7 minutes ago, HoodieDM said:

All good points. I guess in the end, its all situational. Depends on whose defending, the hitpoints, their skirmish upgrades, etc, etc.

The good thing about Vader is you get to reroll an attack die and defense die when playing him now

Also btw, can you use Force Choke twice now?

~D

Oh no. I forgot you can reroll an attack die.

That could definitely have an impact on which one is better. I suspect that the RR will still be better, because rerolls are often quite strong on red dice. But it does add a huge complication to the mix. Maybe I'll do the math on that at some point...

49 minutes ago, HoodieDM said:

All good points. I guess in the end, its all situational. Depends on whose defending, the hitpoints, their skirmish upgrades, etc, etc.

The good thing about Vader is you get to reroll an attack die and defense die when playing him now

Also btw, can you use Force Choke twice now?

~D

It's really not that situational. The situations where you would want to use RY are few and far between. I can't imagine seeing one come up often enough to ever try to roll anything other than RR.

15 minutes ago, TheUnsullied said:

It's really not that situational. The situations where you would want to use RY are few and far between. I can't imagine seeing one come up often enough to ever try to roll anything other than RR.

Vader vs Vader?

~D

43 minutes ago, HoodieDM said:

Vader vs Vader?

~D

Hmmm, interesting indeed, but you still might deal no damage even with RY and using Pierce 3 XD
Vader is already the strongest unit in defense, alongside with Weiss, and Zillo help them a lot. Vader with Driven by Hatred is 100% going to be meta-defining, i guess all Jedis are going to get boosted...
BRACE YOURSELVES, THE FORCE IS COMING!

4 hours ago, HoodieDM said:

I look at it the other way, I WANT them to discard their command cards. So they exhaust it for the pierce, but then the rest of their characters are full game that round. I also want them to burn cards for the +1 block. The less they have, the better off I am. That's how I see it anyways.

~D

The option that is being discussed is the end of round attack, where he rolls either a Red/Red, or a Red/Yellow. In this specific case, I wouldn't want them to exhaust Zillo. As soon as the end of round attack is over, it will be readied immediately for the beginning of the next round. *you're correct and that could be an interesting use for using RY.*

20 minutes ago, Fightwookies said:

The option that is being discussed is the end of round attack, where he rolls either a Red/Red, or a Red/Yellow. In this specific case, I wouldn't want them to exhaust Zillo. As soon as the end of round attack is over, it will be readied immediately for the beginning of the next round.

Doesn't the ready step come before end of round step in skirmish too? If Zillo is exhausted during end of round, it cannot be used during the next round.

Skirmish Status phase said:

1. Ready Cards: Both players ready all of their Deployment cards. (ed.note: all exhausted cards)
2. Draw Command Cards: Each player draws one Command card from his deck, plus one additional card for each terminal he controls.
3. End of Round Effects: Resolve any abilities or mission rules that are triggered at the end of the round.
4. Pass Initiative: The player who has the initiative token passes it to his opponent. Then players begin a new round starting with a new Activation Phase.

8 minutes ago, a1bert said:

Doesn't ready step come before end of round step in skirmish too?

huh. i've learned enough in my time on the forums to not argue with @a1bert because he's always right.

I'll have to look up exactly when those do ready.

*Found it*

Yeah, it looks like cards are readied during step 1 of the status phase: Ready cards. During step 2 you draw command cards, and then step 3 is finally the end of round effects when vader attacks.

So yeah, you could use it as a tactic to get them to exhaust Zillo for the round.

Ok, so!
I use an alternative method to make math calculations and determine the average amounts of damage. What i do is simply simulate several attacks against the same die, by using my game dice.
That's because luck cannot be removed from the equation :/
SO, i've just simulated with my real dice 20 attacks, 10 RR vs 1 Black and 10 RY vs 1 black. In these simulations i've not taken consideration of Zillo so that we could observe at the pure damage dealt and blocked.
This is how it went:

RR vs B: 3+3 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 3. Damage taken: 4
RR vs B: 3+2 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 3. Damage taken: 3
RR vs B: 3+1 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 2. Damage taken: 3
RR vs B: 2+1 damage + 1 surge (2 damage) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 1. Damage taken: 5
RR vs B: 2+2 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 1 surge. Damage taken: 5
RR vs B: 3+2 damage + 1 surge (Pierce 3) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 2. Damage taken: 6
RR vs B: 2+2 damage + 1 surge (Pierce 3) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 3. Damage taken: 5
RR vs B: 3+3 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 3. Damage taken: 4
RR vs B: 3+2 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 3. Damage taken: 3
RR vs B: 2+1 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 2. Damage taken: 2

