luck and tactics in 40k

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**Ailaros**

Nurglitch wrote:As has been pointed out Warhammer 40,000 is full of instances where the outcome of player decisions are not determined by dice.

Yes, I agree, it's called skill. I devote a big chunk of the theory to skill.

Nurglitch wrote:Now it seems you would say: "Yeah, but moving 6" forward where I can shoot the unit means that the successfulness of moving 6" was determined by dice: my shooting dice." Actually no, the success of that action depends on both the decision of the first player to move, and the second player to fire. After all, if the second player decides not to fire, no dice even need to be rolled...

Right, when there is no random element, then you are always successful. I wasn't implying that skill IS luck, or that skill requires randomness.

What I'm implying is that there are non-random skill elements, and that there are random luck elements (and, well, non-random luck elements, but that's beside the point).

Yes, if you move 6", then you move 6", end of. The thing is, though, what does movement actually matter? What does skill actually matter? With two exceptions (moving onto an empty objective onto an objective mission, or moving to contest an objective), the only thing that movement does is to increase the odds that you kill something (or decrease the odds that something of yours is destroyed. Or, as Crom mentioned, trying to influence your OPPONENT'S decision of how to play the odds, but that's a matter of psychology...).

Skill exists to mess with luck, to play odds better, etc.

**-Nazdreg-**

I'd really like to see a game where someone won without rolling a single die.

This is impossible, because you dont even start before you rolled the first die (the die for deployment and turn order)
Apart from that, yes I did see this game.

Tau with many kroot vs enemy without tanks or skimmers/jetbikes having first turn and the enemy reserving everything.
I myself scored a tie with about every roll backfiring which is almost the same as rolling nothing (The problem was, the opponent had two rhinos on the table and it was an objective game with 3 objectives and I was only able to contest one rather than killing a single rhino... Ah yes and my Manticore killed my own executioner instead of a single TWC...).
And I scored a victory where my dice were unimportant. (vs 2/9 pinning him in a quarter and then marching on 2 objectives while holding my own objectives having material present)

**TheRedArmy**

Nurglitch wrote:
Ailaros wrote:Players make decisions based on the odds that they want to play, and the dice actually determine the success or failure of their decisions.

Okay, so what we have here is a failure to communicate. You're using a special definition of the term "determine". The dice specifically do not determine the success or failure of the player's decisions, what with being random and all. The players determine the success or failure of their actions by making decisions.

As has been pointed out Warhammer 40,000 is full of instances where the outcome of player decisions are not determined by dice.

Now it seems you would say: "Yeah, but moving 6" forward where I can shoot the unit means that the successfulness of moving 6" was determined by dice: my shooting dice." Actually no, the success of that action depends on both the decision of the first player to move, and the second player to fire. After all, if the second player decides not to fire, no dice even need to be rolled...

Nurglitch - really not trying to be nasty here, but are you sure you're not using a special meaning of determine?

Courtesy of Dictionary.com...

Dictionary.com wrote:1.to settle or decide (a dispute, question, etc.) by an authoritative or conclusive decision.
2.to conclude or ascertain, as after reasoning, observation, etc.
3.Geometry . to fix the position of.
4.to cause, affect, or control; fix or decide causally: Demand for a product usually determines supply.

I grabbed the first 4, because 4 is the only one relevant to the discussion (I brought 1-3 in for completeness' sake, and feel free to look up the other meanings yourself).

"To cause, affect, or control" - Ailaros is right. The Dice control the outcome of several of the most important events in the game - did my guardsmen hit you, did my bolters wound you, did my Dire Avengers make their armor save? Dice decide all that. I don't say my Marines shoot your Guardsmen and we both just go "Oh, OK. I guess 4 would die then, or something."

Now, you are also right in that the player's non-random choices (how to move prior to shooting), caused the marines to be able to fire in the first place (by moving them into range) but whether or not they hit, wound, or you make saves are all determined by dice. If you had 5 armor, and went into cover the previous turn, that's skill. Whether or not the cover saves you is luck.

