40k Metrics: Building a Better Devastator in 6th Edition

Hi, Nikephoros again.  In 5^th Edition, if someone said they were bringing Long Fangs, Devastators or Havoks you could safely assume that they were going to be armed with missiles.  It was a no brainer for the most part because they were simply the most points efficient weapon available.  Does this hold true in 6^th?  The way we go about killing vehicles, and to a lesser extent Monstrous Creatures, has changed quite a bit.  The old paradigm might not hold true at all anymore.

It's all about the numbers

40k Metrics: 6th Edition Vehicle Mathhammer MEQ Results

Hi all, Nikephoros here.  I've pushed the commonly seen MEQ heavy support choices through the my vehicle kill calculator and some things jumped out that may or may not interest you, but I thought I would share.

First up are Long Fangs with four Krak Missile Launchers.  Blood Angels often take 4x missile Devastators and you sometimes see vanilla marines bring them too, but much more rare since they cost significantly more.  These guys were in almost every 5th Edition SW list, so lets see how they stack up in 6th.

40k Metrics: 6th Edition Vehicle Mathhammer

Hey gang, Nikephoros here.  It’s rather obvious to everyone that I enjoy mathhammer.  I feel that there is an edge to be gained by being aware of the average potential of your units, and the ability to know which of the units in your book are most points efficient. 

6^th Edition threw the old mathhammer for a loop in regards to killing vehicles.  It used to be rather straight forward to calculate the amount of shots it would take to shoot down a Rhino, but in 6^th Edition it is very, very difficult.  I doubt most players have bothered trying to do it, so they may not be aware how tough it is to hammer out.  What makes it so hard?

It's still all about the numbers

Guest Article: Some more Mathammer - the Basics

Hello 3++ community, T2-Keks here with some math :P

I have been enjoying 3++ and other blogs for some time and read a lot that helped me improve my play and get new, interesting views on stuff. When I was about to talk to my local gaming group about Mathhammer, I looked up the various Mathhammer articles here on 3++. I liked them but I thought they aimed more towards people already knowing how to do the Mathhammer. An introduction that explains how it’s done is missing. So I wrote one up for my group. Since I took quiet some insights from 3++ I now try to give something back by contributing. So I translated my article and sent it to Kirby (original version in German can be found on our group’s blog: bockige-wuerfel.de). Pictures are done by our artist Timo!

3++ con statistics - Going First

It has long been believed by the Internet that in 5th edition, going first = you win. For the most part, this is a fallacy. Being able to get the first punch in certainly has advantages but being able to counter your opponent's moves more readily (and have the last move of the game) has such as well. This is covered in greater detail in this Fallacy 40k post.

Now, it's certainly arguable that some armies enjoy the first turn more than others. Dark Eldar for example are often a go first or reserve army (this is in very broad strokes people) but overall there shouldn't be a major correlation between who goes first and who wins (if there is, we have an issue!). There might be a more discernible negative correlation in objective missions (i.e. going 2nd in objective missions = higher chance of winning) but we would otherwise expect a roughly even spread. We also have a decently sized sample population (n = 147) this time around since we're not cutting anything down so results are more likely to be robust and less prone to error. Let's see what we get.

3++ con Statistics - The Missions & Parameters

Further statistical digging, just what everyone wants. This post is some more general statistics but more on what happened at the tournament rather than how individual armies did and this is going to focus on the mission parameters and how they compared against each other. Remember, whilst these parameters are looking at expanding upon the 5th edition constructs outline in the rulebook, one of them (Table Quarters) isn't in any of the BRB missions and both of the others have been changed in some fashion (no objective placement, marginal KP). That said, we want each of these parameters to be roughly equal to each other so no army is gaining a serious advantage across the whole tournament (six games, two of each as the primary) and we've changed objectives the least so we want to compare back to that parameter the most often. Let's see what we come up with!

First, we're going to look at how the primary, secondary and tertiary missions performed in terms of determining a winner/loser or providing a draw.

