tactical advice to improve

[Skasian]

45 minutes ago, Mayple said:

You're doing good research, so I'm sure you'll reach a state of complete overview in no time As a potential helpful side note, there's a lot of small rules in Age of Sigmar that are easy to assume how they work, and being wrong about it without ever knowing. For instance, me and my gaming group played "re-rolls before modifiers" tied to "re-roll failed.." incorrectly for two years before realizing. So you're on the right track with questioning and seeking clarification, for sure  It is beneficial for everyone involved.

What army do you play, or plan to get involved with? Out of curiosity

You're begging me to ask the question (and I genuinely don't know)... re-roll before modifiers tied to re-roll?? huh.. is this a specific case of events that can happen?

Let's take an example from my game. Azrite Halo - On an unmodified save roll of 6+, attacking unit suffers 1 mortal wound. If my Sequitors re-roll 1's and the re-rolled 1's end up as a 6, does it Azrite Halo apply to them? In other words does 're-rolling' count as 'unmodified' still?

I'm building 2 armies side by side (so my partner can play), stormcast eternals and nighthaunt (I've basically bought all 3 starter boxes + a few extra units here and there to round out the armies and make 2k points). I like playing nighthaunt but I prefer painting and looking at SCE so much more, they are so much prettier.

[AaronWilson]

I think making a cheat sheet for your self to remember can really help you improve, I made one for my Sylvaneth as there is just a ton going on every turn. 

[Planar]

Learn to discern between what a unit will do on a regular basis and what a unit can do if all wild probabilities align perfectly. Many players tend to get distracted by immensely powerful abilities that are really unlikely to happen.

For example, see the Ironjawz Weirnob Shaman. On paper he has one of the most powerful spells in the game. But it is so hard to cast and then its damage range is so consequential that it very very rarely delivers. 

As a general in a game of chance, the maximum  consistency and predictability you can get from your army is your biggest asset.

Plan your games not on what you wish to happen but on what is most likely to happen based on probabilities

[HollowHills]

A couple of other suggestions I'd add...

Your Meta is not The Meta.

If you look up army lists online based on what is performing well at tournaments you may find this doesn't actually result in a successful or fun experience. I say this as someone who enjoys to play competitively, but more so in local clubs and tournaments than big events. If you look at lists which have been very successful in the past such as Vanguard Wing, Phoenix Temple mixed order and Changehost what you see is a collection of units and point values. However, the success of these lists is often more based on using one specific strategy designed to secure the highest number of victory points. Often that means they have to be played carefully using one or two "signature" moves such as dropping a massive unit onto objectives as early as possible and maintaining that unit rather than trying to "beat" your opponent in a classic sense. 

However, when it comes to playing locally this might not be desirable if only for the reason that it may not necessarily be fun. For awhile (early 2017) I was running a Tzeentch army list that focused on using a gaunt summoner on balewind supported by skyfires. I had one very effective way of playing the list which allowed me to go undefeated against local players over twenty or so games. I sold the army pretty quickly after I had finished painting it as it was completely and totally dull. My strategy, although very effective, allowed my opponent so little engagement that games almost always played out the same way and were entirely under my control. It may have been a list that could have done well at a big event, or not, but locally it didn't result in satisfying games for myself or my opponents. On the other hand the best game I have ever played was a match between my slightly unusual khorne list gore pilgrims(?) + skullreapers vs Ironjawz where the end of the game was a bloodsecrator and slaughtpriest running for an objective while the sold surviving megaboss on foot tried to do the same thing. I was still able to go undefeated at the tournament with the list, but it was a lot more engaging primarily because it offered a flexible approach to the game where I could play it as the situation dictated rather than relying on a single coup de gras to deliver victory.

Learn first, buy later.

Others have touched upon this, but often you might be best in sticking with a losing army and playing it without making changes until you're sure that you are performing to the best of your ability and the deficiencies are due to the list. When I started playing IDK went from being fairly undefeated in local games and tournaments with my BoK to losing five or six games in a row. However, I stuck with largely the same list so that I could learn how to use them to their best potential. (Highlight: 20 thralls killing Nagash, Lowlight: the old (GHB17) Fyreslayer battalion list just soaking everything).

When you do decide you want to make changes don't go dramatic. Swap out one or two units at a time rather than altering the whole army. Most modern battletome armies have a general play style they encourage which works when you use a variety of units, so sticking to that general "intended" play style while you are learning can enable you to find units which you enjoy and find success with. For me I bought a box of 3 Akhelian guard to see how they got on rather than dumping all the thralls for eels immediately (though this is now the process I have settled upon).

Plan for failure, not success.

