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Ailaros, your biggest problem with this theory is that you're arguing with people who are looking for practical information.

They're also largely looking at the bigger picture, while you're looking at single-game events.

In the bigger picture, more skilled players win more games. They win more tournaments. In the practical world, you rarely get games between players of equal caliber who have brought equal lists.

This leads to a wealth of evidence that suggests that what you're saying is wrong. But that's largely because the evidence isn't really related to what you're saying at all.

It's all too easy to prove that when controllable factors (aka skill) are evenly matched, uncontrolled factors (aka luck) will rule the day. It's far far harder to see how these controllable factors will be even at any time.

Good players bring experimental lists. In a match between to equally skilled players, one had more rest. One had more to drink. One had a fight with his wife the night before.

Even these minor factors lead to a lapse of concentration that can be fatal in high level games. High level games are more about movement, positioning and forcing your opponent to make poor choices than they are about specific casualties.

At best, this whole thread comes down to two things that we can seemingly all agree on;

1) Luck plays a non-zero role in determining the outcome of any game.

2) You're rarely going to find games where the opponents are equally skilled, make an equal number of game-impacting mistakes, bring equally competent lists, and so on.

Some people, typically those who are good players, will choose to understate the impact of luck, believing that the factors they can control will always be more important than those they cannot. I think, often enough, these players simple don't play enough people at, near, or above their skill level. They are also typically people looking to better their game. They examine their games to find their flaws when they lose, and we all have flaws. But in doing so, they're likely to ignore the factor that luck played, in both players games.

I went 7-1 at the Nova Open for example. I didn't win. Obviously, because I lost a game. =p Actually, SVDM is a better example. I went 3-2 with my Orks; tabled three opponents, got tabled twice.

I'm not saying that you're claiming to be the best player in the world. I'm simply asking what your record in big tournaments is.

In response, you (honestly) described not winning in two tournaments, which is about what I expect.

Why?

Not because I think you're terrible, but instead, I think that when (say) 50 people show up at a tournament, it doesn't matter how good any one guy is, he still has to beat out 49 other people. When luck is ANY factor at all, that's pretty hard to do consistently.

All that said, you do seem pretty confident in your abilities, so I would ask why it was that you lost 3 out of 13 games? Was it just that the other player was better than you in those cases?

Dashofpepper wrote:When dealing with an infinitely variable and potentially infinitely sized subject group, you don't PROVE that every single one is different.

You don't have to prove every single player is different (that's not even remotely close to "two players can't be equally skilled at something"), but you need to be able to back up the assertion that no two people can be equally skilled. Such a claim can be refuted by something as simple as a playgroup with equal access to armies averaging a 50% ratio vs. each other over the course of a large series of games (this should be especially easy for you, since you don't believe luck influences games in any meaningful sense, so you can't actually claim that a player should have a worse ratio but his luck is making up for it while remaining internally consistent with your beliefs).

Ignoring the fact that maybe 5 pages ago you actually created a 1-10 scale that you plotted yourself and other players on (before suddenly claiming that such a thing is impossible), even the acknowledgement "I am better than other players, and this allows me to beat them consistently" implies a skill continuum, which at minimum you would have to demonstrate that two players can't occupy the same points on simultaneously.

So far all you've done is claim that doing such a thing would be hard to measure, therefore it can't possibly exist. Such a claim is bound to be unconvincing for obvious reasons.

It's not like I'm asking you to prove God doesn't exist, or that you aren't secretly the pride-fueled ghost of Muhammad Ali suddenly given life by the great powers but only under the condition that you must possess a man and make him play Warhammer games between ego bursts here. You just have to be able to actually provide some sort of basis for the claim that two players can't be equally good at this game. So far, in addition to not addressing several points that have been specifically directed to you, you have failed to provide support for even this most basic assertion.

Dashofpepper wrote:I'm going to abandon our conversation

This is the third or fourth time you've said something to this effect, but you're still here. Maybe this time instead of the hand-wringing you will just compose a less internet rage-fueled response.

MikeMcSomething wrote:

Dashofpepper wrote:When dealing with an infinitely variable and potentially infinitely sized subject group, you don't PROVE that every single one is different.

You don't have to prove every single player is different (that's not even remotely close to "two players can't be equally skilled at something"), but you need to be able to back up the assertion that no two people can be equally skilled. Such a claim can be refuted by something as simple as a playgroup with equal access to armies averaging a 50% ratio vs. each other over the course of a large series of games (this should be especially easy for you, since you don't believe luck influences games in any meaningful sense, so you can't actually claim that a player should have a worse ratio but his luck is making up for it while remaining internally consistent with your beliefs).

Ignoring the fact that maybe 5 pages ago you actually created a 1-10 scale that you plotted yourself and other players on (before suddenly claiming that such a thing is impossible), even the acknowledgement "I am better than other players, and this allows me to beat them consistently" implies a skill continuum, which at minimum you would have to demonstrate that two players can't occupy the same points on simultaneously.

So far all you've done is claim that doing such a thing would be hard to measure, therefore it can't possibly exist. Such a claim is bound to be unconvincing for obvious reasons.

