Editing Warhammer Army Project/Tips (section)

==Know your Stats==
Mostly directed at anyone new to Warhammer, understanding the distribution of numbers on a unit entry affects the fights outcome. Understanding what stats are particularly high or low in the enemy's army book can help to determine if a bonus to strength or initiative on a unit is a wasteful overkill or a deciding factor in various matchups.   

===Initiative===
Determines who goes first in a fight, it's important to many units. In a combat round not going first will risk your units not getting their full buckets of dice as some of your dudes get diced before getting their attack off. Especially important if they are fragile, but less so if they have very good protection or if their unit is so big, the loss of men will not affect your combat power. 

The initiative is boosted by 1 on charges, and certain weapons also affect it. Spears and Lances let your cavalry have a combined total of +2 and +3 respectively when you charge, while Spears and Pikes on infantry give a +1 or +3 respectively if they get charged by something bigger or faster than them. There is also a factor of some armies having such a big gap between their initiatives (ie. Elves vs the majority of books) that trying to go first is pointless most of the time. 

The base initiative is often tied to race, so here is a quick lineup by order of slowest to quickest:

*-: non-attacking objects, stomp attacks - Stomps, in particular, are resolved after absolutely everything else, including ASL attacks.
*-0.5: affected by Always Stikes Last - ASL does not reduce the initiative but states that model attacks after everyone else
*0: Slow race with great weapons - Dwarfs with great weapons have an effective initiative of 0, but still attack before ASL
*1: Saurus Warriors, Humans with great weapons
*2: The slow Reaction speed Races - Greenskins, Dwarfs, Ogres, Nurgle, Elite Humans with great weapons and most often skeletons
*3: Humans, Elves with great weapons
*4: Elite humans, Norskans, Chaos warriors, Skinks, Skaven
*5: Elves, vampires

===Weapon Skill===
The first dice roll barrier for determining who dies hit or not. Unlike most characteristics, having 1 more or less than your importance doesn't have as much impact on a unit's matchup but does matter the greater the disparity is, which more often happens when normal troops fight Elven and Chaos characters. 

from least to greatest the to-hit roll is as follows:
*6+: Defender's WS is x2+3 >= of attacker's
*5+: Defender's WS is x2 > of attacker's
*4+: Defender's WS is x2 <= attacker's but of attacker's WS is x2 < Defender's
*3+: Attacker's WS is > of Defender's
*2+: Attacker's WS is x2 > of Defender's

A simple +1 to WS doesn't matter too much outside getting a +1 to hit. Because of how little boosting by small numbers means, effects that allow a unit to reroll failed to hit rolls are common in Warhammer like the Hatred rule or Alway Strike First Rule while having higher initiative. 

As the brackets for the to-hit chances are tied to having a bigger disparity of WS with the opponent rather than just a larger number, making the ability to lower the enemy's WS like ''Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma'' from the lore of shadows a more valuable asset than just boosting your own, especially if your unit already has slightly more Weapons Skill.     

The Weapon Skill often ties into the eliteness of a unit so here is a quick lineup by order of slowest to quickest:

*0 or -: Terrain and Warmachine, cast a spell or other debuffs without a "to a minimum of 1" clause - can't attack, and melee attacks auto-hit
*WS 1: ''Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma'' like spell and/or stacking debuffs - most troops are hitting you on 2s and hitting back on 5s at best.
*WS 2: Goblins, Skeletons & Zombies, Drafted Expentabel meatshield, a bad ''Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma'' roll, one instance of WS debuff - Not that bad, just getting hit on 3s and hitting back on 4s. Less when elites hit on 2+s. Elves are 5+, but you likely have buckets of dice if WS2 was your default.
*WS 3: The majority of everyone and many monsters - Considered the default. From here, unless punching down, most things of equal or greater WS are 4+ to hit.
*WS 4: Elite fighters that train their entire lives, Elves, Dwarfs, those support heroes that can hold their own in a fight - the 3 is meant to be the common man, but 4 are the guy your trying to get into combat. +1 to hit the common man but are often given gear designed to fight elite things, so don't always matter.
*WS 5: In human lands, you would be the best sword in the region, Centuries-old Chaos warriors, Bloodletter, Daemonette, and the dedicated elven warriors - hitting most other troops on 3s, and those affected with ''Miasma'' will have a hard time.
*WS 6: the greatest swords arms of the times, human lords, exalted champions of chaos, Vampires, elven elites- safe to say that you hitting everyone on 3 or better 
*WS 7, 8, 9: your named, an elf, or a chaos character. Fights between chaff are 2+ vs. 6/5+, but rarely this is not the best thing they should be fighting unless riding or they are a monster.
*WS 10: You equipped the Fencer's Blades. - Hitting most on 2s and everthing else on 3s.

