Alliances % at Heat 3

[Mune]

Well, I havent found a way to fit the big bug into my sylvaneth lists.

You guys know the lists he was taking?

[gummyofallbears]

On 7/3/2017 at 8:17 PM, swarmofseals said:

I wonder this too, but I also wonder if these lists just weren't present as much at the tournament. I would love to know how many sayl, skyfire, rukk etc. lists there were.

I think there are a couple of important factors at play:

• Just based on raw stats, most Death warscrolls are pretty mediocre. There are a few that stand out a bit, but other Grand Alliances almost universally have choices that are even better. Death does have among the most defensively efficient options, but they lack offensively efficient choices. People go nuts over the Mourngul but it's really not that good. I'd be more than happy to justify that assertion with a lot of math if you like. 
• The math suggests that Death will likely play best as a horde army. Horde armies are very clunky to play in a timed tournament setting (as you pointed out).
• Death has basically no shooting, which means that it is incredibly vulnerable to force multiplier type heroes (think: aether khemists, bloodsecrators, megabosses and the like).
• Death has basically no force multipliers of its own. Settra is the only really powerful one. They do have heroes that provide modest buffs, but no extreme buff game like other factions have through either battalions or heroes.
• The power of Ruler of the Night is a double edged sword. On the one hand it's probably the best allegiance ability in the game. On the other it essentially forces you to make your general a unit champion to avoid losing your key ability immediately to any army with heavy shooting. This basically means forgoing any interesting command abilities. 

I would appreciate the math about the mournghoul if you don't mind, that would be really cool to see I think, and definitely up my understanding of how that grand alliance plays. 

[swarmofseals]

6 hours ago, gummyofallbears said:

I would appreciate the math about the mournghoul if you don't mind, that would be really cool to see I think, and definitely up my understanding of how that grand alliance plays. 

Sure, no problem. Let's break this down into two categories: offense and defense. I'll deal with offense first because it's the more clear-cut category.

Offense

I developed a statistic that I call WDR (Weighted Damage Rating), which is basically intended to allow you to compare damage efficiency across different types of damage (ie: different rend values and mortal wounds). You first calculate the average amount of pre-save damage a model will inflict in a single combat round for each type of damage it inflicts, and then divide that by the points cost of the model. You then multiply the rend 1 value by 1.33, the rend 2 value by 1.66, and the mortal wound value by 2.19 and sum them. That gives you the WDR. I can explain how I got those multipliers, but suffice to say that I'm fairly confident that they are ballpark accurate. You can tweak it a bit one way or the other if you like. 

The Mourngul (at full strength) deals an average of about 8.5 rend 2 damage per combat round. Divide that by 400 (the point cost) and you get .213. Multiply that by 1.66 and you get a WDR of .0354. To put it mildly, that's very bad. It's tied for 83rd out of 135 in the Death Grand Alliance, and Death is not known for its stellar damage output to begin with. To give you some comparisons outside of the Death GA, Liberators have a WDR of .0533 against targets with less than 5 wounds and  .0711 against targets with 5+ wounds, Retributors are at .0904, Kurnoth Hunters with Swords are .1033, and a Frostlord on Stonehorn with battlebrew is anywhere from .0787 to .1042 depending on number of swigs and charging status. There are plenty of warscrolls that go FAR beyond this, too. Regular old Tzaangors max out at an absurd .1542. Note that none of this includes any buffs that aren't on the warscroll itself unless explicitly stated. 

So basically, the Mourngul has an offensive efficiency similar to minimum strength battleline units. A 10 man Freeguild Guard squad with swords and shields has a WDR of .0344, just a tiny bit shy of the Mourngul. 

Defense

I calculated the effective wounds per point against different damage types (r0-2, mortal wounds), and the Mourngul rates at 11.11 against rend 0-2 and 16.67 against Mortal Wounds. In GA: Death that's good enough for ranks of 80th, 53rd, 34th, and 48th against r0, r1, r2, and mortal wounds respectively (out of 96/94/91/86). That makes the Mourngul horrible vs rend 0, medium vs rend 1, decent against rend 2, and medium against mortal wounds. This does sell the Mourngul short though because it does not factor in the hit penalty OR healing. I think we can generally estimate the hit penalty to improve defensive efficiency by about 33% in melee (to 8.35/12.53). You can also adjust these numbers for healing. For example, if the Mourngul heals 10 wounds in the battle you'd divide the defensive efficiency numbers in half. Also note that these numbers DO take into consideration the Death allegiance ability.

