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Hi Guys,

I'm planning to write a blog post in a few days that'll revolve around people who insist on using anecdotes as reasons for why things are good in 40k. You might remember from an old signature of mine, that I hate this practice, claiming that it is a fallacious practice, and it doesn't prove a point.
that I'm looking for today is some people's worst anecdotes. It can be one you created, or one you heard. Hell, it can be one I used if you can dredge one up. I just need anecdotes. Do note this material will be used elsewhere on the internet, so refrain from posting if you find that objectionable. On the other hand, full credit is always awarded for anything used.

For those of you who don't know, an anecdote is usually a short story that is used as a proof of something. While an anecdote can be used in persuasive support of an argument, it cannot be the argument itself.

This is an anecdote:

I once shot a lascannon at a land raider and it blew up.

Notice how that isn't backed up with mathematics? Notice how, while possible, there's nothing in that story that doesn't scream "I rolled well"? Those are the kinds of stories I'm looking for.

Thanks for the help!

Adrenal gland termagants are totally great against vehicles because I charged them at leman russes once and they exploded.

I'm not kidding.

This was an actual argument used.

MEQ are bad cause 3+ means nothing.

I'm paraphrasing but the most recent one that comes to mind: "hits against side facings are resolved against side armour, therefore all things resolved against side armour hit both side facings".

Even in large numbers AP5/AP6 multiple barage small pies are not dangerous to MEQ/crisis suits because of their crap ap.

Pretty much all of Jancoran's apologist arguments for bad units (I'm 20-2 with my Chaos Marines, Mutilators are fiiiiiiiine!).

Tacticals are bad because Riptides exist.

Jimsolo's arguments that the game is balanced are also worth a laugh.

Back in 2nd edition, a friend wanted to play a quick skirmish against me - Marines vs Orks.

For this, completely straight faced, he proposed that he field Terminators (remember - 3+ on 2D6!) against Gretchin in a 1:1 ratio. After explaining how shockingly unbalanced and 1-sided the fight would be - he proceed to explain how actually it's a completely fair matchup "because he saw a gretchin kill a Terminator in a game".

He was not joking.

I'm pretty sure Mike just won the thread.

 koooaei wrote:
MEQ are bad cause 3+ means nothing.

You have NO idea how much I want to punch people when I see that argument

I've seen a few really bad one in the past, but one that I can remember now was something like Land Radiers were good because they could camp objectives(although this was back in fifth when you could capture a point while inside a vehicle)

This isn't a tactics thread is it?

Kain wrote:Adrenal gland termagants are totally great against vehicles because I charged them at leman russes once and they exploded.

I'm not kidding.

This was an actual argument used.

It's not been possible, surely? the best a gant can do is a glance, and the best they could get last edition was a wrecked result.

That was the point, right?

PrinceRaven wrote:I'm paraphrasing but the most recent one that comes to mind: "hits against side facings are resolved against side armour, therefore all things resolved against side armour hit both side facings".

I laughed, although this is actually an invalid argument, not an anecdote.

Like, you know those "your argument is invalid" because funny photo memes? They would be applicable then.

schadenfreude wrote:Even in large numbers AP5/AP6 multiple barage small pies are not dangerous to MEQ/crisis suits because of their crap ap.

I feel like throttling people who think this. Thank you.

MIKEtheMERCILESS wrote:Back in 2nd edition, a friend wanted to play a quick skirmish against me - Marines vs Orks.

For this, completely straight faced, he proposed that he field Terminators (remember - 3+ on 2D6!) against Gretchin in a 1:1 ratio. After explaining how shockingly unbalanced and 1-sided the fight would be - he proceed to explain how actually it's a completely fair matchup "because he saw a gretchin kill a Terminator in a game".

He was not joking.

Thankyou, Mike. This is exactly what I wanted. You get internet cookies.

"I'd like to make revisions to the Chaos Space Marines codex since there are no competitive lists for Khorne and 1k Suns".

Me "Sure, I'll bring a competitve ork list??".

Well... They ARE right about 1k sons not working from the beginning of time...

Also "large blasts reliably hit 4-5 models"

 Scipio Africanus wrote:

Kain wrote:Adrenal gland termagants are totally great against vehicles because I charged them at leman russes once and they exploded.

I'm not kidding.

This was an actual argument used.

It's not been possible, surely? the best a gant can do is a glance, and the best they could get last edition was a wrecked result.

That was the point, right?

It's a terrible anectdote because it was also outright lying.

In any case, even with glancing rules charging 30 termagants at a Leman Russ means the guard player is probably either screwed anyway or really dumb.

Kholzerino wrote:
This isn't a tactics thread is it?

^This.

MarsNZ wrote:
Tacticals are bad because Riptides exist.

Riptides are bad because I once charged one with three battle sisters and they tied it down from turn 4 through the end of the game (turn 6) while only losing one model to his S6 AP2 attacks over the course of 6 fight sub phases (we also rolled out turn 7... Poor riptide didn't manage to kill anything there either.)

 koooaei wrote:
MEQ are bad cause 3+ means nothing.

^^^ This, so freaking much.

I'd say the worst class of anecdotes that I consistently see revolve around template weapons, especially those based on the small blast template.

People have seen a single small blast hit 9 models and then wipe them out with good rolling, and then become firm believers that plasma cannons absolutely ruin space marine armies, or that grenade launchers are suddenly the business against hordes.

They never stop and ask themselves what's more likely, that blast weapons are good, or that their opponent was an unlucky idiot for that particular shot?

Before hull points, there was also a lot of awful anecdotes about how great autocannons were, even against AV12 vehicles. Of course if you throw around a hundred autocannon shots, you're going to roll a few 6's, but the amount of selection bias was flat crazy.