===Strength Vs Toughness===
The second barrier. This time +/- 1s matter. Many more things can modify it, including now mundane weapons and the poison rule. Less so than with Weapon Skill, You can invest too much depending on who you are attacking, using Great weapons for an S7 is a waste of points when the unit is expected to fight only T3 Emperial State troopers, whereas an Additional hand weapon would do better.

From least to greatest, the to-wound roll is as follows:
*6+: Defender's T is +2 >= of attacker's S
*5+: Defender's T is 1 > of attacker's S
*4+: Defender's T is == attacker's S
*3+: Attacker's S is 1 > of Defender's T
*2+: Attacker's S is +2 >= of Defender's T

Strength and Toughness also have an interesting interaction with spells and abilities that reduce the value to 0, as it will outright kill the modle/unit (keep in mind most have a "to a minimum of 1" clause to prevent this kind of easy insta kill).

Strength also affects your attack's inherent armor-piercing value (Str-3 = AP).
A quick lineup by order of Strongest to Weakest:

*S 0 or -: Terrain, Warmachine, Shrines
*S 1: Most swarm and spell/abilities that score a ton of hits, also Blowpipes. May had two debuffs stacked on you. Only wounds most things on 6s but make up for this with a higher attack and sometimes the poison rule.
*S 2: Snotlings & Bat swarms. Wounds the average man on 5s.
*S 3: The average man and average bow strength. The majority of things are Strength 3. Wounds the average man on 4s and tougher troops on 5s, and the hardier monstrous things on 6s.
*S 4: The average man who gets a strength boost from somewhere, either from a polearm or charge bonus, they are monstrous infantry or an elitist who works out a lot or run over by a weak chariot. Common Character Strength. Also, Crossbows, handguns/pistols, and rapid-fire guns. Wounds most other infantry on 3+ and things that are not full monster tough on 5s. Gets some AP(1) on the attack. Although Str 3 is the default, it's often easy to inflict for an offensive unit to inflict attacks that are Str4 or more. The only deviation is from Vollyfire bow spam or chaff that were only bought to buy time for as cheap as possible.
*S 5: Human with a Greatweapon or lance, Orc with a spear, a weaker monster, an ogre of notoriety, other monstrous troop types with or without a weapon, the front end of a chariot blow. Rapid Fire warmachines are often this. With AP(2), this is the common can opener infantry most armies can field without additional magic support. It will cut open most things from other elite to monsters with the weight of attack that will often land. The trade-off is often these kinds of units can have low initiative and may not themselves be very tough and/or have a high cost, so chaff will often be able to massacre the smaller can-opener unit instead unless the said unit is some kind of monstrous blender. 
*S 6: Full-blooded monsters, Strong humans with Greatweapons or lances, Bolt Throwers, Heroes with decent Magic weapons, or monstrous units with weapons. Unless they have a ton of armour or just a decent ward save, each hit will land.
*S 7: Strongest boys with or without a weapon. Monster killer strength.
*S 10: Strongest you can go. Cannonballs and magic misfire table. The thing hit is supposed to die unless they get lucky. No armour, only wards.