Topic: TEG4: Battle Thread Empire Cavalry versus Ogres 2500

[Holy Hand Grenade]

Seriously, the dice really do seem wonky. It'd be interesting to do a TEG with dice, instead of a random number generator.

You've played a great game so far, even with the dice. I've spent a lot of time puzzling over BC to figure out how to respond.

Sometimes the Dicelog seems normal...and then sometimes it seems that numbers roll in batches of high or low.  Not sure what kind of algorithm they use...but sometimes it just seems "off."

I started the TDGs rolling dice but when dice rolls seemed too good or too bad people would complain about the dice.  Strange how psychologically it is easier for us to accept that a program did it instead of a human being.... 

Dicelog does give a perfect record of what happened, which is nice if I make a mistake and have to go back and adjust, but unless I actually post a Dicelog thread the only two that are usually in it are me and Noght (Noght being the one who introduced it to me!)

I think for the next TEG I might go back to rolling some real bones.  If it isn't too much work, I might just take snapshots from my phone for recording/archive purposes.

After this TEG, we will see what the forum wants to do.  Majority rules.

 
HHG

[Noght]

Dicelog does give a perfect record of what happened, which is nice if I make a mistake and have to go back and adjust, but unless I actually post a Dicelog thread the only two that are usually in it are me and Noght (Noght being the one who introduced it to me!)

 

Just an effort for transparency is all.  I do agree that occassionally it feels very "clumpy" but I wanted an outside entity in charge of random number generation.  (Because my default postion is to make it as hard as possible on the Empire to see if it can overcome the stress of "poor" dice, feels very resiliant depending on the List).

I'm actually thinking about trying it for a live game with a buddy to see how it goes.

[Cursain]

If you guys rolled one dice at a time I could easily compile the results of 1's, 2's, 3's, 4's, 5's and 6's.  Then we'd know for sure how "random" the dice generator is.  I checked one of the dice logs and when you do rolls where you add 2+ dice together and sum the total, it's hard to quickly determine what actual numbers were rolled.  If you rolled them one at a time I could compile the stats in a matter of minutes.

I agree with some of the peoples assessments.  The 'randomness' seems a bit off.

[sammay23]

@Noght - Totally appreciate the importance of handling clumpy dice. I've lost my Lvl 4 in a lot of games, casting on 3 dice. Being able to rally from that and still have a battle plan is excellent experience.

Again, it's what I love about having so many units. Chance can be clumpy, but when you have enough units you can ride that out.

[Holy Hand Grenade]

@Cursain-  I pulled the numbers off the Dicelog and am going to put them into a format with just the numbers so you can crunch them.  It will take me a day or two.

My guess is that with the over 380 rolls in the game so far with probably 500+ total dice rolled the random generation will come out statistically on average.

The harder thing to determine is if the clumps of good and bad dice rolls are just as average...or if are they abnormal.

[Cursain]

@Cursain-  I pulled the numbers off the Dicelog and am going to put them into a format with just the numbers so you can crunch them.  It will take me a day or two.

My guess is that with the over 380 rolls in the game so far with probably 500+ total dice rolled the random generation will come out statistically on average.

The harder thing to determine is if the clumps of good and bad dice rolls are just as average...or if are they abnormal.

That's what I'm afraid of HHG.  I've played a lot of blood bowl online, and the "randomness" of the computer generated dice doesn't match up with my experiences hosting a once-a-month league at my house.

I think some of these random dice generators load a bunch of pre-rolled numbers, and then "randomly" pull from the pool.

[zifnab0]

Ogres lose by 5.  The Mournfangs fail the first Break test and fail the second…

I'm curious, how would the combat have gone without Convergence?  I'd guess 4 or 5 wounds on the Mournfang, giving Empire +4, maybe +3 if the Demis failed and rerolled an armor save.

I've never been a fan of Convergence and Curse (or Heavens in general).  It seems that rerolling 1s is really not much of a boost.

[sammay23]

Ogres lose by 5.  The Mournfangs fail the first Break test and fail the second…

I'm curious, how would the combat have gone without Convergence?  I'd guess 4 or 5 wounds on the Mournfang, giving Empire +4, maybe +3 if the Demis failed and rerolled an armor save.

I've never been a fan of Convergence and Curse (or Heavens in general).  It seems that rerolling 1s is really not much of a boost.

Well, we would have done one or two fewer wounds and, as HHG noted, we would have taken 2 more. So ,we'd have won by 2-3, which is a very big difference, as you know.

