Gadzilla666 wrote: Which is why we need more mission variety, so you can't plan for the mission. They've already done a good job mixing up how different factions are resilient to different weapon profiles so you can't just spam a certain type of weapon, now they need to write more missions which require different methods to score the most VP.
But there is the problem. If you add variety then you end up with the same issue but favouring different armies instead. GW are already tackling the balance issues - they’re making everyone buy Space Marines
Gadzilla666 wrote: Which is why we need more mission variety, so you can't plan for the mission. They've already done a good job mixing up how different factions are resilient to different weapon profiles so you can't just spam a certain type of weapon, now they need to write more missions which require different methods to score the most VP.
There will still be a subset of armies that are the best fit more missions and you'll get a new meta around that. The only thing you'll change is that more matches at tournaments will be lost due to the mission rather than the skill and army lists of both opponents. Your suggestion is akin to making some games of baseball score points for getting on base instead of for runs batted in just to let teams that play small ball compete with teams that have power hitters. This is a terrible design and something that 40k doesn't need.
Which goes back to when you play 40k you are not really interacting with the other player. You don't play against their decisions. There is no tactical back and forth. You place down your strategy with your units and your tailored secondaries and you play to the mission.
Which then goes back to the simplistic nature of the game. What is the most direct path to the most points in the few turns you have? How do you deplete your opponents resources while you keep your own?
Gadzilla666 wrote: Which is why we need more mission variety, so you can't plan for the mission. They've already done a good job mixing up how different factions are resilient to different weapon profiles so you can't just spam a certain type of weapon, now they need to write more missions which require different methods to score the most VP.
There will still be a subset of armies that are the best fit more missions and you'll get a new meta around that. The only thing you'll change is that more matches at tournaments will be lost due to the mission rather than the skill and army lists of both opponents. Your suggestion is akin to making some games of baseball score points for getting on base instead of for runs batted in just to let teams that play small ball compete with teams that have power hitters. This is a terrible design and something that 40k doesn't need.
TOs can keep all of the missions in their tournaments roughly the same if that's a concern. More variety in missions means more variety in games. Playing what is basically the same mission every game can get boring, but if that's preferable to tournament players, fine, do that for tournaments. But everything doesn't have to be done just for tournament play.
Gadzilla666 wrote: TOs can keep all of the missions in their tournaments roughly the same if that's a concern. More variety in missions means more variety in games. Playing what is basically the same mission every game can get boring, but if that's preferable to tournament players, fine, do that for tournaments. But everything doesn't have to be done just for tournament play.
Casuals already have Matched Play, Maelstrom, Crusades, and Narrative missions what more do you need to be happy?
I think one reason why people are reacting so strongly to what you are saying is, to an extent the manner you are phrasing your points.
You say that it isn't devoid of tactical decisions, but then say it's solvable, still simplistic, and interaction nearly null.
I think most people would agree with you that the game isn't that tactically deep. But there is a difference between "not deep" and being "solvable, simplistic, etc.". You seem to be saying both at once which doesn't come across as that genuine.
I understand that I can come across that way. It's difficult in a written medium where people can apply their own cadence to my words.
But the 2 things you bring up are not mutually exclusive. The game IS simplistic. it is solvable. It's not tactically deep. People want to feel like they are making deep tactical decisions that win them games because it's a war game and thats pretty much what we all want out of a competition that relies more on our mind then our body. It sucks to hear someone tell you it's not happening. But what else are you going to do? It's NOT happening. I divorce my ego from these discussions. This isn't about me. I suggest everyone else does the same. I am not talking about YOU. I am talking about the game. No reason to take offense when you are not even the subject.
You do. It just isn't at the level or kind that you desire.
I've dropped two convergence of dominion into my opponent's backfield within range of their unit holding an objective and part way to a dreadnought. Their shooting is decent enough that left alone they will wipe the unit on the objective. Either my opponent redirects the dreadnought to deal with them ( as the Eradicators are dead ) or he pushes further in to the previous goal. Ideally he must melee them to remove them. Which is the right choice? Either way he must respond to what I have done.
Daedalus81 wrote: I've dropped two convergence of dominion into my opponent's backfield within range of their unit holding an objective and part way to a dreadnought. Their shooting is decent enough that left alone they will wipe the unit on the objective. Either my opponent redirects the dreadnought to deal with them ( as the Eradicators are dead ) or he pushes further in to the previous goal. Ideally he must melee them to remove them. Which is the right choice? Either way he must respond to what I have done.
I drop my deepstriking/outflanking units behind you and make it a moot point. Your dilemmas mostly only handicap poorly constructed lists that aren't brimming with answers. When tactics can be solved by simply building to the meta and packing answers you have very little depth.
Gadzilla666 wrote: TOs can keep all of the missions in their tournaments roughly the same if that's a concern. More variety in missions means more variety in games. Playing what is basically the same mission every game can get boring, but if that's preferable to tournament players, fine, do that for tournaments. But everything doesn't have to be done just for tournament play.
Casuals already have Matched Play, Maelstrom, Crusades, and Narrative missions what more do you need to be happy?
A greater variety of Matched Play missions, none of which TOs have to use for their tournaments. Tournaments can even have their own mission packs, as they used to, if they wish. How would a greater variety of Matched Play missions hurt tournament play if tournaments can use whatever missions they want?
Gadzilla666 wrote: A greater variety of Matched Play missions, none of which TOs have to use for their tournaments. Tournaments can even have their own mission packs, as they used to, if they wish. How would a greater variety of Matched Play missions hurt tournament play if tournaments can use whatever missions they want?
Given that the ditched building their own tournament packs in favour of GW's rules why would you want to drive a wedge in there just to add extra randomness to the game? You can literally make your own mission pack as easily as a TO can so why do YOU do that instead?
You do. It just isn't at the level or kind that you desire.
I've dropped two convergence of dominion into my opponent's backfield within range of their unit holding an objective and part way to a dreadnought. Their shooting is decent enough that left alone they will wipe the unit on the objective. Either my opponent redirects the dreadnought to deal with them ( as the Eradicators are dead ) or he pushes further in to the previous goal. Ideally he must melee them to remove them. Which is the right choice? Either way he must respond to what I have done.
Yes. He does have to deal wit the current game state. But he will have his entire army to do it with on turn x of 6 tops. And your ability to respond to what he does is to sit and wait until he is done. There is no point in this where you are unsure of your opponent. The only way he can pull a trick on you is some kind of "gotcha!" bull because you don't know the details of his army. An when it's your turn you will make all of your moves against a static board of pieces in response. Thats why it's not a move against the other player. It's a move against his pieces.
Gadzilla666 wrote: A greater variety of Matched Play missions, none of which TOs have to use for their tournaments. Tournaments can even have their own mission packs, as they used to, if they wish. How would a greater variety of Matched Play missions hurt tournament play if tournaments can use whatever missions they want?
Given that the ditched building their own tournament packs in favour of GW's rules why would you want to drive a wedge in there just to add extra randomness to the game? You can literally make your own mission pack as easily as a TO can so why do YOU do that instead?
I wouldn't, I was just pointing out that it was an option. They don't have to use any missions they don't want to though. They can use the ones they want, and ignore the others. I could attempt to rewrite the whole game too, but I doubt it would be very good, and I don't really have the time. That's kind of what we pay gw for.
I'm not asking for tournaments to be forced to use any missions they don't want to. I just want a greater variety for those of us who want that.
Canadian 5th wrote: I drop my deepstriking/outflanking units behind you and make it a moot point. Your dilemmas mostly only handicap poorly constructed lists that aren't brimming with answers. When tactics can be solved by simply building to the meta and packing answers you have very little depth.
Most marine lists have no deepstriking right now, but that's a moot point. That was a legitimate and real situation that had to be addressed. We can pretend there are lists with "lots of answers", but that isn't how it works in reality.
Daedalus81 wrote: Most marine lists have no deepstriking right now, but that's a moot point. That was a legitimate and real situation that had to be addressed. We can pretend there are lists with "lots of answers", but that isn't how it works in reality.
Are you suggesting that bad lists and players making mistakes on the tables counts as the game having tactics now? If you win a foot race because your fellow racer tripped does that make you a tactical genius or does this only count in 40k where you could, to continue the analogy, throw the race by choosing to stop running?
I thought the same but it seems a single pod with a unit of devs or two may actually be meta. Plus there are DA Terminator lists that may hold back a unit of shooty LC/SB termies with a Cyclone launcher just to make you worry about screening from all angles. That and bike heavy lists aren't going to have many places they can't go.
If your opponent brought an immobile list, and a dread suggests he did, then he brought a list lacking answers.
Lance845 wrote: Yes. He does have to deal wit the current game state. But he will have his entire army to do it with on turn x of 6 tops. And your ability to respond to what he does is to sit and wait until he is done. There is no point in this where you are unsure of your opponent. The only way he can pull a trick on you is some kind of "gotcha!" bull because you don't know the details of his army. An when it's your turn you will make all of your moves against a static board of pieces in response. Thats why it's not a move against the other player. It's a move against his pieces.
Well...5 turns. While he responds I take advantage of the opening.
Like I mentioned with Root - the game is extremely asymmetrical. I love it, but it becomes a practice in gotcha mechanics, because people just don't always know how scoring plays out. Gotcha mechanics are pretty limited in 40K - especially if you bother to ask questions.
One thing I really enjoyed in Fantasy was the charge response. I liked putting fast cav in the way and then fleeing with the hopes of them failing to allow me a counter charge. That was fun, but it quickly came to a point where other armies were far more capable at that than I was, because the rest of their stuff moved faster by default and I would wind up in list losses more than tactical losses.
I think we can all agree that decisions made in list-building can help you win or hurt your chances of winning. Perhaps we can all agree that decisions made in the planning phase after you receive the mission and before the die-roll for going first will impact your chances of winning. Contrary to some, though, I find that there are plenty of decisions that I have to make during the execution phase that impact my chances of winning.
I think this is exactly right.
I can pick any of my recent games and name plenty of cases and moments where I had multiple different directions I could take (that all appeared to be "good moves") and I had to make a "tactical-level" decision about what to do.
Conceptually, you can boil any tactical challenge down into a solvable puzzle if given sufficient time. There are frequently moments of needing to decide what the best course of action is with imperfect information and without knowing your opponent's exact intentions/plans. So a "theoretically solvable" situation is nevertheless one where a player faces a tough choice. Perhaps your experience of the game is different than mine, but I seem to encounter these choices often enough.
As a side note, I see AA system suggested as a way to increase the tactical depth of the game. While this creates a layer of decision making (what unit do I activate when), it's still broadly in the realm of tactical decisions really just becoming logistical optimization moves. It's not really any more or less deep, it's just more complicated and obscured.
In regards to "interactivity" - I don't buy the arguments that this is a lot interactive game between the players. I'm constantly thinking about what my opponent is likely to, and making my choices in return. And there are moments in every game when my opponent does something I didn't expect, which causes me to re-evaluate my plans on the fly and make different choices than I would have.
I've argued with Canadian 5th in other threads about this - but I think think that the lack of diversity in the mission pool is a major contributor to the game not having the tactical depth that it might. I'll link this post again:
I agree that for any set of missions, there is always a likely meta that will evolve. But, I think a meta list optimized for one type of mission versus a meta list optimized for 6 different types of missions are going to look different. And specifically, the 6-mission list is going to be less well-optimized for any one individual mission. As a consequence of this, how you use your list to make up for it's less optimized nature puts more emphasis on the tactics and execution stage, because there is only so far the planning will take you, and only so much optimization you can squeeze out from any given list.
When I first mentioned it, I said being able to guess ranges accurately was a skill, and not something directly added depth to the decision making. That said...
First, there is a question of how much overall "skill" is desired in the game, and recognition that like many good games, many different skills are tested. Spatial planning (including measurement estimation) is a skill. Risk management is a risk. Math Hammer is a skill. Logistical optimization is a skill. Opponent psychology / move deduction is a skill. I like games that test multiple skills, and I find it fun to play against people that bring different skills to the table.
Second, the hallmark of making choices that feel interesting and build tension is uncertainty. Whether it's the roll of the dice, guessing a range, or the unexpected moves of your opponent, uncertainty is critical to what 40K is and it's critical to build drama and forcing the player to adapt and deal with unexpected situations. No premeasuring reinforces this notion and puts the player into the mode of having to make some gut-level judgements and decisions without knowing precisely whether they action will even work. I think this is a better model for a battle game than one that has chess-like precision.
Daedalus81 wrote: Like I mentioned with Root - the game is extremely asymmetrical. I love it, but it becomes a practice in gotcha mechanics, because people just don't always know how scoring plays out.
Do you only ever play with randoms or does your gaming group just not bother to read the rules or think about the game when they aren't playing it? In either case, I bet that would also lead to frustrating slow games and/or unsatisfyingly easy wins all due to the group and not the game.
Daedalus81 wrote: Like I mentioned with Root - the game is extremely asymmetrical. I love it, but it becomes a practice in gotcha mechanics, because people just don't always know how scoring plays out.
Do you only ever play with randoms or does your gaming group just not bother to read the rules or think about the game when they aren't playing it? In either case, I bet that would also lead to frustrating slow games and/or unsatisfyingly easy wins all due to the group and not the game.
Less randoms than lately ( COVID ), but it takes a couple games ( ~2 hours a game ) to learn the ropes and more to get a good grasp - are you keeping those people engaged that whole time? Not usually unless they're hardcore or they're really enthralled by the setting.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: There's a world of difference of the cost of those games + the level of white khighting y'all do for GW
I'm not sure what cost has to do with it since there's a hobby aspect to Warhammer and the miniatures in this games are well beyond most board games. X-Wing isn't exactly cheap. It just uses less models. 40K is supported to be played at 1K. How many people are clamoring to do that?
Aside from that have I said something that was not correct that constitutes white knighting?
X-Wing is still cheaper as you HAVE less models for a typical game + models being ready to go. That also equates less time too. Also you're not seriously implying X-Wing has the same lack of depth as 40k are you?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also no wonder we have people thinking 40k has depth. We have posters here that admit they regularly forget to use entire units.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Also you're not seriously implying X-Wing has the same lack of depth as 40k are you?
No, not at all. Just taking everything in context. I enjoy X-Wing, but I didn't really care to ride the edge on it. It became a better casual game with Star Wars enthusiasts rather than a competitive leader around here.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: We have posters here that admit they regularly forget to use entire units.
I admit to forgetting units I have in deepstrike from time to time...because I am pretty mentally engaged. Whether or not that is because I'm an imbecile or not has yet to be measured.
Mezmorki wrote: I can pick any of my recent games and name plenty of cases and moments where I had multiple different directions I could take (that all appeared to be "good moves") and I had to make a "tactical-level" decision about what to do.
If you have many moves that all seem good you're either crushing your foe or unskilled at the game. You should only really be choosing between one or two things at the start of a turn and then adjusting for hot/cold dice.
As a side note, I see AA system suggested as a way to increase the tactical depth of the game. While this creates a layer of decision making (what unit do I activate when), it's still broadly in the realm of tactical decisions really just becoming logistical optimization moves. It's not really any more or less deep, it's just more complicated and obscured.
Wrong. With AA you have to literally go deeper into a tree of possible moves each turn to solve any given game state. It is literally a deeper system.
In regards to "interactivity" - I don't buy the arguments that this is a lot interactive game between the players. I'm constantly thinking about what my opponent is likely to, and making my choices in return. And there are moments in every game when my opponent does something I didn't expect, which causes me to re-evaluate my plans on the fly and make different choices than I would have.
If you took a snapshot of the gameboard, walked away, and relied on a neutral party to roll your saves for you when you came back you'd have the same information as you would if you watched your opponent's entire turn. Thus your interactivity is due to you reading too much into your opponent's moves and seeking to find brilliance in what are like as not to be mistakes. Do you feel like a skilled tournament player would see the game the same way that you do and see as much 'depth' in your opponent's play?
I agree that for any set of missions, there is always a likely meta that will evolve. But, I think a meta list optimized for one type of mission versus a meta list optimized for 6 different types of missions are going to look different. And specifically, the 6-mission list is going to be less well-optimized for any one individual mission. As a consequence of this, how you use your list to make up for it's less optimized nature puts more emphasis on the tactics and execution stage, because there is only so far the planning will take you, and only so much optimization you can squeeze out from any given list.
All you do with added diversity is make luck an even greater factor than it already is. If you plan around being good at say 8 of 12 missions and your first four rounds are the 4 missions you're bad at that could be your tournament over right there and you had no way to do anything about it. Conversely, another player could get only missions they planned around and face only opponents getting their worst missons. This does nothing for tactics or balance.
If you give each player a veto of missions you can reduce these odds slightly as each player removes their worst mission but that only reduces the role of luck rather than solving anything.
Daedalus81 wrote: Less randoms than lately ( COVID ), but it takes a couple games ( ~2 hours a game ) to learn the ropes and more to get a good grasp - are you keeping those people engaged that whole time? Not usually unless they're hardcore or they're really enthralled by the setting.
Our group actively talks about the kinds of games we like so we can do our best to only purchase and play games that have at least 3 of our usual 4 players actively enjoying the game and the 4th no worse than neutral. It avoids games that always sit on the shelf or a player grumbling whenever a certain box comes down.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Also no wonder we have people thinking 40k has depth. We have posters here that admit they regularly forget to use entire units.
They also say that thinking while standing is somehow harder than thinking while sitting... I guess they've never seen programmers or engineers using standing desks before.
I think we can all agree that decisions made in list-building can help you win or hurt your chances of winning. Perhaps we can all agree that decisions made in the planning phase after you receive the mission and before the die-roll for going first will impact your chances of winning. Contrary to some, though, I find that there are plenty of decisions that I have to make during the execution phase that impact my chances of winning.
I think this is exactly right.
Well for starters, Tango began his post by saying lets ditch the words that mean the things hes talking about and then came up with new words to talk about the same things. But sure. Lets refer to it as phases. You do make decisions during the execution phase that impact your chances of winning. We never said you didn't. What we said was the decisions you make can be solved with simple math and a flow chart because 1) The game state is static and the opponent is incapable of responding in 99.9% of cases and 2) The goals of a game of 40k are simplistic. So you have a lot of points where you make decisions that increase your chances of winning and those choices are about optimization of your logistics.
I can pick any of my recent games and name plenty of cases and moments where I had multiple different directions I could take (that all appeared to be "good moves") and I had to make a "tactical-level" decision about what to do.
Yup. See above. Also the rest of the thread.
Conceptually, you can boil any tactical challenge down into a solvable puzzle if given sufficient time. There are frequently moments of needing to decide what the best course of action is with imperfect information and without knowing your opponent's exact intentions/plans. So a "theoretically solvable" situation is nevertheless one where a player faces a tough choice. Perhaps your experience of the game is different than mine, but I seem to encounter these choices often enough.
As I said before you are making this out to be way more complex then it is. And you don't have imperfect information. You have, in fact, perfect information besides knowing what your dice roll will be. There is nothing that the opponent can do to stop you from moving into position and shooting your guns. Whatever their intentions or plans for the next turn may be, they inherently have to change based on the game state when you hand the game back to them. If you wipe a unit off the board by focus firing then he cannot incorporate that unit into next turns decisions. But when he gets around to making his next turns decisions it's not a factor of trying to guess what you are going to do next. Because what you are going to do next is going to be based on the game state when he hands it back to you.
As a side note, I see AA system suggested as a way to increase the tactical depth of the game. While this creates a layer of decision making (what unit do I activate when), it's still broadly in the realm of tactical decisions really just becoming logistical optimization moves. It's not really any more or less deep, it's just more complicated and obscured.
The obscured part is what opens them up to be deeply tactical and what makes it moves against the opponent instead of their pieces. When you don't know what I am going to do with my next activation you have to make your moves trying to anticipate and head me off. Throw wrenches in the works. And I get to try to anticipate the same. The back and forth between PLAYERS is where the tactical depth comes from. You CAN'T optimize in even remotely the same way when you can't move your entire army to focus fire single units into the dirt. IGOUGO is nothing BUT optimization. AA is a deep rich game of cat and mouse where each decision can only be optimized in accordance with how the opponent responds.
In regards to "interactivity" - I don't buy the arguments that this is a lot interactive game between the players. I'm constantly thinking about what my opponent is likely to, and making my choices in return. And there are moments in every game when my opponent does something I didn't expect, which causes me to re-evaluate my plans on the fly and make different choices than I would have.
Any amount of time you spend studying your opponents moves during the move, psychic, or shooting phases is a complete waste of time with a couple of exceptions. 1) When he casts a power can you do anything about it? If no, go back to looking at your phone. 2) Do you have a stratagem that can interrupt their turn for an advantage AND is that stratagem worth the points? No? Go back to looking at your phone. 3) Which model are you assigning the wounds to? Not often a difficult choice.
Then the charge phases rolls around and you will fire the over watches you can fire because those are the rules. Then the fight phase comes and you will watch all of his guys who charged fight and roll your saves. Maybe if for some reason there are on going fights you will get to pick a unit to fight when your turn comes around. Otherwise you will do all your fights when it's your turn to do them all with whatever survived his fights.
The only game state that matters to you to make any decisions is the game state when it's your movement phase.
This isn't a disrespect for the opponent thing, though I am sure some of you will take it that way. It LITERALLY doesn't matter where any of your units are until they stop moving. It LITERALLY doesn't matter what my models are going to do until I see the end result and know what models I have to do stuff with. I can't make those decisions until I have the information so it doesn't matter until you are done and I have all my variables. Then it's on to the math and flow charts.
I've argued with Canadian 5th in other threads about this - but I think think that the lack of diversity in the mission pool is a major contributor to the game not having the tactical depth that it might. I'll link this post again:
I agree that for any set of missions, there is always a likely meta that will evolve. But, I think a meta list optimized for one type of mission versus a meta list optimized for 6 different types of missions are going to look different. And specifically, the 6-mission list is going to be less well-optimized for any one individual mission. As a consequence of this, how you use your list to make up for it's less optimized nature puts more emphasis on the tactics and execution stage, because there is only so far the planning will take you, and only so much optimization you can squeeze out from any given list.
I think the missions are a different issue. First, the game itself has to inherently work. THEN we can worry about how the missions impact the core rules. The core rules are already a issue. Anything the missions do is a band aid on a symptom. It can help relieve the symptoms a bit but the disease isn't cured. Cure the disease.
This is also known as a root cause analysis. The root cause of much of 40ks issues are baked into the turn structure. Including first turn advantage, the lack of tactical depth, and the difficulty in mission mix, and the lack of player interactivity... the long periods of down time. Etc etc... Root Cause. It's not actually that hard to find it.
When I first mentioned it, I said being able to guess ranges accurately was a skill, and not something directly added depth to the decision making. That said...
First, there is a question of how much overall "skill" is desired in the game, and recognition that like many good games, many different skills are tested. Spatial planning (including measurement estimation) is a skill. Risk management is a risk. Math Hammer is a skill. Logistical optimization is a skill. Opponent psychology / move deduction is a skill. I like games that test multiple skills, and I find it fun to play against people that bring different skills to the table.
Second, the hallmark of making choices that feel interesting and build tension is uncertainty. Whether it's the roll of the dice, guessing a range, or the unexpected moves of your opponent, uncertainty is critical to what 40K is and it's critical to build drama and forcing the player to adapt and deal with unexpected situations. No premeasuring reinforces this notion and puts the player into the mode of having to make some gut-level judgements and decisions without knowing precisely whether they action will even work. I think this is a better model for a battle game than one that has chess-like precision.
Being able to accurately judge distances by eye is a skill and a talent. But it's also not one that should make any difference in the game. Allowing people to pre measure doesn't make the game anything less in my opinion. It just puts more focus on the actual mechanics of the game. Too bad those mechanics suck.
jeff white wrote: Premeasuring... you mean removing it, disallowing it? Because guessing ranges would seem to be a skill, as written above.
Guessing was a skill of who was better at cheating the system in various ways. No that's just my arm on the table - I'm not measuring with my hand!
And then you were better or worse at charging depending on your models since that was simply a double move.
Over watch at all is better than what passes for over watch now, imho.
Not sure I agree as most people wouldn't forfeit shooting now over no move and a -1 penalty to shoot later. And again is an easily solvable item. Eradicators overwatching? Ok I'll just move everything they don't want to shoot and shoot them and force casualties before I move what they want to shoot.
It was fun and thematic when I was young. Perhaps it is better for that edition, because scoring = killing. Oh? I go first ( because I'm marines, literally ) and I deployed everything out in the open and you didn't? Everything in overwatch!
These rules existed in a time before people took the game more seriously ( as much as one might ). I don't think they would hold up very well. I could be wrong, but I don't think it would rise to the level of "deeper" in any case.
Less seriously, huh? I guess that is one way to say it.
I am sorry that your experience was so bad apparently due to the people who you gamed with and who cheated you.
That does sound serious...
Lance845 wrote: Yes. He does have to deal wit the current game state. But he will have his entire army to do it with on turn x of 6 tops. And your ability to respond to what he does is to sit and wait until he is done. There is no point in this where you are unsure of your opponent. The only way he can pull a trick on you is some kind of "gotcha!" bull because you don't know the details of his army. An when it's your turn you will make all of your moves against a static board of pieces in response. Thats why it's not a move against the other player. It's a move against his pieces.
Well...5 turns. While he responds I take advantage of the opening.
Like I mentioned with Root - the game is extremely asymmetrical. I love it, but it becomes a practice in gotcha mechanics, because people just don't always know how scoring plays out. Gotcha mechanics are pretty limited in 40K - especially if you bother to ask questions.
Spoiler:
One thing I really enjoyed in Fantasy was the charge response. I liked putting fast cav in the way and then fleeing with the hopes of them failing to allow me a counter charge. That was fun, but it quickly came to a point where other armies were far more capable at that than I was, because the rest of their stuff moved faster by default and I would wind up in list losses more than tactical losses
.
Yeah, now I get a better idea of the people that you hang out with... and I think that you have met with a main point here, that knowing the scoring and how to abuse the rules becomes the point of the game, and the level of player interaction, when what we are after is ideally a different experience.
Mezmorki wrote: I can pick any of my recent games and name plenty of cases and moments where I had multiple different directions I could take (that all appeared to be "good moves") and I had to make a "tactical-level" decision about what to do.
If you have many moves that all seem good you're either crushing your foe or unskilled at the game. You should only really be choosing between one or two things at the start of a turn and then adjusting for hot/cold dice.
As a side note, I see AA system suggested as a way to increase the tactical depth of the game. While this creates a layer of decision making (what unit do I activate when), it's still broadly in the realm of tactical decisions really just becoming logistical optimization moves. It's not really any more or less deep, it's just more complicated and obscured.
Wrong. With AA you have to literally go deeper into a tree of possible moves each turn to solve any given game state. It is literally a deeper system.
In regards to "interactivity" - I don't buy the arguments that this is a lot interactive game between the players. I'm constantly thinking about what my opponent is likely to, and making my choices in return. And there are moments in every game when my opponent does something I didn't expect, which causes me to re-evaluate my plans on the fly and make different choices than I would have.
If you took a snapshot of the gameboard, walked away, and relied on a neutral party to roll your saves for you when you came back you'd have the same information as you would if you watched your opponent's entire turn. Thus your interactivity is due to you reading too much into your opponent's moves and seeking to find brilliance in what are like as not to be mistakes. Do you feel like a skilled tournament player would see the game the same way that you do and see as much 'depth' in your opponent's play?
I agree that for any set of missions, there is always a likely meta that will evolve. But, I think a meta list optimized for one type of mission versus a meta list optimized for 6 different types of missions are going to look different. And specifically, the 6-mission list is going to be less well-optimized for any one individual mission. As a consequence of this, how you use your list to make up for it's less optimized nature puts more emphasis on the tactics and execution stage, because there is only so far the planning will take you, and only so much optimization you can squeeze out from any given list.
All you do with added diversity is make luck an even greater factor than it already is. If you plan around being good at say 8 of 12 missions and your first four rounds are the 4 missions you're bad at that could be your tournament over right there and you had no way to do anything about it. Conversely, another player could get only missions they planned around and face only opponents getting their worst missons. This does nothing for tactics or balance.
If you give each player a veto of missions you can reduce these odds slightly as each player removes their worst mission but that only reduces the role of luck rather than solving anything.
Daedalus81 wrote: Less randoms than lately ( COVID ), but it takes a couple games ( ~2 hours a game ) to learn the ropes and more to get a good grasp - are you keeping those people engaged that whole time? Not usually unless they're hardcore or they're really enthralled by the setting.
Our group actively talks about the kinds of games we like so we can do our best to only purchase and play games that have at least 3 of our usual 4 players actively enjoying the game and the 4th no worse than neutral. It avoids games that always sit on the shelf or a player grumbling whenever a certain box comes down.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Also no wonder we have people thinking 40k has depth. We have posters here that admit they regularly forget to use entire units.
They also say that thinking while standing is somehow harder than thinking while sitting... I guess they've never seen programmers or engineers using standing desks before.
First, your group got it right.
Second, I stand and sit. Standing burns a lot more calories and has helped keep my weight down during the lockdowns of global martial law during this so called “great” reset. It is harder, actually, to think as you say simply by energy expenditure. I do sit when I need to clarify very complex things for final presentation and publication, for instance, routinely, though I will stand for most mundane activities which take up most of working time...
I get the most done with my most complex tasks by literally working my way through scenarios with scratch paper or by building paper prototypes.
I am pretty good at preplanning for most variables, but you often don't see pieces of the plan until you start building a working model. And then, sometimes, I over plan and develop systems and redundancies for things that just are not issues.
Luckily paper prototypes are cheap.
It always helps me to create something even somewhat physical so I can see what gaps I left in the plan and what not.
I think we can all agree that decisions made in list-building can help you win or hurt your chances of winning. Perhaps we can all agree that decisions made in the planning phase after you receive the mission and before the die-roll for going first will impact your chances of winning. Contrary to some, though, I find that there are plenty of decisions that I have to make during the execution phase that impact my chances of winning.
I think this is exactly right.
Well for starters, Tango began his post by saying lets ditch the words that mean the things hes talking about and then came up with new words to talk about the same things. But sure. Lets refer to it as phases. You do make decisions during the execution phase that impact your chances of winning. We never said you didn't. What we said was the decisions you make can be solved with simple math and a flow chart because 1) The game state is static and the opponent is incapable of responding in 99.9% of cases and 2) The goals of a game of 40k are simplistic. So you have a lot of points where you make decisions that increase your chances of winning and those choices are about optimization of your logistics.
I can pick any of my recent games and name plenty of cases and moments where I had multiple different directions I could take (that all appeared to be "good moves") and I had to make a "tactical-level" decision about what to do.
Yup. See above. Also the rest of the thread.
Conceptually, you can boil any tactical challenge down into a solvable puzzle if given sufficient time. There are frequently moments of needing to decide what the best course of action is with imperfect information and without knowing your opponent's exact intentions/plans. So a "theoretically solvable" situation is nevertheless one where a player faces a tough choice. Perhaps your experience of the game is different than mine, but I seem to encounter these choices often enough.
As I said before you are making this out to be way more complex then it is. And you don't have imperfect information. You have, in fact, perfect information besides knowing what your dice roll will be. There is nothing that the opponent can do to stop you from moving into position and shooting your guns. Whatever their intentions or plans for the next turn may be, they inherently have to change based on the game state when you hand the game back to them. If you wipe a unit off the board by focus firing then he cannot incorporate that unit into next turns decisions. But when he gets around to making his next turns decisions it's not a factor of trying to guess what you are going to do next. Because what you are going to do next is going to be based on the game state when he hands it back to you.
As a side note, I see AA system suggested as a way to increase the tactical depth of the game. While this creates a layer of decision making (what unit do I activate when), it's still broadly in the realm of tactical decisions really just becoming logistical optimization moves. It's not really any more or less deep, it's just more complicated and obscured.
The obscured part is what opens them up to be deeply tactical and what makes it moves against the opponent instead of their pieces. When you don't know what I am going to do with my next activation you have to make your moves trying to anticipate and head me off. Throw wrenches in the works. And I get to try to anticipate the same. The back and forth between PLAYERS is where the tactical depth comes from. You CAN'T optimize in even remotely the same way when you can't move your entire army to focus fire single units into the dirt. IGOUGO is nothing BUT optimization. AA is a deep rich game of cat and mouse where each decision can only be optimized in accordance with how the opponent responds.
In regards to "interactivity" - I don't buy the arguments that this is a lot interactive game between the players. I'm constantly thinking about what my opponent is likely to, and making my choices in return. And there are moments in every game when my opponent does something I didn't expect, which causes me to re-evaluate my plans on the fly and make different choices than I would have.
Any amount of time you spend studying your opponents moves during the move, psychic, or shooting phases is a complete waste of time with a couple of exceptions. 1) When he casts a power can you do anything about it? If no, go back to looking at your phone. 2) Do you have a stratagem that can interrupt their turn for an advantage AND is that stratagem worth the points? No? Go back to looking at your phone. 3) Which model are you assigning the wounds to? Not often a difficult choice.
Then the charge phases rolls around and you will fire the over watches you can fire because those are the rules. Then the fight phase comes and you will watch all of his guys who charged fight and roll your saves. Maybe if for some reason there are on going fights you will get to pick a unit to fight when your turn comes around. Otherwise you will do all your fights when it's your turn to do them all with whatever survived his fights.
The only game state that matters to you to make any decisions is the game state when it's your movement phase.
This isn't a disrespect for the opponent thing, though I am sure some of you will take it that way. It LITERALLY doesn't matter where any of your units are until they stop moving. It LITERALLY doesn't matter what my models are going to do until I see the end result and know what models I have to do stuff with. I can't make those decisions until I have the information so it doesn't matter until you are done and I have all my variables. Then it's on to the math and flow charts.
I've argued with Canadian 5th in other threads about this - but I think think that the lack of diversity in the mission pool is a major contributor to the game not having the tactical depth that it might. I'll link this post again:
I agree that for any set of missions, there is always a likely meta that will evolve. But, I think a meta list optimized for one type of mission versus a meta list optimized for 6 different types of missions are going to look different. And specifically, the 6-mission list is going to be less well-optimized for any one individual mission. As a consequence of this, how you use your list to make up for it's less optimized nature puts more emphasis on the tactics and execution stage, because there is only so far the planning will take you, and only so much optimization you can squeeze out from any given list.
I think the missions are a different issue. First, the game itself has to inherently work. THEN we can worry about how the missions impact the core rules. The core rules are already a issue. Anything the missions do is a band aid on a symptom. It can help relieve the symptoms a bit but the disease isn't cured. Cure the disease.
This is also known as a root cause analysis. The root cause of much of 40ks issues are baked into the turn structure. Including first turn advantage, the lack of tactical depth, and the difficulty in mission mix, and the lack of player interactivity... the long periods of down time. Etc etc... Root Cause. It's not actually that hard to find it.
When I first mentioned it, I said being able to guess ranges accurately was a skill, and not something directly added depth to the decision making. That said...
First, there is a question of how much overall "skill" is desired in the game, and recognition that like many good games, many different skills are tested. Spatial planning (including measurement estimation) is a skill. Risk management is a risk. Math Hammer is a skill. Logistical optimization is a skill. Opponent psychology / move deduction is a skill. I like games that test multiple skills, and I find it fun to play against people that bring different skills to the table.
Second, the hallmark of making choices that feel interesting and build tension is uncertainty. Whether it's the roll of the dice, guessing a range, or the unexpected moves of your opponent, uncertainty is critical to what 40K is and it's critical to build drama and forcing the player to adapt and deal with unexpected situations. No premeasuring reinforces this notion and puts the player into the mode of having to make some gut-level judgements and decisions without knowing precisely whether they action will even work. I think this is a better model for a battle game than one that has chess-like precision.
Being able to accurately judge distances by eye is a skill and a talent. But it's also not one that should make any difference in the game. Allowing people to pre measure doesn't make the game anything less in my opinion. It just puts more focus on the actual mechanics of the game. Too bad those mechanics suck.
I don’t like premeasuring, as peeps just lay the ruler out to use to choose what units will shoot at, rather than declaring targets then checking to be sure that they are in range. Subtle difference but one that does add to tension imho... and though a seemingly simple skill, it is one that will sometimes fail e.g when the chosen unit really must be shot at and ends up a half inch out of range...
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Lance845 wrote: I get the most done with my most complex tasks by literally working my way through scenarios with scratch paper or by building paper prototypes.
I am pretty good at preplanning for most variables, but you often don't see pieces of the plan until you start building a working model. And then, sometimes, I over plan and develop systems and redundancies for things that just are not issues.
Luckily paper prototypes are cheap.
It always helps me to create something even somewhat physical so I can see what gaps I left in the plan and what not.
Check out “ manipulative abduction” - essentially coming to solutions by manipulating models, thinking through interacting with things.
My offering of phases of decision-making is an attempt to boil away loaded terminology and allow the dialogue to keep going. I also think I missed a phase: the post battle reflection. The post battle reflection can lead to changes in our list building, planning and execution. Or not.
I do think that there is merit in having articles/posts on the site that offer perspectives on decision-making based on actual tabletop experience in the current edition under conditions. Not everyone would enjoy them (or need them), but that's OK.
I made this analogy before - but 40k is arguably a simple game, because you are swinging a big hammer 5 times (6 if we consider deployment a turn).
There isn't therefore room for a lot of interplay - this idea of you move there, I counter with a flank there, you go for an envelopment, I withdraw, you attack, I parry, you riposte, I parry again.
I'm not actually sure though that this happens in many *other* games, or at least not often. I can understand the spirit though, since it often comes up when discussing all sorts of games (from card games to RTS to duels in World of Warcraft). People like the idea of a theoretically endless chain of counters rather than I do A, you do B and one of us falls over.
But this seems to lead to this idea that what you should do in your turns is obvious to the point where there is no serious discussion. Which I just don't think is true. You could go with Xeno's list if you want - and it will probably okay. Certainly you are likely to beat people who aren't even at that level - i.e. they can't even work out what is likely to do more damage to what. But the key thing is knowing when to depart from these flowcharts. There is a difference for instance between going all in *because you always go all in* - or because the game's going against you, and its now or never. Knowing the difference with things like this is a skill, even if you can argue it isn't evidence of "depth".
Tyel wrote: I made this analogy before - but 40k is arguably a simple game, because you are swinging a big hammer 5 times (6 if we consider deployment a turn).
There isn't therefore room for a lot of interplay - this idea of you move there, I counter with a flank there, you go for an envelopment, I withdraw, you attack, I parry, you riposte, I parry again.
I'm not actually sure though that this happens in many *other* games, or at least not often. I can understand the spirit though, since it often comes up when discussing all sorts of games (from card games to RTS to duels in World of Warcraft). People like the idea of a theoretically endless chain of counters rather than I do A, you do B and one of us falls over.
I completely agree with this assessment. Although I disagree that it's not common.
Games I'm familiar with all have lots more interplay. Bloodbowl, Necromunda, Titanicus, Band of Brothers, Blood Red Skies, Legion, all have far more interactions between players than 40k. I really can't think of any games that have players interacting less than 40k does.
This isn't an AA game. In an AA game you fight your battles bit by bit. I do something, you do something. I know the outcome of my previous bit and your last bit before deciding my next bit.
In an AA game the "skill" of the player is based on taking into account the opponent's reactions to your bits.
The bad player in an AA game is the one that loses because he was taken by surprise by the opponent's reaction and didn't have a plan for it.
40K is an IGOUGO game. In a IGOUGO game the bits are packaged together in big chunks of actions. The opponent doesn't have the chance (or has limited chance) to impede your plans until the end of your package of bits. There is surely less "skill" involved in interacting with your opponent compared to an AA game.
The real difficulty in an IGOUGO game is represented by the fact that you have to plan your bits without knowing the outcome of the previous bit. You can't charge a unit if your shooter went cold and didn't clear the screen. You can't shoot at unit if it was already destroyed by the other unit which spiked on its dices. Compared to an AA game where the moment you decide an action, you also know the conditions around that action, in an IGOUGO that isn't true. Between your first action and the last action of the package, there is a vast amount of random scenarios that can develop.
Due to this, the IGOUGO games test a completely different set of "skills" compared to an AA. Being able to put together on the fly a good package of actions that accounts for random spikes, is what defines a good player. Risk management is the most important skill of a 40K player.
The bad 40K player is the one that loses because a certain scenario that on average should have developed in a certain direction, didn't turn out like expected.
That isn't to say that there isn't risk managament in an AA game or that there isn't interaction between players in an IGOUGO. It just means that those are minor aspects in what decide a match.
You can be the best player of 40K and totally suck at Infinity because you are not used at constantly changing your actions based on your opponent's reactions.
You can be the best Infinity player and suck at 40K because you are used to think in averages instead of probability distributions.
kirotheavenger wrote: I completely agree with this assessment. Although I disagree that it's not common.
Games I'm familiar with all have lots more interplay. Bloodbowl, Necromunda, Titanicus, Band of Brothers, Blood Red Skies, Legion, all have far more interactions between players than 40k. I really can't think of any games that have players interacting less than 40k does.
Hmmm.