Ailaros - for all these people late to the thread, I suggest you go ahead and make a point at the top of your Original Post to link to your new, revised theory.

**MikeMcSomething**

Nurglitch wrote:The dice specifically do not determine the success or failure of the player's decisions

that is exactly what the dice do in warhammer 40,000

**Ailaros**

-Nazdreg- wrote:I myself scored a tie

Oh, right, if you and your opponent agreed never to roll a die, then the result would always be a draw.

-Nazdreg- wrote:And I scored a victory where my dice were unimportant.

Sure, and I've won games with bad luck too. That's part of the theory, after all, that at some point of skill inequality skill matters more than luck.

TheRedArmy wrote:Now, you are also right in that the player's non-random choices (how to move prior to shooting), caused the marines to be able to fire in the first place (by moving them into range) but whether or not they hit, wound, or you make saves are all determined by dice. If you had 5 armor, and went into cover the previous turn, that's skill. Whether or not the cover saves you is luck.

Exactly. When weapons are out of range of something, they have a 0% chance to do damage. When you move them into range, you greatly shorten those odds. Just moving into range, though, just gives you the chance, it doesn't actually guarantee that you will do any damage at all.

TheRedArmy wrote:Ailaros - for all these people late to the thread, I suggest you go ahead and make a point at the top of your Original Post to link to your new, revised theory.

I did, actually.

**imweasel**

MikeMcSomething wrote:
Nurglitch wrote:The dice specifically do not determine the success or failure of the player's decisions

that is exactly what the dice do in warhammer 40,000

I think a more accurate description would be:

The dice sometimes determine the success or failure of a player's decisions.

**Dashofpepper**

Nurglitch wrote:

One interesting case in point was a battle report DashofPepper posted, which I'm sure anyone interested can look up in the Battle Report forum. Basically DashofPepper's opponent had noticed that in trying to win, they would get ground up and spat out by DashofPepper, so instead of mirroring DashofPepper's strategy and losing horribly, he went for a tie and...tied, which was better than losing, and apparently knobbled DashofPepper in that tournament. It's pretty interesting reading and people should look it up.

In that game, I think the only dice I rolled were for dangerous terrain?

My daemon opponent deep-struck as far away from me as he could without risking falling off the board, then ran away from me. The game ended in a draw, with me never actually getting to him. Battlewagons can move 12" per turn, but if your enemy is suddenly at a 45 degree angle to your direction, it takes a turn of movement to realign the battlewagons in that direction.

**MikeMcSomething**

imweasel wrote:
MikeMcSomething wrote:
Nurglitch wrote:The dice specifically do not determine the success or failure of the player's decisions

that is exactly what the dice do in warhammer 40,000

I think a more accurate description would be:

The dice sometimes determine the success or failure of a player's decisions.

Any situation where dice are being rolled, they are being rolled because a player decided to create a situation wherein a player would roll dice, and they are determining the success/failure of that decision. What imweasel said was not correct in any context where dice are involved in 40k.

**Fearspect**

As you mentioned, I read through your new "theory" because you claimed it addresses 'many of my points'. It in fact addresses none of them, while adding heaps of text discussing extremely obvious things. Why would you write a whole paragraph about how a more skilled player will win more? Did you think that if you filled most of your writing with statements no one could actually disagree with that you could just sneak in your flawed theory right at the end of it? We all know that luck and tactics are both a part of 40k, no one is in disagreement on this, but I really think what you wrote has to be put out in the open so that you can take a look at what everyone is reading:

This theory, then, means that the more one advances in skill at playing 40k, the less they will see their games determined by their increase in skill, and the more that they will see their games determined by luck.

I don't know what you actually are meaning to say, but you just told everyone that the more skill they get, the less it gets used. I can assure you that I use 100% of my gained skills in every game I play. More specifically, you are stoically refusing to acknowledge that your theory is based on false premises, namely the two I have listed out for you:

Fearspect wrote:First off, you have an issue with you hypothesis:

Ailaros wrote:The theory, in brief, is that 40k is actually a tactically limited game, and once you achieve a certain level of skill, your skill becomes relatively insignificant compared to luck.

