Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote: Well, yeah. 3 times the cost of the conscripts is fair to remove them, because they have negligible offensive output and exist for the express purpose of providing a roadblock. This is what I'm talking about.
You're upset that you have to overcommit to them to clear them out in one turn. Because guess what, equivalent cost of firepower will get rid of them in about 3 to 4 turns. About double their cost will remove them in 2 turns, which is entirely fair, yes?
Also, I'm part of the reason Sisters are at the top. Literally a quarter of the games listed here are mine [22.2%], and I won all of them.
Because you screwed up the cost, I thought sisters actually got dominions with a storm bolter for 10 points, which would be absurd, not the 12 they actually cost. So my statement was about sisters being absurdly cheap, given I thought they had 8 point dominions till i looked it up.
Second, you realize you literally no other unit is that resilient, right? It's literally just conscripts. Who, I once again remind you, are still more offensively powerful than most basic infantry units. Beat the crap out of termagaunts in resilience and firepower, while something like horrors has morale issues to actually balance them out, as well as almost no offensive power. They put out as much damage for cost as my vanguard do, roughly as much as normal SoB do as well.
The number of dominions it takes to almost kill 150 points of conscripts (actually only 120ish points dead) can wreck two full units of termagaunts, costing 240 points. Or kill around 17-18 tacticals, again in the 221-234 ish point range, assuming they were combat squaded so morale isn't an issue. Or 35 of my vanguard, for a solid 350 points killed. Note that the vanguard are the only unit here who actually outperform conscripts offensively, both termagaunts and normal tacticals do less damage than their equivalent in conscripts.
So... no that's not what any other army pays for bodies. It isn't even close. Even other cheap infantry who contribute as much or less than conscripts do for their value don't take that much to kill.
Also, oh yes, oops, it's 60-points a squad. I went back and corrected it.
Vanguard aren't tough units. Vanguard are offensive units. Not all units are tough, not all units are killy. If your vanguard could sustain as much fire as Concripts, and remain effective, they'd be broken as all hell.
Conscripts offensive output is terrible. Maximizing their offensive output eliminates their defensive value, for one. That's another thing nobody accounts for, the fact that the 50 guys are spread out in a 48" long line, 1.5" apart.
Tacticals shouldn't even come close to conscripts in toughness. Dedicated firepower should remove way more points of any space marine unit that it does of Conscripts, because, with the exception of Cenobyte Servitors, just about every Space Marine unit is 8 times more destructive than a conscript. Tacticals average, at range, 2/3^3 against Conscripts, while a Conscript averages 1/3^3 against Tacticals, Makes sense why Conscripts are more efficient? They paid for all the toughness and none of the firepower, while Space Marines paid for some toughness and some firepower.
Here's the secret: There is no Space Marine unit that pays for bodies without also playing for some firepower, therefore you will never have a unit as good as Conscripts at getting bodies for points. Take, for example Ork boyz. They're like Conscripts, but they have a lot more firepower, particularly in assault. Therefore, they're 6 points. An Ork boy is as resilient as a Conscript, actually, because of the +1T, but puts out about 12 times the amount of damage in melee as a Conscript does at optimum range [both without buffs]. However, because they boy is optimized for melee combat, and the conscript can benefit from a few buffs, he doesn't cost 36 points, he costs 6. See?
Quickjager wrote: Why are your conscripts spread out like that. It makes them useless as a bubblewrap with the new charge rules..
What do you mean?
In Hammer and Anvil deployment the other day, I made a 48" long line of conscripts. Each was spaced 1.5" apart, in 2 ranks. 5" behind the second rank of Conscripts were the tanks, so that the enemy can't consolidate into them. The enemy shoots the conscripts, and I kill off the second rank in a region where they don't matter. Then the enemy charges the conscripts, and moves up to them, and fights. I again kill of conscripts from far away, so the enemy doesn't get to consolidate in a direction other than "towards the conscripts." Then, I retreat the surviving two-dozen conscripts, and shoot him.
Vanguard aren't tough units. Vanguard are offensive units. Not all units are tough, not all units are killy. If your vanguard could sustain as much fire as Concripts, and remain effective, they'd be broken as all hell.
Conscripts offensive output is terrible. Maximizing their offensive output eliminates their defensive value, for one. That's another thing nobody accounts for, the fact that the 50 guys are spread out in a 48" long line, 1.5" apart.
Tacticals shouldn't even come close to conscripts. Dedicated firepower should remove way more points of any space marine unit that it does of Conscripts, because, with the exception of Cenobyte Servitors, just about every Space Marine unit is 8 times more destructive than a conscript.
A tactical marine hits on a 3+ with a strength 4 weapon, vs 5+ with a strength 3. That's a bit over two, not 8. Back when bolters ignored 5+ armor the gap might've been different but now... tactical marines are barely more destructive. 2 conscripts in rapid fire range and two outside it beat a tactical marine. Conscripts are so cheap that, even spread out and not optimized offensively, you still get more value. Plus you know... commanders.
Plus you still didn't address gaunts. Or horrors who actually have terrible offensive potential and morale issues to compensate for their price. Or cultists who are more expensive gaunts with better guns.
Conscripts are the only unit that takes that much firepower to kill for its cost. It is totally and fully unique in its pricing, and conscripts still are perfectly fine offensively.
Because if you are spacing them out like that it leaves a big enough gap for the enemy to multicharge through them. There is no reason to have your conscripts more than a inch away from each other.
Vanguard aren't tough units. Vanguard are offensive units. Not all units are tough, not all units are killy. If your vanguard could sustain as much fire as Concripts, and remain effective, they'd be broken as all hell.
Conscripts offensive output is terrible. Maximizing their offensive output eliminates their defensive value, for one. That's another thing nobody accounts for, the fact that the 50 guys are spread out in a 48" long line, 1.5" apart.
Tacticals shouldn't even come close to conscripts. Dedicated firepower should remove way more points of any space marine unit that it does of Conscripts, because, with the exception of Cenobyte Servitors, just about every Space Marine unit is 8 times more destructive than a conscript.
A tactical marine hits on a 3+ with a strength 4 weapon, vs 5+ with a strength 3. That's a bit over two, not 8. Back when bolters ignored 5+ armor the gap might've been different but now... tactical marines are barely more destructive. Still didn't address gaunts. Or horrors who actually have terrible offensive potential and morale issues to compensate for their price. Or cultists who are more expensive gaunts with better guns.
Conscripts are the only unit that takes that much firepower to kill for its cost. It is totally and fully unique in its pricing, and conscripts still are perfectly fine offensively.
Tactical Marines have a 2/3 chance to hit, a 2/3 chance to wound, and a 2/3 chance to kill. In reverse, a Conscript has a 1/3 chance to hit, a 1/3 chance to wound, and a 1/3 chance to kill. That is, in fact, 2^3=8 times the effect on each other. Against a Space Marine, the Tac guy has a 4/6 to hit, a 3/6 to wound, and a 2/6 to kill, while a Conscript has a 2/6 to hit, a 2/6 to wound, and a 2/6 to kill, which is precisely three times more effective.
Against a Tactical Marine's shooting, it takes an average of 3 shots to kill the Conscript, and 9 shots to kill the Tac Guy. In this respect the Marine is also 3 times as good as the Conscript.
If a Marine was T3, Sv.5+, with a Boltgun at BS3+, he should be 9 points. Likewise, if he was T4 Sv3+ with a Lasgun at BS5+, he should be 9 points. But he's both, so he's 13, which is quite fair, all things considered.
Quickjager wrote:Because if you are spacing them out like that it leaves a big enough gap for the enemy to multicharge through them. There is no reason to have your conscripts more than a inch away from each other.
I see. There is 8.5" between the frontmost Conscript and the tanks. Assuming the enemy was as close as possible, it would require a 10" charge to make the tanks. There are very few units that can even get to the position to make the tanks, but a lot of units that can get to position to make a 9" charge against the Conscripts.
Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote: Tactical Marines have a 2/3 chance to hit, a 2/3 chance to wound, and a 2/3 chance to kill. In reverse, a Conscript has a 1/3 chance to hit, a 1/3 chance to wound, and a 1/3 chance to kill. That is, in fact, 2^3=8 times the effect on each other. Against a Space Marine, the Tac guy has a 4/6 to hit, a 3/6 to wound, and a 2/6 to kill, while a Conscript has a 2/6 to hit, a 2/6 to wound, and a 2/6 to kill, which is precisely three times more effective.
Wow, that's an insane justification for 8 times more effective. You compare them shooting the same target. Which is three times better at best, with conscripts costing less than a fourth of the price. Against a toughness 3 troop, it'll be less than three times. That's not bad offensive power... certainly not as terrible as you keep making them out to be.
You also haven't address how not a single other infantry unit is anywhere near as tough for their cost. Not gaunts, cultists, nothing I can think of.
Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote: Tactical Marines have a 2/3 chance to hit, a 2/3 chance to wound, and a 2/3 chance to kill. In reverse, a Conscript has a 1/3 chance to hit, a 1/3 chance to wound, and a 1/3 chance to kill. That is, in fact, 2^3=8 times the effect on each other. Against a Space Marine, the Tac guy has a 4/6 to hit, a 3/6 to wound, and a 2/6 to kill, while a Conscript has a 2/6 to hit, a 2/6 to wound, and a 2/6 to kill, which is precisely three times more effective.
Wow, that's an insane justification for 8 times more effective. You compare them shooting the same target. Which is three times better at best, with conscripts costing less than a fourth of the price. Against a toughness 3 troop, it'll be less than three times. That's not bad offensive power... certainly not as terrible as you keep making them out to be.
You also haven't address how not a single other infantry unit is anywhere near as tough for their cost. Not gaunts, cultists, nothing I can think of.
I just justified their toughness against the same weapon and their firepower against the same target, in the post above.
'Gaunts are weaker than Conscripts, and marginally killier but only by a small margin [1/2 as tough but 1.5 times as shooty], so I think Termigaunts are overpriced. Cultists are basically equivalent to Guardsmen, but also cost more to prevent Chaos Space Marines from infringing on the Guard's territory. That's why Scions are really, really bad for everything right now, because they're literally better at doing Marine-things than Marines, do you get me? Ork boys are fairly priced, because they're also 4.5 times more killy than a Conscript against SM targets, but only in melee while the Conscript can engage at range. Brimstones are fair, because they can Smite weakly, and if you bring a bunch in squads to ten they're basically morale proof [or, you know, have a big demon that makes everyone morale proof that you have a fair chance of wanting to bring anyway], and you got yourself a metric crap-ton of CP in the process. Grots are overpriced, without a doubt.
But, anyway, compared to most troop choices out there, Conscripts are quite fairly priced. There are a couple overpriced ones, like Termigaunts and Grots, which are really both 1 point high in my opinion, and Cultists, who are very pricey in order to make them a weak unit to bring.
Now, if you'll give me a few hours, I have a game to win.
150pts of conscripts is 50 models. same points is 11.5 marines; we'll say 12
12 marines kill 7.1 conscripts on average while in rapid fire range in a turn(about 21 points).
50 conscripts kill 3.7 marines on average while in rapid fire range (about 48 points). even assuming only 15 are in rapid fire range (65 shots), then 2.4 marines are killed on average(about 31 points).
saying that marine firepower is 8 times as effective is an improper use of not setting the target as a control group. their offensive output is not as bad as you claim.
Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote: 'Gaunts are weaker than Conscripts, and marginally killier but only by a small margin [1/2 as tough but 1.5 times as shooty], so I think Termigaunts are overpriced. Cultists are basically equivalent to Guardsmen, but also cost more to prevent Chaos Space Marines from infringing on the Guard's territory. That's why Scions are really, really bad for everything right now, because they're literally better at doing Marine-things than Marines, do you get me? Ork boys are fairly priced, because they're also 4.5 times more killy than a Conscript against SM targets, but only in melee while the Conscript can engage at range. Brimstones are fair, because they can Smite weakly, and if you bring a bunch in squads to ten they're basically morale proof [or, you know, have a big demon that makes everyone morale proof that you have a fair chance of wanting to bring anyway], and you got yourself a metric crap-ton of CP in the process. Grots are overpriced, without a doubt.
But, anyway, compared to most troop choices out there, Conscripts are quite fairly priced.
You think a 12" assault 1 str 4 weapon is 1.5 times as killy as a str 3 24" RF 1 weapon? No. Not at any range. IF the conscripts were armed with laspistols yes, but they have lasguns. Cultists are like guardsman with commissars, with a 6+ save, costing a point more, and SM and guard units can be in the same army (so I guess I should be mention renegades and heretics which are still flat out worse than guard for the same cost). We don't have a morale proof demon, we have one that shares it's leadership but a squad of 10 brimstones can still take 2-3 morale causalities regardless, and 33% chance of managing smite vs a lasgun on every body isn't even close to the same.
Name a single unit that is priced fairly compared to conscripts. A single other infantry unit that isn't guard. Maybe SoB? That's the only army that I see that can field anything like guard level infantry, and I'd still consider it debatable. After that, nothing even comes close.
Crimson Devil wrote: I Exalted your post because you're the only one on topic this page.
Discussing why the win/loss rate is what it is is a fairly reasonable usage of the thread. The fact this tends to become more specific as problem areas are identified is also natural.
Discussing why the win/loss rate is what it is is a fairly reasonable usage of the thread. The fact this tends to become more specific as problem areas are identified is also natural.
You must have forgotten you already revealed your actual motivation.
If people stop trying to defend their broken OP armies in this thread I will. If they keep going on and on about how everything is fine and people don't know what they are talking about, I will take the time to point out how utterly wrong they are.
You're just trying to win an argument on the internet.
PLEASE STOP CLOGGING UP THIS THREAD WITH ARGUMENTS ABOUT CONSCRIPTS. IF YOU WANT TO ARGUE ABOUT THAT MAKE A NEW THREAD AND STOP DERAILING THIS ONE. I WOULD LIKE TO BE ABLE TO CONTINUE TRACKING ARMY WINS AND LOSSES WITHOUT A THREADLOCK, THANK YOU.
I have no idea how you can be expected to beat Azrael. Even with 3 heldrakes charging into his lines and trying to break up the bubble he just beats you in CC. The only reason this game was even remotely competitive was that two of the heldrakes exploded.
I just justified their toughness against the same weapon and their firepower against the same target, in the post above.
'Gaunts are weaker than Conscripts, and marginally killier but only by a small margin [1/2 as tough but 1.5 times as shooty], so I think Termigaunts are overpriced. Cultists are basically equivalent to Guardsmen, but also cost more to prevent Chaos Space Marines from infringing on the Guard's territory. That's why Scions are really, really bad for everything right now, because they're literally better at doing Marine-things than Marines, do you get me? Ork boys are fairly priced, because they're also 4.5 times more killy than a Conscript against SM targets, but only in melee while the Conscript can engage at range. Brimstones are fair, because they can Smite weakly, and if you bring a bunch in squads to ten they're basically morale proof [or, you know, have a big demon that makes everyone morale proof that you have a fair chance of wanting to bring anyway], and you got yourself a metric crap-ton of CP in the process. Grots are overpriced, without a doubt.
But, anyway, compared to most troop choices out there, Conscripts are quite fairly priced. There are a couple overpriced ones, like Termigaunts and Grots, which are really both 1 point high in my opinion, and Cultists, who are very pricey in order to make them a weak unit to bring.
Now, if you'll give me a few hours, I have a game to win.
Grots are only overpriced until you consider that they're one of the only ways Orks can get BS4+ shooting. Since Orks are not a shooting army, they pay a premium for anything that isn't BS5+ or worse.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
heckler wrote: 150pts of conscripts is 50 models. same points is 11.5 marines; we'll say 12
12 marines kill 7.1 conscripts on average while in rapid fire range in a turn(about 21 points).
50 conscripts kill 3.7 marines on average while in rapid fire range (about 48 points). even assuming only 15 are in rapid fire range (65 shots), then 2.4 marines are killed on average(about 31 points).
saying that marine firepower is 8 times as effective is an improper use of not setting the target as a control group. their offensive output is not as bad as you claim.
Except, you're only double-tapping with all 50 conscripts if your opponent is a potato. Try and be at least a little realistic.
You think a 12" assault 1 str 4 weapon is 1.5 times as killy as a str 3 24" RF 1 weapon? No. Not at any range.
Gaunts have BS4+. Conscripts have BS5+.
Gaunts are designed to advance, shoot, and assault.
Conscripts are designed to be assaulted.
Yes. The gaunts are killier.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Selym wrote: PLEASE STOP CLOGGING UP THIS THREAD WITH ARGUMENTS ABOUT CONSCRIPTS. IF YOU WANT TO ARGUE ABOUT THAT MAKE A NEW THREAD AND STOP DERAILING THIS ONE. I WOULD LIKE TO BE ABLE TO CONTINUE TRACKING ARMY WINS AND LOSSES WITHOUT A THREADLOCK, THANK YOU.
I started a conscript thread. Can we move that conversation over there and try to behave enough that it doesn't get locked like the last one did?
We are seeing a narrowing of the gap further for Tau and also much more homogeneity in the middle. It looks like this edition might actually be pretty balanced. I would also point out based on the C.I. that the army with the lowest possible real performance is Death Guard at 13%.
I don't know about balanced. 1-st tied (index-wise) is pretty far ahead of anything else. The rest looks to be even though. Looks like nothing that can't be fixed with a point revamp.
Thanks! It wasnt so that we wouldn't have to search for them, but because I didnt know if it was a living chart and/or being kept up to date, or if it was static and only showing the latest update to your data entry.
After the next update they will be produced, and can then be quoted and added to the front
Automatically Appended Next Post:
nintura wrote: Thanks! It wasnt so that we wouldn't have to search for them, but because I didnt know if it was a living chart and/or being kept up to date, or if it was static and only showing the latest update to your data entry.
Yeah, I think I gather that now. I didnt understand the score system. Saw that some armies had hundreds of games, but I read the chart wrong thinking the score reflected the amount of games played. Interesting to see a lot of the previous editions lower tier armies doing very well.
Might as well chime in my 8E Experience so far playing Dark Angels:
Dark Angels vs Admech - Won
Dark Angels vs Chaos Marines (Tzeentch) - Won
Dark Angels vs Chaos Marines (Tzeentch) - Won
Dark Angels vs Chaos Daemons (Slaanesh) - Won
Dark Angels vs Chaos Marines (Nurgle) - Won
All these were "pure" lists with the exception of my occasional use of a Vindicare Assassin.
Oh cool... Didn't realize people were posting results they witnessed or from a tournament... *pulls up BCP app*
This isn't everything from the tournament... just the lists I know.
IG vs. Thousand Sons with Magnus.... IG win
Orkz vs. Chaos Space Marines... Orkz win
Dark Eldar vs. Death Guard/Chaos mix.. Dark Eldar win
Tau vs. Cult Mechanicus... Tau win
Dark Angels vs. Adeptus Sorirtas/Imperium... Dark Angels win
Ultramarines vs Tau... Ultramarines win
Ynarri vs. Adeptus Ministorum... Adeptus Ministorum win
Eldar bike spam w/ Scorpion vs. Tau Supremacy.... Tau Supremacy win
Dark Eldar vs Ynarri... Dark Eldar won
IG vs. Dark Angels... IG won
Tau vs. Adeptus Ministorum... Adeptus Ministorum win
Thousand Sons with Magnus vs Ultramarines... Ultramarines win
Orkz vs. Death Guard/Chaos mix... Orkz win
Blood Angels vs. Adeptus Sorirtas/Imperium.... Adeptus Sorirtas/Imperium
Tau vs. Eldar bike spam w/ Scorpion... Eldar bike spam w/ Scorpion
Ynarri vs. Tau... Tau win
Ultramarines vs. Blood Angels.. Ultramarines win
Death Guard/Chaos mix vs. Dark Angels... Dark Angels win
Chaos Knights vs Chaos Space Marines... Chaos Knights win
Orkz vs. Adeptus Ministorum... Orkz win
Cult Mechanicus vs Blood Angels... Cult Mechanicus win
koooaei wrote: Is there a possibility different people will post results from same games?
I would say this is pretty unlikely. But, it is possible, since major tournaments are coming up. I would imagine a couple people here are going to the BAO.
I've only played two games so far of 8th but my god are guard nasty. The guard vs ork game I played yesterday was a one sided slaughterfest and I didn't even bring that much of an optimized list. We ended bottom of turn 2 since he was close to being tabled by the next turn.
Resin Glazed Guardsman wrote: I've only played two games so far of 8th but my god are guard nasty. The guard vs ork game I played yesterday was a one sided slaughterfest and I didn't even bring that much of an optimized list. We ended bottom of turn 2 since he was close to being tabled by the next turn.
Can you post a battle report somewhere?
Every time I hear something like this, I can't help but wonder what happened. I have not seen many games nearly that one sided for as much as I hear about them, and I always really want to hear more about the lists and how they were played.
I've played 4 games with tau, all on 4x4 tables at 50 power levels.
First two were medium amounts of terrain against not good/not bad opponent's lists, easy victories but I had accidentally cheated because they were my first games and I just wanted to play and didn't properly add up power levels
Lost the next two a few days ago playing the same y'nari list twice, it was the swirly god, the sword dude, two farseer thingies on bikes, three bike dudes and 6-8 wraithguard with s10 ap-4 flamers. Both times there was lots of LOS blocking terrain, both times he wiped the floor with me, second time round I managed to get to turn 4 though. The wraithguard did most of the work, they wiped out everything that was near them (which everything had to be to shoot given the terrain) and my crisis suits whiffed their rolls, meaning they got obliterated the next turn.
Not surprised that we're considered garbage tier now. it seems very hard to actually combat the other heavy hitters in the game with what should be our own.
Resin Glazed Guardsman wrote: I've only played two games so far of 8th but my god are guard nasty. The guard vs ork game I played yesterday was a one sided slaughterfest and I didn't even bring that much of an optimized list. We ended bottom of turn 2 since he was close to being tabled by the next turn.
Can you post a battle report somewhere?
Every time I hear something like this, I can't help but wonder what happened. I have not seen many games nearly that one sided for as much as I hear about them, and I always really want to hear more about the lists and how they were played.
