Playing Dice with the Universe

Well it has been a busy month for me. I failed my Uni course and spent a lot of time getting a job sorted. The good news is I have got one sorted and it starts next month. So I have few loose ends to tidy up before I start; one of which was doing the metrics for Kirby's Tyranid army... Kirby's 2k Tyranids 2x Prime w/LW, Bonesword, Toxin, Regen 2x3 Hive Guard 1x3 Zoanthrope 2x Tervgion w/Catalyst, Toxin, Adrenal, Cluster, Scything Talons 2x10 Termagant 2x4 Ravener w/Rending 2x T-Fex w/Rupture, Cluster, Dess Now Purgatus pointed out that working out dead Land Raiders with a 4+ to hit in melee was a bit misleading since they will always go fast to avoid melee damage. As such I have redone all the numbers for AV 14. APC's on the other hand will often stick at 6" movement since they still want to fire guns so I have left those numbers unchanged. So lets look at all the previous five lists again and add Kirby's too. List . DMS . . DMCC . . DR pG . . D...

Carrying on with looking at the 40k Metrics of different Tyranid lists this time we will analyses a couple of Fex-star builds. Lists and full numbers are below. For those adding up at home remember that the Genestealers melee damage against APC's is capped at 15. Carnifex scores have not been capped as some of it is from shooting. Two Fexstar's and Purgatus' T-fex/Prime Nidzilla comparison List . DMS . . DMCC . . DR pG . . DLR pG . Hulksmash 15.53 52.97 125.42 23.61 Ghostin 26.53 42.28 100.84 29.72 Purgatus 17.79 48.19 94.61 18.52 The Addition of the Zoantrhopes really helps to boost MEQ Shooting and Raider killing power but the list loses significant close combat potential. That said at over 40 it is still an amazing high figure contending with the Orks. Carnifex give us a much better Land Raider killing score than T-fex but are limited to only doing do in melee which means they will most likely have delivered their cargo. Working from just these numbers I would...

Nikephoros over on Bringer of Victory has posted up about 40k Metrics. His idea was to work out sum statistics for the whole army and see how that compared to other competitive armies. There were four scores he has been working out - DMS - Dead Marines in one shooting phase. DMCC - Dead Marines in one assault phase (assuming you charge) DRpG - Penetrating hits on Rhinos in five turns of shooting. DLRpG - Penetrating hits on Land Raiders in five turns of shooting. Those armies he looked at got scores in the following ranges. DMS = 19-22, DMCC 15-45, DRpG 60-82, DLRpG 17-34. As Kirby suggested I have added in the average Spawn of the Tervigon which does help to bolster the MEQ killing of the lists. Since we are generating numbers assuming best possible conditions all Gaunts are assumed to have Poison and Furious Charge from mummy. So lets see how the Tyranids compare... Nidzilla Unit . DMS . . DMCC . . DR pG . . DLR pG . Tyrant 2.5 3.7 17.92 3.47 Guard x3 0 3.56 5 0 Hi...

I actually enjoy doing mathematical analysis to see how efficient different units are. Dice can be fickle but the more dice you roll should bring you closer to the mean. Not that this helps my constantly under-performing Tervigon. This page is intended as a mathematical reference for Tyranid players and I shall be adding more analysis (and formatting) later. Calculus for Hive Tyrants Pythagoras' Theorem will help with guessing ranges but beyond that maths will not win you games. What it will do is help you to know what performance to expect from your army. Of course knowing that your Hive Guard should kill three Rhinos in a six turn game does not help if they underperform for the first three turns. Tyanid Ranged Anti-Tank Here is the chance each unit has of opening a tin can. I have calculated the probability of dealing with armour in a single shooting phase. I have chosen to display this as a percent since 66% reads much better than 0.66. First three columns are the...