OK, just read the White Dwarf battle report and am astonished at how appalling it was. Completely ignoring the FOC and points system in favour of just using 'whatever models we have painted' made a mockery of the whole rule-set. It's creaking and unwieldy and open to huge criticism but we go with it because, well, it's the rules. But then the authors of the rule-set ignore two of the most important rules? That takes the piss. I think I'm gonna try walking into a GW store and saying "Hey, let's just forget about the FOC and the points values and just play with what we've got painted" and see the response I get. Even my mates would tell me to piss off.

The army lists were, even for White Dwarf trying to showcase models, laughable. Chaos take one Heldrake against a power armour army and then equip it with autocannons despite the flamer killing marines on a 2+? Chaos equip themselves to take on a large terminator contingent by... taking plasma pistols? To keep the fallen marine alive and win 3 victory points you charge it towards a powerful enemy unit? For every time you see 'cinematic' just insert 'fething stupid'.

I read battle reports to try and improve my game, list building, and to see two well matched players try to out-think one another. What did I gain from this battle report? I'd rather read about two chimps throwing gak at each other [and I'd probably learn more].

How good White Dwarf used to be under fat bloke and even before is for another discussion but it's become a joke and I'm a mug for buying it

Hmmm, I might have to pick this one up. I enjoy collecting GW's failtasticular Batreps and this sounds like a real Gem

 tyrannosaurus wrote:
OK, just read the White Dwarf battle report and am astonished at how appalling it was. Completely ignoring the FOC and points system in favour of just using 'whatever models we have painted' made a mockery of the whole rule-set. It's creaking and unwieldy and open to huge criticism but we go with it because, well, it's the rules. But then the authors of the rule-set ignore two of the most important rules? That takes the piss. I think I'm gonna try walking into a GW store and saying "Hey, let's just forget about the FOC and the points values and just play with what we've got painted" and see the response I get. Even my mates would tell me to piss off.

The army lists were, even for White Dwarf trying to showcase models, laughable. Chaos take one Heldrake against a power armour army and then equip it with autocannons despite the flamer killing marines on a 2+? Chaos equip themselves to take on a large terminator contingent by... taking plasma pistols? To keep the fallen marine alive and win 3 victory points you charge it towards a powerful enemy unit? For every time you see 'cinematic' just insert 'fething stupid'.

I read battle reports to try and improve my game, list building, and to see two well matched players try to out-think one another. What did I gain from this battle report? I'd rather read about two chimps throwing gak at each other [and I'd probably learn more].

How good White Dwarf used to be under fat bloke and even before is for another discussion but it's become a joke and I'm a mug for buying it

You're expecting to read a WD batrep and improve your game; there's your first problem.

Yeah, if you seek to improve your game with Batreps, watch Youtube Batreps.

The Battle Reports in the WD are usually "rigged."

They have said that they usually play out the battle several times until they get the result that they are looking for (I.E. the result where the new models they just released do something super cool and make the readers want to go buy them).

That said, I still enjoy reading them. They are wonderfully entertaining even if the players do things that you or I would call "silly."

Cheesedoodler wrote:
The Battle Reports in the WD are usually "rigged."

They have said that they usually play out the battle several times until they get the result that they are looking for (I.E. the result where the new models they just released do something super cool and make the readers want to go buy them).

That said, I still enjoy reading them. They are wonderfully entertaining even if the players do things that you or I would call "silly."

They said that indirectly. The actual thing they do is refer to the other games as, "practice games," in passing. Like with the Island of Blood game where they talked about how their practice game went completely differently to the one in the report.

Unless they've been bold enough to actually state such.

I suppose it's better than rigging the actual dice rolls, or making things up.

 TheCaptain wrote:
You're expecting to read a WD batrep and improve your game; there's your first problem.

True, wasn't always the case though. Batreps in WD used to be competitive if not min/maxed. They might as well not bother playing a game, just pose the models in 'cinematic' or 'narrative' pictures and make it up. Wait a minute...

Personally, I think most players could learn a lot from reading WD battle reports. They could learn how to lighten the feth up about their game of toy soldiers, they could learn how to consider the enjoyment of their opponent when building a list, and they could learn not to rigidly adhere to a single TAC list all the time.

 Kaldor wrote:
Personally, I think most players could learn a lot from reading WD battle reports. They could learn how to lighten the feth up about their game of toy soldiers, they could learn how to consider the enjoyment of their opponent when building a list, and they could learn not to rigidly adhere to a single TAC list all the time.

So we should all 'lighten up' by not following the FOC and using as many points as we want? Fun times. I don't take this game seriously, but for it to be a game it does have to follow some rules. Whether one model has LoS or has moved a half inch too far doesn't bother me, ignoring fundamental rules of list building does. I don't stick to one list [or army - got 4 and I mix and match them with whoever I'm playing with/against]] all the time, but I do stick to the rules so that my opponent enjoys the game too.

 tyrannosaurus wrote:

 Kaldor wrote:
Personally, I think most players could learn a lot from reading WD battle reports. They could learn how to lighten the feth up about their game of toy soldiers, they could learn how to consider the enjoyment of their opponent when building a list, and they could learn not to rigidly adhere to a single TAC list all the time.

So we should all 'lighten up' by not following the FOC and using as many points as we want? Fun times. I don't take this game seriously, but for it to be a game it does have to follow some rules. Whether one model has LoS or has moved a half inch too far doesn't bother me, ignoring fundamental rules of list building does. I don't stick to one list [or army - got 4 and I mix and match them with whoever I'm playing with/against]] all the time, but I do stick to the rules so that my opponent enjoys the game too.

Though to be fair, they could've been playing a low-points Apocalypse game and ignoring tons of Apocalypse-specific rules and units. ^^

I've considered doing that in order to take Imperial Guard, Sisters of Battle, and Space Marine units back in 5th, but when I put my list together and looked at it, I was like, "Yeah, this is basically just all the killiest stuff from each Codex," so I scrapped that idea.

Costed it up and I make the Chaos army 2,426 points [think the predator had 3 lascannons from the report]. Obviously no idea on the costings for the Dark Angels, will work it out once someone makes up a template for Quartermaster, will be interesting to see if they're roughly similar.

 tyrannosaurus wrote:
So we should all 'lighten up'

Generally speaking, yes. People tend to take their wardollies too seriously.

I think the DA had over 3000 points.

Reminded me of a Rogue Trader style scenario game. You'd think people had never played scenario-based games before (i.e. sans point system, possibly even unbalanced in the favour of one side). Point costs and army comp rules aren't the only way to play games. Some times you can use a GM or even just plain old agreement and set up something fun without having to muck about with gaming constructs like point systems. Hell, doing an off balance battle report sounds like a fun (one of my old favourites from an old WD was an entire article on unbalanced scenarios where you threw out the point system; things like R'Orc's Drift).

The point system is useful for quick pick up games with strangers. But among friends why limit yourself to them if you feel like playing a more free-form scenario? My buddies did this a year or two back. We had a GM who determined relative force sizes and basically haggled what units we would take so we would be roughly equal. It was loads of fun.

White Dwarf should be a platform for showing people there is more than one way to play. In that light, the batrep did just that. So yeah, I concur, people take this way too serious some days.

And if stupid arse unit selection makes a battle report bad then I have plenty of "golden age" examples of batreps where the guys playing could have used a tune up in their list. Still had fun reading the report though.

Nice idea, but points systems are meant so that people who don't know every codex by heart can expect a fair game. Same really goes for the GM.

I still remember the sister vs. nid batrep. Free bastion and extra special weapons and still barely pulled a victory in that fixed game. Really put a sour note on the WD update.

Not to mention that they got several rules wrong in said sisters vs. nid batrep...

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
Not to mention that they got several rules wrong in said sisters vs. nid batrep...

