As we all know, 40k is a game that makes you use your brain, but it is also a game where you can attempt to play with your opponents brain too.
Just wanting to get some ideas as to what sort of psychological tactics you guys have used or had used against you while playing.
I don't mean stuff like making faces or trash talking your opponent, but stuff within the game.
I personally am a big fan of purposefully taking out my opponents favourite unit, whether this be a giant points sink or just a unit that they have spent hours and hours lovingly converting and painting. I've found that by taking these units out early in the game, you can seriously demoralise your opponent.
Another good one is building your army around something that is not traditionally their strength (ie. a close combat IG army) There's nothing more disheartening than having your ass handed to you in close combat by a bunch of measly guardsmen.
So how about you guys? What kind of "psyche outs" do you employ?
My main 'psyche out' is just playing Tau the way they are meant to be played people find the first two turns incredibly demoralising, to the point where one of the player I regularly play against starts complaining it was pointless him even setting up. Even if he then goes on to draw/win he complains from turn 2 to turn 6.
But yeah, taking out their prized unit is priceless, as often they don't know what to do without it and start making mistakes
Oh and rolling saves. I'm a bit of a demon for saves usually. Wyches charged my 12 man fire warrior unit? I have to make 15 4+ saves? When odds are against me winning the combat that much, I tend to pass all of those saves... my record is about 16/16 in one go...
I'm more apt to nto attck a person's favorite or most awsome looking unit that they spent time on so they can enjoy having it out... but then again i'm the kind of player who wants everybody to have a good time
example this weekend my ork speed freaks list
big mek kff wazdakka
5 diversified nob bikers w/ painboy
3 meganobs in bw
20 slugga bosy in bw x2
8 burnas in a wagon
at 1750 vs tyranids.
I could have wiped the floor with him had i just stayed embarked and shot, keeping the battlewagons together moving them and shooting big shootas... btu who wants to play a oen sided game, deff rollad in and proceeded to lose. my opponent at first wasn't sure how he was donna pop my wagons, instead i made that part easy. we both knew i could easily have won but it would have been kind of a paper rock sissors win
now if i were in a tourney only then would it be trying to win above all else. but as logn as i don't let the opponent get in my head I'd leave the psychology alone and worry abotu tactically sound moves ... 40k isn't exactly poker . the cards are all on the table and its hwo they are used that is important
I love Marbo for this. He only costs 65pts, but it's simply astounding the amount of firepower he attracts on the turn he shows up.
Outflankers also seem to screw with the enemies heads, more so then deepstrikers. I think it's due to the fact that they can assault when they show up and don't mishap.
De-meching mech lists is also a great way to mess with an opponents head.
I hit the alternate deployment side of IG as hard as I can. Al'rahem, Stormtroopers, valkyries, and even sometimes scout sentinels. The extra versatility gives me the right tool for the job, and the enemy never knows where I'm going to end up popping up from.
I infiltrate right next to my buddy's tervigon with a bunch of fusion blaster stealth suits with a marker drone so that I can wound it, then mark it for a missile strike That really makes him feel the pain, as he now can no longer spawn gaunts, or have his favorite(?) MC on the field.
killykavekommando wrote:I infiltrate right next to my buddy's tervigon with a bunch of fusion blaster stealth suits with a marker drone so that I can wound it, then mark it for a missile strike That really makes him feel the pain, as he now can no longer spawn gaunts, or have his favorite(?) MC on the field.
Dark Eldar - A lot of accurate and lethal fire. Reaver Bikes all cause problems that users don't know how to deal with. Deep Striking - Web Way Portal. Toughness is no defense from poisoned weapons. It makes them into a matchup problem that is different from what most users know works against standard opponents.
It is fun forcing an opponent to think his way through the problem you have presented him with.
killykavekommando wrote:I infiltrate right next to my buddy's tervigon with a bunch of fusion blaster stealth suits with a marker drone so that I can wound it, then mark it for a missile strike That really makes him feel the pain, as he now can no longer spawn gaunts, or have his favorite(?) MC on the field.
I assume you all would never employ these tactics in a casual environment, right? This seems more like a Win at all Costs kind of thing.
As far as psychological warfare, you honestly just have to play your own game. One of the biggest things that mess with opponents is when they score a big kill (like a land raider or a storm raven full of paladins) and you simply keep going without even blinking. I find this Stonewall Jackson-esque approach really can throw someone off their game.
But on to the point of destroying an opponent's favorite unit. I think it is rather unsportsmanlike to spitefully do so. If that unit happens to be the terminators completely decimating your front line, by all means, let em have it. But to say, ignore other targets to stack wounds on a well painted and converted unit...seems to miss the point of WH40k, which is about fun.
I was also laughing when this one kid cut down 10 guys in a power blob that was advancing at his tac squad for the first time. I told him that he'd have to do that another time over before I started to get concerned. That kind of bugged him.
Throw things in his face. That usually can force your opponents hand or makes him make irrational decisions. Rolling 2+ saves one. At. The. Time. is a good way to never fail (played against Lords of the Black crusade in apocalypse. 10 terminators + Abbadon and nine other lords/scorceres. he rolled one at a time and they just didnt die.)
I like to say "dink" whenever I make an armor save (bullets bouncing off the armor), or, playing orks, move my boys. One. At. A. Time. I once had someone get so mad at me from both of these things that he quit. XD
Use feints. Send out a unit people expect to be tricked out and dangerous so they waste all their shooting and assault on it. Make the unit bare bones so instead of removing a real threat they were pissing in the wind. Gives the rest of the army some time to not be attacked.
Your going to lose some models each game you play. Dont let your opponent choose which ones they are.
jeleopard wrote:I like to say "dink" whenever I make an armor save (bullets bouncing off the armor), or, playing orks, move my boys. One. At. A. Time. I once had someone get so mad at me from both of these things that he quit. XD
That sounds less about psych-out tactics and more about you being an incredibly annoying person to play with.
I play marines. Using the Scout speeder storm with multi melta and a load of scouts with fist, and combi melta can be very threatening to many opponents. If you are going first they know that you will likelly Ace a armored vehicle first turn. If you are going second and you put your scout speeder in outflank, they fear the edge of the board.
I cant tell you how many landraiders have burned on turn one via the use of one of these scout teams. Sure your opponent can try to bubble wrap their land raider. Its not as easily said as done especailly when you consider the 12 inch melta range that the speeder has. And even if they do succeed, the mere fact that they are playing a different game on turn one means that you are already dictating the game. You are in the drivers seat. its always been one of my favorite tactics to use these speeders. I now run two in my army.
jeleopard wrote:I like to say "dink" whenever I make an armor save (bullets bouncing off the armor), or, playing orks, move my boys. One. At. A. Time. I once had someone get so mad at me from both of these things that he quit. XD
killykavekommando wrote:I infiltrate right next to my buddy's tervigon with a bunch of fusion blaster stealth suits with a marker drone so that I can wound it, then mark it for a missile strike That really makes him feel the pain, as he now can no longer spawn gaunts, or have his favorite(?) MC on the field.
Stealth suits ignore the 18" infiltrate rule?
No, but I place them around 20" away and wait for him to move his footsloggers to move up. Knowing that they won't reach me in one turn, I light 'em up with my BCs and if he falls for the trick of sending a MC their way, then I Fusion Blaster the bejeezus (is that how you spell it?) out of it. Or, I infiltrate farther away and marker light his general with my marker drone if I can see him or it depending on if nids have genders. AND... the first time I used this tactic, he sent half of his army towards the stealthsuits, allowing me to pick off any units that were moving towards my gunline.
jeleopard wrote:I like to say "dink" whenever I make an armor save (bullets bouncing off the armor), or, playing orks, move my boys. One. At. A. Time. I once had someone get so mad at me from both of these things that he quit. XD
i dont think that really counts as a win!
Yeah, honestly if you did this in a game with me, I'd probably quit too. And tell all my friends not to play you. This is obnoxious behavior. Making yourself such an unfavorable player that your opponents would probably rather commit suicide than play against you is not gonna get you more games.
On topic, the destruction of an opponent's favorite (newest) model is always great. First turn I drop pod-melta'd my friend's new land raider that he just lovingly painted up and was very proud of, while it was in the corner of the table. Boom. Terminators are footslogging now.
I have a nice bone too though: one friend had a BALR mishap and blow up, but I let him keep it and just played it as I moved the model where I wanted. Boards edge, but I fed him a squad too, so it could do something. Game was pretty much over already from bad dice, so I wanted him to get something. It happens. Sometimes squads need to be thrown to your opponent, without looking obvious (like melta-ing said land raider so termies can come out and eat squad).