Thinking about Bloodbowl. I'd say there is more interplay due to tackle zones. By moving a unit next to yours, I'm having an explicit impact on you, theoretically effecting your chances to block, dodge, pass, whatever. Which in turn will make different "turns" more or less likely to succeed. Whereas in 40k, its often more concealed - i.e. I've positioned such that if you move on to an objective (which you probably want to so as to score/deny points), I'll have an optimal turn of shooting and an easy charge in my next turn.
Undoubtedly Bloodbowl has more turns - so to a degree you have more time to do things without needing an instant pay off. If I move a player reasonably deep into your half (lets assume not a gutter runner etc) then there is always a chance I could hand off/pass to him and score. So my opponent has a dilemma of whether they do something about that - or take advantage that any cage I have round the ball must be weaker because one player is a long way off. Or they just focus on bashing my team to bits in the hope that while I may score, I'll be down 3 players in the second half (or carrying a lot of injuries for the rest of the campaign).
When I mentioned Bloodbowl I was explicitly thinking in terms of turns. There's 16 turns in Bloodbowl - 3x that of current 40k.
There's a lot more movement and counter movement between players.
On top of that individual decisions have a lot more depth to them.
In 40k it's basically where do you move and what do you attack.
Bloodbowl is the same, except the order in which you do that matters far more. When resolving an attack, where you push them back to, whether or not you follow up, etc all matter. When moving that has far more impact than 40k, due to the tacklezones you mentioned.
The average turn in Bloodbowl is 2-4 minutes. In 40k it's easily 10x as long. That's a big difference in player engagement.
kirotheavenger wrote: I completely agree with this assessment. Although I disagree that it's not common.
Games I'm familiar with all have lots more interplay. Bloodbowl, Necromunda, Titanicus, Band of Brothers, Blood Red Skies, Legion, all have far more interactions between players than 40k. I really can't think of any games that have players interacting less than 40k does.
Hmmm.
Thinking about Bloodbowl. I'd say there is more interplay due to tackle zones. By moving a unit next to yours, I'm having an explicit impact on you, theoretically effecting your chances to block, dodge, pass, whatever. Which in turn will make different "turns" more or less likely to succeed. Whereas in 40k, its often more concealed - i.e. I've positioned such that if you move on to an objective (which you probably want to so as to score/deny points), I'll have an optimal turn of shooting and an easy charge in my next turn.
You will only have a optimal turn of shooting if, for whatever reason, I decided to ignore the unit hat is in position to be my biggest threat next turn instead of turning every gun I have into removing it from the board or at least causing so much damage to it that it becomes a non-issue. Again, you cannot actually do anything about it.
kirotheavenger wrote: I completely agree with this assessment. Although I disagree that it's not common.
Games I'm familiar with all have lots more interplay. Bloodbowl, Necromunda, Titanicus, Band of Brothers, Blood Red Skies, Legion, all have far more interactions between players than 40k. I really can't think of any games that have players interacting less than 40k does.
Hmmm.
Thinking about Bloodbowl. I'd say there is more interplay due to tackle zones. By moving a unit next to yours, I'm having an explicit impact on you, theoretically effecting your chances to block, dodge, pass, whatever. Which in turn will make different "turns" more or less likely to succeed. Whereas in 40k, its often more concealed - i.e. I've positioned such that if you move on to an objective (which you probably want to so as to score/deny points), I'll have an optimal turn of shooting and an easy charge in my next turn.
You will only have a optimal turn of shooting if, for whatever reason, I decided to ignore the unit hat is in position to be my biggest threat next turn instead of turning every gun I have into removing it from the board or at least causing so much damage to it that it becomes a non-issue. Again, you cannot actually do anything about it.
And that's my win.
I forced you to divert your attention to that unit because I positioned it in a way that hindered your plan.
kirotheavenger wrote: I completely agree with this assessment. Although I disagree that it's not common. Games I'm familiar with all have lots more interplay. Bloodbowl, Necromunda, Titanicus, Band of Brothers, Blood Red Skies, Legion, all have far more interactions between players than 40k. I really can't think of any games that have players interacting less than 40k does.
Hmmm.
Thinking about Bloodbowl. I'd say there is more interplay due to tackle zones. By moving a unit next to yours, I'm having an explicit impact on you, theoretically effecting your chances to block, dodge, pass, whatever. Which in turn will make different "turns" more or less likely to succeed. Whereas in 40k, its often more concealed - i.e. I've positioned such that if you move on to an objective (which you probably want to so as to score/deny points), I'll have an optimal turn of shooting and an easy charge in my next turn.
You will only have a optimal turn of shooting if, for whatever reason, I decided to ignore the unit hat is in position to be my biggest threat next turn instead of turning every gun I have into removing it from the board or at least causing so much damage to it that it becomes a non-issue. Again, you cannot actually do anything about it.
And that's my win. I forced you to divert your attention to that unit because I positioned it in a way that hindered your plan.
Did you actually bother to read the example given?
1) They set themselves up to be able to target an objective I am going to go for because it gives victory points. 2) I move onto the objective and get victory points. I shoot the unit set up to shoot me next turn so that they are ineffective at removing me from the objective. They now have less points with which to shoot me next turn and I have eliminated or negated immediate threats. 3) "I loose?"
I am confused about how I lost in any way. I reduced your net dice value and gained points towards victory. If there was a more efficient path towards victory/other option I would preferably have noticed and done that instead. The way to notice is basic math and flow charts since the game state at that point is static and there isn't anything you can do about it.
He said that he positions in a way that if you want to go onto an objective, you expose yourself to a unit shooting on you/and or charging you.
You answered him that in that case you would focus fire on said unit threathening your point, which is fair.
At the same time though, you are now playing into your opponent's hand. He managed to force your decision on who to focus fire, which we can easily assume that he did so in order to have something else survive. The amount of hurt you can inflict per turn is a limited resource, and he managed to spend it for you. He took a unit which wasn't on top of your threath list, and managed to promote it to the top of the list by correctly positioning it.
Did you actually bother to read the example given?
1) They set themselves up to be able to target an objective I am going to go for because it gives victory points.
2) I move onto the objective and get victory points. I shoot the unit set up to shoot me next turn so that they are ineffective at removing me from the objective. They now have less points with which to shoot me next turn and I have eliminated or negated immediate threats.
3) "I loose?"
I am confused about how I lost in any way. I reduced your net dice value and gained points towards victory. If there was a more efficient path towards victory/other option I would preferably have noticed and done that instead. The way to notice is basic math and flow charts since the game state at that point is static and there isn't anything you can do about it.
Please explain this.
If they moved with the intent of doing something and failed, ofc they lost. But that's not a demonstration of how the game is static. Each turn in itself has a "best course of actions for that turn" to be taken, sure, but it's like you think the other players doesn't have any capacity to understand how you're going to respond to him and actions are thought out on a per turn basis. Which is completely wrong of course.
They either did a move and planned correctly for the outcome (so whatever the outcome is, "they won" that trade and the rest of the game will determine if that outcome was something required or a mistake) or didn't (in which case "they lose").
In this case, if he threatened the objective with a unit so you would divert your killing power to that unit instead of one with which he expect to win more than he lost, then he won the trade.
I think we can all agree that decisions made in list-building can help you win or hurt your chances of winning. Perhaps we can all agree that decisions made in the planning phase after you receive the mission and before the die-roll for going first will impact your chances of winning. Contrary to some, though, I find that there are plenty of decisions that I have to make during the execution phase that impact my chances of winning.
I think the main point of contention isn't that decisions don't matter, it's that they're often independent of your opponent's actions or trivial. Winning the game at the list-building stage is a perfect example, or the fact that the missions in 9th are basically all the same which makes the "planning" decisions relatively easy after a while. A sufficiently mobile army like Harlequins, for example, could probably quite reasonably draw up a deployment plan and use it in almost all their games regardless of opponent and mission.
TangoTwoBravo wrote:
I played a 1500 Matched Play yesterday as part of a tourney warm-up. My opponent went first, and while my list had mobility I still had to adjust my plan as his plan was pretty much a counter to mine. Part of my Turn 1 decision-making was indeed somewhat straight-forward. Which unit(s) would I sacrifice to buy time and space for my killers, as well as garner enough Objective VPs before dying? At the mid-point of the game my opponent was essentially split into two elements, having gone for one of my exposed flanks. I had to decide between bolstering my collapsing flank or doubling down in the centre. Both had risks. I went for the centre. At the same time I had to decide when to go after his warlord (linked to Secondary VPs for me and him). I could have done so in the 3rd Turn, but it would have left my own completely exposed if it failed. I played somewhat conservatively and set myself up for a 4th turn charge, which my opponent himself made more difficult with his own manoeuvring. At the start of my 5th Turn I still had two viable courses of action open to me. One more conservative and one that was more risky but would garner many more VPs. I went for the risky one. These decisions were all made in response to things that my opponent did. I haven't discussed the impact of terrain on my play - plenty of obscuring terrain that was also impassible to me. I had to adapt to and exploit the board. This was true when I was planning but also when I was playing because my opponent was also manoeuvring on that table.
Then there are the positional things you have to do in the game with the details of pile-in, consolidate and model placement. There are procedural things to decide on like fight activation order and stratagem use. I had to make several decisions during that game regarding falling back and stratagem use. I also made some mistakes with model placement, hindering my own manoeuvre while also giving opportunities for my opponent to exploit. Which he did. I was playing a veteran, skillful player and we were certainly interacting with each other.
This is where I have the most problem with this argument. You're using a lot of impressive-sounding terms for what happened during the game but the essence of the decisions being made are just not that difficult. This is one of the problem I have with a lot of the 40k "coaching" people. They like to use important-sounding terms for things but that often just masks how simplistic the game is at its core and how little difficulty there is in the decision making process.
Your second paragraph highlights this even better. There's nothing deeply tactical about piling-in or consolidation. Once you either figure out for yourself or someone tells you the best move is not to get into base-to-base when you charge to allow yourself maximum flexibility when you pile-in and consolidate, or how tri-pointing works, there's no longer any tactical decision to make, it's just a thing you do that you're almost always in complete control of. There's very little opponent interaction to consider. Similarly with model placement in general. Your opponent can't really interact with your own moves in your own turn and pre-measuring allows you to make sure you're perfectly set within rapid fire range while still being in cover, or outside of their theoretical maximum charge range while still being able to shoot. As a player you need to be aware of the concepts but acting on them is then a matter of rote execution rather than having to make any real decision.
You do. It just isn't at the level or kind that you desire.
I've dropped two convergence of dominion into my opponent's backfield within range of their unit holding an objective and part way to a dreadnought. Their shooting is decent enough that left alone they will wipe the unit on the objective. Either my opponent redirects the dreadnought to deal with them ( as the Eradicators are dead ) or he pushes further in to the previous goal. Ideally he must melee them to remove them. Which is the right choice? Either way he must respond to what I have done.
That feels like your opponent just forgot something could deep strike. It's a tactical blunder, yes, but such a simple one to avoid (again, because DS is almost always a 9" bubble and there's no way for you to decide to take a bigger risk to try to drop closer, for example). An army without screens, or even back-field shooting, is probably not that great if it's planning to hold its own deployment zone. That's especially true if using the new smaller board sizes.
Mezmorki wrote:@lance @candadian 5th
Conceptually, you can boil any tactical challenge down into a solvable puzzle if given sufficient time. There are frequently moments of needing to decide what the best course of action is with imperfect information and without knowing your opponent's exact intentions/plans. So a "theoretically solvable" situation is nevertheless one where a player faces a tough choice. Perhaps your experience of the game is different than mine, but I seem to encounter these choices often enough.
I don't think that's correct. What makes tactical problems impossible to unequivocally "solve" are the unknown variables. 40k doesn't really have any, especially because the dice rolls can be boiled down to statistical averages/likelihoods and those rolls are often so heavily modified as to be virtually definite anyway. If my decision hinges on what my opponent does to react to it, or is based on a decision my opponent may have already made but hasn't revealed yet, then, in principle, there may be no "correct" solution. Instead, there's just the most statistically effective decision taking into account all your opponent's options and that's assuming you even know what those options are! You could take that "most correct" decision and end up being completely wrong because your opponent out-thought you after considering your options better than you considered theirs.
This is why a game like X-Wing can have more meaningful decisions in a single turn than an entire game of 40k. Decisions are made in the Planning phase but only executed later in an initiative-based order which means I have to decide on my approach before anything happens, then modify that as the board state becomes clearer. I need to account for my opponent's likely decisions while still thinking about whether they'll do something unexpected precisely because it's unexpected. There are genuine decisions to be made about spending tokens to modify either offensively or defensively or what actions to take in the first place. All of these decisions are often taken without complete information.
Mezmorki wrote:
As a side note, I see AA system suggested as a way to increase the tactical depth of the game. While this creates a layer of decision making (what unit do I activate when), it's still broadly in the realm of tactical decisions really just becoming logistical optimization moves. It's not really any more or less deep, it's just more complicated and obscured.
"Complicated [decisions] and obscured [information]" sound like two of the major contributors to adding tactical depth so I have no idea how you arrived at your conclusion.
He said that he positions in a way that if you want to go onto an objective, you expose yourself to a unit shooting on you/and or charging you.
You answered him that in that case you would focus fire on said unit threathening your point, which is fair.
At the same time though, you are now playing into your opponent's hand. He managed to force your decision on who to focus fire, which we can easily assume that he did so in order to have something else survive.
The amount of hurt you can inflict per turn is a limited resource, and he managed to spend it for you.
He took a unit which wasn't on top of your threath list, and managed to promote it to the top of the list by correctly positioning it.
Of course. The, "I shoot you with my laser", "I but I activate my laser proof shield!", oh! but then I use my laser proof shield EMP device!" defense. Don't bring outside elements into the scenario.
The proposed situation presented the unit ready to shoot at the objective as a victory in and of itself. They knew I would go for an objective and they set themselves up to attack me in advance. But the game doesn't work that way.
Spending it for me might be a fair argument if it wasn't the clearest path to victory anyway. In the proposed scenario he literally gave me victory points. He didn't take the objective and make me fight for it. He didn't reinforce it so that it was unclaimable next turn. He didn't shoot at the units that would be most able to take the objective to reduce their number and make them less likely to claim victory points or easier to remove from the objective afterwards. He just quietly got into position for me to shoot him.
Did you actually bother to read the example given?
1) They set themselves up to be able to target an objective I am going to go for because it gives victory points.
2) I move onto the objective and get victory points. I shoot the unit set up to shoot me next turn so that they are ineffective at removing me from the objective. They now have less points with which to shoot me next turn and I have eliminated or negated immediate threats.
3) "I loose?"
I am confused about how I lost in any way. I reduced your net dice value and gained points towards victory. If there was a more efficient path towards victory/other option I would preferably have noticed and done that instead. The way to notice is basic math and flow charts since the game state at that point is static and there isn't anything you can do about it.
Please explain this.
If they moved with the intent of doing something and failed, ofc they lost. But that's not a demonstration of how the game is static. Each turn in itself has a "best course of actions for that turn" to be taken, sure, but it's like you think the other players doesn't have any capacity to understand how you're going to respond to him and actions are thought out on a per turn basis. Which is completely wrong of course.
They either did a move and planned correctly for the outcome (so whatever the outcome is, "they won" that trade and the rest of the game will determine if that outcome was something required or a mistake) or didn't (in which case "they lose").
In this case, if he threatened the objective with a unit so you would divert your killing power to that unit instead of one with which he expect to win more than he lost, then he won the trade.
It's not that I don't think they have any capacity to understand it. It's that their understanding doesn't matter. My decision making starts when I get the static game state where my turn begins. Maybe I have less great choices because of how they left things for me but I still have the best choices that I do have given the current game state. This is why first turn advantage is such a big thing. Or strategies... sorry, pre-game plans and list building... that play such a major role in victory. If you can control the game state the opponent has to deal with then even their most optimal moves are not equal to yours and you win. Setting up some threats for me to shoot without them doing anything else is a net loss. Every time. If they are not reducing my effective dice pool value before being blown off the board then you made some poor choices.
He said that he positions in a way that if you want to go onto an objective, you expose yourself to a unit shooting on you/and or charging you.
You answered him that in that case you would focus fire on said unit threathening your point, which is fair.
At the same time though, you are now playing into your opponent's hand. He managed to force your decision on who to focus fire, which we can easily assume that he did so in order to have something else survive.
The amount of hurt you can inflict per turn is a limited resource, and he managed to spend it for you.
He took a unit which wasn't on top of your threath list, and managed to promote it to the top of the list by correctly positioning it.
Of course. The, "I shoot you with my laser", "I but I activate my laser proof shield!", oh! but then I use my laser proof shield EMP device!" defense. Don't bring outside elements into the scenario.
The proposed situation presented the unit ready to shoot at the objective as a victory in and of itself. They knew I would go for an objective and they set themselves up to attack me in advance. But the game doesn't work that way.
Spending it for me might be a fair argument if it wasn't the clearest path to victory anyway. In the proposed scenario he literally gave me victory points. He didn't take the objective and make me fight for it. He didn't reinforce it so that it was unclaimable next turn. He didn't shoot at the units that would be most able to take the objective to reduce their number and make them less likely to claim victory points or easier to remove from the objective afterwards. He just quietly got into position for me to shoot him.
Did you actually bother to read the example given?
1) They set themselves up to be able to target an objective I am going to go for because it gives victory points.
2) I move onto the objective and get victory points. I shoot the unit set up to shoot me next turn so that they are ineffective at removing me from the objective. They now have less points with which to shoot me next turn and I have eliminated or negated immediate threats.
3) "I loose?"
I am confused about how I lost in any way. I reduced your net dice value and gained points towards victory. If there was a more efficient path towards victory/other option I would preferably have noticed and done that instead. The way to notice is basic math and flow charts since the game state at that point is static and there isn't anything you can do about it.
Please explain this.
If they moved with the intent of doing something and failed, ofc they lost. But that's not a demonstration of how the game is static. Each turn in itself has a "best course of actions for that turn" to be taken, sure, but it's like you think the other players doesn't have any capacity to understand how you're going to respond to him and actions are thought out on a per turn basis. Which is completely wrong of course.
They either did a move and planned correctly for the outcome (so whatever the outcome is, "they won" that trade and the rest of the game will determine if that outcome was something required or a mistake) or didn't (in which case "they lose").
In this case, if he threatened the objective with a unit so you would divert your killing power to that unit instead of one with which he expect to win more than he lost, then he won the trade.
It's not that I don't think they have any capacity to understand it. It's that their understanding doesn't matter. My decision making starts when I get the static game state where my turn begins. Maybe I have less great choices because of how they left things for me but I still have the best choices that I do have given the current game state. This is why first turn advantage is such a big thing. Or strategies... sorry, pre-game plans and list building... that play such a major role in victory. If you can control the game state the opponent has to deal with then even their most optimal moves are not equal to yours and you win. Setting up some threats for me to shoot without them doing anything else is a net loss. Every time. If they are not reducing my effective dice pool value before being blown off the board then you made some poor choices.
It seems that you fail to understand the point we are making, so I will make it easier.
In that scenario, he forced your move. There isn't much more to it.
He is leading the dance. He is one step ahead of you. As long as the decisions you make are not your optimal ones, but the ones he managed to turn into your optimal ones, then he is winning.
End of the story.
Obviously if he is a bad player, which failed to understand your priorities and managed to turn an optimal target into an even better one... that's your opponent's failure.
No. I GET what you are TRYING to say. I am saying that what YOU are saying is 1) Not the situation he presented and 2) Doesn't actually exist in 40k.
MY decisions are always about making the best moves I can make given the board when I can start making moves. Yes. My opponent DOES determine what that game state looks like for me by the end of their turn. (And I in turn decide what that looks like for them).
But,(and this part is really the crux of it) if my math and flow chart are good, the best choice I can make is STILL the best choice I can make whether he fed it to me or not. There is no "trap" for me to fall into. Either I am acting optimally with my 5 turns or I am not.
Again, this is why list building, strategy, and first turn advantage are so powerful and tactics are not.
Lance845 wrote: No. I GET what you are TRYING to say. I am saying that what YOU are saying is 1) Not the situation he presented and 2) Doesn't actually exist in 40k.
MY decisions are always about making the best moves I can make given the board when I can start making moves. Yes. My opponent DOES determine what that game state looks like for me by the end of their turn. (And I in turn decide what that looks like for them).
But,(and this part is really the crux of it) if my math and flow chart are good, the best choice I can make is STILL the best choice I can make whether he fed it to me or not. There is no "trap" for me to fall into. Either I am acting optimally with my 5 turns or I am not.
Ok, you still don't understand.
No one talked about trap choices.
There is no trap to make you fall into.
That's not the purpose.
We always assume that everyone always makes the best move.
You have a certain list of priorities, and my job as your opponent is to mess with them.
If your priority is to kill unit A because it is a counter to your list, I will take unit B and position it in a way that makes it even more dangerous to your plan than unit A is.
Now, you either kill unit A or you kill unit B.
There is no trap choice here.
There is no good choice here.
I forced you in a situation where there isn't a clear priority.
I took your optimal outcome and rescaled it.
You will still play your turn in the best mathematical way you can, but if before you could achieve 10, now you can at most achieve 7.
You will act optimally for 5 turns, that's the basic assumption. That's why I redefine what "optimal" means for you. That's what playing 40K means.
That's what playing any IGOUGO system means tbh. If we are denying that the interactions are delayed by virtue of the nature of how the game is structured (I do stuff in my turn to be in a better place during my next turn and put you in a worse spot during yours), then there is mostly nothing left to discuss anymore.
Lance845 wrote: No. I GET what you are TRYING to say. I am saying that what YOU are saying is 1) Not the situation he presented and 2) Doesn't actually exist in 40k.
MY decisions are always about making the best moves I can make given the board when I can start making moves. Yes. My opponent DOES determine what that game state looks like for me by the end of their turn. (And I in turn decide what that looks like for them).
But,(and this part is really the crux of it) if my math and flow chart are good, the best choice I can make is STILL the best choice I can make whether he fed it to me or not. There is no "trap" for me to fall into. Either I am acting optimally with my 5 turns or I am not.
Ok, you still don't understand.
I do understand. Lets see if I can convince you.
No one talked about trap choices. There is no trap to make you fall into. That's not the purpose. We always assume that everyone always makes the best move.
K. It is a trap choice but it seems we have a disconnect on what that means. We will get to it in a second.
You have a certain list of priorities, and my job as your opponent is to mess with them. If your priority is to kill unit A because it is a counter to your list, I will take unit B and position it in a way that makes it even more dangerous to your plan than unit A is.
Now, you either kill unit A or you kill unit B. There is no trap choice here. There is no good choice here. I forced you in a situation where there isn't a clear priority.
This is part of what makes it a trap. Do I try to remove the unit that is a threat in ALL scenarios because it's a counter to my entire list or the unit that is a threat right now because of it's current positioning. I do math, I check the flow chart, I make the best decision I can make given the current state of the game. That choice might be a gakky one where something gets sacrificed either way, but in the end there is a best choice to be made.
I took your optimal outcome and rescaled it. You will still play your turn in the best mathematical way you can, but if before you could achieve 10, now you can at most achieve 7.
Here is the thing. I don't ever bother to think that "I could have achieved 10 if only he didn't do x". That doesn't matter. It literally is a non factor in any decision I make. "What could have been" is meaningless next to what is. I can, if acting optimally, get 7. And if I don't act optimally, I get less. My job is to act optimally.
You will act optimally for 5 turns, that's the basic assumption. That's why I redefine what "optimal" means for you. That's what playing 40K means.
Right. YES. Thank you! Now you are starting to see what I have been saying this entire time.
Let me use your terms to extrapolate this out for others to see too.
Lets assume all players always act optimally, and that both players have equivalent lists and strategies that are a match on the field.
Both players are capable of achieving 10 on turn 1. Then they roll to see who goes first and the first player doesn't just achieve 10, but, in acting optimally, have set you up to only get 7 at best. And you do. So you get 7, and you do your best to make sure he can only get 7 in return. And he does. And so on and so forth...
All other elements being equal the player who goes first wins because they get to determine the game state for the second player while diminishing their resources when acting optimally.
There is no deep tactical decision making or player to player interaction here. This is about logistics, math, and priorities. How can I give myself the maximum possible net gain while giving my opponent the worst possible maximum net gain. In a lot of ways thats removing models so they have less resources to make gains with and the balance of power cannot shift. In other ways it's giving the opponent "no win choices" or bad positioning. Again, my old nid list was all about taking control of the board so the opponent had to play on my terms.
As you said, "That's what playing 40k means". It's not a tactical game. It's shallow, it's solvable, and it's skewed towards 1 particular kind of understanding, pre game planning, and the luck of going first. Thats 40k Baby!
I want to step away from the terminology for a moment here.
I think what we're all trying to define and understand (or reach consensus on) is the degree to which there are "meaningful choices" to make during the course of play (post-deployment) that will notably impact your success or failure. I think we're fundamentally debating this notion - and let me see if I can characterize the two sides correctly:
=======================================
One camp (Lance, Canadian 5th, etc.) is asserting that there are no (or extremely few) meaningful choices because the options available to you at any moment have an optimal solution, dependent on two element:
(a) Math and using statistical knowledge to maximize potential AND
(b) "The flowchart" which dictates what you should do with each unit each turn.
As a consequence of the two above items, the game is deemed to be devoid (or nearly devoid) of player interaction (since each person's turn is just solving an optimization puzzle) and overall lacks meaningful choices - because the choices are "obvious" because of (a) and (b) above.
=======================================
The other camp is asserting that there are meaningful choices to make, or at least enough meaningful choices that they do matter to the outcome of the game. This camp recognizes the following:
(1) Uncertainty in the die rolls and needing to commit actions (i.e. movement before shooting) can can force a choice and/or put players into sub-optimal situations - and that these uncertainties can make it difficult to know what is the better/worse move.
(2) One cannot always predict what their opponent will do because of (1) (above) and also because of their opponent having plans/ideas that aren't always apparent to you. This is an instance of interactivity (manifested on the table) because each player's plan for the turn is based on the current board state, which is directly dictated by the choices your opponent made on their prior turn.
(3) That there are, at any decision point, clearly better or worse moves, and that uncertainty ((1) and (2) above) can make some decisions hard to answer "correctly" - which requires some gut-level judgement calls.
I want to step away from the terminology for a moment here.
I think what we're all trying to define and understand (or reach consensus on) is the degree to which there are "meaningful choices" to make during the course of play (post-deployment) that will notably impact your success or failure. I think we're fundamentally debating this notion - and let me see if I can characterize the two sides correctly:
=======================================
One camp (Lance, Canadian 5th, etc.) is asserting that there are no (or extremely few) meaningful choices because the options available to you at any moment have an optimal solution, dependent on two element:
(a) Math and using statistical knowledge to maximize potential AND (b) "The flowchart" which dictates what you should do with each unit each turn.
As a consequence of the two above items, the game is deemed to be devoid (or nearly devoid) of player interaction (since each person's turn is just solving an optimization puzzle) and overall lacks meaningful choices - because the choices are "obvious" because of (a) and (b) above.
=======================================
The other camp is asserting that there are meaningful choices to make, or at least enough meaningful choices that they do matter to the outcome of the game. This camp recognizes the following:
(1) Uncertainty in the die rolls and needing to commit actions (i.e. movement before shooting) can can force a choice and/or put players into sub-optimal situations - and that these uncertainties can make it difficult to know what is the better/worse move.
(2) One cannot always predict what their opponent will do because of (1) (above) and also because of their opponent having plans/ideas that aren't always apparent to you. This is an instance of interactivity (manifested on the table) because each player's plan for the turn is based on the current board state, which is directly dictated by the choices your opponent made on their prior turn.
(3) That there are, at any decision point, clearly better or worse moves, and that uncertainty ((1) and (2) above) can make some decisions hard to answer "correctly" - which requires some gut-level judgement calls.
=======================================
Are those fair assessments of the two sides?
I do not disagree with this assessment of the debate. I would only add that While 1 and 2 can make the math difficult, it doesn't make it not math. Being good at 40k is about being good at that math. 1 and 2 are not mutually exclusive of a and b. It's just talking about it.
Your reasoning is correct, your conclusions are wrong.
Indeed, we are now on the same plane of thinking. We interact with each other trying to hinder the other guys plan and making it less optimal. That's a good step for this discussion.
Were you start getting wrong, is where you assume that doing so is so easy that anyone can do it on the fly. You even demonstrated by yourself that your argument is wrong.
As you said, if everyone always can implement the perfect clan to counter the opponent's plan, the player going first would always win, minus some games where dices really hate you. We have plenty of numbers showing that such a statement is very wrong, there is about an equal share of wins between going first and going second. There is a slight advantage in going first, but not on the scale of what you are implying.
Someone could retort that what is acting there is list imbalance, but you just need to look at the numbers on specific matchups to understand that such a point is mathematically invalid.
So we can all agree that players are not capable of always finding the best course of action.
That is, because formulating correctly your turn is anything but easy. There are so many elements that you have to take into account, that you can end up with a bad plan, a good plan or an excellent plan.
There isn't just a distinction between correct and incorrect plan. There are almost infinite gradations of quality in how you play your turn. No one can play it "perfectly".
So my next question has to do with this "flow chart" that we speak of.
When I think of decisions that have "depth", I feel that depth is a function of how many layers/levels of factors need to be considered in making a decision. Each additional layer or factor that is an input into a given decision adds depth.
With respect to the flow chart, ideally such a chart accounts or asks questions about the specifics of each situation and set of factors that need to be considered. I'd love to see such a more robust chart developed, because I think when you came down to making it genuinely effective as a decision-tool (and not a thought experiment) that there would be more factors in play than you are giving credit for. You might be moving through factors in the decision process quicker than your realize given your comfort and experience with the game.
In terms of meaningfulness, I think more meaningful choices are ones that have a stronger (and usually clearer) linkage to victory or defeat in the game.
Perhaps I'm just not as good of a player - but when I loose a game, I always try to reflect on how I could've played it better. And I feel like I can usually identify a moment or two when I made a bad decision (or a sub-optimal choice) that was a contributing factors. List building and deployment mistakes are also often contributing factors - but that doesn't erase the impact of in-game mistakes (or seen the other way around my opponent outplaying me).
I want to step away from the terminology for a moment here.
I think what we're all trying to define and understand (or reach consensus on) is the degree to which there are "meaningful choices" to make during the course of play (post-deployment) that will notably impact your success or failure. I think we're fundamentally debating this notion - and let me see if I can characterize the two sides correctly:
=======================================
One camp (Lance, Canadian 5th, etc.) is asserting that there are no (or extremely few) meaningful choices because the options available to you at any moment have an optimal solution, dependent on two element:
(a) Math and using statistical knowledge to maximize potential AND
(b) "The flowchart" which dictates what you should do with each unit each turn.
As a consequence of the two above items, the game is deemed to be devoid (or nearly devoid) of player interaction (since each person's turn is just solving an optimization puzzle) and overall lacks meaningful choices - because the choices are "obvious" because of (a) and (b) above.
=======================================
The other camp is asserting that there are meaningful choices to make, or at least enough meaningful choices that they do matter to the outcome of the game. This camp recognizes the following:
(1) Uncertainty in the die rolls and needing to commit actions (i.e. movement before shooting) can can force a choice and/or put players into sub-optimal situations - and that these uncertainties can make it difficult to know what is the better/worse move.
(2) One cannot always predict what their opponent will do because of (1) (above) and also because of their opponent having plans/ideas that aren't always apparent to you. This is an instance of interactivity (manifested on the table) because each player's plan for the turn is based on the current board state, which is directly dictated by the choices your opponent made on their prior turn.
(3) That there are, at any decision point, clearly better or worse moves, and that uncertainty ((1) and (2) above) can make some decisions hard to answer "correctly" - which requires some gut-level judgement calls.
=======================================
Are those fair assessments of the two sides?
I do not disagree with this assessment of the debate. I would only add that While 1 and 2 can make the math difficult, it doesn't make it not math. Being good at 40k is about being good at that math. 1 and 2 are not mutually exclusive of a and b. It's just talking about it.
Yes, being good at math is really important to be good at 40k, and?
That's the same for chess.
Are you going to tell me that chess has no interaction and players have no way to influence the outcome?
Spoletta wrote: Your reasoning is correct, your conclusions are wrong.
Indeed, we are now on the same plane of thinking. We interact with each other trying to hinder the other guys plan and making it less optimal. That's a good step for this discussion.
Were you start getting wrong, is where you assume that doing so is so easy that anyone can do it on the fly.
What I have said, in fact, is that there isn't anything else to it. I never said any baby could do it. In fact let me go quote myself.
Lance845 wrote: I don't think the argument has been made that it's so simple that any 3 year old could do it or that it's done correctly 100% of the time by super geniuses.
The argument that has been made is that there isn't anything else to it. Just because the "tactics" or as someone else called it and I am inclined to agree, logistics, of 40k are made up of simple formulae and flow charts doesn't mean everyone does it perfectly every time. But it also doesn't make the individual choices any more complex. 40k IS won by good list building as part of a solid strategy with a firm understanding of the logistics of the game.
A comparison I have been mulling over is magic the gathering. In magic if you CAN attack and it costs you nothing to attack then not attacking is a loosing move. At every single opportunity where you can remove the opponents health or resources you need to be doing that to win. You don't trade a monster for a monster. But if you can get a hit in without loosing a monster then you sure as gak need to be attacking. 40k isn't any different. The models are resources. They come with dice every turn that can remove your dice. You need to take every opportunity to maximize your dices impact and remove theirs. Which goes back into understanding the value of dice, which is simplified into more dice is always better and making sure that you always throw more dice every turn than your opponent widens the gap between your victory and their defeat.
Where do you deep strike? Where you will have the biggest impact and remove the most dice.
Should you move into the mid field? If you don't they will and when they do they will use that chance to remove your dice.
And again, this is in big part because of how little player to player interactivity there is in the game. When I attack I attack with everything. When you attack you attack with everything. Any opportunity for me to step in and interact with your turn is novelty at best and primarily made up of no brainer decisions. "Should I deepstrike my Deathmarks in response to you deepstriking?" Yes. Thats why you put them in the list to begin with. You cannot have deep tactical decision making if your every choice in the game is defined by your strategy and the logistics of the game state.
You even demonstrated by yourself that your argument is wrong. As you said, if everyone always can implement the perfect clan to counter the opponent's plan, the player going first would always win, minus some games where dices really hate you. We have plenty of numbers showing that such a statement is very wrong, there is about an equal share of wins between going first and going second. There is a slight advantage in going first, but not on the scale of what you are implying.
Based on the above I think you have a misunderstanding of my argument. But even besides that, we don't have plenty of numbers showing that. All the numbers show that first turn advantage is very real and very alive. And when it's not there are clear distinctions in superior armies/list building/strategies. If tactics made more of a difference then inferior armies could beat superior armies with superior tactics. But they mostly can't. And the numbers just show that.
Someone could retort that what is acting there is list imbalance, but you just need to look at the numbers on specific matchups to understand that such a point is mathematically invalid.
So we can all agree that players are not capable of always finding the best course of action.
That is, because formulating correctly your turn is anything but easy. There are so many elements that you have to take into account, that you can end up with a bad plan, a good plan or an excellent plan.
There isn't just a distinction between correct and incorrect plan. There are almost infinite gradations of quality in how you play your turn. No one can play it "perfectly".
Again, you have misunderstood my arguments. I hope I helped to clear that up.
I want to step away from the terminology for a moment here.
I think what we're all trying to define and understand (or reach consensus on) is the degree to which there are "meaningful choices" to make during the course of play (post-deployment) that will notably impact your success or failure. I think we're fundamentally debating this notion - and let me see if I can characterize the two sides correctly:
=======================================
One camp (Lance, Canadian 5th, etc.) is asserting that there are no (or extremely few) meaningful choices because the options available to you at any moment have an optimal solution, dependent on two element:
(a) Math and using statistical knowledge to maximize potential AND
(b) "The flowchart" which dictates what you should do with each unit each turn.
As a consequence of the two above items, the game is deemed to be devoid (or nearly devoid) of player interaction (since each person's turn is just solving an optimization puzzle) and overall lacks meaningful choices - because the choices are "obvious" because of (a) and (b) above.
=======================================
The other camp is asserting that there are meaningful choices to make, or at least enough meaningful choices that they do matter to the outcome of the game. This camp recognizes the following:
(1) Uncertainty in the die rolls and needing to commit actions (i.e. movement before shooting) can can force a choice and/or put players into sub-optimal situations - and that these uncertainties can make it difficult to know what is the better/worse move.
(2) One cannot always predict what their opponent will do because of (1) (above) and also because of their opponent having plans/ideas that aren't always apparent to you. This is an instance of interactivity (manifested on the table) because each player's plan for the turn is based on the current board state, which is directly dictated by the choices your opponent made on their prior turn.
(3) That there are, at any decision point, clearly better or worse moves, and that uncertainty ((1) and (2) above) can make some decisions hard to answer "correctly" - which requires some gut-level judgement calls.
=======================================
Are those fair assessments of the two sides?
I do not disagree with this assessment of the debate. I would only add that While 1 and 2 can make the math difficult, it doesn't make it not math. Being good at 40k is about being good at that math. 1 and 2 are not mutually exclusive of a and b. It's just talking about it.
Yes, being good at math is really important to be good at 40k, and?
That's the same for chess.
Are you going to tell me that chess has no interaction and players have no way to influence the outcome?
We already did the chess thing and why chess has lots of player to player interaction. Chess is very different from 40k.
Ok thanks for the clarification I can now see that you don't assume that anyone can do it. Fine.
You kind of oversimplify it when you say that it is all about impacting enemy dices more than yours, which is false (in your defense, it was true in older editions).
Also, your point on first turn wins is wrong. Lesser factions semi regularly win over better factions, even when going second. 40% of the time maybe, but they do semi regularly.
By the way, you will agree with me that since making a good turn isn't automatic, it means that a good player which is more skilled in planning a good turn, influences the outcome of the game.
Good player wins over bad player.
And that's it. That's all the point that was being made. We called it tactics, we called it planning we called it whatever, but in the end the point is that a good player makes good decisions during the game that can win him the game.
Also, your point on first turn wins is wrong. Lesser factions semi regularly win over better factions, even when going second. 40% of the time maybe, but they do semi regularly.
Have you based these figures on tournament results?
Because that's not necessarily what 40% winrate means. Tournaments are extremely self balancing. The ones that lose get moved lower on the tables to fight other losers, and the winners move up to fight other winners.
That means after the first game or two, everyone is going to be fighting against similarly powerful lists/factions/players and games will quick approach 50/50 winrate.
But back to the topic at hand. I think most people are principally agreed, but are just arguing over semantics regarding whether a decision is a tactic or so easy as to be rendered useless.
I definitely don't think 40k is that simple. You can't produce an effective flowchart for actions. You can't forget that your opponent is also a human being working to exactly the same goal as you. They will likely have multiple threatening units. They may have some units which are less threatening but easier to kill, or more potential to deal damage later, or any number of similar complications.
If 40k truly could be reduced to simple flowcharts you should be able to produce an 'AI' flowchart to play against and get roughly 50/50 wins.
Isn't your argument that the game is solvable by math and thus shallow ?
Because the solvable part is wrong, even if we ignore anything else, dice are involved and will undeniably at some point skew the outcome and make it not solvable (even if you can determine probables outcomes, they won't always happen).
But also, games with really basic rules without randomness like reversi/othello (and more complex ones like chess), still aren't solved as far as I can tell. Are their rules simples ? Yes. Are they shallow ? By your argument yes but otherwise, it's mainly a matter of opinion.
So my next question has to do with this "flow chart" that we speak of.
When I think of decisions that have "depth", I feel that depth is a function of how many layers/levels of factors need to be considered in making a decision. Each additional layer or factor that is an input into a given decision adds depth.
I think this is where the disconnect is between the two sides. What you're describing is complexity, rather than depth. You could have this flow chart with 100 layers but if each of those layers is a known factor and trivial to calculate/evaluate then all your added complexity does is add time to the decision-making process and a fairly trivial extra possibility of making a wrong decision. It's like adding up the sums of numbers: 1+2+3+4... up to 100. It's annoying to calculate going through each step but not really difficult.
I think depth has very little to do with the number of layers in the flow chart (though it probably does require a minimum number, which likely isn't that large) but rather the conditionality of it. That's where things like hidden information become so important, because that adds an extra branch, often at the same level as many other branches, rather than simply another thing to consider underneath a point in the chart. So you could have a completely linear flow chart with 100 factors, each on its own level that doesn't really add tactical depth but maybe only have 15-20 factors in another chart that are interdependent perhaps only spanning 3-4 levels and still end up with a more tactically deep game. If you could model this flow chart effectively it may even have branches that feed back into one another or points that lead you back up the structure rather than always down ever deeper until you reach the correct decision.
But isn't any game in theory just a reoccurring "flowchart" ?
I mean, you'll check your possible moves towards the win conditions in the first step, then in second step impacted by your first step and the response from your opponent after said first step, etc, until you find a chain of steps giving you a win/draw.
This is more or less how any game works. The reality of this being actually realisable or not is often not based on the rules themselves. Some games are solvable if played on smaller boards and aren't on standard ones. The basic rules didn't change though. Does the "depth" or whatever of the game changed with the size of the board ? Maybe, it's again a matter of opinion.
So my next question has to do with this "flow chart" that we speak of.
