For anyone interested here is a link to most of the top 16 lists from the Adepticon Finals on Sunday...

http://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2012/04/24/tournament-circuit-adepticon-championship-results-and-lists/

Funny that Dark Angels ended up in the last round at 6th seed, and that Land Raiders are part of it. Guess a 2+/3++save isn't bettrr than AV 14...

How the heck does this list even work?

http://bloodofkittens.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Bill-Kims-Daemons-5th-Seed-Adepticon-2012.pdf

I'd love to see some strategy tips on it. In my experience your big guys just get gunned down, if they even come in at the right time. Cool to see no Bloodcrushers.

tastytaste wrote:For anyone interested here is a link to most of the top 16 lists from the Adepticon Finals on Sunday...

http://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2012/04/24/tournament-circuit-adepticon-championship-results-and-lists/

Thanks for posting, I wanted to see the other lists besides Chester's Grey Knights.

Honestly, I am not impressed with most of the lists I have reviewed so far. Most of them are not optimized in the most competitive way possible.

Some obervations:

I liked Tony Kopach's Space Wolves. His list is solid, but I would have dropped the Wolf Guard and added a unit of TWC instead.
I would also say that Jose Mendeze's Dark Angels were pretty optimized, however I question running 2 Land Raiders at 1850, even in an all Death Wing army.
Alexander's Necrons seem to be about the best the Necron codex has so far, so Kudos to him. However, his list would be devastated by a proper Fatecrusher or
a good Draigo Wing player IMHO. He didn't face either in this tournament as far as I could tell.

The Daemon player really dropped the ball. He had no Blood Crushers in his list, and he was running Fateweaver. I am not sure how
much he play tested, but the entire list needs to be rebuilt.

The Grey Knight players think they are onto something by running squads of 3 Warrior Acolytes in a Razorback or Chimera, with a couple
supporting units of Purifiers or a unit of Death Cult Assassins. I don't buy it, and think it is far inferior to an IG Leafblower list running Melta
Vets in Chimeras.


I am thinking some of these folks were playing more on the "fluffy" side, than bringing WAAC lists. I dunno, maybe I am just jaded from playing in a hardcore WAAC enviornment.

Bill Kim is a two-time Gladiator champion, and possibly the best Daemons player in the country. But the nature of our hobby is that it is really impossible to know. I do think it would be cool for you to show up at Adepticon and/or some of the other big national events. Talking disrespectfully of accomplished players the way you do does smack a bit of empty talk.

NoArmorSave wrote:The Daemon player really dropped the ball. He had no Blood Crushers in his list, and he was running Fateweaver. I am not sure how
much he play tested, but the entire list needs to be rebuilt.

The fact that he made it through to the final 16 would seem to suggest otherwise...

thank you for posting this

I honestly can not tell if Noarmorsave is trolling or not here...
Yeah, all those players brought fluffy lists...Thats what happens at adepticon finals, along with nova invit. Fluffy lists.

Also, what super WAAC environment do you play in? I personally would like to see it and play in it if these lists seem "fluffy" compared to yours.


Addendum, thanks to BoK for throwing up the lists for us.

In every thread Noarmorsave says that he is the best demon player, and he can beat anybody and the winning lists at tournaments are not very good.

And Tasty, I can give you Ricky Johnson's list tomorrow.

Blackmoor wrote:In every thread Noarmorsave says that he is the best demon player, and he can beat anybody and the winning lists at tournaments are not very good.

Ya, I have been noticing this too. Anyone ever played him before?

Sand, he's not on dakka, has played Daemons at GE: Pasadena for a while now and he is really good with them. Easily the best Daemon player I have ever played against, you'll have a chance to play him in the WHMS Blackmoor he is in your division.

Blackmoor wrote:In every thread Noarmorsave says that he is the best demon player, and he can beat anybody and the winning lists at tournaments are not very good.

No dude, that is you. You call yourself the "Foremost Draigo Wing Expert".

I said I am one of the best Daemon players, not THE BEST. I do, however, have lots of games using Daemons against very competitive Grey Knight players. The
fact is, Daemons can be a real nightmare for Grey Knights if they are built and played correctly.

When did I say I can "beat anybody"? I said no such thing. I am just very competitive, and would gladly compete with any of these people in a game of 40K.

Did you even read my analysis of the lists? Why don't you start by going over my technical commentary, instead of running off wiht diarrhea of the mouth?

NoArmorSave wrote:

Blackmoor wrote:In every thread Noarmorsave says that he is the best demon player, and he can beat anybody and the winning lists at tournaments are not very good.

No dude, that is you. You call yourself the "Foremost Draigo Wing Expert".

I said I am one of the best Daemon players, not THE BEST. I do, however, have lots of games using Daemons against very competitive Grey Knight players. The
fact is, Daemons can be a real nightmare for Grey Knights if they are built and played correctly.

When did I say I can "beat anybody"? I said no such thing. I am just very competitive, and would gladly compete with any of these people in a game of 40K.

Did you even read my analysis of the lists? Why don't you start by going over my technical commentary, instead of running off wiht diarrhea of the mouth?

You wrote three sentences on the Daemon list. One of which stated he needs to rethink the whole list; which given his placing in the top 16 at Adepticon would seem to suggest otherwise. Blackmoor is pretty much considered an authority on Draigowing btw, I doubt anyone would say otherwise. Besides you of course.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

NoArmorSave wrote:

tastytaste wrote:For anyone interested here is a link to most of the top 16 lists from the Adepticon Finals on Sunday...

http://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2012/04/24/tournament-circuit-adepticon-championship-results-and-lists/

Thanks for posting, I wanted to see the other lists besides Chester's Grey Knights.

Honestly, I am not impressed with most of the lists I have reviewed so far. Most of them are not optimized in the most competitive way possible.

Some obervations:

I liked Tony Kopach's Space Wolves. His list is solid, but I would have dropped the Wolf Guard and added a unit of TWC instead.
I would also say that Jose Mendeze's Dark Angels were pretty optimized, however I question running 2 Land Raiders at 1850, even in an all Death Wing army.
Alexander's Necrons seem to be about the best the Necron codex has so far, so Kudos to him. However, his list would be devastated by a proper Fatecrusher or
a good Draigo Wing player IMHO. He didn't face either in this tournament as far as I could tell.

The Daemon player really dropped the ball. He had no Blood Crushers in his list, and he was running Fateweaver. I am not sure how
much he play tested, but the entire list needs to be rebuilt.

The Grey Knight players think they are onto something by running squads of 3 Warrior Acolytes in a Razorback or Chimera, with a couple
supporting units of Purifiers or a unit of Death Cult Assassins. I don't buy it, and think it is far inferior to an IG Leafblower list running Melta
Vets in Chimeras.


I am thinking some of these folks were playing more on the "fluffy" side, than bringing WAAC lists. I dunno, maybe I am just jaded from playing in a hardcore WAAC enviornment.

Ok, this guy has to be trolling us right?

I say prove it. Blackmoor's own record speaks for itself, as do the finalists at these high level events.

Thanks to the OP for posting.

NoArmorSave wrote:

I said I am one of the best Daemon players, not THE BEST. I do, however, have lots of games using Daemons against very competitive Grey Knight players.

You have never played a competitive Grey Knight player because you have never played at a major tournament before.

You are in New Mexico so head over to Wargames Con and win that to show us how good you are.

NoArmorSave wrote:
Did you even read my analysis of the lists? Why don't you start by going over my technical commentary, [...].

Where is it? I would like to read it.
All Im seeing up tops is Fateweaver minus Crushers sux ...

Big thanks to Blood of Kittens for posting the lists!

Blackmoor wrote:

NoArmorSave wrote:

I said I am one of the best Daemon players, not THE BEST. I do, however, have lots of games using Daemons against very competitive Grey Knight players.

You have never played a competitive Grey Knight player because you have never played at a major tournament before.

You are in New Mexico so head over to Wargames Con and win that to show us how good you are.

Are you saying that the only competitive Grey Knight players are those attending major tournaments?

Are you sure about that? I have seen your 2K Grey Knight list, it's nothing different than what I have played against many
times before. Your posted battle reports aren't special.

Also - how do you know who I play against? Are you sure the people I play with aren't traveling tournament players?

Fact is, I bet I play the game more than you do. I often play 3-4 times a week when my schedule permits, especially during
the winter months.






Automatically Appended Next Post:

Flachzange wrote:

NoArmorSave wrote:
Did you even read my analysis of the lists? Why don't you start by going over my technical commentary, [...].

Where is it? I would like to read it.
All Im seeing up tops is Fateweaver minus Crushers sux ...

Big thanks to Blood of Kittens for posting the lists!

Go away

P.S. - Your avatar "sux"

@NoArmorSave:

Sometimes, it's not the list but the player behind the lists.

The players that you are critiquing are seasoned tournament players with records of success at such events. That is why there is so such "resistance" to some of your claims.

Instead of making some of the claims you make, I suggest why not do a battle report against one of the better players in your area? That will go a long ways into "soothing" the "naysayers" here on dakka. It may also offer insight on how to play a proper fatecrusher build. Just something to consider.

NoArmorSave wrote:

Are you saying that the only competitive Grey Knight players are those attending major tournaments?

That is the only way we know that they are good.

Are you sure about that? I have seen your 2K Grey Knight list, it's nothing different than what I have played against many
times before. Your posted battle reports aren't special.

Can you post links to your battle reports so I can respond in kind?

Also - how do you know who I play against? Are you sure the people I play with aren't traveling tournament players?

If they are well known you would have said it already.

Fact is, I bet I play the game more than you do. I often play 3-4 times a week when my schedule permits, especially during
the winter months.

I bet you play more than me too!

Flachzange wrote:

NoArmorSave wrote:
Did you even read my analysis of the lists? Why don't you start by going over my technical commentary, [...].

Where is it? I would like to read it.
All Im seeing up tops is Fateweaver minus Crushers sux ...

Big thanks to Blood of Kittens for posting the lists!

He does have fiends and seekers with a ton of rending attacks if his lucky.

crushers are probably too slow.

jy2 wrote:@NoArmorSave:

Sometimes, it's not the list but the player behind the lists.

The players that you are critiquing are seasoned tournament players with records of success at such events. That is why there is so such "resistance" to some of your claims.

Instead of making some of the claims you make, I suggest why not do a battle report against one of the better players in your area? That will go a long ways into "soothing" the "naysayers" here on dakka. It may also offer insight on how to play a proper fatecrusher build. Just something to consider.

That's fine, however it doesn't mean they are perfect or better than other players because they went to Adepticon. There are major problems with a lot of those supposed WAAC lists. Major problems.
All of them are "good" lists, but actually pretty mild to the stuff I have seen.

I guess I just play with a lot of WAAC players using utterly maxed twinkie lists.

As far as battle reports: I have been wanting to start doing them for a while. My current issues are A - time (I just don't want to deal with it frankly. Too much other stuff on the fire), B - camera. I am currently stuck with what is built into my smart phone.

I am also getting burned out playing Fatecrusher. I have played it so much, I am starting to focus on some of my other armies. I own over 15,000 points of Daemons, with 8,000 painted. It is time to do something else for a while.

Is this some hipster thread that I just don't get?

That's fine, however it doesn't mean they are perfect or better than other players because they went to Adepticon. There are major problems with a lot of those supposed WAAC lists. Major problems.
All of them are "good" lists, but actually pretty mild to the stuff I have seen.

So those sixteen lists, that beat out a field of 240 other lists are just meh? And the guys playing them would all fall prey to your daemons. Got it.

Maybe those major problems aren't problems at all since they were proven successful in a major event? Maybe what the internet says or what you say is the top build isn't really that.

Foot wolves? Me wants to see it!

NoArmorSave wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

Flachzange wrote:

NoArmorSave wrote:
Did you even read my analysis of the lists? Why don't you start by going over my technical commentary, [...].

Where is it? I would like to read it.
All Im seeing up tops is Fateweaver minus Crushers sux ...

Big thanks to Blood of Kittens for posting the lists!

Go away

P.S. - Your avatar "sux"

Ummm, so let me get this straight: You recommend people go over your "technical commentary" which is appearently non-existent (at least in this thread) and when somebody is actually interested you get all butt-hurt and insulting?! You're hilarious.

NoArmorSave wrote:I am thinking some of these folks were playing more on the "fluffy" side, than bringing WAAC lists. I dunno, maybe I am just jaded from playing in a hardcore WAAC enviornment.

I'm GLAD to see that some of the top-scoring lists weren't uber-spam 'optimised' lists. It shows that we have some very good players rather than just spam lists.

I'm happy to see what looks like relatively balanced and sensible IG and Necron lists in the top 16.
I'm sad to see spam-based netlists like GK Purifier/Razorback and four squads of identical Deathwing.

NoArmorSave wrote:That's fine, however it doesn't mean they are perfect or better than other players because they went to Adepticon. There are major problems with a lot of those supposed WAAC lists. Major problems.All of them are "good" lists, but actually pretty mild to the stuff I have seen.

I guess I just play with a lot of WAAC players using utterly maxed twinkie lists.

Your right that we can't completely judge how 'good' a player is by winning Adepticon. There may be, and probably are, tons of better players who simply can't afford to get there. However, we have to go on the evidence we have.

As people have pointed out, the fact that people have won major events with these lists may mean that they're not as 'bad' as they look, and that the people playing with them have enough experience with the list to know how to play it. Nobody thought Leafblower was any good until it started winning tournaments..

I'm not going to compare myself to your daemon-playing GRAETNESS, but I run an all-Slaanesh list which looks absolutely awful on paper. And I lost with it for a long time until I figured out how to play it properly. I've since placed reasonably well in a few larger tournaments and won one smaller one with them.

Blackmoor said he was the foremost Draigowing player a) tongue in cheek, and b) because he is/was the highest-scoring player with the army in any national event. 2nd at NOVA as opposed to Paul Murphy's 4th at Adepticon probably means Blackmoor still could be fairly said to have that unofficial title (unless I missed someone else at a different event).

NoArmorSave wrote:

jy2 wrote:The players that you are critiquing are seasoned tournament players with records of success at such events. That is why there is so such "resistance" to some of your claims.

Instead of making some of the claims you make, I suggest why not do a battle report against one of the better players in your area? That will go a long ways into "soothing" the "naysayers" here on dakka. It may also offer insight on how to play a proper fatecrusher build. Just something to consider.

That's fine, however it doesn't mean they are perfect or better than other players because they went to Adepticon. There are major problems with a lot of those supposed WAAC lists. Major problems.
All of them are "good" lists, but actually pretty mild to the stuff I have seen.

As far as battle reports: I have been wanting to start doing them for a while. My current issues are A - time (I just don't want to deal with it frankly. Too much other stuff on the fire), B - camera. I am currently stuck with what is built into my smart phone.

As we all know, the nature of our hobby is that there are certainly some good, even great, players who don't get out to a lot of big events. It's equally true that a lot of guys who crush their local competition find out rapidly once they start traveling that they were a big fish in a small pond and that what they thought was good or bad shifts once they play against good players from outside their area.

You have two real options when it comes to demonstrating that you're not full of hot air or trolling: Either prove it on the table at the big events, or prove it on the table in detailed battle reports showing your tactics and reasoning on the turn-by-turn level. There have been some recent battle repots by "jesse" in the bat reps forum which are good examples (especially his reports from the Warm Fabric Nationals GT).

Either way, being dismissive or insulting towards these folks or their lists is just going to get a negative reaction until you can actually demonstrate that you know what you're talking about. If you are unable and/or unwilling to do that, you might want to couch your criticisms in more respectful and polite terms, and solicit info from the players to learn if there's something they know which you're missing.

It looks like NoArmorSave is just trying to get some visibility for when he quits Dakka and starts his own blog, as other folks have in the past by calling out tourney players and being negative nancy's. (I'm talking about Stelek and YTTH of course.)

For real NoArmorSave, just save us all the headache and start your own blog already.

Yeah, I think if nothing else, he's accomplished his goal. Instead of talking about players that succeed in tournaments or their lists, we're talking about him.

Blackmoor doesn't want any of my DraigoWing.

I was thinking about retiring it after Adepticon but I am thinking of now taking it to Wargames Con. It just fits so well on an airplane.

Well...just to attempt to get back on topic...Why the hell does Bloodofkittens.com only work when it's 1 in the afternoon and sunny?

I mean seriously, I've been trying for the past 5 hours to get onto the site with no avail.

Thanks for posting these!

Interesting that no one from Austin made it.

I'll have to actually go to Adepticon one year for fun.

You know, there's an ignore button for guys like him. Doing him the honor of responding to his trolling just feeds his ego.

Redbeard wrote:You know, there's an ignore button for guys like him. Doing him the honor of responding to his trolling just feeds his ego.

Finally, someone talking sense in this thread.

I was wracking my brains wondering why everyone was responding to S-lite there. At least S tended to give details and reasons behind his bashing.

NoArmorSave wrote:

Thanks for posting, I wanted to see the other lists besides Chester's Grey Knights.

Honestly, I am not impressed with most of the lists I have reviewed so far. Most of them are not optimized in the most competitive way possible.

Some obervations:

I liked Tony Kopach's Space Wolves. His list is solid, but I would have dropped the Wolf Guard and added a unit of TWC instead.
I would also say that Jose Mendeze's Dark Angels were pretty optimized, however I question running 2 Land Raiders at 1850, even in an all Death Wing army.
Alexander's Necrons seem to be about the best the Necron codex has so far, so Kudos to him. However, his list would be devastated by a proper Fatecrusher or
a good Draigo Wing player IMHO. He didn't face either in this tournament as far as I could tell.

The Daemon player really dropped the ball. He had no Blood Crushers in his list, and he was running Fateweaver. I am not sure how
much he play tested, but the entire list needs to be rebuilt.

The Grey Knight players think they are onto something by running squads of 3 Warrior Acolytes in a Razorback or Chimera, with a couple
supporting units of Purifiers or a unit of Death Cult Assassins. I don't buy it, and think it is far inferior to an IG Leafblower list running Melta
Vets in Chimeras.

.

Yeah I was wondering if Tony would keep Njal after his second hit with the GW nerf hammer. sacificing the Wolf guard would have had serious affect on those GH squads reducing their firepower, CC ability (PF's and Wolf standard combine nicely) and Ld(counter attack) and presented his opposition with easy target(TWC) with only ld8 to take out a significant part of his CC ability. Also TWC are quite vulnerable to GK which made up 50% of the opposition.

On the Warrior Acolytes it worked for the winner. Which is normally a good sign. They do present easy kill points once the transport is popped though.

I was a bit skeptical when I first saw Bill Kim's list too (not that it did not work, it clearly does but WHY does it work). Here are my thoughts (I do not claim to be one of the best Daemon players, I have competed in one GT with them to moderate success in the actual battles). So an actual analysis of Bill Kim's list.

It is pretty standard in a Fateweaver list to bring along a Bloodthirster with Unholy Might and Blessing of the Blood God. That costs somewhere around 275 points (from memory). For another 25 points you can bring Skar. You lose wings (gain fleet), gain Breath, and Instrument and Lose Blessing. Skar also has a built in Might so that upgrade is there.

More importantly, you can reroll your attacks against everything in CC, which means you can re-roll your attacks against transports (effectively you double the number of hits against those moving at cruising speed and add 25% more against hose moving at combat speed).

The next real choice in a Daemon army is to bring either Crushers or Fiends. Expecting a large number of Grey Knights there is really only the option of Fiends, since they can DS outside Warp Quake and still make it into combat the next turn. Unholy Might is the natural upgrade here for some wound allocation and to ID the occasional T3 chump.

How many Fiend units to take really depends on the rest of your list - I am not sure the total motivation to take two units and Seekers rather than three units, but I will speculate in a moment.

For troops, Horrors with Bolt are a solid option to drop back and take some pot shots. In most games you need to sit on at least one or two objectives at range from the enemy and having some shooting at AP 4 is useful. These are pretty standard and I agree with needing 4 troop choices overall (especially when you have 15 T3 models.

The unique choice is the large brick of Bloodletters. These guys carry the one of two Icons in the army and are dangerous to get to know better - they need to be a bit larger to carry an icon and they are the slowest CC unit in the army. I look at this as a unit that comes down midfield (or in a key location) and threatens anything nearby while weathering any shooting.

Finally we get to the unit of Seekers. These guys are killing machines in combination with Skar and can rip vehicles apart. I think there are four reasons to take these over a third unit of Fiends. (1) They can carry an icon - otherwise you need a more durable troop unit other than the Bloodletters, (2) They have assault and defensive grenades so they can pry units out of cover, (3) They put out 80 attacks on the charge... (4) a unit of Fiends leaves you with about 100 spare points laying around. You can add another troop unit or add bodies to one, but otherwise you have no good way to spend those (maybe 3 flamers but they do not really have the same synergy that Seekers do).

