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I was thinking about making the "statistically best list" (ie, ranking each squads effectivness against certain armor/toughness value), but, before I spend hours of my time doing so... I shall fall upon asking the dakka forum if they have heard of such a spreadsheet/ thread. Thank you in advance!- Darkmarine

not heard of one, but would love to see it if you feel like putting in the time.

For each army? Sorry, I'm a little confused about what you're proposing.

I too question the logic behind such a chart simply because there's already a "To Wound" chart. Are you talking about calculating squad size/Strength vs. Toughness to see how often they should wound? That's gonna be a big chart, considering how you can scramble wargear in most squads.

It will be the most popular setups of the unit (ie. not 7 space marines and a seargeant with a stormbolter, since that layout is rarely used)
It will mainly be a percentage chart
It will calculate the pollibility to hit using the bs, the wound possibility according to each toughness value, and the ap value, then calculate the effectiveness of the range, and whether or not it is heavery/assault/ect.

This is doomed to failure. The reason why is because the most damaging weapons in the game are template and blast weapons against tightly-packed models.

The problem, though, is that it all depends on how many models you get per hit, which is something that you can't control for (it's determined much more by your opponent, than you).

This means that you can only do the math for direct-fire weapons like autocannons and meltaguns, which is omitting the classes of weapons that have the theoretically highest damage:cost ratio.

Ailaros wrote:This is doomed to failure. The reason why is because the most damaging weapons in the game are template and blast weapons against tightly-packed models.

The problem, though, is that it all depends on how many models you get per hit, which is something that you can't control for (it's determined much more by your opponent, than you).

This means that you can only do the math for direct-fire weapons like autocannons and meltaguns, which is omitting the classes of weapons that have the theoretically highest damage:cost ratio.

Or I could determine effectiveness for each number of possible models... and not for a specific number of casualties, which I was planning to do.

In which case, you're not looking at "what unit is best?", you're looking at "which unit is best in THIS circumstance, and which is best in THAT circumstance, etc."

Once this happens, the chart will power bloat past utility.

I mean, you're going to get things like "well X is better if A, B, C and D are true, but not E or F, while Y is better if A, C, D and E are true but not B or F"

You don't nearly have enough points to be able to take THE best weapon in all of 40k for EVERY circumstance, especially as no codex has all of the best of everything.

I'm not saying that mathhammer can't be made useful, but I fail to see the utile benefit to such a general project like this.

In which case, you're not looking at "what unit is best?", you're looking at "which unit is best in THIS circumstance, and which is best in THAT circumstance, etc."


Which is all anyone can do, as the "best unit" is determined by the overall circumstance, as a ten man squad of assault marines is great against most troops, but doesnt have a snowball's chance in hell against heavy vehicles. Basiaccly, it wil help determine like-units, ie. speeders v bikes or dev squad v pred, the benefit is to help those who post topics such as "I am struggling against x army" or "Speeder v bike."

Wow... mathhammer reaches new depths...

This won't be anything more than a conjecture. There is no way, past playing thousands of games in thousands of combinations, to quantitatively evaluate the effectiveness of the units. You are asking a simple question with no clear answer.

Here's a real-world parallel for you (and I studied History, so I know a thin or two of which I speak!): The U.S. should not have won WWII. Our technology was far superseded by the Germans, we were fighting in their homeland, and their training regimen surpassed ours. So how did we win? Sheer numbers and a little bit of luck.

Just stop before you start complaining about how difficult the task was and how you have wasted hours of your life doing so. Statistical fantasizing doesn't really work.

Unfortunately, it will only help so much even then. Killing power is a crucially important part of the game, but it's not the ONLY part of the game. HOW you apply killing power can be just as important, and there are other considerations such as mobility and if a unit is scoring or not.

Knowing what units are BAD at is useful, because it can reveal holes in your killing power. Knowing which unit has one advantage in one thing over all other units in all the other codecies doesn't seem nearly as useful.

Other than, like, for bragging rights...

What you need to do is ramp up mathhammers of diefernt units vs the usual suspects.

A unit of 5 greyhunters with a wolf guard with a melta and combi melta vs AP 10, 11, 12, 13, 14. In cover and non cover and AP 10, 11 and 14 as open topped.

Orks, guardsmenn, terminators, power armour in cover and non cover.

Then do the same for a similar costed unit of long fangs vs the same and se what's up.

As it was mentioned earlier, template vs. high STR is hard to compatre.

EX: Railgun- solidshot = STR 10 AP1
Railgun- submunition= STR 6 AP4- Large Blast

how can one possibly be considered better than the other? they do entirely different things.

With a set of clear limits, this could be useful and informative. The limits would have to be very strict and would limit the scope of the project a lot.

