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Hey, can someone tell me what great about killing blow on bloodletters?

99% of the time theyll be fighting 1 wound models, still need a 6 after hitting to KB. And with S5 they penetrate most other 5+ RnF troops anyway.

What im saying is, say you had 15 hits, needing 3s to wound. You roll two 6s and kb 2 models, but normal hits will make even a 4+ test on 6. So really its best againt cav?

Poison trumps this no?

Oh,and can someone tell me is the special ability D6 shots on flamers better than the 2 normal shots?

No armor/regen saves vs. KB and it does work vs. multi-wound units. Includes heroes/lords and such as long as they aren't bigger units.

Poison is still saved with armor/regen.

The average number on a D6 roll is 3.5 mathematically. So 2 flamers would put out 7 shots. 2 Elfy archers with 2 shots would put up 4 and likely get a multi-shot penalty. And flamers are magic+flaming.

Okay, thats for clearing that up for me. So flamers, 2 units of 4 throwing out 28 shots on average, hitting on 5s if moved. Hmm I see (theoretically) how effective they can be. I mean youll need a unit of 25+ crossbows to match that.

Killing blow isnt that great against fodder, but its really useful for sniping armored BSBs and stopping someone from charging knights into them.

A d6 in theory should have a 1/6 chance chance of rolling each number. The average roll for a 2d6 is 7 because the highest number of combinations will get you a 7.

Flamers are great too. 20 crossbows will get you more wounds with a longer range, but flamers are much more mobile so they can kite slow melee troops. The downside is they are the perfect target for magic missles.

My 206 point Wargor BSB with 2+ armor save, beast banner and no ward save just loves killing blow.

I really dislike killing blow especially against chaos knights.

Hey I charged your flank oh you rolled 2 6s to wound well there goes my 1+ armor save yaaay.

Or my bsb which has a 2+ which would be nice to have.

It dosnt always work but against high armor it is nice.

Hargus56 wrote:My 206 point Wargor BSB with 2+ armor save, beast banner and no ward save just loves killing blow.

6+ parry?

-Matt

Hargus56 wrote:My 206 point Wargor BSB with 2+ armor save, beast banner and no ward save just loves killing blow.

I thought all BSBs couldnt take magic items with magic banners.

Question wrote:

Hargus56 wrote:My 206 point Wargor BSB with 2+ armor save, beast banner and no ward save just loves killing blow.

I thought all BSBs couldnt take magic items with magic banners.

He doesn't have magic items.
He has heavy armor, a shield, and the chaos gift of scaly skin (5+). Combined it's a 2+ armor save.

-Matt

Cool, so its really for characters and cav. Not so sure though, maybe id rather forgo KB for a couple of points less per BL.

Question wrote:Killing blow isnt that great against fodder, but its really useful for sniping armored BSBs and stopping someone from charging knights into them.

A d6 in theory should have a 1/6 chance chance of rolling each number. The average roll for a 2d6 is 7 because the highest number of combinations will get you a 7.

Flamers are great too. 20 crossbows will get you more wounds with a longer range, but flamers are much more mobile so they can kite slow melee troops. The downside is they are the perfect target for magic missles.

d6 average roll is still 3.5 because 1+2+3+4+5+6 = 21, 21 / 6 = 3.5

Therefore a d6 is mathematically better than a guaranteed 2, or even a guaranteed 3. Except of course in specific situations where a guaranteed 2 or 3 will win you the game, but a 1 would lose it.

What was the point of that.

I mean if you attack base infantry with letters I mean base infantry vs blood letters they will usually butcher them anyways.

But I mean its a nice thing to have.

HawaiiMatt wrote:

Hargus56 wrote:My 206 point Wargor BSB with 2+ armor save, beast banner and no ward save just loves killing blow.

6+ parry?

-Matt

Sorry OK yes Parry, but I often play my buddies Daemons. He runs a horde of Bloodletters. So he directs 6 attacks at me, both are WS5 so 3 hits (if he has a herald giving hatred it's 4-5 hits), 50/50 (or more with hatred) that 1 will be a 6 and then I get a 1 in 6 chance of not dying flat out. I just really wish it was more balanced, like either ignores armor saves and causes 1 wound or causes instant death but allows armor saves it's still S5 I would only get a 4+ armor save.

Hautamaki wrote:

Question wrote:Killing blow isnt that great against fodder, but its really useful for sniping armored BSBs and stopping someone from charging knights into them.

A d6 in theory should have a 1/6 chance chance of rolling each number. The average roll for a 2d6 is 7 because the highest number of combinations will get you a 7.