Really? That isn't normal is it?

Were they big mistakes, or minor ones though.

They got a fortress before fortifications were allowed. So several emplaced weapons and defenses. Nids came up short for charges multiple times in obvious set ups. And squads violated several min/max limits. It was embarrassing what they did.

Any game is an agreement between tow players to play the way they prefer. Allowing no FOC or rough points totals is perfectly acceptable if both players agree. Which it looks like they did.

in short:



Oh, and the worst batrep ever was when the Harlequin models were released and it was Eldar vs. Chaos.

I barely read the Battle Reports these days. The amount of tactical information imparted is practically zero and they try too hard to make it 'cinematic' rather than just letting the game flow create narrative.

My favourites were the old Fat Bloke WD battle reports with drawn maps showing exactly what unit was doing when and where. Alas the like will never be seen again....

Yeah, it's bad to take our hobby of pretendy fun-time plastic dudes. But it's not really that much to expect some competence from official mags and sources.

To steal a quote from Stan Lee, every gaming magazine is someone's first. It would suck for a new person to the hobby to grab an official magazine, see something used in an illegal manner, think it's cool, buy the model/army and then find out in their first game it doesn't work that way. Same goes for thinking that a plasma-pistol heavy build or Possessed spam are viable builds.

 Sephyr wrote:
Same goes for thinking that a plasma-pistol heavy build or Possessed spam are viable builds.

They are viable if you play with tailored lists like they do in GW battle reports. The whole idea of having a single TAC list is a really boring way to play the game, IMO, and results in thoughts like this that only certain types of builds are 'viable'. If I know I'm going to be facing Space Marines I think plasma pistols are a great idea. Not as good as plasma guns but still pretty damn good.

I've always heard that the GW and more generally UK players prefer cinematics and narrative to actual gameplay and fairness.

I've always just imagined the gameshops to consist of a single table. The rest of the room is filled with chairs as the other patrons take their seats the two players come in, dressed in their finest garb. They both start reciting Shakespearean dialog as they forge the story, occasionally shaking a model and going "pew pew" for added effect. The dice have no numbers and are just thrown for effect.

These battle reports make me think these things.

That or one comes in dressed as a Space Marine and places down his SM Army, and his oponent has painted their skin green w/ their ork army already deployed

Cinematic +10!


I used to read the battle reports... now I just read the pictures and captions rather than read through all the gak.

EDIT: or to take an overly used joke from a certain game...
"I used to read the battle reports like you, then I realised GW can't play"

Ok, that sucked... sue me. On second thought, don't. Sue GW.

They have said that they usually play out the battle several times until they get the result that they are looking for (I.E. the result where the new models they just released do something super cool and make the readers want to go buy them).

RANT INCOMING:
No. They've never said this. Not one time and not even "indirectly" as Pouncey put it. Were that actually true, the 6th ed Chaos Marine debut would not have have sucked nearly so hard. You don't "make readers buy the shiny new miniatures" by having them do feth all nothing for an entire game and then lose. Which is exactly how that bat rep went. They DO play practice games, but I don't see an issue with that.. Playing the game through once probably DOES help them make a more interesting game the second time through. Seriously people, think about it - it's not like the miniatures are running around their own completely out of our control. Think about how silly that statement is. Honestly, if they wanted certain specific results, they wouldn't play a game at all. lol Like someone above me said, they would just set the miniatures up for different photos and fill in the blanks with, you know, writing. Do some of you actually envision the GW staff standing around a game table saying things like "MAN! I REALLY hope my bikers go right up the middle this game. I was hoping they would do it the last two games, but they just keep running up that far table edge. Well fingers crossed they cooperate this time!" lol Ugh. END RANT


My main concern with these lately is that the two "debut" reports they've done (first CSM and now DA) have been set up so that we get a look at the new units but in a way that doesn't really help us see how the armies will really work on the battle field. In the debut of the CSM, the army list was basically "I'll take one of every single new thing". Which obviously created a sub par list with no syngergy or purpose. This new DA rep was a little better in that the army at least had some cohesion, but really, when are you ever going to play it like that? It didn't really tell me anything I didn't already know. Ravenwing bikes are fast and DW termies are tough. KTHXBAI. lol

Those criticisms aside, I actually like the report over all. It looked like a really fun game to play and it really took me back to the days of 2nd edition where the WD 40k battle reports regularly had one and only one way to win the game. Kill this character, escape from this board edge with this unit, etc, etc. It was fun and I wouldn't mind seeing more like it. I just wish they would do a better job of giving us slightly more realistic views of the new armies whenever they do a "debut" type battle report.

Tycho wrote:

They have said that they usually play out the battle several times until they get the result that they are looking for (I.E. the result where the new models they just released do something super cool and make the readers want to go buy them).

RANT INCOMING:
No. They've never said this. Not one time and not even "indirectly" as Pouncey put it. Were that actually true, the 6th ed Chaos Marine debut would not have have sucked nearly so hard. You don't "make readers buy the shiny new miniatures" by having them do feth all nothing for an entire game and then lose. Which is exactly how that bat rep went. They DO play practice games, but I don't see an issue with that.. Playing the game through once probably DOES help them make a more interesting game the second time through. Seriously people, think about it - it's not like the miniatures are running around their own completely out of our control. Think about how silly that statement is. Honestly, if they wanted certain specific results, they wouldn't play a game at all. lol Like someone above me said, they would just set the miniatures up for different photos and fill in the blanks with, you know, writing. Do some of you actually envision the GW staff standing around a game table saying things like "MAN! I REALLY hope my bikers go right up the middle this game. I was hoping they would do it the last two games, but they just keep running up that far table edge. Well fingers crossed they cooperate this time!" lol Ugh. END RANT

Fair point.

And I suppose another thing to consider is that they probably wouldn't mention the practice games if there was an ulterior motive to it.

What they probably do is play a couple of games and then pick the one that will result in the best article.

The fallacy that the army of the month always wins has been around for a while and might sometimes be right but as Tycho says the dire CSM performance disabuses that notion.

Still doesnt stop the Batreps being boring and wholly uninformative though.

Thankfully i still have old WDs to remind me what great battle reports used to be like.... I even go back and read them from time to time. Like the one where the Vyper Jetbike and Firebase got released. Sam Hain Eldar Vs Ultramarines....

So what the OP is saying is that he's never, ever just gotten a bunch of toys out with a friend, rolled some dice and had some fun for the sake of it? It's not a tournament dude, and it's only a game. Lighten up.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
Nice idea, but points systems are meant so that people who don't know every codex by heart can expect a fair game.

The points system is designed to make games fair 'within reason'. However people treating it like gospel, probably results in making games less fair in the end, because it is not a perfect system. The first problem is that relative points values are never as well balanced as they could be, codex creep, weak play testing, design bias etc. Some armies just end up being better. That's why we have tier lists. But even if we ignore that problem, we still face the issue of having a static price for things that have a dynamic value.

There are lots of external factors that can affect fairness. Two armies might be perfectly balanced in open terrain, but then one might hopelessly outclass the other on a more crowded battlefield. Same armies, same points, but the balance shifts. The designers of the 40k 1st edition understood this, which is why points were more like guidelines, and other systems such as bidding were common. That game was all about scenarios and setups... "You have a bigger army, but you get ambushed in the open". Those games could often be more fair than games today because the players and he GM knew how good things were and could adjust. Having a rigid points system allows players to match armies that they know aren't fair (tailored lists for example). My point being: don't be too quick to knock cinematics

I actually quite enjoyed it, and after have a sensory overload of Tourney min/max, cheese, spamming lists, it was a refreshing change. And sad to say, I have found myself being dragged into this style of list build, more as a defensive method, but this Bat Rep helped remind me of why I got into this hobby. FUN. I got into because me and a mate wanted something that was fun to do on cold, wet and miserable UK evenings, and we decided to play with Toy soldiers.