That's fine. I'm not even wanting anything crazy here. If anything, a couple sentence turn by turn summary is perfect and a general rundown of list comp for both sides. All I see anymore is giant 2 hour long videos, and I haven't got the patience to listen to people talk their way through the game to try to figure out what went right/wrong.
It's not that I doubt this stuff is happening, but more that I'm trying to figure out WHY exactly it's happening.
That's fine. I'm not even wanting anything crazy here. If anything, a couple sentence turn by turn summary is perfect and a general rundown of list comp for both sides. All I see anymore is giant 2 hour long videos, and I haven't got the patience to listen to people talk their way through the game to try to figure out what went right/wrong.
It's not that I doubt this stuff is happening, but more that I'm trying to figure out WHY exactly it's happening.
I dislike video battle report too, I prefer to read rather than watch when it comes to these things.
Resin Glazed Guardsman wrote: I've only played two games so far of 8th but my god are guard nasty. The guard vs ork game I played yesterday was a one sided slaughterfest and I didn't even bring that much of an optimized list. We ended bottom of turn 2 since he was close to being tabled by the next turn.
Can you post a battle report somewhere?
Every time I hear something like this, I can't help but wonder what happened. I have not seen many games nearly that one sided for as much as I hear about them, and I always really want to hear more about the lists and how they were played.
My IG consisted of Yarrick, Pask in a punisher, Command Executioner, Creed, scion tempestus, 2 units of 25 conscripts, a commissar, 4 squads of guardsmen, 1 scion command squad w/ plasma, 1 lascannon team, 2 hellhounds and 1 chem cannon hellhound, 2 wyverns, and one of each assassin except the culexus.
Orks had 2 weird boys with the teleport power, a megaboss or whatever it was he used for his warlord, 4 units of grots with some kind of ork commissar, 3 units of 15-20 boys, 1 big unit of stormboys, a few killakans and a deffdread, a dakka jet, and 40 or so lootaz parked on his deployment objective. Might be missing a few things but he had well over 120+ models on the board.
Spearhead deployment and the mission was secure and control. Probably not the best mission for the orks right off the bat. First turn I ended up seizing the initiative thanks to one of my 14 command points. Didn't move much except to spread out my conscript line a bit more into the middle of the board, my vidicare deployed in from reserves on high ground to take shots at the enemy warlord. Focused most of the artillery and tank shots into his lootaz holding the objective in his deployment. The eversor and callidus both failed their charges. First round was pretty meh overall for me, but I did manage to get first blood.
Start of his turn he warps a group of boys right behind the vindicare but fails to wound him due to him being in cover and fails the charge, starts moving the rest of his army towards my objective on the far left side of the board. His stormboys and slugga boys rip the two assassins apart before they can ever do anything. He only manages to charge my lascannon team in my deployment zone and wipes them out, consolidating in on top of my objective.
Turn 2 my scions deepstrike in the back line killing his weird boy. Vindicare kills his warlord for the point. Pask and the hellhounds clear off most of the units he has on his backline objective with ease, and the wyverns clear off the rest. At this point at least 50% of his army is gone and hes only managed to wipe out my eversor and callidus, the lascannon squad and one squad of guardsmen while wounding Pask once.
Since he was already behind on points and his only hope was to hold both objectives, he conceded as he probably would have been tabled in the next turn or two. Was our first real game too so I'm sure we made mistakes along the way.
I saw the end of a 2v2 double Guard vs Orks + Eldar at 4000pts and while the Guard team did table the Ork and Eldar player it was quite close up until the end of turn 3 AND it turned out the Eldar player (who was very new) hadn't brought enough points so the xenos side was actually down about 500pts.
I also played one of the guard players after the battle in a 3500pt game and beat him 9 - 4 (I held two objectives, contested another plus I had first blood, slay the warlord and line breaker whilst he only had one objective, contested another and had line breaker). That game was a slaughter and was very fun, I was left at the end with 2 Chaos Lords, 3 units of Berzerkers (all 5 man) and a Heldrake whilst he only had an Enginseer, a Leman Russ, an Immolator and a Drop pod.
Every time I hear something like this, I can't help but wonder what happened. I have not seen many games nearly that one sided for as much as I hear about them, and I always really want to hear more about the lists and how they were played.
That's before the slight scion comsquad nerf. However, it wouldn't have changed the outcome.
This was a close relic game that I think was largely won due to the Eldar player's ignorance of how bad snipers are. He had like 300 points worth of them that if he had invested in the heavy weapons teams that were shredding my rubrics he would have beaten me fairly easily.
Tyranids vs Necrons
Tyranids vs Grey Knights
Tyranids vs Grey Knights
Tyranids vs Tyranids
Tyranids vs Orks
Tyranids vs Tyranids
Tyranids vs Astra Militarum
Gamgee wrote: Good to see Tau wins. If you can get some more details on opponents or key units they took that would be great.
Drones, Fire Warriors, Cadre Fireblade and Pathfinders. Those are the core of their armies.
Those are the only things that I'm 100% sure are in common between the 2 armies at this stage, though one also uses Stealth Suits, a Coldstar, a single unit on Manta-striking Crisis and for the time being (while he waits to get some more stealth suits or his Ghostkeels built) a Burstide with SMS, ATS & Target Lock. He's also just bought Shadowsun but she hasn't seen the table yet.
The other one I haven't seen fight a full-sized game yet myself, but I know the core of his list is the same and he has a Ghostkeel & Commander (he was talking about getting a new one eventually so it has the wargear loadout he now tends to run... but for the life of me I can't remember his loadout). I'd imagine he's also got a single unit of Manta-Striking Crisis Suits, but not 100% sure.
One of them basically castles with his Fire Warriors & Pathfinders around his Fireblade all in range of both him and Pulse Drones to extend their range, and keep his Riptide and Coldstar nearby for the first 1-2 turns (ready to call Mont'Ka/Kay'oun (?) if need be) while his Crisis Suits drop in to take out an immediate threat and his stealth suits harrass the flank with support from 1 FW unit and 1 Pathfinder squad (he deploys them on the weakest flank if possible) if he thinks he can get away with it.
Edit:Also I know the games I posted aren't dupes because I asked the guys asked me to post the results for them (none of them have DakkaDakka accounts afaik).
Spoletta wrote: I really don't get this, on paper boyz are the most OP unit in the game. I should really follow some battle reports to understand what is going on.
Well, from my experience, Ork players I have played against haven't made the most tactically sound decisions. Yes Boyz hit like a trukk but I've always been able to avoid them and/or lure them into a trap.
Not trying to say anything about the Ork player community (saying more about my local Ork players), just reporting my findings.
Yeah, we have one ork player in our area... and to say he's not the most tactically sound person would be giving him praise.
So Ork players are bad and AM players are good. Is that it?
Not just that but in my experience AM players have been far more tactical and generally more intelligent people. To put into context, the two people I play against the most are an AM player, who is currently studying Nuclear Engineering at a rather good university, and an Ork player, who made it into university but not to the level that the Guard player is at. I've seen this reflected a lot when I meet Ork or Guard players, maybe it's that AM attracts the more tactical, regimented intellectuals whilst Orks attract a more outgoing, 'lad' kind of character. Not all AM/Ork players I've met fall into these categories but enough to make me think there might be a correlation.
First i wanted to argue this l2p statement about ork players being stupid but than i went stupid and posted a couple random smiles
Back on track. Ork index is really lacking right now - atm there's 1 good build (footslogging horde). There 'might' be some use for full mech with wagon+nob spam but it's definitely not top tier. The bulk of the units is just too overpriced to be effective. Like 60% units are mainly ranged support ones. And yet they're pretty bad at shooting and even worse at surviving return fire. Even within our own book. It gets worse if you start comparing with good stuff from other indexes.
Saying that "well, ork units are ok - it's just the player's fault" is like saying this exact stuff about 7-th nid players that lost >80% games if they decided to not bring flyrants. That's basically what orks are right now. 7-th nids.
That's fine. I'm not even wanting anything crazy here. If anything, a couple sentence turn by turn summary is perfect and a general rundown of list comp for both sides. All I see anymore is giant 2 hour long videos, and I haven't got the patience to listen to people talk their way through the game to try to figure out what went right/wrong.
It's not that I doubt this stuff is happening, but more that I'm trying to figure out WHY exactly it's happening.
1 more win for Inquisitor Lord Katherine's Sisters of Battle at league tonight:
Sisters of Battle vs. Space Marines
Spoiler:
75PL. Why the league is using Power Level beats me, because we use Points for casual games.
My memory may be a bit fuzzy, it's really late and I finished the match 5 hours ago, but I still mostly remember what happened.
Iron Hands, Spearhead Detach
Company Captain
Land Raider
Land Raider
Land Raider Crusader
Razorback, Twin Lascannons
Razorback, Twin Assault Cannons
Razorback, Twin Assault Cannons
Mission Scenario was Eternal War 5, using Dawn of War deployment.
He ended up setting up all his tanks in the center of his zone, where his objective was, clustered up behind a big building. I set up my melta teams near the edges of the board, the flamer and storm bolters near the center, and Celestine dead center. The sisters ordinary and the Imagifier set up on my right flank behind a large, multistory building in the no-man's land, so they could move to it on turn one. and the Penitent Engine set up near them. The Exorcist sets up on the left flank, behind a church.
I scout my stuff before the game starts, moving the 4 Dominion squads in their transports forward 12" into the no-man's land. One squad of Meltaguns is sheltered from the Land Raiders by a big building, but the left flank one is in the open, and the ones in the center are really in the open.
Iron Hands 1:
He pull out the Crusader, one Land Raider, the Lasback, and an Assault Cannon Razorback around my left side of the big building he was hiding behind, and his other two tanks around my right side. The Razorbacks are positioned directly in front of the Land Raiders. He does a number on me with his Lascannons and Multimeltas, blowing up my Heavy Bolter and Immolation Flamer Immolators and sending both the Penitent Engine and the left-flank Multimelta Immolator to one wound.
Argent Shroud 1:
I respond by moving up Celestine with Hand of the Emperor, right up the middle of the board onto the big building his tanks are clustered around, and move my Battle Sisters into the big multistory building in front of them. Then, I unload all my meltaguns, and plod them up right next to his Land Raiders. The girls who bailed out of the destroyed tanks also move forward. I fire the Exorcist at the right-flank Razorback, dealing moderate damage to it. I fire the right-flank meltagun Dominions at the Land Raider near them, and send it to 4 wounds. I use their Immolator on the Razorback, then finish it with massed fire from my Battle Sisters. On the left flank, I do 6 wounds to the other Land Raider with my Meltaguns, and a few to an Assault Cannon Razorback. In my assault phase, I charge Celestine into the Crusader and the Lasback, charge the left-side Assault Cannon Razorback with the Storm Bolter Dominions, and charge his right-side Land Raider with my Immolator. I try to charge the left-side Land Raider with the 1-wound Immolator, but get killed in overwatch. Oh well. For the entire combat phase, just about nothing of significance happens. Celestine is good, but she can't solo Land Raiders in melee.
Iron Hands 2:
He falls out of combat with his Crusader and Lasback, but leaves the 4-wound Land Raider and the Assault Cannon Razorback in melee. He fires the active Land Raider at Celestine, but isn't super successful. That's his turn.
Argent Shroud 2:
Celestine regenerates back up to full using Spirit of the Martyr, and I use Diving Guidance to blow up the Lasback. Then I blow up the full-health Land Raider with my Dominions and the Exorcist, and charge the other one with the Penitent Engine. The Penitent Engine blows it up, and it detonates, killing off a melta team, the flamer team, the Penitent Engine, and dealing 4 wounds to the Immolator that was still in melee with it. Celestine charges the Captain and the Crusader, and sends the Captain to 2 wounds, but loses a bunch of her own. The Storm Bolter squad in combat with the Razorback continue to do nothing.
Iron Hands 3:
He has nothing to do but fight in melee, because there's nowhere to fall back to. The captain kills off Celestine, but her ressurects next to the Melta-Dominions, only 9" away from where she fell.
Argent Shroud 3:
Celestine closes with the Captain, and the Meltaguns close with the Crusader, and deal some damage to it, but don't kill it. Celestine charges it and the Captain, and kills the Captain.
Iron Hands 4:
He does nothing, and fights in melee, doing a wound to Celestine with the Crusader.
Argent Shroud 4:
Celestine falls back into the big building again, and the Dominions finish off the Crusader. It blows up, and detonates, killing them, dealing heavy damage to Celestine, heavily damaging the Razorback, and killing the girls in close-combat with it. At this point, I've lost quite a bit more to his tanks exploding than I have to his shooting.
Iron Hands 5:
His last razorback empties it's assault cannon into the Exorcist in a last act of defiance, doing nothing.
Argent Shroud 5:
The Exorcist takes a chunk off the Razorback, and it's finished with massed fire from the Battle Sisters Squad. That concludes the game, as there are no Space Marine models remaining.
It felt closer than it was, because I lost so many models to those exploding tanks. Otherwise, he was basically locked in combat all game.
Other games around the store: [Winner vs. Loser]
Orks vs. Blood Angels
Tyranids vs. Primaris Space Marines
Harlequins vs. Imperial Guard
Harlequins vs. Tyranids
Thousand Sons vs. Tyranids
1. Thousand Sons vs Imperial Guard,
I had Magnus, two units of deep striking terminators, a terminator lord, sorceror, Heldrake, Rubrics and 30xTzaangors.
My opponant had two LRBT, Command tank with punisher, medusa, salamnder tank, 2xSoriratas tanks(?), arco flagulents, Melta veterans in drop pod, an evasore and 50xConscripts with a Commissar.
I had first turn and did hardly any damage all game, we drew 12:12 on VP (we played maelstorm) due to me filling out maelstorm requirements but doing nothing to my opponent.
2. World Eaters vs Imperial Guard
I had a Chaos Lord, chaos lord in terminator armour, a deep striking termie unit, Heldrake, Havocs with lascannons, renegade knight, 2x Rhinos and 16x Berzerkers.
My opponant had the same list as before.
I had first turn, slaughtered his conscripts, medusa and support vehicles as well as his drop pod unit but I lost because his damn SoB tank with the double flamer and the arco flagulents tore through most of my Zerkers and his Tanks blew my knight sky high (though two Zerkers and a Rhino whiped out the arco flagulents and the priests that came with them), the game ended 5:4 (this was eternal war, 2 objectives).
Spoletta wrote: I really don't get this, on paper boyz are the most OP unit in the game. I should really follow some battle reports to understand what is going on.
Well, from my experience, Ork players I have played against haven't made the most tactically sound decisions. Yes Boyz hit like a trukk but I've always been able to avoid them and/or lure them into a trap.
Not trying to say anything about the Ork player community (saying more about my local Ork players), just reporting my findings.
Yeah, we have one ork player in our area... and to say he's not the most tactically sound person would be giving him praise.
So Ork players are bad and AM players are good. Is that it?
Not just that but in my experience AM players have been far more tactical and generally more intelligent people. To put into context, the two people I play against the most are an AM player, who is currently studying Nuclear Engineering at a rather good university, and an Ork player, who made it into university but not to the level that the Guard player is at. I've seen this reflected a lot when I meet Ork or Guard players, maybe it's that AM attracts the more tactical, regimented intellectuals whilst Orks attract a more outgoing, 'lad' kind of character. Not all AM/Ork players I've met fall into these categories but enough to make me think there might be a correlation.
First i wanted to argue this l2p statement about ork players being stupid but than i went stupid and posted a couple random smiles
Back on track. Ork index is really lacking right now - atm there's 1 good build (footslogging horde). There 'might' be some use for full mech with wagon+nob spam but it's definitely not top tier. The bulk of the units is just too overpriced to be effective. Like 60% units are mainly ranged support ones. And yet they're pretty bad at shooting and even worse at surviving return fire. Even within our own book. It gets worse if you start comparing with good stuff from other indexes.
Saying that "well, ork units are ok - it's just the player's fault" is like saying this exact stuff about 7-th nid players that lost >80% games if they decided to not bring flyrants. That's basically what orks are right now. 7-th nids.
That is a very polite way to say it. Orkz at the moment don't have tactics to use, our only competitive unit worth mentioning is Boyz and what can you really do that is sneaky or tactical with them except use transports, Da Jump or spam the ever loving feth out of them?
I mean GW even went as far as to limit the movement of Ork Infantry units to 5in and 4in (Mega Armor) but gave literally every other faction better movement almost across the board. We also have no real way to minimize casualties to those units, 6+ armor is crap, 5++ is slightly better crap but you have to be 100% underneath it which reduces your foot print on the table and makes it easier to get out maneuvered, and a 6+ FNP Is...wait for it...crap. And for those Crap Invul (against shooting only) and FNP saves we have to pay a ridiculous amount. And if you think I am kidding, guess again, a Single Painboy who gives nearby orks a 6+ FNP costs 65pts, or 115 if you put him on a bike. How about that Big Mek with the KFF to at least give your boyz a 5++ save against shooting? 75pts.
To put that in another way, 30 boyz (Full sized unit) Cost 180pts with a 6+ save. We have to then spend 140 MORE pts to give them a 5++ and a 6+ FNP. Would you like to know how well that buffs boyz?
Against 30 bolter hits, 25 Boyz will DIE. If I spend another 140pts (equivalent to 23.3 more boyz) to get that KFF and FNP instead of 25 boyz dying it will be 17 boyz that die. so 8 have been saved each turn which is roughly 48pts, so to make those points back the KFF and Painboy have to stay in a boyz unit for 3 FULL turns....of course after 2 turns that unit is dead.
So again, it isn't so much that Ork players aren't as tactically minded (Last edition proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt) but its the fact that we no longer have any tools to work with.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And to shut down the immediate follow on argument of "Just put multiple blobs under those guys auras!" yeah still not worth it. And if you are investing that much points in INFANTRY and keeping it all within a 9in Radius you are going to lose. To make the points back on those units you need to survive 3 rounds of shooting like I said, since the boyz unit is wiped out after 1 round pretty much, that means you need 3 Units of Boyz maxed out living under a tiny bubble. So that unit then costs 680pts and is crammed into a tiny bubble on the table....
1 more win for Inquisitor Lord Katherine's Sisters of Battle at league tonight:
To be honest, I was mostly interested in the statistical far anomalies the likes of the aforementioned two round nigh-tabling, but I did enjoy the hell out of reading that. I attempted to start a WH army back in the day, but I couldn't deal with the price back then and it was before I realized the superiority of metal miniatures. Your report makes me wish that I would have reconsidered.
They had some victories and are pulling ahead. I'm more amused by the Sisters results. As are Space Marines I should note-- they're up quite a bit as people figure out how to play 8th edition.
1 more win for Inquisitor Lord Katherine's Sisters of Battle at league tonight:
To be honest, I was mostly interested in the statistical far anomalies the likes of the aforementioned two round nigh-tabling, but I did enjoy the hell out of reading that. I attempted to start a WH army back in the day, but I couldn't deal with the price back then and it was before I realized the superiority of metal miniatures. Your report makes me wish that I would have reconsidered.
Most of my matches have lasted about 3 turns. I think tabling the enemy is way more common this edition, it almost never happened previously it seems but now games rarely make it to 5 turns.
I've only had one games not end with my opposition being totally annihilated, and in that game a single GK Librarian was hiding out in a corner behind NLOS terrain at the end of turn 5. A lot of times it's 3 turns to the enemy conceding.
It's not too late to reconsider! We are so good this edition. We were really good last edition too, actually, but I don't think people realized that because we weren't the Eldar, Space Wolves, and Tau.
Dark Angels vs Tyranids - Nids win
Dark Angels vs Tyrandis - DA win
Dark Angels vs Necron - DA win
Dark Angels vs Eldar - Eldar win
Dark Angels vs Astra Militarum - AM win
Dark Angels vs Grey Knights - DA win
Dark Angels vs Grey Knights/Deathwatch/Inquisition - DA win
Dark Angels vs Grey Knights/Deathwatch/Inquisition - Gk/DW/Inq win
Dark Angels vs Grey Knights/Deathwatch/Inquisition - DA win
Dark Angels vs Grey Knights/Deathwatch/Inquisition - Gk/DW/Inq win win
Aren't sisters players pretty much old timers that know 40k inside and out? Give them a decent army and a centerpiece and they wreck face. Is that stereotype true?
Most of my matches have lasted about 3 turns. I think tabling the enemy is way more common this edition, it almost never happened previously it seems but now games rarely make it to 5 turns.
I've only had one games not end with my opposition being totally annihilated, and in that game a single GK Librarian was hiding out in a corner behind NLOS terrain at the end of turn 5. A lot of times it's 3 turns to the enemy conceding.
In 6e and 7e I don't think I saw even one game that didn't end with someone tabled or nearly tabled by the end of Turn 3.
JimOnMars wrote: Aren't sisters players pretty much old timers that know 40k inside and out? Give them a decent army and a centerpiece and they wreck face. Is that stereotype true?
It's not entirely wrong. Thing is, Sisters armies have basically been playing the same army lists with at most minor tweaks often for over a decade. Sisters players can basically skip the "re-learn your army" step that other armies have had to face.
JimOnMars wrote: Aren't sisters players pretty much old timers that know 40k inside and out? Give them a decent army and a centerpiece and they wreck face. Is that stereotype true?
It's not entirely wrong. Thing is, Sisters armies have basically been playing the same army lists with at most minor tweaks often for over a decade. Sisters players can basically skip the "re-learn your army" step that other armies have had to face.
I'd say this edition was a bit of a shakeup. The guy in our group who plays sisters is enjoying being a remarkably fast aggressive short range shooting army, arguably what sisters always should have been. Previously he played his a lot more static.
Of course, it's kinda weird to talk about how sisters played last edition because.... mainly they played as part of a larger imperial force of some sort. Inquisition and guard were popular from what I remember. They usually didn't work as a standalone force.
Could also be that it's a smaller sample size, both matches and players, and therefore the win rate isn't as diluted (not to take anything away from SoB, they are really good).
Flood wrote:Could also be that it's a smaller sample size, both matches and players, and therefore the win rate isn't as diluted (not to take anything away from SoB, they are really good).