So, to break it down, one of the things that's important to know is that this is relative. The outcome of any given game is determined by factors that are relative to each other between the players. For example, if you and your opponent both brought the same lists, then list-building errors are extremely unlikely to be a determining factor in the outcome of your list. In this case, things like how the two players use the list, or how the dice roll are far more likely to be determinant, as the lists are relatively insignificant, being equal to each other.

First off, you come out with this theory, but it is not based on anything other than your own opinion. You then go on from this as your springboard with a whole lot of conjecture that only works if your original theory is true. This is backward. A theory needs to derive from observable evidence, not the other way around.

Ailaros wrote:So, I'm working on a theory that's been mulled over in my most recent battle report, and I wanted to drag my net of input wider than just my regular readers.

I read the report. Dice rolling was not as large of a factor as you believe it was. You were playing against a list with significant advantages against your own. Among them: mobility and resilience to damage. Higher end tactics in this game revolve around the use of reserves and outflanking, neither of which you used (he didn't either, but at least he had access to them). These are important to mitigate concepts like an 'alpha strike'. You purposely chose to leave yourself open to a known strategy with your list choices.

Ailaros wrote:The better a player gets at 40k, the smaller their mistakes are. Their lists are good, so any list-building errors are going to be very small. Their movement is good, so any movement errors are going to be small. The smaller the errors are, the less likely they are to effect the outcome of a game relative to other factors. For example, forgetting to bring any anti AV14 is much more likely to impact the game than if you accidentally drove a piece of AV14 within 48" of a model armed with a missile launcher.

Here is another part where you made a statement, and have used that throughout your posts as if it were true. First off, I would say that skill would not change whether mistakes are large or small (did we even properly define how small 'small' is?). Skill would directly correlate to the number of mistakes you make. The relative size of them would be determined by your opponent's skill in exploiting them. A bunch of 'small' mistakes will lose you the game.

Ailaros wrote:How the dice roll is always going to be random (unless you're cheating), but even though they are not predictable in any given roll, they are still constrained (it's not possible to roll a 13 on 2D6), and they are controlled (it's not possible to get better at luck). This means that the relative luck between the two players is going to produce a set advantage to one player or another in any particular game. Now, if everyone always rolled exactly on average, this would be a relatively insignificant factor (such as the significance of luck in chess), but as it is, that's not the case in 40k.

You start off correct here, but quickly veer off course. Dice rolls will be random, but luck is definitely not linear across skill levels. You are forgetting a key factor that comes with skill: effective list writing. When you build redundancies into your list, you ensure a measurable outcome. The example opponent you played had a single Manticore, a model that directly counters a significant amount of your army. Yes, he could have rolled only a single missile each shot, and had wild scatters, but what happens when you bring three? Suddenly, the entire impact of these choices will greatly change the game, most notably because of the limited size of the table (meaning only so many shots are required to cover your army). On another note, the fact that it was not deployed directly behind a piece of terrain and firing indirectly the whole time is another impact (in this case player skill comes in with tactical analysis). If he has a single unit that will reliably destroy yours, he should make every effort to ensure that all four rounds of potential shooting occur. End of the day, this is just a single example, but I think you can see how that could extend to others and to the game at large. Dashofpepper's example of various numbers of Orks assaulting 10 Space Marines is another example of this. Build your list right, and luck actually stops being a factor (yes, it exists, but it is so ridiculously mitigated that it can be ignored).

So you see from here, two imperfect sub-theories were chosen by yourself as the fundamental building blocks of 'luck becomes the determining factor':

1) The incorrect belief that luck and its effect on a game is linear across skill levels.
2) The concept that the better you are, the smaller your mistakes become.

I look forward to you actually responding.

**MikeMcSomething**

Fearspect wrote: but you just told everyone that the more skill they get, the less it gets used

This has actually never been his point.

**Fearspect**

His point is the same it always was, but that is the language he is now busy linking everyone to.

**Ailaros**

Fearspect wrote:I don't know what you actually are meaning to say, but you just told everyone that the more skill they get, the less it gets used.

