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Does anyone else actually use maths hammer, for example i use maths hammer in games sometime to decide wheather an assualt is worth it or not, such as by probability is my great unclean one more or less likely to win close combat against Marnius Calgar. I appreciate that this isn't going to account for luck. None of my friends and none of the people in my local games workshop use it. So i was wondering if anyone on DakkaDakka uses it or if anyone disagree's with it being used for whatever reason.

I use it to a lesser extent before the game, though none of my probabilities are that exact. I generaly go through and see what kind of things my troops could reasonably be put against before the battle starts. Of course I find that it's rarely the case that both players roll statistically in any one phase, though I'm sure it more or less evens out over the course of most games. Little consolation though for when you fail that one super easy roll that ends up changing the course of the game.

Maths hammer failed the other day when my Fateweaver was killed by 3 bolters. (within twelve inches). When probability would say it takes over 55 blotters within 12" thats including the oracle of eternity leadership test

I use it when I need it.
The other day I lost 5 out of 8 plasma gunners to Hets Hot!. Doesn't mean they're still better than melta guns...

I use it to work out what my guys can do. Particularly biomorphs I've never used - for example, Mathhammer taught me that all Warrior ranged weapons suck.

I play Tyranids and my three main opponents are Grey Knights, Salamanders, and Necron. Unlike those armies, I don't have the luxury of redundancy (somewhat ironically) I need to optimise my points. Is Genestealer squad too small? Too big? What's the chance that my Warrior Prime can beat Kaldor Draigo in close combat?

It's also fun for silly things, like "how many Termagaunts does it take to kill a Paladin?". 40k, like anything that uses dice, is a game of probability. You take a tank because it statistically has a far better chance of knocking out enemy armour than a single Marine with a missile launcher. If he were to roll sixes for everything, he'd be able to take on the entire enemy army on his own, but the likelihood of that is so infinitely small that nobody sane would ever rely upon it.

It is entirely possible for Firewarriors to beat Mephiston in close combat. Think on that.

EDIT: olim, it didn't fail. It's possible for Fateweaver to be shot at by a million Leman Russ and come out unscathed. Unlikely, but possible.

Honestly as an ingame thing...why bother.
I know that if my incubi charge anyting without an invul that they should churn out a good number of kills.
I also tend to take a great number of risks....
I have found that in a game involving dice that probability is irrelevant, it is only weight of numbers that matter.

But probability isn't irrelevant. You just said yourself; you know that your Incubi should churn out a good number of kills. "Should" being the operative word. They're much more likely to than say, Guardsmen, but that doesn't mean that Guardsmen are better than they are in close combat.

I definitely don't think you can call probability irrelevant to warhammer, it is the mathematical basis of the game, however it could be said to be un-usefull or too time consuming or unreliable

It's hardly time-consuming, given all the calculators out there.

EDIT:

300 Firewarriors vs Mephiston, Lord of Death
Attacks: 300
Hit Chance: 33.33%
Hits: 100
Wound Chance: 16.67%
Wounds: 16.667
Saved Wounds: 13.889
Unsaved Wounds: 2.778
Models Killed: 0.556

LOL

That wasn't my personal opinion, i did say "it could be said."
However i don't use calculators for maths hammer, i think that is taking it to the point where doing it detracts from the game
Calculators are for the weak when doing simple sums

It could be said. But it's wrong, because it's easier than playing the game itself. However, why not use a calculator? It's just saving you time. With a calculator, it has taken me all of ten seconds to work out that it takes 540 Firewarriors to kill Mephiston on average rolls. Not that that serves any particular tactical knowledge, but it is amusing.

EDIT: For the weak..?

Do you know how much time it would take to work out that? O.o;

olim wrote:That wasn't my personal opinion, i did say "it could be said."
However i don't use calculators for maths hammer, i think that is taking it to the point where doing it detracts from the game
Calculators are for the weak when doing simple sums

Yeah the sums are very basic. You definitely don't need a calculator to work out the average results for a round of assault/shooting.

