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Assuming roughly the same amount of points are used for each model, so the GUO will have Iron Arm (assuming) and 2 greater gifts. Can he take on the swarmlord in CC?

He certainly wont die fast.

Eternal Blade really helps up the offensive punch of the GUO

GUO Has a good chance against the Swarmlord because if he gets Iron Arm he has EW.

Hmm, if the GUO took a Balesword I think he stands a good chance. Assuming he has Iron Arm he's likely to survive the first round of combat to fight back, at which point he has a S6-9 Ap2 weapon with Instant Death. The biggest hassle would be getting Iron Arm off due to Shadows; if he can't do it, then he's likely to be creamed pretty early on in the combat.

Assuming he has and can cast Iron Arm.

Since The Swarmlord is within assault distance, he's also in Shadows distance.
edit: which you said and I'm just pointlessly agreeing with you.

I don't think the balesword would help him, because the swarmlord is Eternal Warrior.

Dalymiddleboro wrote:
I don't think the balesword would help him, because the swarmlord is Eternal Warrior.

No, he's not. Unless he gets Iron Arm that is.

Seriously? I thought he was by default. Oh well... four rolls on biomancey rerolling the ones you already have, he's pretty much gonna have Iron Arm.

Dalymiddleboro wrote:
Seriously? I thought he was by default. Oh well... four rolls on biomancey rerolling the ones you already have, he's pretty much gonna have Iron Arm.

IIRC it's an 83% chance he'll have it (someone did the math and I might remember wrong) but no - he doesn't have it by default. Made me sad every time he popped to a GK Strike Squad.

rigeld2 wrote:

Dalymiddleboro wrote:
Seriously? I thought he was by default. Oh well... four rolls on biomancey rerolling the ones you already have, he's pretty much gonna have Iron Arm.

IIRC it's an 83% chance he'll have it (someone did the math and I might remember wrong) but no - he doesn't have it by default. Made me sad every time he popped to a GK Strike Squad.

I remember this.

The first one has a 1/6 chance of getting the one you want, then 1/5 (since one is gone), then 1/4, then 1/3. I just can't remember how you combine those 4 numbers to get the actual odds.

Add the fractions, make a whole number divide by 4?

1 is not 'gone'. There is a 1/6 of a chance of getting a re-roll on the second roll. A 1/3 chance on the third roll and a 1/2 chance of a reroll on the fourth roll. That re-roll may still be a non iron arm reroll. To work it out you would calculate the inverse (not getting iron arm) and take it away from one. And to make matters worse (calculating wise), you may also have to reroll a reroll. I would work it out for you now, however we have OFSTED in tomorrow so I don't have the time. Use a tree diagram to help.


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Secondly... does he get FOUR rolls? I thought he had 3 powers?

Your first attempt is 1/6 to get Iron Arm
Second attempt is 1/5 (you only have 5 powers you can get and if you get one you already have you roll again so re-rolls don't matter)
Third attempt is 1/4
Fourth attempt is 1/3

Therefore you have a 1/6+1/5+1/4+1/3 chance to get Iron Arm or 10/60+12/60+15/60+20/60=57/60 (19/20) or 95% chance. I might have screwed something up, but probability is not my strong suit.

In fact due to the infinite regress of the rerolling rerolls I think it may be impossible to get an exact percentage. For example, there is a chance you will not get iron arm on your reroll and there is a chance that you will, now there is also a chance of you having to reroll again, there is a chance of getting not getting iron arm and a chance that you will again, but these outcomes have a smaller probability as you have had to go through an extra roll, however there is also the chance that you will have to reroll again, now the outcomes after these rerolls are even less likely due to the extra reroll, but you may have to reroll again, and so on and so forth. Infinite regress is a problem in trying to find an exact pribability here, however you could still find a very accurate probability.

rigeld2 wrote:
Assuming he has and can cast Iron Arm.

Since The Swarmlord is within assault distance, he's also in Shadows distance.
edit: which you said and I'm just pointlessly agreeing with you.

This. LD 9 on 3d6 is nothing to sneeze at. Odds are iron arm is just going to fail.

At the same time, the swarmlord is getting off its iron arm.

Wow, so much bad math. You have a 33% chance of not getting Iron Arm with four rolls.

Now, you should never ever take the Primaris, or your odds get worse.

1 - (5/6 * 4/5 * 3/4 * 2/3) = 67% chance of rolling Iron Arm.

Mathematically it works out as such(Assuming no Primaris selection and forced rerolls for duplicates)... Numbers of tries divided by six equals your chance of rolling the power you want.

One roll = 1/6 chance
1 - (5/6) = 17% chance
Two rolls = 2/6 chance
1 - (5/6 * 4/5) = 33%
Three rolls = 3/6 chance
1- (5/6 * 4/5 * 3/4) = 50%
Four rolls = 4/6 chance
1 - (5/6 * 4/5 * 3/4 * 2/3) = 67%

The re-rolls don't factor into the percentages, it just changes the number of possible outcomes.

See above.

 labmouse42 wrote:

rigeld2 wrote:
Assuming he has and can cast Iron Arm.

Since The Swarmlord is within assault distance, he's also in Shadows distance.
edit: which you said and I'm just pointlessly agreeing with you.

This. LD 9 on 3d6 is nothing to sneeze at. Odds are iron arm is just going to fail.

At the same time, the swarmlord is getting off its iron arm.

LD 9 with 3d6 is only a 37.5% chance of success.



Its still s pretty much no contest advantage for the Swarmlord.

 Zagman wrote:
Wow, so much bad math. You have a 33% chance of not getting Iron Arm with four rolls.

I did mention that probability was not my strong suit, right?

I knew 95% chance couldn't be right, just couldn't figure out where I was screwing up.

