If you want I can keep track of my attacks and see what the averages works out to be.

give me a bit to figure out what data points are relevant for each commander and I'll build a spreadsheet and put it on the cloud

If you want I can keep track of my attacks and see what the averages works out to be.

give me a bit to figure out what data points are relevant for each commander and I'll build a spreadsheet and put it on the cloud

The only thing you will have to have a random variable for is player skill.

Some data on the Games is a very cool idea !

Will help if you want, but rather than trying to measure which commander is better, I'd love to have multiple types of data on a very wide array of metrics. I just hate groupthink, consensii and arguments of authority

Some data on the Games is a very cool idea !

Will help if you want, but rather than trying to measure which commander is better, I'd love to have multiple types of data on a very wide array of metrics. I just hate groupthink, consensii and arguments of authority

EDITS: Corrected 6+ damage totals for Vader rerolls in both scenarios (conservative and aggressive), since they were low (Vader meets or exceeds the 6 damage threshold in 38 of his conservative trials, and in 56 of his 100 aggressive trials). I built the data table to track that, and forgot to check my results somehow.

I'm terrible at math, and even worse at tracking data in-games, so I'll leave that to others who have a better knack for it. What I can do is roll dice and then write down the results, which is what I did a while back when I was first experimenting with the double/triple reroll concept.

So, for what it's worth, here are some general observations, based on about 200 rolls of four black dice (GSD side arc, close range). As an aside, I don't know if this should go in this thread, or if another thread would be more appropriate, so if anyone feels strongly, let me know and I'll move this.

A couple caveats: these volumes of rerolls are nowhere near statistically significant, so these aren't predictive trends--they're just glorified sample sizes. Also, there are different goals for manipulating dice rolls--maximizing damage is usually the basic goal, but sometimes you need an accuracy result or a critical result. There's also the question of whether it's worth going "all-in" (double-damage) or just "playing it safe" (no blanks). These problems really come to the fore with the fickle red dice (one double-hit, one crit, three hits, one accuracy, two blanks), but there's a bit of this with the black dice, too (blues actually seem the least affected by rerolls, especially now that SW-7s can basically convert them all to guaranteed damage results). I varied some of the rolls aiming to get different results, so I'll mention those aims when discussing the rolls.

BLACK DICE

I started with blacks because these dice are fairly simple. They only do damage and critical effects, and there are only three possible results: blank, hit, hit-crit. On average rolls, odds are 25% of the dice will be blank, 50% will be single-hits, and 25% will be hit-crits (which I'll refer to as "doubles," since it's easier to type). Average expected damage is 4.0 from four unmodified black dice, with one blank, two hits, and one double.

"Conservative" rerolls:

For the first 100 rerolls, I played it conservatively: my primary goal was to get at least one double (to trigger a crit effect), and to have no blanks--in other words, I'm after at least a hit-hit-hit-hit-double roll. Here's how that played out:

• Initial roll: Of the first 100 rolls, 32 rolls had no blanks, 42 had one blank, 21 had two blanks, 5 had three blanks, and 0 had four blanks. For single-hits, 4 rolls had no hits, 21 had one hit, 38 had to hits, 28 had three hits, and 9 had four hits. For doubles, 41 rolls had no doubles, 39 had one double, 15 had two doubles, 5 had three doubles, and 0 had four doubles. 20 rolls had two or more doubles.
  • Total averages: 2.01 hits, 0.93 doubles, 1.05 blanks, 3.85 gross damage.
  • Analysis: These dice were slightly "cooler" than average, with a slightly higher rate of blanks and a slightly lower rate of doubles, resulting in an overall lower damage gross (3.85 vs. 4.0). The variance is slight, but it is there. Of our original 100 rolls, 12 had 6+ damage (8 had six damage, 4 had seven, 0 had eight).
• First re-roll (Ordnance Experts): Of the 100 original rolls, twenty-five of them had at least our preferred minimum outcome--hit, hit, hit, hit-crit, which means we left them as-is (since we're being conservative, we don't want to risk any blanks). By the way, this is a perfectly respectable damage total for four black dice, and represents a 25% increase over their average expected damage. Of the remaining seventy-five rolls (meaning they had at least one blank, or no crits), 49 required one reroll (one blank or no hit-crits), 21 required two rerolls (2 blanks), and five required three rerolls (three blanks--yipes!). On the first re-roll:
  • Blanks: The number of rolls with 0 blanks rose from 32 to 80 (meaning 80% of the rolls produced at least 4 damage, up from the 50% that we'd expect from average dice). The number of rolls with one blank dropped from 42 to 19, two blanks from 21 to 1, and three blanks from 5 to 0. There were no four-blank results in our original rolls (thank goodness).
  • Hits: The number of rolls with 0 hits dropped from 4 to 0. The number of rolls with just one hit also dropped, from 21 to 10, as did the number of rolls with two hits, from 38 to 33. The number of rolls with three hits rose from 28 to 41, as did the number with four hits, from 9 to 16.
  • Doubles: The number of rolls with no doubles dropped from 41 to 23. The number with one double rose from 39 to 45, two doubles from 15 to 25, and three from 5 to 7. There were no rolls with four hit-crit results. 32 rolls had at least two doubles, up from our initial 20.
    • Total Averages: 2.01 hits, 1.44 doubles, 0.54 blanks, 4.95 gross damage, 2.02 dice rerolled.
    • Analysis: Average number of single-hits stayed exactly the same, but there was a noticeable up-tick in double-damage results, almost 1.5 out of four. The result is an increase in gross damage by 1.1 (+28.5%), which is the equivalent of adding another average black dice to the attack, plus a little extra. Again, these 100 rolls were rerolled conservatively, meaning we were only rerolling if there were blank dice, and/or the original roll only had four hits but no double (in which case a single hit die was rerolled to try to get a critical result). Of these rerolls, the number of rolls with 6+ damage increased from 12 to 30 (six damage increased from 8 to 23, seven damage increased from 4 to 7).
• Second re-roll (Vader): After that first reroll, sixty-five of our 100 trials ended with at least our preferred minimum outcome--hit, hit, hit, hit-crit. Of the remaining thirty-five (meaning they had at least one blank, or no crits), 34 required one reroll (one blank or no hit-crits), and 1 required two rerolls (2 blanks... still). None required more than two rerolls (thank goodness). On the second re-roll:
  • Blanks: The number of rolls with 0 blanks rose again, but the increase was much less dramatic: from 80 to 87. The number of rolls with one blank dropped again, from 19 to 12, and the single outcome with two blanks... again rolled double-blanks (showing that sometimes you just can't win). There were no three or four-blank results.
  • Hits: The number of rolls with 0 hits stayed at zero. The number of rolls with just one or two hits dropped very slightly, from 10 to 9 and 33 to 32, respectively. The number of rolls with three hits rose slightly, from 41 to 50. The number with four hits dropped, from 16 back down to 9. Bear in mind that one die from each quadruple-hit roll was rerolled in an attempt to get a hit-crit result.
  • Doubles: The number of rolls with no doubles dropped again, from 23 to 19. The number with one double actually dropped from 45 to 43 (there were two cases where a blank-hit-hit-double ended as a hit-hit-double-double). Two doubles increased from 25 to 30, and three from 7 to 8. There were again no rolls with four hit-crit results. The number of rolls with at least two doubles increased from 32 to 38.
    • Total Averages: 1.84 hits, 1.75 doubles, 0.40 blanks, 5.13 gross damage, 1.30 dice rerolled.
    • Analysis: Gross damage went up again, but the delta was quite a bit less (about a 3.5% increase, vs. a 28.5% increase for the first reroll). Average number of single-hits and doubles dropped, and the number of double dice crossed the 1.5 dice mark. Again, these 100 rolls were rerolled conservatively, meaning there were only rerolls for any blank dice, and/or the original roll only had four hits but no double, in which case a single hit die was rerolled to try to get critical damage. The number of rolls with 6+ damage again increased, from 30 to 38 (six damage increased from 23 to 30, seven damage increased from 7 to 8).