My current Guard list is pretty good for this. Most of my units have the ability to wipe sqauds of MEQ's from the board in a turn. Plenty of ordnance, a few squads kitted out with loads of plasma, a good ammount of melta and a few demo charges for good measure. They units are pretty expensive but they generally do more damage than they cost which is vital for tooling up units in this way. The problem is, to keep points down, units have to be very specialised. A melta unit lacks any anti-infantry, the anti-infantry won't really hurt transports ect. Thats where intelligent deployment comes in =p
Think about units the enemy has do deal with ASAP or he will pay.
Outflankers, infiltrators, fast moving units, deep strikers come to my mind, and
of course BA Furiosos with blood talons.
My DE was not able to deal with it from far and his army paid a high price.
You probably haven't filled that 2nd HQ slot, and if you add him and tell your opponent about the death effect, everything that has S7+ will be fired at the Dumbfish (love that nickname) he's in. Stick it within weapons fire range of their squads, but well back and bubble-wrapped from d-pods and/or assaults. You'll get the 4+ disruption pod saves, and they'll fire 300-400 pts of stuff that should be IDing your suits and popping railheads at a 50 pt guy who will probably survive 2 turns at least. When he does get thrown from his transportation? Run him over to a broadside squad and join it (since they're your least mobile but hardest to kill suits). Enjoy the look of despair as they see they've allowed you a couple unmolested shooting phases to blow their transports and tanks to kingdom come
I haven't played any tourney level 40k, but I've played a bunch of high level M:TG and I'm sure a lot of similar tactics would translate. Of course, it depends heavily on how serious the opponent is and how much they are paying attention to you/your body language.
Keep your eye on a specific unit, like you value you it, when you're actually are using it as bait.
Keep your eye on an enemy unit, to make it look like you're going after it, or plotting against it.
Put your hand on a unit to move it(if you don't plan to) then take it away.
count numbers out loud or on your fingers, like you're calculating inches or turns
Obviously, you cant use things like this against every opponent, or in every situation. Instead of "tactics" i guess this would be more along the lines of social engineering or meta gaming. You'd be surprised how easily you can manipulate someone into thinking/doing something you want them to by just using body language.
Innocently asking the side armor value of vehicles not in cover always works to make them scurry them back away from my gunlines. Works even better if you have d-pods in the wings waiting to show up.
"Nervously" checking LOS from your "valued" unit to their shooty squad(s) tends to help emphasize the point too. That, or the classic: Occasionally snickering when they move a unit, and when they inquire, say "Oh, nothing, it was nothing. How many points did they cost you again?"
Also, it'd be a crime to not mention Doomthumb and his wonderful use of "alternative dangerous terrain indicators." (Wasps on strings )
Although not a female player, I'd have to hazard a guess that if you happen to be appropriately endowed (No man-boobies, please, for the love of the Emperor), cleavage would be an effective distractor as well.
With my IG army I plan on finding what people ignore the most and turning that into the main threat while making what they normally consider the biggest threat the diversion (eg, inclusion of special units/upgrades while stripping to the bear bone others).
Take this to the extreme of say decking out a lot of sentinels to distract from some power blobs.
The effect would be mostly on people I play often. Many magnets will be required.
Dr. Serling wrote:Use feints. Send out a unit people expect to be tricked out and dangerous so they waste all their shooting and assault on it. Make the unit bare bones so instead of removing a real threat they were pissing in the wind.
Your opponent is required to know everything about your army list, so this only works if they are easily distracted anyway.
Even the best commanders over-look things. I was trying out SWS in guard with melta's a few times, months ago. Because they look very much like standard infantry and the fact I had bigger things like the demolishers on the board, they were ignored. Those melta's got a hell of a volley off and crippled a necron heavy destroyer squad.
Bringing the wife along with wearing a nice dress, or good cleavage shirt. She takes pictures and talks to the nice guy I'm playing against. Always a wonderful distraction. Then we cackle all the way home with a victory. Mwah Ha hah!
I wrote a Dark Eldar tactica, which involved some discussion of psychological tactics. Here's a couple pieces of it:
Part I: State of Mind:
This is the first part of being successful with Dark Eldar – starting a game with the right state of mind. My list-creation advice always echoes the same sentiments – things like, “The best defense is a good offensive,” and “Every ablative wound you take is killing power you’re losing.” That list creation mentality of “KILL KILL KILL” needs to effectively translate into your mindset for your success in a game of 40k. Before you start rolling dice, get angry. Not angry and unsportsmanlike…more affronted. It is beneath your dignity to have to mutilate unworthy opponents. They should voluntarily subject their souls for your pleasure, not inconvenience you by making you waste your time taking them.
I write this first because it is the most important. Mentally visualize how every enemy vehicle is going to explode. How you are going to viciously table your opponent without taking a single casualty. Completely focus your thoughts on utterly annihilating your enemy from the table. And they ARE your enemy. For the 2-2.5 hours of the game, your friend/opponent/stranger is NOT your friend. They were rude enough to challenge your supremacy on the table-top, and deserve extinction. Every tank you kill should send a joyous thrill through your temporarily black heart. Every model you kill is your enemy’s just desserts for the sheer audacity in wasting your time. When you enter a tournament, you should be morally outraged that they didn’t just hand you the prize support at the beginning to save them humiliation at your hands on the table top, and trembling with anticipation to repay such an insult with a vengeance.
This serves two purposes.
1. It puts you in the right frame of mind to examine how to cause the maximum damage to your opponent, which works in conjunction with the same effort you should have put into your list, figuring out how to create maximum killing potential. No…you should NOT have five trueborn in that venom if they only have 4 special weapons.
2. It keeps you focused on killing. Every vehicle you lose needs to redouble your fury and desire to wipe the board clean of your enemy. Dark Eldar are not objective campers. They are not reserve or deep-striking utilizers. We do not sit in cover on an objective and waggle our tongues at inferior species. We do not need to do anything other than present ourselves squarely on the battlefield, DECLARE that we own it, and laugh in the face of anyone who has something to say about it. We eviscerate them with darklight, poison and blade. I’ve said this before and will again no doubt, but the answer to “Don’t you think you should take a 5 man warrior squad to camp at least one objective?” is a simple and stark “NO!!” We are killers. If you are a Dark Eldar player, you are a KILLER!
Every point in your army should be focused on killing. Every thought through your head about your army should be focused on killing. For the 2-2.5 hours of that tournament game, every molecule of your being needs to be the antithesis of your enemy, terribly and violently focused on absolute destruction and demoralization of your enemy.
Now, with that said, I again must reiterate that this is not synonymous with bad sportsmanship. You should not growl at your opponent across the table, or bite them, or brandish weaponry. Smile, joke, be friendly. But you must *NOT* be distracted from the razor edge mindset that you’ve willed yourself into that is completely focused on ruin and the suffering of your inferiors. 40k should be, and *is* fun. Winning is fun, and tabling your opponent without losing a single model is absolutely giddy. It is NOT your job to make your opponent have a good game. It IS your job to make your opponent feel like they are being destroyed by a gentleman. Whether their ego can tolerate unequivocal destruction of their ability (or inability) to create a list, and the mockery of their tactical skills on the table or not is NOT your problem. If they are good sports, they will accept the humbling gracefully, and possibly learn something. If they are bad sports, they will grumble, swear, and/or be sullen about the abuse you inflict on them. Again, NOT YOUR PROBLEM. They shouldn’t have affronted you in the first place by making you spend the time destroying them. If they had conceded at the beginning, you two could have gone and had a drink and chatted together. They should have KNOWN that Dark Eldar are indomitable.
Don’t smack-talk. Last weekend my friend was smacktalking one of my opponents on my behalf, and said, “The best kind of smacktalk is the kind someone else has to back up.” It was funny, but in terms of sportsmanship, don’t do it. You must be utterly confident, completely vicious, absolutely focused on killing, killing, killing. I go through this ritual before every single game. I mentally visualize violence, focus my every thought on how lethal I need my army to be and keep that intense focus throughout the entire game.
This section of my guide on winning with Dark Eldar isn’t a be-all, end-all of Dark Eldar tactics – it is meant to prepare you mentally for HOW to play and how to approach each game, not what moves to make in a game.
