Grey Knights - Not The Best Starter Army

[boreas]

Nope, chances of peril are 5.556% roughly...

 

http://alumnus.caltech.edu/~leif/FRP/probability.html

 

I'll trust the engineers from Caltech ;)

 

Let's see: you have 1/6th chance of rolling a "1", then 1/6th of rolling a second "1". that's 1/36th. Same for rolling a "6" and then a second "6". Both dice are independant, as if they were rolled thousand of miles one from another. Thus, you get 2.7(periodical)% chance of "1-1" and the same for "6-6".

 

Phil

[RamrodMC]

Boreas, those tables are not suited for determining the odds of Perils. They only show the odds of getting 2 or 12 in total, not the odds of getting snake eyes/box cars. Not good enough at maths to verify KnowThyEnemy's table, but he's got the theory correct so I have no reason to doubt him.

 

EDIT: But they're not being rolled independently. At all. They're being rolled together, and you have to roll double 1 or double 6 at the same time not one after the other. The odds for this are different than if you just wanted to know the odds of rolling the same result twice. You need to roll the same result on two dice simultaneously.

[boreas]

No, he's wrong... Those odds are extremely well know to dice players all over the world. The best game in the world according to most gaming references is Settlers of Catan. It's based on those odds. The odds of getting "1-1" on two dice is 1/36th, no getting around that. Same for "6-6". They are rolled independantly, even if rolled at the same time. They are independant, because the result of die "A" has NO influence on die "B". Rolling them at the same time, or one before the other, or at the same time but on diffenrent continents do NOT influence the results. The dice are independant one from another.

 

Just in case you don't trust me...

 

http://mathforum.org/library/drmath/view/56688.html

 

http://www.math.hawaii.edu/~ramsey/Probability/TwoDice.html

 

http://www-cs-students.stanford.edu/~nick/...dsSettlers.html

 

 

Phil

[RedemptionNL]

always trust the engineer ;)

 

As I studied probability math, I'll trust myself more. ;)

 

Boreas, those tables are not suited for determining the odds of Perils. They only show the odds of getting 2 or 12 in total, not the odds of getting snake eyes/box cars.

 

Please tell me how you intend to roll 2 or 12 with 2 6 sided dice without rolling double 1 or double 6 respectively. :cuss

[Joasht]

I personally think that it is the usual 1/18 probability, the problem I have with the other example is that it considers "2-1" and "1-2" as the same thing, but it kinda really isn't. But then again I'm not a math person so meh :P

 

Anyway this thread is getting off topic fast....

[Leksington]

actually when throwing 2 dice, there are 21 different combinations that the 2 dice can come up as. the 36 possibilities you mentioned above assumes a uniqueness to each dice, which is not correct. your not worried about the specific number on each dice, your worried about the combination between the two.for example, a 5 on dice 1 and a 6 on dice 2 is the same as a 6 on dice 1 and a 5 on dice 2. of those 21 combinations, 2 are what you are looking for (double 1's and double 6's). i.e. 2/21 or 9.5%. always trust the engineer :P see below:

 

11 12 13 14 15 16

21 22 23 24 25 26

31 32 33 34 35 36

41 42 43 44 45 46

51 52 53 54 55 56

61 62 63 64 65 66

 

now you remove the duplicates and you get:

 

11 12 13 14 15 16

22 23 24 25 26

33 34 35 36

44 45 46

55 56

66

 

id write the equation but i believe this is a better visual

That is incorrect.

 

-Roll a 2 and then a 3.

-Roll a 3 and then a 2.

 

These are two independent dice rolling scenarios. You are erroneously eliminating them as the same.

 

The proper way to set up this equation is

[(1/6)x(1/6)] + [(1/6)x(1/6)]

or

2 x [(1/6)^2]

 

Mathemetician trumps engineer. ^_^

 

P.S. The more streamlined way to set up this equation is to say you can roll a 1 or a 6 in the first roll, and then need the matching pair in the second roll:

(2/6) x (1/6)

[KnowThyEnemy]

meh, statistics is a pointless science anyway :P. point conceded. it most certainly isnt 1/6 though, which was my original argument. besides, when do the statistics ever play out that way in real time

[Firepower]

So if I'm following this correctly:

 

Grey Knights are not the best Starter Army.

 

Probability is not the best Starter Math.

 

:P

 

Ok, smart mouthing aside, I'd agree that the GK don't seem very rookie friendly. I got this impression just from trying to build a list. Compared to my beloved Templars, just taking pencil to paper was a horribly complex juggling act of priorities in rules, units, stat lines, and models ^_^.

 

If I get confused just reading the codex, I'm sure I'm in for an interesting learnign curve if/when I get to the table.

