[3.0 Actual Games Conversation]

2 hours ago, Boar said:

Downstream/upstream you are constantly refering to this. If we would take it seriously than f.ex. in attack profile where hit and wound values are the same, we would expect better return so to speak, from boosting to hit value, than to wound. In reality it does not, average values stays the same, what could be expected is different distribution.
Downstream/upstream is just human psychology at work.

 

2 hours ago, Rachmani said:

Exactly, upstream/downstream only becomes a thing when certain outcomes allow you to bypass of the normal order. 

MW on a 6+ to hit are better than MW on a 6+ to wound, but that's about it.

Which is why my expanded explaination of the position included the increased impact of additional rules. 

But fundamentally the underlying issue of cost becomes relevant. 1 CP to create situation which decreases the detriments of variance in large pools, while retaining the benefit of variance vs. 1 CP for improved success rate + variance across a small pool(something like 45% of the original pool of a 3+/3+ profile).

This also explains why boosting a 3+ to a 2+ is "better value" than a 4+ to a 3+ while the straight probable gains for spend remains the same, the room for variance in the actual performance undermines the particular gains from the 1 CP spend. Think of it this way; you roll 12 dice on a 4+ and roll 6 success, but when you check your '3' you would have only gained 1 additional success because the majority of the failures (of which there were a statistically average amount) were '1's, and '2's. The benefit you would have gained is small for your spend, despite appearing average in the instant. 

The value isn't in the particular gains (+1 to hit, -1 SV) it's in the relative difference in the effect of the spend. This relative difference matters in game, because dice rolls are instantaneous and not statistical averages. This generally isn't relevant because we haven't run into magnitude of failure dice rolls, so we haven't needed to consider them. As such averages have been a suffeciently deep consideration. Now we have an on demand ability to turn marginal failure into success, which means we have to consider how the variation of specific values before we can acertain the value of the ability/spend.

There will be situations where even attacking second you will net a larger advantage by going All out Attack yourself rather than All out Defence based on the deeper probabilities. 

Wait until we start having conversations about the fluxuation on the value of a on CP across phases and factions. 

 

[3.0 Actual Games Conversation]

12 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

Ironically, that's not how the simple math actually shakes out, though. Because of the way saves work, the relative values are important. For example, take a profile of 3+/3+/0/1 against a 4+ save - applying -1 to hit reduces the damage by less than applying +1 to save. The disparity becomes even larger vs a 3+ save. On the other hand, if you have a 5+/3+/0/1 profile vs a 4+ save, -1 to hit has more impact than +1 to save; if it was a 5+/3+/0/1 profile vs a 3+ save, -1 to hit is statistically the same as +1 to save. Etc etc. 

A blanket statement that the -1 to hit has more impact than the +1 to save is not only wrong as a blanket statement, it's also usually wrong in the specific circumstance we were discussing, when a hammer hits an anvil with a 3+ save. For a 3+/3+ profile, which is the most common hammer profile, you need rend 2 to make the two equivalent, and you need rend 3, which almost nothing in the game has, to make the -1 to hit better. 

 

Ah I get the disconnect, perhaps "simple" was an understatement. It's more akin to economics, than arithmetic. 

The conversation was about influence. And why All out Attack feels more impactful than All out Defence. My explanation kinda meandered, probably because I'm doing multiple things at once.

The difference is the value each command ability beings to a player. All out Attack allows a player to create situations where they can impact the chance to benefit from variance, particularly because they are upstream. 

All out Defence allows for a player to decrease the odds of failure down stream but because the influence is on only a few pools of dice it has consequently less influence on the outcome.

Because they have same cost the same for differing amounts of influence on any given situation the resulting value is different. This effect becomes more pronounced the more rules you add in, or the more you improve the underlying impact (short hand for the relationship between chance for success+amount of dmg) for an individual attack. 

[3.0 Actual Games Conversation]

1 hour ago, Kadeton said:

That doesn't sound right, math-wise. Everything in the attack sequence should be commutative, unless a special rule breaks the sequence (by converting it to a mortal wound, or adding bonus hits, or whatever).

You could roll saves first, then to-wound on any failed saves, then to-hit on any successful wounds, and it would have no effect on the statistical outcomes.