This final piece of my article deals with disrupting your enemy’s plans and messing with their heads. Don’t be foolish enough to think that psychology isn’t part of 40k. Your own psychology (if you have followed my guide) is a single-minded unstinting focus on absolute lethality. You know what your threats are in order of danger, you have a plan in mind to deal with them, and you’ve analyzed your enemy’s army, the table and terrain to create your plan for tabling their army and making them question the validity of their existence and participation in the hobby.
Your enemy is doing all the same things you are.
Disruptive psychology is the art of making your enemy second-guess themselves, lose focus and make mistakes to your advantage. You could even call it a facet of social engineering. A smirk at a critical moment can change the course of a game. They key to this is to make comments or facial expressions designed to make your opponent believe that they either just made a mistake, are about to make a mistake, or just did something favorable to you (even if it isn’t). Some examples:
Example #1: You roll for deployment option with your opponent and lose. It is an objective game, and he gives you first turn. You deploy accordingly. Your opponent deploys in response. He picks up the dice to roll to seize, and you look at him with shock and say, “Wait, you WANT to go first? I was figuring you wanted the last say-so on who controls the objectives at the end of the game.” In reality, you know that he’s not going to be alive at the end of the game, and you also know that getting seized on will negatively impact your alpha-strike. You want to go first to make sure you inflict maximum possible damage and couldn’t care less about objectives. Part of the time, your opponent will put their dice back down – they only picked it up out of habit. Part of the time, they will say “I thought seizing the initiative was mandatory” and you can show them them it is not. And part of the time, they will roll anyway. In two of those scenarios, you’ve just gained a significant advantage.
Example #2: Your opponent is playing Mechanized Blood Angels and has six predators. As they’re deploying their Baal predators with flamestorm cannons near the front to scout/smoke and try living through whatever you do so that they can flame your wyches/beasts or anything else they can shoot out of a transport, you look at them with a bit of amusement and ask, “So you’re NOT going to outflank those?” Your opponent will have to think about it. Do they really want to risk losing their baal predator before it ever gets to shoot? It only take a single darklight shot to explode it…and you have SO MANY darklight weapons. Sometimes it will stay out…sometimes it will go into reserve. In reality, whether you could have exploded it or not is irrelevant. With a speedy list of your own, it was probably a turn 2 threat anyway unless you were wanting to move up and disembark trueborn to get shots. If it goes into reserve, its now a threat that you don’t have to worry about until turn 2. Or three. Or four. Until after you’ve had your way with everything else out there.
Example #3: Your opponent deploys a unit where you will have difficulty getting it. Or to it. Or getting LOS to it. Smirk and cover your mouth. Either they’ll think that putting their model there is a mistake and second-guess themselves, or they’ll think that you’re complimenting their tactical prowess. Either way, it’s a shot at stealing some of their confidence.
Example #4: Enemy unit or transport is moving up into assault range – a fight you may or may not win, but definitely not to your advantage to get assaulted. Smile wickedly, chuckle, and say, “This will be fun.” Your opponent will second-guess the wisdom of assaulting you, start crunching the numbers in their head, re-look at their unit locations and yours…
The goal here isn’t necessarily to get your opponent change their mind, but to lose their game-face and second-guess themselves. 40k isn’t just army vs. army, it is also player vs. player. The opportunities that you have to inject doubt into your opponent’s strategy are things you’re going to have to find and exploit, because everyone is different. But if you can tell that your opponent is struggling to make a decision about what action to take…inject some doubt if they make the one that would hurt you more.
And that’s it! The end of my advanced tips and tricks. Your army (via links at the top or other DE list discussions) has the tools to take down any army impudent and foolish enough to take the field against you. Now you have guidelines on how to use those tools to maximum effect, with the added benefit of turning your opponent into a quivering pile of self-doubt and eventual self-loathing.
Dashofpepper wrote: Before you start rolling dice, get angry. Not angry and unsportsmanlike…more affronted.
Statistically speaking, you're correct. Dice thrown in an altogether more aggressive manner have been shown to result in more 6's than those thrown more passively, or by people with weak wrists.
Dash makes some escellent suggestions here.... but there is an easy counter: Do what you want to do with your army!
Having read many of his batreps, it is clear that he takes a lot of confidence into his games. This, i find, is key to winning. My SoB have fared well over the past couple of years thanks to two things.
Firstly, i always believe that i can win. Never give up, always try to find a way to keep going! Even if half your army gets shot off the board in the first couple of turns, there is always some way you can put pressure on your opponent and take advantage of the situation: If you lose a lot of models early, you now have an easier time hiding from your opponent and choosing when and where to fight. Your opponent may also get over-confident and make mistakes; be ready to take advantage of them.
Secondly, and this is more general list-building advice: Build your army in chuks of relatively equal power. A typical SoB list has three main pieces; the deathstar (seraphim and tricked-out Canoness), the main course (SoB in rhinos), and the backline (Exorcists). All three parts have a roughly equal damage potential to your opponent, albeit at different ranges. Playing against an army like this is tough as you never know where to best focus your damage. Blast away at the deathstar and you will be shot off the board by the other two aspects. Take out the backline and you will find yourself tied up in assaults while the main course blasts what you have left. A balanced army is hella frustrating to play against.
Psychologically speaking, a good bet against most people is to 'play the fool'. Appear slightly careless when you move and shoot, pretend not to pay attention at important moments, appear impressed when your opponent tells you what his elite units are capable of....... But never lose your focus. You know how your army plays, and you know how to get the best out of it. This is what will win you most games, and is what you should focus on most (unless your opponents gf has a stunning clevage ofc)
Dashofpepper wrote:I wrote a Dark Eldar tactica, which involved some discussion of psychological tactics. Here's a couple pieces of it:
Part I: State of Mind:
...
This has nothing to do with psychology, Dash. You are saying that Dark Eldar should be played with maximum 100% ferocity because that's how they win. It makes sense, because they're incredibly fragile and offense-driven, so if they try to defend rather than attack, they're gonna die. But all of this emotional mumbo jumbo you mention is entirely unnecessary. You don't have to roleplay Dark Eldar to win with Dark Eldar. You simply don't.
In fact, I almost suspect that this post is, itself, a psychological tactic--trick your opponent into roleplaying his army instead of thinking clearly, and that's an advantage. When Dash says I need to throw my units away because that's what a real Dark Eldar general would do, then maybe I should do that! My own personal experience is that people who play Orks or Khorne armies (back when a Khorne army was a real, viable thing in 4th ed) do tend to roleplay their armies, which is to say they charge right into my close-range firepower like morons. I can't recall the last time someone beat me while roleplaying their army. I've played you on Vassal on the other hand, with your Orks, and you beat me not by going all out offensive, but by carefully avoiding my traps, ignoring my feints, and outmaneuvering me. You didn't beat me by thinking like an Ork.
Example #1: You roll for deployment option with your opponent and lose. It is an objective game, and he gives you first turn. You deploy accordingly. Your opponent deploys in response. He picks up the dice to roll to seize, and you look at him with shock and say, “Wait, you WANT to go first? I was figuring you wanted the last say-so on who controls the objectives at the end of the game.” In reality, you know that he’s not going to be alive at the end of the game, and you also know that getting seized on will negatively impact your alpha-strike. You want to go first to make sure you inflict maximum possible damage and couldn’t care less about objectives. Part of the time, your opponent will put their dice back down – they only picked it up out of habit. Part of the time, they will say “I thought seizing the initiative was mandatory” and you can show them them it is not. And part of the time, they will roll anyway. In two of those scenarios, you’ve just gained a significant advantage.
Example #2: Your opponent is playing Mechanized Blood Angels and has six predators. As they’re deploying their Baal predators with flamestorm cannons near the front to scout/smoke and try living through whatever you do so that they can flame your wyches/beasts or anything else they can shoot out of a transport, you look at them with a bit of amusement and ask, “So you’re NOT going to outflank those?” Your opponent will have to think about it. Do they really want to risk losing their baal predator before it ever gets to shoot? It only take a single darklight shot to explode it…and you have SO MANY darklight weapons. Sometimes it will stay out…sometimes it will go into reserve. In reality, whether you could have exploded it or not is irrelevant. With a speedy list of your own, it was probably a turn 2 threat anyway unless you were wanting to move up and disembark trueborn to get shots. If it goes into reserve, its now a threat that you don’t have to worry about until turn 2. Or three. Or four. Until after you’ve had your way with everything else out there.
