Here is something for you to discuss:

Why are the armies that most people think are not the top tier lists winning the large tournaments, and doing better then all of the armies that people think are the hardest armies?

Stelek and I have been going back and forth over it in our blogs:
http://www.yesthetruthhurts.com/
http://blackmoors40k.blogspot.com/

Stelek has been critical of the army I won the Wild West Shootout with, the army that won BolsCon and the winning 'Ard Boyz army, and any other winning army that does not meet with his approval.

So Clay posted this (I hope you don't mind me re-posting this for the sake of discussion)

Clay wrote:
Ya know, I come to this blog for several reasons. There are some good lists here, and I like to argue, and at those times, it's pretty easy to find something I disagree with here and start into something. But.....

There are lots of zombies/sheep/monkeys/whatever you Stelek clones call yourselves that bash every list, and battle report, all while promoting the ideas that are placed in your head. That's all fine and dandy, but aren't you guys spread out over the country?

In the Atlanta area, we have several(5+) guys who believe the Stelek mantra, and they consistently show up with lists from here. Would you like to guess what they have in common? Other than ZERO tournament wins? Oh, nothing I guess. My point is, that there seem to be enough of you that just running your mouths here on this blog seems a waste. Why aren't you out there DOMINATING the tournament scene?

Soft scores? Where we play, we use checklists. There is no COMP, and the painting and sportsmanship are checklisted. Our lowest Sportsmanship in our last event was a 28 of 30. While I am not here to debate if this is the right way to do things, it certainly makes Battle points king where we play.

Why aren't you guys out there kicking in heads and crushing all the naysayers? There are like I said, 5+ living in Atlanta, and they don't win, well, EVER. They win games, but they don't win tournaments.

What I keep reading here, is; "So and so won blah blah blah event, but his list sucked and any one of us could have crushed it with our 5th edition lists" So my question/challenge to you is, why werent you there? Why arent you EVER there?

Get some T-Shirts, yes, really. Get out there, show us what you mean. The tournament scene isn't competitive? Show up and win some events then, should be relatively easy from what you SAY on this blog. Not a lot of bit behind that bark from what I've seen though.

Not a slam at all, but a challenge, yelling something on this blog about how great your lists are, and how good you are doesn't mean anything to me because skill is all relative. Winning in (insert FLGS here) is all well and fine, but surely some of you are out there where these big tournaments are being held and can show up and play right?

Even if soft scores somehow hose you, you should finish high on the battle points chart, maybe some Best General awards?

This is not directly pointed at Stelek, because I know where he lives, and traveling all around the country doesnt work for some. But mainly you other "sheep", show up at some big events, win some stuff. Specifically, come down to Atlanta, if you are near here, or post and let me know where you play that is near Atlanta, and I will try and attend those events as well.

So my question is, why are not the hardest lists dominating the US tournament scene?

Because the best players play what they like and not the hot list of the moment? Strong players squeeze alot of their lists and take over confident players by suprise.

I think Clay has a point, Stelek's cronies are the kind of young kids who think they are alot smarter than they actually are. Also their armies are probably not designed to massacre, which you do with a balanced list now as opposed to the old school beat stick list, and they are trying to play beat stick lists without understanding why Marc Parker won so many major events with them. The only time I know of Stelek attending a major event he brought a tie army that was getting minor wins(11-9 pts) because of the way they scored things that year. If they didn't decide ties by VPs he would have still placed where he did in the pack he just wouldn't have been "undefeated".

I think the best thing to do is completely ignore him. Looking at his site for ideas is one thing but in anyway engaging him in debate validates him in the eyes of his followers. Just let him die already guys.

Well my belief is that the "hardest lists" also require A LOT of money effort and/or converting (Jetlocks and nob bikers take converting and IG takes massive cash)

For various reasons the internet personas who claim to be amazing may not actually make it to very many tournaments OR the results of such tournaments may not be posted everywhere

As with any swiss system matchups are extremely important. Unlike say warhammer fantasy battle most of the "tough" armies have counter lists that can smack them silly.. PBS > Nob bikers and psyker defense + rate of fire can beat jetlocks

The tournaments themselves may also skew the results because believe or not .. not every tournament believes in the USA scale of massacres.

Win loss + a few bonus points makes the EXTREME lists sometimes less effective at bulldozing the competition as LOTs of armies can win but not a lot can score massacres 3 games in a row

A tournament of all amazing players that uses a massacre system would prob end up with the guy who played the scrub winning it all.. regardless of lists (Hence why i think the massacre
system is garbage)

Of course you cant forget each area's meta-game which may be more favorable towards certain armies.. why bring anti-eldar stuff if no one plays eldar for example?

Kirasu wrote:The tournaments themselves may also skew the results because believe or not .. not every tournament believes in the USA scale of massacres.

Win loss + a few bonus points makes the EXTREME lists sometimes less effective at bulldozing the competition as LOTs of armies can win but not a lot can score massacres 3 games in a row

A tournament of all amazing players that uses a massacre system would prob end up with the guy who played the scrub winning it all.. regardless of lists (Hence why i think the massacre
system is garbage)

Before I posted I did a little research into the winning lists, and while in the US the harder lists seem like they do not do as well, but in the UK the hard lists seem like they do prevail, although less this year than in years past, but they have only had the first heat of 3 to draw conclusions from.

It is kind of counter intuitive because the UK system of counting only wins and losses seems like it would favor the armies that are not that hard, but can squeeze out a win, but in the US system that counts how badly you beat your opponent it would seem like the hard core lists would dominate even more.

Ah Stelek based drama, how I do not miss it.

First up whilst Stelek is undoubtedly a smart guy he is also the most abrasive, single minded I have ever had the misfortune to debate on the internet.

Completely unopen to any idea other than his own. As others have said, by all means read him because he is smart and does have insight but never attempt to debate him because it is just a useless waste of time.

As for why the BEST lists don't always win tournaments its because there are many, many factors in tournament play other than lists and player skill which can skew the result.

1. Local metagame - did everyone bring IG Mech this year and you brought the list you used to whoop horde orks last time. Ooops, not much luck there pulling out massacres.

2. Terrain - usually layers can't decide terrain at a tournie, but they do define it, causing arguments and the terrain may be set up with a massive bias i.e. the tables are so crowded mech struggles or so empty shooting lists dominate.

3. Missions - many tournaments use non-standard missions which may contain bias. Again a good player should be able to adapt but thats hard to do when somebody throws something at you that your list doesn't have the tools to achieve. For example I once played the old breakthrough mission at a tournament in 3rd ed, the one where you had to line up starting with heavies in a 6" wide 24" long corridor in the centre of the table on one side, then you had to move as many units off as possible off the other side. Attackers came on in turn 1 from any side the wished except behind you.

I was running mech-wolves vs raider lance spam DE. I pulled out a draw but if our positions had been reversed he would have massacred me, turn 1-2 all his raiders would have simply fown over me and off the board giving me 1-2 turns to kill as many as I ould with rhinos and las-cannons. On the table next to us the massive IG horde had to try and march through the teeth of an iron warriors SAFH army. Absolutely no chance whatsoever. Missions can simply srcew you.

4. Massacre system - in which you can win every game but lose the tournament because you had the misfortune to play good players and so only managed minor win, minor win, minor win whilst your mate played the local scrub round one and scored massacre, minor win, minor win.
Swiss system goes a long way to stopping this (only the first round can be the local scrub) and is in place in most tournies but unless we have some kind of international tournie seeding to decide match-ups from round 1 onwards massacres will always favour luck.

5. Luck - the game uses dice. It isn't chess, it isn't tennis. This is neither pure skill nor oure intellect but massively directed by luck. Luck turns a minor win into a massacre or reverse (my trukk and bike both passed a cover save and turned what would have been a massacre for my friend into just a minor victory for him). Look at the Ard Boyz winner. Even he accepted in his interview with BOLS that he probably won because he managed first turn every game with his alpha strike shooting list. Luck.

The better players with good armies will almost certainly win but you can't claim that 40K is a balanced competitive game whilst these problems exist.


But standardise terrain, standardise missions and remove the luck element and you are left with chess. You aren't playing 40K anymore and that's the problem. 40K inherently isn't designed for competitive tournament play. That many people do play it in tournies speaks more to me that people enjoy playing many games in one day and bragging rights than that it is suited for a tournament.

That is interesting to be sure.. Im curious how many results we have from US tournaments vs europe. It seems like the heats they have and the tournaments are better document due to the US having virtually all indy tournaments

Our large venues are documented on various webpages but not the small ones

to give everyone time to paint and build the uberlists, I invite you to come to conquest NW indi GT in January.

a "beat off" or "best of" list will not win this event or even get the most battle points, because they have only talk and no results.

And with this thread, November's "AMG WE ALL HAET STELEK HE NEEDS 2 DIE IN A FIAR" quota has been filled.

You won, grats on that. You just didn't do it with what some people consider an "optimal list". Did it work for you? Yes? Then obviously is IS optimal. For you.

People not agreeing with your choices is going to happen. I don't necessarily agree with your army choice but I don't care enough to go on and on about it. Just like if I won something with an army people didn't like I wouldn't care enough about their opinions to reply to them. Why exactly does this have you so up in arms if you take no stock in what he has to say?

Can we just drop it now, pretty please? This thread is so unnecessary that it is making my eyes hurt.

First, lemme say that you're a chump and got lucky Allen. Everyone at that tournament sucked. (j/k, congrats)

Now, to answer this question. I've got some opinions.

First I think that when you play a game of 40k, there is a lot more to look at that just who's got the best list. There's more to look at than who is the better player as well. Or who's matched up vs who. Or what the scenario is.

I personally think that all these things factor in together with luck to determine a winner but I think the most important thing to determine a 40k winner is exposure to play.

For an entire year I played my Grey Knight army exclusively at least once or twice a week. I took it to adepticon this last year and went undefeated in the RTT. I was EXTREMLY comfortable with my armies strengths/weaknesses.

You've played this Eldar army in question for a very long time now. You've had huge success with it. I played a very similar list at the end of 4e and the beginning of 5e....I gave up on it due to not being able to handle it in 5e. (perhaps I gave up to easily)

Stelek himself prides himself in going undefeated with a self proclaimed "crappy" DH list. I think its a safe assumption that Stelek has a HUGE exposure to play AND theory considering his online presence. I think that explains his success on that outing.

Then again, you've got many people subscribing to Stelek's 'best of' Theory but no results on the national level showing 'Best of' domination. Perhaps people pick up lists due to what they say on YTTH (because honestly, there is much quality posting there if you can get past all the self-righteousness) but dont see the domination that they expected right off of the bat because they dont yet understand how to "pilot" the list to its full potential.

Personally, I think comfort level and exposure to play are the most important factors to winning a game of 40k. List building is important, but it really doesnt trump experience. If you've got even luck, and equal exposure to play, SURE, the better list is probably going to come out on top.

But you've played this type of eldar army for years. It's no surprise to me that you won.

I dont think we're going to see a rash of "best-of" lists dominating the scene anytime soon. What we'll probably see is more of what we see now. That being, guys winning that are intelligent and play 40k A LOT. I think that this is the most important factor to winning. Army lists help, but there isnt any substitute for comfort and experience.

....and there are a lot of simple blowhards on YTTH's (here on dakka too but that behavior seems almost encouraged on that blog).

Lastly, if you play 40k A LOT, do you want to play someone elses idea, or do you want to play something suited to your own tastes. Since I personally think its exposure to 40k that wins games, it comes as no surprise to me that its not these alleged "better 5e lists" that we constantly see winning these "poorly run tournaments".

"poorly run tournaments" which should still be won by the more powerful and effective 5e lists if army building was as important as many people seem to think. Maybe the tournament was run poorly....you're still playing 40k. If your list is THAT much better you should probably still be winning your game regardless of the cruddy scenario or lack of terrain.

I'd like to remind everyone that attacks on Dakka members, past or present, are not allowed.

By all means use the thread to discuss the impact of different types of lists... But keep to the 'play nice' side of the line, or the thread will be stomped.

most of stelek's lists he posts, while good, don't strike me as overly impossible to beat...

however, i've taken some good ideas from there. I've never considered the rifleman variant dread, but it is really quite awesome

I can't see why the list is really good, I've spent literally hours going over it, played a couple of test games, and I just don't know what the deal is. I've even gotten a "casual-gaming" friend to play his Nids while I ran that one and I got rolled. Obviously, I need to find out why it works...

Blackmoor wrote:
So my question is, why are not the hardest lists dominating the US tournament scene?

Because the US tournament scene doesn't exist. When painting, comp, and sportsmanship scores dictate 50% of the outcomes of most tournaments what you have is a hobby competition, not a tournament. Making things worse is that US tournaments seem to have a hard-on for stupid, wonky scenarios. Chess players don't win competitions based on how pretty their pawns look. The NCAA championship isn't determined by whether or not the teams are polite to one another.

The tournament scene here is completely watered down and that's why you see garbage armies winning garbage tournaments.

Danny Internets wrote:

Blackmoor wrote:
So my question is, why are not the hardest lists dominating the US tournament scene?

Because the US tournament scene doesn't exist. When painting, comp, and sportsmanship scores dictate 50% of the outcomes of most tournaments what you have is a hobby competition, not a tournament. Making things worse is that US tournaments seem to have a hard-on for stupid, wonky scenarios. Chess players don't win competitions based on how pretty their pawns look. The NCAA championship isn't determined by whether or not the teams are polite to one another.

The tournament scene here is completely watered down and that's why you see garbage armies winning garbage tournaments.

I'm sorry, but I still dont buy this arguement.

Not when the top players on the results sheets are generally the ones that are winning all the games.

When the overall winners begin to frequently have two losses for the weekend...I'll start beleiving this sob story. As of right now the guys taking home the trophies generally are also kicking tail on the tables.

I agree that strange scenarios CAN make "killer" armies not as potent.. However as deadshane said the best players still win the most tournaments :p

Army list doesnt generally matter to the top players

Also, one can say that best sports + comp + painting "wins" the tournaments but we're not slowed.. Virtually everyone can simply look to see who scored the most battle points and know who had the best list and/or who the best player was

Top overall doesnt mean you played the best :p They still give prizes for top general

Danny Internets wrote:
Because the US tournament scene doesn't exist. When painting, comp, and sportsmanship scores dictate 50% of the outcomes of most tournaments what you have is a hobby competition, not a tournament. Making things worse is that US tournaments seem to have a hard-on for stupid, wonky scenarios. Chess players don't win competitions based on how pretty their pawns look. The NCAA championship isn't determined by whether or not the teams are polite to one another.

The tournament scene here is completely watered down and that's why you see garbage armies winning garbage tournaments.

Actually the tournament I won only had battle points to determine the winner.

After GW no longer used comp in their tournaments, most tournaments followed their lead and dropped comp and only Da Boyz Indy GT in your neck of the woods being one of the only exceptions.

Sportsmanship has been abandoned as well, and most the tournaments that still have it have a simple check list of expected behavior that everyone should get a perfect score on.

A few places still have a painting though, either player judged, independent judging with or without simple check list.

So what you are saying is that people who play hard lists are not as good painters as people who play lists that are not as hard?

Blackmoor wrote:

Danny Internets wrote:
Because the US tournament scene doesn't exist. When painting, comp, and sportsmanship scores dictate 50% of the outcomes of most tournaments what you have is a hobby competition, not a tournament. Making things worse is that US tournaments seem to have a hard-on for stupid, wonky scenarios. Chess players don't win competitions based on how pretty their pawns look. The NCAA championship isn't determined by whether or not the teams are polite to one another.

The tournament scene here is completely watered down and that's why you see garbage armies winning garbage tournaments.

Actually the tournament I won only had battle points to determine the winner.

After GW no longer used comp in their tournaments, most tournaments followed their lead and dropped comp and only Da Boyz Indy GT in your neck of the woods being one of the only exceptions.

Sportsmanship has been abandoned as well, and most the tournaments that still have it have a simple check list of expected behavior that everyone should get a perfect score on.

A few places still have a painting though, either player judged, independent judging with or without simple check list.

So what you are saying is that people who play hard lists are not as good painters as people who play lists that are not as hard?

...its a nice thing to bring up so that you can "pass the buck" so to speak on why the "best" lists arent taking home the gold.

People, as a general rule, have trouble accepting responsibility for failure. Its much easier to come up with some faux reason why you failed to hit the mark.

Because they aren't Stelek.

I'm not saying that he's some kind of tactical genius, he just builds the lists he likes, and plays the lists he likes, he's thought about them in great detail (and talked about them on the Internet). When other people play them, they don't have the advantage of his brain. They look at the list on the table and constantly have to ask themselves "What's this unit supposed to do again? Oh right, Stelek wrote its for <this>, but, that isn't on the table right now....so, what should they do?"

They trap themselves into trying to think like someone they aren't. That is why 'his lists' played by his followers don't win too often.

Edit: On the other hand, people who have forged their own lists and put lots of their own thought into it know exactly what everything is supposed to do. Good generals can then make good calls, or get screwed over by dice (or sometimes both, but then they win anyways )

Probably because they A. under estimate the army because they think its weak, or B. they have good people playing with the 'Bad' armies. personally I think all he armies are good.

bravelybravesirrobin wrote:Ah Stelek based drama, how I do not miss it.

F
5. Luck - the game uses dice. It isn't chess, it isn't tennis. This is neither pure skill nor oure intellect but massively directed by luck. Luck turns a minor win into a massacre or reverse (my trukk and bike both passed a cover save and turned what would have been a massacre for my friend into just a minor victory for him). Look at the Ard Boyz winner. Even he accepted in his interview with BOLS that he probably won because he managed first turn every game with his alpha strike shooting list. Luck.

Bravely,

I never said that and this comment is inaccurate. I am part of Bols and yes the first turn helped but its not luck and any thought of thinking luck helps you win 9 games in a row is kind of silly.

Its like trying to apply Chaos theory here by saying luck was the only reason i won but after awhile you put it together and you see a pattern evolve.

Also, I agree with Brian that is usually a good idea to just ignore the Jerry Springer of 40k. He soaks and lives for drama like this.

Kirasu wrote:
As with any swiss system matchups are extremely important. Unlike say warhammer fantasy battle most of the "tough" armies have counter lists that can smack them silly.. PBS > Nob bikers and psyker defense + rate of fire can beat jetlocks

The tournaments themselves may also skew the results because believe or not .. not every tournament believes in the USA scale of massacres.

Win loss + a few bonus points makes the EXTREME lists sometimes less effective at bulldozing the competition as LOTs of armies can win but not a lot can score massacres 3 games in a row

I think the non-massacre system is a bit better. However i don't think it feels like it takes place in the 40k universe of heroic actions and crazy hth battles, it seems to me like it makes you want to play very conservatively. Both systems have their advantages and disadvantages. Also it is important to note that you no longer gain massacres mostly through beating the other guy down in 2-3 turns like in 3rd and 4th editions. Alot of the armies that could do that do it while having weak scoring units(easy armies to cripple in the objective scenarios) or are easily countered(Nob Bikers). Now a major win or a massacre is like you played the UK scoring system, you just totally beat them that game instead of eeking out a win. You probably are doing it with a more balanced army and more often by taking objectives than simply wiping the guy off the board like in days past.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Deadshane1 wrote:
When the overall winners begin to frequently have two losses for the weekend...I'll start beleiving this sob story. As of right now the guys taking home the trophies generally are also kicking tail on the tables.

Yeah it's so easy to top 10 or top 20 a 150 player tournament it's really not even funny. You can get wiped one game and tie a game and still slide into the top 10 with 3 major/massacre. If their was so much luck in the game you would see alot of seasoned vets frequently going 2-2-1 instead of their usual 4-0-1ish. There is really not nearly as much luck in 40k as people claim. When you watch someone massacre almost every game they play at a GT, GT after GT you will see that being prepared for battle is what really counts. Having a great list, being a great general with it, and playing the game in a way so that luck impacts you as little as possible.

Alot of Fantasy players haughtily say that their game is chess... well 40k isn't checkers, it's Go.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

5. Luck - the game uses dice. It isn't chess, it isn't tennis. This is neither pure skill nor oure intellect but massively directed by luck. Luck turns a minor win into a massacre or reverse (my trukk and bike both passed a cover save and turned what would have been a massacre for my friend into just a minor victory for him). Look at the Ard Boyz winner. Even he accepted in his interview with BOLS that he probably won because he managed first turn every game with his alpha strike shooting list. Luck.

The better players with good armies will almost certainly win but you can't claim that 40K is a balanced competitive game whilst these problems exist.

Luck is what makes the game compelling, it is what makes it like gambling(poker, investment, insurance).

The Ard Boyz winner played an army that gambled big. If the gamble paid off it would pay off jackpot sized. It's interesting to note that an army that is more resilient to going first or second, less effected by special rules(like night fight) might have a higher percentage chance of winning a tournament. Also the longer the tournament the more and more his army relies on the luck of the draw. So it was a very wise choice for him to take, it could only be a better choice in a 2 round tournament.

Many people will point to a specific point in a game and say look how lucky that was. For example if my Njal, the last surviving member of my army in a kill points mission where my opponent could only win by killing all of my models didn't get hit and wounded by the only attack my opponent could make(TL MMelta) and failed his 4+ save on turn 7 I would have won that game. But it isn't why I lost, it is just one part of the whole game that started even before my models were deployed. What I am saying is if you look at the big picture, you will see so many things you can do to increase your edge over your opponent. Being mentally freed you can learn alot more when you stop cursing luck(I will one day learn to do this myself ). Looking back on the game afterward I saw many small things I had failed to take advantage of and at least one subtle blunder that could easily have won the day for me.

I think Bill Kim is an excellent example of keeping the game he is playing in that bigger perspective, he really seems to reign in the luck factor. Alot of people make moves that can fail dramatically and rescue defeat from the jaws of victory. Even if the math says that you should succeed almost every time variance can always rear it's ugly head.
I hate variance.

It really comes down to experience and what you play against. If I play against normal players, with an average army, I wont do too well at events. By average I not only mean not optimized, but a list I have not analyzed. A lot of these guys play other very talented players regularly. And they have used their armies for years.