The value of re-rolling 1s is dependent on other factors. If you're trying to hit a 5+, for example, it's not that great. If you're going for a 3+, then the likelihood of successfully re-rolling 1s as 3+ is quite good, as was the case for our armor saves.

In particular, against S4 Ogres, Convergence makes a 1+ AS virtually invulnerable.

Again, I think it really depends, but for cavalry who often only fail armor saves on a 1 and have high S attacks that are frequently hitting on 3s and wounding on 2s, it's an extremely powerful spell with a very low casting cost.

[zifnab0]

The value of re-rolling 1s is dependent on other factors. If you're trying to hit a 5+, for example, it's not that great. If you're going for a 3+, then the likelihood of successfully re-rolling 1s as 3+ is quite good, as was the case for our armor saves.

If you're trying to hit on 5+, then out of 36 attacks you would hit 12 times, rerolling 6 dice.  Of those 6, 2 would succeed.  Instead of 12 hits you would have 14 hits, or a 16% improvement.

If you're trying to hit on 3+, then out of 36 attacks you would hit 24 times, rerolling 6 dice.  Of those 6, 4 would succeed.  Instead of 24 hits you would have 28 hits, or a 16% improvement.

No matter your target, rerolling 1s will always only give you a 16% improvement.

[Fandir Nightshade]

Statistically yes but in reality you can safe your skin if you botch a roll and have lots of ones in the first roll.

[sammay23]

The value of re-rolling 1s is dependent on other factors. If you're trying to hit a 5+, for example, it's not that great. If you're going for a 3+, then the likelihood of successfully re-rolling 1s as 3+ is quite good, as was the case for our armor saves.

If you're trying to hit on 5+, then out of 36 attacks you would hit 12 times, rerolling 6 dice.  Of those 6, 2 would succeed.  Instead of 12 hits you would have 14 hits, or a 16% improvement.

If you're trying to hit on 3+, then out of 36 attacks you would hit 24 times, rerolling 6 dice.  Of those 6, 4 would succeed.  Instead of 24 hits you would have 28 hits, or a 16% improvement.

No matter your target, rerolling 1s will always only give you a 16% improvement.

Yes. All completely true. Yes, it's still 16% because you've doubled the number of pre-re-roll hits by going from 5+ to 3+. If you calculated it as the number of re-rolled hits relative to the total attacks, however, you would note that Convergence nets you 5.5% for the 5+ vs 11% for the 3+.

It's all a matter of perspective. Same thing holds for re-rolling 6s. Very useful if your opponent is hitting or wounding on 5s or 6s. Not nearly so much if they're hitting on 3s.

At a casting cost of 7 for HC, I think it's well worth it. HHG can go back and review the actual combat numbers, but just based on his report about the armor saves, in this case the MFs would have been testing on a re-rollable 6, instead of 4. You well know that's a big difference. 

[Holy Hand Grenade]

HHG can go back and review the actual combat numbers

Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't.  For me, just the possibility of a reroll is solid.  Factor in possible rerolls on three different types of dice rolls and it can swing battles when you roll poorly, as Fandir pointed out.

It had no effect in the second round of combat.  The Demis got to reroll 1 die but failed on it too.

But in the first round of combat, HC caused an extra wound and saved two.  For Combat Resolution, that meant the difference between a 4 or 7 rerollable Break test.  The Fangs failed on 6 & 7 respectively.  HC was a game-changer in this specific case.

 
HHG

[George]

@Sammy
Looks like this game is nearly done, I have one more trick up my sleeve, but I think the massive impact hits drom the STank when it makes combat will spell the end.

[sammay23]

Yeah. If we were in a tourney, I'd just avoid you for the rest of the game, after mopping up the STank.

But we can't leave Ogres alive on a Warhammer-Empire forum.

It just wouldn't be fitting

Again, a wonderfully played game. If your MFs had overrun, that combat could have gone differently. At the least, they probably wouldn't have broken.

One more trick, eh? I can't, for the life of me, think what it could be... which has me concerned 

[George]

Well my last trick was talking you into charging with the STank and having it blow itself up

[sammay23]

HAHAHA! Fair enough. Quite durable, those steam tanks. An important, nay, vital part of the all-cav list. That's our staying power.

[Holy Hand Grenade]

So... post your after action comments here.

This was a well-played battle by both sides.

Besides luck/dice, what were the key tactical moves or moments?

What could have been done different/better?

I can tell you from my perspective I gained a new appreciation for Empire Cavalry MSU-style.  I am interested in your thoughts.