 Smacks wrote:

 Savageconvoy wrote:
Nice idea, but points systems are meant so that people who don't know every codex by heart can expect a fair game.

The points system is designed to make games fair 'within reason'. However people treating it like gospel, probably results in making games less fair in the end, because it is not a perfect system. The first problem is that relative points values are never as well balanced as they could be, codex creep, weak play testing, design bias etc. Some armies just end up being better. That's why we have tier lists. But even if we ignore that problem, we still face the issue of having a static price for things that have a dynamic value.

There are lots of external factors that can affect fairness. Two armies might be perfectly balanced in open terrain, but then one might hopelessly outclass the other on a more crowded battlefield. Same armies, same points, but the balance shifts. The designers of the 40k 1st edition understood this, which is why points were more like guidelines, and other systems such as bidding were common. That game was all about scenarios and setups... "You have a bigger army, but you get ambushed in the open". Those games could often be more fair than games today because the players and he GM knew how good things were and could adjust. Having a rigid points system allows players to match armies that they know aren't fair (tailored lists for example). My point being: don't be too quick to knock cinematics

Dude... I... I just had a vision.

A vision of taking a fluffy list, that didn't have to be bulked up or slimmed down to meet a certain points value. (fun story, while building a list recently, I actually had 5 extra points, and I ended up having to take a second meltagun over a flamer in a squad that already had a meltagun, because for some reason I couldn't bring myself to let those extra 5 points get wasted.)

And it... it felt so good. Although that could have been the sugar from the root beer.

It reminded me of the joy of roleplaying, except combined with the joy of letting the dice decide whether that slash of a sword actually connects or not.

 Brother SRM wrote:
So what the OP is saying is that he's never, ever just gotten a bunch of toys out with a friend, rolled some dice and had some fun for the sake of it? It's not a tournament dude, and it's only a game. Lighten up.

Another fun story. Back in grade 7 - which was oddly the same year that I first saw WH40k models (though I didn't know what they were, I recognized the Land Speeder from the battle two kids were playing in the cafeteria a year or two later when I started playing 40k) - I would bring some green plastic army men to school and we'd have mock little battles with them sometimes. Eventually we assigned ranges to their weapons, and I painted the tips of their weapons different colors, then painted the end of each section of a collapsible stereo antenna to correspond with those colors to show short, medium, and long ranges for each type of weapon. (I had some Testors paints from painting airplane models in the past)

The urgings to lighten up and have fun are something that I honestly never expected to see here on Dakka. It is quite heartwarming and I'm so glad to see that it hasn't been entirely quashed out.

 curran12 wrote:
The urgings to lighten up and have fun are something that I honestly never expected to see here on Dakka. It is quite heartwarming and I'm so glad to see that it hasn't been entirely quashed out.

Hell, i've had weekends with mates where we just bring every model we have, get assigned to the 'Good Guys' or 'Bad Guys' and just play. Drink some beer's, eat Pizza and (in my case) smoke some Ciggies......It's a great way of wasting two days and nights, and who really gives a feth about points values and FoC in games like this?

Mind you, i'm still playing 2nd Ed.......

Not really sure. But when the Necrons came out recently, they were fighting vs. Eldar and Ultramarines in a 4000 pts battle.

Games Workshop is in a dilemma:
1.) They have an expensive magazine whose only purpose is to present the new models (plus some old ones).
2.) They are afraid to leak any information about the new models.
So they try to make a lot of shiney pictures, almost no text, and the text just standard advertising talk without any content (plus the "essential" monthly feature of listing every store in the world carrying GW products on 10 pages)..
Only possible leak for rules is the battle report featuring the new models and their rules. So they now try to make a battle report with just shiney pics and no content, hoping that noone will notice. Well, we noticed.

 Kaldor wrote:
Personally, I think most players could learn a lot from reading WD battle reports. They could learn how to lighten the feth up about their game of toy soldiers, they could learn how to consider the enjoyment of their opponent when building a list, and they could learn not to rigidly adhere to a single TAC list all the time.

List building has nothing to do with an opponents enjoyment of the game (if you can't think of ways to beat a 'power list' then you aren't a good player). A goid game is about the interaction between players, i.e being nice. Seeing as every hobbyist who plays the game element wants to win this should be pretty obvious.

I would rather get my ass kicked by a nice guy than defeat an introvert. All these battle reports do is show off new minitures. They do nothing to help new players learn the game.

List building has nothing to do with an opponents enjoyment of the game (if you can't think of ways to beat a 'power list' then you aren't a good player).

I suspect you might be someone I wouldn't want to play. I'm not sure how much you appreciate the "for fun" aspect of this game. One of the best ways (in a friendly non-tourney game) to make sure your opponent will have fun is to have their enjoyment of the game in mind while building your list. List building has a great deal to do with an opponents enjoyment. Also no, not everyone who plays the game is playing (or even wants) to win. Sometimes it is nice to just concoct a scenario set up a bunch of toys and roll some dice just to see what happens. Personally, I couldn't care less about winning as long as I'm having fun. That often starts with the list I build.

Anyway, back on topic - I am also glad to see the calls to lighten up and I'm glad to see that some posters enjoyed the report. While it wasn't as informative about the new stuff as I might have wanted, it was very fun to read through and like I said before, it gave me a sense of nostalgia for the "good old days" of WD and 2nd ed 40k. lol Lots of fun to be had in that report if you leave the serious pants at home.

 BluntmanDC wrote:

I would rather get my ass kicked by a nice guy than defeat an introvert.

I don't think you're using that word right.

Because an introvert is someone who loses energy from interacting with other people. Extroverts gain energy from social interaction.

An introvert's idea of fun social interaction is with one or a few people, for a limited amount of time. An extrovert's idea of fun social interaction is a massive, booming party.

An introvert goes to a big party, comes home, and is completely exhausted. An extrovert goes to a big party, comes home, and is itching for more.

It has absolutely nothing to do with manners or politeness.

one of my favourite batreps is from WD157, the battle of osterwald (empire vs Orcs and Goblins) since the studio greenskin army wasn't anywhere near complete, Jervis just took everything that they did have painted to make up the points, whereas robin dews commanding the empire forces got to properly choose his army, the result was a very entertaining batrep, and the conclusions where Jervis saying what he would add to his army for the next time.

I've fought similar battles in the past, taking everything i have, whether it was legal or not, to make up a set points value for my army and then gone on after that battle to expand my forces based on the army's performance. Quite recently i dug out my guard and played an 800 point game, but had left my CCS on the painting desk, but we continued regardless. Sometimes its fun to play a scenario like a desperate last stand, or something similar and points values can be damned if its a fun game.

All that said, a TAC list is the usual format for games i play, since its a very quick and easy way to organise a pick up game

one of my favourite batreps is from WD157, the battle of osterwald (empire vs Orcs and Goblins) since the studio greenskin army wasn't anywhere near complete, Jervis just took everything that they did have painted to make up the points, whereas robin dews commanding the empire forces got to properly choose his army, the result was a very entertaining batrep, and the conclusions where Jervis saying what he would add to his army for the next time.

HA! I had completely forgotten about that until you brought it up. That was a great read imo. Thanks for reminding me! I wonder if I still have that one somewhere ...

Also, to the fellow who mentioned that he misses the Fat Bloke articles - I concur wholeheartedly. Paul S. was the man. My favorite was the report where they decided to try out the studios new trench warfare table by running Fat Bloke's White Scars against an army of dug-in Chaos marines. My first thought was "bikes in a trench? How the hell is that going to work?" but somehow it did. The report was from at least 12 years ago but I still have it!