It's not cummulative, while calculating averages we are actually calculating the chance of a single attack on a profile being successful, and then imply the multiplication required for the profile. 

But that isn't how it works in actuality. Each step is a new set of likelihoods, and the number of dice rolled creates a weighted value to any modifications to a "successful roll". 

So a 16% increase in successes on 30 dice. And a 16% decrease in success on 6 dice aren't symmetrical in influence to how much damage a unit takes generally speaking. And while we can find fringe cases where a combination of wound characteristic, rend value, save characteristic, and damage value create equilibrium. When deciding *influence* you want always get the most value by targetting upstream. Especially because the result is removing models you also want in increase the number of steps where you can benefit from outliers, particularly when you can positively influence the appearance of negative outliers. Getting more hits than you should, should result in more damage per die. A fractional gain on a small pool statistically has a high chance of resulting in *no* change in outcome.

Now that isn't how we feel about the save roll, but that is kind of hear nor there. That's before you figure out what the cost of each action is. This is functionally the same methodology people have used to intutuited that Rend -1 is probably has the lowest value to a player. 

[3.0 Actual Games Conversation]

6 hours ago, stratigo said:

"Save rolls are the least influential"

 

This is how you can tell a LRL player.

 

 

I'm not an anything player, or should we get into a pissing contest counting our event appearances and factions appearances? I can assure you my nether regions are suffeciently swoll. 

It's simple math, bonuses to save influence the smallest pool of dice and therefore have the lowest influence on outcomes. 

[AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion]

On 7/6/2021 at 10:36 AM, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I don't play Slaanesh so I'm not 100% aware of all the interactions that might boost the viability of Flaming Weapons on the Keeper, but generally I think the spell gets overrated a bit at the moment.

Flaming Weapons competes for a cast with Arcane Bolt for melee heroes. With the new rules, you can expect 2 mortal wounds out of a Bolt. How Flaming Weapons compares to that depends a bit on how much you value normal wounds compared to mortals, but I think valuing a mortal wound as highly as 1.5-2 regular wounds is an OK rule of thumb (given that they ignore saves). So you would probably need about 3-4 wounds out of Flaming Weapons to break even.

Flaming Weapons only increases the damage of one of your melee profiles by one, so you want one with a lot of attacks that hits often. For the Keeper, that's probably the Great Blade, at 3+/3+ and up to 4 attacks. 3+/3+ is just about a 50% change to hit, so you will probably get about 2 extra rend -1 damage out of the deal. I think that's just not enough to make Flaming Weapons worth using over Bolt.

Of course, there are a few other factors at play here. The Keeper gets two casts, so you could do both Flaming Weapons and Arcane Bolt. Slaanesh gets double taps on 6s, which brings up the numbers a bit. Arcane bolt is slightly harder to cast, which I did not account for. But still, I think in a lot of cases Flaming Weapons is not worth going out of your way to pick up, and I'd mostly prefer running spells that situationally have a larger impact.

The KoS is a bit of an aspirational beatstick, 6s to hit being an additional hit, and 6s to wound causing MWs means flaming weapon at the end of the stack could be quite impressive. 

But it's not something to plan off of. 

[3.0 Actual Games Conversation]

On 7/9/2021 at 5:27 PM, yukishiro1 said:

The lack of symmetry between all out attack and all out defense, and more generally between save-boosting and rend-boosting, seems weird. All out attack should have been an additional rend, or at least the choice of either +1 to hit or an additional rend. The current implementation makes 3+ armor saves too powerful vs non MW, and therefore requires MW to be on just about everything as a means of bypassing the artificially strong save the game has created for itself. 

 

I think the real lack of symmetry is due to the fact that saves rolls are the least influencial roll. All Out Attack influences the full stack, All out Attack the bottom of the stack . Realistically All out Defence should be -1 to hit rolls or - 1 A to a minimum of 1 to be as beneficial, or relevant, alternatively a ward would have been interesting.  