TAKEAWAYS: When rolling conservatively, there was a clear and definite advantage to having the first reroll. The most significant advantage was the reduction in blank dice. The number of rolls that had no blanks increased from 32 to 80, just by adding that single reroll. Again, this is still a relatively small sample size, so these aren't mathematical certainties, but the fact that four out of every five rolls ended with no blanks is a significant boost to expected damage. Speaking of which, damage output was also boosted, increasing by more than 1 per roll (+1.1, 28.5% increase), or the equivalent average damage of shooting with five unmodified black dice, instead of four. Doubles were the wild card. The number of rolls with no doubles did fall with a single re-roll (from 43 to 23), meaning more than three-of-four rolls had at least one double/crit effect. That's not quite Screed-level of certainty, but it's high. Of these 77, however, the majority (45) had only one double, about a third had two (25), and a small portion had three (7). Burst damage of 6+ increased from 12 to 38 (30 rolls of six damage, 8 rolls of seven, 0 rolls of eight damage).

A second conservative reroll added somewhat to damage totals, but not much. Blanks went down again, and average damage and doubles chance went up, but not by a lot (3.5% and 5.2%, respectively). This is something, but probably not worth investing a ton of points in.

The first reroll results underscore the value of an upgrade like Ordnance Experts on a ship that packs black dice. There is basically no opportunity cost associated with this upgrade, other than four points and taking a weapons team slot. Adding Vader on top of this, however, doesn't improve damage much, at least if you're rolling conservatively. Additionally, for the 12 of 19 rolls that retained one blank from the first to the second reroll, they would have netted higher total damage with Screed, who could have cancelled the 12 blanks to add an extra damage to one of the other black dice. Which is yet another reason not to take Vader, at least if rolling conservatively is your strategy.

Speaking of which...

"Aggressive" rerolls:

Unlike the previous 100 trials, these 100 trials had a single purpose in mind: getting as many doubles out of our four black dice as possible. This is not for the faint of heart. All blanks and all single-hits were re-rolled, and re-rolled, until we ran out of rerolls. It's go big or go home, so strap in for a wild ride...

• Initial roll: Of the first 100 rolls, 26 rolls had no blanks, 42 had one blank, 26 had two blanks, 6 had three blanks (eeps!), and 0 had four blanks. For single-hits, 10 rolls had no hits, 25 had one hit, 42 had to hits, 15 had three hits, and 8 had four hits. For hit-crits, 30 rolls had no doubles, 40 had one double, 28 had two doubles, 2 had three doubles, and 0 had four doubles. 30 rolls had at least two doubles.
  • Total averages: 1.86 hits, 1.02 doubles, 1.12 blanks, 3.90 gross damage.
  • Analysis: These dice were slightly "warmer" than our conservative dice to start, but still "cooler" than average, with a slightly higher rate of blanks and doubles, and a lower rate of single hits, resulting in an overall lower damage gross (3.9 vs. 4.0 expected). The variance is again slight, but it is there. We're not starting off with "hot" dice here, although we did end up with a larger number of initial rolls with at least two doubles (30 vs, 20). Our number of starting rolls with 6+ damage also increased slightly, from 12 to 14 (13 rolls of 6 damage, 1 roll of 7).
• First re-roll (Ordnance Experts): Of the 100 original rolls, zero had our preferred outcome of four doubles, so all got at least one reroll. Of these 100 initial rolls, 2 needed only one reroll (meaning they were already excellent rolls), 28 required two (also pretty good rolls), 40 required three (why settle for just one crit?! it's a brave new world!), and 30 got the full mulligan (c'mon, man!). On the first re-roll:
  • Blanks: The number of rolls with 0 blanks rose from 26 to 40 (+53%, but still less than half of the total rolls). The number of rolls with one blank dropped from 42 to 37, two blanks from 26 to 19, and three blanks from 6 to 4. There were no four-blank results in our original rolls (I'm sure it's out there somewhere, though... lurking...).
  • Hits: The number of rolls with 0 hits actually rose, from 10 to 20, as did the number with one hit, from 25 to 35. The number with two hits dropped from 42 to 31, three from 15 to 13, and four from 8 to 1 (again, every single-hit result is being rerolled in an attempt to fish for doubles).
  • Doubles: The number of rolls with no doubles dropped from 30 to 11. The number with one double also dropped, from 40 to 32 (meaning that 8 rolls with just one double added at least one double in the reroll). The number with two doubles rose from 28 to 36, three doubles from 2 to 15, and four doubles from 0 to 6. The number of rolls with at least two doubles rose from 30 to 57.
    • Total Averages: 1.4 hits, 1.73 doubles, 0.87 blanks, 4.86 gross damage, 2.98 rerolls.
    • Analysis: First-off, this strategy required on average that three of the four dice be rerolled, which is crazy when you think about it--especially since the majority of those dice being rerolled were perfectly good hits, not blanks. By doing that, however, the average number of single-hits and blanks dropped, and the number of doubles is well on its way to 2 out of four (1.73), with just a single aggressive reroll. The resulting increase in gross damage is a little behind our conservative reroll increase (0.96/24.6%, instead of 1.1 gross/28.5%), although it is still in the ballpark of adding another average black die worth of damage to the attack--even though a lot more rolls have at least one blank result than in our conservative data set. Also note that 35 of the 100 rolls had at least 6+ damage vs. 30 from our conservative trial, but the high end damage was greater--19 results of 6 damage, 10 results of 7, and 6 results of 8 damage (versus 23, 7 and, 0 on conservative rerolls). 6 rolls maxed out their damage from a single reroll (four doubles, or 8 damage). None reached that level of damage in our conservative reroll pool (though we were being conservative...).
• Second re-roll (Vader): Of the 100 single aggressive re-rolls, six ended with our preferred outcome--four doubles. Of the remaining ninety-four holdouts, 15 required one reroll, 35 needed two rerolls, 32 received three, and 11 sticklers required another mulligan. On the second re-roll:
  • Blanks: The number of rolls with 0 blanks rose slightly, from 40 to 44. This is an increase, but is still below half, and is nowhere near the 80% rate we achieved with our first conservative reroll, or the nearly 90% rate with a second conservative reroll. The number of rolls with one blank actually rose, from 37 to 46 (we are rerolling single hits, after all). The number with two blanks dropped from 19 to 9, as did the number with three blanks, from 4 to 1 (though that outlier with three blanks after two rerolls was a bit of a bummer). There were no four-blank results.
  • Hits: The number of rolls with 0 hits actually rose, from 20 to 32 (which sounds counter-intuitive, but remember, we're trying to convert hits into doubles). The number of rolls with just one or two hits dropped very slightly, from 35 to 34 and 31 to 28, respectively. The number with three hits declined sharply, from 13 to 5, and the single roll with four hits re-rolled four hits... of course.
  • Doubles: The number of rolls with no doubles dropped again, from 11 to 3 (meaning 97% of the rolls have at least one crit effect--basically within Screed's "margin-of-error," if he had such a thing). By comparison, our conservative double-rerolls left 19 rolls with no doubles. The number with one and two doubles both dropped as well, from 32 to 23 and 36 to 31, respectively. The number of rolls with three doubles more than doubled, from 15 to 33, and the number of rolls with maxed-out damage increased from 6 to 10. The number of rolls with at least two doubles rose from 57 to 74. We ended with a whopping 56 rolls of 6+ damage (versus 38 conservative rolls), with a much greater damage spread. The conservative rolls managed 30 rolls of exactly 6, and 8 rolls of 7 damage, with 0 rolls of 8 damage. Vader managed 30 rolls of 6 damage, 16 rolls of 7 damage, and 10 rolls of maxed-out damage.
    • Total Averages: 1.09 hits, 2.24 doubles, 0.67 blanks, 5.57 gross damage, 2.25 rerolls.
    • Analysis: Again, we're rerolling a lot of dice (more than 2 of four on this second go-round). This results in a significantly greater rate of blanks than what we saw in the conservative pool, which seems alarming in isolation. Gross damage, however, increases again at a healthy clip--another 14.6% over the first reroll, and an increase of 42.8% over our initial rolls, from 3.9 to 5.57. Just to put that 5.57 average damage number in perspective, that damage is slightly better than the expected damage of 5.5 unmodified black dice, and better than seven unmodified red dice. We're milking that damage out of just four dice with average double-rerolls--and exceeding it on more than 50% of our rolls (56 of 100). The prevalence of doubles is also increasing. While we haven't hit Screed levels of certainty, we managed to obtain at least one crit result in 97 of our 100 rolls, average more than two crit results per roll, and obtained two or more crit results in 74 of our 100 trials (vs. 38 from our conservative double rerolls).

