Luck

When at the top of their game, elitists take great pleasure at trumpeting their own prowess and claiming that luck has nothing to do with winning. When on the down-and-out, they will often (not so) humbly admit to being victims of the cruel dice gods. While it’s no coincidence that players stratify in mostly predictable patterns when subjected to repeated sorting (e.g., tournament rounds), it takes but a few ounces of common sense to recognize that luck also plays an important role in the 41^st millennium.

Good strategy is based on good tactics. Good tactics require good rules knowledge. And practical application of rules knowledge needs an understanding of probabilities. Dedicating units to block an enemy’s retreat from assault is only a good idea if you stand a reasonably good chance of winning that assault, and if the enemy has a good chance of falling back as a result. Figuring out the right application of force likely to bring about a desired outcome is a critical part of 40k. Remember those 3rd grade lessons on fractions, boys and girls:! So-called “mathhammer” forms the hard core of Warhammer tactics.

Rudimentary statistical theory demonstrates that increasing sample size is a surefire way to ensure that actual outcomes approach predicted outcomes (based on probability). Those that have taken introductory statistics courses will recognize this as the basis of the chi-square test. Practically speaking, you’re much more likely to get all hits when rolling 3 dice than when rolling 30. Over the course of a game we roll hundreds of dice which will probably conform to our expectations when taken as a whole, however when we recognize that these many roll are split up into a large number of different types of rolls we begin to see how individual sample sizes are actually fairly small. Say you roll 180 dice over the course of you game but only 12 of them were for leadership tests. Perhaps you rolled exactly 30 6’s, which is expected, but 10 of them were rolled for leadership tests. Looking at the game as a whole one might conclude you were neither lucky nor unlucky, however you clearly got the wrong end of the leprechaun.

Not only is luck intertwined with tactics, but good strategy must also take chance into consideration. Good strategies are adaptable and are not overly reliant on things going according to plan—if your hopes of victory can be dashed by a single bad roll then your overall strategy wasn’t sound to begin with. Understanding probabilities involves the acknowledgement that improbable events can and will, in fact, happen. Part of being a successful strategist is planning for when things don’t go according to plan.

The above sentiment is partially expressed in a thread by Deadshane posted a few months ago on Dakka Dakka. The initial claim, that luck is never (ever!) to blame for outcomes, is patently false by virtue of its absolutism. While it is true that players will often scapegoat luck when their own inadequacies are to blame, to completely minimize the effects of chance on winning and losing is a curious notion. More curious is that he actually attempts to defend this assertion before ultimately caving to mounting criticism, backpedaling just far enough to maintain that luck is rarely to blame, but is sometimes a factor.

Strangest of all is the support he receives from one member in particular (Nurglitch):

If hypothetical player X fails every single roll in game Y then he failed as a player because he did not adjust his strategy to cope with the worst possible luck. There’s more to 40k than rolling dice.

Even when presented with a hypothetical situation where Player A makes every roll and player B fails every roll he maintains that a “good” player would be able to overcome the disadvantage through skill/tactics/force of will/whatever. I don’t like to use this space to badmouth people, but it’s these kinds of posters who drag down the quality of online discussion. He seems intelligent enough, but despite his verbosity (read the thread to get a taste) he seems utterly incapable of forming a singular thought, much less a coherent argument. Not that it stops him from posting. Yay internets.

(Coming next:  Part V – The Cheater Within)