When I think of decisions that have "depth", I feel that depth is a function of how many layers/levels of factors need to be considered in making a decision. Each additional layer or factor that is an input into a given decision adds depth.
I understand why you think of that as depth. But what you are actually talking about is complexity. 40k is a very complex game.
Like before these are terms defined in game design and when I am using them I am using them in that context. A complex game has many moving parts that can help to hide correct choices. But just because the equation is ((4*8)/2)-14=2 doesn't actually make it any different from 1+1=2. The end result is the same. You just had to take a bunch of extra steps to get there.
What makes game play "deep" is multiple outcomes that inherently cannot be clearly valued because their value is based on a number of unknowns that can include changing states of the game, opponents resources, and other factors.
For instance, in apocalypse 40k your opponent has a hand of cards. And you don't know what they are or what they do. They also place orders on detachments face down at the same time that you do. So you can't know if your orders are "correct" against theirs. The mechanics are not complex. It's INCREDIBLY simple. But it's also really deep. Trying to anticipate how they will act and make the best of that situation with your own plans requires deep tactical thinking that CAN'T be just arithmetic. It becomes algebra. a+b=c. And you try to come up with a plan (a) that will make (c) be a victory for you but (b) is going to be revealed by your opponent and you just don't and can't know it's value. You have to guess.
And I am not saying apoc is a great game. I am just saying how much better it is than 40k in it's tactical depth because it has any depth at all.
With respect to the flow chart, ideally such a chart accounts or asks questions about the specifics of each situation and set of factors that need to be considered. I'd love to see such a more robust chart developed, because I think when you came down to making it genuinely effective as a decision-tool (and not a thought experiment) that there would be more factors in play than you are giving credit for. You might be moving through factors in the decision process quicker than your realize given your comfort and experience with the game.
You have to break it down to what actually adds value and trim the fat. Thats why I was saying you were making it more complex then it actually is. When you are looking at a particular part of the board you are looking at units with movement ranges, gun ranges, and abilities. Inherently by these restrictions they can only interact within a certain sphere of influence on the board. So I don't need to pay attention to the whole board when making decisions for them. Who are they in range of? Where can they do the most damage? Once I have picked a target, statistically, is their damage enough to eliminate the threat? No? Then can I double up with another unit and focus fire? While my turn may be made up of multiple decisions with dozens of units, realistically, all fat being trimmed, I am probably actually making something like 4-6 decisions and then adjusting the other pieces to support them or falling back on simplistic "rules of thumb" (shoot the anti tank gun on this unit at the tank that is in range). Because focus firing is too powerful not to.
In terms of meaningfulness, I think more meaningful choices are ones that have a stronger (and usually clearer) linkage to victory or defeat in the game.
I think meaningful choices have impact. That impact doesn't necessarily have to lead directly to victory, or even be clear. If in dnd I am given a choice between using 2 different skills to solve a problem and my net bonus with each is equivalent, and there are no further implications based on which skill I use, then the choice is meaningless. It's pure flavor text. I do this one because I want to there is no advantage or disadvantage either way and nothing to gain by one or loose by another.
In Witcher 3 you make a LOT of choices often with very murky understanding of the consequences. But they do ALL have consequences. And that makes all the choices meaningful Every step of the way in the Red Baron storyline is full of choices that come back in some way later. And we are not even talking about wether you win or loose. Simply that consequence exists and impact occurs.
In terms of this discussion people want deep, meaningful, tactical decisions. That means I need to have unknowns so that I can play against my opponent, and they can react in ways I cannot necessarily account for. And that those decisions I make have a meaningful impact in the way the game moves forward. Your calculations in 40k have impact. They are meaningful. But they are shallow. And making them more complex doesn't make them any more deep. Which takes some of the satisfaction out of them when you start getting good at the math.
Perhaps I'm just not as good of a player - but when I loose a game, I always try to reflect on how I could've played it better. And I feel like I can usually identify a moment or two when I made a bad decision (or a sub-optimal choice) that was a contributing factors. List building and deployment mistakes are also often contributing factors - but that doesn't erase the impact of in-game mistakes (or seen the other way around my opponent outplaying me).
I am not trying to comment on any particular players skill or intelligence. I haven't played you. I can't tell you what I think you are doing right or wrong. From this discussion alone I think you are paying too much attention to complexity factors that don't actually impact the equation and you could use some practice in simplifying the math.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Also you're not seriously implying X-Wing has the same lack of depth as 40k are you?
No, not at all. Just taking everything in context. I enjoy X-Wing, but I didn't really care to ride the edge on it. It became a better casual game with Star Wars enthusiasts rather than a competitive leader around here.
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Slayer-Fan123 wrote: We have posters here that admit they regularly forget to use entire units.
I admit to forgetting units I have in deepstrike from time to time...because I am pretty mentally engaged. Whether or not that is because I'm an imbecile or not has yet to be measured.
LOL there's nothing to be mentally engaged about. Assuming little to no melee, I could literally just tell my opponent to roll my saves for me while I do an extra half an hour of work (I'm able to work from home for one job for context).
The fact you're forgetting units while doing nothing shows not only why you'd think 40k has any complexity or depth, but why the typical player here that defends IGOUGO might actually do so: you'd forget units and lose! You want an easy mode game that's determined basically by the units you're bringing and going first!
dhallnet wrote: But isn't any game in theory just a reoccurring "flowchart" ?
I mean, you'll check your possible moves towards the win conditions in the first step, then in second step impacted by your first step and the response from your opponent after said first step, etc, until you find a chain of steps giving you a win/draw.
No, no, no and a thousand times no. This is getting quite frustrating now. It's as if people aren't bothering to read the discussion. The difference in some games is the information required to construct this mythical flowchart is partially hidden and therefore you cannot practically construct it with any sense of certainty. 40k's "flowchart" is one that has almost all of the pertinent detail known at any given time. Tactically deep games obscure this information to force players to make choices based on an evaluation of probabilities rather than a knowledge of certainties.
Yes, dice provide a level of uncertainty that prevents things ever being completely solvable but part of the skill of designing armies in 40k is removing variance through the stacking of modifiers and re-rolls to remove randomness from dice rolls. Also, many other games include dice rolls on top of their greater tactical depth so that factor swings both ways.
Okay, so I think we can finally say; "Yes, at the very least some tactics exist in the game, even if only fractionally to a level that some of the respondents feel like it doesn't."
Is that fair?
Can we finally proceed to the OP's original request of discussing these situations that the people that do feel like they exist can have a meaningful discussion over?
What makes game play "deep" is multiple outcomes that inherently cannot be clearly valued because their value is based on a number of unknowns that can include changing states of the game, opponents resources, and other factors.
For instance, in apocalypse 40k your opponent has a hand of cards. And you don't know what they are or what they do. They also place orders on detachments face down at the same time that you do. So you can't know if your orders are "correct" against theirs. The mechanics are not complex. It's INCREDIBLY simple. But it's also really deep. Trying to anticipate how they will act and make the best of that situation with your own plans requires deep tactical thinking that CAN'T be just arithmetic. It becomes algebra. a+b=c. And you try to come up with a plan (a) that will make (c) be a victory for you but (b) is going to be revealed by your opponent and you just don't and can't know.
You could add 10 other layers of randomness, obfuscating the results of your actions and/or changing the state of the board, it wouldn't mean it's more tactical. Depending of your definition of "tactical". It's just that you made the best choices you could make with the data you had and the rest is out of your control. It's quite debatable if this would create a more interesting game "tactically".
You have to break it down to what actually adds value and trim the fat. That's why I was saying you were making it more complex then it actually is. When you are looking at a particular part of the board you are looking at units with movement ranges, gun ranges, and abilities. Inherently by these restrictions they can only interact within a certain sphere of influence on the board. So I don't need to pay attention to the whole board when making decisions for them. Who are they in range of? Where can they do the most damage? Once I have picked a target, statistically, is their damage enough to eliminate the threat? No? Then can I double up with another unit and focus fire? While my turn may be made up of multiple decisions with dozens of units, realistically, all fat being trimmed, I am probably actually making something like 4-6 decisions and then adjusting the other pieces to support them or falling back on simplistic "rules of thumb" (shoot the anti tank gun on this unit at the tank that is in range). Because focus firing is too powerful not to.
It's simplistic. You are going to look at if you can do something (in all your examples, it's killing stuff but it's not limited to that) without giving up something in return and if you can't, giving back the least amount possible. And for that, most chances are that you'll have to look at the whole board.
Lance845 wrote: In terms of this discussion people want deep, meaningful, tactical decisions. That means I need to have unknowns so that I can play against my opponent, and they can react in ways I cannot necessarily account for. And that those decisions I make have a meaningful impact in the way the game moves forward. Your calculations in 40k have impact. They are meaningful. But they are shallow. And making them more complex doesn't make them any more deep. Which takes some of the satisfaction out of them when you start getting good at the math.
The simplest example of tactical choice is your opponent doing something you didn't expect him to do because your "calculations" implied it wasn't a good choice. Meanwhile this game being ruled by randomness, his choice might become a good one. It's not more or less interesting than doing something without knowing its outcome. At least you can weight your chances and make a bet.
Even moving a simple miniature towards any part of the board, is a tactical choice. You don't move your pieces without purposes. Are they predictible ? Yes or maybe not. How do you know when I'm planning to bring my reserves on the board ? Or where I will land them ? A flow chart ? Calculations ?
It's exactly the kind of stuff you're asking for. These aren't supposed to be known during deployement and are unknown stuff variables you have to react to. Are there enough of those ? Maybe, maybe not, again it's just opinions at this point.
dhallnet wrote: But isn't any game in theory just a reoccurring "flowchart" ?
I mean, you'll check your possible moves towards the win conditions in the first step, then in second step impacted by your first step and the response from your opponent after said first step, etc, until you find a chain of steps giving you a win/draw.
No, no, no and a thousand times no. This is getting quite frustrating now. It's as if people aren't bothering to read the discussion. The difference in some games is the information required to construct this mythical flowchart is partially hidden and therefore you cannot practically construct it with any sense of certainty. 40k's "flowchart" is one that has almost all of the pertinent detail known at any given time. Tactically deep games obscure this information to force players to make choices based on an evaluation of probabilities rather than a knowledge of certainties.
Yes, dice provide a level of uncertainty that prevents things ever being completely solvable but part of the skill of designing armies in 40k is removing variance through the stacking of modifiers and re-rolls to remove randomness from dice rolls. Also, many other games include dice rolls on top of their greater tactical depth so that factor swings both ways.
The discussion is 12 pages long mate. So if you guys want to keep talking between yourselves, you can just do that in a mailing list or something that isn't a public board. Otherwise you can just answer the question asked or not.
So yeah, games that hides the results from you or change their states without your input exists, why do you think it makes them more "tactical" escapes me though and, again, it's debatable if they make for a more interesting game. Also the evaluation of probabilities is one of the first thing you have to do in this game, mitigating bad dice rolls during army building (if you can in the first place, not all armies are reliable) and/or by how you play, doesn't mean the randomness doesn't exist anymore or aren't choices you've made.
The simplest example of tactical choice is your opponent doing something you didn't expect him to do because your "calculations" implied it wasn't a good choice. Meanwhile this game being ruled by randomness, his choice might become a good one. It's not more or less interesting than doing something without knowing its outcome. At least you can weight your chances and make a bet. Even moving a simple miniature towards any part of the board, is a tactical choice. You don't move your pieces without purposes. Are they predictible ? Yes or maybe not. How do you know when I'm planning to bring my reserves on the board ? Or where I will land them ? A flow chart ? Calculations ? It's exactly the kind of stuff you're asking for. These aren't supposed to be known during deployement and are unknown stuff variables you have to react to. Are there enough of those ? Maybe, maybe not, again it's just opinions at this point.
There is a difference between randomness and player agency. (to get into another game design element).
In shoots and ladders or life you are not really making any decisions (shoots and ladders isn't actually a game btw... it's a whole other thing). You roll the die/spin the spinner, move to the spot, and do the thing. There is no player agency there. In order for the choics to be tactical the players have to have agency over their decisions. It's not random. You are making it out to be random because you are just adding a pile of unknowns and then saying "well if they don't know anything then it might as well be anything!". It's a balance.
My decisions have to have some level of knowns so that I have agency. And it has to have some level of unknowns so that it's not solvable. Especially if these are known unknowns. I know what orders can be issued. I know he has 3 detachments each of which have been issued an order. I know that that unit is mostly tau fire warriors, so the chance of it being Assault where he moves twice and charges is slim to none, the chance that it's the one where you don't move and shoot with a +1 is high, and the chance that is move and shoot is in the middle. There are enough knowns by looking at the board and understanding his pieces, unknowns by obscured information, and known unknowns by knowing the potential within the known unknowns for me to make some kinds of logical decisions. But the PLAYER is the one making those choices and he can pull some surprises on me. He may double move to get them out of the way. It's not a possibility I can completely disregard.
Or another example. Tetris. You know what piece is coming next, and you know what the game state is and you know what piece you have. You have a strategy in how you want to position pieces optimally, and you tactically place pieces to work towards your strategy. But the random unknown of what piece comes AFTER the next piece means you have to keep adjusting to the situation at hand. Tetris is a fantastically made game. Games have game play. Gameplay is a series of interesting choices. You make no choices in Shoots and Ladders, therefore it's got no game play, therefore it's not a game. It's just a tool to teach kinds about some game mechanics.
Lance845 wrote: There is a difference between randomness and player agency. (to get into another game design element).
Yes but it feels like in most of your arguments to why in your opinion the game is shallow, player agency is just left aside and insisting that the game lacks randomness (or hidden information, which is pretty close to randomness to me, depending on the amount of information hidden).
So I'm a bit confused here.
Lance845 wrote: There is a difference between randomness and player agency. (to get into another game design element).
Yes but it feels like in most of your arguments to why in your opinion the game is shallow, player agency is just left aside and insisting that the game lacks randomness (or hidden information, which is pretty close to randomness to me, depending on the amount of information hidden). So I'm a bit confused here.
It's because the primary issue is that the game has NO hidden information at the point where I am making my decisions. The only "hidden" element has nothing to do with the other player and their decisions. It's to do with the result of dice rolls. Which is why you play against the game. Not the player.
Lance845 wrote: There is a difference between randomness and player agency. (to get into another game design element).
Yes but it feels like in most of your arguments to why in your opinion the game is shallow, player agency is just left aside and insisting that the game lacks randomness (or hidden information, which is pretty close to randomness to me, depending on the amount of information hidden).
So I'm a bit confused here.
It's because the primary issue is that the game has NO hidden information at the point where I am making my decisions.
That sounds a lot like an opinion rather than a fact though.
Again, as an example, you don't know when your opponent is going to deploy his reserves and where. You don't even know during deployment what he has in reserves if anything at all.
You don't know if he will make all his saves against your shooting or not or if you're even going to score enough hits to pursue your course of actions (ok your edit made this part less relevant). Or maybe use a reroll to throw a wrench into your plan, or rather than use the strat you thought he would, keep his CP to do something else later.
You just have rough ideas and decided these were pseudo known items.
And again, it's debatable if an unknown is more interesting than possibilities. How much would Tetris change if you had the probabilities for the pieces after the next one rather than just not know it ? Would it be worse or better ? (edit : the answer is nothing since you actually do know the possibilities as there is a finite number of pieces).
All this is taste dependant and the results of choices made during design, would the game be more interesting/less shallow/whatever if a player could hide his victory conditions for example ?
You're starting to sound like the one true scotsman here.
1. There are no tactics.
2. There are tactics, but they don't matter because they don't have hidden information.
3. There are tactics, and they have hidden information, but your decisions don't impact your opponent's decisions.
4. There are tactics, and they have hidden information, and your decisions do impact your opponent's decisions, but you don't have agency...
Things like when they deploy their reserves don't matter to me until they have been deployed. This is looking at the complexity and thinking it's a value add component of the calculation. These are not a part of the equation because they are a part of the game I have no agency in.
Look, it's my turn.
1) I KNOW what the primary objective is. I know what my secondaries are. I know what your secondaries are. My goal every turn is to get the most points I can while minimizing the chance that you can equal or exceed the number of points I gained. What agency do I have over what, if anything, he places in reserves? What can I do about it? Is it nothing? I guess it's nothing. Moving on.
Side note: Now lets say we made secondaries hidden. Great! Now we have added a level of obscured information that means I can't know what your actual aims are at any given point. But thats not the game we have and it's only 1 specific element of the game so lets move on.
So I grab objectives as I can, I deplete your resources as best I can (removing effective dice pool value so that you are less capable of effecting me and changing the balance of power), and where possible to the above aim I hinder you getting VP. In a lot of ways this involves killing models and reducing your dice pool so you can't regain lost ground as easily.
Every decision I make in regards to that is based on known factors. Even my one known unknown is the dice and how they will land. But I minimize that by stacking bonuses and focus firing into correct targets. Can the dice gods decide against me anyway? Yup. What agency does ANY player have in that besides stacking bonuses? Is it none? Okay this is a element where I gamble against the game. Not the player.
2) So you deepstrike next turn... okay. Where is my agency in that? I can position my guys in my turn to close gaps so you can't deepstrike where I don't want you to. Done. And what else? Do I have an ability I can activate in response to your deepstike AND you deepstruck in a way that allows me use it? Well... then I use it. So Deep! So Tactical!
You are looking at complexity and wondering how you will ever do the equation. Simplify the equation.
It's almost like game design is an entire field of study and you just now being introduced to these elements might not have fully grasped their impact and consequences. That probably comes across as me talking down to you. It's not meant to be. It's meant to highlight that you not understanding the difference between randomness and obscured information means just that. You don't understand. And that doesn't mean my goal posts have shifted. It means you don't understand. Everyone starts somewhere. I am happy to discuss it. Don't accuse me of back pedaling or shifting goal posts. Ask me to explain.
What about the hidden information of your opponent's battle plan? If you say that's trivial or that it's not deep it doesn't matter, because that's still creating agency by unknowns that you have to anticipate and interact with.
What about the hidden information about what impact your opponent's deep strikers, when they come down, will do? If you say that's trivial or that it's not deep it doesn't matter, because that's still creating agency by unknowns that you have to anticipate and interact with.
What about that stratagem that you forgot existed that actually allowed your opponent's optimal decision to be something else that you didn't anticipate? If you say that's trivial or that it's not deep it doesn't matter, because that's still creating agency by unknowns that you have to then resolve the new board state that was uniquely created.
What about that charge from reserves that was supposed to fail because you had a Tanglefoot Grenade, but against the odds succeeded? If you say that's trivial or that it's not deep it doesn't matter, because that's still creating agency by unknowns that you have to anticipate and interact with.
You're just saying that there's not ENOUGH agency, not that it doesn't exist, (edit: and you seem to be doing so in a way that says "unless I can literally interact with every piece of what my opponent does, there's not enough agency for me"). And that's fine. That's your opinion, and you're welcome to it. Enjoy the game.
Can we please discuss an actual tactical situation now?
Yarium wrote: What about the hidden information of your opponent's battle plan? If you say that's trivial or that it's not deep it doesn't matter, because that's still creating agency by unknowns that you have to anticipate and interact with.
I know what objectives give them VPs which win the game. If their plan is anything but getting VPs then it literally doesn't mater. They already lost the game. But even further, on my turn they have no agency to interact with me... sooo.. how does it change the initial goal? I get as many VPs as possible. I minimize their ability to get VPs in return. When does that change?
What about the hidden information about what impact your opponent's deep strikers, when they come down, will do? If you say that's trivial or that it's not deep it doesn't matter, because that's still creating agency by unknowns that you have to anticipate and interact with.
What agency do I have in that? He deep strikes, he shoots or whatever, I roll saves and then models get removed. What is my ability to interact with that element of his turn?
What about that stratagem that you forgot existed that actually allowed your opponent's optimal decision to be something else that you didn't anticipate? If you say that's trivial or that it's not deep it doesn't matter, because that's still creating agency by unknowns that you have to then resolve the new board state that was uniquely created.
Me forgetting that a part of the game exists is my fault. Thats me failing to account for the known elements of the game in my equation.
What about that charge from reserves that was supposed to fail because you had a Tanglefoot Grenade, but against the odds succeeded? If you say that's trivial or that it's not deep it doesn't matter, because that's still creating agency by unknowns that you have to anticipate and interact with.
I did the thing I could do by deploying the tanglefoot grenade. What other agency do I have in that?
You're just saying that there's not ENOUGH agency, not that it doesn't exist, (edit: and you seem to be doing so in a way that says "unless I can literally interact with every piece of what my opponent does, there's not enough agency for me"). And that's fine. That's your opinion, and you're welcome to it. Enjoy the game.
Can we please discuss an actual tactical situation now?
These are tactical situations you want to discuss. Discuss them. What about them? What tactical decision can you make in any of the situations that you are presenting? I am not saying I need to be able to interact on every level at every turn. I am saying I should be able to react in ANY capacity.
jeff white wrote:I don’t like premeasuring, as peeps just lay the ruler out to use to choose what units will shoot at, rather than declaring targets then checking to be sure that they are in range. Subtle difference but one that does add to tension imho... and though a seemingly simple skill, it is one that will sometimes fail e.g when the chosen unit really must be shot at and ends up a half inch out of range...
The thing is premeasuring exists. It might be allowed in the rules or not, but it exists. Those who can measure by eye are premeasuring as they go, and some became good enough at it to be those few millimeters out of range for a proper counter. A measuring device is just a more obvious way of doing it, and one that those who cannot measure by eye can utilize.
Lance845 wrote: It's because the primary issue is that the game has NO hidden information at the point where I am making my decisions. The only "hidden" element has nothing to do with the other player and their decisions. It's to do with the result of dice rolls. Which is why you play against the game. Not the player.
Then you must really hate Chess. It has no randomness (unless you're dealing with a player who doesn't know what they're doing). All the available information outside of a player's plan is right there in the open so much that masters can predict wins several moves in to the game.
And player decisions do matter. A player can be intimidated or mislead. That's how Poker works. That's how traps in Chess develop. Now, the more experienced two opposing players are, the easier it is to "play the game" because both of you will know how the steps go, but then also there is the chance that a gamble will work, where you play against the game because you are hoping you get enough 6s to accomplish a sub goal that changes the flow of the game. It is this part which is playing against the player, if you can break their plans with those gambles.
Hmm Lance the impression that you are giving now is that you consider a game comprised out of a single turn.
You try to optimize THIS turn and not looking at what will happen in the next turns.
Your comment about deepstrikers highlights that. That is something that you have to take into account in THIS turn, because if you didn't account for it now and didn't leave some defense in your deploy (or didn't screen them out) in the next turn you will be in big trouble.
When you said that complexity isn't that high because each unit has only a sphere of influence determined by its move and range, that again means that you are not thinking about it in game terms but in turn terms. All unit have potential impact on all the board and can occupy any position on the board at a certain point. 5 turns are enough for that.
Plans in 40K have to be made spanning several turns, not a single one. Obviously if you had only to mathematically solve this single turn and then the game has ended, it would indeed be quite a shallow game.
jeff white wrote:I don’t like premeasuring, as peeps just lay the ruler out to use to choose what units will shoot at, rather than declaring targets then checking to be sure that they are in range. Subtle difference but one that does add to tension imho... and though a seemingly simple skill, it is one that will sometimes fail e.g when the chosen unit really must be shot at and ends up a half inch out of range...
The thing is premeasuring exists. It might be allowed in the rules or not, but it exists. Those who can measure by eye are premeasuring as they go, and some became good enough at it to be those few millimeters out of range for a proper counter. A measuring device is just a more obvious way of doing it, and one that those who cannot measure by eye can utilize.
jeff white wrote:It's because the primary issue is that the game has NO hidden information at the point where I am making my decisions. The only "hidden" element has nothing to do with the other player and their decisions. It's to do with the result of dice rolls. Which is why you play against the game. Not the player.
Then you must really hate Chess. It has no randomness (unless you're dealing with a player who doesn't know what they're doing). All the available information outside of a player's plan is right there in the open so much that masters can predict wins several moves in to the game.
And player decisions do matter. A player can be intimidated or mislead. That's how Poker works. That's how traps in Chess develop. Now, the more experienced two opposing players are, the easier it is to "play the game" because both of you will know how the steps go, but then also there is the chance that a gamble will work, where you play against the game because you are hoping you get enough 6s to accomplish a sub goal that changes the flow of the game. It is this part which is playing against the player, if you can break their plans with those gambles.
Yeah no, if you get intimidated in 40k you're just a bad player. Bad units don't just suddenly become a threat LOL
Spoletta wrote: Hmm Lance the impression that you are giving now is that you consider a game comprised out of a single turn.
You try to optimize THIS turn and not looking at what will happen in the next turns.
Your impression is wrong. By trying to set things up to minimize your ability to get VPs, by removing as many models as possible from you, by making optimal moves, I try to make your next turn keep myself in a better position out of the 2 of us. That is an ongoing thing that defines the entire pace of the game across all turns.
Your comment about deepstrikers highlights that. That is something that you have to take into account in THIS turn, because if you didn't account for it now and didn't leave some defense in your deploy (or didn't screen them out) in the next turn you will be in big trouble.
2) So you deepstrike next turn... okay. Where is my agency in that? I can position my guys in my turn to close gaps so you can't deepstrike where I don't want you to. Done. And what else? Do I have an ability I can activate in response to your deepstike AND you deepstruck in a way that allows me use it? Well... then I use it.
Which is me taking it into account in the only ways that I can.
When you said that complexity isn't that high because each unit has only a sphere of influence determined by its move and range, that again means that you are not thinking about it in game terms but in turn terms. All unit have potential impact on all the board and can occupy any position on the board at a certain point. 5 turns are enough for that.
Plans in 40K have to be made spanning several turns, not a single one. Obviously if you had only to mathematically solve this single turn and then the game has ended, it would indeed be quite a shallow game.
The game has 5 turns.
I am saying the decision I make THIS turn are based on the game state I have when my turn begins. And based on the depletion of your resources, maximizing my vp, minimizing your VP what I do with those units THIS turn is based on their sphere of influence. The broad ill defined what I want to do with my guys is the strategy I made before the game. What I am doing with them in turn 3 after your turn has wrapped up is based on whatever way you have left me the game state when that turn begins. You can't plan for that until you know all the variables. And you don't know all the variables until that turn begins.
Lance845 wrote: It's almost like game design is an entire field of study and you just now being introduced to these elements might not have fully grasped their impact and consequences.
I know what these terms are. FWIW, since credentials seem to be getting called into question in this thread, I've had a fairly significant board game published which I designed (no it was not self-published), I've had multiple other designs looked at by many of the same publishers of games referenced in this very discussion, and I've had peer reviewed journals reach out to me regarding a number of my blog posts on design, a blog which I've been running for nearly a decade now.
Please don't presume my level of knowledge.
Regarding shifting goal posts, then I will ask you to explain. You have said the game has no tactics, or no deep tactics, or no meaningful tactics, or some variation of that. You have said that the tactics are trivial and obvious and can be boiled down to a flow chart. You have said that randomness doesn't really matter since it's all just statistics and math. You say tactical choices must be predicated on some additional uncertainty. You say tactics require your opponent's decisions and choices to matter and affect your own. You seem to seem to saying something like chess is a good example of a tactical game, and yet also recognizing that it is "solved" yet still tactical. I don't feel like you are apply the same standard to 40K. How does chess being solved have tactics and yet 40K being "solved" (in your estimation) mean it doesn't have tactics? You define depth as having more factors in a decision, but then say having more factors just adds more complexity (not depth).
People have presented plenty of cases and situations where a decision point is obscured or difficult, or where it is complex enough for there not to be an easy answer, or where your opponent might do something unexpected, or where the odds might not go in your favor (or conversely where you can successfully mitigate them), and you seem to be just hand waving it all away. If your reaction to these situations and the ensuring choices you have to make aren't "tactical" then what are they? And if they are instead "logistical optimizations" then isn't that the exact same thing as chess or nearly any other game?
FWIW - and I know this isn't a sanctioned usage of the term (or maybe it is), but we talk about "tactics" in a game (any game), I tend to view the "tactic" as being something akin to a best practice or to use an earlier term a heuristic or rule of thumb. The tactics in 40K are fairly straight forward, things like "focusing firing" critical targets, pressing objectives, disrupting back lines, screening, etc. You can get down to a finer grain with things like tri-pointing, model position, using LoS blocking terrain, etc. With 8th and 9th, there are also tactical practices related to how and when you use command points. These are all tactical instruments/techniques that players can use during play, post-deployment.
And while you might go in with a game plan that suggests Unit X will disrupt the back line, or Unit Y will push an objective, a turn or two into the game through a combination of die roll uncertainty and uncertainty from your opponent, there are often adjustments that need to be made to the game plan and the tactics. Maybe the unit you were going to deep strike to disrupt the back line actually needs to be dropped onto an objective because your opponent unexpectedly threw more units at it than you thought, or their shooting went better than predicted. Many things can cause you to re-evaluate your plan, prompt new decisions, and in turn require you to shift your employed tactics.
I agree with you that you can boil each of these decision points down into a flow chart (I actually wrote a blog article years ago about goal trees and decision depth in game design). But just because you can make a flow chart out of it, it doesn't mean that it's always trivial to do so or that everyone is readily able to even do that. There is a lot of specific knowledge in 40K, and the more experienced a player is the more likely it is that their have heuristic knowledge they can quickly deploy to help solve these complex problems quickly.
I say all of this, with the recognition that these in-game choices only account for a small fraction of the overall victory equation. 10%? 15%? Either way, when both players have a competent and capable lists, and both players are subject to an average die roll outcomes (includes for first turn), there is still that 10% or 15% that "can" be the deciding factor in the game.
jeff white wrote:I don’t like premeasuring, as peeps just lay the ruler out to use to choose what units will shoot at, rather than declaring targets then checking to be sure that they are in range. Subtle difference but one that does add to tension imho... and though a seemingly simple skill, it is one that will sometimes fail e.g when the chosen unit really must be shot at and ends up a half inch out of range...
The thing is premeasuring exists. It might be allowed in the rules or not, but it exists. Those who can measure by eye are premeasuring as they go, and some became good enough at it to be those few millimeters out of range for a proper counter. A measuring device is just a more obvious way of doing it, and one that those who cannot measure by eye can utilize.
jeff white wrote:It's because the primary issue is that the game has NO hidden information at the point where I am making my decisions. The only "hidden" element has nothing to do with the other player and their decisions. It's to do with the result of dice rolls. Which is why you play against the game. Not the player.
Then you must really hate Chess. It has no randomness (unless you're dealing with a player who doesn't know what they're doing). All the available information outside of a player's plan is right there in the open so much that masters can predict wins several moves in to the game.
And player decisions do matter. A player can be intimidated or mislead. That's how Poker works. That's how traps in Chess develop. Now, the more experienced two opposing players are, the easier it is to "play the game" because both of you will know how the steps go, but then also there is the chance that a gamble will work, where you play against the game because you are hoping you get enough 6s to accomplish a sub goal that changes the flow of the game. It is this part which is playing against the player, if you can break their plans with those gambles.
Yeah no, if you get intimidated in 40k you're just a bad player. Bad units don't just suddenly become a threat LOL
Way to avoid his point.
I will ask the question directly. I already did actually, but it was accurately dodged.
Lance845 wrote: It's almost like game design is an entire field of study and you just now being introduced to these elements might not have fully grasped their impact and consequences.
I know what these terms are. FWIW, since credentials seem to be getting called into question in this thread, I've had a fairly significant board game published which I designed (no it was not self-published), I've had multiple other designs looked at by many of the same publishers major of games referenced in this discussion, and I've had peer reviewed journals reach out to me regarding a number of my blog posts on design, a blog which I've been running for nearly a decade now.
Please don't presume my level of knowledge.
That wasn't a comment to you. That was a comment to dhallnet who specifically said he didn't understand the difference between randomness and obscured information.
Regarding shifting goal posts, then I will ask you to explain. You have said the game has no tactics, or no deep tactics, or no meaningful tactics, or some variation of that. You have said that the tactics are trivial and obvious and can be boiled down to a flow chart. You have said that randomness doesn't really matter since it's all just statistics and math. You say tactical choices must be predicated on some additional uncertainty. You say tactics require your opponent's decisions and choices to matter and affect your own. You seem to seem to saying something like chess is a good example of a tactical game, and yet also recognizing that it is "solved" yet still tactical. I don't feel like you are apply the same standard to 40K. How does chess being solved have tactics and yet 40K being "solved" (in your estimation) mean it doesn't have tactics? you define depth has having more factors, but then say having more factors just adds more complexity (not depth).
Okay, so I didn't say depth has more factors. It was presented to me (by you I think) that depth involves having more factors. I said depth comes from unknowns obscuring value. As an example, Twilight Imperium has a number of public objectives that everyone can see and everyone can score and they can SEE you making moves to score them. But it also has a limited number of hidden objectives. And those your opponents do not know. They can't know when you do x if you are doing it for a small advantage like trading for resources or because it's a hidden objective that could score you the winning VP. That hidden information allows for deep tactical interactions because the value of a give move is dependent on variables you cannot know. And those choices matter to everyone at the table, and can be impacted by everyone at the table.
Chess isn't 40k because in chess you are not making moves against the game. You make moves against the player. To me, that is where the line is drawn. In 40k, because all the elements are known, it's not a factor of the opponent. It's a factor of the only unknown, the dice.
People have presented plenty of cases and situations where a decision point is obscured or difficult, or where it is complex enough for there not to be an easy answer, or where your opponent might do something unexpected, or where the odds might not go in your favor (or conversely where you can successfully mitigate them), and you seem to be just hand waving it all away. If your reaction to these situations and the ensuring choices you have to make aren't "tactical" then what are they? And if they are instead "logistical optimizations" then isn't that the exact same thing as chess or nearly any other game?
They are "tactical" in that they are decisions you are making towards individual goals. They are shallow, simplistic, and ultimately unsatisfying because there are optimal choices and sub optimal choices that can be calculated because all variables are known.
At least in chess if I move my knight I have no idea what piece they will move to respond. It's a known unknown. Which allows for player to player interactions and deep tactical decision making. 40k is devoid of THAT.
FWIW - and I know this isn't a sanctioned usage of the term (or maybe it is), but we talk about "tactics" in a game (any game), I tend to view the "tactic" as being something akin to a best practice or to use an earlier term a heuristic or rule of thumb. The tactics in 40K are fairly straight forward, things like "focusing firing" critical targets, pressing objectives, disrupting back lines, screening, etc. You can get down to a finer grain with things like tri-pointing, model position, using LoS blocking terrain, etc. With 8th and 9th, there are also tactical practices related to how and when you use command points. These are all tactical instruments/techniques that players can use during play, post-deployment.
Agreed. Now that we have laid these tactics all out, how difficult is it REALLY to determine when you use any of them? Not how complex is the equation. When is there not a optimal choice?
And while you might go in with a game plan that suggests Unit X will disrupt the back line, or Unit Y will push an objective, a turn or two into the game through a combination of die roll uncertainty but uncertainty from your opponent, there are often adjustments that need to be made to the game plan and the tactics. Maybe the unit you were going to deep strike to disrupt the back line actually needs to be dropped onto an objective because your opponent unexpectedly threw more units at it than you thought, or their shooting went better than predicted. Many things can cause you to re-evaluate you plan, prompt new decisions, and in turn require you to shift your employed tactics.
Agreed. How is that not solved with the math and flow chart? What agency does the opponent have to stop you? If you CAN deepstrike on the objective and the objective is the optimal move whats stopping you but your own ability to recognize it?
You I agree with you that you can boil each of these decision points down into a flow chart (I actually wrote a blog article years ago about goal trees and decision depth in game design). But just because you can make a flow chart out of it, it doesn't mean that it's always trivial to do so or that everyone is readily able to even do that. There is a lot of specific knowledge in 40K, and the more experienced a player is the more likely it is that their have heuristic knowledge they can quickly deploy to help solve these complex problems quickly.
Agreed. I never said it was something everyone can do day 1. I said there wasn't anything else to it.
I say all of this, with the recognition that these in-game choices only account for a small fraction of the overall victory equation. 10%? 15%? Either way, when both players have a competent and capable lists, and both players are subject to an average die roll outcomes (includes for first turn), there is still that 10% or 15% that "can" be the deciding factor in the game.
Okay, here's a situation to discuss. Hopefully this is finally a full-on enough example to satisfy. This is taken from another battle report, but to reduce complexity, I'm going to ask to go just by what's in the photo. Pretend this is the whole battle in this photo.
Current score: 0-0 (it's the second turn)
Secondaries; Imperium - Domination (there's just the 1 objective), Grind Them Down, Bring It Down
Drukhari - Domination, Titan Hunter, Linebreaker
Imperium's turn. The Imperial Knight has a Chainsword on the other arm. No player has a Warlord (guess it's a casual game and they didn't think they needed one). There's a unit of 5 Skitarri Rangers with the default Galvanic Rifles in the Admech Transport, which is just out of range of the objective. There are 3 units of Kabalite Warriors. One disembarked from the Venom that's to the far right of the image (somewhat clipped off the image), while the other two still have Kabalite Warriors within them. All 3 units have a Blaster in them, but otherwise are only basically armed.
What do you do?
(EDIT: Yes, the Knight failed to do any damage turn 1. It rolled a 1 for shots, and none of its shots did anything. The Admech Transport is at 1 wound remaining)
Lance845 wrote: Things like when they deploy their reserves don't matter to me until they have been deployed. This is looking at the complexity and thinking it's a value add component of the calculation. These are not a part of the equation because they are a part of the game I have no agency in.
They do because he doesn't deploy them just so they are on the table, he is going to try to achieve something with those and you have to keep them in mind while they are out of the board. Otherwise you're just asking to have your plans destroyed. It's not like you can't influence by your actions where he is going to deploy them and thus put you in a better sport to deal with it. It's not just your opponent's agenda here.
You thinking denying your opponent an optimal use of its assets isn't a tactical choice, is probably an (or rather THE) issue, depending on what tactical means. Or even worse, not interesting. In this case, a lot of games are failing at being interesting.
Lance845 wrote: Every decision I make in regards to that is based on known factors. Even my one known unknown is the dice and how they will land. But I minimize that by stacking bonuses and focus firing into correct targets. Can the dice gods decide against me anyway? Yup. What agency does ANY player have in that besides stacking bonuses? Is it none? Okay this is a element where I gamble against the game. Not the player.
You are the one deciding how many ressources you're allocating to making sure you achieve your goal and thus mitigating randomness(at least, if you play the game with decent terrain, as otherwise the issue is wildly minimised). Also, the stuff you decided to shoot out of the game, isn't here because the game decided it. Your opponent decided it was the best answer to the problems you could cause in the area. Sure, you are resolving your actions by comparing a bunch of stats. Which stats however (or rather, what values) are compared is a player's choice, not the game's.
Lance845 wrote: Side note: Now lets say we made secondaries hidden. Great! Now we have added a level of obscured information that means I can't know what your actual aims are at any given point.
And what does it achieve ? Mostly nothing. It would change the scope of the game from, "achieving your objectives, depleting the opponent's ressources and hindering his ability to score", to "meet your victory conditions, deplete your opponent's ressources and find his secondaries". You would still try to stop him, not only because he would have to expose them at some point, but just by the virtue of knowing the lists of secondaries and making deductions (since for you, these aren't guesses but known facts) or, simpler, just by trying to deplete his ressources.
If you can't think that affecting where your opponent is going to deploy his reserves is deep enough, I don't see how creating a mechanic where you could end a game on a line like "Oh you won because you had this secondary and I didn't know it ? So deep ! So tactical !" would be better.
Meanwhile, on another tangent, this game's community kinda already stated it disliked random/hidden victory conditions (not an opinion shared by everyone but a common one) which seem to go against the goal of a designer. Which is an understandable stance as losing a game due to something being hidden often doesn't feel fun. Maybe then we would have to add more turns to the game, so players would have more time to guess and then act. But then, you're probably, as a designer, stretching one of your constraints, which is making sure a game can be played in an afternoon (which is btw an answer to "why more games rather than better ones ?", because bluntly, it's better to have a game people can play than one they wish they could).
Anyhow, you didn't state "how" it makes the game better, FACTUALLY. Just "I don't know his secondaries, cool". While in the end, it would probably just change a bit how players deal with the game and we would be back to "it's a defined state because blahblahblah".
It looks like you put more value on certain concepts than others while they are, imho, pretty similar unless under specific conditions (or sometimes just detrimental if these conditions aren't right).
I am too unfamiliar with these units to make any comment without research. I have never played against D Eldar in my meta.
At first glance, probably a great idea to get as many units as possible tied up in melee so that the knight can only engage any of them in a minimal way. Note, thats not get into a fight with the knight. It's get into a fight with that transport and it's occupants. While the knight can shoot at units it is engaged with, it's can't shoot units that are engaged with other units. So remove it's effective dice pool asap by just making those dice unable to do anything at all.
Lance845 wrote: That wasn't a comment to you. That was a comment to dhallnet who specifically said he didn't understand the difference between randomness and obscured information.
I also never said you were moving goal posts... so ?
Lance845 wrote: At least in chess if I move my knight I have no idea what piece they will move to respond. It's a known unknown. Which allows for player to player interactions and deep tactical decision making. 40k is devoid of THAT.
And this is exactly the stuff that confuses me.