Its experience. If I play an average eldar player at my LGS using an optimized internet list he will lose to me. If I play blackmoor using what is considered a non optimized army he will destroy me. Simply because he has a better feel for what works and what doesnt, and can spot my mistakes. I play people where I can win on autopilot just because they cannot capitalize.

And I do feel player skill has a lot to do. I used to wreck people at my LGS with a footslogging eldar list. It was different then blackmoors, but still a footslogging eldar army. Now I run mech elves, and do the same.

TL;DR, experience trumps list.

Darkwynn wrote:

bravelybravesirrobin wrote:Ah Stelek based drama, how I do not miss it.

F
5. Luck - the game uses dice. It isn't chess, it isn't tennis. This is neither pure skill nor oure intellect but massively directed by luck. Luck turns a minor win into a massacre or reverse (my trukk and bike both passed a cover save and turned what would have been a massacre for my friend into just a minor victory for him). Look at the Ard Boyz winner. Even he accepted in his interview with BOLS that he probably won because he managed first turn every game with his alpha strike shooting list. Luck.

Bravely,

I never said that and this comment is inaccurate. I am part of Bols and yes the first turn helped but its not luck and any thought of thinking luck helps you win 9 games in a row is kind of silly.

Its like trying to apply Chaos theory here by saying luck was the only reason i won but after awhile you put it together and you see a pattern evolve.

Also, I agree with Brian that is usually a good idea to just ignore the Jerry Springer of 40k. He soaks and lives for drama like this.

Alright sorry maybe that wasn't quite fair, it was a paraphrase from memory after all and not even pretending to be a direct quotation.

Lets be clear here though, I'm not arguing that luck is the only or even the most crucial factor in 40k but it is a factor. To deny it isn't is to be burying your head in the sand. You say

"any thought of thinking luck helps you win 9 games in a row is kind of silly."

I say thinking that luck HASN'T played a factor in helping you win 9 games in a row is silly.

You could just have easily had had horrible dice rolling, failign every sinle roll to hit and wound. Whilst unlikely it is not into the realms of the impossible, merely the improbable. The dice govern everything ultimately and if your dice fail you you lose. What you bank on is that they'll be roughly statistically average but when they aren't there isn't a huge amount you can do.

I utterly steamrollered a friend of mine the other day. A friend that usually beats me and whom has never lost to me when he's faced me at a tourney and we're both bringing the a game. Did I suddenly learn some new trick that put me over the edge? Was he being sloppy and making mistakes? Nope, pure luck. He failed easy rolls for difficult terrain checks immobilising vehicles and preventing assaults, rolled low for a consolidate move leaving him in assault range, roleld patheticaly low for his armour saves, hits and wounds and basically got defeated by dice gods at every turn.

Lets be clear here. Lists, players, terrain, scenario and luck are all factors determining who wins a game. If I had to rank them I'd say that the order of importance is lists, players, scanario and terrain together and finally luck. Without the necessary tools in your list you lose i.e. no way to deal with AV14? Prepare to get stomped by 3landraider lists. No counter-assault defense or idea, watch horde orks storm all over you.

A good player can win with a good, average or excellent list. A bad player can take a good list and lose with it becasue they are a bad player but fundamentally you need a list with all the tools necessary to win the game (i.e. some weapon or unit that can kill every range of foe and some mechanic for getting them into place to do so) you lose.

As I said though, players make lists work. 2 identical armies facing off aginst each other will be won by the better player. That's chess though. But we can all agree bad player with good list will probably lost to good player with average list if not excellent player with bad list.

Player ability can mitigate scenario and terrain but these throw in factors and biases that may help one player more than another. They are therefore factors but ones trumped by player ability.

Finally luck. Good players can minimise the role luck plays but they cannot eliminate it. a good player is thinking, okay if this goes wrong, I can try this, if that goes wrong maybe I can try this, if that goes right I can move this up here but if it doesn't maybe I need to move it here instead, etc. Good lists have redundancies and good players use those to minimise luck. But what if everything goes wrong? what if all your contingency plans go tits up? Well you're buggered aren't you. Luck is the bottom line, the engine driving the game. We do all we can with lists and tactics to try and minimise it but you can never eliminate it.

So Darkwynn lets look more seriously at your circumstances.

For starters I like your list. There are changes I would make and small efficiencies and improvements but on balance that is a solid list I would be happy to run myself and more than a little unhappy to see across the table from me.

Secondly I don't doubt that you are a skilled general that knows how to run the army. Winning 'ardboyz is not a matter of pure luck. The winner must be skilled because, as I argue, skill trumps luck.

But, is your list or is your list not an alpha strike list? Is the idea not simply to kill your opponent with superior firepower long before he gets the chance to retaliate? It wasn't known as the leafblower for nothing. And do alpha strike lists or do they not benefit heavily from getting the first turn? Didn't you win first turn for most if not all your matches (memory is a little hazy here). Do yuo deny that winning first turn was a factor in how well your army did? dod you think you would have won as easily and to such a wide margin had you been forced to play 2nd in every single game?


And Brian whilst I totally understand your metaphor that luck makes the game compelling (like gambling) if you think poker is about luck all I want to say is that I quite fancy giving you a game of poker

bravelybravesirrobin wrote:

Lets be clear here. Lists, players, terrain, scenario and luck are all factors determining who wins a game. If I had to rank them I'd say that the order of importance is lists, players, scanario and terrain together and finally luck. Without the necessary tools in your list you lose i.e. no way to deal with AV14? Prepare to get stomped by 3landraider lists. No counter-assault defense or idea, watch horde orks storm all over you.

This is another important part. I think many people try too hard to meta game. I went to adepticon a few years back with a mech eldar list ready to slaughter nids and marines. First round I played a guy by the name of Marc Parker, who had an ork horde. A friend who places high in quite a few events looked at Marc, looked at his army, and just laughed and walked away . Three horde ork players in a row, I placed second from last that event

Championship I played marines, necrons, and chaos. Steamrolled the first 2 and lost the last, though we had some terrain issues that worked in his favor. Regardless, I didnt prepare for everything. And thats what the best players do.

Look at blackmoore or darth digglers armies. Im not a big fan of blackmoors list, because it disagrees with my belief on how eldar should be played, but I respect it. I dont feel its weak, but it is not something I would play. Diggler on the other hand runs a marine army very similar to mine. And mine and his are both based on the idea of having a solution to every possible problem.

Because when it comes down to it you have to play the army. This isnt dawn of war. I cannot just spam the best units as fast as possible and overwhelm a good player. So the ideal army gives the player a solution to anything, preferably multiple solutions. Nob bikers? I have two vindicators and some TH terminators. Lootas/32 hormaguant squads? Ive got a thunderfire? Ironclads? I have 2 meltas in each tac squad. I just have to play the list right to win.

This gives me few excuses for losing too. Short of the dice absolutely hating me. Which is rare. Ive played games where over 5 turns 3 twin linked bright lances and 2 fire prisms managed to stun one land raider and shoot a gun off the either. But those are an extreme rarity. The chances of blackmoor having been pushed from major win to massacre over 5 games by dice are decent. But the chances of winning an event do to luck are extremely low.

Blackmoor wrote:So my question is, why are not the hardest lists dominating the US tournament scene?

Quite simply because the hardest lists on paper often are not the hardest lists on the table.

Eidolon wrote:

bravelybravesirrobin wrote:

Lets be clear here. Lists, players, terrain, scenario and luck are all factors determining who wins a game. If I had to rank them I'd say that the order of importance is lists, players, scanario and terrain together and finally luck. Without the necessary tools in your list you lose i.e. no way to deal with AV14? Prepare to get stomped by 3landraider lists. No counter-assault defense or idea, watch horde orks storm all over you.

This gives me few excuses for losing too. Short of the dice absolutely hating me. Which is rare. Ive played games where over 5 turns 3 twin linked bright lances and 2 fire prisms managed to stun one land raider and shoot a gun off the either. But those are an extreme rarity. The chances of blackmoor having been pushed from major win to massacre over 5 games by dice are decent. But the chances of winning an event do to luck are extremely low.

Eidolon, I agree entirely with your assessment overall but I just wanted to highlight this last part because I think it is important.

Over the course of a game and over the course of a tournament luck should even out closer to the statistical average. But in one game and at particular moments in a game it can make a crucial difference.

I will give an anecdote from a recent tournament. I was using my orks against a friend of mine who plays Blood Angels. Said friend is undeinably a better player than I with several tournament wins udner his belt. Whilst I am an average player with only a few top 10/top 3 places at smaller tournies to my name.

Early in our game he outmanouvers me and gains the charge with Dante and the DC using corbs and Dante's ability at the same time. I lose a huge chunk of my army and 2 scoring units in one turn and I'm now on the backfoot playing for the draw. I continue to play for the draw and the ride of battle flows back and forth.

At the end of my turn 6 he has taken my objective but I have contested his with a single ork biker in close combat with 3 marines and, the mad dok from a nobz unit. Elsewhere I have an immobilised trukk.

The Mad dok goes down but nothing is close enough to his objective to get into cc. The trukk therefore takes all his spare remaining shooting and passes every single cover save called on it. Some shots don't grant cover but these either miss or fail to do anything but stun. In cc the bikers and marines bounce off each other with no losses. Dice rolls and the game ends. Minor Victory to him.

However had he had another turn or had the trukk failed 1 out of I think 5 cover saves and the biker died he would have tabled me and controlled 2 objectives for a massacre.

Some saves and a turn less (plus admittedly the tactical tide of the battle as I basically tried to frustrate him rather than play agressively) turns what could have been a massacre into a minor victory.

I don't think luck can win you matches in most games but it can turn a minor win into a major or massive win. For want of a few 3's on my part he lost a massacre. Now he went on to win the tournie overall (it was a local thing and not very big) but in a major tournie that lack of a massacre could have easily cost him a top standing.

augustus5 wrote:

Blackmoor wrote:So my question is, why are not the hardest lists dominating the US tournament scene?

Quite simply because the hardest lists on paper often are not the hardest lists on the table.

You have your show-ers and your grow-ers, eh?

Kudos to anyone that reads this wall of text. It started out as a short reply, and turned into a 20 minute long essay on 40k meta gaming. I do think it could add to the discussion though.

@bravelybravesirrobin

I find that I have had some serious setbacks in games due to luck, but thats rare. Maybe one in twenty games. Im in the same boat as you are. I almost always place top 3 in local and regional events, but thats it. Infact I think ive come in third the last 5 tournaments ive played in. Some due to bad rules, others due to terrible set backs like my seer council failing their re rollable leadership 10 check and running off the table. None due to opponents though, anyone who beats me is a cheater ( looking at you wrecking crew guys ) At the adepticon team tournament me and a friend played our eldar vs chaos. They had 5 zerkers out of 10 left, and if we knocked one of them off we could win as we could control the center objective. We shot that squad with a falcon, a squad of vibro cannons, a squad of 7 war spiders, and charged them with the spiders. Killed nobody and tied primary objective because of it.

None the less I think that the best players do what works best for them. They dont need a crutch in the form of a flavor of the month army to win. If you showed me blackmoors army on paper id think its outdated, and not very effective. The fact he won such a big event with it means either he is really good, or I have a really bad grasp of tactics (probably both). But it works for him. And in any field the best people will always exist outside of the curve rather then on its leading edge.

Im reading a book by a philosopher named Ludwig Wittgenstein, its called the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. The man lived in a cabin, alone, on a small island in northern norway. He rowed to shore once a week for food and supplies and went back to his cabin to think and write. Most of us, when we want to think go to a library, or take a walk. He removed himself entirely from society. Now im a pretty smart guy, but im struggling to completely grasp the first page of this guys writings. So while what he was doing was strange, he was doing something right.

While I wouldnt compare blackmoor to wittgenstein on a personal level, I think a kind of comparison can be drawn in success. People who excel at something always do it their own way. They may learn off others, but they play the game how they want. I could run blackmoors list, but i would be at a loss for tactics. Its not my idea of eldar at all. I do a very similar thing with marines though. I feel that some person comes along with a new idea and it changes the game up drastically. The latest events have done that for lists, einstein did it for gravity, wittgenstein did it with language games. And for every person who excels at their own thing 100 people will copy cat them.

So what it boils down to is doing your own thing better then other people do theres. BJ Penn is a pretty good MMA fighter. And i heard him say something which i will now paraphrase. "You dont see me kick or punch a whole lot. I can grapple better then anyone at my weight class, its what I do. You cant show up to one fight and be a boxer and show up to the next as a wrestler. You have to do your thing as best you can, and force the other guy to fight your way."

To many people view 40k list building with the idea of taking the best stuff and spamming it. An army is an theoretical way of defeating somebody given the tools to do it. People go "oh wow thunderhammers those are good" so they take lots of them. They look at the tools, find the biggest shiniest, and then find a job. It should be the other way around with list building. You decide what you want to do, and then you get the tools for the job. I would not go out, buy a nice hammer and some nails, and find out my job is to be a gardner or an electrician.

I am switching my marines over the space wolves. Simply because I have always ran them as a gunline type army, with some counter assault. However the wolves give me far greater counter attack abilities, and better devs. The whole list is infantry, not a single armor value, I just feel they offer me the best tools for the job. So this new codex gives me a far greater meat grinder army, which is why I am using it. I would be a fool though to switch over simply because it has grey hunters for example. Thats getting greedy with units, rather then going for the best ideal army.

So let people run their mouths about how blah blah your army sucks you got lucky. Fact is you won the event, and they didnt. So some guy on the internet is talking about how you dont run good armies and what not. feth him. You can actually play well. Who cares? I can theoryhammer with the best of them. But I choke on the table top, often times I forget little things, and it costs me massacres and what not. Its internet tough guy syndrome. If I told you I have a blackbelt in 4 kinds of martial arts, benchpress 450 pounds, and can run 2 miles in 10 minutes. Oh and I am going to drive to your house and kick your ass, I would be laughed off the boards. And rightfully so. So who cares about some kingshit of an LGS theoryhammering out people who produce actual results army lists. While it does provoke good discussions, its the other people who make them worthwhile. At the end of the day, you won a snazzy foam bolter and they didnt.

Deadshane1 wrote:

I'm sorry, but I still dont buy this arguement.

Not when the top players on the results sheets are generally the ones that are winning all the games.

When the overall winners begin to frequently have two losses for the weekend...I'll start beleiving this sob story. As of right now the guys taking home the trophies generally are also kicking tail on the tables.

The "top players" are the top players because they consistently reach the top ranks of the garbage hobby competitions. They aren't the top competitive players, they're the top hobbyists.

And who are these "top players" who have been frequently winning national competitions this year? I'm not being facetious, I'd really like to know. While I haven't memorized the rosters of these major indie GTs, I've read the winners and don't recall seeing the same player twice yet.

Just clear me one thing 'cause I don't really get it.

These discussions always have comments along the lines "well, I guess he is a good player who won despite that sucky list."

Presumably, a good player would understand the difference between a good and a bad list, by definition.

Why would a good player then bring a lousy list into competition?

The army that won BoLScon did not place at the Big Waaagh. The IG army that won Ard Boys got to go first every game and had great matchups. Judging from your batreps Allan it came across as you did not play the caliber of player you would typically see at a GW GT or say Adepticon. Also maybe the east is in general stronger than the west?

G

Danny Internets wrote:

Deadshane1 wrote:

I'm sorry, but I still dont buy this arguement.

Not when the top players on the results sheets are generally the ones that are winning all the games.

When the overall winners begin to frequently have two losses for the weekend...I'll start beleiving this sob story. As of right now the guys taking home the trophies generally are also kicking tail on the tables.

The "top players" are the top players because they consistently reach the top ranks of the garbage hobby competitions. They aren't the top competitive players, they're the top hobbyists.

And who are these "top players" who have been frequently winning national competitions this year? I'm not being facetious, I'd really like to know. While I haven't memorized the rosters of these major indie GTs, I've read the winners and don't recall seeing the same player twice yet.

some top players and yes these guys consistently finish high in most events they attend.

Marc p.
Mike M.
Scott s.
Greg S.
Bill K.

there thats five, each one of these have multiple "big" event Wins.

you call it being the best hobbyist but being the best means adapting to what is given.

I would have won,
but the missions suck
but the terrian was horrible
but kill points really hurt my mech list versus some guy with only 5 killpoints.
but my painting isn't great
but people think I am a jerk.

these are all excuses by people who failed to adapt.

I know if I play one of the above guys, I have to play a flawless game or I will get massacred as these guys are smart. they will make me pay for every mistake.

Good (if a trifle warm) discussion.

There have been a couple of unnecessary shots at former or non-Dakka members. Please remember that attacks against individuals are verboten. Keep arguments focused on arguments and ideas. Not on people with whom you disagree.

augustus5 wrote:

Quite simply because the hardest lists on paper often are not the hardest lists on the table.

I would agree with this statement. I have looked long and hard at a seer council on jetbike army and in my minds eye I can't be as confident with it as I could be with more basic lists. When it works, it works great, but when it doesn't work there is almost no hope. If you want to win large tournaments then you need to be able to lose some things and still have a better than average chance to win.

Maybe these 'best of' lists aren't that good. I have never seen one myself, on paper that I know of at least. In 3rd-4th edition I played an Oblit IW lists that was fairly common. It had answers to everything and I liked it. I abandoned it when siren came out because I had no counter to it. I couldn't play a list that would lose to one list so easily even though it was awesome against so many other things.

Most of the one-trick pony lists (or ones close to this) have a terrible counter to them and if someone brings that counter they will generally lose. Now most of these counters are not that expensive and can be incorporated into standard lists fairly easily. If you take the counters into your standard list you will beat those over the top lists and still beat the average field. You might not slaughter the average field as well as the one off lists will, but you will beat everyone in the end.

Can someone post these 'great lists'? I'm seriously in the dark about most of them. I figure they are Lash/Oblit chaos, Jetseer Eldar, and that's where my understanding starts to get fuzzy. Nob Bikers aren't up there anymore are they? There are so many easy counter to that lists now.

@Darkwynn

You have to admit, you also got some pretty sweet match-ups. No hard counters to your list at all at the finals. I can't speak for you qualifiers and semi locations, because I wasn't there. Also, I noticed there wasn't as many "top players" at the ard boyz finals this year as there have been in previous years. I'm not sure why they weren't there, but I was a lot happier concerning my chances seeing they weren't I can tell you . Admittedly I didn't place in the top 3 again ... but those are a few mitigating factors that no doubt help people win.

Congrats are still in order for winning of course, my point is not to take away from you win. Simply to discuss the circumstances at hand (point of this thread). And somewhat to play the devil's advocate of course.

I can think of two main explanations for this. I don't know which, if either, is true, but I greatly suspect that at least one of the following statements is correct:

1. People don't know what's good. Armies that people think are bad win because those armies are actually good and the conventional wisdom is wrong. The 40k competitive scene is in a state of disarray right now and cannot make accurate predictions as to what's good and bad.

2. Army strength is subordinate to player skill. Armies that may be suboptimal are winning because the players who run them make up for it.

Hard lists on paper don't factor player skill and luck (in several factors).

It's simply a case of needing to play better. Even if it is a comp heavy enviornment, the better players will still score high in battle points.

Discussing the merits of armylists makes for easier conversations online. Just compare the number of armylists that get posted opposed to how many discussions of (actual) tactics. Armylist discussion takes up more time online and gets more exposure. Therefore, one may infer that armylists are more important to win a game rather than tactics (IE: knowing how to play).

I think it is because the real game doesn't match the theoretical meta game.

In the theoretical metagame, not only are you playing the hardest list (or one of them), but so are all your opponents.

In a land where all your opponents are running mech, meltaguns are king.

In reality, there are plenty of people, at every tournament, who don't read forums, who pick lists because they like the models, who are in it for the painting, or who are following fluff rather than trends. You have people who are so die-hard about 'their' army that they've got tattoos to prove it, and won't stop playing their Tau despite failing to win ever.

When these people, many of whom are good players, but not super-competitive, run into the highly-tailored-to-beat-the-meta-game players, many of whom are not good players, the guys running the tailored lists are not only back-footed, they're left without the tools to do the job.

If you designed your with the idea that melta-guns were king, and ended up playing against a monolith, good luck to you, cause you'd need it.

In the land of theory, no one needs to prepare to fight a monolith. The odds of you playing against one are minimal. But in reality, that's the match-up you draw, and now you're on the lower tables, not-coincidently where a higher percentage of the off-standard builds are also found.

So, the kind of 'a bit of everything' lists that DarthDiggler and Blackmoor ran aren't following the trends, and they're just fine against opponents that also aren't following the trends. They've even got the advantage that the guys who are following the trends don't necessarily know how to fight their lists, or don't have the tools to do so.

I think some of the regular Gt players didn't go to the hard boyz because of the august first round.

It's a lovely summer day. Go to the beach or go to a store that is 110 degrees and smells of gamer funk.
I know I was at a beach with inquistor Malice.

skkipper wrote:I think some of the regular Gt players didn't go to the hard boyz because of the august first round.

It's a lovely summer day. Go to the beach or go to a store that is 110 degrees and smells of gamer funk.
I know I was at a beach with inquistor Malice.

So that's what you guys were doing.

Well thanks in advance to you guys, (and the other "top players" who didn't show up to the Ard Boyz this year) for not coming and stomping our faces again. You should do that more often. Makes us people whom have never won a major event before feel like we have a chance.

skkipper

I bet you guys had lots of lotions with you.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:skkipper

I bet you guys had lots of lotions with you.

G

Sparky is so dreamy.

seriously, I hope next years hardboyz starts in the fall. Summer gaming just isn't for me.

God loves the Irish...



And so do I!

It starts in the early spring.

Those are some saggy saggy boobs for a girl that young and that skinny. I guess god loves the irish the same way he loves the platypus, he doesnt care about appearance.

that's right May 15th starts 40k next year.

A couple things

First of all, the 40k tournament scene in the US is not all that competitive. So most of the people who attend these tournaments are locals or withing 4 or so hours of the place. Yes some people fly in, but a lot either can't afford to or don't have the time or don't want to waste money on a tournament that requires a large amount of luck to win.

