting to be put together, too, but sooner or later, I want to start an Eldar army, and mechanized was one of the themes I was thinking about.

I played a 2000 point mechanized eldar army list at a recent tournament. It seemed like it suffered from a very serious lack of troops, given almost all of its points went into tanks. (4 wave serpents, 2 fire prisms, 1 night spinner, a couple falcons...)

What I got out of the match is that night spinners suck, due mainly to the fact that their main gun is AP-. They would probably do fairly well against orks, tyranids, guard, etc.

My team won, (It was 2v2, with the players of the opposing side both taking mech eldar) though we hardly crushed them. I would say the list worked fairly well, and there's nothing wrong with the concept of mech eldar in general. So go ahead.

If you do make such a list, I would recommend making sure to leave adequate space for your troop choices-- it's easy to get carried away in the moar tanks mentality, especially when wave serpents are particularly expensive. (In points.)

[Winterwind]

I played a 2000 point mechanized eldar army list at a recent tournament. It seemed like it suffered from a very serious lack of troops, given almost all of its points went into tanks. (4 wave serpents, 2 fire prisms, 1 night spinner, a couple falcons...)

That's more than three Heavy Support choices - is that because it was a 2v2 and the Eldar had two army organisation plans available?

What I got out of the match is that night spinners suck, due mainly to the fact that their main gun is AP-. They would probably do fairly well against orks, tyranids, guard, etc.

Well, at least Night Spinners are rending... and then there's the special effect of that gun.

But yeah, perhaps three Fire Prisms would do better...

My team won, (It was 2v2, with the players of the opposing side both taking mech eldar) though we hardly crushed them. I would say the list worked fairly well, and there's nothing wrong with the concept of mech eldar in general. So go ahead.

Mmm. Good to hear.

If you do make such a list, I would recommend making sure to leave adequate space for your troop choices-- it's easy to get carried away in the moar tanks mentality, especially when wave serpents are particularly expensive. (In points.)

Well, my initial idea for Eldar was an Alaitoc-themed list with lots of Pathfinders. Maybe I'll combine the two ideas, so that the troop choices are taken up by some Pathfinders (infiltrating into some good cover) and some Guardians on Jetbikes (to take the farther objectives when the time is ripe). The rest of the army, then, maybe, if points allow, some Striking Scorpions (for further infiltration), definitely a squad of Fire Dragons in a Serpent, and then perhaps Banshees or Dire Avengers or so in another Serpent. And a Farseer somewhere in between.

[Klose_the_Sith]

How about "Trixie's Terrific Thread of Terror"?

Know the Mutant, Kill the Mutant, Fear the Grot

[MountainKing]

Know the Mutant, Kill the Mutant, Fear the Grot

Ooooo, I like this one. Seconded!

[dsmiles]

Because....Oh flying tanks are cool!

I cast my nominal vote for this unintentional piece of comedy gold.

[Incomp]

Know the Mutant, Kill the Mutant, Fear the Grot

That is excellent. I cast my vote for this title as well.

@Winterwind: Yes, they were able to take so many heavy support choices because it was 2v2, and therefore there were two force organization charts to fill between them.

Aside from very general tips, (which, as a reasonably intelligent person, you should not need me to tell you) I'm afraid I can't help you much with an eldar list. That 2v2 match was the first time I had fought eldar in years.

[lord_khaine]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gruffard
Because....Oh flying tanks are cool!

I cast my nominal vote for this unintentional piece of comedy gold.

I cast my vote for this as well.

[Cheesegear]

...Sheesh. I leave for two days, and this is what I return to? Recycled arguments for and against statistics? For shame.

Know the Mutant, Kill the Mutant, Fear the Grot

Like I said before, it might be almost funny...Except that I don't fear grots at all. And I try to make sure the thread/s have at least something to do with Tactics or something that has at least something to do with the thread.

Couple of gems I picked up over this thread (I told you I was keeping them safe);

Creative Abuse is still Abuse
Rock, Paper, Hammernators
Disciples of the Lord of Fools
Wraith's Fleeting Hammernators
More Fleet Than Your Power Armour Has Room For
Get the Twilight Marines! They'll save us!
Heroes Wear Helmets
It's not Cheating if You Don't Know the Rules
Statistics Can Suck It
Now Murphy's Law Compliant.
Viva La Power Creep!

[lord_khaine]

I remember that Cheese made a mistake simular to wraith, shortly after he had made his own fleet comment, can anyone remember what it was?

I was thinking it might be fitting material for our next title.