It's not like I'm asking you to prove God doesn't exist, or that you aren't secretly the pride-fueled ghost of Muhammad Ali suddenly given life by the great powers but only under the condition that you must possess a man and make him play Warhammer games between ego bursts here. You just have to be able to actually provide some sort of basis for the claim that two players can't be equally good at this game. So far, in addition to not addressing several points that have been specifically directed to you, you have failed to provide support for even this most basic assertion.

Dashofpepper wrote:I'm going to abandon our conversation

This is the third or fourth time you've said something to this effect, but you're still here. Maybe this time instead of the hand-wringing you will just compose a less internet rage-fueled response.

I really have to agree with Dash on this. How do you measure and quantify a player's skill? Also, if you were able to quantify it, how often would you face someone with the same exact level of skill? Really, it comes down to choices in the game. You make decisions that end up ultimately being good or bad decisions. How one acts/reacts at a decision is probably a good way to scope out skill, but then again how do you quantify it?

Like, on a scale of 1 to 10, rate players, 10 being the best of the best and 1 being a person that is just really not grasping how a war game is played. How do you quantify skill?

Exactly, Crom. Especially in a single game, where I might play exceptionally well or poorly and thus throw off what might be my "skill".

Even if you magically were able to perfectly quantify skill and got two people with equal skill in everything involved in warhammer and gave them identical armies, there chance that someone may play poorly exists because, surprise surprise, were are human beings which causes randomness in our results and may skew the results.

Crom wrote: How do you measure and quantify a player's skill? Also, if you were able to quantify it, how often would you face someone with the same exact level of skill?

Again, "hard to measure" is not "immeasurable", and "hard to measure" is certainly not "two people can't exist at a given level of ability"

Now, if you're going for the argument that nothing with a subjective component can ever be truly measured, then that's a whole different bag. You would, for example, be unable to claim that one warhammer player is any better or worse than another one. To bring it back on topic for the thread, that would mean your primary argument against Ailaros' thesis is that it tries to graph two completely immeasurable quantities. So far nobody has advanced that claim with any real vigor.

MikeMcSomething wrote:

Crom wrote: How do you measure and quantify a player's skill? Also, if you were able to quantify it, how often would you face someone with the same exact level of skill?

Again, "hard to measure" is not "immeasurable", and "hard to measure" is certainly not "two people can't exist at a given level of ability"

Now, if you're going for the argument that nothing with a subjective component can ever be truly measured, then that's a whole different bag. You would, for example, be unable to claim that one warhammer player is any better or worse than another one. To bring it back on topic for the thread, that would mean your primary argument against Ailaros' thesis is that it tries to graph two completely immeasurable quantities. So far nobody has advanced that claim with any real vigor.

The burden of proof is on the person making the claim. You claim it is possible, please prove it. How would you devise a system or frame work to quantify someone's skill level?

Crom wrote: You claim it is possible, please prove it. How would you devise a system or frame work to quantify someone's skill level

Just so we're clear here, you don't think it is possible in any way, at all, ever, to be able to identify whether one person has a higher level of ability in any given task than another?

Crom wrote:How would you devise a system or frame work to quantify someone's skill level?

Media voting. Works for pro-golf, pro-tennis, NCAA sports, and so on.

Look, for years Tiger Woods was the world's #1 golfer. He didn't win every event. He went stretches where he didn't win anything. But you knew if he was there, he'd be in the running.

This leads to a wealth of evidence that suggests that what you're saying is wrong. But that's largely because the evidence isn't really related to what you're saying at all.

It's all too easy to prove that when controllable factors (aka skill) are evenly matched, uncontrolled factors (aka luck) will rule the day. It's far far harder to see how these controllable factors will be even at any time.

Good players bring experimental lists. In a match between to equally skilled players, one had more rest. One had more to drink. One had a fight with his wife the night before.

Even these minor factors lead to a lapse of concentration that can be fatal in high level games. High level games are more about movement, positioning and forcing your opponent to make poor choices than they are about specific casualties.

At best, this whole thread comes down to two things that we can seemingly all agree on;

1) Luck plays a non-zero role in determining the outcome of any game.

2) You're rarely going to find games where the opponents are equally skilled, make an equal number of game-impacting mistakes, bring equally competent lists, and so on.

Some people, typically those who are good players, will choose to understate the impact of luck, believing that the factors they can control will always be more important than those they cannot. I think, often enough, these players simple don't play enough people at, near, or above their skill level. They are also typically people looking to better their game. They examine their games to find their flaws when they lose, and we all have flaws. But in doing so, they're likely to ignore the factor that luck played, in both players games.

Damn right you are. Good conclusion.

Concerning the last paragraph:

This is why I posted the "lucky win" on my side, because I know what dice can be capable of.
I forgot to write, that I had bad luck on my heels almost the whole league before and therefore lost to worse players.
But I fought to the last point in every game and I went into the play offs (4th out of 7) by 1 tournament point with an exactly calculated last game result.
So we could basically say that luck evened out during the whole event.

So I know both sides. I also had games where everything you attempt will not work or (far worse) backfire.
And (subjective) I had less games where everything worked in my favour.

But I know, that about (estimated) 90% of my games luck did play a role (<- note that... ), but it didnt change the outcome of the game.

@Ailaros

So in pure theory again I understand your point. Equal skill -> luck determines the outcome.

But in practice, as Redbeard nicely pointed out, this conclusion has almost no value. Why?

