dual wield and chance

rain9441 wrote:

You're numbers would be correct if you were situation was to have one attack and every time you rolled d6 you instead rolled "2d6 and pick the highest". This is not the case.

Damn, I did mess something up... your numbers might be right. Blargh. I was doing it as if 2 dice always went through and not accounting for when only 1 dice made it...

cianty wrote:

Some people like to give 2-handed-weapons to weak models in even starting warbands like Youngbloods and Necromancers and let them join the fighting only to take out knocked down and stunned models.

Svenn wrote:

You are correct when doing this for a single die. When you add in a second die, you can't simply multiply the percentage times 2. That doesn't work.

Define "work". If you mean give you a real, absolute percentage to wound, then you're right, that doesn't work. But this is a relevant method for discussing relative differences in the metagame. Multiplying the chance to hit for one attack by two gives you ([Real Chance to hit once] * 1) + ([Real Chance to hit twice] * 2). For multiple attakcs these quickly sum to over 100% and cause problems in the brain, but again, it's relevant for comparing the effectiveness of different weapons with quick arithmetic that is easily digested.

rain9441 wrote:

(5+ to hit, 4+ to wound, 6+ save) x2:
let x = (2/6 * 3/6 * 5/6) = chance to roll serious injury
(1-x) = chance to whiff
(1-x)^2 = chance to whiff twice
let y = 1 - ((1-x)^2) = chance to deal 1 or 2 serious injuries
x^2 = chance to roll 2 serious injuries
1 - y - x^2 = chance to roll 1 serious injury.

So x = 0.1388
Chance to whiff twice = .7416
Chance to roll 2 serious injuries = 0.0192
Chance to roll 1 serious injury = 0.2392

Not following you on where I went wrong here.

Okay, my numbers were definitely wrong but I'm still not sure your numbers are right. Let's use the above example...
Possible outcomes with 2 attacks
A = 2 hit, 2 wound, no saves = 2 injury rolls
B = 2 hit, 2 wound, 1 save = 1 injury roll
C = 2 hit 1 wound, no save = 1 injury roll
D = 1 hit, 1 wound, no save = 1 injury roll
thus A is the chance to get 2 injury rolls and B+C+D is the chance to get 1 injury roll... and A+B+C+D is the chance to get 1 OR 2 injury rolls.

So, with the above numbers we end up with:
(4/36 * 9/36 * 25/36) = 0.0193 chance for 2 injury rolls (this is the same as yours, just rounded up)
(4/36 * 9/36 * 5/6) + (4/36 * 3/6 * 5/6) + (2/6 * 3/6 * 5/6) = 0.2083 chance for 1 injury roll
(4/36 * 9/36 * 25/36) + (4/36 * 9/36 * 5/6) + (4/36 * 3/6 * 5/6) + (2/6 * 3/6 * 5/6) = 0.2276 chance to get 1 OR 2 injury rolls

Am I missing something here or did I do anything wrong this time? I follow your math, and I'm not fully sure why the numbers are different with your method and mine. It's enough that it's more than just a rounding thing.

Nevermind, I see what I did wrong... I was doing percentages for a single die roll going through instead of 2 dice rolled with only 1 going through. Your numbers are right.

It should be:
(4/36 * 9/36 * 25/36) + (4/36 * 9/36 * 10/36) + (4/36 * 18/36 * 5/6) + (16/36 * 3/6 * 5/6) = 0.2585 chance for 1 OR 2 rolls... which matches your numbers.

Sorry, I've been out of practice with my math for years. >_<

Here you go... a spreadsheet where you just plug in the numbers for the # attacks, hit rolls, wound rolls, and armor save... and it autocalculates percentages to hit.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=thLfhbkiukXSxj-gVaytLuQ

The easiest way to think about it is to take the easy solutions first.

Find the chance to not get the desired effect. x^n is the chance to not get the desired effect N times. 1 - x^n is then the chance to get the effect at least once.

