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But are you building a tzoo out of your enemies?

 vipoid wrote:

But don't worry, I'm sure there's a Sun Tzu quote that will outline the tactics necessary to emerge victorious when two armies spontaneously materialise within full sight and range of one another.

Got a solid chuckle out of me

If you do not think that the Art of War quotes can apply to 40k, I respect your opinion, but I humbly ask you not to post. This thread is for people who are making the connection and trying to make better 40k decisions.

"He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight."

I believe this means proper target selection. The ability to select the correct target is vital in this game. Picking the right target involves a small amount of math. No matter how much you may hate math, it is a part of 40k. If you understand the percentages, you will also know when not to fight. It is pivotal to quickly do the math that usually revolves around 16.6%, 33%, and 50%. I will do my best to simplify this; it is easier than you think.

16% is 1 out of 6, 33% is 1 out of 3, and 50% is 1 out of 2. If you learn how to divide by 2, 3, and 6, I guarantee you will win more games. The most common army in 40k is Space Marines. Marines are a 33% army. If they have to shoot something, 33% will miss on average. If they have to make a save roll, they have a 33% chance of losing a wound on average if the weapon has no AP.

For example, the new Eradicator unit that shoots six melta shots. You should know that on average, you will get four hits as six divided by 3 equals 2, which is the number of misses. Most people view this unit as anti-vehicle, but it does an excellent job on multi-wound infantry also. Wounding on 2+ and ignoring their armor, you can expect at least 3 dead intercessors. Whereas if you shoot at a vehicle, your wounding on a 3+ (4/3=1.3 misses), which means 2-3 should get through causing 7-10 wounds on average.

You can practice the percentages by creating scenarios and rolling the dice. You do not need a table and miniatures to do that. You know what units you are taking in your list, and you can roll against the stats of the most popular units you think you will see at a tournament. That way, you gain experience without even playing the game but you learn the damage output of your units. We all have seen lousy dice rolls, but you should judge a unit based around its average.

Learning the averages and using that knowledge to attack the appropriate target is knowing when to fight!

I think you've taken too narrow of a view, CKO, ignoring the "when not to attack" part.

For example, you can calculate the best target you have available, but you do not factor-in your pursuit of victory points... the ultimate deciding factor in whether or not you lose the battle.

For example, it is worth attacking / fighting when this will deny your opponent VP, or gain VP for yourself. If you have the opportunity to gain VP by *Not Attacking* such as by advancing a unit to within an objective and thus be able to score points... or if you have a unit incapable of eliminating an opponent from an objective through attack, and you would lose too much to assault, again, an advance option (not fighting) will achieve your overall goal of increasing your own VP, or denying your opponent's.

"In this way," decreed The Tree, "victory is achieved."

Ahhh, another Freshman Philo major/ROTC student applying Sun Tzu to everything.

You left out MBA grad

 greatbigtree wrote:
I think you've taken too narrow of a view, CKO, ignoring the "when not to attack" part.

For example, you can calculate the best target you have available, but you do not factor-in your pursuit of victory points... the ultimate deciding factor in whether or not you lose the battle.

I agree with you I am not mentioning all of the variables. I am a very offensive-minded player and I think the first thing to learn is the damage output of your units. The quote has the potential to open up a productive conversation but I am focusing on one thing because we have people who do not see how this is a tactical conversation.

 greatbigtree wrote:
For example, it is worth attacking / fighting when this will deny your opponent VP, or gain VP for yourself. If you have the opportunity to gain VP by *Not Attacking* such as by advancing a unit to within an objective and thus be able to score points... or if you have a unit incapable of eliminating an opponent from an objective through attack, and you would lose too much to assault, again, an advance option (not fighting) will achieve your overall goal of increasing your own VP, or denying your opponent's.

"In this way," decreed The Tree, "victory is achieved."

I agree with the Tree! Objectives make you take risk, despite the averages. I may know that my damage output is not enough but I will attempt to kill the unit with multiple units if it means a 10 point swing in my favor due to them losing an objective.

 CKO wrote:

Spoiler:

If you do not think that the Art of War quotes can apply to 40k, I respect your opinion, but I humbly ask you not to post. This thread is for people who are making the connection and trying to make better 40k decisions.

"He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight."