1. dice rolls are even most of the time.
2. equal skill is almost never existing.

So it is about as valuable as saying: Bolters wont hurt a LRBTs Front armour.
Most of the guys would argue: Then lets go into the rear, so we can get it down piece by piece.
Maybe this is a fitting analogy for the problem we have.

I know what you are saying, but what I don't like and don't support is, that you seem to reduce 40k gaming to dice, which is wrong.

MikeMcSomething wrote:

Crom wrote: You claim it is possible, please prove it. How would you devise a system or frame work to quantify someone's skill level

Just so we're clear here, you don't think it is possible in any way, at all, ever, to be able to identify whether one person has a higher level of ability in any given task than another?

No, I am saying there is no current way. In any kind of contest you really just base skill on win to loss ratio. Someone's record speaks for itself. However, if that person is always competing against chumps, then it can be questionable. What I am saying is that there is no current way to measure skill in a table top, or even a role playing game. What I am asking you is to define how to quantify skill.

I think that if any group of friends plays war games with each other on a regular basis they will all develop similar skill sets. They will know their opponent, know their army, and know their play style. That is going to be common in lots of gaming groups.

If a professional sports team beats another, is that one more skilled, or did they just happen to out play them that game?

Crom wrote:

MikeMcSomething wrote:

Crom wrote: You claim it is possible, please prove it. How would you devise a system or frame work to quantify someone's skill level

Just so we're clear here, you don't think it is possible in any way, at all, ever, to be able to identify whether one person has a higher level of ability in any given task than another?

No, I am saying there is no current way. In any kind of contest you really just base skill on win to loss ratio. Someone's record speaks for itself. However, if that person is always competing against chumps, then it can be questionable. What I am saying is that there is no current way to measure skill in a table top, or even a role playing game. What I am asking you is to define how to quantify skill.

I think that if any group of friends plays war games with each other on a regular basis they will all develop similar skill sets. They will know their opponent, know their army, and know their play style. That is going to be common in lots of gaming groups.

If a professional sports team beats another, is that one more skilled, or did they just happen to out play them that game?

This would make a great separate conversation in general, as I think "Can you quantify skill, and if so, how?" is a great topic for discussion. It is, however, important to understand that Dash's angst-ridden attempt at a counterpoint (which is what got this particular ball rolling in the first place) is not based on the fact that skill does not exist as a metric (in fact I believe he feels it is the only metric), but that while it does exist, it would be so granular that no two people could possibly be considered "equal" (which he implies is the only situation where luck could possibly be a noticeable factor)

So there's really a few different discussions going on here.

yeah my whole point is, you won't ever play an equal skilled game because there is no way to measure it. Also, skill would have to probably be quantified in some sort of floating scale, and even if you could quantify it, would you ever really play someone of the same exact skill to the point where only dice rolls mattered?

I wasn't trying to argue with you, but more so just make a point that skill is very subjective in table top war gaming. It is not chess, it is not professional. It is actually in the end just a hobby. You can always be competitive, play tournaments, but until someone comes up with an actual unit of measurement for skill, it is sort of just a moot point. In my opinion of course.

FWIW I'm with jmurph and a few others, there are probably 4-5 broad skill bands on a spectrum from 'just learning' -> 'getting good at making army lists and denying extra shots' -> 'never makes mistakes' and those bands would correlate with a 50% internal win ratio over multiple games once you controlled for terrain and army lists.

Ailaros' theory steps in and attempts to help determine the impact of the dice themselves on any discrete game in the whole series (that would average to 50%)

Well, I work at a Casino. Now, people can banter on a forum about luck and skill in 40k all they like and perhaps get nowhere, but Casino's are multi-million and multi-billion dollar businesses, and hence the research and reporting into probability there is a little more... well established and concise.

Lets look at Blackjack. Blackjack is a game where player skill and luck come together to affect the odds of a bet. Unlike 40k, it has a very finite and achievable skill 'cap', but the premise is the same.

In Blackjack, dealing from a shoe with 8 decks of cards, will have 416 cards in it. Of those 416 cards, one in thirteen are of each value (A2345...JQK), and every time a card is pulled the result must be one of those cards. With 8 decks, there are 32 of each value card.

In Blackjack, the casino's primary advantage is that if you bust, and then the dealer busts, you don't get a stand off, you still lose. Ergo, if you stop drawing at 17, and the dealer draws to 18, you don't get to draw again to try and win. To counter this, the player uses a combination of strategy (basic strategy is well documented online) and luck to draw the necessary cards to beat the dealer, or conversely, not draw any cards and let the dealer bust. This is amplified by the ability to split, double down, insure and other options, but the casino will always have a positive house edge, and I'll get to that later.

Now, a bad, a terrible Blackjack player, who doesn't know anything about the game, will have terrible odds of winning. This player, confronted with 15 against a 4, may hit, opting to get closer to 21. However, we know from probability mathematics that out of 13 card values, 6 of them will result in an improvement while 7 will result in "too many" and the player will lose his wager. So before the dealer even has a chance to bust, the player has over a 50% chance to lose his wager, and the dealer has a majority chance of busting if left to draw.

