Math-Hammer

[jeffersonian000]

I use it to keep a general idea on how useful certain units are in my army, and to generate a general outcome of certain pair-ups in a given situation. Such as when I was working on a dual Redeemer list, I ran the numbers to see how "killy" the set-up was that chose, then ran those numbers against a few different Opfor armies at the same point total, just to see if in was worth the effort, and finally play tested in to see how it actually ran in real games. In the end, math-hammer gave me the impression that the set up was a bit mediocre, while the real games should me the set-up was situational at best. That's math-hammer at work!

SJ

[Jakal13]

I never seem to use math hammer. A lot of my friends are advocates of it and are constantly comparing what they roll to the percaentages per dice rolled etc, etc,...
I find that the dice gods and the chaos gods have 1 thing in common, they are both extremely fickle!! If the dice know that you are thinking of things in a math hammer way, then the little cube gods think 'screw you buddy, that's 4 out of 5 failed power armour saves!!'

[BrotherAlpharius]

Persoanly I like using it occasionally but often find that besides obvious things such as "Which is more deadly a Genestealer or a Guardsmen?" I find it kinda misleading and not that fun, more of a tool for power gamers. I also can point out forever when we have all seen things that statistically should never happen such as Tau beating Khorne in combat, etc....

But if you think Mathhammer tells you that Tau can never beat Khorne then your mathhammer is fundamentally flawed! If you charge your Berserkers into a squad of Fire Warriors and they get slaughtered this doesn't prove that Mathhammer is wrong. Mathhammer acknowledges this possibility but vindicates your tactical decision. If you ignore mathhammer and go totally on degree of belief based on experience you would conclude that to charge Berserkers into Fire Warriors was the wrong thing to do and not do it again. If you look at the maths you see that actually you were very unlucky to lose and in future you should still be confident that your berserkers can beat the tau as they will do so a substantial majority of times.

Everybody uses mathhammer. Looking at space marine and concluding that a plasma gun would be more effective against him than a lasgun, is mathhammer. It doesn't have to be written out formally. The whole game is intrinisically based on probability.

That said, I selected the second answer in the poll because what you cannot do without extremely complex mathematics is determine the impact of movement or the psychology of your opponent. Sometimes it is good to do something that is unlikely to succeed precisely because it is apparently daft - it catches your opponent off guard.

At a recent tourney I charged bloodletters with my fire warriors - as expected the fire warriors got wiped out but the bloodletters' pile in move pulled them away from more valuable units, allowing them time to redeploy and shoot the **** out of the bloodletters. You can't model that situation with normal mathhammer.

As a bonus the daemon player's reaction when I declared my charge was hilarious!

[Culven]

I use Math-Hammer to determine the statistical effectiveness of my units against other common unit types. This is more so that I can figure out what a particular unit build would be best suited to killing, helping me with target priority and unit role during the game. But then I start rolling dice, and the statistics mean jack.

[Dragonmann]

Mathhammer is at best a guide, and it does not work for one game, but the average of many games.

That being said, I wrote a spreadsheet that allows me to quickly write up a squad and see roughly what they should be able to do. I cannot use it to say that unit A will kill Unit B in one turn, but I can use it to say that unit A has a much better chance to Kill unit B than Unit C does.

Everybody uses Mathhammer to a certain extent, every time you stop and think I need to roll 7s to get a glancing hit, or 8s to wound, you are looking at the 0 probability stuff.

[sorri]

It's definitely true that everyone does it, most people without really thinking about what they're doing.

Right now, the most I do is with dice rolls -- when I have 10 bolter Sisters rapid firing and end up with 15 (or 5) hits, I'll think that I did really well (or poorly) rolling compared to statistical probabilities. But I think I need to start doing it moe "on purpose" with things like target priority and even list composition. But I agree, it's useful to do, but it is not the end of the story.

[RocketRollRebel]

I think its a neat and useful tool for helping you plan an army and predict outcomes of certain situations. But of course there is always those times when the dice gods take a gigantic dump on you and your bezerkers get rocked by fire warriors in close combat or your terminators get gunned down by Shoota Boyz.

Its a helpful tool that shouldn't be ignored or disregarded but at the same time it shouldn't be all that you are thinking of and you start to lose sight of the game as a whole.

[DarkLink]

I do this sometimes.

Shooting Melta at Tank? No need, thats why you bought it.

Trying to decide whether or not to use krak against a landspeeder moving 12" (one hit on a 6, 4 to glance, 5 to pen) or base attacks (4 hits on a 6, but 6 to glance) with CSM - do the mathhammer

Most players probably use mathhammer subconsiously without realizing it. Mathhammer is, in essence, using math to calculate probabilities. So if you ever think I only hit on 6's or something similar, you are using mathhammer to a certain degree, even if you don't sit down and calculate everything. I've found mathhammer very useful sometimes in things such as allocating my attacks during close combat (should I put as many attacks as I can on the IC, or on the squad?).

[Benandorf]

I think mathhammer is great while you're making a list, and the basics of it should be remembered when you're playing (don't charge those boyz with ratlings, you can't penetrate a tank with a lasgun, etc.). And by "great", I, of course, mean required to know if you expect to make a tournement-winning list.

[Sangre]

The dice gods care not for mathhammer at the best of times.