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So with all the hubbub over the new eldar release and the remaining antipathy towards the decurion formation, we've seen a fair bit of talk regarding limiting one's choice of units. Necron players, for instance, might choose not to bring wraiths to a game (especially a friendly one) because they're frustratingly durable and can easily make for an unsatisfying game. We have more than one thread right now that touches on how eldar players specifically can restrict their list building to avoid "unfun" matchups. In these threads, I've also seen a fair few people angrily declaring that they shouldn't have to "handicap" themselves (often preceding an accusation that one of their fellow posters is simply too unskilled a player to know how to deal with a new threat).

I found it odd that there could be such animosity towards the concept of simply not taking "OP" units, but I wanted to get everyone's thoughts on the subject. Is it wrong for a player to handicap herself to tone down her army? Is it wrong for a player to *not* handicap herself if her army is commonly perceived to be especially strong?

Personally, I've been negotiating games with my opponents since 5th edition when I really got into 40k. The way I see it, 40k is a thing I do to have fun. Preferably while my opponent is also having fun. For me, that means (among other things) having games with good give and take. If my opponent is tabling me on turn 2, I'm probably not getting much enjoyment out of the game. similarly, curbstomping my opponent isn't going to be very interesting. Plus, when one player gets really terribly beaten, it's understandable that that can be a bit of a downer for them. Who wants to make someone bummed out? I'd much rather play a close game where we're both enjoying it down to the end.

So with that in mind, it simply makes more sense to me to talk to your opponent in advance and try to make sure you have a list that's a good matchup for theirs. Generally, this means *not* spamming the most powerful options in your codex. Which is great because it lets you try out something other than that net list you keep seeing. I've been using mandrakes in my games guys. do you realize how fun mandrakes are to play with?!

Now, to be fair, I generally favor friendly games over tournament games, and my tournament lists are usually pretty strange rather than really competitive. Which isn't to say there's anything wrong with tournament playes or competitive lists. It's a different way to have fun. You bring the cheesiest thing in your book, you go up against other cheesy things that are generally more or less balanced against you, and you see how the dice shake out. Based on 7th edition tournament results, it looks like most books can actually compete reasonably well against one another. You know. As opposed to in 5th edition where you only ever saw one of three flavor of the month lists at tournaments. So now we have some relatively scary books. The decurion is frighteningly durable, and no one seems to have come up with a great way to deal with it yet. The eldar book is shaping up to have some really nasty options (looking at you scatter bikes) that will probably generally outperform their peers.

Frankly, I'm not clear on why a player (even a competitive one) wouldn't want to avoid using notably "OP" units, even at a tournament level. In friendly games, there's no tension regarding who will win. It's just one guy making the other pick up models. In tournament games, I figured part of the fun was understanding that the lists there would have at least a slight chance against one another. If, for instance, the new scatter bikes prove to be really truly game breaking to the point that it takes highly unlikely dice rolls for them to *not* win, why would you even bother playing them? Are you really taking satisfaction from spending money on a list that uses poorly made rules to win a board game? That's like spending real-world money to gain an advantage in Monopoly. You can't be enjoying a tactical aspect to the game, because jumping out from behind a building, shooting, and jumping back behind it doesn't take any real thought. If you really just enjoy making your opponent pick up models that badly with no real way for them to retort... why? I guess in a tournament scene, you could be doing it as a way to easily get prize money...

Tldr: We can all agree that some units are overpowered enough to make games unfun, right? So why would you be against not using them in your lists? If you agree they're overpowered and still use them, why? What satisfaction do you get from it?

Because some players want to see how fast they can table you.

Take my opinion as you will, because I'm a filthy, filthy Necron player, but I'm not against limiting yourself. I just feel it's bad game design when you feel like you have to. I play casual games with my girlfriend all the time and have loads of fun. I tried the new Wraiths against her once, and she was tabled by turn 4. So, I don't use them against her, as for me, it wasn't a fun game. My Eldar friend feels the same way, and with the new codex coming out, he even said he probably won't be using wraith units as much if ever. Now, if he ran Wraithguard, Scatriders, and a Wraithknight in his lists, I very well could build a list to counter it and probably win. However, neither him, nor I, want to do that. So, we do what we need to maintain the fun of the game.

It's the same with any multiplayer game anywhere. There are always some people who lose sight that the game is supposed to be fun for more then one person. Even when they run out of people willing to play with them the lesson doesn't get learned. If someone walked into the place with a crazy list and tabled everyone in 2 turns each, it might be fun for just the one person but it's ridiculous for the person to think any of them should want to play with him again. Such over competitiveness does have it's place and some venues cater to it in which all participants know their uber list will meet other uber lists. I play Orks, so unless I'm in a high point game or a tourney I'm going to leave my Stompa behind that can get 12 meks inside through Lootas and Burnas because I can see it's not fun for others to try and somehow bring down a regenerating super heavy walker without being able to chain D weapons on it (even if such a thing would take up %90 of my points in a normal game). It's an apocolypse unit rofl, countered by other apocolypse units. Still I'm going to keep one handy for competitive games when it's called for.

OP, take an exalt, I agree with everything in that post!

