Xarnax Posted February 21, 2018 Share Posted February 21, 2018 Who needs math, when you can write a simulator? Well, here are some interesting results. -You generally have about a 17% chance of wiping the targeted unit. -If the target unit has 30 wounds (Like a full bloodletter unit for example), you deal an average of more than 6 mortal wounds! -If you have to pick between 'arcane bolt' and 'curse of years', you should only pick arcane bolt if the target unit has 1 or 2 wounds left. ( There will be situations, where you want a guaranteed wound over a higher average, but that's besides the point). The result is way beyond my expectations. I was actually expecting arcane bolt to be much better in most situations. I'm painting Arkhan The Black next ;D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tolstedt Posted February 21, 2018 Share Posted February 21, 2018 I did a similar thing with Archaon's slayer of kings and found about 17%. If he is buffed with +1 to wound (from a lord on jugger) it is a little under 40%. Ridiculously good and should impact the opponent's choices. Edit: Although now I cannot remember if I did it with 5 attacks or 4 attacks (I may have assumed he is always buffed with at least one extra attack) I'm pretty sure I did it with 4. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xarnax Posted February 22, 2018 Author Share Posted February 22, 2018 I'm thinking that Arkhan might actually be a high tier pick for a competitive list. If the opponent relies too heavily on 1 unit (which many opponents do), you have about 40% chance of ending the game in the first 3 turns. And the spell has a range of 24" which is HUGE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ashtyn Posted February 22, 2018 Share Posted February 22, 2018 I wiped a unit of guardsman (30 or 40) I believe in turn 1 of a free guild army. second turn I took out the hurricanum. All with curse of years. Dont think I'll ever get that luck again but man can it do some damage! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xarnax Posted February 22, 2018 Author Share Posted February 22, 2018 4 minutes ago, Ashtyn said: I wiped a unit of guardsman (30 or 40) I believe in turn 1 of a free guild army. second turn I took out the hurricanum. All with curse of years. Dont think I'll ever get that luck again but man can it do some damage! Well, you have almost 3% chance of doing it again every try It is bound to happen some time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kneeby Posted February 22, 2018 Share Posted February 22, 2018 The luckiest I've ever been with Arkahn's curse of years is a wipe of 30 chaos warriors in my turn 1, the chaos player ran them up in his turn, then Arkhan just slapped them to one side with a magical 'NOPE bat'. The chaos player honestly didn't know how to react, thinking that his shields would work against infinite mortal wounds, I cried tears of joy that day and have never been as close to being that lucky since. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richelieu Posted February 22, 2018 Share Posted February 22, 2018 His effectiveness is greater even than the raw numbers indicate. The psychological impact on your opponent of knowing that anything in range has nearly a 1/6 chance of dying outright allows Arkhan to control large swathes of the board. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sception Posted February 22, 2018 Share Posted February 22, 2018 The odds of going nova are exactly 14.403357816%. It's a binomial probability problem with 10 trials, probability of success on a particular trial equal to 1.54320988%, looking for at least one success. Calculation's a bit of a hassle, but that's what calculators are for. Smaller than 17%, enough so that I wonder if there might be a bug in OP's trial coding, but still a good bit higher than I had assumed it to be based on personal anecdotal experience without doing the math. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richelieu Posted February 22, 2018 Share Posted February 22, 2018 24 minutes ago, Sception said: The odds of going nova are exactly 14.403357816%. It's a binomial probability problem with 10 trials, probability of success on a particular trial equal to 1.54320988%, looking for at least one success. Calculation's a bit of a hassle, but that's what calculators are for. Smaller than 17%, enough so that I wonder if there might be a bug in OP's trial coding, but still a good bit higher than I had assumed it to be based on personal anecdotal experience without doing the math. Most people just take the average, at 15.4% instead of running a binomial distribution. I created a plug and play spreadsheet that will run binomial trials since it's a much more useful measure in a game than an average is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xarnax Posted February 22, 2018 Author Share Posted February 22, 2018 Uuh. Interesting. There might be a problem somewhere. I’ll have to go through it again as that many runs shouldn’t differ from the math in any significant ways. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tea_wild_owl Posted February 22, 2018 Share Posted February 22, 2018 what I wonder is when rolling a 1 for arkhan's spell does it count as a fail (due to rules of one, where a 1 is always a fail)? is it applied for spells as well? I hit a LoC and did 9 mortal wounds ending with 1 dice at 1+. however, I stopped when I rolled a 1 (since it was a friendly tournament). if a 1 counts as a fail, than the % to kill large units would drop Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andreas Posted February 22, 2018 Share Posted February 22, 2018 4 minutes ago, tea_wild_owl said: what I wonder is whether for arkhan's spell rolling a 1 is a fail (due to rules of one?)? is it applied for spells as well? I hit a LoC and did 9 mortal wounds ending with 1 dice at 1+. however, I stopped when I rolled a 1 (since it was a friendly tournament). if a 1 counts as a fail, than the % to kill large units would drop Rolling a 1 is not always a fail, only hit, wound and save rolls. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tea_wild_owl Posted February 22, 2018 Share Posted February 22, 2018 2 minutes ago, Andreas said: Rolling a 1 is not always a fail, only hit, wound and save rolls. okay, so it's basically an auto kill if you reach 1+. good to know ^^ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tolstedt Posted February 22, 2018 Share Posted February 22, 2018 7 hours ago, Richelieu said: His effectiveness is greater even than the raw numbers indicate. The psychological impact on your opponent of knowing that anything in range has nearly a 1/6 chance of dying outright allows Arkhan to control large swathes of the board. This is a chess principle called "the threat is greater than the execution". I have found it to be a very important idea in age of sigmar. The idea is that you have some threat of a tactic. You cannot do the tactic just yet, because everything is defended, but all your opponent's moves have to consider that tactic. "I know he can't play Qe2 because I can play on Nxd5, freeing the bishop and nabbing the rook!" So while Qe2 is good, the opponent won't play it. So Arkhan's presence in one area of the board has a bigger impact on the position than actually doing the spell might have! I'm not sure if this should be called "psychology" so much as a simple assessment of the possibilities of the position. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xarnax Posted February 22, 2018 Author Share Posted February 22, 2018 So I rewrote the program and did another program from scratch. 14.5 is about right (not just about, but exactly what Sception said). I just can't figure out what my first program did wrong. I have a sneaking suspicion, that I counted the 5th roll as going nova. But the 5th roll is 2+, which is not necessarily a unit wipe. Aaaaanywho... It's still a pretty damn good spell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caffran101 Posted February 22, 2018 Share Posted February 22, 2018 I've only ever seen a Curse of Years spell run its full course once - when my opponent did a "practice run" to show me how it worked. Throughout the course of the game it did a total of 3 mortal wounds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xarnax Posted February 22, 2018 Author Share Posted February 22, 2018 That will happen sometimes. But statistically, it's almost always better than arcane bolt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmichaux92 Posted February 22, 2018 Share Posted February 22, 2018 It doesn't go nova that often and it can even fall flat (0 wound). But it's just 6 to cast ! With the +2 to cast Arkhan already have it's a 4 to cast. You can even have it "auto cast" with buffs (Mortis/sacrament) So i'll take the 1 to 6 wound it usually do ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ledha Posted February 22, 2018 Share Posted February 22, 2018 The spell more often fail that reaching it's full potential, but when it goes, holy hell. I saw it twice, obliterating 9 skyfire, then 30 vulkites berserkers. Glorious Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PlasticCraic Posted February 23, 2018 Share Posted February 23, 2018 @Sception are your figures based on the assumption is it successfully cast? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sception Posted February 23, 2018 Share Posted February 23, 2018 2 hours ago, PlasticCraic said: @Sception are your figures based on the assumption is it successfully cast? Yes. Because casting chance isn't static. Once cast, the spell has a 14.4etc% chance of going nova and wiping a unit outright. The chances of successfully casting it will depend on whether Arkhan or Nagash is casting the spell, how many wounds they have left, whether they're within range of a lodestone/mortis/mystic terrain, whether Arkhan is in his own legion, whether there's an enemy caster within range to attempt to unbind, what sort of bonuses they have to do so, etc etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boots468 Posted February 23, 2018 Share Posted February 23, 2018 Was there ever a general FAQ on 'wounds inflicted' and negation? As you only get to keep rolling “until either no wounds are inflicted or the target unit is destroyed. “ I can see players with a save against mortal wounds arguing you don't get to roll again if you cause 0 wounds in a round of rolling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PlasticCraic Posted February 23, 2018 Share Posted February 23, 2018 @Sception yep that's what I thought, just checking ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sception Posted February 23, 2018 Share Posted February 23, 2018 1 hour ago, boots468 said: Was there ever a general FAQ on 'wounds inflicted' and negation? As you only get to keep rolling “until either no wounds are inflicted or the target unit is destroyed. “ I can see players with a save against mortal wounds arguing you don't get to roll again if you cause 0 wounds in a round of rolling. to my knowledge no, this is still an open issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Arentius Posted February 24, 2018 Share Posted February 24, 2018 My question re this spell, thanks to FAQ showing if you have a 3+ to hit / wound / save and get a +2 modifier the roll auto passes (assuming no other modifiers) this means it is safe to assume unless specified that a 1 is not an auto fail Then we look at the curse of years text where it states each round you get successful wounds subtract 1 from the result needed to cause a wound, it doesn’t say this stops at a 2+ ...can it therefore be inferred that should any dice reach and succeed in a 2+ the target auto dies as from then on you are mortal wounding on a 1+ and get an extra dice for each wound? (Implying infinite wounds until the target is dead) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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