Just for kicks... and because I was having way too much fun with these damage numbers, I went ahead and ran a third set of rerolls on these 100 results--same aggressive approach as before, keeping nothing but doubles. You can only really do this on an ISD I (where you can take Leading Shots, in addition to your Ordnance Experts and Vader), so it's not practical in any sense, but I wanted to see at what point the production started to trail off. I also added a final single reroll, to simulate a CF token--once again, we want nothing but doubles.

The results were interesting. I won't lay them all out here, but here are some highlights:

• Overall damage output: This increase actually stayed pretty consistent, which surprised me. Total damage progression, from initial roll through the three full re-rolls and CF reroll was 3.9 to 4.86 (+24.6%), to 5.57 (+14.6%), to 6.08 (+9.2%), to 6.54 (+7.6%). The biggest change was definitely in the first reroll (same as our conservative data set), but the overall increase from 3.9 to 6.54 (or +67.7%!!!) was significant. Again, to put that 6.54 damage number in perspective--and again, that's average damage across 100 rolls, from just four dice--that's nearly 9 unmodified red dice worth of damage. Again, out of just. Four. Dice.
• Blanks: This dropped quite a bit by the time I was through. Only 40 of our 100 rolls still had at least one blank through the third reroll, and the CF reroll cut that number to 31 (one crazy outlier did have three blanks at the end of all those rerolls... don't worry, I think I got it out of their system ). Again, it's still not closing on 90% like we had in our conservative pool, but it does suggest that the probability of blanks still continues to go down, even if you're gambling perfectly good hits each reroll to search for doubles.
• Doubles: The average number of doubles climbed over 2.5 with the third reroll (from 2.24 to 2.61), and pretty much plateaued there (the CF reroll increased the average number of doubles from 2.61 to 2.87, so the raw average never eclipsed 3.0 doubles per roll). That said, the number of rolls with at least one double matched Screed at the third reroll (all 100 trials had at least one double) (up from 97 through the second reroll), and the number of rolls with at least two doubles/crit results climbed to 87 of 100 (32 had two, 36 had three, 19 maxed out at four). Adding the CF token reroll left only 9 of the 100 rolls with just one crit result. 26 rolls ended with two, 34 ended with three, and a whopping 31 of 100 rolls maxed out with four doubles/8 damage.

TAKEAWAYS: First off, this strategy isn't for the faint of heart. It's actually extremely counter-intuitive to be rerolling perfectly good hits, in the hopes of getting something more. For the first reroll, it's easier, especially since there's usually blanks to spend, too. But if that first reroll comes up blanks--or worse yet, leaves you with three single hits--it's hard to literally roll the dice again in the hopes that something better will turn up.

Second, it's a serious points sink. The double-reroll strategy requires Ordnance Experts and Vader if you want to replicate the dice manipulations across your fleet, so you're probably looking at a 50+ point investment, or ~12.5% of your total fleet points. Triple rerolls on an ISD I, as fun as they would be, are probably too expensive to be practical, and is definitely not spammable (ISD I + Vader + Leading Shots + Ordnance Experts (instead of Gunnery Teams)...).

The good news is that the black dice almost always reward you for this gamble and investment. The odds of a blank remaining blank through two rerolls is low, and even if you reroll a hit, the odds of you actually losing damage are much lower than your combined odds of keeping the same damage or doubling it. And if you pursue this strategy consistently, there is an appreciable increase to damage output that performs well above the number of dice you're bringing to the table (5.5 out of four blacks, on average, and 43 of 100 rolls met or crossed the 6 damage plateau). Adding a CF die, or additional dice from upgrades like Rapid Reload or Expanded Launchers, only adds to the damage potential, especially if paired with blue dice that can deal with defense tokens (Raider I with Expanded Launchers), or upgrades like Intel Officer, Xi7s, HTTs, or Overload Pulse that counter defense tokens.

Finally, while Screed still offers the best guarantee of getting at least one crit effect, this method appears to offer a great probability of getting two or more crit effects out of your four black dice (2.24 doubles on average, 74 of 100 results had 2+ doubles vs. 38 of 100 conservative results). This can be important if you are facing Mon Mothma, who can hit a Screed-crit with an evade token and potentially eliminate it.

That said, if you pair Screed with Ordnance Experts and reroll aggressively with them, you have a slightly better chance at netting two or more doubles by the end of your attack. In our data set, 89 of the 100 trials produced at least one double with one aggressive reroll. If you used Screed on those same 89 results, they would have had two or more doubles, which is more than the 74 rolls of 2+ doubles we managed through double rerolls. The downside with Screed is that he's a once-per-activation boost, so if you're getting two attacks in a single round, only one of them gains his benefit (versus both attacks with a Vader reroll, if you have the tokens to spare). It would also be interesting to see how average damage played out with Screed cancelling and flipping dice, instead of Vader rerolling them--but I didn't track that stat.

CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS

1. Whether or not you want to commit wholly to the reroll strategy, there's definite benefits to getting just a single reroll, even if you play it conservatively. So take those Ordnance Experts, Imperial admirals! (And you rebel scum with your shrimp frigates...).
2. These trials would suggest that if you're playing conservatively, Ordnance Experts is probably enough to avoid most (but only most) catastrophic rolls. That's not exactly ground-breaking conclusion, but it's worth mentioning.
3. If you are taking Vader, you should never take him in lieu of Ordnance Experts (unless you really want that weapons team slot for something else--and even then, you still probably shouldn't take him in lieu of Ordnance Experts).
4. Both Screed and Vader rerolls, when paired with Ordnance Experts, offer a pretty reliable way to two or more doubles. In addition to thwarting Mon Mothma, this is also more damage. Again, no reason not to take Ordnance Experts, regardless of what admiral you choose.
5. If you pair Vader with Ordnance Experts, as I suggest, there seem to be dividends over the long hall if you reroll aggressively. Rerolling a hit that ends up blank sucks, but the odds are that your damage will either stay the same or double. It also seems to pay to reroll aggressively even if you go with Screed over Vader, especially if you want more than one crit result. So channel your inner Lando, let your inhibitions go, and try not to lose the Falcon--metaphorically speaking, of course.

It would be interesting to see what sort of damage results a middle-of-the-road approach would net (aggressive with your first "free" Ordnance Experts reroll, then more conservative with Vader's reroll, using only "blanks and a single hit if there's no crit"). It would also be interesting to see how average damage goes up if you add additional dice (5 or even 6 blacks is possible in Wave II). So definitely more room to experiment and report here. Congrats if you made it all the way through, by the way. You're braver than I thought.

But after 200 trials, I quit because I felt like I had a fairly good idea of how all this played out over a large-ish sample size. And I wanted to reroll red dice... which was another experience entirely. If anyone's interested, I can post some results from those trials (about 350 of them). But not tonight, I need to go to bed.

I've stated my thoughts on this in more detail elsewhere,

fun fact, This^ eventually lead to my current build in the world cup. ( i ended up switching Vader for Screed)

But at least a small part of my success is owed to Ryth

That's exceptionally generous, and far more than I deserve, as I'm quite sure your success is due far more to your ability to fly those darn Raiders than dice manipulations.

Lots and lots of dice-rolling.

I've actually got a Monte Carlo sim that I threw together in Python a couple days ago specifically to make a decision on MC30 upgrades. I've been robusting it since to be useful for anything and to try out different logic for the rerolls.

It's pretty dirty (I haven't Pythoned in several months now), but I'll stick it up on Github if anybody's interested in not having to roll dice by hand over 9000 times.

I've stated my thoughts on this in more detail elsewhere,

fun fact, This^ eventually lead to my current build in the world cup. ( i ended up switching Vader for Screed)

But at least a small part of my success is owed to Ryth

That's exceptionally generous, and far more than I deserve, as I'm quite sure your success is due far more to your ability to fly those darn Raiders than dice manipulations.

Threw it up on Github, with some caveats:

1) If you're not familiar with Python you'll really only be able to add or remove the upgrades I've already implemented and change the numbers of dice involved. No guarantees of accuracy.

2) If you are familiar with Python I invite you to contribute, because my code is suuuper rough.

3) I'm pretty sure a few of the upgrades are broken, because I'm halfway through some modifications right now and literally just stuck it on the internet.

Read the README file.

So here's a commander-to-commander comparison, for those who are interested. I'll post a brief summary here to hit the high points, and you can wade in the details if you don't trust my observations.

1. You want to pair Screed with Ordnance Experts. Really, you do. Like, really, really do. Ordnance Experts push damage through the roof. On conservative rerolls, Ordnance Experts + Screed averaged 5.12 damage on black dice (and 35 of those 100 results netted that damage average on just three dice). If you average five damage a turn, that's not a bad place to start from.
2. You want to be reckless with your Ordnance Experts. Rerolling all blanks and single-hits, then applying Screed, averages over 5.5 damage per attack, on just three dice (79 of 100 trials). The damage is essentially the same as what Reckless Vader gets you on a second reroll, only on fewer average dice (3.2 vs. 4.0), and at 10 points less.
3. Reckless Screed also basically nullifies the chance that you'll end with a blank die (since you're converting them into a double-hit upgrade on another die), and eliminates the possibility that you'll have two or more blanks (unless you reroll 4 blanks with Ordnance Experts). I originally viewed Ordnance Experts as more of an insurance policy, but Screed is actually the insurance policy--if I absolutely whiff on a roll, I can salvage it and get something close to respectable damage. Ordnance Experts is what allows a crappy roll to become a fantastic roll with Screed.
4. Screed has two potential limitations, compared to Vader. The biggest is he does nothing for you once you hit the 6 damage plateau (other than add another critical effect if you convert a HHCC roll to a CCC roll), and at 7 or 8 damage, it's actually worse to use him (you have to cancel a die, after all). Vader milks those 6s and converts them into 7s and 8s, if you want all possible damage (an 8 damage roll with four black dice and ACMS is 10 damage overall, so these decisions add up over time). The second is that Screed's damage (at least if you roll recklessly with Ordnance Experts) tends to be concentrated into only 3 dice. They're pretty powerful dice, but if your opponent has Mon Mothma and Foresight, or Admonition, or Lando, it's possible all your crits could be eliminated (double Admonition), or rerolled (Mothma-Foresight). Vader's damage tends to be more spread out, namely because you always end up with four dice, and seldom end up with a blank.

In other words, Clon was ahead of the curve, and the rest of us are just now catching up.

Data below. Comments welcome. Thanks for reading (even if it's just the top ).

