Word from someone with the new book

How to beat those cowardly High Elves?

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Rugi
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Post by Rugi »

Can someone tell me why the heck will we cast this spell on 4+ if tzeentch can cast it on 3+???

And a question for DA:

Is the manticore now a rare unit or a mount for a hero?
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Post by Brentrb »

Dark Alliance wrote:A long time ago Keledron wrote a very good article about the strategy behind casting spells. The core principle was to ensure that any spell casting attempt is successful.

Don't throw anything less than the number of dice required to deliver an average result for casting. The only real loser in that scenario if you do, is you.

Make sure the cast succeeds because you are then FORCING your opponent to react.


That's always been my strategy. The only exception to that rule is Invocation spam with a +1 to cast.
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Post by Dark Alliance »

Hero mount. Forget all this rare slot rubbish!
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Post by Brentrb »

A super powered anti-magic item is the best news I've heard yet. If I can have the option to ignore magic for the most part and still retain an acceptable magical defense, I'm all over that.
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Post by Getwisteerd »

Calisson: What's the step between
Cast................1 dice.....2 die
miscast.............0/36......1/36
2 die lost...........0/36......3/36 (including the miscast)
1 dice lost........18/36......0/36
no change.........0/36.....11/36
1 dice gained.....6/36.....11/36
2 die gained......6/36......11/36
3 die gained......6/36........0/36

and

Average gain.+4.5/36......+9/36
Average gain....+1/8........+1/4

It would seem to me that -18*1+6*1+6*2+6*3 is 18, not 4.5. So, what are you doing? Similarily, adding the "2 dice" numbers up gets 27, not 9
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Post by Hyetemplar »

brentrb wrote:A super powered anti-magic item is the best news I've heard yet. If I can have the option to ignore magic for the most part and still retain an acceptable magical defense, I'm all over that.


yeah, i think most of us at this point have given up on magic offense and opt for magic defense and with all the insane improvements to our hth i cant see me spending points on magic over combat.

if we can live off of 2 scroll caddies vs 15 power die armies then i cant be happier.


also DA please address my first question of is it wise on a tower master since he is so easy to kill vs putting it elsewhere, or is it one time use only
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Post by Calisson »

@ hyetemplar

Let's take 3 level-2 sorc, that have 8 die together.

Without PoD, they cast 24 2-die spells in a game (assuming they survived...), each with 1/36 chance of miscast. Less than once a game.

With 3 2-die PoD cast each turn, they gain 14 more die in the full game... Assuming all of these additional die are 2-die casted, that makes overall 49 2-die spells, an average of 1.3 miscast per game. Manageable.

This math is not absolutely exact, but probably close enough considering it's past midnight.

If you're afraid of miscast, dont cast spells.
Miscast once in a while is fun and part of the game, IMO.
Last edited by Calisson on Tue Jun 10, 2008 11:04 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Dark Alliance »

hyetemplar wrote:
brentrb wrote:A super powered anti-magic item is the best news I've heard yet. If I can have the option to ignore magic for the most part and still retain an acceptable magical defense, I'm all over that.


yeah, i think most of us at this point have given up on magic offense

Kinda foolish if you have. Irrespective of anyone's concerns over losing +1 to cast, or apprehension about the true effectiveness of the innate spell the magic heavy armies I have seen playtested can be terrifying to behold.

The ability to cast without limit of dice useage coupled with the increased mobility of the army casters makes this a difficult composition for an opponent to handle.

Whilst the VCs can have tons of dice along with the Daemon armies, we have a better access to lores.


and opt for magic defense and with all the insane improvements to our hth i cant see me spending points on magic over combat.

Valid point. Very valid indeed and a view shared by many who have seen the list already.

if we can live off of 2 scroll caddies vs 15 power die armies then i cant be happier.

What this highlights though is my earlier point (in a thread far, far away...) where I tried to point out the versatility of this list.


also DA please address my first question of is it wise on a tower master since he is so easy to kill vs putting it elsewhere, or is it one time use only

Every question is relative. It depends on how you use said Tower Master.

