After Dark Angels lost small heavy weapon squads, and the rumored chaos requirement for 10men to take a heavy weapon, the overall availablilty of dedicated, long range anti-tank weapons (lascannons, railguns, lances, venom cannons) is being systematically reduced.  If the new space marines lose 6 man las/plas (as speculated by many), the only army capable of taking tons of lascannons will be IG or DE.  All other armies will have to either take large squads (DA, CSM, SM?) or take the weapon in a heavy support slot.

Couple this with an increase in the number of anti-tank options sneaking into many codices (swooping hawks, ravenwing bike squads, fusion blasters on stealths), and it's possible that in 2 years, vehicles might become a more viable and fruitfull option in 40k.  Admittedly, until the las/plas squad departs (not exactly something I'm looking forward to) GW is merely nibbling around the edges.  However, it's looking more and more likely that IG might become the kings of infantry based anti-tank, as well as having more durable tanks.

I do hope that the codexii are being re-aligned to provide new life for mechanized and vehicle heavy army lists.  Above all, I hope that GW has a plan for balancing skimmers, monstrous creatures and ground vehicles so that we see more mixed composition armies and less all Mech or Godzilla armies.  I would suggest bringing back the hull down rule.  Making it so that monstrous creature could not benefit from cover saves, and giving skimmers an additional 4+ save that stops hits entirely when moving fast, but at the same time does not prevent penetration.  These changes would make zilla nids easier to deal with, force Eldar and Tau to use more caution with their skimmers and allow mixed composition IG/Marine armies to use Razorbacks and Chimeras competitively.

If similar changes are not implemented when the 5th ed rules come out, I will be very frustrated and the goal of streamlining the armies for tournament play will be a total fiasco.

I've never had a problem using Chimeras in a competetive list...Razors are under-powered, but Chimeras are fine.

samwise the skimmer rules as they are now do not need modification. if they went with your plan nobody would take them anymore. the skimmer tanks sacridice in other areas when compared to tracked vehicle.

tracked heavy  tanks generally have more guns(thus more shots) and often times  better armor value (especially IG and chaos with mutated hulls) for the points costs.

my hammerheads cost nearly as much as a land raider or a fully kitted chaos pred but i don't regen, it can't shoot if it is shaken/stunned, i have no AV 14 anywhere and i only have 2 guns

I wonder if it still will spark a resurgence of the Land Raider, with less heavy weapons on the board, it's high armour and 2 lascannons will start looking very attractive.

The fix for the skimmer armies are a bit simpler, for Tau, increase the minimum squad size for firewarriors and pathfinders, for Eldar, make the holofield and invulnerable 4+.

How to fix Nidzilla, don't allow the elite 'fexes to take guns, restrict them to assault options.

Posted By droidman on 06/23/2007 8:04 PM

How to fix Nidzilla, don't allow the elite 'fexes to take guns, restrict them to assault options.

Do that and Nids are no longer a competetive army.  No one would ever take elite fexes.

I've got a better idea:

Fix the movement problems the game has. Make walkers/monstrous creatures able to run 12" a turn if they don't assault, and make base vehicle movement 8"/16" and 8"/16"/24" for vehicles.

Then, change result 1 on the Glancing Hit chart to 'no effect', and chance result 6 on the Glancing Hit chart to 'Roll on the Penetrating chart'.

We've been playing that way for years and vehicles are way more fun, and aren't glass hammers.

BYE

Seems like it should be in proposed rules but I think skimmers could be brought more into line with other vehicles if they were required to land to hold an objective or quarter. Make landing a possibility if you move less than 6" in the same turn. It is a little more reasonable than allowing a landspeeder or falcon to go streaking 24" over a quarter on turn 6 to claim it and gives anyone opposing these vehicles a chance to take them out in the last turn if they plan well. It forces a little more fore thought on the skimmer player, in that he has to get his tanks into position a little earlier. Finally it gives ground based tanks a little advantage over skimmers which currently other than some of them have better armor they have none,

 

Non-Nidzilla nids are still competitive, more so if there are less SM/CSM heavy weapons out there and elite 'fexes would probably still be used in cityfight.

 

The way I see it, there are only 2 options instead of editing elite 'fexes & holofields:

1. no changes and watch Nidzilla and mech eldar dominate the tournie source for the next several years

2. use HMBC revisinist ruleset, although I think he's he got some great ideas, the odds of GW implementing them are less then me winning Wimbledon

 

 

I must disagree with this idea that skimmers are overpowered, most skimmers are damned expsencive and more fragile than people think, the eldar vehicle upgrades simply make the opponent use alot of firepower to suppress or destroy them.

Now those of you who think that land based tanks are at a disadvantage, are just not using the weaknesses of the skimmer tanks, if you want to annoy an eldar, or tau player just get behind the tank and shoot it. If you plan it out correctly its quite easy to pull in most aggressive players and then destroy their vehicle.

Now to point out the reason for the dark angels issue with small heavy weapon squads, is that I believe that the codex was designed to promote the use of a combined arms approach to their battles. If you look at alot of the elements of the army they seem designed to have synergy with one other unit, I will list a few of the examples that I see as prevalent.

Ravenwing + deathwing: great synergy for speedy deployment

AC-HB Predators + Ravenwing Bikes: Tanks for anti-infantry, while the bikes bust the enemies anti-tank with plas or melta guns.

Rhino with 5 assaulty marines, and 5 more with a heavy weapon in one force org slot.

Skimmers have the same problem that all vehicles had in 3rd - the fact that moving fast is all or nothing. There's no way to 'beat' or 'counter' a skimmer moving fast in the same way that if a vehicle was Hull Down in 3rd, nothing about your shot could change that.

Now there's the 4th Ed simplified and horribly dumbed down way of doing it - a 4+ 'you get glancing!' save. That works, to a point, but it's more dice rolls.

The way we did it, to find a middle ground between the 4+ and the all-or-nothing, was to allow weapons to penetrate if they rolled a 6 when doing armour penetration. So it didn't matter if you were smoked, hull down or moving fast - a 6 still got through that and got a penetrating (assuming, of course, you could actually penetrate in the first place - so a 6 on a Multi-Laser vs a Falcon wouldn't penetrate, as S6 weapons are incapable of penetrating AV12 vehicles).

Solved a lot of problems.

But as far as overpowering in 4th goes, it's not skimmers that are overpowered (although they have the aforementioned all-or-nothing probem) - it's the Falcon which is overpowered or, more accurately, Holo-Fields that make it over powered.

BYE

I agree.
Skimmers are a pain, Falcons are insane

Posted By Polonius on 06/23/2007 10:24 AM
If the new space marines lose 6 man las/plas (as speculated by many), the only army capable of taking tons of lascannons will be IG or DE.  All other armies will have to either take large squads (DA, CSM, SM?) or take the weapon in a heavy support slot.

You forgot Space Wolves. Right now, it's still okay to play SMs. But if GW does go ahead with the C:SM:R as is rumoured and include the Combat Squads rule in every recently published Codex, then Space Wolves will be the only SM army worth playing if you like versatility, flexibility and competitiveness. After all, they are the only major (i.e. gets their own Codex) Chapter that is non-Codex Astartes, so logically they shouldn't be bound by the ridiculous Combat Squads rule.

Until their new Codex comes out, that is. At which time, GW will have devised another weak-arse excuse as to why it's necessary. Yay! Enjoy your unit of 5 Blood Claws, SW players!

I disagree that the holo-fields make the Falcon as broken as most internet hysteria would have it. No-one complained about it much with the old Codex when it was still perfectly possible and the Falcons could take decent Starcannons into the bargain.  

I think the main problem lies in allowing both holo-fields and Vectored Engines to be taken. It should have been either or in my opinion. My holo-fielded tanks have been destroyed quite a lot, however with VE most of the immobilised results would have been a lot less crippling and the passengers wouldn't have been mostly dead and pinned.

I suggest that some of you try fielding Falcons without holo-fields and see how they do then. You'll find that they die expensively and take their fragile cargo with them, AV12 isn't great protection for a tank that costs around 150 points. Hell, Wave Serpents die a lot and they have better protection than a non-fielded Falcon.

The main problem that people have with ground vehicles dying too easily stems directly from GW removing the hull-down rule from the game. Leaving this rule in meant that tanks sacrifice mobility for protection, a fair trade in most cases. That said I'm pretty sure that many players might have some difficulty in reliably taking down 3 preds or Russ before they've been of use to their opponent, its mainly ground transports rather than MBT's that have borne the brunt of the changes IMO.

No I don't see al vehicle resurgence. I see drop pod variants for marines, mech Tau/Eldar, and lots of targets in the form of tracked vehicles for everyone else. Make tracked/wheeled vehicle cheaper and you might see a resurgence. At this point wheeled vehicles are just too easy to cap.

Posted By jfrazell on 06/25/2007 12:28 PM
No I don't see al vehicle resurgence. I see drop pod variants for marines, mech Tau/Eldar, and lots of targets in the form of tracked vehicles for everyone else. Make tracked/wheeled vehicle cheaper and you might see a resurgence. At this point wheeled vehicles are just too easy to cap.

A DA/BA Predator Destructor with Heavy Bolters is pretty reasonable for what you get. Ditto for the 35 point Rhino.

Drop Holofields all together and vehicles are fine in an environment with a little less Lascannons.

People didn't complain as much because a) there were no vectored engines; and b) the glancing table was different, so you were twice as likely to kill a Falcon on a glance than you are now. And they still complained then.

Yes, Falcons are expensive. Yes, they need something. No, the current layout was probably not the best way to achieve the desired result.