3++ con statistics - Deeper look at Dark Eldar & Grey Knights

Dakka

We begin some more detailed analysis of the 3++con results now that I've had some time to chill and done the initial digging. I'm still inputting the data in regards to some overall statistics (i.e. totals on winning conditions, who went first, etc.) but can start to pull out some numbers in relation to specific armies, etc. Unfortunately though, we again come across the issue of sample sizes. Very few armies had a lot of players so this is always going to be a consideration we need to have in the back of our minds. However, with six games each the sample size of games played is a bit larger though still dependent on the smaller sample size of players. This could give us some potentially more robust results but we're more likely to make inferential errors as single players still hold a huge sway over the total variance.

3++con - The Initial Statistics Dig

So I'm sure many of you are tired of hearing about 3++con by now - hell I'm tired of looking at it :P but we might as well start looking at some of the statistics we uncovered and a lot of the subjective interpretations one gets having been there for the entire event (unlike when I did the statistics for NOVA or 'Ard Boyz).

First, let's look at the army break-down with Wins & Losses.

Guest Article: Evolving Mathshammer

Warhammer 39,999

Is GW trying to kill Maths?

Some people kill time, some flog a dead horse, I think, I'm not sure, but I think GW are trying to kill maths. We have an increasingly complex matrix of doing damage and the consequences of this damage. The trend is crystallised in the Necron codex for me and this trend is increasingly devaluing my spreadsheet layouts and forcing me to make more judgement calls on my choices. And finally................................... I think I like it!

Quantum Shielding: How Tough is It?

Quantum Shielding is probably making the biggest splash with the new Necron book, and it looks to be an easy way to put a lot of armor on the table and give the enemy problems. However, it's difficult to get a grasp on just how tough it actually makes you, because it ends up being a very complex situation. Having been thinking about it a lot myself recently, I'm gonna try and put down a bunch of my thoughts on the subject and try and sort things out a little.

NOVA Statistics Part 1

NOVA is all over so it's time for some statistics! MVB has kindly given me lots of information so it's time to data mine. Unlike with 'Ard Boyz we know exactly how many of each army were played and each army's results. This allows us to work out the win percentage of each army and the percentage of each army that did well (say top 20% of the field).

Before we go on though we must point out that NOVA is in fact multiple tournaments in one. Day 1 seeds everyone into Day 2 where there were 13 brackets of 16 players which played their own four game tournament ending up with 13 undefeated players on Day 2. Whilst this shouldn't affect the overall winning percentages and percentages of armies which made it into the top part of the draw, keep in mind that some players who did really well Day 1 (4-0/3-1) ended up doing poorly on Day 2 (0-4/1-3) due to stiffer competition. Which armies do poorly on Day 2 in the upper brackets may give us an indication of said army's competitiveness if they are consistent between the brackets. MVB has also promised to release some weighted data which will forcibly rank players on their Day 2 placement (i.e. whilst you may have gone 0-4 on Day in Bracket 1, you'll still finish in the Top 16). We'll do another post when that comes along.

'Ard Boyz Prelim Results - Some Statistics

I noticed a neat graph over at Danny Internet's Bald and Screaming (he assures me the malaware is gone) and am going to nick it for a moment going to get more data and expand it. I used the same initial source Danny used, the Dakka forums, as well as blogs and friends over in the States. Yes, I cross-checked data/stores to make sure I wasn't counting things twice. Now, as we recall using tournaments as proof of an army doing well has a lot of issues. Messanger of Death has started looking at these for me but suffice to say there are just too many variables one cannot account for. This makes determining the validity of tournament results very difficult. Not only do we not always have all the match-up data but we don't always know exact army lists, terrain (and what armies were matched up on what terrain), dice, player ability, personal factors such as fatigue, etc. TO rulings outside of the ruleset (they happen), number of people using certain armies, not to mention soft scores, battle points and so on.

