Warhammer 40K Tabletop XIV: "Pray for 6's!"

[lord_khaine]

Potentially, but firstly I don't think he would add enough to be worth the points, and secondly it would limit the kind of units the Wraiths could go after then - without the Lord, they can engage just about anything, with him, anything with good Strength that can ignore armour-saves in close combat becomes a rather non-favourable target (as the Lord will be directly targetable once they are in close combat).

I did think about this as well, the trick is then just to tie up whoever got a Thunder/deamon/power-Hammer/fist with wraiths, and let the Lord munch on the rest of the unit.

I have not done the math on how many wraiths a Lord is worth, but one of the main reasons for bringing him is to give him the 2+ save upgrade, and then let him soak up the numerous S8 AP 3 hits that might otherwise instantly kill a wraith.

[Squark]

I did think about this as well, the trick is then just to tie up whoever got a Thunder/deamon/power-Hammer/fist with wraiths, and let the Lord munch on the rest of the unit.

I have not done the math on how many wraiths a Lord is worth, but one of the main reasons for bringing him is to give him the 2+ save upgrade, and then let him soak up the numerous S8 AP 3 hits that might otherwise instantly kill a wraith.

Minor Nitpick; All wraiths have phase shifters, so the AP 3 would be irrelevant here.

[lord_khaine]

Minor Nitpick; All wraiths have phase shifters, so the AP 3 would be irrelevant here.

Not really, its the AP of krak missiles, one of the more commen heavy weapons that can be used to instantly kill a wraith.

But due to his 2+ save, then the lord has a 5/6 chance of taking it, without instantly dying if he fails.

[Timberwolf]

I am new to all this, but I had a game last night against blood angels and found the furioso dreadnaught fairly underwhelming (especially compared to the assault marines with the sanguinary priest).

I assaulted it with a unit of trukk boyz, it killed 1, and then the Nob powerklawed it and it went puf. I think it was one without any upgrades, but 3 attacks doesnt look very frightening. Unless we are missing a rule or something.

If it was a Dreadnought with just straight fists then it's pretty situational in its usefulness (vehicles, other walkers and monstrous creatures for choice, anything else is just wasting the S10 and you don't get enough attacks to make it worthwhile) and can be fairly underwhelming (unless you're using Moriar the Chosen from the 3rd ed rules with your opponent's permission, he's just insanely powerful). If it was one with talons then, well, there is a rule you're missing and thats that every unsaved wound generates another attack. A Talon dread should have torn those boyz apart. In about a year of using these things, I have maybe had rolling as bad as that sounds a handful of times, like 2 weeks ago when my charging death company Dread rolled 3 1's and 2 2's to hit.

[lord_khaine]

I just noticed i overlooked one of the biggest reasons for taking a Destroyer Lord along, Mindshackle Scarabs!!!

[Ninjaman]

Change that from assaulting a furioso, to assaulting a furioso who is armed with blood talons. They are scary! They have the ability to go through an entire 30 ork boyz so you don't even get an attack with your powerklaw. Sure bad rolls can mean you only kill a couple but when luck is with you they are devastating. Str 6 power weapons with re-rolls to wound is mean.

I looked at it, and i didn't think i looked that scary so let me try run the math:
4 attacks(on charge)
2/3 are going to hit: 4*0,666= 2,664 hits
2,664 hits, wounds on 2+: 2,664*0,833=2,219 wounds
2,219, hits on 3+: 2,219*0,666=1,477 hits
1,477 wounds on 2+:1,477*0,833=1,230 wounds

By dividing the number of wounds by the number of attacks i get: 0,555
Meaning that for every attack you score 0,555 wounds.
4*0,555=2,22
2,22*0,555=1,232
1,232*0,555=0,683
0,683*0,555=0,379
That add up to an average of 4,514 wounds.
And i know that it isn't 100% correct (for instanse i didn't round up the fourth decimal if it was 5+). But it should give a pretty good picture.
4,5/30*100=15% effectiveness of what you guys said

Is there something i missed?

Edit: I know that it would have given a better result if i took more than 4 steps, but i don't think it would go above 5 wounds.

[lord_khaine]

As i recall it can reroll either to wound or to hit.

[Ninjaman]

As i recall it can reroll either to wound or to hit.

Yeah i remembered that 5 minutes after sending the post. Well i still don't believe that it can kill 30 orks, but i got to go to bed, i'll run the math of this one another time.

[Squark]

Alright, time to break out my calculus lessons! (That's where I learned this, anyway).