Overall I really like this list because it does some things that most Daemon lists cannot . It answers the Transport question with Skar, rather than by pushing in a bunch of sub-par shooting, it has a lot of speed and it can pry units out of cover with the Seekers. Further, its speed means it will get the charge on GK (which is absolutely critical in that matchup due to psyk outs) and Skar is only a force multiplier for the Daemon player in those games too.

As for wave splits, I did not see any of Bill Kim's games, but the generic option was probably something like...

Fate, Skar, Fiends x2 Seekers
Horrors x3, Bloodletters

Like all Daemon lists, if Skar and Fate stay out for a while after getting a non-preferred wave it could be bad (that is 1/3 of the army) but in a format with a lot of KP missions, this list can win games with only one or two models left on the table.

@. No armor save

You definitely have some negative critiques and there's nothing wrong with that. I have no doibt you are a good enough player if you really game As often as you claim. It's when you get heated and say childish things like "your avatar sucks" that people lose respect for you. Saying you can destroy armies that win tournaments is fine you've got confidence. If someone on here is in your area an calls you out I say prove how good you are and pOst a battle report on here.

The real testament to some of the competitors in the top 16 is that 4 or 5 of them are the same folks as last year.


Anyone claiming to be able to easily beat any of them is just wishful thinking.

I think people overestimate how good they are and how much the list really impacts. I have seen people playing these meta lists and going 4-4 for the weekend simply because they are an 'ok' player.

The people who hit the top 16 are consistantly up there and are simply good at the game.

And :( for no ork lists :(

I am always curious to see how people are spending points and what seems to work.

blood angel wrote:The real testament to some of the competitors in the top 16 is that 4 or 5 of them are the same folks as last year.


Anyone claiming to be able to easily beat any of them is just wishful thinking.

This.

While I do believe list and book selection play a larger part in GW games than they do in other games, the fact that we consistently see the same people at the top of list in national level events proves that skill is still more important than having those lists that convention and math say are the best.

Anyone saying that their list can beat these consistently proven players hands down without any support or backing up of your statements and implying that they don't know how to select lists despite all evidence to the contrary is what causes problems.

calypso2ts wrote:I was a bit skeptical when I first saw Bill Kim's list too (not that it did not work, it clearly does but WHY does it work). Here are my thoughts (I do not claim to be one of the best Daemon players, I have competed in one GT with them to moderate success in the actual battles). So an actual analysis of Bill Kim's list.

It is pretty standard in a Fateweaver list to bring along a Bloodthirster with Unholy Might and Blessing of the Blood God. That costs somewhere around 275 points (from memory). For another 25 points you can bring Skar. You lose wings (gain fleet), gain Breath, and Instrument and Lose Blessing. Skar also has a built in Might so that upgrade is there.

More importantly, you can reroll your attacks against everything in CC, which means you can re-roll your attacks against transports (effectively you double the number of hits against those moving at cruising speed and add 25% more against hose moving at combat speed).

The next real choice in a Daemon army is to bring either Crushers or Fiends. Expecting a large number of Grey Knights there is really only the option of Fiends, since they can DS outside Warp Quake and still make it into combat the next turn. Unholy Might is the natural upgrade here for some wound allocation and to ID the occasional T3 chump.

How many Fiend units to take really depends on the rest of your list - I am not sure the total motivation to take two units and Seekers rather than three units, but I will speculate in a moment.

For troops, Horrors with Bolt are a solid option to drop back and take some pot shots. In most games you need to sit on at least one or two objectives at range from the enemy and having some shooting at AP 4 is useful. These are pretty standard and I agree with needing 4 troop choices overall (especially when you have 15 T3 models.

The unique choice is the large brick of Bloodletters. These guys carry the one of two Icons in the army and are dangerous to get to know better - they need to be a bit larger to carry an icon and they are the slowest CC unit in the army. I look at this as a unit that comes down midfield (or in a key location) and threatens anything nearby while weathering any shooting.

Finally we get to the unit of Seekers. These guys are killing machines in combination with Skar and can rip vehicles apart. I think there are four reasons to take these over a third unit of Fiends. (1) They can carry an icon - otherwise you need a more durable troop unit other than the Bloodletters, (2) They have assault and defensive grenades so they can pry units out of cover, (3) They put out 80 attacks on the charge... (4) a unit of Fiends leaves you with about 100 spare points laying around. You can add another troop unit or add bodies to one, but otherwise you have no good way to spend those (maybe 3 flamers but they do not really have the same synergy that Seekers do).

Overall I really like this list because it does some things that most Daemon lists cannot . It answers the Transport question with Skar, rather than by pushing in a bunch of sub-par shooting, it has a lot of speed and it can pry units out of cover with the Seekers. Further, its speed means it will get the charge on GK (which is absolutely critical in that matchup due to psyk outs) and Skar is only a force multiplier for the Daemon player in those games too.

As for wave splits, I did not see any of Bill Kim's games, but the generic option was probably something like...

Fate, Skar, Fiends x2 Seekers
Horrors x3, Bloodletters

Like all Daemon lists, if Skar and Fate stay out for a while after getting a non-preferred wave it could be bad (that is 1/3 of the army) but in a format with a lot of KP missions, this list can win games with only one or two models left on the table.

"It is pretty standard in a Fateweaver list to bring along a Bloodthirster with Unholy Might and Blessing of the Blood God. That costs somewhere around 275 points (from memory). For another 25 points you can bring Skar. You lose wings (gain fleet), gain Breath, and Instrument and Lose Blessing. Skar also has a built in Might so that upgrade is there.
More importantly, you can reroll your attacks against everything in CC, which means you can re-roll your attacks against transports (effectively you double the number of hits against those moving at cruising speed and add 25% more against hose moving at combat speed)."

This is apples and oranges, but is a pretty important consideration. I normally always run a Bloodthirster with might and blessing at 2K, Skarbrand is not even a consideration. Why? Draigo Wing. A Bloodthirster with Blessing can wreck havoc on a brick of Paladins with the 2++, especially if they are already engaged with blobs of Crushers.
With that being said, I play with another Fatecrusher player that always run Skar. I would consider running Skar if not playing against large amounts of Grey Knights.


"The next real choice in a Daemon army is to bring either Crushers or Fiends. Expecting a large number of Grey Knights there is really only the option of Fiends, since they can DS outside Warp Quake and still make it into combat the next turn. Unholy Might is the natural upgrade here for some wound allocation and to ID the occasional T3 chump."

You are completey incorrect here. If you even think there will be Dragio Wing players competing, you have got to have Crushers. Fiends evaporate virtually instanlty to Paladins. Large units of Crushers supported by Fateweaver and a Bloodthirster with might & blessing will destroy them in assault. Even without Draigo Wing involved, I would take no more than 1 unit of Fiends at the 2K level, and may not even bring them at all.


"For troops, Horrors with Bolt are a solid option to drop back and take some pot shots. In most games you need to sit on at least one or two objectives at range from the enemy and having some shooting at AP 4 is useful. These are pretty standard and I agree with needing 4 troop choices overall (especially when you have 15 T3 models."

You need Plaguebearers. Especially with the almost 100% focus on objectives at these major events. Bolt is unreliable and "mickey mouse" IMHO. Bloodcrushers will absolutely wreck a non AV14 mech wall on the assault. I have never had any problems opening transports in my list, and there are answers for AV14.


"The unique choice is the large brick of Bloodletters. These guys carry the one of two Icons in the army and are dangerous to get to know better - they need to be a bit larger to carry an icon and they are the slowest CC unit in the army. I look at this as a unit that comes down midfield (or in a key location) and threatens anything nearby while weathering any shooting."

A large unit of Bloodletters (at least 10 strong) can be good. I don't use them much, but have seen them used plenty. They are also surprisingly good at tearing apart non AV14 mech, because of furious charge. Remember, virtually all vehicles are armor 10 on the back. They can also be good when teamed up with Bloodcrushers, after the Bloodcrushers get into assault.


"Finally we get to the unit of Seekers. These guys are killing machines in combination with Skar and can rip vehicles apart. I think there are four reasons to take these over a third unit of Fiends. (1) They can carry an icon - otherwise you need a more durable troop unit other than the Bloodletters, (2) They have assault and defensive grenades so they can pry units out of cover, (3) They put out 80 attacks on the charge... (4) a unit of Fiends leaves you with about 100 spare points laying around. You can add another troop unit or add bodies to one, but otherwise you have no good way to spend those (maybe 3 flamers but they do not really have the same synergy that Seekers do)."

Seekers can be good, and as you mentioned have grenades. I have a list that uses 1 unit of them at 2K, and they perform ok. ST3 really hurts, even with 80ish attacks, and they surprisngly are not very effective at taking out AV12 walkers a lot of the time. They can be very effective at screening out walkers and kan walls aways from the Bloodcrushers.

whitedragon wrote:It looks like NoArmorSave is just trying to get some visibility for when he quits Dakka and starts his own blog, as other folks have in the past by calling out tourney players and being negative nancy's. (I'm talking about Stelek and YTTH of course.)

For real NoArmorSave, just save us all the headache and start your own blog already.

Exactly my thoughts... this guy ain't worth the reply button...

Stelek at least would give evidence/tactics/lists/not talk out of his butt. (imho) when responding to people... and he trolled like a pro instead of a novice

eyeslikethunder wrote:

NoArmorSave wrote:

Thanks for posting, I wanted to see the other lists besides Chester's Grey Knights.

Honestly, I am not impressed with most of the lists I have reviewed so far. Most of them are not optimized in the most competitive way possible.

Some obervations:

I liked Tony Kopach's Space Wolves. His list is solid, but I would have dropped the Wolf Guard and added a unit of TWC instead.
I would also say that Jose Mendeze's Dark Angels were pretty optimized, however I question running 2 Land Raiders at 1850, even in an all Death Wing army.
Alexander's Necrons seem to be about the best the Necron codex has so far, so Kudos to him. However, his list would be devastated by a proper Fatecrusher or
a good Draigo Wing player IMHO. He didn't face either in this tournament as far as I could tell.

The Daemon player really dropped the ball. He had no Blood Crushers in his list, and he was running Fateweaver. I am not sure how
much he play tested, but the entire list needs to be rebuilt.

The Grey Knight players think they are onto something by running squads of 3 Warrior Acolytes in a Razorback or Chimera, with a couple
supporting units of Purifiers or a unit of Death Cult Assassins. I don't buy it, and think it is far inferior to an IG Leafblower list running Melta
Vets in Chimeras.

.

Yeah I was wondering if Tony would keep Njal after his second hit with the GW nerf hammer. sacificing the Wolf guard would have had serious affect on those GH squads reducing their firepower, CC ability (PF's and Wolf standard combine nicely) and Ld(counter attack) and presented his opposition with easy target(TWC) with only ld8 to take out a significant part of his CC ability. Also TWC are quite vulnerable to GK which made up 50% of the opposition.

On the Warrior Acolytes it worked for the winner. Which is normally a good sign. They do present easy kill points once the transport is popped though.

"Also TWC are quite vulnerable to GK which made up 50% of the opposition."

I would disagree with this. I have seen them used against Grey Knights, and used correctly, can cause a real problem.
The key - they need to be supported with a Rune Priest(s). The Rune Priests can shut down Grey Knight force weapon activation, and often do. Couple that with the fact they are T5 with Storm Shields, and they are nasty.


"On the Warrior Acolytes it worked for the winner. Which is normally a good sign. They do present easy kill points once the transport is popped though."

I can't see it. If you want to run a bunch of Chimeras with cheap troops, a good IG list would be much more effective. I don't think his list is even close to being the best MSU list around, because of the acolyte spam. They
are pretty worthless when all said and done. BA Razorspam or GK Purifierspam are much more effective builds IMHO.

Seems like noarmorsave comes from the camp of people that believe the list wins the game, not the player. I would disagree with that and argue that the results would have been much different if less seasoned gamers were playing the same lists

@NoArmorSave. You do understand he is dropping the 3 acolytes out of the Chimeras putting the squad of Purifires in it and then the acolytes are hoping in the rhinos. That way the 4 psycannon purifyer squads can fully shoot (aling with the Ml and/or HF) out of a moving av12 box instead only 2 shooting out of a av11 one...

**Edit** Okay turns out I was wrong... and so is Tasty.. He is listing Joakim Engstroms GK's as being 5 points over the 1850 limit. I rebuilt the army using AB and it comes out to 1834 as listed on Tastys posting. So apologys from me for jumping the gun...

Maybe take the 'Daemons are the awesomez' discussion to its own thread?

sooo... anways... It makes me sad Nick N had a run of bad luck there. : )

I was hoping he'd take it

Would have been sweet if he swept Adepticon. We were joking about it after the team tournament. Not a bad weekend overall for the little bugger

Hulksmash wrote:Would have been sweet if he swept Adepticon. We were joking about it after the team tournament. Not a bad weekend overall for the little bugger

agreed! I can't wait till Friday so I can roll him again with the tau... his GKs fear the tau and always roll poor vs them

Congrats to the players in the top 16, while those lists may not be the super optimized lists (which is open to debate, of course), they worked for them on that weekend in that event, and that's really all you can ask for from any list.

I've seen Centurion99's list prior to this, not from a tournament, but from when he posted painted shots of the army. He's been playing that list for a while now, going on 2-3 years if I'm recalling how long ago he first posted it correctly. He knows his list, and is a good player, and I'm not surprised that he made the top 16 field amongst what people consider "better" codices. I think the only top 16 list I'm surprised by is the Deathwing list including 2 Land Raiders and no speeders, but kudos to that player for having the skill to take a 2 Land Raider list that far in the tournament.

Polonius wrote:Yeah, I think if nothing else, he's accomplished his goal. Instead of talking about players that succeed in tournaments or their lists, we're talking about him.

Which is why I told you last year we needed to set up that super awesome game-off for money so we could also be internet celebrities! Currently I'm only known for my Dark Eldar shenanigans and that gig is wearing thin.

@noarmorsave
Ok tough guy, you're the greatest player since sliced bread. I'll be in SoCal in june for the game empire gt. Come on down with your super list and we'll play, give you the chance to put your money where your mouth is.

I hope you're really young, which would explain the attitude (and be excuseable) but either way, here's your chance to back up the big talk. I'll be sure to bring a "fluff" list like we all did to adepticon. You know, those of us who actually have gone oit and done something in real life as oppossed to just being rude and condescending on the internet.

derek wrote:Congrats to the players in the top 16, while those lists may not be the super optimized lists (which is open to debate, of course), they worked for them on that weekend in that event, and that's really all you can ask for from any list.

I've seen Centurion99's list prior to this, not from a tournament, but from when he posted painted shots of the army. He's been playing that list for a while now, going on 2-3 years if I'm recalling how long ago he first posted it correctly. He knows his list, and is a good player, and I'm not surprised that he made the top 16 field amongst what people consider "better" codices. I think the only top 16 list I'm surprised by is the Deathwing list including 2 Land Raiders and no speeders, but kudos to that player for having the skill to take a 2 Land Raider list that far in the tournament.

Agreed! Congrats to Bill, it was awesome to meet you

Also thanks to calypso2ts for the detailed analysis of his list. I love seeing a supposedly "non-optimized" army take a high placing (5th, right?) in such a big event . Familiarity, player skill, and also catching the opponent by surprise all play a bit of a role, I'm sure.

Reecius wrote:@noarmorsave
Ok tough guy, you're the greatest player since sliced bread. I'll be in SoCal in june for the game empire gt. Come on down with your super list and we'll play, give you the chance to put your money where your mouth is.

I hope you're really young, which would explain the attitude (and be excuseable) but either way, here's your chance to back up the big talk. I'll be sure to bring a "fluff" list like we all did to adepticon. You know, those of us who actually have gone oit and done something in real life as oppossed to just being rude and condescending on the internet.

You know what, I am a tough guy. I don't live in SoCal, how about you come to me?


"You know, those of us who actually have gone oit and done something in real life as oppossed to just being rude and condescending on the internet. "

pretre wrote:Maybe take the 'Daemons are the awesomez' discussion to its own thread?

So who is up for creating a "deamons are the most over powered codex in the past decade" thread?

Congrats to all of the top 16. Thank you to Blood of Kittens for posting it.

Player skill and being experienced with your army seems to matter more then just list alone.

I too was hoping Nick (yermom on dakka) would take it with his Grey Knights. Hopefully he has time to write a report. Congrats Nick, Andrew, Aaaron and Brad on winning the team tournament.

Would be interested in any reports from any of the top 16 for that matter.

Not surprised so many GKs. Its the best codex period.

Alex's Necron list is pretty interesting its different then the Immotek based or dual lord in command barge with scarab/wraiths backed by spiders lists I'm used to playing. Kudos to Alex for making it so far. The Pink Necrons really stand out.

Demon's is actually pretty good in the hands of a good player. Nick is quite good with demons as well and his lists had fiends and seekers similar to Bill Kim's. The key to fiends and seekers is the speed they have to actually get in combat. Bloodcrushers are slow. It actually is quite effective. I'm 1-2 against Nick's similar list with my Imperial Guard. The one I won Nick had a bad scatter on his big unit of seekers. Outside of yermom, and Avariel, I don't see many Grey Knight players unning Strike Squads so there isn't much warp quake.

I like Tony's wolf list. Has anyone asked him why he kept Njal with the faq nerf to him when your not going first? Is the 3+ negate to psyker powers that significant?

Kudos to Reecius for making it in with Footdar.

Nice to see at least 1 Guard player made it. Like the Vets with just demo, will have to try that out. I also been noticing Imperial Guard has more bad match ups with Necrons Immotek is pretty much a loss and Grey Knights vs good players with solid lists like target, yermom or Avariel is always pretty hard.

Gonna just ignore NoArmorSave.

@noarmorsave
Hahaha, nice response. You must be a child, or a teenager at best.

I thought I read someone say you were in pasadena. Either way, you're digging a whole here, buddy. You're insulting proven players and acting as if anyone here is going to think your opinion of their list somehow overides the reality of their success. Grow up and get over yourself.

Look bud, you want to play, let us know what tournament you'll be at and if I am at the same event, I promise I will request to play you round 1 and we'll see what you've got. Otherwise, you're just a bunch of hot air. If you think anyone's actually taking you seriously, you're mistaken. You're attitude is really off-putting. Even if you do have something to add to the conversation with your experience, the way you deliver it makes people want to ignore you.

So until you prove yourself, you can look forward to being a lagend in your own mind, and a joke to everyone else. It's your choice.

As someone who plays Bill regularly I can in 100% honesty say that it is his fault for this thread and not NoArmorSave. Probably half the reason he plays that list is to stir up the internet when he does well.

Which is because of the other 50%, he knows his list, he has tuned it and knows how to play it. Is the list perfect? No, but no list is and not many people run howling banshees. He was one of the first I saw to run mass bloodcrushers but he has since dropped for the extra speed of the the fiends.It works for him. Does it work for you? Irrelevant. One thing a lot of these lists show is that tuned and spammed are not equivalent.

Can someone explain to me how the Necron list beats those GK lists? I don't see how it pops enough transports/dreads and doesn't get shot up before it gets a chance to get into combat (where it might not even win anyway) or does more damage with shooting.

I am in no way saying it sucks, I'm just missing how it works!

Reece -

I'd also love to hear the general plan with your footdar. How do you typically deploy and what do you with psykic powers? 3x fortune? guide/doom warwalkers? I generally get how your list works, but again, I'm missing the nuance.

Love to hear the analysis guys!

Reecius wrote:@noarmorsave
Hahaha, nice response. You must be a child, or a teenager at best.

I thought I read someone say you were in pasadena. Either way, you're digging a whole here, buddy. You're insulting proven players and acting as if anyone here is going to think your opinion of their list somehow overides the reality of their success. Grow up and get over yourself.

Look bud, you want to play, let us know what tournament you'll be at and if I am at the same event, I promise I will request to play you round 1 and we'll see what you've got. Otherwise, you're just a bunch of hot air. If you think anyone's actually taking you seriously, you're mistaken. You're attitude is really off-putting. Even if you do have something to add to the conversation with your experience, the way you deliver it makes people want to ignore you.

So until you prove yourself, you can look forward to being a lagend in your own mind, and a joke to everyone else. It's your choice.

Dude, don't feed the troll. You don't have to prove anything to anybody. Your list rocks face, you're a great player, you run your own gaming store, you run one of the most successful events in the west coast area, and you're a class act super nice guy to play with.

We all know whats up. Stelek Jr is just trolling.

@lee
Good seeing you at adepticon, buddy!