So, this terrible player gets rolled by the casino, goes home and Googles Blackjack. He finds a site with some tips, such as "dealer has 2-6, sit" and "dealer has A or 7+, draw to 17". This is very basic strategy, akin to "shoot lascannons at tanks, shoot bolters at guardsmen". The player returns to the casino, faces the hand he had before, sits, and the dealer happens to bust. However, when faced with 11 against a 6, he takes one card and sits, and when he has 8/18 (A+7) against a 9, he sits. He has a decent night, but eventually goes home, glad he could afford the taxi.

Taking blackjack a little more seriously, he fully researches basic strategy. He reads the tables, prints out a copy, finds a nice betting strategy (which affects the rate you win/lose, but not your chance of doing so), and takes on the casino again. He knows this time that he should double on 11 against a 6, because its very favorable to the player, and that he should draw on 8/18 against a 9 even though the chance to win either way is under 2% different. He is optimizing his play, he makes almost no mistakes, wins some and loses some, and who knows how he'll end up? The odds still favor the casino, but he might get lucky...

Now, at any stage, this guy could have won. He could have taken the casino by storm, won millions. If you're on 19 against a 3, and you draw, you may just get an A or 2. There is nothing stopping you from winning every single hand, no karma, no god, no feng shui can make you lose. However, the CHANCE he will win every hand are... well, lets just say the casino isn't worried.

When he plays poorly, he may have given the casino a 40% or higher house edge. That is the term casinos use for expected return over wager, and basically means for every Dollar this guy bets, every hand, we will make 40 cents. By the time he is playing perfectly, depending on the particular casino's rules, the casino may have a house edge of between 1.5% and 4%. This means the casino will expect to make money off this guy at least 10 times slower than they did when he played like a fool, and he has a higher chance of winning because his chance to win has increased from around 30% to closer to 49%.

Now, we bring in sample size. This is where casino's never fail, why they're big bucks, why I have a job and can buy warhammer models with other people's money. As sample size increases, the closer the results will become to their expected result, their average. What does this mean?

Anyone can go to a Blackjack table, slap down $500, and win one hand with a grand to their name. And if every person who entered any casino did that, even with $20, won and cashed in, and went home, casinos would close down in days, perhaps weeks for bigger ones.

But, can you sit down with $500, bet $10 a hand all night, until you get to $500? The chances of doing so are low, you need to win 50 hands more than you lose (so you could win 50 lose 0, or win 350 lose 300, or any other combination) to make up that money, in a game where you have a sub-50% chance to win. If you do it, could you get 100 friends together and do the same? Could you all do it? What about 10,000 friends? Every night? 363 days a year?

Even if one person wins, someone else will lose. As you start having millions of bets turning over, all with a house edge, you see steady income pour in. And the return will be very close to that house edge - between 1.5% and 4% of all bets combined on blackjack, over the given time period. Assuming everyone is playing perfectly... for us, this adds up to thousands of dollars, per table, per night. Some tables can net tens- or even hundreds of thousands in profit, other tables may lose some cash, but the total result is, by mathematical probability, (almost) always positive.

You can be the best Blackjack player in the world, if such a thing could exist, and still lose every single bet. You could flip a coin every time you had to make a decision to hit or stand, and win every bet. Skill only affects the chance of you winning or losing, but you still can do either.

That said, over an hour, a bad player will statistically always lose more than a good player. There are rare exceptions, based on outrageous luck, but skill massively affects the outcome. Both may win, both may lose, either or, but neither has a better chance to win than the casino.

How does this apply to warhammer? Well, the skill limit for warhammer is much, much higher. However, as Ailaros has made clear, skill does nothing more than increase or decrease your chance to get the desired result in any particular situation. Great players can field a perfect gun line list, deploy a perfect gun line set up, then have initiative stolen and lose every model that gets shot at by his opponent. Any idiot can fire a BS3 lascannon at a monolith, and it can still blow up, even if the chance of doing so are remotely small. I've shot 5 meltaguns at a land raider and missed with all 5, at BS4, and I'm sure most of the experienced players here have done the same.

However, skill starts to show its face when you play hundreds of games. You enter every tournament. Suddenly, that idiot who gets lucky "all the time" starts getting pretty average rolls and gets, in turn, rolled. Good players get a few good rolls and win decisive victories. When the dust clears, who knows who will win the tournament? Its only 4 games. But if 64 armies enter, you can bet that there are more "I won a tournament a few months ago" lists in the top 10 than "my sister painted my monolith isn't it puuurrdy" lists.

At equal skill (and execution - no or equal mistakes), you will always see random events determine the outcome of every battle. At different skills, one player will have an advantage, but that won't necessarily determine the outcome. It will affect it, but not determine it. However, if a tournament level player and list ("I changed my 3rd vet squad to plasmas to better deal with assault marines going down my flank") battle a casual player and list ("this 10 man tactical squad will sit here all game and shoot 1 missile per turn at your land raider") battle each other 100 times, you can bet your left nut that the better player will have a positive W/L ratio.

So, what does this mean for everyone here? How can you improve your chances of winning? Will you forever be a slave to dice?

Yes. Assuming you're playing against people of a similar level of skill and list quality, without any remarkable flaws in battle strategy and execution, the outcome will be determined by a long series of dice rolls. As you advance, compared to your opponents, in skill, you will win more games than you would have previously. You may never win a tournament, ever, but you might win every tournament.