Personally, rolling a single serious injury is as good as rolling 5 IMO. Thats why I simplify it to such. Not the case for shooting though, as theres nobody to cleanup the downed guys.

So now that we got past the math part, i'm curious on what you think of the -1 to hit models armed with a shield?

I did a little bit more math. With 1 profile attack, shield is on par with dual wield. With 2 or more profile attacks, shields become a better choice. Obviously with infinite attacks you'd have a shield for sure.

But with infinite attacks, flails, halberds, and double handers are better than dual wield anyway. Prolly better than shields, depends on weapon skill really.

I would love to see shields as viable. And I'd love to see a skaven with a shield in its tail. That never happen currently.

It's an interesting idea. It does seem to give slightly lower hit percentages. It is something extra to remember though. It seems a bit weird for shields to get both an armor save and a -1 to hit.

Honestly, with 5+ save and -1 to offhand on dual wield I find that there is plenty of incentive to use shields.

Okay, so I'm gonna run some numbers for double handed weapons again... I'm using -1 Str for offhands and +2AS for shields.

Attacker: 3WS, 3STR, 3T, 1A, No AS
Defender: 3WS, 3STR, 3T, 1A, No AS
1h chance for at least 1 injury roll: 25%
Dual wield chance for at least 1 injury roll: 37.5% - 2 injury rolls: 4.17%
Double Hand chance for at least 1 injury roll: 41.67%

Attacker: 3WS, 3STR, 5T, 2A, 5+ AS
Defender: 3WS, 3STR, 5T, 2A, 5+ AS
1h chance for at least 1 injury roll: 10.8% - 2 injury rolls: 0.31%
Dual wield chance for at least 1 injury roll: 17% - 3 injury rolls: 0.02%
Double Hand chance for at least 1 injury roll: 43.75% - 2 injury rolls: 6.25%

Attacker: 3WS, 5STR, 4T, 2A, 5+ AS
Defender: 3WS, 5STR, 4T, 2A, 5+ AS
1h chance for at least 1 injury roll: 39.5% - 2 injury rolls: 4.94%
Dual wield chance for at least 1 injury roll: 52.11% - 3 injury rolls: 1.03%
Double Hand chance for at least 1 injury roll: 65.97% - 2 injury rolls: 17.36%

Attacker: 3WS, 5STR, 4T, 2A, 5+ AS
Defender: 3WS, 5STR, 5T, 2A, 3+ AS, Resilient
1h chance for at least 1 injury roll: 15.97% - 2 injury rolls: 0.69%
Dual wield chance for at least 1 injury roll: 22.97% - 3 injury rolls: 0.06%
Double Hand chance for at least 1 injury roll: 47.84% - 2 injury rolls: 7.72%

Model 1: 1h with shield, WS3, STR3, T3, A2... shield gives 5+ AS
Model 2: Dual wield, WS3, STR3, T3, A2... No AS
Model 1 Attacking Model 2 chance to injure: 43.75%
Model 2 attacking Model 1 chance to injure: 40.20%

So, it looks like double handed is actually a higher percentage to injure in just about all cases with -1Str to offhand for dual wielding. The weapon bonuses for 1h weapons and strike last on double hand I guess would balance them out.

I was wrong, double hand doesn't need a buff, it IS useful. Sorry for doubting you cianty.

I didn't calculate in any weapon bonuses for 1h weapons above so it's hard to tell how much those affect usefulness. It looks like dual wield is mid-range for the most part in terms of chance to injure... but dual wield vs shield, shield has a slight edge (not including 1h weapon bonuses). I'd say this looks fairly balanced. Shields can save your ass (and pretty well) at the cost of some chance to injure. Dual Wield is mid-range and can injure fairly well and gets 2 weapon bonuses, and a chance at 1 extra hit/wound/injury. Dual wield has the highest base chance of injuring, but this comes at the cost of always striking last and thus needing to survive until you can attack. Three different options, all viable imo.

