Aircraft

[Poor Yorek]

I don't really want to win on a die roll, I want to win because good tactics. If I lose, I want it to be because the other guy was better, not luckier, than I.

But doesn't this define PG?

No, wargames, and indeed most strategy games, are an exercise in probability management. If it were not, there would be no functional difference between a DF of 4, and a DF of 16. Luck matters, but if luck decides the game, regardless of skill, it's only a dice rolling contest.

I think I said the same thing in the part of my post you did not quote: On average the better tactical player should win more often than the weaker one, but the variance in PG is fairly high .... My only claim was that variance in PG is an intrinsic part (therefore part of the definition) of PG (otherwise there would be no die rolls - there would just be a deterministic combat/morale table) and sufficiently high over the number of rolls of a typical scenario that luck not only matters, but can (not must) be a deciding factor (in a given scenario) particularly as the skill level of the two players becomes close. This is particularly true with scenarios with roll-dependent reinforcements or a hex control VC depending on a die roll on the last turn. I'm not sure I see the point of dispute here.

I might ask whether one of our Statistics faculty would be interested in this problem (perhaps as a student project) and work through an analysis of the combat tables vs. some likely number of combat/morale rolls.