Yes. There are probably only a few of us reporting, and if we win a lot of a games then it's going to really drive up with winrate
JimOnMars wrote: Aren't sisters players pretty much old timers that know 40k inside and out? Give them a decent army and a centerpiece and they wreck face. Is that stereotype true?
It's not entirely wrong. Thing is, Sisters armies have basically been playing the same army lists with at most minor tweaks often for over a decade. Sisters players can basically skip the "re-learn your army" step that other armies have had to face.
I'd say this edition was a bit of a shakeup. The guy in our group who plays sisters is enjoying being a remarkably fast aggressive short range shooting army, arguably what sisters always should have been. Previously he played his a lot more static.
Of course, it's kinda weird to talk about how sisters played last edition because.... mainly they played as part of a larger imperial force of some sort. Inquisition and guard were popular from what I remember. They usually didn't work as a standalone force.
I liked to add Inquisitors. It makes me feel like Witch Hunters! Now they are kind of crap with the Telethesia discipline, so I leave them behind and run pure Sisters.
I also like to run Sisters, Imperial Guard, Talon, and Space Wolves all lead by an Inquisitor, because it's fun to have an Imperial Crusade. When I run these lists, I always want to buy some Grey Knight Terminators, a Deathwatch Kill Team, and some Kataphrons to really make it represent the full might of the Imperium of Man united and ready.
Most of my matches have lasted about 3 turns. I think tabling the enemy is way more common this edition, it almost never happened previously it seems but now games rarely make it to 5 turns.
I've only had one games not end with my opposition being totally annihilated, and in that game a single GK Librarian was hiding out in a corner behind NLOS terrain at the end of turn 5. A lot of times it's 3 turns to the enemy conceding.
In 6e and 7e I don't think I saw even one game that didn't end with someone tabled or nearly tabled by the end of Turn 3.
Huh. I or my opponent usually had forces left at the end of the game, but one of us had been pushed off an objective. Sisters tended to be a bit faster, but even then actually wiping out the enemy was difficult.
Spoletta wrote: I really don't get this, on paper boyz are the most OP unit in the game. I should really follow some battle reports to understand what is going on.
Well, from my experience, Ork players I have played against haven't made the most tactically sound decisions. Yes Boyz hit like a trukk but I've always been able to avoid them and/or lure them into a trap.
Not trying to say anything about the Ork player community (saying more about my local Ork players), just reporting my findings.
Yeah, we have one ork player in our area... and to say he's not the most tactically sound person would be giving him praise.
So Ork players are bad and AM players are good. Is that it?
Not just that but in my experience AM players have been far more tactical and generally more intelligent people. To put into context, the two people I play against the most are an AM player, who is currently studying Nuclear Engineering at a rather good university, and an Ork player, who made it into university but not to the level that the Guard player is at. I've seen this reflected a lot when I meet Ork or Guard players, maybe it's that AM attracts the more tactical, regimented intellectuals whilst Orks attract a more outgoing, 'lad' kind of character. Not all AM/Ork players I've met fall into these categories but enough to make me think there might be a correlation.
First i wanted to argue this l2p statement about ork players being stupid but than i went stupid and posted a couple random smiles
Back on track. Ork index is really lacking right now - atm there's 1 good build (footslogging horde). There 'might' be some use for full mech with wagon+nob spam but it's definitely not top tier. The bulk of the units is just too overpriced to be effective. Like 60% units are mainly ranged support ones. And yet they're pretty bad at shooting and even worse at surviving return fire. Even within our own book. It gets worse if you start comparing with good stuff from other indexes.
Saying that "well, ork units are ok - it's just the player's fault" is like saying this exact stuff about 7-th nid players that lost >80% games if they decided to not bring flyrants. That's basically what orks are right now. 7-th nids.
That is a very polite way to say it. Orkz at the moment don't have tactics to use, our only competitive unit worth mentioning is Boyz and what can you really do that is sneaky or tactical with them except use transports, Da Jump or spam the ever loving feth out of them?
I mean GW even went as far as to limit the movement of Ork Infantry units to 5in and 4in (Mega Armor) but gave literally every other faction better movement almost across the board. We also have no real way to minimize casualties to those units, 6+ armor is crap, 5++ is slightly better crap but you have to be 100% underneath it which reduces your foot print on the table and makes it easier to get out maneuvered, and a 6+ FNP Is...wait for it...crap. And for those Crap Invul (against shooting only) and FNP saves we have to pay a ridiculous amount. And if you think I am kidding, guess again, a Single Painboy who gives nearby orks a 6+ FNP costs 65pts, or 115 if you put him on a bike. How about that Big Mek with the KFF to at least give your boyz a 5++ save against shooting? 75pts.
To put that in another way, 30 boyz (Full sized unit) Cost 180pts with a 6+ save. We have to then spend 140 MORE pts to give them a 5++ and a 6+ FNP. Would you like to know how well that buffs boyz?
Against 30 bolter hits, 25 Boyz will DIE. If I spend another 140pts (equivalent to 23.3 more boyz) to get that KFF and FNP instead of 25 boyz dying it will be 17 boyz that die. so 8 have been saved each turn which is roughly 48pts, so to make those points back the KFF and Painboy have to stay in a boyz unit for 3 FULL turns....of course after 2 turns that unit is dead.
So again, it isn't so much that Ork players aren't as tactically minded (Last edition proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt) but its the fact that we no longer have any tools to work with.
Automatically Appended Next Post: And to shut down the immediate follow on argument of "Just put multiple blobs under those guys auras!" yeah still not worth it. And if you are investing that much points in INFANTRY and keeping it all within a 9in Radius you are going to lose. To make the points back on those units you need to survive 3 rounds of shooting like I said, since the boyz unit is wiped out after 1 round pretty much, that means you need 3 Units of Boyz maxed out living under a tiny bubble. So that unit then costs 680pts and is crammed into a tiny bubble on the table....
Um, how are you losing 25 boys to 30 bolter hits? 30 bolter hits cause 15 wounds, of which you save ~2
Now, those are two Boyz you would have lost guaranteed before. Then add the painboy, which used to give a 5+, now gives a 6+ after your initial 6+ and cannot be negated. Remember how Orks died in droves to scatterlaser before? Now it may as well be an ap- heavy bolter from last edition.
Orks are in a rough spot, I won't lie. But acting as though the issue is with their durability is misleading at best. Your ling ranged support took a hit, a very big one at that, but everything else Orks do has received a SERIOUS boost.
We are seeing a narrowing of the gap further for Tau and also much more homogeneity in the middle. It looks like this edition might actually be pretty balanced. I would also point out based on the C.I. that the army with the lowest possible real performance is Death Guard at 13%.
Spoiler:
Based on the 95% CI, you can reason that the only armies that have an above-chance odds of winning their game is Guard, Sororitas, and Thousand Sons. Everyone elses CI overlaps with 50% win rate. Except Tau who are below chance.
Against 30 bolter hits, 25 Boyz will DIE. If I spend another 140pts (equivalent to 23.3 more boyz) to get that KFF and FNP instead of 25 boyz dying it will be 17 boyz that die. so 8 have been saved each turn which is roughly 48pts, so to make those points back the KFF and Painboy have to stay in a boyz unit for 3 FULL turns....of course after 2 turns that unit is dead.
As noted above that can't be bolter hits, looks like you meant bolter wounds.
30 bolter wounds implies 60 bolter hits which (assuming BS3+) implies 90 bolter shots. Like wow, how many marines are you assuming are shooting to kill those Boyz? Your basic no upgrade marine is 13 points, so 90 shots (beyond rapid fire range) is 1170 points. Your basic Boy is 6 points, losing 25 of them is 150 points. If I sat there taking 5 turns of shooting like an Ork the marines kill something like 750 points, way less than their cost.
If I spend 140 points for 5++ and 6+++ then I lose an average of only ~17 per turn 85 models per game, which is 510 points. Accounting for the buffers makes 650points, so I have saved 100 points over just Boyz.
There are undoubtedly better anti-ork weapons. But basic marines with bolters don't really work out well. Ork 'armor' is T4 on 6pt models, not saves.
I mean GW even went as far as to limit the movement of Ork Infantry units to 5in and 4in (Mega Armor) but gave literally every other faction better movement almost across the board.
I'm not convinced by this really. Sure basic infantry has a low move rate, but generally only down 1" vs most other basic infantry. That, however, ignores the ready access to buffs Orks get to getting into contact, with the plenty of charge after advance auras they can advance and then charge with re-rolls for the charge. Throw in a command re-roll or two and that is quite a rapid advance to contact.
Then their is the Weird boy. A power to pick up 30 boyz (or something else) and place it somewhere else with a good chance of a charge isn't half bad. For objective games that is very neat.
Against 30 bolter hits, 25 Boyz will DIE. If I spend another 140pts (equivalent to 23.3 more boyz) to get that KFF and FNP instead of 25 boyz dying it will be 17 boyz that die. so 8 have been saved each turn which is roughly 48pts, so to make those points back the KFF and Painboy have to stay in a boyz unit for 3 FULL turns....of course after 2 turns that unit is dead.
As noted above that can't be bolter hits, looks like you meant bolter wounds.
30 bolter wounds implies 60 bolter hits which (assuming BS3+) implies 90 bolter shots. Like wow, how many marines are you assuming are shooting to kill those Boyz? Your basic no upgrade marine is 13 points, so 90 shots (beyond rapid fire range) is 1170 points. Your basic Boy is 6 points, losing 25 of them is 150 points. If I sat there taking 5 turns of shooting like an Ork the marines kill something like 750 points, way less than their cost.
If I spend 140 points for 5++ and 6+++ then I lose an average of only ~17 per turn 85 models per game, which is 510 points. Accounting for the buffers makes 650points, so I have saved 100 points over just Boyz.
There are undoubtedly better anti-ork weapons. But basic marines with bolters don't really work out well. Ork 'armor' is T4 on 6pt models, not saves.
I mean GW even went as far as to limit the movement of Ork Infantry units to 5in and 4in (Mega Armor) but gave literally every other faction better movement almost across the board.
I'm not convinced by this really. Sure basic infantry has a low move rate, but generally only down 1" vs most other basic infantry. That, however, ignores the ready access to buffs Orks get to getting into contact, with the plenty of charge after advance auras they can advance and then charge with re-rolls for the charge. Throw in a command re-roll or two and that is quite a rapid advance to contact.
Then their is the Weird boy. A power to pick up 30 boyz (or something else) and place it somewhere else with a good chance of a charge isn't half bad. For objective games that is very neat.
Yes it was meant as wounds not hits, my mistake. However the point wasn't to show how point efficient they are Vs. Bolters but to show how crap the buffs are for those boyz to survive. the Painboy with his TINY aura and the Big Mek with his bubble are the only ways to buff boyz survival rate and they aren't worth it.
As far as the Auras and what not, so what? We had that all last edition with our 6in movement as well, difference being we didn't require a warboss to be standing next to every unit to use that ability.
So now to get those bonuses we need to pay for a few warbosses, we need to pay MORE points for a less effective painboy and we need to pay about the same for the KFF Big Mek.
So again, what tactics are there? The deep strike aspect? Every army has this pretty much and everyone should be playing around that ability at this point, Trukkz? Nope. Trukk boyz are no longer effective for multiple reasons, Morale and loss of attacks being the main reasons why. Battlewagons are effective but you lose the Green tide buff (20boyz = +1 attack) pretty quick since wagons can only carry 20.
My point remains, what tactics do we have when we only have a couple of units that are good and they have very little buffs that we can give them?
That might have been one of the most bizarre games I have ever played. It was also by far one of the most fun. Tau vs Guard, both fairly standard TAC lists, more shooty than assaulty. Secure and Control, so just the two objectives in deployment zones. Spearhead Assault (I think its called? The Hammer and Anvil-esque deployment with arrow shaped zones) so about as far as we could be from each other. You would think we would both castle up and just slug it out, right?
Literally every single player turn, not game turn but player turn, from turn 1 to the end we were in CC. We both ended up just rushing the middle, leaving a couple units to camp objectives, and just slugged it out in the middle. Both sides charged multiple times, hell I might have charged more than he did now that I think about it. Pretty sure I did more CC in this one game alone than I did in all of 7th edition. It was the oddest thing, but I have no idea how we both wordlessly decided to just rush the middle of the board and slug it out up close, but we did and it was fantastic. Ended up winning 6-4, we both held our objectives, we both had slay the warlord, but I got first blood when I popped a hellhound with Fusion Stealth Suits at the top of turn 1 and I had linebreaker thanks to a Devilfish that just wouldn't die.
Had 2 games with my harlequins, one was last night and other was a week ago.
Harlequins vs. nurgle/tzeentch daemons: daemons win. 2000points. Was my first game and had made some mistakes and tried to see what certain models could do. Got scabbathrax down to 1 wound and pumped a bunch more into him but could not get that last one for the life of me.
Harlequins vs. AM (guard): Harlequin victory. 75PL. When I was finally able to take out the conscript ball (they really do put out more firepower than people will have you believe) I made a bunch of multi charges on Pask and the like. Commisar Yarrik is very difficult to take out these days. The shadowseers aura helped me out a ton. My vehicles kept blowing up and putting 1MW on my characters. At the end of the game, I finally seized the sole objective with a deathjester.
I can add some more results from 3 games last night.
Battle Sisters vs Chaos Marines: Battle Sisters Win
Space Marines vs Orks: Space Marines Win
Blood Angels vs Chaos Marines: Chaos Marines Win
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Melissia wrote: Honestly I think the Sisters thing is a bit skewed. The players that have reported Sisters games thus far are quite veteran.
I think I may be inclined to agree with you. I've been a Witchunter since 4th edition and I'm up to 5-0 in 8th edition. My army isn't that far removed from what I've been using for years while all the other people in my gaming group keep trying new stuff each week. It's a nice feeling to have a really potent army, but as other's have mentioned the SoB were only ever bad in 5th edition. The rest of the time they were pretty competitive.
Or the other armies need their snowflake options and strats back via codex updates (assuming the IG aren't going ham again with that).
I don't like this solution, making everything as powerful as the most powerful thing is how you get power creep.
The trouble with nerfs is that it feels bad to have bought and painted a unit, only for it to then be worse than it was before.
Well, in this case it isn't about "buffing" armies so much as "finishing" them. The indexes are very incomplete. While they do manage to get most of their units in, a lot of armies are missing a ton of wargear and special rules that they usually have. The codexes are expected to bring them back.
For example, chapter tactics in the Space Marine codex. That is a thing for them (though how relevant/strong they were has varied), and the indexes have been forcing them to play without them. Expect to see Space Marine victories skyrocketing after the codex drops. Or at least Raven Guard, if we decide to start tracking them separately.
Once we get codex releases, we'll need people to specify whether they are using codexes or not. And we should tabulate the codex games separately from index games.
Selym wrote: Once we get codex releases, we'll need people to specify whether they are using codexes or not. And we should tabulate the codex games separately from index games.
Personally I would propose that we make a rule that you can only report a game if both players are using their most up to date rules (IE their codex releases). The whole point of this thread and the collection of data is to see how the armies are performing on the table with relation to others. That data becomes useless if people are using different rulesets for their factions. Allowing someone to report a game for data purposes using the index after their codex comes out would be like me reporting a battle back in 7th using the Tau 4th edition codex. It completely messes up the data. I'm not telling people to go out and by your codex (though I personally think you should use your most up to date rules regardless), but if you plan on reporting battles in this thread, use your most recent rules release. If we don't do that, then this thread is pretty much useless.
Selym wrote: Once we get codex releases, we'll need people to specify whether they are using codexes or not. And we should tabulate the codex games separately from index games.
Personally I would propose that we make a rule that you can only report a game if both players are using their most up to date rules (IE their codex releases). The whole point of this thread and the collection of data is to see how the armies are performing on the table with relation to others. That data becomes useless if people are using different rulesets for their factions. Allowing someone to report a game for data purposes using the index after their codex comes out would be like me reporting a battle back in 7th using the Tau 4th edition codex. It completely messes up the data. I'm not telling people to go out and by your codex (though I personally think you should use your most up to date rules regardless), but if you plan on reporting battles in this thread, use your most recent rules release. If we don't do that, then this thread is pretty much useless.
I completely agree.
In fact, the OP post could be divided in 3 parts:
1. Index only games
2. Index vs Codex games
3. Codex vs Codex games
after everyone has their codex, we could abandon this thread and start a fresh one, bringing back only the #3 results
We should distinguish games that allow Forge World from games that disallow them, to see if Forge World really is upsetting the balance as much as people claim it will.
I suspect that it will not, but having some data one way or the other would be useful.
Selym wrote: Once we get codex releases, we'll need people to specify whether they are using codexes or not. And we should tabulate the codex games separately from index games.
Personally I would propose that we make a rule that you can only report a game if both players are using their most up to date rules (IE their codex releases). The whole point of this thread and the collection of data is to see how the armies are performing on the table with relation to others. That data becomes useless if people are using different rulesets for their factions. Allowing someone to report a game for data purposes using the index after their codex comes out would be like me reporting a battle back in 7th using the Tau 4th edition codex. It completely messes up the data. I'm not telling people to go out and by your codex (though I personally think you should use your most up to date rules regardless), but if you plan on reporting battles in this thread, use your most recent rules release. If we don't do that, then this thread is pretty much useless.
I completely agree.
In fact, the OP post could be divided in 3 parts:
1. Index only games
2. Index vs Codex games
3. Codex vs Codex games
after everyone has their codex, we could abandon this thread and start a fresh one, bringing back only the #3 results
I think what I might do, to keep it less complicated, is freeze a factions results once they gain a codex. People will then only be allowed to post results for a faction with a codex if the player used that codex, no index users after the codex comes out. That way we'll see whether the codex increases their affectiveness.
The problem with seperating into Index/Index-Codex/Codex results is that the results become far too spread out and complicated since each faction will need: results for their faction with index against index, results for their faction with index against codex, results for their faction with codex against index and results for their faction with codex against codex. Suddenly the data is split into quarters and the data table quadruples it's fields.
Unit1126PLL wrote:Another data-gathering idea:
We should distinguish games that allow Forge World from games that disallow them, to see if Forge World really is upsetting the balance as much as people claim it will.
I suspect that it will not, but having some data one way or the other would be useful.
Probably too late for that since people have probably already reported many battles that used FW models.
We should distinguish games that allow Forge World from games that disallow them, to see if Forge World really is upsetting the balance as much as people claim it will.
I suspect that it will not, but having some data one way or the other would be useful.
Probably too late for that since people have probably already reported many battles that used FW models.
We could start a new thread. I'm bad at this sort of thing though, or else I would. This thread could remain the 'whole game' thread, and the other one could just be focused on Forge World? But yes, for this thread it's a bit late.
I wouldn't bother separating index from codex battles other than chronologically. When the codex for a faction is released, their index is obsolete and should be phased out. Saying "but I want to keep using the index" would be like saying "I know my army just got their 6th edition codex, but I really like my 2nd edition codex so I'm going to keep using it".
Sure, this means that until all the codices are out there will be codex vs index battles, just like how early in a new edition there are people using the previous edition's codex. But when a new codex causes a balance shift that will be visible chronologically: their performance will change post-release as the new codex gets adopted.
Marmatag wrote: FW is absolutely influencing these win rates. But until the ITC steps in and bans this trash, we should consider it in our reporting.
This is why we need data, because of posts like this which assert a fact, and then when I'm like 'cite, please' they will have something to point to, and I can say 'fair enough, you're right'.
Or they won't have something to point to, and then maybe they'll realize they were wrong.
Marmatag wrote: FW is absolutely influencing these win rates. But until the ITC steps in and bans this trash, we should consider it in our reporting.
You're absolutely right it is. If I hadn't wasted over 400 points in my last game on my R'Varna (FW Riptide variant) that took 4 turns to kill 2 basilisks and did nothing else all game and used those points on units that were actually useful like Stealth Suits, Breacher Teams, Fusion Commanders, or Gun Drones I would have won that game much faster and much more decisively.
Marmatag wrote: FW is absolutely influencing these win rates. But until the ITC steps in and bans this trash, we should consider it in our reporting.
lol...thanks for the laugh, needed that.
FW is GW, for all intents and purposes. No idea why people don't understand this fact. FW is extremely popular and brings a lot of things to the hobby. There are several threads on Dakka focussing on this, so not going to derail this thread.
OT, is anyone counting Youtube bat reps for victories/losses?
Saying "we should ban forgeworld because some armies get more out of it than others" is exactly, and I mean exactly, on par with saying:
- We should ban X types of units because some armies get more out of it than others
- We should ban Dataslates because some armies get more out of it than others
- We should ban Codexes until everyone has one because some armies get more out of it than others
- We should ban Indexes once everyone has their Codex, because some armies get more out of it than others
- We should ban (Insert BRB Rule) because some armies get more out of it than others
And GW has explicitly said before that FW units are part of normal 40k, and that is an intentional part of their design. Whether or not that design is good is another matter, but if GW is trying to make a single cohesive game you must consider FW as being the same as dataslates, psuedo-mandatory supplements, and codexes.
Melissia wrote: Honestly I think the Sisters thing is a bit skewed. The players that have reported Sisters games thus far are quite veteran.
Sisters are a solid army in general, and Celestine is as flagrantly busted as anything in any other army. It may be a bit skewed but I don't think it's by much.
Marmatag wrote: FW is absolutely influencing these win rates. But until the ITC steps in and bans this trash, we should consider it in our reporting.
You're absolutely right it is. If I hadn't wasted over 400 points in my last game on my R'Varna (FW Riptide variant) that took 4 turns to kill 2 basilisks and did nothing else all game and used those points on units that were actually useful like Stealth Suits, Breacher Teams, Fusion Commanders, or Gun Drones I would have won that game much faster and much more decisively.
Well you're playing against Guard. No matter what you bring, you're at a disadvantage, they are OP.
For instance, all of the Tau games I reported as wins featured the R'Varna. It is definitely an anti-assault unit, firing 3D6 nasty flamer nonsense in overwatch, and nova charging, with a 4++, and 14 wounds, a an 18" fly move to get out of combat... You basically took anti-assault models against tanks, that's a fight you should lose.