I believe this means proper target selection. The ability to select the correct target is vital in this game. Picking the right target involves a small amount of math. No matter how much you may hate math, it is a part of 40k. If you understand the percentages, you will also know when not to fight. It is pivotal to quickly do the math that usually revolves around 16.6%, 33%, and 50%. I will do my best to simplify this; it is easier than you think.

16% is 1 out of 6, 33% is 1 out of 3, and 50% is 1 out of 2. If you learn how to divide by 2, 3, and 6, I guarantee you will win more games. The most common army in 40k is Space Marines. Marines are a 33% army. If they have to shoot something, 33% will miss on average. If they have to make a save roll, they have a 33% chance of losing a wound on average if the weapon has no AP.

For example, the new Eradicator unit that shoots six melta shots. You should know that on average, you will get four hits as six divided by 3 equals 2, which is the number of misses. Most people view this unit as anti-vehicle, but it does an excellent job on multi-wound infantry also. Wounding on 2+ and ignoring their armor, you can expect at least 3 dead intercessors. Whereas if you shoot at a vehicle, your wounding on a 3+ (4/3=1.3 misses), which means 2-3 should get through causing 7-10 wounds on average.

You can practice the percentages by creating scenarios and rolling the dice. You do not need a table and miniatures to do that. You know what units you are taking in your list, and you can roll against the stats of the most popular units you think you will see at a tournament. That way, you gain experience without even playing the game but you learn the damage output of your units. We all have seen lousy dice rolls, but you should judge a unit based around its average.

Learning the averages and using that knowledge to attack the appropriate target is knowing when to fight!

So the advice I am getting here is:
-understand grade school level math
-it is preferable to shoot anti-tank weapons at tanks

There is a implication here that people do not understand division. It is coming across really pretentious, and there isn't a display of intellectual or tactical depth at hand. Additionally, the post does not show a connection to the quote; the choice of fighting or not fighting is mentioned but not addressed in any significant way. If this is really about connecting the quote to 40k that should be more than a tangential sidenote.

Yeah you're not going to get anything out of this you wouldn't already get with a couple of games of 40k and some basic math.

The game isn't fluid so you really can't apply fluid thoughts.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

So the advice I am getting here is:
-understand grade school level math
-it is preferable to shoot anti-tank weapons at tanks

There is a implication here that people do not understand division. It is really pretentious, and there is no intellectual or tactical depth at hand. Additionally, nothing in this post has any connection to the quote.

I am assuming you feel the way you do because I said, "learn how to divide". Simple mathmatics is the first step in evaluating how good a unit is. Sometimes people skip steps and that is why it is worded the way it is. The post may come off as lacking to you because you most likely do this automatically. People with less experience and sometimes veterans need a simple reminder of the fundamentals.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
If this is really about connecting the quote to 40k you should probably connect the quote to 40k.

when to fight = fight when damage output is maximized
when not to fight = when damage output is minimized

This is one possible meaning it can change to fight to gain an objective. I mentioned math because to maximize damage output you must first know the potential of your units.

I'm going to disagree on 40k being strictly a math game this edition.

I've been getting slaughtered to my last 3 or 4 models each game, but am either winning or tying my games.

It's been entirely due to my previous points in this thread. Knowing when to attack, and when to forgo attacking in order to create a winning position on the board. Whilst not tactically "deep" by any means, it is a more interesting tactical game than recent iterations. Truly, deciding which objectives to play for, and even against, judging the flow of game to determine the right amount of resources to apply to gain VP, vs deny VP, has become an interesting exercise for me.

To the point of the thread, I've encountered MANY more instances where I've chosen to ignore threats, or forgo attacking, in order to tip the scales of VP than in ANY version of 40k previous. In this way, "not fighting" has granted me victory in scenarios where thoughtless aggression would have lost me the game.

Tactically speaking, it's probably *the* most important tactical decision you can make. Weighing the risks and rewards and then playing it out has been very fulfilling to me, and if you *aren't* thinking about 9th edition in those terms, I suggest you'll find greater enjoyment and success by thinking of it that way.

