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Just killing some time, so here's the math on a warwalker squad of 3, 2 with scatterlasters, 1 with starcannons. Sorry if this is a repost. The idea is that the only way warwalkers work is if they destroy what could shoot back at them, so it's useful to know how much you should devote to a target to ensure little or no return fire down that lane.

vs. Geq:

16 scatterlasers, 8 hit, 40/6 wound, 80/18 or 4.44 dead

4 starcannons, 2 hit, 10/6 or 1.67

Total: ~6 - So it takes two units of these to remove a fresh guard unit. All 3 will gut a unit of gaunts. Two won't destroy a unit of fire warriors, but it's probably going to gut it.

vs. Meq:

16 scatterlasers, 8 hit, 40/6 wound, 40/18 or 2.22 dead

4 starcannons, 2 hit, 10/6 or 1.67

Total: ~4 - So two of these per shooty marine unit, particularly dev/havoc units.

vs. TMC w/ 3+ save:

16 scatterlasers, 8 hit, 4 wound, 4/3 or 1.33 wounds

4 starcannons, 2 hit, 1 wound

Total: ~2 - so two of these should take down one dakkafex (and they NEED to take it down, as the return fire is brutal)

vs. TMC w/2+ save

16 scatterlasers, 8 hit, 4 wound, 4/6 or 0.67 wounds

4 starcannons, 2 hit, 1 wound

Total: 1.67 - So all 3 to take one down.

So the question becomes: do you fire the warwalkers before or after the rest of your shooting? I'm thinking before, because there are so many dice involved.

 

Is it worth it to mix the starcannon in the unit? I would think that a full squad of walkers with scatter laser would be a better deal. Cast guide on them, the unit will average 18 S6 hits...

Well, here's the math on all scatterlasers:

vs. Geq:

24 scatterlasers, 12 hit, 60/6 wound, 120/18 or 6.67

Total: ~7 - so slightly better than the Blackmoor pattern

vs. Meq:

24 scatterlasers, 12 hit, 60/6 wound, 60/18 or 3.33

Total: ~3 - so slightly worse than the Blackmoor pattern.

vs. TMC w/ 3+ save:

24 scatterlasers, 12 hit, 6 wound, 2 wounds

Total: ~2  abount the same

vs. TMC w/2+ save

24 scatterlasers, 12 hit, 6 wound, 1 wound

Total: 1 - slightly worse

So it's probably not a bad way to free up points to drop the starcannons, but I like the idea of having some AP2 when I know I'll want it. I play with my own terminators enough to know you can go through a whole bunch of dice before you see that first '1'.

I would also run the math factoring for Doom and guide, because there is no way you want to field 9 Warwalkers and not have a Farseer babysitting that unit. Heck, Eldrad is probably a must in that list.

Well, guide improves everything by 25%, and doom by ~10% against MEQ and GEQ and 25% against the TMCs, if I've done things in my head right.

Now we need to do the math for the various levels of cover.

The good thing about scatter laser is that cover will almost never affect it's result when your using it to shoot against MEQs, where as the star cannon will always be worse.

This works.

It taps into a good synergy and creates a good balance between value/cost and flexibility. The proportion of scatters to starcannons is just right, still giving some punch against 2+ armor while maintaining the horde-killing ability. The mix of weapons means that the squadron remains effective even after taking some hits, although the role might change a bit based on what's available to shoot.

Mostly, though, with three of these units you really benefit from an economy of scale. The inherent weaknesses of the starcannon, shooting into cover, the AR10 and the BS3 are statistically swamped by the number of weapons and shots and platforms. Cool.

Math is often misleading, when modelsizes arent taken into account. Nine WW shooting at the same target while staying out of sight of everything else sounds unrealistic given the size of the models etc..

I agree that it is unrealistic to expect 9 War Walkers to hide from everything in the enemy army other than one unit. One, maybe two squadrons is more likely, and even then two squadrons probably couldn't isolate the same enemy unit.

However, I would think that the War Walkers would have backup from some other Eldar Units, like Falcons or Dire Avengers in a Serpent, that are a little tougher. Therefore, the trick is not to figure out how many walkers it takes, but how many walkers + tough unit X. So if you Guide a War Walker Squadron, Doom the Target unit, and then hit it with both the walkers and unit of Dire Avengers doing Blade Storm thats about 10 dead Marines between them.

Posted By Raider on 12/06/2006 2:44 PM
Math is often misleading, when modelsizes arent taken into account. Nine WW shooting at the same target while staying out of sight of everything else sounds unrealistic given the size of the models etc..

You don't really hide them.

