Warlord summary

I’ve gone in and looked at all the warlord traits by number but what does it all mean?  First off it means you want to avoid rolling a 3 because no matter what table you choose this is an awful result and will be largely ignored moving forward.  If you add up the values of warlord trait each die roll, you get the total power of that roll.  The higher the power the better.  This is a largely meaningless stat as you don’t (or shouldn’t) have control over what number you roll.  But if you do aim for a 1 or 2.

Roll	Power
1	32
2	31
3	13
4	26
5	26
6	23

Second it means there is a no dominant choice (a dominant choice is where regardless of other variables all results are better than those of a different choice).  Given that, there are three strategies for picking your warlord table. 

The first is maximizing the value of the average result.  This can be determined by adding individual value of each result, whichever table gets the most points wins.  The winner under this method is the strategic table.   It will never you the best result for any die roll but it will always give you the second or third best result.  The Iyanden table comes in a close second but there is more variability in Iyanden between the high and the low.

Roll	Eldar	Iyanden	Personal	Strategic	Command
1	9	8	6	6	6
2	6	8	3	8	6
3	1	3	3	3	3
4	9	4	2	7	4
5	1	4	8	7	6
6	2	7	7	5	2
Power	28	34	29	36	27

The second strategy is the rank the powers for each die roll and figure out who ranks the highest consistently.  Unsurprisingly this doesn’t vary a great deal from the previous method but it move Iyanden into first place because Iyanden does control the top spot on a couple of die rolls.

Roll	Eldar	Iyanden	Personal	Strategic	Command
1	1	2	5	3	4
2	3	1	5	2	4
3	5	3	1	4	2
4	1	3	4	2	5
5	5	4	1	2	3
6	4	1	2	3	5
Score	19	14	18	16	23

The final strategy is the go for broke.  This strategy takes the stance that most of the results are poor regardless so getting one poor power is essentially the same as getting another poor power.  This result is epitomized by the Jetseer bike list which rolls on the command table because the value of the Inspiring Presence to make LD10 warlords makes up for the crappiness of the rest of the list for that army build (you could also argue that the value of Inspiring Presence to that list is probably closer to 15 than 6 upping the average value as well).  For other army builds the go for broke strategy suggests rolling on the Eldar table.  The Eldar table has the two best results Ambush of Blades and Fate’s Messenger, however it also has the two worst and three of the bottom four powers overall.  So you are really gambling on getting a 1 or 4.  Likewise you could gamble on Personal to try and get feel no pain on your wraithknight warlord in big guns never tire.

 

So every table should be considered pregame and who your warlord is/what the mission is will change things as well (see Inspiring Presense lesson).  Personally I like Iyanden in most situations, there is a little more risk than Strategic but better top end payoff.  Eldar is just too risky for me in most situations