A little bit ago I did damage stats for Elite Weequays. I know I promised to put out some stats for Elite Rangers to compare, but the math is kind of tough to add in those 2 rerolls when you have different colored dice from focus. I've been doing it all on paper, eventually I just have to write a program to come up with these odds. The Weequays were pretty easy because the assumption was just always reroll the 1 surge side of green and you only had one color of dice to worry about. The Gamorrean Guards were a bit more complicated, as you'll see in the assumptions. I really wanted to do this comparison for myself, because I'm working on my worlds list and these two units are among the ones I want to bring. I figured I'd share my research with you guys.

Here are the assumptions (numbered in order of priority):

When not focused:

1. reroll the 1 damage red dice
2. reroll the 2 damage red dice

When focused:

1. reroll the 1 surge side of green
2. reroll the 1 damage side of red
3. reroll the 1 surge/1 damage side of green
4. reroll the 2 damage side of red

Again these assumptions aren't perfect, because you might want to keep a surge for cleave, or you might not want to reroll if you're worried about tough luck, or you may not choose to reroll the 2 damage side of red or the 1surge/1damage side of green if you already have enough damage. These assumptions however will get you the maximum average damage, so that's why I used them.

Here are the results:

Without focus:

Average of 4.79 damage

With focus:

Average of 6.31 damage.

Elite Gamorrean Guards damage output increases by 1.52 by adding a focus. Compare that to non-hidden elite Weequays who gain 1.78 damage and .22 pierce when adding a focus and you can see that your focus is much better spent on the pirates. When elite Weequays are already hidden they gain 1.49 damage and .14 pierce which is about a wash compared to focusing an elite Gamorrean Guard. If all your pirates are hidden, you should feel comfortable throwing your focus on whichever figure you want (especially if you want that cleave). If you're prioritizing rerolling for cleave then your odds are 42.12% without focus and 82.64% with focus to roll at least 1 surge. I didn't stress the cleave numbers in this analysis because I find I hardly ever use cleave with my guards. There are so many units with built in evades that it's rare to actually pull off. You also can't count on 1 surge against a white die.

As far as raw damage output Elite Weequays also have an edge. You'll almost never attack with an elite Weequay without at least 1 beneficial condition. With hidden the pirates do 5.07 average damage and .67 average pierce which is a big improvement on the pigs' meager 4.79 average damage (not hidden). With Focus (no hidden) the Pirates will give you 6.19 average damage and .4 pierce, compared to 6.31 average damage on a focused pig.

The Weequays also cost 1 less point, which is invaluable in scum considering the plethora of great skirmish upgrades.

So why use Gamorrean Guards? Sure they don't put out the same damage as Weequays, but they also can take a lot more damage. With 2 more health than a weequay plus a built in block against ranged units, there aren't too many popular figures that can take these guys down in 1 hit. You can position them to block important passageways so your sniper units can jump out and get safe attacks off. Gamorrean Guards are great against Luke, who can't deflect their attacks, and who's white die + evade is pretty penetrable with the two red dice. They don't care about getting weakened from Terro's flamethrower or toxic dart and they don't mind attacking units with built in evade. Gristly Contest and Pummel are very good cards with these guys, and really pump up their damage output. They also have better action economy than pirates, because they don't rely as much on focused or hidden to get their damage out.

Conclusion: Elite Gamorrean Guards can't dish out the reliable damage like the elite Weequays, but I believe they are top tier units and are pretty versatile as objective runners, meat shields, and decent damage output. They are good against built in evades and basically ignore the weakened condition. Straight up against a pirate, it's going to take about 2 attacks for a pig to kill a pirate and 2 attacks for a pirate to kill a pig, but the pirate is going to require a couple of actions to apply conditions first.

Nice analysis - I don't play skirmish much but this matters for campaign too.

I was wondering, are you able to factor in the Weequay's ability to reroll defense dice while attacking? That will add a significant amount of damage to their averages.

Edit: did you do this in your other post? If so, where is it?

3 minutes ago, Stompburger said:

Nice analysis - I don't play skirmish much but this matters for campaign too.

I was wondering, are you able to factor in the Weequay's ability to reroll defense dice while attacking? That will add a significant amount of damage to their averages.

Edit: did you do this in your other post? If so, where is it?