Luck plays a huge factor into these things, no matter how you want to argue it. First off, you need to pull 5 players who are below you enough in skill that you can massacre all/most of them.

2nd you need to never face any counter lists to your own in the first couple rounds, before they get sorted out.

3rd, you still need your dice to be close to average. You can be a great player but if you dice fail you, you aren't going to win. (for reference, I shot my entire tau army into 2 rhinos in a game last week. 4 railguns + 18 missile pod shots and 9 str 6 plasma, end result, 1 TL bolter destroyed.) Yea, very little chance of me pulling off a massacre when I can't even hurt his mobility turn 1.


#2
And I may be way off base here, but this is the community as a whole. (both sides, not pointing fingers)

When people become good players in this hobby, they seem to become very very bullheading. Claiming their way is right and no other persons opinion matters. So a lot of people going to Stelek for advice are new players who want to up their game. This game is very challenging to get good at. A simple good list isn't going to hold your hand and get you massacres. You needs months of playing to become even passably good. And thanks to the nature of our game (time to play it) its difficult to get in a lot of games.

So a lot of established people are resistant to change (and the time it takes to learn it). If good players like Blackmoor and darkwynn were to switch to steleks point of view I would bet they would do even better than they are now.

Finally: The internet community is not the community as a whole. How many local RTT's get unreported? pretty much all of them. So you never see the local scene where people using steleks 'best of' lists continually tear up these tournaments. 5-6 big (moderately random) tournaments a year does not prove peoples opinion one way or another.

Is there a copyright rule for these lists? Can someone please tell me what they are. Give me a core summary of them or something. I don't know why they don't win unless I know what they are.

I don't know, Twin Lash Princes, Biker Nobz, Eldar Falcon Spam may have got a bit nerfed by 5e, Podding Marines were the rage a couple of years ago but people seemed to learn to deal with it.

Something seemingly awesome will come out of the Space Wolves codex pretty soon.

I tend to agree with the idea that good players are good because they play a lot and learn not just tricks but also how to Use Tactics.

I don't understand the logic that players who don't use the Internet d/l Stelek's lists and use them to win lots of tournaments we haven't heard of.

I thought Lash is hurt by psychic hoods and/or mech. I thought Nob Bikerz were ruined by TH/SS Termies and Dreadnoughts. I thought Falcons spam went bye-bye with 5E rules for moving/shooting and no more autoglancing. I still don't know what these lists are and if we are to beleive that we would be better players to use them I would like to know what they are first.

Eidolon wrote:It starts in the early spring.

Those are some saggy saggy boobs for a girl that young and that skinny. I guess god loves the irish the same way he loves the platypus, he doesnt care about appearance.

troll is obvious troll.

My theory is that it's due to people looking at the "hardest" lists, and optimizing their lists to beat out specifically whatever they see the most in those lists. If you know you're facing Eldar, you expect a jetbike farseer, Eldrad (maybe seer council, depending), and/or fire dragons in transports. If you're playing against SM, you know to expect any of about three primary types of power lists (with slight variations). If you're playing against Daemons, you expect a lash army. If you're playing against someone who is doing something strange though, like running footslogging IG with zero tanks ( or playing Dark Eldar ). It's like the 4 move checkmate. It's devastating to everyone who's never played more than 5 games of chess, but everyone else knows when someone's opening with it, and then simply cuts it short.

Timmah wrote:A couple things




So a lot of established people are resistant to change (and the time it takes to learn it). If good players like Blackmoor and darkwynn were to switch to steleks point of view I would bet they would do even better than they are now.

I am pretty sure Blackmoor and I would never listen to people like Stelek esp on his point of view. If anything just for how much emotion he adds into his post and how abrasive he is. The information he feeds and the content he sends out is lost in the noise that comes out of his post.

That and besides I disagree with a lot of his post and his point of view on things. He thinks too much in black and white and doesn't take count for a lot of different scenarios in the game that over the years and experience that we have come to encounter. Alot of the stuff we tried a year or two ago as I remember Green Blow playing against Mech with me and Allan with his Eldar that isn't his previous list but iwth much more mech.

we have played with them and they don't work once you put models on the board in a lot of the cases.

Kilkrazy wrote:I don't know, Twin Lash Princes, Biker Nobz, Eldar Falcon Spam may have got a bit nerfed by 5e, Podding Marines were the rage a couple of years ago but people seemed to learn to deal with it.

All those did indeed get nerfed by 5th. I think there are a couple core tenets to doing well in 5th that people should follow when building their lists, and after that just play what they're comfortable with

Something seemingly awesome will come out of the Space Wolves codex pretty soon.

I disagree. In my opinion its just a middle of the road Codex. A good general will be able to do well with it due to its flexibility, but there is a big learning curve with them and I don't find it very forgiving.

I tend to agree with the idea that good players are good because they play a lot and learn not just tricks but also how to Use Tactics.

Agreed. A good general can take a less than optimal list and work wonders with it. This was seen both at 'ArdBoyz, BoLScon and at the WWS. Knowing your list and how to play it much more important than taking the latest and greatest beatstick army with very little testing

I don't understand the logic that players who don't use the Internet d/l Stelek's lists and use them to win lots of tournaments we haven't heard of.

Because some of Stelek's "best-of" lists aren't the best. His Chaos army, for instance, is a good example of less-than-optimal list building. While I find most of what he says sound, sometimes he is just way off base and combined with his *ahem* way of not sugarcoating anything, people tend to get very very angry instead of seeing what he is actually trying to say.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Darkwynn wrote:

Timmah wrote:A couple things




So a lot of established people are resistant to change (and the time it takes to learn it). If good players like Blackmoor and darkwynn were to switch to steleks point of view I would bet they would do even better than they are now.

I am pretty sure Blackmoor and I would never listen to people like Stelek esp on his point of view. If anything just for how much emotion he adds into his post and how abrasive he is. The information he feeds and the content he sends out is lost in the noise that comes out of his post.

So you're willing to completely write off a point of view (which in this case is mostly correct) just because you don't like how its packaged?

Sorry dude, you won a tournament with an OK at best list. Grats on you for that, but your opinion does not become > someone else's just because you can be a little bit nicer about it.

Chuck Norris >> Allan

Chuck Norris >> Stelek

Overall I agree with GBF and deadshane that in the end it comes down to two things, luck of the draw, and experience. The last tournament I went to, there were 4 nob biker lists out of 15 total players (small local tourny) and because 3 of the biker players had commonly played against each other, they were only experienced at playing each other, and I had the pleasure of facing all three of the friends at the tourny. I played Tau, and though I had a minor loss with the first game, I stomped the second and third games because they were acting like playing against their own lists, and once the supposed unstoppable unit they had was gone, they were no longer capable of functioning...

Im taking my Tau to Mechanicon, and I believe I will do fairly well, not because Tau are top tier, nor that I have a hard list, just because I am comfortable with how it functions and Im experienced with using it. But in the end, the dice may just not go my way and that as they say, will be that...

Bunker wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:


I am pretty sure Blackmoor and I would never listen to people like Stelek esp on his point of view. If anything just for how much emotion he adds into his post and how abrasive he is. The information he feeds and the content he sends out is lost in the noise that comes out of his post.

So you're willing to completely write off a point of view (which in this case is mostly correct) just because you don't like how its packaged?

Sorry dude, you won a tournament with an OK at best list. Grats on you for that, but your opinion does not become > someone else's just because you can be a little bit nicer about it.

Um bunker did you read the part below that or you just want to take things out of context?

Darkwynn wrote:

Timmah wrote:A couple things




So a lot of established people are resistant to change (and the time it takes to learn it). If good players like Blackmoor and darkwynn were to switch to steleks point of view I would bet they would do even better than they are now.

I am pretty sure Blackmoor and I would never listen to people like Stelek esp on his point of view. If anything just for how much emotion he adds into his post and how abrasive he is. The information he feeds and the content he sends out is lost in the noise that comes out of his post.

That and besides I disagree with a lot of his post and his point of view on things. He thinks too much in black and white and doesn't take count for a lot of different scenarios in the game that over the years and experience that we have come to encounter. Alot of the stuff we tried a year or two ago as I remember Green Blow playing against Mech with me and Allan with his Eldar that isn't his previous list but iwth much more mech.

we have played with them and they don't work once you put models on the board in a lot of the cases.

Thanks for proving point number 2.

You act like another party hasn't ever played the game and that only you can be right. I'm not saying stelek doesn't do this also, but its like your trying to deny/justify that you do it.

Other truly competitive gaming circles do not function like this. They collaborate on building better competition. 40k players tend to be like, my way is right and if you disagree your a uneducated jerk.

Why Timmah? Because, I feel like listen to the view we go backwards? We have already tried list like that before and they don't work for us and I bet in the majority they don't work for a lot of people.

What point are you making that we are bullheaded even though we have already tried it out and it doesn't work for us? It would be like you telling me to turn in my Audi for that Ford Focus because it drives better... How well do you think I am going to listen to that?

Green Blow Fly wrote:The army that won BoLScon did not place at the Big Waaagh. The IG army that won Ard Boys got to go first every game and had great matchups. Judging from your batreps Allan it came across as you did not play the caliber of player you would typically see at a GW GT or say Adepticon. Also maybe the east is in general stronger than the west?
G

I do not think you can compare East Coast/West Coast because the guy who won BolsCon did not do as well at the Big Waagh. There are a lot of factors like matchups, and if he faced top players, etc.

Here are my GT scores for the last couple of years:
2007 GTs playing Eldar
Las Vegas GT 4-0-1 83 Battle Points
Baltimore GT 5-0 97 Battle Points

2008 GT Playing Witchhunters
Las Vegas GT 2-2-1 68 Battle Points
Baltimore GT 4-1 78 Battle Points

I did much better in Baltimore each year, but I would not say it was because of the level of play.

Timmah wrote:

#2
When people become good players in this hobby, they seem to become very very bullheading. Claiming their way is right and no other persons opinion matters. So a lot of people going to Stelek for advice are new players who want to up their game. This game is very challenging to get good at. A simple good list isn't going to hold your hand and get you massacres. You needs months of playing to become even passably good. And thanks to the nature of our game (time to play it) its difficult to get in a lot of games.

So a lot of established people are resistant to change (and the time it takes to learn it). If good players like Blackmoor and darkwynn were to switch to steleks point of view I would bet they would do even better than they are now.

Do you know what my theory is? That people who depend on the hardest lists to win are new players who are often a little deficient in the skill arena and they use those lists to make up for their short comings. So what happens is that they win by over powering their local opponents and they don't learn good fundamental tactics so when they get to large tournaments they end up getting out-played by people who are better players.

But I do think you are wrong with thinking that having a good player playing one of those lists would do even better. I think we all have strengths and weaknesses in our play styles, and we need to play an army that works well with them. For me it is a shooting army and I do poorly with an assault army. On the other hand, I play team tournaments games with Bill K. and he is very aggressive, and he loves assault armies.
To give you an example, Bill plays his Demonhunter army as an assault army, and I like to sit back with psycannons and shoot. We do well with each style that we like, but if we switched armies, I have a feeling that we would both not do as well. So I guess what I am saying is that if you put a random good list in even a good players hands, they would not do as well as one that they have crafted around their play style.

I still don't know what any of these 'hard' lists are. I am at a lose. I feel like a blind man at an orgy; I just feel my way around.


Maybe we don't know what the uber-lists are. Maybe we all assume we know what they are not and tell each other you don't jhave an uber list. I ask to see an uber list and no one knows any. There isn't a way to pair 40k army lists down to 3-4 uber lists. There are all sorts of good lists than any given Sunday can beat the other player. If you are on your game, you will do well and if you are sick you will struggle with the basics. (See Somnicide in WWS)

I think taken more generally, Timmah's point is interesting to say the least. I've been playing various CCGs competitively for years now and the information and incite on deckbuilding and playing those games is much more readily available to anyone who wants it. The top players enjoy sharing these things and increasing the level of competition around them. I've always found the 40k community to be much more closed off and in many ways "elitist" (I use this term somewhat loosely but it definitely seems like information travels through certain circles without making it to the masses, sortof like telling a secret) in terms of sharing experience and knowledgable information. I can think of exceptions to this of course, but not very many. I guess it often looks like the better 40k players really enjoy placing themselves above the rest so they aren't as forward with allowing people to learn from them.

That said, I think people who just rip a list off the internet and then try to play with it are practically never going to see huge success with it. We all have a different style and different way we like to play the game, and the list needs to be tailored to the player in order for him to really get the most out o it, not the other way around. Blackmoor's Eldar army from a few weeks ago is a prime example of this, as is the army that won 'ardboyz. Most eople claim these lists are mediocre at best, but they were both devastating in the hands of their respesctive players. Different things will work for different people and often times the player better equipped to win the game will be the one with a more complete understanding of his list and how it works within the game. I see lots of locals around me start new armies frequently because they get frustrated that that they aren't winning enough with their current armies. They change armies every few months and wonder why they're never recording a win percentage that they want to. To me this is in large part because they aren't comfortable with what they are playing and because they don't really understand what they're putting on the table, they're unable to maximize its effectiveness. It really is crucial to have an intricate understanding of how the game works in general as well as a very thorough knowledge of how your specific army works. Also very important is knowing how the opposing army works to the greatest degree possible. I really think experience is rather key to success in 40k.

I really liked Deadshane's post, I think his sentiments are very similar to mine on this one (at least in that post lol).

EDIT: just saw Blackmoor's last post as well and I think he's got it right on when he's talking about the personal style and preferences of individual players and how they affect their ability to play different types of lists.

I will have to check out this Ford Focus RS but wouldn't they be two different cars entirely? Sport vs Luxury? I have a A4 AWD currently and I would have to see the Ford RS in person before I could give me view even Though Would like to see a trick out Audi A4 vs a trick out Ford Focus RS 4

You need to more than test out a list to see if its valid. You are going to need to learn it inside and out over the course of a lot of games.

As I said before this is tough due to the time consuming nature of our hobby. In MTG, you can take a decklist, play a ton of games and find out how good you are with it in a week or 2. Ofc even then it takes months to master.

In 40k You are going to need to scale this up by a huge amount. (unless you can casually play 5-10 games a day/weekend for about 2 months straight) To really become comfortable with a 40k army you will probably need to play with it for a couple months. So tbh, unless you guys have tried Stelek's lists, learned the tactics behind them and then played with them for 6+ months, I think you really are writing his ideas off way too fast.

But, what do I know, I have never won one of those big fancy tournaments. I just play the local scrubs who are bad because they are local...

Blackmoor wrote:
Do you know what my theory is? That people who depend on the hardest lists to win are new players who are often a little deficient in the skill arena and they use those lists to make up for their short comings. So what happens is that they win by over powering their local opponents and they don't learn good fundamental tactics so when they get to large tournaments they end up getting out-played by people who are better players.

But I do think you are wrong with thinking that having a good player playing one of those lists would do even better. I think we all have strengths and weaknesses in our play styles, and we need to play an army that works well with them. For me it is a shooting army and I do poorly with an assault army. On the other hand, I play team tournaments games with Bill K. and he is very aggressive, and he loves assault armies.
To give you an example, Bill plays his Demonhunter army as an assault army, and I like to sit back with psycannons and shoot. We do well with each style that we like, but if we switched armies, I have a feeling that we would both not do as well. So I guess what I am saying is that if you put a random good list in even a good players hands, they would not do as well as one that they have crafted around their play style.

This. A friend of mine just started playing in events, and I set him up with a cookie cutter chaos list. Once he starts playing more he can tailor it. But its a crutch. I was the same way with my old flying circus eldar army. As I said, the best people often do things their own way. This way might be completely contrary to common methods, but it still produces success for them. And its often who you play that makes the different. If you are playing against Bill Kim regularly you are probably going to be doing better then me. I dont have anyone who plays at his level where I live. I cant expect he would let mistakes slide that other people do. So you learn functional tactics, and its just playing for your style best.

I dont believe that there are elite circles who wont share gaming secrets with the world. I have a copy of an ork army list Marc Parker used at adepticon, he gave it to me prior to smashing my face in with said army. But harder groups of players will be better. Just because they play better people. They build off each other socially. It doesnt matter what list they are running. If i played blackmoors eldar or marcs sisters of bill kims demonhunters 5 games in a row id learn more then i would playing 10 games against internet build x run by an average gamer. Its all about maximizing what you can do with your army.

I am a very conservative player. In the words of Al Pacino "you never open your mouth until you know you have the shot". I dont like taking chances with my gaming. The dice do that for me. So I run mech eldar. Not because its the hottest internet trend, but because it lets me pick my battles. That speed is the biggest asset. I ideally dont have to fight you if I dont want to, I pick the battles. I built the army list around this idea. Not around eldrad/yriel/council plus other stuff to fill up points. And this is the first step to being good at anything, is knowing your own limits. Not what your army can do, but what it cant, and how to make it work the best.

Timmah wrote:You need to more than test out a list to see if its valid. You are going to need to learn it inside and out over the course of a lot of games.

As I said before this is tough due to the time consuming nature of our hobby. In MTG, you can take a decklist, play a ton of games and find out how good you are with it in a week or 2. Ofc even then it takes months to master.

In 40k You are going to need to scale this up by a huge amount. (unless you can casually play 5-10 games a day/weekend for about 2 months straight) To really become comfortable with a 40k army you will probably need to play with it for a couple months. So tbh, unless you guys have tried Stelek's lists, learned the tactics behind them and then played with them for 6+ months, I think you really are writing his ideas off way too fast.

But, what do I know, I have never won one of those big fancy tournaments. I just play the local scrubs who are bad because they are local...

Timmah there is a great bit on 40k radio talking about how many test games we played just for Adepticon between Jwolf and I. Jwolf said we tally up around 500 + games over three months just to try and test list out. We have played with these list way before he came out with this sort of list and tagged them his own. I think you are missing the point of people have their own play styles and those list don't work for everyone.

You make it sound like Stelek is 100% right and his tactics are completely correct and he can do nothing wrong? isn't that a double standard you kind of have here Timmah? A lot of these players that you call out such as Blackmoor, Bill Kim, Greg sparks, GBF, Hod, Gareth, Marc Parker, Neil, Brian, DeadShane They all play a lot of games and I would bet most of us play 3-5 games a week so we have a feeling what works for us and what doesn't work for us. if it doesn't work for us we have to get called bullheaded by people like you?

What is ridiculous about this statement is that in EVERY other competitive game, the "pros" always use the best things. In MTG they play the best decks, in WC3 they use the best races (so very few pro UD players), In Halo they use the most effective weapons.

No one gimps themselves in order to play better. They just practice constantly, best vs best. No one holds any punches back.

Yes there each person has strengths and weaknesses, that would tweek your game slightly. But you wouldn't play an terrible deck because your good with it or it fits your playstyle.

Ofc you could be on the verge of a breakthrough that no one has ever thought of in a competitive environment.

Maybe football players should stop wearing cleats because it makes them too comfortable with the advantage they provide?


@darkwynn: I said stelek was the exact same way. Very bull headed and always thinking his way is the only way. (again you try and label me as a stelek flunky to try and invalidate my opinion) However, he would probably agree to that where as you come in here and try and pretend you aren't.

On the other side, a lot of the other players play just as many games as you and it (mech) works for them and foot doesn't. So obviously 1 or both (more likely both) sides are being slightly dishonest when they talk about how much they tested said lists. If you really are a well rounded good player, you should be able to pick up any list and play well with it. Not just one tailored for your preferences.

Darkwynn wrote:I will have to check out this Ford Focus RS but wouldn't they be two different cars entirely? Sport vs Luxury? I have a A4 AWD currently and I would have to see the Ford RS in person before I could give me view even Though Would like to see a trick out Audi A4 vs a trick out Ford Focus RS 4

Absolutely, they're very different cars. I'm just impressed by it, which basically never happens with a Ford product haha. I also do a lot of racing (legal, on road courses like VIR, Summit Point, etc) so I tend to be more interested in the performance side of things.

Ironically, this sortof illustrates my point. Personal preference goes a long way to dictating the positive or negative experience with the car. I might like the Focus RS because its more of a performance car (FWD FTL though lol) as opposed to the luxury/highline style of the A4 (my good friend has one right now and its a stunning car for the money, VAG has really stepped it up in the past 3 years). As an example I'm a lot more comfortable driving my S2000 around (twitchy, somewhat quick sports car) than I am the A4 (feels sluggish and unresponsive to me, I feel like I have less control over it) but my friend is the opposite. I let him drive my car once and he absolutely hated it. He said he didn't feel in comfortable with the mannerisms of my car. As another example, I drove a buddy's S2000 at an autocross earlier this year instead of my own. He beat me when we were both driving his car, but I beat him when we both drove my car at a later event. He's clearly much more potent behind the wheel of his car, because he has it tuned and setup to his personal preferences and style as a driver. Same goes for me with my car. Both cars are 2003 S2000s but they have different setups (alignment, FSB and tires are different... my car oversteers a bit more than his by design) You can now apply that to trying to pilot armies of different types and builds around a 40k table. You'll be much more effective playing a list you're more comfortable with and understand better.

@Timmah: Yes, the learning curve is much more severe for 40k than it is with something like MTG or L5R and I defintiely agree that playing A LOT is really the only way to get GOOD at 40k. There is however a PILE of very useful information available to anyone who wants to take games like MTG seriously, which drastically reduces the learning curve for those games. I'm the type of person who likes to try and figure things out for myself usually, so I neglect a lot of this information. I find that I eventually arrive at very similar conclusions to the very successful players writing the articles and such, but it takes me far longer. Sure, reading it is a lot different than applying it, that should be a given. Reading it makes you think about it though, which will lead to finding the application quicker and generally learning faster. Absorbing and using the information and experience of others in conjunction with playing a lot will make you a better player much faster than just playing a lot will. I also don't think its possible to become a good player by reading everything and not playing much. Application is the most important part of the process.

Damn you are dense Timmah. Do you actually read posts and arguments or do you just keep smashing your head on the keyboard in hope your neurons produce something logical. Its the same with that other thread. I defeated an argument you made, you replied by repeating the argument.