Actually, what I said was that the more skilled you get, the less your skill determines the outcome of the game. I am actually assuming that players are playing to the 100% maximum possible skill level in any game (although were this not true, the theory also handles that).

Fearspect wrote: you are stoically refusing to acknowledge that your theory is based on false premises, namely the two I have listed out for you:

Alright, let's see how false these premises are...

Fearspect wrote:it is not based on anything other than your own opinion.

All hypothesis are based on opinion.

Fearspect wrote:You then go on from this as your springboard with a whole lot of conjecture that only works if your original theory is true.

It's not a real theory if it's not predictive.

Fearspect wrote: This is backward. A theory needs to derive from observable evidence, not the other way around.

Only when you use induction. Did Einstein have data points before he crafted the theory of relativity? No, he posited the theory, and only LATER did people come up with data points that corroborated it. In fact, there are some parts of relativity that we STILL don't have data points for, going a century on after the fact.

If you want some data to bicker over, I can link you to some of my battle reports again, but I doubt anything useful will be gained from such arguing.

Fearspect wrote: Higher end tactics in this game revolve around the use of reserves and outflanking

That's a matter of discussion of skill. I don't believe high skilled players need to use reserves, nor is failing to use reserves the sign of a poor player. Lots of people win lots of games without putting anything in reserve.

Fearspect wrote: I would say that skill would not change whether mistakes are large or small (did we even properly define how small 'small' is?). Skill would directly correlate to the number of mistakes you make. The relative size of them would be determined by your opponent's skill in exploiting them. A bunch of 'small' mistakes will lose you the game.

Actually, the theory v.2 doesn't use the word "mistake" once. It was too vague of a concept that was too poorly defined. All it did was confuse people, which is why it was stripped from the theory.

Fearspect wrote: Dice rolls will be random, but luck is definitely not linear across skill levels. You are forgetting a key factor that comes with skill: effective list writing... When you build redundancies into your list, you ensure a measurable outcome.

You're not ensuring anything, you're only shortening the odds of any particular event occurring.

Fearspect wrote:On another note, the fact that it was not deployed directly behind a piece of terrain and firing indirectly the whole time is another impact (in this case player skill comes in with tactical analysis). If he has a single unit that will reliably destroy yours, he should make every effort to ensure that all four rounds of potential shooting occur.

Once again, you're talking about skill. You can play the odds in any way you want, but this doesn't eliminate the fact that you're still playing the odds of random die rolls.

Fearspect wrote:1) The incorrect belief that luck and its effect on a game is linear across skill levels.

I've yet to see why this shouldn't be true. No amount of skill will make you a luckier player. In fact, if skill had an impact on the results of your die rolls (your luck), I'd call you a cheater for fixing your die rolls.

Fearspect wrote:2) The concept that the better you are, the smaller your mistakes become.

I no longer make this claim, because I no longer recognize "mistakes".

If your only two argument about this theory stem from something that isn't in the theory, and that player skill influences which numbers come up on your die, you'll have to excuse me if I fail to see how this theory needs to be changed.

Fearspect wrote:I look forward to you actually responding.

If you've been feeling ignored, it's because what you're saying isn't relevant. Having to break down every irrelevant argument that's been made so far is much beyond my patience. Consider yourself lucky that I bothered with you.

**nyenyec**

Ailaros wrote:
Actually, what I said was that the more skilled you get, the less your skill determines the outcome of the game.

Before we get too depressed about this

, please note that this is only true in the short run, when you haven't rolled enough dice.

Let's say that Alice is a great player, in the top 5 percentile, while Bob is ranked only in the top 10.
Assume that Alice has a 60% chance of winning a single game because of her skills.

Given an infinite amount of games the chance of Alice winning the majority of them would still approach 1.
The random factors in the game only increase the variance of the distribution but not the expected value.

The more dice you roll, the less chance you have that one side will have significantly favorable dice rolls.

The questions are:

A) Do you roll enough dice in a single 40K game?

B) Given current popular tournament formats, what are the chances of Bob (the weaker player) scoring higher in a tournament than Alice?