You have no idea in chess what they are going to do but in 40K, oh hey, it's easy you know, it's a shallow game.
The "skill" to plan what your opponent is going to do is the same though, if we suppose you have the same understanding of both games and reduce randomness to certain outcomes.
Lance845 wrote: Things like when they deploy their reserves don't matter to me until they have been deployed. This is looking at the complexity and thinking it's a value add component of the calculation. These are not a part of the equation because they are a part of the game I have no agency in.
They do because he doesn't deploy them just so they are on the table, he is going to try to achieve something with those and you have to keep them in mind while they are out of the board. Otherwise you're just asking to have your plans destroyed. It's not like you can't influence by your actions where he is going to deploy them and thus put you in a better sport to deal with it. It's not just your opponent's agenda here.
You thinking denying your opponent an optimal use of its assets isn't a tactical choice, is probably an (or rather THE) issue, depending on what tactical means. Or even worse, not interesting. In this case, a lot of games are failing at being interesting.
Yeah. And I already said that. I can place my guys to make no room for his guys to be deep striked where I have influence over that. Where I don't have influence over that I don't have any agency in that decision. So it doesn't matter what I do and it's not a consideration beyond knowing that it could happen.
Lance845 wrote: Every decision I make in regards to that is based on known factors. Even my one known unknown is the dice and how they will land. But I minimize that by stacking bonuses and focus firing into correct targets. Can the dice gods decide against me anyway? Yup. What agency does ANY player have in that besides stacking bonuses? Is it none? Okay this is a element where I gamble against the game. Not the player.
You are the one deciding how many ressources you're allocating to making sure you achieve your goal and thus mitigating randomness(at least, if you play the game with decent terrain, as otherwise the issue is wildly minimised). Also, the stuff you decided to shoot out of the game, isn't here because the game decided it. Your opponent decided it was the best answer to the problems you could cause in the area. Sure, you are resolving your actions by comparing a bunch of stats. Which stats however (or rather, what values) are compared is a player's choice, not the game's.
Right. I talked about that with my flow charts like... 7 pages ago. You shoot the guns at the biggest threats where they cause the most damage. You understand the law of averages and statistic and value of your dice pool and allocate it as best you can. The values of your units is a strategic choice you made in your list building. Not a tactical one on the board.
Lance845 wrote: Side note: Now lets say we made secondaries hidden. Great! Now we have added a level of obscured information that means I can't know what your actual aims are at any given point.
And what does it achieve ? Mostly nothing. It would change the scope of the game from, "achieving your objectives, depleting the opponent's ressources and hindering his ability to score", to "meet your victory conditions, deplete your opponent's ressources and find his secondaries". You would still try to stop him, not only because he would have to expose them at some point, but just by the virtue of knowing the lists of secondaries and making deductions (since for you, these aren't guesses but known facts) or, simpler, just by trying to deplete his ressources.
If you can't think that affecting where your opponent is going to deploy his reserves is deep enough, I don't see how creating a mechanic where you could end a game on a line like "Oh you won because you had this secondary and I didn't know it ? So deep ! So tactical !" would be better.
Right! Because the mission is a band aid on a bigger issue. The core game has a problem with player to player interactivity and tactical depth. The mission thing is just relieving the symptom. it doesn't cure the disease. I talked about this earlier.
Meanwhile, on another tangent, this game's community kinda already stated it disliked random/hidden victory conditions (not an opinion shared by everyone but a common one) which seem to go against the goal of a designer. Which is an understandable stance as losing a game due to something being hidden often doesn't feel fun. Maybe then we would have to add more turns to the game, so players would have more time to guess and then act. But then, you're probably, as a designer, stretching one of your constraints, which is making sure a game can be played in an afternoon (which is btw an answer to "why more games rather than better ones ?", because bluntly, it's better to have a game people can play than one they wish they could).
No it was simply an aside to point out how an element of 40k can incorporate the factors I was talking about. I did say thats not the game we have so lets move on, because it's not the game we have and it's not even attacking the disease when your dealing with it at the mission level.
Anyhow, you didn't state "how" it makes the game better, FACTUALLY. Just "I don't know his secondaries, cool". While in the end, it would probably just change a bit how players deal with the game and we would be back to "it's a defined state because blahblahblah".
It looks like you put more value on certain concepts than others while they are, imho, pretty similar unless under specific conditions (or sometimes just detrimental if these conditions aren't right).
I place value on player interactivity, player engagement, and player agency. Thats my triangle of power in game design. If I am not interacting with the other players then why are we playing together? If I don't have agency in my decisions then how am I winning except through sheer chance? And if I am not engaged by the game play experience then I find myself distracted and looking at my phone.
Lance845 wrote: That wasn't a comment to you. That was a comment to dhallnet who specifically said he didn't understand the difference between randomness and obscured information.
I also never said you were moving goal posts... so ?
THAT part was to Mez.
Lance845 wrote: At least in chess if I move my knight I have no idea what piece they will move to respond. It's a known unknown. Which allows for player to player interactions and deep tactical decision making. 40k is devoid of THAT.
And this is exactly the stuff that confuses me.
You have no idea in chess what they are going to do but in 40K, oh hey, it's easy you know, it's a shallow game.
No, in 40k I have no agency in what they are going to do so it doesn't matter. In chess where my pieces sit, where they threaten other pieces, how I move a bishop even if it doesn't take one of his pieces... it has a TON of agency on how his every single decision goes. And his actions have agency on me.
I don't know the right things either, so here's my idea:
As Imperium: - Get the Knight up to the middle, in the direction of the back-left Venom.
- Disembark the Skitarii, move them close as possible to the Warriors.
- Get the Transport close to the Warriors as well.
- Start the shooting with the Thermal Cannon against the front-most Venom. If it goes down, follow up by trying to gun down the occupants that disembark with the Rangers and the Admech transport.
- Otherwise, try to distribute firepower so that it's unlikely that you'll kill off the Warriors, but with the goal of trying to thin them a bit (1 or 2 casualties should be just fine).
- Charge against the back transport with the Knight, and charge the Warriors with the Rangers and the transport, with the intention of tri-pointing them. Would like not to kill them, but rather make it more difficult to shoot at either the surviving Rangers or the transport.
People have presented plenty of cases and situations where a decision point is obscured or difficult, or where it is complex enough for there not to be an easy answer, or where your opponent might do something unexpected, or where the odds might not go in your favor (or conversely where you can successfully mitigate them), and you seem to be just hand waving it all away. If your reaction to these situations and the ensuring choices you have to make aren't "tactical" then what are they? And if they are instead "logistical optimizations" then isn't that the exact same thing as chess or nearly any other game?
They are "tactical" in that they are decisions you are making towards individual goals. They are shallow, simplistic, and ultimately unsatisfying because there are optimal choices and sub optimal choices that can be calculated because all variables are known.
At least in chess if I move my knight I have no idea what piece they will move to respond. It's a known unknown. Which allows for player to player interactions and deep tactical decision making. 40k is devoid of THAT.
In Chess there are also optimal and sub-optimal choices that can be calculated because all the variables are also known. If both players are playing a perfect game (every move is optimal) then white (going first) wins. Chess is solved by advanced AI's for all intents and purposes. A master chess player does know, within a pretty narrow range that if they move their knight their opponent has to do X or Y to respond, and one of those is optimal. I don't see how your logic comparing chess and 40K are any different - except that chess has many more back and forth moves over the course of the game (more AA-like).
FWIW - and I know this isn't a sanctioned usage of the term (or maybe it is), but we talk about "tactics" in a game (any game), I tend to view the "tactic" as being something akin to a best practice or to use an earlier term a heuristic or rule of thumb. The tactics in 40K are fairly straight forward, things like "focusing firing" critical targets, pressing objectives, disrupting back lines, screening, etc. You can get down to a finer grain with things like tri-pointing, model position, using LoS blocking terrain, etc. With 8th and 9th, there are also tactical practices related to how and when you use command points. These are all tactical instruments/techniques that players can use during play, post-deployment.
Agreed. Now that we have laid these tactics all out, how difficult is it REALLY to determine when you use any of them? Not how complex is the equation. When is there not a optimal choice?
I think you (or Canadian 5th) said early that most turns have only 1 or 2 moments where a decision matters and the answer might not be immediately obvious. I think the excitement and fun and interesting decisions hinge on these moments. Sure, there might only by 5-10 of them over the course of the game, but games can be won or lost on these - and they are a great example of meaningful decisions.
And while you might go in with a game plan that suggests Unit X will disrupt the back line, or Unit Y will push an objective, a turn or two into the game through a combination of die roll uncertainty but uncertainty from your opponent, there are often adjustments that need to be made to the game plan and the tactics. Maybe the unit you were going to deep strike to disrupt the back line actually needs to be dropped onto an objective because your opponent unexpectedly threw more units at it than you thought, or their shooting went better than predicted. Many things can cause you to re-evaluate you plan, prompt new decisions, and in turn require you to shift your employed tactics.
Agreed. How is that not solved with the math and flow chart? What agency does the opponent have to stop you? If you CAN deepstrike on the objective and the objective is the optimal move whats stopping you but your own ability to recognize it?
I'm viewing this example as an instance where your opponent's choices and/or randomness on a prior turn prompts you to change your tactical plan. Recognizing that it might need to change and what to change it to could be relatively obvious to answer. Sometime's it is less obvious.
Okay, here's a situation to discuss. Hopefully this is finally a full-on enough example to satisfy. This is taken from another battle report, but to reduce complexity, I'm going to ask to go just by what's in the photo. Pretend this is the whole battle in this photo.
Current score: 0-0 (it's the second turn)
Secondaries; Imperium - Domination (there's just the 1 objective), Grind Them Down, Bring It Down Drukhari - Domination, Titan Hunter, Linebreaker
Imperium's turn. The Imperial Knight has a Chainsword on the other arm. No player has a Warlord (guess it's a casual game and they didn't think they needed one). There's a unit of 5 Skitarri Rangers with the default Galvanic Rifles in the Admech Transport, which is just out of range of the objective. There are 3 units of Kabalite Warriors. One disembarked from the Venom that's to the far right of the image (somewhat clipped off the image), while the other two still have Kabalite Warriors within them. All 3 units have a Blaster in them, but otherwise are only basically armed.
What do you do?
(EDIT: Yes, the Knight failed to do any damage turn 1. It rolled a 1 for shots, and none of its shots did anything. The Admech Transport is at 1 wound remaining)
It is turn 2 and you are not going to score any primary in this or the next turn. Your worst scenario is that the transport and the troops inside get killed, leaving you with only the knight, which would cost you the game.
I would try to pop one venom in shooting and then go hyper aggressive with the knight while advancing the transport in the other direction. I will have it retreat for a turn and then come back turn 3, when the knight has had time to reduce the enemy numbers and allow me to deploy my infantry without it being evaporated by venom's fire. He doesn't have the firepower to take down the knight, so you will outscore him thanks to controlling the point in rounds 4 and 5 and through the points from grind them down.
Also I would like to add that I understand the difference (or at least I think so). It just is that sometimes, it isn't a "deep" one
Lance845 wrote: Yeah. And I already said that. I can place my guys to make no room for his guys to be deep striked where I have influence over that. Where I don't have influence over that I don't have any agency in that decision. So it doesn't matter what I do and it's not a consideration beyond knowing that it could happen.
So you have influence but have no influence ?
Lance845 wrote: Right. I talked about that with my flow charts like... 7 pages ago. You shoot the guns at the biggest threats where they cause the most damage. You understand the law of averages and statistic and value of your dice pool and allocate it as best you can. The values of your units is a strategic choice you made in your list building. Not a tactical one on the board.
Sorry I got back to page 8 or 9 only. The tactical choice on the board is to place them in the correct spot. It might be meaningless to you because it seem easy with a quick look "you put your lascans in a spot where they can shoot the big stuff, duh" but it is a choice that you can't just hand wave away. Particularly when the game's state becomes complex (terrain, armies involved, ressources etc).
Lance845 wrote: Right! Because the mission is a band aid on a bigger issue. The core game has a problem with player to player interactivity and tactical depth. The mission thing is just relieving the symptom. it doesn't cure the disease. I talked about this earlier.
I rather think that the missions are actually the way the designers are making sure the game is played as they want. It seem pretty clear they don't want too much hidden stuff (even though the amount of rules in newer codex is blurring that) and propose some sort of a "finite state" to the players (because they are removing it over the years).
No, in 40k I have no agency in what they are going to do so it doesn't matter. In chess where my pieces sit, where they threaten other pieces, how I move a bishop even if it doesn't take one of his pieces... it has a TON of agency on how his every single decision goes. And his actions have agency on me.
In 40K, where your units are and what they are, is going to impact what your opponent is going to do and vice versa. This is the stuff you dismiss for some reason (look at the deep strikers issue for example). While we can agree that it has less of an impact because there aren't as many combination due to the narrative nature of the game (knives realistically don't destroy tanks meanwhile pawns can take anything in chess for example), it still exists.
jeff white wrote:I don’t like premeasuring, as peeps just lay the ruler out to use to choose what units will shoot at, rather than declaring targets then checking to be sure that they are in range. Subtle difference but one that does add to tension imho... and though a seemingly simple skill, it is one that will sometimes fail e.g when the chosen unit really must be shot at and ends up a half inch out of range...
The thing is premeasuring exists. It might be allowed in the rules or not, but it exists. Those who can measure by eye are premeasuring as they go, and some became good enough at it to be those few millimeters out of range for a proper counter. A measuring device is just a more obvious way of doing it, and one that those who cannot measure by eye can utilize.
jeff white wrote:It's because the primary issue is that the game has NO hidden information at the point where I am making my decisions. The only "hidden" element has nothing to do with the other player and their decisions. It's to do with the result of dice rolls. Which is why you play against the game. Not the player.
Then you must really hate Chess. It has no randomness (unless you're dealing with a player who doesn't know what they're doing). All the available information outside of a player's plan is right there in the open so much that masters can predict wins several moves in to the game.
And player decisions do matter. A player can be intimidated or mislead. That's how Poker works. That's how traps in Chess develop. Now, the more experienced two opposing players are, the easier it is to "play the game" because both of you will know how the steps go, but then also there is the chance that a gamble will work, where you play against the game because you are hoping you get enough 6s to accomplish a sub goal that changes the flow of the game. It is this part which is playing against the player, if you can break their plans with those gambles.
About the first quote, it was me... but I think that you miss the subtle difference.
The second quoted passage is not mine. I like chess.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I think that Tyel makes an important observation here that may help to clarify the apparent point of contention re interaction ... and offers a concrete counter example in Bloodbowl.
kirotheavenger wrote: I completely agree with this assessment. Although I disagree that it's not common.
Games I'm familiar with all have lots more interplay. Bloodbowl, Necromunda, Titanicus, Band of Brothers, Blood Red Skies, Legion, all have far more interactions between players than 40k. I really can't think of any games that have players interacting less than 40k does.
Hmmm.
Thinking about Bloodbowl. I'd say there is more interplay due to tackle zones. By moving a unit next to yours, I'm having an explicit impact on you, theoretically effecting your chances to block, dodge, pass, whatever. Which in turn will make different "turns" more or less likely to succeed. Whereas in 40k, its often more concealed - i.e. I've positioned such that if you move on to an objective (which you probably want to so as to score/deny points), I'll have an optimal turn of shooting and an easy charge in my next turn.
Undoubtedly Bloodbowl has more turns - so to a degree you have more time to do things without needing an instant pay off. If I move a player reasonably deep into your half (lets assume not a gutter runner etc) then there is always a chance I could hand off/pass to him and score. So my opponent has a dilemma of whether they do something about that - or take advantage that any cage I have round the ball must be weaker because one player is a long way off. Or they just focus on bashing my team to bits in the hope that while I may score, I'll be down 3 players in the second half (or carrying a lot of injuries for the rest of the campaign).
Maybe something like this could be emphasised in 40k with leadership aura effects on enemy models, maybe a return to a more sophisticated and significant psychology system?
The fact that strategy focus so much on list building is true. It has been pointed out several times. It comes from two things IMHO. One it is a major component of any game. Two it is one part of the strategy that is very easy to talk about.
People stil talk about other aspects of strategy though.
jeff white wrote: I think that Tyel makes an important observation here that may help to clarify the apparent point of contention re interaction ... and offers a concrete counter example in Bloodbowl.
Like he said, it's more concealed in 40K, but it exists (you can impede movement, leave multiple "win" conditions open, etc). The determining difference in BB is that there is a notion of immediate failure ending your turn which doesn't exists in 40K.
Yeah, now I get a better idea of the people that you hang out with... and I think that you have met with a main point here, that knowing the scoring and how to abuse the rules becomes the point of the game, and the level of player interaction, when what we are after is ideally a different experience.
You're making a bunch of assumptions and running away with them. No premeasure was never a balanced rule and never will be.
Yarium wrote: Okay, so I think we can finally say; "Yes, at the very least some tactics exist in the game, even if only fractionally to a level that some of the respondents feel like it doesn't."
Is that fair?
Can we finally proceed to the OP's original request of discussing these situations that the people that do feel like they exist can have a meaningful discussion over?
And why not more often.
Maybe there is a common ground in the need to encourage tension between players as moves are being made. Maybe this means that we need more turns, longer opening game and mid game and endgame, so longer games, implying much shorter moves and charges and ranges for most weapons so that there is more time and opportunity for strategies to reveal themselves and for opposing players to counter while using so many units on such small tables. Maybe the easier answer is smaller games with fewer models and finer grained (Prohammer?) rules on same tables? Perhaps played with more turns.
We have also seen a call for more reward for getting into melee, and for recognizing the value in post game reflection.certainly, there is opportunity for player interaction between games. In a sense, this is what we are all doing here, sharing experiences and trying to collaborate on optimising the game for the best next in game experiences. As for rewarding tactical successes like getting into h2h, maybe this can be addressed with longer games and more sophisticated cover, stealth, and other rules. Again, maybe this reward is felt more acutely in smaller games on larger tables, when owning a piece of the board means more...
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: LOL there's nothing to be mentally engaged about. Assuming little to no melee, I could literally just tell my opponent to roll my saves for me while I do an extra half an hour of work (I'm able to work from home for one job for context).
The fact you're forgetting units while doing nothing shows not only why you'd think 40k has any complexity or depth, but why the typical player here that defends IGOUGO might actually do so: you'd forget units and lose! You want an easy mode game that's determined basically by the units you're bringing and going first!
It's honestly sorta pathetic.
If you say so, but, good job on being insulting in any case.
Yeah, now I get a better idea of the people that you hang out with... and I think that you have met with a main point here, that knowing the scoring and how to abuse the rules becomes the point of the game, and the level of player interaction, when what we are after is ideally a different experience.
You're making a bunch of assumptions and running away with them. No premeasure was never a balanced rule and never will be.
Balanced rule? Ok, whatever you want to call it, I prefer the game when people declare targets before measuring ranges.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: LOL there's nothing to be mentally engaged about. Assuming little to no melee, I could literally just tell my opponent to roll my saves for me while I do an extra half an hour of work (I'm able to work from home for one job for context).
The fact you're forgetting units while doing nothing shows not only why you'd think 40k has any complexity or depth, but why the typical player here that defends IGOUGO might actually do so: you'd forget units and lose! You want an easy mode game that's determined basically by the units you're bringing and going first!
It's honestly sorta pathetic.
If you say so, but, good job on being insulting in any case.
I understand the sentiment. But sure, starting with “You want...” is insulting. It is usually best to refrain from telling other people what they are thinking ...
Lance845 wrote: Yeah. And I already said that. I can place my guys to make no room for his guys to be deep striked where I have influence over that. Where I don't have influence over that I don't have any agency in that decision. So it doesn't matter what I do and it's not a consideration beyond knowing that it could happen.
So you have influence but have no influence ?
You know that I have influence where my models are and I have no influence where my models are not. This is the last time I respond to this or any other bad faith nonsense arguments you put here. This has been a pretty good discussion all things considered for way more pages than these things tend to go. And this kind of bull crap does nothing but poke at people because you have nothing of value to add to the discussion.
Lance845 wrote: Right. I talked about that with my flow charts like... 7 pages ago. You shoot the guns at the biggest threats where they cause the most damage. You understand the law of averages and statistic and value of your dice pool and allocate it as best you can. The values of your units is a strategic choice you made in your list building. Not a tactical one on the board.
Sorry I got back to page 8 or 9 only. The tactical choice on the board is to place them in the correct spot. It might be meaningless to you because it seem easy with a quick look "you put your lascans in a spot where they can shoot the big stuff, duh" but it is a choice that you can't just hand wave away. Particularly when the game's state becomes complex (terrain, armies involved, ressources etc).
On your turn your units have their sphere of influence. They can move x distance and shoot y distance from there. Can your lascans reach a spot where they can shoot a tank you want shot? Yes. Do it. No. Shoot something else.
Lance845 wrote: Right! Because the mission is a band aid on a bigger issue. The core game has a problem with player to player interactivity and tactical depth. The mission thing is just relieving the symptom. it doesn't cure the disease. I talked about this earlier.
I rather think that the missions are actually the way the designers are making sure the game is played as they want. It seem pretty clear they don't want too much hidden stuff (even though the amount of rules in newer codex is blurring that) and propose some sort of a "finite state" to the players (because they are removing it over the years).
The head designer of 40k right now is Robbin Cruddace who is responsible for both the 5th and 6th ed tyranid codexes. The one where everyone thought it could not possibly get any worse and then he wrote the next one as if to prove them wrong. The one where the Pyrovores ability blew up the entire table because he doesn't understand punctuation and sentence structure. This is the guy who was in charge as they transitioned into 8th, put out a bunch of FAQs to correct all the books heading into 8th, and DIDN'T correct that thing about the pyrovores. Frankly, I could not give a single feth what the incompetent ass clowns that design 40k intend about anything.
No, in 40k I have no agency in what they are going to do so it doesn't matter. In chess where my pieces sit, where they threaten other pieces, how I move a bishop even if it doesn't take one of his pieces... it has a TON of agency on how his every single decision goes. And his actions have agency on me.
In 40K, where your units are and what they are, is going to impact what your opponent is going to do and vice versa. This is the stuff you dismiss for some reason (look at the deep strikers issue for example). While we can agree that it has less of an impact because there aren't as many combination due to the narrative nature of the game (knives realistically don't destroy tanks meanwhile pawns can take anything in chess for example), it still exists.
I am not dismissing it. I act on what I can act on when I can act on it. When I can't I can't. You keep arguing it's a factor I need to incorporate into my tactical decision making. But if I actually have no agency to act against it, then how?
You know that I have influence where my models are and I have no influence where my models are not. This is the last time I respond to this or any other bad faith nonsense arguments you put here. This has been a pretty good discussion all things considered for way more pages than these things tend to go. And this kind of bull crap does nothing but poke at people because you have nothing of value to add to the discussion.
[...]
I am not dismissing it. I act on what I can act on when I can act on it. When I can't I can't. You keep arguing it's a factor I need to incorporate into my tactical decision making. But if I actually have no agency to act against it, then how?
It's rich to be told that I'm using bad faith non sense argument when you managed to say something and its contrary previously and you've been told as much multiple times. But I guess in your opinion, placing yourself into some figure of authority allows you to do so. I don't really care if you keep replying or not, I'm just trying to figure out something.
YOU CAN ACT ON IT. You deciding to put something somewhere and thus not having anything somewhere else, is YOUR own choice and how you managed your assets.
You recognise that you can prevent him from landing somewhere, but hey, since he can land somewhere else, it doesn't matter. Go figure.
Yes, there is probably no state in a normal game where you can forbid him to land his stuff. However it doesn't make it a "no choice". You just don't have that option. It's like in chess when your opponent convert a pawn. Would you say you couldn't act on that as if there wasn't a whole game being played, just that singular moment when he turned a pawn into whatever ?
It's the same for everything else, where you can or cannot move, what you can or cannot shot, what you can score or not, is the result (mostly) of player's choices (these choices might be innegaly distributed between board actions and pre game stuff though, due to the nature of the game). There just is no state during the game where you can simply stalemate your opponent, you can just make his choices less interesting. Doesn't mean that because he can do "something", you have no input in what he does. Which is what you've been saying (as far as I understand) for a few pages.
On your turn your units have their sphere of influence. They can move x distance and shoot y distance from there. Can your lascans reach a spot where they can shoot a tank you want shot? Yes. Do it. No. Shoot something else.
Can they do it without dying next turn ? Does it even matter ? Should I shoot the thing right in front of me or spend a ressource to advance and shot the thing my opponent hid ? Do I have the ressource to shoot with them and still hold that objective over there ?
You can keep making finite check lists, doesn't mean they are valid.
Lance845 wrote: The head designer of 40k right now is Robbin Cruddace who is responsible for both the 5th and 6th ed tyranid codexes. The one where everyone thought it could not possibly get any worse and then he wrote the next one as if to prove them wrong. The one where the Pyrovores ability blew up the entire table because he doesn't understand punctuation and sentence structure. This is the guy who was in charge as they transitioned into 8th, put out a bunch of FAQs to correct all the books heading into 8th, and DIDN'T correct that thing about the pyrovores. Frankly, I could not give a single feth what the incompetent ass clowns that design 40k intend about anything.
Then don't talk about 40K design's in the first place. I just answered your "the mission is to hide stuff" BS, I didn't ask for your opinion on Cruddace or tyranids past issues.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote:Yeah no, if you get intimidated in 40k you're just a bad player. Bad units don't just suddenly become a threat LOL
Actually no. Being intimidated does not necessarily mean one is a bad player. Intimidation can come from presence, charisma, aggressive language, etc., not necessarily what is actually happening on the table.
jeff white wrote:I don’t like premeasuring, as peeps just lay the ruler out to use to choose what units will shoot at, rather than declaring targets then checking to be sure that they are in range. Subtle difference but one that does add to tension imho... and though a seemingly simple skill, it is one that will sometimes fail e.g when the chosen unit really must be shot at and ends up a half inch out of range...
The thing is premeasuring exists. It might be allowed in the rules or not, but it exists. Those who can measure by eye are premeasuring as they go, and some became good enough at it to be those few millimeters out of range for a proper counter. A measuring device is just a more obvious way of doing it, and one that those who cannot measure by eye can utilize.
About the first quote, it was me... but I think that you miss the subtle difference.
Subtle as is in someone developed a skill that allows them to premeasure without pulling out a tool, and thus bypass the rule against measuring outside of certain circumstances without being obvious?
jeff white wrote: The second quoted passage is not mine. I like chess.
So it is. I though it was when I made the quote, but sometimes when one goes fancy with a quote it gets goofed up. Changed.
YOU CAN ACT ON IT. You deciding to put something somewhere and thus not having anything somewhere else, is YOUR own choice and how you managed your assets.
Nobody has free reign of 100% of the board. In MY deployment zone with my models I can space them to prevent deepstrikes. In my mid field I can do the same. Beyond my front line I cannot. As my resources diminish my ability to do so diminishes. In places, I can position myself to prevent deepstrikes. In others, I have no agency.
So.
On My Turn. I Can Block Out Deep Strikes In My Space. And If My Opponent Decides To Deep Strike Some Place Else. I Have No Agency Over That Decision And Can Do Nothing About It.
Do you get it? I make the decisions I can make where I can make them. And when I can't I don't. And I don't think about the fact that my enemy COULD deepstike in areas I cannot control, because I cannot control whether they do or don't. And if they do my options are using units that can respond to deepstrikes, abilities that can respond to deepstrikes, and strats that can respond to deepstrikes. All of which are easy calculations. And then I get shot or whatever and then I allocate wounds and roll dice for saves and maybe remove models.
So since I have now talked about all those options 4 times now. What am I missing? What is the decision point that I don't have mapped up there? What else is there to pay attention to? Or are you just telling me that I should emphasize more that I am supposed to be paying attention to it on any level? You are apparently the expert here who knows I am missing something. Educate me.
You recognise that you can prevent him from landing somewhere, but hey, since he can land somewhere else, it doesn't matter. Go figure.
Yes, there is probably no state in a normal game where you can forbid him to land his stuff. However it doesn't make it a "no choice".
Thanks for repeating what I said.
You just don't have that option. It's like in chess when your opponent convert a pawn. Would you say you couldn't act on that as if there wasn't a whole game being played, just that singular moment when he turned a pawn into whatever ?
It's the same for everything else, where you can or cannot move, what you can or cannot shot, what you can score or not, is the result (mostly) of player's choices (these choices might be innegaly distributed between board actions and pre game stuff though, due to the nature of the game). There just is no state during the game where you can simply stalemate your opponent, you can just make his choices less interesting. Doesn't mean that because he can do "something", you have no input in what he does. Which is what you've been saying (as far as I understand) for a few pages.
I don't know how to help you understand what I have been saying at this point. You literally are not reading what I am writing. Or willfully ignoring the points I am making.
Lance845 wrote: The head designer of 40k right now is Robbin Cruddace who is responsible for both the 5th and 6th ed tyranid codexes. The one where everyone thought it could not possibly get any worse and then he wrote the next one as if to prove them wrong. The one where the Pyrovores ability blew up the entire table because he doesn't understand punctuation and sentence structure. This is the guy who was in charge as they transitioned into 8th, put out a bunch of FAQs to correct all the books heading into 8th, and DIDN'T correct that thing about the pyrovores. Frankly, I could not give a single feth what the incompetent ass clowns that design 40k intend about anything.
Then don't talk about 40K design's in the first place. I just answered your "the mission is to hide stuff" BS, I didn't ask for your opinion on Cruddace or tyranids past issues.
Go back. Read the side note where I mentioned it. Read it all the way through. Then understand why I say this next sentence.
Lance845 wrote:Nobody has free reign of 100% of the board. In MY deployment zone with my models I can space them to prevent deepstrikes. In my mid field I can do the same. Beyond my front line I cannot. As my resources diminish my ability to do so diminishes. In places, I can position myself to prevent deepstrikes. In others, I have no agency.
Well, unless you're dumb enough to try and Outflank with your whole army (then find out you can't because tournament rules) and your opponent has plenty of Infiltrating Kroot which would stop your units from coming on from Reserves by being on your deployment line. (Reference)
Lance845 wrote:Nobody has free reign of 100% of the board. In MY deployment zone with my models I can space them to prevent deepstrikes. In my mid field I can do the same. Beyond my front line I cannot. As my resources diminish my ability to do so diminishes. In places, I can position myself to prevent deepstrikes. In others, I have no agency.
Well, unless you're dumb enough to try and Outflank with your whole army (then find out you can't because tournament rules) and your opponent has plenty of Infiltrating Kroot which would stop your units from coming on from Reserves by being on your deployment line. (Reference)
I do LOVE that guys gak eating grin in that picture.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote:Yeah no, if you get intimidated in 40k you're just a bad player. Bad units don't just suddenly become a threat LOL
Actually no. Being intimidated does not necessarily mean one is a bad player. Intimidation can come from presence, charisma, aggressive language, etc., not necessarily what is actually happening on the table.
jeff white wrote:I don’t like premeasuring, as peeps just lay the ruler out to use to choose what units will shoot at, rather than declaring targets then checking to be sure that they are in range. Subtle difference but one that does add to tension imho... and though a seemingly simple skill, it is one that will sometimes fail e.g when the chosen unit really must be shot at and ends up a half inch out of range...
The thing is premeasuring exists. It might be allowed in the rules or not, but it exists. Those who can measure by eye are premeasuring as they go, and some became good enough at it to be those few millimeters out of range for a proper counter. A measuring device is just a more obvious way of doing it, and one that those who cannot measure by eye can utilize.
About the first quote, it was me... but I think that you miss the subtle difference.
Subtle as is in someone developed a skill that allows them to premeasure without pulling out a tool, and thus bypass the rule against measuring outside of certain circumstances without being obvious?
Spoiler:
jeff white wrote: The second quoted passage is not mine. I like chess.
So it is. I though it was when I made the quote, but sometimes when one goes fancy with a quote it gets goofed up. Changed.
Yarium wrote: What about the hidden information of your opponent's battle plan? If you say that's trivial or that it's not deep it doesn't matter, because that's still creating agency by unknowns that you have to anticipate and interact with.
I know what objectives give them VPs which win the game. If their plan is anything but getting VPs then it literally doesn't mater. They already lost the game. But even further, on my turn they have no agency to interact with me... sooo.. how does it change the initial goal? I get as many VPs as possible. I minimize their ability to get VPs in return. When does that change?
What about the hidden information about what impact your opponent's deep strikers, when they come down, will do? If you say that's trivial or that it's not deep it doesn't matter, because that's still creating agency by unknowns that you have to anticipate and interact with.
What agency do I have in that? He deep strikes, he shoots or whatever, I roll saves and then models get removed. What is my ability to interact with that element of his turn?
What about that stratagem that you forgot existed that actually allowed your opponent's optimal decision to be something else that you didn't anticipate? If you say that's trivial or that it's not deep it doesn't matter, because that's still creating agency by unknowns that you have to then resolve the new board state that was uniquely created.
Me forgetting that a part of the game exists is my fault. Thats me failing to account for the known elements of the game in my equation.
What about that charge from reserves that was supposed to fail because you had a Tanglefoot Grenade, but against the odds succeeded? If you say that's trivial or that it's not deep it doesn't matter, because that's still creating agency by unknowns that you have to anticipate and interact with.
I did the thing I could do by deploying the tanglefoot grenade. What other agency do I have in that?
You're just saying that there's not ENOUGH agency, not that it doesn't exist, (edit: and you seem to be doing so in a way that says "unless I can literally interact with every piece of what my opponent does, there's not enough agency for me"). And that's fine. That's your opinion, and you're welcome to it. Enjoy the game.
Can we please discuss an actual tactical situation now?
These are tactical situations you want to discuss. Discuss them. What about them? What tactical decision can you make in any of the situations that you are presenting? I am not saying I need to be able to interact on every level at every turn. I am saying I should be able to react in ANY capacity.
I would love for you or Mez or Yarium to come back and explain to me how there is anything else to these situations as presented. What factors are we all missing? What complications exist in each of them that make them so crippling that you can't decide what to do? Or can you explain where you have agency to do anything at all?
On My Turn. I Can Block Out Deep Strikes In My Space. And If My Opponent Decides To Deep Strike Some Place Else. I Have No Agency Over That Decision And Can Do Nothing About It.
Youforced him to make a suboptimal choice in his next turn. You made him take that decision. You did something during your turns about him doing something else in his. I don't know how many time we can reformulate this though.
Your opponent had no other choice, like trading a queen instead of being check mate, you knowing that he will trade the queen because it's the only thing to do, doesn't mean it's meaningless or that you didn't work toward this goal before while taking into account your opponents moves. You are somewhat able to recognise that yet most of your point has been "there are no interactions, you play against the game". And why ? Because your opponent still has an option you can't impede. Even though you, yourself, made sure it's the worst one.
You basically limited him to two choice, one meaning he gives up his pieces, but since you recognise he won't, it doesn't matter. Sure, that choice itself doesn't matter, because everyone is able to determine that since he can't land anywhere else, he will land in his DZ instead of losing his units. We're talking about all the other choices that lead to this one though.
Do you get it? I make the decisions I can make where I can make them. And when I can't I don't. And I don't think about the fact that my enemy COULD deepstike in areas I cannot control, because I cannot control whether they do or don't. And if they do my options are using units that can respond to deepstrikes, abilities that can respond to deepstrikes, and strats that can respond to deepstrikes. All of which are easy calculations. And then I get shot or whatever and then I allocate wounds and roll dice for saves and maybe remove models.
My point is that you still didn't change your conclusion that was "I can't interact even though I did interact to be in that spot" or "my interactions are meaningless even though I have this flow chart telling me that I have to do them in order to win". Which is the center of the debate, not that you can't have such a perfect play that your opponent is left with no options. You do what you do in order to win and you do these particularly and not others because your opponent did something else. Which you yourself recognise again.
Still no interactions though, because flow chart (your choices), start of turn (opponent's choices), yada yada. Get it ?
So since I have now talked about all those options 4 times now. What am I missing? What is the decision point that I don't have mapped up there? What else is there to pay attention to? Or are you just telling me that I should emphasize more that I am supposed to be paying attention to it on any level? You are apparently the expert here who knows I am missing something. Educate me.
Please don't try to pass on to me the position you were (are) taking when I point it to you.
You said something along the lines of "There is no deep tactical decision making or player to player interaction here." about how players proceed during the game. So I guess forcing your opponent to land in his DZ instead of an objective isn't a player interaction ? Since you are just following a "flow chart" and ofc keeping him away was the best choice (since you always make the right one), so yep, no interaction to see there. If we abstract them, they can't exist !
You still have no issue with this ?
If you litteraly didn't move your pieces, the same results would have happened ? No and if you remove the "we don't make mistakes" part of your agument, it flies out the window with a bang.
We always do mistakes anyway, they are just harder to make in certain games rather than others. You're still making choices (no chance to make mistakes if you don't) and are still interacting with your opponent.
Thanks for repeating what I said.
It's almost like I was reformulating your point.
I don't know how to help you understand what I have been saying at this point. You literally are not reading what I am writing. Or willfully ignoring the points I am making.
First, don't feel obligated to "help me" ()if it annoys you.
Second, you probably can't because it seems the conclusion you obtain from your point is flawed.
What you're saying seem to be that since there are only 50 cases to solve during a turn instead of 50 millions, it can easily be "charted" and as such there are no tactics or player interactions (and yeah, the numbers are pulled out of my bottom). Which doesn't make sense. While "we" could probably come up with a decent flow chart allowing most people to win against most players given enough ressources (it's the case for many games after all), even if we're talking about two players that are perfect and always make the right choices multiple turns ahead and in a row, they themselves should be able to recognise that and change stuff in order to not end with a draw since this game allows it (like taking a bet regarding probabilities) to the contrary of some others. Unless the outcome depends of multiple games, in which case, maybe a draw is satisfactory.
And if you wanted to increase the amount of possibilities, you could probably just tweak parameters that already exists (board size or shape, unit count, number of objectives, dunno), rules would be the same but the game would be harder to "chart". Choices would have as much "meaning" than before and still the game would be harder to solve, thus in your opinion increasing interactivity I guess ?
Like a bunch of games are solvable or not depending on the size of the board used.
Anyway, have a good day/evening/night/whatever, I'm not expecting anything to come out from this
I am left wondering if you could get an AI to play 40k in a genuinely "its a solved game, here is the maths" way. Although since just crunching ten thousand "Lelith attacking SM Captain" results to get a curve broke Excel this evening, I suspect I'd need something more powerful for all those if statements.
On My Turn. I Can Block Out Deep Strikes In My Space. And If My Opponent Decides To Deep Strike Some Place Else. I Have No Agency Over That Decision And Can Do Nothing About It.
Youforced him to make a suboptimal choice in his next turn. You made him take that decision. You did something during your turns about him doing something else in his. I don't know how many time we can reformulate this though. Your opponent had no other choice, like trading a queen instead of being check mate, you knowing that he will trade the queen because it's the only thing to do, doesn't mean it's meaningless or that you didn't work toward this goal before while taking into account your opponents moves. You are somewhat able to recognise that yet most of your point has been "there are no interactions, you play against the game". And why ? Because your opponent still has an option you can't impede. Even though you, yourself, made sure it's the worst one. You basically limited him to two choice, one meaning he gives up his pieces, but since you recognise he won't, it doesn't matter. Sure, that choice itself doesn't matter, because everyone is able to determine that since he can't land anywhere else, he will land in his DZ instead of losing his units. We're talking about all the other choices that lead to this one though.
My opponent had lots of choices. They have all over the field they could drop and they could choose not to drop it. Where they drop it is, if they are good, based on optimizing it's usefulness. Maybe it's waiting till my resources are depleted. Or I make a mistake or over stretch. Or they just get it on the field because they need the reinforcements. I can't MAKE them do ANYTHING. I can only hand them back the game state I leave them with.
Do you get it? I make the decisions I can make where I can make them. And when I can't I don't. And I don't think about the fact that my enemy COULD deepstike in areas I cannot control, because I cannot control whether they do or don't. And if they do my options are using units that can respond to deepstrikes, abilities that can respond to deepstrikes, and strats that can respond to deepstrikes. All of which are easy calculations. And then I get shot or whatever and then I allocate wounds and roll dice for saves and maybe remove models.
My point is that you still didn't change your conclusion that was "I can't interact even though I did interact to be in that spot" or "my interactions are meaningless even though I have this flow chart telling me that I have to do them in order to win". Which is the center of the debate, not that you can't have such a perfect play that your opponent is left with no options. You do what you do in order to win and you do these particularly and not others because your opponent did something else. Which you yourself recognise again.
Ah I see. Here is the disconnect. My interactions are not with my opponent. They are with the game state. My opponent on his turn is handed back a static game state with which they make all their moves. I wasn't saying I am incapable of doing actions. I said I was incapable of interacting with the other player. Again, 40k is about interacting with the opponents pieces. Not the opponent. The opponent isn't capable of meaningful reactions so I CAN'T interact with them.
Still no interactions though, because flow chart (your choices), start of turn (opponent's choices), yada yada. Get it ?
So since I have now talked about all those options 4 times now. What am I missing? What is the decision point that I don't have mapped up there? What else is there to pay attention to? Or are you just telling me that I should emphasize more that I am supposed to be paying attention to it on any level? You are apparently the expert here who knows I am missing something. Educate me.