I think both of these are incredibly bad sportsmanship. If your opponent is a veteran, he'll just think you're joking, or he'll look at you like you're stupid. This is only going to work on newbies who don't know any better. And really, do you need to intentionally give bad advice to newbies just to beat them? How pathetic is that? If noobs make a mistake in a competitive game, you're not under any obligation to help them. But I think that sportsmanship demands that you don't deliberately mislead them into doing exactly the wrong thing. A raised eyebrow here or there, a smirk, a shake of the head, I think these are legitimate ways to mislead your opponent. But actually using reverse psychology to instruct them to do the wrong thing? That's a really cruel and unsporting thing to do to a newbie (and a really useless thing to do to a veteran).
The one psychological tactic that I consistently use in 40k is bait. Most players only play the turn they're on. They don't think ahead to the next turn. Sometimes they don't even think about the objectives. Most players also prefer to kill something instead of nothing, even if the thing they kill isn't necessarily worth it. Thus, I will often put an expendable unit in the path of the opponent's biggest threat, hoping to bait him into an assault. And just behind the bait unit there will be tons and tons of firepower that, much of the time, the enemy will ignore. He gets to assault something with his death star, and that's all he's thinking about. It doesn't require me to lie to my opponent, or waggle my eyebrows, or anything silly like that. I just create a situation where the opponent thinks he sees an opening to damage me, without considering that he will sustain much greater damage in return. I've only seen one opponent successfully avoid taking bait, and that was Dashofpepper, in fact. This is not to suggest that I use bait tactics in every game, but rather that when I do use them, they work on the vast majority of players.
Dashofpepper wrote: Disruptive psychology is the art of making your enemy second-guess themselves, lose focus and make mistakes to your advantage. You could even call it a facet of social engineering. A smirk at a critical moment can change the course of a game. They key to this is to make comments or facial expressions designed to make your opponent believe that they either just made a mistake, are about to make a mistake, or just did something favorable to you (even if it isn’t). Some examples:
Example #1: You roll for deployment option with your opponent and lose. It is an objective game, and he gives you first turn. You deploy accordingly. Your opponent deploys in response. He picks up the dice to roll to seize, and you look at him with shock and say, “Wait, you WANT to go first? I was figuring you wanted the last say-so on who controls the objectives at the end of the game.” In reality, you know that he’s not going to be alive at the end of the game, and you also know that getting seized on will negatively impact your alpha-strike. You want to go first to make sure you inflict maximum possible damage and couldn’t care less about objectives. Part of the time, your opponent will put their dice back down – they only picked it up out of habit. Part of the time, they will say “I thought seizing the initiative was mandatory” and you can show them them it is not. And part of the time, they will roll anyway. In two of those scenarios, you’ve just gained a significant advantage.
Example #2: Your opponent is playing Mechanized Blood Angels and has six predators. As they’re deploying their Baal predators with flamestorm cannons near the front to scout/smoke and try living through whatever you do so that they can flame your wyches/beasts or anything else they can shoot out of a transport, you look at them with a bit of amusement and ask, “So you’re NOT going to outflank those?” Your opponent will have to think about it. Do they really want to risk losing their baal predator before it ever gets to shoot? It only take a single darklight shot to explode it…and you have SO MANY darklight weapons. Sometimes it will stay out…sometimes it will go into reserve. In reality, whether you could have exploded it or not is irrelevant. With a speedy list of your own, it was probably a turn 2 threat anyway unless you were wanting to move up and disembark trueborn to get shots. If it goes into reserve, its now a threat that you don’t have to worry about until turn 2. Or three. Or four. Until after you’ve had your way with everything else out there.
Dude, do you actually do this? If my opponent did this to me I'd be so annoyed. Not only is it bad sportsmanship, but to openly question your opponent's moves while he's making them in the manner you suggest is rude, arrogant & completely out of order.
Wow I just re-read the part "look at them with a bit of amusement and ask, “So you’re NOT going to outflank those?”". If my opponent said that to me I'd tell him to stfu.
Awww...it's so cute that you two think that disruptive psychology is inappropriate during a simulated toy soldier game where we're ripping each others' heads off, blowing each other apart with explosive and light weaponry, screaming "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD" with various Ork players around the room screaming "WAAAAAUGH!"
My opponents are lucky that the years of therapy have left me in a mostly peaceful state of zen that stops me from leaping across the table and eating them. My childhood with the Korowai tribe left me urges.
I'd humbly posit that you two should be playing Maple Story, or perhaps Hello Kitty Online. If you truly value interpersonal interaction, a less war-like game perhaps? Yu-Gi-Oh?
Awww...it's so cute that you two think that disruptive psychology is inappropriate during a simulated toy soldier game where we're ripping each others' heads off, blowing each other apart with explosive and light weaponry, screaming "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD" with various Ork players around the room screaming "WAAAAAUGH!"
My opponents are lucky that the years of therapy have left me in a mostly peaceful state of zen that stops me from leaping across the table and eating them. My childhood with the Korowai tribe left me urges.
I'd humbly posit that you two should be playing Maple Story, or perhaps Hello Kitty Online. If you truly value interpersonal interaction, a less war-like game perhaps? Yu-Gi-Oh?
And he responds to our accusations that he's encouraging dickish behavior by... being a dick! Who woulda thunk it? WHO I ask you!?
In all seriousness, using the fluff to justify being a douche is kind of a sad thing to do. But I know you're probably joking because you're a rascal
Battlewagon lists tend to demoralize people all by themselves, without further need need by me, other than having a great time.
An entire gunline failing to kill more than one of my battlewagons is usually enough to utterly demoralize any opponent to the point that they think shooting battlewagons at all is totally useless. And once they get a weagon to a screeching halt right in front of them, they realize there are still dozens of orks right in front of them, which will totally going to murder them next turn. Their most effective gun to handle this mess has been shaken by lootaz or koptaz and those spikey deffrollas will explode anything they touch.
Most non-veteran players start to panic now, trying to get out of the way, assaulting battlewagons in hope of their lone melta bomb doing something to it or even scatter artillery into their own stuff. It simply looks so scary that they fail to notice that simply being a gunline and keep shooting is the best choice.
You can't win a game without losing stuff, every ork player knows that from the first game when their first unit of boyz got shot. Other armies, especially space marine variants or all-mech lists tend to panic when they are about to lose a lot, even if the opponent is losing many of his own units in the process.
As a (noob) guard player I have found that taking a Deathstrike missile and telling stories about the carnage it has caused in the past has sometimes 'blinkered' people into going all-out to kill the thing before it fires, ignoring my much more dangerous units. It's always been far more useful for me as a bullet magnet rather than an offensive unit!
Awww...it's so cute that you two think that disruptive psychology is inappropriate during a simulated toy soldier game where we're ripping each others' heads off, blowing each other apart with explosive and light weaponry, screaming "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD" with various Ork players around the room screaming "WAAAAAUGH!"
My opponents are lucky that the years of therapy have left me in a mostly peaceful state of zen that stops me from leaping across the table and eating them. My childhood with the Korowai tribe left me urges.
I'd humbly posit that you two should be playing Maple Story, or perhaps Hello Kitty Online. If you truly value interpersonal interaction, a less war-like game perhaps? Yu-Gi-Oh?
Are you for real?
We're ripping each other's heads off. Figuratively - within the simulated game.
We're blowing each other apart. Figuratively - within the simulated game.
However if you act like a douche while I'm making my moves, that is not within the realms of the simulation. Nor is it figuratively. You're simply being a douche. In real life.
Pathetic ploys like that simply will not work on most players - any player who's worth his salt already knows his army & knows what he plans on doing with it. Do you honestly think that by saying "whoa man, THAT's your move? haha LOL, such a n00b . . " that you will influence a player's decision? Maybe, but in all honesty, probably not, although it does make you come across as a bit of an idiot.
The only time I can imagine this working is if your opponent was a complete newbie, & he genuinely didn't know how to use his army - but in that case, why would you really need an advantage? A good player shouldn't have to resort to such clandestine tactics.
Dash, did you run over the Emperor's cat? Forum-Inquisition is all over the place chasing you(again).
Panda: A good player? Unbalancing your opponent is one of the key components in most competitive games, from flicking cards to an annoying degree in card games, getting your opponent into a talk to take his attention of a game, professional poker players sending random signals, to even chess masters bringing their cat to a game, because he knew that his opponent was allergic to it.
Competitive play across games has been used to this for centuries. Warhammer40k is just not used to competitive play.
Everyone, please keep Rule Number One (Be Polite!) in mind. Even if one feels that someone else is not being a gentleman that is no reason to post in an ungentlemanly manner oneself.
Jidmah wrote: Panda: A good player? Unbalancing your opponent is one of the key components in most competitive games, from flicking cards to an annoying degree in card games, getting your opponent into a talk to take his attention of a game, professional poker players sending random signals, to even chess masters bringing their cat to a game, because he knew that his opponent was allergic to it.