• Second Modification (Screed Flip): After that first reroll, sixty-five of our 100 trials ended with at least our preferred minimum outcome--hit, hit, hit, hit-crit. Of the remaining thirty-five (meaning they had at least one blank, or no crits), 34 had at least one blank or no hit-crits, and 1 had 2 blanks... still. Because we're being conservative here, we're going to leave the sixty-five preferred minimum outcomes alone--Screed is a once-per-activation ability, after all, and if we're playing conservatively, we may want to save his ability in case we get a worse outcome later in the round. Also, because this is Screed and we're cancelling a die to flip a die, we need to know a little bit more about the 34 outcomes, since flipping a blank vs. a non-blank will make a difference in our final damage output. Of the 34 that were one-off, 16 were quadruple hits, 9 were hit-double-two blanks, 7 were three hits one blank, and 2were hit-blank-two doubles. Our reclamation project roll was a hit-double-two blanks. Here's how Screed affects the remaining 35 trials:
  • Quad hits: In these 16 results, Screed gives us four total damage, with a hit-hit-double result. +1 crit result, no overall damage increase, damage is exactly average.
  • Hit-hit-double-blank: In these 9 results, Screed gives us five total damage, hit-double-double. +1 crit result, +1 overall damage, damage is 25% higher than expected on four black dice (5.00 vs. 4.00)
  • Hit-hit-hit-blank: In these 7 results, Screed gives us four total damage, again with a hit-hit-double result. +1 crit result, damage is again exactly average for black dice (4.00), but total damage increases by 1 over the previous reroll,.
  • Hit-double-blank-blank
  • Hit-double-double-blank: These two trials were the big winners. Screed gives us six total damage (double-double-double), for +1 crit result and +1 damage over the reroll, with 50% more damage than expected from four black dice (6.00 vs. 4.00).
  • Hit-double-blank-blank: This was the unexpected winner. Screed gives us a hit-double-double, for five total damage, +1 crit result, and +2 damage over the reroll, with a 25% damage increase over average expected damage (5.00 vs. 4.00).
    • Blanks: Of the 35 outcomes we modified, none had any blanks remaining after Screed (modifying two dice results will do that). This gives us a total of zero blanks in all 100 trials (vs. 87 of 100 trials with Vader rerolls).
    • Hits: Of the 35 outcomes we modified, 2 ended with no hits (double-double-double), 10 ended with one hit (hit-double-doubles), and the remaining 24 ended with two hits (hit-hit-double). None ended with three hits or more. For Vader's rerolls, 0 had no hits, 9 had one hit, 32 had two hits, 50 had three hits, and 9 had four hits.
    • Doubles: Of the 35 outcomes we modified, none of them ended without a double (vs. 19 of 100 with Vader). 24 (or 68.5%) ended with one double (hit-hit-double), 10 (or 28.5%) ended with two doubles (hit-double-double), and 2 (or 5.7%) ended wit three (double-double-double). For Vader rerolls, 19% ended with no doubles, 43% ended with one double, 30% ended with two doubles, and 8% ended with three doubles. Neither approach netted any quadruple doubles. Vader obtained at least one double in 87 of 100 trials, Screed in all 100.
      • Total Averages: 2.16 hits, 1.48 doubles, 0.0 blanks, 5.12 gross damage, 0.7 dice flipped.
      • Analysis: The most obvious difference is the absence of any blanks: we're not wasting any final dice results. That number is a bit deceptive, however, since to achieve that result, more than one-third of our trials (35 of 100) had to cancel a dice (which explains the lion's share of why the blanks are disappearing). This is not an inherently bad thing, but it does mean we now have just three dice to work with in a large portion of our trials, which will cap our total damage output overall. Gross damage output is basically a wash with Vader (5.12 vs. 5.13, or an ~0.2% difference). Like Vader, we're still getting an increase in total damage over our initial roll (3.86 to 5.12, or ~33% increase), but the difference in overall damage output over the first reroll is slight (+3.4% vs. 3.5% for Vader), and a 28% increase over what we'd expect from average unmodified blacks (5.12 vs. 4.00), which is significant when you consider that more than a third of these results (35 of 100) that average 5.12 damage are getting that much damage off of just three dice. Finally, the traditional reason or taking Screed is to ensure crit effects. He certainly serves that purpose here (all 100 trials ended with one or more crit effect, vs. 87 of 100 with Vader). Screed also increased the number of trials with two or more, from 32 (first reroll) to 44. Vader rerolls also increased this number, but less starkly--from 32 to 38. Vader added one roll with three doubles (increase from 7 to 8), Screed added two (7 to 9). Vader's total damage ends up slightly edging out Screed (5.13 vs. 5.12), though the difference is so small that it is probably a rounding issue.

• Second Modification (Screed Flip): None of our initial rolls got us 8 damage (bummer), so we rerolled all 100 trials. 2 rolls required only one reroll, 28 needed two rerolls, 40 needed three rerolls, and we had 30 mulligans. Out of those 100 rerolls, 6 produced our preferred result, leaving 94 trials in need of further modification. These were dispersed more widely than our more conservative rerolls, as there are more trials total. Here's how they broke down, and how Screed affected them, starting with lowest damage output and creeping upwards ("H" for hits, "C" for doubles, "B" for blanks). There's a lot of data points, so bear with me...
  • HBBB (1 damage): Thankfully we only had two of these, which is absolute garbage after a full reroll (mercifully we had no BBBB results). Screed changes to HCB, for +1 crit, +2 damage, 3 damage gross (+200%). Better than a total whiff, but still less than average damage out of four dice (3.00 vs. 4.00). Bleh.
  • HHBB (2 damage): 6 of 100 trials. Also sad. Odds are you had this exact roll in Wave I (probably at the worst possible time, too). Screed changes to HHC, for +1 crit, +2 damage, 4 damage total (+100%), average gross (4.00 exactly).
  • CBBB (2 damage, 1 crit): 3 of 100 trials. still sad, but at least in Wave I we'd have triggered ACMs. :-P Screed changes to CCB, for +1 crit, +2 damage, 4 damage total (+100%), average gross (4.00 exactly).
  • HHHB (3 damage): 4 of 100 trials. Screed changes to HHC, for +1 crit, +1 damage, 4 damage total (+50%), average gross (again 4.00).
  • HCBB (3 damage, 1 crit): 7 of 100 trials. Screed changes to HCC, for +1 crit, +2 damage, 5 damage total (+67%), above average gross (5.00 v. 4.00). We're finally starting to see some returns on our point investments. :-P
  • HHHH (4 damage): 2 of 100 trials. Screed changes to HHC, for +1 crit, +0 damage, 4 damage total (0% change), average gross (4.00). So much for forward progress.
  • HHCB (4 damage, 1 crit): This was our first significant grouping, with 13 of 100 trials. Screed changes to HCC, for +1 crit, +1 damage, 5 damage total (+25%), above average gross (5.00 v. 4.00). We're back in the black, now (literally),and this time we're here to stay.
  • CCBB (4 damage, 2 crits): 6 of 100 trials. Screed changes to CCC, for +1 crit, +2 damage, 6 damage total (+67%), high gross (6.00 v. 4.00). Now we're talking.
  • HHHC (5 damage, 1 crit): 8 of 100 trials. Screed changes to HCC, for +1 crit, +0 damage, 5 damage total (0% change), above average gross (5.00 v. 4.00).
  • HCCB (5 damage, 2 crits): Tied for our largest grouping, with 14 of 100 trials. Screed changes to another CCC, for +1 crit, +1 damage, 6 damage total (+20%), high gross (6.00 v. 4.00).
  • HHCC (6 damage, 2 crits): Our other largest grouping, with 14 of 100 trials. Screed changes to a third CCC, for +1 crit, +0 damage, 6 damage total (0% change), high gross (6.00 v. 4.00). At this point, all you're getting from Screed is three crit results, no net damage increase. This could be important in certain situations--Admonition or Foresight with Mon Mothma, and to a lesser extent Lando (since you'd have 3 dice to reroll in an attempt to get back a hit-crit), but outside of those scenarios, you're probably better pocketing Screed for your next attack.
  • CCCB (6 damage, 3 crits): Our last results with a blank (5 of 100 trials), and also the first result where there's absolutely nothing to be gained from Screed, who would convert this to a CCC. Our remaining results--HCCC and CCCC, 10 and 6 trials respectively--would actually lose damage if we applied Screed with no positive benefit (CCC). Since that's counter to our goals in this trial, we obviously didn't do that (has a bit of a "cut off your nose to spite your face" vibe to it). So if you're keeping track, 6 of our 100 trials got the result we wanted on the first reroll (CCCC), 15 more got as close as Screed would get us (HCCC and CCCB), and Screed netted us some benefit in the remaining 79 trials.
    • Blanks: The scenario with blanks is basically identical to what we saw in our conservative trials, but for the fact that our reckless rerolling in round one left us with two horrendous results (HBBB) that Screed couldn't fully fix. Still, Vader ends with a total of zero blanks in 98 of his 100 trials (vs. 87 of 100 trials with Vader).
    • Hits: 17 of the 79 results we ultimately modified with Screed ended with one hit, 12 ended with two hits, and the remaining 37 ended with no hits (34 results were CCC, and 3 were CCBs).None ended with three hits or more. For Vader's rerolls, 0 had no hits, 9 had one hit, 32 had two hits, 50 had three hits, and 9 had four hits.
    • Doubles: Of the 79 results we modified, all ended with at least one double (also 100 of 100 total trials), whereas 19 of Vader's 100 trials ended up missing the double. 16 of our 100 trials ended with exactly one double (vs. 23 for Vader), 31 ended with two doubles (Vader also produced 31), and 34 rolls produced three doubles (vs. 33 of 100 for Vader). Vader also ended with 10 rolls of four doubles (six of these were carry-overs from the first reroll, so Screed technically gets credit for them, even though he played no role in their creation; Vader was responsible for generating four additional quadruple-doubles). For top-end damage, Screed modified 36 rolls to produce 6 damage, and another 21 rolls had at least 6 damage before Screed came into play, for a total of 57 rolls of 6+ damage). Vader's dice also produced exactly 57 rolls of 6+ damage, but Vader's topped out higher. 30 Vader rerolls produced 6 damage, 16 produced 7 damage, and 10 produced 8 damage, vs. 39 Screed rolls with 6 damage (of which Screed accounted for 34), 10 rolls for 7 damage, and 6 rolls for 8 damage (the latter two categories unaffected by Screed).
      • Total Averages: 0.64 hits, 2.47 doubles, 0.02 blanks, 5.58 gross damage, 0.79 dice flipped.
      • Analysis: We're still seeing very few blanks (only 2 of 100 rolls had a blank, vs. 56 of 100 Vader rerolls), but there are a couple outliers that got past Reckless Screed (but not Conservative Screed). The average number of hits dips very sharply, from 2.16 (conservative Screed) to 0.64 (Reckless Screed). Reckless Vader also averages more hits (1.09 vs. 0.64), due in part to the fact that Screed is spending quite a few hit rolls in order to convert another hit roll into a double, so the hits are quite literally cannibalizing each other. Screed pushes his double average to nearly the 2.5 mark (2.47), which is impressive when we remember most of these Screed rolls have only three dice total. This is basically one extra double per attack over Conservative Screed (2.47 vs. 1.48), and also ahead of Reckless Vader (2.47 vs. 2.24). Screed's overall gross damage value (5.58) is also essentially the same as Vader's (5.57, which could be attributed to a rounding error, or because Vader had a net-loss of a damage on one of his reckless rerolls--which is part of the risk of reckless rerolls). So if you want the maximum number of crit symbols, without giving up any appreciable amount of gross damage, this is your set-up. The other important observation is that Screed does absolutely nothing to help us eclipse 6 damage if we're only working with four black dice (because we have to cancel a die to trigger his ability), and in fact applying Screed can actually become a detriment the better your roll is. This is true with any dice modifier (the better your previous roll, the less helpful a subsequent reroll is), but Vader still offers high-end damage value on a pretty good roll (milking another 6 rolls of 7 damage, and another 4 rolls of 8 damage). So if you want to boost your chances at damage totals higher than 6 on black dice, you want Vader (or at least a CF token), not Screed.