Now, what we'll end up having here is an infinite geometric sum, an equation for which can be found here. As far as variables go, a=4, and r=35/54 (2/3 * 35/36). So, the average number of orcs this furioso will kill is equal to 4/(1-35/54), which comes out to 11.37.


For comparison, if the dreadnaught isn't charging, it should kill 8.53 orks on average.

Pretty impressive if all that can wound it in that mob is the power klaw.

[hamishspence]

As i recall it can reroll either to wound or to hit.

That's Wolf Claws from the SW codex- and it's either/or (choose at start of CC phase) they don't get both.

Aside from the extra attacks on hits, blood talons function exactly as normal lightning claws- which only reroll To Wound rolls.

[Timberwolf]

Spoiler

Show

I looked at it, and i didn't think i looked that scary so let me try run the math:
4 attacks(on charge)
2/3 are going to hit: 4*0,666= 2,664 hits
2,664 hits, wounds on 2+: 2,664*0,833=2,219 wounds
2,219, hits on 3+: 2,219*0,666=1,477 hits
1,477 wounds on 2+:1,477*0,833=1,230 wounds

By dividing the number of wounds by the number of attacks i get: 0,555
Meaning that for every attack you score 0,555 wounds.
4*0,555=2,22
2,22*0,555=1,232
1,232*0,555=0,683
0,683*0,555=0,379
That add up to an average of 4,514 wounds.
And i know that it isn't 100% correct (for instanse i didn't round up the fourth decimal if it was 5+). But it should give a pretty good picture.
4,5/30*100=15% effectiveness of what you guys said

Is there something i missed?

Edit: I know that it would have given a better result if i took more than 4 steps, but i don't think it would go above 5 wounds.

Ahhh, ye olde Mathhammer.

One thing I will agree with Cheesegear on is this, this is a useful guide, but should be treated as just that.

Let us apply a touch of Further Mathhammer.

Last I looked, the statisticians would have us believe that everything comes down to a Normal distribution (AKA the bell curve), you will have results that are above average, you will have results that are below average. All that working things like this out is telling you how it should go. Unfortunately for your basic Mathhammer, what it tells you is how it goes with the exact average point in the centre of the middle quartiles of all the statistics you should get. In other words, not actually all that many of the results you'd analyse to get that.

Now, I have a good deal of experience with Talon Dreadnoughts by now, it's actually a pretty rare game where I don't have at least one. This means that, should I have written the performance down, I would have over 100 different results to look at and correlate. I can tell you that there have been days when I have torn through 30 Gaunts in a single round and still had attacks to spare, there have been days when I have missed everything. Comparing like with like, there have been days when the Grey Knights have died horribly (including the Librarian, FOR JUSTICE !) and days when I have been eaten by the Brotherhood Champion's Nemesis Hammer.

Simply put, 5 wounds may be as much as you can expect, perhaps it will do none at all, which is the risk you run with all moves in this game. However, there is no denying that when it works it really, really, really works. And it really works enough of the time for it to be totally worthwhile (like the 2 upper quartiles of the curve, or 50%). Even when it doesn't work, well, there's the wounds it does as well as the intangible benefits like every opponent's flinch reaction to shoot it with everything so it doesn't get to do what it does best, thereby making it worth its points (actually very cheap...) as a distraction and fire magnet.

[ArqArturo]

Ok, first off, I am a complete newbie at WH40k, but I have read enough flavor stuff to like it.

A friend of mine is insisting me to try it out, he just opened a hobby shop and soon enough he'll get some minis (so far it's mostly tabletop games and magic: the gathering), and while I am both interested in Warhammer and Warmachine, I honestly think it's just a ploy for me to buy stuff from him.

Anyways, to the point. I'm still in college, and my job doesn't pay much, so that leaves IG, nids, and orks as options, and I've heard that Space Wolves space marines are affordable enough since they do lots of stuff with little units. Is this true? I know the hobby is expensive, both money and time-wise.

[Wraith]

Well, welcome to the thread ArqArturo - Only a couple of days late, as we've very recently been asked the same question by someone else in your postion.

Space Wolves, Dark Angels and Grey Knights can all make small, yet still effective armies, though the Dark Angels varient (known commonly as "Deathwing") is probably the cheapest to actually buy the models for.
Of the other two, Grey Knights are very slightly cheaper to buy and also are easier to paint and collect, as Space Wolves tend to require you learning some advanced modelling skills in order to make changes and personalise your soldiers.

[Trixie]

Space Wolves, Dark Angels and Grey Knights can all make small, yet still effective armies, though the Dark Angels varient (known commonly as "Deathwing") is probably the cheapest to actually buy the models for.
Of the other two, Grey Knights are very slightly cheaper to buy and also are easier to paint and collect, as Space Wolves tend to require you learning some advanced modelling skills in order to make changes and personalise your soldiers.