Posted By Janthkin on 06/25/2007 4:44 PM
People didn't complain as much because a) there were no vectored engines; and b) the glancing table was different, so you were twice as likely to kill a Falcon on a glance than you are now. And they still complained then.

a. I agree, as I pointed out above, holofields and VE should not be allowed to be taken at the same time

b. I'm talking about in 4th Ed with the old codex, the good year or two of using the new ruleset where the glancing table wasn't the old way. I never heard that much complaining, possibly because people were happy that they weren't playing Ulthwe.

Granted it may not be the best solution to the problem, but its not as bad IMO as is made out as long as the holo-fields are not used in conjunction with Vectored Engines.

 

What is with all this complaining about Falcons? They're not that great anymore--the nerf to Spirit Stones saw to that. It it ludicrous to play up the "invulnerability" of a Falcon--any army list worth its salt should be able to take out one falcon per turn given average rolls, and at least get "Crew Shaken" on all enemy Falcons. Come on--it's armor 12--get over it. If your army can't keep Falcons from shooting, then frankly your army sucks. If you can't deal with the six measly T3 Eldar that hop out of the falcon, quite frankly your army sucks. It's just that simple.

With the huge, even rediculous regularity of seeing lascannons, tank-hunting hellfire ven. dreadnaughts, TH missile launchers, and the ubiquitous 6-man las/plas tac squad, there is no reason to complain so much about the Falcon. In the last three Rouge Trader Tournaments I attended, several players brought 3-Falcon lists and not a single one took best general, and not a single one thought that 3-Falcon was the end-all be-all that it used to be. The nerf to Spirit Stones changed a lot, and Vectored engines simply made Falcons even more annoying. But at best, that's all they are--a mere annoyance for the opponent. It's very rare to see a Falcon actually accomplish something worthwhile given its 200 point price tag.

Like any other vehicle Falcons have become all-or-nothing. Either they survive and manage to hold an objective at the end of the game, or they are destroyed by concentrated enemy fire. Just like a Monolith, taking a Falcon is investing a huge number of points into a tough but not overly-potent vehicle. It could all come crashing down on turn 1, after all.

You want to know who's been winning the Rouge Trader and GT circuits? Chaos. The Chaos codex has been and remains the strongest and most breakable codex around, and even though Falcon armies are annoying Chaos will still table you. If you really can't beat a Falcon-heavy Eldar army, I suggest you play a tournament-grade Chaos Demonbomb army list, and see how well you do. Then come back here and complain about that.

EDIT: I should add that, thanks to Zilla Nid and gunline Loyalist Marines, vehicles are seeing a slight resurgence in use, especially with the DA codex's rebalancing of Rhino/Razor points costs. Ultimately, vehicles never really went out of fashion; they still provide critical support to certain armies that would be lost without them.

Posted By ColonelEllios on 06/26/2007 4:15 AM

What is with all this complaining about Falcons? They're not that great anymore--the nerf to Spirit Stones saw to that.

So you've been living under a rock, eh?

Falcons don't need to be able to shoot to be excellent units. They can still deliver their cargo even when shaken. They're also near impossible to kill now thanks to Vectored Engines and Holo Fields.

BYE

Sorry Ellios but the Las Vegas games day results prove you so wrong.

count(1) main_army avg score avg placing avg overall std
2 Kroot 60 63 120.5 0
24 Eldar 56.83 60.12 122.12 15.38
8 Dark Eldar 54.62 72.62 116.87 15.09
8 Tau 53.62 78.5 115.87 16.13
1 IG/Daemonhunters 53 109 104 0
4 orks 52.5 74 117.5 13.72
2 Lost and the Damned 51.5 47 124.5 8.5
22 Space Marine 51.4 84.95 114.09 15.3
28 Chaos Space Marines 49.32 72.39 117.14 17.17
11 Necrons 48.18 87.72 111.63 14.3
6 Witchhunters 47.33 80.5 114.5 10.51
12 Tyranids 46.08 96.25 106.16 18.32
12 Imperial Guard 44.33 99.66 106.25 20.03
18 Space Marines 44 98.72 108.16 14.44
3 Daemonhunters 39.33 103.33 106.66 10.84

Wow...because those statistics are so useful and readable by everyone...

True, the Vegas GT did have Eldar win Best General. But in the last 2 of 3 GTs, Chaos has taken overall.

It should be pointed out that IG scored an amazing 80 battle points compared to 87 for the Eldar best general, and Witchhunters also took 80 battle points home. Everything is relative. For all you know, the Eldar general got lucky and went first all 5 games. If I remember correctly, Chaos had several battle point totals above 80, and so did Tau.

Regardless, you can't argue that Chaos hasn't consistently held top placement, because if you did you'd be arguing falsehoods. Mech Eldar is not "broken." It's a powerful army, and Falcons are arguably the best "tanks" in the game, but they are neither invincible or game-winning by themselves.

Locally, triple-falcon builds are extremely popular. And all the local Eldar players (many GT winners) insist that Falcons are not an end-all, be-all solution. They're really quite useless compared to the alternatives, in my humble opinion. People just love to complain about them, because they can't figure out how to beat an army with less than 30 T3 models and a handful of AV 12 skimmers. If you plan on taking an army to a tournament to win, you had better plan for the "top tier" armies out there. Failing to bring enough anti-tank to deal with 3 Falcons and not working a 3-Falcon opponent into your game plan is your problem, and your problem only.

If it's not Starcannons, it's Falcons...and if it's not Falcons...it's Monoliths...etc...

@ HBMC: "near impossible" is an exaggeration, and you know it. Furthermore, to deliver their cargo, Falcons need to get close to the enemy, where suddenly they become vulnerable to power fists, double-tapping plasma guns, meltaguns, and the whole slew of close-range weaopnry that easily threatens AV 12. I am not ignorant--I've used Falcons extensively in the past, and they are not the units they once were, especially against a skilled opponent. Now, if you want to point to a tank that is truly a problem to kill, point to a Fire Prism that's shooting you dead from across the board--the long way...

Ummm...no? There are very, VERY few armies that can inflict 12 damaging results per turn on a Falcon (there are 3/36 possible holofield results that will "stop" a Falcon, or 1/12). And that would require your opponent to leave it hanging out in front of all your guns.

I stopped reading after that.

...to deliver their cargo, Falcons need to get close to the enemy, where suddenly they become vulnerable to power fists, double-tapping plasma guns, meltaguns, and the whole slew of close-range weaopnry that easily threatens AV 12. I am not ignorant--I've used Falcons extensively in the past, and they are not the units they once were, especially against a skilled opponent. Now, if you want to point to a tank that is truly a problem to kill, point to a Fire Prism that's shooting you dead from across the board--the long way...

Locally, triple-falcon builds are extremely popular. And all the local Eldar players (many GT winners) insist that Falcons are not an end-all, be-all solution. They're really quite useless compared to the alternatives, in my humble opinion. People just love to complain about them, because they can't figure out how to beat an army with less than 30 T3 models and a handful of AV 12 skimmers. If you plan on taking an army to a tournament to win, you had better plan for the "top tier" armies out there. Failing to bring enough anti-tank to deal with 3 Falcons and not working a 3-Falcon opponent into your game plan is your problem, and your problem only.

If it's not Starcannons, it's Falcons...and if it's not Falcons...it's Monoliths...etc...

Well Jankinth, seeing as though you "stopped reading" and are apparently uninterested in the facts, I'll re-post it here to make it easy for you. Or you can continue to be ignorant and spout you idiocy in a public forum...your choice...

 Do you even play this game? It doesn't take "12 hits" to stop a Falcon. It can only take one--especially if the opponent goes first.

Falcons are durable transports for small squads (fire dragons or quins) but are not really all that great as main battle tanks anymore. The fact that anything that gets though their relatively low armor will keep them from shooting has seen to that (read sprit stone nerf). I still like fielding 1 because its generally useful, but other than as an objective grabber / fire dragon delivery system, it tends to not do too much and my points (and heavy support slots) are much better spent on things like reapers and war walkers.

One of the big problems is that when the falcon gets close to the enemy, not only does the enemy get into range with all the short rage weapons like plasma and melta guns that can hurt the falcon, but it also gets to the point where the enemy can move around to the rear armor where even bolters will start being effective.

Regardless, if anti tank weapons start to become more rare or if rules change to make tanks more durrable, then I would expect to see more of them on the field. On the other hand, I don't expect to see mech list to become any less popular, after all, everyone loves tanks.

Statistical Anomalies happen Elios, You have one person who got first turn 5 times in a row and rolled 6's all day so he got extra high points with a really bad army. It explains why the kroot had the highest average score, only two people in the tourney with kroot. Also the more people who take a specific army the greater the chance that you get new players or fluff players who bring down the total point score. This is why marines, despite having a powerful dex generally show around the middle of the field. The thing that makes the vegas GT results interesting is that you had 24 eldar players. A large percentage when compared to the total field. They showed second from the top in highest average score.

And another thread mutated to the "Falcon equals Über" discussion...

On Topic:
I seriously hope that vehicles become more popular in the future. But besides Tournament builds, I don't see an actual problem with them.
How often do you see battle reports with tanks or walkers in it without the "unkillable"-mark and they fare quite well?

It would be nice if not every squad could take a tank-hunting weapon or had to choose between anti-tank and anti-infantery. The 6-man las/plas is the (in)famous example here. And on a side note, yes the tactical squad should be flexible but a certain amount of specialization should be necessary.

Greets
Schepp himself

Posted By Schepp himself on 06/26/2007 11:26 AM
And another thread mutated to the "Falcon equals Über" discussion...

On Topic:
I seriously hope that vehicles become more popular in the future. But besides Tournament builds, I don't see an actual problem with them.
How often do you see battle reports with tanks or walkers in it without the "unkillable"-mark and they fare quite well?

It would be nice if not every squad could take a tank-hunting weapon or had to choose between anti-tank and anti-infantery. The 6-man las/plas is the (in)famous example here. And on a side note, yes the tactical squad should be flexible but a certain amount of specialization should be necessary.