[3.0 Actual Games Conversation]

1 minute ago, Enoby said:

No problem for disagreeing

Could you say why rend bloat is an issue in 40k? I've only played a bit (I liked the rules, disliked the lore and models so couldn't find the enthusiasm to play - you likely know more than me when it comes to 9th!) so it'd be good to know why it's an issue

The problem is Rend hits disproportionately, across match ups. D3 MWs is D3 MWs it's easy to map out the predicted dmg of the model applying it, and less variable when it's scaled on something like a units attacks.

Rend is a utility, meaning how much is beneficial completely changes depending on the specific context. So it's +/- on the game completely changes depending on the local popularity of factions. When combined with the availability of invulnerable saves in 40k AP proliferation creates very drastic haves and havenots. 

Its one of I believe the best designed aspects of LRL. Everyone no matter what faction you play has some idea how much dmg to expect from a LRL unit. And the LRL player knows as well. Which means the decision making can move from a basic reactive mathmatical tactical choice. To a high strategic level choice, where you are weighing up if the dmg is worth it. In exchange LRL give up the any real possibility of effeciently amassing high damage in any one place. So they do about 9-12 dmg for about 150 of combat dmg, and 6-7 for 150 pts of shooting dmg full stop. 

The opposite would be something like a bunch of stabbas with fanatics. It's creates consistency via volume, and the fanatics increase variance which makes the unit a tactical problem. 

If you take a minute to think about it, it makes a game against LRL feel very different from a game against a less elite faction. Now some people would say that feel is NPE. I suggest it's the very variety we want from the game. 

As the game designer what you want to control for is effectiveness. So MWs and Rend can be different, situational better or worse, but you want to keep their ability to effect them game relatively close. So LRL aren't clearing the board in a storm of glowing Pikes, and Chaos Warriors aren't cleaving their way through all unit types with two handed weapons. And, you can push the boundaries of what is already accepted with each and see where it goes. For example if Vanari could get +1 A it would probably be too much. 

[3.0 Actual Games Conversation]

There is a distinction between frequency and volume though. Just because many factions can generate MWs doesn't mean there is "a lot" of MW being produced in a standard match. In fact every faction should be able to generate MWs it's important mechanic which allows for the scaling of saves across unit types and factions.

[3.0 Actual Games Conversation]

7 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

My comments were based on the games I've played, sorry if that wasn't clear. So far I've won every game with my monster-hero-and-reinforced-shooting army, and the only one that was difficult was the one vs another similar list. Only 3 games period, not a large sample size obviously, and one of them was the FEC game that honestly I probably coulda won with half my army not doing anything but standing there. 

I think we should keep in mind that people are only just gaining experience with the tools available. Like any edition change there is an early meta, which is usually the application of the most obvious stuff. In 8th edition it was smashing steadfast hordes into each other, eventually we got better tools via armybooks and the game envolved into something unrecognizable.

Right now I think hero monsters are the most obvious play. But, I predict that to change in the not too distance future as armies are built to take advantage of the rest of the ruleset.

[3.0 Actual Games Conversation]

I actually think the GSG and FEC have similar solutions. It involves a lot of screens, redeploy, unorthodox units or using existing units in unorthodox ways. I think I might have some ideas but I'd have to spend some time with the books, and there is a might backlog. 

[AoS 3 New Rules Discussion]

52 minutes ago, stratigo said:

Yes the law system written largely to the benefit of the wealthy is the best way to judge things truly.

Forget it, I suddenly remember why I don't talk shop with laymen. 

[AoS 3 New Rules Discussion]

58 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

You answered your own question. Because doing what's best for profit is not always aligned with providing a good product and support. That is why we have so many regulations for other more central industries, though toy soldiers is low in the priority of the regulatory bodies.

Accepting anti-consumer approaches from a company that is swimming in profit and has huge margins out of fear of the game being discontinued is not my cup of tea.

I'll say this: while GW still leans heavily on hype and releases, at least they are, in a sense, toning it down for AoS. AoS1 and early 2 was brutal, with constant releases of small and all but discontinued armies. Now they consolidate and that usually means support for longer.

How we approach some of the more cut-throat practices as consumers, how we debate them online, how that shapes our behavior. All of that matters more, I think, than what your comments suggest you think. There is a reason why GW makes an effort to stay in good terms with "influencers".

