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Well, true. Wasn't thinking, for some reason I thought 3+ was 50%. O.O

It is late. That is my excuse. >.>

Scott-S6 wrote:The problem with the maths hammer that most people do is that they simply work out the average result. They don't workout the reliability of that result or how likely it is compared to other results (probability spread).

e.g. the average roll on 1D6x2 is 7 but all of the results are equally likely whereas the average on 2D6 is 7 but 7 is more likely than all of the other results and way more likely than 2 or 12.

This is important but much harder to account for. Math hammer of averages doesn't take this into account.

That's only really an issue in list building. The Punisher is a far more reliable damage dealer than a vanilla Russ, because the latter can hit or miss completely, whereas the Punisher has 20 shots.

I use math hammer when writing my list to see how powerful something is, so if I am making an AT unit or vehicle I will check out the odds of scoring a favourable result (for a transport it is explosion, destroyed or immobilized, for an actual tank it is destroyed, explosion, or weapon destroyed) if the odds are good for the price I will take it over a slightly less efficient option. In the end math hammer is used to see what is generally more efficient and its results shouldn't be taken as an absolute truth.

I've used geometry to figure out when I should shoot frag grenades instead of krak (generally when you can touch 3 or more models with the marker) and some guidance on target priority for my ordnance (infantry first, walkers last, MCs and tanks in between, modified by circumstances). Off table of course, since I don't to make my opponent wait on me.

Joey wrote:The Punisher is a far more reliable damage dealer than a vanilla Russ, because the latter can hit or miss completely, whereas the Punisher has 20 shots.

Yes, it's more reliable, and it does less damage. It does reliably less damage...

In all seriousness, though, having a smaller deviation is a benefit, but that benefit only goes so far. I mean, imagine there was a weapon out there that was a heavy 1 Ap- weapon that automatically hit, and automatically wounded, and cost your guardsmen or tac marine only 100 points to field. In this case the fact that the weapon is reliable doesn't nearly cover the fact that its damage output to cost ratio is very, very poor. While the punisher may not be as extreme as this hypothetical, the trend is still true. In this case, raw killing power is better, even if it's more variable, than something that's more consistent, but always does crummy damage.

I do to a lesser extent, but for the sake of time I don't dwell on it to much.

The thing to remember with mathhammer is that it's super coarse when it comes to fieldwork. You can only increase the number of meltaguns on a single target in units of 1, for example. Likewise, most decisions are so coarse as to make them more than a little obvious (should I sit still and shoot the meltagun at front armor, or move 6" and shoot at side armor?).

The only real degree of fineness comes at the entire army level (which two of my opponents things do I want to make sure die this turn?), and even then, the line between duh moves and moves that are so subtle that they are within the coarseness of the resolution mechanic itself (a dice which can only roll integers 1 to 6) is so insanely thin so as to be non-existent.

To put it another way, most decisions are either so duh that you don't have to think about them, or are so tiny in their difference that it's well within the deviation of the dice themselves. The only time math on the table really matters is those rare instances where neither of these are true.

I perfer to use dicehammer.

Hit 6 Razerbacks with a Doom scythe, oh hey I glance on 1's and auto hit! 3 explosions, 1 immobile, 1 weapon destroyed, 1 stunned.

I try to do it in less of a vaccuum environment but it gives a better average for me on what dice will do then exact averages (Just have to throw down a few times)

Yes, I use mathhammer when building a list. I go by "average MEQ kills per action" and try to hit a mark of at least 15, army-wide. At the table? It doesn't really have a place, unless you're pretty good at calculating probabilities in your head on the fly. Above all else, be considerate to your opponent and don't make them wait for you to do your turn while you whip out a calculator, legal notepad, and burn through three #2 pencils while you painstakingly figure out whether it would be better to rapid fire or charge.

This thread did get me curious though, to compare "real results" (in a vacuum, naturally, since I'm nowhere near a game at the moment). So I just rolled every single one of my dice 60 times (a fair sample).

The results were unsurprising. I damn near touched 17% for each individual result (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6) - and it was close enough that I'd call the variance a rounding error since it's 16.66666~% chance of hitting each result, and we say 17% for convenience. Applied math, however, is about as far away from "convenient" as it's possible to get.

I'm not going to gather up my 100+ dice and roll them in pairs to see if I get the same results for 2d6. I'm really not that interested in this topic.

That said, I'll still sacrifice a die to the Blowtorch God if it rolls poorly twice in a row. I'm superstitious like that - and I firmly believe that sacrificing one die as an example makes the rest perform better. This is despite me absolutely knowing better.

"But Commissar Chesh, you rolled us!"

Heh.

Joey wrote:

Scott-S6 wrote:The problem with the maths hammer that most people do is that they simply work out the average result. They don't workout the reliability of that result or how likely it is compared to other results (probability spread).

e.g. the average roll on 1D6x2 is 7 but all of the results are equally likely whereas the average on 2D6 is 7 but 7 is more likely than all of the other results and way more likely than 2 or 12.

This is important but much harder to account for. Math hammer of averages doesn't take this into account.

That's only really an issue in list building. The Punisher is a far more reliable damage dealer than a vanilla Russ, because the latter can hit or miss completely, whereas the Punisher has 20 shots.

The funniest thing is that, math-hammer wise, a 180-point punisher is outperformed in sheer damage output by 180 points of lasguns vs MEQ.

That is to say:

Punisher: 23 Str 5 shots, hitting on 4s = 12 hits = 8 wounds = 2-3 failed saves at 24"

Platoon with 3 squads:
With FRFSRF on the blob: 64 Str 3 shots = 32 hits = 11 wounds = 3-4 failed saves at 24"
Without FRFSRF: 34 Str 3 shots = 17 hits = 6 wounds = 1-2 failed saves at 24"

Also the platoon is more durable and scoring.