I don't remember the worst ones, but there are a few that I did like. There was a good one when the Last Chancers were first released, the dirty dozen up against lots of chaos marines.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
I've always heard that the GW and more generally UK players prefer cinematics and narrative to actual gameplay and fairness.

I've always just imagined the gameshops to consist of a single table. The rest of the room is filled with chairs as the other patrons take their seats the two players come in, dressed in their finest garb. They both start reciting Shakespearean dialog as they forge the story, occasionally shaking a model and going "pew pew" for added effect. The dice have no numbers and are just thrown for effect.

These battle reports make me think these things.

I do occasionally say pew-pew or kaboom when playing, but old jeans and a Black Sabbath t-shirt is definitely not my finest garb haha.

Despite having a tournament army as my only 40k force (mech vets), I do really enjoy fun games, or ones that are themed. My gf bought a banshee because she thought it looked cool, so I sat and made rules for it and let her use it in a special mission.

The old style of WD battle reports is the best, IMO, and adding all sorts of rules and conditions into your games makes for a lot of fun

 BluntmanDC wrote:

 Kaldor wrote:
Personally, I think most players could learn a lot from reading WD battle reports. They could learn how to lighten the feth up about their game of toy soldiers, they could learn how to consider the enjoyment of their opponent when building a list, and they could learn not to rigidly adhere to a single TAC list all the time.

List building has nothing to do with an opponents enjoyment of the game (if you can't think of ways to beat a 'power list' then you aren't a good player)

That's one of the silliest things I've read all day. Congratulations.

 Brother SRM wrote:
So what the OP is saying is that he's never, ever just gotten a bunch of toys out with a friend, rolled some dice and had some fun for the sake of it? It's not a tournament dude, and it's only a game. Lighten up.

Haha, no not at all - when I got back into 40k again I bought the AoBR boxset with my brother and then just added whatever stuff we bought each month. He kept the marines, we got rid of the orks and I started collecting Chaos, buying what looked pretty.. Was fun for a while, I think I lost every game because I had nothing that could hurt his dreadnought. Thing is, I don't work for GWs flagship magazine showcasing how the game works.

It's not like I take my gaming massively seriously - when my mates come over we drink beer and trash talk each other. We try out narrative scenarios [if anyone can be bothered to write up the fluff]. Forgeworld isn't a problem, mostly because we love the models and want to find an excuse to use them [although they ask to be warned in advance]. None of my mates run min/maxed lists - I've got a Emperor's Children army that always runs units of 6 and only includes Slaaneshy units. Another of my mates ALWAYS includes Marbo because no matter what Marbo either completely smashes a unit or epically fails [killed two gretchin last time then died to overwatch while charging them]. However we do like to have competitive games as this adds to the excitement and the fun.

A big part of this fun for us is the list building, and we always try to spring a few surprises on each other for every new game [so we keep our purchases very quiet]. Last game my friend had, unbeknownst to me, bought a landraider. I had very little that could take out AV14 and it won him the game. Fair play to him, he'd spent time thinking about it and had to make sacrifices to include the raider.

I think I have been portrayed as some sort of rules Nazi which isn't the case. However, for a competitive, enjoyable, fun game that requires us to use our brains, having equal points and following the same restrictions is fundamental. Plus I have never come across someone, either at a club or a GW shop, that would be willing to just 'play with whatever we've got painted'.

Lastly I think I owe it to my opponent to at least try to win. Enough people moan about others giving up after turn two when things aren't going their way. I would find it just as annoying for my opponent to not to try and win the game. All the chaos player had to do was keep the fallen marine from dying and it was 3 VPs for him. Instead he charges it?

 tyrannosaurus wrote:
All the chaos player had to do was keep the fallen marine from dying and it was 3 VPs for him. Instead he charges it?

I think the key here is that we're not playing for sheep stations, as we say here in Australia. Or in other words, there's no material gain by winning. It's enough, at that point, to know you had the game in the bag. You've got the moral high ground, you know you could have just retreated and won the game, you've proven your superiority and established who the better player is. So why not have a laugh and use your army 'in-character' for a moment? What do you have to lose?

We could get into a debate about what exactly constitutes 'in-character' for any given model, but to me the point is just that the player thought this is what that guy would do in that situation, so he did it. And why not?

"In Character" for a Fallen would be to retreat while mocking his opponent mercilessly.

 Brother SRM wrote:
So what the OP is saying is that he's never, ever just gotten a bunch of toys out with a friend, rolled some dice and had some fun for the sake of it? It's not a tournament dude, and it's only a game. Lighten up.

Says the dude with a signature chock-full of Wins, Losses, and Draws? Sounds good mate.

 Brother SRM wrote:
So what the OP is saying is that he's never, ever just gotten a bunch of toys out with a friend, rolled some dice and had some fun for the sake of it? It's not a tournament dude, and it's only a game. Lighten up.

Yeah, we do this all the time, but my friends and I follow the rules.

Eldercaveman wrote:
I actually quite enjoyed it, and after have a sensory overload of Tourney min/max, cheese, spamming lists, it was a refreshing change. And sad to say, I have found myself being dragged into this style of list build, more as a defensive method, but this Bat Rep helped remind me of why I got into this hobby. FUN. I got into because me and a mate wanted something that was fun to do on cold, wet and miserable UK evenings, and we decided to play with Toy soldiers.

I am in 100% agreement with this (except the bad weather thing - I live in California.).

I was actually really surprised with this battle report and quite enjoyed it as well. The two opponents had fun, and I think that came through very clearly. It is MUCH more exciting for me to watch two people having fun with a game than watch two people completely intense over a game. And I have a little experience in this having filmed and broadcast live, multiple finals games at Adepticon and seen the difference first hand in "high stakes" games.

Again this is just my preference.

The digital White Dwarf has the usual follow up video to the Battle Report and you can tell the guys had a really fun time with it and talked about units that should have been used differently. (In particular the new speeder.) I really do enjoy watching the video post-battle report read through. It's really enjoyable.

As for there being nothing to learn from this battle report, I think that is a bit short sighted. The article shows how you can set up a unique mission and (as others have said) just relax and enjoy the game and a good time with the other player. In particular you can tell these guys had fun with this game when you read quotes like:

Adam: "At the end of what must be the most satisfying game of Warhammer 40,000 I have ever played, who won and lost seemed insignificant alongside the fun we both had."

and

Adam: "It's moments such as these that make games of Warhammer 40,000 so enjoyable. With a blistering conflict raging all around them, tanks exploding and Daemon Princes soaring across the battlefield, all eyes were on the duel going on in the middle of the table."

The mission was cinematic and clever and I would have loved to play in it. Later in the issue Jeremy Vetock, the author of the Dark Angels Codex talks about playing games at home and away. He goes into great detail about how he likes to develop new missions and play them out with his friends. I thought this article went hand in hand pretty well with the battle report as that is exactly what they did.

I'm not trying to convince the OP that this was a good battle report. He obviously didn't get what he was looking for out of it. I however did. And I think this battle report resonated with me more than any battle report in White Dwarf recent memory.

 Vladsimpaler wrote:

 Brother SRM wrote:
So what the OP is saying is that he's never, ever just gotten a bunch of toys out with a friend, rolled some dice and had some fun for the sake of it? It's not a tournament dude, and it's only a game. Lighten up.

Says the dude with a signature chock-full of Wins, Losses, and Draws? Sounds good mate.

Judge me by my stupid numbers, not by what I say! I just have them because I like statistics, not because I think of myself as especially good.

Where is Comic Book Guy to save this topic?

 SoloFalcon1138 wrote:
Where is Comic Book Guy to save this topic?

The last thing I heard him say, he was hardening in Lucite, and then posed, and said, "Best... Death... EVER!" and presumably then died.

Regardless of what people thought of the battle report, I would love to try out the army assault course. But make it a race. Everytime your unit dies you go back to the start, but enemies don't get replaced.