Your dice aren't lucky. Your god can't help you. That lascannon doesn't always miss. Optimize your list, explore your options on the battlefield, plan out how it will take place, make redundancies, take risks, and play well. Take every loss as a chance to improve, until you play perfectly and lose regardless. Use every win as a chance to reflect on why you won, how it worked, and do it again. And try to remember to congratulate the guy you beat in the final game - he came a long way to get there and, whether by luck or skill, he had a damn good chance of beating you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
By no means am I suggesting you should go to the nearest casino and bet $500 on blackjack in one go - you still have a 51-53% chance to lose, even if you play it right. But anyone CAN win, and by extension everyone CAN win, which is the point I'm trying to make.

There is enough skill in this game to make it fun, but if you say luck can be reduced to being negligible in a game with dice, I've got a fantastic bridge in Brooklyn that I'd like to sell you...

Just yesterday, turn one, I made use of Lumbering Bohemeth to get a shot with a Battle Cannon at a unit of 3 warriors/1 tyranid prime. There was skill involved, in deploying and moving, and in including a weapon system in my list that can instant-death multi-wound t4 models. There was skill involved for my opponent - bringing a venomthrope for mobile cover, hiding his prime in with the warriors, deploying and moving most of his army using terrain to block as much LoS as possible, leaving me with few targets. I'm not sure he calculated my moving my tank to get a shot. Anyways: direct hit. 4 wounds. Cover save from the venomthrope? You betcha: 4 saves on 5+. Luck, or not luck? His saves were great for the first two turns. Luck, or not luck? It makes a difference to the outcome of the game, there is no doubt about it in my mind.

I just make up little narratives to explain outrageous luck (good or bad). For instance, I'm pretty sure that particular shell was a dud, and that mist and rain were making it hard to hit the bugs at the beginning of the battle.

It's just a game! Have fun!

Edit: I'm not arguing luck lost me that battle, there was more to it than that. I just wanted to point out, like has been done for 20 pages, that it affects the game, sometimes greatly, especially over multiple turns. I think in most games there are enough die rolls to ensure that luck should usually even out as far as throwing 'average' dice, but that doesn't take into account the importance of some die rolls over others. Throwing down 4x 5+ saves with a few warriors is (usually) more important than doing the same with a mob of termagaunts.

I see what the OP is getting at, and it's perfectly correct. However it's very unlikely that the factors of play and list building are going to be controlled.

However i think that part of the skill of 40K is working around the episodes of bad (or indeed, good) luck. For example if you're planning to drop two units in drop pods (or similar) right into the heart of the enemy and destroy them from the inside, that's all well and good, but if you roll badly for the scatters then you'll need to quickly make a back up plan, or, if you're a good player you'll have done so already. Part of the skill of 40k is working round the 'what ifs' and accepting luck as a part of the game, dealing with the bad luck and embracing the good luck when it comes.

Agreed. Working the luck is a skill.

I can simplify it even more....

A good player will adapt, learn from their mistakes, learn how to better build an Army List, and so forth. Each time they adapt and learn and get better from experience they are also making luck a less influential factor. Plus every time you get better at controlling the non dice roll factors you get better at shaping the odds. Luck does play a role, but overall I think it plays the least.

I think that luck plays the least role, right up until it doesn't.

My final assessment: Luck will sometimes decide games, but there are so many other factors (see Nazdreg's posts) that skill is usually more important. I'm not sure I buy the whole 'luck increases in importance as skill levels get closer' or 'luck increases in importance as skill level reaches highest potential' arguments though: for the latter, if skilled players minimize luck as a factor in success, how can the importance of luck to success be increasing as they gain skill? As for the former, in games with no luck, like chess, equally-skilled opponents don't end every game in a draw. Even if we had the hypothetical even-steven combatants, non-luck factors still influence the winning/losing of any particular match, and there are enough of them luck is not automatically the most important factor.

Until it is.

Its not that luck becomes more important, its that when the difference in skill between two players narrows to the point where they are equal, the only difference is luck. If you were playing against yourself, with the same list, then the outcome will be determined by luck, because neither one is better than the other. This may be the lucky one who gets first turn, or the one who's reserves arrive at an ideal time, or the one who just rolls saves really well. But you can't say you played better than yourself, and you can't say every time you played yourself that it would be a draw.

Well said, TehScat, all.

Redbeard wrote:In the bigger picture, more skilled players win more games. They win more tournaments. In the practical world, you rarely get games between players of equal caliber who have brought equal lists.

This leads to a wealth of evidence that suggests that what you're saying is wrong. But that's largely because the evidence isn't really related to what you're saying at all.

It's all too easy to prove that when controllable factors (aka skill) are evenly matched, uncontrolled factors (aka luck) will rule the day. It's far far harder to see how these controllable factors will be even at any time.

Right, I think this theory is in the same level of abstraction as statistics. Statistics will tell you what dice generally do, but they can not predict the outcome of any particular die roll.

Likewise, this theory would posit that a more skilled player playing a less skilled player (assuming they stayed static in skill level over time) would be more likely to win any given game, and be more likely to win more games over the long run. It does not, however, accurately predict the results of any one game.

