Worst luck with Dagger?

How to beat those cowardly High Elves?

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Enkiel
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Worst luck with Dagger?

Post by Enkiel »

last weekend, i tried in a competitive environment for the first time the sacrificial dagger. I figured since i have Life, and since my Mage takes hits on 1-3 in a unit of witches, the least she could do is get her revenge and kill a few when magic starts.

In some games, i've used it 3-4 times, and rarely i had to kill more than 2 to get a spell off...

last weekend on another hand.

I want to cast regrowth. I have throne of vines (so d6+1 models). I really want to cast it and failed to meet my requirement (rolled 5 with 3 dice) so i started sacrifiying...

1st, rolled a 1.... doh.... ok, i dont want to loose concentration yet, lets kill another
2nd, rolled a 3.... almost there, let's kill another, its D6+1 after all....
3rd, rolled a 1 again.... well, damnit. The best i can do now is break even....
4th, rolled a 2... seriously? By then, my chance to even the score on that casting is less than stellar...
5th, rolled a 5!!!! YaY, finally, i can add a dice.

rolled.... a 2. failed to cast, lose concentration, and 5 witches in the process. All i could do is laught, it was one of the worst luck i've had with sac dagger so far....

how about you guys?
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Daeron
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Re: Worst luck with Dagger?

Post by Daeron »

Can't speak from personal experience, but I can give you the math on it. In statitistics there's something called the empirical rule. It shows that only outcomes outside the mean + (or minus) 3 standard deviations become "unlikely", being: if you play one game per week and use it once in every magic phase, it will happen roughly once a year.
The sac dagger isn't a normal distribution, but a geometric distribution. I'm not entirely sure how well the theory can be applied to that, but assuming the 99.7% is still valid, then the geometric distribution allows us to test that:
Chance to get a success after 5 dice: 96.875%
Chance to get a success after 8 dice: 99.6094%
Chance to get a success after 9 dice: 99.8047%

So, if you use the sac dagger frequently, you may end up killing around 8 models for it, once a year. The chance of needing to kill 5 models for it looks slim (96%-97%!) but... it's once every 32 times on average. If you would use it roughly 4 times in a game, then you would have this once every 8 games on average. If you use it more often, then you might bump into this more often.

And... suddenly.. that 50% chance doesn't sound so swell ... :D
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Ichiyo1821
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Re: Worst luck with Dagger?

Post by Ichiyo1821 »

You put your Supreme Sorceressnin Witches???????
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New AB
W/D/L
32/1/0

9th Age
W/D/L

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Enkiel
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Re: Worst luck with Dagger?

Post by Enkiel »

Ichiyo1821 wrote:You put your Supreme Sorceressnin Witches???????

she got balls!

yeah, its the only bunker i have beside the executionner... and witches are usually closer to centerfield than the executionner.
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Ichiyo1821
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Re: Worst luck with Dagger?

Post by Ichiyo1821 »

Big Cojones my man hahaha.
8th Edition

W/D/L
86/1/5

New AB
W/D/L
32/1/0

9th Age
W/D/L

Vae Victis
Character kill count -182

"To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill."

Armies
Dark Elves
Dark Eldar
Death Korps of Kreig
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Enkiel
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Re: Worst luck with Dagger?

Post by Enkiel »

life is a must have in that situation.

last saturday, on my 2nd game, i had 14 hits (!!!) by turn 3 on her. She would have died if it wasn't for life's attribute.
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Thraundil
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Re: Worst luck with Dagger?

Post by Thraundil »

Gutsy! And also, super poor luck :) but thats bound to happen once in a while. It just seems to happen WAY more often when its a crucial LD test, or a "dispel-the-other-guys-unit-wiper-spell", and then you of course get those extra, super unlikely, two wounds on his chaff ;)

The witch elf wizard bunker, however, is solid. I've considered a similar thing for when I run a life wizard. Give her ring of hotek, stick her in WE. Put a death hag in there too with cauldron, maybe even BSB (though risky, shes enough of a target already). Deploy 6 wide. Command in front + cauldron taking 3 spaces. Supreme sorc must be in 2nd rank, cant be sniped by suicide charges. The block can go into melee easy peasy. Entire unit has 5++, and 2++ vs magic. And you regrowth stuff + regenerate the wounds the witches inflict on your sorc easily enough. All you "kinda" waste is the signature regen rule, as the cauldron already does that with its unitwide ward save. But its solid enough :)
Name: Ladry (female)
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Equipment: Staff, longsword, dagger, 20 gold, insignia ring.
Skills: Power of Aqshy (2), defensive figthing
WS4, S2, T3, D4, I6.
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