Frontline Gaming: Why Do Deathstars Work?

I wrote an article for Frontline Gaming about why deathstar style units work.

For anyone interested in the proof of why it is better to stack buffs rather than spread them out; here you go.

Power Sword of Lightning Claw?

As I continuously tweak my army, I tend to try out different ideas that don't end up on your standard internet lists.  Today I take a look how the standard power sword stacks up against a single lightning claw.  The results are unexpected, but not for the reasons that are obvious.

Brawl! Imperial Knight Vs Lord of Skulls

Once again, we have two giant monsters punching each other in the face.  In the blue corner, we have an Imperial Knight!  Nobel, honorable, and armed with a very large chainsword.  In the very very red corner, we have the Lord of Skulls!  Let's see how these two stand up to each other

Bloodthirster Vs Knight: A Re-Visit

When I originally wrote the article about a Bloodthirster fighting an Imperial Knight there was quite a lot that got simplified.  The destroyer table makes mathematical calculations particularly tricky.  Since then I have reworked my figures and now have more accurate results, and the new results are a bit more dramatic.

Brawl! Dreadnought Vs Daemon Prince

One of the most common questions I get is, "In a fight between this unit and that unit, which one is going to win?"  I did some extensive calculations when I paired an imperial knight vs a bloodthirster, but I want to make this a more regularly featured type of article.  So, I want to introduce you to "Brawl!", where I pair of two units and see who comes out on top.  First up Dreadnought vs Daemon Prince

Quantity vs Quality: A Mathematical Approach

Over the past several articles I have been looking at when to give units toughness bonuses and when to buff units with psychic abilities.  These have been dancing around the edges of a much bigger question, "When it comes to units is quality better than quantity?"  I have been working on this problem directly, and I'm finally able to share these results.

Divination and Optimization

Conventional internet wisdom says that Divination is a gift from the emperor himself.  Let's look at some numbers and figure out when divination is going to be useful.  Not all units are created equal, so not everyone is going to get the same benefit.

Toughness Bonuses: Obliterators

Over the past two articles I have talked about the benefits of a mark of Nurgle from a purely defensive standpoint as well as when we take offensive power into account.  Both times I have left Obliterators out of the equations, but now I bring them back into the fold.

Toughness Bonuses: Offense Vs. Defense

With all things being equal, how does an increase in defensive power from a mark of Nurgle balance out with the offensive and defensive power of additional models?

Toughness Bonuses: When to take or Pass

One of my favorite things about playing Chaos Marines is their customizable options.  When working with marines and cultists Chaos has the option to buy an additional toughness with a mark of Nurgle.  The difficult part is determining when this is a good idea vs when should you add more models.  I am here with math to help you all figure things out.

Optimizing the Psychic Phase

I have had a request for information comparing psychic shooting and traditional shooting.  As I was working the probabilities I thought to myself, "Oh the number of warp charges per power easily falls into a game theory problem.  That means it can be optimized!"  Instead of the planned 'psychic shooting vs traditional shooting' I give you 'How you should plan your psychic phase.'

Deep Striking Safety: Part 4 (Large Oval Bases)

This was by far the most work of any of the warhammer related probabilities to date.  After several rounds of incorrect formulas I started using excel to check my work.  I discovered that my formulas were incorrect (again) and that excel was insufficient to do the work that I needed.  Fortunately I found a free online course for MATLAB.  The past couple of weeks I have been learning how to program in MATLAB, and have come up with some conclusive results.

Math By Request: Bloodthirster Vs Imperial Knight

One of the regular readers, Mundo, made a request for some calculations related to the new bloodthirster of insensate rage fighting an Imperial Knight.  When I took this on I thought, "Oh this is going to be easy."  After a few hours days all I can say is that destroyer weapons are painful for more than just their target.

Deep Striking Safety: Part 3 Squads

So far I have talked about deep striking against a wall of troops and lone monstrous creatures.  These seem to be the two opposite ends of the spectrum.  This time around I tackle a single ten man infantry squad (not literally).

Deep Striking Safety: Part 2 (Monstrous Creatures Edition)

In the previous post we looked at the probabilities when deep striking against a wall of troops.  What we saw was pretty straightforward; the farther you are from your target the less likely you are to mishap.  This time around we are deep striking by a large round base such as a daemon prince or dreadnought, and the results show something interesting.

Deep Striking Safety: Part 1 (The Gunline)

A reader recently posed the question on the safety of deep striking.  Scattering is a difficult thing to account for, and can either leave you in an amazing position or dead.  No one wants their deathstar (pop-star) to die to a deep strike mishap.  This will be the first of a series of posts dedicated to the probabilities related to deep striking.

Accuracy of Blasts

This is a post I wrote nearly a year ago for 40k Daemons.  The discussion on scattering and deep striking made me think I should revive this post.  Enjoy while I work on new calculations for deep striking.

One question that I have been pondering for ages has been, "How accurate are blast weapons?"  The scatter die has always been a wild card.  I finally decided to sit down, do a pile of trigonometry, and figure this out once and for all.  Let it be known; I do math so you don't have to.

Re-roll vs. Roll Two Pick the Highest

There are a couple of situations that many people think are exactly the same (mathematically), but are actually quite different.  Most of these situations derive from rolling multiple dice and picking, presumably the highest result, vs rolling once with the option to re-roll the result.  Thinking back to my first post about math I am going to use expected value to try and maximize the various situations.

Math by Request: An Introduction to Combinatorics

Jon Glas has requested that I give a bit more background information on how I have been calculating probabilities.  This area of mathematics is known as combinatorics, and with its relation to 40k one of my favorite areas of mathematics.

Math by Request: Wyches vs Meganobz

There has been a a request for math from one of the readers.  Michele was wondering how many wyches were needed to kill three meganobz.  I don't have good news.  It's a lot.