**xlightscreen**

in theory/paper this does look correct.

But for game purposes? There probably is just to many factors to really prove this. The concept of chance in the dice is what makes any random based game appealing.

A example of this in action and as close as it gets when it comes to dice being a major factor is this vid

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alOGaDsQZao
@2:04

**Nurglitch**

Delete

**Heffling**

Ailoros, would you take your theory to the extreme and say that players that have demonstrated that they are the most skilled should simply show up to a major tournament, then dice off to determine a winner (since it's all about luck) rather than playing the game?

**sourclams**

Heffling wrote:Ailoros, would you take your theory to the extreme and say that players that have demonstrated that they are the most skilled should simply show up to a major tournament, then dice off to determine a winner (since it's all about luck) rather than playing the game?

That is essentially what the theory is, and also where it works best (at the utmost fringe). In a scenario between two players with perfect execution and identical armies, dice should be the determining factor, if not the only factor.

In a scenario between a player with perfect execution and a player with perfectly imperfect execution, dice should be irrelevant.

Because those scenarios rarely (never) arise, that's where the debate about its usefulness in everyday life is sparked.

**Fearspect**

My bad, Aileros. I did not realize I was dealing with the Einstein of 40k. Still... there is measurable math to this to create datapoints from, so I am not sure why you feel induction is not the way you should be coming about a theory. Specifically, there is an entire branch of mathematics dedicated to calculating game-theory concepts.

My problem is that you are completely marginalizing skill in the game to support what you are saying. Skill will shorten the odds, but the way you mention it, you make it sound like a minimal impact. By building in redundancies, you can completely negate luck's involvement in the game, just the same as I can reliably tell someone with a lottery ticket that they will not win the jackpot. Can it happen? Sure. Will it? 1/(49c6) is the chance it will.

I drive up with Vet meltas against a rhino. Can they all miss? Sure, but only 1/27 times will they all do that. That is one squad, so then, bring three or four. With proper list building, and the tactical acumen to bring weapons to the proper locations, luck completely stops mattering.

I posit that those who cry bad luck do not consider the countless bad decisions that led them to have their victory or loss decided by a single die roll, be it a vehicle pen, or the decision for the game to continue another turn.

Furthermore, you completely misunderstand my discussion of reserve manipulation as a skill. This is one that relates directly to listbuilding, and should be self-evident: The more tactical options (deployment or combat elements) you have, the better you have the possibility of doing. Coming in with a single plan is self-defeating because when you are matched against a list that does everything you do, but better (outshoots your shooting, or outcombats your cc list), you have an option to not make the game an auto-loss.

**Dracos**

sourclams wrote:
Heffling wrote:Ailoros, would you take your theory to the extreme and say that players that have demonstrated that they are the most skilled should simply show up to a major tournament, then dice off to determine a winner (since it's all about luck) rather than playing the game?

That is essentially what the theory is, and also where it works best (at the utmost fringe). In a scenario between two players with perfect execution and identical armies, dice should be the determining factor, if not the only factor.

In a scenario between a player with perfect execution and a player with perfectly imperfect execution, dice should be irrelevant.

Because those scenarios rarely (never) arise, that's where the debate about its usefulness in everyday life is sparked.

Exactly. The theory essentially tells us what we already know. Yes, if you set all variables other than luck to being equal, guess what the player with better luck will win. How is this new or useful? However, the assertion that this level where skill is trumped by luck is not a level that is seen in play - the other variables are never even enough for this to take place.

**ElCheezus**

Heffling wrote:Ailoros, would you take your theory to the extreme and say that players that have demonstrated that they are the most skilled should simply show up to a major tournament, then dice off to determine a winner (since it's all about luck) rather than playing the game?

Who ever said that the top rated players are near perfect? Why do you assume that they'd be close enough in skill level to make luck surface as the factor? You have some assumptions of your own to acknowledge and explain.

**Ailaros**

nyenyec wrote:note that this is only true in the short run, when you haven't rolled enough dice.