You are mistaken that any 40k 'pro' gimps himself by not running T3H UBER ARMEEZ OF DEATH!!!!111

All your above examples are stupid. Heres why.
MTG is a completely different system, thats like asking why people dont wear football helmets to play baseball.

In halo you have very few choices. I got up to the upper 40s in MLG, you have a whole lot of options. In many maps is BR, with a sniper and a mauler on the map. And its a team game.

In football its also a team game, and not wearing cleats is equivalent to not running any troop choices in a 40k army.

By team game you are not on your own. In 40k you are. Its me vs my opponent. Not me and 10 other guys vs 11 people. So my ARMY has to funcion as a team. And it comes down to what works for you.

Heres a question. I fething love cheese. So im making spaghetti for dinner. Should I, on my plate of spaghetti, dump an entire can of parmesan over my red sauce and meatballs because I love it? No, thats dumb. The meal has to function as a whole. And thats what it comes down to.

Uh dude. You just posted that it was bad people used the best lists to win because it hurt them in the future because they were being carried by their list.

Now your changing your argument and calling me stupid for proving your last one false... I really don't know what to tell you.

Once again you see words but dont understand. Bad people win games with the 'best' lists, yes. By best I mean they operate in a vacuum. On paper my mech eldar would probably destroy blackmoors eldar. Nobody is arguing about that. And most players would do better with mechdar then moordar.

However, here is the crux of the argument, I have stated that on paper does not beat player style. And that you have to discover how you play the game to win. So while in a vacuum mechdar>moordar, in practice blackmoor>most people. Because he is comfortable with his army.

So yes, bad kids can do good against other bad kids with copypaste army lists. But as I had stated the really good players just run what they use best.

Theres more to words then sounds you know, then again I wouldnt have been arguing your argument when I was 14 too.

So in conclusion, why are people winning with 'bad armies'. Because they are advanced players, and arent concerned with your theory hammer.

I think that is the problem with the "Best of" Lists... they require you to adapt to their playstyle. I think that is a harder thing to do than to tweak your list to fit your own playstyle.

You say that the pros use "the best" in other systems. If that was the case, every single person would theoretically use the exact same deck/list as it was "the best". What if "the best" is more than the list, but also the fit? If we want to use the sports analogies, you would notice that each baseball player uses different bats. There is no one "best" bat... each one uses the one that feels "best" TO HIM. I think the same thing applies to lists. I could try and make my arms grow longer so I could use "the uber bat" (aka the Best Of lists) or I could find a bat that works for my arm length. Which one is more effective?

They do however use the best of steroids in baseball.

Very true about comfort levels with lists. However a truly good player should be able to adapt to a "best on paper" list and make it work much more than his current list. Yes it might take 6 more months to become comfortable with it, but they will play better in the long run.

That is why in sports like football you are taught quality fundamentals. The best athletes don't just go with what works for them, they learn the best fundamentals. And since they are such good athletes both will (in theory) work for them. However the better "on paper" fundamentals will win in the long run.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Gornall wrote:

You say that the pros use "the best" in other systems. If that was the case, every single person would theoretically use the exact same deck/list as it was "the best". What if "the best" is more than the list, but also the fit? If we want to use the sports analogies, you would notice that each baseball player uses different bats. There is no one "best" bat... each one uses the one that feels "best" TO HIM. I think the same thing applies to lists. I could try and make my arms grow longer so I could use "the uber bat" (aka the Best Of lists) or I could find a bat that works for my arm length. Which one is more effective?

You mean like every/most starcraft pros use the same build orders depending on what army they are facing? Same with WC3.

BTW, there can be more than 1 of "the best" lists. Just like in other game systems there are more than 1 the best. My argument was that you don't gimp your playskill by using one of these armies/lists.

Timmah wrote:That is why in sports like football you are taught quality fundamentals. The best athletes don't just go with what works for them, they learn the best fundamentals. And since they are such good athletes both will (in theory) work for them. However the better "on paper" fundamentals will win in the long run.

I think Tim Tebow and many other athletes would disagree with you on this. Tim Tebow will never be a pocket passer. If he worked the next 4 years on becoming a pocket passer, he would probably still be less effective than what he is now. Yes, fundamentals are great. But you can't turn an apple into an orange. For 40k, I would argue that fundamentals of list building includes staying away from the obviously stupid units in a codex (Flash Gits anyone?). The other things you do should try to play to your strengths.

You mean like every/most starcraft pros use the same build orders depending on what army they are facing? Same with WC3.

BTW, there can be more than 1 of "the best" lists. Just like in other game systems there are more than 1 the best. My argument was that you don't gimp your playskill by using one of these armies/lists.

By definition, if one list is "best", the others are suboptimal. Same with build orders, etc. If there was one to rule them all, it would be the only one used. The fact that there is not means that there must be some sort of interaction between the player and the list that causes certain decks/lists/build-orders/etc to be better or worse for certain people.

See... I disagree with a player changing to fit a list. I don't like that. I'm going to use soccer as an exmaple here because its what I know best: Say I take over as coach of Chelsea FC. Am I going to pick a formation and style of play, and then force my players into those tactics whether or not they actually fit how my players play the game? The easy answer here is hell no. I'm going to examine how their style, how they act and play the game, and I'm going utilize a system that they can be comfortable operating in. I'm going to optimize their strengths by designing a system based around what they can and can't do.

I could force them into an awkward formation and set of tactics that don't fit their personality on the pitch and make them learn and adapt but the curve will be tremendously high and they'll pretty much never quite get to grips with it the way they would with something that they can operate within more naturally.

Yes, the best athletes learn fundamentals. They learn the basics and aquire the necessary skills. They won't be phenominal at ALL of the skills though, and they won't aquire a COMPLETE understanding of every position on the field. Each player will have a natural affinity for something, and a smart coach will put the player in positions to maximize the player's positive tendencies in that position. You can't just take a fantastic quarterback and tell him "hey go play safety" and then expect him to be a tremendous safety. He won't be that amazing in that position at all.

IMO the list should fit the player, not the player force the list.

Caffran9 wrote:

Darkwynn wrote:I will have to check out this Ford Focus RS but wouldn't they be two different cars entirely? Sport vs Luxury? I have a A4 AWD currently and I would have to see the Ford RS in person before I could give me view even Though Would like to see a trick out Audi A4 vs a trick out Ford Focus RS 4

Absolutely, they're very different cars. I'm just impressed by it, which basically never happens with a Ford product haha. I also do a lot of racing (legal, on road courses like VIR, Summit Point, etc) so I tend to be more interested in the performance side of things.

Ironically, this sortof illustrates my point. Personal preference goes a long way to dictating the positive or negative experience with the car. I might like the Focus RS because its more of a performance car (FWD FTL though lol) as opposed to the luxury/highline style of the A4 (my good friend has one right now and its a stunning car for the money, VAG has really stepped it up in the past 3 years). As an example I'm a lot more comfortable driving my S2000 around (twitchy, somewhat quick sports car) than I am the A4 (feels sluggish and unresponsive to me, I feel like I have less control over it) but my friend is the opposite. I let him drive my car once and he absolutely hated it. He said he didn't feel in comfortable with the mannerisms of my car. As another example, I drove a buddy's S2000 at an autocross earlier this year instead of my own. He beat me when we were both driving his car, but I beat him when we both drove my car at a later event. He's clearly much more potent behind the wheel of his car, because he has it tuned and setup to his personal preferences and style as a driver. Same goes for me with my car. Both cars are 2003 S2000s but they have different setups (alignment, FSB and tires are different... my car oversteers a bit more than his by design) You can now apply that to trying to pilot armies of different types and builds around a 40k table. You'll be much more effective playing a list you're more comfortable with and understand better.

@Timmah: Yes, the learning curve is much more severe for 40k than it is with something like MTG or L5R and I defintiely agree that playing A LOT is really the only way to get GOOD at 40k. There is however a PILE of very useful information available to anyone who wants to take games like MTG seriously, which drastically reduces the learning curve for those games. I'm the type of person who likes to try and figure things out for myself usually, so I neglect a lot of this information. I find that I eventually arrive at very similar conclusions to the very successful players writing the articles and such, but it takes me far longer. Sure, reading it is a lot different than applying it, that should be a given. Reading it makes you think about it though, which will lead to finding the application quicker and generally learning faster. Absorbing and using the information and experience of others in conjunction with playing a lot will make you a better player much faster than just playing a lot will. I also don't think its possible to become a good player by reading everything and not playing much. Application is the most important part of the process.

Caffran, I couldn't have put it better myself.

The basics in 40k come down to this.
Have troops.
Have some anti tank
Have some close combat
Have some anti horde

There are your fundamentals. Does everybody in this thread have that in their army? At least 2 10 man tac squads, 1 melta gun, 1 power fist, and 1 flamer in their 2000 point list? feth you thats all my army needs are those two squads and a captain with a power fist. Ill burn your entire 180 man ork boy army down with that one flamer, ill kill all your nob bikers with that power fist. Ill take out your three land raiders with that single melta gun. Because im that much better then you.

Finally I present this argument. The people who actually get out and play events. Me, Gornall, Blackmoor, Darkwynn, Diggler, some of us ( the latter three) even win them. We are all telling you that player comfort and skill>list build. If some pro NFL football player gave you tips on improving your game, you wouldnt shun him because 'some guy on the internet said this hypothetical play is better"

Darth:

I think the 'best' lists might be more archetypes than actual lists. They're going to be somewhat different at different points-levels.

Twin-Lash is generally 2 lash princes, X units of plague marines with meltas and PF Champ in rhinos, X units of Obliterators.

While it's easy to say that Lash is nerfed by mech (and/or psychic defenses), the oblits and plaguemarines do a decent job at opening the mech stuff, leaving the princes to handle cleanup.

Also (and you should know this, cause you ran Lash last year), the Lash is the icing on the cake. A daemon prince is already a pretty good buy for the points. Giving it lash makes it considerably more powerful against opponents without a defense for it, but that's not everyone. In a three-game tournament, one auto-win is a big deal.


I don't know, with any certainty, what the other 'top' builds are based around, and like you, am hoping someone can post them.

Caffran9 wrote:I think taken more generally, Timmah's point is interesting to say the least. I've been playing various CCGs competitively for years now and the information and incite on deckbuilding and playing those games is much more readily available to anyone who wants it. The top players enjoy sharing these things and increasing the level of competition around them. I've always found the 40k community to be much more closed off and in many ways "elitist" (I use this term somewhat loosely but it definitely seems like information travels through certain circles without making it to the masses, sortof like telling a secret) in terms of sharing experience and knowledgable information. I can think of exceptions to this of course, but not very many. I guess it often looks like the better 40k players really enjoy placing themselves above the rest so they aren't as forward with allowing people to learn from them.

Which was pretty much my experience on Teh Interwebz MtG-scene and one reason why I quit. There were like three deck archetypes at the time (Necro, Willowgeddon, Red/green), if you didn't play one of them or even dared to propose that maybe Type II wasn't end-to-all of MtG, you became an outcast.

Timmah's point would be valid if he himself wasn't guilty of exactly same behaviour. When someone posts a list which has done well in a tournament, his kneejerk response is "This list is different than my perception what is a good list for army X, hence it must suck and your win was a fluke". Is it a surprise this is not a good way to get reasonable discussion going?

Do these people really think so little of their hobby? Is 40k such a lousy game that there is only one 'right' way to play it?

YMMV
Eldar-seer council, either bike or wave serpent with eldrad/yriel. Firedragons in serpents. Storm guardian squads in wave serpents, fire prisms.

Orks-nob bikers, battlewagon nobs, sea of boyz.

guard-leafblower copypaste army lists

space wolves-Wolf of the wolf wolf, grey hunters, vindicators/long fangs. This is iffy since they are new.

Marines-lots of melta/flamer. Probably vulkan. Many ways to do marines.

""Do these people really think so little of their hobby? Is 40k such a lousy game that there is only one 'right' way to play it? ""

Yes, 30 TH/SS terminators, Vulkan, One 5 man tac squad and as many melta sister squads in rhinos as i can fit for troops.

@ darkwynn.

Ive got a 95 taurus wagon with 135,000 miles on it. Ill trade you for the audi. Ill even drive to pick it up and drop my car off.

I think fundamentally the issue is 40k (and especially 5th edition 40k) allows for a much broader range of good lists than a lot of the over-analytical sort give the game credit for. Furthermore, the real power difference between the best of the best lists and the merely very good lists is small enough that it is easily lost in the continuum of skill and practice amongst players.

But, really, we have one empirical measure of list quality -- tournament wins -- which doesn't support the ascendancy of the supposed "best of" lists. The standard argument about lack of quality of competition boils down to fallaciously begging the question.


Caffran -- For my money the Infiniti G37 is better than either

Redbeard wrote:Darth:

I think the 'best' lists might be more archetypes than actual lists. They're going to be somewhat different at different points-levels.

Twin-Lash is generally 2 lash princes, X units of plague marines with meltas and PF Champ in rhinos, X units of Obliterators.

While it's easy to say that Lash is nerfed by mech (and/or psychic defenses), the oblits and plaguemarines do a decent job at opening the mech stuff, leaving the princes to handle cleanup.

Also (and you should know this, cause you ran Lash last year), the Lash is the icing on the cake. A daemon prince is already a pretty good buy for the points. Giving it lash makes it considerably more powerful against opponents without a defense for it, but that's not everyone. In a three-game tournament, one auto-win is a big deal.


I don't know, with any certainty, what the other 'top' builds are based around, and like you, am hoping someone can post them.

Here's one that Timmah posted in a thread of mine a while back:

HQ
Librarian, Null zone, The avenger

Elite
10x TH/SS terminators (or 2x LC added in for extra CC punch)
LRC transport w/MM
2x Rifleman dread

Troops
(2x) 10x tact marines, flamer ML, rhino

Fast attack
2x HF/MM landspeeder or 2x MM bikes

Heavy support
2x AC/HB predator
LRC w/MM


It's very similar to Stelek's list which uses a MotF to get as many MM Dreads and Dakka Preds in there as possible. It's a reasonable list IMO, but I wouldn't call it "the best". The idea of the "Best-Of" lists (correct me if I'm wrong) is that for each Force-Org slot, you pick the best dual-role (anti-vehicle and anti-infantry) unit and spam them. Search for "Best Of" on YTTH and you'll see a bunch of them. I'm not saying they're bad lists, but I do think that with 40k, no matter the list, YMMV.

Eidolon wrote:YMMV
Eldar-seer council, either bike or wave serpent with eldrad/yriel. Firedragons in serpents. Storm guardian squads in wave serpents, fire prisms.

Orks-nob bikers, battlewagon nobs, sea of boyz.

guard-leafblower copypaste army lists

space wolves-Wolf of the wolf wolf, grey hunters, vindicators/long fangs. This is iffy since they are new.

Marines-lots of melta/flamer. Probably vulkan. Many ways to do marines.

Problem is, these aren't lists, they're archetypes. And, if you tried to define them, someone would come along and say, "no, that's not the competitive build." Which I guess is the point a lot of people are trying to make, that there isn't one best build. It is those who believe that there is one true build (per archetype even) who should step up and post what it is.

Eidolon wrote:YMMV
Eldar-seer council, either bike or wave serpent with eldrad/yriel. Firedragons in serpents. Storm guardian squads in wave serpents, fire prisms.

Orks-nob bikers, battlewagon nobs, sea of boyz.

guard-leafblower copypaste army lists

space wolves-Wolf of the wolf wolf, grey hunters, vindicators/long fangs. This is iffy since they are new.

Marines-lots of melta/flamer. Probably vulkan. Many ways to do marines.

""Do these people really think so little of their hobby? Is 40k such a lousy game that there is only one 'right' way to play it? ""

Yes, 30 TH/SS terminators, Vulkan, One 5 man tac squad and as many melta sister squads in rhinos as i can fit for troops.

@ darkwynn.

Ive got a 95 taurus wagon with 135,000 miles on it. Ill trade you for the audi. Ill even drive to pick it up and drop my car off.

hehe no thanks. I love my Audi.

Timmah wrote:
That is why in sports like football you are taught quality fundamentals. The best athletes don't just go with what works for them, they learn the best fundamentals. And since they are such good athletes both will (in theory) work for them. However the better "on paper" fundamentals will win in the long run.

Hmm. There is a guy on ATP tour who hits two-handed forehand slice. Those not familiar with tennis, it's equivalent of using Fire Warriors as assault troops in 40k.

Would he be better if he hit conventional semi-Western topspin forehand? Nobody knows. What we DO know is that there are literally THOUSANDS of players who hit conventional forehand, are taller, stronger and more athletic, and have never made a dime on the Pro tour. Whilst this guy has made $10 million in prize money, has beat Pete Sampras, Andre Agassi, Roger Federer, nearly all the greats, multiple times. And he is hardly only example. In fact relatively few of the "greats" have textbook games. No tennis pro would teach a Bjorn Borg backhand, or Steffi Graf forehand.

Yes, lots of best athletes DO what works for them.

You guys seem to be getting hung up on the word best. There is a best way to do each army.

You are arguing styles vs fundamentals. No matter how Tim Tebow should play, probably in some type of spread offense, he still needs to learn the fundamentals behind throwing the ball. If he never learns quality footwork, he will be destined to be a second rate QB. Think Jamarcus Russell, By many he has some of the best abilities talent wise as a starting QB. However he still is learning the basics, like proper footwork. He can use his skill currently to be a decent player, but in order to go to the next level he must learn "the best" fundamentals.

In 40k there are many different lists that get the job done. For the record I have only argued the following:

A: Seasoned pros usually think their way is right and everyone else is wrong. ( I never said I was an exception to this)

B: Using the best list possible does not gimp your skill in the long run.


I AM NOT arguing that there is 1 overall best list.
I am saying their is a best way to do each type (foot, mech, gunline ect) of army for each codex when it comes to all around tournament builds. (obviously with a couple tweaks for personal preference)

Heck blackmoore even said his army was not optimized. This does not encourage competition and does not promote growth in skill. Quite the opposite in fact.

Gornall wrote:

Here's one that Timmah posted in a thread of mine a while back:

HQ
Librarian, Null zone, The avenger

Elite
10x TH/SS terminators (or 2x LC added in for extra CC punch)
LRC transport w/MM
2x Rifleman dread

Troops
(2x) 10x tact marines, flamer ML, rhino

Fast attack
2x HF/MM landspeeder or 2x MM bikes

Heavy support
2x AC/HB predator
LRC w/MM

For the record, this is much more of a rock lists and is used against armies that have trouble dealing with things like this. It can eat foot lists without enough shooting because they have no way of dealing with the rock part of it. (TH/SS termies) While being balanced enough to have a chance against armies that can deal with said unit.

Thank you for continuing to be rude in a discussion, Eidolon. Are you 12? Can you not handle someone with opposing viewpoints to your own without insulting them? Because you are very much proving my #2 argument. Go read my previous posts. No where did I deviate from my original arguments. Maybe you didn't comprehend them correctly. (since your 12)

Timmah wrote:I AM NOT arguing that there is 1 overall best list.
I am saying their is a best way to do each type (foot, mech, gunline ect) of army for each codex when it comes to all around tournament builds. (obviously with a couple tweaks for personal preference)

I'm NOT arguing that all lists are created equal. There are some lists that are just poo no matter who the player is. What I AM arguing is that lists CANNOT be evaluated solely in a vaccum. There is a syngeristic effect between a list and the natural abilities/tendancies/playstyle of the controlling player. That player may get enough synergistic effect out of that list to overcome it's on-paper "weakness". You have to evaluate the entire system (both player and list) to understand why something works. I am NOT saying that Blackmoor simply overcame the "weakness" of his list. I'm saying that because he ran a list that meshed well with his natural playstyle and experience, he actually made the list perform better. You give that list to someone equal to Blackmoor's skill and experience, but with different natural playstyles and I would argue they would do worse. Conversely, if you gave Blackmoor a list that is as strong or stronger than his list, but it doesn't suit his playstyle, then I would argue his performance would also suffer.

Very true Gornall, but by blackmoores own admission his list was not optimized. And many players think that playing the best list they can would hurt their skill in the long run because said list would be a crutch. I am saying that this is just untrue and that in pretty much every other competitive game, they feel the same way.

Darkwynn wrote:<snip>. Jwolf said we tally up around 500 + games over three months just to try and test list out. We have played with these list way before he came out with this sort of list and tagged them his own. <snip>

How in the world are you getting that many games in? 500 games/90 days = ~5.55/day. Playing a game an hour would take up all my non-sleep/non-working time as well as everything else in my life. Are you playing 5 moves and then declaring a winner like in that chess scenario upthread? Seriously, how can you possibly play that many games in so short a time and still enjoy it?

I was wondering the same thing but didn't want to say anything.

Heh, I guess this fits in with the other thread in that I got accused of saying none of the tournament goers have jobs. Moar proof!

This thread got hot fast, faster than normal

IMO, forcing yourself into thinking about which units are 'best' is the wrong way to play. Units that are effective at killing models are not the only units that are effective...every unit in 40K can contest an objective, no matter the mission (most of the time, sometimes it gets a bit weird) You don't necessarily have to capture all the objectives to win, you just have to contest the ones your opponent has and hold onto just one you designate as 'yours' In KPs, you don't have to wipe your opponent out, you just need one MORE KP than they have.

Granted, the massacre system makes these 'trick' wins worth less points than blowing your opponent's army off the table...but not every army is able to blast units off the table left right and center.

late as allways, but to answer the topic in my own words:

People taylor tournie lists around take on all armies.
So they expect to see most of the common power builds, as soon as something new pops up they dont know what to expect.

Just my thoughts though, being a BA player not many people near me knew they even had a list XD

JD21290 wrote:
People tailor tournie lists around take on all armies.
So they expect to see most of the common power builds, as soon as something new pops up they don't know what to expect.

Again I see this argument. These are tournament players. They should be able to analyze and know the best game plan against it with their list. Stelek's 'best of' lists by definition are take all comers lists so in the hands of a good player they should be able to w/e pops up.


