I wouldn't evaluate Janthkin's perspective as a "glass half-full" viewpoint rather than simple exaggeration.

Not a single one of the top-tier army lists implicitly has any trouble of bringing enough mobile firepower to bear to cause a 3-Falcon army serious headaches. Space Marines, Eldar, Tau, and Chaos all have viable army builds that can pack plenty of mobile firepower, often far more firepower than a Falcon could put out in its wildest dreams (talking about Predator Annihlators here). In addition, all of these forces have the mobility, deep-strike capability (or equivalent) and dangerous fast-moving non-vehicle units to make it virtually impossible to "hide" a Falcon army until turn 5/6.

Additionally, based upon your experience of tournaments abiding by the "25% terrain" principle, in my experience playing with exactly 25% terrain spread evenly across a table gives you very few places to rendezvous three Falcons. If you can't pack them all together, your Falcons end up in a spread-out formation and concentrating your units in a single move to produce localized superiority becomes impossible, and once again the possibility of becoming overwhelmed is very likely for the Falcon force. Even if there is adequate room to fit your Falcons, entirely hidden, behind a piece of terrain and make a meaningful move from there, a smart opponent will have predicted this before the game even started, and can make moves to counter.

Simply put, your claims, in my experience, are much exaggerated. The availability of deep-striking units with Tank Hunting Assault Cannons, Crisis Suits with twin-linked Missile Pods, tankhunting venerable dreadnaughts, predator annihlators, deep-striking infantry with plasma/melta, and a whole slew of other viable anti-hidden-Falcon units, combined with the fact that (as you admitted) the three-falcon player hasn't caused much damage to his opponent, nearly always sets up a situation in which the Eldar player will make a grab for the objective or quarter, only to be quickly beaten back in the following turn.

The probability of having 3 Falcons alive and well at the end of the game against a competitive opponent, and having them AND their squads survive even a single turn after being "dropped off," (read: exposed) is much, much lower than you postulate.

I can see that Falcons would be even more useful in an Adepticon-format tournament, but I still don't see how an opponent you've done little damage to could possibly let your three falcons waltz around the board and then grab objectives turn 6. This goes against my entire 8 years of experience playing this hobby using Mech Eldar almost exclusively. Three vehicles and three infantry units of 6 models with T 3 is hardly what I would call a "substantial" force to claim objectives with, if you even have all three Falcons at the end. Chances are, your opponent has at least as many units to use to claim objectives, and quite possibly several more than your three-falcon build.

Posted By ColonelEllios on 06/27/2007 4:30 PM

Posted By bigchris1313 on 06/27/2007 3:05 PM
With a highly-developed tone

I'll take that as a compliment. Thanks!

Posted By Janthkin on 06/28/2007 10:51 AM

Most IG SAFH builds will have that much firepower spread amongst those weapons (likely not 12 Lascannons or 18 Missile Launchers, but I have at least 5 Lascannons, 6 Missile Launchers and 6 Autocannons if I focus my list around shooting) - plus plenty of artillery left to deal with whatever infantry accompany the Falcons.

Sadly, most IG SAFH builds will also lack the mobility to bring even half of those weapons to bear on target each turn, much less every turn for 6 turns. Heck, mech Guard has a better shot, as the multilaser at least offers a chance at glancing, and is on a platform mobile enough to make terrain-sniping more difficult (though a bit more fragile to pulse laser fire than a Guard squad).

Does this mean its auto win for the Eldar player? Not at all. But your contention has been that Falcons are not that big a deal and that most armies can deal with them easily. That just isn't true. Compare the stats I posted with the numbers for any other tank. Hell, compare it with a hammerhead, another expensive but very useful skimmer tank. You'll find the falcon is a whole lot more difficult to drop.

Has anyone here actually EVER played a game. . . or even a series of games at a tournament where their dice rolled the statistically average number of 6s, 5s, 4s, 3s, 2s, and 1s?

If you think you have, you're almost certainly wrong.

I don't know why so many people get wrapped up in the math side of things.  Picking units/weapons that you can use effectively and that make the most of your personal play style is much more important than what the dice "should" do.  Because they won't. . .

Newsflash to the mathhammer crowd. . . statistics is only able to predict the behavior of GROUPS.  It cannot be used to predict the behavior of an individual.  Anybody who has more statistics education than the ability to divide 100 by 6 can tell you that.

I work at an insurance company.  Our actuaries can tell you almost exactly how many people of a given age with certain characteristics will die in a given time frame.  But if you ask them if YOU are going to be one of those people that die. .  they will just shrug their shoulders.  Statistics don't work like that.