Right, this theory is looking at what determines the outcome of a single game, not the outcome of an infinite game between two static players. Over the incredibly long term, luck starts becoming controlled.

Nurglitch wrote:I'm going to leave this here though, just in case someone feels like learning themselves a book:

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/topics/GameTheory.html

Well, it's not that I don't get game theory (I took enough International Relations classes...), it's that game theory has a limited scope. Specifically, the scope of game theory is limited to the skill half of this theory.

In order for it to affect the luck side of the theory, then playing "hawk" alone would be able to immobilize a land raider going through cover (when, in fact, only a die roll can determine this).

If you want to talk more about skill using ideas like game theory, that's fine, but it ultimately has little relevance to a theory that compares skill and luck against each other.

+1 for the link to wolfram, though

Heffling wrote:Ailoros, would you take your theory to the extreme and say that players that have demonstrated that they are the most skilled should simply show up to a major tournament, then dice off to determine a winner (since it's all about luck) rather than playing the game?

As El Cheezus notes, not all players who enter a tournament are of even remotely the same skill level. Even if they were, that doesn't necessarily mean you don't play in tournaments (or games of 40k at all for that matter). People like playing games of 40k, including in tournaments.

I mean, people also like playing craps, which has VERY little skill in it. That doesn't mean it's not fun.

Fearspect wrote: Specifically, there is an entire branch of mathematics dedicated to calculating game-theory concepts.

Well, if you think you can use "more math" to make a better theory, I'd like to see it.

Fearspect wrote: My problem is that you are completely marginalizing skill in the game to support what you are saying. Skill will shorten the odds, but the way you mention it, you make it sound like a minimal impact. By building in redundancies, you can completely negate luck's involvement in the game, just the same as I can reliably tell someone with a lottery ticket that they will not win the jackpot. Can it happen? Sure. Will it? 1/(49c6) is the chance it will.

Actually, you can NEVER negate luck, no matter HOW redundant you are. You are still rolling dice. You are still playing odds.

Also, as the theory mentions, short odds are not necessarily the best odds. When you shorten your odds somewhere, you have to lengthen them somewhere else. Every decision has a cost.

Fearspect wrote:I posit that those who cry bad luck do not consider the countless bad decisions that led them to have their victory or loss decided by a single die roll, be it a vehicle pen, or the decision for the game to continue another turn.

Whether the game is determined by a single die roll or many, it's still luck that's the determiner.

Are you saying that those people who played certain odds and failed made the wrong decision? Would their decision have been correct if they had succeeded? You can't use the results of a random roll to determine if a decision was correct or not, post-facto.

Fearspect wrote:Furthermore, you completely misunderstand my discussion of reserve manipulation as a skill. This is one that relates directly to listbuilding, and should be self-evident: The more tactical options (deployment or combat elements) you have, the better you have the possibility of doing.

Yes, the stronger your list, and the better skilled you are at using it, the more you can actually play the odds exactly as you intend to.

Dracos wrote: However, the assertion that this level where skill is trumped by luck is not a level that is seen in play - the other variables are never even enough for this to take place.

Wait, how does one's ability to play the odds they want ever actually trump the actual result of the die roll for any given event?

Really, the question is the opposite, at what level of odds-playing inequality does the inequality of the odds-playing make a difference in the game?

**Dracos**

Here's a question, how did you determine where the "luck" line goes in the graph? Seems pretty arbitrary to me. Not only that, but the chart is saying that luck will have the same influence regardless of the disparity in skill levels.

Where the luck line exists on the chart will change where it intersects the skill line, and the fact that luck has a constant value across all differences of skill levels makes your graph inaccurate and useless.

Not only that, but you havn't even offered proof that the other line is accurate either. What evidence do you have that player skill similarity has the relationship described by the graph?

Your theory is pretty much just a bunch of obvious facts that don't add up to the conclusion you want. You have oversimplified the game, made conclusions not supported by any facts and are attempting to make everything fit to your conclusion.

**Ailaros**

Dracos wrote:Here's a question, how did you determine where the "luck" line goes in the graph? Seems pretty arbitrary to me.