@starbomber: I have said before how much I hate the massacre system that the current tournaments use and I have tried to have discussions on better ideas for a system. That said, the best unit is not always the one that puts out the best firepower. Check TH/SS terminators. They only have 2 attacks each when not charging. But they get the job down because of survivability.

Timmah wrote:

Thank you for continuing to be rude in a discussion, Eidolon. Are you 12? Can you not handle someone with opposing viewpoints to your own without insulting them? Because you are very much proving my #2 argument. Go read my previous posts. No where did I deviate from my original arguments. Maybe you didn't comprehend them correctly. (since your 12)

See heres the problem. You post something inflammatory. It turns the entire debate into a huge heated argument. You then back down with "well I just meant so and so". This happened in gardeths ardboyz thread, in black moors wild west shootout game 5 report with "was there any real competition" or something to that effect. And then when proved wrong you keep on this 'well i never really meant so and so, i just meant that he could build his list better'. And whats your reply, calling me 12?

I can discuss tournament armies in a vacuum. I understand that in a vacuum mech ig>eldar. However when played by the right guy they wont. So when someone breaks this vacuum-mold of the meta game we should find out why. "shut up when adults are talking"

Again I see this argument. These are tournament players. They should be able to analyze and know the best game plan against it with their list. Stelek's 'best of' lists by definition are take all comers lists so in the hands of a good player they should be able to w/e pops up.

They are tournament players, but still suffer the biggest flaws, they have a human brain, which does not allways calculate the best play style and tactics each game.

Most tournie players can adapt against a weird list, yet not all of them at 1st.
Lets face it, you see a very different list at a tournie and your thinking about what hes/shes going to do tactics wise.

just seems that people are allways prepaired for the worsed, yet easily beaten by the most simplistic.

JD21290 wrote:
They are tournament players, but still suffer the biggest flaws, they have a human brain, which does not allways calculate the best play style and tactics each game.

Most tournie players can adapt against a weird list, yet not all of them at 1st.
Lets face it, you see a very different list at a tournie and your thinking about what hes/shes going to do tactics wise.

just seems that people are allways prepaired for the worsed, yet easily beaten by the most simplistic.

Except this doesn't work in other hobbies. I can't go to an MTG tournament play a subpar list and expect to walk away the winner because people don't know how to deal with it. Believe me, quality pros learn real fast. Besides, I don't find how Blackmoors list was unconventional since he claims that his list style is top dog and that's what everyone was playing...


@Eidolon: I'm not quite sure what I said that was so inflammatory for you to attack me. (a couple times before I asked if you were 12)

Let's not have this locked before it's run its full course, please. This has been a testy subject but people have handled themselves very well so far. So please continue to enlighten us!

Except this doesn't work in other hobbies.

Actually, it depends on the hobby.
In airsoft this is a big factor.

It may even play down to over confidence.
Lets face it, if your a good player then you may get cocky from time to time, but no one is perfect, and plans can still fall flat on turn 1.

Yes, a pro should learn quickly, but looking at it in another light, they would have never faced lists built like that if they are a tournie chaser.
So yes, it is something out of the ordinary for them, they dont know what to expect from the actual player aswell since the list doesent allways represent skill level as such.

We arent discussing MTG timmah. We are discussing 40k. Different games completely. And we have said that 40k works different then magic numerous times.

Just to be clear, I'm not calling anybody a liar. I do agree that experience with an army is a big advantage. I just wonder how people can play that many games in so little time and still somehow enjoy it.

I think one point that's been ignored that is of great value was something WC_Brian hinted at.

Some armies are very strong against a lot of builds but have serious weaknesses against others. In larger tournaments with fewer rounds, I'm thinking of Adepticon's Sunday tournaments, it benefits the player to go for broke and to play a Rock-Paper-Scissor army and hope they get good matchups and 3 massacres. Bringing an all-comers list will, at best, give you three solid to middling wins which probably won't be enough in a 3 game 100+ player tournament.

I've read Stelek's site some. His views aren't worthless but it's very clear that for many of the lists he posts he has never used them or even played that army. I've made lists for armies I'm just starting and those lists will mutate over dozens of games into a much stronger list. Just trying to come up with a list without actually using all the options available to an army really does a disservice to your army and to the game. If experience and player skill didn't matter players could easily net deck their way to victory and so far I don't see that happening.

Timmah wrote: Besides, I don't find how Blackmoors list was unconventional since he claims that his list style is top dog and that's what everyone was playing..

Where did he say that? I didn't see it, link please?

MTG has a lot of similar things to 40k in its competitiveness. I find no problem referencing it for certain things.

If you don't believe so, then we will just have to agree to disagree (I hate myself for saying something cheesy like this).

Remember your view is just an opinion and not necessarily right, just as mine is also an opinion.


I would still like to hear how darkwynn played 5.55 games a day for 3 months straight though.

CaseyVa wrote:Just trying to come up with a list without actually using all the options available to an army really does a disservice to your army and to the game.

That seems a very good point. You often see lists that use only three or four units out of an army. Is that really such a good idea? Does it really show that much skill? Or is an attempt to minimize the damage of not having experience with an army and so not being able to predict/work with the advantages and disadvantages of a variety of units? I'd especially like to hear what Eldar players have to say, having to deal with severe specialists.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Timmah wrote:MTG has a lot of similar things to 40k in its competitiveness.

I've been called on this comparison myself (not by Eidolon) and have to admit it's a shaky one, especially about competitiveness. Isn't one of the biggest complaints, especially from Stelek, that GW has intentionally undermined competitiveness in 40k? That's quite the reverse of Wizard's policy toward Magic, at least at its heart of hearts.

Timmah, in which case, you cannot say anyone is wrong, since its simply an opinion at the most.
Everyone will have an answer for this question, but it will vary depending on the person, so there will be no defining answer to this question, just alot of opinions, of which alot may clash, yet some will agree.

Playing 6 hours a day isn't too far-fetched. I know many people who spend that sort of time in front of the computer or TV. And when you factor in weekends, it's not too crazy for someone with the resources/dedication to fly to multiple large events across the country.

Timmah wrote:Heck blackmoore even said his army was not optimized.

Timmah wrote:Besides, I don't find how Blackmoors list was unconventional since he claims that his list style is top dog and that's what everyone was playing...

Um, do you actually have a coherent point?

I think, really, that the core thing is that 40k at the top levels is a lot more balanced (both between codices and within codices) than most players think. Optimizing gets into diminishing returns very quickly, and in terms of actually improving your game you're better off practicing with what you have as opposed to crunching the numbers if you have the choice.

Timmah wrote:

just seems that people are allways prepaired for the worsed, yet easily beaten by the most simplistic.

Except this doesn't work in other hobbies. I can't go to an MTG tournament play a subpar list and expect to walk away the winner because people don't know how to deal with it. Believe me, quality pros learn real fast.

I’ve had exactly this happen at a M:tG tournament. One of the local pro-tour hopefuls offered to chop 1st/2nd with me when I made the final round with a homebrew deck he didn’t recognize. Did he play more than me and thus was probably more skilled? Yep. Did he have a more tuned tournament deck? Yep. But he was still wary of the list with which he was unfamiliar. Enough so to offer to chop the prizes. Of course, I had to win my way through other tournamenrt regulars first.

Timmah wrote:Besides, I don't find how Blackmoors list was unconventional since he claims that his list style is top dog and that's what everyone was playing...

What? When did he say this?

I still want an answer on that lol. I mean, I've heard of elfzilla lists with avatard and eldrad and some combination of really big vehicles protecting a horde of guardians, but I've never actually seen it...and it seems unorthodox in 5th (to me anyways).

He obviously read it somewhere, or perhaps he was thinking of someone who wasn't blackmore, but I wanted a link to where he read it, so I could read it and verify it.

I find it funny that half the thread just asked for a citation lol. It's like wikipedia! With warhammer!

timmah is right not everyone takes the hardest list possible to events.
why? its boring
my next event I am bringing
bloodthirster
skarbrand
unit of flamers
2 units of 6 crushers
5 units of 6 letters
and 1 unit of horrors

yes this list loses big time to some builds, but it is fun to play and if I get lucky have a chance to play for the top spot.

Taking my stuff outa context.

He said it was unoptimized and tweaked to his playstyle. I was trying to get at that he himself didn't believe it to have all the best units, but the general theme of the army was the best eldar could do.

If your going to quote me at least take my entire post since a lot of my ideas are involved.

And yes, in a discussion of opinions, no one can truly be correct. That is why we argue. Because we try and rally people to our side of the belief. In a hobby like this nothing can be proven 100%. So in my opinion you are wrong, but you are not necessarily actually wrong.

Timmah wrote:MTG has a lot of similar things to 40k in its competitiveness.

How many matches you have to play to win an MtG tournament? As opposed to 40k tournament?

You simply can't compare them across. Furthermore, I'd like to make one additional point: in MtG, there is always the same "mission": beat the other guy in any way you see fit (usually, by reducing him to zero life or depleting his deck). By contrast, permutations of 40k missions is much greater.

Although there have been personal attacks made in this thread earlier, it seems to have gotten back on track for the most part, so we're going to leave it open.

But beware: leave the personal attacks at the door! Discuss the topic, do not attack the poster even if you vehemently disagree with their viewpoint. Remember, you always have the option not to respond if you don't like what someone has written.


Further personal attacks in this thread will result in disciplinary actions against the users who make them.

Mannahnin wrote:
I’ve had exactly this happen at a M:tG tournament. One of the local pro-tour hopefuls offered to chop 1st/2nd with me when I made the final round with a homebrew deck he didn’t recognize.

In MTG there is always a chance to lose. Was it a grand prix or something? If he wanted first for the invite and he knew you wouldn't use it then he was very valid in his decision. Most pro tour people don't care all that much about the product they could win at small events.

Playing type 1 mtg I knew how to play against all the best decks. I also could easily identify how to beat any home brew deck (there's a lot in type 1) its definitely a skill required for pros because of the amount of continuous innovation in the ever changing MTG world.

I was pretty sure blackmoor claimed the unconventionalness (not a word, I know) of his list helped him beat people because other people didn't know how to play against him. Maybe it was other people in the thread or darkwynn on his ard boyz list.


when I compared 40k competitiveness to MTG I meant in the strategy. There are a lot of the same concepts in it, like redundancy, being able to take on all comers ect.

Taking my stuff outa context.

Not exactly I didn't think, it's just that line jumped out at me, and a few others.

Timmah wrote:

JD21290 wrote:
They are tournament players, but still suffer the biggest flaws, they have a human brain, which does not allways calculate the best play style and tactics each game.

Most tournie players can adapt against a weird list, yet not all of them at 1st.
Lets face it, you see a very different list at a tournie and your thinking about what hes/shes going to do tactics wise.

just seems that people are allways prepaired for the worsed, yet easily beaten by the most simplistic.

Except this doesn't work in other hobbies. I can't go to an MTG tournament play a subpar list and expect to walk away the winner because people don't know how to deal with it. Believe me, quality pros learn real fast. Besides, I don't find how Blackmoors list was unconventional since he claims that his list style is top dog and that's what everyone was playing...

There, your entire post, now, I'm going to try and figure out your point. The only one I can discern is sarcasm, and it's not done very well either. My request for a link still stands

Timmah wrote:MTG has a lot of similar things to 40k in its competitiveness.

It does have some things in common. It has a lot more different though, and it is those differences that break your analysis.

If you go to a magic tournament, you go to win. Period. People don't take decks because they like the fluff. They don't bring decks because they painted the cards nicely. They don't bring a deck from three years ago (because in most competitive M:TG circles, a deck from 3 years ago isn't even valid, let alone competitive - and don't bring up type I because it's far less competitive than standard or extended). They don't lose one game and face weird oddball matchups for the rest of the day either.

Go to any large Warhammer tournament and ask around how many people are there to win. The answer is almost certainly less than half. People go to socialize. They go because it's something they can put on the calender months in advance and their wives won't give them crap for spending a whole day playing toy soldiers...

The objectives are different from game to game, and a random mission against a random opponent means that you're SOL on the bottom tables for the rest of the day. And tournament organizers love to put random missions out there. You can find yourself on the one table at the event that's devoid of terrain - or overly cluttered with dangerous terrain, bottlenecking your mech.

Magic doesn't have these considerations. Skill is much more of a factor in Magic. You cannot randomly lose one game - you play at least two against each opponent. You can't win after playing 3 matches, you're generally playing 8 just to get to the finals. This alone makes skill a far greater factor in a Magic tournament, as everyone suffers bad luck (whether dice or draws) from time to time. Playing 24 games in a tournament means that any one bit of bad luck gets lost in the mix. Playing three games of 40k??

This is why it is so much harder to analyze skill/builds in 40k. The best build may have had one bad turn, at the beginning of the tournament. His opponent's dice got randomly hot and he lost half his firepower before he took a turn. Now he's playing lower tables for the next three games, and whatever data his list was going to generate is completely lost by this one bad turn. His final result is middle-of-the-pack, and no one will post his results, or list, after the fact.

To reiterate about the MTG comparison (since we're getting off track), game mechanics aside, WotC supports a sharper competition than GW does.

Timmah wrote:In MTG there is always a chance to lose. Was it a grand prix or something? If he wanted first for the invite and he knew you wouldn't use it then he was very valid in his decision. Most pro tour people don't care all that much about the product they could win at small events.

It was Type 2, and it wasn't a qualifier. He just wasn't confident that he could beat my deck, as it was both unfamiliar and (evidently, based on my results up to that point) good. I didn't mind chopping, since a) I wasn't entirely convinced that I would win, and b) I wanted to go get dinner with friends.

Timmah wrote:I was pretty sure blackmoor claimed the unconventionalness (not a word, I know) of his list helped him beat people because other people didn't know how to play against him. Maybe it was other people in the thread or darkwynn on his ard boyz list.

No, I'm sure he did at some point opine that his having an unfamiliar build is an advantage, at least some of the time. But that's kind of the opposite of what you claimed he was saying when you wrote:

Timmah wrote:I don't find how Blackmoors list was unconventional since he claims that his list style is top dog and that's what everyone was playing...

MMMM I love freaky missions and screwy terrian. I think most events should have bizarre boards esp on higher tables

Redbeard wrote:
Magic doesn't have these considerations [(playing to win/ for fun) (Terrain) (Mission Objectives)]. Skill is much more of a factor in Magic.

You cannot randomly lose one game - you play at least two against each opponent. You can't win after playing 3 matches, you're generally playing 8 just to get to the finals. This alone makes skill a far greater factor in a Magic tournament, as everyone suffers bad luck (whether dice or draws) from time to time. Playing 24 games in a tournament means that any one bit of bad luck gets lost in the mix. Playing three games of 40k??

This is why it is so much harder to analyze skill/builds in 40k. The best build may have had one bad turn, at the beginning of the tournament. His opponent's dice got randomly hot and he lost half his firepower before he took a turn. Now he's playing lower tables for the next three games, and whatever data his list was going to generate is completely lost by this one bad turn. His final result is middle-of-the-pack, and no one will post his results, or list, after the fact.

To Paraphrase, Perhaps a tournament is not the ideal location to attempt to determine the "best" list or "most skillful player".

After all, there are variables that you cannot control when planning to go to a tournament : [(Folks playing for fun) (Terrain) (Mission Objectives)].
The sample size and ranking system do not foster the reduction of random luck : (small sample size).
The Random Mechanic in 40K distributes results too much : ("Hot Dice")

Another difference with MTG is that in a 40K tournament you get to play 3 or 5 rounds, which is generally not enough to have a good functioning swiss match up. It is all too possible to never even have played against other high scoring armies.

Timmah wrote:What is ridiculous about this statement is that in EVERY other competitive game, the "pros" always use the best things. In MTG they play the best decks, in WC3 they use the best races (so very few pro UD players), In Halo they use the most effective weapons.

Redbeard has already summed up a lot of my thoughts on this rather eloquently, but I thought it was worth coming back to...

There is a very big difference between competitive 40K, and most other competitive games: Prize money.

MTG players tend to play hard, because even minor regional events are just seen as practice for the big money events. Although even there, as others have pointed out, you have your share of players just using the deck that happen to own, and playing for the fun if it. But the pros do indeed tend to play the most optimal deck they can, because they're in it to win.

40K doesn't have that. There is no $10000 national event. While a lot of tourney players are in it to win, playing to win a trophy and a few free miniatures just doesn't have the same drive. And I would very much doubt there are any 'pros' in the competitive 40K scene. It's largely just made up of gamers playing for the fun of it. I've heard any number of gamers say that they enter 40K tournies purely because it lets them get in a more-or-less regular game, when they wouldn't have time to get along to a regular gaming club. Winning is just a bonus.


So 'improving' the competitive 40K scene isn't as simple as telling everyone that their lists suck. You first have to convince them that the competitive 40K scene actually even needs improving. Then you need to make the event worth playing to win.

And even then, you're not going to get everyone to agree on which list is the best.

Some things about list-building are true though - it is an important part of your strategy.

Knowing what to expect and preparing appropriately for it is itself part of the strategy of 40k.

Its important in any strategy game to find the correct answer in your arsenal to your opponents threats, and present your threats in a way that is hard to answer. Good list building can provide the most reliable answers to the worst threats.

Simply put, if you don't come equipped with a good enough answer to a severe threat, you are going to lose.

But, its also important to know that list building is a smaller part of 40k than it is in say MTG. This is because there are a lot more decisions to make throughout the course of a game of 40k, and the army list has much less influence on the chance factor.

Blackmoor wrote:

Do you know what my theory is? That people who depend on the hardest lists to win are new players who are often a little deficient in the skill arena and they use those lists to make up for their short comings. So what happens is that they win by over powering their local opponents and they don't learn good fundamental tactics so when they get to large tournaments they end up getting out-played by people who are better players.

Wait, so because I take the best possible list I'm a bad player?

lolwut?

Yeah, no. This argument just doesn't fly at all.

Bunker wrote:Wait, so because I take the best possible list I'm a bad player?

That's not what he said.

He specifically referred to people who depend on having the best list in order to win.



I've come across a few like that over the years. They build what they think is an optimal list (often just downloaded from the net) and then can't understand why it doesn't always win.

The point that I think Blackmoor was trying to make was simply that having an optimal list doesn't make you a good player. Being a good player does.

But conversely, having an optimal list doesn't make you a bad player. Being unable to win without it might.

Well to me he reads that "optimized" lists are generally all about theory. In practice, you'll find that you may prefer something that isn't exactly in tune with theory and tweek the list gradually. Over time your list will evolve to suite your particular style of play - thus making it not a carbon copy of a net list.

New players looking to win are likely to grab a net list. Due to the inherent power in these lists which are made by someone with experience, the list will likely be easy to play against lists without the right answers. Playing against opponents without the right answers does not help evolve tactics to fight people who do bring the right answers.

Granted, Blackmoor generalized it to all net-listers, but he made a good point.

But shouldn't you depend on having the best list to win?

I don't understand how you think that bringing anything less than the best possible list to a tournament is a good idea.

I think there are pro players in 40k. Suppose you have a popular blog/forum/website and the money made from advertisements pays the costs for club members to travel across the country and play in big events.

G

Bunker wrote:But shouldn't you depend on having the best list to win?

I don't understand how you think that bringing anything less than the best possible list to a tournament is a good idea.

Here is how. Lets say that "the best" is 5% better than what you are using. But, your experience with what you are using increases the "output" you get in performance with the one you use by 10%. Strictly speaking, the better choice is better in a vacuum, but why switch to it when you use the slightly inferior option much better?

Then you come to the question of "best". There are so many factors such as terrain, opposition armies, dice rolls, scenarios etc that change the "Best" in a particular situation that its hard to agree on a universal best.

Bunker wrote:But shouldn't you depend on having the best list to win?

That really depends on your intent in entering the event in the first place.

I don't understand how you think that bringing anything less than the best possible list to a tournament is a good idea.

It's a good idea if that sub-optimal list is one that you find more enjayable to play with, and you're entering for the joy of playing rather than from a driving need to win.

It's also a good idea if your intent is to see if you can do any good with a sub-optimal list. There's a certain challenge in using what you have, rather than what would necessarily be the best for the given situation.


But the point wasn't that it's a good idea to bring a sub-optimal list. It's that a good player shouldn't need an optimal list to do well.

That's particularly true when the focus is more on playing a good game than it is on winning the event.

The best list is what you are best with though. Its not some godfather of army lists that beats any other list out there. Its what you feel you are the best at using.

insaniak wrote:

I don't understand how you think that bringing anything less than the best possible list to a tournament is a good idea.

It's a good idea if that sub-optimal list is one that you find more enjayable to play with, and you're entering for the joy of playing rather than from a driving need to win.

This is exactly it. I've entered plenty of tournaments with lists that I've known to be sub-optimal. Part of it is wanting to spend a day gaming. Part of it is often wanting to play with something I just finished painting. Personally, I take much more pride in how my army looks than how it performs on a given day. Once the game starts, I'll play my hardest to win with what I have, but I'd rather win best painted than best general, and I make list choices with that in mind. I'll bring a kick-ass conversion with a good paintjob and nice banner because I know that will score me painting points, rather than bringing another uber-unit.

Some of us have a different slant on what the 'best possible' list is - to me, it's a list that looks good.

We need more gamers like redbeard.

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:We need more gamers like redbeard.

G

Don't think that Redbeard is soft.

He crushed me in the Adepticon Gladiator with his orks.

insaniak wrote:
So 'improving' the competitive 40K scene isn't as simple as telling everyone that their lists suck. You first have to convince them that the competitive 40K scene actually even needs improving. Then you need to make the event worth playing to win.

And even then, you're not going to get everyone to agree on which list is the best.

The Last bit is most likely due to (IMO) the inability of a typical one-day or two-day tournament to sufficiently separate the wheat from the chaff. An Inter/National Ranking system would help; but would require a good bit of administration.

Even with Game to game tracking, you would have a difficult time determining "good" lists without mass buy-in (Meaning I register one list, and play it and record all W-L-D against other ranked players from it, to get enough samples to make a meaningful determination).

