Night Shields effectiveness

I dont want to escalate this to some unreasonable extent. :-) Lets just say that we agree to differ.

I think that a +1 difference on one roll in a sequence of... 4 rolls (hit, pene, damage table, jink) is just so minor that it is not worth taking anywhere.

And you think that even that little bit can make a difference and give you an edge when needed. True?

aurynn wrote:

And you think that even that little bit can make a difference and give you an edge when needed. True?

It happened in my last game.

Oh it certainly CAN happen. :-) At least now some of us will be watching this when we play. Maybe we will find out that the dice gods do not care about statistics. No irony meant.

Oh I'm not trying to go on a keyboard warrior rage spree, healthy discussion right!

My thought is really that I'm willing to fork out to prevent the dice gods from being cruel. The thing with dice is that probability is only good for theory. If you have a 50% chance to save that raider from those 3 glances and then move it on to capture that game winning objective but you roll three 3s, whatcha gonna do?  So it does give an edge, and in some situations that might be all you need, in other games it might not matter. To quote a wise old cartoon character: "A single grain of rice, can tip the scale" The Emperor, Mulan.

Grub wrote:

That extra splinter cannon on the venoms not worth it if it doesn't hit and wound. That shadowfield isn't worth it if it shorts out first time. That heatlance deepstriking scourge squad isn't worth it if it misshaps.

The point, however, is how likely any of these given events are to happen. The more statistically probable they are to happen the less worth it the given unit/wargear/upgrade is.

That's why people are talking about the chance of the extra +1 cover bonus affecting enemy shooting is, if the percentage is low enough then it is not worth it compared to the cost - though people will likely have different opinions of what percentage equates to what value of cost.

Just taking your Shadowfield thing - it has a 16% per save rolled of shorting out.
That means to have a roughly 50% chance that this even happens he needs to take 4 wounds on the first attack (and also lack FNP). While that is possible, it is not particularly probable - and therefore the value of the Shadowfield falls into a comfort price zone for people.

For the Venom to miss with all it's splinter shots is an 8% chance, so you measure the 8 out of 100 times versus the point cost and ask yourself if it is worth it.

The odds of the NightShield helping is about 10%, so 90 times out of 100 it doesn't (more or less depending on weapon, yadda, yadda) The goal then is to look at those numbers and decide if that has value.

The odds of those other things happening are less than the odds of the NightShield helping - which is why some people do not find it a good value benefit for the cost.

I know they are all unlikely and I do understand the maths; but my point is rather that they can and do happen (at least to me) regularly.

Statistically you can argue that maybe the points to improved survival chance isn't worth it. And I would agree if I was to look at it as black and white statistics. But I think there is more to think about then cold maths. I'm not saying its an essential for all vehicles, rather, the ones that I need to be more survivable or those that are going to attract the most fire, I want them to be as well protected ao they can deposit their cargo e.g. Grots, incubi, archon, succubus whatever so that they can do there job. Which is why it boils down to opinion right. I don't trust the statistics in a game, I don't think they reflect the way games go. So I would say that NS are effective in many situations. Maybe not for 15 points if you can spend it elsewhere but if you have a bit left over, why not? What's the harm in giving a unit a little edge?

Ok. I will play the other side advocate for a bit now that I had some time to mulch it over again...

Imagine that you have a 150 pts unit for which you buy the 15pt. NS... If the NS saves the unit and transport, it pays itself 10 times over. If we take into account the fact that Raiders have 3HP, theoretically (and very simplistic theory it is as it does not take into account a lot of important factors) it saves its unit in 1 of 3 "saves". Which means it would need to pay 30 times over to be of equal value. The actual number will be lower OFC. Something like 20 times. So... if I put the NS on an unit that all together costs over 300 pounds, the NS is statistically a worthwhile investment.

However if we were to find the TRUE value of it, we would need to calculate also the damage that the "saved" unit can do or a value of possible VP gain of that unit or VP loss if it is lost.