 CKO wrote:
For example, the new Eradicator unit that shoots six melta shots. You should know that on average, you will get four hits as six divided by 3 equals 2, which is the number of misses. Most people view this unit as anti-vehicle, but it does an excellent job on multi-wound infantry also. Wounding on 2+ and ignoring their armor, you can expect at least 3 dead intercessors. Whereas if you shoot at a vehicle, your wounding on a 3+ (4/3=1.3 misses), which means 2-3 should get through causing 7-10 wounds on average.

This isn't right, it's a very basic interpretation of statistics. The Eradicators firing at Intercessors have 6 shots, hit (*0.67), wound (*0.83), and need to roll 2+ for damage (*0.83). That's 2.77 average kills. The trouble is that the results are actually a probability curve around the average, where 2.77 or better is 50% of the results. The more dice you roll, the less variance you have, the smaller the standard deviations, and the tighter the results conform the average. In this case, you actually have a ~47% chance to kill 3 or more Intercessors with 3 Eradicators. You're typically only rolling 13 dice to find that result, so the variance is huge.

It's not enough to know that 1/6 is 16.67%. That just gets your foot in the door, but it doesn't actually help you plan your turns. If the game comes down to 3 Eradicators killing 3 Intercessors off an objective, just because their average kills rounds up to 3, then you've made a catastrophic error.

 greatbigtree wrote:
I'm going to disagree on 40k being strictly a math game this edition.

I've been getting slaughtered to my last 3 or 4 models each game, but am either winning or tying my games.

It's been entirely due to my previous points in this thread. Knowing when to attack, and when to forgo attacking in order to create a winning position on the board. Whilst not tactically "deep" by any means, it is a more interesting tactical game than recent iterations. Truly, deciding which objectives to play for, and even against, judging the flow of game to determine the right amount of resources to apply to gain VP, vs deny VP, has become an interesting exercise for me.

This is another important point: killing and fighting is secondary to scoring a victory. If anything, you should be mathing out expected results to project future turns, not to decide to shoot anti-tank guns at tanks. You can't get that kind of experience just running the numbers in a vacuum, especially since stratagems can drastically change the equations.

For instance, I use a cheat-sheet of average results for all my units against common targets. I can plan ahead for the expected casualties of both sides over the next turn or so. I can portion out my firepower so that my assault units will kill the objective defenders cleanly, and spend the excess shooting on units that would reinforce the objective. I know when I need to ditch the objective because I'm unlikely to hold it, or to double down on it because it's my best chance at victory despite low odds. Still, it's not useful to plan too far into the future because your margin of error increases and your averages become less meaningful.

All of this to say, it's still nothing to do with the Art of War.

To place my statements, I’m looking at the quote in a vacuum, and then applying the quote from the vacuum to 40k.

I acknowledge the basic premise of the Art of War is to engage only when and where you will be victorious, and to create such situations... which does not apply to 40k as a “balanced” game.

The quote by itself is applicable to the tabletop experience, though, so I’m working off of that.

 greatbigtree wrote:
To place my statements, I’m looking at the quote in a vacuum, and then applying the quote from the vacuum to 40k.

I acknowledge the basic premise of the Art of War is to engage only when and where you will be victorious, and to create such situations... which does not apply to 40k as a “balanced” game.

The quote by itself is applicable to the tabletop experience, though, so I’m working off of that.

The name of the thread is Sun Tzu quote you should be focusing on the quote like greatbigtree. I am shocked that I am considered wrong because I said eradicators kills 3 intercessors instead of the exact answer of 2.77! I don't think anyone should do basic statistics to evaluate units, I believe simple averages will suffice.

You can practice the percentages by creating scenarios and rolling the dice. You do not need a table and miniatures to do that. You know what units you are taking in your list, and you can roll against the stats of the most popular units you think you will see at a tournament. That way, you gain experience without even playing the game but you learn the damage output of your units. We all have seen lousy dice rolls, but you should judge a unit based around its average.

For instance, I use a cheat-sheet of average results for all my units against common targets. I can plan ahead for the expected casualties of both sides over the next turn or so. I can portion out my firepower so that my assault units will kill the objective defenders cleanly, and spend the excess shooting on units that would reinforce the objective. I know when I need to ditch the objective because I'm unlikely to hold it, or to double down on it because it's my best chance at victory despite low odds. Still, it's not useful to plan too far into the future because your margin of error increases and your averages become less meaningful.

You say you disagree with me but you did exatcly what I recommended!

