Somethings been bugging me and i wondered if it bugged anyone else. Picture the scene :

You have prepped the target, swooped in to assault with your killer unit, neutralized his strengths played to yours, eked out a sliver of a bonus... Then this gets slimmed by some bad dice and the result is a near tie. At this point you say Hey ! That's probability ! Then, out of nowhere, you roll low, your opponent rolls high and 4/5 of your key units disappear with no saves, your unit is dumped on with blast markers and breaks...



I am aware of my near beginner status, but this seems to happen more than i think reasonable (almost every game) and last time was in a big critical assault and completely lost me the game despite it being very close otherwise. Good dice are good dice and vice-versa - but this can swing games entirely.

So, bitterness aside, does anyone else find this odd in a game generally very tactical in nature?

In the spirit of constructive criticism, I had a suggestion for a house rule so that a stale mate can never become a slaughter (surely getting broken and having to retreat is bad enough?) :

A. "The number of hack-down hits can never exceed the bonus earned (positive total applies to both sides.)"

I haven't play tested it yet, but all i can see is it is taking a small amount of dumb luck out of the game and wouldn't actually break anything (?)

Alternatively :

B. I thought about taking an average of the number rolled on the two resolution dice rather than the highest ? Though this doesn't strip out extreme bad luck it culls the probabilities a little.

Thoughts ?

I think with prepping, inspiring characters and outnumbering, not to mention a few kills and support fire, you should always aim to come out +4/5 ahead, that means that 85% of the time you're coming out on top.....

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assaults can be pretty messy, but at the same time you can mitigate a lot of the risk depending on how you prepare for the assault. Sometimes though, it is what it is and you get thrashed because you rolled a 1 and he rolled a 6. Means you need to regroup and plan out a different course of action. With the tournament rules there are plenty of alternatives you can gain to win that doesn't rely on brute force.

Honestly, there is a potential for hackdowns to really hurt but the real pain in losing an assault is that your unit is now broken and susceptible to losing units just for taking BM.

Assault rules have been around for ages and have had many hundreds of thousands of games played with them, I think you need a bit more compelling evidence to change the rules than what you presented. I've seen some pretty crazy assaults, but I can't say that I've seen them consistently change the outcome of the game on the randomness of the resolution.

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-Vaaish

I think the randomness of the assault resolution with a potential mishap evens out the effects of all the successful assaults. Initiating assaults to break the enemy/cause losses is way more efficient than ranged shooting, but it comes with that one significant drawback, you put your own formation at risk.

At the end of the day, I think the assault rules are fine. Going in with +3/+4 usually sees you coming out on top, too.

/Fredmans

Don't forget that both players are picking the highest of two dice - you've got a 1 in 36 chance of getting 1 and your opponent has a roughly one-third chance of getting a six. That means the chances of 1 v. 6 on the dice against you are around 1%.

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I like the small chance of things going wrong because of good/bad dice rolls from either side, I prefer that to the possibility of auto win/loss situations .

For me it also echoes situations that can happen in real warfare, defiant last stands or units holding out at all costs, which can change the outcome of a battle.

Take a look at Saragarhi for an example of what I mean by echoing real warfare.

This following bit is not aimed at Blip but at players in general (me included).
In the last 9 or 10 years of playing and testing EpicA I've found players always remember the bad rolls they make and the good rolls their opponents make especially in critical parts of the game, we never remember the other way round.
Plus situations like this are always brought to our attention by players on the receiving end of bad dice rolls/bad beats, I've also never seen anyone complain or want a rule change when they've won an assault due to some lucky rolls or won a game because their opponents had some atrocious dice rolls.

Here's a toy that calculates the chance of some interesting outcomes...
http://traitor-legion.appspot.com/assaultulator/assaultulator.html

^This^

Vaaish speaks the truth!

I think a game which uses dice is always going to have randomness in it, sometimes it can turn a defeat into a win, heck it's the only way I ever beat dptdexys or Steve54, when I have good luck at the right time, and their own luck stinks.....

As said, with proper planning, even if you lose the assault from freak dice, you're not going to lose many units to hackdowns (or try none if you chuck fearless wraithguard or chapter-specific chaos marines in there!)

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Eh, I've disliked the resolution dice roll since before release. Most people don't mind it though, because the dice roll introduces an uncertainity element and devalues Inspiring.

Theoretically the answer is to go in with an expected +4 or +5 result before the dice roll, but I've never managed to do that except with Necrons

I think my main beef with it is that it encourages hail mary assaults if you feel you're losing the game. When the game is close or if you're winning, you'll be careful with assaults and make sure that you get any advantages you can. However, if you're behind it's valid to simply throw formation after formation against the enemy and hope for luck. You'll probably lose more, but you're losing anyway. And if you launch say three engagements where the odds are only slightly against you, it doesn't take that much for you two win two of them big and suddenly the game has turned.

A maneuver like that has maybe a 25%-30% chance of succeeding, but if you think you're losing anyway the 70% chance of losing more is irrelevant, and instead you get a 30% chance of winning a game you had already lost.

I.......don't actually get why that's a bad thing.

My point of view, with hundreds of battle in assets, the assault is a crucial action, the outcome never granted. If I'm not mistaken in EA manual is a reference to the engage's danger. Unlike the fire, which allows you to hit your opponent from a distance. If the engagement represent a battle of warhammer 40k, then it is also reasonable that the outcome may be uncertain. It's obvious that there are clash in which it is futile to throw the dice, but in other circumstances, the battle is open.

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First, I'd echo MikeT.

Second, if you have three formations available to wear down a key enemy position with, and winning the third engagement (or even better, second and thrid) will turn the game for you, then you weren't really that far behind and have simply used good tactics.

I'm sure your example is a simplification of a point you're trying to make, and I'm not trying to nit-pick you, but I actually like that the example you cited is possible.

-Allen McCarley

It doesn't always happen. But I've seen a bit too many games devolve into one-on-one assaults, where the odds are about even, and who wins the game is decided by the combat resolution dice (as they can turn an even fight into a total rout). That's bad tactics by at least one player, but my point is that it can be a good tactic if you're losing.

I perfectly agree! How can happen this scene (last stand), without "fate" element in the game!

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well then..... surely that just emphasises the 'aint over till it's over' aspect of the game?

case in point, Matt Shadowlord's batrep Tau against 1k sons, looked like he was done for, had a bit of luck and with some smart moves and ended up winning

I've done some hail-mary things in my time and they haven't won me a game yet, but 9 times out of 10 it's more fun than just sitting around and doing the sensible thing!

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