There's always extreme things. I'm going to use another army as an example though. My new Astral Claws are built around three things. Huron Blackheart, his Terminator squad and Bikes with Skilled Rider. Now, to build up the Terminators, I have to take a Master of the Forge with a special rule giving them a much needed buff and a Conversion Beamer standard. That gives me a long range S10 Blast, and an unlimited two shot S10 Large Blast from Huron and the Terminators wound on 2+ with Poisoned Storm Bolters. Nearly guaranteed to wipe some things off the board and it doesn't matter that those units are up to 600pts in a 1250pt list, that negates half of my opponent's army just by existing.

Huron Blackheart is the entire reason I took Astral Claws, Terminators need the help so adding another powerful character model to specifically buff them was an easy choice. I don't have Grav Cents or 80 Grav Bikes, but it still outclasses my normal opponents and if someone wanted me to get rid of those models because they are too strong, well then I may as well play my Ultramarines because you just gutted the reason to even bother with Astral Claws. That would bug me, but don't get me wrong, I WOULD play Ultramarines if they asked, but it does negate the reasons I started an army.

Bringing it back to Eldar, I began Eldar liking Wraiths, and I know I'm not the only one. Iyanden players nearly JUST have Wraiths. Now, asking them to not take Wraiths because of these new D Weapons being handed out like Lasguns, that undermines their entire collection, their reasons for collecting the army and might invalidate their sense of fun.

Same issue with a Saim-Hann force. It might have been fluffy as a bunny in 6th, with Vypers and Falcons and a handful of Aspects with the main force in Jetbikes and a single Wraithknight because it's a nice model. Now a powerful build is looking like the Windrider Host (30 Jetbikes and some Vypers) an Aspect Host (3 units of Aspects), a squadron of Falcons (that don't scatter on Deep Strike when taking 3) and a Gargantuan Creature with Str: D. Same exact models, but the build went from mid/low-tier and fluffy to just as fluffy but OP as balls. You can ask to limit special Bike guns to 2 per 5 or 1 per 3, but other than that you are asking to either change the rules (reduce Str: D to S10) or change what is absolutely a fluffy Saim-Hann army because of a ruleset we can't control.

Lucky for me, I got distracted halfway through building my Eldar and only ended up with an Alaitoc Pathfinder list with Dark Eldar allies. My Eldar are still happily mid/low-tier. I'll pick up some Bikes, sure, but I have no intention on going crazy with them. Don't want to sink the money into more than 15 Bikes when I would rather play Rangers and Pathfinders.

Nothing in the rules says that it has to be fun for two people and there is no effective way, outside of being a store owner or a tournament org to force other people to play the game you want it. Now couple this with super high entry cost of an army and you get people only buying the good units and concentrating on the good armies. Now this of course doesn't mean that everyone is going to play this or that army. The cost of the best maybe just too high for most people, and only few people will play them. The limit of possible models bought also limits stuff. If I store gets one or two pices of a unit, then there won't be suddenly 20 armies using it, if said army requires 3 of those. Even if it is the best army there is.

Now the self limitation of someone doing it to make other people happy, as impossible as it may seem. Could happen, if it didn't require practicly buying additional armies. And this drives the cost up even more.And one fast starts to wonder why buy 4000-5000pts of IG to have a separate army dark eldar and orks. When you can take the same money buy 1500 of eldar and 1500 of tyranids. And have 2 different armies that work always. Better yet if someone is that rich, he lowers the chance that a new edition will totaly screw him over. Eldar may suddenly suck, but maybe the nids are great. While someone who just has IG may end up with a non working army, and then he is more or less at the mercy of other people. And begging others to use bad lists at best will end up with them saying they will do it as soon as you buy the bad models for them to play.

I'm lucky enough to play in a meta where everyone knows how to build a good list and we're usually practicing for an upcoming event. If someone wants to mess around with mediocre units, they will let you know before the game "hey, I'm just messing around today so you're probably going to steamroll me". Out of 20+ regular players, we've had 1 guy quit because we were "too competitive" for his tastes. The rest have had no problem adapting and are now much better players with much better lists than when they joined. We have an ork player, a dark eldar player and a sisters player that are nearly unbeatable now. If we had toned down our lists and played soft on them, they would still be mediocre generals with mediocre lists. Just last week the dark eldar player, without any allies, fought the best tau list I've seen to a draw.

Any decently balanced game shouldn't require its players to handicap themselves in order to have an enjoyable experience.

Having said that, there shouldn't be an problems with handicapping or changing the rules up if it lets both players have fun and enjoy playing the game (even for good games).

Friendly games, maximum of one 'OP' selection. Tournaments? No holds barred.

As an alternative, against opponents I feel I may easily beat, I have been known to just intentionally "forget" a unit in reserve, to waste points on a single "useless" unit, or to just handicap myself 10-25% of the points for a game.

I own 3 wraithknights already from the 6th edition codex and I have an Armorcast Tower Knight Destroyer that I use as a wraithknight. I also have 30 of the old jetbikes that i have had forever. I also have 30 old metal wraithguard... I actually want to use the models i have.

That being said I do use some more fun lists. Like lists that didnt have a single wave serpent in them and used only guardians for troops. Friendly games I will tone it back. When my FLGS holds a tournament I will use 4 wraithknights.

Wyldhunt wrote:
Are you really taking satisfaction from spending money on a list that uses poorly made rules to win a board game? That's like spending real-world money to gain an advantage in Monopoly.

This, so much.

Good read, OP.