1) Direct fire only - no templates, no blasts.
2) Squad vs squad only, or squad vs vehicle only. Doing both will have too many data points and bloat the data. I'd go with squad vs sqaud since vehicle data is easy to come by.
3) Finite and strictly limited variations per squad - not every combination of combat squad'd tac marines with every special and heavy weapon available.
4) Very clear target units, GEQs MEQs TEQs are generic, but perhaps a few more points would be nice (SM bikes, cover and no cover, etc)

The big benefit of running this experiment would be getting a general comparison of unit per cost - are long fangs really that good for their cheap cost? Are shoota boyz decent at shooting for their cost? Eldar Pathfinders, if possible to model, would truly banish them to the depths of the charts.

I'm keen. I'll even help if you need it, I'm good with spreadsheets. PM me.

As it was mentioned earlier, a list of unit+their weaknesses would be more useful to a factor of 10.

Newest codex + Spacemarine-derived, - minus Xenos origin, times # of blast weapons possible in 1850 points, + # of special characters in HQ, divided by stock number of primary paint color used on models. Then rank results. There, simple.

Damnit VoidAngel, where's the Like button?

Really VoidAngel? How do you plus or minus based on origin? it doesn't create a number!

Plus Xenos origin IMHO is better than SM origin so that can't counted.
Why 1850? rather than a more rounded number like 1500, 1750, or 2000?

It is the quality, not quantity of SC that affects an army, as you can't take them all.

How do paints affect the quality of an army? you can use any paint you want, even non- 'Eavy Metal paints!

He's ranking units not armies.

Think b4 you post!

I've used excel before to figure out things like this. The blast template thing does put a damper on it, but it can be a good tool for comparing units that are easily compared.

im2randomghgh wrote:Really VoidAngel? How do you plus or minus based on origin? it doesn't create a number!

Plus Xenos origin IMHO is better than SM origin so that can't counted.
Why 1850? rather than a more rounded number like 1500, 1750, or 2000?

It is the quality, not quantity of SC that affects an army, as you can't take them all.

How do paints affect the quality of an army? you can use any paint you want, even non- 'Eavy Metal paints!

He's ranking units not armies.

Think b4 you post!

Wow - sarcasm totally does not translate into Canadian.

VoidAngel wrote:
Wow - sarcasm totally does not translate into Canadian.

I was gonig to say somthing like that, but I feared that he too, was joking.

TehScat wrote:With a set of clear limits, this could be useful and informative. The limits would have to be very strict and would limit the scope of the project a lot.

1) Direct fire only - no templates, no blasts.
2) Squad vs squad only, or squad vs vehicle only. Doing both will have too many data points and bloat the data. I'd go with squad vs sqaud since vehicle data is easy to come by.
3) Finite and strictly limited variations per squad - not every combination of combat squad'd tac marines with every special and heavy weapon available.
4) Very clear target units, GEQs MEQs TEQs are generic, but perhaps a few more points would be nice (SM bikes, cover and no cover, etc)

The big benefit of running this experiment would be getting a general comparison of unit per cost - are long fangs really that good for their cheap cost? Are shoota boyz decent at shooting for their cost? Eldar Pathfinders, if possible to model, would truly banish them to the depths of the charts.

I'm keen. I'll even help if you need it, I'm good with spreadsheets. PM me.

Let me summarize: game-in-a-vacuum thinking will make this list into a the next big thing to build spam lists from.

I'd love to see under what conditions these situations would all reliably occur...

VoidAngel wrote:

im2randomghgh wrote:Really VoidAngel? How do you plus or minus based on origin? it doesn't create a number!

Plus Xenos origin IMHO is better than SM origin so that can't counted.
Why 1850? rather than a more rounded number like 1500, 1750, or 2000?

It is the quality, not quantity of SC that affects an army, as you can't take them all.

How do paints affect the quality of an army? you can use any paint you want, even non- 'Eavy Metal paints!

He's ranking units not armies.

Think b4 you post!

Wow - sarcasm totally does not translate into Canadian.

That wasn't sarcasm, I was pointing out the innumerable flaws in your post. <------------That one was sarcasm.

Slur no appreciated. There are a lot more things to make fun of about americans-a lot. so DON'T get me started.

So what I have done in the past is to create a specific scenario, as in 'vs AV12', and run the numbers to get a points spent for every immobilization/destroyed/exploded result between similar units.

For example, Vendetta or Hydra vs AV12.

Vendetta gets 2.decimal hits, translating to 1.decimal damage results, 130 points/(glances/6+pens/2) gives me points spent per result.

Same thing with Hydra.

Compare the two results, the smaller number is the "better" selection. The Vendetta will outperform the Hydra in every respect, except SMF. This has the nice side effect of telling you how many points ignoring SMF is 'worth' in this comparison.

Et cetera.

You will never achieve a broad index of 'this is how many XX good Terminators are' that is applicable across all armies in all situations. There is simply too much variability. You have to keep it apple to apple. Even trying to do apples, oranges, potatoes to apples, oranges, potatoes will ultimately fail because you'll never get the weighting right between how many apples to a potato.

This sounds a far more in-depth version of my guide-for-noobies graphs question.
Mine was graphing the ease of play against the cost for an army. But you're trying unit effectiveness against other units.