The R'Varna should go right at your opponent's heaviest assault units. Fire your flamers, get charged, flame, leave combat, flame again. In the span of 1 assault you've done 9D6 flamer hits, ignoring your other weaponry. I can't fathom why you'd complain about the R'Varna, that thing is absolutely beast.
And the question was, "is it influencing these stats," the answer is yes, it is, because a lot of the games i've reported have featured FW. And the FW army won every one. You could argue that's not the general but it does influence the results, by definition.
Marmatag wrote: FW is absolutely influencing these win rates. But until the ITC steps in and bans this trash, we should consider it in our reporting.
You're absolutely right it is. If I hadn't wasted over 400 points in my last game on my R'Varna (FW Riptide variant) that took 4 turns to kill 2 basilisks and did nothing else all game and used those points on units that were actually useful like Stealth Suits, Breacher Teams, Fusion Commanders, or Gun Drones I would have won that game much faster and much more decisively.
Well you're playing against Guard. No matter what you bring, you're at a disadvantage, they are OP.
For instance, all of the Tau games I reported as wins featured the R'Varna. It is definitely an anti-assault unit, firing 3D6 nasty flamer nonsense in overwatch, and nova charging, with a 4++, and 14 wounds, a an 18" fly move to get out of combat... You basically took anti-assault models against tanks, that's a fight you should lose.
The R'Varna should go right at your opponent's heaviest assault units. Fire your flamers, get charged, flame, leave combat, flame again. In the span of 1 assault you've done 9D6 flamer hits, ignoring your other weaponry. I can't fathom why you'd complain about the R'Varna, that thing is absolutely beast.
And the question was, "is it influencing these stats," the answer is yes, it is, because a lot of the games i've reported have featured FW. And the FW army won every one. You could argue that's not the general but it does influence the results, by definition.
I think we do need this thread now. If only because data = evidence, and not anecdotes.
Forgeworld is fine in any game I play, even though I don't have any models. If they follow GW (which all indications are they will) then we will see "chapter approved" point changes for things.
Marmatag wrote: FW is absolutely influencing these win rates. But until the ITC steps in and bans this trash, we should consider it in our reporting.
You're absolutely right it is. If I hadn't wasted over 400 points in my last game on my R'Varna (FW Riptide variant) that took 4 turns to kill 2 basilisks and did nothing else all game and used those points on units that were actually useful like Stealth Suits, Breacher Teams, Fusion Commanders, or Gun Drones I would have won that game much faster and much more decisively.
Well you're playing against Guard. No matter what you bring, you're at a disadvantage, they are OP.
For instance, all of the Tau games I reported as wins featured the R'Varna. It is definitely an anti-assault unit, firing 3D6 nasty flamer nonsense in overwatch, and nova charging, with a 4++, and 14 wounds, a an 18" fly move to get out of combat... You basically took anti-assault models against tanks, that's a fight you should lose.
The R'Varna should go right at your opponent's heaviest assault units. Fire your flamers, get charged, flame, leave combat, flame again. In the span of 1 assault you've done 9D6 flamer hits, ignoring your other weaponry. I can't fathom why you'd complain about the R'Varna, that thing is absolutely beast.
And the question was, "is it influencing these stats," the answer is yes, it is, because a lot of the games i've reported have featured FW. And the FW army won every one. You could argue that's not the general but it does influence the results, by definition.
You are thinking of the Y'vahra not the R'varna. The R'varna has 2 guns with 3d3 S6 shots at 60" not a flamer.
Marmatag wrote: FW is absolutely influencing these win rates. But until the ITC steps in and bans this trash, we should consider it in our reporting.
You're absolutely right it is. If I hadn't wasted over 400 points in my last game on my R'Varna (FW Riptide variant) that took 4 turns to kill 2 basilisks and did nothing else all game and used those points on units that were actually useful like Stealth Suits, Breacher Teams, Fusion Commanders, or Gun Drones I would have won that game much faster and much more decisively.
Well you're playing against Guard. No matter what you bring, you're at a disadvantage, they are OP.
For instance, all of the Tau games I reported as wins featured the R'Varna. It is definitely an anti-assault unit, firing 3D6 nasty flamer nonsense in overwatch, and nova charging, with a 4++, and 14 wounds, a an 18" fly move to get out of combat... You basically took anti-assault models against tanks, that's a fight you should lose.
The R'Varna should go right at your opponent's heaviest assault units. Fire your flamers, get charged, flame, leave combat, flame again. In the span of 1 assault you've done 9D6 flamer hits, ignoring your other weaponry. I can't fathom why you'd complain about the R'Varna, that thing is absolutely beast.
And the question was, "is it influencing these stats," the answer is yes, it is, because a lot of the games i've reported have featured FW. And the FW army won every one. You could argue that's not the general but it does influence the results, by definition.
You are thinking of the Y'vahra not the R'varna. The R'varna has 2 guns with 3d3 S6 shots at 60" not a flamer.
My mistake; apologies. I don't have the FW codex. I just looked it up in battlescribe. can't fathom why you'd use anything other than the Y'vahra. It's so good.
3D6 strength 6, ap-2, 3 damage flamer. 3d3 strength 10, ap-3, 3 damage; wounds of 6+ deal d3 mortals to vehicles 2+/4++ 14w, 7t can freely leave the table and deep strike.
And it's only 395 points, that's with 0 wargear options. How would you not take this... It's a fast attack. Take 3, get a command point. Seriously look this thing up. It's the exact same size as a Riptide. If someone allows you to use FW just use your riptides as this.
You are thinking of the Y'vahra not the R'varna. The R'varna has 2 guns with 3d3 S6 shots at 60" not a flamer.
My mistake; apologies. I don't have the FW codex. I just looked it up in battlescribe. can't fathom why you'd use anything other than the Y'vahra. It's so good.
3D6 strength 6, ap-2, 3 damage flamer.
3d3 strength 10, ap-3, 3 damage; wounds of 6+ deal d3 mortals to vehicles
2+/4++
14w, 7t
can freely leave the table and deep strike.
And it's only 395 points, that's with 0 wargear options. How would you not take this... It's a fast attack. Take 3, get a command point. Seriously look this thing up. It's the exact same size as a Riptide. If someone allows you to use FW just use your riptides as this.
you want to ban the Y'vahra? It costs almost 400p! It is costed almost as much as a knight, for half its resistance!
It used to be 240p, lol
plasma scions are much more problematic to the game than y'vahra
I think we do need this thread now. If only because data = evidence, and not anecdotes.
I mean, nobody should be taking the results from this thread very seriously as evidence of the relative power of various armies. I wanted to add an "obviously" in there but I guess maybe it's not. Someone on the last page is even purporting to provide confidence intervals. These are incredibly misleading and should not be used. There are so many uncontrolled variables here which are likely to produce weird correlations, and so many other sources of uncertainty, that this is just garbage in garbage out. Win-loss records are a fun thing to look at to get maybe a sense of what some people's experience with 8th has been so far, but they're not actually useful for anything.
you want to ban the Y'vahra? It costs almost 400p! It is costed almost as much as a knight, for half its resistance! It used to be 240p, lol
plasma scions are much more problematic to the game than y'vahra
Yes but this can magically appear within 9" of anything on the board, and can unload realistically more devastating firepower than an imperial knight, and has a much better invulnerable save, that can be 3++ in melee. I would much sooner bring this than an Imperial Knight of any kind. Let's not even forget the drones, for when someone gets a wound through with anti-tank weaponry from range...
Imperial Knights get riggity-rocked in melee by the right units. Draigo can solo a knight. Nova charged, this deals 7 expected wounds against Draigo in overwatch, slaying him.
These are astoundingly badass, if you're a Tau player and you're arguing against this thing, I can't even, it's beyond fantastic.
Just had a game today:
Dark Angels vs. Genestealer Cult
We played the Kill Points mission from the Eternal War section of the BRB.
DA Victory, 14 points to 12. I had 4 characters left on the table after turn 7, he had a bunch of vehicles and a squad of Acolytes.
you want to ban the Y'vahra? It costs almost 400p! It is costed almost as much as a knight, for half its resistance!
It used to be 240p, lol
plasma scions are much more problematic to the game than y'vahra
Yes but this can magically appear within 9" of anything on the board, and can unload realistically more devastating firepower than an imperial knight, and has a much better invulnerable save, that can be 3++ in melee. I would much sooner bring this than an Imperial Knight of any kind. Let's not even forget the drones, for when someone gets a wound through with anti-tank weaponry from range...
Imperial Knights get riggity-rocked in melee by the right units. Draigo can solo a knight. Nova charged, this deals 7 expected wounds against Draigo in overwatch, slaying him.
These are astoundingly badass, if you're a Tau player and you're arguing against this thing, I can't even, it's beyond fantastic.
You're forgetting that to do all those awesome things, it has to use its nova reactor. Which means taking a mortal wound. If you nova every single turn, you're dealing at least 5 mortal wounds to it, meaning that its effectively 9 wounds instead of 14. Its weapons are also heavy, meaning that you need to either buy a target lock on it or have enough ML support to ensure you always have at least 3 ML on the target (granted the flamer doesn't care, but the IDA does) or else be hitting on 5+. Its guns are also 12" range and 8" range, it has to be in close to do any damage. Its also over 400 points when you properly upgrade it, meaning almost 25% of your points invested in a single model.
Is it really good? Oh absolutely, there's a reason my current competitive list has 2 of them in it. Is it the end all be all of units? Nope. It needs a list that can properly support it or else its a waste of 400 points. It's only T7 with >14 wounds (cause it will be nova charging multiple times a game meaning it will be dealing mortal wounds to itself) on a 2+ 5++. Its arguably less survivable than a Valkyrie. If your list has a long range solution to high toughness units, you can handle this thing.
He already plans on buying an Armored Fist box by doing extra chores to earn an allowance, and managed to build six of the ten squaddies in the shock troops box almost by himself (I cut the parts out, cause don't want him to handle a knife that sharp).
Melissia wrote: He already plans on buying an Armored Fist box by doing extra chores to earn an allowance, and managed to build six of the ten squaddies in the shock troops box almost by himself (I cut the parts out, cause don't want him to handle a knife that sharp).
Good for him! The world can always use more Guardsmen, and more importantly, the world can always use more tabletop miniatures wargamers! May his regiment find glory and victory in battle.
you want to ban the Y'vahra? It costs almost 400p! It is costed almost as much as a knight, for half its resistance! It used to be 240p, lol
plasma scions are much more problematic to the game than y'vahra
Yes but this can magically appear within 9" of anything on the board, and can unload realistically more devastating firepower than an imperial knight, and has a much better invulnerable save, that can be 3++ in melee. I would much sooner bring this than an Imperial Knight of any kind. Let's not even forget the drones, for when someone gets a wound through with anti-tank weaponry from range...
Imperial Knights get riggity-rocked in melee by the right units. Draigo can solo a knight. Nova charged, this deals 7 expected wounds against Draigo in overwatch, slaying him.
These are astoundingly badass, if you're a Tau player and you're arguing against this thing, I can't even, it's beyond fantastic.
You're forgetting that to do all those awesome things, it has to use its nova reactor. Which means taking a mortal wound. If you nova every single turn, you're dealing at least 5 mortal wounds to it, meaning that its effectively 9 wounds instead of 14. Its weapons are also heavy, meaning that you need to either buy a target lock on it or have enough ML support to ensure you always have at least 3 ML on the target (granted the flamer doesn't care, but the IDA does) or else be hitting on 5+. Its guns are also 12" range and 8" range, it has to be in close to do any damage. Its also over 400 points when you properly upgrade it, meaning almost 25% of your points invested in a single model.
Is it really good? Oh absolutely, there's a reason my current competitive list has 2 of them in it. Is it the end all be all of units? Nope. It needs a list that can properly support it or else its a waste of 400 points. It's only T7 with >14 wounds (cause it will be nova charging multiple times a game meaning it will be dealing mortal wounds to itself) on a 2+ 5++. Its arguably less survivable than a Valkyrie. If your list has a long range solution to high toughness units, you can handle this thing.
A lot of the weaknesses you mention are completely ignored by its best in game flamer. You don't have to nova charge this every turn. And, with its deep strike moves, you will be right in the face of ranged units. It also flies, so you can charge their ranged, and freely leave combat, or force them to leave combat, meaning no shooting. Of course you probably don't need to deep strike most of the time, because your 18" base move is nuts.
Investing 25% of your points in a model is something that most of us have to do to be competitive, and our stuff isn't as durable as this.
Complaining about this unit = total loss of credibility. It is one of the single best units in the entire game. If you're struggling to win you should add a third one. These are measurably more durable, and have better overall shooting, than the stormraven gunship.
You can't use its flamer on deep strike since you must be 9" away and they FAQ it to happen at the end of the movement phase so he can't move his 8" range flamer to shoot.
I guess you can use the flamer in case you fail your charge and they attempt to charge you. But yeah, I'd put flamers on assault marines, mechanized units, and others with more movement.
FirePainter wrote: You can't use its flamer on deep strike since you must be 9" away and they FAQ it to happen at the end of the movement phase so he can't move his 8" range flamer to shoot.
I'm aware, but an 18" fly move means you have a 26" threat radius with the flamer turn 1, and a 30" radius with the primary gun.
And you really don't have to worry about charges after deep strike. Because (a) you can fly, and leave combat, and (b) pretty much anything that charges you will sustain heavy losses.
You're trying really hard to find fault with this. Maybe instead you actually use it, and just start flat out dominating people up and down the board.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Melissia wrote: I guess you can use the flamer in case you fail your charge and they attempt to charge you. But yeah, I'd put flamers on assault marines, mechanized units, and others with more movement.
Assault marines can't deep strike and flame. Really nothing in this game can save the Dreadknight (and maybe 1 or 2 other things i'm not thinking of), but that's a single D6 flamer for 40 points as an addon, you're better off taking the other wargear choices.
I would always take a 3d6 strength 6, ap-2, 3 damage 8" flamer on an 18" move fly MC with 7toughness, 14wounds, and a 2+/3++ statline. It's wonderful in a TAC list. You basically negate assault armies with this. They don't even exist to you anymore.
Marmatag wrote: FW is absolutely influencing these win rates. But until the ITC steps in and bans this trash, we should consider it in our reporting.
Absolutely, once they fix those stormravens...and...oh...right, those aren't FW. And nothing I've seen in reports and internet whining has been about FW (at least those who have actually played games with and against, not theoryhammered). The indexes alone have bad enough stuff in them.
Marmatag wrote: FW is absolutely influencing these win rates. But until the ITC steps in and bans this trash, we should consider it in our reporting.
Absolutely, once they fix those stormravens...and...oh...right, those aren't FW. And nothing I've seen in reports and internet whining has been about FW (at least those who have actually played games with and against, not theoryhammered). The indexes alone have bad enough stuff in them.
Yes let's fix the one viable unit in the space marine codex.
Also, if you read the responses from tournament winners / players in blogs, you'll see that they don't believe the stormraven is overpowered. Weird.
I mean if you're going to follow the tournament stuff, go all in, don't just look at numbers and say BLAMMO.
Marmatag wrote: FW is absolutely influencing these win rates. But until the ITC steps in and bans this trash, we should consider it in our reporting.
If the reason you want to ban FW is because some FW units are OP... Band the damn units. Not everything is OP.
And while you're at it, ban Stormravens, Hemlocks and Wave Serpents. And Conscripts.
And Manticores.
And Magnus.
And Rowboat.
And Khorne Berserkers.
I would say ban until they're playtested. The whole point of 8th edition was the extensive playtesting and it was "the edition we asked for," forgeworld's grab-ass release full of errors and issues is a joke.
Playtest it. Then, let's see it in a tournament.
And for the record, i am 100% behind the banning of:
I have been playing with the y'vahra for the past couple weeks. It did awesome vs kids mediocre against guard and bad against harlequins. Oh and I play it where you can only overcharge 1 gun because they still haven't FAQ it.
It is probably the second best tau unit right now. Does that mean it should be banned? No its a 400 point unit, it should be nasty. Tau have had one good tourney finish and that's it. Meanwhile ravens are dominating. But that's okay because reasons.
FirePainter wrote: I have been playing with the y'vahra for the past couple weeks. It did awesome vs kids mediocre against guard and bad against harlequins. Oh and I play it where you can only overcharge 1 gun because they still haven't FAQ it.
It is probably the second best tau unit right now. Does that mean it should be banned? No its a 400 point unit, it should be nasty. Tau have had one good tourney finish and that's it. Meanwhile ravens are dominating. But that's okay because reasons.
Ravenspam took 1 tournament, the first in 8th edition, and it only had 38 people. The guy got lucky to beat Harlequins to win, too, if you read the battle report posted by the second place finisher.
It's nice of you to play that you can only overcharge one gun. Everyone i've seen does it for all guns.
Since the Tau have finished in the top 3 as many times as Ravenspam, I guess it's safe to conclude Tau is measurably worse because reasons?
For the record I would say Harlequins are one of the strongest armies out there right now. I'd love to see a batrep of you vs Harlequins, not many people run them in my area, and I am honestly considering starting a Harlequin army myself.
Marmatag wrote: Assault marines can't deep strike and flame.
Never said they would. Only that they're more useful on units with more movement range.
Do you disagree with my assertion?
I'm not sure honestly what you mean - because if something has a long move, the assault marines are useless. The Y'Varhna can move 18" and flame. Nothing escapes it. But I am probably misunderstanding, that happens sometimes. Can you clarify? I've personally found assault marines to be next to worthless.
I'm not sure honestly what you mean - because if something has a long move, the assault marines are useless. The Y'Varhna can move 18" and flame. Nothing escapes it. But I am probably misunderstanding, that happens sometimes. Can you clarify? I've personally found assault marines to be next to worthless.
I believe she's suggesting two concepts here: that, should the assault marines fail a charge, and then proceed to get countercharged by the enemy unit, the flamer will be potentially useful there. It makes sense so long as whatever is countercharging moved up within flamer range of you to increase the chances of getting a charge, and if you deterred that, it could be worth it still. Secondarily, they're useful on assault marines from the point of view that you get more movement, so you have less distance to have to close to get into proper range for the flamers to be useful.
I haven't played a game as SM yet, but I think deep striking the assault marines might actually be a mistake, even in spite of the theoretical first turn charge. I think I'd put them on the board and try to rush someone instead. I suppose it depending on who my opponent was and who was going first though.
I'm not sure honestly what you mean - because if something has a long move, the assault marines are useless. The Y'Varhna can move 18" and flame. Nothing escapes it. But I am probably misunderstanding, that happens sometimes. Can you clarify? I've personally found assault marines to be next to worthless.
I believe she's suggesting two concepts here: that, should the assault marines fail a charge, and then proceed to get countercharged by the enemy unit, the flamer will be potentially useful there. It makes sense so long as whatever is countercharging moved up within flamer range of you to increase the chances of getting a charge, and if you deterred that, it could be worth it still. Secondarily, they're useful on assault marines from the point of view that you get more movement, so you have less distance to have to close to get into proper range for the flamers to be useful.
I haven't played a game as SM yet, but I think deep striking the assault marines might actually be a mistake, even in spite of the theoretical first turn charge. I think I'd put them on the board and try to rush someone instead. I suppose it depending on who my opponent was and who was going first though.
I suppose that's true, but you're talking about paying roughly 100 points, to get 1 strength 4 ap0 flamer, on an assault unit that has 1 base attack. I wouldn't really bother counter-charging these guys should they fail, nor would I worry about them actually charging anything, unless it was to force a vehicle to retreat.
And on to your point about deep-striking marines for a charge - i'm going to agree here. In an objective based maelstrom game, these guys have a use, in that they can drop in and hold objectives at least a tiny bit. I still wouldn't pay their cost and use them as such, but it is a use.
I'm not sure honestly what you mean - because if something has a long move, the assault marines are useless. The Y'Varhna can move 18" and flame. Nothing escapes it. But I am probably misunderstanding, that happens sometimes. Can you clarify? I've personally found assault marines to be next to worthless.
I believe she's suggesting two concepts here: that, should the assault marines fail a charge, and then proceed to get countercharged by the enemy unit, the flamer will be potentially useful there. It makes sense so long as whatever is countercharging moved up within flamer range of you to increase the chances of getting a charge, and if you deterred that, it could be worth it still. Secondarily, they're useful on assault marines from the point of view that you get more movement, so you have less distance to have to close to get into proper range for the flamers to be useful.
I haven't played a game as SM yet, but I think deep striking the assault marines might actually be a mistake, even in spite of the theoretical first turn charge. I think I'd put them on the board and try to rush someone instead. I suppose it depending on who my opponent was and who was going first though.
I suppose that's true, but you're talking about paying roughly 100 points, to get 1 strength 4 ap0 flamer, on an assault unit that has 1 base attack. I wouldn't really bother counter-charging these guys should they fail, nor would I worry about them actually charging anything, unless it was to force a vehicle to retreat.
And on to your point about deep-striking marines for a charge - i'm going to agree here. In an objective based maelstrom game, these guys have a use, in that they can drop in and hold objectives at least a tiny bit. I still wouldn't pay their cost and use them as such, but it is a use.
2 base attacks. They have Chainswords. Also, they get to shoot bolt pistols in CQC, so that's more like 3 attacks, but the 3rd occurs in the shooting phase.
I'm not sure honestly what you mean - because if something has a long move, the assault marines are useless. The Y'Varhna can move 18" and flame. Nothing escapes it. But I am probably misunderstanding, that happens sometimes. Can you clarify? I've personally found assault marines to be next to worthless.
I believe she's suggesting two concepts here: that, should the assault marines fail a charge, and then proceed to get countercharged by the enemy unit, the flamer will be potentially useful there. It makes sense so long as whatever is countercharging moved up within flamer range of you to increase the chances of getting a charge, and if you deterred that, it could be worth it still. Secondarily, they're useful on assault marines from the point of view that you get more movement, so you have less distance to have to close to get into proper range for the flamers to be useful.
I haven't played a game as SM yet, but I think deep striking the assault marines might actually be a mistake, even in spite of the theoretical first turn charge. I think I'd put them on the board and try to rush someone instead. I suppose it depending on who my opponent was and who was going first though.
I suppose that's true, but you're talking about paying roughly 100 points, to get 1 strength 4 ap0 flamer, on an assault unit that has 1 base attack. I wouldn't really bother counter-charging these guys should they fail, nor would I worry about them actually charging anything, unless it was to force a vehicle to retreat.
