It's All Relative

Warhammer 40K can play tricks on the mind. In fact, it’s partly how the game is so awesome, because perception can make all the difference, generating a high Natural Roll, confidence in your tactical decisions and even philosophy about your army and playing style as a whole.

It’s this perception of units and their abilities that often blinds us to probability. We’ll delve into Mathhammer briefly this week, but only to point out the similarity in the performance of completely different units in particular situations. I’ll leave you to work out the maths, go on blind faith or continue developing your Natural Rolling (or Practiced Rolling if you’re that way inclined).

So, like the title says, it’s all relative (or probable) and this article could answer why your elite warriors ALWAYS seem to die to a couple of grots!

When the Going Gets Tough
I was observing while two friends were involved in a close fought battle last weekend. Having absorbed a torrent of fire from an entire Tau army, 2 remaining Space Marine terminators charged into close combat with a squad of 10 fire warriors having killed 2 from shooting.

Firewarriors have Weapon Skill 3, Strength 3, Initiative 2 and a 4+ armour save.Terminators have Weapon Skill 4, Strength 8, Initiative 1 (powerfists) and a 2+ armour save.

Because the 10 fire warriors have a higher initiative, they go first with their 10 attacks.
They hit on 4+ and wound on 5+, inflicting on average 5 hits and 2 wounds.
Both wounds were easily saved on a 2+.
A good roll of thumb is to remember that terminators should fail 1 in 6 armour saves on average.

The 2 terminators retaliated with 6 attacks (because they charged).
They hit on 3+ and kill on 2+ with their powerfists, inflicting on average 4 hits and 3 kills, resulting in 3 dead fire warriors.

The Tau now have to take a morale check using their Leadership of 8, minus 3 for their casualties, giving them a Leadership value of 5, which, if you read last week’s article about leadership tests, is very bad! They break and fall back 7” as terminators cannot making sweeping advance.

In the Tau player’s turn, the squad regroups in order to rapid fire their pulse rifles at the 2 terminators. 7 fire warriors, 14 shots, 7 hits, 4 wounds.

The terminators should statistically fail 1 save, but in this instance, the player rolled below the odds and both terminators were killed.

So what did that all mean?
Having survived the close combat and killed the terminators, the Tau player (who plays Eldar, but was borrowing a friend’s army for today) suddenly declared:

”I knew I could beat the terminators because I thought of my firewarriors as Eldar Dire Avengers!”

So is he blind to the odds and probability of the game and going on pure faith? Or is there something relevant in the probability of both units in this situation?

Eldar Dire Avengers & Tau Fire Warriors
Here’s a clean cut comparison in all of the situations detailed above:
1) hitting terminators in close combat
2) passing a morale check
3) shooting terminators at close range

Dire Avenger Stat Line:
WS4, BS4, S3, T4, I5, A1, LD9 SV4+

Tau Fire Warriors Sat Line (with team leader for Leadership 8):
WS2, BS3, S3, T3, I2, A1, LD8 SV4+

Hitting Terminators in close combat
10 Tau Fire Warriors attack Space Marine Terminators
10 attacks, hitting on 4+ and wounding on 5+ produces 2 wounds

10 Eldar Dire Avengers attack Space Marine Terminators
10 attacks, hitting on 4+ and wounding on 5+ produces 2 wounds

Result = Equal

Passing the morale check
Having sustained 3 casualties, the Dire Avengers would have their Leadership of 9 reduced to 6, while the Fire Warriors have their Leadership of 8 reduced to 5.
There’s quite a big difference in probability here and if the Terminators were able to making a Sweeping Advance, the fire warriors would almost certainly be dead, while the Dire Avengers would comfortably skip awat with their whopping Initiative of 5.

Result = big advantage to Dire Avengers

Shooting terminators at close range
Having fallen back and regrouped, both units open fire on the Terminators at close range. We shan’t discuss the Dire Avenger’s blade storm ability, as this would make our Dire Avenger unit considerably more expensive than the Fire Warrior team we are comparing them to.

10 Tau Fire Warriors rapid fire their pulse rifles at the Space Marine Terminators20 shots, hitting on 4+ and wounding on 3+ produces 10 hits and 7 wounds on average.

10 Eldar Dire Avengers fire their shuriken catapults at the Space Marine Terminators20 shots, hitting on 3+ and wounding on 4+ produces 13 hits and 7 wounds on average.

Result = Equal

Conclusion
Tau Fire Warriors are practically as good as Dire Avengers. Well, given the right circumstances of course!

It’s also interesting to see how elite units seem to suffer in the game. By practically forcing everyone down to the same level, it benefits tactical army builders to take as many troops as possible when facing elite armies or units. The again, it’s wise to invest in a good dose of plasma to guarantee your kills against a skillful Natural Roller. As ever, I leave the decision making to you.

So, look out for these similarities in the game and instead of a team of fire warriors, you could effectively have a squad of dire avengers kicking ass given the right situations.