Mathhammer is useful because it allows you to make decisions based on probable outcomes. An opponent of mine charged three scarab swarms into a Nemesis Dreadknight with a Greatsword on the basis 'they might get lucky.' Mathhammer will tell you that the odds of a useful result are so trivial that you are probably better off not doing it, especially since the NDK is almost guaranteed to just kill them before they swing. Mathhammer tells you what the likely results of your actions are, not what the guaranteed results are. You can thus make more informed decisions. Ie, choosing to fire a missile launcher at a flickerfield Raider or at a ravager. Mathhammer tells you that your destroy probability is actually fractionally better against the Ravager. It also tells you that regardless, you are not likely to destroy either. So if you're only going to get one or two clean missile shots that turn, you should move under the assumption that both skimmers will survive. One just needs to have paid attention in high school to be able to quickly grasp the more binary events and thus it should be useful and quick to do.

I brought up the calculator because olim said it takes too long, which, using a calculator, it does not. Of course it wouldn't be necessary for an average round, but then, either would it 'take too long', either. Therefore, it is implied that we were not talking about average rounds.

If it takes too long to do simple sums, and yet the calculator is refused because the sums are too simple, then we have a strange logic loop that ends up going nowhere.

EDIT: Exactly, Hamster!

EDIT2: I am no longer a Scuttling Genestealer! I am a Raging Ravener! I didn't even know Raveners could feel RAEG o.o!

The problem with the maths hammer that most people do is that they simply work out the average result. They don't workout the reliability of that result or how likely it is compared to other results (probability spread).

e.g. the average roll on 1D6x2 is 7 but all of the results are equally likely whereas the average on 2D6 is 7 but 7 is more likely than all of the other results and way more likely than 2 or 12.

This is important but much harder to account for. Math hammer of averages doesn't take this into account.

shame dice dont use the law of averages, law of mechanics is what they use, now in a vacuum mathhammer is an aid, in real life throw it out the window, as anyone with experiance with this game will tell you, the dice never do as there told lol

That's why you don't do average numbers, you do percentages.

Also, an average of 7 is still useful anyway - 7 IS most likely because it represents a combination of numbers. It's like rolling on a die with the 2 and 1 replaced with a 3; you can expect a 3, even if you might not get one.

Yes i agree for a bit of fun by all means use a calculator to do larger sums. But in games i would disagree with the use of getting out a calculator and punching in the numbers mid phase. A calculator will rarely be necessary for working out most realistic scenarios.

Not mid-phase! Oh, certainly no! That'd be worse than... I don't even know. It'd just be rude, for one thing! o.o

I love using it in game after someone really stuffs their rolls. If you knew one of the guys I played with, you would understand this. He consistently rolls well below average. I mean well below. Like a DP and a unit of Plague marines charging guardsmen and killing 3 (one of them by the marines), getting hit by imotekh's lighning on a DP and being wounded 4 times and failing 3 saves, every. single. leadership test. almost every difficult terrain test on vehicles till he bought them all dozer blades. Still rolls atleast one 1 in the terrain rolls though.

He's just so entertaining. Against me he normally doesn't butcher it too bad (only just below average) but against my brother...god you should see it. Whenever we roll badly we say we did a Xavier roll. He has a roll named after him he's that unlucky.

So yeah, Mathhammer gets used post-combat/post-shooting for a laugh to see just how far his dice underperformed.

GreyHamster wrote:. You can thus make more informed decisions. Ie, choosing to fire a missile launcher at a flickerfield Raider or at a ravager. Mathhammer tells you that your destroy probability is actually fractionally better against the Ravager. It also tells you that regardless, you are not likely to destroy either. So if you're only going to get one or two clean missile shots that turn, you should move under the assumption that both skimmers will survive. One just needs to have paid attention in high school to be able to quickly grasp the more binary events and thus it should be useful and quick to do.