And on to your point about deep-striking marines for a charge - i'm going to agree here. In an objective based maelstrom game, these guys have a use, in that they can drop in and hold objectives at least a tiny bit. I still wouldn't pay their cost and use them as such, but it is a use.
2 base attacks. They have Chainswords. Also, they get to shoot bolt pistols in CQC, so that's more like 3 attacks, but the 3rd occurs in the shooting phase.
The chainsword is wargear. The marines holding flamers/specials do not get a second base attack. They cannot take the chainsword. They also cannot take a pistol.
The flamer marine represents 1x strength 4 ap0 attack in melee per fight phase. Not 2, not 3, 1.
I'm not sure honestly what you mean - because if something has a long move, the assault marines are useless. The Y'Varhna can move 18" and flame. Nothing escapes it. But I am probably misunderstanding, that happens sometimes. Can you clarify? I've personally found assault marines to be next to worthless.
I believe she's suggesting two concepts here: that, should the assault marines fail a charge, and then proceed to get countercharged by the enemy unit, the flamer will be potentially useful there. It makes sense so long as whatever is countercharging moved up within flamer range of you to increase the chances of getting a charge, and if you deterred that, it could be worth it still. Secondarily, they're useful on assault marines from the point of view that you get more movement, so you have less distance to have to close to get into proper range for the flamers to be useful.
I haven't played a game as SM yet, but I think deep striking the assault marines might actually be a mistake, even in spite of the theoretical first turn charge. I think I'd put them on the board and try to rush someone instead. I suppose it depending on who my opponent was and who was going first though.
I suppose that's true, but you're talking about paying roughly 100 points, to get 1 strength 4 ap0 flamer, on an assault unit that has 1 base attack. I wouldn't really bother counter-charging these guys should they fail, nor would I worry about them actually charging anything, unless it was to force a vehicle to retreat.
And on to your point about deep-striking marines for a charge - i'm going to agree here. In an objective based maelstrom game, these guys have a use, in that they can drop in and hold objectives at least a tiny bit. I still wouldn't pay their cost and use them as such, but it is a use.
2 base attacks. They have Chainswords. Also, they get to shoot bolt pistols in CQC, so that's more like 3 attacks, but the 3rd occurs in the shooting phase.
The chainsword is wargear. The marines holding flamers/specials do not get a second base attack. They cannot take the chainsword. They also cannot take a pistol.
The flamer marine represents 1x strength 4 ap0 attack in melee per fight phase. Not 2, not 3, 1.
The one guy with a flamer is what 25 points? The rest of his squad has Bolt Pistols and Chainswords, so it's really 100 points for an assault unit that has 4 Bolt Pistols, 1 Flamer, and 10 Close Combat Attacks. I mean, I guess I can see value, maybe. I wouldn't do it, though, since if they're going into melee like they should be, they won't be using that flamer.
All things considered, I think bikes are way better candidates for flamers than assault marines are. The bikes are M14", can have 2 flamers and a combi-flamer, and auto-advance 6", so, since flamers are assault, that's really a 20" move. But even then, I'm not so sure, since they can't use their twin boltguns if they advance, and they'll be in rapid-fire for the boltguns after a 12" move, so I'd rather buy them 2 Plasmaguns and a Storm Bolter or somesuch.
I'm not sure honestly what you mean - because if something has a long move, the assault marines are useless. The Y'Varhna can move 18" and flame. Nothing escapes it. But I am probably misunderstanding, that happens sometimes. Can you clarify? I've personally found assault marines to be next to worthless.
I believe she's suggesting two concepts here: that, should the assault marines fail a charge, and then proceed to get countercharged by the enemy unit, the flamer will be potentially useful there. It makes sense so long as whatever is countercharging moved up within flamer range of you to increase the chances of getting a charge, and if you deterred that, it could be worth it still. Secondarily, they're useful on assault marines from the point of view that you get more movement, so you have less distance to have to close to get into proper range for the flamers to be useful.
I haven't played a game as SM yet, but I think deep striking the assault marines might actually be a mistake, even in spite of the theoretical first turn charge. I think I'd put them on the board and try to rush someone instead. I suppose it depending on who my opponent was and who was going first though.
I suppose that's true, but you're talking about paying roughly 100 points, to get 1 strength 4 ap0 flamer, on an assault unit that has 1 base attack. I wouldn't really bother counter-charging these guys should they fail, nor would I worry about them actually charging anything, unless it was to force a vehicle to retreat.
And on to your point about deep-striking marines for a charge - i'm going to agree here. In an objective based maelstrom game, these guys have a use, in that they can drop in and hold objectives at least a tiny bit. I still wouldn't pay their cost and use them as such, but it is a use.
2 base attacks. They have Chainswords. Also, they get to shoot bolt pistols in CQC, so that's more like 3 attacks, but the 3rd occurs in the shooting phase.
The chainsword is wargear. The marines holding flamers/specials do not get a second base attack. They cannot take the chainsword. They also cannot take a pistol.
The flamer marine represents 1x strength 4 ap0 attack in melee per fight phase. Not 2, not 3, 1.
The one guy with a flamer is what 25 points? The rest of his squad has Bolt Pistols and Chainswords, so it's really 100 points for an assault unit that has 4 Bolt Pistols, 1 Flamer, and 10 Close Combat Attacks. I mean, I guess I can see value, maybe. I wouldn't do it, though, since if they're going into melee like they should be, they won't be using that flamer.
I agree.
And really, if you have room in your list for assault marines, you have room for Vanguard Veterans, which are vastly superior.
Oh look another space marine player who thinks no one in his squads matter except the special weapons carriers.
You're not paying 100 points for "just" a flamer. You're paying 100 points for five highly mobile soldiers that have higher than average toughness, strength, and armor saves, a solid to-hit in both WS and BS, and ATSKNF. Three of these models have a chainsword and bolt pistol, and two have flamers that auto-hit for d6 hits at short range and can fire without penalty even after advancing.
* (though to get it to exactly 100 you'd need one flamer, a plasma pistol, and power sword; two flamers and a barebones sarge is 98 points)
So you're paying a mere 100 points for quite a few perks there. You can argue the squad is better barebones if you want, and there's a valid argument to be had. But giving one or two of them flamers doesn't make the rest of them disappear.
If this is the level of understanding most Marine players have of their units, then this is the exact reason why their win/loss rate is below average.
I'm not sure honestly what you mean - because if something has a long move, the assault marines are useless. The Y'Varhna can move 18" and flame. Nothing escapes it. But I am probably misunderstanding, that happens sometimes. Can you clarify? I've personally found assault marines to be next to worthless.
I believe she's suggesting two concepts here: that, should the assault marines fail a charge, and then proceed to get countercharged by the enemy unit, the flamer will be potentially useful there. It makes sense so long as whatever is countercharging moved up within flamer range of you to increase the chances of getting a charge, and if you deterred that, it could be worth it still. Secondarily, they're useful on assault marines from the point of view that you get more movement, so you have less distance to have to close to get into proper range for the flamers to be useful.
I haven't played a game as SM yet, but I think deep striking the assault marines might actually be a mistake, even in spite of the theoretical first turn charge. I think I'd put them on the board and try to rush someone instead. I suppose it depending on who my opponent was and who was going first though.
I suppose that's true, but you're talking about paying roughly 100 points, to get 1 strength 4 ap0 flamer, on an assault unit that has 1 base attack. I wouldn't really bother counter-charging these guys should they fail, nor would I worry about them actually charging anything, unless it was to force a vehicle to retreat.
And on to your point about deep-striking marines for a charge - i'm going to agree here. In an objective based maelstrom game, these guys have a use, in that they can drop in and hold objectives at least a tiny bit. I still wouldn't pay their cost and use them as such, but it is a use.
2 base attacks. They have Chainswords. Also, they get to shoot bolt pistols in CQC, so that's more like 3 attacks, but the 3rd occurs in the shooting phase.
The chainsword is wargear. The marines holding flamers/specials do not get a second base attack. They cannot take the chainsword. They also cannot take a pistol.
The flamer marine represents 1x strength 4 ap0 attack in melee per fight phase. Not 2, not 3, 1.
The one guy with a flamer is what 25 points? The rest of his squad has Bolt Pistols and Chainswords, so it's really 100 points for an assault unit that has 4 Bolt Pistols, 1 Flamer, and 10 Close Combat Attacks. I mean, I guess I can see value, maybe. I wouldn't do it, though, since if they're going into melee like they should be, they won't be using that flamer.
I agree.
And really, if you have room in your list for assault marines, you have room for Vanguard Veterans, which are vastly superior.
Yeah, for 10 points more, instead of bolt pistol-chainsword you get bolt pistol-bolt pistol, at the very least.
5 Assault Marines w/ 1 Flamer have 10x Melee Attacks, 4x Pistol Attacks, and D6x Ranged Attacks
5 Vanguard Marines have 11x Melee Attacks and 10x Pistol Attacks.
5 Assault Marines w/ 1 Flamer are 1 point less than 5 Vanguard Marines, who are strictly better at all ranges.
In short, I think that, If I were going to buy Assault Marines with a Flamer, I'd just "upgrade" to stock Vanguards for the 1 point.
Also, while paging through Index 1, I think I found a good way to snipe a Commissar:
Jaws of the World Wolf: "If manifested, pick an enemy unit within 18" of the psyker, other than a VEHICLE. Roll 2d6 and subtract the target's Move characteristic - the target suffers a number of mortal wounds equal to the result." It doesn't require Line of Sight, and can probably reach the Commissar from the other side of the Conscript line with 18" range. It has a 28% chance of exploding him outright, which, while isn't great, is more than most other means can say, and you can still CP it to try. This doesn't make me more inclined to try to snipe him over just shooting the guys to death, but it's out there for the Space Wolves. Also, Tempests' Wrath is arguable better in the circumstance, since it basically neuters the Conscripts and isn't banking on a 30% chance of blowing up one guy whom I can have a spare of.
Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote: Also, while paging through Index 1, I think I found a good way to snipe a Commissar:
Jaws of the World Wolf:
Blood Angels can do up to 3 mortal wounds with Blood Boil as well. You roll 3d6, for each result equal to or higher than the target's toughness they suffer a mortal wound. So average two mortal wounds, potentially three. Combined with a single scout squad and he's gone in one turn.
Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote: Also, while paging through Index 1, I think I found a good way to snipe a Commissar:
Jaws of the World Wolf:
Blood Angels can do up to 3 mortal wounds with Blood Boil as well. You roll 3d6, for each result equal to or higher than the target's toughness they suffer a mortal wound. So average two mortal wounds, potentially three. Combined with a single scout squad and he's gone in one turn.
So, Scout Squads can be equipped with Sniper Rifles. Sniper Rifles are shooting weapons, and shooting weapons actually require line of sight to target a unit. Line of sight is determined, in Warhammer 40,000, by "true line of sight." In other words, if you can't actually see the Commissar, from where the scout snipers are, you can't actually shoot him.
I don't know how i can say this any clearer, hopefully you gained a working knowledge of how line of sight works, and when you play your first game of Warhammer 40,000, you'll be able to put it into practice.
Cheers! Let me know if you have any other basic rules questions.
Marmatag wrote: Also the veteran vanguards can take plasma pistols for only 7 points.
I've found that chainswords + plasma pistol is the way to go for these guys. Or, if you have the reroll mechanics, dual plasma pistols.
Well, yes, they can have a nice custom loadout, but with twin Plasma, they're more expensive than assault marines. The point is more that they're strictly superior to Assault Marines with Flamers for cost.
So, Scout Squads can be equipped with Sniper Rifles. Sniper Rifles are shooting weapons, and shooting weapons actually require line of sight to target a unit. Line of sight is determined, in Warhammer 40,000, by "true line of sight." In other words, if you can't actually see the Commissar, from where the scout snipers are, you can't actually shoot him.
I don't know how i can say this any clearer, hopefully you gained a working knowledge of how line of sight works, and when you play your first game of Warhammer 40,000, you'll be able to put it into practice.
Cheers! Let me know if you have any other basic rules questions.
That was a bit unnecessarily condescending and sarcastic.
But yes, the part that caught my eye about Jaws was the fact that it didn't require Line of Sight and didn't occur in the shooting phase.
Marmatag wrote: Also the veteran vanguards can take plasma pistols for only 7 points.
I've found that chainswords + plasma pistol is the way to go for these guys. Or, if you have the reroll mechanics, dual plasma pistols.
Well, yes, they can have a nice custom loadout, but with twin Plasma, they're more expensive than assault marines. The point is more that they're strictly superior to Assault Marines with Flamers for cost.
So, Scout Squads can be equipped with Sniper Rifles. Sniper Rifles are shooting weapons, and shooting weapons actually require line of sight to target a unit. Line of sight is determined, in Warhammer 40,000, by "true line of sight." In other words, if you can't actually see the Commissar, from where the scout snipers are, you can't actually shoot him.
I don't know how i can say this any clearer, hopefully you gained a working knowledge of how line of sight works, and when you play your first game of Warhammer 40,000, you'll be able to put it into practice.
Cheers! Let me know if you have any other basic rules questions.
That was a bit sarcastic.
Yes, I agree. That was my point originally. Assault marines are very much inferior to vanguard veterans. Both in terms of base loadouts, and in terms of wargear options.
The overall point is, anything assault squads do, vanguard vets do better. And dual pistols is actually pretty cool. I'm still trying to find a place where i can get mini cowboy hats for them. Pistoleros!
I do like my assault marines, i just need to find the time to upgrade them to vanguard vets.
As for jaws of the world wolf, my guess is that will see an errata soon. A lot of powers require line of sight. I don't have my rules in front of me, but i believe (and, i could be wrong) that if you manifest a power with a target unit, you have to select a unit in line of sight. I'm pretty sure that's baked into the overall psychic phase. But again, been wrong before.
That was a bit unnecessarily condescending and sarcastic.
But yes, the part that caught my eye about Jaws was the fact that it didn't require Line of Sight and didn't occur in the shooting phase.
Extremely unnecessary.
You might run into problems targeting because I was under the impression that you could only target characters if they are the closest model. But that might not apply here since it's not shooting.
OTOH, if they're hiding the commissar and you can't target with sniper rifles, then they're either shooting at you with a partial unit or you can probably get in there with some kind of flyer, deepstrike (Callidus is my go-to here from now on as long as I'm not playing Xenos. Warpspiders would make short work of him as well with their 4d6" advance)
Regardless, this is conversation better suited to the conscript thread, I think. I'm sure people would appreciate not arguing about commissars in a results tallying thread.
Yes, I agree. That was my point originally. Assault marines are very much inferior to vanguard veterans. Both in terms of base loadouts, and in terms of wargear options.
The overall point is, anything assault squads do, vanguard vets do better. And dual pistols is actually pretty cool. I'm still trying to find a place where i can get mini cowboy hats for them. Pistoleros!
I do like my assault marines, i just need to find the time to upgrade them to vanguard vets.
As for jaws of the world wolf, my guess is that will see an errata soon. A lot of powers require line of sight. I don't have my rules in front of me, but i believe (and, i could be wrong) that if you manifest a power with a target unit, you have to select a unit in line of sight. I'm pretty sure that's baked into the overall psychic phase. But again, been wrong before.
All the other Psychic Powers actually say "select a visible enemy unit within X inches," whereas Jaws just says "select an enemy unit within 18 inches," so I think it's NLoS.
Anyway, on other topics, dual Pistols is awesome. Proof of point, Seraphim.
I'm debating whether 10 or 20 are good for a big game. I'm hesitant to add an extra squad, since I'd need 80 points extra to give them the kick forwards, and then those 80 points would need Ret Squads to babysit, all of which takes away from Dominions, but the extra 10 fast troops would double the number of tanks I can tie down, which would be important in 2500 point games.
The thing is, the number of screening troops doesn't really go up drastically increasing from 1500 to 2500. Enough is enough, you don't really need more, so at higher games I expect a lot more support elements, and one squad might not be enough to lock them all down.
So, Scout Squads can be equipped with Sniper Rifles. Sniper Rifles are shooting weapons, and shooting weapons actually require line of sight to target a unit. Line of sight is determined, in Warhammer 40,000, by "true line of sight." In other words, if you can't actually see the Commissar, from where the scout snipers are, you can't actually shoot him.
I don't know how i can say this any clearer, hopefully you gained a working knowledge of how line of sight works, and when you play your first game of Warhammer 40,000, you'll be able to put it into practice.
Cheers! Let me know if you have any other basic rules questions.
Responses like this toward people really do not engender good will toward you or your argument.
Further, and also in the other thread, there's a seeming inability to explain where all this magical and constant cover was coming from to allow this commissar to remain hidden indefinitely.
So lets have a look at some tables I see people playing on. Maybe we can work through this, and I'll see if I can show you just what we're talking about in a way that will help you understand our viewpoint.
That's Adepticon. Adepticon's usually pretty spare, but that's sparse even for Adeption to be honest, but it happens sometimes. Now, you probably don't know since you appear to be a casual player from your immediate hatred of all things from Forge World (and yes, FW is allowed there, so there's a double whammy) but it's a pretty big tournament scene. Like, the biggest in North America that I'm aware of. Maybe even the biggest if you count the non-gw games that go on there too. But, so anyway, that's kinda what competitive players expect. So that's one of the tables there. Not too many places to hide a commissar if you ask me. Sure, there's a couple. It'd be pretty hard to keep them out of LOS of a deep striking sniper though, and there's quite a few of those. You might not even have to move too much. You could probably blam him turn 1 even. Yeah, sure, if someone spams conscripts, it might get tricky, but I find you usually have that problem with just about any unit in the game. That other table's looking about the same too. But we can't see that too well. Lets keep going.
Not actually sure where this one is happening, to be honest, but man, I'd love to snipe some gak there.
Oh, we might have found one. Those buildings look like they have closed fronts! Sides look pretty open too. You'd have to really work to not be able to get a shot in through one of those windows.
Yeah, this place has some tall hills. I wouldn't be too worried with a couple Vindicares or some Ratlings though. Hell, that looks like a bigger table than normal, though that could be perspective, so you might even being able to deploy those scouts in no-man's land where they could do something.
Out of sincere curiosity, how are these tables matching up for you? Because they look about right to me, and I've been to Adepticon, oh, maybe 3-4 years, and play local tournaments, and have spent time watching the games at Gencon. They ALL basically look like this. Maybe a few tables will have a bit more terrain, but not enough where I'd expect genuine LOS issues. The joke my Adepticon Team has is "Hey, they might have cover, but you always get the shot."
Those tables are extremely sparse compared to what I'm used to, but the stores in Spokane, WA and the western Idaho/NW Montana/NE Oregon areas, have a LOT of extremely high-quality home-made terrain.The stores kind of compete with each other in that respect. Especially Spokane and Coeur d'alene.
These tables look more like the tables I've seen here in California. Very flat, without much variation.
I wasn't even tlaking to you, merely mentioning to Katherine a method BA can use to help get rid of commissars turn one-- one I actually personally plan on using, in fact.
Huge amounts of LoS blocking terrain are the exception here, not the rule. If your enemy is deploying the Great Wall of China in order t block off LoS to their entire fething deployment zone, then you need to start talking to them because no amount of nerfing conscripts will ever let you win in that situation.
And lo, mayhap we've yet solved this disconnect between those who seemingly genuinely declare snipers to be an obvious solution, and those who seemingly genuinely declare commissars to always yet be out of sight! And even with only minimal insults to everyone involved and a 10 page thread outside of this one that spun in circles for days! It could perhaps be a record in efficiency!
In a less melodramatic flourish, I've often speculated that I play a very different version of 40k compared to what a lot of people seem to play when they talk about it on the internet. Other people are regarded as madmen and I look at their advice and it seems sage to me. I wonder if this is not one of those primary causes of that bewilderment.
I'm off to crack open another beer and see if I can find better GW terrain guidelines somewhere.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Arandmoor wrote: Those tables are extremely sparse compared to what I'm used to, but the stores in Spokane, WA and the western Idaho/NW Montana/NE Oregon areas, have a LOT of extremely high-quality home-made terrain.The stores kind of compete with each other in that respect. Especially Spokane and Coeur d'alene.
These tables look more like the tables I've seen here in California. Very flat, without much variation.
When I'm in my friend's basement, we actually play with a bit more than most of these. Maybe about halfway between the last one and the second one. It would be genuinely tricky to hide a commissar anywhere that a squad could not spend a round moving to, and god forbid deep strikers landing at a perfect angle. Whether that's good enough for people or not is obviously going to vary, but that's us and me and my small circle of friends can accept that. This is the public. This is the benchmark.
I'll go take a picture of the closest GW's setup next time I go for that purpose. Was only big enough to have two 4"x4" tables in it, along with the usual displays, and I think one of them was being used to show off different foritfications and other buildings you could buy. Still, both were interesting boards.
My experience with the three FLGS around me is that they've been about like this. There's usually spare terrain on open nights if you wanted to load up the board, but the local tournaments are almost always like that. I've never actually been into our local GW store. I don't actually know anyone who did go in there. I don't know if it's still open.
As an aside, I've noticed most of the GW terrain really does nothing for LOS. You CAN make the ruins so that they block LoS, but I don't think they usually do in the display images much, and I think the recommended configurations for them usually don't more than maybe a model's distance worth for roughly 60-70 degrees worth of that one side. Otherwise it's basically impossible to hide an entire model in that thin "forest" they put out. I haven't looked at their more recent stuff, and I guess you could always buy a bastion to hide a commissar behind.
Honestly, I kinda wonder if that's not one of the driving factors behind why AP changed. If terrain is expected to be sparse, it somewhat narrows the field, particularly when you consider how hard it is to get cover saves nowadays.
Thousand Sons vs Dark Eldar/Harlequins - Thousand Sons win
This was a very close game. Hellions and Players are both very scary to someone not appropriately geared to take them on. Smite is largely the edge that won this game for me, as well as the overall bulkiness of Thousand Sons infantry. The Exalted Sorcerer aura is still as fething useless as always, however.
4 first turn charges from 80 Purestrains after getting seized hurts.