Please don't try to pass on to me the position you were (are) taking when I point it to you.
You said something along the lines of "There is no deep tactical decision making or player to player interaction here." about how players proceed during the game. So I guess forcing your opponent to land in his DZ instead of an objective isn't a player interaction ?
Correct.
Since you are just following a "flow chart" and ofc keeping him away was the best choice (since you always make the right one),
I didn't say that I always make the right one. I said it's what the game is.
so yep, no interaction to see there. If we abstract them, they can't exist !
You still have no issue with this ?
Yes. I still have no issue with this. Interactions with the player and interactions with the pieces are different things. You can literally walk away from the table in 99% of all cases in 40k and a dice roller app could roll your saves and it makes no difference. Thats because I am not interacting with you the player. Only the game board as presented to me.
If you litteraly didn't move your pieces, the same results would have happened ? No and if you remove the "we don't make mistakes" part of your agument,
Again. I never said that.
it flies out the window with a bang. We always do mistakes anyway, they are just harder to make in certain games rather than others. You're still making choices (no chance to make mistakes if you don't) and are still interacting with your opponent.
Again, wrong. On both counts.
Thanks for repeating what I said.
It's almost like I was reformulating your point.
I don't know how to help you understand what I have been saying at this point. You literally are not reading what I am writing. Or willfully ignoring the points I am making.
First, don't feel obligated to "help me" ()if it annoys you. Second, you probably can't because it seems the conclusion you obtain from your point is flawed. What you're saying seem to be that since there are only 50 cases to solve during a turn instead of 50 millions, it can easily be "charted"
The number of cases has no bearing on this. I had a kind of lengthy paragraph about the difference between depth and complexity. 50 or 50 millions is complexity. Not depth. It doesn't matter how complex it is. You simplify the equation with the variables that matter and you optimize your moves as best you can. Good players optimize better. Easy or not also isn't a thing I bring up. It's what you keep defaulting to. I said there is nothing else to it. Not that it was easy.
and as such there are no tactics or player interactions (and yeah, the numbers are pulled out of my bottom).
I said there were no DEEP tactics. And I said there are ALMOST no player interactions. I believe the actual quote was "player interactions are next to null". Again, you are having trouble reading what I am writing and you are ignoring what I am writing to put your own spin on it.
Which doesn't make sense.
You're right. When you completely misquote me and mischaracterize everything I have been saying then the end result of my argument, as presented by you, makes no sense.
While "we" could probably come up with a decent flow chart allowing most people to win against most players (it's the case for many games after all), even if we're talking about two players that are perfect and always make the right choices multiple turns ahead and in a row, they themselves should be able to recognise that and change stuff in order to not end with a draw since this game allows it (like taking a bet regarding probabilities) to the contrary of some others. Unless the outcome depends of multiple games, in which case, maybe a draw is satisfactory.
If all other factors were equal, which they are not. Armies are incredibly unbalanced. Lists are unbalanced. Strategies vary wildly in effectiveness against each other. Somebody gets to go first.
And if you wanted to increase the amount of possibilities, you could probably just tweak parameters that already exists (board size or shape, unit count, number of objectives, dunno), rules would be the same but harder to "chart". Choices would have as much "meaning" than before and still the game would be harder to solve, thus increasing interactivity I guess ?
No. Because complexity is not depth.
Like a bunch of games are solvable or not depending on the size of the board used.
That has never been a thing to my knowledge and I can't think of any reason why it would be.
Anyway, have a good day/evening/night/whatever, I'm not expecting anything to come out from this
It's a bit more focused on list building, but it provides an interesting conceptual framework for thinking about what unit types are good at what things and how to use those units on the field.
Not a prob; I thought someone else brought these up and so didn't feel I needed to respond.
So first off; a battle plan is more than just "what is the most basic thing I need to do to be victorious?". I would say that a Battle Plan is a strategy. What do I want to do? My current list's battle plan is "tie up your front line with a lethal unit turn after turn, giving me the space to claim objectives while you struggle to do so". You can scope out my list in the GSC Tactics thread on the other sub-forum. Now, if my opponent didn't figure that out from looking at my list, either because they didn't understand my strategy, or they don't know what GSC can do, then it is fair to say that this is hidden information. Even if my opponent does know what they can do, they may not be used to or accustomed to this. For example, in the example I posted earlier, you yourself said you don't know what Dark Eldar can do, and that forces you to change tactics. Not being as familiar with a list or its capabilities as my opponent means that I have agency in trying to anticipate my opponent's next moves, and in trying to counter them.
For deep strikers, I think others brought this up, but I have agency in trying to counter their deep strike, or in choosing to not pay attention to it. You ask "well I can't do anything about it"... but you CAN. You can zone areas out. You can position in ways that the deep striking unit is less effective against your units, or try to make it that they can't go anywhere in parts of the board, or try to find a balance between - and each of these has benefits and weaknesses that you have to guess on how it will affect you. My last game had my opponent send an Ancient into reserves to appear on the board on turn 4. He only needed to appear in my deployment zone to get off Deploy Scramblers to get 10 victory points. I either had to give up army efficacy to try and zone him out, or I had to make sure that giving up the 10 points for his scramblers was going to be worth it. The game was a TIGHT one, so this could have major bearing on the game's conclusion!
For forgetting about things or making mistakes, let's look at that example I posted before. If this were part of a larger battle, this issue may not have happened had a mistake not been made, or a dice roll gone really badly. But once it has, well, you only live in the hear and now, so you have to adapt to unusual circumstances. I don't know about you, but when a unit survives when it shouldn't have, that gives me a lot of agency. Again, in one of my recent games, a unit of Aberrants survives when it shouldn't have, and my opponent was later kicking himself for not devoting even more to that fight to ensure that the unit got pasted, but he was thinking it wasn't necessary and so didn't. Adapting to unique and unexpected situations gives me agency.
As for the thing with the Tanglefood Grenade, you're looking at the wrong side. You did the thing, and it didn't work, and now your opponent has a unit where it shouldn't be. You have agency in needing to choose how to react to this. Stay put and take a risk that your forces are able to kill the attackers? Or retreat to shoot them but lose position? The actual answer may not be clear cut, just like how you didn't know the right answer in the example - each situation is complex and unique. That gives me agency as it's up to ME and no one else to make the call as to what to do - right or wrong, I have to live with that consequence.
Tyel wrote: I am left wondering if you could get an AI to play 40k in a genuinely "its a solved game, here is the maths" way. Although since just crunching ten thousand "Lelith attacking SM Captain" results to get a curve broke Excel this evening, I suspect I'd need something more powerful for all those if statements.
Yes, a sufficiently powerful reinforcement learning AI like AlphaGo Zero could both teach itself (most of) the rules and learn to win at 40k, with the winning conditions being the things it must be taught directly.
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Mezmorki wrote: Something I've been mulling over for a while is that when it comes to talking about tactics in 40K, 99% of the time the discussion revolves around what units to pick or what to put in an army, or what wargear options to take. Go look at the tactics forum here or nearly anywhere else. And it made me realize that very little discussion takes place around actual table-level tactical choices. We talk about "what" to put in an army, but rarely talk about "how" to best use a given unit.
I think that when we're talking about army lists, we are really talking about our "strategy" and how we envision a given list being used to accomplish the mission's objectives. Deep strike unit X onto objective Y, flank with unit Z, etc. These strategies are, by nature, fairly broad and idealistic. And as the saying goes no plan survives contact with the enemy!
So the question is this (and hence why I'm asking this here in general and not in the tactics forum): What are the sorts of table-level tactical discussions that could be had, and why don't those seem to happen more? Is it a function of table-level tactics being relatively straight forward and thus not worth talking about?
I saw a post where someone said a top-level player could do well with nearly any army. If that's the case, and list building isn't a factor, what is a top level player doing that others aren't? Surely that must be table-level tactics? If so, what is there to say about it?
In regards to the OP, I have bolded the two sets of questions.
Yes, I think that this is Lance’s big issue maybe, if I read his posts correctly, that player one can walk away from the game completely while player two takes her or his turn.
As for the next set of questions...
Perhaps this case is overstated. Nearly any army perhaps implies a coherent army composition. In this way, so called “list building” (more naturally “deck building”) remains a factor, as it is relative opposing lists and opposing players. We may ask what these great players are doing to win with less optimal army composition.
It may have been suggested that they are playing to objectives to score points, managing resources in order to do so. At the same time, these players are expert in the rules and their combo dynamics, buffs and penalties and so on, maximising these influences in order to make suboptimal army comp perform optimally.
Personally, I see all of this as meta level considerations, effectively off table, perhaps most dependent on experience and an ability to remember rules at the necessary times. Very little actually unfolds on the table, so these plans and consequent player interactions can be seen as effectively taking place in the heads of the players with the models themselves serving as chits more or less as mnemonic devices to track the evolution of the flow chart map of interactions made possible by prior limiting choices.
As in chess, there are main line openings and strong or weak mid game development of these openings. A sufficiently tutored player can play in silence, blindfolded, using only letters and numbers to specify moves. There is no interaction between players beyond results of previous moves. And as in chess, good players can win with suboptimal lists/armies, for instance while using only rooks without bishops, or by starting without pawns or queens. Tactics? Given the distinction between pre game list building strategy and in game interactive tabletop tactics that seems to be active, here, not so much. There is strategy, strategic objectives, and with this overview on opening, mid and end game all together, little tactics... sure, sometimes player one will bait two with a piece, in order to gain an advantage in so called “ gambits” but even these are well known to tutored players, so responses are mostly already known , and the trick then becomes remembering what the optimal response is from prior study.
And of course, it is normal for one player to leave the table as the other player takes a turn... maybe in 40k, we would like to see something more or different?
Daedalus81 wrote: ...Do it then. Make it and play games with it. Show us rubes how simple 40K is.
...You mean "play any other wargame"?
That is not so simple. First you need money to actually buy models for the other game, and second you need people playing those other games in your area.
Pardon me, but chess doesn't really strike me as a game where players have no agency.
That depends on the level, and if you are playing to actually win. If you play to actually win, then the most sound thing to do is to memorize openings. Even the greats do it, and those that don't have to are genius tier players that are few and far in between, so advice for those kind of players are not suited for the general chess playing population.
That is like having a 200lb, 6 foot tall 16 year old in wrestling. Sure he can skip a lot of training and tactics, and plain over power the majority of other players, but advice given to him by his trainers will not work for everyone, who is not his size and weight.
I mean, having money to buy any other wargame is so little of an issue usually that you can most likely buy 2 different forces of any other game.
I got into a WW2 game with my buddy recently. Similar model count to 40k, in 15mm miniatures. I bought a single box of infantry for 28$, it contained 130 plastic miniatures. 3 boxes of vehicles for 30$ each and I had more than enough for a 1500 point game. That amount of money gets you like 150pts of GW miniatures.
Yeah, it's pretty rare that you can afford 40k but somehow not afford one of the many, many cheaper games out there. Getting players can be a problem. However, I don't think that was quite the point AnomanderRake was making.
jeff white wrote: Tactics might involve opening the hobby to more home brew 3D prints and 3rd party minis... off topic but on point I guess.
................why?
Almost every game that is tactically deeper and mroe balanced than 40k does this by being much much much MUCH more restrictive in what you can take and how you can field it. None of this crazy model by model customization. .
40k you have a very limited amount of turns and you get to activate everything at once without the opponent having the ability to stop you in-between activations. Which leads to what Lance is talking about.
After my turn the optimal choices for the opponent is many times clearly visible to both of us and he will if capable execute those moves. There really isn't any baiting or deep tactics to turn the game around later. You have to start scoring ASAP and if you don't you lose. Which forces early engagement and dictates what the players have to do. You don't really need a super computer to calculate the most optimal way to make your turn because the game will be decided in 1-3 turns so you don't need to account for anything after that. You play against the game state and not really the player. You could quite easily swap between multiple opponents of the same skill level each turn and your game wouldn't really change anything compared to having one player. Just get them 5min to learn to board state.
In chess there might be an optimal way to play but unless you are a super computer or play against one or have studied the game for your whole life it isn't really the case. For a more average player out there that doesn't have half the moves memorized and barely knows all the game rules(even good 40k players barely go through a game without messing up at least one rule) the game have way more depth. The opponent have to choose one piece to move and can't move every single piece. You don't know which piece he will move because he might have a plan 15 turns later. So what he moves changes what you do because you have another plan later on and this could in theory go on for an infinite amount of turns. If chess were like 40k and you moved all pieces and only up to 5 times in total it would really be easy to know what your turn would look like after your opponents turn if the goal was to score points instead of getting a checkmate X turns later.
40k may look deep but the limited turns, and thus the amount of actions, in combination with the mission design makes the game very shallow when it comes to tactics.
I would say games like GWs own middle earth game have much more tactics involved. Game length is more random but you still have some agency over it most of the time. So you can have games with very many turns that allow for more complex maneuvers. You have the option to try not score primary and try to get a win or draw due to secondaries unlike 40k that forces you to engage in turn 1 and 2 or you just lose. You don't know who will get to activate first in each turn so you don't know what the optimal move or counter move will be everytime you do something.
jeff white wrote: Tactics might involve opening the hobby to more home brew 3D prints and 3rd party minis... off topic but on point I guess.
................why?
Almost every game that is tactically deeper and mroe balanced than 40k does this by being much much much MUCH more restrictive in what you can take and how you can field it. None of this crazy model by model customization. .
The issue in that context was cost plus no model no rules BS.
Klickor wrote: I kinda like the examples of 40k and chess.
40k you have a very limited amount of turns and you get to activate everything at once without the opponent having the ability to stop you in-between activations. Which leads to what Lance is talking about.
After my turn the optimal choices for the opponent is many times clearly visible to both of us and he will if capable execute those moves. There really isn't any baiting or deep tactics to turn the game around later. You have to start scoring ASAP and if you don't you lose. Which forces early engagement and dictates what the players have to do. You don't really need a super computer to calculate the most optimal way to make your turn because the game will be decided in 1-3 turns so you don't need to account for anything after that. You play against the game state and not really the player. You could quite easily swap between multiple opponents of the same skill level each turn and your game wouldn't really change anything compared to having one player. Just get them 5min to learn to board state.
In chess there might be an optimal way to play but unless you are a super computer or play against one or have studied the game for your whole life it isn't really the case. For a more average player out there that doesn't have half the moves memorized and barely knows all the game rules(even good 40k players barely go through a game without messing up at least one rule) the game have way more depth. The opponent have to choose one piece to move and can't move every single piece. You don't know which piece he will move because he might have a plan 15 turns later. So what he moves changes what you do because you have another plan later on and this could in theory go on for an infinite amount of turns. If chess were like 40k and you moved all pieces and only up to 5 times in total it would really be easy to know what your turn would look like after your opponents turn if the goal was to score points instead of getting a checkmate X turns later.
40k may look deep but the limited turns, and thus the amount of actions, in combination with the mission design makes the game very shallow when it comes to tactics.
I would say games like GWs own middle earth game have much more tactics involved. Game length is more random but you still have some agency over it most of the time. So you can have games with very many turns that allow for more complex maneuvers. You have the option to try not score primary and try to get a win or draw due to secondaries unlike 40k that forces you to engage in turn 1 and 2 or you just lose. You don't know who will get to activate first in each turn so you don't know what the optimal move or counter move will be everytime you do something.
Chess is fine when you have 6 types of "units" and both players have the exact same limitations.
Some games of Warhammer are like when you have only pawns - there isn't a lot of room for decisions, because no one came with a plan that went beyond "do one thing".
40K gives probably the most choice out of any tabletop game on how you want to approach it. Either you can sit back and let loose with withering firepower while cackling like a maniac or deploy a raiding force to try and control the field or any number of combinations you can conceive.
Additionally, there is no "VIP" mission in 40K that emulates what chess is. Imagine if you had to play a game where the winner was determined by who kills the opponent's VIP. No deepstrike within 12" of the VIP. The VIP cannot be targeted past 12".
How do you think that would change how people approach their list and the game?
Additionally, there is no "VIP" mission in 40K that emulates what chess is. Imagine if you had to play a game where the winner was determined by who kills the opponent's VIP. No deepstrike within 12" of the VIP. The VIP cannot be targeted past 12".
How do you think that would change how people approach their list and the game?
Wouldn't that just turn w40k in to warmachine, but with a worse rule set? The game would devolve in to super turn 1 alfa strikes with only mitigation being chaff or stuff like primaris anti deep strike guy, if the game would be over if the warlord died. Would give huge edge to armies like harlequins that can ignore terrain and have huge movment.
Daedalus81 wrote: [Y]ou can sit back and let loose with withering firepower while cackling like a maniac...
You can't if you want to win a 9e game versus a skilled opponent, or if you're against Harlequins, Daemons, or DA who saw your list and decided they're just going to hold one objective all game for the easy win. This isn't 8e anymore.
[A]ny number of combinations you can conceive.
Yes, but only a fraction of the forces you can build are actually any good at winning the game. A slightly larger fraction might be 'fun' but what's fun to one player is tedious to others.
Additionally, there is no "VIP" mission in 40K that emulates what chess is. Imagine if you had to play a game where the winner was determined by who kills the opponent's VIP. No deepstrike within 12" of the VIP. The VIP cannot be targeted past 12".
How do you think that would change how people approach their list and the game?
That sounds like Warmahordes but with a stupid rule tacked on like a bandage because 40k is so hyper lethal and prone to alpha strikes that this hypothetical doesn't work without both the bodyguard rule and a nonsensical 12" range targeting restriction.
Daedalus81 wrote: Additionally, there is no "VIP" mission in 40K that emulates what chess is. Imagine if you had to play a game where the winner was determined by who kills the opponent's VIP. No deepstrike within 12" of the VIP. The VIP cannot be targeted past 12".
How do you think that would change how people approach their list and the game?
Oh, it gets better. Not only is there a VIP, but it is generally the slowest and weakest Character available to the army.
Oddly enough, Tau used to have something like this with their Ethereals. It wasn't game-ending, but it could hurt if it happened at the wrong time. Which is why Ethereals were rarely seen on the tabletop.
Klickor wrote: After my turn the optimal choices for the opponent is many times clearly visible to both of us and he will if capable execute those moves. There really isn't any baiting or deep tactics to turn the game around later. You have to start scoring ASAP and if you don't you lose. Which forces early engagement and dictates what the players have to do. You don't really need a super computer to calculate the most optimal way to make your turn because the game will be decided in 1-3 turns so you don't need to account for anything after that. You play against the game state and not really the player. You could quite easily swap between multiple opponents of the same skill level each turn and your game wouldn't really change anything compared to having one player. Just get them 5min to learn to board state.
Great explanation, but I think this is a difference of opinion. I believe if you performed this experiment, you will find that each of the 3 players will do things differently, because the answers as to the best action in any particular game state will vary based on each player's skill level.
Klickor wrote: You could quite easily swap between multiple opponents of the same skill level each turn and your game wouldn't really change anything compared to having one player.
Great explanation, but I think this is a difference of opinion. I believe if you performed this experiment, you will find that each of the 3 players will do things differently, because the answers as to the best action in any particular game state will vary based on each player's skill level.
You might want to read the post you quoted again champ...
Yarium wrote:
Great explanation, but I think this is a difference of opinion. I believe if you performed this experiment, you will find that each of the 3 players will do things differently, because the answers as to the best action in any particular game state will vary based on each player's skill level.
After deployment it wouldn't be much different on who did the turns after as long as they are all quite competent. Some slight variation at most on turn 1 or 2 but from turn 3 to turn 5 the games would probably be exactly the same.
Daedalus81 wrote:
40K gives probably the most choice out of any tabletop game on how you want to approach it. Either you can sit back and let loose with withering firepower while cackling like a maniac or deploy a raiding force to try and control the field or any number of combinations you can conceive
Yes and no. You can build your force in many different ways but many of those only lead to loss and suffering already in the list building stage. When on the table you are very limited in what you can do without losing. The mission design forces you to play a certain way.
Haven't uploaded an image before so might not work. But trying to show an extreme example of how little choice a player might have for a whole game.
In the mission Sweep and Clear a Dark Angels list could hold only the one objective in his quarter, very far from the other player, and the middle one and score 85 out of 90 points without killing a single enemy model or do more movement than a single move turn 1. You cant really score any killing objectives against such a DA list and even if you score 15pts a turn on the primary you still need to score at least 40pts on secondaries without taking any killing secondaries or the mission specific secondary. Maybe you can get 15 on assassinate but they are protected by 15-25 terminators in the middle so to get those you still need to wipe all those out so you cant try to ignore them and score anyway.
Lets say you play an army without fast and hard hitting units that can skirt around the battle field in to the middle of the opponents deployment zone and remove 5-10 inner circle terminators that may have cover before the game ends. Then your only option no matter the rest of your list, no matter the turn and no matter what the dark angel player really does is pour everything into that middle objective and hope you can kill all those inner circle terminators with character support before he scores enough to win. Any decision you make that isn't that is a false decision that will lead to a loss. You can try and "flank" or conserve firepower for later or hold units back in reserve or try any other "tactic" but that is just you fooling yourself that you have options. If the DA player gets first turn especially the way the whole game is played is more or less already decided for both players. If some of the terrain isnt very thought out like in my picture some armies really are mostly doomed in trying to clear the backfield objective. Reserving some units isnt enough since if you do the DA player dont just leave that 5 man unit there alone but put either a 10 man unit there, put a 10man unit a bit away to screen out that board edge while holding the upper left objective or use some of their characters or speeders or what ever to screen that out turn 2 and 3. Non flying transports/non infantry units would have to spend quite the time going around all the terrain and the 20 or so terminators in the middle so probably wont be able to get back there and kill them before turn 5.
I have seen a local DA player play exactly this kind of list. 30 or so terminators, a few support characters and 2 RW landspeeders. Besides fluke dice rolls the games are not more interesting or deep than tic-tac-toe.
Most other games with other armies aren't so clear cut and there might seem to be more tactics available but most of the time its just an illusion of choice rather than an actual choice. I used the above example just because it is so extreme that there barely is even an illusion of choice.
The more casual the 40k game is and the worse the armies and players are there might seem to exist more tactics but that is only because the players dont really understand how to win the game and make more mistakes allowing "deeper tactics" to work.
Before they made the new BA supplement I played a type of super aggressive board control list. Most games just came down to if I thought I should commit at deployment or not. If I did my deployment choices + the missions almost played the game for both me and my opponent for us. Sometimes I even told my opponents what their best actions would be to speed it up a bit since I knew they would come to the same conclusion anyway but they just werent used to the situation as I were and would need an extra 10-15 min to figure it out.
Yarium wrote:
Great explanation, but I think this is a difference of opinion. I believe if you performed this experiment, you will find that each of the 3 players will do things differently, because the answers as to the best action in any particular game state will vary based on each player's skill level.
After deployment it wouldn't be much different on who did the turns after as long as they are all quite competent. Some slight variation at most on turn 1 or 2 but from turn 3 to turn 5 the games would probably be exactly the same.
Daedalus81 wrote:
40K gives probably the most choice out of any tabletop game on how you want to approach it. Either you can sit back and let loose with withering firepower while cackling like a maniac or deploy a raiding force to try and control the field or any number of combinations you can conceive
Yes and no. You can build your force in many different ways but many of those only lead to loss and suffering already in the list building stage. When on the table you are very limited in what you can do without losing. The mission design forces you to play a certain way.
Haven't uploaded an image before so might not work. But trying to show an extreme example of how little choice a player might have for a whole game.
In the mission Sweep and Clear a Dark Angels list could hold only the one objective in his quarter, very far from the other player, and the middle one and score 85 out of 90 points without killing a single enemy model or do more movement than a single move turn 1. You cant really score any killing objectives against such a DA list and even if you score 15pts a turn on the primary you still need to score at least 40pts on secondaries without taking any killing secondaries or the mission specific secondary. Maybe you can get 15 on assassinate but they are protected by 15-25 terminators in the middle so to get those you still need to wipe all those out so you cant try to ignore them and score anyway.
Lets say you play an army without fast and hard hitting units that can skirt around the battle field in to the middle of the opponents deployment zone and remove 5-10 inner circle terminators that may have cover before the game ends. Then your only option no matter the rest of your list, no matter the turn and no matter what the dark angel player really does is pour everything into that middle objective and hope you can kill all those inner circle terminators with character support before he scores enough to win. Any decision you make that isn't that is a false decision that will lead to a loss. You can try and "flank" or conserve firepower for later or hold units back in reserve or try any other "tactic" but that is just you fooling yourself that you have options. If the DA player gets first turn especially the way the whole game is played is more or less already decided for both players. If some of the terrain isnt very thought out like in my picture some armies really are mostly doomed in trying to clear the backfield objective. Reserving some units isnt enough since if you do the DA player dont just leave that 5 man unit there alone but put either a 10 man unit there, put a 10man unit a bit away to screen out that board edge while holding the upper left objective or use some of their characters or speeders or what ever to screen that out turn 2 and 3. Non flying transports/non infantry units would have to spend quite the time going around all the terrain and the 20 or so terminators in the middle so probably wont be able to get back there and kill them before turn 5.
I have seen a local DA player play exactly this kind of list. 30 or so terminators, a few support characters and 2 RW landspeeders. Besides fluke dice rolls the games are not more interesting or deep than tic-tac-toe.
Most other games with other armies aren't so clear cut and there might seem to be more tactics available but most of the time its just an illusion of choice rather than an actual choice. I used the above example just because it is so extreme that there barely is even an illusion of choice.
The more casual the 40k game is and the worse the armies and players are there might seem to exist more tactics but that is only because the players dont really understand how to win the game and make more mistakes allowing "deeper tactics" to work.
Before they made the new BA supplement I played a type of super aggressive board control list. Most games just came down to if I thought I should commit at deployment or not. If I did my deployment choices + the missions almost played the game for both me and my opponent for us. Sometimes I even told my opponents what their best actions would be to speed it up a bit since I knew they would come to the same conclusion anyway but they just werent used to the situation as I were and would need an extra 10-15 min to figure it out.
It's curious that you bring up this list, since I have seen it played literally yesterday.
Guess what happened? The DA player went first and was forced to concede because the opponent didn't charge into the middle for turns one and two. Obviously it was much more convoluted that this short description, and the DA opponent was simply more experienced.
It's curious that you bring up this list, since I have seen it played literally yesterday.
Guess what happened? The DA player went first and was forced to concede because the opponent didn't charge into the middle for turns one and two. Obviously it was much more convoluted that this short description, and the DA opponent was simply more experienced.
What did he play against, and not asking this for some argument of the only this army can do it kind. Ijust want to know what army can skip turn 1-2 when going second in 9th.
Yarium wrote:
Great explanation, but I think this is a difference of opinion. I believe if you performed this experiment, you will find that each of the 3 players will do things differently, because the answers as to the best action in any particular game state will vary based on each player's skill level.
After deployment it wouldn't be much different on who did the turns after as long as they are all quite competent. Some slight variation at most on turn 1 or 2 but from turn 3 to turn 5 the games would probably be exactly the same.
Daedalus81 wrote:
40K gives probably the most choice out of any tabletop game on how you want to approach it. Either you can sit back and let loose with withering firepower while cackling like a maniac or deploy a raiding force to try and control the field or any number of combinations you can conceive
Yes and no. You can build your force in many different ways but many of those only lead to loss and suffering already in the list building stage. When on the table you are very limited in what you can do without losing. The mission design forces you to play a certain way.
Haven't uploaded an image before so might not work. But trying to show an extreme example of how little choice a player might have for a whole game.
In the mission Sweep and Clear a Dark Angels list could hold only the one objective in his quarter, very far from the other player, and the middle one and score 85 out of 90 points without killing a single enemy model or do more movement than a single move turn 1. You cant really score any killing objectives against such a DA list and even if you score 15pts a turn on the primary you still need to score at least 40pts on secondaries without taking any killing secondaries or the mission specific secondary. Maybe you can get 15 on assassinate but they are protected by 15-25 terminators in the middle so to get those you still need to wipe all those out so you cant try to ignore them and score anyway.
Lets say you play an army without fast and hard hitting units that can skirt around the battle field in to the middle of the opponents deployment zone and remove 5-10 inner circle terminators that may have cover before the game ends. Then your only option no matter the rest of your list, no matter the turn and no matter what the dark angel player really does is pour everything into that middle objective and hope you can kill all those inner circle terminators with character support before he scores enough to win. Any decision you make that isn't that is a false decision that will lead to a loss. You can try and "flank" or conserve firepower for later or hold units back in reserve or try any other "tactic" but that is just you fooling yourself that you have options. If the DA player gets first turn especially the way the whole game is played is more or less already decided for both players. If some of the terrain isnt very thought out like in my picture some armies really are mostly doomed in trying to clear the backfield objective. Reserving some units isnt enough since if you do the DA player dont just leave that 5 man unit there alone but put either a 10 man unit there, put a 10man unit a bit away to screen out that board edge while holding the upper left objective or use some of their characters or speeders or what ever to screen that out turn 2 and 3. Non flying transports/non infantry units would have to spend quite the time going around all the terrain and the 20 or so terminators in the middle so probably wont be able to get back there and kill them before turn 5.
I have seen a local DA player play exactly this kind of list. 30 or so terminators, a few support characters and 2 RW landspeeders. Besides fluke dice rolls the games are not more interesting or deep than tic-tac-toe.
Most other games with other armies aren't so clear cut and there might seem to be more tactics available but most of the time its just an illusion of choice rather than an actual choice. I used the above example just because it is so extreme that there barely is even an illusion of choice.
The more casual the 40k game is and the worse the armies and players are there might seem to exist more tactics but that is only because the players dont really understand how to win the game and make more mistakes allowing "deeper tactics" to work.
Before they made the new BA supplement I played a type of super aggressive board control list. Most games just came down to if I thought I should commit at deployment or not. If I did my deployment choices + the missions almost played the game for both me and my opponent for us. Sometimes I even told my opponents what their best actions would be to speed it up a bit since I knew they would come to the same conclusion anyway but they just werent used to the situation as I were and would need an extra 10-15 min to figure it out.
It's curious that you bring up this list, since I have seen it played literally yesterday.
Guess what happened? The DA player went first and was forced to concede because the opponent didn't charge into the middle for turns one and two. Obviously it was much more convoluted that this short description, and the DA opponent was simply more experienced.
That doesn't really tell me anything at all. I just set up a certain scenario in which their basically were no options to make a point for CERTAIN lists. If you change it you will of course get different outcomes. Doesn't mean the games had more tactics available or that the "flowchart" wouldn't be almost as simple. Could be or maybe it wasn't, I don't know. It is not like you have to charge in there turn 1 or turn 2, especially if you are a shooty list. But then it just becomes shoot in there turn 1 and 2 and then mop up before he scores enough to win the game. The opponent still had to do certain things that probably was quite obvious to a competent player.
Like my Blood Angels would actually have some more choices and ways to handle a DA death wing list on that mission than the games I have seen my friends play. But I have great movement, pre move/deploy and units capable of shifting a unit of backfield terminators as early as turn 1 or turn 2. So the DA player probably wouldn't chose that DA secondary to keep it or he would have to commit much more to guard it making the center weaker. It would be a very different game and the reason I stipulated armies/lists that don't have that capability. Those who don't have that capability just don't have much if any choice in how to win the game. Exactly how they do it depends on their list of course but there isn't much if any tactics to it.
In certain scenarios the game will as deep as tic-tac-toe. Sometimes it will look like it is chess being played but underneath it is still mostly tic-tac-toe if you paus and think about it.
But that is kind of a the norm for bad armies, those that are realy bad have two problems. First is weaker rules, and the other is that their best stuff is often not even on the level of the avarge stuff of other armies. And this turns games very formuleic. A bit like like chess, where you know the game is going to end in in 12 moves, with the difference being that with w40k you still have to play it through.
Yarium wrote: Great explanation, but I think this is a difference of opinion. I believe if you performed this experiment, you will find that each of the 3 players will do things differently, because the answers as to the best action in any particular game state will vary based on each player's skill level.
After deployment it wouldn't be much different on who did the turns after as long as they are all quite competent. Some slight variation at most on turn 1 or 2 but from turn 3 to turn 5 the games would probably be exactly the same.
Daedalus81 wrote: 40K gives probably the most choice out of any tabletop game on how you want to approach it. Either you can sit back and let loose with withering firepower while cackling like a maniac or deploy a raiding force to try and control the field or any number of combinations you can conceive
Yes and no. You can build your force in many different ways but many of those only lead to loss and suffering already in the list building stage. When on the table you are very limited in what you can do without losing. The mission design forces you to play a certain way.
Haven't uploaded an image before so might not work. But trying to show an extreme example of how little choice a player might have for a whole game.
In the mission Sweep and Clear a Dark Angels list could hold only the one objective in his quarter, very far from the other player, and the middle one and score 85 out of 90 points without killing a single enemy model or do more movement than a single move turn 1. You cant really score any killing objectives against such a DA list and even if you score 15pts a turn on the primary you still need to score at least 40pts on secondaries without taking any killing secondaries or the mission specific secondary. Maybe you can get 15 on assassinate but they are protected by 15-25 terminators in the middle so to get those you still need to wipe all those out so you cant try to ignore them and score anyway.
Lets say you play an army without fast and hard hitting units that can skirt around the battle field in to the middle of the opponents deployment zone and remove 5-10 inner circle terminators that may have cover before the game ends. Then your only option no matter the rest of your list, no matter the turn and no matter what the dark angel player really does is pour everything into that middle objective and hope you can kill all those inner circle terminators with character support before he scores enough to win. Any decision you make that isn't that is a false decision that will lead to a loss. You can try and "flank" or conserve firepower for later or hold units back in reserve or try any other "tactic" but that is just you fooling yourself that you have options. If the DA player gets first turn especially the way the whole game is played is more or less already decided for both players. If some of the terrain isnt very thought out like in my picture some armies really are mostly doomed in trying to clear the backfield objective. Reserving some units isnt enough since if you do the DA player dont just leave that 5 man unit there alone but put either a 10 man unit there, put a 10man unit a bit away to screen out that board edge while holding the upper left objective or use some of their characters or speeders or what ever to screen that out turn 2 and 3. Non flying transports/non infantry units would have to spend quite the time going around all the terrain and the 20 or so terminators in the middle so probably wont be able to get back there and kill them before turn 5.
I have seen a local DA player play exactly this kind of list. 30 or so terminators, a few support characters and 2 RW landspeeders. Besides fluke dice rolls the games are not more interesting or deep than tic-tac-toe.
Most other games with other armies aren't so clear cut and there might seem to be more tactics available but most of the time its just an illusion of choice rather than an actual choice. I used the above example just because it is so extreme that there barely is even an illusion of choice.
The more casual the 40k game is and the worse the armies and players are there might seem to exist more tactics but that is only because the players dont really understand how to win the game and make more mistakes allowing "deeper tactics" to work.
Before they made the new BA supplement I played a type of super aggressive board control list. Most games just came down to if I thought I should commit at deployment or not. If I did my deployment choices + the missions almost played the game for both me and my opponent for us. Sometimes I even told my opponents what their best actions would be to speed it up a bit since I knew they would come to the same conclusion anyway but they just werent used to the situation as I were and would need an extra 10-15 min to figure it out.
It's curious that you bring up this list, since I have seen it played literally yesterday. Guess what happened? The DA player went first and was forced to concede because the opponent didn't charge into the middle for turns one and two. Obviously it was much more convoluted that this short description, and the DA opponent was simply more experienced.
That doesn't really tell me anything at all. I just set up a certain scenario in which their basically were no options to make a point for CERTAIN lists. If you change it you will of course get different outcomes. Doesn't mean the games had more tactics available or that the "flowchart" wouldn't be almost as simple. Could be or maybe it wasn't, I don't know. It is not like you have to charge in there turn 1 or turn 2, especially if you are a shooty list. But then it just becomes shoot in there turn 1 and 2 and then mop up before he scores enough to win the game. The opponent still had to do certain things that probably was quite obvious to a competent player.
Like my Blood Angels would actually have some more choices and ways to handle a DA death wing list on that mission than the games I have seen my friends play. But I have great movement, pre move/deploy and units capable of shifting a unit of backfield terminators as early as turn 1 or turn 2. So the DA player probably wouldn't chose that DA secondary to keep it or he would have to commit much more to guard it making the center weaker. It would be a very different game and the reason I stipulated armies/lists that don't have that capability. Those who don't have that capability just don't have much if any choice in how to win the game. Exactly how they do it depends on their list of course but there isn't much if any tactics to it.
In certain scenarios the game will as deep as tic-tac-toe. Sometimes it will look like it is chess being played but underneath it is still mostly tic-tac-toe if you paus and think about it.
In that case the other opponent was another DA, but with a mixed battalion of greenwing/deathwing/ravenwing, which offered him more play choices.
Sure, if your point was that if a one trick pony army meets another one trick pony army then you can pretty much guess what is going to happen... well you are right, I've got no reason to argue that.
That's why armies in 9th are tipically very versatile and generalist units are preferred to specialsts.
Even in a list which sort of conspires to remove in-game choice I think they exist.
For example, how many terminators do you leave at the bottom left? What is the *optimal* answer from opposing list to opposing list? If that flank does get crushed by say turn 2, do you just say "bad dice, good game" or do you change your later turns?
Now eventually yes, you'll have played your list against a range of other competitive lists to the point where you have some feeling of where the balancing point is. But if you'd never played the list before, I'm not convinced it is obvious.
Ofc there are choices but most choices are just bad and shouldn't be taken. The game is just too constrained by the missions/core rules with 5 turns and the binary way to handle things to let you give meaningful choices. You mostly rush to the objectives and point your gun at the optimal targets.
Most people make lots of mistakes when playing which makes it look like there were tactical decisions that really decided the game. If you gave each player just a little reminder list, maybe with some calculations for choosing targets already made as
well, andd a few extra minutes for each phase you could easily remove most of those misplays that gave the Illusion of choice.
The game is quite complex with a ton of special rules you easily forget and misremember. Those are often what drives the players actions. Very rarely do you see a player do an actual move, that isn't someone doing a bad play and just trying something cute because it's a real life tactic, after deployment that changes how you respond to things. They can't suddenly refuse a flank and move their tanks over to the other side to make a flanking maneuver. There isn't enough game turns to waste away doing something like that. They can't choose to just suppress or pin down a unit and focus fire somewhere else and try to handle that problematic unit another way later on. Such actions don't even exist. We can't use debuffs or morale to influence the opponent. It's a very binary kill or not kill and that is usually a very easy choice to see what is the best target in any given situation. At most you can run in some cheap chaff and hope it stalls the opposing unit for a bit but that is often not so easy due to the lethality and movement of the stronger stuff. They can often kill anything cheap they get charged by or fall back and charge something else in their turn or if you try to block their movement they can often just fly around or use pile ins and consolidation to even gain movement if not just making up for any lost movement.
This is why having an optimal list is so important and to know all the million rules so well. The game lacks depth so you often don't play the opponent as much as you use your best unit the most efficient way while minimising your own mistakes.
There is very little "risks" when doing things in 40k when playing well. Unless you roll very poorly you don't really fail and have to have back up plans or change the tactics midway or between turns. After you have deployed the course is mostly set and you just plow forward.
Blood Bowl on the other hand is very different in this regard. First you must plan for the inevitable failure and depending on where in a turn a player failed the other player's next turn could be drastically different completely changing both players plans and actions for the rest of the game. On a random snake eyes you could have to change your entire game plan for the next 14 turns when your star player stumples and breaks his ankle when the opponent tackles him. Instead of playing a passing game you might go for a caging game instead. The game, unless getting bashed in to the mud, can be tacticaly deep and there are often more than just one optimal path to victory that can change in response to player and game actions.
And to your example of a flank getting crushed and saying GG. If I had poor rolls and aren't playing a very mobile army the game is probably over at that point. Depending on what kind of game it is we might just call it and set up a new game or if it is a tournament I will try to get as many points as possible still but the game might already be decided. There really isn't any way to come back most games due to good decision making. The mission system stops that. Insane dice rolling can ofc decide a game that should have been decided already but that isn't really anything you as a player can do anything about.
I agree on that the game was decided by the players. Most games are. I didn't see much tactical depth though. Most of what I read look like the Death Guard player did mistakes and got punished for it.
Like his large terminator unit did absolutely nothing for turn 1-3.... Got his PBC killed by smites turn 1....
If you are playing 2000 Vs 1580 for 3 turns I would say that it isn't surprising that the Tyranid player won.
Considering "your" (both of you) stance is since it's IGOUGO, the other player has no input on your actions although he is the one creating the table state you're given, there is nothing to discuss, obviously.
Blood Bowl on the other hand is very different in this regard. First you must plan for the inevitable failure and depending on where in a turn a player failed the other player's next turn could be drastically different completely changing both players plans and actions for the rest of the game. On a random snake eyes you could have to change your entire game plan for the next 14 turns when your star player stumples and breaks his ankle when the opponent tackles him. Instead of playing a passing game you might go for a caging game instead. The game, unless getting bashed in to the mud, can be tacticaly deep and there are often more than just one optimal path to victory that can change in response to player and game actions.
If your team isn't set up to play anything else than "bash skulls", no, you can't really redefine your plan. You might pick up the ball sooner than you intended for example but it isn't really a redefining move.