Flamers are great too. 20 crossbows will get you more wounds with a longer range, but flamers are much more mobile so they can kite slow melee troops. The downside is they are the perfect target for magic missles.

d6 average roll is still 3.5 because 1+2+3+4+5+6 = 21, 21 / 6 = 3.5

Therefore a d6 is mathematically better than a guaranteed 2, or even a guaranteed 3. Except of course in specific situations where a guaranteed 2 or 3 will win you the game, but a 1 would lose it.

Theres no such thing as an "Average" for a d6 because each number has the same 1/6 chance to come up. You cant roll a 3.5 either.

I know what you're saying but there actually is such a thing as an 'average' d6 roll--more specifically a mean. Or if you prefer, you could also use the term 'expected value'.

When you talk about d6's not having an average, but 2d6 averaging 7 because the largest number of die combinations comes up 7, you're talking about a different kind of average, a median. Median, mean, and mode are all kinds of averages.

/off topic math lesson

Question wrote:Theres no such thing as an "Average" for a d6 because each number has the same 1/6 chance to come up. You cant roll a 3.5 either.

There are three most commonly used measures of 'average', the mean, the median and the mode. You obviously use the mode as an average, and yes, there is no mode for a D6 roll. However, there is a mean for a D6 roll, which is 3.5. The mean is also a measure of 'average' (actually the most commonly used one), so your statement that a D6 roll has no 'average' is not true.

Hautamaki wrote:I know what you're saying but there actually is such a thing as an 'average' d6 roll--more specifically a mean. Or if you prefer, you could also use the term 'expected value'.

When you talk about d6's not having an average, but 2d6 averaging 7 because the largest number of die combinations comes up 7, you're talking about a different kind of average, a median. Median, mean, and mode are all kinds of averages.

/off topic math lesson

In the example of 2D6, all three most commonly used measures of averages (mean, median and mode) are 7. However, the largest number of die combinations is not the median, it is the mode. In this specific example, it doesn't matter as the median and mode are the same, but they aren't always the same value.

ah yeah thanks for the correction

Its irrelevant. You cannot roll a 3.5 on a d6.

In the case summated dice rolls (such as 2D6, 3D6, 4D6), the mean has as much value as the mode. In the case of an even number of dice, the mean is equal to the mode, while in the case of an uneven number of dice, the mean is the average of two modes (.5 higher and .5 lower than the mean). Since calculating the mean is a lot easier than determining the mode of summated dice rolls, I'd say the mean is the better option to use. For example, you want to cast a spell with a casting value of 21+ and your wizard is level 4. You need 17+ on your Power Dice rolls to cast. Calculating the mean of 5D6 is easy (17.5). This immediately tells the player that rolling 5D6 will give only slightly more than 50% chance to succesfully cast the spell. If you were to use the mode to determine this, it would take you a lot longer (good luck counting all 6^5 combinations).

Question wrote:Its irrelevant. You cannot roll a 3.5 on a d6.

The statistics and probability behind any dice game are actually pretty complicated and in-depth, if it was easy, Las Vegas wouldn't exist. You can sit there and calculate every move and make the best possible numerical outcomes or you're totally free to ignore them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers

DukeRustfield wrote:

Question wrote:Its irrelevant. You cannot roll a 3.5 on a d6.

The statistics and probability behind any dice game are actually pretty complicated and in-depth, if it was easy, Las Vegas wouldn't exist. You can sit there and calculate every move and make the best possible numerical outcomes or you're totally free to ignore them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_large_numbers

But it's irrelevant to the discussion of killing blow. The average of the dice don't matter when only a 6 is a killing blow, what matters is the average number of 6's rolled.

Against WS4 or less=1/9 (11%) of attacks average a KB, 4/27 (15%)with rerolls to hit.
Against WS5+=1/12 (8.3%) of attacks average a KB, 1/8 (12.5%) with rerolls to hit.

The average result of a single roll being 3.5 has nothing to do with KB because 1,2,3,4, and 5 are not a KB. Only a 6 is a KB, and therefor numerically speaking there is no difference between rolling a 1 and a 5 to wound when determining if an attack is a KB. The average is 1/6 attacks=KB

schadenfreude wrote:But it's irrelevant to the discussion of killing blow.

The OP asked multiple questions. Then people got confused by mathez skillz.

Oh,and can someone tell me is the special ability D6 shots on flamers better than the 2 normal shots?

The average number on a D6 roll is 3.5 mathematically. So 2 flamers would put out 7 shots. 2 Elfy archers with 2 shots would put up 4 and likely get a multi-shot penalty. And flamers are magic+flaming