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So my friend had a squad of 8 termagaunts with devourers, 24 shots at BS 3, got about 12 hits and a 4+ gave him about 6 wounds which i rolled two 1's on. I know terminators have to die at some point but i didnt think termagaunts would be able to kill 2 that easy. We played this right, right?

The Dice God is a fickle mistress.

well, 24 shots at 4+, on average drops it down to 12. 4+ to wound on average drops it down to 6 wounds which on average, will roll one 6

I killed 5 Terminators with 10 grots in hand to hand combat. It's hilarious when it doesn't happen to you!

I've had 5 wounds on 5 terminators and lost three of them to basic fire. It happens.

The dice gods are fickle. Sometimes they are harsh, and you must atone for your sins - preferably by cuddling your dice to show them they, the physical manifestations of the dice gods, are loved - and sometimes they are kind, and your foes will be driven before you.

kNyne83 wrote:well, 24 shots at 4+, on average drops it down to 12. 4+ to wound on average drops it down to 6 wounds which on average, will roll one 6

You could have also rolled 6 1's. He could have hit and wounded with every Devourer shot.

Mathhammer is fine for theorycrafting on the internet, but once you actually start rolling dice, anomalies pop up, more often than you'd think.

-Loki- wrote:

kNyne83 wrote:well, 24 shots at 4+, on average drops it down to 12. 4+ to wound on average drops it down to 6 wounds which on average, will roll one 6

You could have also rolled 6 1's. He could have hit and wounded with every Devourer shot.

Mathhammer is fine for theorycrafting on the internet, but once you actually start rolling dice, anomalies pop up, more often than you'd think.

Indeed. I once rolled 12 dice, needing 3s to save, and I failed 11 of those rolls. Of those, nine rolls were 1s, and two rolls were 2s. The one that saved, was a 3.

-Loki- wrote:

kNyne83 wrote:well, 24 shots at 4+, on average drops it down to 12. 4+ to wound on average drops it down to 6 wounds which on average, will roll one 6

You could have also rolled 6 1's. He could have hit and wounded with every Devourer shot.

Mathhammer is fine for theorycrafting on the internet, but once you actually start rolling dice, anomalies pop up, more often than you'd think.

This is true. Mathhammer is a statistical average. As in the middle ground. So at one end of that spectrum, its rolling 24 dice, hitting with all of them, wounding with all of them, then failing all of your saves. Is it possible? Absolutely. Is it likely to happen? No, because it is so fair from the average. However, if you start rolling now, eventually, at some point, you WILL get that outcome. Of course the inverse is true, and he could roll 24 dice and miss with all of them. This is actually statistically much more likely to happen than the former, simply because there are less rolls involved, but it is still statistically rather rare. I never did well with stat in school, but someone with good math skills could extrapolate that into a probability for you. My guess is somewhere around 1,000,000:1.

PraetorDave wrote:

-Loki- wrote:

kNyne83 wrote:well, 24 shots at 4+, on average drops it down to 12. 4+ to wound on average drops it down to 6 wounds which on average, will roll one 6

You could have also rolled 6 1's. He could have hit and wounded with every Devourer shot.

Mathhammer is fine for theorycrafting on the internet, but once you actually start rolling dice, anomalies pop up, more often than you'd think.

This is true. Mathhammer is a statistical average. As in the middle ground. So at one end of that spectrum, its rolling 24 dice, hitting with all of them, wounding with all of them, then failing all of your saves. Is it possible? Absolutely. Is it likely to happen? No, because it is so fair from the average. However, if you start rolling now, eventually, at some point, you WILL get that outcome. Of course the inverse is true, and he could roll 24 dice and miss with all of them. This is actually statistically much more likely to happen than the former, simply because there are less rolls involved, but it is still statistically rather rare. I never did well with stat in school, but someone with good math skills could extrapolate that into a probability for you. My guess is somewhere around 1,000,000:1.