And wow, a reasonable response, imagine that. Instead of syaing something sucks outright because you don't see how it works.

My army is actually really resilient, more so than it looks. It relies heavily on synergy between units to function, being patient, misdirection, bait, screening and setting traps. You have to think a turn ahead and you have to deploy well or you're hosed.

The key is setting up advantageous close range engagements, and everything I do in the movement phase is aimed at that goal. Within 24" I can outshoot dang near any other army in the game, and still assault after. Harlies and the avatar, especially with farseer support, will kill most other units. If I can't fight them, I can flak them to death, usually. If all elsd fails, like a true elf I can run and hidd, using fearless and firtune to keep my units in the fight.

It's a fun army to play, you just need to be able to look at any list in the game and be able to see how to beat it given the mission before the game starts, or you're going to get hosed in bad match-ups.

The reason I like the army so much is because it can do something in every phase of the game, and units can combo with each other to take individually weak units and make them much more powerful. Every uniy can move, shoot, and assault, so it is a very fluid force, too which makes it deceptively mobile.

So long as you can use each unit in the army to it's best effect, even in bad match-ups units that would look to be useless can still serve a purpose.

Sorry I didn't have more concrete tactics, but it honestly is a really different gameplan depending on mission, terrain and opponent. Each game is different, with sometimes radically different on the table tactics.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@whitedragon
You're right man, sorry for taking the bait. It's just annoying to see friends of mine insulted, especially bill who invented fatecrusher for crying out loud, and steeler shock, and won gladiator two years back to back, by some jerk who hasn't done anything besides be mean.

Thanks for the kind words though, that means a lot to me.

NoArmorSave wrote:

Reecius wrote:@noarmorsave
Ok tough guy, you're the greatest player since sliced bread. I'll be in SoCal in june for the game empire gt. Come on down with your super list and we'll play, give you the chance to put your money where your mouth is.

I hope you're really young, which would explain the attitude (and be excuseable) but either way, here's your chance to back up the big talk. I'll be sure to bring a "fluff" list like we all did to adepticon. You know, those of us who actually have gone oit and done something in real life as oppossed to just being rude and condescending on the internet.

You know what, I am a tough guy. I don't live in SoCal, how about you come to me?

How about we split the difference and you show up to Duelcon?

@Reecius - I watched the Independent Characters coverage of your game vs. Paul M. Wow..... I thought I had tough luck... You just could never catch a break, yet you were almost able to pull out a win! Even more impressive that it was with Eldar! I look up to anyone who plays Eldar and even more so to fine players such as yourself! I loved watching you play Jy2 before too! I will continue rooting for you in your games against crutch armies

Reecius wrote:
The troll is actually really resilient, more so than it looks. It relies heavily on synergy between posters to function, being patient, misdirection, bait, screening and setting traps. You have to think a post ahead and you have to post well or you're hosed.

Uh oh...

Automatically Appended Next Post:
@whitedragon
You're right man, sorry for taking the bait.

He got you.

thehod wrote:

pretre wrote:Maybe take the 'Daemons are the awesomez' discussion to its own thread?

So who is up for creating a "deamons are the most over powered codex in the past decade" thread?

Good luck not getting it locked by the mods!

Fatecrusher is a seriously powerful build but I don't think it warrants its own thread.

"Fantasy Daemons in 7th Edition is the most overpowered codex GW has put out in a decade" that on the other hand would be a thread worth starting and contributing too.

Reecius wrote:@lee
The reason I like the army so much is because it can do something in every phase of the game, and units can combo with each other to take individually weak units and make them much more powerful. Every uniy can move, shoot, and assault, so it is a very fluid force, too which makes it deceptively mobile.

I have nothing but respect for Foot Eldar, I have played Chris Courtney's Foot Eldar (and watched him play them against opponents) and I got dismantled by Greg Sparks' Foot Eldar in Game 2 of Da Boyz playing Daemons. The problem is they present an incredibly diverse threat profile between resilient Fortuned units, strong short range shooting (with Doom to be really obnoxious), surprisingly resilient Defend/Shimmershield units, a Fearless bubble with CC ability in Wraithlorads/Avatar/Harlequins. I might even go so far as to say I dislike playing Foot Eldar more than any other army I have played, they always make me feel like I did when I started...one turn behind the opponent...

Edit: I apologize for the long Daemons post, I figured this is a Tournament Discussion (army list) thread and did not realize how long my post was!

The daemons analysis was really helpful, calypso2ts, don't apologize for it!

Also, daemons in fantasy: Scooter won the fantasy big brawl with max battle points (60/60) with his usual Kairos / bloodletters / flamers daemon list. I think this is, what, the third year in a row he's won a big fantasy event at Adepticon? Although with different lists, of course.

Doesn't get the coverage on this site since we're so 40k focused, though!

I wish daemons would get a new book for fantasy so their dominance could finally end...

I had played against Greg S a few times before and knew what to expect from the Eldar. It was basically going to come down to my difficult terrain checks and it did.

Not wiping out the 2nd unit of fire dragons in one volley of fire is actually what kept it close. I had to spend two rounds on them.

I absolutely can't argue that the couple of clutch roles going my way kept it exciting. I am sure if Reece comes to Wargames Con we can get another match in before the tournament starts.

Reecius wrote:@noarmorsave
Hahaha, nice response. You must be a child, or a teenager at best.

I thought I read someone say you were in pasadena. Either way, you're digging a whole here, buddy. You're insulting proven players and acting as if anyone here is going to think your opinion of their list somehow overides the reality of their success. Grow up and get over yourself.

Look bud, you want to play, let us know what tournament you'll be at and if I am at the same event, I promise I will request to play you round 1 and we'll see what you've got. Otherwise, you're just a bunch of hot air. If you think anyone's actually taking you seriously, you're mistaken. You're attitude is really off-putting. Even if you do have something to add to the conversation with your experience, the way you deliver it makes people want to ignore you.

So until you prove yourself, you can look forward to being a lagend in your own mind, and a joke to everyone else. It's your choice.

I think I may have confused you there Reece. I was talking about NoArmor... and then referenced our local Daemon player as one Blackmoor will have to face in our league at GE: Pasadena. NoArmor is not the same guy. Sand, better known to you as Brandon, is our friend who has taken top spots in all 4 (? might just be 3; I know it was a third and two firsts minimum) of the WM/H events at the BAO each year. He is a good guy and wouldn't be on here hosing none sense out of every orifice. Sorry for confusing you there!

Thanks also for the breakdown of that list. I agree with Lee, I couldn't quite see how the list worked exactly but there is no doubting footdar is good. Foot lists in general don't get the respect they usually deserve and your list is a clear swiss army style list that functions well in the hands of someone who knows how to use it. Congrats!

@Lee: You went to Adepticon? Did you play Fantasy, WM/H, 40k?

@benamint
Thanks! I really appreciate that. It was a fun event, and I am happy that other people got a kick out of watching, that makes it a double win.

@red beard
Haha, true! Yeah, I should know better than to take the bait. Sorry.

@blood angel
Yup, I knew I was exposing myself going for that second mind war, but until then I hadn't gotten the kp objective yet and seeing as my stupid wraithlord couldn't hit the broad side of a barn, I didn't want to rely on him. Had I killed that stupid techmarine turn 5, I would have run for the hills and won. When you rolled that 6 to make combat, I knew my goose was cooked if the game went to 7 and it did. Oh well, great game! You are a classy opponent, and you only made a single, realtively minor tactical error all game, otherwise playing exactly how you should have. Well done, paul.

@overwatch
No worries, I missread it. I just thought it'd be fun to see if the troll would come from n


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Under his bridge and actually play!

@calypso
Yeah, sparks knows his stuff with footdar (or walking eldar as he calls them). He's a great player.

Fatigue was a huge factor during the weekend. I was living off of five hour energy and monsters. I literally got less than 45 mins of sleep before the Champs. I am hoping the structure is a bit different next year to account for that.

RiTides wrote:The daemons analysis was really helpful, calypso2ts, don't apologize for it!

Also, daemons in fantasy: Scooter won the fantasy big brawl with max battle points (60/60) with his usual Kairos / bloodletters / flamers daemon list. I think this is, what, the third year in a row he's won a big fantasy event at Adepticon? Although with different lists, of course.

Doesn't get the coverage on this site since we're so 40k focused, though!

Maybe daemons will get a new book soon and it will all go away...

You know, I was sorta thinking it was bs that I can't find ANY real fantasy coverage at all from Adepticon. There were a ton of players there... where are they?! NEED TO SEE STUFF AND HEAR WHAT WON AND ALL THAT! Silly roundbasers taking up all the forum space.

ArbitorIan wrote:
I'm sad to see spam-based netlists like GK Purifier/Razorback and four squads of identical Deathwing.

Then, you should not be sad, because the DW list posted in BOK is incorrect.

I was the dark angel that played the finals, and my army was this:

Belial with thunder hammer and shield

Terminator squad with apothecary and banner, 4 hammers, 1 chainfist&heavy flamer

Terminator squad with 4 hammers and 1 chainfist&heavy flamer

Terminator squad with 5 hammers and one cyclone

2xTerminator squad with 2 hammers, 1 chainfist&storm bolter, 1 powerfist&storm bolter, 1 powerfist&storm bolter&cyclone

Land Raider

Land Raider Crusader

Its not original because it's a pure deathwing, but it's not just a spam list.

And answering to NoArmorSave, i found that playing wiht two LR is mandatory. If you don't use them, your mobility is very limited, and once you deep strike it is very difficult to make rectifications during the game.

blood angel wrote:Fatigue was a huge factor during the weekend. I was living off of five hour energy and monsters. I literally got less than 45 mins of sleep before the Champs. I am hoping the structure is a bit different next year to account for that.

I was right there with you. I got 2.5 hours sleep the night before and I was soooo tired. Just wiped out. Getting gak faced drunk on Saturday wasn't helping me, either!

@Reecius: I posted this in the other thread, but that one fell behind, so...

What would you have brought if you had the chance for Eldar? You mentioned that you only brought the list you did because it was painted. I thought it was an interesting list and I'm tempted to play around with it.

Boldo wrote:
Its not original because it's a pure deathwing, but it's not just a spam list.

There aren't really too many combinations you can do with Deathwing, so anyone claiming originality would be tough. I like that you didn't opt to just spam TH/SS squads with CMLs, and took a couple of Heavy Flamers (love template weapons). Again, congrats on your top 16 finish, and thank you for posting here to give us the true list.

calypso2ts wrote:I was a bit skeptical when I first saw Bill Kim's list too (not that it did not work, it clearly does but WHY does it work). Here are my thoughts (I do not claim to be one of the best Daemon players, I have competed in one GT with them to moderate success in the actual battles). So an actual analysis of Bill Kim's list.

Impressive - you pretty much nailed the thinking behind my list. Pretty spot on for most of it. I'll add my comments as I go.

calypso2ts wrote:It is pretty standard in a Fateweaver list to bring along a Bloodthirster with Unholy Might and Blessing of the Blood God. That costs somewhere around 275 points (from memory). For another 25 points you can bring Skar. You lose wings (gain fleet), gain Breath, and Instrument and Lose Blessing. Skar also has a built in Might so that upgrade is there.

More importantly, you can reroll your attacks against everything in CC, which means you can re-roll your attacks against transports (effectively you double the number of hits against those moving at cruising speed and add 25% more against hose moving at combat speed).

Pretty spot on. From a playing standpoint, the army is about speed. From a mathhammer standpoint, its all about stacking multipliers and synergy. It does have some point failure sources, but that's the gamble I was making (I wouldn't lose key units e.g. fateweaver/skarbrand too early - worked well for me on Friday, not so well (obviously) on Sunday).

calypso2ts wrote:
The next real choice in a Daemon army is to bring either Crushers or Fiends. Expecting a large number of Grey Knights there is really only the option of Fiends, since they can DS outside Warp Quake and still make it into combat the next turn. Unholy Might is the natural upgrade here for some wound allocation and to ID the occasional T3 chump.

Yep. As far as I'm concerned, if you take crushers when you expect to see a lot of grey knights, I just don't see how that works. Way too difficult to set it up so you get the charge, and the warp quake factor just makes them even more useless. I've been theorizing that the Chester (something that Brad Chester and I came up with a few years ago - 8 Bloodcrushers + Skulltaker & 3 Heralds on Juggers) would still work, but I was hesitant to try it without major playtesting, something I don't honestly get a whole lot of chances to do. I've only been playing about twice a month on average, and the local meta is heavily against hyper-competitive spam lists for normal play. Plus in the local league I was playing my Eldar.

calypso2ts wrote:
How many Fiend units to take really depends on the rest of your list - I am not sure the total motivation to take two units and Seekers rather than three units, but I will speculate in a moment.

More comments later, since the reason I didn't take 3 largely revolves around wanting to take seekers.

calypso2ts wrote:
For troops, Horrors with Bolt are a solid option to drop back and take some pot shots. In most games you need to sit on at least one or two objectives at range from the enemy and having some shooting at AP 4 is useful. These are pretty standard and I agree with needing 4 troop choices overall (especially when you have 15 T3 models.

If I could have squeezed in a fourth horror squad, I would have. I just ran out of points.

calypso2ts wrote:
The unique choice is the large brick of Bloodletters. These guys carry the one of two Icons in the army and are dangerous to get to know better - they need to be a bit larger to carry an icon and they are the slowest CC unit in the army. I look at this as a unit that comes down midfield (or in a key location) and threatens anything nearby while weathering any shooting.

I usually run 16, but had to drop 2 to squeeze in fateweaver. Their function is more or less what you identified. Either drop in close to support the seekers, or drop a bit farther forward to provide an entry point with the icon. Even with only 14, very few units in the game will willingly charge them, and dropped into cover, they can weather a lot of fire by going to ground and gaining a 3+ cover save.

To be honest, I'm thinking of replacing them with a larger block of Daemonettes with an Icon.

calypso2ts wrote:
Finally we get to the unit of Seekers. These guys are killing machines in combination with Skar and can rip vehicles apart. I think there are four reasons to take these over a third unit of Fiends. (1) They can carry an icon - otherwise you need a more durable troop unit other than the Bloodletters, (2) They have assault and defensive grenades so they can pry units out of cover, (3) They put out 80 attacks on the charge... (4) a unit of Fiends leaves you with about 100 spare points laying around. You can add another troop unit or add bodies to one, but otherwise you have no good way to spend those (maybe 3 flamers but they do not really have the same synergy that Seekers do).

They are also surprisingly resilient, in large numbers. The 4+ cover save is really easy to get, and it takes a lot of fire to knock them down. Dropped into or near cover, they provide a 4+ cover save for everything behind them. The most important "hidden" factor has to do with the fact that they're mounted on bike/cav bases. On arrival, they are ridiculously flexible in terms of placement. And can be deployed in an extremely compact formation, extremely spread out formation, and a lot of stuff in between, in some really crazy shapes.

calypso2ts wrote:
Overall I really like this list because it does some things that most Daemon lists cannot . It answers the Transport question with Skar, rather than by pushing in a bunch of sub-par shooting, it has a lot of speed and it can pry units out of cover with the Seekers. Further, its speed means it will get the charge on GK (which is absolutely critical in that matchup due to psyk outs) and Skar is only a force multiplier for the Daemon player in those games too.

As for wave splits, I did not see any of Bill Kim's games, but the generic option was probably something like...

Fate, Skar, Fiends x2 Seekers
Horrors x3, Bloodletters

Like all Daemon lists, if Skar and Fate stay out for a while after getting a non-preferred wave it could be bad (that is 1/3 of the army) but in a format with a lot of KP missions, this list can win games with only one or two models left on the table.

Yep. That's pretty much my standard split with this build. If the primary comes in, it presents an amazing amount of hitting power early, allowing the secondary to hold objectives and mop up. If the secondary comes in, everything pretty much hides and waits for the big guns to arrive.

On Sunday, my secondary came in every single game. The first was a tough one, and I almost eaked a draw (and I think might have won on VPs), but the game went on to turn 6 and I got wiped. The second game had some bad reserve rolls, and the terrain ended up being very unfriendly. The third game had some ridiculously bad rolls (Fateweaver failing 6 of 12 saves after re-rolls was a particular favorite of mine) and I made some key errors (like forgetting about the automatic 6" waagh). The fourth game I won, despite the secondary coming in first.


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RiTides wrote:

derek wrote:Congrats to the players in the top 16, while those lists may not be the super optimized lists (which is open to debate, of course), they worked for them on that weekend in that event, and that's really all you can ask for from any list.

I've seen Centurion99's list prior to this, not from a tournament, but from when he posted painted shots of the army. He's been playing that list for a while now, going on 2-3 years if I'm recalling how long ago he first posted it correctly. He knows his list, and is a good player, and I'm not surprised that he made the top 16 field amongst what people consider "better" codices. I think the only top 16 list I'm surprised by is the Deathwing list including 2 Land Raiders and no speeders, but kudos to that player for having the skill to take a 2 Land Raider list that far in the tournament.

Agreed! Congrats to Bill, it was awesome to meet you

Also thanks to calypso2ts for the detailed analysis of his list. I love seeing a supposedly "non-optimized" army take a high placing (5th, right?) in such a big event . Familiarity, player skill, and also catching the opponent by surprise all play a bit of a role, I'm sure.

Definitely good to meet you too! Glad I got to stay til Monday and enjoy Sunday night.

derek wrote:Congrats to the players in the top 16, while those lists may not be the super optimized lists (which is open to debate, of course), they worked for them on that weekend in that event, and that's really all you can ask for from any list.

I've seen Centurion99's list prior to this, not from a tournament, but from when he posted painted shots of the army. He's been playing that list for a while now, going on 2-3 years if I'm recalling how long ago he first posted it correctly. He knows his list, and is a good player, and I'm not surprised that he made the top 16 field amongst what people consider "better" codices. I think the only top 16 list I'm surprised by is the Deathwing list including 2 Land Raiders and no speeders, but kudos to that player for having the skill to take a 2 Land Raider list that far in the tournament.

Thanks. The list I used definitely has its weaknesses. I've only been using the fiend/seeker/skarbrand combo since last summer, though. Added Fateweaver in for the 'Ard Boyz, and figured out a way to chop 2500 to 1850.

steinerp wrote:As someone who plays Bill regularly I can in 100% honesty say that it is his fault for this thread and not NoArmorSave. Probably half the reason he plays that list is to stir up the internet when he does well.

Me. Stir up controversy on the interwebs? Never?

steinerp wrote:
Which is because of the other 50%, he knows his list, he has tuned it and knows how to play it. Is the list perfect? No, but no list is and not many people run howling banshees. He was one of the first I saw to run mass bloodcrushers but he has since dropped for the extra speed of the the fiends.It works for him. Does it work for you? Irrelevant. One thing a lot of these lists show is that tuned and spammed are not equivalent.

Now who do we know who showed me what happens when howling banshees meet my units.

Seeing that list of what armies were popular at Adepticon has made me sick.

Owning a Draigowing army is now not sitting well with me.

I think I actually want to start one of the fringe armies just to prove they are not all bad.

derek wrote:

Boldo wrote:
Its not original because it's a pure deathwing, but it's not just a spam list.

There aren't really too many combinations you can do with Deathwing, so anyone claiming originality would be tough. I like that you didn't opt to just spam TH/SS squads with CMLs, and took a couple of Heavy Flamers (love template weapons). Again, congrats on your top 16 finish, and thank you for posting here to give us the true list.

Thanks, it was really hard.

The spam of TH&SS with cyclones might look the best combination for DW, but i think that other configurations can help you to manage different situations. For example, the chain fists are very important, especially when you have to stop a tank shock or need to open a Land Raider at close combat in a desperate move. Cyclone is the best heavy weapon, but I found that i couldn't use very often those in the two units embarked.

Moreover, the mix configuration of squads 4 and 5 let you do some good allocations of low AP wounds, which could save you the day. And finally, when using different configurations your rival won't have so easy to know your intentions, and you make him more difficult to deal with them.

Cheers

And to be honest, I wasn't going to respond, but there's a few points.

NoArmorSave wrote:
You are completey incorrect here. If you even think there will be Dragio Wing players competing, you have got to have Crushers. Fiends evaporate virtually instanlty to Paladins. Large units of Crushers supported by Fateweaver and a Bloodthirster with might & blessing will destroy them in assault. Even without Draigo Wing involved, I would take no more than 1 unit of Fiends at the 2K level, and may not even bring them at all.

If I'm playing against a Dragowing, the key is really simple. Hitting the paladins with everything, all at once. When a Draigowing is on the field, I just jump on it with all the seekers and fiends, skarbrand if possible, and make sure Fateweaver is in range to provide support. Forcing them to spread attacks among multiple units keeps my units alive and viable, and I'm generally inflicting more wounds than they can deal with, even with saves and rerolls.