What protects them is sheer numbers, being hull down in cover, squadron targeting rules, the fact that you can only shoot them with weapons that have over 25"+ range, and target priority. Remember, you will also have a lot of other units in the army that are also high priority targets (Wave Serpents filled with Fire Dragons, a lot of Vypers, Dire Avengers in Waveserpents, guardians with brightlances, etc.). So you have to look at the whole synergy of the army to make it work.

 

You're gonna run into 6 Chimera, 3 hellhound, 3 russ guy and wish you'd never hatched your list concept.

3 hammerhead guy is going to give you a very unpleasant pounding too, as he plinks off warwalkers with 24" ignore-los guns while shooting down other stuff with the railgun.

Too many easy to get points. But I'd love to see what else you put in the list, to be able to make a more definitive analysis.

9x scatterlaser walkers are 540 points, but if they direct their fire at standard marines or even guardsmen they are the most point effective build. It is true that terminators and TMCs are worth more, but they are somewhat more rare then the standard marine/chaos marine and the higher cost of SC pushes down the ROI on walkers.

If your opponent concentrates fire on the walkers, they ignore the fast and deadly elite choices an eldar list has at its disposal. Banshees/Fire dragons in WS, Harlies, Wraithguard all need to get close and work better on small groups of elite enemies or tanks. Use your Walkers to suppress your enemies troops, and your elites to take out the rest.

540 points is enough for 5 las plas squads. You can potentially destroy three of them before they ever get a shot off, and all of them by turn two. In exchange you would lose 120 ~ 180 points of walkers.

You hardly have to "concentrate" fire to destroy warwalkers. As longshot said, Hammerheads with SMS would be particularly nasty. You would also have to watch out for infiltrators, summoning demons, drop pod/deepstrikers, and indirect ordnance.

The point is that the warwalkers destroy whatever is going to be shooting back at them the next turn, hence the need for three squads of three.

Maybe this is a good compliment for my jetbike seer council army?

It seems to work pretty good in my saim hann army. Even if I only use two units of three.

Its the only real element that doesnt have oodles of speed....but the immense amount of fire power more than makes up for that.

That and the scout move matched with eldrad makes this a very feasible heavy support choice.

The problem with mathhammer is that it's average mathhammer. When you start using computation mathhammer then you can start seeing if something is useful.

Average mathhammer is very easy, while computation mathhammer is not, so I see why the former is more popular.

Enlighten us oni.

I agree with Hellfury. I've been using one squad of 3, but with Eldrad leading the army. The WW's are typically my first HS on the table as a bait unit. Eldrad's Divination ability has really helped them get in great firing positions w/o facing lots of return fire.

I'm not sure that bionomial gives results that are significantly more informative than simple averaging, at least for the purposes of a 6 turn tabletop game anyway. Just be aware that averaging tends to exaggerate mutliple iterations.

Those warwalkers just look like easy points for marines with a couple of drop pods or battlesuit tau. Doesn't taking so many seriously impact on anti-tank? My knowledge of eldar builds isn't that hot.

If you have a bunch of jetbikes with Spear-locks and an autarch with a fusion blaster, then your anti-tank should be fine.

Er, what exactly does that mean?

Right so, for every shot, there's a chance of killing a marine. The more shots, the more complicated the math is. Making different shots do different things is even more complicated.

So for the blackmoor pattern (2 scatter lasers 1 star cannon), the math is very, very annoying.

However it is still easy as always to work out the chance of doing nothing. For the blackmoor pattern this is 10.29%.

Well, yes, but what is the "exaggerate multiple iterations" supposed to mean?

Keep in mind I am the geek that posted a list complete with mean and modal results of every viable Chaos Lord in a round of combat with marines, I'm aware of the statistical reality of the thing. "Exaggerate multiple iterations" just doesn't parse all that well for me.

Well, let's see. Iteration is a form of repetitive function with itself.

It seems Torgoch is refering to the Monte carlo calculation, which rely on statistical iteration matrices where the variance grows as the iterations proceed. Sometimes the variance can be stable but the results incorrect.

I hate math.

While an excercise of the brain, this is still 40K. I just can't bring myself to get that indepth into it.

Monte Carlo makes my bum-bum hurt.

@Abadabadoo, I Monte Carlo your partner?

Darrian

Posted By Sarigar on 01/01/2007 3:53 AM
While an excercise of the brain, this is still 40K. I just can't bring myself to get that indepth into it.

I feel the same way. GW doesnt put nearly that much effort in writing the rules. Whats the point trying to decipher pig latin with mathematical theory?

Posted By Darrian13 on 01/01/2007 8:24 AM
@Abadabadoo, I Monte Carlo your partner?

Darrian

No!  Nobody Monte Carlo's my partner butt me!!!1

This makes me wonder if you have any real idea what you're taking about.

This seems to verify that you don't.

I have a minor in mathematics because while computer science is my true calling, I actually enjoy math. Hence, when I'm doing gaming related things, I often apply math to them.