Greets
Schepp himself

The issue again comes down to Marines. A Lascannon and Plasma Gun are good choices for killing Marine Infantry (and far better against Necrons).

With so many walking mini-tanks, no wonder anti-tank is so popular.

If Marines were equally as popular as Guard, Orks and Tau, then Heavy Bolters and Flamers would actually serve a purpose.

Yes, I play. Yes, it could take a single hit, particularly if your oponent is kind enough to leave it exposed to fire on turn 1, before it moves. Equally probable, it could survive 24 hits with no actual damage. The median result is that 1 in 12 damaging results will inflict an immobilized or destroyed glancing hit on a holofielded Falcon.

No, I'm not especially interested in the remainder of your assertions, as they seem predicated around a local metagame which is so unlike any of the tournaments or leagues I have ever experienced or heard of as to be essentially meaningless. "Bring enough heavy weapons to shoot them down," as I noted above, is not really valuable advice, given the ACTUAL odds of shooting one down. "Kill the T3 contents" is meaningless, given that they are used either for a) delivering a suicidal but devestating squad to a particular target (e.g., Fire Dragons to an expensive tank, or Harlies into close combat with shooty troops); or b) positioning SIX scoring units for taking/holding objectives at the end of the game.

I am pleased you find them less than optimal; my conclusions differ.

I'd change your problem statement just a touch: "If anti-infantry weaponry worked better than anti-tank weaponry against all infantry types, then heavy bolters and flamers would be more popular." This stupid pass/fail AP system encourages bringing AT weapons for use against infantry, and renders the apparent anti-infantry weapons useless against the most commonly-appearing infantry type.

Also, there's still something screwy about a tank that can be rendered ineffective for a turn (or killed outright) by a single hit, when a T5+ creature can shrug off multiple hits from anti-tank weapons and remain fully effective until completely dead.

So, no - I don't think we'll see more vehicles, because everyone still has a metagame reason to pack as much AT firepower into their lists as they can, in order to deal with MEQs and (T)MCs. Tanks will continue to be a casualty of the AP system.

Just give Heavy Bolters rending and it will balance out.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

I weep, as I can see them doing that. And when lasguns get rending (to represent the massed firepower of the Imperial Guard), we'll finally stop hurting our heads with this stuff, and go play marbles.

I have my steelies right here. . . (Joking)

Falcons wouldn't be so bad if they didn't have Spirit Stones. I don't know why you're complaining about Vectored Engines, you can pen it the next turn and it's no longer scoring. I've only played against it once where they threw that on there. And then down it went.

If they didn't have Spirit Stones, I think it's the logical way to actually fix faclons or prisms with Holofields from being stupidly good.

Posted By Voodoo Boyz on 06/26/2007 8:01 PM
Falcons wouldn't be so bad if they didn't have Spirit Stones. I don't know why you're complaining about Vectored Engines, you can pen it the next turn and it's no longer scoring. I've only played against it once where they threw that on there. And then down it went.

If they didn't have Spirit Stones, I think it's the logical way to actually fix faclons or prisms with Holofields from being stupidly good.

Agreed Voodoo. The Extra armor on Falcons is what made them what they are now. Before they were annoying yes but aleast there was a chance to "stun and done" the falcon. With extra armor there is no chance to pen a falcon except if its out in the open on turn 1 or you happen to be playing against an Ogryn for an opponent will you ever get a chance to pen a Falcon.

  It has never really been the weapons platform that what makes the falcon powerful. Its one of 3 things: Victory Point Denial, Squad Delivery System, Objective Grabber. It can do all 3 roles very much reliably.

You'll find that its actually 1 in 9, over the course of the 2-3 turns that it takes a Falcon to drop a squad of Harlequins etc. thats not the most unfeasible thing in the world. Of course if you get that first turn penetrating hit that no-one seems to take into account, then the chance of killing or immobilising it gets a lot greater.

You could also counter the units that the Falcon is carrying once they're out of the transport by hiding from Dragons, getting in cover, using anti-harlequins tactics etc. thus reducing the dread combo into a flying scoring unit that kills nothing and has cost the Eldar player around 350 points, thats happened to me quite a few times and its crippling. But thats not what the internet wants to hear.

Granted that the VE/HF combo is too much as I agree, but if anyone can suggest a way to deliver the expensive fragile Eldar Aspect units into combat in numbers without skimmer transports and against other top tier codexes then I'm all ears. Would you really foot slog a load of T3 4+ sv. Aspect warriors against a marine army? If the transport dies, those units die expensively. Its not like they're marines; rhino dies, meh, I can't do much for a turn but I'm not going to lose many troops and I've got some ranged weaponry. If the transport dies Aspects are screwed, full stop.

As an aside, last game I played mech Eldar on Mech Eldar, 4 of 6 holo-fielded tanks died along with his wave serpent. So thats 5 out of 8 skimmers dead. His Falcon did nothing much all game apart from skulk about and not die.

Posted By anathema on 06/27/2007 1:46 AM

Granted that the VE/HF combo is too much as I agree, but if anyone can suggest a way to deliver the expensive fragile Eldar Aspect units into combat in numbers without skimmer transports and against other top tier codexes then I'm all ears. Would you really foot slog a load of T3 4+ sv. Aspect warriors against a marine army? If the transport dies, those units die expensively. Its not like they're marines; rhino dies, meh, I can't do much for a turn but I'm not going to lose many troops and I've got some ranged weaponry. If the transport dies Aspects are screwed, full stop.

As an aside, last game I played mech Eldar on Mech Eldar, 4 of 6 holo-fielded tanks died along with his wave serpent. So thats 5 out of 8 skimmers dead. His Falcon did nothing much all game apart from skulk about and not die.

Thank you Anathema for bringing some actual facts and real experience to this rather redundant discussion.

Janthkin, you continue to prove your total lack of any tactical sense or gaming experience with your statements. Anathema explained why trip-Falcon builds are less-than-optimal, and once you learn to deal with them they're really quite a pushover, since your army is facing minimal retaliation.

The mere idea of your opponent simply "hiding and grabbing objectives with 6 units on the last turn" is inane and completely misinformed...do you examine your own statments critically? Unless you play with a "marine gunline" type of army (why do I get this vibe from you?) all you need to do to screw-over trip-falcon builds is simply close and overwhelm. It's that simple. Once again, if you can't build a list that's capable of dealing some decent damage in the course of six turns to at least two of your opponent's Falcons, you're using a sub-optimal list.

So... because Anethema agrees with you Ellios, he's brought 'facts', whereas everyone else has brought... what exactly? Care to enlighten us?

BYE

I actually thought Colonel Ellios was being sarcastic with his first sentence.  His post sounds an awful lot like Warseer's cry of, "Just use tactics!".

And remember, the plural of anecdote is not data.

I can definitely regale you with tales of my glorious victories and woeful defeats, but they'll just be my own experiences and opinions.

The 1 in 9 glancing hit thing is the probability that I've hopefully calculated correctly though and I can describe ways my opponents have countered my own grav tanks as I'm sure most Eldar players can.

One such opinion is that a lot of Eldar Aspects cannot function very well at top tournament level without reliable transports. Harlequins can be used on foot in some circumstances, but to try to use them offensively on foot in an all-comers list is cruising for a bruising against a mobile opponent so ideally they need to be in a Falcon. While people may get hung up on the difficulty in taking holo-fielded grav-tanks down, the Falcon and Wave Serpents needs to be pretty hard in order to allow many other (expensive, fragile and short-ranged) units to achieve their full potential.

The Falcon doesn't work well as a gunship due to its poor BS and the altered spirit stone, hence its multi-role nature. The Fire Prism is a good gunship with decent BS, range and weaponry, but is glanced with relative ease by most weaponry that isn't small arms and so rendered useless often if not used with care. Without the protection of their upgrades (and considering that they lack high front AV like the Hammerhead and Predator), what use are these tanks? The Falcon becomes too unreliable to be a transport and the Prism too likely to lose a weapon or die to be a good gunship.

Would anyone actually take Falcons or Prisms without holo-fields and get usage that befits their point cost from them? I doubt it, everyone would choose Wraithlords as the default heavy choice and we'd be back to the old codex. Hell, no-one used Prisms before in 4th ed. anyway, despite their objective grabbing potential, so its not just that.

While the level of protection may arguably be too high when you can only kill them on a double 6, I've yet to hear an alternative that wouldn't make them mostly unviable.

Curious about your math, here. 36 possible 2d6 results; exactly 3 of them (6-6, 5-6, 6-5) result in an immobilized or destroyed result.



In a large number of missions, preserving 6 scoring units untouched until the end of the game pretty much equates to a win. Victory point denial + multiple highly-mobile scoring units is an extremely viable approach to almost every mission out there.

Look, it's not internet panic. I took Eldar to the Adepticon Gladiator (though, admittedly, only 1 Falcon & 2 Fire Prisms). I have played both with and against the current and the old incarnation of the Falcon. It requires luck, not tactics, to prevent a Falcon from surviving until the end of the game, and swooping down on an objective during turn 6. Holofields/Spirit Stones (in 4th Ed, either codex) makes for an exceedingly frustrating experience.


Shhh, HBMC. Ellios is busy mocking my lack of tactical knowledge and my SM army tactics. Let's not distract him.

You forgot the double 5 as well, so 4 in 36 equals 1 in 9. I tried to work out the probablility of killing a penetrated Falcon but ran out of fingers, so if anyone can do that it would be interesting.



Looking at this from a 1500 point perspective, putting 1100 points for example (blinged Falcon+6 Harlequins x3) and just flying them round the board won't win many games. With this army you can get a couple of troops, an HQ and not much else in there. With th ease of glancing Falcons, they won't be firing much and without much of an army apart from this you won't kill much.