Grey Knights. Cheaper. Pardon?

With Space Wolves, you can make every 10 SW models 20 by adding 10 AoBR marines into mix, and 10 SW cost as much as 5 GK. Also, are you suggesting all these tiny letters are easier to paint than Wolves? I'd say otherwise.

Agreed on Deathwing, though, but it isn't very good army unless you know what you're doing both in list making and in game.

Also, AA, you can try to play the game on computer to try it out first, on Vassal.

[Talkkno]

Grey Knights. Cheaper. Pardon?

I think he's reffering to Draigowing.

[Tehnar]

Ahhh, ye olde Mathhammer.

-snip stuff about statistics-

I don't understand your derision of probability calculus. I don't think anyone who understands it is saying that things will happen exactly X amount of time. All it allows you to do is to calculate the most likely outcome of a certain action. With large samples it can be a extremely accurate prognosis, but with the sample size in warhammer deviations tend to happen.

While it would be more useful with every mathammer calculation to include standard deviations; such a thing is difficult to compute. All you have to keep in mind is that the bigger the sample size, the smaller chance you have get anything else then a average result.

[filvento]

Being from USA or UK you can buy all kind of army for 300 Dollars. Im from argentina (Dolar = 4$;Eu=6) So.. Its kinda hard, and i still bought it, full necron army , new codex included, and im 17 yeras old.
just Save up a little, 2 weeks not going out, do not eat dessert.. and you will be fine. If you are in college, you can save 300$ in 2 or 3 weeks.
Necrons were cheaper, but now you can go small armies.
Thou Orks are not expensive, yesyou need 100 models, but little ones.

[Trixie]

I think he's reffering to Draigowing.

Ah. Well, Draigowing has a bit of problems of it's own, but I guess if you're determined enough...

Being from USA or UK you can buy all kind of army for 300 Dollars. Im from argentina (Dolar = 4$;Eu=6) So.. Its kinda hard, and i still bought it, full necron army , new codex included, and im 17 yeras old.
just Save up a little, 2 weeks not going out, do not eat dessert.. and you will be fine. If you are in college, you can save 300$ in 2 or 3 weeks.
Necrons were cheaper, but now you can go small armies.
Thou Orks are not expensive, yesyou need 100 models, but little ones.

Dude, in my country, 300$ is often the whole month budget of a student at Uni - and it's supposedly First World

[ArqArturo]

I'm kinda in the same situation as flivento. I live in Mexico, so the dollar is a little more steep, and therefore the prices. That, and add that Architecture school ain't cheap. But, on the other hand, I'm rather patient enough for making models, using the green stuff, and painting (especially the painting part).

Just a question, though. Do the space marines minis (save for the particular models) can be added logos/symbols/weapons and paint the colors to represent other chapters (Emperor's Fists from Blood Angels, from Space Wolves, from Ultramarines, etc.), or do they come identified already from the box?.

[Renegade Paladin]

Depends on the models. Generic Space Marine units (tactical squads, assault squads, etc) don't have insignia molded on, but Chapter-specific ones (Death Company and so forth) do.

[Ricky S]

Yeah i remembered that 5 minutes after sending the post. Well i still don't believe that it can kill 30 orks, but i got to go to bed, i'll run the math of this one another time.

Well you better believe it because you can. Maths hammer has always been a problem because of how dice work. If you roll a 6 then there is still the same chance of rolling a 6 again even if you rolled ten 6's before that.

Just doing some rolling and here are the kills that I have gotten (on the charge) 7, 9, 11, 24, 14, 11, 7, 16, 22, 6, 3, 9, 8, 12, 13, 8, 11, 4, 2, 20,

These are definately higher than the average from mathhammering would suggest.

Being charged here are the results 0, 4, 4, 6, 18, 9, 3, 5, 10, 2, 18, 3, 3, 12, 9, 1, 8, 7, 19, 14,

Granted I haven't achieved 30 kills with these 40 rounds but the results are pretty decent. If the ork with powerclaw doesn't manage to do anything to the furioso then they have to take fearless armour saves and will lose a lot more considering they only have a 6+ save.

[Ninja Chocobo]

If you are in college, you can save 300$ in 2 or 3 weeks.

ahahaha I make $300 a month before any sort of expenses at all.

Dude, in my country, 300$ is often the whole month budget of a student at Uni - and it's supposedly First World

e;f,b

[Ninjaman]

Ahhh, ye olde Mathhammer.

One thing I will agree with Cheesegear on is this, this is a useful guide, but should be treated as just that.