 CKO wrote:
I am shocked that I am considered wrong because I said eradicators kills 3 intercessors instead of the exact answer of 2.77! I don't think anyone should do basic statistics to evaluate units, I believe simple averages will suffice.

No, the point is that it is unlikely for 3 Eradicators to kill 3 Intercessors. There is less than a 50% chance that happens. If you use simple averages to determine what you should do each turn, you're essentially just flipping coins.

Writing out the cheat sheet is not impressive. My point about using a cheat sheet is that there's a very limited amount you can learn from just crunching the math. Projecting the results into the future increases margin of error. Actually gaining experience requires playing the game and learning to navigate your chances against real results.

Eehhhh... Average results happen infrequently. 7 being the average of 2d6 only happens 1/6 times.

Knowing the typical spread is more valuable. For example, I will roll a 6, 7, or 8 44% of the time. Extrapolated, my unit of Guardsmen will inflict 0 casualties on Marines about 20% of the time, one or two casualties 60% of the time, and 3+ casualties 20% of the time... and 4+ is a tiny tiny fraction of that 20%.

Anyhow... I challenge your assertion that the quote, as it applies to 40k, is most accurately interpreted as needing to understand probability. The quote is most appropriately applied to 9th edition 40k as a reminder to focus on the win conditions (generating and denying VP) rather than focusing exclusively on maximizing damage output.

Defend yourself!

 DarkHound wrote:

 CKO wrote:
I am shocked that I am considered wrong because I said eradicators kills 3 intercessors instead of the exact answer of 2.77! I don't think anyone should do basic statistics to evaluate units, I believe simple averages will suffice.

No, the point is that it is unlikely for 3 Eradicators to kill 3 Intercessors. There is less than a 50% chance that happens. If you use simple averages to determine what you should do each turn, you're essentially just flipping coins.

Writing out the cheat sheet is not impressive. My point about using a cheat sheet is that there's a very limited amount you can learn from just crunching the math. Projecting the results into the future increases margin of error. Actually gaining experience requires playing the game and learning to navigate your chances against real results.

I use averages when determining the potential of units and it plays a role in my target process. You have made it clear that you do not believe in averages. The question than becomes how do you determine what to attack? This is the purpose of the thread the quote is "He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight."

A key point, I think, is that wars are more than isolated battles.

In 40k, you can currently "win" a game even after your entire army has been obliterated to a man.

In any real-world scenario, this would be the very definition of a pyrrhic victory. See, in 40k, that single battle is all that matters. But in a real-world scenario, your lost troops and vehicles don't miraculously reappear afterwards. Hence, you'll be fighting any future battles without those men. And if you lose your entire army, then that's going to seriously damage your chances of winning the overall campaign.

Now, granted, it's a little hard to judge as we're never made privy to what the objectives mean in a wider context. However, unless they represent an opportunity for immediate and absolute victory, then risking your forces to achieve them likely represents a significant gamble with regard to the overall campaign.

I think this is where the whole 'when not to fight' aspect comes into it. Depending on the necessity of the objectives and the risk posed by the enemy army, it might well be worth simply forfeiting them to the enemy. Especially since you don't generally want to be engaging an enemy on even terms.

Of course, this doesn't apply well to 40k as it translates to simply not playing the game.

 greatbigtree wrote:
I'm going to disagree on 40k being strictly a math game this edition.

I've been getting slaughtered to my last 3 or 4 models each game, but am either winning or tying my games.

It's been entirely due to my previous points in this thread. Knowing when to attack, and when to forgo attacking in order to create a winning position on the board. Whilst not tactically "deep" by any means, it is a more interesting tactical game than recent iterations. Truly, deciding which objectives to play for, and even against, judging the flow of game to determine the right amount of resources to apply to gain VP, vs deny VP, has become an interesting exercise for me.

To the point of the thread, I've encountered MANY more instances where I've chosen to ignore threats, or forgo attacking, in order to tip the scales of VP than in ANY version of 40k previous. In this way, "not fighting" has granted me victory in scenarios where thoughtless aggression would have lost me the game.

Tactically speaking, it's probably *the* most important tactical decision you can make. Weighing the risks and rewards and then playing it out has been very fulfilling to me, and if you *aren't* thinking about 9th edition in those terms, I suggest you'll find greater enjoyment and success by thinking of it that way.