There is one other thing... Double handed weapons have the advantage of injuring more often at the expense of striking last. However, there is a skill (Strongman) that allows you to negate this disadvantage (making double hand incredibly powerful). I think we should add in the skill for negating the -1 str to offhands, and something (possibly shield bash or shield master) for shields so that all 3 options have an associated skill that removes some of the disadvantage. This should keep all of them on a fairly level playing field, even after adding in some skills.

Svenn wrote:

I was wrong, double hand doesn't need a buff, it IS useful. Sorry for doubting you cianty.

I will forgive you this one time.

Interesting points to note:
As the to-hit roll increases, the usefulness of dual wield increases and the effectiveness of double hand decreases.
As the wound roll gets under 4+ dual wield increases in effectiveness and double hand decreases.
Increases in attacks benefits double handed the most.

There is a skill that removes the -1 str penalty in your offhand. Its called Mighty Blow. Making a skill that increases the str of one attack by 1 isn't going to be all that useful (I wouldn't get it ). All players will elect Mighty Blow first.

PS. Double Handed + Strongman = Halberd + Mighty Blow. The only difference here is that mighty blow is more versatile and allows you to use different weapons effectively.

I have a spreadsheet that calculates alot of things. Pretty much a table of all possibilities of "need X to hit, Y to wound, and have Z attacks". Typically speaking, double handers are better than dual wield when 2 conditions are met:

1) You have at least 2 attacks on profile
2) You need 4+ to wound (which would be 2+ with double hander).

If either of those aren't the case (Standard issue art of silent death+mighty blow+fighting claws skaven), then double handers (all 1h weapons for that matter) are a bad choice.

You know what you should be doing tho Svenn is considering doing the math on units that never dual wield. Animals.

Take hero/henchmen vs hero/henchmen comparisons like you have.
Now compare those same guys against a ghoul, dire wolf, zombie, war hound, chaos hound, giant rat, rat ogre, nurgling, plague bearer, squig, possessed, CoC brute, etc. None of them are affected by dual wield nerf. So they are in effect "more powerful" since everything else in the game is suddenly "less powerful".

Heres an example. Take a reikland warrior with 2 clubs vs a ghoul. Here are the current rules, proposal 1, proposal 2, and my proposal.


Current rules:
Standard warrior model A (3ws, 3s, 3t, 1a - club+club) vs ghoul B:
A - (3+ tohit, 5+ towound)x2: 40% chance to roll 1 or more serious injuries.
B - (4+ tohit, 4+ towound)x2: 43% chance to roll 1 or more serious injuries.

Standard warrior model A (3ws, 3s, 3t, 1a - club+shield) vs ghoul B:
A - (3+ tohit, 5+ towound): 22% chance to roll serious injury.
B - (4+ tohit, 4+ towound, 6+ save)x2: 37% chance to roll 1 or more serious injuries.

New Rules #1 (-1 str offhand, +2 AS from shields)
Standard warrior model A (3ws, 3s, 3t, 1a - club+club) vs ghoul B:
A - (3+ tohit, 5+ towound), (3+ tohit, 6+ towound): 30% chance to roll 1 or more serious injuries.
B - (4+ tohit, 4+ towound)x2: 43% chance to roll 1 or more serious injuries.

Standard warrior model A (3ws, 3s, 3t, 1a - club+shield) vs ghoul B:
A - (3+ tohit, 5+ towound): 22% chance to roll serious injury.
B - (4+ tohit, 4+ towound, 5+ save)x2: 30% chance to roll 1 or more serious injuries.

New Rules #2 (-1 tohit offhand, +2 AS from shields)
Standard warrior model A (3ws, 3s, 3t, 1a - club+club) vs ghoul B:
A - (3+ tohit, 5+ towound), (4+ tohit, 5+ towound): 35% chance to roll 1 or more serious injuries.
B - (4+ tohit, 4+ towound)x2: 43% chance to roll 1 or more serious injuries.