Yeah, I got a major beef with an army that can spam first turn assualts, can ignore moral, can look out sir, and the slew of other special rules those guys get. Hell their "Guardsmen" are base LD 9, so good luck causing morale failures for them.
Switching to my Imperial stuff tomorrow, the Eldar have just constantly dissapointed me so far.
2k Salamander Marines vs Chaos Marines: Chaos win
2k Raven Guard Marines vs Chaos Marines: Marine win
Very close games. Raven guard are pretty cool, though not game-breakingly so. New stratagems/relic/traits give a lot of fun options (looking forward to the Chaos 'dex).
Tau vs Space Marines 50pl -Tau victory
Kill points, but based on power level rather than normal kill points and characters are worth double their power level (it was open play cards for fun) with a twist of everything gets an extra attack.
My list - etheral, fireblade, 36 fire warriors, 6 crisis, 8 gun and 4 marker drones
His list - (all primaris) captain, ancient, lieutenant, librarian, 3 squads of intercessors, 1 interceptors squad (the jetpack dudes)
We only played 3 turns because I had to leave early/he had to keep leaving to talk to customers/sell them stuff. In terms of power level points I wiped the board with him, killing the captain, ancient, lieutenant (all double) and 2 intercessor squads. He killed one fire warrior squad outright, the ethereal and the gun drones. He got first blood, we both got linebreaker and slay the warlord, so where we ended on normal kill points it was a draw at 6 points each, but with what we had left (I had two suits with 3 fusion each next to his librarian, the last big threat since the suits could wipe the floor with the intercessors and inceptors + the fire warriors were volley firing) I reckon I would have ended up winning on normal kill points.
Lessons learned - ablative gun drone wounds are essential for suits -
S5, even without ap still makes the pulse rifle really good vs other infantry - crisis suits can still wreck face, provided they don't roll ones and twos the wound on their fusion blasters - keep your fire warriors near the ethereal and fireblade for strong buffs.
Edit: I'd just like to say that when we play, we use buttloads of LOS blocking terrain. It actually makes the game a lot more fun and gives a little more tactical depth, forcing you to decide where to move based on what targets you want to shoot, because while targets a and b may both be in range you can't bank on killing a with your other units then waiting to shoot b once the decision is made for you, like you can on the near open fields a lot of people seem to play.
Dark Eldar vs. Ynnari (mostly Harlequins-based) - Dark Eldar achieve a hard-fought victory.
Dark Eldar vs. Dark Angels - Dark Angels win thanks to 10 Razorbacks with a -1 to Hit, 4++ aura (and 96 Assault Cannon shots).
Dark Eldar vs. Eldar - Eldar win owing to my poor Flyer positioning and bad to Hit rolls on DLs.
What is up with the Emprah's witches?
Sisters are fabulous.
Twice the ratio of the nearest competitor.
I figure it must be experience,
as any Sisters player must have been using the same army for what, ten years? 15? Has it been 20 years already?
Holy geez I feel old.
It may also be that only a small number of players are in on it in this dataset. Meaning we cannot really say it accounts for variance in skill or opponent type. The skew is real.
The most obvious thing you'd want to check before trying to actually use this data for anything is whether there's a bias in favor of the reporting player. Maybe players who are likely to report games -- and in general probably just people active on this forum -- are significantly better players than average or tend to bring more competitive lists, etc. In this case most of what you'd actually see in the data is just which armies reporting players want to use.
For example, I've played maybe 15 games of 8th at this point. I've won them all. I could report these matches, but there's probably not much information here about the strength of Eldar or Blood Angels or Imperial Guard or Sisters or Necrons, or the weakness of the armies I played against. In several cases I won because I clearly outplayed the other person or because they made huge and obvious mistakes. In other cases there were army mismatches where my lists were simply much better, but this has largely not been because I have better options available to me but because my opponents have not made as good a use of their own options. I've played against several Eldar armies using multiple big units of Dire Avengers each. I've played against lists using lots of Conscripts but where the Conscipts weren't actually defending anything, with the rest of the list including Terminators that appeared far away from the Conscripts and could then be ignored.
This suggests the second big issue that's likely to make this data useless. Nobody really cares whether the game is in some on-average sense balanced. We care about whether it's balanced at particular skill levels and in particular contexts. We want new players to be able to pick up the game and have enjoyable, balanced matches. We want expert players to be able to do the same, at least when they're not trying to break the game with incredibly cheesy lists. And maybe we even want balance for tournaments where we expect people to bring the cheesiest lists they can think of. Maybe Space Marines dominate the top end because 5 Stormravens and Guilliman are hard to beat, while losing horribly with every other composition. Maybe they end up with a roughly even win rate because of this. That's still a huge problem. Ultimately, average win rates are not very helpful for understanding this stuff.
4 first turn charges from 80 Purestrains after getting seized hurts.
Yeah, I got a major beef with an army that can spam first turn assualts, can ignore moral, can look out sir, and the slew of other special rules those guys get. Hell their "Guardsmen" are base LD 9, so good luck causing morale failures for them.
Switching to my Imperial stuff tomorrow, the Eldar have just constantly dissapointed me so far.
Yeah, the pain is very real. That said, GSC has like nothing else going for it so I'm not sure they'd even be usable without the gimmick.
jeff white wrote: What is up with the Emprah's witches?
Sisters are fabulous.
Twice the ratio of the nearest competitor.
I figure it must be experience,
as any Sisters player must have been using the same army for what, ten years? 15? Has it been 20 years already?
Holy geez I feel old.
There's also, like, 4 of us.
While it's less pronounced now than it was on the first day, I'd hazard a fair number of the reported Sisters games are from the same small group of people reporting our own games, because there's not that many of us out there.
I've played, and won, 14 or 15 matches so far, half of them as Sisters of Battle. I can only assume my sisters-in-arms have contributed similarly.
So, I think we're strong, but I think results are also heavily skewed by the players [and lack thereof] playing Sisters.
jeff white wrote: What is up with the Emprah's witches?
Sisters are fabulous.
Twice the ratio of the nearest competitor.
I figure it must be experience,
That and the fact that they're 2 times better than marines for points. It doesn't take that much experience to make a comparison and come to a conclusion that they're somewhat overbuffed atm. Not broken but definitely competitive.
Dionysodorus wrote: The most obvious thing you'd want to check before trying to actually use this data for anything is whether there's a bias in favor of the reporting player. Maybe players who are likely to report games -- and in general probably just people active on this forum -- are significantly better players than average or tend to bring more competitive lists, etc. In this case most of what you'd actually see in the data is just which armies reporting players want to use.
This would be a useful consideration, if we were tracking actual W/L rates for a campaign or something. But we are trying to compare inter-army competitiveness here, meaning that skillful players and effective lists are exactly what we want to compare here.
I would kinda expect regular dakkanoughts to be above average,, as we are essentially a giant bloc of mathammer nerds.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Dionysodorus wrote: Nobody really cares whether the game is in some on-average sense balanced. We care about whether it's balanced at particular skill levels and in particular contexts. We want new players to be able to pick up the game and have enjoyable, balanced matches. We want expert players to be able to do the same, at least when they're not trying to break the game with incredibly cheesy lists. And maybe we even want balance for tournaments where we expect people to bring the cheesiest lists they can think of. Maybe Space Marines dominate the top end because 5 Stormravens and Guilliman are hard to beat, while losing horribly with every other composition. Maybe they end up with a roughly even win rate because of this. That's still a huge problem. Ultimately, average win rates are not very helpful for understanding this stuff.
Knowing these numbers is exactly how you would go about achieving this ideal. We are not looking to become the GRAYTEST PLAYURZ EVAR, we're trying to identify which armies are on the upper and lower bounds of power, while tracking how well everyhting congregates towards a central power level. You need numbers for that. The data isn't exactly descriptive or 100% reliable, but it is better than nothing, and fulfills our objective here.
koooaei wrote: That and the fact that they're 2 times better than marines for points.
Err, no, Battle Sisters aren't "two times better".
Space Marines have huge advantages over Sisters when it comes to their statline. Those four points difference pay for +1s, +1t, ATSKNF, and +1WS. And, soon, it'll also pay for chapter tactics, as well. If a Tactical Marine squad charges a Battle Sister squad, it's all over for the BSS-- that's how huge the difference is in their statlines. Even a Tactical squad can outfight us in melee. A scout squad with combat knives could devastate almost any of our squads in melee.
Actually I'd argue Sisters were probably overcosted until this edition. Right now they're able to play their to their favored (short-ranged shooting) playstyle efficiently. And that's literally all they're able to do. This is the same playstyle Sisters players have been using for 20 years; in fact, barring having more units than previous editions due to points costs, we're literally playing the exact same lists we've been playing since 3e Codex: Witch Hunters and to a lesser extent 2e Codex: Sisters of Battle.
A lot of those wins are commander spam keep that in mind. Just like Flyrant lists were good for a time, but soon power creep put the nail in that coffin. Once commander spam is taken care of it's probably over for the Tau.
Gamgee wrote: A lot of those wins are commander spam keep that in mind. Just like Flyrant lists were good for a time, but soon power creep put the nail in that coffin. Once commander spam is taken care of it's probably over for the Tau.
let's hope that the commander spam is taken care of while simultaniously getting buffs to the 2/3 of the stuff in the book (overpriced units and gear). I feel your pain. Ork.
Gamgee wrote: A lot of those wins are commander spam keep that in mind. Just like Flyrant lists were good for a time, but soon power creep put the nail in that coffin. Once commander spam is taken care of it's probably over for the Tau.
let's hope that the commander spam is taken care of while simultaniously getting buffs to the 2/3 of the stuff in the book (overpriced units and gear). I feal your pain. Ork.
Exactly I want the rest of the army reworked a little so it's viable to bring Tau without having to resort to the commander spam list. I always felt your pain. I had a friend who played orks and nids all 7th ed. Poor orks being this bad for this long.
Dionysodorus wrote: The most obvious thing you'd want to check before trying to actually use this data for anything is whether there's a bias in favor of the reporting player. Maybe players who are likely to report games -- and in general probably just people active on this forum -- are significantly better players than average or tend to bring more competitive lists, etc. In this case most of what you'd actually see in the data is just which armies reporting players want to use.
This would be a useful consideration, if we were tracking actual W/L rates for a campaign or something. But we are trying to compare inter-army competitiveness here, meaning that skillful players and effective lists are exactly what we want to compare here.
I would kinda expect regular dakkanoughts to be above average,, as we are essentially a giant bloc of mathammer nerds.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Dionysodorus wrote: Nobody really cares whether the game is in some on-average sense balanced. We care about whether it's balanced at particular skill levels and in particular contexts. We want new players to be able to pick up the game and have enjoyable, balanced matches. We want expert players to be able to do the same, at least when they're not trying to break the game with incredibly cheesy lists. And maybe we even want balance for tournaments where we expect people to bring the cheesiest lists they can think of. Maybe Space Marines dominate the top end because 5 Stormravens and Guilliman are hard to beat, while losing horribly with every other composition. Maybe they end up with a roughly even win rate because of this. That's still a huge problem. Ultimately, average win rates are not very helpful for understanding this stuff.
Knowing these numbers is exactly how you would go about achieving this ideal. We are not looking to become the GRAYTEST PLAYURZ EVAR, we're trying to identify which armies are on the upper and lower bounds of power, while tracking how well everyhting congregates towards a central power level. You need numbers for that. The data isn't exactly descriptive or 100% reliable, but it is better than nothing, and fulfills our objective here.
This is innumerate nonsense. This data is essentially useless. Yes, it is "better than nothing". It is far, far worse than a competent person playing a few games and seeing how units feel to them, supplemented by lots of mathhammer.
Dionysodorus wrote: This is innumerate nonsense. This data is essentially useless. Yes, it is "better than nothing". It is far, far worse than a competent person playing a few games and seeing how units feel to them, supplemented by lots of mathhammer.
Then is it your belief that Imperial Guard aren't top level this edition? Do you think that Sisters are bad too? Do you believe that Tau and Orks are in fact great armies this edition? And if you don't believe any of that then hasn't the data shown quite clearly which armies are doing well and which aren't?
By saying that this data is useless you are denying what is so blatantly true and supported by this data.
Dionysodorus wrote: This is innumerate nonsense. This data is essentially useless. Yes, it is "better than nothing". It is far, far worse than a competent person playing a few games and seeing how units feel to them, supplemented by lots of mathhammer.
Then is it your belief that Imperial Guard aren't top level this edition? Do you think that Sisters are bad too? Do you believe that Tau and Orks are in fact great armies this edition? And if you don't believe any of that then hasn't the data shown quite clearly which armies are doing well and which aren't?
By saying that this data is useless you are denying what is so blatantly true and supported by this data.
No, this is also nonsense. No one with any expertise in statistics could think this.
I think Guard are top tier. I think Sisters are very strong. I think Tau and Orks are pretty weak. This data does not provide good evidence that any of that is true, though. Just because it lines up with your (and my) prejudices doesn't mean that it's solid -- that's awful reasoning. It is absolutely not true, and frankly is kind of embarrassing, to say that my contention that this data is useless is the same as disagreeing with some of what it seems on its face to show.
I mean, in my earlier post I went over a couple possible issues with the data. You'll recall that one problem I brought up is that maybe dakka-ites tend to win, and so maybe this is just showing which armies dakka-ites want to play, which will probably be biased towards the ones that they think are good. So then it'd be totally unsurprising for this (garbage) data to end up reflecting the forum's consensus about which armies are good. There are of course many other possible sources of bias.
Dionysodorus wrote: This is innumerate nonsense. This data is essentially useless. Yes, it is "better than nothing". It is far, far worse than a competent person playing a few games and seeing how units feel to them, supplemented by lots of mathhammer.
Then is it your belief that Imperial Guard aren't top level this edition? Do you think that Sisters are bad too? Do you believe that Tau and Orks are in fact great armies this edition? And if you don't believe any of that then hasn't the data shown quite clearly which armies are doing well and which aren't?
By saying that this data is useless you are denying what is so blatantly true and supported by this data.
Welcome to the world of pain I had in 7th trying to show Tau was only mid tier other then riptide wing, stormsurge spam, and some formations. Data and logical analysis means nothing to some people. I will make one point for my opponent since he is doing rather poorly in the debate himself. While this data shows which armies are weak it doesn't really specify how they are weak. That would take more in depth analysis and more time. Thankfully as more and more battle reports come in we will be able to get a better picture.
Some like the Tau are well understood where their problem lies. Others like the Deathwatch is a little harder just due to the small sample size and player base. So far the rough consensus seems to be the army is simply a little too expensive for some things.
Edit
Okay I seen your new post. You do make a point. The data is not professional level of data that will survive scrutiny from a university professor. At least right now. Dakka's sample size is more or less equalling other websites sample size as well and we're seeing a fairly similar distribution in actual tournament winners ect ect. Where your point is most valid is not the obvious extremes but the middle of the ground since it's easier for bias to creep into the data when it's all a lot closer in value.
The only real problem that can arise from this is if someone is trying to intentionally dilute the data with false reporting or not reporting the losses. The data follows the general trends everyone expected so that isn't likely.
The only thing that is a LARGE outlier is the Sisters result. How many unique sisters players have reported these results? For instance I know I only compromise ~12% of the GK results.
Dionysodorus wrote: This is innumerate nonsense. This data is essentially useless. Yes, it is "better than nothing". It is far, far worse than a competent person playing a few games and seeing how units feel to them, supplemented by lots of mathhammer.
Then is it your belief that Imperial Guard aren't top level this edition? Do you think that Sisters are bad too? Do you believe that Tau and Orks are in fact great armies this edition? And if you don't believe any of that then hasn't the data shown quite clearly which armies are doing well and which aren't?
By saying that this data is useless you are denying what is so blatantly true and supported by this data.
Welcome to the world of pain I had in 7th trying to show Tau was only mid tier other then riptide wing, stormsurge spam, and some formations. Data and logical analysis means nothing to some people. I will make one point for my opponent since he is doing rather poorly in the debate himself. While this data shows which armies are weak it doesn't really specify how they are weak. That would take more in depth analysis and more time. Thankfully as more and more battle reports come in we will be able to get a better picture.
Some like the Tau are well understood where their problem lies. Others like the Deathwatch is a little harder just due to the small sample size and player base. So far the rough consensus seems to be the army is simply a little too expensive for some things.
Edit
Okay I seen your new post. You do make a point. The data is not professional level of data that will survive scrutiny from a university professor. At least right now. Dakka's sample size is more or less equalling other websites sample size as well and we're seeing a fairly similar distribution in actual tournament winners ect ect. Where your point is most valid is not the obvious extremes but the middle of the ground since it's easier for bias to creep into the data when it's all a lot closer in value.
Gamgee, we both know everybody hated Tau because of the playstyle and didn't care about the W/L data.
Dionysodorus wrote: No, this is also nonsense. No one with any expertise in statistics could think this.
I think Guard are top tier. I think Sisters are very strong. I think Tau and Orks are pretty weak. This data does not provide good evidence that any of that is true, though. Just because it lines up with your (and my) prejudices doesn't mean that it's solid -- that's awful reasoning. It is absolutely not true, and frankly is kind of embarrassing, to say that my contention that this data is useless is the same as disagreeing with some of what it seems on its face to show.
I mean, in my earlier post I went over a couple possible issues with the data. You'll recall that one problem I brought up is that maybe dakka-ites tend to win, and so maybe this is just showing which armies dakka-ites want to play, which will probably be biased towards the ones that they think are good. So then it'd be totally unsurprising for this (garbage) data to end up reflecting the forum's consensus about which armies are good. There are of course many other possible sources of bias.
Anyone with actual experience in statistics would know you're talking rubbish.
The data set has problems certainly, there are biases as you say, but statistics is never about perfect data sets and if you actually had experience in statistics you'd know that. This data set is comprised from the experiences of probably under 100 Dakkanaughts and so you'd expect that the data from these players and the forum posts to coalesce, that I do not deny. However, the community outside of Dakka also reports that IG and SoB are doing great and Orks and Tau have been screwed again. The only outliers to this data spread come in the form of highly competitive tournaments where the only comparisons to be made there are between the effectiveness of Conscripts VS Stormravens VS Razorwings VS Horrors.
Saying that this data is garbage is just wrong and shows you have a very narrow understanding of how prejudice and biases are dealt with in real world data sets.
Vector Strike wrote: And yet we have no other kind of metric, outside tournament results, to see if X army is doing better than army Y, overall.
I'd rather take heed of this info than what happens only in my meta (which is much less representative).
I mean, you probably shouldn't do either. If you don't feel competent to come to reasonably certain conclusions from your experience playing and watching games, reading battle reports, working out the math, etc. -- and really most people who do feel competent won't be -- you should embrace uncertainty. "We don't have anything better to go on so we have to use this" is basically never a good approach, unless for some reason you have to make a decision. You should simply adopt a Bayesian worldview and perhaps slightly update the probability you attach to certain propositions being true as new evidence comes in. The evidence presented in this thread is extraordinarily weak, and so you should not update your beliefs very much because of it.
Quickjager wrote: The only real problem that can arise from this is if someone is trying to intentionally dilute the data with false reporting or not reporting the losses. The data follows the general trends everyone expected so that isn't likely.
The only thing that is a LARGE outlier is the Sisters result. How many unique sisters players have reported these results? For instance I know I only compromise ~12% of the GK results.
Dionysodorus wrote: This is innumerate nonsense. This data is essentially useless. Yes, it is "better than nothing". It is far, far worse than a competent person playing a few games and seeing how units feel to them, supplemented by lots of mathhammer.
Then is it your belief that Imperial Guard aren't top level this edition? Do you think that Sisters are bad too? Do you believe that Tau and Orks are in fact great armies this edition? And if you don't believe any of that then hasn't the data shown quite clearly which armies are doing well and which aren't?
By saying that this data is useless you are denying what is so blatantly true and supported by this data.
Welcome to the world of pain I had in 7th trying to show Tau was only mid tier other then riptide wing, stormsurge spam, and some formations. Data and logical analysis means nothing to some people. I will make one point for my opponent since he is doing rather poorly in the debate himself. While this data shows which armies are weak it doesn't really specify how they are weak. That would take more in depth analysis and more time. Thankfully as more and more battle reports come in we will be able to get a better picture.
Some like the Tau are well understood where their problem lies. Others like the Deathwatch is a little harder just due to the small sample size and player base. So far the rough consensus seems to be the army is simply a little too expensive for some things.
Edit
Okay I seen your new post. You do make a point. The data is not professional level of data that will survive scrutiny from a university professor. At least right now. Dakka's sample size is more or less equalling other websites sample size as well and we're seeing a fairly similar distribution in actual tournament winners ect ect. Where your point is most valid is not the obvious extremes but the middle of the ground since it's easier for bias to creep into the data when it's all a lot closer in value.
Gamgee, we both know everybody hated Tau because of the playstyle and didn't care about the W/L data.
Yet now the Tau are even more gunline than ever. Oh the irony. You are right Tau hare was not rational and I've seen many dumb reasons proposed to nerf them. The loud minority made it sure seem like the Tau were more broken than the old fish of fury days. Ah well time to rectify the situation then and I have hope GW will do this.
Dionysodorus wrote: No, this is also nonsense. No one with any expertise in statistics could think this.
I think Guard are top tier. I think Sisters are very strong. I think Tau and Orks are pretty weak. This data does not provide good evidence that any of that is true, though. Just because it lines up with your (and my) prejudices doesn't mean that it's solid -- that's awful reasoning. It is absolutely not true, and frankly is kind of embarrassing, to say that my contention that this data is useless is the same as disagreeing with some of what it seems on its face to show.
I mean, in my earlier post I went over a couple possible issues with the data. You'll recall that one problem I brought up is that maybe dakka-ites tend to win, and so maybe this is just showing which armies dakka-ites want to play, which will probably be biased towards the ones that they think are good. So then it'd be totally unsurprising for this (garbage) data to end up reflecting the forum's consensus about which armies are good. There are of course many other possible sources of bias.
Anyone with actual experience in statistics would know you're talking rubbish.