. . . but I'm sure some people will get all up in arms about how "the numbers don't lie."  Whatever.

Posted By Soulmage on 06/28/2007 7:19 PM

Newsflash to the mathhammer crowd. . . statistics is only able to predict the behavior of GROUPS.  It cannot be used to predict the behavior of an individual.  Anybody who has more statistics education than the ability to divide 100 by 6 can tell you that.

No, I'm not an actuary, I just work with them.  If I were an actuary I would have given a long lecture on the whole topic of statistics because I would find it the most fascinating thing in the world.  Being a finance guy rather than an actuary, I gave you only the info that pertains here. . . lucky you.

I am soooooo glad you brought up this point. . . for a couple reasons.

#1 and most important - How long exactly does it take you to play 100 games?  A year?  Two?  Three?  Do you even stick with a particular army/list that long?  Some may be able to say that they play hundreds of games in a couple years using the same list and same loadouts the whole time.  These folks are in the VAST minority. 

The point is. . . it takes a LONG time for an individual player to build up a statistically valid sample of games.  With all the other variables in terms of army, opponents, list, its really nearly impossible for all but a very small minority of players to get enough games in that they could experience a significant degree of mean reversion in their die rolls.

Even for those players who DO play with the same army/list a lot for a very long time. . . they still can't predict the outcome of any particular die roll, or any particular game.  Who really cares if over the course of 60 games of 40k, you fired a lascannon 280 times and your average die roll worked out to 3.5?  All the player cares about is what is THIS die roll and THIS game is going to bring.  You'll have games where you roll nothing but fives and sixes, nothing but 1s and 2s. . . but I guess that as you're loosing you can take comfort in the fact that if you spend an entire game missing/failing to penetrate with your lascannon. . . over the next 30 games or so its likely that you will have hits that balance things out.  Hopefully they don't all happen in the same game so that you have many games of missing and one game of absolutely killer die rolls.

#2 Secondly. . . let's address this myth of  "it takes 36 shots to bring down a falcon."  Or whatever people are complaining about today. . .

Alright. . . first of all, that's an average number.  Could be a LOT more. . . could be a lot less.  So. . . to get a good sample how long does it take you to kill 100 falcons in 40k games?  Quite a while I'm guessing. . . if you even bother to try that many times.  You're MUCH better off using a weapon system that you know how to use effectively to get nice shots at rear armor (or whatever) than you are taking a weapon system that mathematically "averages out to be more effective."

Consider this. . . if I stick your head in a bowl of scalding hot water. . . and your feet in a bowl of freezing cold water. . . ON AVERAGE you're taking a nice warm bath. . . but I'm guessing that probably won't matter much to you at the time.  You will be more concerned about the individual situations.

Next let's think about what we are saying when we say "it takes 36 shots to bring down a falcon."  That means you have a 1/36 chance of bringing it down on any particular shot.  It doesn't mean you will magically get it on the 36th attempt.  You could get it on the first attempt and roll 35 more misses.  Or you could kill it 36 times. . . or you could miss it 36 times.

Making it more simple. . . you have a 1/6 chance of rolling a 6 on one die.  How much money are you willing to put on the fact that if you roll that die 6 times, one result will be a six.  Probably not a lot I'm guessing. . . even less so if we said that you also lost the bet if MORE than 1 six came up. . . because of course. . . "it takes 6 shots" to roll a six. . . so if you roll more its totally "not what the numbers say" and as we all know. .  the numbers don't lie.  

(If you're willing to take that bet. . . let me know. .  I'll be happy to handle it with you at Adepticon next year if you can make it.)

The REAL reason people like to do math-hammer. . . and this is a well known fact both in the field of statistics and psychology. . . is that people like to feel like they have more control over their lives than they actually do.  There's plenty of examples of this. . . lots of people feel safer driving than flying for example.  A large part of this is because subconciously people feel that if they are in control, its much less likely to happen to them.  But as we all know from statistics. . they are wrong.

Anyway. . . if all that hasn't opened your eyes just a little, its unlikely that anything will.  You can lead a horse to water. . .

Posted By Janthkin on 06/28/2007 8:36 PM
[

Yes, probability won't tell you exactly whether a particular shot, or even a set of shots will down a Falcon. But it will give you an indication of the possible range of likely outcomes, which many people find helpful in determining which actions have the most beneficial chance of working.