The embarked troops need to get out of the tanks to do damage, flying around all game isn't much use. Your opponent then claims the objectives while pinging your tanks and the rest of your army and the best you can do is contest objectives, not win them outright. It takes one lucky glance from that relatively unmolested firepower from your opponent to bring down 300+ points (they should be able to cause 9+ glances over 6 turns) and then you lose on VP's killed. The best use of such a list is to let the Halrequins go into asault, which can be countered to some degree depending on the army, they will get touched but will allow the tanks a better chance of objective claiming.



Everything requires luck to some degree, I've had 6 Fire Dragons fire at a Hammerhead for 3 turns in a row and not brought it down. I've also brought one down with a pistol shot to the rear. There are still tactics and weapon options that can be used to maximise your chance of killing a Falcon and its cargo, just like the tactics people use to take down other tanks. It can indeed be frustrating and I know that, but so can trying to take down 3 Russ with no lance weapons and Fire Prisms that can't combine shots as one keeps getting shaken. I then have to work around the problem.

If people think that Falcon lists are going to dominate tournaments then they need to build with that in mind, I know some of my teammates here in the UK are doing this with their GT lists, just like everyone tools up vs. marines already. Maybe less lascannons and a few more autocannons and tank-hunting assault cannons are needed for the percieved metagame.

Posted By anathema on 06/27/2007 9:21 AM
 Maybe less lascannons and a few more autocannons and tank-hunting assault cannons are needed for the percieved metagame.

Hehe, just what tournaments need, more Assault cannons....

On a more serious note, yeah, tank hunting ACs seem to be pretty much the best option for dropping falcons.  Autocannons get twice the shots as a lascannon, but the LC glances twice as often (If my math is correct).  Tank hunting autocannons are great, but only chaos can get those, and it seems only for a few more months.

And I don't think many folks will claim that falcons can win a game for the eldar player, any more than 9 assault cannons will win a game for IG or 11 russes for armored company.  What people are claiming, at least what I'm claiming, is that the falcon is currently the most durable vehicle in the game, from a take on all comers perspective.  There are about 4armies that can reliably drop them: IG SAFH, Necrons,  tank hunting ACs of doom, and tank hunting havocs w/ autocannons.  Orks have almost no chance to drop it.  Sisters need to get lucky with their Exorcists early on.  Barring a geniunly bad beat, 1 or 2 of your falcons are going to survive.

Additionally, while 1100 pts are tied up in falcons and their cargo, that cargo can get out when/where it is safe and accomplish something.  Harlies can rip up shooting squads, dragons nuke tanks, etc.  the remained of point can be taken in Eldard and Pathfinders.  Is that an unbeatable list?  No.  Will the list have a large amount of success due, at least partially, to the durability of the falcons?  Yes it will.  And that's the problem: GW writes rules assuming the average player takes one of each option, not three. 

All right, this thread has meandered a bit from my original question, but I think I can summarize the general opinion of the group:

1) Any increase in treaded vehicles after CSMs lose small las/plas squads will be minimal.
2) Most vehicles right now are pretty balanced, assuming they are used properly and in the correct method.
3) Counter examples to the above statement are:
a) C:SM rhinos are too pricy
b) The eldar falcon is slightly too durable
c) Landraiders are probobly too expensive
d) SM landspeeders are a little too cheap

Does this sound about right? I orignally posted because I felt that vehicles weren't bieng used enough, but after thinking about it, nearly every vehicle in 40k has a place/time to shine.

That seems to be a very good, nice summation.

Thank you!

I'd add a 4) Aside from durable skimmers, the current Transport Rules discourage use of transport vehicles as transports.

If you have any other method of moving your troops across the battlefield (assuming they need to), it's better. Drop Pods are great; jump packs are great; fleet of foot is great; bikes are great. All these things are great, because a single hit isn't going to immobilize the troops, a single penetrating hit isn't going to force them to hop out of a (moving) vehicle; and a single destroying hit isn't going to cause the afore-mentioned bailing out, PLUS leave them entangled for a turn.

Shooty armies like transports more. Chimerae (and razorbacks) are firepower-supplements, rather than transports. Wave Serpents and Devilfish are fairly durable, given the upgrades available for the respective armies and the "skimmers moving fast" rule.

Ahh. Sorry - usually I use that number for "chance to kill a Falcon on a glance", and assume Vectored Engines for the soft landing.

The problem with killing the Falcon on a pen isn't the pen table - it's GETTING to pen in the first place. Aside from assuming a stupid opponent who leaves his Falcons exposed during deployment (and doesn't have/use Eldrad to fix that), or a barren wasteland of a table, it's a rarity to get a shot at a Falcon before it moves.



Try it some time - you'll be (un)pleasantly surprised. Falcons are tanks - they can tank-shock opponents off objectives on the final turn. Or they can position to deliver their cargoes on turn 6, from whatever angle is optimal, and you eat 18 Aspect warriors with no chance to reply.

Heck, if the other 400 points is Avatar + guardian gun squads in cover, they'll do some damage while the Falcons flit about at range and snipe at targets of opportunity; those Pulse Lasers have decent range, and are on a move-12"-and-fire platform.

Now, it's possible our metagame situations are fantastically different - I've played on exactly one table too barren to hide skimmers in the past 4 years. And if that's the case, then yes - a barren table offers more chances to (luckily) drop a Falcon, just because you can bring most of your firepower to target it. The usual scenario for me, however, involves refusing a flank with the skimmers, which drops available enemy firepower substantially, and then using terrain to whittle down the opponent, until it's time to rush in.

Janthkin it amazes me that you continue to post in this thread as if you know what you're talking about. Not only did you make use of blatantly wrong statistical proofs, but it's obvious you don't play very competitively. Please don't vomit nonsense and confuse the discussion.

Try it some time - you'll be (un)pleasantly surprised. Falcons are tanks - they can tank-shock opponents off objectives on the final turn. Or they can position to deliver their cargoes on turn 6, from whatever angle is optimal, and you eat 18 Aspect warriors with no chance to reply.

If you have "no chance to [retaliate]" then you got stuck with first turn against a skimmer army. If this situation you describe actually arises, you either a) had a terrible turn of luck for an entire game; or (much more likely) b) are incompetent at the use of proper tactics to counter your opponent, and can't put together a competitive army list.

GT-quality terrain usually provides just enough cover to hide two (three if you're lucky) falcon-sized vehicles completely. Often, the best you can hope for is to get "hull down" against enemy guns if you go second. If we are talking about Mech Eldar, the chances of getting to shoot at a Falcon before it moves goes up some more--your opponent has other, more fragile units to worry about hiding.

Heck, if the other 400 points is Avatar + guardian gun squads in cover, they'll do some damage while the Falcons flit about at range and snipe at targets of opportunity; those Pulse Lasers have decent range, and are on a move-12"-and-fire platform.

"Some damage" is probably an exaggeration. Exactly how much damage do you expect to be caused by a handful of guardian "gun squads" with their amazing BS3, and the incredible, awesome might of the Heavy 2 BS 3 pulse laser on a Falcon? Please.

Posted By Iorek on 06/27/2007 8:00 AM
I actually thought Colonel Ellios was being sarcastic with his first sentence.  His post sounds an awful lot like Warseer's cry of, "Just use tactics!".

And remember, the plural of anecdote is not data.

It's obvious you have no business being here. If "just use tactics" is all you've gotten out the rebuttals to this Falcon-hate whining session, you need to seriously reassess why you are even on this message board.

Posted By H.B.M.C. on 06/27/2007 6:23 AM
So... because Anethema agrees with you Ellios, he's brought 'facts', whereas everyone else has brought... what exactly? Care to enlighten us?

BYE

Anethama is not the only one to have brought facts to this discussion. But assuredly you and plenty of others have brought nothing but their whiny opinions, or worse--blatant fallacies. (I hope you don't take that too harshly--most of your "game development" ideas are quite good)

EDIT:

Posted By Polonius on 06/27/2007 9:58 AM
And I don't think many folks will claim that falcons can win a game for the eldar player, any more than 9 assault cannons will win a game for IG or 11 russes for armored company.  What people are claiming, at least what I'm claiming, is that the falcon is currently the most durable vehicle in the game, from a take on all comers perspective.  There are about 4armies that can reliably drop them: IG SAFH, Necrons,  tank hunting ACs of doom, and tank hunting havocs w/ autocannons.  Orks have almost no chance to drop it.  Sisters need to get lucky with their Exorcists early on.  Barring a geniunly bad beat, 1 or 2 of your falcons are going to survive.

Polonius thank you for  providing yet another  mostly realistic perspective. My only beef with your statements is that Falcons do not guarantee a "good, safe" position do deploy their troops. With over 600 of your points invested in three Falcons and another good chunk invested in their cargo, there isn't much dangerous stuff left to include in your army list to thin out the enemy for your transported troops. That is to say, if you're using three Falcons full of cargo, you'll be hard pressed to find a spot to drop your cargo and do decent damage without being overwhelmed and counter-attacked by the enemies swarming everywhere, since you don't have enough active firepower to reliably suppress the key targets that need suppressing to ensure that your Falcon's cargo simply gets to run amok in the enemy lines. This doesn't happen every time, but it happens with enough regularity that I gave up playing Mech Eldar for the time being. The only good match-up for a Falcon-abuse list is one in which the enemy has just as few models on the board as the Falcon abuser.

My own experience speaks volumes about the end of the glory days of the Falcon army: in the last local tournament, I was the only Eldar general out of the four present that wasn't using any tanks, and I was the only one that placed within the top three for battle points. The other Eldar players were serious GT competitors, excellent hobbyists and excellent generals, and the performance of my list compared to theirs assuaged any of my misgivings about giving up the Eldar tanks. Fourth Edition is all about the infantry and the monstrous creatures, but that said I haven't seen any decline in the average turnout of vehicles in army builds. If anything, Fourth edition has caused a polarizing affect in that those who tend to take tanks, now take lots and lots of tanks, and those that favor infantry, stick almost exclusively to infantry (or MCs).