No, it is NOT a one use item
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Post by Archdukechocula »

So, DA, how about that corsair pursuit rule of forcing fleeing enemies to pick the lowest two dice of 3d6. Is it true? Will it apply equally to cavalry and other +7" movement units?
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Post by Calisson »

@getwisteerd
The step was a big mistake of mine. I averaged instead of summing up, so the result was divided by 3 or 4.
Thanks to you, I edited the initial post, which should be accurate now... and much more interesting with a huge increase in the expectations!

The conclusions stay the same.

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced to take 3 level-2 sorc casting 2-die PoD every turn!
Last edited by Calisson on Tue Jun 10, 2008 11:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Dark Alliance »

Archdukechocula wrote:So, DA, how about that corsair pursuit rule of forcing fleeing enemies to pick the lowest two dice of 3d6. Is it true? Will it apply equally to cavalry and other +7" movement units?


No the rule isn't written like that. It's called the Slaver rule and forces the opponent to re-roll the highest d6 in their flee roll.
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Post by Archdukechocula »

Dark Alliance wrote:
Archdukechocula wrote:So, DA, how about that corsair pursuit rule of forcing fleeing enemies to pick the lowest two dice of 3d6. Is it true? Will it apply equally to cavalry and other +7" movement units?


No the rule isn't written like that. It's called the Slaver rule and forces the opponent to re-roll the highest d6 in their flee roll.


Hmm. That's actually a pretty poorly written rule imo. If you think about it, about 25% of the time that could actually help the opponent (at least on 2d6). If someone rolls a one and a two, they will reroll the two with a 66% chance of getting a better flee result, for example. In the end, this will just result in more "average" flee results for the opponent. Kind of an "meh" sort of rule. I would have to do the math to figure out how often it becomes truly advantageous, but it doesn't sound nearly as delicious as I initially thought.
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Post by Dark Alliance »

Agreed
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Post by Vilicate »

Dark Alliance wrote:
Archdukechocula wrote:So, DA, how about that corsair pursuit rule of forcing fleeing enemies to pick the lowest two dice of 3d6. Is it true? Will it apply equally to cavalry and other +7" movement units?


No the rule isn't written like that. It's called the Slaver rule and forces the opponent to re-roll the highest d6 in their flee roll.


So DA, are they going to get a price increase to reflect their increased usefulness?
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Post by Hyetemplar »

"The ability to cast without limit of dice useage coupled with the increased mobility of the army casters makes this a difficult composition for an opponent to handle.

Whilst the VCs can have tons of dice along with the Daemon armies, we have a better access to lores.[/color]"

we have better access to lores?

better than pick any lore you want and learn all the spells automatically?! :shock: :shock: :shock:
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Post by Minsc »

except life! ;)
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Post by Xerasi »

Yeah it sounds like the new slaver rule is a bit meh, but better than nothing. I presume that inf will be fleing about 5.5" in average instead of 7", but ain't gonna do the math.

My turn for a DA question: Do you think that we will see more High sorcs on manticores with the new book?

Seems like they are easier to protect (inverse ward save) as well as better in combat (a manticore with hatred). Is there any weapons/item combos that enhance the HS/manti?

[edit] Another question I've been dieing to ask is if sorcs are allowed to ride on CoC (as both goblins, orcs, and HEs are in 7th) would be a very nice way to squeece a few extra chariots in, and on top give them US 5
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Post by Minionboy »

Archdukechocula wrote:Hmm. That's actually a pretty poorly written rule imo. If you think about it, about 25% of the time that could actually help the opponent (at least on 2d6). If someone rolls a one and a two, they will reroll the two with a 66% chance of getting a better flee result, for example. In the end, this will just result in more "average" flee results for the opponent. Kind of an "meh" sort of rule. I would have to do the math to figure out how often it becomes truly advantageous, but it doesn't sound nearly as delicious as I initially thought.