A person who was 1% more skilled than another, over 100 games, would probably win one more than the other, but that has very little to say over who will win any given game between the two of them.

Crom wrote:A good player with skill will use army list, war gear, tactics, timing and strategy to weigh their odds.

Definitely.

Crom wrote:I think that if a game comes down to dice rolls, it is a more rare occurrence of bad luck or there were some mistakes made that put dice rolls in a higher influence level than all other factors.

Why is being a riskier player necessarily being a worse player?

Crom wrote: How do you measure and quantify a player's skill?

I'm actually curious about this myself. If you're going to claim that skill is more important, perhaps you could define exactly what you mean by skill? You've made several references to examples of skill, but not to a general definition, nor how it relates to a theory in which skill relates to luck.

-Nazdreg- wrote:dice rolls are even most of the time.

I'd kill for a game where the die rolling was even.

-Nazdreg- wrote:I know what you are saying, but what I don't like and don't support is, that you seem to reduce 40k gaming to dice, which is wrong.

That's actually not what I'm saying. 40k is more and more reduced to a dice game the closer in skill people are, but in no case (other than two hypothetically equal players) is skill never part of the determination of a game, and in a wide set of unequal skill, I'd claim that skill is more important than luck.

And now to re-address yet again, two very common misconceptions that are being endlessly repeated here. Seriously, tell me how I can explain this more clearly so this stops coming up every page.

Crom wrote:Also, if you were able to quantify it, how often would you face someone with the same exact level of skill?

-Nazdreg- wrote:equal skill is almost never existing.

Eldar Own wrote:I see what the OP is getting at, and it's perfectly correct. However it's very unlikely that the factors of play and list building are going to be controlled.

murdog wrote: if skilled players minimize luck as a factor in success, how can the importance of luck to success be increasing as they gain skill?

This theory does NOT require players to be of equal skill level.

This theory does NOT require players to be of equal skill level.

This theory does NOT require players to be of equal skill level.

This theory is saying that AS players APPROACH skill equality, the skill variable becomes MORE controlled. At no point am I assuming the real world has ever had even a single match between opponents of equal skill level.

To put it another way, the MORE that players are UNEQUAL in skill the MORE that skill matters. Note that I'm also not assuming that there has ever even been a game of perfect inequality.

The whole point is to describe the relationship between skill and luck BETWEEN players who are perfectly equal and perfectly unequal.

This theory does NOT require players to be of equal skill level.

Eldar Own wrote:However i think that part of the skill of 40K is working around the episodes of bad (or indeed, good) luck.

Crom wrote: Each time they adapt and learn and get better from experience they are also making luck a less influential factor.

murdog wrote:Even if we had the hypothetical even-steven combatants, non-luck factors still influence the winning/losing of any particular match, and there are enough of them luck is not automatically the most important factor.

For this segment, go back and read the "relative" sections.

Your own player skill can not be looked at in a vacuum. Player skill is always RELATIVE to your opponent's skill because the game is fundamentally adversarial (you're not playing solitaire, or, to a somewhat lesser extent blackjack, here). If you looked at your skill in a vacuum, of course you could always get better until you got to the point where you always got what you're looking for.

But, no, your skill is relative to your opponent. While you are looking to manufacture the most favorable odds for you, your opponent is is looking to manufacture the LEAST favorable odds for you. You can do things to "rely less" on luck, but your opponent is going to require you to "rely more" on luck. This really is at the heart of this theory. While you mitigate, your opponent exploits. While you generate opportunities, your opponent close them down. While you make safe moves, your opponent makes them more risky.

If you're assuming that you alone are the determiner, then what you're really looking at is you versus a player of no skill level whatsoever. This means that it's very unequal skill, and I'd agree, skill would be very determining in this case. It's when you're NOT in this circumstance that things get interesting.

Why is being a riskier player necessarily being a worse player?

If you take larger risks you have a larger margin of failure. Lets say I have a unit of troops that are just close combat gods, and they have fleet of foot rules. So I can run them and assault in the same turn. I estimate my opponent is 16 inches away where I am currently at. That means I must roll at least a 4 on my run roll to make it into assault range (6 inch move + 4 inch run + 6 inch assault = 16 inches). This is a risky move because if I do not roll my 4+ they will be stuck in the open and be shot to pieces, or perhaps my opponent will move away from them and create a larger distance leaving them out of the fight and making them useless. I have done this many times to people who try to assault me with hand to hand troops and get their movement wrong. If there is a gap and I need space, I will create more space. In some cases I will shoot then assault them, and when I assault with my blood/sky claws I get 40 attacks since I get +2 for charging, because they have dual hand to hand weapons, 1 attack, and +2 for charging. So, lets say I roll a 3 on my fleet move and come up 1 inch short and it fails so no one moves in the assault phase. Next turn they shoot the crap outta me and dwindle my numbers and then counter charge my failed assault, and get their bonuses and wipe my unit; or perhaps they move 6" back and then run or shoot creating a larger gap, get behind cover or whatever to take defensive position.

This is assuming that for them to assault they had to be out in the open, when instead I could have used cover to get close enough to ensure an assault would ensue no matter what. All the while giving them a cover save while advancing towards the enemy.