You really dont need to do math to know that the vehicle with a save is marginally more survivable than the one that doesnt have one....

Also, how is it usefull in game to know that it takes 540 firewarriors to kill mephiston (in a perfect, average universe)




Automatically Appended Next Post:
-Slightly off topic-
Many simulators for games like Axis and Allies have a low luck mode. In this mode every combat is resolved in perfect statistical averages...so I have 6 infantry which wound on a 1, I will cause exactly 1 wound in every round of combat. Its incredibly boring because you loose the element of chance, you cannot win big or loose big in the low luck system.

Math hammer attempts to model that system, but is unreliable as the dice will not. So even if i have a 90% chance of loosing a combat, Ill still go for it because the dice can and will do anything. As well, the outcomes of individual events within the game may be less important than what they achieve otherwise for your overall plan.

I do serious mathahmmer for my lists, and tactics I may use.
It's simple maths for most ingame things.

Unless we're talking about total loss, including what your loss could have damaged what the cost of shooting unit was and what it saved.

Working that out is to complicated for 10 Second mathhammer in your brain.

It's common sense also.

Lightcavalier wrote:
Also, how is it usefull in game to know that it takes 540 firewarriors to kill mephiston (in a perfect, average universe)

Frozen Ocean wrote:it takes 540 Firewarriors to kill Mephiston on average rolls. Not that that serves any particular tactical knowledge, but it is amusing.

Hey, maybe it's an Apocalypse game and those are the only two things left on the board - 540 Firewarriors, and one Lord of Death. Might be useful then.

EDIT: lol I quoted myself quoting myself -snip-

I'm writing a program at the moment to work out the probability of one squad causing all possible numbers of wounds (0, 1 ... n). The formula's a little complex (not something you can work out in your head), but nothing for a computer.

Fair enough!

I use it all the time during my games to figure out likely outcomes. The math is fast and I usually do it in my head while I'm counting dice out.

I use it all the time in list building, of course, but occasionally in games as well. After you play awhile, you intuitively calculate things to within a single deviation without having to crunch the numbers proper.

There are times, though, when I've actually done the math. Either I can move my tank and get a shot off at obstructed side armor, or stay and get an unobstructed shot on the front, or shooting at a tank that I can't see the front of at all and taking the obscurement penalty or moving to be able to see the front of the tank, with its cover save. That kind of thing.

Doesn't come up all that often, though.

Frozen Ocean wrote:

Lightcavalier wrote:
Also, how is it usefull in game to know that it takes 540 firewarriors to kill mephiston (in a perfect, average universe)

Frozen Ocean wrote:it takes 540 Firewarriors to kill Mephiston on average rolls. Not that that serves any particular tactical knowledge, but it is amusing.

Hey, maybe it's an Apocalypse game and those are the only two things left on the board - 540 Firewarriors, and one Lord of Death. Might be useful then.

EDIT: lol I quoted myself quoting myself -snip-

I'm guessing that's 540 Fire Warriors in close combat?

Now work out how well he fares when those 540 Fire Warriors shoot him

Actually, let's call it 528, one unit of 12 was slaughtered in close combat but bought time for the rest to get out of his assault range for one turn of shooting at long range.

So 528 shots.
50% hit = 264 hits.
33.3% wound = 88 wounds
5/6 wounds saved on armour = 14.66 unsaved wounds
Does he have FNP or re-roll failed saves? If not it looks like he is very dead.

Yes, in combat! And... no, I don't think so.

That's just lulzy. But I would have expected more than 14.66 wounds. Don't Firewarriors have a BS of 3?

Frozen Ocean wrote:Yes, in combat! And... no, I don't think so.

That's just lulzy. But I would have expected more than 14.66 wounds. Don't Firewarriors have a BS of 3?

Yes, so they hit on a 4+ which is a 50% hit rate.

In regards to the relatively low number of wounds, that's what T6 and a 2+ save does.