Couple a system like that with prize money, and now you'd be talking.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
The thing that strikes me as most profound from this discussion is the overwhelming need to categorize, determine value and discard. Coupled with the group-think that List building is 60-80% of the game.

Granted; you can't win without a "good list". But I think the common determination for "fitness" of a list may be fundamentally flawed; (or at-least driven by strong personalities making sweeping generalizations).

Allan I know Redbeard quite well. I read his posts and we have had our share of discussions regarding 40k. What I said wasn't meant to come across that we need more baby seals, it was meant as a compliment to the attitude in general he brings to the game. I find Redbeard to be a very knowledgable gamer in general.

G

Blackmoor wrote:

Gren Eggz & Spam wrote:
We need more gamers like Redbeard.

G

Don't think that Redbeard is soft.

He crushed me in the Adepticon Gladiator with his orks.

that's what happens when you go meta. His orks were designed to foil the most prevalent meta lists.

G

For those folks who think one should bring the hardest list they can, no one is stopping you. Winning with these lists may help your position. Lack of knowledge with the army may be the problem, but these 'best of' armylist aren't anything new. The concept has been around for quite some time.

For those folks who don't bring the hardest list, again, no one is stopping you. Enjoy playing and don't let anyone dictate what is right or wrong to bring to the table.

At the end of the day, the larger tourneys (for the most part) are filled with a bunch of folks who have planned the trip well in advance and take the opportunity to get together with friends and roll some dice. It's a blast to see very cool armies and if you can place, great. If not, not a big deal. Discussions about tourney armies and what's the most ideal is simply a fun way to pass the time. There's not much more to it than that. Nobody is making any money in these events as cost of travel/hotels/food far outweighs any winnings.

At the end of the day, the 40K rules/codexes are simply not written well enough to have a real tourney circuit. If folks are really wanting a tourney circuit with full prize support, I don't believe you will be satisfied playing 40K.

If a tourney circuit were implemented today, I think this would be a huge mistake. Even without money on the table, folks simply can not agree on GW FAQs, indy FAQs, mission parameters, terrain usage, what seems 'broken' b/c GW can't seem to keep up with codex production, etc... At the end of the day, I think there would still be a lot of hurt feelings and less enjoyment of the hobby. This, IMO, would be what would drive folks away. Then, what sites would I visit on the internet

And after 20 years of playing 40K, I'm still not bored with the game b/c of not having a tourney circuit. I play the armies I like to build; some I win with, some I don't. At the end of the day, I still come back to play the game and I like to discuss all things 40K. I may not fit within GW's target customer, but I don't really get all that bothered with their business model. They have cool stuff for me to build and paint and I still enjoy playing the game.

skkipper wrote:

some top players and yes these guys consistently finish high in most events they attend.

Marc p.
Mike M.
Scott s.
Greg S.
Bill K.

there thats five, each one of these have multiple "big" event Wins.

Sorry, looks like I missed this one a few pages back, but I still think it's a point worth addressing.

I specifically asked for players who have won major tournaments this year. Which respective tournaments did players on this list win, and who won multiple events? That was the question.

Furthermore, it still does nothing to refute the point that winning hobbyist competitions affirms your position as a good hobbyist, not a good tournament player. While the tournament is part of the overall competition, it is ONLY a part. For instance, winning a triathlon doesn't mean you're the best swimmer in the world. It means you're the best triathlon athlete.

Edit: typos

There was no GW GT circuits this year. Marc won best general at the Necro. That was the only GT he entered this year. Seeing that he has 6-7 best overalls under his belt you can't say he is not a great player, he is.

G

Yes, he's a very good hobbyist and also a very good player, but to use hobby competitions as a metric for measuring best competitive players is obviously inappropriate for the reasons already stated.

Well, that's another problem. How do you separate out the good hobbyists and the good competitors? Remember how people get so upset about unpainetd armies at 'Ard Boyz?

Manchu wrote:Well, that's another problem. How do you separate out the good hobbyists and the good competitors? Remember how people get so upset about unpainetd armies at 'Ard Boyz?

That's what happens when people attend an event they're not interested in. 'Ard Boyz is not a hobbyist competition so it's only natural that hobbyists will be frustrated by the scoring which focuses only one aspect of the hobby to the exclusion of all others. Frankly, I've never understood these people. It's completely analogous to those 40k gamers who have no interest in competitive play, but insist on participating in tournaments anyway. Then they complain about how (over-)competitive everyone was. Well, no gak--it's a competitive event.

Yeah, very true. But I don't want to get us too far afield on 'Ard Boyz. What I meant was that 40k is not generally (big spenders aside) a game that you can just pick up and play. There are models to assemble and (sometimes) paint. Even the most successful competitors are also hobbyists, right? I think that factors in to 40k not really being a tourney game, at least not under Jervis. I don't want to jump right back into the fire, but I think that is why people have trouble with 'Ard Boyz. It runs counter to the rest of the scene by emphasizing competitiveness (apparently) over and against hobby. I guess it can be blamed in part on Jervis but it seems like there is a huge block of players (or at least internet pundits) who strongly oppose 40k becoming more competitive or even having set rule interpretations.

Danny Internets wrote:Yes, he's a very good hobbyist and also a very good player, but to use hobby competitions as a metric for measuring best competitive players is obviously inappropriate for the reasons already stated.

to me marc is a pure gamer. Do you know him personally? Have you played him?

G

Green Blow Fly wrote:

Danny Internets wrote:Yes, he's a very good hobbyist and also a very good player, but to use hobby competitions as a metric for measuring best competitive players is obviously inappropriate for the reasons already stated.

to me marc is a pure gamer. Do you know him personally? Have you played him?

G

you forgot a Great Guy to GBF

'Ard Boyz isn't actually a competitive event, though. I would trust the Best General scores from almost any major non-comp 1750-2000 tournament over the 'Ard Boyz results.

Green Blow Fly wrote:

Danny Internets wrote:Yes, he's a very good hobbyist and also a very good player, but to use hobby competitions as a metric for measuring best competitive players is obviously inappropriate for the reasons already stated.

to me marc is a pure gamer. Do you know him personally? Have you played him?

G

I have not, however one who consistently performs well in hobby competitions is, by definition, a proficient hobbyist.

'Ard Boyz isn't actually a competitive event, though.

How would you define a competitive event? What in particular about the 'Ard Boyz tournament was not competitive?

'Ard Boyz is not a competitive 40k event because it doesn't represent the way competitive 40k is actually played-- the parameters for 'Ard Boyz are so different from those used in normal games of 40k and in almost all other tournaments that they make 'Ard Boyz essentially a category all its own in terms of lists, tactics, etc. In particular, 'Ard Boyz has horrible scenarios that skew what lists are chosen, rules that differ from how 40k is played elsewhere, and a silly points value that makes the viable armies very different from what's seen in standard play.

'Ard Boyz would be much more competitive if they brought the points down to 2000 and used only the basic scenarios from the rulebook.

I agree with your criticisms, though I still feel it was a competitive event (so some extent).

Major US tournaments feature points levels generally ranging from 1500 to 2000 so there is hardly a standard, though obviously whatever standard range might be agreed upon the 2500 limit in 'Ard Boyz is still clearly outside of that. However, I would argue that the jump from 1500 to 2000 is far more dramatic than the jump from 2000 to 2500. I think this minimizes the effect that the higher points limit had on the environmental validity of the competition, at least relative to other tournaments.

The scenarios were somewhat oddball, but not nearly as badly skewed as in previous years, or as in many other indie GTs (BoLScon, for example). Any argument that 'Ard Boyz was uncompetitive because of the scenarios would apply doubly to many of the other supposedly competitive US tournaments, unless you consider many of them uncompetitive as well (in which case we'd be in agreement).

I'm just trying to flesh out your points a bit, not really disagree with them. I don't think the US tournament scene is competitive at all because of some of the same problems that you take with the 'Ard Boyz tournament.

I agree that most US tournaments are uncompetitive. I actually posted a thread about this a while back, but it's mostly for pretty much the same sorts of reasons outlined above: bad scenarios, inconsistent points, inconsistent rules, etc. If people want to have truly competitive 40k in the United States, they should look at establishing some kind of consistent format for their events. At the very least, they should settle on points costs and rules and drop the wacky scenarios.

Fetterkey wrote:'Ard Boyz isn't actually a competitive event, though. I would trust the Best General scores from almost any major non-comp 1750-2000 tournament over the 'Ard Boyz results.

I have to agree. Me and my opponents played tiddly winks and listened to some of my old Beatles albums instead of playing. It was quite grand to say the least. I love Abbey Road dearly.

G

I do not agree that missions should be standardized. If every tournament rant he same missions from the rulebook, the tournament lists would quickly de-evolve into a low number of lists that win those missions. Take the last edition where everything was victory points. Those missions limited the number of viable winning tournament lists.

I am not interested in having a tournament scene which constricts list building to 3-4 possible builds. That does not appeal to me. I want a tournament scene where players must prepare for the unexpected and be able to adapt midgame to a change. The best 40k players can adapt on the fly to the mission, the table and the player standing across from them.

I do not want to play in a system that rewards list building over game playing and mission variety leads to better game playing.

Darth

He is trying to make the game into something it was never intended to be.

G

I also take exception to the notion that a community of learners who deconstruct army lists and build a consensus of top choices in armies will enhance competitive play. Maybe in MTG, but not in the REAL professional sports.

In football no one was going to try the Wildcat until Miami beat New England with it and even then teams were skeptical and didn't include it in thier play package. Even now teams know that the Wildcat will only work with certain teams who have certain players.

I don't want to share everything I know about 40k just to enhance someone elses game. If the goal is to make the tournaments more competitive then I'm not telling you anything. Competitive means I win and I win when I know something you don't.

Now if the goal is to make tournaments non-competitive, then you take away the goal of winning the tournament and I don't care what you know about my army. But as long as it is a competition I will try to win and winning involves not telling you everything. Maybe the MTG players missed the boat on that one.

I don't see Bill Belichek going over Livie Smiths offensive playbook before the Bears play the Patriots and pointing out to Lovie some plays that won't work as well. Hell no you find that out on your own.

After being in the finals of the 'ard boyz for 3 years the reasons it is NOT competitive is mainly due to the fact that a lot of people dont get to finish their games

Ive said it before, if all players do not get to play a full game at a competitive event then the event cannot be used to determine *anything*

40K isn't designed for this 'competitive' tourney scene. The game system simply will not handle it. If that is what folks are looking for, they will be sorely disappointed. Folks need to accept this.

I agree w/ Sarigar and Kirasu.

Same, as I keep saying.

I am not saying this to be hostile but if you are not good at something it is easy to rationalize this by saying that it is not competitive.

G

No offense taken for my part (I'm no competitive player, not even close). So would you argue that 40k as it is could be or already is as competitive as a MTG tournament?

Danny Internets wrote:Yes, he's a very good hobbyist and also a very good player, but to use hobby competitions as a metric for measuring best competitive players is obviously inappropriate for the reasons already stated.

For the record, Marc isnt a hobbyist....he's a gamer. He does interesting conversions with a completely average tournament paintjob...but only in order to get what he wants to feild.

Enforcing most of Timmah's posts...Marc constructs a list based on the best units he can bring. His theory differs from Stelek in that a unit doesnt have to be good at anti-armour AND anti-infantry if its horrendously effective and points efficient at one or the other. (preferably anti-infantry)

Since he's probably the winningest known tournament goer we have to draw example from (even over Stelek) I beleive this is significant.

However, its also significant that someone mentioned that occasionally the best competetive build may not suit particular players.

Marc has a sisters list right now that he totally cleans house with. ULTRA-competetive according to him. I own the exact same list since we've worked on it together.

Now I'm a competent gamer, I can typically place within the top 1-10 players in a major tournament if I'm bringing a list I'm practiced with...and this ULTRA-competetive sisters list is simply eluding me considering the trouble I've had with it at local RTT's (not nearly as competetive as a national tourney).

Fact is...its really not my playstyle, so I'm going to require lots of practice to totally shift my playstyle inorder to utilise the list to its utmost. I like elite shooty lists. A archetype that really doesnt lend itself well to BIG wins at tournament typically.

I'm probably almost as good a 40k player as Marc (we've played together and been in the hobby for some 14 years or so) but he enjoys army lists that are much more condusive to winning than I do. He's always been "quantity over quality" where I've been all about elite lists.

What I'm saying, is that the most effective army choices may make a great list....for the right player. If you can bring a marine list using the "best-of" theory, if it matches your playstyle, and if you're practiced with it...you may do well. (thats assuming "best-of" lists really are, which hasnt been proven on any level) Then again, if including some "crappy" units in your army really match your demeanor and playstyle, you can prolly do well with those as well if you're practiced with the army. Problem is, you may eventually run into an equal calibur player in tournament and his army build may be more efficent than yours. If this happens your only chance would probably be in who's more experienced with their army. Experience trumps EVERYTHING pretty much in all aspects of life, 40k is no exception.

Blackmoor is obviously excellent with his Eldar. He includes units which others may not feel are good choices. Thing is, the army matches his playstyle. If he goes up against Marc at a tournament, and Marc is using one of his armies designed to win at Tournament, Marc will probably demolish Blackmoor. Why? Because Marc favors armies that are designed with cost effective units first and he isnt distracted EVER by cool models or interesting fluff. He also chooses codexes based on this, not "I like eldar and want to play them". On the other hand, Blackmoor's been playing his eldar for a long time now, if this encounter has Marc bringing a new list that he's experimenting with trying to get the hang of... Blackmoor's experience may pay off and bring home a win.

I think a lot of people in this thread are right in their points to a certain extent. The truth is probably a little bit of what everyone here is saying.

Manchu wrote:No offense taken for my part (I'm no competitive player, not even close). So would you argue that 40k as it is could be or already is as competitive as a MTG tournament?

You need to stop comparing 40k with MtG. They are nothing alike at all.

G

I agree with both of you.

GBF has it right, that a lot of people who leave competitive play do so because they are no good.
On the other hand the 40k system is too varied to produce a true competitive system. So while you can play competitively, I dont think the rules are as tightened up as they need to be for that kind of playing in a circuit type system. And lets be honest. When most of us regular tourney types go to a tournament its for the competition, not the prizes.

What i love about 40k competitive playing is this. As Diggler said you have to adapt on the fly. The mission and match up can absolutely screw that nasty army you spent hours building. So build something that can take anyone and play it as best as possible.

My belief is that it will never be as competitive as M;TG. For every one player with DarthDiggler's approach, there are five more who go to tournaments for reasons besides winning.

Until you have a tournament scene that's solely dedicated to people playing just to win, it's not going to be a hugely competitive scene. And if you do get a situation where everyone is playing just to win, I'm not sure many people would really enjoy that environment.

Green Blow Fly wrote:

Manchu wrote:No offense taken for my part (I'm no competitive player, not even close). So would you argue that 40k as it is could be or already is as competitive as a MTG tournament?

You need to stop comparing 40k with MtG. They are nothing alike at all.

G

Uh, I think you'll find that I said that pages ago. In this case, MTG is a useful comparison because I'm not talking about the games themselves but the kinds of tournaments they get. You see, that's called a contrast and it means that I'm emphasizing the differences between them. I tried to take your insulting one-liner as seriously as possible but it seems you just like dropping "pearls of wisdom."

To wit:

Manchu wrote:

Timmah wrote:MTG has a lot of similar things to 40k in its competitiveness.

I've been called on this comparison myself (not by Eidolon) and have to admit it's a shaky one, especially about competitiveness. Isn't one of the biggest complaints, especially from Stelek, that GW has intentionally undermined competitiveness in 40k? That's quite the reverse of Wizard's policy toward Magic, at least at its heart of hearts.

Green Blow Fly wrote:

Manchu wrote:No offense taken for my part (I'm no competitive player, not even close). So would you argue that 40k as it is could be or already is as competitive as a MTG tournament?

You need to stop comparing 40k with MtG. They are nothing alike at all.

G

Correct. MtG is largely competitive (despite its barriers to entry), while 40k isn't.

Redbeard wrote:Until you have a tournament scene that's solely dedicated to people playing just to win, it's not going to be a hugely competitive scene. And if you do get a situation where everyone is playing just to win, I'm not sure many people would really enjoy that environment.

And this is what I've been saying. No coincidence that I started thinking about this from reading RedBeard's comments on Jervis.

@Fetterkey: See above.

Redbeard wrote:
I'm not sure many people would really enjoy that environment.

Why not? They seem to in most other tournament environments. Now I agree a lot of the casual gamers might be turned of, but I would bet it would bring in a huge influx of players if GW did actually make it into a competitive environment like MTG.

darthdiggler wrote:
I also take exception to the notion that a community of learners who deconstruct army lists and build a consensus of top choices in armies will enhance competitive play. Maybe in MTG, but not in the REAL professional sports.

In football no one was going to try the Wildcat until Miami beat New England with it and even then teams were skeptical and didn't include it in thier play package. Even now teams know that the Wildcat will only work with certain teams who have certain players.

This is what we in most pro sports and pro e-sports ect would call a meta game call or innovation. Sure its not as obvious in football. But it happens in everything. Sure there might be agreed upon top lists/ playbooks but its not like these guys have always thought of everything. In Starcraft there is basically an agreed upon set of builds that are the most competitive for each race and same with a lot of different competitive games.

It does't ruin the sport or stop innovation, if anything it encourages it. Because people are always trying to get a leg up on the top builds.

Fetterkey wrote:

Green Blow Fly wrote:

Manchu wrote:No offense taken for my part (I'm no competitive player, not even close). So would you argue that 40k as it is could be or already is as competitive as a MTG tournament?

You need to stop comparing 40k with MtG. They are nothing alike at all.

G

Correct. MtG is largely competitive (despite its barriers to entry), while 40k isn't.

MTG is competitive in a linear/binary way. 40K is competitive in a more creative free flowing way like sports.

I think a big step to making 40k more competitive would be to work on a more circuit level style. Maybe even implement a global ranking system similar to the USCF or DCI.

What I'm trying to say is that in a 100+ player 3 game tournament, such as Adepticon's Sunday tournament, it benefits a player to bring a Rock-Paper-Scissor army and just hope they get three decent matchups. Bringing an all comers list doesn't work as well here. Situations like that are a much bigger gamble.

To make the game more competitive there would need to be more rounds so that players are forced to bring more well rounded lists and to see who ends up coming out on top.

If GTs were 8 games with a 5 game qualifier and a 3 game final between the top 8 players I think we could get a better field of competition.

I'd also like to disagree strongly with some sentiments I've read here that stated that M:tG is somehow more skill oriented than 40k. I like Magic and would never turn down a booster draft of a core set but when I played competitively it was more about knowing how to play your deck than any actual skill in playing. 40k has many more options and requires a lot more thought and long term planning instead of counting on a combo going off and working. It's also why I'm not a fan of WarMachine anymore, even though I played for almost 4 years, because the game is less skill dependent than it is about knowing how your army plays.

I'd rather play the game instead of the deck or army playing it for me.

As far as i know starcraft has 3 races and has had the exact same units for the last 10 years. Yeah if you had codex marines, codex eldar, and codex orks. The game had a tightly written ruleset, and nothing was ever really changed it would be a lot like starcraft. But its not.
You have around 10 armies.
You have the ability to mix units from different armies
You have way more unit diversity and army diversity
You have a larger rule set.
You have new dexs coming out every 5 months or so, changing the game up by a fair margin. So its much more fluid then starcraft.

In the end of the day its you vs the opponent. Mission, army etc make a difference. But there are too many variables for meta to be a solid rock paper scissors in 40k.

Deadshane1 wrote:
What I'm saying, is that the most effective army choices may make a great list....for the right player.

Experience trumps EVERYTHING pretty much in all aspects of life, 40k is no exception.

I think that the notion that Marc is using a different methodology to determine unit value than the "common internet wisdom" that is prevalent, and that his particular method takes into account either his play-style, or his ability to be flexible in play-style is decidedly interesting.

To couple with the concept of "experience" playing the game is additionally intriguing. There are a great many tactical depths to 40K that I've found more familiar players are experienced with than are apparent at first blush. Blackmoor's "reactive" (no YOU go first) methods that are apparent in his battle reports reflect one of these lessons that entail "gaming" within the rules.

I find this kind of discussion interesting and valuable. However, I am frustrated by opinions that by talking about the game, and educating players One reduces one's chance to win. This ultimately turns the hobby into a very closed-rank mentality of gamesmanship. This may be an outgrowth of the kinds of folks that play with little plastic men. But it is a culture that I feel needs to change.

skipmcne wrote:

I find this kind of discussion interesting and valuable. However, I am frustrated by opinions that by talking about the game, and educating players One reduces one's chance to win. This ultimately turns the hobby into a very closed-rank mentality of gamesmanship. This may be an outgrowth of the kinds of folks that play with little plastic men. But it is a culture that I feel needs to change.

This was kinda one of my initial points. The community as a whole doesn't really work together that much. They then blame things like, the game being too diverse, to really come to a decision on best lists or strategies and such. MTG in type1 is 10x as diverse as 40k and yet it has a very defined meta game. (it also has a lot of outliers and meta game decks and rogue decks)

Again this fits in with being bull headed. Once people believe they have "arrived" they seem to become closed off and think only their opinion is valid and everyone else is just and internet scrub who knows nothing.


I think a set of 50 ish scenarios that all the big tournaments draw from would go a long way in promoting a more competitive environment. Much like maps in starcraft. It would make it so people wouldn't go into a major tournament and get completely screwed because of some weird rules that wouldn't ever happen anywhere else. (like no terrain).

DarthDiggler wrote:

Fetterkey wrote:

Green Blow Fly wrote:

Manchu wrote:No offense taken for my part (I'm no competitive player, not even close). So would you argue that 40k as it is could be or already is as competitive as a MTG tournament?

You need to stop comparing 40k with MtG. They are nothing alike at all.

G

Correct. MtG is largely competitive (despite its barriers to entry), while 40k isn't.

MTG is competitive in a linear/binary way. 40K is competitive in a more creative free flowing way like sports.