I find it interesting; don't most of you play where bringing undercost lists buy you advantages? In our games, you automatically get first turn, and depending on point disparity, you might get other fun things like rerolls on mysterious objectives or a deployment zone modification (reducing your opponent or increasing your zone by 3", etc). Since its blind lists until the start of the game, we've had 1850 point games where both players arrived with 1500 points trying to outdo the other.

 Kaldor wrote:

 tyrannosaurus wrote:
So we should all 'lighten up'

Generally speaking, yes. People tend to take their wardollies too seriously.

I just finished painting a large building that my daughter insists on calling "Daddy's dollhouse".

Darrett wrote:
I find it interesting; don't most of you play where bringing undercost lists buy you advantages? In our games, you automatically get first turn, and depending on point disparity, you might get other fun things like rerolls on mysterious objectives or a deployment zone modification (reducing your opponent or increasing your zone by 3", etc). Since its blind lists until the start of the game, we've had 1850 point games where both players arrived with 1500 points trying to outdo the other.

I've never heard anyone do this, but it is a cool idea, did it stem from Apocalypse games by any idea?

Nobody wants to read Draigo vs Necron flier list month after month

Chill the feth out

MarsNZ wrote:
Nobody wants to read Draigo vs Necron flier list month after month

Chill the feth out

Nice straw man there. Nobody is asking for the same report every single month, what we DO expect from a magazine you have to pay money for is a battle report where the mission and forces aren't rigged, the armies resemble real 40k armies, everyone follows the standard rules (unless there's a specific house rule/scenario rule made for a very good reason), and both players do their best to play and win the game. And the description should be more than just pretty pictures of the new models you can buy, there should be explanations of each player's strategy at key moments, thorough descriptions of what's going on, post-game analysis of how things worked (besides "this was really cool I love the GW (tm) Hobby!!!!!! I can't wait to buy more GW (tm) Products!!!!!"). You know, the kind of things you can find (for free!) on dozens of blogs covering every kind of game, from hardcore tournament matches to fluffy story-based scenario games.

We? Seems like a few people agree with me in here. Differences of opinion never did seem like your strong point though. Far better to flog a dead horse.

MarsNZ wrote:
We? Seems like a few people agree with me in here. Differences of opinion never did seem like your strong point though. Far better to flog a dead horse.

We, as in the people who don't like WD or its battle reports. The objection is that it's low-quality work, not that it isn't an endless repetition of the same top-tier tournament list vs. top-tier tournament list played for high stakes by WAAC professionals.

And I'd hate to think that anyone agrees with you and your ridiculous straw man, since that would be a disappointing lack of taste or critical thinking.

 Brother SRM wrote:

Judge me by my stupid numbers.

Don't worry, that's exactly what we're doing.

 Peregrine wrote:

MarsNZ wrote:
We? Seems like a few people agree with me in here. Differences of opinion never did seem like your strong point though. Far better to flog a dead horse.

We, as in the people who don't like WD or its battle reports. The objection is that it's low-quality work, not that it isn't an endless repetition of the same top-tier tournament list vs. top-tier tournament list played for high stakes by WAAC professionals.

And I'd hate to think that anyone agrees with you and your ridiculous straw man, since that would be a disappointing lack of taste or critical thinking.

It's low quality work judged by your standards, playing a game can be a difference of opinion whether one wants to see WAAC games or friendly games played instead.

Saying you speak for a group like a hive-mind doesn't make your point work either.

 Peregrine wrote:
real 40k armies.

Could you expand on this point please?

 Peregrine wrote:

Nice straw man there. Nobody is asking for the same report every single month, what we DO expect from a magazine you have to pay money for is a battle report where the mission and forces aren't rigged, the armies resemble real 40k armies, everyone follows the standard rules (unless there's a specific house rule/scenario rule made for a very good reason), and both players do their best to play and win the game. And the description should be more than just pretty pictures of the new models you can buy, there should be explanations of each player's strategy at key moments, thorough descriptions of what's going on, post-game analysis of how things worked (besides "this was really cool I love the GW (tm) Hobby!!!!!! I can't wait to buy more GW (tm) Products!!!!!"). You know, the kind of things you can find (for free!) on dozens of blogs covering every kind of game, from hardcore tournament matches to fluffy story-based scenario games.

I have seen some old white dwarfs like 10+years old and those reports . so much different . people using armies they actualy own , painted and converted by them , giving actual gaming tips and insight in to strategy they will use . Non of the "and here my +3 sv power sword cpt is doing a lone charge against a hive tyrant with bodyguard" we seem to get nowadays . models or units dieing for nothing or because someone does stupid mistakes isnt fun to watch . It probably isnt fun to roll too .

 Kaldor wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
real 40k armies.

Could you expand on this point please?

Surely this is easy:
Real 40k includes the use of the Force Org Chart
Hence real 40k armies must fit the force org chart.



On another level the post is probably referring to the fact that 40k armies used in real games (rather than rigged or pre-planned games) are designed, planned and intended to be effective in some manner. E.g. several hours are likely spent building a list. Whereas this BR clearly threw together lists in mere moments.

I think the problem here stems from the fact that many people play 40k for very different reasons.

Naturally, there's the hard core tourney crowd, and this WD BR probably doesn't have much for them. It's not balanced, and the unit selection din't approach intelligent, much less min-maxed. For a competitive format, battles should always be as close to evenly balanced as possible, something this report clearly lacked.

Then there are more fluff/storyline-centric players, and this WD was probably much more satisfying for them. Battles in stories (and real life) are very rarely exactly-matched forces going up against each other, and so those of us who appreciate the the "cinematic" concepts of the battle didn't find the mismatched forces such a problem. Plus, while some commenters have mentioned that only taking one dragon, and that one without the flamer, was stupid, it would also be stupid if every Chaos Space Marine army had 3x dragons with flamers. It would be good in a tournament, but it wouldn't fit the fluff.

And, also, keep in mind that WD is an advertising tool, and they want to show off the new products for sale. The flip side of that is, as a Dark Angel player, I'm very eager to see everything new that I could possibly put on the field, so I appreciate seeing a widely varied force instead of just cookie cutter internet army templates.

If you want to talk about how WD has declined, we can do that -- I've moved my old WD's halfway around the world, but the new stuff is hardly worth using as cat litter these days. Old WDs had rules, short stories, amazing paint jobs on all sorts of minis, not just the latest and greatest releases, and some really interesting articles (my favorite is still the recurring one about how to build an army on a limited budget each month -- they could easily redo that one, except with the current prices, there's no way to build an army on a limited budget.)

Tycho wrote:

They have said that they usually play out the battle several times until they get the result that they are looking for (I.E. the result where the new models they just released do something super cool and make the readers want to go buy them).

RANT INCOMING:
No. They've never said this. Not one time and not even "indirectly" as Pouncey put it. Were that actually true, the 6th ed Chaos Marine debut would not have have sucked nearly so hard. You don't "make readers buy the shiny new miniatures" by having them do feth all nothing for an entire game and then lose. Which is exactly how that bat rep went. They DO play practice games, but I don't see an issue with that.. Playing the game through once probably DOES help them make a more interesting game the second time through. Seriously people, think about it - it's not like the miniatures are running around their own completely out of our control. Think about how silly that statement is. Honestly, if they wanted certain specific results, they wouldn't play a game at all. lol Like someone above me said, they would just set the miniatures up for different photos and fill in the blanks with, you know, writing. Do some of you actually envision the GW staff standing around a game table saying things like "MAN! I REALLY hope my bikers go right up the middle this game. I was hoping they would do it the last two games, but they just keep running up that far table edge. Well fingers crossed they cooperate this time!" lol Ugh. END RANT

I dont know if anyone else has answered this, sorry...

