Ophelia, spirits and Right Between the Eyes...?

[dgraz]

You can only have 3 Young Lacroix when she is LEADING the crew. When she is hired with Somer she can only take one. They can only be used in bulk in an Ophelia lead crew.

I know. But Dumbluck is tossing around the idea of getting rid of that rule (did you notice the mock army list at the top of the page?).

Why do people think I'm an idiot in this thread?

[Omenbringer]

Why do people think I'm an idiot in this thread?

This is becoming more and more common on here isn't it (not the thought that you are an idiot but that everyone is)?

Probably because it is just so much easier to assume that everyone else on the Web is an idiot besides you (Also safe to assume that he didn't read the entire thread so missed the important hypothetical part).

[Cornelious1424]

If anyone should know about Young LaCroix and Mosquitos, it's Dgraz. I happen to be the fine gentlemen that puts them to good use against him, just so he can come here and complain about how OP they are =P.

Seriously though, 3 potential casts of Right Between the Eyes can ruin your day. I don't mind burning a soul stone or two if it means I can put down/seriously harm an important enemy model...with 6ss worth of models (I guess it's 8 if I burn 2 soul stones, but still). They are insig so they really serve no purpose other than damage dealing. It really should have added to the spell even though they are still Gunfighter, at least enemy models can get cover.

Omen...if only that list were a reality =D!

[dgraz]

Seriously though, 3 potential casts of Right Between the Eyes can ruin your day.

Even two casts is an almost guaranteed 10 damage to something.

Yep, ol' Corny has been banging away at me with Gremlins for what? two years now. All the way back when I was beating him up with Perdita and when I was first trying out Marcus ......almost gave up on Marcus when he turned that nice beastmaster into a mosquito............how painful that was. Now I dread when he decides to pull the gremlins out. Yes, I think I've learned all about them.....the hard way.

[Csonti]

Even two casts is an almost guaranteed 10 damage to something.

People like to think that flipping with :+fate (let's assume the Youngling won the casting duel by 1-5 points so he gets a too) is an almost guaranteed maximum damage. Considering a full deck, it's less than 50% and you have some additional 5+% for getting the RJ. So all in all it's just 55% - not much better than a coin flip which is far from almost guaranteed maximum damage. Doing it two times in a row is something like 30%. So no, it's not at all a guaranteed 10 damage if you don't have the luxury to burn 11+ cards from your hand.

_{Disclaimer: I don't think that dgraz is an idiot.}

[dgraz]

_{Disclaimer: I don't think that dgraz is an idiot.}

YES YOU DO!!! ADMIT IT!! YOU'RE ALL AGAINST ME!!! IT'S A CONSPIRACY I SAY!! A CONSPIRACY!!

(I'm not paranoid. There really is a secret society out to get me.)

Hah, sorry, I had to. Seriously. I do agree with your assessment of the luck value.....which is partly why I said almost guaranteed. If one of those flips pops up severe, I'll gladly cheat in the other.

It also depends on the player, if I play semi-defensively to start, I probably won't need to flip high cards for defense and I'd gladly hoard my high cards to ensure that I take out the biggest threat to me.

Of course there will be times that it doesn't work out, no maneuver is fool-proof, but it has a better than average chance of working. That's why I'm not advocating a huge change to it....all I'm asking for is the . And several people that have chimed in on this thread (actual gremlin players) have agreed that it should have it.

(It's called the US government.)

[Omenbringer]

People like to think that flipping with :+fate (let's assume the Youngling won the casting duel by 1-5 points so he gets a too) is an almost guaranteed maximum damage. Considering a full deck, it's less than 50% and you have some additional 5+% for getting the RJ. So all in all it's just 55% - not much better than a coin flip which is far from almost guaranteed maximum damage. Doing it two times in a row is something like 30%. So no, it's not at all a guaranteed 10 damage if you don't have the luxury to burn 11+ cards from your hand.

You hint at the real power to this, it pretty much guaranties the ability to cheat even if barely successful (tied with Hard to Wound 1 still allows you to cheat damage since it's a nuetral flip).

Also would you mind sharing the math used above (not being an ass, I am actually really interested in it an academic sense).

[Csonti]

You hint at the real power to this, it pretty much guaranties the ability to cheat even if barely successful (tied with Hard to Wound 1 still allows you to cheat damage since it's a nuetral flip).

I was aware of this but the statement was not about being cheatable or not.