NoArmorSave wrote:
You need Plaguebearers. Especially with the almost 100% focus on objectives at these major events. Bolt is unreliable and "mickey mouse" IMHO. Bloodcrushers will absolutely wreck a non AV14 mech wall on the assault. I have never had any problems opening transports in my list, and there are answers for AV14.

Horrors hold up surprisingly well. Against shooting, they seem to survive for me nearly as well. In assault, they're totally worthless, but if they're getting assaulted, I've generally already lost. And what is 'mickey mouse?"

Centurian99 wrote:And to be honest, I wasn't going to respond, but there's a few points.

NoArmorSave wrote:
You are completey incorrect here. If you even think there will be Dragio Wing players competing, you have got to have Crushers. Fiends evaporate virtually instanlty to Paladins. Large units of Crushers supported by Fateweaver and a Bloodthirster with might & blessing will destroy them in assault. Even without Draigo Wing involved, I would take no more than 1 unit of Fiends at the 2K level, and may not even bring them at all.

If I'm playing against a Dragowing, the key is really simple. Hitting the paladins with everything, all at once. When a Draigowing is on the field, I just jump on it with all the seekers and fiends, skarbrand if possible, and make sure Fateweaver is in range to provide support. Forcing them to spread attacks among multiple units keeps my units alive and viable, and I'm generally inflicting more wounds than they can deal with, even with saves and rerolls.

NoArmorSave wrote:
You need Plaguebearers. Especially with the almost 100% focus on objectives at these major events. Bolt is unreliable and "mickey mouse" IMHO. Bloodcrushers will absolutely wreck a non AV14 mech wall on the assault. I have never had any problems opening transports in my list, and there are answers for AV14.

Horrors hold up surprisingly well. Against shooting, they seem to survive for me nearly as well. In assault, they're totally worthless, but if they're getting assaulted, I've generally already lost. And what is 'mickey mouse?"

"If I'm playing against a Dragowing, the key is really simple. Hitting the paladins with everything, all at once. When a Draigowing is on the field, I just jump on it with all the seekers and fiends, skarbrand if possible, and make sure Fateweaver is in range to provide support. Forcing them to spread attacks among multiple units keeps my units alive and viable, and I'm generally inflicting more wounds than they can deal with, even with saves and rerolls."

That doesn't work. 3 full units of fiends and all of your seekers would wipe against Draigo+Librarian and a fully allocated brick of 10 Paladins. They will die in droves.
You will need at least 2 big units of Crushers to overcome it. It also requires a detailed understanding of the matchup, and skill\positioning is critical.


"Horrors hold up surprisingly well. Against shooting, they seem to survive for me nearly as well. In assault, they're totally worthless, but if they're getting assaulted, I've generally already lost. And what is 'mickey mouse?"

Mickey Mouse; relying on the bolt in each horror squad to open transports. It just isn't reliable, and Horrors are not nearly as survivable as Plaguebearers. They also cost more points.

Boldo wrote:
Thanks, it was really hard.

The spam of TH&SS with cyclones might look the best combination for DW, but i think that other configurations can help you to manage different situations. For example, the chain fists are very important, especially when you have to stop a tank shock or need to open a Land Raider at close combat in a desperate move. Cyclone is the best heavy weapon, but I found that i couldn't use very often those in the two units embarked.

Moreover, the mix configuration of squads 4 and 5 let you do some good allocations of low AP wounds, which could save you the day. And finally, when using different configurations your rival won't have so easy to know your intentions, and you make him more difficult to deal with them.

Cheers

It's been awhile since I was pushing DW across the table, but my own experiences match with your points about Chainfists (usually have one in every squad save my all TH/SS one), and Cyclone's not getting used much in Raiders. I think the only questions I have left is how much the Land Raiders held up against opponent shooting (a lot of the Grey Knight lists look like they'd be relying on Str7 rending to destroy them), and whether you had anything you would change about your list.

Centurian99 wrote:

derek wrote:Congrats to the players in the top 16, while those lists may not be the super optimized lists (which is open to debate, of course), they worked for them on that weekend in that event, and that's really all you can ask for from any list.

I've seen Centurion99's list prior to this, not from a tournament, but from when he posted painted shots of the army. He's been playing that list for a while now, going on 2-3 years if I'm recalling how long ago he first posted it correctly. He knows his list, and is a good player, and I'm not surprised that he made the top 16 field amongst what people consider "better" codices. I think the only top 16 list I'm surprised by is the Deathwing list including 2 Land Raiders and no speeders, but kudos to that player for having the skill to take a 2 Land Raider list that far in the tournament.

Thanks. The list I used definitely has its weaknesses. I've only been using the fiend/seeker/skarbrand combo since last summer, though. Added Fateweaver in for the 'Ard Boyz, and figured out a way to chop 2500 to 1850.

I just remember the version that you posted it on the FC forums, mostly because I liked the Blue Scribes conversion. Meant to say your army anyway, and not your list, since the point was you've been playing Demons for a few years now, and most people playing an army that long are usually more in tune with how it plays.

Not trying to change the topic or anything, but does anyone have a link to the ork list...was it just battlewagon spam, or did it do something different.

derek wrote: I think the only questions I have left is how much the Land Raiders held up against opponent shooting (a lot of the Grey Knight lists look like they'd be relying on Str7 rending to destroy them), and whether you had anything you would change about your list.

I played against 4 GK, and by doing my best and having good rolls i was able to beat 3. The Raiders did well, and survived most of these games. But this happened because i tried to not expose to much them under psycannon fire; i always planned the game keeping safe distances as much as possible. When it was inevitable, you can just find some cover and pray to the Emperor. If anything can resist a bit of S7 rending fire thats a Land Raider.

What to change in the list?. I would like psychic defense with a librarian. However now that is impossible (L9 librarian sucks), so i had to live with that. You can take out one terminator squad an get three typhoon speeders, but i discard this option when i took a look at the missions in Adepticon. I needed as many troops as possible, and with the actual metagame against mech armies those 3 armor 10 skimmers would have been very bad for me in anihilation.

Let's see with the new codex. I just hope that JJ is not involved on this project; i don't want a overpowered codex, but i miss more variety and playable units.

Cheers.

Jose, it was really cool seeing your stuff in play. I really liked that your army was a mix of "fluff" and "crunch", having a solid theme as well as being well-built to compete. It was also awesome seeing that you are clearly into the story aspect of the Dark Angels; made me wish to get in a game against you with my Fallen Angels.

Mannahnin wrote:Jose, it was really cool seeing your stuff in play. I really liked that your army was a mix of "fluff" and "crunch", having a solid theme as well as being well-built to compete. It was also awesome seeing that you are clearly into the story aspect of the Dark Angels; made me wish to get in a game against you with my Fallen Angels.

I believe that your army is like your sword. You must respect it, because it fights for you. If you play thinking like this, you might do great things.

It would be an honor to play against you and your men Mannahnin. Hope we can arrange that game some day.

Cheers.

I am entirely of the same opinion, Boldo. This is part of why I keep using my Chaos, and some Blood Angels, and will not field GK. I look forward to it. Hopefully we can meet up at another event some time.

krootman. wrote:Not trying to change the topic or anything, but does anyone have a link to the ork list...was it just battlewagon spam, or did it do something different.

Going from memory...
Ghaz
Big Mek
4 Battlewagons
Burna Boyz
3 Shoota boyz
Snikkrot
2 Deffkoptas

Not sure about the exact upgrades and the like.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think there might have been a trukk boyz squad in there.

Centurian99 wrote:
Impressive - you pretty much nailed the thinking behind my list. Pretty spot on for most of it. I'll add my comments as I go.

I had been thinking about using Skar in the same way with my Daemons, although I tend to bring diverse lists and people tend to frown on special characters. I appreciate the time you took to respond to my comments!

Centurian99 wrote:
To be honest, I'm thinking of replacing them with a larger block of Daemonettes with an Icon.

Bah! I was thinking the same thing on this, I really like Daemonettes for units sitting in cover (Defensive Grenades) and they add more speed to the list if you really need it. They also do not kill quite as quickly as Bloodletters, which can keep you in combat a turn when you need it. Edit: They also almost always catch a unit that flees combat which is an underestimated benefit.

Centurian99 wrote:
They are also surprisingly resilient, in large numbers. The 4+ cover save is really easy to get, and it takes a lot of fire to knock them down. Dropped into or near cover, they provide a 4+ cover save for everything behind them. The most important "hidden" factor has to do with the fact that they're mounted on bike/cav bases. On arrival, they are ridiculously flexible in terms of placement. And can be deployed in an extremely compact formation, extremely spread out formation, and a lot of stuff in between, in some really crazy shapes.

This has been my exact experience with them, I run a unit of 12 (I will probably go higher) and you can really use/abuse the bases to setup multi-assaults, link combat, and get in cover.

I am a little skeptical of the crusher deathstar, I think it would smash GK, but it is so slow...

Centurian99 wrote:

calypso2ts wrote:I was a bit skeptical when I first saw Bill Kim's list too (not that it did not work, it clearly does but WHY does it work). Here are my thoughts (I do not claim to be one of the best Daemon players, I have competed in one GT with them to moderate success in the actual battles). So an actual analysis of Bill Kim's list.

Impressive - you pretty much nailed the thinking behind my list. Pretty spot on for most of it. I'll add my comments as I go.

It was really cool to read your thoughts behind the list choices and strategy used with it... I wish all the top placers would do this!

Centurian99 wrote:

krootman. wrote:Not trying to change the topic or anything, but does anyone have a link to the ork list...was it just battlewagon spam, or did it do something different.

Going from memory...
Ghaz
Big Mek
4 Battlewagons
Burna Boyz
3 Shoota boyz
Snikkrot
2 Deffkoptas

Not sure about the exact upgrades and the like.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Figured as much, thanks for the info. Props to him! I mean no disrespect to the gk players as i totally understand wanting to win.
I think there might have been a trukk boyz squad in there.

I think he had two squads of deffkoptas. He does post on here occasionally, though, so hopefully he can confirm.

The problem with all the traditional "spam/internet" lists like Draigowing, traditional Deamons, etc.. is that most people will have some sort of answer for those lists.

Play something that is just a little bit different, and as long as you can play YOUR list very well the opponent will have an army that is tooled against net-list armies but has to adjust the tactics to deal with your "weird" list.

Infinity has a good saying "It's not your list, it's you!", and I think a lot of these lists really nailed that in a 40K setting.

The ork player was Doug / "Dugg" of TableWar, right?

I wanted to say hi and tell him how much I like the case in-person, but he was playing (I think against Bill's daemons) at the time, and everyone in that room was so serious! That it felt wrong to interrupt... (and probably would have been).

So, of course, I immediately walked into the center area and had to be (very nicely) escorted out by Mannahnin . I thought that was pretty funny, if slightly embarrassing... but it was also really cool to see how on the ball all the organizers and volunteers were to make sure the championships were played out fairly and to an extremely high level. I will definitely watch it on the feed next year, if I can't make it for any reason! But of course, I hope to be there in-person, instead

Dugg uses a pretty non-standard ork list. Battlewagons with gtabbing claws, boarding planks, wrecking balls, etc. he uses burna boyz, no lootas, deff koptas, snikrot, etc. He made the finals last year, too.

Can someone explain to me how the Necron list beats those GK lists? I don't see how it pops enough transports/dreads and doesn't get shot up before it gets a chance to get into combat (where it might not even win anyway) or does more damage with shooting.

I am in no way saying it sucks, I'm just missing how it works!

Everything in my list (with the exception of the tesla immortals) can hurt enemy vehicles, and to be honest there are some units in the GK lists that I really don't want to get into combat with unless its on my terms. I have to use terrain and distance to my advantage to maximise the amount of gauss shots I can get to pop the transports. At some point I'll usually throw the barge forward to sweep something and this usually draws a lot of fire away from the rest of the army.

GK lists that give me a lot of trouble are the ones with lots of power armoured bodies. Henchmen spam isn't normally a problem as they are so fragile once they get out of the transports I can kill them with anything in my list (except assassins of course, I have to try and shoot those buggers).

I had a great time at the weekend as as has already been mentioned, I found the atmosphere on Sunday both very well organised and incredibly relaxed and chilled out, although I certainly would have appreciated more sleep the night before!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and it was great to meet those of you I'd not had a chance to know beforehand!

Congrats to the top 16 guys!

Bill Kim, wow dude, against all odds you got daemons to the finals against a sea of Grey Knights...

That being said, I'd still destroy your terrible army with my super pro Dark Eldar, but I guess we will have to wait until we can meet in West Michgan for that scrap!

Really impressed by the footdar list too. Total fricking skill to make that work at an event like that.

Grats gents.

blood angel wrote:Blackmoor doesn't want any of my DraigoWing.

I was thinking about retiring it after Adepticon but I am thinking of now taking it to Wargames Con. It just fits so well on an airplane.

I am going to write a blog post about how your Draigowing differs greatly from mine (you would expect nothing less from the foremost expert on Draigowing).

I am retiring my Draigowing myself. I have been playing it for the last year and I grew tired of it a while ago and Adepticon was going to be their last outing (maybe I will take them to the Nova Invitational). One thing about the Draigowing is that they do fit nicely in carry on. I took my whole army to the Nova Open and still had room for 5 days of clothes so I did not get charged for checking a bag.

So it is on to the foot Dark Eldar!

I suspect with NoArmorSaves we have a giant case of BigFishSmallPond....

As for all of his constant talk of WAAC he is really doing the competitive side of the hobby no good at all. They say the wise don't go around running their mouths. Or at least perceptive people would wonder what is the chance that only they are right...

Shinkaze wrote:They say the wise don't go around running their mouths.

"The less a man makes declarative statements, the less apt he is to look foolish in retrospect."

Shinkaze wrote:I suspect with NoArmorSaves we have a giant case of BigFishSmallPond....

As for all of his constant talk of WAAC he is really doing the competitive side of the hobby no good at all. They say the wise don't go around running their mouths. Or at least perceptive people would wonder what is the chance that only they are right...

Lol its definitely possible he has OCS. (only child syndrome) It would definitely explain his attitiude as a "Stelek Jr."

Good show guys.
Funny thing is, that daemon lisr is almost exactly what i was planning on for mine!

Centurian99 wrote:

calypso2ts wrote:I was a bit skeptical when I first saw Bill Kim's list too (not that it did not work, it clearly does but WHY does it work). Here are my thoughts (I do not claim to be one of the best Daemon players, I have competed in one GT with them to moderate success in the actual battles). So an actual analysis of Bill Kim's list.

Impressive - you pretty much nailed the thinking behind my list. Pretty spot on for most of it. I'll add my comments as I go.

I'll add my thanks for your comments. Been thinking about jumping into daemons, and using Skarbrand with Slaaneshi stuff in particular. I've been picking the brains of daemons players I meet, so this was very helpful.

There were no Tyranid players at Adepticon? Dang... That's depressing...

KplKeegan wrote:There were no Tyranid players at Adepticon? Dang... That's depressing...

There were. Just not in the finals of the Championships (Top 16 players out of 256)

Oh, someone had said previously that there were no Tyranid or SoB players at the event. Has anyone posted an army breakdown?

I heard there was one 'nid player in the 256. This was hearsay however, and as I made three passes around every table specifically looking for 'nids, I can't be sure.

Kitzz wrote:I heard there was one 'nid player in the 256. This was hearsay however, and as I made three passes around every table specifically looking for 'nids, I can't be sure.

There's a pic of a Team Tournament group that had nids, but nothing that I saw for the 256.

BigRed from BoLS reported 0 Tyranids or Sisters in the main tournament
http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2012/04/40k-meta-what-weve-become.html

Definitely no Tyranids or Sisters in the Championships. Too bad for the Tyranids given the fact that they made it to the top 16 last year.

NoArmorSave must be the same as Skywise. Or his Twin.They both have 10000 pts in Daemons and are the Best Player with Fate Crusher. They insult instead of adding good to the conversations and they love to steal threads.

BIG TROLL FOR SURE.


PS The same players dont keep placing in the top spots for no reason but being great players. Good Job to the top 16 guys.

RiTides wrote:The ork player was Doug / "Dugg" of TableWar, right?

I wanted to say hi and tell him how much I like the case in-person, but he was playing (I think against Bill's daemons) at the time, and everyone in that room was so serious! That it felt wrong to interrupt... (and probably would have been).

So, of course, I immediately walked into the center area and had to be (very nicely) escorted out by Mannahnin . I thought that was pretty funny, if slightly embarrassing... but it was also really cool to see how on the ball all the organizers and volunteers were to make sure the championships were played out fairly and to an extremely high level. I will definitely watch it on the feed next year, if I can't make it for any reason! But of course, I hope to be there in-person, instead

@ RiTides - You should have said hello! Bill and I were having a crazy game, dice rolls were all over the place, but I think we were all tired more thn serious. I know I was WAY on the Tired side.

In my list I had 2 Koptas in a squad, 1 with a Buzz Saw & both with TL Rokkits. I put almost everything but the 'Ard Case on my BattleWagons "Wrecking Balls & Krabin' Klaws for the WIN!". I'll try to do a little post about some of my Tricks in the next couple days.

Also, I had a BLAST and just wanted to say that it was great meeting everyone, some again, and some of you for the first time. I just wish I could have had more time away from the tables to hang out and chat more.

Unholy_Martyr wrote:Well...just to attempt to get back on topic...Why the hell does Bloodofkittens.com only work when it's 1 in the afternoon and sunny?

I mean seriously, I've been trying for the past 5 hours to get onto the site with no avail.

This! Does anyone else know where this information can be found?

jy2 wrote:@NoArmorSave:

Sometimes, it's not the list but the player behind the lists.

The players that you are critiquing are seasoned tournament players with records of success at such events. That is why there is so such "resistance" to some of your claims.

Instead of making some of the claims you make, I suggest why not do a battle report against one of the better players in your area? That will go a long ways into "soothing" the "naysayers" here on dakka. It may also offer insight on how to play a proper fatecrusher build. Just something to consider.

If this guy is from new mexico and its who I think it is... he doesn't win that often at all. As a matter of fact, he doesn't even paint his own armies...

Blood of kittens is failing me with the long load times or just simply not loading at all.

@Reecius - Is there anything "Standard" about me? hahaha

The lists look to be pretty balanced, each one has the tools needed to win. It's nice to see that none of the lists are really anything special so the players were just able to put the right tools to the right job. it's good to see skilled players on top.

Dugg wrote:@Reecius - Is there anything "Standard" about me? hahaha

Hahaha, no!

@Blackmoor

Foot Deldar? I have been thinking the same thing for a while now! Without the mobile heavy weapons that Footdar have though, and without the Psychic buffs I am having trouble making it work. I am thinking at least one webway portal, and a mix of assault and shooting units. The issue is how to deal with Deathstars and Purifiers, and how to pop vehicles with mobility? Where do you get your tank busting? Footdar can shoot like the dickens and then assault, Deldar lack that versatility. Their units want to do one thing or the other.

What were your thoughts? I'd be curious to hear what your strategies were.

A couple of friends of mine run foot DEldar quite successfully. 2 WWP are required though. What the DEldar lack in versatility they make up for in speed. Beasts, Helions and Scourge all move so damn fast you just can't catch them unless they allow you too.

2 units of Scourge with Heat Lances (they have the mobility to use them effectively)

1 unit of beasts as your heavy hitters in assault.

1 big unit of helions. I have seen them used to great effect. These guys use their mobility and size to tag multiple units in a brutal multi-combat with Wyches or other cc units. If you include the SC that makes them Scoring, Stealthed and all the other goodies he brings they become stupidly resilient to shooting too.

Walking Trueborn out of Portals can also be added to give more anti-tank options.

@Lukus
We were actually thinking the same thing. Hellions with the Baron are awesome, and Frankie wants to try some Scourges with heat lances.

Beasts can be brutal, that unit can just wreck stuff.

The only issue I see is that if you bump into something better in combat than you, you get hosed. Footdar can shoot or assault, and that versatility lets them fight anyone.

Dugg wrote:

RiTides wrote:The ork player was Doug / "Dugg" of TableWar, right?

I wanted to say hi and tell him how much I like the case in-person, but he was playing (I think against Bill's daemons) at the time, and everyone in that room was so serious! That it felt wrong to interrupt... (and probably would have been).