You know, I wondered if you were a troll. Now, I'm certain of it.

(Aside: did anyone else think Adepticon's Gladiator was a non-competitive environment?)

Posted By Janthkin on 06/27/2007 2:54 PM

Janthkin it amazes me that you continue to post in this thread as if you know what you're talking about. Not only did you make use of blatantly wrong statistical proofs, but it's obvious you don't play very competitively. Please don't vomit nonsense and confuse the discussion.

You know, I wondered if you were a troll. Now, I'm certain of it.

With a highly-developed tone of condescension no less.

Posted By ColonelEllios on 06/27/2007 1:19 PM
Polonius thank you for  providing yet another  mostly realistic perspective. My only beef with your statements is that Falcons do not guarantee a "good, safe" position do deploy their troops. With over 600 of your points invested in three Falcons and another good chunk invested in their cargo, there isn't much dangerous stuff left to include in your army list to thin out the enemy for your transported troops. That is to say, if you're using three Falcons full of cargo, you'll be hard pressed to find a spot to drop your cargo and do decent damage without being overwhelmed and counter-attacked by the enemies swarming everywhere, since you don't have enough active firepower to reliably suppress the key targets that need suppressing to ensure that your Falcon's cargo simply gets to run amok in the enemy lines. This doesn't happen every time, but it happens with enough regularity that I gave up playing Mech Eldar for the time being. The only good match-up for a Falcon-abuse list is one in which the enemy has just as few models on the board as the Falcon abuser.

Posted By bigchris1313 on 06/27/2007 3:05 PM
With a highly-developed tone

I'll take that as a compliment. Thanks!

of condescension no less.

I adopt a tone of condescension towards those who persevere in their ignorance via possessing deaf ears to all but themselves.

It's not the first time I've been called a troll for being right... :S

Posted By ColonelEllios on 06/27/2007 1:19 PM
It's obvious you have no business being here. If "just use tactics" is all you've gotten out the rebuttals to this Falcon-hate whining session, you need to seriously reassess why you are even on this message board.

That's it, take the bait.  Good boy!

Every rude remark degrades your credibility that much more.  You're about two posts away from being the next General Hobbs.

Posted By Iorek on 06/27/2007 7:41 PM
You're about two posts away from being the next General Hobbs.

He's even picked the correct rank, then.

Posted By ColonelEllios on 06/27/2007 4:30 PM

I adopt a tone of condescension towards those who perceive my actual ignorance from me posting anything on the internet.

Fixed!

I adopt a tone of condescension towards those who persevere in their ignorance via possessing deaf ears to all but themselves.

It's not the first time I've been called a troll for being right...

It also appears that you have a keen sense of irony as well.



BYE

I thought I'd take a look at the Falcon's usage for objective claiming in the 5 standard missions at 1500 using the 3 Falcon list of doom. First off, we all know that it can zoom 24" to claim stuff which is extremely powerful so I won't keep referring to this much.

Cleanse: It can claim a quarter, however with the nature of the Cleanse set-up, so can most other units. Its main advantage is the ability to get from one side quarter thats contested to another that isn't. Doesn't help if your opponent has contested both though or has similarly mobile units like Speeders, other vehicles or Deep Strike/infiltrators. Overall, no massive advantage for this mission compared to other mobile and/or rugged units.Can claim and contest, but relatively more difficult for the Harlequins to get much use.

Secure and Control: This is one where it shines. The rule about having the entire unit within 6" of the Loot Counter means that the Falcon can zoom 24", tank-shock a unit off the onjective and claim (or just claim an uncontested counter) in an ideal world.

However being a big model, you have to get your measurement right. Also, if you take the 3 Falcon list of Doom, you can only realistically claim/contest 3 counters. In a mission with 4 or 5 you have so little else that you may well be giving away 600 points. What a lot of people also forget is that other vehicles can tank-shock the Falcon off the objective as well if they have AV13/14. However I won't deny that its speed makes it ideal for this mission.

Recon: Again, very useful as it can utilise cover to hide then dash into the score zone for the last turn, especially with a unit embarked. Downside to the 3 Falcon list is that there is little to stop your opponent doing the same for a no-score bore draw due to the lack of firepower. You'd have to trade off the kills your cargo would make vs. their scoring potential and loss of VP's if/when they die. However in a balanced list one allows a great deal of flexibility and is undeniably very useful.

Seek and Destroy: All about the kills and points conserved. The Falcon conserves points extremely well as we all know. However it also doesn't kill that much. If it does go down, its a 400 point swing for the tank alone and whatever cargo it holds possibly up to a 720 point swing with Harlequins in there. I assume that this is the mission mentioned where you hide the 6 scoring units, but again you're not likely to kill much potentially leaving it too close for comfort. My Falcon going down on the last turn cost me a game at the UKGT this year and that was just for the 175 VP's it gave up, so in this mission paradoxically they can be a liability. Agains the trade off for the cargo is a real consideration.

Take and Hold: A mission where they can try and all score in the last turn again, however with the objective so easily reachable and without the unit being required to be all within 12" the tricks usable in Secure and Control aren't as useful. Also the opposition can get plenty of their units into the score zone as it only takes a few turns of movement even for ground pounders to score. The Eldar player can bomb their Harlequins into this heavily populated area, but a canny vehicle/skimmer wall or plethora of bunched enemy units can drag them down. I wouldn't want to bomb my Quins into a couple of mobs of bucnhed slugga boyz/gaunts or guard even on the objective for example. A more balanced army with more shooting is probably more suited.

Overall, the 3-Falcon list will be great in a couple of these, but not uber in the rest IMO. I think a balanced army is more suited to doing missions rather than getting harlequin kills. Feel free to disagree with my analysis!

Just one more point for Janthkin, one of the best ways of getting first turn pens vs. Eldar Skimmers is infiltrate. I fear infiltrating Chaos lists much more than Iron Warriors so have taken measures in my list to try and limit them.

The issue isn't whether the eldar are too overpowered... but if the falcons are.

And the math just doesn't lie, it has been shown over and over. It is just damn hard to take one down. Yes I have seen it done, hell I saw one get immobilized by a Last Stand. But realistically, you can have most all of your army try to take it down, and you will only be able to get it to not shoot.

Trying to move away from harlis...?? with fleet, and ignore terrain? Good luck

Don't worry, GW has solved that problem for you. Infiltrate is gone.

Most of the (US) tournaments I attend don't limit themselves to the Gray Tome missions; the Adepticon approach is becoming more prevalent, with several objectives to complete in each game. Similarly, most tournaments have embraced the 25% terrain rules, meaning there is no shortage of terrain (unless your're on the lava tables at the LVGT).

Also, there is an underlying assumption that the Falcons (and the rest of the Eldar army, for that matter) won't kill much of anything during the game. While AV 12 is (relavitvely) easy to glance, it still requires heavy weapons to do it. For many armies, heavy weapons have only limited mobility; that, coupled with the Falcon's high mobility, offers the optimal situation for terrain-sniping. "Poor" BS or not (Guardsmen have been dealing with BS 3 for a while), it's going to be hard to prevent those tanks from hitting a few things, over the course of the game. If, as is most desirable, you focus on the enemy's most mobile assets first, it becomes an increasing advantage over time.

A couple comments on your mission analysis, though:
Cleanse: Each Falcon ends up claiming/contesting 2 quarters at the end of the game - drop the passengers, then move. As an added bonus, your dropped passengers may be in a position to prevent your opponent from contesting the original quarter (by killing them).

Secure and Control: similar thoughts apply here - on turn 5, stop close enough to an objective marker to drop your passengers on turn 6, then go tank-shock a different marker. Your passengers can at least go contest the objective, and the 13"-18" assault reach of Harlies gives you plenty of leeway for using terrain to minimize risks (where possible).

Recon: They are very useful here, as you noted. Of particular note: any army that includes a substantial portion of their points in infantry is going to be hard-pressed to make up the difference, even if no killing occurs - it'll take 5 turns of walking (and not shooting heavy weapons) to cross the table, irrespective of any Eldar fire that makes it through.

Seek and Destroy: While a Falcon can be killed, they are still the optimal unit for such a mission, exactly for the reason you noted - they conserve points better than pretty much anything else in the game (self-Fortuning Eldrad comes close). If a Falcon gives up zero points, and over 6 turns manages to score even a couple, it's a net win. Do that 3 times, and maybe add the passengers for targets of opportunity, and it might not be a massacre, but it's fairly hard to lose.

Take and Hold: Even with the easier objective rules, 2 or 3 tank-shocking Falcons at the end game is rough. It can be prevented - Chimerae are great for that, as even in death they can't be pushed out of the way by Falcons - but not by every army. In this mission, more than the others, the Eldar might actually have to do some real fighting.



Multi-falcon Eldar are an evasion army. There are some similar armies in Fantasy (MSU Dark Elves/Wood Elves, Tzeentch Flying Circus, RAF, Slaaneshi Daemonic Legion), but the only comparable forces I can think of in 40k are the Eldar bike forces, and suit-heavy Tau. It's an army designed to deny your opponent the opportunity to engage your army in any meaningful way, and let you pick and choose where and when you want to fight. Tends to lead to defeat in detail, but usually without enough turns to completely kill everything on the table. What this gains for you depends on the environment you're in. If it's an old-style GT, where pure VP differential is used to rank wins, it may not secure you many Massacres. If, however, it's an Adepticon-style event, it's probably enough to let you complete the primary and secondary objectives reliably, and with enough confidence to consider how to deal with the Tertiary. It was enough to win the Gladiator, and an Eldar skimmer team took Best Team Tacticians (most battle points) in the Team tournament.

