Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You can absolutely quantify these things. It'll help assess after the Mathhammer.

For example, Flayed Ones don't excel against ALL targets, but still do excellently against most infantry. Once you add in their Infiltrate, Fear (lame), and Deep Strike, they're actually pretty ridiculous.

The "Mathhammer" on Flayed ones is ridiculous. Wanna know what happened after my friend group played against Flayed Ones a few times? They learned to shoot the crap out of them before they do anything. So, sure, they're a decent distraction unit, but you're paying 13 points per model for that. Mathhammer doesn't account for things like that.

True, but mathhammer can tell you that flayed ones are incredibly dangerous.

Mathhammer can also tell you that flayed ones lack a good transport (for a CC unit) and are reasonably slow.

Mathhammer can tell you how tough flayed ones are.

By looking at that data, it's easy to see that flayed ones are good but not amazing. They punch like a truck against a lot of unit types, but are slow. Expect them to get shot at, but they can absorb fire from your shootier units or wraiths, being so dangerous. They also take a decent amount of firepower to bring down.

13 Point distraction carnifex? Yes please!

"Why are people still crying about RP"?

Why are so many people DEFENDING it in this thread?

Amazing. Next time you play try playing without RP and giving the opponent RP for free to see why people complain.

 Tyberos the Red Wake wrote:
"Why are people still crying about RP"?

Why are so many people DEFENDING it in this thread?

Amazing. Next time you play try playing without RP and giving the opponent RP for free to see why people complain.

This.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You can absolutely quantify these things. It'll help assess after the Mathhammer.

You cannot. You can make more or less well founded qualitative judgments of them, but not quantitative ones. Which is to say that you cannot rate units relative to one another using mathhammer alone, unless they are identical in terms of special rules (and such things as base size of model, weapon position on model, and so forth).

Alcibiades wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You can absolutely quantify these things. It'll help assess after the Mathhammer.

You cannot. You can make more or less well founded qualitative judgments of them, but not quantitative ones. Which is to say that you cannot rate units relative to one another using mathhammer alone, unless they are identical in terms of special rules (and such things as base size of model, weapon position on model, and so forth).

Yes you can. Compare similar units in terms of effectiveness, see what it loses to, and then see how much you pay for various abilities. It isn't hard to do.

It is like in the Warp Talon thread. Mathhammer shows Warp Talons are inferior to Raptors in pretty much all but one or two situations. We then look at what the unit pays for Daemon and the Blind ability. Based off the fact that the Blind ability is basically never going to go off, having a 5++ doesn't justify them being almost twice as expensive, and the Lightning Claws not helping shows directly you can quantify Warp Talons suck for those abilities as well.

Concerning mathhammer: Is it possible that perhaps it's not one extreme or the other, as many forum debates seems to degenerate to, but rather that the truth lies somewhere in the middle?

In this case I believe mathhammer can be used to give a good preliminary assessment of a models worth compared to another model factoring in points costs but also that mathhammer can not be used to factor in every single circumstance that may make a model more valuable than it's initial stat line, weapons and rules may indicate. In many cases mathahmmer is a valuable tool but it can't account for everything so at a certain point good old-fashioned human judgement has to play a role. And that's where other problems appear because judgement is an opinion and we all know about opinions on the internet...

Concerning RP and Necrons in general: I honestly feel that even without 4+++ Necron are a solid army all around, heck even without 5+++ they still seem fairly solid. I had a battle last night against CAD necron and they thoroughly trounced my Eldar. I wasn't running cheese mind you but I did have a ghost glaive wraithknight and it took him 2 turns to kill it in 1500 points. Annihilation barge did great work against it. I know I rolled poorly and he rolled well so dice are a factor but he didn't even break a sweat to deal with it. Catacomb command barges are absolutely brutal to deal with cause chariot rules are great. I think short of having to put up with the absolute cheesiest builds (of which I believe those should be nerfed) I don't think Necron need 4+++ to be competitive.

This of course coming from a non-tournament player so apply salt.