That's eaxactly what I found in my tests, albeit on a much smaller scale with less precision.

I did some number-crunching on this earlier, just so I don't need to repeat myself.

@rythbert are you going to do some testing for red dice?

@rythbert are you going to do some testing for red dice?

I did some back when I was doing the blacks (and about a hundred blues--though rerolling those feels a lot like shuffling deck chairs around on a sinking ship). The tricky thing with reds is that there are five different types of faces, and no automtically preferred side. Blacks you always would rather have a double--it's two damage and a crit--but for reds while doubles are nice, sometimes you would prefer an accuracy (no ECMS or ECMS are exhausted), or even a crit. So prioritizing what you reroll for when rolling aggressively is a bit more complicated (and makes me less confident there are consistent trends for red rerolls, given all the variables you might be shooting for). That also has interesting implications for Screed, since he guarantees you only one particular face, which you may or may not want. But that's hardly an original contribution.

I'll see if I can get a summary posted later today/tonight.

So I used Vader in my local tournament today (14 players), and he kicked butt which surprised a lot of folks who had pretty much written him off. The key facts:

- 3 wins, 0 losses

- 28 tournament points

- over 800 MOV

Happy for people to keep dismissing the power of the dark side of the force! I don't think he's for everyone, as the admiral is really important to your playstyle - but I think it's fair to say he can be devastating in the right list.

So I used Vader in my local tournament today (14 players), and he kicked butt which surprised a lot of folks who had pretty much written him off. The key facts:

- 3 wins, 0 losses

- 28 tournament points

- over 800 MOV

Happy for people to keep dismissing the power of the dark side of the force! I don't think he's for everyone, as the admiral is really important to your playstyle - but I think it's fair to say he can be devastating in the right list.

For the reds. The preferred is 1 Accuracy, 1 double, and hits and crits mixed. See what it takes to get that.

So I used Vader in my local tournament today (14 players), and he kicked butt which surprised a lot of folks who had pretty much written him off. The key facts:

- 3 wins, 0 losses

- 28 tournament points

- over 800 MOV

Happy for people to keep dismissing the power of the dark side of the force! I don't think he's for everyone, as the admiral is really important to your playstyle - but I think it's fair to say he can be devastating in the right list.

what was your list?

ISD-1, Vader, Relentless, XI7s, Intel Officer

GSD-1, Demolisher, APTs

GSD-1, APTs

VSD-1 (naked)

4 x TIE fighter

I guess it is similar to a Gencon special, with one of the Glads updated to an ISD hull and front arc (plus light fighter cover). With Vader, the Vic-1 becomes a threat also and so soaked up all the fire which would have otherwise targeted my big hitters.

You want to pair Screed with Ordnance Experts.

I have been doing this for the last few months, and like you explained in great detail (nice work number crunching btw) it allows you to dramatically increase damage output, even when you have 4 hits, I would reroll, gotta be in it to win it, as they say.

For the reds. The preferred is 1 Accuracy, 1 double, and hits and crits mixed. See what it takes to get that.

I agree. It's ultimately going to depend on what's going on in that particular fight (defense tokens are already burned, Avenger vs. exhausted tokens, etc), but as a general matter, you want a single accuracy result and the maximum damage--which means either double-double-double-accuracy (6 damage, no brace or evade without ECMs, but also no crit), or a double-double-crit-accuracy (5 damage, crit result, no brace or evade without ECMs). That said, there are other combos (double-double-double-crit, double-double-crit-crit, double-hit-hit-crit, etc) that perform well above the 3.00 average damage you'd expect on average red dice rolls. In a normal world, those results are extremely rare (even if you have TRCs for that second elusive double, it can be hard to score a double, accuracy, and crit on the same roll), so we're sort of shooting for the moon here.