RY vs B: 2 damage + 1 surge (Pierce 3) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 2. Damage taken: 3
RY vs B: 2+1 damage + 2 surges (+ 2 damage, 1 negated) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 1 surge. Damage taken: 6
RY vs B: 2 damage + 1 surge (+2 damage) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 1. Damage taken: 4
RY vs B: 2 damage + 2 surges (Pierce 3, +2 damage) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 1. Damage taken: 5
RY vs B: 3+1 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 3. Damage taken: 2
RY vs B: 2 damage + 1 surge (Pierce 3) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 3. Damage taken: 3
RY vs B: 3+1 damage + 2 surges (Pierce 3, +2 damage) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 2. Damage taken: 7
RY vs B: 1+2 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 3. Damage taken: 1
RY vs B: 2 damage + 2 surges (Pierce 3, +2 damage) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 3. Damage taken: 5
RY vs B: 3+1 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 2. Damage taken: 3

40 total amount of damage out of 10 RR against 39 total amount of damage out of 10 RY.
Clearly, if the opponent has Zillo to prevent 2 of Pierce, values get easilly different, while the only case where consuming 1 command card to negate damage from an attack is within the RY.
Also, using RY against figures who passively block surges might be a hit in the stomach for RY.
Little conclusion: Although normally damage values are almost the same, RR might get an intresting boost in certain situations, while RY seems suffering from Zillo and passive surge blocks.

30 minutes ago, erlucius90 said:

Ok, so!
I use an alternative method to make math calculations and determine the average amounts of damage. What i do is simply simulate several attacks against the same die, by using my game dice.
That's because luck cannot be removed from the equation :/
SO, i've just simulated with my real dice 20 attacks, 10 RR vs 1 Black and 10 RY vs 1 black. In these simulations i've not taken consideration of Zillo so that we could observe at the pure damage dealt and blocked.
This is how it went:

RR vs B: 3+3 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 3. Damage taken: 4
RR vs B: 3+2 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 3. Damage taken: 3
RR vs B: 3+1 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 2. Damage taken: 3
RR vs B: 2+1 damage + 1 surge (2 damage) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 1. Damage taken: 5
RR vs B: 2+2 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 1 surge. Damage taken: 5
RR vs B: 3+2 damage + 1 surge (Pierce 3) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 2. Damage taken: 6
RR vs B: 2+2 damage + 1 surge (Pierce 3) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 3. Damage taken: 5
RR vs B: 3+3 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 3. Damage taken: 4
RR vs B: 3+2 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 3. Damage taken: 3
RR vs B: 2+1 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 2. Damage taken: 2

RY vs B: 2 damage + 1 surge (Pierce 3) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 2. Damage taken: 3
RY vs B: 2+1 damage + 2 surges (+ 2 damage, 1 negated) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 1 surge. Damage taken: 6
RY vs B: 2 damage + 1 surge (+2 damage) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 1. Damage taken: 4
RY vs B: 2 damage + 2 surges (Pierce 3, +2 damage) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 1. Damage taken: 5
RY vs B: 3+1 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 3. Damage taken: 2
RY vs B: 2 damage + 1 surge (Pierce 3) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 3. Damage taken: 3
RY vs B: 3+1 damage + 2 surges (Pierce 3, +2 damage) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 2. Damage taken: 7
RY vs B: 1+2 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 3. Damage taken: 1
RY vs B: 2 damage + 2 surges (Pierce 3, +2 damage) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 3. Damage taken: 5
RY vs B: 3+1 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 2. Damage taken: 3

40 total amount of damage out of 10 RR against 39 total amount of damage out of 10 RY.
Clearly, if the opponent has Zillo to prevent 2 of Pierce, values get easilly different, while the only case where consuming 1 command card to negate damage from an attack is within the RY.
Also, using RY against figures who passively block surges might be a hit in the stomach for RY.
Little conclusion: Although normally damage values are almost the same, RR might get an intresting boost in certain situations, while RY seems suffering from Zillo and passive surge blocks.

This is fine, but 10 tests are not sufficient to analyze probabilities. And a physical test is not necessary. There are a finite number of outcomes each with equal probability, and the Damage Calculator tells you the exact average damage based on these outcomes.

26 minutes ago, Stompburger said:

This is fine, but 10 tests are not sufficient to analyze probabilities. And a physical test is not necessary. There are a finite number of outcomes each with equal probability, and the Damage Calculator tells you the exact average damage based on these outcomes.