There is a legal standard for "anti-customer" and GW is a long way away from that. 

[AoS 3 New Rules Discussion]

4 hours ago, PrimeElectrid said:

That’s actually the argument that was put forth: I play red marines with red rules 10 times but on the 11th occasion they are using green rules, now I am at a disadvantage because I associate red models with red rules.

There is a lot more to the Blood Angels paint scheme, than red armour... Like you don't strength the argument by reducing it to an absurd simplification.

[AoS 3 New Rules Discussion]

1 hour ago, PrimeElectrid said:

This doesn’t resolve the issue as raised, though. Yes you can get the TO to approve a Hammers of Sigmar army playing as Astral Templars. But you still have to have the conversation at the table with your opponent because they associate schemes with rules (supposedly).

The argument being put forward is that it is somehow unfair to your opponent if you paint your models silver but use gold model rules. Getting a TO to approve it doesn’t make it less fair in that regard; it just makes it legal.

My counter argument is that this is absurd given that we already allow armies with custom schemes to use official scheme rules, so the additional brain computation to process official schemes using different rules is minimal; that army lists exists expressly to clarify this because it is *not* solely a visual game, and nobody - nobody - has memorised every single sub faction rules by official paint scheme anyway for this to be an issue. 

I don't think that is the argument. I think more accurately the argument being put forward is the specific scheme Primary: Gold, Secondary: God, Tertiary: Blue and white hammer iconography communicates something very specific to the viewer. And, that care should be taken to distinguish your models if that isn't what you are trying to communicate, given the painter has absolute control of their scheme. 

The original questions is not of a general nature, so it doesn't make sense to apply the answer generally.

[AoS 3 New Rules Discussion]

52 minutes ago, stratigo said:

You know what communicates better? Words. Words communicate better. Use them

You wouldn't say that if you had ever read a judgement 🤣. Words are often the most confusing form of communication. As someone from one English speaking country who moved to another I have lots of examples of this. 

This conversation does remind me of a dissertation I read about the morality and practicality of plain clothes officers. The thesis being the whole point of plain clothes was obscuring the truth to catch crime rather than being visible and preventing crime. It was an interesting read, but I suppose not really that relevant beyond the fact that uniforms are communication, that is the whole reason these faction have colour schemes after all. 

If the words and sights are at cross purpose one can expect confusion. And, given that when painting you have absolute control I think it's ok for each person to make an effort to minimize that risk. But, maybe I'm over stepping?

[AoS 3 New Rules Discussion]

32 minutes ago, PrimeElectrid said:

Player A is reasonably communicating with their army list.

Edit: also, again, once you start throwing in qualifiers like “reasonable” the whole thing falls apart, because what’s reasonable to one person is different to another. Once you invite interpretation that requires communication you might as well do away with the whole thing and expect it all the time.

Thankfully most events have TOs who are the ultimate authority and already determine "reasonableness". 

But in law reasonable basically is short hand for the relevant authority has room for discretion. Which I think the faq answers leaves. In a lot of cases that are being brought up a TO isn't going to rule against them. And if the TO is a "fascist" well then you have to decide if complying is worth it for you as an individual. 

But I don't really have a horse in this fight even when I like a scheme I can't bring myself to do it, and I'm so used to Whfb I often don't even care what's in my opponent's list specifically. And, this has been a rule at Warhammer World events, and to get on Warhammer Live for a long time already so I'm pretty sure It's reached peak penetration.

[AoS 3 New Rules Discussion]

1 minute ago, PrimeElectrid said:

Yeah but this is the point though. Where’s the line? Is everyone learning the exact scheme of every sub faction, down to the precise shade of colour? How much of a variation to the official scheme is allowed before it’s no longer the official scheme and a custom one? If I paint my models in the Hammers of Sigmar scheme, but now go back and change one small detail like leather straps or something, is this still the official Hammers of Sigmar?
 

Remember the objection raised isn’t that Player A is painting their armies in a way to gain an advantage; but that player B is at a disadvantage because they associate colour schemes with rules. If player B associates blue, silver and gold with Hallowes Knights, which I use but in a different way, then the argument is they must be Hallowed Knights.