Unfortunately adding defense dice in with rerolls makes the assumptions I had go out the window and really complicates the math. Rerolls are very situational depending on how much damage you're showing/how much more damage you need to guarantee a kill, how much risk you're willing to take to do potentially less damage, etc. I wanted to put out these numbers just for the sake of comparison, so I didn't factor in all those other things. Here is a link to my Weequay damage post:

11 minutes ago, brettpkelly said:

Unfortunately adding defense dice in with rerolls makes the assumptions I had go out the window and really complicates the math. Rerolls are very situational depending on how much damage you're showing/how much more damage you need to guarantee a kill, how much risk you're willing to take to do potentially less damage, etc. I wanted to put out these numbers just for the sake of comparison, so I didn't factor in all those other things. Here is a link to my Weequay damage post:

Yeah, the defence dice reroll can complicate things, but it's not too bad. How do you your reroll calculation? I did one (just for regular weequays, against black dice, and without any conditions), and the way I did it was listing all possible rolls of attack and defence dice in a spreadsheet. Then I calculated the expected result for rerolling each die (by changing that die's result to the average result). Then I just assumed that the weequay would always reroll the die that would be expected to result in the most damage in each case, and averaged the results from there. The defense die reroll made a big difference.

But depending on the method you're using, that could be a lot harder to implement. And I didn't even bother trying to do it with white dice

34 minutes ago, Stompburger said:

Yeah, the defence dice reroll can complicate things, but it's not too bad. How do you your reroll calculation? I did one (just for regular weequays, against black dice, and without any conditions), and the way I did it was listing all possible rolls of attack and defence dice in a spreadsheet. Then I calculated the expected result for rerolling each die (by changing that die's result to the average result). Then I just assumed that the weequay would always reroll the die that would be expected to result in the most damage in each case, and averaged the results from there. The defense die reroll made a big difference.

But depending on the method you're using, that could be a lot harder to implement. And I didn't even bother trying to do it with white dice

It's not too bad if they aren't focused, but every die you introduce adds another layer of complexity.

My methodology: I figured out which combinations of dice make which damage/surge outcomes and then figured out how you could get to those combinations after rerolling given the assumptions I posted. For example there are 4 ways to roll 6 damage with a focused Gamorrean Guard (2dmg green + 2x 2dmg red, 2 dmg green + 1 dmg red + 3 dmg red, 1 dmg green + 2 dmg red + 3 dmg red, 0 dmg green + 2x 3dmg red). There is a 1/2 chance of rolling 2dmg on green, 1/3 chance of 1dmg, and 1/6 chance of 0 dmg. On red there is 1/3 for 3, 1/2 for 2 and 1/6 for 1. Here are the odds of each combination (listed as (green*red*red)*reroll)

Odds of rolling 2 dmg green, 2dmg red, 2 dmg red: ((1/2*1/2*1/2))*1/2 + (1/6*1/2*1/2)*1/2 + (1/3*1/2*1/2)*1/2 + (1/2*1/6*1/2)*2/2
Odds of rolling 2 dmg green, 3 dmg red, 1 dmg red: ((1/2*1/3*1/6))*2/6 + (1/6*1/3*1/6)*2/2 + (1/2*1/6*1/6)*1/3 + (1/2*1/3*1/2)*2/6
Odds of rolling 1 dmg green, 2 dmg red, 3 dmg red: ((1/3*1/2*1/3))*2/3 + (1/6*1/2*1/3)*2/3 + (1/3*1/6*1/3)*2/2 + (1/3*1/2*1/6)*2/3
Odds of rolling 0 dmg green, 3dmg red, 3 dmg red: ((1/6*1/3*1/3))*1/6 + (1/3*1/3*1/3)*1/6

Breaking it down one step further, the odds of rolling 0 dmg green, 3 dmg red and 3 dmg red (the bottom line I listed) with a reroll is equal to the odds of rolling that same thing and rerolling the green into the 0 damage side, plus the odds of rolling 2x 3dmg reds and a 1 damage green and then rerolling the 1 damage green into the 0 damage green. These are the only two situations which will end up with the final combo of 0 dmg green, 2x3dmg red. There are 4 ways to end up with the other 3 combinations after your rerolls.

For each possible outcome I found all those odds and added them all together. If you add a black defense die to the equation, you're introducing 4 more combinations possible for every single combo listed above which makes it almost impossible to do by hand. Plus there are 2 different defense dice, and a ton of characters with unique defense. With the Weequays and rerolls on the defense dice you introduce new assumptions you have to follow as well. At that point it's simpler to write code to do it for you, and maybe i'll do that eventually, I just need to brush up on my coding.