Competitive play across games has been used to this for centuries. Warhammer40k is just not used to competitive play.
Don't get me wrong, I completely see your point & where you are coming from. I'm not arguing against 'unbalancing your opponent' as you call it, I'm merely arguing that out of a variety of manners in which to do so,the specific example cited by Dash seems to me to be largely ineffective at doing so, resulting in no true advantage, but merely lowering your opponent's opinion of you.
Now, I don't know about you, but the main reason I enter tournaments & try to win down at my FLGS is for the prestige & respect involved in being the best at something you like. However, if I played in the way suggested by Dash in his specific example, I think that any prestige or respect that other players had for me would be lessened due to the manner in which I had played my games.
Ultimately my point is this: Openly criticising/questioning your opponent's moves during his turn does not really offer you any sort of advantage - it simply makes you out to be a rude, arrogant player. There are other, more advantageous & much less annoying ways to gain the psychological upper-hand in a game.
That's just my 2 cents. Feel free to criticise, argue or otherwise disagree with my opinion . . This is a forum after all!
@Manchu - Sorry, I realise I can get carried away sometimes. 'Tis the debater in me.
TheBlueRedPanda wrote:Now, I don't know about you, but the main reason I enter tournaments & try to win down at my FLGS ....
I have to agree that using these kind of tactics in any kind of casual or even a friendly game would be very disrespectful. The only environment I would use psychological tactics is in a tournament where I wasn't playing with friends and there was a large prize at stake.
That said, as mentioned earlier the amount of success and the degree depends heavily on how skilled you are at giving misinformation via body language and how well your opponent interprets it.
I do agree that flat out asking why an opponent made a decision with a condescending tone is very insulting and I would be offended. Especially if it were someone i didnt know.
TheBlueRedPanda wrote:
Don't get me wrong, I completely see your point & where you are coming from. I'm not arguing against 'unbalancing your opponent' as you call it, I'm merely arguing that out of a variety of manners in which to do so,the specific example cited by Dash seems to me to be largely ineffective at doing so, resulting in no true advantage, but merely lowering your opponent's opinion of you.
Now, I don't know about you, but the main reason I enter tournaments & try to win down at my FLGS is for the prestige & respect involved in being the best at something you like. However, if I played in the way suggested by Dash in his specific example, I think that any prestige or respect that other players had for me would be lessened due to the manner in which I had played my games.
Ultimately my point is this: Openly criticising/questioning your opponent's moves during his turn does not really offer you any sort of advantage - it simply makes you out to be a rude, arrogant player. There are other, more advantageous & much less annoying ways to gain the psychological upper-hand in a game.
That's just my 2 cents. Feel free to criticise, argue or otherwise disagree with my opinion . . This is a forum after all!
You do realize that you can do that and mislead your opponent without being a dick, right? It's all in the manner of delivery and tone of voice. If I politely pointed out that you may not want to seize the initiative, hey, I'm just giving out an advice. It's my opponent's duty to take it or leave it. You can play mind games and not be an annoying douchebag.
And being good at mind games can also earn you prestige and respect. Just ask professional poker players and professional M:tG players.
TheBlueRedPanda wrote:
Don't get me wrong, I completely see your point & where you are coming from. I'm not arguing against 'unbalancing your opponent' as you call it, I'm merely arguing that out of a variety of manners in which to do so,the specific example cited by Dash seems to me to be largely ineffective at doing so, resulting in no true advantage, but merely lowering your opponent's opinion of you.
Now, I don't know about you, but the main reason I enter tournaments & try to win down at my FLGS is for the prestige & respect involved in being the best at something you like. However, if I played in the way suggested by Dash in his specific example, I think that any prestige or respect that other players had for me would be lessened due to the manner in which I had played my games.
Ultimately my point is this: Openly criticising/questioning your opponent's moves during his turn does not really offer you any sort of advantage - it simply makes you out to be a rude, arrogant player. There are other, more advantageous & much less annoying ways to gain the psychological upper-hand in a game.
That's just my 2 cents. Feel free to criticise, argue or otherwise disagree with my opinion . . This is a forum after all!
You do realize that you can do that and mislead your opponent without being a dick, right? It's all in the manner of delivery and tone of voice. If I politely pointed out that you may not want to seize the initiative, hey, I'm just giving out an advice. It's my opponent's duty to take it or leave it. You can play mind games and not be an annoying douchebag.
And being good at mind games can also earn you prestige and respect. Just ask professional poker players and professional M:tG players.
Hmmm, I don't think you understood my argument correctly, you are arguing the same point as me. I 100% agree that you can mislead your opponent & gain a psychological advantage without being a dick. That was precisely my point.
However, when you say things like (and I quote) “Wait, you WANT to go first?" and when you look at your opponent 'with a bit of amusement' and ask “So you’re NOT going to outflank those?” - then you are acting in a manner which I would construe as 'dickish'.
As you pointed out - it's all in the manner of delivery and tone of voice. Therein lies my argument. The manner of delivery & tone of voice in which Dash purportedly attempts to gain a psychological edge is obnoxious & annoying - as you pointed out, you can mislead your opponent without being a dick.
Awww...it's so cute that you two think that disruptive psychology is inappropriate during a simulated toy soldier game where we're ripping each others' heads off, blowing each other apart with explosive and light weaponry, screaming "BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD" with various Ork players around the room screaming "WAAAAAUGH!"
My opponents are lucky that the years of therapy have left me in a mostly peaceful state of zen that stops me from leaping across the table and eating them. My childhood with the Korowai tribe left me urges.
I'd humbly posit that you two should be playing Maple Story, or perhaps Hello Kitty Online. If you truly value interpersonal interaction, a less war-like game perhaps? Yu-Gi-Oh?
I've heard about this one guy who will drink a bottle of liquor during tournaments and gets all loud and obnoxious as a result.
As a happy drunk myself, I've dealt with the stigma that lots of drinking comes with, and the looks even close friends will give me when I'm reaching the bottom of a bottle.
Is this a valid psychological tactic? To be disruptive while drinking? Perhaps the mild mannered of our scene would be intimidated by that.
Any opponent who is not 15 years old will not be impressed at all by any jumping around and screaming. He will either continue to concentrate on the table and the sitation or just pack his things and leave to play with someone less psychotic if it is only a casual game.
Use a weapon with a high volume of fire, like a punisher, and mow down all of their boyz in 1 volley, even if those grunts are insignificant, the enemy will be worried about your next target and make everything retreat/go to ground, allowing you to advance the army!
Honestly, just seeing an army with a unit they don't like to face can demoralize weaker opponents.
I've seen people effectively give up a game before it started once they saw my 120 model army get on the board. People have grimaced when they realize I'm running 45 lootas and 9 killa kans.
I'll even go as far to say that my army build is specifically meant to take advantage of psychological aspects of 40k, in that the entire point of it is to cause my opponent to have difficulty in determining target priority.
SW Razorfang spam lists shooting all their missiles, lascannon, and other heavy weapons into my kans and ignoring my lootas or into my boyz in an attempt to knock my big mek out. Or a BA player that shoots his predators at my kans and lootas while ignoring my deffkoptas.
having mmarbo, alraheim and straken in the same 2k army, more special characters than your opponent know what to do with, also saying excellent when ever they do something that ruins your plan, just to throw them off
Fairfeldia wrote:having mmarbo, alraheim and straken in the same 2k army, more special characters than your opponent know what to do with, also saying excellent when ever they do something that ruins your plan, just to throw them off
You're not allowed any more than 2 SCs in a non-Apocalypse game IIRC...
I personally like to look very nervous, then very relieved when they make a move that actually DOES scare me. I don't say or do anything else, but it has been very useful before. Once I managed to get a raider as opposed to charge my Tau gunline to hide behind trees instead. I do not believe, however that was my most skilled opponent.
@trollpie, if that is true then i hope its picked up at a tourney, but i only play with my friends andive never had a problem about fighting against ghaz, snik and the super mad doc whos name eludes me
Fairfeldia wrote:@trollpie, if that is true then i hope its picked up at a tourney, but i only play with my friends andive never had a problem about fighting against ghaz, snik and the super mad doc whos name eludes me
It is true. It's clearly stated in the rules that HQ is 1-2. You guys have been playing wrong Let me guess, someone uses 6 wraithlords as well?