To give some comparisons outside of Death, Liberators have defensive efficiency of 4.17/6.1/8.06/10, Retributors are at 7.33/9.78/12.22/14.67, Freeguild Guard with sword/shield are at 3.33/4.88/6.45/8, Tzaangors are at 5.56/6.94/8.33/8.33, and Brutes are at 6/8/10/12. Frostlord on Stonehorn is a bit harder to quantify but suffice to say it's way better than the Mourngul against R0, a bit better against R1, and worse against R2 and mortal wounds. 

At baseline, the Mourngul is absolutely atrocious against rend 0, bad against rend 1, OK against rend 2, and bad against mortal wounds. So against most shooting, the Mourngul is really inefficient (especially against bulk rend 0 shooting). In melee things look a little better, especially if you are surviving multiple rounds and can heal repeatedly.  In the perfect scenario (no shooting damage incoming, against offense too weak to make headway against the healing) the Mourngul starts to rival other choices that are more efficient. For example, if the Mourngul heals 10 wounds and only gets attacked with melee damage, it's defensive efficiency basically pulls even with Liberators. 

Conclusions

So what you have in the Mourngul is a model with very bad offensive efficiency that can situationally have good defensive efficiency but also situationally has terrible defensive efficiency. The nice thing though is that it's pretty fast and it flies, so at least you can choose your battles to some extent. It can't really take objectives, though. So basically what you are getting is at best a 400 point tarpit and at worst 400 points of low hanging fruit. You aren't going to be making those points back unless your opponent is taking a bunch of expensive, glass cannon melee infantry/heroes (in which case your opponent has a very weak comp and you should be advantaged to begin with). The problem is why would you want a 400 point tarpit? At 400 points, the opponent is tarpitting you. And in many cases (like when your opponent has high volume, low rend shooting) you won't even get a tarpit.

Compare the Mourngul vs Dire Wolves, who are a little bit slower but still very fast. Dire Wolves without a Corpse Cart have defensive efficiencies of 3.33/4.17/5/5 and WDR of .042 (not charging) and .056 (charging). You'll probably have difficulty getting 400 points of Dire Wolves into range to attack, so maybe that offense should be penalized a bit. We'll call it a wash with the Mourngul. Defensively, however, Dire Wolves are clearly better at every level. A Mourngul would need to take exclusively melee damage and heal like 15 wounds just to get even. 

Beyond the pure numbers, Dire Wolves have multiple other advantages (and you can take them in whatever points amount you want rather than being forced to commit 400 points to one role). They can take objectives far better than the Mourngul, can spread out and control more territory, and can tarpit multiple targets more easily.  Furthermore, there is a lot more potential for negative variance with the Mourngul. If your opponent rolls well and you roll poorly, you can be down 400 points very quickly. If the rolls go poorly with a unit of Dire Wolves the worst you will be losing is 60 points. This also forces your opponent to spread out their attacks which creates more opportunities for wasted damage.

 

[gummyofallbears]

7 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

Sure, no problem. Let's break this down into two categories: offense and defense. I'll deal with offense first because it's the more clear-cut category.

Offense

I developed a statistic that I call WDR (Weighted Damage Rating), which is basically intended to allow you to compare damage efficiency across different types of damage (ie: different rend values and mortal wounds). You first calculate the average amount of pre-save damage a model will inflict in a single combat round for each type of damage it inflicts, and then divide that by the points cost of the model. You then multiply the rend 1 value by 1.33, the rend 2 value by 1.66, and the mortal wound value by 2.19 and sum them. That gives you the WDR. I can explain how I got those multipliers, but suffice to say that I'm fairly confident that they are ballpark accurate. You can tweak it a bit one way or the other if you like. 

The Mourngul (at full strength) deals an average of about 8.5 rend 2 damage per combat round. Divide that by 400 (the point cost) and you get .213. Multiply that by 1.66 and you get a WDR of .0354. To put it mildly, that's very bad. It's tied for 83rd out of 135 in the Death Grand Alliance, and Death is not known for its stellar damage output to begin with. To give you some comparisons outside of the Death GA, Liberators have a WDR of .0533 against targets with less than 5 wounds and  .0711 against targets with 5+ wounds, Retributors are at .0904, Kurnoth Hunters with Swords are .1033, and a Frostlord on Stonehorn with battlebrew is anywhere from .0787 to .1042 depending on number of swigs and charging status. There are plenty of warscrolls that go FAR beyond this, too. Regular old Tzaangors max out at an absurd .1542. Note that none of this includes any buffs that aren't on the warscroll itself unless explicitly stated. 

So basically, the Mourngul has an offensive efficiency similar to minimum strength battleline units. A 10 man Freeguild Guard squad with swords and shields has a WDR of .0344, just a tiny bit shy of the Mourngul. 