Also would you mind sharing the math used above (not being an ass, I am actually really interested in it an academic sense).

It's a pretty complicated because BJ really messes things up and makes the exact calculation a bit longer. Let's say we don't mess with the jokers for the sake of simplicity. Then you have 52 cards from which you have 12 favourable (4x11, 4x12 and 4x13). You get severe if any one of the cards are 11+ from the flipped three. It is much easier to calculate the probability of the case when you fail to accomplish this and deduct the % from 1 to get the chance you are looking for.

For the first flip you have 40 low cards in the pack of 52 cards. -> 40/52

You flip some 10- so you contine with 39 low cards from 51 cards -> 39/51

Again a 10- so 38 out of 50 left -> 38/50

So to have severe damage from :+fate is: 1-((40/52)*(39/51)*(38/50))=55%

If it's not enough you can try our blogpost about this topic. Small problem is that it is in Hungarian.

[Omenbringer]

Interesting, though the calculation doesn't take into account the 6-7 control cards (depending if Ophelia is the master or Some'r is) you will have in your hand or the casting card that will also influence the result (assuming fresh deck and fresh hands).

This is an important distinction since it means that you'll have to extrapolate from a 47-46 (once again depending on Master but 6-7 control cards that aren't 11+) card deck vice 54 (if we include the Jokers). Including the card flipped for the actual casting (assuming only success without effecting the possibility of severe, card value between 8-10) will mean that the first card flipped for damage is drawing from a pool of 47-46 cards vice 54.

Assuming Ophelia is the Master (and you succeeded without reducing the chance to draw a severe damage card) it should look like this:

Tied for success no Hard to Wound ( = 2 cards)

(33/46)*(32/45)= 51% of not drawing a severe damage card

Success of 1-5 no Hard to Wound ( :+fate= three cards)

(33/46)*(32/45)*(31/44)= 36% of not drawing a severe damage card

(remember the calculations were based on drawing cards that wouldn't result in severe damage, card values 11+)

This assumes that you didn't draw at least one 11+ card into the control hand at the start, to cheat in for damage later (which there is only a 12.7% chance of happening). It also doesn't take into account supplemental turns where you could potentially dump control cards from your hand to reduce the deck further or activation of other models using actions that deplete the deck further

What I am getting at with all this is that, the above calculation assumes only a first turn, first activation scenario which isn't really accurate at all. In play you are going to either be able to cheat that severe damage in or count on flipping it a lot more often than not.

---------- Post added at 04:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:59 PM ----------

If it's not enough you can try our blogpost about this topic. Small problem is that it is in Hungarian.

And you are right it is to bad that it is in Hungarian.

Edited May 22, 2012 by Omenbringer

[Murphy'sLawyer]

Hmmmm...Maybe I haven't been abusing it enough then. :-P

I just haven't had my Youngins really change the game for me like that, unlike every other LaCroix in Ophelia's house.*devil*

And Degraz i never said you were.... Well anything. I just said in my experience the Youngin's use of RBtE looks amazing at first glance. That's becuase i don't waste/use ss on them unless it is a spirit that my other Boys can't handle. My opponent's rough Ophelia something fierce if i leave her short on ss. Obviously your freind plays differently than I do.

That's all i said brother. Nothing but respect here.

[Csonti]

What I am getting at with all this is that, the above calculation assumes only a first turn, first activation scenario which isn't really accurate at all. In play you are going to either be able to cheat that severe damage in or count on flipping it a lot more often than not.

Yeah, I can see your point. Unfortunately (or rather fortunately) the card system of Malifaux is so complex that it's impossible to predict odds without knowing the exact distribution of cards in a fixed situation. So the closest -general - thing you can have is a sterile, laboratory calculation. All others will only fill a small hole in the web of possibilites.

Like in your example where you assumed many things that makes the calculation a very narrow street - like winning the casting with Ca4 and a card of 8-10 (not to mention the ignored effect of the BJ). Anyway indeed there are situations where you have good (2/3 or even better) chances to pull out a severe from 3 cards but there are much more instances when you have to face a worse probability.

All I wanted to note to fellow gamers in my first post that - without cheating - it's not an almost guaranteed success (this is something like 90-95% in my book) to have a damage flip with :+fate and get a severe result - and doing it twice in a row is just pink fantasy. (I experienced the strange interpretation of odds and probabilities in many games. Even in regard of myself before I took a look at the percentages.)