Now, I am not saying being risky doesn't have it's pay offs. In above scenario I could have rolled a 6 and destroyed that unit, or the situation could have been a unit is 18 inches away and I had to roll a 6 on my run roll to even be able to assault. Risk versus reward in some scenarios is highly relying on luck, and when luck is a larger factor you lose the ability to control the outcome more. I tend to play conservative at first, using basic techniques and basic strategies because that is what wins games, the basics. I only get risky when I see there is no other choice, or if I am just feeling like I want to have some fun to see if some crack pot idea may actually work.

I'm actually curious about this myself. If you're going to claim that skill is more important, perhaps you could define exactly what you mean by skill? You've made several references to examples of skill, but not to a general definition, nor how it relates to a theory in which skill relates to luck.

I look at it from a different point of view all together. I don't really see skill as anything really more than applied experience. For example I work in IT, and how would I rate my skills in IT? Well, I would rate them rather high, but I certainly lack in a lot of areas. I am decent at coding shell, novice at python and ruby, really awesome at Unix services, Windows server, creating images and packaging up and deploying software. So, in some areas my skill set it high and in other areas I am not the best of the best by any means. However, I solve every problem that ever comes across to me, and I am diligent with my work. I take the time to learn, adapt, and apply my experience to a problem I have never faced before. Sometimes all it takes is reading the manual to solve the problem.

Now, parallel this to war gaming. I have played many war games over the years, and just recently got back into it. I mostly played games with army lists and point systems, but did play some historical that had set units as it was a reenactment of an actual war. So I play Tau and my opponent pulls a strategy I was totally not ready for, and lets say I don't know the Tau army that well. So, I read the Tau book (the manual) and figure out everything there is to know about the Tau. Then I build my own Tau list to see how a Tau player would counter my Army Lists. I run some numbers and ideas through my head, and next time I play Tau hopefully I smash them like the Xeno scum that they are.

Experience and knowledge is what makes up skill in my opinion. Knowing your enemy, knowing the framework and rules of the game and specific rules of your enemy. Knowing that the enemy has a unit of rocks, and you need paper to take them out. Then being able to apply that in game. Using cover to your advantage, and basically working the system to put all the odds in your favor. Adapting to what your opponent will do, because A) you know their codex, and B) you have already thought through how to defeat yourself using their army.

I don't really think it can be quantified to a number. I don't like my real life work skills can either, because one aspect doesn't make up my whole skill set. I have my own outlook and it is to be simple and efficient, and I get this form working in IT and training Wing Chun. Don't waste time and energy on something can be done in simple steps. Right tools for the right job. This is why I think taking large risks with little margin of success is never a good idea.

Crom wrote:If you take larger risks you have a larger margin of failure.

Why is shooting 3 meltaguns at 3 tanks worse than shooting 3 meltaguns at one tank? The rate of failure for any given meltagun is the same, except you lose out on the ability to damage 3 different vehicles instead of 1.

Also, remember that shortening odds comes with serious costs as well, like overkill.

Shorter odds are not necessarily better odds, and playing the most conservatively as is humanly possible is not the winningest strategy.

Crom wrote:Experience and knowledge is what makes up skill in my opinion.

The problem with your example is that you're taking skill as defined in a world without luck, and are trying to apply it to a world where things are determined by dice. Such a definition of skill can't be accurate in this case.

You don't shoot 3 melta guns at the same tank at the same time. You fire one at a time and go from there. You use your tools efficiently, I am not saying dump all your eggs into one basket. In fact I am saying quit the opposite. I have been playing for years this way and I have won some larger tournaments back in the day. I don't really want to get back into that level of competition I want it to be fun this time around now that I am back into it. I think the competitiveness burned me out last time.

I don't think you are quite grasping what I am saying, and have been this whole time. Luck is a factor, but it can be controlled, and mitigated. A good player doesn't always rely on luck to win, and 99 times out of 100 you will get the rolls you need as long as you are rolling enough dice. Dice rolls eventually will average out over time.

The problem with your example is that you're taking skill as defined in a world without luck, and are trying to apply it to a world where things are determined by dice. Such a definition of skill can't be accurate in this case.

Not really true. In many cases trial and error is luck, and proper skill sets will have a more efficient outcome. Also, sometimes you have no choice but to use your best guess on how to fix something and just hope it works. Luck is mitigated by the fact I am using my experience to quickly assess and fix problems when a black and white answer does not exist to said problem. Technology can get quite complicated, and users make it even more complicated.

Crom wrote:You don't shoot 3 melta guns at the same tank at the same time.

I know. This example was illustrating a question which remains unanswered. Why are riskier players worse players?

Crom wrote:I don't think you are quite grasping what I am saying, and have been this whole time. Luck is a factor, but it can be controlled, and mitigated.

I totally agree with you that skill allows you to mitigate luck. Full agreement. Skill lets you play the best odds, and as your odds change, skill helps.

The problem here is that YOU'RE missing one of the core tenants to this theory. While you are mitigating your luck, your opponent is exploiting it. While your are exploiting your opponent's luck, your opponent is mitigating it.

You're operating under the assumption that you don't have an opponent who is disrupting your plan. In this circumstance, it's the same as playing against a player of infinitely low player skill. Of COURSE in this circumstance, skill is going to be a big determining factor. I'm also saying that this circumstance will never exist, just like players of exactly equal skill.