Your both half right. MTG is written with highly competetive rules, because Wizzards can make lots of money on a tournament, so the rules are written to foster a competetive game. GW has never made too much money running tournaments, so they never wrote highly competetive rules. It's always been about selling models for them.

However, despite the rules people PLAY each game both competetively and for fun.

I disagree with the sports analogy though, in football noone ever argues about what's a goal and what isn't a goal, it's clearly defined and spelled out. Field conditions might make it confusing, but the actual rules are clear. (Gwar! would argue that the BGB is very clear....but I don't )

If no one argues about football rules why do they have instant replay? Why do they have ref's then? Both sides could tell who was holding on the play and both sides could give the player a penalty flag. Both sides are competitive and want to win and thus think their side can do no wrong. The more compeititve you want ti then the more we will need refs to watch every move and every game. Right now tourney judges just handle organization and a few rules questions, but they are not expected to police every move of every game. that happens in pro sports.


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And I think when I mentioned competive play in the quote above I was thinking from a tactical standpoint and not the competition level. I misspoke on that one.

Deadshane1 wrote:

Blackmoor is obviously excellent with his Eldar. He includes units which others may not feel are good choices. Thing is, the army matches his playstyle. If he goes up against Marc at a tournament, and Marc is using one of his armies designed to win at Tournament, Marc will probably demolish Blackmoor. Why? Because Marc favors armies that are designed with cost effective units first and he isnt distracted EVER by cool models or interesting fluff. He also chooses codexes based on this, not "I like eldar and want to play them". On the other hand, Blackmoor's been playing his eldar for a long time now, if this encounter has Marc bringing a new list that he's experimenting with trying to get the hang of... Blackmoor's experience may pay off and bring home a win.

Actually what happened was that we tied. (His orks vs. my Eldar)

Fetterkey wrote:

Green Blow Fly wrote:

Manchu wrote:No offense taken for my part (I'm no competitive player, not even close). So would you argue that 40k as it is could be or already is as competitive as a MTG tournament?

You need to stop comparing 40k with MtG. They are nothing alike at all.

G

Correct. MtG is largely competitive (despite its barriers to entry), while 40k isn't.

"I like peanut butter."

"I hate those purple shorts of yours!"

Opinions, no more valid than yours above. It's great you feel that way but it doesn't really change anything. But if it makes you feel jazzed then good for ya mate!

G


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Deadshane1 wrote:

I'm probably almost as good a 40k player as Marc...

Timmah wrote:
This was kinda one of my initial points. The community as a whole doesn't really work together that much. They then blame things like, the game being too diverse, to really come to a decision on best lists or strategies and such. MTG in type1 is 10x as diverse as 40k and yet it has a very defined meta game. (it also has a lot of outliers and meta game decks and rogue decks)

MtG Type 1? Format where pretty much all top decks have same 9 cards? Are you kidding?

And I am constantly amazed that YOU of all people accuse others being bullheaded, when you standard list critique seems to be "This list blows. You must have played weak opponents". Have you ever considered that there just MIGHT be more than one approach of making strong lists?

Backfire wrote:

MtG Type 1? Format where pretty much all top decks have same 9 cards? Are you kidding?

And I am constantly amazed that YOU of all people accuse others being bullheaded, when you standard list critique seems to be "This list blows. You must have played weak opponents". Have you ever considered that there just MIGHT be more than one approach of making strong lists?

First off, please don't pretend you understand type 1 unless you have played it. Because they have 9 cards in common does not make them even close to the same deck. That is like saying; "Your list runs troops? so does mine! We must be running the same list!"

Secondly, I already said I am very bull headed when it comes to what I think is good. However I am always for critiquing lists and talking about what I think is good or bad (usually this one). People get very offended on here though if your opinion differs from theirs.


As continued evidence to the closed off ness of the community. When was the last time the top 8 lists from a euro GT or big US tournament were published? This constantly happens in MTG and it makes the community better. Because it opens up new ideas and new ways of thinking.

How come Timmah’s arguments always break down to MTG vs. 40k.

Timmah, can you make an argument without using MTG?

Timmah, your comparaison can never be accurate. MTG uses a closed system of tactics, that is each game is essentially the same with the only variable being card draws.

40k on the other hand has so many other variables in their more open system of tactics, that each game is going to be much different compared to MTG.

I used to play MTG competitively (standard), but found 40k to be much more enjoyable - and even less expensive.

The game of 40k is exponentially more diverse than MTG due to its relative tactical and strategical complexity. The lists have proven to be just as diverse as is evident by so many different lists winning tournaments. Net-decking is far more common than net-listing, making 40k lists more variable than MTG decks.

edit: What I'm trying to get at is the comparaison holds no real value, because the games are too different.

Blackmoor wrote:How come Timmah’s arguments always break down to MTG vs. 40k.

Timmah, can you make an argument without using MTG?

I've yet to see it happen

Ok, I can do my exact same argument using a different game system if that is ok. Sorry that I like to put references in to show how it has worked before. (precedence...)

In Starcraft and warcraft 3, tournaments are pasted all over the internet. You can watch them with commentary to learn build orders, tactics, ect. The community puts a lot of effort into getting these out to the other community members.

Critics of these are welcomed by the community and it grows on it by thinking up new ways to counter the effective strats that are used.

People sometimes get lucky with a crappy strategy that was the correct call at the time. (4 pool zerg) Sometimes it just works because your opponent isn't prepared for it. However it isn't decreed as the best strat ever. Also a lot of these are 3 game sets so you only get 1/2 your win using it.

The community breaks down wins, discusses new strats ect. They have a very open community. 40k players as a community have a very closed community when compared to other gaming systems. I guess I don't know how to explain this any better.

Timmah wrote:Ok, I can do my exact same argument using a different game system if that is ok. Sorry that I like to put references in to show how it has worked before. (precedence...)

In Starcraft and warcraft 3, tournaments are pasted all over the internet. You can watch them with commentary to learn build orders, tactics, ect. The community puts a lot of effort into getting these out to the other community members.

Critics of these are welcomed by the community and it grows on it by thinking up new ways to counter the effective strats that are used.

People sometimes get lucky with a crappy strategy that was the correct call at the time. (4 pool zerg) Sometimes it just works because your opponent isn't prepared for it. However it isn't decreed as the best strat ever. Also a lot of these are 3 game sets so you only get 1/2 your win using it.

The community breaks down wins, discusses new strats ect. They have a very open community. 40k players as a community have a very closed community when compared to other gaming systems. I guess I don't know how to explain this any better.

Forgive me if this is presumptuous but I would like to point you too the following link: http://www.logicalfallacies.info/relevance/weak-analogy/. Weak Analogy Fallacy. You're basic argument boils down to: 40k and <insert game> are both strategy games, so they must share similar characteristics. They don't. Granted I haven't played to many games (that's why I said forgive me for being presumptuous), but I read through the rule book and wonder why on earth you try comparing these things. It's like comparing a game of Chess to USMC Combat Doctrine. Yeah they have a few things in common, but there really is no valid ground for comparison you're making. Nothing wrong with analogy or comparison, but you need to make sure the comparison is a valid, which so far I don't think yours have been. EDIT: Now that I think of it my Chess USMC analogy probably sucks too lol XD.

Granted I get your final point, and perfectly understand what you mean in the end about your opinion on the community. I actually think my initial opinion is that you're right, and from reading all the stuff here I kind of don't see the same "competitive" edge I've seen in other games sites present here (though I don't really miss people being at each other's throats or the regular verbal smack down that follows when someone says something really really stupid). So I kind of agree with you at a first glance, the problem is, your constant use of a logical fallacy distracts everyone from your point and weakens your argument.

I thought this forum is for the discussion of 40k. Aren't there a plethora of MtG forums elsewhere to take your discussion?

G

Really, my experience about MtG community was that 99% of the players had EXTREMELY narrow views about what cards and concepts were viable. It was not at all like the Utopia of Information you present it is - unless it has dramatically chanced since I played.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Timmah wrote:
Secondly, I already said I am very bull headed when it comes to what I think is good. However I am always for critiquing lists and talking about what I think is good or bad (usually this one). People get very offended on here though if your opinion differs from theirs.

As I recall, when I saw you criticizing 'Ard Boyz Marine list, you began "How did that list do so well?" and concluded in your next message that it must have been because tournament was weak. Thus, you instantly rejected the possibility that the list was actually good, because it didn't fit to your perceptions of "good list".

"O Kettle! Thou art so black!" said the pot.

Backfire wrote:Really, my experience about MtG community was that 99% of the players had EXTREMELY narrow views about what cards and concepts were viable. It was not at all like the Utopia of Information you present it is - unless it has dramatically chanced since I played.

I agree. What is the point of me posting a list that I use. If I think the list is good, then why do I need a critique? I already won with the list. If the point is to show people winning lists they can learn from, then they won't really learn just from a list on paper. As many people have pointed out they will only truely learn by experimenting and playing games with their own lists.

Here is the secret of being a good 40k player and making good lists.

Step 1: make a list

Step 2: play a game with the list

Step 3: Reflect on your game and see what beat you

Step 4: Add unit(s) to counter what you lost to or change in game strategy.

Repeat at step 1


You will need to go through this 4 step process about 10-15 times against different lists.

By Jove he's got it!



G

Sense has been restored!

I don't see whats so difficult about it for everyone to agree that we have a very closed community.

I am not saying 40k and starcraft are the same game or even close to the same.
However their communities react very differently when it comes to the competitive element of it.

Heck we don't even know what the power builds are in 40k currently because no one ever posts crap about tournaments outside of a bat rep here or there.

DarthDiggler wrote:
Here is the secret of being a good 40k player and making good lists.

Step 1: make a list

Step 2: play a game with the list

Step 3: Reflect on your game and see what beat you

Step 4: Add unit(s) to counter what you lost to or change in game strategy.

Repeat at step 1
You will need to go through this 4 step process about 10-15 times against different lists.

There is so many things wrong with this I can't even begin to say anything about it...

You have a lot of balls for someone who has never won any major event.

G

Timmeh, I don’t think the things you’re striving for are necessarily bad things. But I do think you’ll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. I also think that probably the best way you can start to achieve the results you want is by posting in-depth tactics posts yourself.

It is not being bullheaded for successful players to refuse, or not have the time, to explain everything to you, or us. If we want to learn to be better players, and understand why the winners win, it behooves us to do the study and put in the work. Nor is it bullheaded to not accept at face value comments from the peanut gallery about how their lists could be better, or how their competition was not really competitive. They have demonstrated success. The burden of proof is on the critic to show how they could do better, or how we could do better.

This is a very time-intensive hobby, and I think what you are perceiving as “bullheaded”ness is more that many of the most competitive gamers do not presently feel like investing their time into basically teaching other people better warhammer online.

There are some exceptions. I tend to find that one of the best places to look is in Battle Reports, as competitive players may well enjoy posting reports from tournaments, and they often give some insight into their tactics.

Given that your current approach seems unlikely to succeed at persuading current tourney-winning players to start giving classes, I can suggest two types of threads to try.

1. Discussions of currently successful lists, with reasoned analysis of what they bring and don’t bring in general, match ups against particular armies and in particular missions. This idea is one in which you may successfully solicit feedback from the players of the armies themselves. If you ask directed, respectful questions, you may elicit useful feedback on the reasoning behind the choices those players made.

You could start with threads on Blackmoor, Darkwynn, Shep, and/or Darth Diggler’s lists, based on the comments they’ve already made here (and on BOLS, for Darkwynn). You could copy & paste their comments from the tournament & battle report notes, for easy reference in said new threads. Bear in mind that you need to start from the assumption that there are reasons behind what they choose to take. Sometimes the reasons may not be pure winning/killing power, but given that battle points are still the dominant factor for tourney success, these lists MUST have something going for them.

While I know you’re aware of most of these already, I’m going to link several battle reports which include tactical commentary. I’m also including a Warhammer Fantasy report by Jarrett Messing, a top US WH player, who just won his first GT this past September. It’s a very detailed report, with some really excellent insights.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/262479.page
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/217900.page#375310
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/261905.page
http://warmongers.ziggyqubert.com/wmbb/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=7640&hilit=necro+battle+report

2. Discussions of actual tabletop tactics. How and why to deploy in certain ways, or use reserve to advantage. How to deploy in response to particular enemy tactics or builds. How to maneuver to achieve a Win in Capture & Control with a Spearhead deployment, which is a mission/deployment combination which has a reputation for producing Draws.

These types of threads tend to be pretty complex and time-consuming. Describing tabletop situations in detail tends to take a lot of words, and/or good diagrams. Panzerleader has recently started a couple threads like this in the Tactics forum;I think they have some really solid ideas and might make a good starting point. One issue here is that I think a large number of forum posters don’t really want to put a lot of time and effort into posting. You’ll note that Panzerleader’s first Challenge post drew quite a bit of feedback and a good number of posts. The second gave a more detailed scenario, with excellent questions and a great diagram, but drew only one response.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/262935.page
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/259930.page
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/260838.page

Green Blow Fly wrote:You have a lot of balls for someone who has never won any major event.

G

If only those who have won "major events" are allowed to participate this is going to be very, very quiet discussion.

That's not what he's saying. He's saying that hectoring and talking down to the players who have shown success is probably not the best way to...
a) elicit their assistance
or
b) convince us of his own insight

Green Blow Fly wrote:

Deadshane1 wrote:

I'm probably almost as good a 40k player as Marc...

...and here is a good example of not reading the ENTIRE sentence therefore taking the idea that was meant, trashing it, then drawing an incorrect conclusion.

...besides the fact its off topic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Green Blow Fly wrote:You have a lot of balls for someone who has never won any major event.

G

pot/kettle

Green Blow Fly wrote:You have a lot of balls for someone who has never won any major event.

G

Actually I just won the "Timmah Fan Club Open 40k tournament" it was a grueling 1 round match with the 1 other person that showed.

I thought more people would show, but I am betting travel costs and such were too high.


I am not saying being bull headed is an insult. Sometimes its required to weed through the BS. But when you only accept the comments that praise your list, its usually a bad thing. You don't get any communications going. Also, there are very few intensive bat reps where people lose or do moderately well. These middle of the pack players are usually the ones grinding it out with other great players and just getting draws because of luck of the draw and the skill of their opponent.

No offense, but someone posting how they destroyed 5 other players that were below there skill level doesn't really show tactics and such. (not pointing fingers at anyone, but it seems to be the way it goes if you are going to get best overall)

Anyways, I don't mean it as an insult that our hobby is very closed when it comes to info. Its a lot of work to type of players lists without something like army building. Maybe we need a better way of accepting tournament lists. Like the normal paper sheet as well as a flash drive with a army builder file on it of your army. So that the TO can easily publish the lists and what order you finished.

It just seems like a lot of people are resistant to this because they feel like they will lose their competitive edge if people know their list/tactics.

Imo you get more competitive events when everyone is on close to the same page information wise. You should win based on your player skill, not because you found the counter to everyones list (maybe one event, but after that it should be out there for the public)

Timmah wrote:I don't see whats so difficult about it for everyone to agree that we have a very closed community.

I am not saying 40k and starcraft are the same game or even close to the same.
However their communities react very differently when it comes to the competitive element of it.

Heck we don't even know what the power builds are in 40k currently because no one ever posts crap about tournaments outside of a bat rep here or there.

DarthDiggler wrote:
Here is the secret of being a good 40k player and making good lists.

Step 1: make a list

Step 2: play a game with the list

Step 3: Reflect on your game and see what beat you

Step 4: Add unit(s) to counter what you lost to or change in game strategy.

Repeat at step 1
You will need to go through this 4 step process about 10-15 times against different lists.

There is so many things wrong with this I can't even begin to say anything about it...

Oh please tell me what is wrong with this. I have used this formula myself to win 7 Chicagoland galdiators including Adepticon, to win the Adepticon team event and finish in the top 5 two other times, to finish in the top 10 in the ard Boyz both years I played, and to win or finish with the most Battle points in innumerable tournaments since 1999. You see you force me to recite my resume because it shows that this idea works. You are looking for a shortcut to success and that is the path of a failure. Anything worth having in life needs to be worked for and you need to work to get a good list.

DarthDiggler wrote:

Oh please tell me what is wrong with this. I have used this formula myself to win 7 Chicagoland galdiators including Adepticon, to win the Adepticon team event and finish in the top 5 two other times, to finish in the top 10 in the ard Boyz both years I played, and to win or finish with the most Battle points in innumerable tournaments since 1999. You see you force me to recite my resume because it shows that this idea works. You are looking for a shortcut to success and that is the path of a failure. Anything worth having in life needs to be worked for and you need to work to get a good list.

Honestly, you know what my response is going to be, so I am not even going to state my opinion because its just going to open up a flame war. So just pretend I had no comment on your list building ideas.

Ok?

(I retract them in favor of continuing the current discussion)

(Edited) ...who wants the candy, but doesn't want to do the work to get the candy.

Timmah wrote:I am not saying being bull headed is an insult. Sometimes its required to weed through the BS. But when you only accept the comments that praise your list, its usually a bad thing.

Yes, it's a bad thing. And when you accuse people of only accepting praise, you are insulting them. That may be what you perceive has happened in those threads, but I think you need to practice a little bit more self-awareness and care in your posting. In my observation every time you have received a "closed" response it's been in reaction to an insulting and/or confrontational approach from you.

Timmah wrote:You don't get any communications going. Also, there are very few intensive bat reps where people lose or do moderately well. These middle of the pack players are usually the ones grinding it out with other great players and just getting draws because of luck of the draw and the skill of their opponent.

I'd encourage you to go back through Blackmoor's older reports. He's got a pretty good number of moderate results as well.

Timmah wrote:No offense, but someone posting how they destroyed 5 other players that were below there skill level doesn't really show tactics and such. (not pointing fingers at anyone, but it seems to be the way it goes if you are going to get best overall)

And you manage to squeeze another shot in, cheapening the achievements of people who've won Best Overall. In my experience most tournaments don't give you multiple opportunities to "club baby seals". You might get a lucky draw round one against a soft opponent, but usually a very high Battles score after round one immediately puts you up against someone good.

That aside, I think there are some other good reports out there. The really great ones tend to be rare, as they require a lot of work to produce. But there's certainly a large pool of them to draw from.

I think a cool, productive exercise for you might be to dig through the battle reports forum and articles section and come up with ten or twelve detailed ones that give real tactical insight. We could then have a "best of" thread, and maybe some focused tactical threads talking about lessons learned from given reports. That kind of positive feedback might also encourage more people to post really high-quality reports which properly describe tactics and the reasoning behind them.

Mannahnin wrote:

Timmah wrote:I am not saying being bull headed is an insult. Sometimes its required to weed through the BS. But when you only accept the comments that praise your list, its usually a bad thing.

Yes, it's a bad thing. And when you accuse people of only accepting praise, you are insulting them.

I don't mean it to be, but its usually the case that people praise a bat rep and then move on. Very little discussion actually happens. Now check the 2 I posted in (ardboyz and wildwestshootout). Yes, there was a page or 2 or 5 of flaming, but afterwards there was multiple pages of discussion on how the list worked and why it worked. Sure it was all to prove my position wrong, but it did bring about more insight into the list and ideas behind it.

You've got to start somewhere.

Where else do you propose to start? Are you going to pay tourney-winning players to give classes?

Since I started war gamming back in summer 2008 I've played in a number of RTT's, Indy GTs, 5 game tournaments, and 2 years of 'Ard Boys. I have yet to play the same scenario twice in any tournament. It seems to me that the scenarios end up getting weirder and weirder at each event. Reading about the Wild West Shootout's "Football" and "No terrain" scenarios sends a shiver down my spine. From what I've read, no one liked those scenarios, yet they were 40% of the tournament.

Match ups are as important as the scenario. Would Blackmoor have won against Shep in the 4th "No terrain" scenario? Maybe, either way, I'm guessing that Shep would have had a much better chance of winning that game over the "Football" game they were matched up in. When Skkipper beat me at TSHIFT it was in a kill points mission, I might have lost any other game we played against one another, but IMO the mission type that gave him the best chance to win against me was Kill points. What type of army you are matched up against makes a world of difference in each scenario.

Luck is also huge. But luck can also be aided with sound tactics and solid list building. One of the reasons I've been so fond of my Salamanders has been the twin linking ability. However, if I'm shooting 10+ multi meltas at a single wraithlord and still can't kill it (happened), I'm not going to win the game. On the same token, if I fire assault cannon at the wraithlord and manage to get hot with rending and do three wounds the game has a much better chance of going well for me (happened as well). It is up to me as a general to build a list and use tactics to get by on what I consider "Average Luck." If I lose the game because I rolled nothing but 1’s or 2’s I’m fine, but if I screw up and attack the wrong units, then I’m pretty hard on myself.

More often than not I tend to find myself on the first couple of tables going into the second day of 5 game tournaments. I’ve yet to win anything, but see myself making fewer tactical mistakes. List building is a big part of my success, but I’ve come to find that what I like to use may not be other players first pick. My most effective units might not show up on a “best of” list, but they fill a roll in my army. Most generals have evolved past the need of a “Best of” list and know what they are lo0oking for in an army.

I think that most tournament winners are excellent generals who can adept tactics to maximize their force’s ability to perform in a given scenario against the opponent they are paired with. However, no matter how good the list or match-up is, you’ll still need some luck from the dice to win.

Modquisition on.
As a reminder, guys lets keep this to a slow simmer shall we.

As stated before a main difference between 40k and MTG is that ANY player can make ANY power deck by spending around 50$ in singles (type 2) and invest virtually 0 time

That allows for a much higher competative level imo but 40k you have to spend what, 1000$ on a mech guard army? Or spend tons of time converting a jetlock army? Not to mention painting for any army

Different animal all together.. if there was 0 time involved and it took much money to throw down a top army would you see more of them? Perhaps

People dont "love" their decks in magic quite the same as the army they put tons of hours of themselves into.. That is why you'll never see cookie cutter armies crowd the field

I think if the community as a whole started asking for TO's to publish top 8 or even top 4 lists here (or one of the players who is a member) it would go a long way in starting to open up conversation on what the winning builds are.