If this sounds like an absurd argument then good because it is. The solution is simply to refer to the army list which will state unequivocally what army is being played.

We have already established that it’s possible to use a custom scheme to play a sub faction.  The link between scheme and rules is broken right there. If you can do it for custom schemes you can do it for any scheme.

I wouldn't exactly articulate it that way. Player B is reasonably reacting to what Player A is reasonably communicating. If that makes sense? Im doing a lot of public law at the moment so maybe I'm just in a particular state of mind about powers and responsibilities 🤔

I'd put the responsibility on Player A to reseasonable distinguish the colour scheme, and if they have done so we can then start asking questions of Player B.

[Lumineth Assemble! (photos & lore)]

13 hours ago, Chumphammer said:

Finally Finished my Lions of Lumineth 

 

Great army!

I've been meaning to ask you actually you were using a unit of 10 Dawnriders to mix results earlier. Had you tried going to 15 to achieve the breakthrough power you were looking for?

I played it only once on TTS and it was pretty effective, but it requires a lot of structural support in the list (Levitate and Speed of Hysh available). And I'm unsure if it's worth the investment IRL.

[3.0 Actual Games Conversation]

6 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

I did have one game that resembles what the guy's describing, but in the opposite way. It was against FEK. I just absolutely blew them away with my Tempest's Eye list, it wasn't pretty. There was just nothing he could do except watch everything die. He killed maybe 400ish points of my army before I effectively tabled him at the end of T3. 

That said, I think FEK got screwed more by the edition change than any other faction. I just don't see how they ever win a game at this point, they have absolutely nothing going for them. Comfortably the worst army in the game at this point, IMO. 

Yeah I've been really thinking about FEC and OBR as of late. I think people who are dedicated to FEC are going to need to completely rethink how they build armies for this edition. 

And for OBR I think they are fine at the game, they just are like TK were in WHFB playing a completely different game to the rest of us. I think we might see more from them once the excitement from the new rules becomes more normal and people are looking to play something different. 

[AoS 3 New Rules Discussion]

16 minutes ago, Marcvs said:

Good I have painted my army in a scheme which is not codified. Now a new battletome comes out and there is a subfaction which matches (even loosely) my own scheme. A subfaction whose rules and lore I might despise. Your answer would be that to be "sportmanlike" and to be inside the rules of the game (not risking someone / a TO telling them NO you HAVE to play this faction you don't like) they should: a) buy the army again; b) paint it from scratch; c) stop playing?

I cannot shake the impression that all this only detracts from the community without gaining us anything.

The point on the confusion is faintly ridiculous: if I know the rules of that subfaction, I will have them in my head as soon as I read the list (so before I even see their colours!) or they tell me which subfaction they are using. if I don't know the rules, nothing changes.

I would also add that this is also a perfect trap for new players, who might pick (often) the box art or one of the codified schemes before finding the "courage" to create their own. It was exactly my experience.

I would also like to know how do people who are so attached to the one scheme = one subfaction rule define the colour scheme. Is it down to the colour composition? My gold looks very different from the one from GW: are my guys even Hammers of Sigmar? Oh I see your army is painted like Hammers, you have to use their subfacton now. Nonono, I used macragge blue not some kantor trash!

 

1 minute ago, PrimeElectrid said:

I painted my Stormcast silver and blue because I like that combination and I found the gold of Hammers to be too garish. Later I learned silver and blue is the colour of Hallowed Knights. However, although I use the same colours, I don’t follow the Hallowed Knights scheme ie I have silver where they have gold, silver where they have blue, and I paint the robes completely differently, and so on.

Looking at them however you could be forgiven for thinking it was the hallowed knights scheme, after all it’s silver and blue.

Does this mean I must only play Hallowed Knights because my opponent has memorised all the Stormcast sub faction rules strictly by their colour scheme?

Stretching it a bit yeah? Subfactions have specific colour schemes. Even to the particular paint. They can be generalized to a shade of colour, however, they do have specific details which both of you have pointed out you don't adhere to. Now this is where two developed or developing human beings can finish the communication the paint scheme started. "Yeah my SCE look "similar" to stormhost xyc, but they clearly are not, because ABC, and I'm playing them as stormhost 123. See Silver accents instead of gold, yellow instead of blue, etc etc. The language here doesn't say similar schemes should be applied as if they are specific schemes. 