All that said, while I haven't finished crunching all the numbers yet, the anecdotal evidence looks good if you use double rerolls with Vader. I'm hoping to have some trial results up tomorrow.

Can't wait to see that !

I'm going to have a game on thursday trying out a ballsy/trolly Vader list :

ISD 2 : Vader, Tractor Beam, Advanced Projectors (booooooo), Enhanced Armament managing : TIE Fighter x 3, Major Rhymer

VSD 2 : Expanded Hangars, Enhanced Armaments managing : TIE Fighter x 3, TIE Bomber

Boba Feet

Bossk

Objectives : Advanced Gunnery (really ?), Contested Outpost (might switch for Hyperspace Assault because it's unlikely my ISD will be killed by turn 2, just to allow deployment after everything is deployed), Minefields (I have found a purty cool and mean set up !)

The goal is to maximize the long range firepower to maximize Vader's rerolls, drown the opponents under fighters and use both Rogues indepdently to support wherever is needed. Mostly, it's to try out the Rogues because I haven't had the chance yet

Great stuff - thanks to everybody involved in doing the math for the rest of us.

I've previously shared some dice trials I ran a while back with black dice, trying to measure the benefits of single- and double-rerolls on average damage and critical damage. The first trial grouping was aimed at determining whether there was any benefit in being conservative or aggressive with our rerolls ("conservative" refers to rerolling only blank dice, while "aggressive" means rerolling all non-double dice), using Ordnance Experts and Darth Vader to achieve up to two selective rerolls on each black die. The second trial dealt with whether Screed or Vader was a better pairing with Ordnance Experts, for both conservative and reckless rerolls. These trials seemed to suggest that there were definite benefits to rolling recklessly, and that both Screed and Vader offered basically the same average damage for conservative and reckless rerolls. The difference between the two is that Screed tends to result in fewer blanks and more concentrated damage (6s) in fewer dice (three), while Vader offered more top-tier damage totals (7s and 8s) spread out over more dice (four). Neither is a bad choice, but Screed--with his lower point total--appears to offer about 90% of what Vader can do to black dice, at a more efficient cost. If you want additional perspectives on these topics, I've found write-ups by R1-H4, Snipafist, and Ardaedhel very helpful--and they actually can do the math.

1. Conservative Rerolls - Same as our prior tests. The operative combat theory is that every positive die result (double, hit, crit, accuracy) will usually contribute something to a battle, and if we ensure all positive results and no negative results (even if it's as little as hit-accuracy-accuracy-accuracy), we will be in a better position long-term than with unmodified rolls (the scenario above at least guarantees that we put one hit on the hull zone of our choice, because what enemy admiral is really going to burn ECMs to redirect 1 damage to another hull zone?). The only face that we want to eliminate are negative faces (blanks), which contribute nothing. Thus, our reroll strategy is to reroll until we have no blanks. Any roll that ends with no blanks and at least one damage is a "success," regardless of the content of the three non-damage die faces. The "preferred" result we are trying to reach consistently is a roll of 3+ damage and a fourth non-blank face (no sub-average damage totals, all faces are useful).
2. Reckless Aggression Rerolls - This replaces the "aggressive rerolls" category from our prior tests. The operative combat theory is that you only shoot so many times in this game, so every shot should be as painfully devastating as possible, with as much damage crammed into it as possible. Our reroll strategy is to fish for as many doubles as possible by rerolling all non-doubles, regardless of outcome--even if that means ending up with blanks at the end. It's a high risk/high reward strategy... only higher risk than with blacks, because we're trying to get a single low-probability die face out of the most fickle die in the game. But if we manage just two doubles, we guarantee that our total damage will exceed the average expected damage total from our four red dice (4+ damage vs. 3 expected). A "successful" reroll has at least two doubles, or 4+ total damage. Our "preferred" result is 2+ doubles and no other blank faces.
3. Focused Aggression Rerolls - This is a new category, and the first that tempers our "aggressive" stance. The operative combat theory is that while Red dice are fickle, they're also the only die from which I can get every die face I really want (double damage, hits, crits, and accuracies). Thus, these are theoretically the most adaptable dice to any combat situation--if I only have blacks, I can't have accuracies; if I only have blues, I can't have double-damage; but if I only have reds, I can have any of these things, so rerolling these dice is all about trying to maximize the probability that I get my preferred result in any situation. Because these tests are all about looking at trends instead of specific results, I've simulated this approach with the following reroll strategy: our goal is to obtain at least one double, one crit, one accuracy, and one other non-blank face (preferably a damage face). This would give us a baseline of 3 damage, 1 crit effect, and one accuracy, with one extra "something" from our fourth die. Our "preferred" outcome is at least one more damage from our fourth face (with two damage being a major coup). If attainable, this would boost our average damage to 4+ (equivalent to the expected damage of four unmodified black dice), plus an accuracy result (which blacks can't offer), or a black-plus roll.
4. Measured Aggression Rerolls - Another new category, and a hybrid between our traditional "conservative" and "aggressive" rolls, along the lines of what Snipafist suggests here. The combat theory is that a single aggressive reroll usually increases damage potential, but that subsequent rerolls have diminishing returns, and also increase the probability that a positive face will be rerolled into a negative face (whereas aggressive rerolls play on the probability that rerolling a positive result is more likely to result in at least an equal result, if not a better result). We're also about measured success--we want to get the highest total damage through, not necessarily the highest damage total--so our rerolling strategy is to reroll with reckless abandon on the first full reroll (everything that is not a double, a crit, or an accuracy), but then to only reroll blank results on the second (with a CF token available to reroll any blank that manages to get through). A "successful" roll is defined relatively-- as long as our roll ends with no blanks, and more damage than the initial roll, we have come out ahead. Our "preferred roll" is the "successful" outcome for our "focused aggression" strategy above--one double, one crit, one accuracy, and one other non-blank face.