[KnowThyEnemy]

well, the issue comes with competative builds. you can build a grey knight army exactly as if it was a vanilla marine list. you just wont get very far (lack of anti-tank, less mobility, lower model count, etc.). im not discouraging newbies from playing the army, just be forewarned there'll be a break-in phase of getting used to their dynamics

[Spacefrisian]

The Best starter army out their is by far not the Grey Knights, i would even suggest Chaos Spacemarines are, for the following reasons.

 

-Easy painted (its chaos afterall) black spray and youre halfway done.

-No weird army wide special rules, heck if you go regular CSM and a lord the only special you have is youre Lord being Fearless.

-Great expansion options, model as wel as army.

[Joasht]

The Best starter army out their is by far not the Grey Knights, i would even suggest Chaos Spacemarines are, for the following reasons.

 

-Easy painted (its chaos afterall) black spray and youre halfway done.

-No weird army wide special rules, heck if you go regular CSM and a lord the only special you have is youre Lord being Fearless.

-Great expansion options, model as wel as army.

 

I'd personally suggest Space Wolves, and I actually have a friend that I taught to paint/play the SW's from scratch (he is new to this hobby):

 

1) A lot of options to do pretty much anything, except play a super shooty army. Even then you can still take a bunch of Long Fangs....

 

2) Not very hard to paint with a good grey spray and use of washes.

 

3) Nearly fool-proof army building. Almost every option in the book is good (except arguably those Fast Attack Bloodclaws...) and even if you just spam Grey Hunters/Wolf Guard/Long Fangs in crazy combinations, it would still work.

 

4) Unlike other Space Marine armies you never need to worry about getting the charge; even if they charge you, you have counter-attack!

 

5) Some people are going to bash me for this, but frankly the SW's are very close to the border of being rediculously cheesy. I've played Space Wolves myself in this edition, and it totally slaughtered my opponent in ways that put my BA army to shame. Therefore, its easy. And.....

 

6) They are easy to play. As with point no. 4 and 5, the SW army can tend to be very point-and-click at times. No offense to those who actually play SW, but I've played SM's of every flavor for 15 years, and I find the latest version of the SW's the easiest to "get right" by far.

[boreas]

I'd say GKs are a bit like Brettonnian. It'll never be a "powerhouse" army. It's more of a fluff/modeling army where you can spend a few hours on each model, possibly writing a bit of fluff for each model. It's meant to be a very "look" army where you don't optimize by mathammering each unit into perfect efficiency and then spam it. In fact, a GK player going to a tournament should not hope for first place in generalship, but try and sneak into the first place by a tremendous looking army and great sportsmanship :) Hey, on those two accounts, the BOLS-WAAC SW/IG army can't win ;)

 

I find there's a lot of Doom and Gloom in the =I= forum since the rules have been known. Players try to sneak into "easter-eggs" rules and try to build WAAC list with triple riflemen dreads. I predict a real disappoinment. Once the local players get used to those, they'll become one-trick ponies like the infamous "tri-landraider water warrior" lists. I think the players that will get the most success will spread the points around and will learn to synergize the different units, just a good Eldar players. But that is definitely not a task for new players.

 

Phil

[lt051]

While that's interesting the actual odds of getting double ones or double sixes is 1/18 or 2/36. This is because when rolling two dice you do care about the separate numbers regardles if the combo is repeated. Getting two 1s would be 1/6 * 1/6. The same can be said for sixes. Adding these odds gets you 2/36. This should be pretty basic math for an engineer lol

[BrotherWasted]

well, the issue comes with competative builds. you can build a grey knight army exactly as if it was a vanilla marine list. you just wont get very far (lack of anti-tank, less mobility, lower model count, etc.). im not discouraging newbies from playing the army, just be forewarned there'll be a break-in phase of getting used to their dynamics

 

Less mobility? Lack of anti-tank? Not likely.

[KnowThyEnemy]

While that's interesting the actual odds of getting double ones or double sixes is 1/18 or 2/36. This is because when rolling two dice you do care about the separate numbers regardles if the combo is repeated. Getting two 1s would be 1/6 * 1/6. The same can be said for sixes. Adding these odds gets you 2/36. This should be pretty basic math for an engineer lol

 

theres nothing basic about statistical probability, as anyone whose taken a class in it can tell you. the math is simple, the concepts are situation dependant. my answer would apply to the fractional percentage of possible dice combinations, not a real-world roll. either way, who cares, mathammer only works in theory. and statistics isn't built into anything core in engineering, so hush.

 

and the only thing we suffer from mobility-wise is no drop pod. i don't see how this severly hampers us because we have the option for servo skulls, which will help with our deep striking, which our most basic troop can do btw. plus being able to bring 3 land raiders and 3 storm ravens is funny (2500 pts of course, coupled with 30 purifiers and a vindicare :P ) i'd say the lack of anti-tank is a legitmate argument, but with the psycannon saturation that an all-rounder list can put out, its just a different kind of anti-tank WIN. when you start penetrating those av-14, you'll agree :D.