Well, while we're on the talk of %'s, the chances of getting a 1,2 or 1,1 are only 8.3% so figure there is only a small chance that the re-roll will be having a high chance to add distance. However, the re-roll against troops who roll 3 dice (either 3d6" or roll 3, pick 2) has a fairly high chance of reducing the distance rolled.

So you're not guaranteed to make them go less, but it does increase their chance of not getting away exceptionally fast. On the flip side, since we're talking about small %'s, there is also the chance that they roll 3 of a kind, or 3 very close numbers, which makes the discarding the highest not have much of an effect at all, but in this situation, re-rolling one would likely be favorable.

In short... it's still delicious.
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Post by Archdukechocula »

minionboy wrote:Well, while we're on the talk of %'s, the chances of getting a 1,2 or 1,1 are only 8.3% so figure there is only a small chance that the re-roll will be having a high chance to add distance. However, the re-roll against troops who roll 3 dice (either 3d6" or roll 3, pick 2) has a fairly high chance of reducing the distance rolled.

So you're not guaranteed to make them go less, but it does increase their chance of not getting away exceptionally fast. On the flip side, since we're talking about small %'s, there is also the chance that they roll 3 of a kind, or 3 very close numbers, which makes the discarding the highest not have much of an effect at all, but in this situation, re-rolling one would likely be favorable.

In short... it's still delicious.


I just used a 1,2 roll for illustrative purposes. The problem remains for any roll. On any given roll of 2d6, there is a 17% chane the result stays the same. When the highest dice is a 6, there is an 83% that the result improves in our favour. When the highest dice is a 5, that shifts to 66%. When it's 4, that shifts to 50%. When it's 3, that shifts to 33%. When it's 2, that shifts to 18%. When it's one, that shifts to 0%.

Now, this has to be weighted against the fact that a 6 being the highest dice (11 cases) is much more likely than a 1 being the highest dice (1 case). Similarly 5 has 9 cases of being the highest. 4 has 7 cases. 3 has 5 cases, and 2 has 3 cases.

so, in essence, there are 11 cases where there is an 83% things improve for us (for 9.13 average improvements).
There are 9 cases where there is a 66% chance of improvement (for 5.94 average improvements)..
There are 7 cases in which there is a 50% chance of improvement (for 3.5 average improvements)..
There are 5 cases where there is a 33% chance of improvement (for 1.5 average improvements)..
There are 3 cases where there is a 17% chance of improvement (for .51 average improvements)..
And there is 1 case where there is 0% chance of improvement (for 0 average improvements)..

So, out of 36 possible cases, our results will improve in 20.58 cases. This means that we improve our results about 55% of the time. 17% of the time the results will remain unchanged. The rest of the time (28%) we lose out.

Now, this doesn't really account for how much the improvement will be for us on average. Basically, on a rerolled six we will average a 2.5 improvement, on a 5 we will average 1.5, on a 4 we will average .5, on a 3 -.5, on a 2 -1.5, on a 1 -2.5. So, in 11 cases, we improve results by an average of 2.5, resulting in a 27.5" improvement in 11 rolls. In 9 cases its 1.5 resulting in a 13.5" improvement in 9 rolls. In 7 its .5 resulting in a 3.5" improvement in 7 rolls. In 5 its -.5 resulting in a -2.5" improvement in 5 rolls, In 3 its -1.5 resulting in a 27.5" improvement in 3 rolls. in 1 its -2.5 resulting in a -2.5" improvement in 1 roll. So, in 36 cases, we are overall improving a total of 35". Which means an average improvement of .97 inches. So, really, the end effect is that we cause a penalty that is slightly less than a -1 to our opponents roll.

In short though, the end benefit is, to me, pretty underwhelming. The benefits may be greater for 3d6, but I suspect they would be pretty similar, as your distribution curve of results is just steeper, but with the same fundamental layout.

In general though, when you really think about it, this rule just slightly pushes down the expected results, and is just really a more complicated way of saying our enemies get -1 to their flee results (with a few key differences, such as rolls of 12 still being possible).