So, of course, I immediately walked into the center area and had to be (very nicely) escorted out by Mannahnin . I thought that was pretty funny, if slightly embarrassing... but it was also really cool to see how on the ball all the organizers and volunteers were to make sure the championships were played out fairly and to an extremely high level. I will definitely watch it on the feed next year, if I can't make it for any reason! But of course, I hope to be there in-person, instead

@ RiTides - You should have said hello! Bill and I were having a crazy game, dice rolls were all over the place, but I think we were all tired more thn serious. I know I was WAY on the Tired side.

Yep. Tired, and both of us were out by that point, so we were just playing for the bragging rights of it. Didn't realize you were a Dakkanaut, Dugg. Did what I could to give you a game, but between the crap I was rolling, and Ghazgul's ability to stand up to 12 bloodletters...wasn't much I could do. :(


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Didn't help that my brain shut down and I forgot that since you reserved everything Ghaz could call a waagh when they arrived on turn 2. Ouch.

@Centurian99 - that is a mistake people make when I leave everything in reserve. Add to that having Snikrot coming in on any table edge it can really mess with my opponents standard game plan.

Dugg wrote:@ RiTides - You should have said hello! Bill and I were having a crazy game, dice rolls were all over the place, but I think we were all tired more thn serious. I know I was WAY on the Tired side.

Yeah, I know! Next time... was also cool how you'd blinged out your TableWar case, cup holder and everything

Hey guys I am new to posting on the Dakka forums, I was Centurian99's 1st round opponent on Sunday (Dave). I noticed a lot of the guys from Sundays games are on these forums and just wanted to stop in and say hi to everyone and thank those people I got to play against for some awesome games! Also Reece I REALLY wanted to play your scarab farm list with my Purifiers /sad panda that you sold it.

I look forward to seeing you guys again next year at Adepticon and hopefully I get to play against some of you guys in the future as well.

Nice to meet you too!

And purifiers are bad news bears for scarabs! Haha, but i'm always game for a challenge. We're building another cron list at the shop, hopefully i'll have a chance to bring it out before 6th ed.

Reecius wrote:Nice to meet you too!

And purifiers are bad news bears for scarabs! Haha, but i'm always game for a challenge. We're building another cron list at the shop, hopefully i'll have a chance to bring it out before 6th ed.

Look forward to seeing the battle reports on it. What's the list if you don't mind my asking? And so help me if you say 3 annihilation barges and 3 full squads of Wraiths I am going to scream :-P

The final list isn't sey, but it is an eclectic mix. At least 6 to 9 spyders and a unit of scarabs to make the farm, and then z mix of wraiths, tomb blades, oveflords, royal court and troops. It's got a little of everything as we've found those types of lists are more flexible than spam, and in the right hands, will be more likely to win games against a wide variety of opponents.

I agree completely with you about trying to have a little bit of everything. I wont deny I played a spam heavy list, but it was not all I had hoped it would be at the tourney. I am taking away a few things for my future army builds and the biggest one is to have more than just super awesome unit X 15 times.

Denied wrote:Hey guys I am new to posting on the Dakka forums, I was Centurian99's 1st round opponent on Sunday (Dave). I noticed a lot of the guys from Sundays games are on these forums and just wanted to stop in and say hi to everyone and thank those people I got to play against for some awesome games! Also Reece I REALLY wanted to play your scarab farm list with my Purifiers /sad panda that you sold it.

I look forward to seeing you guys again next year at Adepticon and hopefully I get to play against some of you guys in the future as well.

Good to see you here, Dave! Thanks again for the consolation prize - it probably was the main thing that kept me from just writing the day off as a bad idea after round 2.

B

Centurian99 wrote:

Denied wrote:Hey guys I am new to posting on the Dakka forums, I was Centurian99's 1st round opponent on Sunday (Dave). I noticed a lot of the guys from Sundays games are on these forums and just wanted to stop in and say hi to everyone and thank those people I got to play against for some awesome games! Also Reece I REALLY wanted to play your scarab farm list with my Purifiers /sad panda that you sold it.

I look forward to seeing you guys again next year at Adepticon and hopefully I get to play against some of you guys in the future as well.

Good to see you here, Dave! Thanks again for the consolation prize - it probably was the main thing that kept me from just writing the day off as a bad idea after round 2.

B

Any time sir! I even got to have a few consolation prizes myself after rounds 2 and 3 :-D

Denied wrote:Hey guys I am new to posting on the Dakka forums, I was Centurian99's 1st round opponent on Sunday (Dave). I noticed a lot of the guys from Sundays games are on these forums and just wanted to stop in and say hi to everyone and thank those people I got to play against for some awesome games! Also Reece I REALLY wanted to play your scarab farm list with my Purifiers /sad panda that you sold it.

I look forward to seeing you guys again next year at Adepticon and hopefully I get to play against some of you guys in the future as well.

It's really cool to see so many of the top tourney players active in this section of Dakka

Lots to learn from, live vicariously through, etc!

The final list isn't sey, but it is an eclectic mix. At least 6 to 9 spyders and a unit of scarabs to make the farm, and then z mix of wraiths, tomb blades, oveflords, royal court and troops. It's got a little of everything as we've found those types of lists are more flexible than spam, and in the right hands, will be more likely to win games against a wide variety of opponents.

Well you know what colour to paint it if you want it to do well, Reece

I lost track over the weekend of the number of spectators who asked me if I painted it that colour to put my opponents off their game

I'm guessing you're the pink necrons, then, right?

Got it in one!

So Alex why did you paint them pink? I really want to know.

The funny thing is that the necrons are not his only pink army.

Yeah, his Chaos are pink too, with Faerie Daemon Princes!

Don't forget the Strawberry Shortcake (Alpha) Legion.

Mannahnin wrote:Don't forget the Strawberry Shortcake (Alpha) Legion.

I might have to!

Really they were just costumed as the Strawberry Shortcake Marines, who are a well-known ( ) loyalist chapter.

I just had to find a picture of that now:

The Everliving wrote:

The final list isn't sey, but it is an eclectic mix. At least 6 to 9 spyders and a unit of scarabs to make the farm, and then z mix of wraiths, tomb blades, oveflords, royal court and troops. It's got a little of everything as we've found those types of lists are more flexible than spam, and in the right hands, will be more likely to win games against a wide variety of opponents.

Well you know what colour to paint it if you want it to do well, Reece

I lost track over the weekend of the number of spectators who asked me if I painted it that colour to put my opponents off their game

Alex,

Have you posted your thoughts/strategies regarding your Necron list or Necrons in general anywhere online?

Because I find the Necron codex to be really, really interesting to think about making an army for, so I'd love to read your thoughts about exactly why you have the units you have in your army and whether or not you're thinking about adding or removing anything post-adepticon.

So in other words, if you haven't written anything yet, what do I have to do to entice you to write a little something up here on Dakka?

Is there another listing of the top 16 lists? I've tried BoK for days and still can't get it to load.


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Boldo wrote:

derek wrote: I think the only questions I have left is how much the Land Raiders held up against opponent shooting (a lot of the Grey Knight lists look like they'd be relying on Str7 rending to destroy them), and whether you had anything you would change about your list.

I played against 4 GK, and by doing my best and having good rolls i was able to beat 3. The Raiders did well, and survived most of these games. But this happened because i tried to not expose to much them under psycannon fire; i always planned the game keeping safe distances as much as possible. When it was inevitable, you can just find some cover and pray to the Emperor. If anything can resist a bit of S7 rending fire thats a Land Raider.

What to change in the list?. I would like psychic defense with a librarian. However now that is impossible (L9 librarian sucks), so i had to live with that. You can take out one terminator squad an get three typhoon speeders, but i discard this option when i took a look at the missions in Adepticon. I needed as many troops as possible, and with the actual metagame against mech armies those 3 armor 10 skimmers would have been very bad for me in anihilation.

Let's see with the new codex. I just hope that JJ is not involved on this project; i don't want a overpowered codex, but i miss more variety and playable units.

Cheers.

I was considering running a similar style DW in a tourney next month that is not using an anihilation mission, so do you think land speeders option then?

RiTides wrote:

Denied wrote:Hey guys I am new to posting on the Dakka forums, I was Centurian99's 1st round opponent on Sunday (Dave). I noticed a lot of the guys from Sundays games are on these forums and just wanted to stop in and say hi to everyone and thank those people I got to play against for some awesome games! Also Reece I REALLY wanted to play your scarab farm list with my Purifiers /sad panda that you sold it.

I look forward to seeing you guys again next year at Adepticon and hopefully I get to play against some of you guys in the future as well.

It's really cool to see so many of the top tourney players active in this section of Dakka

Lots to learn from, live vicariously through, etc!

I second that notion. I feel like, in my short time in the wargaming hobby, I've picked up so much good information from a lot of the veteran tournament players posting here.

NoArmorSave wrote:

tastytaste wrote:For anyone interested here is a link to most of the top 16 lists from the Adepticon Finals on Sunday...

http://bloodofkittens.com/blog/2012/04/24/tournament-circuit-adepticon-championship-results-and-lists/

Thanks for posting, I wanted to see the other lists besides Chester's Grey Knights.

Honestly, I am not impressed with most of the lists I have reviewed so far. Most of them are not optimized in the most competitive way possible.

Some obervations:

I liked Tony Kopach's Space Wolves. His list is solid, but I would have dropped the Wolf Guard and added a unit of TWC instead.
I would also say that Jose Mendeze's Dark Angels were pretty optimized, however I question running 2 Land Raiders at 1850, even in an all Death Wing army.
Alexander's Necrons seem to be about the best the Necron codex has so far, so Kudos to him. However, his list would be devastated by a proper Fatecrusher or
a good Draigo Wing player IMHO. He didn't face either in this tournament as far as I could tell.

The Daemon player really dropped the ball. He had no Blood Crushers in his list, and he was running Fateweaver. I am not sure how
much he play tested, but the entire list needs to be rebuilt.

The Grey Knight players think they are onto something by running squads of 3 Warrior Acolytes in a Razorback or Chimera, with a couple
supporting units of Purifiers or a unit of Death Cult Assassins. I don't buy it, and think it is far inferior to an IG Leafblower list running Melta
Vets in Chimeras.


I am thinking some of these folks were playing more on the "fluffy" side, than bringing WAAC lists. I dunno, maybe I am just jaded from playing in a hardcore WAAC enviornment.

Not only does this come off as pretty arrogant and judgemental, but it's quite possible these lists are well suited to the tactics and playstyles of the generals involved. This may come as a shock, but a lot of lists can be competitive even if they fly in the face of accepted Dakka wisdom about whats good and whats not.

When I posted my WoC list before Ard'boyz last year I was told it would never work and it went undefeated through all its games against players from Texas, Oklahoma, and wherever the hell else. Just keep in mind that it's possible your WAAC store might have all the shiny net lists but it's far more about the player than the list.

Have you posted your thoughts/strategies regarding your Necron list or Necrons in general anywhere online?

Because I find the Necron codex to be really, really interesting to think about making an army for, so I'd love to read your thoughts about exactly why you have the units you have in your army and whether or not you're thinking about adding or removing anything post-adepticon.

So in other words, if you haven't written anything yet, what do I have to do to entice you to write a little something up here on Dakka?

I have not done so yet. Since you asked nicely though , I'll see if I can get something up over the next couple of days.

On a side note, very glad GW have some new pink paints in their range. I had just about run out of Tentacle Pink!

What a ridiculous early poster suggestion; dropping every 2nd meltagun AND power fist off Tony's Grey Hunters and Scouts, in order to pick up a unit of Thunderwolves, is exactly the kind of list-build mentality that gets people beaten several times over the course of a numerous-game event.

Storehammer / local-RTT-hammer is an issue you constantly run into, with regard to people who win a few games in a small 3-round local tourney or many games in store with solid enough lists, and blame the losses on awful dice (i.e. every time I shot with my grey hunter unit that had only a single meltagun, it missed!!!). Kinda thing always generates a culture and list-mentality-gap between multi-GT winners / high placers and local heroes.

helium42 wrote:

RiTides wrote:

Denied wrote:Hey guys I am new to posting on the Dakka forums, I was Centurian99's 1st round opponent on Sunday (Dave). I noticed a lot of the guys from Sundays games are on these forums and just wanted to stop in and say hi to everyone and thank those people I got to play against for some awesome games! Also Reece I REALLY wanted to play your scarab farm list with my Purifiers /sad panda that you sold it.

I look forward to seeing you guys again next year at Adepticon and hopefully I get to play against some of you guys in the future as well.

It's really cool to see so many of the top tourney players active in this section of Dakka

Lots to learn from, live vicariously through, etc!

I second that notion. I feel like, in my short time in the wargaming hobby, I've picked up so much good information from a lot of the veteran tournament players posting here.

This was actually my first time playing in the Championships I just started playing 40K last year because a friend of mine needed a 4th for his team for Adepticon last year. Fell in love with the hobby bought my first codex and I've been playing hardcore since then.

I have learned so much just by going to a lot of local tournaments and loosing to people like Hulksmash in my local scene :-P

Denied wrote:I have learned so much just by going to a lot of local tournaments and loosing to people like Hulksmash in my local scene :-P

Keep it up and soon you can lose to HulkSmash in the national scene (Like me)

MVBrandt wrote:What a ridiculous early poster suggestion; dropping every 2nd meltagun AND power fist off Tony's Grey Hunters and Scouts, in order to pick up a unit of Thunderwolves, is exactly the kind of list-build mentality that gets people beaten several times over the course of a numerous-game event.

Storehammer / local-RTT-hammer is an issue you constantly run into, with regard to people who win a few games in a small 3-round local tourney or many games in store with solid enough lists, and blame the losses on awful dice (i.e. every time I shot with my grey hunter unit that had only a single meltagun, it missed!!!). Kinda thing always generates a culture and list-mentality-gap between multi-GT winners / high placers and local heroes.

^this

When I read that comment about removing the wolf guard in favor of thunderwolves I laughed a little at first, but MVB brings up a very good point with the rest of his post. Regional meta usually differs from what is really good in a TAC environment. What wins NOVA or Adepticon each year might not be what wins your local RTTs, but if you do get to play in these large events you quickly respect the need to be able to face any list variant, which I would say most of the top 16 players could do with a pretty equal chance of winning. Maybe NoArmorSave doesnt have alot of 4 landraider armies, or alot of dark eldar that outmaneuver and blow away his deamons with tons of poisoned and darklight shots, in his local metagame.

Anyway I'm glad i made it into the top 16 this year. I had an opportunity to play some great and really memorable games over the weekend...and I hope the rest of the tournament season yields equally interesting gameplay.

And I would just like to point out that NoArmorSave has posted since I called him out...funny, it almost seems like he's scared someone will come to his home turf and play him.

helium42 wrote:I second that notion. I feel like, in my short time in the wargaming hobby, I've picked up so much good information from a lot of the veteran tournament players posting here.

Sooooooooooooooooo true! Man, Dakka has for 100% sure made me a better player. The best minds in the game hang out here, no doubt.

When I first came here way back when, I was a little punk-ass that thought I was the hottest thing since sliced bread because I won all my local games. I ran my mouth, called out the top players, got my butt kicked and learned that their was a much bigger gaming scene out there than I knew about (much like a certain armor-less poster we've been dealing with here).

After a much deserved slice of humble pie, I shut up, listened to what other people had to say and over the course of several years actually became a good player instead of just thinking I was. It takes humility and open-mindedness though, the exact opposite of what the internet loud mouths that talk a lot and never win anything show. The only people who are impressed by that empty bravado are people who have also never actually won anything.

Just because something doesn't look good to you, doesn't mean it isn't good for someone else. The game is local, as others have said. And at the highest levels of competition, you have to have a list that can take on anything or one bad match-up and you're boned.

When jokers tell people that have won they are bad of their list sucks, it just sounds so ridiculous; patently so. Hopefully these guys will see how silly they look and learn to be open-minded and they will also become much better, much faster instead of just being a bunch of hot air.

@Unholy Martyr
Yeah, hahahaha, funny how that happens, isn't it?

@ Reecius

Indeed it is! By the way, I was wondering if any of you Frontline Gaming guys were going to be making it to NOVA this year? I'd love to meet you guys and get a few games in; however, whenever there's an event on the West Coast or Southwest where you all are attending, life kicks me in the shins.

We certainly want to. MVBrandt and crew run an awesome event and so long as we can afford to go, we will. I still have a little room on the credit cards after starting Frontline Gaming with Will and Frankie, I may just have to use it for the flight out!

It would be awesome to see a lot of the East Coasters such as yourself that we've never gotten to meet in real life.

Plus, I'd love a rematch with Tony. A tie is like kissing your sister, I'd love to have another go!

Haha, know the feeling. I'm hoping to get a rematch against Stelek myself...

Hopefully you can make it out there.

Ah, you played stelek? Gah, I would LOVE the chance to shut that one up. A smart guy, but what a difficult himan being. I would use every resource available to me to get a first round pairing with him. It would interest me to no end to see if he was as outspoken and rude in real life, or if he lacked the real life courage of his convictions. I often find thaf the lions of the internet are meek lambs in reality. Funny how anonimity makes some people so bold.

At any rate, if we can go, we will! And the first round's on us!

Remember he can't post here to defend himself, though (so in fairness we can't ding him without him being able to respond).

Also, I'm no lover of his blog YTTH, but I was really impressed that he could make it as far as he did at last year's Nova (and Dash, as well). I felt they both backed up their comments by their performance in the tourney. Doesn't mean the comments can't be a little more polite, though

Hopefully I can attend this year (possibly to play warmahordes instead of 40k/fantasy). It'd be insane if I could make Adepticon, but not such an awesome event in my own backyard!

Pinkcrons are hawt. I actually thought they looked awesome (as did my wife)... the humiliation of being beat in the head by pink gauss beams of doom.

Pink orks next year?

He had a pirate ork army (with sails and mast and such on his battlewagons) but I believe he sold it.

@ritides
You're right. And that is a good rule. It's lame to trash people who can't defend themselves. I'll stop.

But nova! YeH, that'd be awesome =)

You can always call him out on his own site or tell MVB to set up a NOVA throwdown.

@Reecius

I'll say this about Stelek, he does not automatically pass judgement. He comes across as a decent mannered individual and stays that way as far as I can tell.

With respect to how he plays, there is a "bullish" feeling during the game as he tries to want to "drive" the game. There are other aspects; however, I won't elaborate as they may be misconstrued or misunderstood.

All in all, playing against him was a learning experience of a different kind.

All I have to say is kudos for the guys that brought the fluffy lists and still made the top 16. This is saying A LOT about the caliber of players that make up this 16. Grats guys!

There were fluffy lists? Only to the eyes of people who only know one way to build a competitive army list.

Unholy_Martyr wrote:@Reecius

I'll say this about Stelek, he does not automatically pass judgement. He comes across as a decent mannered individual and stays that way as far as I can tell.

With respect to how he plays, there is a "bullish" feeling during the game as he tries to want to "drive" the game. There are other aspects; however, I won't elaborate as they may be misconstrued or misunderstood.

All in all, playing against him was a learning experience of a different kind.

All I can say being a Celeb is that "you are judged by your actions" while gaming or not.

Stelek, Dash, Hulk (and a few others) are all polarizing players that have a core of people that listen to what they have to say.

What I am trying to say is to be aware in what your saying and say it in a positive or neutral manner. Back up your opinions with facts that you have on hand concerning the topic being discussed more so than others. That is the price of being a celeb here because people will listen to more on that you have to say than the blokes such as myself.

Yeah, who was playing fluffy lists, the 8 guys that didn't bring GKs? Hahaha

Dugg wrote:Yeah, who was playing fluffy lists, the 8 guys that didn't bring GKs? Hahaha

Doesn't matter, Footdar made it to the top 8, so my faith in humanity is restored.

Woot!!!!!! I'm a polarizing player and an internet celeb!!!!! And people listen to me!!!!! YAY!!!!!

@Hulk - You are Famous and a grand influence to the young forumites, yeah thats a word. You're my HeRO!!

@Reecius - Who's Hulksmash again ;p

jk

Do you guys post in the army list forums? I know that I got driven out of there just by the WAAC people that post and just ignore anything you have to say about what you want.

I find it interesting how people talk about these lists as if they are inferior even when praising the people who played them. Its like " You make gakky lists but you are a great general"

Has anyone said anything about my Ork list? I haven't noticed.

Reecius wrote:Sooooooooooooooooo true! Man, Dakka has for 100% sure made me a better player. The best minds in the game hang out here, no doubt.

I agree the battle report section on dakka is probaly the best source of 40k info for players who want to see real life 40k tactics. WIth the addition of phone cameras we have a large number of reports that are recorded or have pictures where you can actually see how units play, compared to how they simply look on paper.