That's because it is.

I don't actually know where luck and skill cross, I only theorize that at some point they do. Furthermore, thinking about the lines on the graph may be a bit misleading. Perhaps if you thought of them as really fat lines, or intersecting fields, a more clearer picture could be created.

Dracos wrote:What evidence do you have that player skill similarity has the relationship described by the graph?

This comes from the idea that changing odds has diminishing return. Going from a 1:1 chance of something happening to a 2:1 chance is huge. Going from a 100:1 to 101: is not. The same size increase matters less the further you go.

It's actually a truism of controlled variables in general. The more you control for a variable, the harder it is to control for that variable more.

**Nurglitch**

Delete

**Ailaros**

Nurglitch wrote:
Duel
The game of Duel is the nearest we are going to get to a military application. Alice and Bob walk towards each other armed with pistols loaded with just one bullet. The probability of either hitting the other increases the nearer the two approach. The payoff to each player is the probability of surviving.

How close should Alice get to Bob before firing? This is literally a question of life and death because, if she fires and misses, Bob will be able to advance to point-blank range with fatal consequences for Alice. Since someone dies in each possible outcome of the game, the payoffs therefore always sum to one.

The conclusion is obvious. It can't be a Nash equilibrium for one payer to plan to fire sooner than the other, because it would be a better reply for the player who is planning to fire first to wait a tiny bit longer. But how close will they be when they simultaneously open fire?

The minimax theorum gives the answer right away. Duel is unit-sum rather than zero-sum, but the minimax theorem still applies (provided the payoffs still sum to one when the players fire simultaneously). The only difference is that the players' maximin payoffs now add up to one instead of zero. So if Alice is always twice as likely to hit Bob as he is to hit her, they will both fire at whatever distance makes Alice hit Bob two-thirds of the time and Bob hit Alice one-third of the time.

Right, this is a great example of skill. Two players are calculating their odds based off of what another is doing, and what their chances of their desired result happening are (relative to whatever risk thresholds they have). This is totally what skill in 40k looks like.

The problem is that it has nothing to do with the luck side of the theory. The winner of the duel is determined by who hit the other person, not by who shot first, or who played the odds more exactly to what they desired than the other.

If both duelers were perfect duelers - they always shot exactly when they got to exactly the odds of hitting that they desired - that would not make the duel a draw, or, in fact, in any way determine the result of the duel. The result is determined by who hit, and if you hit or not is determined by random elements.

Thus, the winner of the duel is the one whose luck had them hit their opponent, regardless of the odds they played.

**Nurglitch**

Deleted

**Dashofpepper**

I just realized that this thread reminds me of communism. Great theory, unachievable because of the human element involved.

What purpose does a theory serve when the conditions for its utility are impossible?

**imweasel**

MikeMcSomething wrote:
imweasel wrote:
MikeMcSomething wrote:
Nurglitch wrote:The dice specifically do not determine the success or failure of the player's decisions

that is exactly what the dice do in warhammer 40,000

I think a more accurate description would be:

The dice sometimes determine the success or failure of a player's decisions.

Any situation where dice are being rolled, they are being rolled because a player decided to create a situation wherein a player would roll dice, and they are determining the success/failure of that decision. What imweasel said was not correct in any context where dice are involved in 40k.

Except it can be. If I move a unit to cause my opponent to respond by move something in defense, I would say that the dice did not determine the success or failure of that decision.

No dice involved. My decision was successful. I'm sure you have a point in there somewhere I may be missing. I don't think nurglitch was refering to every single decision in 40k. You threw in 'when dice are rolled'.

**Crom**

I think we are talking in circles. Did we not all agree that all games are decided mostly by skill and dice rolls can only really make a small impact at best? With the exception of a game changing die roll, but if you are taking a die roll that the outcome would change the game you probably messed up to put yourself in that situation to begin with.

**yournamehere**

I just realized that this thread reminds me of communism. Great theory, unachievable because of the human element involved.

What purpose does a theory serve when the conditions for its utility are impossible? - Dash

blowing minds?