If you start having 2-3 (theres that many small rtt's a week across the US right?) posts a week with top 4 lists, you can very quickly start to break down which lists are succeeding and which lists aren't.



@Kirasu
A competitive Type 2 deck is going to run you close to $300-$400.

The barrier is more in how fast you can set up either. MTG takes shipping time. 40K takes shipping and painting time.

But yes, people are much more resistant to change in 40k than they are in MTG.

Youd then have to further break down the lists by demographics area because 40k isnt as easy to just "change" lists as a card game

The metagame in MTG is virtually world wide with the same lists winning and then the same counter lists countering.. and then the same countering counter lists!

Look at deck.. Press "add to cart"..then check mail voila power deck

Not gonna happen in 40k on any more than an extremely small scale (IE 2 players)

Seriously comparing Shipping time vs assembling + painting time? :p 2 days and ZERO of your hours invested vs shipping time + tons of your hours invested?

40k definitely has more barriers to entry than Magic. That's not a good thing, though. A 40k army will generally run you about 200-800 dollars plus painting time, which is a sizable investment. Changing your build usually requires further time and money. This is unfortunately not good for competitive play, as it makes shifting builds generally difficult. In ideal competitive scenarios, shifting builds or strategies has no cost other than your mental retooling and takes no time; making a 40k army can take months and costs hundreds of dollars.


In order to make 40k more competitive, I would do the following things:

-Mandate one points value (probably 2,000) for all major tournaments
-Come up with a system for regulating tournament scenarios to prevent "screw you" missions like those seen at the Wild West Shootout (and, to a lesser extent, 'Ard Boyz)
-Come up with a unified FAQ and ruling system to keep rules consistent
-Publish tournament results online, preferably with a ranking system

This would put everyone as much on the same page as possible. Obviously, differences in terrain and so on make it so that you can't totally standardize games-- and that's a good thing! However, some action should be taken to draw down the current craziness.

Note that all these things could be done by the community without any action on GW's part. These changes obviously wouldn't turn 40k into a perfect competitive game, but they would be a good improvement over the current system.

I strongly agree with Fetterkey on this point.

Fetterkey wrote:Obviously, differences in terrain and so on make it so that you can't totally standardize games--

...although a series of blow-moulded tables made available to TO's would go some way towards that end. Would also remove issues of 'terrain creep' (the terrain slowly moving around the table) as the event progresses.

The problem with this is that people might adapt tactics for each board beforehand, which is generally silly. I like that some elements of your tactics have to be composed on the fly, as that adds a useful element of skill to the game. Terrain creep is an issue, though. Outlining the location of the terrain bases on the board seems like it would be a good solution, but would require the board to be used the same way each time (or else some form of marker that doesn't damage the terrain). Another good idea might be a board with small but powerful magnets buried in the board and in the bases of the terrain pieces. That would be more customizable than an "outline board" but would help stop terrain drift.

I think we need some sort of "tournament forum" here on dakka to start bringing about these kind of changes.

EDIT-there is now a Nuts & Bolts thread about it.

The problem is a lot of TO's believe they know best regardless of what others say :p They love silly scenarios cause they dont have to play in them

Fetterkey wrote:The problem with this is that people might adapt tactics for each board beforehand, which is generally silly.

Not really. Wherever possible, a commander should scout out a battlefield and prepare tactics beforehand. And your tactics are still going to be compromised by your opponent's force, and by the actual mission you wind up playing.

Rotating in a couple of different tables and retiring a couple of older ones each gaming 'season' would help keep things fresh.

Of course, the required expense of actually doing such a thing makes it a pipe dream... It's just something that occured to me a while back that I think would be a great equaliser for 'circuit' tournament play along with standardised missions and game sizes.

I feel a 5 game event should have 3 standard missions and 2 new ones. this makes the events special. I loved when GW used to make different missions for RT's

I think that would be a really good idea if and only if it were possible to switch board setups after every tournament and never reuse the same layouts. Sadly I agree with you that it will almost certainly not happen.

Fetterkey wrote:Terrain creep is an issue, though.

Simple. Put sticky tac on the bottom of all the terrain pieces :p. Has no one ever thought of that before or am I just missing something I should know XD.

It's certainly possible to do, but would likely get gross and mess up the table surface.

Fetterkey wrote:It's certainly possible to do, but would likely get gross and mess up the table surface.

Good point... It is a pain removing that tac residue when taking the posters down in your dorm room -.-

EDIT: You could go the way GW sells some of its table tops. Built squares with terrain pieces glued on and fit them together on the table top. So long as the pieces are not dependent on another square they can be easily mixed and matched.

Masking tape lines on the table?

Timmah wrote:

Heck we don't even know what the power builds are in 40k currently because no one ever posts crap about tournaments outside of a bat rep here or there.

I hear the MtG people post their deck builds on the internets. You should go check them out. You could also tell those MtG players all the characteristics shared by that game and 40k.

Iron_Chaos_Brute wrote:Masking tape lines on the table?

Better, but I'm still not confident that that would be totally safe on the table texture.

I am excited to hear about hte Bolts & Nuts thread and am going over to check it out now. It's nice to see something come out of this discussion.

Shane you know I am always behind you.

G

The only way I see 40k working truely competatively is by isolating these four things: points level, tables, missions, rules. In Starcraft, they have a set of maps they cycle through, and I think this could work for 40k. However, 40k has the complexity of various mission objectives, instead of simply "kill him dead" (usually). Say various leagues (1.5k, 2k, 2.5k), with a pool of 30 boards and maybe 10-15 missions one could mix and match while still having a unified game. As it is, there are way too many variations in the tournament rules for an equal, competative game. The biggest issue, however, are the rules themselves. Games Workshop is constantly (I use that word loosely) updating various armies, changing the metagame.

You need to make as many elements as static as you can so that the player skill becomes the most important thing. However, the game was built for friendly play and story telling, not competative play. As it stands we have none of those four things. This isn't to say player skill can't or doesn't shine through (and I believe it does), but you can't have a ranking system with a 'best player' or 'best list' until you've unified everything else.

olympia wrote:

Timmah wrote:

Heck we don't even know what the power builds are in 40k currently because no one ever posts crap about tournaments outside of a bat rep here or there.

I hear the MtG people post their deck builds on the internets. You should go check them out. You could also tell those MtG players all the characteristics shared by that game and 40k.

I love how the discussion has moved past this yet you continue to try and attack me based on differing opinions.

Seriously, what is your problem?

Iron_Chaos_Brute wrote:I think we need some sort of "tournament forum" here on dakka to start bringing about these kind of changes.

EDIT-there is now a Nuts & Bolts thread about it.

I proposed this a while ago but generally got shot down as it was "unnecessary."

Green Blow Fly wrote:
Shane you know I am always behind you.

No, thats ok, please stay up front where I can see you.

Timmah wrote:

DarthDiggler wrote:
Here is the secret of being a good 40k player and making good lists.

Step 1: make a list

Step 2: play a game with the list

Step 3: Reflect on your game and see what beat you

Step 4: Add unit(s) to counter what you lost to or change in game strategy.

Repeat at step 1
You will need to go through this 4 step process about 10-15 times against different lists.

There is so many things wrong with this I can't even begin to say anything about it...

I am curious - what is wrong with this approach. Sounds like a standard approach to life let alone gaming. Give it you best shot first, change what doesn't appear to work based on analysis of past failures, improve then repeat until cannot improve.

Explain your self as to why this is wrong. I am interested.

On topic, I agree with DarthDiggler's secret to making a good list/player. Infact, I'd have to say I'm a product of it (indirectly). I use Possessed Chaos Marines to great effect. Optimal? The Internet doesn't think so, but my gaming group makes me play my Orks now. That's because I've been using Possessed since I joined 40k, and I've gotten such a good feel for the unit, whatever the power they roll.

@fullheadofhair

I already retracted my statement because of the likelihood my opinion would start a big flame war if I posted it. So I am staying a way in favor of the current discussion.

Timmah wrote:

I am not saying being bull headed is an insult. Sometimes its required to weed through the BS. But when you only accept the comments that praise your list, its usually a bad thing. You don't get any communications going. Also, there are very few intensive bat reps where people lose or do moderately well. These middle of the pack players are usually the ones grinding it out with other great players and just getting draws because of luck of the draw and the skill of their opponent.

If they are good players, they know what the limitations of their list are, and what they struggle with/against. But when you make any list, you have to make compromises, and decisions and the final list is what they generally end up with. To make a list stronger against some opponents, they have to weaken it against others. Now if someone wins, then they made the right choices.


As far as posting batreps whether you win or lose, if you are a good player you really don’t lose that much. Right now I only post the batreps to the major tournaments I go to. I did go to Adepticon last year and I was just having fun with my 3rd Edition Thousand Sons list and I went 2-2 in the Gladiator and 0-2-1 at the Invitational and I posted those batreps.

No offense, but someone posting how they destroyed 5 other players that were below there skill level doesn't really show tactics and such. (not pointing fingers at anyone, but it seems to be the way it goes if you are going to get best overall)

Yeah…sure Would you prefer that I did not post those batreps at all and left some mystery?

Anyways, I don't mean it as an insult that our hobby is very closed when it comes to info. Its a lot of work to type of players lists without something like army building. Maybe we need a better way of accepting tournament lists. Like the normal paper sheet as well as a flash drive with a army builder file on it of your army. So that the TO can easily publish the lists and what order you finished

It just seems like a lot of people are resistant to this because they feel like they will lose their competitive edge if people know their list/tactics.

Imo you get more competitive events when everyone is on close to the same page information wise. You should win based on your player skill, not because you found the counter to everyones list (maybe one event, but after that it should be out there for the public)

Here is the problem: If you post your list and batreps, everyone thinks that you got lucky, and that you played nothing but bad players, playing bad lists. There is no incentive for a winner to post their lists, in fact just the opposite is true.

See that list that Skipper posted of the best players, and do you know what they have in common? They don’t post batreps, or their lists except for Bill Kim who does it once in a while. There is a lot of mystery behind what they do and how they did it. The wizard behind the curtain is not as impressive as The Great Oz.

I think a large part of why Darkwyn, the guy who won BolsCon and myself got so much flack about our wins, is because we posted our lists and battle reports. Everyone now gets to see how the sausage is made, and we took a lot of mystery out of it.

Every winner of a major tournament needs some luck along the way like, drawing some bad players at the right time, have some favorable matchups, etc., but previously you never saw it, and it was left up to your imagination how they won, and what they won it with, and how they got there.

Here is an example of what happens when you are transparent:
In the 2008 Adepticon Gladiator Bill Kim won overall. Bill posted his batreps and had a lot of people question the viability of his list, and how he got lucky etc, just like me and the others who post batreps. He played a genestealer horde (his “stealer shock” list) and you can use his win as an example to show that any player who wins a large tournament has to get lucky somewhere along the way. He got lucky by not drawing any skimmer lists. He knew that if he was ever up against one that he had a good chance of losing, but he took that chance and it paid off. Did he get lucky? A little bit. Here is another example of how you have to get lucky to win: Marc Parker played Bill Kim in the last game at Table #1 for the win. Marc ended up losing, and Bill won, but Marc got unlucky to draw a good player like Bill who had a good army to beat Marc’s. If Marc got lucky and did not face Bill on the last table, he might have won the tournament.

Here is what happens when you are not transparent:
In Gamesday Los Angeles 2007 Greg Sparks and I were on table #1 in the last game. We had a hard game and we ended up tying, and Scott Simpson who was on table #2 jumped over us for the win. Did Scott get lucky to not play either of us? Did Greg and I get unlucky to play each other? Because Scott does not post his batreps we have no idea if he had an easy path to the win, and we will never know how hard his opponents were, and we will not know what his list was exactly made up of. So he does not get a lot of people afterward saying how bad his list was, and how he got so lucky to win.

Here are a few simple, easy to answer questions for all you tournament guros.

1-Do you make a point of playing in any event you can? Be it a little 10 man local tournament or a 20 man 60 miles away?

2-Are you selective of who you play casually?

3-How many games do you get in a week.

4-Is there a sense of comradery among you best of the best. I would assume that you could say 'well i made it to table 1, but lost to Marc, Bill, Allen, Scott', so I didnt do too bad.

No offense, but someone posting how they destroyed 5 other players that were below there skill level doesn't really show tactics and such. (not pointing fingers at anyone, but it seems to be the way it goes if you are going to get best overall)

This is like saying Alexander the great was not a good general because he never fought anyone with equal skill level.

blah blah bill kim stealer shock marc parker

I dunno why people questioned the viability of that army list, it looked pretty solid. That was the game with the trygon tunneling up into the ork lootas/kannons?

Questions are always a good thing.

G

Too much emphasis goes on the list, I think. Good players seem to build a list around what plays right for them.

Blackmoor wrote:See that list that Skipper posted of the best players, and do you know what they have in common? They don’t post batreps, or their lists except for Bill Kim who does it once in a while. There is a lot of mystery behind what they do and how they did it. The wizard behind the curtain is not as impressive as The Great Oz.

I think a large part of why Darkwyn, the guy who won BolsCon and myself got so much flack about our wins, is because we posted our lists and battle reports. Everyone now gets to see how the sausage is made, and we took a lot of mystery out of it.

Yeah - several of us have no desire or time to try and justify any lists that we bring or to discuss the tactics that we employ. I personally posted some bat reps once and lost the taste for it right away due to the lack of understanding and closed mindedness by parts of the community. To me - the flack is not worth my time and effort.

I think a large part of why Darkwyn, the guy who won BolsCon and myself got so much flack about our wins, is because we posted our lists and battle reports. Everyone now gets to see how the sausage is made, and we took a lot of mystery out of it.

No. The reason people give you flack for your wins is this: The "Wild West Shootout" had completely ridiculous missions. I'm sorry, but no competitive tournament should make players deal with the missions that the WWS did. They were just plain badly balanced for different armies, really badly.
BolScon was a total joke. They made up their own rules for the tournament, like "we don't like inquisitorial allies, so you can't have them!". Totally slowed. Complete joke of a tournament, did you see how many foot slogger XYZ marines there were in the top 10? Did you see some of the army lists people posted?
Ard Boyz is a strange tournament. It is a non-standard points value and has strange mission rules. However, the most serious contributing factor to the victor here is what everyone knows: getting first turn every game with his all-shooting all-the-time list.

This really isn't that tricky to figure out.

ph34r wrote:

I think a large part of why Darkwyn, the guy who won BolsCon and myself got so much flack about our wins, is because we posted our lists and battle reports. Everyone now gets to see how the sausage is made, and we took a lot of mystery out of it.

No. The reason people give you flack for your wins is this: The "Wild West Shootout" had completely ridiculous missions. I'm sorry, but no competitive tournament should make players deal with the missions that the WWS did. They were just plain badly balanced for different armies, really badly.
BolScon was a total joke. They made up their own rules for the tournament, like "we don't like inquisitorial allies, so you can't have them!". Totally slowed. Complete joke of a tournament, did you see how many foot slogger XYZ marines there were in the top 10? Did you see some of the army lists people posted?
Ard Boyz is a strange tournament. It is a non-standard points value and has strange mission rules. However, the most serious contributing factor to the victor here is what everyone knows: getting first turn every game with his all-shooting all-the-time list.

This really isn't that tricky to figure out.

At each tournament there are a lot of players all playing the same missions. So why didn't one of the others win? They were all playing 5 games against the same field of opponents, with the same missions.

So what you are saying is that wonky scenarios must be the reason why the winners won. The scenarios made them win!

And the reason why the army that won Bolscon was because IG could not take Inq. allies? Heaven forbid you only get to use everything in one codex.

You would have no idea about how the scenarios played out, or what went on with them if I did not post those batreps. For example, in game #4 of the WWSO I might have gone second and had to play a brilliant game, but without me showing what really happened I leave myself open to comments like this.

I think Greg might be right. I post my batreps to show people what goes on in major tournaments, and to follow along, and to see the types of armies you face, and to see how the people play. I also do it to show that you can win with non-traditional lists, and that you can do well with just about any army if it is well balanced, but it ain't worth the hassle.

I think in the future if I post them I will keep them to my blog. Especially since it takes a long time and a lot of work to write them.

You wrote:At each tournament there are a lot of players all playing the same missions. So why didn't one of the others win? They were all playing 5 games against the same field of opponents, with the same missions.

I wrote:They were just plain badly balanced for different armies, really badly.

The WWS missions had such crazy special rules that there is no way they were balanced for all armies. 3 turns of night fight? Having to carry an objective? NO TERRAIN?
I'm sure you are an experienced and skilled 40k player who knows his tactics and uses them well, but seriously, you can't tell me that these scenarios didn't totally screw over certain armies.

Well I for one appreciate your well written bat reps - especially the pics. That goes for anyone who puts time in to make a bat rep. It is a bit time consuming, and explaining your tactics and a full analysis of the game takes work. I think a lot of people just read them and move on without telling you how awesome it is to have a solid report like that coming out from a major event.

Its not really convenient for me to travel to tournies, nor do we have many big ones in the city I live. I like to read about top tournies for 40k in a very similar way that I follow the top Chess tournies - I look at the games, analyze to the best of my ability and try to learn from the best.

There will always be naysayers. Especially from the peanut gallery. Don't worry about them - you didn't write the report for some dude with no experience to tell you how to play. Quite the opposite in fact.

Reading reports like yours, as well as posting lists and getting ideas from criticism (note: take net list criticism with a grain of salt, and always use what works for you over what internet dudes tell you to play) is a fast way to improving your game.

edit: @ blackmoor



Automatically Appended Next Post:

ph34r wrote:

You wrote:At each tournament there are a lot of players all playing the same missions. So why didn't one of the others win? They were all playing 5 games against the same field of opponents, with the same missions.

I wrote:They were just plain badly balanced for different armies, really badly.

The WWS missions had such crazy special rules that there is no way they were balanced for all armies. 3 turns of night fight? Having to carry an objective? NO TERRAIN?
I'm sure you are an experienced and skilled 40k player who knows his tactics and uses them well, but seriously, you can't tell me that these scenarios didn't totally screw over certain armies.

You are being melodramatic. Do oddball scenarios like that often favor some armies? Yes.

But the scope I think is much smaller than you imagine.

The point is it's hard to really respect a victory in 40k when it isn't really 40k, but 40k without any cover, or 40k with terribly nerfed shooting, etc. 40k is not balanced for that.
It's like saying that the MLB is going to be played entirely at night with no light, or running backwards, or with a football, or with chairs instead of bats.
Is it still a competition? Yeah. Can you still be the best at that competition? Sure, why not. Would baseball fans be impressed by it? Probably not so much.
Now the analogy isn't perfect. On the positive side, the examples I used were exaggerations, as it isn't as hard to play 40k as with those "adjustments" to baseball.
On the other hand, each army is effected by a crazy scenario in a different way, some getting hit hard by the nerf bat and others staying okay, thus creating more imbalance.

Eidolon wrote:Here are a few simple, easy to answer questions for all you tournament guros.

1-Do you make a point of playing in any event you can? Be it a little 10 man local tournament or a 20 man 60 miles away?

2-Are you selective of who you play casually?

3-How many games do you get in a week.

4-Is there a sense of comradery among you best of the best. I would assume that you could say 'well i made it to table 1, but lost to Marc, Bill, Allen, Scott', so I didnt do too bad.

I'll be nice and answer these since I hate writing batreps . I don't play nationally (though this year I'll hopefully make it to Adepticon) yet, but I'm still pretty young, so...

1. Yeah. No tourney's worth missing if I can reasonably get there. Since I went to college, though, I've had a much harder time making it places.
2. No. If I'm playing "casually" I'm playing a list that might throw me for a loop if I see it in a tourney-I'm practicing against the unorthodox.
3. Nowhere near enough. 1 tiny (1000 pt) swiss tourney in a local GW (yeah, really tough competition) every 3 weeks + whatever I can get . College has turned the screws. Before, I'd play twice-ish a week.
4. I usually meet people before and during games-but yeah, when I play someone on a top table, it's usually different in a positive way.

The scenarios shouldn't be balanced for all armies by virtue of the fact that not all armies excel at the same thing.

shaarn wrote:The scenarios shouldn't be balanced for all armies by virtue of the fact that not all armies excel at the same thing.

Here, I'll give you an extreme example to help you understand.
Scenario: no ranged weapons can be fired.

So that's an okay scenario? I mean not all armies were created equal right, so just suck it up? You'd be totally okay with this in a tournament?

The farther from "normal" a scenario is, the worse the game becomes balance wise. Scenarios should not decide the game, generals should.

Eidolon wrote:Here are a few simple, easy to answer questions for all you tournament gurus.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I can answer for me.

1-Do you make a point of playing in any event you can? Be it a little 10 man local tournament or a 20 man 60 miles away?

Yes. Whenever there is a 2 day tournament I think about going no matter where it is. I am more likely to travel for a GW tournament though because you know what you are getting, with indy tournaments it is a crap shoot. When you are playing for a flight and a hotel room, it is best to know what you are getting ahead of time. That is why you will see everyone at Adepticon, because you know it is a quality tournament. This last year no one really traveled far and people played close to home.

2-Are you selective of who you play casually?

I only play at tournaments, so no casual games.

3-How many games do you get in a week.

I get in 3 games every month or 2.

4-Is there a sense of comradery among you best of the best.

There is a lot more camaraderie then you would think. Since they travel around to event to event, they all know each other, and they don't know the locals so they hang out together.

Greg called me an told me he was going up to Conquest NW in Seattle, so I think I will go up there to check it out.

I would assume that you could say 'well i made it to table 1, but lost to Marc, Bill, Allen, Scott', so I didnt do too bad.

What happens is when 2 good players face of it is considered unlucky. Most of the time what happens is that you will get a tie or you squeak out a minor win, and that hurts your score. Marc Parker won the 2008 Las Vegas GT with his Orks but he did not do very well in Baltimore because he had to play a couple of the good players (because of the 'Ard Boyz finals the day before there was an unusual concentration of the heavy hitters). As to the general population they have no idea who Marc Parker is so when he beats you it is just another loss.