Therefore your tooled Archon's boat with his Blasterborn retinue is actually worth protecting by NS... :-)

If you have NS you should theoretically save 2 in every 3 shots right?

But its a fair point. If you look at it from a statistic/mathammer point if view its not worth it. If you look at it from a wider point of view and think about what it could save and the outcomes of that through the entire game, perhaps its a different story. That cant be predicted so it comes down to how much you want to gamble and if you feel its the best place to stick your points!

Its why this is such a good question.

Grub wrote:

I know they are all unlikely and I do understand the maths; but my point is rather that they can and do happen (at least to me) regularly.

I'm sorry the bell curve treats you thusly.
I will agree that if anyone has that sort of effect then perhaps those other upgrades are also not worth it, though I don't think it then makes the night shields worth it either.

I Will never leave home without my Nightshield. A 3+ cover save for saying the word "jink" is amazing and rightfully feared.

My own concerns are regarding the liquifier. A nerf and a tripple in price!! On the other hand it Can be so potentially deadly that its difficult not to bring along!!

Damn, that's a lot of points used.

Thor665 wrote:

Grub wrote:

I know they are all unlikely and I do understand the maths; but my point is rather that they can and do happen (at least to me) regularly.

I'm sorry the bell curve treats you thusly.
I will agree that if anyone has that sort of effect then perhaps those other upgrades are also not worth it, though I don't think it then makes the night shields worth it either.

Its not about "being treated unfairly" or luck or the impression of luck. Its about maximising your combat effectiveness. And a wrecked raider in your deployment with its passengers strewn about is not effective. Reducing the chance of failure by 17% seems like something I want on my most important (not all) vehicles if I can!

Jehoel wrote:

I Will never leave home without my Nightshield. A 3+ cover save for saying the word "jink" is amazing and rightfully feared.

My own concerns are regarding the liquifier. A nerf and a tripple in price!! On the other hand it Can be so potentially deadly that its difficult not to bring along!!

But the discussion is about the difference the NS bring. 4+ jink is just as fear-inducing, but most ppl do not realize how far in the rolls sequence that +1 difference occurs and how small the REAL gain is.

Space Marines need an average of 54 Bolter shots to glance a jinking raider to death.
With Nightshields they need 81 Shots on average. Thats a +27 shots (more than a full Tactical Squad difference!) in favor of NS.

Sure. Against heavy hitters the difference is small (and cant be savely averaged as it is a single independant dice roll). But most of the time you will be under small arms fire or medium weapons.

18 shots for Eldar Scatter Laser without NS, 27 with NS. Difference roughly 2 Scatter Lasers.

Klaivex Charondyr wrote:

Space Marines need an average of 54 Bolter shots to glance a jinking raider to death.
With Nightshields they need 81 Shots on average. Thats a +27 shots (more than a full Tactical Squad difference!) in favor of NS.

Sure. Against heavy hitters the difference is small (and cant be savely averaged as it is a single independant dice roll). But most of the time you will be under small arms fire or medium weapons.

18 shots for Eldar Scatter Laser without NS, 27 with NS. Difference roughly 2 Scatter Lasers.

And how many vs. Serpent Shield?

Sooo... you are saying that 54 marines have to fire on my Raider to bring it down? So with 3 tacticals in a list they just will have to dedicate 2 full turns of fire, coz I will be damned if I let them come to RF range. Why should I want to increase that number? Its absolutely ineffective and trying to make it even more ineffective is just overkill.

Serpents - 18 SL shots means 5 SLs? What is the points worth of the units required to dish out such firepower? Cheapest way is 3 SL/SL War Walkers perhaps? That will cost almost 4 times of the raider? Yea... thats worse ratio for the attacker than for us bringing down a Land Raider! Again - I see no need to ramp it up to 27...

And as Hero just said - calculating the Shield into this makes them even more worthless...