Fairfeldia wrote:@trollpie, if that is true then i hope its picked up at a tourney, but i only play with my friends andive never had a problem about fighting against ghaz, snik and the super mad doc whos name eludes me
It is true. It's clearly stated in the rules that HQ is 1-2. You guys have been playing wrong Let me guess, someone uses 6 wraithlords as well?
Unless the SC isn't an HQ selection or is an upgrade to a squad, ala Tellion. I use Tellion regularly with Pedro Kantor and would love to add Lysander to the mix at higher point ranges, say 2k, making 3 legal special characters in one army.
Doomthumbs wrote:
I've heard about this one guy who will drink a bottle of liquor during tournaments and gets all loud and obnoxious as a result.
As a happy drunk myself, I've dealt with the stigma that lots of drinking comes with, and the looks even close friends will give me when I'm reaching the bottom of a bottle.
Is this a valid psychological tactic? To be disruptive while drinking? Perhaps the mild mannered of our scene would be intimidated by that.
It's probably illegal unless the place your tournament is in is also a liquor vendor.
Doomthumbs wrote:
I've heard about this one guy who will drink a bottle of liquor during tournaments and gets all loud and obnoxious as a result.
As a happy drunk myself, I've dealt with the stigma that lots of drinking comes with, and the looks even close friends will give me when I'm reaching the bottom of a bottle.
Is this a valid psychological tactic? To be disruptive while drinking? Perhaps the mild mannered of our scene would be intimidated by that.
It's probably illegal unless the place your tournament is in is also a liquor vendor.
Don't get me wrong, I completely see your point & where you are coming from. I'm not arguing against 'unbalancing your opponent' as you call it, I'm merely arguing that out of a variety of manners in which to do so,the specific example cited by Dash seems to me to be largely ineffective at doing so, resulting in no true advantage, but merely lowering your opponent's opinion of you.
Yeah...
When my opponent does something and I say "Hm. Interesting." I've totally had opponents everywhere tell me that it lowered their opinion of me. As I've said - this may not be the right venue for you.
A good first turn always helps IMO. Grad a couple of objectives, deal significant damage to 2+ of his units, or destroy vehicles. Really puts an opponent on the back foot.
Reserves also mess with an opponents head, as he has no idea when and where your battleline will be reinforced.
Don't get me wrong, I completely see your point & where you are coming from. I'm not arguing against 'unbalancing your opponent' as you call it, I'm merely arguing that out of a variety of manners in which to do so,the specific example cited by Dash seems to me to be largely ineffective at doing so, resulting in no true advantage, but merely lowering your opponent's opinion of you.
Yeah...
When my opponent does something and I say "Hm. Interesting." I've totally had opponents everywhere tell me that it lowered their opinion of me. As I've said - this may not be the right venue for you.
Are you saying that this hobby goes hand in hand with being a jerk? That doesn't make sense.
In every single form of real competitive play, mind games are present. Even seemingly innocuous comments can be said in a slightly mocking way, or at just the right time. Doing small things that put your opponent in a bad mental state can make your wins easier. If your opponent does not like you and has a low opinion of you, he may try to 'show you who's boss' and make a bad play. Mind games inside the ruleset of 40k are less common due to the lack of hidden information, but ultimately, when you're playing for the win you do what works. Being a nice guy tends to work at cross purposes to winning. Playing fair is completely different from playing nice.
GreyHamster wrote:In every single form of real competitive play, mind games are present.
I'm in a tenuous position with the people I play with. I'm above their level of play, so I'm trying to train them to be better, so I can be better.
The problem is luring my opposition into making bad decisions and making them think it was a good idea is pretty high on my list of reasons why. So already I have to say something like "usually I try to encourage you to make a dumb decision, but in this case you should consider X". And on another level, I'm not certain I actually trust myself to do that when the game is on. What if I'm still giving them terrible advice and just lying to myself? I'm not sure I can tell.
Play Orks. Field fewer units than my opponent. I once had literally half the number of models as a Marine player on the table.
Also, use units that are generally considered "bad". Tankbustas are great for that. I basically target my opponent's biggest, strongest tank with them; they either kill it, or keep its attention until something else kills it- like Landraiders. They're good for that. Because they can potentially harm any vehicle out to 30", and are almost certain to kill any vehicle within 12".
jeleopard wrote:I like to say "dink" whenever I make an armor save (bullets bouncing off the armor), or, playing orks, move my boys. One. At. A. Time. I once had someone get so mad at me from both of these things that he quit. XD
i dont think that really counts as a win!
Yeah, honestly if you did this in a game with me, I'd probably quit too. And tell all my friends not to play you. This is obnoxious behavior. Making yourself such an unfavorable player that your opponents would probably rather commit suicide than play against you is not gonna get you more games.
Ouch. Honestly, I'm a chill guy.
I only do the aforementioned tactics against people I REALLY don't like (My gaming club has a necron player who keeps and rolls off his dice in a tray, and picks the best result in a pile -.- He also will sometimes drop dice from his hand, and if it's in his favor, he'll keep it, but if it's not, he rerolls it. It's pretty awful. He's the kind of guy who I'd do that to, and that's cause I know him)
GreyHamster wrote:In every single form of real competitive play, mind games are present.
I'm in a tenuous position with the people I play with. I'm above their level of play, so I'm trying to train them to be better, so I can be better.
The problem is luring my opposition into making bad decisions and making them think it was a good idea is pretty high on my list of reasons why. So already I have to say something like "usually I try to encourage you to make a dumb decision, but in this case you should consider X". And on another level, I'm not certain I actually trust myself to do that when the game is on. What if I'm still giving them terrible advice and just lying to myself? I'm not sure I can tell.
I don't think psychological tactics are necessary against sub-par competition. I'm referring to using them in a top tier GT on a top table where you're playing against the best of the best.
BlueRedPanda and detractors: I've yet to meet someone at that caliber of play...where employing every card in your disposal is useful...who gets offended if I say, "Hrm...interesting."
Against local guys? Nope. If I play against Hulksmash...whom I generally consider to be the best player in the world...I'm pulling out all the stops.
*hint* That was a psychological tactic. Things like that are another common competitive psychological tactic. "Holy smokes, I was afraid of playing you...etc etc etc."
I don't think psychological tactics are necessary against sub-par competition. I'm referring to using them in a top tier GT on a top table where you're playing against the best of the best.
BlueRedPanda and detractors: I've yet to meet someone at that caliber of play...where employing every card in your disposal is useful...who gets offended if I say, "Hrm...interesting."
Against local guys? Nope. If I play against Hulksmash...whom I generally consider to be the best player in the world...I'm pulling out all the stops.
*hint* That was a psychological tactic. Things like that are another common competitive psychological tactic. "Holy smokes, I was afraid of playing you...etc etc etc."
Well obviously, like any rule of thumb, there ought to be exceptions. Now:
1. If the rule of thumb in question is that one should generally avoid playing games of 40k in a manner considered annoying, condescending or rude
2. Then the exception can be interpreted as when one is participating in a scenario where winning by any means possible is of paramount importance
Thus, the argument lies in what qualifies as such a scenario. I completely agree with your suggestion that top tier GT matches qualify, as would many tournament matches that are not top tier - hell, even grudge matches against your cousin could feasibly qualify - it all depends on how important winning is for you.
My main point then is that the negative impact that such actions can have on others' perception of you generally outweigh the comparatively small psychological edge that they give you - however some games are so important that any psychological edge, no matter how small, is worth it.
Mentality is critical. As Dash mentioned in a very DE fashion, it's all about mindset. When you think you will win, then ideas and option will appear to you that otherwise you would have missed.
When someone thinks they will lose, then they miss those options as they are viewing their defeat in the game.
Often when playing someone I'll know on turn 2 that I'm going to win. It's because my opponent has defeated himself, and not because of skill. When I find it happening, I try to be as much fun as possible to play with, as I want people who lose to want to keep playing. There is never a reason to be a douche when playing with toy soldiers.
TheBlueRedPanda wrote:
My main point then is that the negative impact that such actions can have on others' perception of you generally outweigh the comparatively small psychological edge that they give you - however some games are so important that any psychological edge, no matter how small, is worth it.
The perception those people should be drawing is "I shouldn't be so gullible."
BY ignoring the right units, that they are trying to get me to shoot. In a capture and control game if they hace no troops left they know at best the are playing for a draw. It leads to mistakes.
TheBlueRedPanda wrote:
My main point then is that the negative impact that such actions can have on others' perception of you generally outweigh the comparatively small psychological edge that they give you - however some games are so important that any psychological edge, no matter how small, is worth it.
