The cursed rerolls

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Andros123
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The cursed rerolls

#1 Post by Andros123 »

Hi guys.

Not sure, if this is the right place in the forum to put this, but I couldn't come up with a better one, so here we go.

Recently I've read a lot of rage on the internet against high elves and some specific stuff in our books. Some people clearly think HE (and actually both DE and WE) are an over powered army. Now while our army book is very solid, I don't consider HE better then most other races. For a few weeks ago I read a debate about all elves having ASF and how terrible it is. A lot of people could agree on the "brokennes" of elves being able to reroll to hit. If we leave DE and WE out of it for now and only focus on HE, I think these people overreact by a miles. The only thing with s5 and more that can reroll to hit in our army (besides characters) are dragon princes and that is only on the charge. Other then that it is archers, spearmen, phoenix guards and so on. 20 PG hitting 4's: That equals 5 more attacks with ASF compared to without. 5 more s4 attacks is hardly game breaking. The difference only gets smaller if they are hitting 3´s.
So why do people hate that rule so much? Personally I think it is something to do with the unfairness people just feel, when you can pick up your crappy dice rolls and roll them again. Sure I can understand my opponents frustration, when my prince fail all of his 4 attacks and hit with all on the reroll. However I find it a bit frustrating, that so many people fail to see the big picture. ASF with an army base on s3 or s4 is not a big deal.

And it is not only with the ASF, but also the Book of Hoeth gets a lot of hate. Even dwarfs and their ability to reroll any bad result on their warmachines are widely considered broken.
Is it something physiological about those rerolls that make people perceive it as unfair?
What do you guys think?
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RE.Lee
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Re: The cursed rerolls

#2 Post by RE.Lee »

Reliability is the single best trait a unit in Warhammer can have. Whether its reliablity to kill stuff or to stay in place, being able to count on your guys is very important. The re-rolls are huge for cavalry, ridding them of the rubber lance syndrome (this is even more important with all the mounted characters running about). They also affect Phoenix Guards - the single most annoying unit in the game for many of my opponents, simply because of their reliablity: they kill stuff at a steady pace and save exactly 50% of wounds caused, no matter how powerful the enemy attacks are. This is hugely frustrating for a lot of people ;)

Dwarf laser-guided artillery is hated for the exact same reason.

Also, people just hate High Elves in general ;)
cheers, Lee

Elven Field Surgeon, Department of Intensive Care, Resuscitation and Necromancy
Elkadar
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Re: The cursed rerolls

#3 Post by Elkadar »

Haters will hate.

ASF is not broken. It comes with price of expensive units (lower number of troops we can bring compared to most opponents), lack of high strength attacks (wounding is not as reliable as hitting) and fragility (not all models make it to close combat).

The best argument is always bringing up raw numbers. You may always use combat calculator such as: http://calculator.singlebuttonjoystick.com
put two similar units against each other with about the same point value and compere final average wounds inflicted and combat resolution.

Book of Hoeth is also tricky. It saved me as many times as it brought doom on my army, by causing unnecessary miscast or casting failure (rerolled 2 to get higher casting value and make it more difficult to dispel and rolled 1 :) )
SpellArcher
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Re: The cursed rerolls

#4 Post by SpellArcher »

Yeah, players dislike elves in general and hate High Elves in particular.

Re-rolls are great. But so are cannon, army-wide ITP, double scroll etc. etc.. HE cavalry aren't that dangerous IMHO, it's the characters and maybe the PG (ASF rocks vs MoNurgle for example). Though there is also the defensive advantage of negating enemy ASF.

HE's also suffer from perception of items like World Dragon breaking Warhammer. So re-rolls get lumped in with that as 'evidence' that HE's are bent overall.
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Prince of Spires
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Re: The cursed rerolls

#5 Post by Prince of Spires »

I think RE.Lee is spot on. Reliability in WH is a big thing. So much so that tournament players often seem to forgo a more powerful but more unreliable list in favor of a consistently performing lists. In the same way, while WH is a dice game, someone who can avoid having to use dice as much as possible will often come out on top because you're less likely to run into freaky results.

ASF rerolls play into this. When I shove my PG forward I know they will hit stuff. They may not wound it, but they will always get their hits. In my anecdotal experience, I'm more likely to get 15 hits with 15 PG then I am of getting 7 (when needing 3's). The same goes for my prince. The rerolls saved my skin multiple times after first failing to hit with all attacks on to roll well for the reroll.

And if you know the outcome you are one step ahead in the game.

The other thing is that it comes down to human psychology. Humans are wired to remember the freaky outliers. You remember the day with the freak snow storm, the $50 bill you found, the game you only rolled 4 or lower for winds of magic or where your opponents artillery kept misfiring all game, the one time you picked up the girl in a bar (ok, that last one is silly...).

So, your opponent will remember that you managed to hit with all your attacks from different units several times in the game. What he will forget is that those hits wounded slightly below average and that he rolled nice and average for his 2+ armour save meaning those 15 hits managed exactly 1 wound.

I know my brain works that way. And almost everybody else's brain works like that too. Just think back to one of your previous games and recall what moments you remember. It's the freaky outliers. And rerolls increase your chance of getting a freaky outlier. Hence, that is what people remember.

Rod
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Cold Phoenix
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Re: The cursed rerolls

#6 Post by Cold Phoenix »

The reliablility is important. I usually find that for every 3 games or so, I have one round where ASF saved me from a truely horrible initial set of to-hit rolls. I think that this is disappointing for most opponents because they looked at the dice and thought they were going to do much better in that round of combat then anticipated. They tend to be disappointed when I reroll the dice and turn a 3/16 hits into a 9/16 or 10/16 hits. The other problem people have with it is when everything (or near as makes no difference) hits after the rerolls.

The Book of Hoeth catches flack because a) it's really good and b) each time it turns a failed cast/dispel into a successful cast/dispel, it can have a big impact on the game.

In either case, I don't think non-High Elf players really adjust their expectations to compensate for the Book or ASF. They just remember the "better then average results" and attribute it to ASF and the Book.
Last edited by Cold Phoenix on Fri Mar 13, 2015 7:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
Viale
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Re: The cursed rerolls

#7 Post by Viale »

I usually bring up my crappy armour save and toughness when people start moaning about rerolls, it tends to diffuse some of the perceived unfairness. A lot of people actually take a little pity on me when they learn my mighty elven prince runs around with toughness 3. When people start about how ASF is a bad representation of elven quickness/finesse I point at how Initiative and weapon skill as stats have been devalued to something almost useless, so ASF have been introduced to imitate that.

I still occasionally reroll myself into losing my mage when using the Book and those instances have somewhat mitigated the perceived unfairness of the item. In my group we have a Vampire Counts player and a Chaos Dwarf player and the Chalice overshadows any vocal criticism of the Book, due to being so unfun to play against. Similarly we tend to agree that the closest item, to the Book, in the other books is probably the Black Periapt. It is priced the same(meaning lord only), grants extra dice/reliability, and takes a little luck to make work. Ie. you can have all the rerolls in the world but that doesn't help you when you roll a total of 3 powerdice, in that sense I feel Black Periapt potentially adds more reliability since it can mitigate poor powerdice rolls. On the other hand, Black Periapt needs your opponent fluffing his magic phase, roll poor powerdice, 6-dicing something or being a dwarf. Mechanicswise I find them rather similar.
SpellArcher
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Re: The cursed rerolls

#8 Post by SpellArcher »

I've found the Black Periapt a pain to play against but you will get a window where it doesn't function.
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