The_Burning_Eye wrote:

18 shots, of which 12 should hit the raider.... Even if you jink normally and save half of those, there are still six hits, which should statistically cause 1 hull point. Now add in the night shields, and 8 of those hits are cancelled, leaving your opponent with a measly 4 hits and only a 67% chance of causing even 1 (glancing) hull point...

This is the second time I've seen someone mention the idea of rolling vehicle saves prior to penetration rolls, so now I feel obligated to say something. Vehicle saves are rolled AFTER penetration rolls. You only DECLARE jink prior to shots being fired. They are still resolved at the normal time for saves.

aurynn wrote:

most ppl do not realize how far in the rolls sequence that +1 difference occurs and how small the REAL gain is.

The place in the sequence doesn't matter AT ALL to the math. Those rolls are not altered by whether or not you have night shields. They would be the same regardless. The only relevent numbers to this discussion are these:

1. How many hull points/penetrations would the vehicle take prior to saves?
2. How many AFTER saves(without NS)?
3. What would that change to WITH night shields?

And the answer is universally the same when you consider the quantifiable variables. Things change even further in favor of night shields when you consider penetrations being saved, but aside from that, it's an extra 17% chance per glance/penetration of stopping that damage, as long as it's not "ignores cover" damage, which is a variable that you simply can't quantify.

So, it improves your odds of saving every single hull point by 17%. On one hull point, this might not seem like a big deal, but across multiples, it adds up.

Example:
You have 10 vehicles with 3 hull points each. Your opponent targets all of them, you declare jink, and through rolling to hit, to penetrate, etc, he/she does exactly 60 hull points of damage across all of your vehicles. Now it's your turn to roll your saves:
WITHOUT NIGHT SHIELDS: You take 30 hull points, losing roughly half of your vehicles.
WITH NIGHT SHIELDS: You take 20 hull points, losing roughly a third of your vehicles.

As you can clearly see here, this is NOT a 10% difference, and it can certainly make a difference in a game.

As an example of ways in which this may be worth it, let's take gunboats as an example. A raider with splinter racks, full of warriors costs 150 points. With the night shields making this unit 17% more resilient, it would absolutely be worth it. Aside from the simple math that the NS costs 10% of the price of the unit, while offering 17% higher protection, there is also the intangable benefit of denying your opponent a killpoint in games that are scored that way. So even if the percentage was equal, and you could add another unit to your army by dropping night shields across the entire field, it MAY not be mathematically prudent to do so. You'd have to weigh lowering the defense of ALL your units across the field by 17% against what offensive power you gain by bringing that additional unit. THEN, you'd have to decide if that increased offense would offset, in gained kill points, the lost killpoints from lowering your defense.


TLDR: The math can get very complicated, but it's best for most of us to simply remember this: Night shields add 17% additional chance to pass EVERY jink save. The cost is probably only worth it on vehicles where you don't care whether the vehicle ever shoots, or in situations where you can reliably sit your vehicle in cover.

HERO wrote:

And how many vs. Serpent Shield?

Has about the same use as jinking or any cover in general. But if you are only playing vs Tau and Eldar you should have no issues with that topic anyways.

Klaivex Charondyr wrote:

HERO wrote:

And how many vs. Serpent Shield?

Has about the same use as jinking or any cover in general. But if you are only playing vs Tau and Eldar you should have no issues with that topic anyways.

So would you say that in an all-comers list, knowing that these 2 armies really invalidate a lot of your points spent on Night Shields, do you still think it's a worthwhile investment at multiple vehicles at 15ppm?

Depends on your army, the vehicle and the troops embarked.

Venoms cant have it anyways.
Ravager are quite useless when they jink anyways.
I dont consider them particularly useful on our flyers.
Leaves us with Raiders. And for that 2 - 4 vehicles that carry a lot of points (Grots, Blasterborn, fully kitted Splintersorm Kabalites) the 15 points are an ok investment. Sure if you absolutely need that 45 points somewhere else, thats ok.