The perception those people should be drawing is "I shouldn't be so gullible."
Perception might be the wrong word here, I think you mean to say 'conclusion', although in any case, yes, I agree & that was pretty much my original point. As a result of acting in the manner previously described you do not gain any real psychological edge (as you said, people aren't this gullible) - others' perception/opinion of you is merely lowered.
TheBlueRedPanda wrote:As a result of acting in the manner previously described you do not gain any real psychological edge (as you said, people aren't this gullible) - others' perception/opinion of you is merely lowered.
That guy outsmarted me, therefore he's a douchebag?
That's the conclusion you're going with? That's a very sore lose approach.
One annoying psych out or whatever I can think of is something a friend did to me. Back in 3rd edition, the eldar had that thing which allowed them to move x", fire, then move x". As long as they didn't move more then 12" or something(I haunt actually played since third, so I don't know if they still have it). Anyways, he would hide behind cover and star cannon my termi's and pretty much anything else. He pretty much made me chase him around as he tore me apart. I hated it.......
As for what some of you guys said about rolling one save at a time and stuff.....I HATED that. My friend would always do that. I'm not a fan of stuff like that. Takes away from the fun of the game. If you have to make someone want to quite because your being obnoxious your wrong. Just not good sportsmanship.
vigilante87 wrote: One annoying psych out or whatever I can think of is something a friend did to me. Back in 3rd edition, the eldar had that thing which allowed them to move x", fire, then move x". As long as they didn't move more then 12" or something(I haunt actually played since third, so I don't know if they still have it). Anyways, he would hide behind cover and star cannon my termi's and pretty much anything else. He pretty much made me chase him around as he tore me apart. I hated it.......
As for what some of you guys said about rolling one save at a time and stuff.....I HATED that. My friend would always do that. I'm not a fan of stuff like that. Takes away from the fun of the game. If you have to make someone want to quite because your being obnoxious your wrong. Just not good sportsmanship.
I`ll roll single dice when its important, like if my commander has to make 4 saves and has one wound, but any other time i roll them as a group.
EagleArk wrote:
I`ll roll single dice when its important, like if my commander has to make 4 saves and has one wound, but any other time i roll them as a group.
Wait, what? How does rolling one dice four times differ from rolling four dice one time?
The only thing I would be able to think of is that that one die was a little bit special? As in modified not to roll a one.
EagleArk wrote:
I`ll roll single dice when its important, like if my commander has to make 4 saves and has one wound, but any other time i roll them as a group.
Wait, what? How does rolling one dice four times differ from rolling four dice one time?
The only thing I would be able to think of is that that one die was a little bit special? As in modified not to roll a one.
TheBlueRedPanda wrote:As a result of acting in the manner previously described you do not gain any real psychological edge (as you said, people aren't this gullible) - others' perception/opinion of you is merely lowered.
That guy outsmarted me, therefore he's a douchebag?
That's the conclusion you're going with? That's a very sore lose approach.
Maybe you haven't read this thread from the start
I am not arguing against psychological tactics at all, nor am I arguing against outsmarting my opponent. I LOVE outsmarting my opponent. However, the specific examples cited were:
1. Saying “Wait, you WANT to go first?" when your opponent chooses to go first in an objectives game.
2. Looking at your opponent 'with a bit of amusement' and asking “So you’re NOT going to outflank those?” when he doesn't choose to outflank his units.
Now . . If my opponent did theses things to me during a game, you're saying that he has outsmarted me? How so? (keeping in mind that saying either of these things will not cause me to change my tactics or decisions in the slightest - I already have a plan & I know what I'm doing with my units)
Hellions with a Stunclaw is a good way to psych your opponent out, especially if he really likes his HQ, and if you then use some scourges to throw down some fire on his elites, well then he/she is probably psyched out.
megabambam wrote:Hellions with a Stunclaw is a good way to psych your opponent out, especially if he really likes his HQ, and if you then use some scourges to throw down some fire on his elites, well then he/she is probably psyched out.
This is situational though.... this thread is discussing general tactics to psyche out your opponent. Be it acting like the 'lord of arrogance' or taking the 'aww shucks; i killed your HQ?! Really? Me?' approach.
A degree of empathy is required to work out what course of action is best in a game..... Just don't be a dick
I recently played in a tournament with Grey Knights Karamazov.
His orbital strike and it´s ability to fire into CC without scatter really messes with the opponents plans.
He wants to spread out afraid of what potentially 3 S6 large blasts can do,
afraid of going into combat and afraid of being within 30" of an interceptor with its shunt move left.
A really good way of messing with your opponent is having a one use trick with enormous destructive potential and simply keep it for a better time.
Chapter Masters orbital strike, vortex grenade, shatter shard, blood strike missiles etc.
Beregond wrote:Oh and rolling saves. I'm a bit of a demon for saves usually. Wyches charged my 12 man fire warrior unit? I have to make 15 4+ saves? When odds are against me winning the combat that much, I tend to pass all of those saves... my record is about 16/16 in one go...
I started reading this thread and I HAD to make a comment about my Tau army after I read this even though it's only the third post. My save-making boils down to pretty much a select few units, and to make a long story short, my friends have learned to fear Stealth Suits. But of course I must give you a longer version. Here are a few examples; My tyranid friend who killed none of my stealth suits after 2 volleys of termagaunt shooting and a Hormagaunt charge. My suits holding on to an objective despite round upon round of double-tapping Necron warriors to contest it and win me the game.
Also a big thing which would rather fall under mind rape than a Psychological tactic is when your crisis suit squad fails to deal a single wound to an Obliterator squad yet the 4 gun drones in the unit shoot one off the table. The only thing I can think of that can top that is when I charged my Commander's squad into my Blood Angels friend's (old codex)Death Company squad with Lemartes. I was able to target lemartes with all my attacks. My suits once again do nothing, but my 2 surviving gun drones remove Lemartes' last 2 wounds(i shot him up a but earlier). We both literally stood staring at the dice for a solid 30 seconds before we look at each other and then proceed to roll on the floor with laughter. It's a bit strange when you do that in a GW store, by the way.
Hey man, don't knock the Gun Drones. They're beastly in CC. I once had a couple Drones from a Pirhanna wipe out a squad of Khorne Berserkers.
And there's a rather interesting post on The Word of Notch, the Minecraft creator's personal blog, about new mobs and the nature of Creepy (which should be able to go into this, as well)
Spoiler:
Basically, Notch is making a new mob, and he wanted to make them creepy. So if you look directly at them, they freeze, then look at you. If you look away, they chase you, really fast.
Now, Notch wanted to make them creepy, and that was his end point. He'd tried just having them attack you right when you looked at them, but he said 'that's just scary, not creepy'.
But while trying to figure out what to do, he lit upon an idea- that Creepyness isn't something happening, it's trying to keep something[/i] from[/i] happening. Scary is very similar to Creepy, except you have less control over when something is going to happen, or how it will happen.
nectarprime wrote:Exclaim "JUST AS PLANNED" when something terrible happens to one of your units.
YES! love your siggy, by the way, it really makes a faithful follower of Tzeentch proud.
@above: As a minecrafter, I know what you're talking about. I like to keep a bloodthirster or GUO within 6" of fateweaver. That way, they re-roll all saves, and if fateweaver gets assaulted, they automatically attack due to "defenders react". Really makes someone think twice before assaulting him, which lets him focus on shooting. Not as much as a mind trick, as it is strategy. though there is a bit of psychology there.
SnaleKing wrote:I like to keep a bloodthirster or GUO within 6" of fateweaver. That way, they re-roll all saves, and if fateweaver gets assaulted, they automatically attack due to "defenders react".
Defenders react does not allow anything that isn't in the assaulted unit(s) to move, so that won't happen.
I like to sometimes make the Avatar advance up towards a squishy looking unit then proceed to dive and hide in cover for about a turn or two; draws a ton of attention that way it seems. Then just leaving two wave serpents up on a building and let them sit for a turn or two, generally until they're fogotten (kind of work out like controlled reserves that way).
Or sometimes disembark the Farseer and have it join onto the guardian squad, the transport then zooms off somewhere else and generally dies horribly delivering a squad at an objective. Then the guardian squad, which had not moved at all in the game prior to this, will proceed to walk up the field weaving through cover generally in the basic direction of their HQ; if the Avatar has been waiting nearby I generally get it to dive to some new nearby cover if too much attention goes to the guardian squad. Eventually once the enemy numbers have dwindled enough the wave serpents will zoom in behind the one unit I had decided to target with the Avatar near the start of the game. They go past this unit, wipe out the HQ as best as possible leaving the targeted unit for last in which it is assaulted by the guardians after the farseer leaves the squad.