My math skills are pretty terrible these days, since they've been relegated into mostly 40k and WoW-related math stuff, and it's been 8 years since I was at high school, and I haven't been to school or had to do much math since, but...

No, it is never guaranteed that you will get a perfect roll. The odds will approach 100% as you keep rolling and rolling, but the odds are never 100% that you will ever roll a particular outcome, even rolling constantly for millions of years. Are you very likely to? Yes. Are you guaranteed to? No.

The odds of missing every shot with 24 BS3 shots is 16,777,216 : 1, so your guess was a little short.

EDIT: Actually, that's a little off. Assuming 1:1 is a 50% chance, then the actual odds are 16,777,215 : 1. The probability is 1/16,777,216.

-Loki- wrote:

kNyne83 wrote:well, 24 shots at 4+, on average drops it down to 12. 4+ to wound on average drops it down to 6 wounds which on average, will roll one 6

You could have also rolled 6 1's. He could have hit and wounded with every Devourer shot.

Mathhammer is fine for theorycrafting on the internet, but once you actually start rolling dice, anomalies pop up, more often than you'd think.

Actually, mathhammer tells you that these results are more common than you intuitively think. 2 or more failures on six 2+ saves is actually over a 25% chance, so such occurences should be viewed as almost inevitable if multiple units are constantly shooting at the unit. Probability analysis shows that nearly average but not actually average, results are more common than the average.

The main problem with mathhammer as used by the community is the failure to solve the correct problem or a misinterpretation of the results. What most people view as 'average' is actually just the mathematical mean, it really just means you're generally most likely to get something *close* to that result.

And yet, it's something you do see happen more than once every sixteen and a half million shooting rounds.

Mathhammer goes right out the window when you start rolling those dice.

just goes to show nothings impossible just very unlikely


Automatically Appended Next Post:
just goes to show nothings impossible just very unlikely

Things *can* be shown to be impossible. For example, a bolter shoots at a rhino's front armor. There *is* zero chance it does damage, as a result of 11 or more does not lie within the probability space of 1d6+4 at all.

If you see *only* ones popping up on 20+ dice with any regularity, it's more probable that unfair dice are involved. A large roll containing half or more 1s is actually common enough to be almost an inevitability over the course of a wargamer's career, and this is what mathhammer predicts. The entire point of mathematical modeling is describing the chance of an outcome. Dice have no memory, believing that mathhammer is the idea that 1/6 of all dice rolls you see should be a 1 betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of probability.

Yes, Mathhammer is by no means a guarantee of a result.

It's only purpose is risk assessment. You use it to figure out which of your options is more likely to achieve your desired result, or if a particular course of action has a sufficient likelihood of success to warrant taking it.

Just because the mathhammer indicates that a lascannon is more likely to destroy an Ork Trukk than a single shot from a bolter doesn't guarantee that it will work, just that it's more likely to work.

-Loki- wrote:And yet, it's something you do see happen more than once every sixteen and a half million shooting rounds.

No, no it doesn't. You seem to be having trouble understanding how the math works. Missing every shot is a vanishingly rare occurrence, but as soon as you jump up to just one of those shots hitting, you have an immensely larger chance of getting that.

Goes to show that 2+ armor isn't all that great! Massed no armor units able to take out walking TDA! HAHA! That's funny stuff!

Watched a terminator squad of 7 dudes take a full volley from a Thunderfire Cannon. 19 wounds, 14 failed saves, 1 dead HQ and 6 dead terminators. It happens.

What about invulns?

killykavekommando wrote:What about invulns?

Thunderfire cannons aren't AP2, so the terminators wouldn't have needed to use them over their superior armour save.

-Loki- wrote:

killykavekommando wrote:What about invulns?

Thunderfire cannons aren't AP2, so the terminators wouldn't have needed to use them over their superior armour save.

Which makes it all the more hilarious


I know similar feelings don't worry, not much you can do in those situations, just smile and remove the casulaties.... all of them.