Defense

I calculated the effective wounds per point against different damage types (r0-2, mortal wounds), and the Mourngul rates at 11.11 against rend 0-2 and 16.67 against Mortal Wounds. In GA: Death that's good enough for ranks of 80th, 53rd, 34th, and 48th against r0, r1, r2, and mortal wounds respectively (out of 96/94/91/86). That makes the Mourngul horrible vs rend 0, medium vs rend 1, decent against rend 2, and medium against mortal wounds. This does sell the Mourngul short though because it does not factor in the hit penalty OR healing. I think we can generally estimate the hit penalty to improve defensive efficiency by about 33% in melee (to 8.35/12.53). You can also adjust these numbers for healing. For example, if the Mourngul heals 10 wounds in the battle you'd divide the defensive efficiency numbers in half. Also note that these numbers DO take into consideration the Death allegiance ability.

To give some comparisons outside of Death, Liberators have defensive efficiency of 4.17/6.1/8.06/10, Retributors are at 7.33/9.78/12.22/14.67, Freeguild Guard with sword/shield are at 3.33/4.88/6.45/8, Tzaangors are at 5.56/6.94/8.33/8.33, and Brutes are at 6/8/10/12. Frostlord on Stonehorn is a bit harder to quantify but suffice to say it's way better than the Mourngul against R0, a bit better against R1, and worse against R2 and mortal wounds. 

At baseline, the Mourngul is absolutely atrocious against rend 0, bad against rend 1, OK against rend 2, and bad against mortal wounds. So against most shooting, the Mourngul is really inefficient (especially against bulk rend 0 shooting). In melee things look a little better, especially if you are surviving multiple rounds and can heal repeatedly.  In the perfect scenario (no shooting damage incoming, against offense too weak to make headway against the healing) the Mourngul starts to rival other choices that are more efficient. For example, if the Mourngul heals 10 wounds and only gets attacked with melee damage, it's defensive efficiency basically pulls even with Liberators. 

Conclusions

So what you have in the Mourngul is a model with very bad offensive efficiency that can situationally have good defensive efficiency but also situationally has terrible defensive efficiency. The nice thing though is that it's pretty fast and it flies, so at least you can choose your battles to some extent. It can't really take objectives, though. So basically what you are getting is at best a 400 point tarpit and at worst 400 points of low hanging fruit. You aren't going to be making those points back unless your opponent is taking a bunch of expensive, glass cannon melee infantry/heroes (in which case your opponent has a very weak comp and you should be advantaged to begin with). The problem is why would you want a 400 point tarpit? At 400 points, the opponent is tarpitting you. And in many cases (like when your opponent has high volume, low rend shooting) you won't even get a tarpit.

Compare the Mourngul vs Dire Wolves, who are a little bit slower but still very fast. Dire Wolves without a Corpse Cart have defensive efficiencies of 3.33/4.17/5/5 and WDR of .042 (not charging) and .056 (charging). You'll probably have difficulty getting 400 points of Dire Wolves into range to attack, so maybe that offense should be penalized a bit. We'll call it a wash with the Mourngul. Defensively, however, Dire Wolves are clearly better at every level. A Mourngul would need to take exclusively melee damage and heal like 15 wounds just to get even. 

Beyond the pure numbers, Dire Wolves have multiple other advantages (and you can take them in whatever points amount you want rather than being forced to commit 400 points to one role). They can take objectives far better than the Mourngul, can spread out and control more territory, and can tarpit multiple targets more easily.  Furthermore, there is a lot more potential for negative variance with the Mourngul. If your opponent rolls well and you roll poorly, you can be down 400 points very quickly. If the rolls go poorly with a unit of Dire Wolves the worst you will be losing is 60 points. This also forces your opponent to spread out their attacks which creates more opportunities for wasted damage.

 

That is really interesting actually, I've never played against mourn-ghouls, but they generate a crazy amount of buzz in my local area, so this math has really helped me out, thank you!

[Nico]

Did you include the -1 to hit debuff, which takes off a third of the damage.

I also feel you're underestimating the value of -2 rend (based on gut feeling plus the number of units that you really need -2 rend against like Stardrakes, Kurnoths and Treelord Ancients).

[ageofpaddsmar]

Also does it get something on a 6 to hit like an extra attack or something

[Chris Tomlin]

On ‎11‎/‎07‎/‎2017 at 6:33 PM, Valenae said:

Maybe some one know nickname or blog of High Elf player who get fourth place?

That was Byron Orde from Facehammer. Don't think he's on this forum though?

18 hours ago, Mune said:

Well, I havent found a way to fit the big bug into my sylvaneth lists.

You guys know the lists he was taking?

