Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

mercer wrote:

You will get no where near 75% of the army coming down on turn 2 as you need a 4+ which is only 50% chance as it is, if you've got 50% chance to get a unit then you won't get 75% chance of the army.

You're forgetting the re-roll BA get to reserve rolls for Descent of Angels.

No I'm not. You still won't get 75% of the army.

.5+(1-.5).5=.75

Which means the average outcome is 75% of your army. Don't make me bust out Minitab.

You won't get 75% of the army down first turn and I've no idea what Minitab is..you can theory all you like, it's a dice game at the end of the day. I've played against DoA several times and you're looking at the most half the army coming down first turn, average is about 1/3.

mercer wrote:You won't get 75% of the army down first turn and I've no idea what Minitab is..you can theory all you like, it's a dice game at the end of the day. I've played against DoA several times and you're looking at the most half the army coming down first turn, average is about 1/3.

That sounds like monumental bad dice ... A 4+ with re-roll should give you 50% anyway and with rerolling fails you should get nearer to 75%. Averaging 1/3 on a 4+ with reroll is monumentally bad luck ...

Well, no. You won't get ANY units down in Turn 1. In Turn 2 however, statistically speaking 75% of your reserves (provided they have a jump pack) should arrive.

L. Wrex

ruminator wrote:

mercer wrote:You won't get 75% of the army down first turn and I've no idea what Minitab is..you can theory all you like, it's a dice game at the end of the day. I've played against DoA several times and you're looking at the most half the army coming down first turn, average is about 1/3.

That sounds like monumental bad dice ... A 4+ with re-roll should give you 50% anyway and with rerolling fails you should get nearer to 75%. Averaging 1/3 on a 4+ with reroll is monumentally bad luck ...

Over several games?

Lycaeus Wrex wrote:Well, no. You won't get ANY units down in Turn 1. In Turn 2 however, statistically speaking 75% of your reserves (provided they have a jump pack) should arrive.

L. Wrex

Ok smarty pants

Umm.... a 4+ with a reroll has a 1/4 chance of failing. A 3+ with a reroll has 1/9 (not related to DoA, but though I would say it anyway).

Think about it this way. You have 4 units coming from reserve. You roll for all of them, and 2 come in (1/2). Right? Then you reroll for the 2 that failed, and one of them passes on the reroll (1/2 again). So out of 4 squads, 3 came in. 3/4.

Forget it, this guy's looking anecdotally, and not looking at the math.

Forgot maths, like I said it's a dice game and doesn't always go on how things are worked out via a calculator. Practice is loads better over theory.

True, things dont always go according to averages. But, on average, 3/4 of a DoA army will come in on t2. It could be less, but it could be more.

Its useful to at least consider the most likely outcome in a given situation during play, it allows you to judge things far better. For example, one grot COULD kill 10THSS in CC. But will it ever happen in practice? No.

One Grot killing 10 Terminators in combat isn't possible because it doesn't have 10 attacks combined shooting and assault, and if the Terminators did lose combat they would take no retreat saves maximum of the Grots attacks.

mercer wrote:One Grot killing 10 Terminators in combat isn't possible because it doesn't have 10 attacks combined shooting and assault, and if the Terminators did lose combat they would take no retreat saves maximum of the Grots attacks.

... well it is possible, over several turns.

..with all Terminators missing to hit and to wound? That's a lot of 1's lol.

mercer wrote:..with all Terminators missing to hit and to wound? That's a lot of 1's lol.

Yes, but the point stands!

And I have seen rolling where a grot could kill ten terminators...

mercer wrote:..with all Terminators missing to hit and to wound? That's a lot of 1's lol.

Same thing with only 1/3 of your DoA army coming coming in, you've rolled badly.

I'm just saying that yes, although it is a dice game, and things rarely go exactly according to averages, its fair to make assumptions on an army's performance in any given situation by looking at what would happen on average rolling, which is why, when playing DoA, you should assume that around 3/4 of your army will come in on t2. Whether more or less come in is irrelevant, because it just depends on how hot your dice are in that given game, it doesnt change the fact that, statistically, 3/4 of the army will come in.

We've gotten a bit OT here, but I still stand by DoA as the best BA counter to mech IG.

mercer wrote:Forgot maths, like I said it's a dice game and doesn't always go on how things are worked out via a calculator. Practice is loads better over theory.

I can't believe someone would say this.

Of course you won't get 75% of your reserves every game on turn 2 on a 4+ with rerolls.

But what will happen, is that you will average across all your games (provided its a sufficiently large sample size) 75% of your reserves turn 2. That essentially means you will get just as many games where you get 50% of your forces as you will 100%.

Another way to look at it is that you have a 75% chance of getting any single unit. That is better than other armies rolling on turn 3 with a 3+!.

As was mentioned, a grot might kill a terminator. But you still take the terminator based on what's likely to happen i.e: the terminator survives the grots attack and kills it.

Saying that you should "forget maths" is not going to help anyone, as you need to take the chance of getting outcomes into account when making decisions. Like it or not, the last thing you should do is forget about maths.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

mercer wrote:..with all Terminators missing to hit and to wound? That's a lot of 1's lol.

Who cares how many 1's that is, aren't we supposed to forget about the math saying that will not likely happen?