They have actually. I havent even bought/read a WD in years and i still own at least 2 where their 'practice games' are explicitely mentioned (one being a 'Last Stand' of Empire vs Skaven when the new Steam Tank came out and the Tank got destroyed first turn with a Skitterleap+Brass Orb combo in the 'practice' so they re-played the game. The other i cant remember the specifics of off the top of my head, apologies). This at the very least is inference that they re-play the games until the result they want comes up.

The way I see it, the Chaos Battle Report was a way of showing off how NOT to use the new chaos army... Even the peanut gallery folks at the end were saying 'yeah, he did it wrong.'

In saying that, I would prefer a bit more of a middle ground in battle reports, like people said, 'real' armies, something with some real plan in mind, even if it's not a particularly good plan...

The old Rourke's Drift re-enactment with Orcs and Praetorians also mentions that they played it 3 times to tweak the results and the rules.

Loved that report in any case.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
I've always heard that the GW and more generally UK players prefer cinematics and narrative to actual gameplay and fairness.

I've always just imagined the gameshops to consist of a single table. The rest of the room is filled with chairs as the other patrons take their seats the two players come in, dressed in their finest garb. They both start reciting Shakespearean dialog as they forge the story, occasionally shaking a model and going "pew pew" for added effect. The dice have no numbers and are just thrown for effect.

These battle reports make me think these things.

Comment removed.
reds8n

milo wrote:
I think the problem here stems from the fact that many people play 40k for very different reasons.

Naturally, there's the hard core tourney crowd, and this WD BR probably doesn't have much for them. It's not balanced, and the unit selection din't approach intelligent, much less min-maxed. For a competitive format, battles should always be as close to evenly balanced as possible, something this report clearly lacked.

Then there are more fluff/storyline-centric players, and this WD was probably much more satisfying for them. Battles in stories (and real life) are very rarely exactly-matched forces going up against each other, and so those of us who appreciate the the "cinematic" concepts of the battle didn't find the mismatched forces such a problem. Plus, while some commenters have mentioned that only taking one dragon, and that one without the flamer, was stupid, it would also be stupid if every Chaos Space Marine army had 3x dragons with flamers. It would be good in a tournament, but it wouldn't fit the fluff.

And then there's the people who don't require a min/maxed battle report, but expect one that follows the actual rules GW puts out.
That's not a big expectation. Scenarios are fine - I've played in them and enjoyed them. Even scenarios follow army building rules (usually - there's not too many exceptions ime and I've never seen "lets just take what's painted and forget about everything" as one of the scenario points).

 Kaldor wrote:

 BluntmanDC wrote:

 Kaldor wrote:
Personally, I think most players could learn a lot from reading WD battle reports. They could learn how to lighten the feth up about their game of toy soldiers, they could learn how to consider the enjoyment of their opponent when building a list, and they could learn not to rigidly adhere to a single TAC list all the time.

List building has nothing to do with an opponents enjoyment of the game (if you can't think of ways to beat a 'power list' then you aren't a good player)

That's one of the silliest things I've read all day. Congratulations.

Your answer is one of the silliest things I've read all weak. Congratulations.

See what I did here?

For what it's worth, I and pretty much everyone I play with in my area never buy the White Dwarf for the reasons the OP stated.

I have no problem with people enjoying different ways of playing 40k. More fluffy/narrative? More power to you. Competitive gamer? Cool story bro. I'm simply stating that no one I play with actually pays money for a White Dwarf because there is nothing in that magazine that appeals to us.

Be nice if there was though.

This at the very least is inference that they re-play the games until the result they want comes up.

No. That is you reading way too much into someone saying "In the practice game x/y/z" happened. THEY did not infer. YOU did. There is no evil conspiracy here. Again, I would refer you to the Chaos report (because it's a good example and it's recent so many here are likely to have at least looked at it) from when they debuted the 6th ed codex. Half the new minis did nothing. The Drake was decent, but the Maulerfiend did ... what? Nothing. Just like most of the rest of the army. If these were all "fixed" don't you think they would have tried a little harder to showcase the new stuff? Again, games take a long time to play (especially when you have to stop on a regular basis to take notes and photos) and it's not like the WD/GW staff is hurting for things to do. If they wanted certain specific results, do you guys really think they would waste time playing even ONE game? Let alone the multiple games they run through now. No, they would just set the stuff up, photograph it and slap some text on it. Done.

The old Rourke's Drift re-enactment with Orcs and Praetorians also mentions that they played it 3 times to tweak the results and the rules.

Really testing my memory on that one so I could be wrong, but if I remember correctly, they were setting up a special scenario (due to the "Historical Reenactment" part of it) and wanted to create a unique scenario that players could run through at home without needing to make their own house rules. That was back in the day when WD regularly made scenarios you could play at home with special/unique rules that existed outside the normal missions. So of course they had to tweak the special rules. It takes a few times to get stuff like that right. That's why rule sets always have play-testers. Unless someone can provide a specific quote where they explicitly state that they tweaked RESULTS in addition to rules, this is just another conclusion that has been lept to from a ledge that is tenuous at best.

So anyway, I know I'm probably fighting a losing battle with that. There will always be GW conspiracy fans. I just wanted to add again that while I wish the report had been a little more informative as far as the new DA codex, I did really enjoy it. People really do need to lighten up sometimes. If it wasn't your cup of tea I can get that. Calling it the "Worst Battle Report of all time"? No. Just no.

I dug up WD 222 which contained the Rourke's Drift report.


Paul Sawyer doesn't come out and bluntly say they replayed it to tweak the results, but does say they played it 3 times to balance the rules:
battle 1) too big table, orks shoot them all to death.
battle 2) buff IG too much, they shoot orks to death
battle 3) the published report, with IG narrowly winning in a very 'cinematic' way.

Tweaking the rules for their custom battle tweaked the results naturally. But I concede it probably wasn't their intent, although I'm sure they'd fought a fourth time or until the IG won

I dug up WD 222 which contained the Rourke's Drift report.


Paul Sawyer doesn't come out and bluntly say they replayed it to tweak the results, but does say they played it 3 times to balance the rules:
battle 1) too big table, orks shoot them all to death.
battle 2) buff IG too much, they shoot orks to death
battle 3) the published report, with IG narrowly winning in a very 'cinematic' way.

Tweaking the rules for their custom battle tweaked the results naturally. But I concede it probably wasn't their intent, although I'm sure they'd fought a fourth time or until the IG won

Thank you. So it was as I remembered. They were just trying to make a balanced set of rules for a unique scenario and that was exactly my point. Also, in that case I would suggest that they were talking about the practice games NOT to suggest that the games are suppose to be "fixed" but rather because they wanted to demonstrate the thought process behind setting up that type of unique scenario. It was intended to give us a look "behind the scenes" if you will. That sort of thing was common in the Paul Sawyer days.

Eldercaveman wrote:

Darrett wrote:
I find it interesting; don't most of you play where bringing undercost lists buy you advantages? In our games, you automatically get first turn, and depending on point disparity, you might get other fun things like rerolls on mysterious objectives or a deployment zone modification (reducing your opponent or increasing your zone by 3", etc). Since its blind lists until the start of the game, we've had 1850 point games where both players arrived with 1500 points trying to outdo the other.

I've never heard anyone do this, but it is a cool idea, did it stem from Apocalypse games by any idea?

Didn't stem from Apocalypse as far as I know. Honestly, I thought it was common; I've played in groups separated by 3500 miles and have always done at least the "lowest point value goes first".

Plumbumbarum wrote:

 Kaldor wrote:

 BluntmanDC wrote:

 Kaldor wrote:
Personally, I think most players could learn a lot from reading WD battle reports. They could learn how to lighten the feth up about their game of toy soldiers, they could learn how to consider the enjoyment of their opponent when building a list, and they could learn not to rigidly adhere to a single TAC list all the time.

