Dealing with Mathhammer players

[RFHolloway]

I get where you're coming from, but the format of most 40k(and WFB) games tends to make even those who start out wanting to be fluffy drift into a more tactical way of building lists. When

Folks will disagree with me, but if you want fluffy games, you need to lay out the scenarios with a little more care than "roll up the scenario from the book and bring x points of whatever army". I'm thinking of old battle tech books where they set up precise scenario details down to which mechs would be used, where each one enters the board from, and very specific victory conditions in order to represent a "historical" battle. That's a true fluff game.

We don't need to go quite that far, but my point is that when you throw open the game format to just plain old "bring whatever your army is", folks will naturally tend to build the most advantageous army. It's a game, people play to win even if they can enjoy themselves while losing. To play other wise, you need to change the format!

I wouldn't mind borrowing a trick from Mech warrior. You might want to throw out a challenge like this.

"I have a 1500 point Grey knight army with 1 HQ 3 elites 3 troups and a fast attack - prepared to take on any Xenos army but the lowest point total army gets the first shot"

Give people a week or so to design a list and submit bids.

This could represent an attack on a homeworld or outpost, and give the math hammer players some interesting analysis to do, and you some story and fluff.

[doom-kitten]

Never really understood why anyone would want to use mathhammer, personally the word math gives me the heebie jeebies and hammers have very little to do with math. When i first encountered it in a game I was surprised and asked my opponent why he was calculating how many orcs my exorcists could kill per turn, when clearly I would never waste an exor on mere orcs when there where tasty mega-nobz and killa-kans to shoot. He pretty much tried to predicted every roll I made and it got annoying fast, I lost mostly because I thought it would be funny to see how many orcs I could kill by running them over, answer was none he jumped his orcs out of the way everytime but I did ram a kan and it exploded...and killed my living saint but such is war.

Dealing with them seems weird, their just guys or gals that get off on numbers, for the most part their harmless if a bit dedicated and very useful if you've forgotten your calculator or periodic table ( a nessacary tool for determining sciencehammer). So mathhammer away if thats what makes you happy.

[Drakkan Vael]

Often you can win by doing things that their mathhammer tells them is stupid or at least seems so. Luck and guessing distances accounts for much in this game, more than probability.

[alshrive]

"To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction"

My advice to beat those who play MathHammer, is to counter it with LuckHammer. Take an army that statistically shouldn't stand a chance. Watch as their maths fall apart as they fail to successfully predict the 247th roll of the game! Stand there amused as they smash the calculator against the side of their head in the hope that they may eventually get one statistically probable roll! Pull maneuvre that even you aren't really that sure about! if you can't predict what you are going to do, then statistically they don't stand a chance.

well, it's either that or explain to them what you are looking for/find players with a similar gaming intent- but that just seems a bit too easy!

ALShrive

P.S i must actually point out that using a useless army against someone who has basically gone for WAAC army isn't necessarily the best way. It is however completely classic when you actually manage to do something and they are left somewhat befuddled.

[Chumbalaya]

"To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction"

My advice to beat those who play MathHammer, is to counter it with LuckHammer. Take an army that statistically shouldn't stand a chance. Watch as their maths fall apart as they fail to successfully predict the 247th roll of the game! Stand there amused as they smash the calculator against the side of their head in the hope that they may eventually get one statistically probable roll! Pull maneuvre that even you aren't really that sure about! if you can't predict what you are going to do, then statistically they don't stand a chance.

well, it's either that or explain to them what you are looking for/find players with a similar gaming intent- but that just seems a bit too easy!

ALShrive

P.S i must actually point out that using a useless army against someone who has basically gone for WAAC army isn't necessarily the best way. It is however completely classic when you actually manage to do something and they are left somewhat befuddled.

What?

[Urza8188]

Personally I enjoy crunching the numbers as much as if not more than playing the game itself. Of course I am a man with a LOT of time to think and not much to think about. Additionally i just started playing a few months back and i don't have much of an army so i don't get to play really other than Vassal.....

But yeah keeping that in mind Ive spent days and days studying different armies and crunching numbers cause i really get a lot of enjoyment out of comparing them to my own lists and looking for ways to deal with things that have given me problems thus far.....Maybe that's part of the reason i Chose tau as my 1st army, because there's a lot to learn and it kinda feels like an uphill battle so i have to work really hard and research to get the win.Or maybe im just a glutton for pain.

[Bean]

Personally I enjoy crunching the numbers as much as if not more than playing the game itself. Of course I am a man with a LOT of time to think and not much to think about. Additionally i just started playing a few months back and i don't have much of an army so i don't get to play really other than Vassal.....

But yeah keeping that in mind Ive spent days and days studying different armies and crunching numbers cause i really get a lot of enjoyment out of comparing them to my own lists and looking for ways to deal with things that have given me problems thus far.....Maybe that's part of the reason i Chose tau as my 1st army, because there's a lot to learn and it kinda feels like an uphill battle so i have to work really hard and research to get the win.Or maybe im just a glutton for pain.

I'm the same way.

Did you know, for instance, that the probability that a melta veteran squad will destroy a land raider with shots is just slightly over 50%?

Or that the probability that a melta veteran squad with Demolitions charging a Landraider (that moved at cruising speed) has only a 28% chance with ten melta-bombs?

Just figured that out this morning. =)

[Kaiserdean]

In any game, there will be min/max players. Role playing, mini, online... My LGS has had a bunch of people using netlists and "mathhammer" to optimize there game play to win at all costs. I'll play in tourneys with these guys but I still find that I have a few friends that I always enjoy playing with and I stick to weekly games with those guys.

[DaveLL]

Anyone who says mathhammer "doesn't work" or "can't account for bad luck" doesn't understand what most of the common mathhammer tools are predicting. It's entirely possible to calculate the odds of particular strings of results, it's just not commonly presented because it's more complicated to interpret and isn't really needed.

Math is a tool. Saying a hammer "doesn't work" because you keep hitting your thumb with it is a fault with you, not with the hammer.

Technically true. However, the number of people who fully understand the statistics involved is pretty limited, and most of the calculations you see done on these boards ARE in terms of averages. Talking about probability distributions is, unfortunately, a good way of getting head-scratching.

So, I think the more accurate way to say it is that most of the people who try to use it don't actually know how to use the math hammer for anything more than the most basic operation.

[Blaznak]

I think you've confused "mathhammer player" with "idiot." =P

Seriously, there's really no reason to think that a player who applies probability math to their evaluations will be unduly hampered by any of these "tactics."

Point 4 is a good point, though.

Maybe not, but its served me ok over the years. Your dice milage may vary (Grin). I guess I'm saying look for things that disrupt the calculations as much as possible, if that's what you are going for.

Later!
Blaz