The Damage Calculator gives a graph stats which contains chances to get specific results based on averages.
Statistics tho can't get a real value from the 'random factor'. basically, you could have calculated that the average damage you deal with a specific attack is 4, but then when you move ingame you can either deal 1 and 7 damage.
For example:
If you look at the graph used to determine chances to deal X damage off RR dice vs 1 black die defense. Many might say "oh the highest average damage dealt is 4, therefore most of my attacks will stick around that value".
Yeah, that's true, yet just by looking at 10 scores i rolled with the dice, i've had more results with 5 than 4.

If you look instead at the graph drawn from RY vs black die, you see RY has higher chances to deal up to 4 damage with each attack, yet by rolling dice 4 scores out of 10 dealt 5 or more damage (why do i roll like this only while simulating? -.-)
"Chaos" (random) and math can't agree with themselves, we can only get close to them but truth will always lie ingame, with dice

RY vs B

RR vs B

52 minutes ago, erlucius90 said:

Ok, so!
I use an alternative method to make math calculations and determine the average amounts of damage. What i do is simply simulate several attacks against the same die, by using my game dice.
That's because luck cannot be removed from the equation :/
SO, i've just simulated with my real dice 20 attacks, 10 RR vs 1 Black and 10 RY vs 1 black. In these simulations i've not taken consideration of Zillo so that we could observe at the pure damage dealt and blocked.
This is how it went:

RR vs B: 3+3 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 3. Damage taken: 4
RR vs B: 3+2 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 3. Damage taken: 3
RR vs B: 3+1 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 2. Damage taken: 3
RR vs B: 2+1 damage + 1 surge (2 damage) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 1. Damage taken: 5
RR vs B: 2+2 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 1 surge. Damage taken: 5
RR vs B: 3+2 damage + 1 surge (Pierce 3) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 2. Damage taken: 6
RR vs B: 2+2 damage + 1 surge (Pierce 3) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 3. Damage taken: 5
RR vs B: 3+3 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 3. Damage taken: 4
RR vs B: 3+2 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 3. Damage taken: 3
RR vs B: 2+1 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 2. Damage taken: 2

RY vs B: 2 damage + 1 surge (Pierce 3) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 2. Damage taken: 3
RY vs B: 2+1 damage + 2 surges (+ 2 damage, 1 negated) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 1 surge. Damage taken: 6
RY vs B: 2 damage + 1 surge (+2 damage) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 1. Damage taken: 4
RY vs B: 2 damage + 2 surges (Pierce 3, +2 damage) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 1. Damage taken: 5
RY vs B: 3+1 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 3. Damage taken: 2
RY vs B: 2 damage + 1 surge (Pierce 3) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 3. Damage taken: 3
RY vs B: 3+1 damage + 2 surges (Pierce 3, +2 damage) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 2. Damage taken: 7
RY vs B: 1+2 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 3. Damage taken: 1
RY vs B: 2 damage + 2 surges (Pierce 3, +2 damage) + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 3. Damage taken: 5
RY vs B: 3+1 damage + 1 base damage from Driven by Hatred / blocked 2. Damage taken: 3

40 total amount of damage out of 10 RR against 39 total amount of damage out of 10 RY.
Clearly, if the opponent has Zillo to prevent 2 of Pierce, values get easilly different, while the only case where consuming 1 command card to negate damage from an attack is within the RY.
Also, using RY against figures who passively block surges might be a hit in the stomach for RY.
Little conclusion: Although normally damage values are almost the same, RR might get an intresting boost in certain situations, while RY seems suffering from Zillo and passive surge blocks.

You rolled on fire with the yellow dice. getting 2 surges on 4/10 attacks might not be sustainable. 2+ surges should occur about about 25% of the time with that combination of dice.

3 minutes ago, Fightwookies said:

You rolled on fire with the yellow dice. getting 2 surges on 4/10 attacks might not be sustainable. 2+ surges should occur about about 25% of the time with that combination of dice.