I take issue with this, as dropping harlequins or Aspect Warriors on objectives is more often than not tantamount to suicide. If your opponent has any mobile or ranged firepower at all its not that difficult to mow them down. For better VP conservation they're better of in the transport.

Also in Cleanse a quarter gives enough space for your opponent to spread units throghout the quarter and a unit of Halrequins can't take them all down. The aforementioned infantry heavy army for example can contest and set up for harlequin denial.

Anyway, you make good points, I guess mine is more of a glass half empty and yours more of a glass half full analysis.

@anathema, true, with Aspects, putting them on an objective, they will get the snot shot out of them, but if the Eldar player is any good, the Harlies will have a 'seer, so they will be fairly hard to kill because of the spotting distance, as well as their 5+ inv...

It's a context-specific situation, obviously. If it's the final turn, why wouldn't you toss your passengers into the fray?



I think a lot of it is just a divergence in our metagame situations. Most of the tournaments I attend are terrain-heavy affairs, with multi-objective scenarios that strongly reward a) preserving scoring units; b) mobility; and c) preserving victory points. In most cases it makes for very good mission design, but the evasion armies tend to break the mold a bit.

As an aside, they're also unsatisfying, both to play and to play against. My biker/skimmer Eldar are shelved, and for use solely in Gladiator-style engagements.

(Also, thank you for a rational, reasoned, and polite debate. We need more of them, and fewer insult-laden rants.)

I quite enjoy playing with my 1 falcon 1000pt list, i just always enjoy it when a plan comes together... But i think that it would be boring to have 3 falcons carrying Harlies in 1500pts (i love the harlies, models n rules, so i always try to work them into my lists)...

I wouldn't evaluate Janthkin's perspective as a "glass half-full" viewpoint rather than simple exaggeration.

Not a single one of the top-tier army lists implicitly has any trouble of bringing enough mobile firepower to bear to cause a 3-Falcon army serious headaches. Space Marines, Eldar, Tau, and Chaos all have viable army builds that can pack plenty of mobile firepower, often far more firepower than a Falcon could put out in its wildest dreams (talking about Predator Annihlators here). In addition, all of these forces have the mobility, deep-strike capability (or equivalent) and dangerous fast-moving non-vehicle units to make it virtually impossible to "hide" a Falcon army until turn 5/6.

Additionally, based upon your experience of tournaments abiding by the "25% terrain" principle, in my experience playing with exactly 25% terrain spread evenly across a table gives you very few places to rendezvous three Falcons. If you can't pack them all together, your Falcons end up in a spread-out formation and concentrating your units in a single move to produce localized superiority becomes impossible, and once again the possibility of becoming overwhelmed is very likely for the Falcon force. Even if there is adequate room to fit your Falcons, entirely hidden, behind a piece of terrain and make a meaningful move from there, a smart opponent will have predicted this before the game even started, and can make moves to counter.

Simply put, your claims, in my experience, are much exaggerated. The availability of deep-striking units with Tank Hunting Assault Cannons, Crisis Suits with twin-linked Missile Pods, tankhunting venerable dreadnaughts, predator annihlators, deep-striking infantry with plasma/melta, and a whole slew of other viable anti-hidden-Falcon units, combined with the fact that (as you admitted) the three-falcon player hasn't caused much damage to his opponent, nearly always sets up a situation in which the Eldar player will make a grab for the objective or quarter, only to be quickly beaten back in the following turn.

The probability of having 3 Falcons alive and well at the end of the game against a competitive opponent, and having them AND their squads survive even a single turn after being "dropped off," (read: exposed) is much, much lower than you postulate.

I can see that Falcons would be even more useful in an Adepticon-format tournament, but I still don't see how an opponent you've done little damage to could possibly let your three falcons waltz around the board and then grab objectives turn 6. This goes against my entire 8 years of experience playing this hobby using Mech Eldar almost exclusively. Three vehicles and three infantry units of 6 models with T 3 is hardly what I would call a "substantial" force to claim objectives with, if you even have all three Falcons at the end. Chances are, your opponent has at least as many units to use to claim objectives, and quite possibly several more than your three-falcon build.

It is quite easy to focus 3 Falcons, give them star engines, then pick a point, have them all go there, enemy has 3 falcons to try and drop, even if they manage with one (or to stop it dropping its cargo), the other 2 can...

Three falcons vs ig SAFH

you need 27 rolls on the tables to stop 3 falcons that means you need:

Lascannons = 36 hits = 72 shots = 12 lascannons firing for 6 turns at nothing but the falcons
MLaunchers = 54 hits = 108 shots = 18 MLaunchers
Auto Cannons = 81 hits = 162 shots = 13.5 autocannons firing for 6 turns at nothing but the falcons.

Most IG SAFH builds will have that much firepower spread amongst those weapons (likely not 12 Lascannons or 18 Missile Launchers, but I have at least 5 Lascannons, 6 Missile Launchers and 6 Autocannons if I focus my list around shooting) - plus plenty of artillery left to deal with whatever infantry accompany the Falcons.

Posted By ColonelEllios on 06/27/2007 4:30 PM

Posted By bigchris1313 on 06/27/2007 3:05 PM
With a highly-developed tone

I'll take that as a compliment. Thanks!

You're welcome. 

Sadly, most IG SAFH builds will also lack the mobility to bring even half of those weapons to bear on target each turn, much less every turn for 6 turns. Heck, mech Guard has a better shot, as the multilaser at least offers a chance at glancing, and is on a platform mobile enough to make terrain-sniping more difficult (though a bit more fragile to pulse laser fire than a Guard squad).

You bust Janthkin's chops on math but then throw out statements without any math of your own.

Probability of S6 shots at BS4 destroying/immobilizing a falcon: 2/3 x 1/6 x 1/9 = 1/81. So 81 shots on average.
Probability of S7 shots at BS4 destroying/immobilizing a falcon: 2/3 x 1/3 x 1/9 = 2/81. So about 40 shots on average.
Probability of S8 shots at BS4 destroying/immobilizing a falcon: 2/3 x 1/2 x 1/9 = 1/27. So 27 shots on average.
Probability of S9 shots at BS4 destroying/immobilizing a falcon: 2/3 X 2/3 x 1/9 = 4/81. So about 20 shots on average.
Probability of S10 shots at BS4 destroying/immobilizing a falcon: 2/3 X 5/6 x 1/9 = 5/81. So about 16 shots on average.

Now triple those numbers. Then figure in terrain, reserves, etc. So tell us again what builds can pack enough firepower to give a 3 Falcon eldar army a headache? Especially in terms of the categories listed above (VP denial, troop transport or objective grabbing).


Elios, do you play this game? First, you use 'mobile firepower' and chaos in the same sentence. They have exactly '0' fast vehicles and only 4 sources of 6" move autcannons (all in elites and heavy). Then, you say the Pred anni has far more mobile firepower then a falcon. Care to enlighten us? I know pred anni is cheaper then a falcon but it is also 'way' easier to pop and can only move 6". Not to mention the firedragons a falcon can carry that won't care about the shaken results like a pred.

Posted By Janthkin on 06/28/2007 10:51 AM

Most IG SAFH builds will have that much firepower spread amongst those weapons (likely not 12 Lascannons or 18 Missile Launchers, but I have at least 5 Lascannons, 6 Missile Launchers and 6 Autocannons if I focus my list around shooting) - plus plenty of artillery left to deal with whatever infantry accompany the Falcons.

Sadly, most IG SAFH builds will also lack the mobility to bring even half of those weapons to bear on target each turn, much less every turn for 6 turns. Heck, mech Guard has a better shot, as the multilaser at least offers a chance at glancing, and is on a platform mobile enough to make terrain-sniping more difficult (though a bit more fragile to pulse laser fire than a Guard squad).

All the Guard weapons have a 48" range. If you deploy in the centre~ish of a standard 6x4 table with the standard 4-6 pieces of terrain on the table, there's going to be very few places to for the Falcons to be while staying out of range - and honestly if the Falcons are hiding in the extreme corners of their own deployment zone, they're not contributing to the game at all anyway and the IG can advance and take out the rest of the army at their leisure.

How much terrain do you play with? If you play with considerably more than the suggested amount I can see terrain sniping being more effective. On a normal board though it will be very difficult to maintain the speed for the glancing hit benefits while not leaving the Falcon in the open.

Don't worry about them Ellios, just keep saying it over and over... someday it will come true...

Don't let reality stop you... you can change it... if you keep saying the same thing, over and over....

Come now - the pure infantry Guard army, with proper anti-assault spacing, is going to spread much of the way across a 6'x4' table. And if there's not proper anti-assault spacing, you have 1 turn to kill those Falcons, or you're being eaten alive by multiple Harlequin squads.

If we're talking 4-6 terrain features that make up 25% of the board space, that's 6 square feet of terrain. Unless they're all area 1/2 rubble fields (your metagame may vary), or you've managed to place all the terrain in the corners, that's going to cast some substantial LoS shadows.



Very few boards I play on (pre-set tournament or otherwise) have more than 25% terrain coverage. That said, buildings, hills, and forests all offer adequate protection to hide a few skimmers. Very rarely do you see the Fantasy-like "2 hills, a forest, and a small building", spaced evenly around a wide-open middle ground.

Terrain features in the middle of the board seriously impact how the game is played - is it that uncommon to see a forest as the centerpiece of the board?

Comparing any form of IG to triple Falcon Eldar isn't really a fair comparison, and doesn't really add anything fruitful to the discussion.

Janthkin, you're still assuming a mostly-stationary heavily-infantry opponent in all of your posts so far. Thus my joking about your "marine gunline" tactics earlier. Last I checked, all-infantry armies aren't typically the most competitive available builds from the tier 1 codexes.