The problem with ignoring mathhammer is that this is a dice based game, and your local meta will have a lot to do with it. People throw anecdotal or exaggerated claims around all the time, but with math hammer we can stay grounded in the reasonable.

Here are some examples I've seen of people making wild claims;
Jump infantry can assault Turn 2 on a 6' board without the enemy moving forwards.

1 Dominion squad can destroy a Riptide.

A IG blob can absorb an entire army's worth of firepower without dying and can defeat anything in melee.

Mutilators require 200-300 points worth of firepower to destroy.

Riptides aren't that tough to kill.

Darklances are good anti-tank weapons.


Without mathhammer, we wouldn't be able to discuss these terms. Sometimes squads have abilities that are hard to quantify, like outflank, deepstrike, or something else. This isn't the norm though. Most of a WK's abilities (toughness, stomp, firepower, speed) can be quantified and compared to other units in it's point range.

Mathhammer is useful when comparing the combat abilities of one unit vs another similar type unit (ie, assault vs assault, shooty vs shooty) in a heads up battle....what it fails to cover is how those units perform as part of a larger force, which is often overlooked. Still, its a good method to determine if a particular unit is balanced against its peers, but it should not be the end-all be-all of unit comparison. If GW used a little mathhammer when developing their units, we'd have a lot less to fuss about.

Akiasura I think we're on the same page here. In short my belief is that mathhammer is very important and can be used quite effectively but it is also can't be the only answer as you've pointed out there are certain things it can't quantify.

Classiccarraway, I think you're right there, it does work best comparing units of similar types but I'd also take it a step farther and say that even if two units are a different type you can still use mathhammer to find out other things about them. For example: Ignoring all other factors you can measure the survivability of a necron warrior vs a khorne berserker. Both units fill very different roles but since they both have a toughness value, armour value and in one case RP you can quantify their survivability despite being very different units. That does only give you a partial picture however, as their survivability is not their only thing to take into consideration.

 Tyberos the Red Wake wrote:
"Why are people still crying about RP"?

Why are so many people DEFENDING it in this thread?

Amazing. Next time you play try playing without RP and giving the opponent RP for free to see why people complain.

Considering a basic warrior costs very close to a space marine with chapter tactics, and better all around stats, and better weapon options I am not sure 'free' is free. That it comes on the models already is not the same as being free, its considered in their cost.

This is like saying next time you play marines, give your chapter tactics to the other player for free and play without it.

comparing units across different army books is often difficult because part of the cost of a model is supposedly factored in by how it fits into its own army list.

Point cost of a model is not supposed to be mathematicly balanced. It is set up my sales department to drive sales. This edition we want to sell these models that people did not buy as much, ok make rules and make these models undercosted to sell them...

blaktoof wrote:

 Tyberos the Red Wake wrote:
"Why are people still crying about RP"?

Why are so many people DEFENDING it in this thread?

Amazing. Next time you play try playing without RP and giving the opponent RP for free to see why people complain.

Considering a basic warrior costs very close to a space marine with chapter tactics, and better all around stats, and better weapon options I am not sure 'free' is free. That it comes on the models already is not the same as being free, its considered in their cost.

This is like saying next time you play marines, give your chapter tactics to the other player for free and play without it.

comparing units across different army books is often difficult because part of the cost of a model is supposedly factored in by how it fits into its own army list.