Posted By Soulmage on 06/28/2007 9:02 PM
IG Grenade launchers ARE the optimal anti-falcon weapon. . . if you're so good at using IG grenade launchers in a mobile capacity that I can generally always get shots at the rear armor.  Whereas with lascannons you might not be good at deployment so they only get 3 or 4 shots because you have to move them or your LOS blocked for much of the game.  You can certainly take a lot more grenade launchers than you can lascannons.

This is exactly my point. . . use the weapons YOU are most comfortable with and know how to use most effectively.  The odds of a successful lascannon kill don't matter a hill of beans if you only get 1 or 2 good shots with it because you don't know how to deploy it well, or how to channel the opponent's armored units into its line of fire.

Its a simple example (lascannons aren't a tough weapon to use - although I do encounter some who have problems. . .) but its a principle that applies to math-hammer in general.

Posted By winterman on 06/28/2007 3:34 PM

To those who think they can "prove" something by inaccurate statistical analyses, it should be pointed out that a game of 40k has far too many variables for mathematical abstractions to be of much use (they're incredibly limited). When attempting to use probabilities to demonstrate a point, please make absolutely sure you know what you're talking about, you're not misrepresenting the information, and that it actually adds something of substance to the discourse.

What the f are you talking about? there was nothing inaccurate about what I posted and it shows quite clearly you are full of crap.  It's really very easy. On average it will take more firepower then any 1500-2000 point army can have (especially the mobile variety you are proposing) to immobilize or destroy 3 falcons, taking into consideration the probabilities and 25% of the board having terrain. Not real hard to figure out.

Does this mean its auto win for the Eldar player? Not at all. But your contention has been that Falcons are not that big a deal and that most armies can deal with them easily. That just isn't true. Compare the stats I posted with the numbers for any other tank. Hell, compare it with a hammerhead, another expensive but very useful skimmer tank. You'll find the falcon is a whole lot more difficult to drop.

Once again...reading comprehension is your friend.

I'm so glad that this thread has officially metamorphosed into an "I'm smarter than thou" e-penis matchup. Continue arguing from your own ineptitude while simultaneously ignoring others--I'm done with this degenerate thread.

"I adopt...condescension towards those who persevere in their ignorance via possessing deaf ears to all but themselves."

Posted By Iorek on 06/29/2007 5:57 AM
OK, Soulmage, I admit I was a little snippy last night, but your tone irked me.  Anyway, I'm going to be polite now.

I understand your point about not being able to determine one die roll with statistics.  If I were to roll one die right now, and get a 5, and then rolled it again, I'd still have a 1/6 chance of getting a 5.  With math-hammer (a venerable relative of theory-hammer), we're not trying to prove that you'll need at least 12 fu-cannon shots to down an x-tank.  What we try to do is give people an idea of how many (ballpark) fu-cannons you'll want to take to be able to reliable down an x-tank. 

Math-hammer does assume players of equal skill on both sides of the board, and is not meant to replace tactics.  It's simply an additional tool that we use to help us build army lists.  Your example of the grenade launchers fits in to this, as players with equal skill are going to have a difficult time of getting rear-armor shots with a grenade launcher.  What it comes down to is that math-hammer often relies on the worst-case scenario, which will often be the most common scenario players see in a game.  For example, most calculations against vehicles are done against the front armor, because that's what you'll mostly see.  Sure, you'll get occasional side and rear armor shots, but these aren't the most common occurrence.

Third, if we don't use math-hammer on a medium like a message board, there isn't any other concrete frame of reference to revert to.  You said it youself; each individual game cannot be predicted, and therefore we also can't discuss it.  Math-hammer is the best general model we have for these kinds of discussions.  We don't use it as a be-all, end-all, but do find it awfully handy.  Like a Dremel tool.  I won't use it to clean my dishes, but I still love it.

Fair enough. . .

Obviously you don't work in the insurance industry.

Insurance operates on a principle of aggregation of risk.  It deals in the law of large numbers.  In your example, at a very high level. . . .what an insurer does if figure out the expected lifespan of ALL base jumping, fire-act participants.  It then charges them ALL exactly the same rate knowing that while some may die early. . . others will live long fruitful lives, paying premiums all the while.

In reality. . . so many factors are included in the calculation that it is 1,000 times more complicated than that. . . actuaries figure how any a huge number of factors influence those probabilities and apply premium adjustments for each. . .  age, race, sex, where you live, maybe even stuff like credit history, previous claims experience, etc.  But if you could get 2 identical people in 2 identical situations. . . they would have exactly the same premium because insurance plays on expectations of what will happen to a group.  Premiums appear personalized because of their complexity, but really you're getting the same premium as every other person out there matching your risk characteristics.  The fact that it is such a complicated process to figure that out is why actuaries make such huge money.