You are looking at player skill in a vacuum, and are complaining that it doesn't hold up, when the theory itself is about things that are relative.

Crom wrote:You don't shoot 3 melta guns at the same tank at the same time. You fire one at a time and go from there.

Perhaps---but usually with melta's short range you dedicate yourself to a tank/target during the movement phase. Maybe a more specific example would be;

3 Targets of opportunity---3 MM speeders
You can fly a speeder to each tank for a high risk/high reward (all 3 hit/blow up---3 targets destroyed)
or
You can fly a 3 speeders at one target----for a low risk/low reward (1 should blow up----2 targets left)

Here is what I am trying to say, in a nutshell....again. I am not saying luck doesn't have a factor in game, but the hierarchy of what factors in to a win, from most important to least is this:

1) Army List
2) Skill, tactics, reactions, actions, terrain, and everything else in between
3) Luck

You are pulling out a game and looking at one instance versus one instance, and I am not. I am looking from a distance at the overall picture. Like I said, you make decisions which end up being ultimately good or bad, and your opponent reacts, and their reaction is typically good or bad. This doesn't always involve a dice roll. If your opponent decides to run heavy weapons squads to a better location they are forgoing the turn to fire, which could end up being a bad decision. How you act upon a bad decision is how well you see the overall picture.

Breaking down a specific moment when luck plays a vital role and goes either good or bad, is not always relevant to the game. A fine example would be my last WHFB game. I had an instance where my opponent cast a spell which makes you take an attribute test or suffer 1 wound and it was a large template. My units have initiative 1. So, I had to roll 1s or they die, and like 25 of them got hit. I passed maybe 15% of my rolls, but since it didn't cause instant death I got my 5+ ward save via Engine of the Gods, and I proceeded to roll 80% 5+ saves. So my luck was very good, and he could have wiped half that unit, but the overall picture of the game did not change. That unit still fought and wiped out all that opposed it with little losses until it got flanked by a character on a mount. So, it did it's job either way and it would have done it's job regardless of if that spell had wiped them all out or not. The ones that would have survived was all I needed on that flank to live even if he had wiped that unit out. When we deployed I saw a weak side, that was his only answer was that spell, and it failed. He took a risk, and he knows that my Engine of the Gods gives a ward save. He took a higher risk knowing that my unit on my left flank was way more powerful than everything on that side. Luck played a non factor in the overall picture of the game, however, in that instance I got rather lucky considering how nasty that spell actually was.

So, it is highly subjective, and luck of dice rolls has a much larger influence in WHFB than it does in 40K.

So, in short I agree with you luck is a factor when looking at certain instances. Where you break it down to unit versus unit, roll vs roll. However, I look at the overall picture and figure out how many dice do I gotta toss at a problem to fix it in a given instance, then build my army around it I usually almost always accomplish that goal and dice rolling isn't a huge factor.

To give you a quote:
"It is like a finger pointing toward the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory."

If you read books on strategy like the Art of War or Book of the 5 Rings, they often stress overall picture and efficiency. Not that the idioms from those books parallel flawlessly into a gaming system, I think they conceptually have merit.

*Shrug*, sure Army List/Experience ranks up there.

However, in the end you can make all of the right decisions----take a relatively low risk decision-----and still have the game changed by the dice.

I move my LR up, disembark my TH/SS Terminators
I assault a unit of Marines---expecting to win the combat handily
They roll 8 hits/wounds---I roll four ones

In that case---Luck trumped your army list and your skill. It was just---unlucky. If you're playing against a skilled opponent who doesn't make stupid mistakes---a 250 pt swing in that manner can certainly cost you the game.

AgeOfEgos wrote:*Shrug*, sure Army List/Experience ranks up there.

However, in the end you can make all of the right decisions----take a relatively low risk decision-----and still have the game changed by the dice.

I move my LR up, disembark my TH/SS Terminators
I assault a unit of Marines---expecting to win the combat handily
They roll 8 hits/wounds---I roll four ones

In that case---Luck trumped your army list and your skill. It was just---unlucky. If you're playing against a skilled opponent who doesn't make stupid mistakes---a 250 pt swing in that manner can certainly cost you the game.

Yes, very true. However in retrospect, you can have great dice rolls, and crappy tactics and a horrid army list and probably won't win many games either. So even if your dice rolls are fantastic, with no skill and not building a decent army make a larger impact. Also, like I said before 99 times out of 100 it works (or 86% on a dice roll of a 2+) out for you when you weigh the odds in your favor. Again, everything I have said and been repeating is being taken out of context. Luck can be a game changing factor, but most games if played well it is not the largest factor of a win loss.

Lets take your scenario and play it over 10 times a row, how many times do you think you'd win? Now, lets play that same scenario 100 times..lets see how many times you lose then. Bad dice rolls do happen, however, they don't always decide games, nor will they decide every game you ever play.

Let me get this straight, again, I never said luck is not a factor. I am saying luck typically has the least amount of impact of what you can do in a game due to everything else you have done in your ability/experience to make sure your army wins. My whole counter argument to the OP is that I disagree with them that luck is a large of a factor as he is making it to be. Otherwise, I agree with him on almost everything else.

I feel either I am not expressing myself properly enough or people are not comprehending what I write.