This is what the thread should have started with. It actually relates to the quote (overlooking that the quote is being taken out of context) and more importantly is useful, practical advice that may not be immediately obvious to many players. Well written.

"He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight."
Good marriage advice.
When not to fight: don't play games/ tournaments on your anniversary, SO's birthday, etc.- even if he/she says it is fine...

I believe that Sun Tzu played Fantasy back in 2nd ed. He opens Chapter 2 On Waging War with the following advice to the Warhammer player:

"In operations of war, where there are in the field a thousand swift chariots...the expenditure at home... including small items such as glue and paint, and sums spent on chariots and armour, will reach the total of a thousand ounces of silver a day." And this was before the price hikes.

From this we can infer that Sun Szu participated in all aspects of the hobby. Some might accuse him of pay to win or of "being a whale", but he never chased the meta and he always painted his chariots to Parade Ready standard.

Back to the quote at hand in the thread, I think that greatbigtree is much closer to the mark. In 40K terms, we can try to apply Sun Tzu's advice to the decision for each unit to engage or not. Just because the probabilities are in your favour for one unit vs another does not mean that you offer combat. Does the potential reward in terms of contributing to victory warrant the risk to the unit, including the opportunity cost for that unit's action?

A player with a Terminator squad facing a Leman Russ and a squad of infantry might do the mathhammer and decide to engage the Leman Russ since the payoff seems better. If the infantry are on an objective, however, it might make much more sense to offer battle to the infantry squad and ignore the more valuable tank. Maybe you ignore the enemy's most killy unit since you know you have little chance of hurting it and can win by focusing on the mission.

If Sun Tzu was giving advice to a hockey coach he would probably write something like: "In hockey, the coach whose team puts the puck in the opponent's net while keeping the puck out of his own will surely find victory in all his matches. The coach who ignores my advice should be dismissed. The coach who heeds my advice is a priceless treasure."

 greatbigtree wrote:
Anyhow... I challenge your assertion that the quote, as it applies to 40k, is most accurately interpreted as needing to understand probability. The quote is most appropriately applied to 9th edition 40k as a reminder to focus on the win conditions (generating and denying VP) rather than focusing exclusively on maximizing damage output.

Defend yourself!

There is nothing to defend! The purpose of the thread is to get people to apply possible definitions of the quote to 40k. You were one of the few looking at the quote in a vacuum. I was on damage control and I had to do my best to keep the thread on topic by constantly bringing up averages and probabilities. I think about the amount of damage a unit can do before I decide if it is better to go for the objectives instead. I focus on offense and I have lost games because of my fixation on destroying units. Focusing on the win conditions and objectives is more important that is why I admited to that fact in my first post!

I was hoping that people would look at the quote in a vacuum and apply it to 40k but instead the thread was swarmmed with people who seemed to dislike 40k, hate The Art of War book, or felt insulted by me mentioning the role averages play in the game. I am not that good with words, I wonder how I should have started the thread?

It’s always a live and learn thing. I personally agree that an understanding of probabilities is important, and that mathammer is useful for sorting out optimal loadouts for units with options, particularly if they can serve multiple roles, like IG Veteran units in days past.

The first step on a forum, particularly if you want to create a series, is hard. Erry’body going to hate. But, if you stick with it, and can provide a strong rationale for your perspective, you’ll start to gain a degree of respect among posters that will actually engage with you, and not just fire off a snark before leaving.

As a suggestion, it helps to be very clear about how you want to form the discussion, and once you’ve addressed a point, move on.

I might suggest in the future (and you’ll still catch the same “Art of War doesn’t apply to 40k” business) that you start with...

“I read this quote from The Art of War, and I was thinking about how this quote, not the whole book, would apply to 40k. The quote goes, ‘Strike swiftly and surely. Do not give your opposition the opportunity to bring about his defences’. I think this can be turned into a winning strategy / tactic by...”

And then you fill it in and go to battle with your challengers. Some might disagree with the interpretation, others with implementation, and you’re sure to get the, “what you’re doing is pointless and stupid, you shouldn’t even bother” but feth them, at least you’re producing content and discussion, right?

Any “series” of threads have rocky starts. If you like it, and you want to talk about it, that’s the heart and soul of discussion forums. Go for it.