40K: Warp Storm Table – Is It bad?
Hey up, Mercer from Imperius Dominatus here. I am going to look at the Warp Storm Table in this article, as it appears it has created some fuss on the world wide web among 40k players. At first glance you think what the douche, but I think we need to take a deeper look and need to look at the bigger picture.
Lets find out what the table does and how it works. You roll 2D6 at the start of the shooting phase and compare to the table. You only use this table if Daemons are your primary detachment. Here are the results:
2 – All Daemons take daemonic instability test.
3 – Select a random character with the daemonic instability rule, that model must take daemonic instability test on 3D6.
4 – Daemons suffer -1 to invulnerable saves.
5 – Units containing Daemons of Nurgle and enemy units take a S4 AP5 large blast (can scatter) on the roll of a 6+. Attack has the barrage and ignore cover special rules.
6 – Units containing Daemons of Tzeentch and enemy units take D6 S4 AP3 hits with poison (4+) and ignores cover on the roll of a 6+. Vehicles are hit on side armour. Wounds are allocated by the unit’s controlling player.
7 – Nothing happens.
8 – Units containing Daemons of Khorne and enemy units take D6 S6 AP- hits with the rending and ignores cover special rules on the roll of a 6+. Vehicles are hit on side armour.
9 – Units containing Daemons of Slaanesh and enemy units suffers S8 AP3 small blast (can scatter) hit on the roll of a 6+. Has the barrage special rule. Wounds are allocated by the unit’s controlling player.
10 – All Daemons gain +1 to invulnerable save.
11 – Select random enemy psyker. Psyker must take leadership test on 3D6, if fails Herald replaces the model.
12 – New unit of 2D6+3 Plaguebearers, Bloodletters, Daemonettes or Pink Horrors appear (you choose). These models deep strike onto the table. You can only place models you have, if you do not have any then the excess is destroyed.
Basically half the table is bad results and half the table is good results with the centre result doing nothing, which happens to be a 7 which is the average 2D6 roll.
So what’s the chances of getting good and bad rolls? Each 2D6 combination roll is 2.77% and there’s only one combination of getting a 12 on the table (2 x 1) and only one combination of getting 12 on the table (2 x 6). The chances of the combinations go up by +1 until they get 7, which they then decline by -1 until you get to 12 i.e 5.55% to get 3 table and 8.33% to get 4 on the table.
Here’s a nice little image I found on the interwebs:
As you can see the most common result is a 7 on 2D6 with results of 6 and 8 on 2D6 coming a close joint second. This means on the Warp Storm Table on average you should see nothing happen, Nurgle’s attack or Slaanesh’s attack. If you wanted to avoid the results of the table then take Daemons of Slaanesh or Daemons or Nurgle more in your army. ~Editor’s note: rolling a 6,7,8 represent 40% of a 2d6’s probability, so going Slaanesh/Nurgle really skews the randomness down if you hate the table. Then half of the remaining 60% are positive results for the Daemon player.
So really is the Warp Storm Table that bad? Going by averages I say it is not and it also adds an interesting element to the game. Keep in mind that the table has some very good results which are balanced out with very bad results. Also keep in mind 40k is a game of dice and averages do not always reflect what happens in the real world 😉
What do you think of the Warp Storm Table? Is it as evil as Daemons or does it cause fun chaos?