Dracos wrote:

mercer wrote:Forgot maths, like I said it's a dice game and doesn't always go on how things are worked out via a calculator. Practice is loads better over theory.

I can't believe someone would say this.

Of course you won't get 75% of your reserves every game on turn 2 on a 4+ with rerolls.

But what will happen, is that you will average across all your games (provided its a sufficiently large sample size) 75% of your reserves turn 2. That essentially means you will get just as many games where you get 50% of your forces as you will 100%.

Another way to look at it is that you have a 75% chance of getting any single unit. That is better than other armies rolling on turn 3 with a 3+!.

As was mentioned, a grot might kill a terminator. But you still take the terminator based on what's likely to happen i.e: the terminator survives the grots attack and kills it.

Saying that you should "forget maths" is not going to help anyone, as you need to take the chance of getting outcomes into account when making decisions. Like it or not, the last thing you should do is forget about maths.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

mercer wrote:..with all Terminators missing to hit and to wound? That's a lot of 1's lol.

Who cares how many 1's that is, aren't we supposed to forget about the math saying that will not likely happen?

Did you read what you put? First you're saying you cannot believe what I said in shock horror and then agreeing with me that you won't get 75% of your army down second turn - we're not talking about average games! Just one game only! Why would you look at average of games for?

The point is logic, the logic is the mathshammer is rubbish and you won't get 75% of your units (don't even include average games!) and a full squad of Terminators aren't going to get hammered by a single Grot are they? It's called being realistic, something you're failing on.

......

The likelyhood of getting down a single unit is 75%, right?

So, on average, you will get 75% of your army down on t2.

Realistically, if you have a 75% chance of getting a single unit, you will get around 75% of your army.

Where are the flaws in this logic?

Jabbdo wrote:
......

The likelyhood of getting down a single unit is 75%, right?

So, on average, you will get 75% of your army down on t2.

Realistically, if you have a 75% chance of getting a single unit, you will get around 75% of your army.

Where are the flaws in this logic?

what Jabbdo said ^

I'm not entirely sure how you can argue with a simple piece of statistics like this. No one is saying that you'll definitely get 75% of your army on turn two every game, but it is an entirely reasonable expectation.

back on topic, blood lance is an extremely effective counter to a mech army castling up. you can expect to hit two or three vehicles, and maybe more depending on how tightly packed they are. my list would probably involve a librarian, three assault squads with twin melta and fist, at least one vanguard squad to tie up whatever you bust out of chimeras, and a couple of priests for their FNP/FC bubbles. with descent of angels you can deepstrike accurately right up in his face, and apart from plasma or melta weapons he will find it very difficult to take out thirty or forty feel no pain marines.

grrr

Yeah I agree it's reasonable, what I'm saying practically it doesn't happen and that's why people shouldn't rely on mathshammer all the time. On average you're getting more like 50% - 40% - this is based upon playing DoA 4 times in a row.

If you are getting 50-40% thats just piss-poor luck.

Look, statistically, you WILL get 75% of your army down. Full stop. There is no way under or around this fact.

Of course you wont get exactly 75% EVERY game, but as you statically WILL get 75%, its fair to assume that you will get around 75%.

Same thing if you're taking saves for terminators, lets say you take 6 saves, statistically you will fail one, so why would you assume that you would fail 3? Thats just shooting yourself in the foot by making random assumptions, which is what you are doing if you assume that 40% of your DoA army will come down on t2.

mercer wrote:Yeah I agree it's reasonable, what I'm saying practically it doesn't happen and that's why people shouldn't rely on mathshammer all the time. On average you're getting more like 50% - 40% - this is based upon playing DoA 4 times in a row.

The problem with this is it's all anecdotal evidence. Statistics and math say that it's 75% it's best to go with that, if you want to say that in practice that's not what you're actually going to get that's fine but then it comes down to different peoples experiences, as a blood angels player I can tell you that on a regular basis, not once or twice but frequently I get 90-100% of my army on turn 2. I've also got nothing once(choosing not to re-roll after about the 3th failure) so saying you're likely to get 40-50% of your army doesn't work or I could argue that you can rely on getting 100%. That doesn't work so you stick to the law of averages when discussing a strategy. you could say that you should plan for 50% if you want to plan for crappy dice and make sure you have that contingency covered in terms of strategy, but if you're talking about and debating the feasibility and likelihood of an action, use the numbers or everyone can say "Well I rolled 5 ones with lascannons, therefore lascannons do not work."

mercer wrote:Yeah I agree it's reasonable, what I'm saying practically it doesn't happen and that's why people shouldn't rely on mathshammer all the time. On average you're getting more like 50% - 40% - this is based upon playing DoA 4 times in a row.

Well if it happens in 4 games then is bound to happen the same way of 100....

Or you could be a real man and not play BA haha

I'm looking at you deep striking Land Raiders.

Tylerkabana wrote:Or you could be a real man and not play BA haha

I'm looking at you deep striking Land Raiders.

Which no one uses. Unless they're foolish; then it wouldn't matter which codex they played.

This is all also assuming the IG player doesnt have a Master of the Fleet on the table. Or you'll be coming in on 5+ reroll. Just saying.