'Ard Boyz - 40k Metrics

Mark Duffield has been kind enough to do some number crunching on 'Ard Boyz using Nikephoros' 40k metrics system. His original system looked at 2000 point lists so comparing 'Ard Boyz metrics to those isn't going to give an accurate picture. So let's look at some of the lists that Mark has run and we can get a potential baseline which other lists can compare to if they wish. He's done two Space Wolves lists, an Imperial Guard, Chaos Space Marine and Black Templars list.

40k Metrics Comparison

Remember that crazy math post a while back by Nikephoros? Hopefully you do now. Anyway, over the past couple of weeks Nikephoros has been looking at lists which did poorly at the NOVA open (0-4). This gives us a great basis for comparison against the good lists (4-0) and there are some obvious conclusions we can draw.

First here are the links to each army:
Tyranids
Chaos
Chaos

We're still waiting on the fourth 0-4 army but we can already see a trend. Before we look at the numbers let's look at the overall army lists and what we think of them.

40k Theory: It's all about the Numbers

Nikephoros has allowed me to re-post this from his blog: Bringer of Victory. Basically it's an article taking mathammer to the next level and looks at an army's maximum firepower/combat potential against an MEQ army as a baseline. This is great to determine if your army is weak in a specific area and when you compare to 'lists that do well,' have some baselines which to achieve. Without further ado...

What is ballistic skill?

I mean, what does it really mean in terms of winning and losing on the table top?

Absolutely nothing. Quantity of fire in Warhammer 40k is usually far superior to quality. At very least it's equal. So what am I getting at? There is no correlation between winning and ballistic skill. The army with the superior average ballistic skill shouldn’t (assuming the game is properly balanced) have any advantage over one with a lower average ballistic skill.

Monkey Math Madness

So, ignoring most of the Jokaero's stuff, let's look at their upgrade table:

1. A waste, obviously.
2. 12" range boost- this is pretty fantastic for a lot of our weapons, like Meltaguns, Multimeltas, Storm Bolters, etc. Note that this doesn't change your Rapid Fire range at all and doesn't help template weapons.
3. +1 to armor. Also very nice, but doesn't affect the Jokaero themselves. Still, you get a free upgrade to Carapace, which will keep you alive against Flamers. Note that, if you want to shell out way too many points, you can buy Power Armor for your Acolytes, which turns into Terminator with this. 14pt Terminators ftw!
4. Rending, the other super-good one. Doesn't help your Meltaguns any (except to penetrate Land Raiders even at 12"?), but very nice for guys with other weapons.
5. 5++ save. Meh, you're already wearing Flak and should be in cover.If you get into CC with some power weapons, you're boned anyways.
6. Two upgrades, but you can't get a six again or doubles of anything.

So the way that this works out is actually sort of awkward; +1 on the chart per Jokaero beyond the first very quickly makes it likely that you will get two rolls, but those rolls become very likely to do nothing, as the bonuses make you get more results of 6+, which does nothing. (Unless that gets FAQed, which given they're an Imperial codex is not beyond the realm of possibility.)

Fallacy in 40k Part 1: Mathhammer

Lately I felt the need to contribute to the 40k community a little more besides chatting around in 'the box' and replying now and then to mind baffling comments on Warseer. Then the issue arises: What can I contribute? I decided I can do some sort of series about common mistakes/misunderstanding/false assumptions or, as I like to call them, 'fallacies' regarding 40k and/or it's (online) community. I don't know exactly how many posts I can do on this, but looking around there is enough input for quite a few. This time I'm going to cover some major mistakes people make when they apply mathhamer, or alternatively, probability in 40k! So, here we go. In my opinion one can recognise four different groups of people 1) People who don't understand anything of it. 2) People who understand bits of it, but don't acknowledge that it is a useful tool. 3) People who understand bits of it and apply it a lot, often in wrong ways. 4) People who understand it pretty well and so know how and when to apply it. The first group is (getting) satisfied already by some basic mathhammer articles, the second group doesn't realise they belong in the first group and the fourth group don't need to be told more things about it. That leaves the third group for today. Almost every mistake comes forth from one thing: People only work with averages when they try to calculate things in 40k. Not comparing these averages with other averages (in the case of weapons for example) is another one. I'll look at the most glaring issues with actual examples now.