Very rare I do all of it in one game though, generally its just the first couple parts (Avatar and Wave Serpents hiding around the place). Most of the time it would likely not work out at all. Always use the Avatar as a lure or bullet magnet rather than for killing things though. But, sometimes it needs to hit a few things to keep their interest in it.
I'm pretty sure that "Hm. Interesting" is only going to work against someone who isn't confident, or doesn't have a plan of attack. The best effect this will have on a seasoned tournament player is likely an amused smirk of their own.
I've seen this tactic attempted, and it just looks silly. If you just assume that your opponent doesn't have your army's best interest at heart, which should be common sense, I don't know why you'd care what they thought of your tactics.
Sometimes I'll leave a unit out as bait, which works pretty nicely. Last weekend someone tried to bait me. He left a squad of purifiers out on a flank, because he knew I had some outflanking scouts. It was capture and control, so he thought that I didn't have any more scoring units. He had unfortunately forgotten a squad of Marines that I had kept in reserve that ended up winning me the game. The moral of this story: If you are going to try stuff like this, make sure you're doing it right or it will only make you lose worse.
So, Blood Angels. Widely considered one of the Fastest Marine armies.
They're RED.
Orks think vehicles painted red go Fasta, and they do.
Every time I play a Blood Angels army in non-competitive play, I'm going to give their vehicles an extra inch of movement (I play Orks. I mean when I play against BA). Either they don't use it, and I lose nothing, or they use it, and hopefully forget about staying juuust out of attack range when moving.
I've had a profoundly different experience with mind games on my opponent. I've found that the best way to throw an opponent off their game and really mess with their heads isn't dropping well timed comments or questions: but with joking and laughter.
I come to tournaments confident in my own abilities and list, and know what I want. But most of the games I have been really successful in inside of those events are the ones were I get my opponent to laugh, joke, and generally take it down a level. Once the game gets more enjoyable for both of you, it really relaxes a lot of opponents because they feel more comfortable playing you. I've seriously watched opponents make mistakes or be more favorable in a "is that an obscured vehicle?" discussion just because they're too busy laughing to care. While nothing game shattering, the little victories on the table add up. It doesn't work with everyone, but it makes for a good game none the less.
Not to mention being the friendly guy to play at the tournament really helps any sportsmanship scores.
Anvildude wrote:Here's one that I thought of a while back.
So, Blood Angels. Widely considered one of the Fastest Marine armies.
They're RED.
Orks think vehicles painted red go Fasta, and they do.
Every time I play a Blood Angels army in non-competitive play, I'm going to give their vehicles an extra inch of movement (I play Orks. I mean when I play against BA). Either they don't use it, and I lose nothing, or they use it, and hopefully forget about staying juuust out of attack range when moving.
darkdm wrote:I've had a profoundly different experience with mind games on my opponent. I've found that the best way to throw an opponent off their game and really mess with their heads isn't dropping well timed comments or questions: but with joking and laughter.
I come to tournaments confident in my own abilities and list, and know what I want. But most of the games I have been really successful in inside of those events are the ones were I get my opponent to laugh, joke, and generally take it down a level. Once the game gets more enjoyable for both of you, it really relaxes a lot of opponents because they feel more comfortable playing you. I've seriously watched opponents make mistakes or be more favorable in a "is that an obscured vehicle?" discussion just because they're too busy laughing to care. While nothing game shattering, the little victories on the table add up. It doesn't work with everyone, but it makes for a good game none the less.
Not to mention being the friendly guy to play at the tournament really helps any sportsmanship scores.
+1
Have to agree with you, this is a good way to play AND it can often give you the edge. I find that if you come across as petty or annoying, then when a minor rules dispute arises you will generally not get the benefit of the doubt; conversely if you act in a manner that is friendly, outgoing & confident, then other players will be more likely to accept your side of things or to cede 50/50 decisions/disputes.
I look really serious and ask questions about my opponents forces like "your hq only has 3 wounds right?" or "did you paint the bottom of your whirlwind?" When theres no way I could reach it any time soon. Then of course I roll to see how I want to attack/defend and start counting which units I rolled to kill first. I'm told this gives me the illusion of that i'm a going to be a tough competitor and a sense of unpredictability because even I don't know what im going to do. This is done without any intent of psychological warfare, but thats what happens sometimes. It goes without saying this just makes the seasoned veterans take the gloves off and ROFLstomp me.
You know, It's funny that this game requires so much info being given, has a psych aspect to it, and it's deception is the route people are generally going here.
Ever consider superstition? as gamers, relying on chance in competition, we're a pretty superstitious lot (between dice, painting, mixing painted/unpainted models in a unit, there are plenty). Or simply, pointing out combat events ahead of time. Weather you announce you know who would win in a shoot out or assault, you're still bringing up confidence in future events and forcing them to acknowledge or dismiss the fact. If you tell them their long fangs are gonna rip open your dreadnaughts, either they shrug and accept that you knew or they try to prove you wrong with other (less optimal) options. they may not be consciously working to prove you wrong, but the idea of knowing better then your opponent is wired deep within our mind. look at any opinion related debate, and the effort thrown in to prove we know better then 'them'.
simply enough, if you can, not convince, but allow them to come to the conclusion they can't win, it's bound to throw off their psych.
for a more reliable tactic, a "one-white-Fireball' (for you M:TG player out there) unit can do wonders. in Magic, a Grand Tour player noted that by having a sub-optimal creature did something weird to the game... no one wanted to 'waste' their good cards on his sun-tail hawk. he averaged 5 damage with the bird, which is a quarter of the game. Having an out of place unit when saturated with better targets, they can pop shots off relatively untouched.
I think that taking out a specialty unit at it's own game hurts bad. So yeah out shoot some Tau or slice up some Bezerkers or Genestealers in CC, that would be a scary moment for me.
Taking 2-4 times as many models as they do is my first step.
Surviving the first round of shooting with neglegible dead due to a KFF is another good one.
Those pretty much do the trick.
Tagboard Wizard wrote:
for a more reliable tactic, a "one-white-Fireball' (for you M:TG player out there) unit can do wonders. in Magic, a Grand Tour player noted that by having a sub-optimal creature did something weird to the game... no one wanted to 'waste' their good cards on his sun-tail hawk. he averaged 5 damage with the bird, which is a quarter of the game. Having an out of place unit when saturated with better targets, they can pop shots off relatively untouched.
The problem with this analogy is M:tG has much more limited resources, cards, to deal with things. There is no difference in 40k between dealing with 5 great units or 4 great units and 1 below average unit. It's still 5 total units. You can either deal with that, or you can't. The fact that one of them is weaker doesn't matter. In M:tG, you have to save a resource for a potentially greater threat that comes later. 40k has no later.
Tagboard Wizard wrote:for a more reliable tactic, a "one-white-Fireball' (for you M:TG player out there) unit can do wonders. in Magic, a Grand Tour player noted that by having a sub-optimal creature did something weird to the game... no one wanted to 'waste' their good cards on his sun-tail hawk. he averaged 5 damage with the bird, which is a quarter of the game. Having an out of place unit when saturated with better targets, they can pop shots off relatively untouched.
This is a good tip, to a degree. As soon as a unit starts doing really well your opponent will start shooting it. The idea is to do enough to be worthwhile, but not enough to be hailed public enemy 1, 2 and 3. I've found scourges fill this position quite adequately, as with haywire blasters they do little damage, but have great utility. The enemy will likely attack your harder hitting units - ravagers, incubi etc - but all the time there vehicles will be almost entirely useless thanks to the scourges.
This in itself is a good psychological tactic - harass key units (if your codex allows for it). Things like immobilising tanks, pinning squads and causing retreats are really important, but often forsaken for attempting to destroy squads entirely. If you can immobilise one unit so your big guns can focus on other threats then you should take that opportunity.
people find the first two turns incredibly demoralising, to the point where one of the player I regularly play against starts complaining it was pointless him even setting up. Even if he then goes on to draw/win he complains from turn 2 to turn 6.
(keeping in mind that saying either of these things will not cause me to change my tactics or decisions in the slightest - I already have a plan & I know what I'm doing with my units)
But of course I must give you a longer version. Here are a few examples; My tyranid friend who killed none of my stealth suits after 2 volleys of termagaunt shooting and a Hormagaunt charge. My suits holding on to an objective despite round upon round of double-tapping Necron warriors to contest it and win me the game.