Reecius wrote:When I first came here way back when, I was a little punk-ass that thought I was the hottest thing since sliced bread because I won all my local games. I ran my mouth, called out the top players, got my butt kicked and learned that their was a much bigger gaming scene out there than I knew about (much like a certain armor-less poster we've been dealing with here).

I went through the same stage and honestly its just that a stage. That is why we tolerate or try to help the individuals that are like that because we remember when we were like that. I think its a stage that you go through before you become a great player.

Reecius wrote:Just because something doesn't look good to you, doesn't mean it isn't good for someone else. The game is local, as others have said. And at the highest levels of competition, you have to have a list that can take on anything or one bad match-up and you're boned.

Exactly, if you think someone has a bad list and they are playing you after you have won 2-3 games in a tournament doesnt that say something about your skills. You are unable to recognize how he was able to win his 2-3 games, thus you are at a disadvantage because you are underestimating him or dont understand his list. As the Great Roboute Guiliman would say, "Knowledge is Power" and you should never underestimate the power of a simple tool.

The 19th Legion is going to War Games Con, we are defending both the Mirror Match and 40k Grand Tournament titles! We are some good ole humble boys from the South, we just bring our A game and hope for the best.

Has anyone said anything about my Ork list? I haven't noticed.

Umm, your Ork list was terrible. How about that?

Terribly Awesome!! haha It was a tricky list and fun to play. I'm going to throw Zogwort in my next GT list. I want to Squig Drago or one of those dumb Inquisitors with that broken Psykotroke Gernade.

Anyone have any news on that Foot-wolves list? Can't seem to find it online, any other tourny goers match up against it?

Sekminara wrote:Anyone have any news on that Foot-wolves list? Can't seem to find it online, any other tourny goers match up against it?

The Foot-wolves list was mine. It basically contained:

1. one rune priest (LL and JotWW)
2. five units of grey hunters with standard and meltaguns, with one be "stubby" (i.e. it was 8 man no wolf standard)
3. three units of long fangs w/ missile launchers, one being "stubby" (4 missile launchers)
4. two units of scouts with melta
5. ten wolf guard, 5 termis(2 cyclones and all chain fists) and 5 power armor. One for each unit.

Because I don't play 40k much anymore, I chose an army based on a high level strategy to compensate for my tactical errors I knew I would make. The strategy: overwhelm with superior numbers. The army was very forgiving as it contains 86 or so models.

I lost first round to Nick. It was a good game with a good opponent. I had the game on turn 5, but alas, it continued to 6.

-Mike Mutscheller

Adam LongWalker wrote:

All I can say being a Celeb is that "you are judged by your actions" while gaming or not.

Stelek, Dash, Hulk (and a few others) are all polarizing players that have a core of people that listen to what they have to say.

What I am trying to say is to be aware in what your saying and say it in a positive or neutral manner. Back up your opinions with facts that you have on hand concerning the topic being discussed more so than others. That is the price of being a celeb here because people will listen to more on that you have to say than the blokes such as myself.

Can't help but think that being a 40k celebrity isn't as fun as it sounds.. You don't get female groupies or get to act all wild and crazy (And have the cops ignore it). I'm well known in the Pittsburgh area but that hasn't translated into many celeb perks :(

Not to mention that Hulk is about one of the nicest guys out there, even when running a maximum dickpunch list. I would rate him and Reece as two of the 40ks most gracious players, both in defeat and victory. Even comparing him to Stelek is just flat out insulting.

Awwwwwwww!!!!!

I love you too Phazael, you say the nicest things

Interesting thread! Thanks for the article link, Tasty. That was a good read.

A couple of things:

I personally wouldn't put Hulk in the same light as those... other guys.

I'm glad that I got to see what Alex Fennel's actual list looked like. I had heard that he had 10 Lychguard or some nonsense, so I'm glad that I got that sorted out. I love that he's rocking the Monolith! I still like Annihilation Barges better, but then I'm not in the top 16 at Adepticon so what do I know?

I'm hoping I can make it out next year. Damn school...

Monoliths deepstriking are tougher for me. My crazy Battlewagons with their Grabbin' Klaws, Wrecking Ball and Boarding Planks are my counter for all the fast skimmers out there. You better make that first Sweeping Attack count, you won't get a second chance with my list. ;-)

Well, Annihilation Barges aren't fast, but I get you. The AV14 on a skimmer can be ace against Orks, but there's so much melta out there that I find the Monolith to not often be worth its points.

My point isn't that the Monolith is bad, far from it! I'm just saying that personally I like the tesla destructors quite a bit, and since I generally bring two Annihilation Barges I fill that 3rd Heavy Support slot with some Canoptek Spyders so that I can beef up a scarab swarm and hopefully damage some of those pesky high AV vehicles that tend to give me problems.

Though, again, I'm just spitballing here. Anyone in the top 16 clearly knows what they are doing.

As a side note, why don't some of you San Diego guys roll up to TSG in Temecula for an event? I know it's a haul, but it's a great venue and the more great players we have the more fun the event are!

@Monster Rain - when is the next event up there? I'm always down to throw dice. ;-)

Dugg wrote:@Monster Rain - when is the next event up there? I'm always down to throw dice. ;-)

https://www.facebook.com/events/367797059932807/

Hope you can make it! Like them on Facebook so you can get the regular updates. There's all kinds of tourneys and leagues and whatnot going on all the time ,and the owners are super cool. They bought us all lunch because they forgot we had our league meeting this weekend and double booked us with a M:TG pre-release.

@Leth

I stopped posting in the lists and tactics section because there is just too much bad advice in there. So many people are so stuck on seeing things just one way. Or people who don't listen, as you said. It's annoying.

Now when I want advice on a list, I go to my friends that are really successful with a given army. I find that tends to give me more pointed advice that I can really use.

@CKO
You are right. It is easy to forget that most of us acted badly at some point. It is better to be patient and try to help, but some people just don't want to change! haha

@theHod
That's a good idea! If I go to NOVA I will go over to his blog and call him out, see if he picks up the gauntlet. That would be awesome, to beat him with one of my "terrible" lists, hahaha.

@HappyGrunt
And I was soooooo close to making the final 4! Agh, stupid dice! haha, oh well, I had a great time.



I have to agree that Hulk is a super cool guy in real life and a lot of fun to play. He and I have always had some really fun games.

Are there battle reports or videos or anything for top player? I am interested to see how that necron list works exactly.

Reecius wrote:@Leth

I stopped posting in the lists and tactics section because there is just too much bad advice in there. So many people are so stuck on seeing things just one way. Or people who don't listen, as you said. It's annoying.

Now when I want advice on a list, I go to my friends that are really successful with a given army. I find that tends to give me more pointed advice that I can really use.

@CKO
You are right. It is easy to forget that most of us acted badly at some point. It is better to be patient and try to help, but some people just don't want to change! haha

@theHod
That's a good idea! If I go to NOVA I will go over to his blog and call him out, see if he picks up the gauntlet. That would be awesome, to beat him with one of my "terrible" lists, hahaha.

@HappyGrunt
And I was soooooo close to making the final 4! Agh, stupid dice! haha, oh well, I had a great time.



I have to agree that Hulk is a super cool guy in real life and a lot of fun to play. He and I have always had some really fun games.

I second that. It's been a while since Hulk and I played since I go to very few national events and he doesn't live in our area anymore. But the games I played with Hulk are some of the best. I lost, I believe, all but 1 which we tied and they were all pleasant fun games.

haroon wrote:Are there battle reports or videos or anything for top player? I am interested to see how that necron list works exactly.

Well you can watch Alex playing his pink Necrons on the Independent Characters coverage of the Adepticon finals:

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/22050373


Unfortunately this is, of course, the game he loses to Brad, so we don't get to see any of his glorious victories, but at least its something.

Reecius wrote:@Leth

I stopped posting in the lists and tactics section because there is just too much bad advice in there.

Sadly, this happens a lot. All too often I see people arguing nonsense against seasoned tournament players...

As elitist as it sounds, I'm wondering if some sort of designation on one's profile as someone who is worth listening to might be worth looking into. For example, if someone routinely places at national tournaments with a given army they could be a "Dakka Certified Tactician" or something. That way when Reece tries to give some solid Footdar advice he's going to be given (theoretically) more consideration than the guy who's clearly never played a competitive game in his life.

Monster Rain wrote:

Reecius wrote:@Leth

I stopped posting in the lists and tactics section because there is just too much bad advice in there.

Sadly, this happens a lot. All too often I see people arguing nonsense against seasoned tournament players...

As elitist as it sounds, I'm wondering if some sort of designation on one's profile as someone who is worth listening to might be worth looking into. For example, if someone routinely places at national tournaments with a given army they could be a "Dakka Certified Tactician" or something. That way when Reece tries to give some solid Footdar advice he's going to be given (theoretically) more consideration than the guy who's clearly never played a competitive game in his life.

Unfortunately, I don't see this happening. Too many people would be upset that their dad's neighbor's uncle who beats everyone in the nowheresville basement tables isn't being given certs because they won't leave the basement.

Monster Rain wrote:

Reecius wrote:@Leth

I stopped posting in the lists and tactics section because there is just too much bad advice in there.

Sadly, this happens a lot. All too often I see people arguing nonsense against seasoned tournament players...

As elitist as it sounds, I'm wondering if some sort of designation on one's profile as someone who is worth listening to might be worth looking into. For example, if someone routinely places at national tournaments with a given army they could be a "Dakka Certified Tactician" or something. That way when Reece tries to give some solid Footdar advice he's going to be given (theoretically) more consideration than the guy who's clearly never played a competitive game in his life.

^Very solid idea. We really do need some way to confirm that the advice that we're getting is sound. I feel like on these forums a lot of the newer players tend to listen only to the advice of those that have massive post counts, when really many of those with 500+ posts are spamming 'thread-games' and the introductions forums.

The_Rogue_Engineer wrote:
The Foot-wolves list was mine. It basically contained:

1. one rune priest (LL and JotWW)
2. five units of grey hunters with standard and meltaguns, with one be "stubby" (i.e. it was 8 man no wolf standard)
3. three units of long fangs w/ missile launchers, one being "stubby" (4 missile launchers)
4. two units of scouts with melta
5. ten wolf guard, 5 termis(2 cyclones and all chain fists) and 5 power armor. One for each unit.

Because I don't play 40k much anymore, I chose an army based on a high level strategy to compensate for my tactical errors I knew I would make. The strategy: overwhelm with superior numbers. The army was very forgiving as it contains 86 or so models.

I lost first round to Nick. It was a good game with a good opponent. I had the game on turn 5, but alas, it continued to 6.

-Mike Mutscheller

Thanks for the info! I've been experimenting with power-armour heavy loganwing lists for a little while now, but without any (large) tournament experience I have little idea how foot-wolf lists perform on a larger scale. I noticed the armies that I have huge amounts of trouble with are Mechdar, Venom-spam, and Necron AV13 spam. They outmaneuver me to the point where I have an extremely difficult time getting into CC and CMLs are only so effective. Lately dropping logan down with a TDA priest and 5 MM longfangs has been relatively effective, but against other types of armies they get isolated and wrecked more quickly than I would like. How did you deal with these armies during the tournament (if you faced them)?

sharkticon wrote:

Monster Rain wrote:

Reecius wrote:@Leth

I stopped posting in the lists and tactics section because there is just too much bad advice in there.

Sadly, this happens a lot. All too often I see people arguing nonsense against seasoned tournament players...

As elitist as it sounds, I'm wondering if some sort of designation on one's profile as someone who is worth listening to might be worth looking into. For example, if someone routinely places at national tournaments with a given army they could be a "Dakka Certified Tactician" or something. That way when Reece tries to give some solid Footdar advice he's going to be given (theoretically) more consideration than the guy who's clearly never played a competitive game in his life.

Unfortunately, I don't see this happening. Too many people would be upset that their dad's neighbor's uncle who beats everyone in the nowheresville basement tables isn't being given certs because they won't leave the basement.

It's just too subjective. Just because someone goes to tournaments a lot doesn't necessarily means that they will give good advice. Besides, what may seem like good advice to someone may appear to be bad advice to someone else (at least from their perspective). And how do you determine the metric to see who should be certified? Play in 5 tournaments? 20 tournaments?

The trouble with top players contributing to the Army Lists forum in particular, and Tactics to a lesser extent, is that the sheer volume of posts drowns you out, and one inevitably gets burned out on posting the same advice repeatedly. Especially when people bullheadedly argue with you. Of course, some of the folks arguing are just coming from a different environment and metagame, and legitimately have different experiences to draw from. Others are plain ignorant. And most of the really great players are guys with real lives who are too busy with work and family to post on here 17,000 times over thirteen years.

I don't think we can really appoint certain people authorities on various armies or subjects. For one thing, the game environment and codexes change, and a person who was an expert with a given codex last year or five years ago may no longer be today. But more importantly, as a general rule people's arguments need to stand on their own merits, whether they've got tournament cred or not. One (admittedly pretty nerdy and gauche) way for experienced players to show credentials is to stick your GT placings in your signature and/or personal page. Big tournament results are independently-verifiable. It is letting your nerd flag fly rather proudly, however.

If you don't want to do that, well, readers who are genuinely interested will pay attention to threads like this one, and tournament results, and learn who's who. I'm glad that guys like Reece, Alex, and Doug occasionally post stuff. Other vets, guys like Greg Sparks or Marc Parker, for example, rarely post on here, but when they do, some of us make a point of paying attention.

@monster rain
I am flattered by that, thanks!

But like others have said, it is a hard thing to judge.

What tends to happen is as sekminara pointed out, there are people who post a lot and are forceful in their opinions that tend to get a lot of air time. Some of the best players in the country have been on Dakka for a decade and their post count is tiny.

When Yakface and Legoburner took Dakka over, they made some changes to the site that really boosted the number of people who hung out here.

Dakka became a much bigger, and much nicer place. All for the better, in general.

One side effect though, was that the good advice got diluted by noise. Dakka used to be a downright mean place, too. If you said something silly, you got attacked. That was crappy, but it had the side effect of forcing people to fact check what they said, and to really know their stuff or get flamed to hell and back.

So, it was a smaller community of very, very good players and the advice here was rock solid. Literally, the cutting edge for tactics and data.

That just isn't the case anymore. I still love Dakka, but it has changed a lot. Most of the changes have been for the better for the majority of people who hang out here, but the quality of data in tactics and lists has gone way down as a result.

What tends to happen is as sekminara pointed out, there are people who post a lot and are forceful in their opinions that tend to get a lot of air time. Some of the best players in the country have been on Dakka for a decade and their post count is tiny.

Hey now! My forceful opinions get no air time!

One side effect though, was that the good advice got diluted by noise. Dakka used to be a downright mean place, too. If you said something silly, you got attacked. That was crappy, but it had the side effect of forcing people to fact check what they said, and to really know their stuff or get flamed to hell and back.

In my experience the tactics and list building sections of Dakka have always been kind of a crapshoot depending on who was on at the time. Admittedly I joined a year after your visible join date. I have definitly noticed that the noise has been turned up over the last few years though, it's happened on almost every section of the forum.

I generally avoid tactics and list building these days, most advice I want to give is the same advice I want to give in most threads and I tend to find that my opinion has been stated by someone already and that that specific person is being ignored. I'll jump into the debates about what constitutes good design decisions on GWs part, but even those are so full of white noise that it's hard to keep a conversation straight. In my opinion listbuilding advise is better given in a non public format, where the call and response can be measured with a smaller pool of participants.

Most of the really detailed and substantive advice I've given over the last few years is to people who specifically approached me via PM.

I used to give out lots of advice on the army lists and tactics forum. Then I kinda got burned out on the army list forum, for a lot of the reasons others have said. My posting has dropped off a lot in the last few years because of law school, but even now I don't necessarily see myself posting a lot in the tactics forum. Not as much free time as I used to.

any word on that ork list ? ^.^

Disarray wrote:any word on that ork list ? ^.^

Yep, read from page 3 on, there's several posts over a number of pages about Duggs army:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/60/445500.page#4202876

It was 3 Battlewagons this year not 4.

All my wagons had everything on them but Ard Cases. 8-)

A Wagon of Shootas
A Wagon of Slugga Choppas
A Wagon of Burnas
A Trukk of Shootas
Snikrot & Kommandos + 2Burnas
1 Koppta squad of 2 with 1 buzzsaw
Ghaz
KFF Mek + Klaw

That's the nuts of this list

Dugg wrote:It was 3 Battlewagons this year not 4.

All my wagons had everything on them but Ard Cases. 8-)

A Wagon of Shootas
A Wagon of Slugga Choppas
A Wagon of Burnas
A Trukk of Shootas
Snikrot & Kommandos + 2Burnas
1 Koppta squad of 2 with 1 buzzsaw
Ghaz
KFF Mek + Klaw

That's the nuts of this list

That is pretty dang close to a list I was planning on running in a couple weeks at a tournament out here. Only really difference is I take much chearper BWs, and no trukk. How did that trukk do? I used to run 2-3 in lists, but never considered one since it would seem to be such an easy target for S7-8 shooting. Also surprised to see no lootas, is your anti-transport just smashing face with the wagons?

Mannahnin wrote:Most of the really detailed and substantive advice I've given over the last few years is to people who specifically approached me via PM.

This or most of the "better" players have their own blog/website that makes it easier to ask them questions while avoiding a lot of the white noise that comes along with the Army List section.

reps0l wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:Most of the really detailed and substantive advice I've given over the last few years is to people who specifically approached me via PM.

This or most of the "better" players have their own blog/website that makes it easier to ask them questions while avoiding a lot of the white noise that comes along with the Army List section.

I think you wrote "better" when you meant "more vocal and prone to blogging".

reps0l wrote:This or most of the "better" players have their own blog/website that makes it easier to ask them questions while avoiding a lot of the white noise that comes along with the Army List section.

So, now all I have to do is figure out which bloggers are worth listening to instead of which posters. A task made much harder by the fact that on a blog, they can effectively shut down any contrary opinions. If you read all the blogs, you'll get more bad information than good, and it won't have been subjected to the sort of community review that it would get if posted in an open forum.

Redbeard wrote:

reps0l wrote:This or most of the "better" players have their own blog/website that makes it easier to ask them questions while avoiding a lot of the white noise that comes along with the Army List section.

So, now all I have to do is figure out which bloggers are worth listening to instead of which posters. A task made much harder by the fact that on a blog, they can effectively shut down any contrary opinions. If you read all the blogs, you'll get more bad information than good, and it won't have been subjected to the sort of community review that it would get if posted in an open forum.

That's never been more true, they have BlackBowFly doing articles on tactics for BOLS. Worse advice, lacking spelling or logic has never been given to the masses.

I love how someone is considering self-maintained/censored blogs to be genuine representations of advice and tactics as opposed to ones that go up on public forums. Because clearly such things that survive, counteract and improve because of general criticisms are inferior to such things that just mass delete negative opinions and stick their heads in the sand with words to the effect of 'it's my party, I'll cry if I want to'.

Almost sounds like spin pushing for a blog of their own.

DarkStarSabre wrote:I love how someone is considering self-maintained/censored blogs to be genuine representations of advice and tactics as opposed to ones that go up on public forums. Because clearly such things that survive, counteract and improve because of general criticisms are inferior to such things that just mass delete negative opinions and stick their heads in the sand with words to the effect of 'it's my party, I'll cry if I want to'.

Almost sounds like spin pushing for a blog of their own.

Neither source is particularly great, though I'd opt for listening to someone I believe to be speaking from experience rather than crowdsourcing.

DarkStarSabre wrote:I love how someone is considering self-maintained/censored blogs to be genuine representations of advice and tactics as opposed to ones that go up on public forums. Because clearly such things that survive, counteract and improve because of general criticisms are inferior to such things that just mass delete negative opinions and stick their heads in the sand with words to the effect of 'it's my party, I'll cry if I want to'.

Almost sounds like spin pushing for a blog of their own.

I think this may be going to the other extreme. Blogs are just like forum posts. Some are good, some are bad, some are potentially harmful. The difference is that there is no moderation staff or they are self-moderated/edited on their site. I don't know that I would attribute that level of censorship or control, etc to most blog others.

pretre wrote:

DarkStarSabre wrote:I love how someone is considering self-maintained/censored blogs to be genuine representations of advice and tactics as opposed to ones that go up on public forums. Because clearly such things that survive, counteract and improve because of general criticisms are inferior to such things that just mass delete negative opinions and stick their heads in the sand with words to the effect of 'it's my party, I'll cry if I want to'.

Almost sounds like spin pushing for a blog of their own.

I think this may be going to the other extreme. Blogs are just like forum posts. Some are good, some are bad, some are potentially harmful. The difference is that there is no moderation staff or they are self-moderated/edited on their site. I don't know that I would attribute that level of censorship or control, etc to most blog others.