Standard warrior model A (3ws, 3s, 3t, 1a - club+shield) vs ghoul B:
A - (3+ tohit, 5+ towound): 22% chance to roll serious injury.
B - (4+ tohit, 4+ towound, 5+ save)x2: 30% chance to roll 1 or more serious injuries.

My proposed Rules (-1 tohit against shield, +1 AS from shields)
Standard warrior model A (3ws, 3s, 3t, 1a - club+club) vs ghoul B:
A - (3+ tohit, 5+ towound)x2: 40% chance to roll 1 or more serious injuries.
B - (4+ tohit, 4+ towound)x2: 43% chance to roll 1 or more serious injuries.

Standard warrior model A (3ws, 3s, 3t, 1a - club+shield) vs ghoul B:
A - (3+ tohit, 5+ towound): 22% chance to roll serious injury.
B - (5+ tohit, 4+ towound, 6+ save)x2: 26% chance to roll 1 or more serious injuries.

In current rules, Taking a shield is pointless obviously. As it will ensure your inevitable demise. If its -1 str on offhand you have pretty much made shields on par with dual wielding, which means in either case you ensured your inevitable demise. If you take the -1 to hit on offhand you are more or less doing the same. But if you take my proposal, -1 tohit against enemies using a shield, you greatly reduce both your chance and the enemies chance to roll a serious injury. Perfect for soaking up charges or getting more out of your wounds.

Just an example, feel free to run the numbers on other things. Note I'm not really counting crits atm, which will offset things a bit.

EDIT: Redid the math because i thought ghouls had 3 WS when they have 2. Even more apparent now how 2 very closely matched units suddenly just became extremely one sided.

My Official Hat is off and this is a gamer speaking.

Where is this going? I am absolutely lost with all this data now.


The more things that require calculation will not work very well when creating rules. The whole "KISS" principle should be looked at.

I am not against people trying new things for Mordheim but I can't figure out which way people are thinking this whole process should work.

Keep up the passion for the game and I am not trying to stop this by any means but I guess I am confused.

Well, first of all, a ghoul has WS2... so the warrior would need a 3+ to hit him, not a 4+. That bumps up the player percentages a bunch.

Second, animals and a lot of non-weapon users can't gain experience. That means they might seem powerful at the start but as everyone levels up they become less and less useful. Plus ghouls are henchman so their max stats are WS3, S4, T5, A3... and they get no skills.

Third, since they aren't using weapons they don't get parry, concussion, etc. They also can't get armor saves. That's not accounted for anywhere in your numbers. It makes sense in that case for ghouls and other non-weapon users to have a better chance of injuring by default, because other models will come at them with armor saves, parries, and other ways of negating their attacks.

EDIT: Also, with no weapons that means they don't get ranged attacks. They can get pelted before they ever make it to a target... They better be good at something.

Also, the issue isn't that shields are worthless with the regular rules (well, that's part of the issue) but that dual wield is too powerful. If you just bring up shields then dual wield is still very powerful in general. It will have around the same or greater chance to injure in most cases as 2h weapons do, but without the strike last penalty. With the -1Str and 5+ save to shields you increase the usefulness of shields to bring them up to par and you decrease the effectiveness of dual wielding slightly to drop that in line with the other 2.

Da Bank wrote:

My Official Hat is off and this is a gamer speaking.

Where is this going? I am absolutely lost with all this data now.


The more things that require calculation will not work very well when creating rules. The whole "KISS" principle should be looked at.

I am not against people trying new things for Mordheim but I can't figure out which way people are thinking this whole process should work.

Keep up the passion for the game and I am not trying to stop this by any means but I guess I am confused.