That's what i mean with rolling instead of calculating xD The random factor, aka luck
We might calculate as much as possible and get as close as possible to reality, but still the game will always have the final word because of randomness.
Rolling dice can't be calculated by math, it can just be felt by the force! XD

4 hours ago, erlucius90 said:

That's what i mean with rolling instead of calculating xD The random factor, aka luck
We might calculate as much as possible and get as close as possible to reality, but still the game will always have the final word because of randomness.
Rolling dice can't be calculated by math, it can just be felt by the force! XD

You're absolutely right that knowing the statistical averages will not tell you how you are going to roll in a particular game. But it will tell you what you can expect to roll over many games and many rolls. And that's much more useful than rolling the dice 10 times and seeing what happens; what is more likely to have a better outcome is still the right choice, even if it turns out worse in a particular instance

Yeah it's just one of those thing where we have avg vs. expected avg (or whatever their technical/academic term is called)

For example, if we roll 1D6 we know the expected avg is 3.5 ((1+2+3+4+5+6)/6), meaning if we keep rolling it forever (like a billion times), we'd expect the average to be 3.5

But if we actually roll it 10 times we might get really lucky and get, say, 6662613465, which gives us the false sense that the avg should could be 4.5 ((1+2+3+4+5+(5*6))/10). Of course we might get really unlucky too and get say 1165432111 and we'd think the avg could be 2.5 ((6+5+4+3+2+(1*5))/10)

I'd prefer sticking to the calculator (i.e. expected avg) if possible. It's simply too swingy to rely on field tests like "let's roll it 10 times and see what we get as our avg!"

In a tournament game? You bet that I'll go with the expected avg (which in this case apparently it is indeed RR > RY unless there's some fancy shenanigans like Zillo/power token/passive blocks/command cards)

One thing that I really love about the IA damage calculator is that it gives the probability to do at least X damage, which I think better models what's important in Imperial Assault. The actual damage value and average damage doesn't matter so much as the number of actions (read, attacks) it takes to defeat a figure. If I need to do X damage to defeat a figure, I'll probably choose the dice pool that maximizes the probability of doing at least X damage. Sometimes (though rarely), this dice pool will have a lower average damage and yet be the optimal choice. The differences in probability are so small though that deviating from the general rule (RY against > 2B, RR against ≤ 2B) probably won't make that much of a difference though. But I do think that reasoning purely about average damage can potentially be a trap.

23 hours ago, ManateeX said:

I don't have the rules in front of me to quote from, but for all of the other timing instances during an attack it always goes attacker picks then defender picks. I'd assume that this would work the same way, so yeah, I think you'd get to see the dice before choosing to use the token.

So in that case the attacker would have to pick his die first and the defender can then respond with the block tokens.. that is a bit of an advantage for the defender if you can stack a few block tokens on your main targets.

The HotE article strongly implies that power tokens are spent when the attack is declared. A token must be spent before seeing dice results. So the benefit of power tokens is not that much greater to the defender.

HotE said:

Once armed with one of these tokens, a figure that declares an attack or is declared as the target of an attack may discard one of its power tokens to apply that token's symbol to the attack’s results.

So, with a flexible attack pool the attacker can decide which dice according to the power token spent.

16 minutes ago, a1bert said:

The HotE article strongly implies that power tokens are spent when the attack is declared. A token must be spent before seeing dice results. So the benefit of power tokens is not that much greater to the defender.

So, with a flexible attack pool the attacker can decide which dice according to the power token spent.

But what FrogTrigger was wondering wasn't whether or not you chose the token before seeing the results, but rather whether you chose the token before seeing which dice the attacker chose.

I guess it comes down to - when during an attack does the attacker have to declare what dice they are rolling? Is it when the attack is declared (so the same timing as the tokens) or is it during the step where they roll the dice?

Unless there's explicit timing, I equate anything that affects the dice pool (add, remove, modify) to this:

RRG said:

· Any ability that is resolved "while attacking" or "while defending" can be used at any point during the attack with the following exceptions:

-- An ability that adds dice to a dice pool can only be used immediately before step 2 of the attack.

(There are some interactions where technically removing a die from the attack pool is triggered before the attack pool is built, but it's easy to know what the intent it. The rules and text space just doesn't bend itself to be fully 'by the book'.)

In the Driven by Hatred case though, "When you declare this attack" is pretty explicit about timing.

I feel like we might have ignored something here: iirc you can only spend 1 power token per attack

FFG's original article (do a Ctrl+F search on "power tokens"): https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2017/5/5/heart-of-the-empire/

Let's bring back the original equation: I'm Vader and I'm attacking someone

There's only 5 types of power tokens, as Vader (the attacker) if my enemy (the defender) decides to add:

Damage -> N/A

Surge -> N/A

Evade -> I'm definitely picking Red + Red because now I prefer damage over surge

Wild -> We'll go with the best case scenario for defender and say it counts as a block

Block -> Let's go back to the % table

I think I'd still be tempted to pick Red + Red: I'd favor RR's 53% of doing 4dmg or 31% of doing 5dmg over RY's 13% to do 6dmg or 4% to do 7dmg. Facing against white defense die is just a no-brainer