Once we have taken a little break, downed some beers either in sorrow or victory, I think Fandir needs to finally come out and play with his High Elves for TEG5.

[Noght]

Once we have taken a little break, downed some beers either in sorrow or victory, I think Fandir needs to finally come out and play with his High Elves for TEG5.

+1 to Fandir's High Elves.  I'd bring Wood Elves late summer (mid to late August) if the Empire leaves the all 1+ AS stuff at home.   

[sammay23]

Things that didn't work:

Well, for my part, I once again managed to bog myself down with unit congestion on the left side of the battlefield. I continue to struggle with that.

It was also hard to get those units farthest from the Ogres' battle line into effective range. I have to think harder about how to deploy to face a refused flank. (although, reviewing your log, it's clear that you weren't positive you'd be doing a refused flank in the first place...)

Things that worked:

The Captasi performed their roles perfectly - tying up the Ironblasters and limiting the Ogres' ability to fight a ranged castle and make us come to them. I was bummed not to break any of the basters on charges early. That would have freed up a CAptasus to harass other units from behind. But all in all I think they did great.

I regret giving our opponents the 250 points for our lvl4, but stand by the choice. It was absolutely the right risk to take. This is where high S high AS units really shine. 3DGs don't have a ton of attacks, but they hit hard and take very little damage in return, especially when buffed with something like Harmonic Convergence.

The two DG charges were the vital turns in the game, and we got off enough magic to make them work. There was a lot of debate about the merits of Harmonic Convergence, but I stand by its usefulness for this list. We could have failed to break either the IG unit or the MFs but had the odds in our favor. Usually I prefer to make multi-charges, but our opponents really forced the issue and there was no time to set up for them.




Hats off, again, to George and the other Ogre generals. Had you realized that you offered a flank charge in T2, and moved the Guts or Firebelly a little bit, this would have been a very different game, I think.


My only regret is that we couldn't all meet up for a pint afterwards. A really great experience!

 

[George]

Of all the unlucky dice out there the key failed roll for was the gnobs failed march tests in turn 2 (great empire unit positioning to force those).
i had wanted to gnobs 1" from the knight units to make the most of Sammy's bottled up flank, that would have bought the time roll the other side.

The key mistake I obviously made was not seeing the Demi charge coming through...the way it played out I threw away the firebelly for no real gain, with him out of the unit the lack of steadfast became an issue.

I mentioned it in the Ogre thread, but keeping the gnobs in general range would have made them perform far better than they did....though they still were probably MVPs....did you see how knights they brought down!
If we had decided on a plan and stuck to it I think we would have been able to control the Ld bubble better, but if anyone was going lose out to indecision it was always going to be the gnobs.

Other than that I don't think I'd do much different....perhaps buy a new box of dice...though perhaps Sammy could do with some too

I am still a bit on the fence about the MSU list after this. I loved the 3 Captasus and how they worked, but other than that I really only fought 2 Demi unit a STank and some chaff....a slightly more rounded list might still have got a similar result. I am certainly willing to give it a shot myself though and see it from that side of the board. It didn't feel too intimidating from my side, but mainly as I had enough chaff to help me pick my way through it.

[gray_death01]

Congrats to both sides for a well fought out game. And congrats to the dicelog for chucking mathhammer out the window.
Medal ceremony for the survivors will be at 0800...make sure that armor is nice and shiny !

[Crucious]

Thanks all. This was sooo much fun to read through. GO EMPIRE!
It gave me the perfect reason to procrastinate abit here at work 
Can't wait for the next one.

Procrastinators unite..... tomorrow.

[sammay23]

George, any suggestions regarding what would have made the Empire list scarier?

[George]

George, any suggestions regarding what would have made the Empire list scarier?

I'm not sure it need to look scarier....for a lot of armies 2 STanks plus a lot of 1+AS would be scary.
Its just he Ogre list had the right tools to deal with everythign...chaff to block up, Ironblasters for the STanks and GWs everywhere for dealing with armour.

I would be tempted to up the units of Demis to 4, but otherwise you do achieve what you want which is a mobile army that can lose any part and still work. The main thing for you will be getting the movement sorted out.
Though a couple of small Reiksgaurd could make people pause as they can't gaurantee to punch through the unit in 1 round like the nilla knights due to the stubborn

[Fandir Nightshade]

Well done everyone! Another great TDG and yes I am ready with my High Elves...a list has been made together with Rothgar and will open a can of whoopass on the Empire.

Bring it on Codpieces