The data set has problems certainly, there are biases as you say, but statistics is never about perfect data sets and if you actually had experience in statistics you'd know that. This data set is comprised from the experiences of probably under 100 Dakkanaughts and so you'd expect that the data from these players and the forum posts to coalesce, that I do not deny. However, the community outside of Dakka also reports that IG and SoB are doing great and Orks and Tau have been screwed again. The only outliers to this data spread come in the form of highly competitive tournaments where the only comparisons to be made there are between the effectiveness of Conscripts VS Stormravens VS Razorwings VS Horrors.
Saying that this data is garbage is just wrong and shows you have a very narrow understanding of how prejudice and biases are dealt with in real world data sets.
I can only assume that you're just lying about your familiarity with how statistics is used in the real world. Your approach is far, far below acceptable real-world standards in political polling, product quality control, determining the effectiveness of new medical procedures, and really any investigation into any interesting question.
Dionysodorus wrote: No, this is also nonsense. No one with any expertise in statistics could think this.
I think Guard are top tier. I think Sisters are very strong. I think Tau and Orks are pretty weak. This data does not provide good evidence that any of that is true, though. Just because it lines up with your (and my) prejudices doesn't mean that it's solid -- that's awful reasoning. It is absolutely not true, and frankly is kind of embarrassing, to say that my contention that this data is useless is the same as disagreeing with some of what it seems on its face to show.
I mean, in my earlier post I went over a couple possible issues with the data. You'll recall that one problem I brought up is that maybe dakka-ites tend to win, and so maybe this is just showing which armies dakka-ites want to play, which will probably be biased towards the ones that they think are good. So then it'd be totally unsurprising for this (garbage) data to end up reflecting the forum's consensus about which armies are good. There are of course many other possible sources of bias.
Anyone with actual experience in statistics would know you're talking rubbish.
The data set has problems certainly, there are biases as you say, but statistics is never about perfect data sets and if you actually had experience in statistics you'd know that. This data set is comprised from the experiences of probably under 100 Dakkanaughts and so you'd expect that the data from these players and the forum posts to coalesce, that I do not deny. However, the community outside of Dakka also reports that IG and SoB are doing great and Orks and Tau have been screwed again. The only outliers to this data spread come in the form of highly competitive tournaments where the only comparisons to be made there are between the effectiveness of Conscripts VS Stormravens VS Razorwings VS Horrors.
Saying that this data is garbage is just wrong and shows you have a very narrow understanding of how prejudice and biases are dealt with in real world data sets.
I can only assume that you're just lying about your familiarity with how statistics is used in the real world. Your approach is far, far below acceptable real-world standards in political polling, product quality control, determining the effectiveness of new medical procedures, and really any investigation into any interesting question.
Until you can prove the proper usage of statistics and why you are superior at them this point is merely an attack on the opponent and getting very close to getting personal.
Until you can prove the proper usage of statistics and why you are superior at them this point is merely an attack on the opponent and getting very close to getting personal.
Again, this is incredibly sloppy thinking. Just because I don't have an easily-accessible better method does not mean that we should all pretend that some extremely unreliable method is actually reliable. This is saying that if there aren't any real doctors around we should pretend that faith healing and leeches can solve our problems. No. It is worthwhile in itself to reject quackery.
Don't shoot the messenger. I'm not your opponent simply letting you know what you did and what you need to do to impress me with a sound logical argument. You still didn't give any evidence to any of your claims by the way.
Anyways I'm leaving with the others as it seems all fruitful communication has come to an end.
Dionysodorus wrote: I can only assume that you're just lying about your familiarity with how statistics is used in the real world. Your approach is far, far below acceptable real-world standards in political polling, product quality control, determining the effectiveness of new medical procedures, and really any investigation into any interesting question.
Is this a political poll? No. Is this product control? No. Is this determining effectiveness of medical procedures? No. It also helps if you understand the exceptability of error margins depending on the research; when conducting medical research there is an extremely low tolerance for mistakes so the error margins must be extremely low and prejudice/biases have to be removed, this is because the consequences of the research showing positive results when the drug/procedure should have failed the tests are extremely high (i.e. people could die); when product control is carried out there is also a low tolerance for error margins, this is because failure to produce exactly as the manufacturor has advertised could either lead to the company losing money or being sued; and what about our data set? Well the consequences of the data being skewed are that people cannot use the data as 100% proof that a faction is OP when argueing online. Do you see the differences in consequences? Different consequences = different tolerance for error margins and bias.
If you don't understand this concept I don't fully believe that you have any familiarity with statistics.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Dionysodorus wrote: Again, this is incredibly sloppy thinking. Just because I don't have an easily-accessible better method does not mean that we should all pretend that some extremely unreliable method is actually reliable. This is saying that if there aren't any real doctors around we should pretend that faith healing and leeches can solve our problems. No. It is worthwhile in itself to reject quackery.
Who said this data is reliable? This is just a rough idea of how the balance looks in this supposedly most balanced edition ever. No one claimed we had Drug testing levels of certainty in these results.
Dionysodorus wrote: I can only assume that you're just lying about your familiarity with how statistics is used in the real world. Your approach is far, far below acceptable real-world standards in political polling, product quality control, determining the effectiveness of new medical procedures, and really any investigation into any interesting question.
Is this a political poll? No. Is this product control? No. Is this determining effectiveness of medical procedures? No. It also helps if you understand the exceptability of error margins depending on the research; when conducting medical research there is an extremely low tolerance for mistakes so the error margins must be extremely low and prejudice/biases have to be removed, this is because the consequences of the research showing positive results when the drug/procedure should have failed the tests are extremely high (i.e. people could die); when product control is carried out there is also a low tolerance for error margins, this is because failure to produce exactly as the manufacturor has advertised could either lead to the company losing money or being sued; and what about our data set? Well the consequences of the data being skewed are that people cannot use the data as 100% proof that a faction is OP when argueing online. Do you see the differences in consequences? Different consequences = different tolerance for error margins and bias.
If you don't understand this concept I don't fully believe that you have any familiarity with statistics.
I mean, sure, if you don't care much about being right you can use really sloppy methods. That's all you're saying here. I agree with that. And so I think now we agree that your data amounts to very weak evidence because you've made basically no attempt to control for error and bias, and so realistic error bars would span basically the whole possible range of values.
I do want to ask, though: do you actually think that you're competent to evaluate this stuff? Like, I promise I won't respond to call you a liar if you say you've got a PhD in applied statistics, I just want to know where you think you're coming from. What is your relevant experience in gathering this sort of data and evaluating it to figure out what's true?
Who said this data is reliable? This is just a rough idea of how the balance looks in this supposedly most balanced edition ever. No one claimed we had Drug testing levels of certainty in these results.
Okay, now I'm confused because literally all I've been saying is that this is an incredibly unreliable method and therefore the data is basically useless for drawing conclusions. That's what people jumped all over me for. Edit: Oh, I see, you're straw-manning me as saying that the only alternative to what you're doing is drug testing levels of certainty.
I will play devil's advocate for my opponent again because I'm bored.
I will say one thing. Until we know what type of game was reported by each player in those statistics it could very well skew the results.
So for example I know the Tau data in there is composed of at least three different types of games.
Pick up games, tournament games, and team doubles results. Each of these could easily have different variations on rules that skew the results.
/devils advocate end
However the amount they would be skewed by is very little. Right now the ITC and ATC are using mostly the majority of the core rules. Even on the latest frontline gaming reece and co said they want to play as close to the books as they can without making changes an right now there is almost no changes to the core rules.
So if anything the data across all factors would be more reliable now than at 6 months down the line when ITC rules have developed more and clearly skewed the results.
In the future it would be best if people posting in here say what type of game it was so we can get a better idea of where some of the data is coming from. Also I will agree no one in here said this proof was golden goose and should be the standard. No doubt the ITC will also have it's information as well.
Also we are seeing the list redistribute data recently as people's armies have been updated for 8th. So this is in fact prime data. As good ad we can possibly get without going to a higher source like the ITC or other tournaments. Also as for trustworthiness? So far there doesn't seem to be any malicious intent skewing the data like angry mobs or high emotions. Ultimately your going to trust people or your not. Do you think every single person reporting a game lied? I have no doubt there could be liars, but they would be a very few. The only other possibility is that everyone is lying or somehow unintentionally falsifying their results which would be astounding and mean all data everywhere is useless in which case you probably have something more serious to worry about than a game.
Interesting side note: it's not actually the case that in drug testing we try really, really, really hard to get the right answer. It's instead that you've got to demonstrate that the treatment clearly works. If the data we've got is insufficient to say that, then the FDA or whoever doesn't approve the treatment. But them doing that is not actually the same as saying that the treatment doesn't work. We're choosing to err on the side of not approving useless or harmful drugs rather than making sure that we're correctly sorting drugs into useless/harmful and useful categories.
I will also say this. GW seem to be genuinely interested in balancing. The latest FAQ had a points adjustment for razorwing flocks. So perhaps in the future GW won't need to be right for 2 years, but only for a few months.
If GW is willing to constantly tweak until perfected (or as close as they can get) then this data is a good starting point. If this was old GW who never updates values or makes changes your point would hold more weight since they would want to be as correct as possible because of a lack of quick updates.
There's been a lot of discussion the past few years about the "replication crisis" in the sciences. Basically, in lots of fields a surprising number of scientific studies turn out to be non-reproducible. Someone did a study and published a paper saying something -- "chocolate keeps you from getting cancer" or whatever -- but then other people tried to do a very similar study and didn't find the same effect. It has been estimated that less than half of medical studies are replicable (these being the apparent gold standard that we should never expect the survey in this thread to come close to).
But a failure to replicate has proven to be an even bigger problem in the social sciences, which rely on surveys and which can only imperfectly control for variables. Researcher degrees of freedom -- the ability of the people analyzing the data to make decisions post-hoc, such as in this thread when factions and subfactions are split out -- are also a big issue. The most rigorous attempts to study this problem to date suggest that perhaps only 30-40% of psychology studies are replicable. But some have found numbers closer to 25%.
This is to say that, actually, most academic psychology studies are bad evidence for the conclusions that their data seem to support. If you're not doing at least as good of a job as academic psychologists, your data is not worth very much.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Gamgee wrote: I will also say this. GW seem to be genuinely interested in balancing. The latest FAQ had a points adjustment for razorwing flocks. So perhaps in the future GW won't need to be right for 2 years, but only for a few months.
If GW is willing to constantly tweak until perfected (or as close as they can get) then this data is a good starting point. If this was old GW who never updates values or makes changes your point would hold more weight since they would want to be as correct as possible because of a lack of quick updates.
GW has pretty easy access to much better data than anything like this -- they can get something much closer to a representative random sample by having stores report results. And, like I said earlier, you're going to do pretty well with a handful of mathematically competent people with the right mindsets, without trying to collect data at all. I'm not sure they have such people or that they are trying to determine whether the game is balanced in a competent way, but they do have many better options that are not too hard to implement.
1. Sources. I may be familiar with the topic at hand, but others aren't.
2. This is true they may not be replicatable, but I think the source is deeper issue at hand in society.
3. So if the majority failed replication then how did the good ones?
4. If you want replicated data it's only been a little over two months since 8th is out. It is unlikely to have enough data to do such a thing as replication.
5. Pure replication won;t work in this context since the data has already begun changing with FAQ's altering results as well as the ITC going to do it's own house rulings. Finally in this case wouldn't pure replication of this study not work since it would just work to recreate the same unbiased results? [Okay I understand that is the point now I had to think for a second] In the sciences there is a fixed outcome being looked for. In 40k there is no fixed result. It is an ethereal "balance" or as close to it as can be obtained and so mere replication would fall short of this.
6. Are you willing to play hundreds of games against at least a hundred people or so to attempt to replicate these results in your own methods?
7. Actual sources to your information please and links.
Gamgee wrote: I will also say this. GW seem to be genuinely interested in balancing. The latest FAQ had a points adjustment for razorwing flocks. So perhaps in the future GW won't need to be right for 2 years, but only for a few months.
If GW is willing to constantly tweak until perfected (or as close as they can get) then this data is a good starting point. If this was old GW who never updates values or makes changes your point would hold more weight since they would want to be as correct as possible because of a lack of quick updates.
I can't see the razorwing flock pts adjustment on the FAQ?
Dionysodorus wrote: I mean, sure, if you don't care much about being right you can use really sloppy methods. That's all you're saying here. I agree with that. And so I think now we agree that your data amounts to very weak evidence because you've made basically no attempt to control for error and bias, and so realistic error bars would span basically the whole possible range of values.
Weak evidence and full range error bars are greatly over exaggerating, error bars would be smaller for those results with far more games reported and error bars would be even smaller if the results were reported by many different people. There are many factions on the board that we cannot draw conclusions from because of their tiny sample size but other factions have enough reported games for us to draw a vague idea of the strength of different factions. Saying we can't take conclusions from the IG, SM, CSM, Eldar, DE, Ork, etc. results is just wrong and you should know that.
I do want to ask, though: do you actually think that you're competent to evaluate this stuff? Like, I promise I won't respond to call you a liar if you say you've got a PhD in applied statistics, I just want to know where you think you're coming from. What is your relevant experience in gathering this sort of data and evaluating it to figure out what's true?
I am not a PhD level statistician, I am currently studying for a Masters in Medical Engineering which does have me come into contact with the statistics of prosthetic tensile strengths, the wear on different joints, etc. I also took a course of further statistics in College. Though it doesn't take someone with experience in statistics (just someone with common sense) to go "Guard are doing quite well this edition. Space Marines aren't doing as well as I'd have thought but that is quite alot of peoples starting armies, so I'll take that with a pinch of salt. Tau aren't doing great but they have been getting better over the last couple of weeks, perhaps that is something to do with people now realising Commander spam is pretty good". See, we can draw conclusions from this data.
Okay, now I'm confused because literally all I've been saying is that this is an incredibly unreliable method and therefore the data is basically useless for drawing conclusions. That's what people jumped all over me for. Edit: Oh, I see, you're straw-manning me as saying that the only alternative to what you're doing is drug testing levels of certainty.
I am certainly not straw manning you: just because a set of data does not have 99% reliability doesn't mean no conlcusions can be drawn from it, that simply means you have to take the data with a pinch of salt.
You can't claim that I'm straw manning you when you make wild claims like the data is garbage and useless for drawing conclusions when I'm claiming data doesn't have to have the accuracy of scientific studies to be usefull.
Gamgee wrote: I will also say this. GW seem to be genuinely interested in balancing. The latest FAQ had a points adjustment for razorwing flocks. So perhaps in the future GW won't need to be right for 2 years, but only for a few months.
If GW is willing to constantly tweak until perfected (or as close as they can get) then this data is a good starting point. If this was old GW who never updates values or makes changes your point would hold more weight since they would want to be as correct as possible because of a lack of quick updates.
I can't see the razorwing flock pts adjustment on the FAQ?
Page 2. New changes are in pink.
As to my qualifications I am not a statistician, but extremely competent logician and independent thinker. I was eventually going to go in for a doctorate in psychology (medical), but dropped out before I got bachelor because I didn't like the people in the program. I keep my mind sharp though. Suffice to say I skewed the results in my class so much I raised the GPA of my class and made them look better.
Gamgee wrote: I will also say this. GW seem to be genuinely interested in balancing. The latest FAQ had a points adjustment for razorwing flocks. So perhaps in the future GW won't need to be right for 2 years, but only for a few months.
If GW is willing to constantly tweak until perfected (or as close as they can get) then this data is a good starting point. If this was old GW who never updates values or makes changes your point would hold more weight since they would want to be as correct as possible because of a lack of quick updates.
I can't see the razorwing flock pts adjustment on the FAQ?
Page 2. New changes are in pink.
As to my qualifications I am not a statistician, but extremely competent logician and independent thinker. I was eventually going to go in for a doctorate in psychology, but dropped out before I got bachelor because I didn't like the people in the program. I keep my mind sharp though. Suffice to say I skewed the results in my class so much I raised the GPA of my class and made them look better.
Oh thanks - I was on the gw site and it had not updated been to the thread and some good stuff - is this to sort out flyer balance?
Page 215
– Sudden Death
Change point 2 to read: ‘If at the end of any turn after the first battle round, one player has no models on the battlefield, the game ends immediately and their opponent automatically wins a crushing victory. When determining if a player has any units on the battlefield, do not include any units with
the Flyer Battlefield Role – these units cannot operate within a combat airspace indefinitely and they cannot hold territory without ground support.
Dionysodorus wrote: I mean, sure, if you don't care much about being right you can use really sloppy methods. That's all you're saying here. I agree with that. And so I think now we agree that your data amounts to very weak evidence because you've made basically no attempt to control for error and bias, and so realistic error bars would span basically the whole possible range of values.
Weak evidence and full range error bars are greatly over exaggerating, error bars would be smaller for those results with far more games reported and error bars would be even smaller if the results were reported by many different people. There are many factions on the board that we cannot draw conclusions from because of their tiny sample size but other factions have enough reported games for us to draw a vague idea of the strength of different factions. Saying we can't take conclusions from the IG, SM, CSM, Eldar, DE, Ork, etc. results is just wrong and you should know that.
This is only true if there is not much bias. Growing your sample size doesn't help if your collection method is bad.
I am not a PhD level statistician, I am currently studying for a Masters in Medical Engineering which does have me come into contact with the statistics of prosthetic tensile strengths, the wear on different joints, etc. I also took a course of further statistics in College. Though it doesn't take someone with experience in statistics (just someone with common sense) to go "Guard are doing quite well this edition. Space Marines aren't doing as well as I'd have thought but that is quite alot of peoples starting armies, so I'll take that with a pinch of salt. Tau aren't doing great but they have been getting better over the last couple of weeks, perhaps that is something to do with people now realising Commander spam is pretty good". See, we can draw conclusions from this data.
You can't bootstrap like this. You're trying to establish that your data is reliable by testing it against your sense of how the game is balanced currently, but that means that you can't then say that the data is evidence for how the game is balanced currently. That's an incredibly unreliable kind of inference. Edit: You're also allowing yourself to construct just-so stories to explain your data. You could explain almost any result this way. This means that we shouldn't really believe any of the particular stories you're telling to fit however the data happened to end up.
I am certainly not straw manning you: just because a set of data does not have 99% reliability doesn't mean no conlcusions can be drawn from it, that simply means you have to take the data with a pinch of salt.
You can't claim that I'm straw manning you when you make wild claims like the data is garbage and useless for drawing conclusions when I'm claiming data doesn't have to have the accuracy of scientific studies to be usefull.
I mean, of course it was a straw man. I'm not saying your data has to have 99% reliability to be worth anything. I am saying that it has much, much less than 99% reliability. Everyone is better off ignoring it because people are generally very bad at reasoning about very uncertain claims.
Gamgee wrote: 1. Sources. I may be familiar with the topic at hand, but others aren't.
2. This is true they may not be replicatable, but I think the source is deeper issue at hand in society.
3. So if the majority failed replication then how did the good ones?
4. If you want replicated data it's only been a little over two months since 8th is out. It is unlikely to have enough data to do such a thing as replication.
5. Pure replication won;t work in this context since the data has already begun changing with FAQ's altering results as well as the ITC going to do it's own house rulings. Finally in this case wouldn't pure replication of this study not work since it would just work to recreate the same unbiased results? In the sciences there is a fixed outcome being looked for. In 40k there is no fixed result. It is an ethereal "balance" or as close to it as can be obtained and so mere replication would fall short of this.
6. Are you willing to play hundreds of games against at least a hundred people or so to attempt to replicate these results in your own methods?
7. Actual sources to your information please and links.
I don't really understand your questions 3-6. I'm not demanding replication. The point is that a lack of reproducibility in a field suggests that results are not reliable -- you should not be very confident in conclusions drawn from them until they have been confirmed several times. What I was saying was that, if a particular study in a major psychology journal is generally not good evidence for its conclusions, then surely the data in this thread is not good evidence for its conclusions.
Quickjager wrote: The only real problem that can arise from this is if someone is trying to intentionally dilute the data with false reporting or not reporting the losses.
He who does this must fear the inevitable dakka-vengeance van coming for him.
1. Thank you for the sources.
2. You have proven that there is a problem in general with statistics as they are presented to the public.
3. Despite the above you don't actually offer any sort of replication evidence to show that this data is in fact not able to be replicated just that it could.
4. You appeal to a higher authority which is a logical fallacy. You state that because it is known that the above is a problem in statistics and test that therefore there must be a problem here which might not be the case. While I have to admit that it could be a problem I still need to see your own testing on attempting to replicate the results for this to be a valid point against this specific survey.
5. Medical science is a realm of facts. People playing a game are not so logical. If a computer could make the perfectly balanced game but it isn't fun then the balance never really mattered in the first place. As much as I hate to say it there is much subjectivity in balance and you can't force people to change their minds even if the logic backs it up.
6. It will take months and months of analysis to get to the heart of the logical issues at hand and the math and balancing, but GW does not have that time or luxury. Even if you replicate the study once it would need to be done at least a few more dozen times for it to hold up to scientific scrutiny and rigour which would cause the game to be stuck in balance paralysis. People are not patient enough to wait 6+ months of analysing before every rule addition or change to the game and the company would quickly fall apart as it could never sell or create anything without months of mental gymnastics.
7. In this case a simpler less accurate method is more useful for practicality sake. GW is also able to make changes to its game faster than the scientific community and thus if they do over do balance on one thing or another it can always be tweaked in the future. It's a more rough and tumble approach to numbers and math for sure but it gives them much more adaptability and speed.
Your a smart person who clearly can make a good logical argument, but in this case I just don't feel it holds up to practicality and real life. If you were arguing pure facts like in science then of course this would be a fantastic and compelling argument. Heck I would be right there along side of you as it is once we hit peoples "feelings" the bane of so many scientists it can start to fall apart.
Dionysodorus wrote: This is only true if there is not much bias. Growing your sample size doesn't help if your collection method is bad.
How much bias do you think there is exactly? What bias is throwing this data out of skew so much that it is unusable.
You can't bootstrap like this. You're trying to establish that your data is reliable by testing it against your sense of how the game is balanced currently, but that means that you can't then say that the data is evidence for how the game is balanced currently. That's an incredibly unreliable kind of inference. Edit: You're also allowing yourself to construct just-so stories to explain your data. You could explain almost any result this way. This means that we shouldn't really believe any of the particular stories you're telling to fit however the data happened to end up.