Sorry guys but as a maths teacher I have to correct you here. 1st we need the inverse which is what Zagman has attempted. However rerolls DO matter since rolling the same power is still an outcome so you must still include it. It is not 'gone'.
Lets just take 2 rolls for example.

1st roll is easy 1/6 and 5/6
Now we need to focus on the inverse: 5/6. All the following outcomes will be multiplied by this to find their likelyhood.

Lets look at the second roll 1/6 (*5/6)chance you get it. 4/6 (*5/6) chance you don't AND a 1/6 (*5/6)chance you have to reroll.

Now if we reroll we have a 1/6 (*5/6 *1/6) chance of getting it. A 4/6 (*5/6 *1/6) chance you don't 1/6 (*5/6 *1/6) chance of a reroll. (these probabilities still factor into the probability we are calculating... Well two branches do anyway, however these probabilities have got smaller due to the extra roll needed)

Now lets work out the chances of the outcomes of the rerolled rerolls. we have a 1/6 (*5/6 *(1/6 ^2)) chance of getting it. A 4/6 (*5/6 *(1/6 ^2)) chance you don't 1/6 (*5/6 *(1/6 ^2)) chance of a reroll. (these probabilities still factor into the probability we are calculating... Well two branches do anyway, however these probabilities have got smaller due to the extra roll needed)

Now lets work out the chances of the reroll of the reroll of the reroll. we have a 1/6 (*5/6 *(1/6^3)) chance of getting it. A 4/6 (*5/6 *(1/6^3)) chance you don't 1/6 (*5/6 *(1/6^3)) chance of a reroll. (these probabilities still factor into the probability we are calculating... Well two branches do anyway, however these probabilities have got smaller due to the extra roll needed)

And as you see - infinate regress. We need to include all the branches which end with not getting Iron arm since we are finding the inverse. And that's before we come to a 3rd or 4th 'initial' roll.

Poly Ranger wrote:
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Secondly... does he get FOUR rolls? I thought he had 3 powers?

4 powers. He's only ML2 though.

Actually considering it - scrap what I said... Just realised If the branches keep to the same probability we can just discount them as it will not affect the percentage seeing as they are they do not change so calculating the infinate regress would be pointless since the probabilities do not vary. My bad and my apologies. I am currently very tired and overworked with the inspectors in. Still no excuse for a maths teacher. Oops!

Just to be clear, the odds really are 2/3 that you get it (1/3 that you don't) if you get 4 rolls.

Do an end run around the individual probabilities to simplify things. Ignoring Primaris. Assumtions:
-There are 6 powers
-Each power is exactly as likely on any given roll, provided it hasn't already been rolled
-Each power is exactly as likely to have already been rolled
-Exactly 4 of the 6 powers will be chosen in the end

Conclusions:
-Each power has the same probability of being selected in the end (there is nothing to make any of them different in this regard)
-There are two powers chosen for every three powers that exist (4/6 = 2/3)
-Therefore, the odds of any given power being selected in 2/3.

I haven't run the math, but an alternate proof should be that there are 6choose4 possibilities, and (1*5*4*3) different "success" options to pick from. Do the math, and you should get 2/3. Could do the same with permutations instead of combinations, but the math gets hairier.

Poly Ranger wrote:
Actually considering it - scrap what I said... Just realised If the branches keep to the same probability we can just discount them as it will not affect the percentage seeing as they are they do not change so calculating the infinate regress would be pointless since the probabilities do not vary. My bad and my apologies. I am currently very tired and overworked with the inspectors in. Still no excuse for a maths teacher. Oops!

Lol, it happens.

This matchup comes down to who fails Iron Arm first, and with the Swarmlord rolling 2d6 on ld 10 and the GUO rolling 3d6 on ld 9 it's clear which one it will be.

 PrinceRaven wrote:
This matchup comes down to who fails Iron Arm first, and with the Swarmlord rolling 2d6 on ld 10 and the GUO rolling 3d6 on ld 9 it's clear which one it will be.

with chance nothing is clear, that's what variance and dice mean...

Dalymiddleboro wrote:

 PrinceRaven wrote:
This matchup comes down to who fails Iron Arm first, and with the Swarmlord rolling 2d6 on ld 10 and the GUO rolling 3d6 on ld 9 it's clear which one it will be.

with chance nothing is clear, that's what variance and dice mean...

Point taken, the fact remains that chance is heavily weighted in favour of the Swarmlord, as it not only has more rolls to get Iron Arm, but also only has an 8.333% chance to fail its psychic test, compared to the GUO's 74.074% chance to fail.

Bah, I never really did much with probability. The only thing I can actually do is re-rolls with the same probability where you take the inverse and go to a power (like a 50% chance with three total rolls is 1-(1/2)^3).

Kinda makes sense you take the same approach and multiply all the probabilities together.

I love how this thread got off on a math tangent

OT: Unless the GUO can get Forewarning and/or GoTN to boost his 5++, he might not make it past the first round. This is taking into account that once in assault range, the GUO probably won't get his IA off if he has it (MSS is a good example of the 3D6 going wrong, even for LD10 guys). Once in combat, the Swarmlord will be very very very tough: given his high initiative, his very high likelyhood of IA, and his 4++ with ID bonesabres (MSS still kick his pants, damn Necrons). Again, if the GUO isn't Forewarning'd and/or GoTN'd, he won't last one round with the Swarmlord.


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And if GUO is Iron Armed, this might be interesting: given GUO higher toughness (natural and Iron Arm), he might take a wound or two off the SL (who much more likely than not has Iron Arm). He'll then die in round 3 because of Iron Arm wearing off and the already discussed difficulty of casting it near the SL.