• First, remember that this data is drawn from trials of 100 groupings of four red dice, rolled by hand and recorded. A sample size of 100 dice is way too small to be of any scientific value, so these are not predictive models, just glorified lab tests. I try to make mention of cases where I think a given result is above average or below average (what I refer to as "hot" or "cold" dice pools), so just keep that in mind as we're walking through results.
• Second, bear in mind that the expectations of these four different reroll strategies are vastly different. Thus, they measure "success" very differently. For "Conservative" and "Measured Aggression" rerolls, I measured success by the absence of blanks, since both strategies are really aimed at making as many rolls as possible blank-free to gain a long-term advantage. Average damage may receive a slight boost, but mostly we're trying to eliminate as many sub-average rolls (less than 3.00 damage) as possible. "Focused" and "Reckless" rerolls, by contrast, are aimed at maximizing overall average damage, mostly by trying to increase our odds at high-end damage rolls (5s, 6s, and 7s), though "Focused" gives up some of this emphasis on burst for an elusive accuracy result, on the theory that an accuracy each round will maximize the amount of damage that goes where we want it. Thus, if a strategy's performance seems "sub-par," it may mean that it actually is a sub-par strategy, or it may mean that our expectations for it were too high. If a strategy's expectations seem too low (or its risks seem too high), it may mean the strategy is not optimal, or that it does not fit with a preferred play style. Again, we're dealing with the most fickle, flexible dice in the game, so there's room for difference on opinion on what we want to get out of these dice.
• Third, while "average" damage (which is discussed below) is a helpful tool of analysis, it's not the end-all. All "average" damage does is tell us the most common numerical result, but it does not tell us the variance between results. Four unmodified red dice should "average" 3.00 damage, but not all rolls score three hits. For every roll that scores four, there should be a roll that scores two, and for every fantastic roll of five, there should be a sucky roll of one (if distributions are even). So while boosting "average" damage is nice, we're also interested in getting more reliable damage out of our notoriously-unreliable reds--in other words, we want to limit the number of rolls that will score 1s and 2s, and increase the number of rolls that score 4s and 5s, if at all possible. We want our reroll strategies to be reliable, which means distribution around the average is just as important as the average itself, if not more so.
• Fourth, bear in mind that all of these strategies (with the possible exception of "Conservative" rerolls) require that you commit a significant amount of points to them. We are talking at least two potentially-full-scale rerolls, and you pay a premium for that ability in this game. So as we're going through these scenarios, it's worth assessing not only how a particular strategy's outcomes compare to our expectations for it, but also whether any increase in performance is worth the points premium it costs to make it work. I'll offer some preliminary suggestions as we go through, but it's always worth assessing whether there's an upgrade or combo that gets at our preferred result more efficiently, or whether our preferred result can't be reached in a way that is reliable.
• Fifth: I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but to fully take advantage of these strategies, you really do have to be an Imperial player. Rebel ships lack virtually all of the tools to make reroll strategies with red dice viable--no Vader, no Leading Shots (except on an MC-80, which shoots once, and a CR-90B, which doesn't shoot red dice). This, plus the difficulty the Rebels have in obtaining wide-spread CF token spam consistently (unless you have a Raymus-Tantive Corvette combo; Garm can contribute in bursts), leaves the Rebels really low on tools to reroll their red dice. But y'all also have Ackbar and your Home One-TRC frigates, so tough luck.

Whew. So far so good. Since this is our first figure (and a template for things to come), some explanations are probably in order.

1. Our four approaches are represented by four color bars (Blue for Conservative, Green for Measured, Yellow for Focused, Red for Reckless). Each of these represents data pulled from 100 reroll trials, using the rerolling strategy and methodology explained above (100 Conservative, 100 Measured, 100 Focused, 100 Reckless).
2. The left-most grouping is the average damage on the initial roll for each group. It is then followed by clusters for our first reroll (Vader), our second reroll (Leading Shots), and one final, single selective reroll (CF Token)--again, applying the methodology for that particular reroll strategy. If you need a refresher (or jumped straight to the graph without reading my introductory comments ), they're listed above.
3. Below each column are the numerical values for average damage for each strategy, rounded to the nearest hundredth.

• First, notice that two of our dice pools--Measured and Focused--started off extremely hot. The initial dice in our focused pool outperformed average expected damage by 0.2 (+6.7%), and our measured pool by 0.32 (10.7%). Our conservative dice were just slightly hot (0.08, +2.5%), and our Reckless dice didn't want to give themselves any advantages, starting out just a hair under average (-0.01, -0.3%).
• The four approaches managed to stay fairly close to one another across the graph. Not counting the initial variance between the dice pools, the largest reroll variance is on our final CF reroll, between our conservative dice (3.99) and our Reckless dice (4.37), for a total spread of 0.38 damage (+9.5%). That variance is noteworthy (discussed in the next bullet), but not game-breaking.
• The biggest pick-up for three of our four strategies was in the first reroll. Our conservative dice actually picked up the largest single-gain, +0.70 damage between their initial roll and the first reroll (+22.7%). Our Measured dice actually made up the least ground there (+0.43 damage, +13.0%), which compensated for their incredibly hot start out of the gate. Reckless scored impressive gains from their first two rerolls, adding a greater percentage increase with the first reroll (+0.53, +17.7%), but adding more raw damage with the second (+0.55, +15.6%). The Reckless dice were also the first pool to cross four average damage, needing just two rerolls (which is even more impressive considering they were at the back of the pack at the start), and ended with the highest average damage total of 4.37, which represents a whopping 46% increase in average damage over their initial rolls (2.99 to 4.37). To put that 4.37 number in perspective, 4.5 is the average damage output from six red dice. So the average damage outcomes for our Reckless pool is just shy of the average damage we would expect if we added Ackbar to the front arc of an ISD. Chew on that one for a while...
• It's hard to figure out exactly where each approach peaks and wanes, in part because we started with four different dice pools instead of identical pools (and two of them started extremely hot). From the data we do have, it seems the Conservative pool peaked on the first reroll, which accounted for 76.9% of the total damage increase (3.08 to 3.78, on its way to a finish of 3.99). This makes sense, as we're (hopefully) rerolling progressively fewer and fewer dice each time, as we convert blanks to positive results. The Measured and Focused pools put on most of their bulk in the first reroll as well (+47.3% and +59%, respectively), then tapered off on their second reroll before receiving a slight bump on the third for Measured (+24.2% and +28.6%), and a big bump on the third for the Focused (+15% and +26%). The Reckless rerolls gained significant boosts at each stage (+0.53, +0.55, +0.30), on their way to the highest overall damage average (4.37).
• All four approaches essentially get to the four damage threshold if we follow the methodology all the way through (Conservative is just slightly under, at 3.99). In other words, any of these approaches gets the same average damage out of four red dice as we would expect to get out of four unmodified black dice. We all like black dice for their reliability, right? Well, it appears we can get similar reliability out of our reds--at least as far as average damage is concerned--if we follow any of these methods.

1. We're looking at red dice in isolation, which means if all you're shooting is red dice, this seems to be about the best you can hope for. Hopefully if you're flying your star destroyer well, you also have some blue dice in the mix. If you have your full battery complement available (no obstructions), and score average rolls on your blue dice, you ought to add another 3 damage and an accuracy to these red dice totals, pushing average damage on even a conservative reroll to 6.99 with one accuracy result. That's not a shabby outcome. And, of course, the high-end damage potential from some of our more aggressive reroll strategies will top out much higher than that.
2. Even the conservative reroll strategy sees average damage from red dice increase from 3.00 to 3.99. That's better average damage than if you add Slaved Turrets to your ISD and ignore all of these reroll strategies. Heck, it's equivalent to an MC-80 Defiance adding a black die to its battery roll. Upgrades that add dice are highly sought after (and appropriately expensive). We're getting their results, at a much lower cost than if you bought them for your ships piecemeal.

So the moral of the story is to put your star destroyer in a position where you can bring its full complement to bear, supplement that large complement with these reroll strategies, and you have a strong damage platform to build on.

Wow. . . . Super long post. . . With such great information. . .

I loved it!

Wow. . . . Super long post. . . With such great information. . .

Yeah, I feel kinda bad about that. I'd be happy to start another thread if it's becoming an issue for anyone. Especially Hast, don't want to hijack his thread.