Thank you pretre. The point of the post, which was prompted by Mannahnin, is that you get more personal advice when you PM (here) or contribute to someone's blog vice posting in the Army List section. I've read tons of priceless advice Mannahnin has given out, majority of which are found in YMDC or Tactics. I'm pretty sure I haven't seen Reecius give us newb's advice on an Army List, but from what I've read on this thread, he knows his stuff.

I'm not going to put up an open post in Army List in hopes that either of the aforementioned gentlemen will provide me with meaningful, personal army advice.

Yes blogs are biased and that's why you only follow the ones that you, in your opinion, agree with. You filter just as you do posts in a thread but there is usually far less minutiae.

Apologies to Mannahnin and Reecius for using you as examples. Nothin' but love <3

@DarkStarSabre Please follow my blog. Link is in my signature...

This topic comes up from time to time. I think that, at a certain point, it becomes a player's responsibility to pick what advice he takes.

90% of winning games of warhammer comes from knowing the rules, knowing the codices, knowing the army that you're playing, and making sure your army includes the basic tools to deal with most threats (at least some anti-tank, etc.)

The rest is the fiddly details of list construction and tactics.

the best "tactical" advice is to read the rules, read the codices, and play at least 10 games with your list before going to a tournament. Build your list understanding what units you expect to face, and have an answer for all of them.

Do those things, and you will win more than you lose.

Until you do those things, agonizing over specific upgrades, or switching armies, or reading endless critiques of army lists won't help you that much.

Polonius wrote:This topic comes up from time to time. I think that, at a certain point, it becomes a player's responsibility to pick what advice he takes.

90% of winning games of warhammer comes from knowing the rules, knowing the codices, knowing the army that you're playing, and making sure your army includes the basic tools to deal with most threats (at least some anti-tank, etc.)

The rest is the fiddly details of list construction and tactics.

If only I had your optimism that such a large percentage of wins comes from actual player skill or competence. I would be a much happier gamer.

Polonius wrote:90% of winning games of warhammer comes from knowing the rules, knowing the codices, knowing the army that you're playing, and making sure your army includes the basic tools to deal with most threats (at least some anti-tank, etc.)

The rest is the fiddly details of list construction and tactics.

That's sig-worthy.

pretre wrote:

DarkStarSabre wrote:I love how someone is considering self-maintained/censored blogs to be genuine representations of advice and tactics as opposed to ones that go up on public forums. Because clearly such things that survive, counteract and improve because of general criticisms are inferior to such things that just mass delete negative opinions and stick their heads in the sand with words to the effect of 'it's my party, I'll cry if I want to'.

Almost sounds like spin pushing for a blog of their own.

I think this may be going to the other extreme. Blogs are just like forum posts. Some are good, some are bad, some are potentially harmful. The difference is that there is no moderation staff or they are self-moderated/edited on their site. I don't know that I would attribute that level of censorship or control, etc to most blog others.

I agree with a lot of what you're saying. When it comes to blogs you need to just read through and see what their comment moderation is like. For example on C&C the only comments that are deleted are spam from "russian brides.com" etc, or comments that use offensive language. For a short while we had a guy who just went on and flamed everything I wrote about playing Vanilla Marines or Space Wolves. He also started to just flame every painting or modelling article I would write. I just endured it, we didn't want to overly moderate any comments on the site. Not all blogs are that way, but painting all blogs with the same brush of being bad to read because some blogs overly moderate the discussion is not fair.

Basically what some people are saying is that the list and tactics section is nearly useless due to the white noise of bad opinions (and I tend to agree, I stopped posting in the list forum too for the most part) but blogs are bad too because they are overly moderated or not moderated enough by the community. So where are people to turn for advice?

@Dugg I am continually impressed by your Ork lists and ability with the army. The best was watching you play Grimgob at the BAO this year.

OverwatchCNC wrote: So where are people to turn for advice?

Two answers:
- People or communities that you respect. When I post lists, it is generally to a forum where I know that 1 or 2 people I want the opinion of will post back. This also sometimes includes title baiting (using specific phrases to attract the person whose opinion you want) or I just PM'ing them and asking for their feedback directly.
- Know how to filter. Sometimes I will post a list or concept to an open forum like dakka and just see what comes back. Inevitably, some folks with 'alternative' ideas chime in, I thank them for their input and mentally evaluate whether it is worth holding onto or even debating with them. Occasionally, you can get some nuggets of good info this way.

@OverwatchCNC Thanks. But I didn't play Grimgob at BAO. I think you are thinking of Warboss Russ. Both Grimgob and Warboss Russ are really good Ork players and fun to watch.


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@greenbay924 The Trukk is used in reserve in most cases but not all. It's fast and can be used to suprise an opponent, jump on an objective so on. Lootas are hit and miss with me. I would rather have a big squad of scoring boys with a Nob and Bosspole. A big squad of boys can get multiple kill points in a turn and usually do for me, while Loota are a none scoring, none moving single targeting unit that can be ran off the board quite easily.

And Deffrollas are the best! I'm all about rollas. I'm not just talking about the Strength they give to my army, I'm talking about how ORKY they are. They are just so much fun to play. I'm pretty happy with my Grabbin Klaws and Wrecking Balls too. There are so many skimmers out there now that I can really put them to good use.

Dugg wrote:@OverwatchCNC Thanks. But I didn't play Grimgob at BAO. I think you are thinking of Warboss Russ. Both Grimgob and Warboss Russ are really good Ork players and fun to watch.


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@greenbay924 The Trukk is used in reserve in most cases but not all. It's fast and can be used to suprise an opponent, jump on an objective so on. Lootas are hit and miss with me. I would rather have a big squad of scoring boys with a Nob and Bosspole. A big squad of boys can get multiple kill points in a turn and usually do for me, while Loota are a none scoring, none moving single targeting unit that can be ran off the board quite easily.

And Deffrollas are the best! I'm all about rollas. I'm not just talking about the Strength they give to my army, I'm talking about how ORKY they are. They are just so much fun to play. I'm pretty happy with my Grabbin Klaws and Wrecking Balls too. There are so many skimmers out there now that I can really put them to good use.

Oops. All you Ork players, and I can't keep you straight! Sorry about that I knew it was Russ, don't know why I made that mistake.

OverwatchCNC wrote:Oops. All you Ork players, and I can't keep you straight! Sorry about that I knew it was Russ, don't know why I made that mistake.

You, sir, are a Species-ist! Disgusting.

pretre wrote:

OverwatchCNC wrote:Oops. All you Ork players, and I can't keep you straight! Sorry about that I knew it was Russ, don't know why I made that mistake.

You, sir, are a Species-ist! Disgusting.

Absolutely. I can't tell the Eldar players apart either...

To further the Dugg Love. Doug is my hero.

I think I am going to get Russ, Grimgob and Dugg to autograph the BW I use for Ghaz in my list!!!

Seems like an orky thing to do!!!

@ Blood Lord - Just name the Nobz that run your boy squads after us.

I love how people take lists apart based on own ideas.

The bad thing being, not 2 gamers play or think the same way.
While you may think crushers are the best choice, other players may find the extra attacks and movement to be better fitted to their style of play.

Again though it comes down to (as stated) a persons ability to play the game.
Throw a new gamer a leafblower list and watch him/her fail due to lack of experience and not knowing what he/she is up against.


While a strong list is vital, being a strong gamer far outweighs this in my opinion.


Obviously we have certain units here and there which are voted by everyone as sub-par (pyrovores anyone?)
However, certain units cant really be gauged against another for effective use as its down to the gamer on how they use said unit.

Like the daemons list, i would prefer seekers and fiends over crushers.
I think a big flaw of the daemons (deployment being another) is the lack of movement in the real heavy hitters.

No unit from the daemons book has the ability to keep pace with D/Eldar and hit as hard as pups in CC.
And by unit i mean non GD, before someone says thirster

Anyways, like ive said, its just a persons opinion of something, which makes mine no more or less valid than anothers.

Dugg wrote:@OverwatchCNC Thanks. But I didn't play Grimgob at BAO. I think you are thinking of Warboss Russ. Both Grimgob and Warboss Russ are really good Ork players and fun to watch.


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@greenbay924 The Trukk is used in reserve in most cases but not all. It's fast and can be used to suprise an opponent, jump on an objective so on. Lootas are hit and miss with me. I would rather have a big squad of scoring boys with a Nob and Bosspole. A big squad of boys can get multiple kill points in a turn and usually do for me, while Loota are a none scoring, none moving single targeting unit that can be ran off the board quite easily.

And Deffrollas are the best! I'm all about rollas. I'm not just talking about the Strength they give to my army, I'm talking about how ORKY they are. They are just so much fun to play. I'm pretty happy with my Grabbin Klaws and Wrecking Balls too. There are so many skimmers out there now that I can really put them to good use.

Holding the trukk in reserve was my exact thought AFTER my post, it's large threat range means it can still get across table (about 29" charge range iirc, thought about doing something similar with a MANZ unit).

I'm glad to see ork players well respected and doing well in large tournaments, after reading the new SW, Necrons, BA, GK, DE codexes, then rereading my ork codex, I can't help but well lack luster in comparison.

I'd really like to pick your brain at some point regarding certain army mach ups, but as it stands I don't have enough current play testing to have any really important questions.

@Jackal - I agree, everyone has a dif playing style and should push themselves to try new lists and weird combos until they find something that works for them. It sucks when a gamer drops major $ on an Army just to find out it doesn't fit their playing style.

Kind of funny how the topic devolved from lists to whose opinion is worth listening to or not. Does it really matter? It does not take a genius to see what list are the "in" list at the moment. But just because you can copy a list does not mean you can play it against all match ups. Thats what makes the difference and only gaming experience will give you that information.

Plus I agree with Mannahnin there are lot of good players that rarely post enough that people would even know who they are.

I am betting if you took a poll of people on Dakka to list the top 25 or 50 players it would consist of many people who post here on Dakka or who spend a great amount of time on the internet in general. I guess they could also think that RankingHQ would count........ Either way there are many really good players that you just never see on the forums.

Personally I find it far more interesting to watch and even see those players that are not taking the net lists but are still great players and watch how they are playing against the current power builds.

The problem is none of you are Brad Chester who wins on being Brad Chester. He was kind enought to inform me I chowdered our room after drinking with the Swedes. none of you won overall at adepticon like Brad or Tony since the new format was introduced. You need to get better at 40k. I could beat that army story is fail since you haven't. congrats Brad since you are what team america needs it is you.

For anyone who is interested I've put up a breakdown of my list in the tactics section with a description of how I used each unit. For the folks who asked me, I hope that helps

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/446972.page

Blood Lord Soldado wrote:To further the Dugg Love. Doug is my hero.

I think I am going to get Russ, Grimgob and Dugg to autograph the BW I use for Ghaz in my list!!!

Seems like an orky thing to do!!!

No, the orky thing to do would be to mount their lifeless 'eads on your wagon to prove that you're bigger and killier than them gits!

The Everliving wrote:For anyone who is interested I've put up a breakdown of my list in the tactics section with a description of how I used each unit. For the folks who asked me, I hope that helps

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/446972.page

Thanks Alex! I greatly value your thoughts.

: )

Thanks for posting that, Everliving! Very cool seeing your thoughts/reasoning behind the list... it's shocking how different that is from what I would have thought of us as a typical Necron "power build". So diverse, but seemingly, very effective!

Polonius wrote:
90% of winning games of warhammer comes from knowing the rules, knowing the codices, knowing the army that you're playing, and making sure your army includes the basic tools to deal with most threats (at least some anti-tank, etc.)

I agree that you have to do all of those things to be competitive.

IMO the more skilled and experienced player almost always wins, probably 95%+ of the time. If the players are basically equivalent it may be more like a coin flip. I suspect one is usually more experienced or thoughtful and so I wouldn't think there would be too many 50/50 games. In multiple games where you select your materials and that include luck I've noticed that when the remaining players are all godlike whoever takes the meta into account usually has a huge advantage. There really should be very few terrible match ups and even those can easily be overcome by skillful play and capitalizing on the many mistakes that all but the best make in each game. These terrible match ups are probably from people taking highly specialized lists which is usually a sign of a general who is not one of the best.

In regards to luck I think of 40k as a gambling game since in the short term there is quite a bit of luck. Even in one entire game though I think the luck evens out pretty well in at least 9 out of 10 games. I recently ran off a unit of Paladins with 6 TH/SS Terminators which was lucky enough and then they only needed a 9 for morale. They failed and ran off the board immediately. My opponent wanted to quit. I refused. He ended up winning 25-5 LOL! It was a very interesting game.

IMO the more skilled and experienced player almost always wins, probably 95%+ of the time. If the players are basically equivalent it may be more like a coin flip. I suspect one is usually more experienced or thoughtful and so I wouldn't think there would be too many 50/50 games. In multiple games where you select your materials and that include luck I've noticed that when the remaining players are all godlike whoever takes the meta into account usually has a huge advantage. There really should be very few terrible match ups and even those can easily be overcome by skillful play and capitalizing on the many mistakes that all but the best make in each game.

This is a wholly unrealistic view of 40k as a competitive game in my opinion. I'm likely more of a pessimist than you, but this game is riven with terrible matchups that would see the best player on earth praying for a tie. 40k isn't even close to having unified balance across all factions and it has no mechanic what so ever to fix matchup imbalances (something that every other competitive game of this nature has). If 40k had rules for sideboarding and the codexes weren't written by stooges the core mechanics of the game could provide for some very balanced matches. We don't have those though, and as it is if tau roll up against horde orks, tyranids role up against mech IG, or BAs roll up against draigowing they might as well not bother deploying at all.

@Shuma

I disagree. If I build an all comer list I don't really have any bad match-ups. Same goes for most of the known GT winners that I know. It might be that you struggle at providing yourself the tools you need and so see bad match-ups more frequently.

As for your examples I laugh a little inside. Most of the Tau players I know could handle horde orks. Mech IG are one of my easier games with Nids, and it would depend on the BA but most shouldn't fear Draigowing since they can massively outmanuever it. Based on your examples I'd say it's more the player than the game that's an issue.

I disagree. If I build an all comer list I don't really have any bad match-ups. Same goes for most of the known GT winners that I know. It might be that you struggle at providing yourself the tools you need and so see bad match-ups more frequently.

Or it could be that you're playing one of the metas current top armies.

Hulksmash wrote:@Shuma

I disagree. If I build an all comer list I don't really have any bad match-ups. Same goes for most of the known GT winners that I know. It might be that you struggle at providing yourself the tools you need and so see bad match-ups more frequently.

As for your examples I laugh a little inside. Most of the Tau players I know could handle horde orks. Mech IG are one of my easier games with Nids, and it would depend on the BA but most shouldn't fear Draigowing since they can massively outmanuever it. Based on your examples I'd say it's more the player than the game that's an issue.

Ditto, I never show up to an event with an army, of any book I play, that I know can't win against something I might see. Even my 0 melta gk army ( also 0 psycannons) has the ability to handle tri- raider lists with tank- blocking and movement shenanigans. Most skilled players build lists that can win against anything they might possibly see, though it isn't always obvious and may be accomplished via play rather than obvious entries in their lists. Some matchups are harder than others, but it you build right you should never have a seriously skewed and/ or unwinnable match

Hulksmash wrote:
I disagree. If I build an all comer list I don't really have any bad match-ups.

While this is an admirable viewpoint, I wonder what your definition of bad is. If you mean that you have no unwinnable match-ups, I can agree with you. But, I seriously doubt that the same list has the same chance of winning games against deathwing, horde orks, and mech guard. Each of the three require different tools to defeat, and while an all-comers list will have some tools required to defeat them all, it won't have them all in the numbers that it might like.

If you win 50% of your games against horde armies, 60% against deathwing, and 75% against mech guard, then the horde matchup is a 'bad' one. It's worse than the others. It's not unwinnable, but it's a tighter fight than the others. And, that's OK. If you expect the field to be 75% mech armies, then maintaining the 75% win odds against those is probably worth having only a 50% against the hordes that you really don't expect to face. I'd even argue that, against a 75% mech field, it's the right decision to skew your victory chances towards those builds and away from hordes.

Target wrote:

Hulksmash wrote:@Shuma

I disagree. If I build an all comer list I don't really have any bad match-ups. Same goes for most of the known GT winners that I know. It might be that you struggle at providing yourself the tools you need and so see bad match-ups more frequently.

As for your examples I laugh a little inside. Most of the Tau players I know could handle horde orks. Mech IG are one of my easier games with Nids, and it would depend on the BA but most shouldn't fear Draigowing since they can massively outmanuever it. Based on your examples I'd say it's more the player than the game that's an issue.

Ditto, I never show up to an event with an army, of any book I play, that I know can't win against something I might see. Even my 0 melta gk army ( also 0 psycannons) has the ability to handle tri- raider lists with tank- blocking and movement shenanigans. Most skilled players build lists that can win against anything they might possibly see, though it isn't always obvious and may be accomplished via play rather than obvious entries in their lists. Some matchups are harder than others, but it you build right you should never have a seriously skewed and/ or unwinnable match

I don't think saying "I can make a good all comers list with grey knights" is the same as "I can make a good all comers list with tau, tyranids, dark angels, chaos demons, or orks". A thread a few above this one just got locked after 80 pages of people debating whether or not the grey knights were blatently overpowered. Not every army can do that, in fact the majority can't.


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Redbeard wrote:

Hulksmash wrote:
I disagree. If I build an all comer list I don't really have any bad match-ups.

While this is an admirable viewpoint, I wonder what your definition of bad is. If you mean that you have no unwinnable match-ups, I can agree with you. But, I seriously doubt that the same list has the same chance of winning games against deathwing, horde orks, and mech guard. Each of the three require different tools to defeat, and while an all-comers list will have some tools required to defeat them all, it won't have them all in the numbers that it might like.

If you win 50% of your games against horde armies, 60% against deathwing, and 75% against mech guard, then the horde matchup is a 'bad' one. It's worse than the others. It's not unwinnable, but it's a tighter fight than the others. And, that's OK. If you expect the field to be 75% mech armies, then maintaining the 75% win odds against those is probably worth having only a 50% against the hordes that you really don't expect to face. I'd even argue that, against a 75% mech field, it's the right decision to skew your victory chances towards those builds and away from hordes.

Now do the numbers for chaos marines, tyranids, generic space marines, or tau and see what those win percentages are. Chances are that more than one of them is going to be sub 50% against equally skilled opponants. This game has bad matchups and bad armies. They exist. Pretending they don't while admitting that a win rate is based off of the games current most powerful army is a bit disingenuous. There is no tau list that can beat both grey knights and descent of angels. There is no generic space marine list that can beat both horde orks and draigowing.

@Redbeard- I would just like to point out my BattleWagon Ork list beats all 3, Deathwing, Horde Orks& Mech Guard continuously at Tournaments.

I have to agree with Hulk

Dugg wrote:@Redbeard- I would just like to point out my BattleWagon Ork list beats all 3, Deathwing, Horde Orks& Mech Guard continuously at Tournaments.

I have to agree with Hulk

To reiterate, there are like 14 codexes. Everyone knows orks, GKs, SWs, and IG can make all comers lists with good odds against everything. Thats why they are the armies that consistently place high in tournaments.

Now make one with one of the other TEN codexes. After that magic do it nine more times. Then this game is balanced. Until you can pull off that magic, or at least do a halfy and get seven codexes with nice even all comers lists than this game isn't even close to balanced.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Target wrote:

Hulksmash wrote:@Shuma

I disagree. If I build an all comer list I don't really have any bad match-ups. Same goes for most of the known GT winners that I know. It might be that you struggle at providing yourself the tools you need and so see bad match-ups more frequently.

As for your examples I laugh a little inside. Most of the Tau players I know could handle horde orks. Mech IG are one of my easier games with Nids, and it would depend on the BA but most shouldn't fear Draigowing since they can massively outmanuever it. Based on your examples I'd say it's more the player than the game that's an issue.

Ditto, I never show up to an event with an army, of any book I play, that I know can't win against something I might see. Even my 0 melta gk army ( also 0 psycannons) has the ability to handle tri- raider lists with tank- blocking and movement shenanigans. Most skilled players build lists that can win against anything they might possibly see, though it isn't always obvious and may be accomplished via play rather than obvious entries in their lists. Some matchups are harder than others, but it you build right you should never have a seriously skewed and/ or unwinnable match

I don't think saying "I can make a good all comers list with grey knights" is the same as "I can make a good all comers list with tau, tyranids, dark angels, chaos demons, or orks". A thread a few above this one just got locked after 80 pages of people debating whether or not the grey knights were blatently overpowered. Not every army can do that, in fact the majority can't.