[Klose_the_Sith]

Like I said before, it might be almost funny...Except that I don't fear grots at all. And I try to make sure the thread/s have at least something to do with Tactics or something that has at least something to do with the thread.

I never seriously meant that suggestion, though. Not sure why people voted for it

[LCP]

Hi - I've been lurking in this thread for a while, and the stats stuff got me a bit interested, so I worked out the probability distribution for the situation you were talking about before: 45 Kroot attacks against Khorne Berserkers (4+ to hit, 4+ to wound, 3+ saves, right? It's been a long time since I actually played this game).

Spoiler

Show

The higher wound numbers do actually have probabilities, it's just that they're so low you can't see them on this scale.

I post this because I wanted to support what Winterwind was saying, but trying to put in words was way too long-winded. Just wanted to show that not only is the expectation value the value around which you can expect equally well to do better or worse, but it's also the most probable of all possible individual results in any situation involving multiple dice rolls.

Understanding the context - the fact that the expectation value is the centre of a probability distribution like this one - lets you know not only the average expected value, but also the kind of spread that you can in fairness expect. The kind of back-of-the-envelope mathhammer people usually indulge in is a quick and dirty way of getting a rough idea of how that lies.

The only way statistics would really be as useless as some people have been making out would be if all interactions between units came down to single dice rolls - then you'd have a flat top-hat distribution, and yeah, the expectation value would mean almost nothing. But that's not the case, and acting as if people who use the expectation value are expecting the distribution of their results to be a single-valued spike is a real distortion of the situation.

[Closet_Skeleton]

There's a squad of Guardsmen in a friends's army that has earned the title 'The Hammer of Disbelief' for beating my Bloodthirster in a round of Close Combat.

Pity a squad of guardsmen of the right size will statistically kill a bloodthirster in two rounds. It only needs to be about 30 models.

One in three guardsman attacks hit a bloodthirster
One in six wound.
Half of those get saved.

A bloodthirster has 4 wounds. So you need to cause 8 wounds for him to fail 4 saves, which needs 8x6=48 hits which need 48x3=144 attacks. Which makes it sound like you need around 150 guardsmen to kill the bloodthirster, but a squad of 30 will have 25 models left after the bloodthirster's first round of attacks and 20 left after the second (and that's being very generous to the bloodthirster's rolls), so that's 45 attacks over two rounds.

That's a third of the number statistics says you should need, so it only takes a little luck for the bloodthirster to die.

[Arcanoi]

You seem to be forgetting that the Guardsmen need to pass an LD test at LD4 or so to stick around after each round.

EDIT: Or have a Lord Commissar, but then the unit is as expensive as the Bloodthirster, and more importantly, not something I would charge him into.

[lord_khaine]

You seem to be forgetting that the Guardsmen need to pass an LD test at LD4 or so to stick around after each round.

EDIT: Or have a Lord Commissar, but then the unit is as expensive as the Bloodthirster, and more importantly, not something I would charge him into.

That seems to be assuming the guards did not inflict any wounds back, seing as the bloodthirster died, then we should assume at least 2 wounds in the first round.

[Arcanoi]

That seems to be assuming the guards did not inflict any wounds back, seing as the bloodthirster died, then we should assume at least 2 wounds in the first round.

As the situation stood, one squad of 10 guardsmen dealt 2 wounds which was very unlikely, and then suffered only 1 wound in return, equally unlikely. That, and that it also happened to win him the game, since my Bloodthirster free to charge and contest his DZ objective my next turn, was why it earned the title. The Bloodthirster survived to the end of the game, but with one wound left.

[dsmiles]

...Sheesh. I leave for two days, and this is what I return to? Recycled arguments for and against statistics? For shame.



Like I said before, it might be almost funny...Except that I don't fear grots at all. And I try to make sure the thread/s have at least something to do with Tactics or something that has at least something to do with the thread.

Couple of gems I picked up over this thread (I told you I was keeping them safe);

Creative Abuse is still Abuse
Rock, Paper, Hammernators
Disciples of the Lord of Fools
Wraith's Fleeting Hammernators
More Fleet Than Your Power Armour Has Room For
Get the Twilight Marines! They'll save us!
Heroes Wear Helmets
It's not Cheating if You Don't Know the Rules
Statistics Can Suck It
Now Murphy's Law Compliant.
Viva La Power Creep!

Well, if those are the only choices, Statistics Can Suck It!