List building has nothing to do with an opponents enjoyment of the game (if you can't think of ways to beat a 'power list' then you aren't a good player)

That's one of the silliest things I've read all day. Congratulations.

Your answer is one of the silliest things I've read all weak. Congratulations.

See what I did here?

Yeah, you earned yourself a place on my 'Ignore' list. Good for you, I guess.

By far the worst White Dwarf battle report is always the one in the current issue; whatever month it happens to be.

This months issue being no exception. I had skipped over to the army list because the play by plays are usually dumb, then had to do a double take and go back to the beginning.

Ignoring the rule book (FOC) completely has got to be a brand new low. I suggest for the February issue they go ahead and make up new rules for existing units simply because it would be much more awesome.

I mean how cool would it be if they did a "battle report" where flyers came in turn 1 and could assault into close combat!

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:
That or one comes in dressed as a Space Marine and places down his SM Army, and his oponent has painted their skin green w/ their ork army already deployed

Cinematic +10!


I used to read the battle reports... now I just read the pictures and captions rather than read through all the gak.

EDIT: or to take an overly used joke from a certain game...
"I used to read the battle reports like you, then I realised GW can't play"

Ok, that sucked... sue me. On second thought, don't. Sue GW.

"I used to read the battle reports until Fat Bloke took an arrow to the knee."

 Kaldor wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
real 40k armies.

Could you expand on this point please?

A real army is an army that:

1) Follows the standard rules about even point values (preferably ones that people tend to play at) for both players, FOC, and any other army composition rules. It's ok to make the occasional exception to the rule for theme reasons (for example, removing the HQ from a "our leader is dead, WTF now?" mission) as long as you make it clear that's what you're doing, but in general the armies should follow all of the normal rules that people play by.

2) Contains a realistic choice of units. It doesn't have to be the most optimized tournament list, but there should be a clear plan for how the army was built and what part each unit has in the overall plan. It should be a reasonable example of what real 40k players use, not just a pile of whatever the studio happened to have painted at the time or all of this month's new models thrown together without any thought given to how to make it work.

In short, the armies should look like what you'd see if you walked into the average game store (though better painted) in the middle of a game, not just a random pile of catalog models being pushed around a table to make pretty pictures.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
It's low quality work judged by your standards, playing a game can be a difference of opinion whether one wants to see WAAC games or friendly games played instead.

Why do you even bother replying to me when you didn't take the time to read what I said? I made it very clear that the problem is NOT the fact that GW doesn't use WAAC lists and behavior, it's that the battle reports are just badly done because of writing quality and similar issues. Even if your goal is to see a friendly story-based game they're still badly done.

clively wrote:
By far the worst White Dwarf battle report is always the one in the current issue; whatever month it happens to be.

It's two guys having fun and showing off what the new models do. Big frigging deal.

 Brother SRM wrote:

clively wrote:
By far the worst White Dwarf battle report is always the one in the current issue; whatever month it happens to be.

It's two guys having fun and showing off what the new models do. Big frigging deal.

Nod.

At the risk of sounding repetitive - I thoroughly enjoyed it this month.

 cvtuttle wrote:

 Brother SRM wrote:

clively wrote:
By far the worst White Dwarf battle report is always the one in the current issue; whatever month it happens to be.

It's two guys having fun and showing off what the new models do. Big frigging deal.

Nod.

At the risk of sounding repetitive - I thoroughly enjoyed it this month.

Yeah, seriously. I haven't touched WD in over a decade. I still pick up issues from the 200's and enjoy the hell out of them. And I quite enjoyed the battle report. Two blokes sitting down with their own collections (the only extras were the new Dark Angel units; the Black Legion was definitely not the studio one I remember) and getting their game on. Some people get too hung up on constructs that were introduced to make the game pick-up friendly. When planning out narrative scenarios it is best to take a page from historicals and not bother with points and just come up with forces you would see (or just bring everything you have, as in this case), and leave balancing to things like force objectives and relative terrain set up.

This set-up actually had a lot working against the DA. The Black Legion had a great defensive position, a buff in their deployment zone, a bottleneck to funnel the enemy (and unfortunately themselves) and the objective itself was completely in their control and hidden. So even if the DA end up with a larger force by a bit the balance for the scenario seems to be quite good. If they had any practice games it was likely to tweak things like giving Chaos the shrine as a boost and determining the best way to handle the Fallen in their ranks. If you are ever running a narrative scenario then it will take several games before you work out the kinks in it. My Infinity group has a mission we must have tweaked half a dozen times to fill in holes that people kept finding. If GW runs practice games for batreps then that only sounds like a good idea to me. Better than running a new scenario sight unseen and having it end anti-climatically when one side finds a loop-hole in the scenario and wins too easily. Scenarios are most fun when things a drawn to a nailbiting conclusion.

My group has a game like this near-annually where we get everyone together, split up in to teams based on the most sensible alliances and plonk down everything we own. This battle report brought back good memories of those games.

My group has a game like this near-annually where we get everyone together, split up in to teams based on the most sensible alliances and plonk down everything we own. This battle report brought back good memories of those games.

what would you do , if one of those games a prime objective holder of one force would clearly play in favor of the other class. Charging the fallen guy in to a unit that can easily kill him , made as much sens too.

I do not want to see WD reports with competitive lists. I see enough of those already and it might even make the meta worse with all those kids thinking they suddenly became professional players because they copy a tournament list and utterly fail with it, blaming the units -___-

And seriously, do you think a competitive IG list will be fun to watch? An entirely static army? Imagine the report! "Yeah, I rolled...and then rolled...I rolled pretty hard that day! Took so many risks...like hurting my wrists. Ye brah! I'm such a pro gunline player, yo. swag swag yolo."

Besides who ever said war was fought by two equal sides?

 Kaldor wrote:

Plumbumbarum wrote:

 Kaldor wrote:

 BluntmanDC wrote:

 Kaldor wrote:
Personally, I think most players could learn a lot from reading WD battle reports. They could learn how to lighten the feth up about their game of toy soldiers, they could learn how to consider the enjoyment of their opponent when building a list, and they could learn not to rigidly adhere to a single TAC list all the time.

List building has nothing to do with an opponents enjoyment of the game (if you can't think of ways to beat a 'power list' then you aren't a good player)

That's one of the silliest things I've read all day. Congratulations.

Your answer is one of the silliest things I've read all weak. Congratulations.

See what I did here?

Yeah, you earned yourself a place on my 'Ignore' list.

I copy your answer to someone plus little exaggeration and you are going to ignore me for that?

 Kaldor wrote:
Good for you, I guess.

Not really. I enjoy debating you just as anyone else despite your rarely backed up one liners.

We'll leave this particular tangent here please.


Thanks.

I personally have been enjoying the battle reports in the newer issues of White Dwarf. They seem to focus on looking at what the new stuff does, ways to use it, and how it actually worked out in-game. For those kicking off about not following FOC and points values? I'm pretty sure in the rulebook it talks about ignoring those very things if it's what you and your opponent want.

Eldercaveman wrote:
Besides who ever said war was fought by two equal sides?

40k isn't a war, it's playing a game

On another point, though, uneven games can be a lot of fun too! And I don't mean SoB vs. GK, I mean stuff like 1500 vs 1000 points.

And seriously, do you think a competitive IG list will be fun to watch? An entirely static army? Imagine the report! "Yeah, I rolled...and then rolled...I rolled pretty hard that day! Took so many risks...like hurting my wrists. Ye brah! I'm such a pro gunline player, yo. swag swag yolo."

IG armies rarly play static list , there is always movment because of vendettas and ally or so many objectives in 6th.