Mind you, this rule is definitely better than nothing, and I certainly like it. It makes all our enemy's infantry more or less like dwarves when they flee, which is definitely nice. It just wasn't as good as I intially thought, and puts it in the category of "well, that's nice" as oppossed to "Damn, I really need to craft strategies around this rule".

Edit: Giving it some thought, this rule is actually much better against cavalry than infantry, since having a high dice is substantially more likely with cavalry, meaning more cases in which the net return of a reroll is positive. My guess is that against cavalry, we will be causing more like a -2" to the average flee roll. I'll do the math on that when I am less exhausted.
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Post by Minionboy »

Haha, thanks Arch, I was going to do the calculations when I got home (was at work at the time).

Although a larger distance advantage would be nice, it now puts the flee result in favor of the corsairs should they break regular infantry on top of significantly improving their ability to chase down cavalry. Since the odds were already in your favor against foot troops, the additional modifier isn't as necessary, but against cavalry, the re-roll has a decent chance of bringing the opponent's flee down enough that they can be caught by foot troops.

Also, imagine this situation. Simultaneously charging with Corsairs and CoK or Dark Riders, now you're pursuing the 3d6" with the cavalry while the enemy has to re-roll their highest.

Using your math to figure that the benefit is ~.97" on infantry and 7 as the average roll, this means you'd now only need a 6, increasing your chance from 58.3% to 71.8% to run down infantry, and I like those odds.

I agree about cavalry, I don't feel like doing any 3 dimensional statistical charts either. :P
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Post by Khalius »

I can already see some PoD bashing, but I think that some very nasty strategies for using PoD will begin to crop up as soon as the book is released. Like everything druchii, it seems to have more uses than the plain description suggests.

Without knowing for sure any of the PD or DD affecting magic items, I can see it being used early in games as a psychological "bluff" spell in the first magic phase or two, to keep the opponent guessing just how many spells you will cast each turn, making him either use them too early, or you end the turn and leave a few dice on the table (non-PoD generated, of course), causing them to waste their DD, waiting for the uber spell that never shows.

Another benefit (I'm just thinking off the top of my head here...) would be to "tune" the PD spent on PoD to match your opponent and number of DD against you. If they let it pass every time, then simply use whatever mathematically give you the most PD. If they attempt to dispell it every time, then instead of a spell that gives you power dice, you have a spell that removes up to three DD from your opponent, while very occasionally providing you with PD.

All I'm saying is don't write anything off before we have seen some of the druchii masters around here spin up some different ways to use the new list.
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Post by Vonkrieglitz »

I was under the impression that the Beastmaster would become simply an upgrade to monster units... but does the fact that the Manticore is not a rare choice mean the Beastmaster stays as a hero choice? (Going off of the model here, assuming option for Beastmaster on Manticore isn't dropped entirely from the list)
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Post by Archdukechocula »

minionboy wrote:
Also, imagine this situation. Simultaneously charging with Corsairs and CoK or Dark Riders, now you're pursuing the 3d6" with the cavalry while the enemy has to re-roll their highest.


Yeah, that was the scenario I was mentioning earlier. That would have been particularly devestating if we had the rule that forced them to remove their highest roll, but the combo puruist is still pretty decent with these rules. Against infantry with a DR combo pursuit, we should have an exceedingly good chance of catching most infantry, and against cavalry the chance becomes better than even by a decent amount. Again, the rule is not bad, I was just saying it wasn't quite as mind blowing as I initially thought.
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Post by Agelmar »

No answer to my question about the temple of khaine items, time to grow increasingly paranoid that there is some super crazy stuff in there and that DA is hiding it from us, instead of the more far fetched notion that the items have mostly not changed and DA just missed my question.

Fiendish, fiendish indeed. Well played DA, well played.
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Post by Izirath »

Well if the assassin disappears then what will replace it in the hero section, what heroes do we have?
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