That was @Lhw - Great to see him doing consistently well with Alarielle. Top Sylvaneth in the rankings without using one of the more common builds.

[Terry Pike]

On 11/07/2017 at 6:33 PM, Valenae said:

Maybe some one know nickname or blog of High Elf player who get fourth place?

Byron from FaceHammer Podcast. More information can be found at facehammer.co.uk

I believe a show about Heat 3 has just been recorded.

[Lhw]

Was indeed me with that Alarielle list, @Mune

List as follows:

Alarielle the Everqueen (620)
- Deepwood Spell : Verdant Blessing
Branchwych (100)
- Artefact : Acorn of the Ages
- Deepwood Spell : Throne of Vines
Treelord Ancient (300)
- General
- Command Trait : Gnarled Warrior
- Artefact : The Oaken Armour
- Deepwood Spell : Regrowth
Units
10 x Dryads (120)
10 x Dryads (120)
5 x Tree-Revenants (100)
3 x Kurnoth Hunters (180)
-Scythes
3 x Kurnoth Hunters (180)
-Greatbows
3 x Kurnoth Hunters (180)
-Greatbows
Battalions
Gnarlroot Wargrove (80)
Household (20)

I think it's quite a bit more defensive than other Sylvaneth lists out there - lack of Durthu or a set of 6 Scythes does that. You've got enough shooting and magic to normally force them to come to you. Then everything just keeps on coming back. Alarielle healing everything automatically, plus the spells, means you've got to be killing whole units.

It has a bit of everything; good movement, shooting, combat and defensive. Something that can be particularly annoying is kicking out 7 spells next to the Wyldwood on the objective you're fighting. Roll a few 5+ there and you're kicking out lots of mortal wounds to all of their army. Think it's what ended up swinging it against Byron's list and those two annoying Phoenixes!

Took it as wanted to include Alarielle to begin, but actually prefer it to more Khunter heavy lists now - just took a bit of time resisting the urge to chuck Alarielle forward all the time.

[swarmofseals]

3 hours ago, Nico said:

Did you include the -1 to hit debuff, which takes off a third of the damage.

I also feel you're underestimating the value of -2 rend (based on gut feeling plus the number of units that you really need -2 rend against like Stardrakes, Kurnoths and Treelord Ancients).

The initial numbers do not include the hit debuff but I do address that extensively in my discussion and provide numbers that do include it. Suffice to say that in order for the Mourngul to have competitive defensive efficiency it has to not be taking missile damage AND heal 10+ wounds over the course of the battle. 

I also think that the multiplier for rend 2 is slightly low, but it certainly isn't that much higher. While it's true that rend 2/mortal wounds is beneficial against heavy armor with rerolls, it's also true that its relatively worse against things with unrendable saves or any kind of ward save. The multiplier is intended to capture the value of rend/mortals across every situation. If you have a known specific opponent taking a specific set of warscrolls then yes, the value changes. Even if you changed the multiplier for rend 2 to 1.8, the Mourngul would still only have a WDR of .0383 which is still really, really bad. 

I'd also challenge the idea that you need rend 2 to deal with the situations that you described with the exceptions of 2+ rerollables that ignore rend 1. In those cases you really do need rend 2 or better to realistically do any damage (but those situations are relatively rare and can also be dealt with through tarpitting). Let's take your example of Kurnoth Hunters using their thicket ability for rerolls. A Mourngul charging is likely to do about 6 wounds of damage to the Kurnoths on average. A unit of Blood Knights charging in will deal an average of 4.125 wounds. So that's .015 wounds per point for the Mourngul and .0159 wounds per point for the Blood Knights. The Mourngul will outperform the Blood Knights in subsequent rounds of course -- the point was just to demonstrate that a warscroll with rend 0-1 attacks can outperform a warscroll with rend 2 even against a tough target like that.  

If you do feel like you NEED rend 2, then the Mourngul is probably the least worst option. Morghast Archai are better offensively and a bit better defensively against shooting but significantly worse defensively in melee. Death just does not have much rend 2 at all, and the other options are generally even worse than the Mourngul. 

2 hours ago, ageofpaddsmar said:

Also does it get something on a 6 to hit like an extra attack or something

Yes, I factored that in. I was even generous and calculated it as if his specific special rule overrules the rules about extra attacks never generating further extra attacks.

[Greasygeek]

Just out of curriosity as I do not take part in tournements but what place does nurgle armies (mortal and daemons or mixed between the two) take in general? If anyone knows? Are they any good?

Lately I have started to feel a growing need for some Nurgle buffs. It seem to me that they are forced to join a mixed chaos alliance if they should stand a chance. But maybe it is just me...