If I'm not mistaken it is a one point difference between a basic marine and a necron warrior. And as for "better stats all around" that's not quite true. They have the same stats except for leadership and Initiative. Necron drop to I2 and gain Ld10 whereas marines drop to Ld8 and gain I4, it's a direct stat swap. The only place that the space marine is better is in his 3+ save vs the necron warriors 4+. But then you factor in the 5+++ and suddenly the necron warrior has the same survivability and at Decurion is better except against AP4. At AP3 and up the warrior is still more survivable than the marine cause his 5+++ or 4+++ counts as a quasi invuln save cause it's FnP+. Marines have no invuln saves on their linesmen at all, warriors do. Chapter tactics are a bonus that marines have but how good they'll serve you is based on what tactics you have, it's entirely possible that a chapter tactic you have may be less than stellar against necrons. As for weapon options you are right, marines have access to it. Operative word here being access. They pay for it. You can't look at he cost of a marine and just assume he has a PG. A PG more than doubles the cost of that model, he doesn't become any more survivable, in fact he is a danger to himself, all for the sake of a single or maybe double-tapped st7 ap2 shot. If you bring any special weapons into the discussion you'll then have to add their cost to the unit and then you see some big point hikes in favour of the necron warriors. It's also worth noting warriors have gauss, a very handy rule to be sure that negates their requirement to have special weapons to take down vehicles and T9+ creatures. Negating the need to have dedicated anti-tank weapons in their units is a boon that should also be accounted for, not to mention if you fire your SM melta gun at a tank then the 4 other guys with bolters just stand around doing nothing, maybe throw a single krak grenade if it can hurt it? And if that melta gun misses then you've wasted that units shooting. A warrior unit firing at a vehicle every single model has the capability of hurting the vehicle, no one is wasting a shot. Now I know they need 6 to glance and the melta gun has a better chance to pen but I'll let the mathhammer junkies find out what the odds of a unit of warriors in rapid fire range vs a melta gun is of popping a tank. But in todays HP, glance to death meta I think gauss is a nice bonus.

I know it cost more points but to rub salt in the wound necron also have access to the ghost ark. Adding to the survivability of the unit with a one-time-till-pen 13AV, skimmer, jink, open topped for shooty goodness and the flayer array that for some reason is salvo even though it isn't affected by the vehicle. And once out of the vehicle it can start rebuilding those very survivable warriors back up to their starting strength. It's a unit that synergizes well. I fought that the other night with a stalker behind it for BS5 goodness. Wow did that unit put some hurt on anything that got close. I had to give up on that side of the map cause they had it locked down.

Now Blacktoof I don't intend to say entirely that marines suck and necron warriors are OP. Marines do have some good things going for them and they are not a terrible codex either, they can hold their own with a good list and good general but I do feel warriors should be given the credit they are due, they aren't terrible by any stretch of the imagination. Suffice to say I've heard plenty of marine players groan that they have to take tac squads (though many I see now take min scouts so they can skip troops and go to the juicy part of their dex if they run CAD) but I have never heard a necron player groan about taking warriors, any necron player I've faced has been more than happy to slap a few units of warriors on the table, that may be a very un-scientific way to at least consider the values of the respective units.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Filch wrote:
Point cost of a model is not supposed to be mathematicly balanced. It is set up my sales department to drive sales. This edition we want to sell these models that people did not buy as much, ok make rules and make these models undercosted to sell them...

^^^ Also this. Sadly GW is not innocent of making what they want to sell awesome or taking a mediocre unit and slapping it on as a tax to a formation so players are forced to buy a unit they would otherwise not use.

blaktoof wrote:

 Tyberos the Red Wake wrote:
"Why are people still crying about RP"?

Why are so many people DEFENDING it in this thread?

Amazing. Next time you play try playing without RP and giving the opponent RP for free to see why people complain.

Considering a basic warrior costs very close to a space marine with chapter tactics, and better all around stats, and better weapon options I am not sure 'free' is free. That it comes on the models already is not the same as being free, its considered in their cost.

This is like saying next time you play marines, give your chapter tactics to the other player for free and play without it.

comparing units across different army books is often difficult because part of the cost of a model is supposedly factored in by how it fits into its own army list.

Then compare the cost of a Necron warrior to the cost of a Chaos space marine. Then you can give your opponent your 4+++ and they can hand over all the wonderful things that they get the priveledge of paying for.

Comparing anything to CSM doesn't tell you much, unless it is surprising to learn that CSM are almost universally overcosted.

SM are supposed to be a better book, so you see it getting thrown out as a comparable model more often. I know for a long time, everyone assumed the game was based around the tactical marine.