And dont tell me that people doing stupid stuff like charging their "obejective" to be killed is fun to watch . I get people playing something else then the base 4 codex. I can even understand playing scenarios , just like I can understand people using FW . But when an someone who is playing an army does stuff that would never be done in normal games , then the raport makes no sense . The fact that they didnt use normal FoC [who knows maybe it is normal under the new dex] is just a bonus .

Makumba wrote:

My group has a game like this near-annually where we get everyone together, split up in to teams based on the most sensible alliances and plonk down everything we own. This battle report brought back good memories of those games.

what would you do , if one of those games a prime objective holder of one force would clearly play in favor of the other class. Charging the fallen guy in to a unit that can easily kill him , made as much sens too.

You're referring to the biker's failed charge on the tactical squad? Tactical marines can easily kill Chaos Bikers now? News to me! If you notice that photo, the Chaplain that ends up charging the bikers is off behind a rhino, not in the tac squad getting charged. Had the charge not flubbed and the Chaplain not then proceeded to roll a good charge distance then it would have been a non-issue. Unfortunately he flubbed the charge and then the Chaplain rolled a good charge distance (or at the very least average), caught up and managed to smack the champ down in one go.

A lot of potential points for success/failure in there. Perhaps he could have taken a longer route around the tacticals, though by what I could see, if he didn't charge the tacticals on his turn then they would simply charge on theirs and tie the bikers down while other units caught up. In the photo, after taking a 12" move, they are only just cresting the trench line. The additional movement for turbo-boosting would carry them less than 12" away from the tacticals, no matter where they moved. This would allow the tacticals a free round of shooting and give them the charge. Going any other way would have driven them right in to the middle of the rest of the Dark Angels. Breaking through the tacticals and getting the drop on them seemed like, at the very least, a better idea than running past them and likely getting charged next turn. And if they won the assault that would give them a bit of extra distance and get them out of the likely charge envelope of the Chaplain who could really put the hurt on them. So the BL player risked it and it backfired. But I can guarantee that the whining would have been harder had he driven straight in to the middle of the Dark Angel formation instead of trying to gamble on busting through the flank. Hell the squad he was charging was even the melta-squad and the Sergeant in it wasn't set up for challenges (no proper close combat weapon, just a Storm Bolter) so it was certainly a better squad to charge than most in the DA list.

As to your more general leading question. If a guy on my team was about to make a decision I wasn't sure about I'd ask him if he was sure about it, let him explain and then let him do whatever the hell he still feels is the right move. Because I'm not an uptight control freak. But in the end, people make silly decisions all the time, even people who publish the results of their games in magazines. I'm sure if they rigged everything as some conspiracy theories state, then the players would only ever show perfect judgment. Luckily we get games played by imperfect humans who can make mistakes and bad decisions, just like the rest of us.

The army doesn't have to be a power list, it just has to make sense. Like, you had a plan for what you wanted the army to do. That doesn't mean take multiples of the best unit in every slot, it could be "I want this ork list to have some good anti-infantry, so i'll take squadron of big shoota buggies and one skorcha and give all my nobz Kombi skorchas. For my anti-tank, i'm going to add rokkits on all my trukks and trukk boyz." Obviously, if i was looking to get some hard anti-infantry and anti-tank, these aren't the greatest options. But at least they make some sort of sense, and units are dedicated properly to a task.. Better than, for my anti-TEQ, i'll give my sarges plasma pistols. My anti tank is a marine squad in a rhino, with a sarge with melta bombs.

You're referring to the biker's failed charge on the tactical squad? Tactical marines can easily kill Chaos Bikers now?

because there is a chaplain and other unit nearby and there is no way for chaos bikers to get out of a tactical marines tar pit fast enough . maybe if he had a khorn ax lord and a nurgle mace lord on top of the bikers then plowing in to a tactical with support units would have made more sense.

huge gamble/huge risk moves means that that either the unit was deployed wrong and/or it was moved wrong turn 1 OR the army is bad build [and they kind of a were building armies for this scenario]. The "raport" was stupid because there is nothing to learn from it . And no "if you roll a lot above the avarge" is not a lessons , well unless of course someone wants people to load their dice.

Luckily we get games played by imperfect humans who can make mistakes and bad decisions, just like the rest of us.

not knowing a special rules is an error that can happen . being too used to playing a certain build and then still playing it when your army is different . those can end up with people doing errors . true . But giving your opponent a free obejctive is stupid. in the GW raport example , if he knew he was going to use bikers and that they were going to carry the fallen , why didnt he make the bikers good at it ? a sorc with invisibility casted after turbo boosting or two lords to be sure you can go through almost all units [and with bikes you wouldnt charge 8+ strong storm shield armed termi squads] .

Makumba wrote:
not knowing a special rules is an error that can happen . being too used to playing a certain build and then still playing it when your army is different . those can end up with people doing errors . true . But giving your opponent a free obejctive is stupid. in the GW raport example , if he knew he was going to use bikers and that they were going to carry the fallen , why didnt he make the bikers good at it ? a sorc with invisibility casted after turbo boosting or two lords to be sure you can go through almost all units [and with bikes you wouldnt charge 8+ strong storm shield armed termi squads] .

I got the impression that they did not randomly determine who was the Fallen until after they had already brought their armies to the table.

 tyrannosaurus wrote:
OK, just read the White Dwarf battle report and am astonished at how appalling it was. Completely ignoring the FOC and points system in favour of just using 'whatever models we have painted' made a mockery of the whole rule-set. It's creaking and unwieldy and open to huge criticism but we go with it because, well, it's the rules. But then the authors of the rule-set ignore two of the most important rules? That takes the piss. I think I'm gonna try walking into a GW store and saying "Hey, let's just forget about the FOC and the points values and just play with what we've got painted" and see the response I get. Even my mates would tell me to piss off.

The army lists were, even for White Dwarf trying to showcase models, laughable. Chaos take one Heldrake against a power armour army and then equip it with autocannons despite the flamer killing marines on a 2+? Chaos equip themselves to take on a large terminator contingent by... taking plasma pistols? To keep the fallen marine alive and win 3 victory points you charge it towards a powerful enemy unit? For every time you see 'cinematic' just insert 'fething stupid'.

I read battle reports to try and improve my game, list building, and to see two well matched players try to out-think one another. What did I gain from this battle report? I'd rather read about two chimps throwing gak at each other [and I'd probably learn more].

How good White Dwarf used to be under fat bloke and even before is for another discussion but it's become a joke and I'm a mug for buying it

While I agree ingnoring the FOC and points costs to play with what they had available, your other complaints are kind of silly. Sounds like you expect/want everyone to be a list customizer and that is obnoxious. Show up at the store to play games on a Saturday with *your army*. It doesn't matter what is in *your army*, but that is the one you are using regardless of the opponents you are facing. Thus *your army* could have a heldrake with an autocannon on it when facing an opponent's marine army. Also *your army* might need to rely on plasma pistols to deal with terminators. This is how the game works every day for everyone except those who won't pull their minis out of the case until the next opponent comes up, they can see what they have and then pull the "right" army out of the case. In a tourney you have what you have and go from there. People aren't changing out their armies between every game to match their next opponent. Some times your army will be spot on for what you are dealing with, in others you will be at a disadvantage because of what you chose. This is why building balanced forces is smarter in the long run because you have ways of dealing with the most kinds of threats that way.

As for the fallen marine the staff at GW have long held the attitude that it sucks in a game if a specific model in your army is a target so you just hide them in the back the whole game. That really gets boring after a while. Look my objective is to kill as many units as possible, while yours is to kill my leader. So I'll hide my leader all the way in the back in the best cover possible while you can't hide your army at all so I make it nearly impossible for you to complete your objective. Yeah that is so much fun for the opponent. Either way, given that this is the way that the staff ALWAYS play it in their battle reports it is kind of silly to be offended by it.

Skriker