Well, I'm trying to find the most simple changes possible to make dual wield, weap/shield, and 2h all in line with each other. Not the same or perfectly balanced, mind you, but to the point where each is useful in it's own way. Right now, There are only a few things I'd advocate as changes, and those are what most people seem to have agreed on:
-1 Str to off-hand attacks (drops dual wield in power some to be in line with everything else)
5+ AS in CC for shields (gives a much needed bump to shields to bring them up with the other 2)
10/25gc light/heavy armor (it's way too expensive now... heavy armor costs more than most full models?)

With these changes... Double Handed weapons are the best for injuring people, so long as they can survive long enough. Dual wield is the second best at injuring people, not too far behind double hand now (isntead of ahead in most ways) but doesn't suffer from strike last so it has a better chance of surviving. Dual Wielders also get weapon bonuses whereas double handed only gets the +2 str (which is tied into the chance at injuring people already). Weapon and shield combo is the weakest in terms of injuring people, but survives longer (and thus has more chances to injure people). It also gets 1 weapon bonus.

I am not reading all these calculations... don't have time or nerves for that. They don't seem that reliable anyways.

I am waiting to see what people come up with in the end.

Svenn

Ok.

Da Bank wrote:

Svenn

Ok.

lol. Do you have any thoughts on -1Str to offhand and 5+ AS in CC for shields since those 2 changes seem to be pretty well agreed upon now? Same question for you cianty...

My thoughts are, I have a few on the matter:

1) -1 WS or -1 S either one to offhand that must be stated before HTH begins. My group used the -1WS.
2) Weapon and Shield 5+ Save just like Warhammer Fantasy. My group used this rule also.
3) Or Heroes can dual wield but henchmen can not unless they get an Attack Characteristic Increase.

Sven, I have been advocating the Warhammer shield rules for Mordheim for some time now, even put it in the BTB appendix.

I don't like -1 for off-hand because it doesn't seem so plausible to me... but what do I know? I feel -1 WS is more logical.

cianty wrote:

Sven, I have been advocating the Warhammer shield rules for Mordheim for some time now, even put it in the BTB appendix.

I don't like -1 for off-hand because it doesn't seem so plausible to me... but what do I know? I feel -1 WS is more logical.

Hmm, -1 WS doesn't really affect the To Hit roll that much... in a lot of cases it might not have any effect at all. It does mean that they are easier to hit in some cases though.

I kinda like the -1S. It makes sense to me. My right arm is stronger than my left arm and I'm ambidextrous in a lot of things.

Svenn wrote:

Hmm, -1 WS doesn't really affect the To Hit roll that much... in a lot of cases it might not have any effect at all. It does mean that they are easier to hit in some cases though.

Yeah, it's definately not comparable to -1S on a power level. Rather -1 to hit instead.

Yes, -1 to Hit.

in real life ive done medieval fighting and in a small skirmish or one on one fighting with two weapons is by far more deadlier then using shields

the shield comes into its own when fighting in ranks in large numbers

why should people complain about hitting and wounding more with 2 weapons
hello--------- two weapons. more are going through and more are going to wound.

the problem is that the shield and great weapon options are just to expensive or impractical


i say if you wanna nerf the offhand attack by: -1str / -1ws / -1 to hit
that may be fine
but you have to address the other problem

use the fantasy rules:
-greatweapons can strike first if you charge (as per normal weapons)then after the first round they strike last
----this also addresses the spear (a good weapon to offset this)

-shields and hand weapon give an additional armour save in combat

thats a simple fix thats already in the fantasy rules that may have been updated for a newer addition of mordheim but games workshop still refuses to support speacialist games. unfortunatly for them because this is the game that got me in to their store to buy 2 whole armies within a year later
(bad bad bad marketing idea gw you have to build the addiction slowly
before you set your hooks in for the big money)


but you have to remember
-two weapons =easier hits / wounds
-better armour saves work on ALL hits agaisnt you
----------------just like in real life

has anyone ever thought about shield bashing
in real life its very affective ive had it done to me on numerous accausions
no speacial skill is needed and is simple to do but very affective against a none shield bearer


also remember that in all games by gw "the more dice you roll the better it is"