Let us apply a touch of Further Mathhammer.

Last I looked, the statisticians would have us believe that everything comes down to a Normal distribution (AKA the bell curve), you will have results that are above average, you will have results that are below average. All that working things like this out is telling you how it should go. Unfortunately for your basic Mathhammer, what it tells you is how it goes with the exact average point in the centre of the middle quartiles of all the statistics you should get. In other words, not actually all that many of the results you'd analyse to get that.

Now, I have a good deal of experience with Talon Dreadnoughts by now, it's actually a pretty rare game where I don't have at least one. This means that, should I have written the performance down, I would have over 100 different results to look at and correlate. I can tell you that there have been days when I have torn through 30 Gaunts in a single round and still had attacks to spare, there have been days when I have missed everything. Comparing like with like, there have been days when the Grey Knights have died horribly (including the Librarian, FOR JUSTICE !) and days when I have been eaten by the Brotherhood Champion's Nemesis Hammer.

Simply put, 5 wounds may be as much as you can expect, perhaps it will do none at all, which is the risk you run with all moves in this game. However, there is no denying that when it works it really, really, really works. And it really works enough of the time for it to be totally worthwhile (like the 2 upper quartiles of the curve, or 50%). Even when it doesn't work, well, there's the wounds it does as well as the intangible benefits like every opponent's flinch reaction to shoot it with everything so it doesn't get to do what it does best, thereby making it worth its points (actually very cheap...) as a distraction and fire magnet.

That would be about the same as saying that the punisher was awesome since it could potentially kill 20 orks as well. And then the rest would flee.

Well you better believe it because you can. Maths hammer has always been a problem because of how dice work. If you roll a 6 then there is still the same chance of rolling a 6 again even if you rolled ten 6's before that.

Just doing some rolling and here are the kills that I have gotten (on the charge) 7, 9, 11, 24, 14, 11, 7, 16, 22, 6, 3, 9, 8, 12, 13, 8, 11, 4, 2, 20,

These are definately higher than the average from mathhammering would suggest.

Being charged here are the results 0, 4, 4, 6, 18, 9, 3, 5, 10, 2, 18, 3, 3, 12, 9, 1, 8, 7, 19, 14,

Granted I haven't achieved 30 kills with these 40 rounds but the results are pretty decent. If the ork with powerclaw doesn't manage to do anything to the furioso then they have to take fearless armour saves and will lose a lot more considering they only have a 6+ save.

I am going for the math, not your personal roll's

[IthilanorStPete]

Posting a 1500 (actually 1503, but whatever) points Space Wolves list for review!

Spoiler

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Rune Priest - 130 pts
-Terminator armor, Chooser of the Slain
-Living Lightning, Murderous Hurricane

Wolf Lord - 205 pts
-Terminator armor with storm bolter, wolf claw
-Belt of Russ, Saga of the Bear

Grey Hunters (x10) - 205 pts
-2xMeltaguns, Mark of the Wulfen
-Dedicated transport: Drop Pod

Grey Hunters (x10) - 225 pts
-2xPlasma guns, Power sword, Mark of the Wulfen
-Dedicated transport: Drop Pod

Grey Hunters (x10) - 190 pts
-2xPlasma guns, Power sword, Mark of the Wulfen

Wolf Guard (x6) - 293 pts
-One model in Terminator armor with wolf claw, storm bolter, cyclone missile launcher
-Four models in Terminator armor with wolf claw, storm bolter
-One model in power armor with boltgun, power fist
-Dedicated transport: Drop Pod

Long Fangs (x6) - 140 pts
-Missile launchers (x5)

Long Fangs (x6) - 115 pts
-Heavy bolters (x5)

The Rune Priest would usually go with one Long Fang squad, and the Cyclone Wolf Guard with the other Long Fangs. Then I'd split off the power-armored Wolf Guard to go with the footslogging Grey Hunters, and the Wolf Lord would drop in with the 4 remaining Wolf Guard. How's this all look?

[Eldan]

ahahaha I make $300 a month before any sort of expenses at all.
e;f,b

400 franks (430 dollars) a month, but I have to buy food and train tickets (that's about 200/month alone) from that. Yeah, I have perhaps 20, 30 dollars a month for warhammer, and only because I pretty much buy nothing else.

[Trixie]

Rune Priest - 130 pts
-Terminator armor, Chooser of the Slain
-Living Lightning, Murderous Hurricane

I'd either drop the armor or give him Storm Shield as well, if RP can take it, that is. You need good Inv save more than armour.