[Gruffard]

I still vote "Emperor Guide My Quasi-Arbitrary-Number-Cubes"

[Winterwind]

I remember that Cheese made a mistake simular to wraith, shortly after he had made his own fleet comment, can anyone remember what it was?

I was thinking it might be fitting material for our next title.

I can remember only two mistakes Cheese made throughout his glorious and honourable career as the GitP WH40k guru, these being "psykers cannot use their powers when in vehicles" (psykers can use powers when in vehicles just fine) and "friendly models [of a different unit than the shooting one] do not obscure their line of sight, but obscure the line of sight of enemies shooting back" (the unit being shot through will give the target a 4+ cover, no matter if it's the friendly or the hostile unit shooting through to it, and that's all it will do). Other than that, his record's been spotless, as far as I recall.

I post this because I wanted to support what Winterwind was saying, but trying to put in words was way too long-winded.

Thanks. Much appreciated.

I still vote "Emperor Guide My Quasi-Arbitrary-Number-Cubes"

So do I.

[Cheesegear]

I can remember only two mistakes Cheese made throughout his glorious and honourable career as the GitP WH40k guru

Only two? Oh, I can remember a few more than that. However, if you're not going to remember them, I'm certainly not going to tell you.

[Trixie]

I post this because I wanted to support what Winterwind was saying, but trying to put in words was way too long-winded. Just wanted to show that not only is the expectation value the value around which you can expect equally well to do better or worse, but it's also the most probable of all possible individual results in any situation involving multiple dice rolls.

Pretty much this. Sorry, all arguments on intuition and 'Mathhamma no worka, bro' fall flat on the face because they don't offer anything better. In fact, they don't offer anything worse, even. They're like replacing the Quantum Mechanics with some quasi-philosophical writings - sure, QM theory is incomplete, confusing, and doesn't explain everything, but it does something, while proposed counterpart does nothing.

By the way, brilliant arguments, both this and WW. And, since no one said it yet, brilliant defense of Dark Eldar :P

Understanding the context - the fact that the expectation value is the centre of a probability distribution like this one - lets you know not only the average expected value, but also the kind of spread that you can in fairness expect. The kind of back-of-the-envelope mathhammer people usually indulge in is a quick and dirty way of getting a rough idea of how that lies.

Precisely. Being good at Mathhammer in any given situation is probably as useful as having very high amount of APM in online games, or being able to trace in old SW CCG game. In itself, it won't win you anything, but it will give you a big edge over people who can't do this. Intuition is nowhere near as good as MH, and yours is good enough to challenge good MH, with a bit of math support it would be far more dangerous.

[One Step Two]

I still vote "Emperor Guide My Quasi-Arbitrary-Number-Cubes"

I also vote for this.

[MountainKing]

A bunch of stuff.

...I conceded the point to Winterwind; you're not going to change my mind, so, why bother showing support for a side of a discussion that ended?

[Ninja Chocobo]

I can remember only two mistakes Cheese made throughout his glorious and honourable career as the GitP WH40k guru

Maybe you're confusing mistakes he made versus mistakes he admitted to.

...I conceded the point to Winterwind; you're not going to change my mind, so, why bother showing support for a side of a discussion that ended?

You're not the only person that thinks this way; we need to educate the proletariat.

[LCP]

...I conceded the point to Winterwind; you're not going to change my mind, so, why bother showing support for a side of a discussion that ended?

Because the problem of working out the distribution caught my interest, and because I thought some people might be interested in the result; my post wasn't addressed solely to you. Also, my post wasn't a direct refutation of what you'd been saying: you'd all been focussing on the worth of expectation values alone. Until you posted just now, I didn't know whether you'd agree with me or disagree with me. I'm still not 100% sure: the distribution I put up isn't just showing how 'stats are right', it's also showing how you have to expect a spread around the peak, and not just the peak itself, which is kind of along the lines of what you were saying. You can see for yourself: the highest probability is for 3 unsaved wounds, but the neighbouring values are also significantly probable (especially for 4, where you're essentially splitting the difference). The distribution shows you can't feel an entitlement to a certain value; that instead you're pinning down a range, but the range is still valid.

I also wanted to post in defence of 'mathhammer' because I used to use it to win games of WFB (not all my games, or even most of my games, but a reasonable number). Quantifying the risks on break tests in particular opened up some risky (but acceptably risky) fall-back strategies with my Lizardmen that I wouldn't have found by intuition - they'd have seemed too dangerous.

EDIT:

with a bit of math support it would be far more dangerous.

Sorry, I'm not quite sure I understand . Maths support? Do you mean showing how it was made?