Good luck, as I can't see an wasy way to do this.

im2randomghgh wrote:

VoidAngel wrote:

im2randomghgh wrote:Really VoidAngel? How do you plus or minus based on origin? it doesn't create a number!

Plus Xenos origin IMHO is better than SM origin so that can't counted.
Why 1850? rather than a more rounded number like 1500, 1750, or 2000?

It is the quality, not quantity of SC that affects an army, as you can't take them all.

How do paints affect the quality of an army? you can use any paint you want, even non- 'Eavy Metal paints!

He's ranking units not armies.

Think b4 you post!

Wow - sarcasm totally does not translate into Canadian.

That wasn't sarcasm, I was pointing out the innumerable flaws in your post. <------------That one was sarcasm.

Slur no appreciated. There are a lot more things to make fun of about americans-a lot. so DON'T get me started.

Oh, put the nationality card back in the deck. If you'd been French or Chinese I'd have made the same joke. My entire post is meant to be humorous.

SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Here's a real-world parallel for you (and I studied History, so I know a thin or two of which I speak!): The U.S. should not have won WWII. Our technology was far superseded by the Germans, we were fighting in their homeland, and their training regimen surpassed ours. So how did we win? Sheer numbers and a little bit of luck.

Heh, it was the Allied forces that won the war, actually. Great Britain was the only country in the world that stood up to the 3rd reich and fought practically alone alone for a year before the U.S. got involved. Don't get we wrong, if the U.S. hadn't got involved we would have lost sooner or later but it all depends on which part of history you get taught. The Russians teach their children that it was they who won the war, and they'd have a case - the Russians killed more Germans than anyone else.

Obviously, this isn't the place for this conversation and maybe you weren't actually suggesting that the U.S, on it's own, won the war but just felt I had to jump in there.

ColdSadHungry wrote:

SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Here's a real-world parallel for you (and I studied History, so I know a thin or two of which I speak!): The U.S. should not have won WWII. Our technology was far superseded by the Germans, we were fighting in their homeland, and their training regimen surpassed ours. So how did we win? Sheer numbers and a little bit of luck.

Heh, it was the Allied forces that won the war, actually. Great Britain was the only country in the world that stood up to the 3rd reich and fought practically alone alone for a year before the U.S. got involved. Don't get we wrong, if the U.S. hadn't got involved we would have lost sooner or later but it all depends on which part of history you get taught. The Russians teach their children that it was they who won the war, and they'd have a case - the Russians killed more Germans than anyone else.

Obviously, this isn't the place for this conversation and maybe you weren't actually suggesting that the U.S, on it's own, won the war but just felt I had to jump in there.

I thought about jumping into that comment as well, but my argument was about how logistics, superior manpower, and superior production, and not having your industrial base bombed nightly gave both the US and Soviets (who moved their factories away from German striking range) a huge advantage. I do enjoy how the soviets went on about how much they hurt the Germans, then you look at how badly they fared against the Fins, and realize that it was the land itself that won most of the war (Germany couldn't support an army over that kind of distance and climate)

As for the topic on hand, I think that it has overly broad goals. Break it down into something useable, there is no universal effectiveness when you can have different combination of both friendly and enemy units. Also in this kind of study it might be worth while to use standard deviation rather than just a mean number

The U.S. singlehandedly won the war by burying Germany in jeeps.

This was cool but still not good enough so 20 years later JFK, our #1 womanizing stud, had to singlehandedly conquer the moon post mortem.

So yeah, that was pretty awesome. But then we got bored and had to crash European banks and wreck the global economy so that we could weaken our dollar and make huge corporate returns while mocking Portugal and Ireland.

Peace, globe, we out.

ColdSadHungry wrote:

SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Here's a real-world parallel for you (and I studied History, so I know a thin or two of which I speak!): The U.S. should not have won WWII. Our technology was far superseded by the Germans, we were fighting in their homeland, and their training regimen surpassed ours. So how did we win? Sheer numbers and a little bit of luck.

Heh, it was the Allied forces that won the war, actually. Great Britain was the only country in the world that stood up to the 3rd reich and fought practically alone alone for a year before the U.S. got involved. Don't get we wrong, if the U.S. hadn't got involved we would have lost sooner or later but it all depends on which part of history you get taught. The Russians teach their children that it was they who won the war, and they'd have a case - the Russians killed more Germans than anyone else.

Obviously, this isn't the place for this conversation and maybe you weren't actually suggesting that the U.S, on it's own, won the war but just felt I had to jump in there.

Exactly! I was just going to say that! Because different nations achieved different things: The Russians killed the most Germans, The Americans held an enitre front against the Germans for months, Britain fought them for longest, the French held out until their capital was conquered and even then had strong resistance cells, and the Canadians has the highest K/D ratio of an army that fought in the war.

If even one of those Allied nations hadn't participated, the war wouldn't have gone well.

Interesting fact: at the beginning of the war, a German armoured division make landfall in Australia, and the Australians repelled the tanks/APCs/Jeeps of the Germans with CAVALRY. LD 10 much? lol!