Wolf Lord - 205 pts
-Terminator armor with storm bolter, wolf claw
-Belt of Russ, Saga of the Bear

If he has Saga of the Bear, perhaps Chainfist or Thunderhammer could be of use, especially paired with wargear that makes you hit on 3+.

Grey Hunters (x10) - 205 pts
-2xMeltaguns, Mark of the Wulfen
-Dedicated transport: Drop Pod

Grey Hunters (x10) - 225 pts
-2xPlasma guns, Power sword, Mark of the Wulfen
-Dedicated transport: Drop Pod

Grey Hunters (x10) - 190 pts
-2xPlasma guns, Power sword, Mark of the Wulfen

IMHO, the dropped one might need the sword more than foot guys.

-One model in Terminator armor with wolf claw, storm bolter, cyclone missile launcher

Claw might not be that useful. Ok, though.

-Four models in Terminator armor with wolf claw, storm bolter

No way to deal with walkers or MCs. See Lord above.

-One model in power armor with boltgun, power fist

Combi-melta or plasma, maybe?

Long Fangs (x6) - 140 pts
-Missile launchers (x5)

Long Fangs (x6) - 115 pts
-Heavy bolters (x5)

The Rune Priest would usually go with one Long Fang squad, and the Cyclone Wolf Guard with the other Long Fangs.

Which squads? The Cyclone one with missiles, Priest with Heavy Bolters? That might not be that efficient, but ability to split fire kind of makes up for that, until squad suffers first casualty, that is.

[Ricky S]

I am going for the math, not your personal roll's

But maths doesn't accurately predict luck and chance. The point is that you can mathhammer away as much as you like but at the end of the day you cannot predict what the outcome will be, merely what the most likely outcome is instead.

[Squark]

Just doing some rolling and here are the kills that I have gotten (on the charge) 7, 9, 11, 24, 14, 11, 7, 16, 22, 6, 3, 9, 8, 12, 13, 8, 11, 4, 2, 20,

These are definately higher than the average from mathhammering would suggest.

I'm pretty sure that's not a big enough sample size to be significant. That being said, if you consider the wide bell curve such a sample would have, the median of your results is pretty close to the number I got when I evaluated the situation by Mathammer (11.37)

[EhDerangedMonk]

What does gitp thing of my space elf list? I will be fighting almost entirely space marines and their variants in the foreseeable future.

Spoiler

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HQ
Farseer- Spirit Stones, Doom, Guide, Singing Spear 123
Farseer-Guide, Singing Spear, Runes of Warding 98

Elites
Fire Dragons x6 – Exarch, Tank Hunters, Wave Serpent, Twin-Linked Brightlance, Spirit Stone 268
Howling Banshees x8 – Exarch, Executioner, Acrobatic, Wave Serpent, Twin-Linked Starcannon, Spirit Stone 290

Troops
Dire Avengers x10 – Exarch, Dual Catapults, Bladestorm 152
Dire Avengers x10 – Exarch, Power Weapon and Shield, Bladestorm 162

Heavy Support
Falcon – Eldar Missile Launcher 135
Falcon – Eldar Missile Launcher 135
Falcon – Eldar Missile Launcher 135
Total: 1498

Any and all criticism is encouraged and accepted.

[Cheesegear]

Ahhh, ye olde Mathhammer.

One thing I will agree with Cheesegear on is this, this is a useful guide, but should be treated as just that.

Well you better believe it because you can. Maths hammer has always been a problem because of how dice work. If you roll a 6 then there is still the same chance of rolling a 6 again even if you rolled ten 6's before that.

But maths doesn't accurately predict luck and chance. The point is that you can mathhammer away as much as you like but at the end of the day you cannot predict what the outcome will be, merely what the most likely outcome is instead.

QFT. Sounds an awfully lot what I used to say back in the day around Thread IV when people still cared what Math-Hammer said. Either some people here have listened to me, or there are less people who care about Math Hammer.

Yes. Ricky S made personal dice rolls. Look closely. Do they match the Math Hammer? Hell no. Because that's not how dice work. For Math Hammer to 'work', statistics need to be dealing in sample sizes of at least 30 (which 40K doesn't, except for Imperial Guard, and that's why those guys are good, they actually can play averages...Sometimes), and, if not using anecdotal samples - like Ricky S' - then you're rolling infinite dice and making stats that way.

Most people are lucky if they're rolling 20 dice at any one time (see back to Imperial Guard taking Luck out the back and shooting it). And, as I said, anything less than 30 is considered an unreliable sample (an extension of the 'n=1 Fallacy').

In short; Math Hammer is handy. But it doesn't work. Not in the real world. Don't pretend that it does. Lies. Damn Lies. Statistics.