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Old September 15th, 2020, 11:49 PM
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The_X_Marker The_X_Marker is offline
...lest we all lose that 3rd turn mystery
 
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Re: The Book of Syvarris

Quote:
Originally Posted by boromir96 View Post
In an unrestricted format I can’t ever see a reason I would take him over Krav except for figure limit, and then I’d probably try to find an extra 20 points for Skahen.
If I really wanted to play elf archers, I might try to fit 2x Aurbiens in my list instead. Especially if it's going to replace Syv and Theracus, the same 140 points in AAs has a lot more potential.

It's actually a really interesting comparison between Syv a squad of AAs.

Looking at the probability table here, you can expect an average of 4 attacks a round from the AAs. They'll be throwing 4 sets of 2 dice on average while Syv throws 2 sets of 3 dice.

They have 2 less range, but move an average of 1.25 more spaces.

Syv has 4 life compared to their total of 3, and the same defense. Aubriens having 1 life means that they stand zero chance of surviving a wound but it also means that they are not damaged by extra wounds. If Krug rolls 6 skulls, you take 1 damage. For Syv, if Krug rolls 6 skulls and Syv has height and manages to roll 3 shields, he still takes 3 wounds. Then maybe dies to double attack.

What life also means is that Syv never loses combat effectiveness until he dies. If one of your last 3 AAs dies, that drastically cuts down the output of the unit from an average of 4 attacks to an average of 2.667 attacks, which throws 5.333 dice in total.

Heroes are less susceptible to auto kill abilities, while squads can spread out to mitigate them.

Outside of a vacuum comparison, AA's also have more synergies.

Frenzy is a big deal when it's a big deal. Throwing a lot of dice at once is going to hurt things, but throwing a decent amount of dice a lot of times will just do more work. It's just playing probabilities. If my opponent rolls defense dice more often, it gives more opportunity for them to whiff. If I roll attack dice more often, it gives me more opportunities to roll skulls.

My initial hypothesis before I started writing was that AAs will be better against squads while Syv will be better against heroes, but the 1 extra attack that Syv has really doesn't make a significant difference if you roll it half as much as the AAs roll. Statistically, Syv is better against heroes, but realistically, rolling more dice just gives more chances to deal damage. However, if the Frenzy dice are cold, Syv is the clear winner.

I'm sure someone can really run the numbers on every possible instance of dice and then they'll tell me that I'm wrong. It appears that Mathguy's old match up calculator is broken, or I would make an attempt at it. I know for a fact that playing 100 or 1000 games would statistically show Syv is better at taking out high defense, higher life heroes, My napkin math shows 5 DEF and 3 life, or 4 DEF and 5 life to be the points where he's going to work better than them, but even then, he doesn't have that potential for high variance destruction in an individual game like they do.

Syvarris was incredibly strong in his time, but he is old and the new kids have better toys. I wouldn't be surprised to see that an army with him wins, especially as start zones continue to decrease in tournaments, but 9 times out of 10, I wouldn't think that he is the reason it won. He can still have his moments, he just needs the right environment for them, and Veggie really had the right environment.

Be polite: Don't put politics or religion in your signature!

Last edited by The_X_Marker; September 16th, 2020 at 01:25 PM.
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