As mentioned previously in this post I say it's strongly dependant on you contents
Long story short, are they worth it on an empty raider or a ravager? He'll no!!!
But if you have a 10 man squad in raider with racks it's clear what their job is so in this scenario I would say defiantly worth it for the additional 16% survivability(vs shooting anyways)

I can understand why people don't like to bring NS on a ravager because jinking a ravager makes it useless... but NS still works even if you don't jink. I always plant my ravagers in or behind some sort of terrain. Craters now give em a 4+ ruins a 3+ etc... one of the best WL traits we can get is stealth in ruins... hell we can buy that now for vehicles... my opponents never see me jink a ravager and I still enjoy the full benefits of a NS

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

The math can get very complicated, but it's best for most of us to simply remember this: Night shields add 17% additional chance to pass EVERY jink save.

Yes... but you are missing one important fact - Overkill factor. Example - one Dev squad (with MLs) has a chance of what? 15% to destroy your Raider? Two Devs WILL statistically destroy your raider whether you have NS or not due to HP loss... And your opponent will almost surely shoot both. That is where I am heading with my line of reasoning. You just cant add up all shooting and say "he will destroy this many Raiders per turn", coz he wont - his shooting is not distributed ideally. You cant add up all jinks and say "therefore NS will save this many Raiders per turn", coz they wont for same reason! I am not debating that NS will kick in 17% of the jink rolls, but only IF someone shoots you, IF someone hits you and IF somene causes any damage. And I am saying that EVEN if it kicks in, it has marginal chance to have any REAL influence on the outcome...

@Tittliewinks22
Craters do not give Ravagers 5+. There is no area terrain in 7th ed. If the crater is not deep enough to cover 25% of the Ravager, you dont get ANY cover.

aurynn wrote:

I am not debating that NS will kick in 17% of the times (and only IF someone shoots you, IF someone hits you, IF somene causes any damage). I am saying that EVEN if it kicks in, it has marginal chance to have any REAL influence on the outcome...

Not true at all. They WILL target your vehicles, because if they don't, your 6 raiders with objective secured are going to win the game for you, right?

The point is, that 17% chance saves 17% of all hull points across your entire army if you take it on everything. If you take it only on important VIP stuff, same 17%. Either way, you're either saving that vehicle 17% more often if they shoot at it, or 100% more often if the night shield discourages them from shooting at it at all.

If my opponent chooses not to fire at my VIP transport so that he can say he made me "waste" my night shields, I will be happy to play along with that line of thought.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

aurynn wrote:

I am not debating that NS will kick in 17% of the times (and only IF someone shoots you, IF someone hits you, IF somene causes any damage). I am saying that EVEN if it kicks in, it has marginal chance to have any REAL influence on the outcome...

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

Not true at all. They WILL target your vehicles, because if they don't, your 6 raiders with objective secured are going to win the game for you, right?

Debatable, depending on mission - another chance factor. And I argued that it MIGHT be worth on some expensive or otherwise valuable units. But still the increase is only marginal.

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

The point is, that 17% chance saves 17% of all hull points across your entire army if you take it on everything. If you take it only on important VIP stuff, same 17%. Either way, you're either saving that vehicle 17% more often if they shoot at it, or 100% more often if the night shield discourages them from shooting at it at all.

No... No... No... it is not 17%. Its not really 17%. If someone shoots and overkills your vehicle by 50%, 17% DOES NOT MEAN ANYTHING! It does not save anything! It saves a HP that you do not need to save because its the 4th HP on 3HP vehicle. Which is happening more times than not given units loadout. So if 4+ jink is not enough to save you, a 3+ wont help you most of the time...

BetrayTheWorld wrote:

If my opponent chooses not to fire at my VIP transport so that he can say he made me "waste" my night shields, I will be happy to play along with that line of thought.

And that is why I said that their use is more psychological than practical.