And yes--possibly not at Adepticon--but having a giant piece of terrain in the middle of the board is quite uncommon in the many different areas I've gamed, and generally gets quite old quickly, not to mention favoring more mobile armies tremendously. Also, pieces of terrain on a board that are large enough to hide three tanks behind are also usually quite rare, especially towards the middle of the field (you're talking about a piece of terrain no less than 15" across, placed exactly parallel to the long table edge)

To those who think they can "prove" something by inaccurate statistical analyses, it should be pointed out that a game of 40k has far too many variables for mathematical abstractions to be of much use (they're incredibly limited). When attempting to use probabilities to demonstrate a point, please make absolutely sure you know what you're talking about, you're not misrepresenting the information, and that it actually adds something of substance to the discourse.

What the f are you talking about? there was nothing inaccurate about what I posted and it shows quite clearly you are full of crap.  It's really very easy. On average it will take more firepower then any 1500-2000 point army can have (especially the mobile variety you are proposing) to immobilize or destroy 3 falcons, taking into consideration the probabilities and 25% of the board having terrain. Not real hard to figure out.

Does this mean its auto win for the Eldar player? Not at all. But your contention has been that Falcons are not that big a deal and that most armies can deal with them easily. That just isn't true. Compare the stats I posted with the numbers for any other tank. Hell, compare it with a hammerhead, another expensive but very useful skimmer tank. You'll find the falcon is a whole lot more difficult to drop.

Huh? 4-6 is normal?? Where do you play? You must have some very large terrain pieces. Each one is 12" x 18"....

As opposed to you, who give *no* mathematical support for your assertions, and then states other are 'inaccurate' without supporting that claim either.

Maybe he feels that 'Gut Feeling' > 'Analysis of Probability' or that andectodal evidence somehow trumps mathamatical averages.

BYE

Has anyone here actually EVER played a game. . . or even a series of games at a tournament where their dice rolled the statistically average number of 6s, 5s, 4s, 3s, 2s, and 1s?

If you think you have, you're almost certainly wrong.

I don't know why so many people get wrapped up in the math side of things.  Picking units/weapons that you can use effectively and that make the most of your personal play style is much more important than what the dice "should" do.  Because they won't. . .

Newsflash to the mathhammer crowd. . . statistics is only able to predict the behavior of GROUPS.  It cannot be used to predict the behavior of an individual.  Anybody who has more statistics education than the ability to divide 100 by 6 can tell you that.

I work at an insurance company.  Our actuaries can tell you almost exactly how many people of a given age with certain characteristics will die in a given time frame.  But if you ask them if YOU are going to be one of those people that die. .  they will just shrug their shoulders.  Statistics don't work like that.

. . . but I'm sure some people will get all up in arms about how "the numbers don't lie."  Whatever.

Posted By Soulmage on 06/28/2007 7:19 PM

Newsflash to the mathhammer crowd. . . statistics is only able to predict the behavior of GROUPS.  It cannot be used to predict the behavior of an individual.  Anybody who has more statistics education than the ability to divide 100 by 6 can tell you that.

So you're saying that it can predict the behavior of 100 armies one time, but not one army 100 times?

I seem to remember multiplication being commutative...

Also, your example with the actuaries is flawed.  We can test an army against the statistical criteria over and over, generating an acceptably-sized sample set.  People can only die one time, and as we all know, a sample size of one isn't very good.

So, since you pulled out the big guns of "working for an insurance company", what do you do there?  I'm assuming you're not an actuary.

No, PROBABILITY predicts the behavior of an infinite sample size over time. Statistics is the math applicable to observed events.

Yes, probability won't tell you exactly whether a particular shot, or even a set of shots will down a Falcon. But it will give you an indication of the possible range of likely outcomes, which many people find helpful in determining which actions have the most beneficial chance of working.

Or, you could happily discard the math in its entirety, and gleefully stock up on IG grenade launchers as the optimal anti-falcon weapon. They're S6, after all, so they'll kill those pesky falcons for you.

No, I'm not an actuary, I just work with them.  If I were an actuary I would have given a long lecture on the whole topic of statistics because I would find it the most fascinating thing in the world.  Being a finance guy rather than an actuary, I gave you only the info that pertains here. . . lucky you.

I am soooooo glad you brought up this point. . . for a couple reasons.

#1 and most important - How long exactly does it take you to play 100 games?  A year?  Two?  Three?  Do you even stick with a particular army/list that long?  Some may be able to say that they play hundreds of games in a couple years using the same list and same loadouts the whole time.  These folks are in the VAST minority. 

The point is. . . it takes a LONG time for an individual player to build up a statistically valid sample of games.  With all the other variables in terms of army, opponents, list, its really nearly impossible for all but a very small minority of players to get enough games in that they could experience a significant degree of mean reversion in their die rolls.

Even for those players who DO play with the same army/list a lot for a very long time. . . they still can't predict the outcome of any particular die roll, or any particular game.  Who really cares if over the course of 60 games of 40k, you fired a lascannon 280 times and your average die roll worked out to 3.5?  All the player cares about is what is THIS die roll and THIS game is going to bring.  You'll have games where you roll nothing but fives and sixes, nothing but 1s and 2s. . . but I guess that as you're loosing you can take comfort in the fact that if you spend an entire game missing/failing to penetrate with your lascannon. . . over the next 30 games or so its likely that you will have hits that balance things out.  Hopefully they don't all happen in the same game so that you have many games of missing and one game of absolutely killer die rolls.

#2 Secondly. . . let's address this myth of  "it takes 36 shots to bring down a falcon."  Or whatever people are complaining about today. . .

Alright. . . first of all, that's an average number.  Could be a LOT more. . . could be a lot less.  So. . . to get a good sample how long does it take you to kill 100 falcons in 40k games?  Quite a while I'm guessing. . . if you even bother to try that many times.  You're MUCH better off using a weapon system that you know how to use effectively to get nice shots at rear armor (or whatever) than you are taking a weapon system that mathematically "averages out to be more effective."

Consider this. . . if I stick your head in a bowl of scalding hot water. . . and your feet in a bowl of freezing cold water. . . ON AVERAGE you're taking a nice warm bath. . . but I'm guessing that probably won't matter much to you at the time.  You will be more concerned about the individual situations.

Next let's think about what we are saying when we say "it takes 36 shots to bring down a falcon."  That means you have a 1/36 chance of bringing it down on any particular shot.  It doesn't mean you will magically get it on the 36th attempt.  You could get it on the first attempt and roll 35 more misses.  Or you could kill it 36 times. . . or you could miss it 36 times.

Making it more simple. . . you have a 1/6 chance of rolling a 6 on one die.  How much money are you willing to put on the fact that if you roll that die 6 times, one result will be a six.  Probably not a lot I'm guessing. . . even less so if we said that you also lost the bet if MORE than 1 six came up. . . because of course. . . "it takes 6 shots" to roll a six. . . so if you roll more its totally "not what the numbers say" and as we all know. .  the numbers don't lie.  

(If you're willing to take that bet. . . let me know. .  I'll be happy to handle it with you at Adepticon next year if you can make it.)

The REAL reason people like to do math-hammer. . . and this is a well known fact both in the field of statistics and psychology. . . is that people like to feel like they have more control over their lives than they actually do.  There's plenty of examples of this. . . lots of people feel safer driving than flying for example.  A large part of this is because subconciously people feel that if they are in control, its much less likely to happen to them.  But as we all know from statistics. . they are wrong.

Anyway. . . if all that hasn't opened your eyes just a little, its unlikely that anything will.  You can lead a horse to water. . .

Posted By Janthkin on 06/28/2007 8:36 PM
[

Yes, probability won't tell you exactly whether a particular shot, or even a set of shots will down a Falcon. But it will give you an indication of the possible range of likely outcomes, which many people find helpful in determining which actions have the most beneficial chance of working.

Posted By Soulmage on 06/28/2007 9:02 PM
IG Grenade launchers ARE the optimal anti-falcon weapon. . . if you're so good at using IG grenade launchers in a mobile capacity that I can generally always get shots at the rear armor.  Whereas with lascannons you might not be good at deployment so they only get 3 or 4 shots because you have to move them or your LOS blocked for much of the game.  You can certainly take a lot more grenade launchers than you can lascannons.

This is exactly my point. . . use the weapons YOU are most comfortable with and know how to use most effectively.  The odds of a successful lascannon kill don't matter a hill of beans if you only get 1 or 2 good shots with it because you don't know how to deploy it well, or how to channel the opponent's armored units into its line of fire.

Its a simple example (lascannons aren't a tough weapon to use - although I do encounter some who have problems. . .) but its a principle that applies to math-hammer in general.

If statistics don't matter, why do you need to shoot at the rear armor of a falcon with the Grenade Launcher?  Why don't you just shoot at the front armor?  You roll a 4+ to hit, roll a six to glance, roll a six on glance table, re-roll the six to destroy.  So the GL is perfectly able to kill a Falcon by shooting at the front, why do you bother shooting at the rear?

Why take more than one GL per squad?  Why does it matter that you are able to get more GLs per the price of one LC?  One GL is able to kill a Falcon, why take more?

So what if I get "only" one or two good shots with my LC per game because I don't know how to deploy it, one shot can kill any vehicle in a game, why do I need to be able to get more "good" shots?

I guess when I am shooting at a  Terminator Squad of 5 with my Guardsman Squad of 10, I shouldn' t  need to fire twice if I am able, because that would increase the statistical probability of getting a kill one of the Terminators.  But I guess knowing that is just a way for me to feel like I have more control over my life than I really do.  I wanted to take Plasma Guns with my Squad, because statistically they will have better odds of killing a Termie than a Lasgun, but again that is only my lack of life control again, not using statistics to make decisions before the game during army construction and during the game with target selection.