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Redbeard wrote:

Hulksmash wrote:
I disagree. If I build an all comer list I don't really have any bad match-ups.

While this is an admirable viewpoint, I wonder what your definition of bad is. If you mean that you have no unwinnable match-ups, I can agree with you. But, I seriously doubt that the same list has the same chance of winning games against deathwing, horde orks, and mech guard. Each of the three require different tools to defeat, and while an all-comers list will have some tools required to defeat them all, it won't have them all in the numbers that it might like.

If you win 50% of your games against horde armies, 60% against deathwing, and 75% against mech guard, then the horde matchup is a 'bad' one. It's worse than the others. It's not unwinnable, but it's a tighter fight than the others. And, that's OK. If you expect the field to be 75% mech armies, then maintaining the 75% win odds against those is probably worth having only a 50% against the hordes that you really don't expect to face. I'd even argue that, against a 75% mech field, it's the right decision to skew your victory chances towards those builds and away from hordes.

Now do the numbers for chaos marines, tyranids, generic space marines, or tau and see what those win percentages are. Chances are that more than one of them is going to be sub 50% against equally skilled opponants. This game has bad matchups and bad armies. They exist. Pretending they don't while admitting that a win rate is based off of the games current most powerful army is a bit disingenuous. There is no tau list that can beat both grey knights and descent of angels. There is no generic space marine list that can beat both horde orks and draigowing.

We're not just talking gk. Hulk specifically spoke of his nids and other armies. I play gk, ig, eldar and the same philosophy applies. Also, as to vanilla sm: khan. A buddy of mIne, dameon, plays a khan list with thunderfires, it routinely beats both of those lists without much to do ( he's also a gt winner, with khan bikers). It's mainly the player once you start talking gt play and not just shop level fun games.

We're not just talking gk. Hulk specifically spoke of his nids and other armies. I play gk, ig, eldar and the same philosophy applies

So two of the three armies that have good all comers lists and one with a good standard list set that can easily defang GKs and win GTs as long as it doesn't have to face mech spam. I'm sure you're a brilliant general, we're not talking about bad players here and I'm not trying to imply skill doesn't exist, but until I actually start seeing a varied field of winners in GTs and other major tournaments than I'm not going to be convinced that "the only difference is the player". Were that the case you wouldn't all have GK and IG armies and someone would of taken nids to adepticon. It's inane that you can stand there and pretend that every army can make a tournament winning all comers list with such red herrings as tau and DAs who both have armies that they can't beat being both popular and easily run.

When was the last GT he won with the bikes and what did he face?Was it during the reign of mech guard? Did he ever roll up against an ork army with 220+ orks? Draigowing?

ShumaGorath wrote:

I disagree. If I build an all comer list I don't really have any bad match-ups. Same goes for most of the known GT winners that I know. It might be that you struggle at providing yourself the tools you need and so see bad match-ups more frequently.

Or it could be that you're playing one of the metas current top armies.

Umm... He specifically mentions playing Nids against mech guard in his post...

Let's try to not turn this thread into the "GK are overpowered zomg" mini thread now that the original has finally been closed.

I fully agree with Hulk. A well built list can take on anyone. Perhaps not Tau or sister, but all the other codices made appearances this last season in the top 16. Nids even won Kingdom Con just a few weeks ago.


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ShumaGorath wrote:

We're not just talking gk. Hulk specifically spoke of his nids and other armies. I play gk, ig, eldar and the same philosophy applies

So two of the three armies that have good all comers lists and one with a good standard list set that can easily defang GKs and win GTs as long as it doesn't have to face mech spam. I'm sure you're a brilliant general, we're not talking about bad players here and I'm not trying to imply skill doesn't exist, but until I actually start seeing a varied field of winners in GTs and other major tournaments than I'm not going to be convinced that "the only difference is the player". Were that the case you wouldn't all have GK and IG armies and someone would of taken nids to adepticon.

When was the last GT he won with the bikes and what did he face?Was it during the reign of mech guard? Did he ever roll up against an ork army with 220+ orks? Draigowing?

That is exactly what you seem to be implying.

@Redbeard

Shuma stated that there are match-ups that will have good players praying for a tie. I disagreed with that. I probably should have stated it more clearly but I was using bad match-up in the sense that Shuma was, i.e. an unwinnable game.

@Shuma

I play Tyranids, Orks, Daemons, DA, SW, all foot GK's, Necrons, and am currently building my IW's to be played as basic SM's and CSM's. I play in a lot of events. I place well in 99% of the events I attend. I've been to exactly 2 RTT's in the last year that I didn't take home General or Overall. Oddly one of those was with GK In GT's I normally finish relatively high competitively with my overall depending on which army I brought for appearance. I'm a relatively smart guy and feel I have a bit of a grasp on this hobby.

Honestly you have a tendency to inflame your posts with so much hyperbole that I'm not sure you even play the same game. And as a sidenote I could build a Generic SM list that could handle Draigo & Horde Orks (and have tools for the other threats in between) and I could build Tau the same way in your example. Sorry man. Spend less time ranting and more time playing and you'll be surprised.

Dugg wrote:@Redbeard- I would just like to point out my BattleWagon Ork list beats all 3, Deathwing, Horde Orks& Mech Guard continuously at Tournaments.

Dugg, I'd like to point out that you beat all three continuously at tournaments.

One problem I see in discussions like this is the really good players come in and say they have no bad matchups (ever) and back it up by pointing to their own wins. But that isn't necessarily proof that you don't have a bad matchup, it is simply proof that you're good enough of a player to beat inferior opponents in spite of the bad matchup.

The concept of having both good and bad matchups isn't hard to prove logically. Visiting theoretical land (like that place in physics class where there is no friction or air resistance), if you have an opponent of equal skill, with an identical list, you should win 50% of your games. If he keeps his list constant, and you make a change that increases your winning percentage, you now have a good matchup, and he has a bad matchup. You have a greater than 50% winning percentage, and he has less than 50%.

I think that matchups play a far smaller role than player skill. But I think that matchups are a factor, and they're one that, over the course of an eight round tournament that you need to go undefeated to win, can have an impact, and accepting some unfavourable matchups, especially if you do not expect to face those archetypes, can pay off well if it increases your chance of winning the matchups that you do expect to have.

Honestly you have a tendency to inflame your posts with so much hyperbole that I'm not sure you even play the same game. And as a sidenote I could build a Generic SM list that could handle Draigo & Horde Orks (and have tools for the other threats in between) and I could build Tau the same way in your example. Sorry man. Spend less time ranting and more time playing and you'll be surprised.

What are those lists? What is the tau list specifically? I do have quite a bit of hyperbole in my posts and I'll try to step it down, but the tau community would probably love to know what that list is. No player I've ever seen has found it.

Sorry man. Spend less time ranting and more time playing and you'll be surprised.

I'd say to put your money where your mouth is but you've done that with the power armies listed. That leaves me to as wheres your GT with tau? Nids? Space marines? Where is anyones tyranid GT?

I rant alot because this game is fundamentally imbalanced and some players are willing to state beyond logic that despite severe and visible codex imbalance "skill trumps all". Logically that would mean that two skilled players would win based on codex balance. That appears to be how virtually every major event ends, so I'm not sure where the tau white knighting is coming from. I don't see people arguing that codex imbalance doesn't exist, just that it can be overcome by player skill. There are two sides to that coin though, and if you're a skilled player and they're a skilled player than something has to give and it's going to be a break based on matchup imbalance much of the time.

What Redbeard is describing is largely what was the state of Eldar during the 4th edition era. The armies that hard countered them (orks and IG) were used so infrequently and MEQ was so common that you could really dominate with Eldar by just tailoring to kill marines and ignoring anything else. Meanwhile the MEQ guys were so busy optimizing for each other that all they could manage to do about it was whine and cry until the book got nerfed.

I think there is definately an elite set of armies, but the dispairity is nowhere near what fantasy is like. Cheese Wolves make Nids cry and specific GK builds (hint not Draigo) take a giant dump on Nids, Orks, and BAs, but outside that skill can close the gap.

And I would just like to say that we should disregard any balance discussion where a book written by Cruddace is involved. Say what you want about Matt 3++ Ward, at least his books have a lot of variety and age well.

ShumaGorath wrote:
I rant alot because this game is fundamentally imbalanced and some players are willing to state beyond logic that despite severe and visible codex imbalance "skill trumps all".

I don't think anyone has said skill trumps all. But, on relatively even footing - such as at a very large event where most players have gravitated towards the more powerful armies, skill will usually be the deciding factor. Players with skill who opt to take less competitive armies will lose games when they encounter equally skilled players with better armies.

Logically that would mean that two skilled players would win based on codex balance. That appears to be how virtually every major event ends, so I'm not sure where the tau white knighting is coming from. I don't see people arguing that codex imbalance doesn't exist, just that it can be overcome by player skill. There are two sides to that coin though, and if you're a skilled player and they're a skilled player than something has to give and it's going to be a break based on matchup imbalance much of the time.

Or one player being drunk, or hungover, or sick. Or one mistake. Your logic here is good - when presented with two players of equal skill, something else has to be the deciding factor. And sometimes it will be the matchup, and sometimes the mission will favour one person, and sometimes going first will be the deciding factor and sometimes a fluke dieroll will do it. But most games aren't played between equally skilled opponents, and one player will be in a better position to exploit a mistake or recover from a fluke roll. And that's where those skill differences show up.

@Shuma

Provide me a basic template and I'll knock it out for you Shuma. Because if I put up a list based on what I think DOA or GK lists look like you'll scream murder that it can't handle what you see as those lists. PM me and we'll continue the discussion.

@Phazael

I know I was hella successful in 4th with my Orks because I geared them to kill marines. Ahhhh, the good ol'days when 80% of the field was in power armor....

I don't think anyone has said skill trumps all. But, on relatively even footing - such as at a very large event where most players have gravitated towards the more powerful armies, skill will usually be the deciding factor.

Yes, intercodex games are inherently balanced. The problem is you're reaching the end of an imbalanced field of imbalanced games to have a series of well balanced top games. That bleed off is a symptom of an imbalanced game.

Provide me a basic template and I'll knock it out for you Shuma. Because if I put up a list based on what I think DOA or GK lists look like you'll scream murder that it can't handle what you see as those lists. PM me and we'll continue the discussion.

Will do!

Hulksmash wrote:@Phazael

I know I was hella successful in 4th with my Orks because I geared them to kill marines. Ahhhh, the good ol'days when 80% of the field was in power armor....

What, 2 weeks ago qualifies as the good ol' days now? The Team Tournament was totally power-armor-mad this year.

I think it breaks down to 33% List, 33% Player Skill, 33% Dice.

ShumaGorath wrote:

We're not just talking gk. Hulk specifically spoke of his nids and other armies. I play gk, ig, eldar and the same philosophy applies

So two of the three armies that have good all comers lists and one with a good standard list set that can easily defang GKs and win GTs as long as it doesn't have to face mech spam. I'm sure you're a brilliant general, we're not talking about bad players here and I'm not trying to imply skill doesn't exist, but until I actually start seeing a varied field of winners in GTs and other major tournaments than I'm not going to be convinced that "the only difference is the player". Were that the case you wouldn't all have GK and IG armies and someone would of taken nids to adepticon. It's inane that you can stand there and pretend that every army can make a tournament winning all comers list with such red herrings as tau and DAs who both have armies that they can't beat being both popular and easily run.

When was the last GT he won with the bikes and what did he face?Was it during the reign of mech guard? Did he ever roll up against an ork army with 220+ orks? Draigowing?

I've never said "the only difference is the player" my quote in my last post would be "It's mainly the player once you start talking gt play and not just shop level fun games." And I'm by no means a brilliant general, I probably play better than most, but I've had games against guys that think circles around me tactically, which are some of the most fun games I have.

Army does matter, and a lot of GT regulars/GT players (and I mean no offense) just aren't the caliber of players that are going to win a GT yet. Many are at their first GT, or go to GTs for a variety of reasons other than trying to win the whole thing. Also, not everyone "gets it" when it comes to tactics/strategy/winning missions, not killing models. Many of these players look at the internet or read the new codex, see shiny toys and go "this is my ticket! I can win with this!", which (imo) is part of the reason you see the surge in armies in the year following codex release that later dies down as those same players realize "crap, I'm still not winning, it must be something with this army" and then jump on the next bandwagon.

Part of the reason you don't see GT's being won by every different book is just that there aren't that many, of the GT's we regularly report on/here about, we probably have what, 10-20 per year? We have ~14 (i dont remember...someone correct me) books right now, it stands to reason that GT's arent going to be evenly distributed among them when they aren't equally represented. If you were to look within the last ~2 years (which would be during IG's reign and GK's "reign') you've had a good distribution of winning books.

These are from the top of my head, and are heavily skewed towards east coast events as it's what I know..

Necrons - Indy GT, SVDM
GK's - Adepticon, Conflict, BFS
IG - BAO, BFS, Conflict, SVDM
Nids - Battle for Blobs Park
Dark Eldar - Colonial GT
SW - NOVA Open
BA - Mechanicon
Black Templar - Da Boyz
SM - Colonial GT
Eldar - Im pretty sure reecius or greg won one in the past year or two with footdar, might be Da Boyz from not this past year, but the year before....

That's all that's coming to mind atm, but is by no means exhaustive, and many of the other books and the books above have placed highly in those events (winning isn't everything, winning a GT involves good play and a decent dose of luck/etc. in pairings, opponent skill, dice, etc. to make sure you're maxing points unless it's a win/loss environment, being 'one of the best' means you'll consistently place highly probably, it takes a bit of lady luck to push into #1 outside of win/loss typically)

Heck, that list above from memory is 10 books out of ~14!

As to my friend Dameon's Khan Bikers, his win came last year during Mech IGs lolling period before GK hit, and he's continued to place highly since, though he hasnt locked in another win yet (I think he took 2nd at Blob's Park and 3-5th at Mechanicon). He has played both horde orks (he tabled it) and Draigo (he outmanuevared it) on multiple occasions. Thunderfires are a rediculously wonderful multi-tool, they slow Draigowings waddle to a slow shamble a zombie would be ashamed of and annihilate weakly armored mass troops (orks), they crap on tanks that need to move (assault vehicles like raiders and ravens) with the difficult terrain ammo, etc etc. Other than that, most games nowadays are mission based, not meat grinders, and that's how lists that don't appear as strong win a lot of the time.

My .02 at least on it. Player skill at GT's is the most important factor (but not the only).

What Andrew said. Player skill accounts for a good deal more than 50% of the reason people win, and win consistently. Not dice (which most often come into play in CLOSE games, where bad dice one way or another can skew it ... but there's a reason the game is CLOSE in the first place, and it's not dice or list always at all). Certainly not list, as at the higher points levels the US plays at, most people can fit in the basic requirements for competitive play without being a netlist, and with a lot of wonky units (footdar, close range strakenguard, multi-raven whacky GK, giant GH squad w/ Njal SW, etc.).

The reality of results at the GT level are what show you the realities of the game across multi-game sets competitively. It's just not as homogenous and spammy/repetitive-list as people affirm, and there's no real evidence to support the affirmation that it is.

Redbeard wrote:

One problem I see in discussions like this is the really good players come in and say they have no bad matchups (ever) and back it up by pointing to their own wins. But that isn't necessarily proof that you don't have a bad matchup, it is simply proof that you're good enough of a player to beat inferior opponents in spite of the bad matchup.

Perhaps the point is that the 'bad matchup' gap between certain army builds only appears to be wide to players who aren't interested in becoming good players. To those players, a so-called bad matchup might seem like a huge impediment, but to a veteran who invests a lot of thought into his gameplay, those gaps become rather small. It might not be so much an issue of game imbalance as it is an issue of player skill, and no amount of complaining in forums will improve player skill, only playing games will.

I've never said "the only difference is the player" my quote in my last post would be "It's mainly the player once you start talking gt play and not just shop level fun games." And I'm by no means a brilliant general, I probably play better than most, but I've had games against guys that think circles around me tactically, which are some of the most fun games I have.

Army does matter, and a lot of GT regulars/GT players (and I mean no offense) just aren't the caliber of players that are going to win a GT yet. Many are at their first GT, or go to GTs for a variety of reasons other than trying to win the whole thing. Also, not everyone "gets it" when it comes to tactics/strategy/winning missions, not killing models. Many of these players look at the internet or read the new codex, see shiny toys and go "this is my ticket! I can win with this!", which (imo) is part of the reason you see the surge in armies in the year following codex release that later dies down as those same players realize "crap, I'm still not winning, it must be something with this army" and then jump on the next bandwagon.

Your opinions are a lot more acceptable/understandable explained like this. In your first post when you insisted that with the correct list you should never run into a match that is seriously skewed I was a bit put out. Having experience with multiple armies (including tyranids, generic SMs, and BA) I have found that in all three cases there were hard walls where I had to tailor a list specifically to have a chance against certain popular tournament builds, and that tailoring made my list almost unplayable against certain others. It's the nature of lists like draigowing, horde orks, or all mech IG to have exceptionally favorable chances against "all comers lists" based on the absolute nature of their respective defensive measures (horde, unkillable KP denial, mechs spam).

If I roll up with an assault based mechanized BA force in rhinos/dev support (the army I'm currently painting) I'm going to have a very difficult match against draigowing when two objectives are on the table (presuming I have to win to place reasonably). I'll have a much easier matchup when there are three or more and I have no chance at all in kill points.

The first two I can take in stride as being a natural part of the game, but looking down the barrel of a double draigowing block at 1850 in kill points makes me want to slap someone. What level of skill is going to win the day for me? There's no chance of grabbing a "quick kill point" and hiding my fast rhinos from his firepower. The attempt would likely lose me more kill points in two turns than he has in his army. What alternatives do I have but to either alter my army to fight a GK centric meta (which costs me dearly if I face dark eldar or mech IG)?

My .02 at least on it. Player skill at GT's is the most important factor (but not the only).

I consider myself a player that is good at this game, I routinely do well at my small pond local tournies and I have an inclination towards mathhammer that helps me make good decisions on the table. I believe I could (in an even field) do well in a GT with the army that I have. I also believe that I wouldn't have made it past the first round at adepticon because one of the people I would play day one would probably be draigowing and thats almost an impossible matchup for me to win in several of the games most used scenarios (I don't know what adepticons specific missions are). My opinion of the balanced nature of 40k has been greatly soured in the last few years by repeated situations like this in the meta.


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MVBrandt wrote:What Andrew said. Player skill accounts for a good deal more than 50% of the reason people win, and win consistently. Not dice (which most often come into play in CLOSE games, where bad dice one way or another can skew it ... but there's a reason the game is CLOSE in the first place, and it's not dice or list always at all). Certainly not list, as at the higher points levels the US plays at, most people can fit in the basic requirements for competitive play without being a netlist, and with a lot of wonky units (footdar, close range strakenguard, multi-raven whacky GK, giant GH squad w/ Njal SW, etc.).

The reality of results at the GT level are what show you the realities of the game across multi-game sets competitively. It's just not as homogenous and spammy/repetitive-list as people affirm, and there's no real evidence to support the affirmation that it is.

Almost half the GTs he just listed were won by IG or GKs, that's actually kinda damning. It's not a complete list at all however, so it's not particularly amazing evidence for either opinion.

OverwatchCNC wrote:So where are people to turn for advice?

Meeeeeee!!!

Would you mind PM'ing me your list Shuma? It sounds like you are having the same problem I was having with BA until recently.


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Also, some quick advice for your paladin matchup... If you are running a rhino rush list against a 2 squad draigowing, then you should have all the tools you need to win in tank shocks. Positioning is key in that match and being able to run red tanks down their throat is a great way to get them off the board.

Dok wrote:

OverwatchCNC wrote:So where are people to turn for advice?

Meeeeeee!!!

Would you mind PM'ing me your list Shuma? It sounds like you are having the same problem I was having with BA until recently.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, some quick advice for your paladin matchup... If you are running a rhino rush list against a 2 squad draigowing, then you should have all the tools you need to win in tank shocks. Positioning is key in that match and being able to run red tanks down their throat is a great way to get them off the board.

The threat range on a pally brick is 30 inches and that army will bring down two to six rhinos on average a turn depending on how many psyfles he has. If the wing player moves right he'll be able to bring down four rhinos with just the bricks before I have a chance to tank shock them. If he positions them ~10 inches apart than I'm only really likely to get 2 shocks out of six rhinos (which is the max number i'd field at 1850-2000) before they're all gone and he's unlikely to fail either with standard roles. That's all very board dependent mind you, blocking terrain would help or hurt a lot. I'll send you the 1500 and 1850 lists I've been using lately.