Just as in 40K if your army is monolithic, you can only do one thing and it's why army building is important (on top of having more choices and being less restrained in your choices than when you build a BB team, which implies more chances to make mistakes during this stage). Not because you only have to pick the good stuff, move it forward and then win. You need certain tools and employ them correctly, just as in a game of BB and you definitely can tip your army towards certain "pathways of victory" if you want to. You can build an army that relies on brawling in the middle, one that relies on board control, another on firepower and speed, whatever. And depending on what tools you picked or not, you might be able to switch from one or another at some point. But there is nothing "automatic" about that in both games.
Klickor wrote: I agree on that the game was decided by the players. Most games are. I didn't see much tactical depth though. Most of what I read look like the Death Guard player did mistakes and got punished for it.
Like his large terminator unit did absolutely nothing for turn 1-3.... Got his PBC killed by smites turn 1....
If you are playing 2000 Vs 1580 for 3 turns I would say that it isn't surprising that the Tyranid player won.
Having a smite hit for 9 MW isn't something you plan for, but is the kind of thing that you have to react to.
Same thing that happened on the other side, with one of the hyerodules being hardly crippled by a couple of lucky shots.
There was also no mistake in how he played those terminators.
So for the DA example, you are playing Harlequins, with a standard sort of list of starweaver mounted troupes and bikes. What if they were to respond like this? Bike squads go and tag the top left and bottom right objectives. Starweavers shoot across the centre.
In their turn 2 everything is going to consolidate on those 5-10 terminators in the bottom left.
So what do you do? Are you just going to bunker down on the centre and see how the dice go? What's the proof that this is the optimal response?
This might not be the optimal play from the Harlequins either - but feel free to point that out.
Are harlequins even a fair example of playing vs any army? They have practicaly no common played bad match ups and have positive win rates vs everything from horde to elite armies. Of course they can blow up every bunker, with practicaly no counter. Even on tables without terrain they would be favoured.
Too much work to discuss that but everything changes if you have a mobile army. Which is WHY in my example I excluded those. So why you then use Harlequins as a counter argument blows my mind. I tried to show as an extreme example as possible to remove any of all thsoe decisions to show the faults with the system.
Since I now have 150 guardsmen in my deployment zone and you were kind enough to expose your Harlequin list I guess I win? I can also completely change the armies in the example on a whim now.
Klickor wrote: Too much work to discuss that but everything changes if you have a mobile army. Which is WHY in my example I excluded those. So why you then use Harlequins as a counter argument blows my mind. I tried to show as an extreme example as possible to remove any of all thsoe decisions to show the faults with the system.
Since I now have 150 guardsmen in my deployment zone and you were kind enough to expose your Harlequin list I guess I win? I can also completely change the armies in the example on a whim now.
Well.. okay, but what's an example of a such an immobile army that functions at the higher levels of the game?
I guess if a DA army of 30~ Terminators runs into a DG army of 30~ Terminators, you are probably on for a brawl over the middle objective and the dice will see who wins - but even then I think there is some interactions worth thinking about.
There will still be some decision making ofc in any game. There are always lots of small more mechanics that need to be done correctly as well. Like spacing, screening, cover, line of sight etc.
I wasn't just thinking top tier armies but armies overall that can field slow lists. But yeah, other DA or DG could really become a slog that even if decided by the player who makes the best decisions it would still not be much tactical depth in them and they would be very straightforward most of the time.
My argument is that 40k is very shallow due to the nature of the missions, the core rules and the small table size. Those things dictate more your actions than what your opponent is doing does. Still some tactics but it just isn't much. The Harlequins that were brought up aren't much more tactical but their rules and the board states they make sure do make the game look way deeper than what DA Vs DG does. But only on the surface.
Don’t forget limited number of turns driving choices, reducing them in many cases to those which are necessary and mostly obvious, and those not useful.
Anyways Klickor, I had just gotten my exalt button fixed after Lance set it on fire, and here you go making me break it again! You are on fire with the analysis.
jeff white wrote: Don’t forget limited number of turns driving choices, reducing them in many cases to those which are necessary and mostly obvious, and those not useful.
Anyways Klickor, I had just gotten my exalt button fixed after Lance set it on fire, and here you go making me break it again! You are on fire with the analysis.
In what game where you're trying to win, do you make moves that aren't necessary/useful ?
The word you're looking for might be "decisive" instead. And yeah, the game being "short" means you have to get results faster and can't setup something for 5 turns down the line.
Doesn't means much though, as long as there enough decisive moves available.
Ofc you try to make meaningful choices in all games but the time limit and the way the game works with scoring and killing changes what kind of decisions you can make. In many games you can set up moves for rewards later on and not focus as much on the current turn. In 40k "tactics" often comes down to "how do I score as much as possible this turn and kill as much of the opponent while doing so?". What you will actually do 1 or 2 turns later doesn't matter much compared to what you do NOW!
This limits any possible tactical depth. The decisions are still very important from turn to turn but each decision is usually very simple and short sighted, limited in scope.
Klickor wrote: Ofc you try to make meaningful choices in all games but the time limit and the way the game works with scoring and killing changes what kind of decisions you can make. In many games you can set up moves for rewards later on and not focus as much on the current turn. In 40k "tactics" often comes down to "how do I score as much as possible this turn and kill as much of the opponent while doing so?". What you will actually do 1 or 2 turns later doesn't matter much compared to what you do NOW!
This limits any possible tactical depth. The decisions are still very important from turn to turn but each decision is usually very simple and short sighted, limited in scope.
I dunno, if you just move your stuff forward to get the points you can right now, you'll often start your next turn with a much smaller army. All a smaller number of turns does is force you to do as much as you can in a single turn. Doesn't mean you then have to reduce your scope to only "score and kill stuff" and if you can't do much more, I'm not sure it's always the game's fault as a ruleset (while a bit hard to judge since it's also incomplete at the moment, lacking updated rules for 16 or so factions).
Anyway, sure a game of 40K is short (in terms of opportunities). Deployment and the first turn are all about setup for every following turn though (with being able to correct at least parts of deployment during your 1st turn) and the 4 other turns are a bit more "shallow" I guess, since you're supposed to (or have to) commit more to whatever you decided (some armies can change plans more easily than others) and thus also offer less room for mistakes. Talking about turns is also a bit misleading since you have means to "lengthen" your turn if I may, like moving multiple times during a round, a few units can shoot/fight multiple times too, etc. All those allows for more than just "hey, i gotta sit on this marker and kill a bit of stuff, now".
But yes, it limits on purpose what plans you can make and I believe we didn't get the objective game we got by chance. We already got missions settings where we had more liberty regarding how we were going to win and it lead to alpha strikes/over reliance on lethality and last turn scoring for example which weren't fun if you trust community feed back. Could it be "more tactical" or "have more depth" though ? Yes, probably.
So yeah, you probably can't manoeuvre to expose your tactical genius into a perfect turn you would start with a "and now I win" (even though nothing really stops this possibility). I just think it's a bit reductive to say you mostly don't really care about other turns than the one you're in now, particularly if it's supposed to be a symptom of the game being short. If it's short, you should be planning how to achieve what you want in the set amount of turns you're given instead of whenever your opponents makes a mistake or when you eventually manage to create the situation you were looking for (which are possible and valid strategies in longer games, like BB since you mentioned it). It's mainly just faster paced and for good reasons imho. I guess what I mean is you can be reductive of any kind of game, "it's not meaningful, you just wait for X to happen" or "it's not meaningful you have to be focused on doing this" are the same kind of thought. In the end, it's just different.
The basic battle plan here is fairly obvious. On Incursions smaller tables, two full Warrior bricks can dominate a huge proportion of it...
Large, durable infantry blocks are more likely to overwhelm the opponent’s tools in Incursion, and the same is true of big monsters...
As all these lists are showing, linear, proactive strategies to overwhelm the enemy are better than ever in Incursion.
[W]e see the tools from the Eternal Expansionist build used to construct an even more extreme version of the plan from the Warrior list – overwhelm the enemy. Here, with their pre-game move, ObSec and either built-in or Chronomancered invulns, the Canoptek elements here can slam into the opponent’s army pretty much straight out of the gate, and potentially cut them off from being able to achieve anything much at all all game.
Thanks to For the Greater Good, try and charge one and there’s a good chance all of them will be unloading, and if you don’t engage with them then they’ll gradually rack up chip damage over the course of the game...
I get that these are 1,000 point skew lists but you know with certainty what each list needs to do to win. There is one correct way to play these lists and if you can do it, due to dice or running into a bad match-up there's not much you can do to salvage the game.
Klickor wrote: Ofc you try to make meaningful choices in all games but the time limit and the way the game works with scoring and killing changes what kind of decisions you can make. In many games you can set up moves for rewards later on and not focus as much on the current turn. In 40k "tactics" often comes down to "how do I score as much as possible this turn and kill as much of the opponent while doing so?". What you will actually do 1 or 2 turns later doesn't matter much compared to what you do NOW!
This limits any possible tactical depth. The decisions are still very important from turn to turn but each decision is usually very simple and short sighted, limited in scope.
Sorry man, your previous posts were interesting and made for good discussion, but this one is just wrong.
Like, 100% wrong.
In 40K you play your turn thinking one or 2 turns ahead. What happens during this turn doesn't really matter a lot, you may end up with almost zero points scored and no enemy units killed, but setting up a very good next turn. You always have a general plan of how much you will score at the end of the game and how much he will score, and try to follow that as much as possible. Thinking turn by turn in 9th just means being bad.
Klickor wrote: Ofc you try to make meaningful choices in all games but the time limit and the way the game works with scoring and killing changes what kind of decisions you can make. In many games you can set up moves for rewards later on and not focus as much on the current turn. In 40k "tactics" often comes down to "how do I score as much as possible this turn and kill as much of the opponent while doing so?". What you will actually do 1 or 2 turns later doesn't matter much compared to what you do NOW!
This limits any possible tactical depth. The decisions are still very important from turn to turn but each decision is usually very simple and short sighted, limited in scope.
Sorry man, your previous posts were interesting and made for good discussion, but this one is just wrong.
Like, 100% wrong.
In 40K you play your turn thinking one or 2 turns ahead. What happens during this turn doesn't really matter a lot, you may end up with almost zero points scored and no enemy units killed, but setting up a very good next turn.
You always have a general plan of how much you will score at the end of the game and how much he will score, and try to follow that as much as possible.
Thinking turn by turn in 9th just means being bad.
You don't really NEED to think ahead though. You know what your opponent brought. You already know whats in reserves. It isn't rocket science, let alone high school science.
Klickor wrote: Ofc you try to make meaningful choices in all games but the time limit and the way the game works with scoring and killing changes what kind of decisions you can make. In many games you can set up moves for rewards later on and not focus as much on the current turn. In 40k "tactics" often comes down to "how do I score as much as possible this turn and kill as much of the opponent while doing so?". What you will actually do 1 or 2 turns later doesn't matter much compared to what you do NOW!
This limits any possible tactical depth. The decisions are still very important from turn to turn but each decision is usually very simple and short sighted, limited in scope.
Sorry man, your previous posts were interesting and made for good discussion, but this one is just wrong.
Like, 100% wrong.
In 40K you play your turn thinking one or 2 turns ahead. What happens during this turn doesn't really matter a lot, you may end up with almost zero points scored and no enemy units killed, but setting up a very good next turn.
You always have a general plan of how much you will score at the end of the game and how much he will score, and try to follow that as much as possible.
Thinking turn by turn in 9th just means being bad.
You don't really NEED to think ahead though. You know what your opponent brought. You already know whats in reserves. It isn't rocket science, let alone high school science.
If you think that knowing what your opponent's forces are is enough to make it "Not even high school science" to foresee your opponent movements, please show me your multiple chess world titles, its clear that you got lot of them.
Which by the way it wouldn't even prove your point, since planning in 40k is harder than planning in chess because what you want to do and what happens are not the same due to the nature of dice.
Spoletta wrote: Which by the way it wouldn't even prove your point, since planning in 40k is harder than planning in chess because what you want to do and what happens are not the same due to the nature of dice.
If move by move planning in 40k is so required why do we get the following quotes from the Goonhammer team analyzing a 1k points tournament?
The basic battle plan here is fairly obvious. On Incursions smaller tables, two full Warrior bricks can dominate a huge proportion of it...
Large, durable infantry blocks are more likely to overwhelm the opponent’s tools in Incursion, and the same is true of big monsters...
As all these lists are showing, linear, proactive strategies to overwhelm the enemy are better than ever in Incursion.
[W]e see the tools from the Eternal Expansionist build used to construct an even more extreme version of the plan from the Warrior list – overwhelm the enemy. Here, with their pre-game move, ObSec and either built-in or Chronomancered invulns, the Canoptek elements here can slam into the opponent’s army pretty much straight out of the gate, and potentially cut them off from being able to achieve anything much at all all game.
Thanks to For the Greater Good, try and charge one and there’s a good chance all of them will be unloading, and if you don’t engage with them then they’ll gradually rack up chip damage over the course of the game...
Spoletta wrote: Which by the way it wouldn't even prove your point, since planning in 40k is harder than planning in chess because what you want to do and what happens are not the same due to the nature of dice.
If move by move planning in 40k is so required why do we get the following quotes from the Goonhammer team analyzing a 1k points tournament?
The basic battle plan here is fairly obvious. On Incursions smaller tables, two full Warrior bricks can dominate a huge proportion of it...
Large, durable infantry blocks are more likely to overwhelm the opponent’s tools in Incursion, and the same is true of big monsters...
As all these lists are showing, linear, proactive strategies to overwhelm the enemy are better than ever in Incursion.
[W]e see the tools from the Eternal Expansionist build used to construct an even more extreme version of the plan from the Warrior list – overwhelm the enemy. Here, with their pre-game move, ObSec and either built-in or Chronomancered invulns, the Canoptek elements here can slam into the opponent’s army pretty much straight out of the gate, and potentially cut them off from being able to achieve anything much at all all game.
Thanks to For the Greater Good, try and charge one and there’s a good chance all of them will be unloading, and if you don’t engage with them then they’ll gradually rack up chip damage over the course of the game...
Did you seriouly bring Goonhammer into this?
You took a source which has DOZENS of articles on 40k tactics, and took out a few sentences regarding an obscure 40k gamemode to prove your point that tactics don't exist?
Are you this desperate to prove your point?
Ok, let me put another nail on your absurde point's coffin.
A GT has just been won by a player which brought a list which wasn't meta in the least. This player is known as one of the best 40K players, but this obviously doesn't count since this game is extremely easy and players don't make a difference, right?
So, why didn't someone with a better list win?
The influence of dice doesn't really change much in what you do. It changes the outcomes of the game drastically sometimes but if my unit on the left suddenly fails 10 out of 10 3+ saves it doesn't change too much what I will or have to do. I just have one unit less to do it with. I am already committed to a plan most of the time and don't have the time to get a new unit over there to replace it because I won't have any back up plans for such an anomaly in dice rolls.
A good player will have some units close by most of the time if the dice rolls goes slightly away from average but you can't do anything about huge spikes. If you try to you will in most cases lose somewhere else on the table instead 9 times out of 10 so you just don't bother.
Dice mostly just change target priorities. Especially since the most brutal dice failure on your own turn usually happens in the charge phase and ir is too late to do anything about. If you fail a sub 7" charge with a reroll on a crucial unit it doesn't suddenly create any meaningful choices for any player. Your turn is going to end and the opponent have the obvious choice of just screwing you over now while having more resources left than he had expected. The situation changed but the tactics is still the same.
There are some early dice rolls like litanies, advances (for units that can charge or shoot after) and even some psychic powers(mostly the buffs/debuffs) that change how you actually play and do stuff. But for the rest you are already committed to an action before knowing the dice and the best you can do is plan for slightly below average rolls and hope it isn't just lower rolls than that. You have already moved everything before you roll any dice for powers, shooting, charging or melee. If you shoot well you can't then relocate you melee guys so they can charge something else or if you fail to kill something you had like a 95% to kill but really had to kill you can't move up anything else now. It's too late.
Since the game is mostly binary in how you deal with things, you kill a unit or not and you score points now or they are "gone", what the dice rolls usually doesn't change much the available decisions.
Many games have multiple ways to deal with stuff. You can pin, suppress, knock down, curse/debuff, lower morale/cause panic etc that give additional effects rather than just kill things that will change how you or your opponent deals with things. "That unit is out for action this turn, do I still try to put more lead in to them while they are vulnerable or do I try to put another unit temporarily out of the fight while I try to get a positional advantage?". In 40k it's more "damn, he saved them all, just have to shoot with this unit as well then".
Movemen/LoS/Terrain is also mostly just binary as well. Either you see or you don't. You can either move in it or cant. In many situations the cover doesn't even matter either. A unit of eradicators with chapter master rerolls that barely see a unit 6 terrain pieces away hiding behind a barricade still hit at worst 75% of the time and their ap4-5 probably negates most if not all saves even in cover. There are no flanking or outnumber bonuses either in the game. Which makes movement all about killing and scoring.
The prevalence of charge/shoot after advance together with only a d6 advance usually makes movement very binary. You either advance anyway because it's free movement due to no targets or special rules that negate the penalty or you don't because loosing the ability to attack for a chance to roll a 1 on the extra movement isn't worth it unless you really need to get to an objective this turn. If you instead got a guaranteed 6" bonus when advancing(or maybe just double move if base move below 6") and had more bonuses for flanking etc it would set up more interesting situations. Also removing or nerfing most if not all advance and shoot/charge bonuses. Do you move 6 and shoot or move to 12 to get in position for later? Now you go 6 and shoot or 6+d6 and shoot/charge anyway.
There are so many things in current 40k that are just shallow compared to its previous editions or almost any other game out there.
Ok, let me put another nail on your absurde point's coffin.
A GT has just been won by a player which brought a list which wasn't meta in the least. This player is known as one of the best 40K players, but this obviously doesn't count since this game is extremely easy and players don't make a difference, right?
So, why didn't someone with a better list win?
Please explain.
I don't think anyone have argued in this thread that Strategy, list building, good decision making, able to do quick math, rules knowledge, meta knowledge and good mechanical play aren't important factors in winning the game. All of those are skills important to have. The winner of that GT probably did well on most if not all those points I just brought up. He sure as hell didn't come up with a total random list made by a RNG, walked in blind totally oblivious to the rules, without any strategy at all and played mechanically sloppy and crushed them purely with his tactical brilliance.
Like the battle report you linked earlier with Tyranids vs Death Guard. That was one of the most shallow tactical 40k games I have seen a report off. It was a good report and showed why the better player(Tyranid) won. But it didn't prove your point at all.
The influence of dice doesn't really change much in what you do. It changes the outcomes of the game drastically sometimes but if my unit on the left suddenly fails 10 out of 10 3+ saves it doesn't change too much what I will or have to do. I just have one unit less to do it with. I am already committed to a plan most of the time and don't have the time to get a new unit over there to replace it because I won't have any back up plans for such an anomaly in dice rolls.
A good player will have some units close by most of the time if the dice rolls goes slightly away from average but you can't do anything about huge spikes. If you try to you will in most cases lose somewhere else on the table instead 9 times out of 10 so you just don't bother.
Dice mostly just change target priorities. Especially since the most brutal dice failure on your own turn usually happens in the charge phase and ir is too late to do anything about. If you fail a sub 7" charge with a reroll on a crucial unit it doesn't suddenly create any meaningful choices for any player. Your turn is going to end and the opponent have the obvious choice of just screwing you over now while having more resources left than he had expected. The situation changed but the tactics is still the same.
There are some early dice rolls like litanies, advances (for units that can charge or shoot after) and even some psychic powers(mostly the buffs/debuffs) that change how you actually play and do stuff. But for the rest you are already committed to an action before knowing the dice and the best you can do is plan for slightly below average rolls and hope it isn't just lower rolls than that. You have already moved everything before you roll any dice for powers, shooting, charging or melee. If you shoot well you can't then relocate you melee guys so they can charge something else or if you fail to kill something you had like a 95% to kill but really had to kill you can't move up anything else now. It's too late.
Since the game is mostly binary in how you deal with things, you kill a unit or not and you score points now or they are "gone", what the dice rolls usually doesn't change much the available decisions.
Many games have multiple ways to deal with stuff. You can pin, suppress, knock down, curse/debuff, lower morale/cause panic etc that give additional effects rather than just kill things that will change how you or your opponent deals with things. "That unit is out for action this turn, do I still try to put more lead in to them while they are vulnerable or do I try to put another unit temporarily out of the fight while I try to get a positional advantage?". In 40k it's more "damn, he saved them all, just have to shoot with this unit as well then".
Movemen/LoS/Terrain is also mostly just binary as well. Either you see or you don't. You can either move in it or cant. In many situations the cover doesn't even matter either. A unit of eradicators with chapter master rerolls that barely see a unit 6 terrain pieces away hiding behind a barricade still hit at worst 75% of the time and their ap4-5 probably negates most if not all saves even in cover. There are no flanking or outnumber bonuses either in the game. Which makes movement all about killing and scoring.
The prevalence of charge/shoot after advance together with only a d6 advance usually makes movement very binary. You either advance anyway because it's free movement due to no targets or special rules that negate the penalty or you don't because loosing the ability to attack for a chance to roll a 1 on the extra movement isn't worth it unless you really need to get to an objective this turn. If you instead got a guaranteed 6" bonus when advancing(or maybe just double move if base move below 6") and had more bonuses for flanking etc it would set up more interesting situations. Also removing or nerfing most if not all advance and shoot/charge bonuses. Do you move 6 and shoot or move to 12 to get in position for later? Now you go 6 and shoot or 6+d6 and shoot/charge anyway.
There are so many things in current 40k that are just shallow compared to its previous editions or almost any other game out there.
Thanks for proving my point.
I agree with your analysis. Since you have to commit to your turn during the movement phase, planning it is actually much harder than it looks, since you have to commit in a way that both optimizes your resources AND provides fall back plans in case that the dices don't do what you want. I tried to make everyone else understand this earlier in the thread, but in fell on deaf ears. Thanks for giving a more detailed analysis than mine on that point, maybe that this time they will understand.
As has been stated many times in this and other threads, the game is won or lost during the movement phase.
One of the flaws of this game, is that the resolution of the turn lasts too long. You spend too much time with mechanical resolutions compared to the important moments where you are actually influencing the outcome, reason why I really like the Apoc ruleset.
This still doesn't bring any water to your point about turns being planned without thinking about the next turns, which keeps being very wrong. I mean, you can play by thinking only on a turn by turn basis, and that is an acceptable approach for new players. Just don't expect to win doing that.
I don't think anyone have argued in this thread that Strategy, list building, good decision making, able to do quick math, rules knowledge, meta knowledge and good mechanical play aren't important factors in winning the game. All of those are skills important to have. The winner of that GT probably did well on most if not all those points I just brought up. He sure as hell didn't come up with a total random list made by a RNG, walked in blind totally oblivious to the rules, without any strategy at all and played mechanically sloppy and crushed them purely with his tactical brilliance.
Like the battle report you linked earlier with Tyranids vs Death Guard. That was one of the most shallow tactical 40k games I have seen a report off. It was a good report and showed why the better player(Tyranid) won. But it didn't prove your point at all.
Please know what you are defending.
It has been stated multiple times in this thread, that if 2 competent players play, it only matters the list and who goes first.
The influence of dice doesn't really change much in what you do. It changes the outcomes of the game drastically sometimes but if my unit on the left suddenly fails 10 out of 10 3+ saves it doesn't change too much what I will or have to do. I just have one unit less to do it with. I am already committed to a plan most of the time and don't have the time to get a new unit over there to replace it because I won't have any back up plans for such an anomaly in dice rolls.
A good player will have some units close by most of the time if the dice rolls goes slightly away from average but you can't do anything about huge spikes. If you try to you will in most cases lose somewhere else on the table instead 9 times out of 10 so you just don't bother.
Dice mostly just change target priorities. Especially since the most brutal dice failure on your own turn usually happens in the charge phase and ir is too late to do anything about. If you fail a sub 7" charge with a reroll on a crucial unit it doesn't suddenly create any meaningful choices for any player. Your turn is going to end and the opponent have the obvious choice of just screwing you over now while having more resources left than he had expected. The situation changed but the tactics is still the same.
There are some early dice rolls like litanies, advances (for units that can charge or shoot after) and even some psychic powers(mostly the buffs/debuffs) that change how you actually play and do stuff. But for the rest you are already committed to an action before knowing the dice and the best you can do is plan for slightly below average rolls and hope it isn't just lower rolls than that. You have already moved everything before you roll any dice for powers, shooting, charging or melee. If you shoot well you can't then relocate you melee guys so they can charge something else or if you fail to kill something you had like a 95% to kill but really had to kill you can't move up anything else now. It's too late.
Since the game is mostly binary in how you deal with things, you kill a unit or not and you score points now or they are "gone", what the dice rolls usually doesn't change much the available decisions.
Many games have multiple ways to deal with stuff. You can pin, suppress, knock down, curse/debuff, lower morale/cause panic etc that give additional effects rather than just kill things that will change how you or your opponent deals with things. "That unit is out for action this turn, do I still try to put more lead in to them while they are vulnerable or do I try to put another unit temporarily out of the fight while I try to get a positional advantage?". In 40k it's more "damn, he saved them all, just have to shoot with this unit as well then".
Movemen/LoS/Terrain is also mostly just binary as well. Either you see or you don't. You can either move in it or cant. In many situations the cover doesn't even matter either. A unit of eradicators with chapter master rerolls that barely see a unit 6 terrain pieces away hiding behind a barricade still hit at worst 75% of the time and their ap4-5 probably negates most if not all saves even in cover. There are no flanking or outnumber bonuses either in the game. Which makes movement all about killing and scoring.
The prevalence of charge/shoot after advance together with only a d6 advance usually makes movement very binary. You either advance anyway because it's free movement due to no targets or special rules that negate the penalty or you don't because loosing the ability to attack for a chance to roll a 1 on the extra movement isn't worth it unless you really need to get to an objective this turn. If you instead got a guaranteed 6" bonus when advancing(or maybe just double move if base move below 6") and had more bonuses for flanking etc it would set up more interesting situations. Also removing or nerfing most if not all advance and shoot/charge bonuses. Do you move 6 and shoot or move to 12 to get in position for later? Now you go 6 and shoot or 6+d6 and shoot/charge anyway.
There are so many things in current 40k that are just shallow compared to its previous editions or almost any other game out there.
Thanks for proving my point.
I agree with your analysis. Since you have to commit to your turn during the movement phase, planning it is actually much harder than it looks, since you have to commit in a way that both optimizes your resources AND provides fall back plans in case that the dices don't do what you want.
What it means is once you have moved your decision making is basically done. This isn't about difficulty. This is about complexity and depth of choice. How difficult it is to do the math and assess your flow chart is going to be different on a person to person basis. I am sure there are plenty of people who have an easier time of it then I do. I am also sure from this thread that I have an easier time of it than others. Either way, the choices are not complex (Though the game does give it it's all to create as much rules complexity as possible) and there is no depth to those choices. Which is why it can be broken down so easily.
I tried to make everyone else understand this earlier in the thread, but in fell on deaf ears. Thanks for giving a more detailed analysis than mine on that point, maybe that this time they will understand.
As has been stated many times in this and other threads, the game is won or lost during the movement phase. One of the flaws of this game, is that the resolution of the turn lasts too long. You spend too much time with mechanical resolutions compared to the important moments where you are actually influencing the outcome, reason why I really like the Apoc ruleset.
I don't disagree with this bit.
This still doesn't bring any water to your point about turns being planned without thinking about the next turns, which keeps being very wrong. I mean, you can play by thinking only on a turn by turn basis, and that is an acceptable approach for new players. Just don't expect to win doing that.
You CAN'T plan for the next turn. You don't have the vast majority of the variables and you have no ability to influence them outside of your turn. You can formulate vague ideas of what you would LIKE to happen. But planning for how many models are going to be in x, y, z positions before you have even started shooting let alone the opponent is a fools errand.
Klickor wrote: Ofc you try to make meaningful choices in all games but the time limit and the way the game works with scoring and killing changes what kind of decisions you can make. In many games you can set up moves for rewards later on and not focus as much on the current turn. In 40k "tactics" often comes down to "how do I score as much as possible this turn and kill as much of the opponent while doing so?". What you will actually do 1 or 2 turns later doesn't matter much compared to what you do NOW!
This limits any possible tactical depth. The decisions are still very important from turn to turn but each decision is usually very simple and short sighted, limited in scope.
Sorry man, your previous posts were interesting and made for good discussion, but this one is just wrong.
Like, 100% wrong.
In 40K you play your turn thinking one or 2 turns ahead. What happens during this turn doesn't really matter a lot, you may end up with almost zero points scored and no enemy units killed, but setting up a very good next turn.
You always have a general plan of how much you will score at the end of the game and how much he will score, and try to follow that as much as possible.
Thinking turn by turn in 9th just means being bad.
You don't really NEED to think ahead though. You know what your opponent brought. You already know whats in reserves. It isn't rocket science, let alone high school science.
If you think that knowing what your opponent's forces are is enough to make it "Not even high school science" to foresee your opponent movements, please show me your multiple chess world titles, its clear that you got lot of them.
Which by the way it wouldn't even prove your point, since planning in 40k is harder than planning in chess because what you want to do and what happens are not the same due to the nature of dice.
Difference with chess is the opponent is allowed to counter what I do. Show me what you're countering on your opponent's turn outside a few minimal Stratagems.
40k may look deep but the limited turns, and thus the amount of actions, in combination with the mission design makes the game very shallow when it comes to tactics.
Note that Infinity, a game that has been here listed as vastly more tactical than 40k, has a standard game length of 3 turns.
40k may look deep but the limited turns, and thus the amount of actions, in combination with the mission design makes the game very shallow when it comes to tactics.
Note that Infinity, a game that has been here listed as vastly more tactical than 40k, has a standard game length of 3 turns.
The counterpoint to that is there are theoretically a vastly greater number of actions, because each enemy model can theoretically react in "real time" to any action you perform. So, in a purely contrived hypothetical, you could be looking at making 15 actions and your opponent making 15 reactions for each of those actions.
Not that I necessarily agree with any of this, this is just the thought process I foresee people going through to defend their point.
40k may look deep but the limited turns, and thus the amount of actions, in combination with the mission design makes the game very shallow when it comes to tactics.
Note that Infinity, a game that has been here listed as vastly more tactical than 40k, has a standard game length of 3 turns.
The counterpoint to that is there are theoretically a vastly greater number of actions, because each enemy model can theoretically react in "real time" to any action you perform. So, in a purely contrived hypothetical, you could be looking at making 15 actions and your opponent making 15 reactions for each of those actions.
Not that I necessarily agree with any of this, this is just the thought process I foresee people going through to defend their point.
While this is true, personally I have been dissatisfied by Infinity because it seems like the median number of actions your Infinity model makes in a game is more often than not "Zero." It's very much a game with "Death Star" style play baked in due to how activations work, though the squad system in the game makes the lower-value models at least pretend to be a piece that exists in the game, because they get to move around for free while you take actions with the 1-2 members of the squad that actually matter (the ones holding special weaponry)
40k may look deep but the limited turns, and thus the amount of actions, in combination with the mission design makes the game very shallow when it comes to tactics.
Note that Infinity, a game that has been here listed as vastly more tactical than 40k, has a standard game length of 3 turns.
The counterpoint to that is there are theoretically a vastly greater number of actions, because each enemy model can theoretically react in "real time" to any action you perform. So, in a purely contrived hypothetical, you could be looking at making 15 actions and your opponent making 15 reactions for each of those actions.
Not that I necessarily agree with any of this, this is just the thought process I foresee people going through to defend their point.
While this is true, personally I have been dissatisfied by Infinity because it seems like the median number of actions your Infinity model makes in a game is more often than not "Zero." It's very much a game with "Death Star" style play baked in due to how activations work, though the squad system in the game makes the lower-value models at least pretend to be a piece that exists in the game, because they get to move around for free while you take actions with the 1-2 members of the squad that actually matter (the ones holding special weaponry)
Which is all well and good and a very interesting assessment of the way Infinities mechanics effect game play. It has no actual bearing on a discussion of 40k and it's mechanics and game play. As already pointed out, pointing at that game and saying there are only 3 turns, which are in fact composed of a great many player to player interactions isn't a strong argument against the singular data point that 40k only has 5 turns with almost null player to player interaction. Comparing apples to oranges.
40k may look deep but the limited turns, and thus the amount of actions, in combination with the mission design makes the game very shallow when it comes to tactics.
Note that Infinity, a game that has been here listed as vastly more tactical than 40k, has a standard game length of 3 turns.
The problem with 40k being 5 turns isn't the turn number itself. It is what you can do in those turns and even more what you have to do. If the game only had end of game scoring, or at least each objective was worth more the later in the game it is, the way you play the game opens up a bit more. Or let you max more secondaries turn 1 and 2 and then be free of them in the later turns to do something else. You have to start scoring some secondaries already in turn 1 and most often you have to position yourself turn 1 so that you can start or negate turn 2 primary scoring. Most primary/secondary objectives also have a limit on how much you can score them each turn so you are forced to play into them every turn until they are maxed out. Which is often taking 4-5 turns to do. With only 5 turns and the "forced" actions of the early turns you are very limited in the actual available actions that can lead to victory. Over half the games I see being played are also "over", we have a victor just not the final score, by the end of turn 3 due to the forced mission structure which further cuts down on what you can do when in reality you can't even count on having the full five turns to "play".
I have no idea what you can do in infinity in those 3 turns but you are probably more free in what you do with your actions and have more actions available.
I massively disagree that end of game scoring makes the game more 'free and open.' A mission that does not in any way stop you from performing the optimal actions to destroy the opposing army may as well not exist at all. Which, as someone who played throughout fifth and sixth, they basically did not exist. If we ever got to the end of the game without one player simply conceding as they were most of the way tabled, we would laugh and try to remember what winning via the mission actually entailed, cracking open the book and leafing over to the page where the mission was, having not consulted it at all during the game.
Missions in fifth were a rare "tie breaker" essentially.
40k may look deep but the limited turns, and thus the amount of actions, in combination with the mission design makes the game very shallow when it comes to tactics.
Note that Infinity, a game that has been here listed as vastly more tactical than 40k, has a standard game length of 3 turns.
The counterpoint to that is there are theoretically a vastly greater number of actions, because each enemy model can theoretically react in "real time" to any action you perform. So, in a purely contrived hypothetical, you could be looking at making 15 actions and your opponent making 15 reactions for each of those actions.
Not that I necessarily agree with any of this, this is just the thought process I foresee people going through to defend their point.
While this is true, personally I have been dissatisfied by Infinity because it seems like the median number of actions your Infinity model makes in a game is more often than not "Zero." It's very much a game with "Death Star" style play baked in due to how activations work, though the squad system in the game makes the lower-value models at least pretend to be a piece that exists in the game, because they get to move around for free while you take actions with the 1-2 members of the squad that actually matter (the ones holding special weaponry)
Which is all well and good and a very interesting assessment of the way Infinities mechanics effect game play. It has no actual bearing on a discussion of 40k and it's mechanics and game play. As already pointed out, pointing at that game and saying there are only 3 turns, which are in fact composed of a great many player to player interactions isn't a strong argument against the singular data point that 40k only has 5 turns with almost null player to player interaction. Comparing apples to oranges.
Then it makes sense to say that. The post I was responding to boiled down to "with only 5 turns you don't have enough actions with each unit for 40k to ever be tactical." I disagree with that sentiment. I think 40k could have the potential to be more tactical even with only 5 turns, I think the problem the game currently has stems primarily from how utterly, devastatingly deadly it is, and that's what generally limits the number of actions you get to take with any given unit. Making 40k alt-activation thus increasing "player vs player interactions" while keeping it as deadly as it is does not make it more tactical - one only needs to try out a game of "Grimdark Future" to learn that.
You can have a structure that is primarily "IGOUGO" and you just need to have interesting, meaningful choices for the inactive player to make for it to be engaging and tactical. Infinity's ARO system....almost gets there, IMO? I still found that most of the time, really only one of the options for AROs was far and away the best option to always take, and usually they only mattered if I got exceptionally lucky, or had set a unit up as a dedicated "ARO guy, the guy whose job it is to do AROs and do them really good" Your average mook unit who just stands around all game and is there to provide an action token and a warm body to stand on stuff generally just dies to your opponent's super hero/super unit who sucks up most of his action points. But even then, "ARO Guy" generally doesn't have a choice. There's always a 'best option' for him to do during your opponent's turn, that's not a choice the player is making. "Hmm, my heavy machine gun dude has an ARO, should I do any of these half dozen options, or should I shoot? Yeah, I think shoot."
40k's inactive player systems - the stratagem system, the fight phase, and heroic interventions - aren't enough to really make the game interesting for the inactive player.
the_scotsman wrote: I massively disagree that end of game scoring makes the game more 'free and open.' A mission that does not in any way stop you from performing the optimal actions to destroy the opposing army may as well not exist at all.
In the current game it ofc wouldn't do much with only end of game scoring due to the tiny table, massive mobility and lethality of armies. It would as you say just be about tabling.
But if we were to go back to earlier editions game design a bit you could allow a different game plan being a viable tactic. Playing more of an avoidance game and try to conserve as many units as possible until the last turn of the game and try to get the objectives then would for example be a viable tactic while now it isn't at all. You could still try if you want to in 9th but you will be guaranteed to lose. Wouldn't necessary be more fun than how it is now but at least it would allow more tactics. I think it is an improvement to have scoring during the game and not just the old end of game scoring. Not so sure that having almost all scoring be done that way in every game though. Especially the part which neatly splits it up so most of them forces you to score them over 4 to 5 out of the 5 turns, especially the Primary always being so.
Right now we only have one primary objective, just with slightly different deployment angles, that always work the same way. So the game becomes much more about who have the best strategy to win this one mission and the best list built to execute said strategy than adopting on the fly due to different conditions. The tactics on the table top isn't as important since you don't have to adapt much if you put in enough work in the strategy and list department in the first place.
I love the MESBG mission system when compared to the system we have in 40k. So much more varied in primary objective, deployment and end state(when the game ends)
I would challenge you to set up a game of fifth edition 40k, play one of the shittier missions - say "The Emperor's Will" if I remember the name correctly, with 1 objective in either player's DZ - and try to play some "alternative strategy" where you preserve your forces to play to the mission, and see if you don't end up tabled or nearly tabled.
The game is, in general, deadlier now than it was in previous editions. But missions where you get to score in early turns are not the problem, at all, in any way. Even though it usually took until turn 5 or 6 in 5th to table an enemy, the missions that scored at the end rarely if ever matered because...you'd just get to turn 5 or 6 when the game ended and a player would be nearly or totally tabled. Just because players are now tabled by turn 3 or 4 instead of 5 or 6 doesn't mean the current missions are more or less about tabling, because missions in older eds just didn't exist.
A board game, where you don't get to make hardly any choice except for "what faction do I want to play" sometimes, is much more tactical than a wargame where you spend a ton of time customizing your army, building it, and painting it. That's by design. I don't think you actually can design a wargame where there is a meaningful difference between one force and another, without sacrificing a huge amount of the tactical interaction between players that you'd have with a knife-edge balanced board game.
I meant some design elements. Not ALL. Mostly meant less deadly, less mobility and the larger tables with 1-2 extra turns. More core rules and a little less special rules. And perhaps something a bit inbetween the old and the new mission design. Would probably make the game a bit more tactical than it is now. It would ofc depend on the exact changes though. Don't doubt GW could try to do what I just wrote and make the game play much less tactical at the same time.
I still think you can have a lot of tactical interaction and elements in a wargame. Maybe not as easy to implement or as deep as in a good board game but you can get vastly better than current 9th ed 40k for sure.
Klickor wrote: Ofc you try to make meaningful choices in all games but the time limit and the way the game works with scoring and killing changes what kind of decisions you can make. In many games you can set up moves for rewards later on and not focus as much on the current turn. In 40k "tactics" often comes down to "how do I score as much as possible this turn and kill as much of the opponent while doing so?". What you will actually do 1 or 2 turns later doesn't matter much compared to what you do NOW!
This limits any possible tactical depth. The decisions are still very important from turn to turn but each decision is usually very simple and short sighted, limited in scope.
Sorry man, your previous posts were interesting and made for good discussion, but this one is just wrong.
Like, 100% wrong.
In 40K you play your turn thinking one or 2 turns ahead. What happens during this turn doesn't really matter a lot, you may end up with almost zero points scored and no enemy units killed, but setting up a very good next turn.
You always have a general plan of how much you will score at the end of the game and how much he will score, and try to follow that as much as possible.
Thinking turn by turn in 9th just means being bad.
You don't really NEED to think ahead though. You know what your opponent brought. You already know whats in reserves. It isn't rocket science, let alone high school science.
If you think that knowing what your opponent's forces are is enough to make it "Not even high school science" to foresee your opponent movements, please show me your multiple chess world titles, its clear that you got lot of them.
Which by the way it wouldn't even prove your point, since planning in 40k is harder than planning in chess because what you want to do and what happens are not the same due to the nature of dice.
Difference with chess is the opponent is allowed to counter what I do. Show me what you're countering on your opponent's turn outside a few minimal Stratagems.
The fact that he is able to react (which you can do in 40K too, just in bigger batches), does in no way matter to his point.
