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I read Moneyball a few years ago and my wife just gave me Soccernomics. For readers unfamiliar with these books, Moneyball is about how Billy Beane of the Oakland A's used economic principles to improve the resource management of the A's and produced a better overall team because of it. Soccernomics, released in 2009, draws on the types of analysis discussed in Moneyball and translates them to analyzing soccer. The underlying theme of both of these books is: games are about resource management, why not use economic principles to improve your resource management and thus, your game play.

I'm not wanting to get into a big debate on the pros and cons of mathhammer - but mathhammer is something of a factor in this type of analysis: it's a tool to help better understand your resource allocation and management. And I know there are a lot of folks out there who do a lot of mathhammer to help figure out their armies and target priority and such. But has anyone out there tried to take a look at WHFB or WH40K from an economic perspective? I'm giving some thought to how I'd do it and would be interested to hear if others have tried it and what their findings have been.

Mathhammer is so subjective it gets overcomplicated really quickly.

I'm actually beginning to write and article for IG that uses both mathhammer and real world data to help as a sort of decision guide for shooting. I completly agree with you that it's a good tool (when used correctly), but I had also thought about incorperating absolute vs comparative advantage anaylsis also.

Most people don't realize it, but they're using basic economics when they're building army lists and even a few when playing a game (different terminologies between economics and wargaming is the reason why they don't know they are). I agree with you that there are merits, and I'm heading down the road of "givin'-it-a-go" to see how it works.

darkdm wrote:Most people don't realize it, but they're using basic economics when they're building army lists and even a few when playing a game (different terminologies between economics and wargaming is the reason why they don't know they are).

Exactly - and that's why I think it's such an interesting topic to delve into. One of the other similarities I see between Warhammer and the discussions of baseball and soccer in Moneyball and Soccernomics is just how much weight is given to "conventional wisdom". I mean, for games like baseball and soccer, where the rules have been relatively constant for decades, this "conventional wisdom" has built up over a long time. Thankfully, for Warhammer, "conventional wisdom" really only applies for the duration of a ruleset - until a new edition of the core rules or a new army book/codex is released. But what we commonly see is the "conventional wisdom" that may have been tried and true for a previous edition of the rules is no longer the most efficient/effective tool. The lascannon for tankbusting being a good example of this.

The FOC, point values and limits is nothing more than oppertunity cost.

Point efficiency in army lists, using odds/stats/math to help determine targets... these sorts of things have been and always will be part of 40K, and most people use it to some degree whether they realize it or not. The only thing that's changed is the bluntness of the math-based analysis and, depending on your source, it's been good evidence at how generally poor GW's balancing and game design choices have been. Mathhammer would be less prevalent if it was done behind the scenes with solid point-costs and codex design. That is not the case, and most codexes have clear "must have" and "never take" choices in most slots with precious little grey area for fluff or preference. Thus, being able to analyze cost/benefit has been a critical part of both list building, as well as tactical resource management.

What exactly is mathhammer?

WarhammerNomics:

1. Put less on sprue.
2. Charge more.
3. ?????
4. PROFIT!

Xca|iber wrote:WarhammerNomics:

1. Put less on sprue.
2. Charge more.
3. ?????
4. PROFIT!

Well, while we could definitely get into a discussion of that type of GW economics, that's not really what I'm hoping this thread will yield.

My opinion on Mathammer is that it can't be relied on 100% of the time, and if you solely rely on it, you'll lose.

Its a useful tool, but really isn't that important.

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I see what your saying, and I agree. This is mostly represented when you build an army list.

No, of course Mathhamer can't be relied on. The problem with Mathhammer is this. In the course of a game of WHFB or WH40K, you're going to make a relatively small number of dice rolls in the grand scheme of probability. Michael Lewis says in Moneyball (and is quoted saying this in Soccernomics):

"The play-offs frustrate rational management because, unlike the long regular season, they suffer from the sample size problem."

As Soccernomics discusses about this, Lewis means that because there are so few games in the play-offs - because the "sample size" is so small - random factors play an outsize role in determining the winner.

This is the failing of mathhammer. Unless you're shooting with lasgun armed Guardsmen or attacking with mass Gants, you're just not rolling the quantity of dice necessary for the sample size to be large enough for you to be able to rely on mathhamer. So, yeah, while you can rely on it more with something like Guardsmen with lasguns or Gants in CC, because these attacks are largely ineffective relative to more powerful models (which are fewer in number because of restrictions or price), the reliance you may put in the mathhammer behind it doesn't do you a whole lot of good.

So, where does this get you with mathhammer? Mathhammer is a decision-making tool to help you weigh the probabilities. If you only played the same army without changes to it for a year or a couple years, then you might find your numbers starting to come into line with your mathhammer calculations. You can't expect mathhammer to win you every game. But if you do it right, you can use it to give you an edge that other players may not have.


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And at this point, I am most interested in looking at how this affects building army lists. Right now, I'm most interested in looking at what choices in army lists are undervalued and what are overvalued - both from a points perspective as well as from a player's conventional wisdom perspective. We already know some of these from enough cumulative data and overall game play - SM Vanguard Vets are overvalued in their points, IG autocannons are undervalued.

With 40k, players have been figuring this out through both mathhammer as well as trial and error for a while. What I think is going to be interesting right now, is trying to get a jump on this for WHFB with the new ruleset. What will the new 8th Ed rules do to change how certain units are overvalued and others undervalued?