If you make decisions based on what should happen or what you would like to happen you will end up in trouble. For example last night all I had to do was kill one tuskgor chariot with 10 thralls (21 attacks 3+ 3+ rerolling hits of 1 rend 1 dmg 2) and my akhelian king would force my opponent to waste his attacks on the other side of the field (thanks to doppelganger). I rolled 7 wound rolls of 1 and 2 resulting in no successful wounds. Thankfully I had positioned my king next to my gloomtide  which 1) heavily restricted my opponents pile in and 2) gave me a 6+ ward. My king ended up not taking any damage anyway. That careful positioning meant that a big statistical misfire didn't derail my game plan.

Rock, Paper, Scissors.

Sometimes your opponent just has the right stuff to cancel out what you've got and that isn't a reflection on your skill or list. For example, I love my Eidolon AotSea and he normally does pretty well for me (probably not 440 worth of good but...). However, if I'm playing an army that gets bonuses to unbind such as Tzeentch or Legions then he can become dead weight pretty quickly  given that I don't have any options to flat out boost his casting. In these kind of scenarios you have to accept you're the underdog and attempt to compensate even when that isn't ideal. In my case I might focus on moving my Eidolon somewhere he can be useful in a secondary function, such as combat or objective protection, or sacrifice part of my hammer unit to pressure my opponent to move off his unbinder rather than going for an objective themselves.

 

[Dead Scribe]

However, when it comes to playing locally this might not be desirable if only for the reason that it may not necessarily be fun. For awhile (early 2017) I was running a Tzeentch army list that focused on using a gaunt summoner on balewind supported by skyfires. I had one very effective way of playing the list which allowed me to go undefeated against local players over twenty or so games. I sold the army pretty quickly after I had finished painting it as it was completely and totally dull. My strategy, although very effective, allowed my opponent so little engagement that games almost always played out the same way and were entirely under my control.

Its ironic because this is my entire goal in performance (allowing opponents little engagement forces them to play to your game and not to theirs).

The rest of your post is pretty spot-on.  Though I do my best to find things to put into my list that cannot be countered other than through bad dice rolls, so I try to minimize where dice can have an impact (for example, I take as many mortal wounds as I can because I dont have to roll to hit and to wound and let my opponent save, I just roll to generate the mortal wounds so the number of times dice can cause my plan to fail is down to usually one roll instead of a set of three)

[Mayple]

1 hour ago, Skasian said:

You're begging me to ask the question (and I genuinely don't know)... re-roll before modifiers tied to re-roll?? huh.. is this a specific case of events that can happen?

Let's take an example from my game. Azrite Halo - On an unmodified save roll of 6+, attacking unit suffers 1 mortal wound. If my Sequitors re-roll 1's and the re-rolled 1's end up as a 6, does it Azrite Halo apply to them? In other words does 're-rolling' count as 'unmodified' still?

Hehe. By re-rolls before modifiers tied to re-rolling failed ... (failed hits/saves/wounds) I mean that we used to treat it like this; When you have something that gives you, for example, "Re-roll failed hits", and they were slapped with a minus modifier, let's say a -1, we would play it like for example; hits normally on a 4+ -> has re-rolling failed hits -> gets a -1 modifier -> rolls a 4, re-rolls because it is a failure due to the modifier ----- When in reality, because you re-roll BEFORE modifiers, you never re-roll the hits that would succeed if not for the modifier. In the 4+ to hit example, this would mean that if you had a -1 modifier, rolled a 4, you would not get to re-roll it, because it counts as a success before applying the modifier. Same applies to rend and such. This really only affects "Re-roll failed hits/wounds/saves", while not affecting "Re-roll rolls of 1" at all. 

 

The correct way put visually;

                      Re-rolling failed hits/wounds/saves

Normally:                                       With -1 modifier:

6: Success                                       6: Success

5: Success                                       5: Success

4: Success                                       4: Fail due to modifier (No re-roll because you re-roll before the modifier, i.e; before it becomes a fail)

3: Fail (re-roll)                              3: (Re-roll)

2: Fail (re-roll)                              2: (Re-roll)

1: Fail (re-roll)                              1: (Re-roll)

 

Perhaps a good way of looking at it is that you'll -never- get a larger access to re-rolls (in this case 3/6 of the rolls gives re-rolls) than you'd do under normal circumstances.

Let me know if I failed to get the meaning across

As for your example, yes. Re-rolls are not modifiers, so a re-roll into the correct dice roll would indeed trigger the ability. Although to be -very- nitpicky semantic about it, there's no such thing as an unmodified roll of 6+ (6 or more), since the "or more.." part would require a modifier to reach  Hardly important, but I felt the need.