He said that knowing what forces are on the table means that you don't need to think ahead.
You know? This is the usual statement by someone who simply is bad at the game and doesn't want to admit it, so he prefers to think that he loses because his list/faction/units/luck/first turn suck.
But you know what? You have been saying stuff like "It's easy", "He is wrong" "Lol, that was obvious"... a bit too much.
Since everything is so easy to you, it means that you are truly a great player, much better than me! Please show us your GT wins or equivalent.
40k is only as deadly as it is because it is IGOUGO. The vast majority of units are not able to, on their own, remove an entire unit from the game in 1 round of doing stuff. It takes an effort of multiple units focusing on a singular unit to do that.
Yes, some units can. But it's a vast minority and often comes with huge points investment.
The turn structure is one of the root causes of the vast majority of 40ks issues.
Honestly I think the issue with the game is it is too short and the lethality is too high.
If the game had more turns and lethality was turned down. You could have actual strategy taking place in games outside of list building.
With the current state of the game. Gimmicks that put units into position to deal deathblows are about all that matters outside of units that are just too durable to kill in 1 turn.
I mean...the game is fun - Because I enjoy killing units and going for tables. There isn't much actual strategy going on. A very minimal amount.
Mezmorki wrote: So if there are no tactics, what happens should two players face each other using the same list?
Generally speaking, the player who goes first wins.
If 2 equal armies arrive and they are each, at 2k points, capable of removing 400 points from the enemies army a turn then the first turn advantage will create an ever widening gap between the 2 armies.
Lance845 wrote: 40k is only as deadly as it is because it is IGOUGO. The vast majority of units are not able to, on their own, remove an entire unit from the game in 1 round of doing stuff. It takes an effort of multiple units focusing on a singular unit to do that.
Yes, some units can. But it's a vast minority and often comes with huge points investment.
The turn structure is one of the root causes of the vast majority of 40ks issues.
I invite you to try playing either Grimdark Future or current 40k with an alt activation turn structure. You'll find it's just about exactly as deadly.
Strategy is the plan
Tactics is how you accomplish the plan
Building your list is a tactic. Why you are building your list is the strategy.
Playing the game is a tactic. Why you are playing the game is a strategy.
"I have to deploy in cover" is a strategy. Selecting a unit of Intercessors and placing them in cover is the tactic.
"I need to take that objective to score points" is a strategy. Selecting a unit, moving them onto the objective is the tactic.
"That big grubin' is gonna slaughter my army unless I shoot it first" is a strategy. Using a Devastator squad to shoot the model off the table is a tactic.
Tamwulf wrote: Strategy is the plan
Tactics is how you accomplish the plan
Building your list is a tactic. Why you are building your list is the strategy.
Playing the game is a tactic. Why you are playing the game is a strategy.
"I have to deploy in cover" is a strategy. Selecting a unit of Intercessors and placing them in cover is the tactic.
"I need to take that objective to score points" is a strategy. Selecting a unit, moving them onto the objective is the tactic.
"That big grubin' is gonna slaughter my army unless I shoot it first" is a strategy. Using a Devastator squad to shoot the model off the table is a tactic.
You're 10 pages late, we've already defined strategy as "bad, infantile, frivolous" and everything in 40k as "strategy" and tactics as "good, smart, galaxy brained, amazing" and everything in Game I Like.
the_scotsman wrote: You're 10 pages late, we've already defined strategy as "bad, infantile, frivolous" and everything in 40k as "strategy" and tactics as "good, smart, galaxy brained, amazing" and everything in Game I Like.
Mezmorki wrote: So if there are no tactics, what happens should two players face each other using the same list?
Generally speaking, the player who goes first wins.
If 2 equal armies arrive and they are each, at 2k points, capable of removing 400 points from the enemies army a turn then the first turn advantage will create an ever widening gap between the 2 armies.
So you finally agree that players make the difference.
I am so glad you are able to ignore what I actually write. IF 2 EQUAL ARMIES. If one player is unfamiliar with how his army works then both his list building and his strategy for that list will not be equal. I also never said that players don't make a difference. This wasn't a discussion on individuals. This was a discussion on the tactical decisions individuals make. I know... it's difficult to keep up.
End of the discussion.
Well then I guess we can count on you not being here anymore. So long! I hope you enjoyed it while you decided to participate.
Lance845 wrote: 40k is only as deadly as it is because it is IGOUGO. The vast majority of units are not able to, on their own, remove an entire unit from the game in 1 round of doing stuff. It takes an effort of multiple units focusing on a singular unit to do that.
Yes, some units can. But it's a vast minority and often comes with huge points investment.
The turn structure is one of the root causes of the vast majority of 40ks issues.
I invite you to try playing either Grimdark Future or current 40k with an alt activation turn structure. You'll find it's just about exactly as deadly.
If you look back through my post history or participated in these discussion with me before you would know that I have been playing and testing various versions of AA40k since 7th ed. I know exactly how it works in a AA turn structure. Again, 1 unit has a hard time completely removing another unit from the game in a single activation. Which means that unit gets to actually do something. 40k in IGOUGO is a series of focus firing exercises that delete entire units from the board before they get a chance to do anything. IGOUGO makes the game more deadly. Or at the very least makes the impact of it's deadliness more severe.
Well then I guess we can count on you not being here anymore. So long! I hope you enjoyed it while you decided to participate.
Yes, I'm pretty much done here.
My point was that the player made the difference (call it tactic/strategy/cookies/whatever). The game is not only about lists, going first and obvious decisions.
Since it is now a more or less accepted thing, I see no reason to repeat again for 12 pages the same points.
Thank you for the discussion. It was heated, at times snarky, but in the end enjoyable.
You could skip AA and just have a damage phase like Apoc that way units can still act before removing models, but...that would make the game deadlier as well since more models will do more shooting ( and will skew away from melee ), so maybe not...
Daedalus81 wrote: You could skip AA and just have a damage phase like Apoc that way units can still act before removing models, but...that would make the game deadlier as well since more models will do more shooting ( and will skew away from melee ), so maybe not...
Apocalypse works not only because of its end-of-turn damage phase, but because of its alternating activations of detachments and especially the reduction in lethality/damage of units' weapons that are also specialized for a particular role (i.e. anti-infantry or anti-tank, rarely both like with many 40k weapons these days like plasma, disintegrators, etc.). With GW having continuously increased the damage and AP of units' weapons in 40k, simply tacking on AA or an end-of-turn damage phase will not be enough to keep most units on the battlefield in turns 2 and 3. Weapons need to be dialed back, with more defined and balanced roles (i.e. you would need weapons like lascannons for anti-tank, and not rely on saturation of fire from smaller "all-purpose" arms).
Daedalus81 wrote: You could skip AA and just have a damage phase like Apoc that way units can still act before removing models, but...that would make the game deadlier as well since more models will do more shooting ( and will skew away from melee ), so maybe not...
I'd be curious about testing that, but I doubt it would give you quite as much benefit as it does in Apoc, because in Apoc there's no distinction between one successful wound and another, so you actually withhold taking saves until the end of the turn, which leads to the person targeting them needing to go for overkill (never know when that unit of marines you just must have dead is going to make their 6+sv against that single big blast, so you need to put extra blasts onto them to be sure). If you tested that as a patch on current 40k, the game would actually be probably deadlier, since you'd be left with a bunch of models that are 'guaranteed dead' at the end of the turn, and you know they'll be useless for holding objectives so you'd just kamikaze them into the enemy as best you could.
Unless you tried to track the AP and Damage of each successful wound on a unit and then have saves and damage resolution occur at the end, but that'd be incredibly tough to do.
Tamwulf wrote: Strategy is the plan
Tactics is how you accomplish the plan
Building your list is a tactic. Why you are building your list is the strategy.
Playing the game is a tactic. Why you are playing the game is a strategy.
"I have to deploy in cover" is a strategy. Selecting a unit of Intercessors and placing them in cover is the tactic.
"I need to take that objective to score points" is a strategy. Selecting a unit, moving them onto the objective is the tactic.
"That big grubin' is gonna slaughter my army unless I shoot it first" is a strategy. Using a Devastator squad to shoot the model off the table is a tactic.
You're 10 pages late, we've already defined strategy as "bad, infantile, frivolous" and everything in 40k as "strategy" and tactics as "good, smart, galaxy brained, amazing" and everything in Game I Like.
Yeah, unfortunately on this forum, everything that was worth writing and reading about happens in the first three pages or so. After that, it's just circular arguments, attacks, and defense. LOL Just felt like I needed to add my US$0.02.
I haven't even played a game of 9th edition yet. If I went by what I read here, 9th edition is a disaster and the worst yet. Still, when things loosen up and I get my vaccination, I look forward to playing my first game of 9th!
Daedalus81 wrote: You could skip AA and just have a damage phase like Apoc that way units can still act before removing models, but...that would make the game deadlier as well since more models will do more shooting ( and will skew away from melee ), so maybe not...
This only works in Apoc for 2 reasons. 1 tokens. 2 moving away from a model to unit focus into a unit to unit focus.
So for 1 we need tokens. Not really a big deal just something to consider.
And for 2 the stat lines of the units need to be redesigned to stop being a models stat line and start being a units stat line. Which btw, I am all for. 40k is too big to have it's focus on individual models. It's basically complete nonsense at this point.
Tamwulf wrote: I haven't even played a game of 9th edition yet. If I went by what I read here, 9th edition is a disaster and the worst yet. Still, when things loosen up and I get my vaccination, I look forward to playing my first game of 9th!
By the core rules, I'd say 9th edition is the best one yet! The main mission structure is excellent. It forces a kind of game where the values of units MASSIVELY thrown out of whack. Like, Lictors are good. Not because they kill anything, but because it can deep strike as a single model that doesn't have the Character keyword. Taking triple Repulsors is bad because they don't have Obsec and can't do actions. Tons of stratagems and powers that were useless before have real value now. I find most people I've spoken with in person over a game compliment it on just how much more you interact with your opponent compared to previous editions.
There are weaknesses, but I feel that's because no missions are end-of-turn scoring, just start-of-turn scoring, and we're not getting updates as fast as in 8th due to the 'rona, but those are pretty minor at this point. The challenge of figuring out how to get ahead of your opponent is really great
Tamwulf wrote: I haven't even played a game of 9th edition yet. If I went by what I read here, 9th edition is a disaster and the worst yet. Still, when things loosen up and I get my vaccination, I look forward to playing my first game of 9th!
By the core rules, I'd say 9th edition is the best one yet! The main mission structure is excellent. It forces a kind of game where the values of units MASSIVELY thrown out of whack. Like, Lictors are good. Not because they kill anything, but because it can deep strike as a single model that doesn't have the Character keyword. Taking triple Repulsors is bad because they don't have Obsec and can't do actions. Tons of stratagems and powers that were useless before have real value now. I find most people I've spoken with in person over a game compliment it on just how much more you interact with your opponent compared to previous editions.
There are weaknesses, but I feel that's because no missions are end-of-turn scoring, just start-of-turn scoring, and we're not getting updates as fast as in 8th due to the 'rona, but those are pretty minor at this point. The challenge of figuring out how to get ahead of your opponent is really great
Tripple repulsors is bad because they are wildly overcosted.
I think AA just fundamentally changes the game to the point its hard to talk about.
Intuitively for example someone with 5 mega units is going to have shot their army half way through someone with 10 cheaper ones.
Now you could I guess say that's the second player is still better off than the first player just going first - but they could hide their forces to limit their opponent. If we are all moving together that's more difficult. (I don't know how Grimdark Future or any other system does it.)
Moreover as see it you would compounding the theory that 40k can be reduced to a flow chart. You'd fire your most damaging gun, and they'd probably do the same and you rotate from there. If you don't fire your most damaging gun you risk it being shot and degraded (if not wiped entirely). Basically as you see with the assault phase.
Setting aside what types of decisions are strategic vs. tactical, I think looking at "decisions that matter" across the whole arc of the game are worth laying out:
LIST BUILDING - Understand mission objectives in the set being played - choosing mix of unit roles best poised to succeed in the objective
PLANNING & DEPLOYMENT - Aggressive deployment (playing up to move quicker onto objectives)
- Defensive deployment (deploying out of sight, reactionary)
- Infiltrator positioning (field onto objectives, counter-players for disruption based on opponent's deployment)
MANEUVERS & POSITIONING - Deepstrike (drop onto objectives vs backline vs secondary objective support)
- Reserves (where to bring on - flank support, backline disruption)
- Screening maneuvers (using vehicles, other models to block LoS on advance to protect key units)
- Leveraging terrain (cover, LoS blocking on advance)
- Securing objectives (force committal, how much needed to hold/maintain, timing of when to push on objectives)
- Modeling positioning (tri-pointing, etc.)
COMMAND POINTS - Points Management (special powers vs. responsiveness using for re-rolling critical failures)
ATTACKS - Fire Order (threat priority and target priority)
- Close combat engagement
- Casualty removal decisions (keep/remove specialists, removal to eliminate LoS/range, deny charge)
- Psychic power usage - where to use/concentrate powers
I feel like the above captures where most of the decision points exist in the game. There is a layer of nuance or discussion that could be had on each of these topics. I agree with the critics here that there is likely a lot MORE to say about the items higher up on the list, and as you go down the list things become more and more straightforward. However, even these “straightforward” decisions require a body of experience. I’ve been playing some 40K with younger and newer players, and there are some hard lessons being learned about really basic stuff. I.e. moving into the open to an objective (while shooting) versus staying back in cover to stay alive (while shooting) and when to do one or the other.
I'll also throw out that I recognize that older editions (and in particular my own ProHammer project) inject relatively MORE decision making points at the lower levels in the list above. In no particular order:
* More mission diversity to require more diverse / less singularly optimized lists
* Scoring shift to emphasize later turns, opening up tactical space in the early turns for more maneuver
* Alternating deployment process, allows for more back-and-forth deployment decisions
* Old-school overwatch - key decision in shooting now or delaying in hopes of more advantageous shooting later
* First fire (if unit didn't move) to prevent reactive fire (see below)
* Go To Ground option for units hit by enemy fire - boosts cover save
* Reactive fire option (shoot in response to being shot or charge declared, but suffer close combat and next turn shooting penalties)
* Declared fire - requires committing to a fire plan and making tougher calls. Lessens ability to optimize fire order.
* Charge reactions (as per reactive fire)
* Vehicle Armor Facings - reinforces micro-maneuvering tradeoffs & decisions to leverage an advantage (at cost of being in worse position)
* Morale phase choices for pursuit vs. consolidation
* Variability of moving through terrain
I would note that some of those things...like Variability of Moving Through Terrain...are not choices. They're just random. They're the complaint I have with random charge distance, and I would argue, actually REDUCE complexity, because there's always a chance that you roll a 2, then reroll a 2, when your close combat unit is 4" away from the enemy.
I'm also not a huge fan of massively variable missions for that reason. Sure, in theory, it causes you to have to build a more diverse list.
So how do I plan ahead for a mission that involves killing units, if I'm playing Orks and my opponent is playing Custodes? I'm never not going to have more units than my opponent by a factor of 2 at least. Conversely if we randomly roll a mission with like 8 objectives on the board, my opponent is most likely totally fethed no matter how hard he tries to run "MSU Custodes". Or insert grey knights, or whatever, here.
You have to be really careful when you design variable missions that you don't remove games being decided beforehand and add in games being decided at the table...but just randomly based on a single die roll at the beginning of the game.
Necromunda is kinda like this, but it's fundamentally a campaign system. Even if you literally cannot possibly win the mission, conceding rather than fighting out a losing battle is a big trade-off because you'll fall behind on experience gain for your units.
I could probably throw some additional items up there:
- Safe vs Risky Decisions; when to do the reliable play that leaves a chance at losing, and when to do the unreliable play that gives a chance at winning.
- Gambler's Fallacy; when to stop investing into something that used to be a good decision.
- Baiting; Dangle that worm, see if someone bites.
the_scotsman wrote: I would note that some of those things...like Variability of Moving Through Terrain...are not choices. They're just random. They're the complaint I have with random charge distance, and I would argue, actually REDUCE complexity, because there's always a chance that you roll a 2, then reroll a 2, when your close combat unit is 4" away from the enemy.
I get that. At the same time, part of what makes 40K and keep players on their toes is how "random" outcomes can force the player to have to adapt to a new/unexpected situation. It prevents games from being programmable (i.e. ideal optimizations, flow charts, etc.) because a couple bad roles can leave you in a difficult spot and force you to adapt your plans. One of the problems with the current game is that too much luck mitigation undermines this element. As with all things, there are areas where luck/randomness work better or worse. I hate random charge distance for example - but don't mind random movement through difficult terrain.
the_scotsman wrote: I'm also not a huge fan of massively variable missions for that reason. Sure, in theory, it causes you to have to build a more diverse list.
So how do I plan ahead for a mission that involves killing units, if I'm playing Orks and my opponent is playing Custodes? I'm never not going to have more units than my opponent by a factor of 2 at least. Conversely if we randomly roll a mission with like 8 objectives on the board, my opponent is most likely totally fethed no matter how hard he tries to run "MSU Custodes". Or insert grey knights, or whatever, here.
Well, there has to be some thought to the mission design to make sure most armies have some viable way to accomplish the mission, or force a draw in which case results are determined based on secondaries or whatever.
I also think there is opportunity to tie the mission selection process to use of command points, or other measures. For example, maybe players determine 3 missions that are in the pool of choices, and each player gets to eliminate one option - leaving a mission that both players are relatively more comfortable with. Or doing things like bidding command points for the right to select a mission category - and then your opponent gets to pick the specific mission, or gets to pick sides, etc.
the_scotsman wrote: I would note that some of those things...like Variability of Moving Through Terrain...are not choices. They're just random. They're the complaint I have with random charge distance, and I would argue, actually REDUCE complexity, because there's always a chance that you roll a 2, then reroll a 2, when your close combat unit is 4" away from the enemy.
I get that. At the same time, part of what makes 40K and keep players on their toes is how "random" outcomes can force the player to have to adapt to a new/unexpected situation. It prevents games from being programmable (i.e. ideal optimizations, flow charts, etc.) because a couple bad roles can leave you in a difficult spot and force you to adapt your plans.
This is not true. Yes, the randomness of the outcome can force your flowchart to adjust at the next decision point but it doesn't stop it from being a flow chart and it very rarely has enough of an impact that it actually changes anything. For one, the randomness of the dice doesn't change the decision you already made. For two, it's not like you can redo the move you made with the unit in the last phase. They are ALREADY commited to their position and need to shoot at their optimal targets when their turn to shoot comes up. Maybe the bad rolls means they have to double up on the target you didn't kill as many as you would have liked instead of the other target. But that isn't any less programmable or flow chart-y.
One of the problems with the current game is that too much luck mitigation undermines this element. As with all things, there are areas where luck/randomness work better or worse. I hate random charge distance for example - but don't mind random movement through difficult terrain.
Randomness is completely counter to player agency. Some RNG is a good thing. But it's more about where and how it is applied than anything. Random movement? No. Just have a flat movement penalty.
I feel that would mitigate a bunch of bs around decreasing randomness with rerolls.
But then morons would complain about how they can't change outcomes.....
That would help. Most games feature some kind of resource management for modifiers (through things like Focus points to boost attacks in Warmachine, or tokens in X-Wing) or force decisions like committing to not moving to get your improved shots (Epic does this with its Sustain Fire order, for example). In 40k you don't risk anything or giving anything up for your modifiers and they tend to be much more powerful than in other games. Removing those modifiers would at least make outcomes less certain. Right now it feels like the results of most important dice rolls aren't random at all because of how powerful modifiers are.
I'll cite an example from a game I finished last night (admittedly using ProHammer).
I was playing a Feral Ork list (3rd ed) versus a fairly balanced Imperial Guard list (6th ed). Basic setup was that I needed to prevent the IG player from blowing up 3 or more (out of 6) objective markers. I don't need to go into all the nuances of the setup...
The basic crux of the challenge I was facing, especially as "defending" orks is that if I didn't deal with his tanks, they were going to shoot me to ribbons and probably table me and have free reign to do the objective. But alternatively, I could focus on taking out his scoring units (infantry type models/units) in enough places that he wouldn't have enough bodies left to set the charges and hold it for the required turn to set it off.
I had four blobs of boar units, very mobile, but can only really hurt the tanks by getting around to the sides/rear where the stronger nobs could deal damage in melee. I had a few rokkit laucher's scattered to help, but it wasn't much to be honest (krak missiles with ork BS front 14 front armor isn't a great situation). I also had to contend with the fact that my boars were actually all cyboars, which means if I go into difficult terrain on a 1-3 roll the model dies.
Long story short, the entire game was a turn-by-turn reassessment of how to balance keeping the tanks stunned/shocked (at a minimum) to enable other units to try and tie down infantry (who were mostly hiding in their damn Chimeras). The whole thing was, well, a tactical dance of sorts - my opponent shifting the position of his tanks to deny me a flank and spread my units out so that I couldn't attack the tanks and the infantry at the same time. Meanwhile, I'm trying to position squggoths to block the route to objective markers and clog up the board. He's dancing his infantry into difficult terrain (which happened to be a bunch of swamps) in an effort to get my boars to kill themselves should they try to charge in. The timing of when he pushed an objective was a bit agonizing for him.
Long story short - maybe I'm just an idiot by some people's reckoning - but I never felt like there were ONLY obvious moves to make. Sure, some moves are relatively straight forward and clear. But I'd probably have 3-4 units each turn where there were equally compelling options open to them, with equally challenging and difficult to crack obstacles and RISKS associated with each. I was blind-sided by a few of my opponent's moves, such as when he slipped a leman russ out between some units and landed a long-range shelling half-way across the board, completely changing the balance of power near one of the objective markers.
Maybe this all feels (or is) more tactical because ProHammer and older editions simply had more of this opportunity in the design. I don't know.
In general, I think a design that's less lethal overall definitely has some merits to it. When there's more need to move around the board, more need to interact with targets without being assured of their removal, there's more opportunity to interact with an opponent throughout the game.
But I think the core structures of the rules of older editions actually make things less, not more, tactical.
Random movement, and ESPECIALLY old style dangerous terrain tests for vehicles/bikers, are a great example of that. A highly random roll that results in any vehicle, no matter what size, being permanently immobilized for the entire game just on a single D6 roll.
The old VDT works similarly. It's the problem with "D6 shots, D6 damage" weapons in the current game and why 9th has been moving away from them. If you roll a 6 for shots, then a bunch of 6s for damage, you instantly obliterate whatever you pointed the weapon at. If you roll a 1 for shots, regardless of whether you targeted the correct thing, your weapon doesn't do anything.
Mitigation of randomness is not the culprit for decreased tactical-ness of the game.The more random a system is, the more balanced it can be, sure. But then the game just becomes more of a "throw stuff down and see what happens" system, rather than a tactical wargame. A coinflip is perfectly balanced, but self-evidently non-tactical. A game of Diplomacy is intensely tactical, with every player having to constantly re-evaluate their position with every turn, but it's totally non-random.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And also, to explain my own bias here:
I prefer a more random 40k game, personally. I dislike the microboard and the new missions and find them dull and samey, even if it's a fun exercise to parse out the strategy of various competitive lists. I'm all for the simulationist fun of "see what happens" and enjoy the general concept of vehicle damage tables and the like.
I just don't think they're tactical, and I think adding back in something like random movement into the game and thinking to yourself "I am adding in more tactical decision making" is a mistake.
Mezmorki wrote: I'll cite an example from a game I finished last night (admittedly using ProHammer).
I was playing a Feral Ork list (3rd ed) versus a fairly balanced Imperial Guard list (6th ed). Basic setup was that I needed to prevent the IG player from blowing up 3 or more (out of 6) objective markers. I don't need to go into all the nuances of the setup...
The basic crux of the challenge I was facing, especially as "defending" orks is that if I didn't deal with his tanks, they were going to shoot me to ribbons and probably table me and have free reign to do the objective. But alternatively, I could focus on taking out his scoring units (infantry type models/units) in enough places that he wouldn't have enough bodies left to set the charges and hold it for the required turn to set it off.
I had four blobs of boar units, very mobile, but can only really hurt the tanks by getting around to the sides/rear where the stronger nobs could deal damage in melee. I had a few rokkit laucher's scattered to help, but it wasn't much to be honest (krak missiles with ork BS front 14 front armor isn't a great situation). I also had to contend with the fact that my boars were actually all cyboars, which means if I go into difficult terrain on a 1-3 roll the model dies.
Long story short, the entire game was a turn-by-turn reassessment of how to balance keeping the tanks stunned/shocked (at a minimum) to enable other units to try and tie down infantry (who were mostly hiding in their damn Chimeras). The whole thing was, well, a tactical dance of sorts - my opponent shifting the position of his tanks to deny me a flank and spread my units out so that I couldn't attack the tanks and the infantry at the same time. Meanwhile, I'm trying to position squggoths to block the route to objective markers and clog up the board. He's dancing his infantry into difficult terrain (which happened to be a bunch of swamps) in an effort to get my boars to kill themselves should they try to charge in. The timing of when he pushed an objective was a bit agonizing for him.
Long story short - maybe I'm just an idiot by some people's reckoning - but I never felt like there were ONLY obvious moves to make. Sure, some moves are relatively straight forward and clear. But I'd probably have 3-4 units each turn where there were equally compelling options open to them, with equally challenging and difficult to crack obstacles and RISKS associated with each. I was blind-sided by a few of my opponent's moves, such as when he slipped a leman russ out between some units and landed a long-range shelling half-way across the board, completely changing the balance of power near one of the objective markers.
Maybe this all feels (or is) more tactical because ProHammer and older editions simply had more of this opportunity in the design. I don't know.
Lets stop referring to yourself, or others as idiots or implying that others are smarter (or think they are) or anything in any camp that is even remotely related to that. None of this discussion is personal. None of this discussion is referring to individuals and their abilities or lack there of.
In the situations you describe you do have choices that your opponent is presenting you with. A static game state at the end of their turn. You have the choices you can make. And most of those, the vast majority, are the illusion of choice. As you point out you can narrow the near infinite things all your units can do down to the things that actually help. Focusing on the tanks for long term survival or denying scoring troops for potential victory point advantage.
Forget the part where you feel like picking one or the other is not obvious to you.
Assessing this situation logically how would you go about assigning your values? Is there ANY other option for how you can intelligently make your "tactical" decisions besides weighing your options and doing the math? Even if you are unsure of the actual numbers and have to insert estimates into the equation, besides going with gut instinct or choosing blindly and recklessly, can you present to the thread any other method for picking what to do?
Klickor wrote: Ofc you try to make meaningful choices in all games but the time limit and the way the game works with scoring and killing changes what kind of decisions you can make. In many games you can set up moves for rewards later on and not focus as much on the current turn. In 40k "tactics" often comes down to "how do I score as much as possible this turn and kill as much of the opponent while doing so?". What you will actually do 1 or 2 turns later doesn't matter much compared to what you do NOW!
This limits any possible tactical depth. The decisions are still very important from turn to turn but each decision is usually very simple and short sighted, limited in scope.
Sorry man, your previous posts were interesting and made for good discussion, but this one is just wrong.
Like, 100% wrong.
In 40K you play your turn thinking one or 2 turns ahead. What happens during this turn doesn't really matter a lot, you may end up with almost zero points scored and no enemy units killed, but setting up a very good next turn.
You always have a general plan of how much you will score at the end of the game and how much he will score, and try to follow that as much as possible.
Thinking turn by turn in 9th just means being bad.
You don't really NEED to think ahead though. You know what your opponent brought. You already know whats in reserves. It isn't rocket science, let alone high school science.
If you think that knowing what your opponent's forces are is enough to make it "Not even high school science" to foresee your opponent movements, please show me your multiple chess world titles, its clear that you got lot of them.
Which by the way it wouldn't even prove your point, since planning in 40k is harder than planning in chess because what you want to do and what happens are not the same due to the nature of dice.
Difference with chess is the opponent is allowed to counter what I do. Show me what you're countering on your opponent's turn outside a few minimal Stratagems.
The fact that he is able to react (which you can do in 40K too, just in bigger batches), does in no way matter to his point.
He said that knowing what forces are on the table means that you don't need to think ahead.
You know? This is the usual statement by someone who simply is bad at the game and doesn't want to admit it, so he prefers to think that he loses because his list/faction/units/luck/first turn suck.
But you know what? You have been saying stuff like "It's easy", "He is wrong" "Lol, that was obvious"... a bit too much.
Since everything is so easy to you, it means that you are truly a great player, much better than me! Please show us your GT wins or equivalent.
Lance845 wrote: In the situations you describe you do have choices that your opponent is presenting you with. A static game state at the end of their turn. You have the choices you can make. And most of those, the vast majority, are the illusion of choice. As you point out you can narrow the near infinite things all your units can do down to the things that actually help. Focusing on the tanks for long term survival or denying scoring troops for potential victory point advantage.
Forget the part where you feel like picking one or the other is not obvious to you.
Assessing this situation logically how would you go about assigning your values? Is there ANY other option for how you can intelligently make your "tactical" decisions besides weighing your options and doing the math? Even if you are unsure of the actual numbers and have to insert estimates into the equation, besides going with gut instinct or choosing blindly and recklessly, can you present to the thread any other method for picking what to do?
I agree with you that, conceptually, one can boil down this game (and a great many other games) to decision flow-charts and math to arrive at, in aggregate, the ideal lines of play to maximize your chance of success. As such, we could argue that all games - whether Chess, or 40K, or Diplomacy - present players with the illusion of choice because there is, as the end of the day, one statistically optimal way of playing the hand that's dealt to you. And if we're being comprehensive, the analysis of the game state would also include the psychology and disposition of your opponents (i.e. the actual humans involved) in the calculus as well.
But all of this misses the point inherent in the act of actually playing a game IMHO. The fact of the matter is that the game does pose the player with a lot of decision points (call them tactical decision points) where a player is prompted to do something with a unit or reevaluate how the unit's action fits into a plan that has changed in response to your opponent's moves or in response to randomness. As stated, many of these decisions it's easy to use heuristically knowledge to get down to an obvious move (well gee, my anti-squad only has one juicy target in LoS... fire away!) but other times it's less obvious. When it is less obvious it's often because it's sufficiently complex - either projecting the flow chart into the future turns or the math involved or both - that I have to make a gestalt judgement. I don't run anything more than a basic "gut check" feeling for odds and probabilities (I would never use a calculator during a game for example to math something out). On the flow chart side, it can become an exercise in some quick 'if-then' analysis .... if I move HERE, then my opponent would probably do X or Y on their turn, versus if I move THERE then they would do A or B. But there is a limit to how far that can go - or at least how far I can derive value out of doing it, given how the board statte can change so rapidly.
Call them what you want, but for me these decision points and the chaos that arises from it, and unexpected situations that arise are what I find enjoyable about the act of playing the game - versus list building and planning. I make decisions at both levels, there is room for mistakes and better/worse moves at both levels.
And honestly, I fail to see how the logic behind the criticism of 40k couldn't also apply to nearly any other game.
Lance845 wrote: In the situations you describe you do have choices that your opponent is presenting you with. A static game state at the end of their turn. You have the choices you can make. And most of those, the vast majority, are the illusion of choice. As you point out you can narrow the near infinite things all your units can do down to the things that actually help. Focusing on the tanks for long term survival or denying scoring troops for potential victory point advantage.
Forget the part where you feel like picking one or the other is not obvious to you.
Assessing this situation logically how would you go about assigning your values? Is there ANY other option for how you can intelligently make your "tactical" decisions besides weighing your options and doing the math? Even if you are unsure of the actual numbers and have to insert estimates into the equation, besides going with gut instinct or choosing blindly and recklessly, can you present to the thread any other method for picking what to do?
I agree with you that, conceptually, one can boil down this game (and a great many other games) to decision flow-charts and math to arrive at, in aggregate, the ideal lines of play to maximize your chance of success. As such, we could argue that all games - whether Chess, or 40K, or Diplomacy - present players with the illusion of choice because there is, as the end of the day, one statistically optimal way of playing the hand that's dealt to you.
Since this comparison with other games seems to just detract from the focus on 40ks tactics I would really rather we didn't get into them. My only note on that point is that it's not true based on 1 element. Interplayer interaction. Which 40k lacks. Once you are not playing against the dice and such you can't do that anymore. Like say... poker. You CAN play poker against a computer. But you can't BLUFF the computer. But Poker is almost exclusively inter player interaction and it is the one thing that gives the game all it's depth. You can't bluff in 40k. The player can't react to you to fall for a bluff. You either killed their things and accomplished your goal or you didn't.
And if we're being comprehensive, the analysis of the game state would also include the psychology and disposition of your opponents (i.e. the actual humans involved) in the calculus as well.
In other games where that is a part of the equation you can make estimates including that. 40k isn't one of them.
But all of this misses the point inherent in the act of actually playing a game IMHO. The fact of the matter is that the game does pose the player with a lot of decision points (call them tactical decision points) where a player is prompted to do something with a unit or reevaluate how the unit's action fits into a plan that has changed in response to your opponent's moves or in response to randomness. As stated, many of these decisions it's easy to use heuristically knowledge to get down to an obvious move (well gee, my anti-squad only has one juicy target in LoS... fire away!) but other times it's less obvious. When it is less obvious it's often because it's sufficiently complex - either projecting the flow chart into the future turns or the math involved or both - that I have to make a gestalt judgement. I don't run anything more than a basic "gut check" feeling for odds and probabilities (I would never use a calculator during a game for example to math something out). On the flow chart side, it can become an exercise in some quick 'if-then' analysis .... if I move HERE, then my opponent would probably do X or Y on their turn, versus if I move THERE then they would do A or B. But there is a limit to how far that can go - or at least how far I can derive value out of doing it, given how the board statte can change so rapidly.
Call them what you want, but for me these decision points and the chaos that arises from it, and unexpected situations that arise are what I find enjoyable about the act of playing the game - versus list building and planning. I make decisions at both levels, there is room for mistakes and better/worse moves at both levels.
And honestly, I fail to see how the logic behind the criticism of 40k couldn't also apply to nearly any other game.
And this is the crux of it.
The big difference is the player interactively. If I had more interaction with my actual opponent then that chaos would be actually tactical and not just logistics. But I don't. I interact with dice probabilities and when they swing wrong I adjust according to the games mechanics. Some other games are shallow too. The Game of Life certainly has very little tactical depth to it. But as was pointed out games with much simpler mechanics and way less pieces have WAY more depth (Terraforming mars) BECAUSE the players interact with and react to other players on so many levels at all times. Even Apocalypse has way more tactical depth despite being a "dumbed down" version of 40k for the same reason.
This is the lynch pin here. This is the thing that takes a game from being shallow and predictable versus deep and tactical.
Spoletta wrote: Did you seriouly bring Goonhammer into this?
Yes.
You took a source which has DOZENS of articles on 40k tactics, and took out a few sentences regarding an obscure 40k gamemode to prove your point that tactics don't exist?
Most of their 'tactics' are things like here's how to tri-point, don't stand your screens so close to what they're protecting, here's the math proving that it's best to shoot x at y, etc. None of this stuff changes from game to game.
Read any of their write-ups about a winning list. Do you see any talk that isn't the broad-strokes of how the list works and what it wants to use each unit for? No, they simply don't dive turn by turn into games because they know they don't need to.
A GT has just been won by a player which brought a list which wasn't meta in the least. This player is known as one of the best 40K players, but this obviously doesn't count since this game is extremely easy and players don't make a difference, right?
So, why didn't someone with a better list win?
First off why not link to his list?
Second, without seeing a list, my guess is that he read the meta and brought a counter list, which probably makes it the best list for that tournament. If he plays it again it'll be because the meta isn't moving to counter but the odds are this was a one-off list that won't see a top-8 position again. We see that kind of list pop up every now and again to exploit the meta but they almost never last.
Spoletta wrote: Did you seriouly bring Goonhammer into this?
Yes.
You took a source which has DOZENS of articles on 40k tactics, and took out a few sentences regarding an obscure 40k gamemode to prove your point that tactics don't exist?
Most of their 'tactics' are things like here's how to tri-point, don't stand your screens so close to what they're protecting, here's the math proving that it's best to shoot x at y, etc. None of this stuff changes from game to game.
Read any of their write-ups about a winning list. Do you see any talk that isn't the broad-strokes of how the list works and what it wants to use each unit for? No, they simply don't dive turn by turn into games because they know they don't need to.
A GT has just been won by a player which brought a list which wasn't meta in the least. This player is known as one of the best 40K players, but this obviously doesn't count since this game is extremely easy and players don't make a difference, right?
So, why didn't someone with a better list win?
First off why not link to his list?
Second, without seeing a list, my guess is that he read the meta and brought a counter list, which probably makes it the best list for that tournament. If he plays it again it'll be because the meta isn't moving to counter but the odds are this was a one-off list that won't see a top-8 position again. We see that kind of list pop up every now and again to exploit the meta but they almost never last.
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/796939.page Looks like a top player won a GT with a list drawn from elements that the community considers trash. He even took a big squad of Hellions...While taking something folks don't expect is certainly a way to gain an advantage, maybe skill on the tabletop counts for something?
Mezmorki,
I think you've framed a great way to approach the Tactics sub-forum with your post on this page. Much of the Tactics Forum comes out as list-building advice for all the reasons we hit on page 1 of this thread - its easier to discuss without context. At the same time its hard to separate list-building from tactics because decisions you make building your list have an impact on your tactics. I will look for ways to explore/inspire those ideas in the DA thread.
You took a source which has DOZENS of articles on 40k tactics, and took out a few sentences regarding an obscure 40k gamemode to prove your point that tactics don't exist?
Most of their 'tactics' are things like here's how to tri-point, don't stand your screens so close to what they're protecting, here's the math proving that it's best to shoot x at y, etc. None of this stuff changes from game to game.
My knowledge of military doctrine and terminology is all guesswork, so bear with me...
When I think of "tactics" or "A tactic" I think of it being a specific line of action in order to achieve a specific outcome in support achieving a specific strategic goal. In order to apply a tactic, one has to be confronted with a decision point, where the situational factors/context need to be assessed and a direction for action determined. This direction for action is usually coupled to a specific "tactic."
Let's take a hypothetical example for discussion.
An infantry squad has been tasked with securing a helicopter landing site in an urban plaza across the street with sporadic fire fights breaking in the area. This task is the squads objective or goal, which support some grander strategic need (landing site for additional troop deployments or whatever).
Approaching the street, the squad has a decision to make about how to get across the street, which is likely to expose them to hostile fire when crossing. What do they do? The tactical lines of action could include everyone grouping up and sprinting across the street in a dispersed formation (risky, but faster tactical move). Alternatively, they might leap-frog, with some squad members providing cover fire while others sprint across and then setup their own cover fire (slower, but safer).
The "tactics" under consideration are "dispersed sprint" versus "advance + cover" (or whatever these might be called).The squad leader has to decide what the "best" choice is, balancing the need for speed (can they take the slow safe option or do they only have 30 seconds to get to the drop zone?) versus the risk of taking incoming fire. Either way, the "tactic" is the action that is ultimately employed as a consequence of making a decision.
In regards to 40K, we can identify similar tactics. Units can run/advance or move+shoot, reflecting almost the exact same situation as above, and which can take in many of the same considerations. Advancing might let me get more models stacked on an objective, but move+shoot might let me get some models on the objective while thinning out the models in an opposing unit. There are considerations that come into play to make that decision. How likely is the enemy to be able to put more models on the objective than me? Does shooting the enemy unit help me keep more people on the objective? If I advance and get more models on the objective, how likely is it that I'll draw excess fire and risk losing control regardless? Do I have other units nearby that can shoot at enemy models to provide cover for my unit if it advances? Does that other unit need to direct fire elsewhere? For those of us who have played this game for decades, the "right tactic" might jump out pretty quickly as we consider the odds of one course of action against another. But in other cases, or with newer players, it might not be so straight forward.
Even down to things like tri-pointing, or sequences for removing casualties, or setting up effective screens - these are all tactics to be employed in the game. And you're right, the basic toolbox of "tactics" that are allowed are a function of the rules of the game So the tactical tools don't change from game to game, nor would we expect them to. The tactical menu of options doesn't change in a game of chess either. Rather, our moves as players are taken to either set ourselves up to leverage certain tactics or deny tactical options to our opponent. That's the basic foundation of the game.
I guess, ultimately, I'm not sure how you would envision changing 40k to make more in-line with the kind of decision-making you value. AA-systems, or more "advanced" rule sets (like ProHammer) are all geared towards creating more decision points, which in turn may open up more tactical options and even add new tactical options to the menu (like flanking a tank to attacker weaker rear armor). Maybe that's what you're advocating for? I'm not a fan of 9th edition, and I do feel the gameplay has been watered down, but I still think there are tactics in the game and that the game remains "interactive" in important ways.
TangoTwoBravo wrote: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/796939.page Looks like a top player won a GT with a list drawn from elements that the community considers trash. He even took a big squad of Hellions...While taking something folks don't expect is certainly a way to gain an advantage, maybe skill on the tabletop counts for something?
From the thread you linked:
In all seriousness, looking at the list it's basically just a bunch of solid countermeta units (wraithseer in particular is very good at being obnoxious to kill with meta melta weapons thanks to its invuln save and T8 on a not super expensive platform that also has pretty quality melee attacks) with a bunch of hyper cheap units like razorwings that are really really great at scoring points.