Though probably the worst of the worst for anecdotes was Marbo, in part because that was sort of part of his schtick. People always remember that one time that Marbo arrived and blew up something massive, and then forget all of those games where he did nothing.

I mean, I myself have two examples of Marbo single-handedly winning a game for me, one of them involving Marbo showing up behind my opponent's farsight bomb...



And subsequently vaporizing it, which pretty much just straight knocked a tau player right out of a 2v2 game.

But that's the one anecdote that sits on top of game after game of him showing up, being a blast hunter killer missile, and then disappearing.

 Ailaros wrote:
I'd say the worst class of anecdotes that I consistently see revolve around template weapons, especially those based on the small blast template.

People have seen a single small blast hit 9 models and then wipe them out with good rolling, and then become firm believers that plasma cannons absolutely ruin space marine armies, or that grenade launchers are suddenly the business against hordes.

They never stop and ask themselves what's more likely, that blast weapons are good, or that their opponent was an unlucky idiot for that particular shot?

Before hull points, there was also a lot of awful anecdotes about how great autocannons were, even against AV12 vehicles. Of course if you throw around a hundred autocannon shots, you're going to roll a few 6's, but the amount of selection bias was flat crazy.

Though probably the worst of the worst for anecdotes was Marbo, in part because that was sort of part of his schtick. People always remember that one time that Marbo arrived and blew up something massive, and then forget all of those games where he did nothing.

I mean, I myself have two examples of Marbo single-handedly winning a game for me, one of them involving Marbo showing up behind my opponent's farsight bomb...



And subsequently vaporizing it, which pretty much just straight knocked a tau player right out of a 2v2 game.

But that's the one anecdote that sits on top of game after game of him showing up, being a blast hunter killer missile, and then disappearing.

Hand of the king 44 right?

I need to read that ASAP.

That looks amazing.

Kain wrote:
It's a terrible anectdote because it was also outright lying.

In any case, even with glancing rules charging 30 termagants at a Leman Russ means the guard player is probably either screwed anyway or really dumb.

Agreed.

BoomWolf wrote:Also "large blasts reliably hit 4-5 models"

I use this when trying to compare a large blast to a small blast. IT doesn't matter that a large blast tends to hit about 3 dudes, people say its bigger, so it should hit more.

Ailaros wrote:I'd say the worst class of anecdotes that I consistently see revolve around template weapons, especially those based on the small blast template.

People have seen a single small blast hit 9 models and then wipe them out with good rolling, and then become firm believers that plasma cannons absolutely ruin space marine armies, or that grenade launchers are suddenly the business against hordes.

They never stop and ask themselves what's more likely, that blast weapons are good, or that their opponent was an unlucky idiot for that particular shot?

Can I quote you on that?

aliaros wrote:
Before hull points, there was also a lot of awful anecdotes about how great autocannons were, even against AV12 vehicles. Of course if you throw around a hundred autocannon shots, you're going to roll a few 6's, but the amount of selection bias was flat crazy.

I still don't like S7. Never have, probably never will - it just isn't as flexible as everyone believes it is.

aliaros wrote:
Though probably the worst of the worst for anecdotes was Marbo, in part because that was sort of part of his schtick. People always remember that one time that Marbo arrived and blew up something massive, and then forget all of those games where he did nothing.

Yep. I had one example of Marbo knocking out Kantor and an entire devastator squad. I still miss him dearly, despite the fact that he's so broken from this one bad experience.

Thanks for the replies, guys!

Also, I posted this in tactics because I wanted to attract answers from people who post in tactics. I apologise for misusing the subforum in this way, but there was a valid reason for it.

 koooaei wrote:
MEQ are bad cause 3+ means nothing.

That's not really the crux of the argument around the problems with meqs, but carry on if it makes you feel better.

"My Warhound killed a Stompa easily, so that makes supeheavies balanced in games where my opponent doesn't have one."

Army A is bad because I totally owned it with army B.

I've heard this story not an insignificant number of times and it always baffled me how someone could come to this conclusion.

"The Doom of Malan'tai is OP because I heard someone say it killed half their army by itself."

"Lets be honest here I once heard the Doom being likened to dropping a brick on the table and removing the models that fall over "

Three of the four times I saw the Doom of Malan'tai back in 5th, it was ID'ed by psyriflemen trivially.

Martel732 wrote:
Three of the four times I saw the Doom of Malan'tai back in 5th, it was ID'ed by psyriflemen trivially.

The god damn GKs wreck the Tyranids really hard. They make for one of the most hardest match ups in the game if we're being honest.

28 of the 30 times I ran the Doom back in 5th it killed less than half its points cost (not including the Spore cost) then immediately died on the next turn or was completely ignored and barely did any more damage.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kain wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Three of the four times I saw the Doom of Malan'tai back in 5th, it was ID'ed by psyriflemen trivially.

The god damn GKs wreck the Tyranids really hard. They make for one of the most hardest match ups in the game if we're being honest.

Not any more, Shadows + the Horror is hilarious against them. I'm a lot more scared of Dark Eldar, Eldar and Tau.

 PrinceRaven wrote:
28 of the 30 times I ran the Doom back in 5th it killed less than half its points cost (not including the Spore cost) then immediately died on the next turn or was completely ignored and barely did any more damage.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kain wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Three of the four times I saw the Doom of Malan'tai back in 5th, it was ID'ed by psyriflemen trivially.

The god damn GKs wreck the Tyranids really hard. They make for one of the most hardest match ups in the game if we're being honest.

Not any more, Shadows + the Horror is hilarious against them. I'm a lot more scared of Dark Eldar, Eldar and Tau.

It's the Dreadknights I hate facing the most as they mulch anything they touch, Swarmlord included.

But they're not quite the terrors they used to be.

DEldar is still no fun at all, and if they tailor against the Tyranids in general you may as well go home.