During games.

Oh my god, you are so lucky! That Terminator should have been dead!

So Kirby Wants Me To Bloody Write Something...



This man. I will gladly offer a pound of flesh if
someone can conjure me a machine to get to one of his gigs.

 Disclaimer: This is a rant. While it does cover some (very) important points, and some very good lessons as to playing 40k, it reads like a train of thought, or a conversation I would have with myself. Probably because I finished writing at 1:30am, and have been listening to a lot of 60s-70s rock. Just a word of warning.

Then write something I shall. Ok, fine Kirby. I'll write something monumental, it'll change most people's opinions of the game as a whole. Whole mythos and religions will be founded on what I say here today. Or I could go on another semi coherent rant. Considering it's 1am, I'll let you guys decide what it is I'm doing.

So you're probably wondering what this article is about and you're not the only one. Well, it's about being good at 40k, and why I'm a better Warmachine player than I am a 40k player. Despite the fact I've had maybe 50 games of Warmachine in my life, and well more than that of 40k. So, I have some explaining to do I imagine. Well, let me lay out 3 very simple rules of "being good at 40k". If you follow these 3 guidelines I promise you your gameplay will improve. Hell, it sort of ties in with Kirby's eyeballing distance article. This is my personal 40k gospel in one easy checklist. Ok, so these 3 rules:

Back to Basics: Mathammer Take 2

After the last article about mathammer was published and well received by Dariokan we got another e-mail in about the stuff! So I thought why not, part 2. This article by Mathieu Girard-Reydet is a bit more advanced and has a nifty spreadsheet attached which I cannot upload to google documents I'm afraid... so if anyone knows how to attach excel sheets or upload them so everyone can access them, please let me know so this can be done! Without further ado, here is the article: Mathammer Take 2!

Hello Kirby and contributors!

I enjoyed reading the "Back to Basics: Mathammer" and wanted to add a few comments and thoughts. I am bad at statistics (so bad, in fact, that I couldn't pass any mathematical or statistical-driven modules while studying economics at university). Hopefully, W40K only require a basic understanding of probabilities so this is within my reach.

1) How to add up probabilities up to 100% ?

Let's assume, for simplicity's sake, an Imperial Guard HW team of 3 missile launchers, and try to calculate the probability to score at least 1 hit. Each guardsman has a BS3, meaning 50% hit rate each. If adding up the hit rates, i.e. 3x50% as one would assume, we would end up with a 150% hit probability. As every gamer will tell from experience, it is possible to roll 3 die and get 3 1s, so this is not correct.

Back to Basics: Mathammer

I was kindly sent this e-mail about Mathammer and I thought it was a great way to start out the Back-to-Basics series. So big thanks to Dariokan for writing this up!

Hey Kirb !

I’ve read quite a lot of crap on the Internet recently (including once on your nervertheless excellent website, it was about a Dread That so wasn't me... though I do like how 3++ was complimented haha) and I told to myself: “Why not sharing a little knowledge about mathammering, and contributing a little”. Then I got drunk and forgot. Most of players are already aware of those, but here are some quick tips for those who are not that keen on math, to help calculate probabilities and odds. And excuse my English; it’s not my first language.

1) Probability ? What the @#+*?

It’s the (relative) frequency that an event will occur. Let’s take Guardsmen and their very convenient CT3 as an example. They hit on a 4+, that means if the die reads 1, 2, 3 the Guard misses, and 4, 5, 6 he hits. The event we are talking about here is when the Guard will hit. The die can show us 6 results, 3 of which lead us to the event “hit”. Therefore, a Guard has 3/6, same as ½ aka 50% chance to hit. And 50% chance to miss. A Space Marine will hit on a 3+, that’s 3, 4, 5 or 6 on the die. 4 results that will lead to the event “hit”: 4/6, or 2/3 that means roughly 66% to hit. Of course, that’s does NOT mean that if you shoot with 2 Guards, one will miss, and one will hit. We’ll discuss about it later.