Like the faq answers effectively says subfaction colour schemes are a specific thing and as such mean something. The nature of specificity is that it excludes things not of that thing. Now if you take the ****** most people will say fine and form an opinion about you internally but that is like anything else in life. 

[AoS 3 New Rules Discussion]

I'm a bit shocked this is the most controversial faq answer the logic seems pretty clear.

How you paint your models regardless of whether you intend it or not communicates something to the person standing across from you. The FAQ references when the colours you've chosen specifically communicate something that is not true. For example if your models look like Hammers of Sigmar a reasonable person would assume they are Hammers of Sigmar, so it would not be sporting to say that are Anvils of the Heldenhammer. 

What people seem to then be assuming is also true is the counter factual. Where if my army doesn't look like something that it can't be that thing. Which the battletomes to my knowledge address giving room for individual paint schemes to use specific sub-factions. 

The individual with the Living City army for example would be fine. As a) it couldn't be anything else besides living city. And b) not being something, is not the same as, not being something else, but being something else.

Anyway this is super boring, paint your models how you'd like but appreciate you might constrain yourself in the future from using the "best" rules.

[AoS3 - Lumineth Realm-lords Discussion]

5 hours ago, Howdyhedberg said:

btw. anyone have a clue how the batalions from the battletome work? Because they seemed to update the buffs from those, so i guess we can still use them, but they are "free"?

That depends. They aren't matched play legal. But otherwise they are available to be taken otherwise for free.

[Aos 2 - Lumineth Realm-Lords Discussion]

3 hours ago, LuminethMage said:

We have to find out, but probably not. The price tag is very different now, and -2 rend likely more valuable than before. On the other hand Avalenor has hero actions, which the Spirit doesn't have. 

I think if a player were to lean into the alarith element than a Spirit of the Mountain is good. Avalenor seems far too expensive for its MV characteristic. 

It doesn't matter how many bonuses a unit recieves for getting charged unless it's invulnerable to damage letting you opponent decide what fights your unit is poor strategically. So low movement is a serious problem. Especially at over 400 points. 

But I can see 10 Stoneguard, Spirit of the Mountain and 1 stonemage being a decent part of any army. 

[3.0 Actual Games Conversation]

Played two games with HoS and against LRL. 29 Chaos warriors, Halberds + shields backed with Curse are a ferocious unit. 

The battleplans were interesting and gave a good static perspective to maneuver around. Battle Tactics made the choices available challenging and engaging. Even though I had a firm grip on the flow of the game it ended 16-19 in the first match and if my opponent had made some different decision could have been even closer. 

The game has a very board game feel, reminded me of playing economy games like Porto Rico, or Agricola. 

[AoS 2 - Hedonites of Slaanesh Discussion]

Just now, Enoby said:

Yeah, remembering the restrictions I don't think they're worth it in Pretenders - seems another point for Invaders

You mention using Chaos Knights, but every time I've used them they've been a bit of a joke - not quite Slaangors but close. Have you had better luck with them? They just do so little damage for their cost for me, and they don't tank that well either, unless you pair them up with a sorcerer (at which point I'd rather just use warriors to tank and save myself the points). Daemonic Power can up their damage, but there's no guarantee it'll go off and if it doesn't they're dead in the water.

That said, if you've found a better way to use them, I'd be very interested

RE Chaos Knights;

Yeah there main benefit is they are cheap, like really cheap. And you can optimize their output without spending more points which is key to their price being low. They are good at hunting units that will out maneuver your slower infantry. But, you need to have the resources around to make them land. Lances, and All out Attack make good work killing non-hero monsters, and other cavalry. With 2" reach they do it on a pretty small frontage as well. But I wouldn't invest anything beyond that. Their shields mean you don't need to really worry too much about them as you can let them take MW spells/shooting and just accept the damage they receive in exchange for DP. But, yeah they are there to trade their lives for tactical considerations. In godseekers they have +2 to charge rolls as well, which just gives more free benefits.