[dgraz]

That's all i said brother. Nothing but respect here.

Sorry if I made you think you were walking on eggshells. I'm not offended. It's mostly my stupid sense of humor that doesn't translate well into print.....I'm overly sarcastic and I often exaggerate for effect. No worries, seriously.

As far as you guys doing the math......numbers make my head hurt so I can't comment on the averages and all that. All I can say is that it seems like its OP when I face it. But in fairness, I am the guy that breaks the laws of probability. I live by 50%/50%/90%....which means if there is a 50/50 chance of me flipping the BJ, 90% of the time I'm going to flip it. I'm the guy that throws 10 d6 and 9 of them will be 1's. If Cornelius reads this he'll back me up. It truly is astounding.

Then again, maybe I just suck. The jury is still out.

[Omenbringer]

But in fairness, I am the guy that breaks the laws of probability. I live by 50%/50%/90%....which means if there is a 50/50 chance of me flipping the BJ, 90% of the time I'm going to flip it. I'm the guy that throws 10 d6 and 9 of them will be 1's.

Now this mad me laught quite a bit.

[Cats Laughing]

Well, I'm particularly talking of SnowStorm vs Ophelia here, and with his spirit, bulletproof 3 and auto-soft cover, range attacks are harder to pull. Ophelia has great ease to pop such a tough 11ss model in 2-3 APs, she is mos def a bigger threat than I anticipated!

This may be a time where you'll want to actually cast December's Touch and put some real armor (as opposed to just Bulletproof) on Snowstorm.

Late response and assuming you're using Snowstorm with Rasputina.

[dgraz]

Now this mad me laught quite a bit.

At least someone can laugh about it. There were times that I seriously considered giving up gaming because of it.

[Keeblerpowell]

Hey this thread turned into something I actually know about.

Probability.

For this situation you would use the Hypergeometric Distribution function.

Forulas found here.

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/HypergeometricDistribution.html

Because your are not replacing the cards you are flipping and you want to know the probabilty of the entire flip producing a severe flip then you need to take into account the previous flips and the flips to come in the "event".

I will work this out and post my findings when I am not at work.

[dgraz]

I just looked at that link..........I think I heard something pop in my head......I need to go lie down.

[Tograth]

Dgraz, I feel your pain. the other day, I flipped the black joker 8 times over 6 turns. I cycled through my deck on two turns, and the black joker came up twice in each of them. During the same game, the highest card i drew during the draw phase all game was an 11. after that it was a 7. after that *everything* else was below a 5. every turn.

[Keeblerpowell]

I came home and forgot my stats material on my deck at work.

Tomorrow is work then a tourney till late kinda far away. I will try to make some time to get the stuff figured out this weekend.

[Omenbringer]

At least someone can laugh about it. There were times that I seriously considered giving up gaming because of it.

We just blame one of our local players for the bad luck. The guy has been the kiss of death for any deck that he has touched that was not his. I now have a few decks that he isn't allowed to ever touch and I actually have a deck that I only use when he is not around just in case him looking or thinking about it can produce the same results.

So far my precautions with that deck have worked well (i.e. I haven't had any wyrd runs of extraodinarily bad luck).

Because your are not replacing the cards you are flipping and you want to know the probabilty of the entire flip producing a severe flip then you need to take into account the previous flips and the flips to come in the "event".

I know I took the control hand draw, casting flip, and non-replacing of the cards into account with my calculations (however math isn't my primary job so am very willing to differ to a professional). Definately appreciate the link though.

[Keeblerpowell]

Did you take the value of the cards in your hand/discard pile into account?

[Cornelious1424]

We just blame one of our local players for the bad luck. The guy has been the kiss of death for any deck that he has touched that was not his. I now have a few decks that he isn't allowed to ever touch and I actually have a deck that I only use when he is not around just in case him looking or thinking about it can produce the same results.

I'm that guy at my LGS, just on the dice side of things. I have taken the liberty of self diagnosis, I call it Dice AIDS!

[Omenbringer]

Did you take the value of the cards in your hand/discard pile into account?

As I posted in my calculations above, only the cards in the control hand were taken into account since the original assumption was for a first turn, first activation draw.

The math definately gets nasty (read as more painful than a combination root canal/ fistulotomy with no analgesics for pain management) as you take into account played cards, late turn activation, subsequent turns and Soul Stone usage.

By the way probably should have put a disclaimer about the fistulotomy huh?