The list is exactly what I said it was, a counter meta wonder that took a tournament by surprise.
The list is exactly what I said it was, a counter meta wonder that took a tournament by surprise.
That's likely a rudimentary understanding of the list. He made the incubi eligible for SfD so for all we know razor wings were baiting out Soulburst.
The d-cannon on the wraithseer is a monster considering ILOS. You wouldn't need to take hits with good use of terrain before getting the chance to cripple doomed eradicators or attack bikes.
Mezmorki wrote: In regards to 40K, we can identify similar tactics. Units can run/advance or move+shoot, reflecting almost the exact same situation as above, and which can take in many of the same considerations. Advancing might let me get more models stacked on an objective, but move+shoot might let me get some models on the objective while thinning out the models in an opposing unit.
If you have the CP, the enemy is on an objective, and the best way to kill it is to use an option with only advance or move and shoot as options the first thing you do is check if you can get them to advance and shoot. If you can do that in preference to the other options. if you can't then we need a full tabletop view to tell us which choice is the obvious one.
For those of us who have played this game for decades, the "right tactic" might jump out pretty quickly as we consider the odds of one course of action against another. But in other cases, or with newer players, it might not be so straight forward.
I don't give a feth about what new players find confusing. That's a layer of pointless abstraction when we can look at the game as a high level player sees it and show that there are only ever false choices to be made in any given situation/
Even down to things like tri-pointing, or sequences for removing casualties, or setting up effective screens - these are all tactics to be employed in the game.
Those are game mechanics, just like spending CP or rolling an attack is. If your unit only has one target it can shoot that turn and is already scoring an objective while in cover is it tactical to shoot that target? No, it isn't.
And you're right, the basic toolbox of "tactics" that are allowed are a function of the rules of the game So the tactical tools don't change from game to game, nor would we expect them to.
Shouldn't we expect them to change based on our opponent's army list and the mission we're playing? That they don't change says that 40k is exactly as shallow as I claim it to be.
The tactical menu of options doesn't change in a game of chess either.
Chess isn't deep either. It just takes a lot of memorization and a large mental workspace to play well. These things are exactly why computers are so good at chess because they have perfect memories and a vast ability do to complex calculations quickly.
I guess, ultimately, I'm not sure how you would envision changing 40k to make more in-line with the kind of decision-making you value. AA-systems, or more "advanced" rule sets (like ProHammer) are all geared towards creating more decision points, which in turn may open up more tactical options and even add new tactical options to the menu (like flanking a tank to attacker weaker rear armor). Maybe that's what you're advocating for? I'm not a fan of 9th edition, and I do feel the gameplay has been watered down, but I still think there are tactics in the game and that the game remains "interactive" in important ways.
I'd want more hidden information with every unit deploying as GSC units do and with armies have varying levels of sensor tech which informs how they resolve these hidden units. I'd want games here the standard mission starts with patrol sized forces resolving into games where a sideboard of units are called in with each unit taking various amounts of command points to bring in based on the game turn and that unit's strategic weight. Add in AA and you can use a lot of what already exists in 40k as the basis for what I want.
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Daedalus81 wrote: That's likely a rudimentary understanding of the list.
You don't need much more than that and a flowchart to pilot a list in 40k so...
On the subject of understanding why didn't you catch that the winning list is illegal? Do you even know why it's an illegal list?
He made the incubi eligible for SfD so for all we know razor wings were baiting out Soulburst.
Excellent speculation and wild ass guessing here...
The d-cannon on the wraithseer is a monster considering ILOS. You wouldn't need to take hits with good use of terrain before getting the chance to cripple doomed eradicators or attack bikes.
Yes, that is how that unit should function on that table, where's the depth?
I don't give a feth about what new players find confusing. That's a layer of pointless abstraction when we can look at the game as a high level player sees it and show that there are only ever false choices to be made in any given situation
Which, if we're being honest, is a criticism we can levy at any game.
Even down to things like tri-pointing, or sequences for removing casualties, or setting up effective screens - these are all tactics to be employed in the game.
Those are game mechanics, just like spending CP or rolling an attack is. If your unit only has one target it can shoot that turn and is already scoring an objective while in cover is it tactical to shoot that target? No, it isn't.
Those things are actions that EMERGYFROM the game's mechanics - they aren't part of the actual structure of the rules nor mechanics defined by the rules at all. There is no reference to tri-pointing, or the best way to position or remove models in the rules. I'd actually argue, much like things like forming double-eyes in Go, or power structures created in Tigris & Euphrates, that these emergent activities and emergent options are a hallmark of a ruleset being at least somewhat deep and player-driven.
Canadian 5th wrote: Shouldn't we expect them to change based on our opponent's army list and the mission we're playing? That they don't change says that 40k is exactly as shallow as I claim it to be.
The total MENU of possible tactical options doesn't change, the relative VALUE and opportunity to use the tactics on the menu do change depending on both player's list, the mission, the board state. Which is exactly what we would expect.
Canadian 5th wrote: Chess isn't deep either. It just takes a lot of memorization and a large mental workspace to play well. These things are exactly why computers are so good at chess because they have perfect memories and a vast ability do to complex calculations quickly.
For the vast majority of people, perhaps even including many chess masters, is there even really a difference? Complexity and vastness of decision space creates it's own black box of obscurity and uncertainty, which has a similar effect as what you want to achieve through hidden information.
Speaking of hidden information - hidden information adds uncertainty to the game state and future game state, which can add a layer to and deepen the decision space if handled correctly (I'm with you here). But at the same time, hidden information can also work against player agency (which I think you purport to want more of). Many games have hidden goal or bonus scoring options that are hidden. The function of these is usually, IMHO, more in the service of keeping players engaged in the game (i.e. you don't really know who's winning, so you're not as worried about run-away leaders, kingmaking, etc.) rather than in deepening the decision making.
Certainly the presence of hidden information prompts further layers of questions during decision making - does my opponent have goal X or goal Y in their hand? How do my actions affect their prospects under either scenario? Does my opponent have counter card Z in their hand? If so, what are the risks of me doing one action over a different one. Are they bluffing about what they have or don't have? This can add a great dynamic to gameplay - I agree. But I don't believe that hidden information is NECCESSARY to have deep gameplay, because the uncertainty created by hidden information can also come from other sources - randomness, unknown intentions of your opponent, etc.
Canadian 5th wrote: I'd want more hidden information with every unit deploying as GSC units do and with armies have varying levels of sensor tech which informs how they resolve these hidden units. I'd want games here the standard mission starts with patrol sized forces resolving into games where a sideboard of units are called in with each unit taking various amounts of command points to bring in based on the game turn and that unit's strategic weight. Add in AA and you can use a lot of what already exists in 40k as the basis for what I want.
I know we've been disagreeing quite a bit - but just you know I'm with you on these sorts of changes.
Many of the older 40K missions (3rd and 4th edition) had some missions that did exactly this. There were rules for hidden deployment and needing to "spot" enemy units (you'd use face-down tokens corresponding to certain units) with a lot more missions requiring holding larger portions of forces back in reserve. With more forces held in reserve, the initial turns were less lethal and prone to alpha striking, which spread the impact of units actions out across the entire game better. I'm hoping to incorporate some of this in my mission pack I'm designing for ProHammer.
I like the idea of command points, but actually think they should be used exclusively for things related to strategic plans, like modifying setup parameters, managing reserves, modifying objectives, etc.
Mezmorki wrote: Which, if we're being honest, is a criticism we can levy at any game.
Untrue. You cannot level such a complaint at a game such as poker where hidden information and bluffing plays as large a part as the cards and rules for betting.
There is no reference to tri-pointing
The rules for falling back literally tell you how to prevent falling back. They don't explicitly say use three models positioned like so, but the conditions required dictate how the gameplay works.
I'd actually argue, much like things like forming double-eyes in Go
Do you think Go was created and then people discovered that double-eyes existed as a shock? I personally doubt that this is how it happened.
The total MENU of possible tactical options doesn't change, the relative VALUE and opportunity to use the tactics on the menu do change depending on both player's list, the mission, the board state. Which is exactly what we would expect.
This is a flaw. The tactical options should change based on what your opponent puts down as they did in past editions where some units couldn't harm other units, period. Being able to tank shock a unit into the optimal position for a wagon full of burnas to eradicate it was another tactical option that only existed for a specific army. The current ruleset for 40k is as deep as a kiddie pool.
For the vast majority of people, perhaps even including many chess masters, is there even really a difference? Complexity and vastness of decision space creates it's own black box of obscurity and uncertainty, which has a similar effect as what you want to achieve through hidden information.
Give it a few years. If Elon ever gets his chips working and accepted by the masses games like chess may become obsolete as een a novice can compute millions of moves deep into many given game.
Speaking of hidden information - hidden information adds uncertainty to the game state and future game state, which can add a layer to and deepen the decision space if handled correctly (I'm with you here). But at the same time, hidden information can also work against player agency (which I think you purport to want more of). Many games have hidden goal or bonus scoring options that are hidden. The function of these is usually, IMHO, more in the service of keeping players engaged in the game (i.e. you don't really know who's winning, so you're not as worried about run-away leaders, kingmaking, etc.) rather than in deepening the decision making.
Nonsense. Is the hidden information in Gloomhaven designed for that? Nope. How about in Waterdeep? I'd also argue not given that a skilled player will try to peg what his opponent's hidden goals are to prevent them from scoring extra points. Is the hidden information in MtG servicing this goal? Not even a little bit.
Certainly the presence of hidden information prompts further layers of questions during decision making - does my opponent have goal X or goal Y in their hand? How do my actions affect their prospects under either scenario? Does my opponent have counter card Z in their hand? If so, what are the risks of me doing one action over a different one. Are they bluffing about what they have or don't have? This can add a great dynamic to gameplay - I agree. But I don't believe that hidden information is NECCESSARY to have deep gameplay, because the uncertainty created by hidden information can also come from other sources - randomness, unknown intentions of your opponent, etc.
You also think that your opponent's intentions matter in 40k so I think I have to question your biases here.
I know we've been disagreeing quite a bit - but just you know I'm with you on these sorts of changes.
Many of the older 40K missions (3rd and 4th edition) had some missions that did exactly this. There were rules for hidden deployment and needing to "spot" enemy units (you'd use face-down tokens corresponding to certain units) with a lot more missions requiring holding larger portions of forces back in reserve. With more forces held in reserve, the initial turns were less lethal and prone to alpha striking, which spread the impact of units actions out across the entire game better. I'm hoping to incorporate some of this in my mission pack I'm designing for ProHammer.
I like the idea of command points, but actually think they should be used exclusively for things related to strategic plans, like modifying setup parameters, managing reserves, modifying objectives, etc.
Yeah, I mostly agree with your vision on what 40k can be just not with how deep you feel the current game's tactics are.
Would you like to shake hands and end things here with both of our points made as best we can make them?
The list is exactly what I said it was, a counter meta wonder that took a tournament by surprise.
That's likely a rudimentary understanding of the list. He made the incubi eligible for SfD so for all we know razor wings were baiting out Soulburst.
The d-cannon on the wraithseer is a monster considering ILOS. You wouldn't need to take hits with good use of terrain before getting the chance to cripple doomed eradicators or attack bikes.
List is also illegal isn't it? You cant take single razorwing units.
My knowledge of military doctrine and terminology is all guesswork, so bear with me...
When I think of "tactics" or "A tactic" I think of it being a specific line of action in order to achieve a specific outcome in support achieving a specific strategic goal. In order to apply a tactic, one has to be confronted with a decision point, where the situational factors/context need to be assessed and a direction for action determined. This direction for action is usually coupled to a specific "tactic."
Let's take a hypothetical example for discussion.
An infantry squad has been tasked with securing a helicopter landing site in an urban plaza across the street with sporadic fire fights breaking in the area. This task is the squads objective or goal, which support some grander strategic need (landing site for additional troop deployments or whatever).
Approaching the street, the squad has a decision to make about how to get across the street, which is likely to expose them to hostile fire when crossing. What do they do? The tactical lines of action could include everyone grouping up and sprinting across the street in a dispersed formation (risky, but faster tactical move). Alternatively, they might leap-frog, with some squad members providing cover fire while others sprint across and then setup their own cover fire (slower, but safer).
The "tactics" under consideration are "dispersed sprint" versus "advance + cover" (or whatever these might be called).The squad leader has to decide what the "best" choice is, balancing the need for speed (can they take the slow safe option or do they only have 30 seconds to get to the drop zone?) versus the risk of taking incoming fire. Either way, the "tactic" is the action that is ultimately employed as a consequence of making a decision.
In reality the tactics available are much more nuanced though, and 40k's lack of nuance is the criticism here. That squad would most likely consider options such as suppressing the enemy while sending some men around the flank. Or maybe remaining stealthy and working their way around as a squad to get the drop on the entrenched enemy, perhaps after leaving a pair of spotters behind to feed them intel. These kind of suppression and positioning tactics are one of the main things 40k lacks. The only way to affect the enemy is to kill them. That's rarely how real world engagements play out.
In 40k terms your options are to stand on the objective because you know you're unlikely to die and can get the points for it or don't stand on the objective and shoot the enemy. There's no way to suppress them and advance under cover of your own fire, or break their morale to make their response less effective.
Even down to things like tri-pointing, or sequences for removing casualties, or setting up effective screens - these are all tactics to be employed in the game. And you're right, the basic toolbox of "tactics" that are allowed are a function of the rules of the game So the tactical tools don't change from game to game, nor would we expect them to. The tactical menu of options doesn't change in a game of chess either. Rather, our moves as players are taken to either set ourselves up to leverage certain tactics or deny tactical options to our opponent. That's the basic foundation of the game.
Tri-pointing isn't really a decision, though. It certainly isn't a meaningful one. This is the key thing I think you're missing. The indicator of depth in a game isn't just about how many total decisions you have to make, but the complexity of those decisions. Once I know how to tri-point there's rarely any reason not to do it and very little my opponent can do to stop me doing it. It's the equivalent of having a unit of Eradicators with an enemy character right in front of them being the only target they can see and calling the decision to shoot them a "tactical choice". Sure, on some ridiculously basic level it is but it's not a meaningful choice.
You don't need much more than that and a flowchart to pilot a list in 40k so...
See this why this assertion is so effing stupid. Literally anything can be conceivably charted so it stands anything can be "flowcharted" ( chess ai has been around a loooong time ).
So sure there's an order of processing power for chess, but you'll find few games that are not subject to the same potential "flowchart fallacy".
At this point it's time for you guys to put your money where you mouth is, make a flowchart, and play a direct mirror match against a high level player.
But none of you will do that, because it'd actually be really difficult and you like making the assertion more than doing the work ( or actually playing the game).
On the subject of understanding why didn't you catch that the winning list is illegal? Do you even know why it's an illegal list?
Oh yea wicked game changah there.
Yes, that is how that unit should function on that table, where's the depth?
Look at the list. What gets deployed? What can take a hit? When can it take a hit? There's a lot of characters to protect .
And which meta was he busting? The one where he played a DG horde? Or hard-core blood angels? Or harlequins? Or DG Terminator spam? Which one specifically did he bust?
Daedalus81 wrote: See this why this assertion is so effing stupid. Literally anything can be conceivably charted so it stands anything can be "flowcharted" ( chess ai has been around a loooong time ).
Flowchart a game of MtG, or Texas Hold 'em, and you'll lose more than you win due to the nature of bluffing and hidden information.
So sure there's an order of processing power for chess, but you'll find few games that are not subject to the same potential "flowchart fallacy".
I've been arguing the chess is also shallow so...
At this point it's time for you guys to put your money where you mouth is, make a flowchart, and play a direct mirror match against a high level player.
This is the issue. I know 40k can be flow charted as most moves are simple, however, I lack the skill to make such a chart. This doesn't disprove anything however as I can neither program a Chess AI nor train a Go AI and yet both of those are possible and have been done such that they beat masters.
Oh yea wicked game changah there.
Not sure if sarcastic or not...
Look at the list. What gets deployed? What can take a hit? When can it take a hit? There's a lot of characters to protect.
Yes and...? That's all stuff that you can only say once you've sat across from your opponent and deployed against them. You'll have the same plan against pretty well all of them but will want to deploy differently for DG than for Harlequins.
And which meta was he busting? The one where he played a DG horde? Or hard-core blood angels? Or harlequins? Or DG Terminator spam? Which one specifically did he bust?
The tournament meta was what he busted and frankly looking at the lists of the attendees it looks like a lot of musty 8e lists getting dusted off as the US opens up a little.
Are you saying that there shouldn't be Tactics articles? What is your tabletop experience with 40K 9th Edition? Are you being forced to write a tactics against your will?
I get the impression that you don't like 40K. That's cool. If you think that it has shallow tactics - OK. Not sure what your objection here is.
I said on the first page of this thread that good old Clausewitz wrote: "Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is very difficult." There is friction is a tabletop game of 40K as well, whether its the dice, terrain, your opponent doing things you didn't anticipate, your own fatigue level, time pressures etc etc. Actual military tactics are fairly simple, although some types of operations have additional complexity of course. I am not saying that 40K is war. But its one thing to say that you have the game figured out, and its another thing to do it on the tabletop with the pressure of time and an actual opponent. I think its useful to have more than list-building advice on Dakka. Insights on how to quickly come up with a sound tactical plan and then make adjustments during the game would be useful, especially when couched in actual experience. Again, nobody is demanding that you write or read a tactics article.
People can chose to participate or not, and I think that Mezmorki's thoughts here are in line with what the Admins were asking for a little while back about the Tactics forum. I'm not saying that people should pay for 40K on-line tutoring, but I think having resources available on Dakka could be a good thing. I see opponents making tactical mistakes in tourneys. I also make bad decisions. The addition of time pressures (both real time and game turn constraints) and having an actual opponent makes it different from Theoryhammer. I think sharing best practices and painful hard-won experience is a good thing for the community.
I'm saying that these tactics articles are often either rehashes of previous content or pure math hammer. Not the deep discussions that the OP for this thread had asked for. Do you dispute this?
I get the impression that you don't like 40K. That's cool.
I wouldn't own two armies and be here if I didn't like 40k. I just have major issues with 9th and its lack of depth.
I said on the first page of this thread that good old Clausewitz wrote: "Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is very difficult."
That quote really doesn't hold for a simple wargame where the only variable exists within a toss of the dice.
There is friction is a tabletop game of 40K as well, whether its the dice, terrain, your opponent doing things you didn't anticipate, your own fatigue level, time pressures etc etc.
The only real friction in 40k is the dice and their results as applied to your list. Unlike a battle you always know what forces you have to hand, never run short of ammo, or get bad intel, so any mistakes you make are on you and only on you. That isn't depth that's just a puzzle game with dice being tossed.
Insights on how to quickly come up with a sound tactical plan and then make adjustments during the game would be useful, especially when couched in actual experience.
By all means please write them or repost the same from other sources. They won't be deep and that's my only argument.
That you find 9th lacks depth is totally up to you! I won't try to convince you otherwise, because I am not sure what the point would be. I am not trying to convince you to play.
In my experience, game decisions are "deep" when there are (1) multiple layers of factors that must be considered' (2) where the ability to pick out the best answer is uncertain/obfuscated to an appropriate degree; and (3) where the results of decisions are consequential. If the margin between the outcomes of good and bad decisions is too narrow, then the game risks having trivial decisions (i.e. all options are nearly equally good or bad so it doesn't really matter what you do). If arriving at the obvious best move is perfectly clear with very little risk involved and not many factors to consider, then the game is one that potentially plays itself.
When it comes to assessing the thought-power needed to play a table-top game, I see three fundamental modes of thinking: spatial , psychological, and logistical thinking. Each of these can be an avenue for adding complexity, layers of factors, or uncertainty to the game. Spatial thinking relates to the complexity of physical board states and relationships between pieces, being able to envision future moves and board states, and mentally permutate through these different physical scenarios. Psychological thinking has to do consideration of your opponent's psychology and personality, their tendencies, your ability to bluff or persuade or negotiate, etc. And finally logistical thinking relates to operational planning, math, probabilities, risk evaluation, etc. We can talk about the overall balance between these three modes of thinking in a game, and we can also talk about the "weight" or level of importance that each one has.
40K is relatively light on the psychological side. There isn't much hidden information to work with or use for bluffing and the like. The spatial thinking demands of the game have shifted considerably over the years, and I'd contend that older editions that, for instance, didn't allow pre-measuring, including more nuance in model placement (vehicle facings), more impactful terrain rules, larger boards, and slower movement probably led to more complex spatial situations emerging during play. But even in 9th I don't think it's as trivial as it's made out to be. It may not be particularly deep, but not is it completely shallow. There is texture. On the logistical side - the execution of 40K is fairly heavy on this - and I concur that much of the decision making process can be viewed in terms of math and flowcharts. But I think that's easier to say in concept than in practice.
I agree with what others are saying (e.g. TangoTwoBravo) that even actual military "tactics" are relatively simple and straight forward. The tricky part lies in the decision of what tactic to employ. I don't think it's always as straight forward as others are claiming - and I think if one were to actually chart out the questions you're asking yourself as you work the mental flow chart, there is quite a bit that's being taken into consideration, even if the end result seems apparent and obvious. That it feels obvious, after having run through the flow chart, is perhaps more a testament to one's experience and knowledge of the game than it is a demonstration that the game lacks depth.
Building off of this, I think what others (e.g. Canadian 5th) are in favor of having is more tactical options available at any given decision point - whether that's more choices of actions to perform or a consequence of a different turn structure (or both!). If the choice of an action for a given unit is only to do A or B, then there is a limit to how much depth you can derive from it. But if they can do A or B or C or D, then those additional options compound across the whole game state and the game becomes "deeper" .... or it might just be more complex and difficult to parse (more illusion of choice to wade through).
This is getting pretty heady and abstract!
I've enjoyed the discussion, even though it's veered away from trying to list and discuss tactics for much of this thread. But it's been thought provoking and illuminating, which I appreciate as well.
I wonder, if summoning gets involved in a game, does that make the game more tactical?
Let's say I have 500 reinforcement points. What units I can/will bring in is "hidden information"?
It may not be optimal for a number of reasons but does it add an element of deeper tactics?
A little off topic, but is AoS, with a wider array of more viable summoning, a deeper tactical game?
Yet more off topic, Warcaster basically functions entirely on "summoning" in that you don't build a list, but gain a number of points with which to add a unit to the board from spawn points. Does having a system like that offer deeper tactics?
Or is it that there is still "optimal decisions" and if you have the skill to make those there's no real choices in summoning?
On the subject of flowcharting a game of 40k, can we all agree that with sufficient computing power that would could train an AI to play and win a game of 40k? If so, this proves that 40k can be boiled down to a series of logical decisions that can be performed by anybody given sufficient time. This is literally a flowchart with each branch contingent on the board state after each toss of the dice. If desired, we could also build a robot to house our AI and ensure that it can roll dice perfectly forcing us to use truly random elements for determining actions rather than pseudo-random ones such as thrown dice.
If we can agree to the above does that not prove that 40k is more shallow than as seemingly simple a game as Poker and much more simple than a game of MtG?
Canadian 5th wrote: On the subject of flowcharting a game of 40k, can we all agree that with sufficient computing power that would could train an AI to play and win a game of 40k? If so, this proves that 40k can be boiled down to a series of logical decisions that can be performed by anybody given sufficient time. This is literally a flowchart with each branch contingent on the board state after each toss of the dice. If desired, we could also build a robot to house our AI and ensure that it can roll dice perfectly forcing us to use truly random elements for determining actions rather than pseudo-random ones such as thrown dice.
If we can agree to the above does that not prove that 40k is more shallow than as seemingly simple a game as Poker and much more simple than a game of MtG?
Yeah if we don't understand what training an AI means, it's the same thing as a flowchart.
Like in chess when a computer rummages through a database to find the best move to play, totally the same thing as a flow chart.
Getting an AI to play the game is theoretically easy. Getting an AI to always do the mathematically optimal move - i.e. having an actually mathematically solved sequence of decisions - is quite another.
Realistically I don't think you can create a game an AI couldn't ultimately beat humans at - but that's because, in the case of 40k, it would be "playing" by processing huge amounts of geometry and statistics. Most (all?) humans are not. They might approximate to it due to some maths - and more often experience - but its very different form of "intelligence".
dhallnet wrote: Like in chess when a computer rummages through a database to find the best move to play, totally the same thing as a flow chart.
That was the old way of building a gameplaying AI and it works well enough for Chess because we have a lot of data to work from. You could get the same results by letting a learning AI play millions of rated games on an online Chess game and this form of learning is what made Alpha Go work.
Why can't this same approach be, theoretically, applied to 40k?
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Tyel wrote: Getting an AI to play the game is theoretically easy. Getting an AI to always do the mathematically optimal move - i.e. having an actually mathematically solved sequence of decisions - is quite another.
Realistically I don't think you can create a game an AI couldn't ultimately beat humans at - but that's because, in the case of 40k, it would be "playing" by processing huge amounts of geometry and statistics. Most (all?) humans are not. They might approximate to it due to some maths - and more often experience - but its very different form of "intelligence".
Canadian 5th wrote: On the subject of flowcharting a game of 40k, can we all agree that with sufficient computing power that would could train an AI to play and win a game of 40k? If so, this proves that 40k can be boiled down to a series of logical decisions that can be performed by anybody given sufficient time. This is literally a flowchart with each branch contingent on the board state after each toss of the dice. If desired, we could also build a robot to house our AI and ensure that it can roll dice perfectly forcing us to use truly random elements for determining actions rather than pseudo-random ones such as thrown dice.
Yes
If we can agree to the above does that not prove that 40k is more shallow than as seemingly simple a game as Poker and much more simple than a game of MtG?
No
Reason #1: Because given sufficient computing power I think an AI could turn a game of poker or magic into an optimization exercise too, and likewise "solve it" and beat most players. As an example, Race for the Galaxy is as well known, and quite complex boardgame, with a good dose of double-think and reading your opponent. A programmer made a digital version using a neural network AI algorithm and it is absolutely brutal in its ability to win. That doesn't entirely prove the point - but I don't see how AI having to account for how a human might use or might not use one of the dozens of stratagems on hand in 40K is much different from an AI working through the logic of MtG. In terms of Poker an AI is going to have an huge advantage because they are never going to make a tell. Which leads to the next point...
Reason #2: Uncertainty and unpredictability are all factors that can be accounted for. Whether that's coming from the randomness of die rolls, the randomness of what of cards in magic you happen to draw, the randomness of what good/bad moves your opponent might dream up, or anything else. It's all math - which is what you've been saying the whole time.
If you want to prove that 40K is objectively shallower than poker or MtG, I don't think the argument you're laying out helps support your claim.
dhallnet wrote: Like in chess when a computer rummages through a database to find the best move to play, totally the same thing as a flow chart.
That was the old way of building a gameplaying AI and it works well enough for Chess because we have a lot of data to work from. You could get the same results by letting a learning AI play millions of rated games on an online Chess game and this form of learning is what made Alpha Go work.
Why can't this same approach be, theoretically, applied to 40k?
Yeah I know. Chess AIs can also use databases though (openings and final states).
It's not that the same approach can't be used, rather that a trained AI as nothing to do with a flow chart and its principles means that you can apply it to any game ever (or any task really, since that''s why they are researched).
So since now you know how what a trained AI is, why do you compare this to a flow chart ? It doesn't even use a flow chart.
While I'm sure it has already been debated here, Alphastar is an AI from the same company as AlphaZero & AlphaGO which plays Starcraft 2 on the ladder and is highly ranked (and they had to limit its abilities to make it fair). Is this also a "flow chart able" game ? Do you think it would be harder to make it play MtG ?
Almost any game can be "learned" by a computer nowadays.
1. I think you can create an AI to play 40k.
2. I think you could create an AI that ultimately wins most 40k games versus humans - or at least has a sufficiently high win percentage for us to say it is better.
3. I'm not however sure this proves 40k is simple, because I think you could do that for all such games.
Basically as per the post above.
FWIW, I think an AI's advantage in poker isn't not making tells - which are more "movie poker" than real life. Its being able to process and remember huge amounts of information beyond what most players can manage. I.E. What is the game state, how are people acting, what was the game state (at every stage), how did people act then, how have they tended to act in previous hands (while baring in mind behaviour can change) and so on. That's what professionals are doing - not staring into each others eyes and hoping their nose twitches, although it may happen from time to time. People obviously manage to play online with no faces or bodies to speak of.
Mezmorki wrote: Reason #1: Because given sufficient computing power I think an AI could turn a game of poker or magic into an optimization exercise too, and likewise "solve it" and beat most players.
They could only solve for so much of the meta in a game like MtG where top decks often make significant changes between major tournaments. It's possible that a very powerful AI could also account for how the meta is likely to shift and build for that as well, but that is more effort than it would take to perfect a game with as little hidden information as 40k. Likewise, they could probably learn to read tells in poker by doing things like reading heart rates, measuring temperatures, tracking eye movements, etc. but by the same token they could also potentially read marks on cards imperceptible to a human and 'cheat' at poker. I'd argue that needing these two extra steps makes the AI required to play these games more complex.
As an example, Race for the Galaxy is as well known, and quite complex boardgame, with a good dose of double-think and reading your opponent. A programmer made a digital version using a neural network AI algorithm and it is absolutely brutal in its ability to win.
If the deck is fixed from a known selection of cards this makes the AI's job far easier than in a deck-building game such as MtG. It may also be easier than poker, though it may also be that the level of play for a niche boardgame is lower than the skill level in professional poker players.
Reason #2: Uncertainty and unpredictability are all factors that can be accounted for. Whether that's coming from the randomness of die rolls, the randomness of what of cards in magic you happen to draw, the randomness of what good/bad moves your opponent might dream up, or anything else. It's all math - which is what you've been saying the whole time.
It might be possible that an AI could look at the pool of cards in any given MtG format, the established meta for said format, and its own ability to read an opponent and reduce MtG to a game with very few variables. However given the pool of played cards - let alone total cards - in any given format is vast I'd argue that learning to read a magic card and analyzing the card pool alone is already more difficult than solving a game of 40k.
It might be possible that an AI could look at the pool of cards in any given MtG format, the established meta for said format, and its own ability to read an opponent and reduce MtG to a game with very few variables. However given the pool of played cards - let alone total cards - in any given format is vast I'd argue that learning to read a magic card and analyzing the card pool alone is already more difficult than solving a game of 40k.
To be simplistic : it doesn't need to analyse anything, it played millions of games in the time you would have troubles to play a hundred.
If you take a player that played MtG for decades, chances are he will beat someone who's been playing for a few months.
And solving is different than training AIs.
And to get back to the "flow chart" over simplification, I would like any of you try to make one just to move one single unit in a battle.
dhallnet wrote: To be simplistic : it doesn't need to analyse anything, it played millions of games in the time you would have troubles to play a hundred.
If you take a player that played MtG for decades, chances are he will beat someone who's been playing for a few months.
And? Doesn't that just prove the superiority of a well-trained AI?
And solving is different than training AIs.
It is, but you could also build an AI to do that, it's just orders of magnitude harder and not within the scope of most current AI research.
dhallnet wrote: To be simplistic : it doesn't need to analyse anything, it played millions of games in the time you would have troubles to play a hundred.
If you take a player that played MtG for decades, chances are he will beat someone who's been playing for a few months.
And? Doesn't that just prove the superiority of a well-trained AI?
Yes but your initial posts tried to correlate the ability of this kind of AI to play/win a game with the simplicity of said game.
Which you can't, reason why you moved on and are trying to make me say something else.
it's just orders of magnitude harder
Yep, so much so that we aren't even sure that it is possible in the case of chess for example.
It might be possible that an AI could look at the pool of cards in any given MtG format, the established meta for said format, and its own ability to read an opponent and reduce MtG to a game with very few variables. However given the pool of played cards - let alone total cards - in any given format is vast I'd argue that learning to read a magic card and analyzing the card pool alone is already more difficult than solving a game of 40k.
So now you're comparing 1 game of 40K against the entire meta of magic? I think to be analogous here you'd need to compare across the entire design space - which if you're including deck construction and solving the meta for MtG you'd need to apply to list building and solving the meta for 40k.
Is it that Warhammer 40k could be solved by an "advanced enough" AI and so isn't that tactically complex?
Or is it that solving Poker/MtG would need an "advanced enough AI" to solve, and so these things are more tactical complex than 40k?
You cant solve MTG. You can mathematically prove the best combinations and assume which deck has a better chance to win. However the card order in MTG (which is random) decides the winner more often than not. Magic is just as much about list construction as 40k is - if not more. I would say MTG requires a lot more knowledge about what cards are out there in the meta. 40k has a much smaller list of stratagems/gimicks that you need to know about to play against properly. Poker at the top levels is a very advanced game. A computer that mastered poker would probably be able to tell your exact hand just by your facial expressions - kind of like the pro poker players out there right now except it would be even better at it. A computer with the right set of sensors would be literally unbeatable at poker.
It might be possible that an AI could look at the pool of cards in any given MtG format, the established meta for said format, and its own ability to read an opponent and reduce MtG to a game with very few variables. However given the pool of played cards - let alone total cards - in any given format is vast I'd argue that learning to read a magic card and analyzing the card pool alone is already more difficult than solving a game of 40k.
So now you're comparing 1 game of 40K against the entire meta of magic? I think to be analogous here you'd need to compare across the entire design space - which if you're including deck construction and solving the meta for MtG you'd need to apply to list building and solving the meta for 40k.
Off-topic, but have you tried using Reinforcement Points? Not every army has access to it, but a few are able to bring in a "side board" of sorts. I've been tempted before by the idea of a Daemon army that uses summoning to replace whatever critical part of the army's design you managed to kill. Did you kill part of the army that's really good at killing, but left alone its objective-grabbers and support characters? Bring back the killy part. Did you kill the support characters? Return them to the field! They killed off your objective grabbers? Bring them back too! It could be a fascinating force.
Warmachine had two-list tournaments (you bring two lists, your opponent brings two lists, and you get to read both your opponent's lists before deciding in secret which one to use). In the rules for Infinity you're technically allowed to build your list knowing what faction your opponent's playing and what the mission is, though I haven't been to any real tournaments so I'm not sure how that gets implemented in practice.
Mezmorki wrote: So now you're comparing 1 game of 40K against the entire meta of magic? I think to be analogous here you'd need to compare across the entire design space - which if you're including deck construction and solving the meta for MtG you'd need to apply to list building and solving the meta for 40k.
That should have read any given game of 40k. Also, given the starting premise of this thread, we could constrain an AI to only playing human-built decks/lists as that would be the purer proof of tactics in each game. Given this constraint, which game do you think is hard for an AI to solve for?
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dhallnet wrote: Yes but your initial posts tried to correlate the ability of this kind of AI to play/win a game with the simplicity of said game.
Which you can't, reason why you moved on and are trying to make me say something else.
The answer lies within the complexity and computing power required to make such an AI. Tic-tac-toe is so easy a child can solve it, Connect 4 is more difficult but still solvable with highschool level math, Chess is a step above that requiring either a carefully curated move library and carefully programmed tactics or an early model self-learning AI, Go is a step above that requiring a modern cutting edge AI to play well. I would argue that 40k is closer to Chess level and that MtG is probably slightly above Go level but without any such AI existing I admit that I may well be missing a factor that makes things simpler or more complex for an AI in either of these games.
Yep, so much so that we aren't even sure that it is possible in the case of chess for example.
Chess is a finite game and thus there should be no uncertainty as to it being solvable, the question is how much computational power (or time) is required to brute force a solution and then how much more power is needed to brute force it within the time allotted for a sanctioned game. In either case, it is a question of hardware and not a logical issue.
Is it that Warhammer 40k could be solved by an "advanced enough" AI and so isn't that tactically complex?
Or is it that solving Poker/MtG would need an "advanced enough AI" to solve, and so these things are more tactical complex than 40k?
The point lies in how achievable such an AI is. We made a sufficiently advanced Chess game to beat any given human opponent in the '90s as a PR stunt. We made a Go and Jeopardy playing AI for similar reasons but it was orders of magnitude more difficult to do. I don't think 40k is unwinnable with current AI techniques or processing power, there's just no incentive for a company to do it.
I may have been too hasty to say solvable though. In my mind, I was picturing beat the best players consistently as solved but that isn't exactly solving the game. thus while I still think 40k is theoretically machine solvable it may be sufficiently complex as to be unrealistic in any plausible near future scenario.
The list is exactly what I said it was, a counter meta wonder that took a tournament by surprise.
That's likely a rudimentary understanding of the list. He made the incubi eligible for SfD so for all we know razor wings were baiting out Soulburst.
The d-cannon on the wraithseer is a monster considering ILOS. You wouldn't need to take hits with good use of terrain before getting the chance to cripple doomed eradicators or attack bikes.
List is also illegal isn't it? You cant take single razorwing units.
Thats debatable considering two sources were released at the same time with different unit sizes and historically razorwings have been 1-12.
And even if it's illegal, that doesnt invalidate the whole list, its not like these 36 points singlehandedly won him the game.
Warmachine had two-list tournaments (you bring two lists, your opponent brings two lists, and you get to read both your opponent's lists before deciding in secret which one to use). In the rules for Infinity you're technically allowed to build your list knowing what faction your opponent's playing and what the mission is, though I haven't been to any real tournaments so I'm not sure how that gets implemented in practice.
Infinity tournaments tell you in advance what the missions will be and you get to build 2 lists (from the same faction) and decide once you hit the table which list you will play.
VladimirHerzog wrote: Thats debatable considering two sources were released at the same time with different unit sizes and historically razorwings have been 1-12.
Given that one source was for PL only I don't think there's much debate to be had.
And even if it's illegal, that doesnt invalidate the whole list, its not like these 36 points singlehandedly won him the game.
It's not the points or their killing power that matters. If you force those 36 points into a single unit it likely changes the entire gameplan as he now needs to position a more valuable unit to score that same table quarter or out-of-the-way objective. If the 3 model minimum size is enforced I doubt we see this list ever again.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Closely on topic but could you imagine if Chess was relegated to IGOUGO? Man that'd be hilariously awful.
What do you think the first turn win-rate in Chess would be if White moved as many pieces as it wanted to first and then handed the board over to black? My guess is greater than 90% as you could set an unassailable position and force black to play into kill zones and take terrible trades to develop their pieces.
VladimirHerzog wrote: Thats debatable considering two sources were released at the same time with different unit sizes and historically razorwings have been 1-12.
Given that one source was for PL only I don't think there's much debate to be had.
And even if it's illegal, that doesnt invalidate the whole list, its not like these 36 points singlehandedly won him the game.
It's not the points or their killing power that matters. If you force those 36 points into a single unit it likely changes the entire gameplan as he now needs to position a more valuable unit to score that same table quarter or out-of-the-way objective. If the 3 model minimum size is enforced I doubt we see this list ever again.
Yeah i know what it changes. But why do you randomly decide to ignore the PL document? PL is used in many rules in matched play, namely strategic reserves and stratagems. If you decide to ignore the unit size in that document, then you should ignore the PL updates too.
VladimirHerzog wrote: Yeah i know what it changes. But why do you randomly decide to ignore the PL document? PL is used in many rules in matched play, namely strategic reserves and stratagems. If you decide to ignore the unit size in that document, then you should ignore the PL updates too.
Feel free to point out any tournament top-8 uses of these rules that have been impacted by PL updates. I can't imagine there are any but I'm open to being surprised.
VladimirHerzog wrote: Yeah i know what it changes. But why do you randomly decide to ignore the PL document? PL is used in many rules in matched play, namely strategic reserves and stratagems. If you decide to ignore the unit size in that document, then you should ignore the PL updates too.
Feel free to point out any tournament top-8 uses of these rules that have been impacted by PL updates. I can't imagine there are any but I'm open to being surprised.
The answer lies within the complexity and computing power required to make such an AI. Tic-tac-toe is so easy a child can solve it, Connect 4 is more difficult but still solvable with highschool level math, Chess is a step above that requiring either a carefully curated move library and carefully programmed tactics or an early model self-learning AI, Go is a step above that requiring a modern cutting edge AI to play well. I would argue that 40k is closer to Chess level and that MtG is probably slightly above Go level but without any such AI existing I admit that I may well be missing a factor that makes things simpler or more complex for an AI in either of these games.
There are two distinct things imho : how difficult it is to model a game for a computer to "play" it and evaluate the results of its actions and how long it takes to train said computer. The first thing isn't related to the "complexity" of the game (GO is easy to model, hard to play, which is probably why Deepmind started with Go instead of Starcraft for example) while the second probably is.
But I don't think either of us has the information regarding which game is easier to model and train an AI for, and while it's fun and interesting to talk about, it is complete conjecture for us.
Canadian 5th wrote: Chess is a finite game and thus there should be no uncertainty as to it being solvable, the question is how much computational power (or time) is required to brute force a solution and then how much more power is needed to brute force it within the time allotted for a sanctioned game. In either case, it is a question of hardware and not a logical issue.
Which is what I meant, afaik we don't know if we will ever reach a state in which we will have enough practical computational power at our disposal (because in theory, such power is limitless, but there are very practical limitations to it) available to "solve" chess.
Still, when things loosen up and I get my vaccination, I look forward to playing my first game of 9th!