One last thing, what does "generally always" mean?

personally, i wouldnt bet on somethng that has a 1/6 chance of happening, and a 5/6 of not... just not common sense...

Also, the % chance of only getting a single six when rolling 6 die is a lot better than 1/6 (please, some-one with statistical training corect me if i am wrong, as this seems VERY wrong).

Basicaly, what i did was a tree diagram. for ONLY 1 six to come up, it would be 5 rolls of anything BUT a six, and 1 roll of a six, that is (1/6)*((5/6)^5) ... to the power of 5 as the 5 die roll that aren't 6s are that probability...

Now, that is just for if the first die to be a six. The chance of only the second die being a 6 is the same etc etc.

So, i get (1/6)*((5/6)^5) * 6... but i am not sure about that last multiplier, as it gives me a 40% chance of ONLY getting one six...

also... Soulmage, you say you work at an actuaries, well, if you knew anything about how they opperate, they DO apply stats to individuals. They will give me a higher premium if i happen to be into base-jumping and fire acts than if i was a good little boy who goes for a run every night. Same goes for insurance complanies, if they insure a business, they look at the odds of them going bump, and how long it will take, then they charge the SPECIFIC business a rate based on the statistics, much like i pick unit configurations for my army (a specific event) based on the statistics... and your a fool if you think that stats isn't applied to people individually...

But as you have correctly said, can lead a horse to water, so i guess you will still try 2 flame me ;-)

Posted By winterman on 06/28/2007 3:34 PM

To those who think they can "prove" something by inaccurate statistical analyses, it should be pointed out that a game of 40k has far too many variables for mathematical abstractions to be of much use (they're incredibly limited). When attempting to use probabilities to demonstrate a point, please make absolutely sure you know what you're talking about, you're not misrepresenting the information, and that it actually adds something of substance to the discourse.

What the f are you talking about? there was nothing inaccurate about what I posted and it shows quite clearly you are full of crap.  It's really very easy. On average it will take more firepower then any 1500-2000 point army can have (especially the mobile variety you are proposing) to immobilize or destroy 3 falcons, taking into consideration the probabilities and 25% of the board having terrain. Not real hard to figure out.

If you can't see how you misrepresented those numbers (i.e. purposefully exaggerated via omission of relevant information) then you don't really deserve to be using "maths" to prove your point, do you? I'll give you a hint--it's more obvious than you think.

Does this mean its auto win for the Eldar player? Not at all. But your contention has been that Falcons are not that big a deal and that most armies can deal with them easily. That just isn't true. Compare the stats I posted with the numbers for any other tank. Hell, compare it with a hammerhead, another expensive but very useful skimmer tank. You'll find the falcon is a whole lot more difficult to drop.

Once again...reading comprehension is your friend.

I'm so glad that this thread has officially metamorphosed into an "I'm smarter than thou" e-penis matchup. Continue arguing from your own ineptitude while simultaneously ignoring others--I'm done with this degenerate thread.

"I adopt...condescension towards those who persevere in their ignorance via possessing deaf ears to all but themselves."

 

OK, Soulmage, I admit I was a little snippy last night, but your tone irked me.  Anyway, I'm going to be polite now.

I understand your point about not being able to determine one die roll with statistics.  If I were to roll one die right now, and get a 5, and then rolled it again, I'd still have a 1/6 chance of getting a 5.  With math-hammer (a venerable relative of theory-hammer), we're not trying to prove that you'll need at least 12 fu-cannon shots to down an x-tank.  What we try to do is give people an idea of how many (ballpark) fu-cannons you'll want to take to be able to reliable down an x-tank. 

Math-hammer does assume players of equal skill on both sides of the board, and is not meant to replace tactics.  It's simply an additional tool that we use to help us build army lists.  Your example of the grenade launchers fits in to this, as players with equal skill are going to have a difficult time of getting rear-armor shots with a grenade launcher.  What it comes down to is that math-hammer often relies on the worst-case scenario, which will often be the most common scenario players see in a game.  For example, most calculations against vehicles are done against the front armor, because that's what you'll mostly see.  Sure, you'll get occasional side and rear armor shots, but these aren't the most common occurrence.

Third, if we don't use math-hammer on a medium like a message board, there isn't any other concrete frame of reference to revert to.  You said it youself; each individual game cannot be predicted, and therefore we also can't discuss it.  Math-hammer is the best general model we have for these kinds of discussions.  We don't use it as a be-all, end-all, but do find it awfully handy.  Like a Dremel tool.  I won't use it to clean my dishes, but I still love it.

Posted By Iorek on 06/29/2007 5:57 AM
OK, Soulmage, I admit I was a little snippy last night, but your tone irked me.  Anyway, I'm going to be polite now.

I understand your point about not being able to determine one die roll with statistics.  If I were to roll one die right now, and get a 5, and then rolled it again, I'd still have a 1/6 chance of getting a 5.  With math-hammer (a venerable relative of theory-hammer), we're not trying to prove that you'll need at least 12 fu-cannon shots to down an x-tank.  What we try to do is give people an idea of how many (ballpark) fu-cannons you'll want to take to be able to reliable down an x-tank. 

Math-hammer does assume players of equal skill on both sides of the board, and is not meant to replace tactics.  It's simply an additional tool that we use to help us build army lists.  Your example of the grenade launchers fits in to this, as players with equal skill are going to have a difficult time of getting rear-armor shots with a grenade launcher.  What it comes down to is that math-hammer often relies on the worst-case scenario, which will often be the most common scenario players see in a game.  For example, most calculations against vehicles are done against the front armor, because that's what you'll mostly see.  Sure, you'll get occasional side and rear armor shots, but these aren't the most common occurrence.

Third, if we don't use math-hammer on a medium like a message board, there isn't any other concrete frame of reference to revert to.  You said it youself; each individual game cannot be predicted, and therefore we also can't discuss it.  Math-hammer is the best general model we have for these kinds of discussions.  We don't use it as a be-all, end-all, but do find it awfully handy.  Like a Dremel tool.  I won't use it to clean my dishes, but I still love it.

Fair enough. . .

 

Obviously you don't work in the insurance industry.

Insurance operates on a principle of aggregation of risk.  It deals in the law of large numbers.  In your example, at a very high level. . . .what an insurer does if figure out the expected lifespan of ALL base jumping, fire-act participants.  It then charges them ALL exactly the same rate knowing that while some may die early. . . others will live long fruitful lives, paying premiums all the while.

In reality. . . so many factors are included in the calculation that it is 1,000 times more complicated than that. . . actuaries figure how any a huge number of factors influence those probabilities and apply premium adjustments for each. . .  age, race, sex, where you live, maybe even stuff like credit history, previous claims experience, etc.  But if you could get 2 identical people in 2 identical situations. . . they would have exactly the same premium because insurance plays on expectations of what will happen to a group.  Premiums appear personalized because of their complexity, but really you're getting the same premium as every other person out there matching your risk characteristics.  The fact that it is such a complicated process to figure that out is why actuaries make such huge money.

See look, math works in real life too! Imagine that.

 

Edit:

So, using Colonel Ellios example that we can't play enough games to statistically generate useful data or something to that effect, or we don't roll enough dice...

How do the odds in "craps" work?

Posted By Iorek on 06/29/2007 5:57 AM
I understand your point about not being able to determine one die roll with statistics.  If I were to roll one die right now, and get a 5, and then rolled it again, I'd still have a 1/6 chance of getting a 5.

While it is true, when rolling the die a second time, the probability of rolling a 5 would be 1/6, the probability, however, of rolling a 5 on two consecutive die rolls is still 1/36.

Now how does this "math hammer" apply to a real world game of 40k.  Well, lets apply this to my question above with an IG Grenade Launcher  (a question that I'm still waiting for Soulmage to answer).

During army construction and during game play you are simply a decision engine.  You gather data and make what you believe are the proper decisions to enable you to have your desired goal, i.e. winning the game.

So during a game of 40k, it is my turn.  I have an IG Grenade Launcher in what I believe is range to an opposing Falcon's front armor.  The squad is armed with a GL and 9 Lasguns.  Decision time, using my knowledge of the rules, the strength of a GL, and the front armor value of a Falcon I determine that my GL is indeed capable of killing the Falcon.

So armed with only that knowledge I decide on my tactics.  My GL can kill the Falcon, I am in range, no need to move.  During the shooting phase I will surely destroy the Falcon with my trusty Grenade Launcher.

Shooting phase arrives, I fail to destroy the Falcon, and curse the "Dice Gods" for my bad luck.  My opponent subsequently annihilates the squad on his turn.

Now, if I was also armed with some statistical knowledge when I was thinking about my choices during my movement phase I would see that the odds of destroying the Falcon with a GL are 1/2 chance of hitting * 1/6 chance of glancing * 1/6 chance of rolling a 6 to destroy on glance table * 1/6 chance or re-rolling that 6 to destroy on glance table for a whopping 1/432 chance of actually destroying the Falcon with my GL.

Armed with that knowledge, I decide to not sit and simply shoot at the Falcon and move my squad.  But where do I move it, what do I want it to end up doing?  What odds will I be happy with that will cause me to actually shoot the Falcon?  How can I improve my odds for that matter?

More decisions, man this game is hard.

Point is, you use your knowledge of the rules, your knowledge of your army, your knowledge of your opponents army, the current game state, your knowledge of statistics, etc. and apply all that knowledge to help you make the best decisions during game play and during army construction.

Anyone who ignores statistics could not possibly purposely make the "best"  decisions.  Yes they can stumble onto the correct choices, yes they can be incredibly lucky.  But in this game we strive during competition to determine who is the better player, and the better player is the one who is making the better decisions.

From the guy that caused this thread to metamorph into "I'm smarter then thou".