I'm not fitting data around my experiences, I've only first hand seen how World Eaters, Imperial Guard and Orks play like this edition (all of my other games have been one offs against an army I don't play against that much), my opinions on Space Marines, Tau, Eldar, etc. come from this data and what battle reports I've seen. I'm constructing stories that explain the data, these are called 'theories' and are a perfectly reasonable way of interpretting data.
I mean, of course it was a straw man. I'm not saying your data has to have 99% reliability to be worth anything. I am saying that it has much, much less than 99% reliability. Everyone is better off ignoring it because people are generally very bad at reasoning about very uncertain claims.
I'm having to say stuff like it isn't 99% reliable because you won't tell us what the reliability of this data is (so far it's all been a lot of hot air about how some biases, which you haven't told us what they are, that skew the results beyond use) and you won't tell us what level of reliability the data becomes usable. I personally believe, because of the sample size and the fact that these results are being replected, the reliability of this data is above 50% (of course this isn't the case for the factions with low numbers of results). As for people? I'd say most of the people regularly coming back to this thread to discuss the results are learned enough to be able to make conclusions from these results whilst still keeping an amount of skepticism due to the lack of extreme reliability.
How much bias do you think there is exactly? What bias is throwing this data out of skew so much that it is unusable.
What do you mean "how much bias"? How are you wanting this quantified? Like I've said, I think the results are sufficiently unreliable that they're basically not worth considering as evidence. In an earlier post I outlined some potential sources of bias. It's on you to demonstrate that you've avoided or accounted for those if you want to make an argument that this data provides good evidence for some conclusion. One of them was even something you probably could have at least looked at with a slightly better collection strategy -- you want to see if the reported results are biased in favor of the reporting players. I feel like you're wanting me to tell you something like what I think the win rate of reporting players is, but obviously that's silly. The problem is that we don't know what the win rate of reporting players is because you failed to collect that information. I think it could be much better than 50%. Glancing over the first two pages this seems to be the case, since in most cases we can figure out which army is the reporter's; reporting players seem to win more than they lose and players reporting lots of games tend to win a lot more than they lose. So at minimum I think it would be a good idea to try to adjust for this, though given your methodology you don't have any real chance of accounting for selection bias in general. As other people have pointed out, a relatively large fraction of the Sisters' matches are due to a small number of players. The usual explanation for their high win rate has been that our Sisters players are just good but it is also possible that the problem is that Sisters are simply more popular among reporters than among the general population and so the general trend of a bias in favor of reporters has a bigger impact here. It would be hard to tease this out.
I'm not fitting data around my experiences, I've only first hand seen how World Eaters, Imperial Guard and Orks play like this edition (all of my other games have been one offs against an army I don't play against that much), my opinions on Space Marines, Tau, Eldar, etc. come from this data and what battle reports I've seen. I'm constructing stories that explain the data, these are called 'theories' and are a perfectly reasonable way of interpretting data.
I mean, in your first response to me you were talking like I was being ridiculous because what I was saying flew in the face of common sense -- everyone knows that Guard and Sisters are good and Orks and Tau aren't. But, yes, you're offering possible explanations for why the different factions could have the win rates suggested by your data. Let's leave aside that we really have no reason to believe these win rates (at least, from your data). We further have basically no reason to believe your explanations for why they have these win rates. Your data shed no light on this; you're just using it to try to confirm your prejudices.
I'm having to say stuff like it isn't 99% reliable because you won't tell us what the reliability of this data is (so far it's all been a lot of hot air about how some biases, which you haven't told us what they are, that skew the results beyond use) and you won't tell us what level of reliability the data becomes usable. I personally believe, because of the sample size and the fact that these results are being replected, the reliability of this data is above 50% (of course this isn't the case for the factions with low numbers of results). As for people? I'd say most of the people regularly coming back to this thread to discuss the results are learned enough to be able to make conclusions from these results whilst still keeping an amount of skepticism due to the lack of extreme reliability.
I mean, surely it's your job to tell me how reliable your data is, right? If I tell you I've got a fantastic investment opportunity and if you give me $1000 you'll get rich, it's not on you to prove that I don't really have a foolproof scheme. I've got to show you that it is. I've got to be able to explain what I intend to do with the money and how I'm going to get the returns I'm promising, and I've got to answer objections like: "How likely is it that this combination bowling alley / car wash you want to build turns out to be very unpopular and goes bankrupt?" It's not your job to prove that there's no market for that. If you want to make some claim from this data, you've got to actually have an argument that the data is reliable. This is standard in things like polling. The pollster will report nonresponse rates and demographic information and how they tried to obtain a representative sample and what sorts of adjustments they did to control for various kinds of bias, trying to show that they've kept the possible error within acceptable limits.
Sample size alone doesn't cut it. Obviously this does not account for selection bias. That it's being "replicated" -- and I'm not really sure what you mean here -- also doesn't cut it. I think you mean that as you get more results the answers aren't changing too much? But of course this still doesn't even attempt to consider selection bias.
You say that you think your results are 50% reliable. What does an exact percentage mean here? To be clear, I was throwing around "99% reliable" only after you did, when I thought it was clear that this just meant "it is really inconceivable that this stuff would be significantly off from the right answer". But I have no idea what "50% reliable" means. Maybe something like "there is a 50/50 chance that this stuff is basically right?" Obviously that needs to be made a lot more precise. But, regardless, that's not good enough because I agree that the general trend here is probably right. I think that Guard really is likely doing well, and Orks and Tau really are likely not doing that well. I just don't believe that on the basis of your data. The question of whether some of the general trends you're showing are real is very different from the question of whether your data gives us reason to believe that those trends are real. As I've said, I think what you're doing adds basically no value above and beyond what someone could glean from glancing over the forum and seeing which factions there's a consensus on.
I think it is clearly not true that most people in this thread "are learned enough to be able to make conclusions from these results whilst still keeping an amount of skepticism due to the lack of extreme reliability." Very few people in general are. And most people here talking about the data are making elementary errors. I mean, someone is posting up confidence intervals derived from the sample sizes, and this is just straight out of "How to Lie with Statistics". I notice that nobody seems to have called him on this incredibly misleading presentation (to be clear, I don't think it's malicious). Of course, we also know that most people wildly overestimate their own competence to understand this sort of thing. This is part of why I think what you're doing is not just harmless but actively misleading.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
SarisKhan wrote: Reported Dionysodorus for persistently derailing the thread and being generally unpleasant. Go be a smartass somewhere else.
I do not really understand why it is derailing to talk about what we can conclude from the data collected in this thread. That is literally half of the point of the thread, other than collecting the data in the first place.
Edit:
I kept looking a little bit through some of the reported data. People have been talking like we have enough Ork games to say that they're probably underpowered. The difference between Ork wins and Ork losses is basically the same as the difference in wins and losses reported by a single player on page 2. Remove one person from your data set and the Orks look a lot like the Grey Knights.
That's a lot of bs words to say you don't trust him and accuse him of actively falsifying data. I've debated enough people to know this is about to get ugly. Sadly I have to report you. I didn't want too since I've been in similar position on this forum in the past and I've given you more than enough chances to say your point, but my experience tells me otherwise.
Gamgee wrote: That's a lot of bs words to say you don't trust him and accuse him of actively falsifying data. I've debated enough people to know this is about to get ugly. Sadly I have to report you. I didn't want too since I've been in similar position on this forum in the past and I've given you more than enough chances to say your point, but my experience tells me otherwise.
...I don't think I've ever once suggested that anyone was falsifying data. Like, I haven't even raised the possibility that any of the people reporting games are making games up to make their faction look better or worse. Though come to think of it it's pretty plausible that there's some of that going on, right?
"This is part of why I think what you're doing is not just harmless but actively misleading. "
You wrote that. Your accusing him of actively misleading. You seem to think it's his intent. Your debating from a very angry and hostile place right now and it's showing. I stand by you needing to take a walk when your disconnecting from the debate that much.
One can mislead without intending to do so. He is causing people to have a wrong idea or impression. I think I've been pretty clear that I think the problem is that people are not competent to evaluate information like this rather than that they are competent but malicious.
Also I would note that I phrased it a bit more diplomatically than that, since I said what he was doing was misleading.
I really don't know what to say to you. You keep bringing up reliability measures that you would have in research projects, you want me to present to you that my data is a reliable data source. You know as well as I do, this data has no measures to prevent skew, it doesn't have enough results for it to be a reliable piece of evidence, the participents of this data collection are being trusted to be truthful but I can't enforce that. It isn't a reliable data set. Trying to publish a report on the current meta of 40k using this data is a laughable idea.
But, all we are doing here is taking a quick look at 8th ed 40k through the experiences of Dakka players and using our knowledge of 40k from our years of experience to make suggestions about the games balance.
You say that you have no reason to believe my theories because I'm just using unreliable data to confirm my prejudices, what you fail to remember is that I am a veteran player (or like to think I am). It is widly known that Space Marines are the most popular faction and has more new players than any other faction but it also contains many players who have used Space Marines for a long time. When I look at these results it makes sense that they would be below average and the data follows that trend. It may be a coincidense, but since the data isn't varying from this norm I see no need for concern. Imperial Guard have always been about an average army but now the data says that they are doing far better than normal, they are varying from the norm. So we look into it, read batreps, etc. and find that IG are in fact better than normal.
The data isn't reliable but so far it has been in accordense with reports all over the world, keep harping on about how no conclusions can be drawn from it but the data has 'coincidently' been right on the money for almost all of the results. A data set like this lets us look at variences from the norm and ask "why is that different than normal?".
I can't argue against you any more, seeing as we are going around in circles. The data is not reliable but we do not need it to be reliable, we just need it to establish the norm.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Dionysodorus wrote: One can mislead without intending to do so. He is causing people to have a wrong idea or impression. I think I've been pretty clear that I think the problem is that people are not competent to evaluate information like this rather than that they are competent but malicious.
Also I would note that I phrased it a bit more diplomatically than that, since I said what he was doing was misleading.
Misleading people how? Will people look at this and go "Guard are OP!" without even looking at any other sources? No one is taking these results as gospel.
Misleading people how? Will people look at this and go "Guard are OP!" without even looking at any other sources? No one is taking these results as gospel.
Honestly, you've got to pick one. If the data tells us something, you need to argue why it's reliable. If all you want to say is that the data are not crazy given what we already think is true, then, yeah, as I've said a few times I don't have a problem with that. You can't bootstrap by saying that we should believe the data because they match what we already think is true and then the data should make us much more confident in what we already believed.
You're being misleading by presenting the data as being useful for much at all. The way that you yourself defend the reliability of the data demonstrates this.
But also, yes, people are absolutely bringing up win rates from here as if they're evidence for faction balance. I've seen them posted in several threads.
Here you go. More or less confirms what a lot of people have been saying in here. Ultimately the data in here has to be given some skepticism, but until time passes or an alternate data set appears this is the framework we have. So far it's working pretty well.
Itc rankings on frontline gaming give an overview of the top players per faction and how much points they have relative to others. Granted the season is fresh.
Soon a big tournament will be happening that will confirm a lot of speculation in this thread or disprove it. Given my own experience I am inclined to believe this data will be approximately accurate.
There was also the big Caledonian deathwatch a few weeks back as well with 100 people. Then the wet coast which had a few hundred. These trends have more or less been shown to be correct.
Played a couple of games at 1K today with my Imperial Fists Space Marines. I wanted to try out some units I've never got to the table so my list was:
Captain Lysander Crusader with all weapon options 2 x 5 Intercessors 10 Tac Marines with combi-plas, flamer and heavy bolter 5 Devs, 2 ML and 2 LC
Orks vs Space Marines = Marines win
I managed to take the anti tank out early with some lucky lascannon shots and some devastating firepower from the Crusader. The two clouds of 30 orks with their respective HQ escort just got whittled down, ending with the primaris squads finishing them off in CC. Lysander just wandered around the board one shotting a Warboss, clearing out a bike squad and then the Big Mek.
Adeptus Sororitas + Imperial Guard vs Space Marines = Marines win
First turn the Crusader wiped a squad + weapon team and put hurt on a sister squad. My opponent was very unlucky on his AT rolls and didn't manage to drop the LRC down a profile. The Intercessors on my left flank got charged by some Seraphim, who they seemed to handily clean up in combat and stay on their objective. Lysander managed to avoid being burned to death by the Immolator and one shot that before taking on the Cannoness.
After some reflection I had a bit of a terrain advantage on my side of the board, which we didn't realise until toward the end of the game. Not sure if it'd have made a difference with the LRC tearing up the army.
All in all, very impressed with the Land Raider and Lysander. The Intercessors are super handy when put in cover and are extremely hard to shift, they don't put out much damage at range but dish out a surprising amount in combat.
The data is reliable enough to establish a norm. This is because we have no reason to believe people are conspiring to change the results and enough people have posted for a general idea of faction strength, especially when their W/L position doesn't change over several weeks. If the data matches what is being established as the norm in other threads/forums/etc. then we can assume the data is farely reliable since it's results are being repeated.
What we can now do with this data is look to where it doesn't fit the norm and, as I said, ask "why?".
We've had discussions as to why IG are doing so well since they were below average in the previous editions norm.
We've had discussions as to why Tau were doing so bad since the norm from 7th was that they were very good.
We've had discussions as to why Tau started getting better since our new norm was telling us they were doing very badly.
And in all of our discussions it has been mentioned that the change from the norm could just be an outlier because people in this thread are learned enough to understand that statistics aren't fact.
It is useful for establishing the norm. See above.
And if they are? It encourages discussion: someone says Imperial Guard are OP because they are going 125W to 74L in this thread, it is then up to the people in this thread to discuss why this result is what it is. Are Imperial Guard doing well in this thread because they are OP (is there more evidence to corroborate these claims) or is it because of bias in the results? That is what we do on this site. We discuss: we discuss why Dakkanaughts are getting beaten by certain armies or why they are cerb stomping with another army and we discuss why certain armies are dominating tournaments. (What this set of data does that tournament data doesn't do is show how well the entire index is doing, not just the most competitive builds)
To be clear, though, you're not addressing any sort of sampling bias there and so what you're getting is just information about the people who are reporting. And as I said you plausibly have this problem with a bias towards reporting armies which could throw things off substantially. You're just wrong that your data is "reliable enough to establish a norm" for the game as a whole. Asserting this doesn't make it so. You probably have enough from individual players that you're getting a good idea of how those specific players do with particular armies, but you're really just confusing things by lumping together reports from multiple players. This has nothing to do with whether people are "conspiring to change the results" and I haven't seriously proposed that as a problem. You're just consistently failing to address the real sources of potential bias.
So, regarding your examples:
You're not adding anything to the Guard discussion. People figured out that Guard got much stronger pretty quickly, and you still don't appear to have an actual argument that your results are good evidence that Guard are winning a lot.
Likewise the overall Tau discussion.
I will give you that there's something interesting to talk about with why you saw Tau results change over time. Though this depends. If it's different players doing the reporting, you have nothing interesting to say about this. You have no reason to think that that's a real effect. But if it's the same players reporting then it plausibly reflects those specific players improving. You don't have anything interesting to say about Tau overall, for people who are not reporting.
To the extent that you think you have something interesting to say about the game overall and not particular players who are reporting lots of games, you're proving my point that people are terrible at evaluating this kind of information. That you mention in all of your discussions that maybe this is an outlier doesn't help and certainly doesn't demonstrate that people are actually evaluating this information appropriately. That's like saying that the "for entertainment purposes only" disclaimer that psychics use means that clearly everyone involved is being responsible about how this is actually all just a sham.
Dionysodorus wrote: To be clear, though, you're not addressing any sort of sampling bias there and so what you're getting is just information about the people who are reporting. And as I said you plausibly have this problem with a bias towards reporting armies which could throw things off substantially. You're just wrong that your data is "reliable enough to establish a norm" for the game as a whole. Asserting this doesn't make it so. You probably have enough from individual players that you're getting a good idea of how those specific players do with particular armies, but you're really just confusing things by lumping together reports from multiple players. This has nothing to do with whether people are "conspiring to change the results" and I haven't seriously proposed that as a problem. You're just consistently failing to address the real sources of potential bias.
So, regarding your examples:
You're not adding anything to the Guard discussion. People figured out that Guard got much stronger pretty quickly, and you still don't appear to have an actual argument that your results are good evidence that Guard are winning a lot.
Likewise the overall Tau discussion.
I will give you that there's something interesting to talk about with why you saw Tau results change over time. Though this depends. If it's different players doing the reporting, you have nothing interesting to say about this. You have no reason to think that that's a real effect. But if it's the same players reporting then it plausibly reflects those specific players improving. You don't have anything interesting to say about Tau overall, for people who are not reporting.
To the extent that you think you have something interesting to say about the game overall and not particular players who are reporting lots of games, you're proving my point that people are terrible at evaluating this kind of information. That you mention in all of your discussions that maybe this is an outlier doesn't help and certainly doesn't demonstrate that people are actually evaluating this information appropriately. That's like saying that the "for entertainment purposes only" disclaimer that psychics use means that clearly everyone involved is being responsible about how this is actually all just a sham.
I see your avoiding the evidence presented in the links I presented that show some correlation. Also there are 29 currently tracked factions, and only three big exceptions and one of them is an example twice. I would say that is well within normalcy for the data. It is even represented as the Tau tournament data itself. I have links that show early tournaments were Tau adapting their armies and using lots of Riptides and the usual old 7e lists that no longer worked. As they adapted they seem to be stabilising a little, but still not in great shape. The Space Marines have been covered by his posts before. So we have answered why the statistical anomalies exist in the first place.
Dionysodorus wrote: This is innumerate nonsense. This data is essentially useless. Yes, it is "better than nothing". It is far, far worse than a competent person playing a few games and seeing how units feel to them, supplemented by lots of mathhammer.
Then is it your belief that Imperial Guard aren't top level this edition? Do you think that Sisters are bad too? Do you believe that Tau and Orks are in fact great armies this edition? And if you don't believe any of that then hasn't the data shown quite clearly which armies are doing well and which aren't?
By saying that this data is useless you are denying what is so blatantly true and supported by this data.
Welcome to the world of pain I had in 7th trying to show Tau was only mid tier other then riptide wing, stormsurge spam, and some formations. Data and logical analysis means nothing to some people. I will make one point for my opponent since he is doing rather poorly in the debate himself. While this data shows which armies are weak it doesn't really specify how they are weak. That would take more in depth analysis and more time. Thankfully as more and more battle reports come in we will be able to get a better picture.
Some like the Tau are well understood where their problem lies. Others like the Deathwatch is a little harder just due to the small sample size and player base. So far the rough consensus seems to be the army is simply a little too expensive for some things.
Edit
Okay I seen your new post. You do make a point. The data is not professional level of data that will survive scrutiny from a university professor. At least right now. Dakka's sample size is more or less equalling other websites sample size as well and we're seeing a fairly similar distribution in actual tournament winners ect ect. Where your point is most valid is not the obvious extremes but the middle of the ground since it's easier for bias to creep into the data when it's all a lot closer in value.
Was there other Tau in 7th? Because I sure as hell never saw it.
mrhappyface wrote: What would you have me do then? What would satisfy your idea of reliable data that can be applied to this thread?
I mean, I gave you one suggestion that I think would maybe get you to the point of being able to say something interesting about at least the performance of armies among people on this forum. You could try to adjust for any bias in favor of reporting players' armies. I'm not sure you have enough data for this, but as a first pass you might go through and look at the win rate for reporting armies vs other armies (you would want to split out games that did not involve a reporting army as their own thing too, since obviously those will always be 50/50). See if that result looks really weird -- do reporting armies win 60% of their games? You could then look at the distribution of faction choices among reporting players vs non-reporting players -- how much correlation is there between factions with overall high win rates and factions favored by reporters? Ideally you could look at this on a faction by faction basis, but I don't think you have enough data for this. You could just see if reporting Space Marines do much better or worse than non-reporting Space Marines. If there's significant reporting bias of this sort, you could use the results of this to try to adjust your calculated win rates for their popularity among reporting players to obtain a better measure of a faction's win rate that isn't reflecting reporter preference.
A second thing you should probably do is look at how many actual people are responsible for your results. I pointed out earlier that the very low Ork win rate is basically entirely due to a single player who reported on page 2. It is possible that this player reported even more games later. Surely you can agree that in light of that, the Ork results are simply not reliable -- you have never had the slightest reason to look at your results and say that they provide any real evidence that Orks are underpowered. Your results are due to a single player getting poor results with Orks. Obviously there are many possible explanations for this besides something inherent to the faction. Anyway, there are a couple more complex measures you could look at for this, but what you're looking for is something like: how many individual players do I need to eliminate from consideration in order to drive the calculated win rate to something more normal, or before I have too few data points to draw conclusions? This is difficult to work out in some cases where people are reporting watched games or may be playing against multiple opponents, but you can probably do okay here. If you can quantify that 2 or 3 Sisters players are basically wholly responsible for their results, then that's why we shouldn't really trust that. If the Marine results are really robust even after you get rid of quite a few people, then that one's a lot more likely to be telling you something real. I think you've mentioned before something like a raw number of people who are contributing to this, but there's a big difference between 100 people reporting 2 games each and 99 people reporting 1 game each and 1 person reporting 101 games -- in this case your results are probably more reliable if you just ignore the person who's reporting 101 games, since otherwise basically all you're telling me is how well that person did.
But yeah, there are pretty serious limitations to how solid of conclusions you can draw doing something like this. You're simply never going to be able to be really confident that you're on to something. I'm not trying to say that you're doing it wrong, really, it's just that finding stuff out is hard and you have limited tools available unless you go to unrealistic lengths. There's a limit to what I can tell you about the Moon using binoculars, but that's not really a criticism of my trying to look at the moon with binoculars because I don't want to spend a ton of money on a telescope. But I should be careful not to think that my information is actually very useful -- if you really want to know about the Moon you need a lot more than binoculars. What you're doing is largely a "for entertainment purposes only" sort of statistics gathering. It's a neat thing to do to see how stuff is working for dakka. Like how you could ask dakka what they think of pineapple pizza and that would tell you something interesting about dakka, which lots of people (on dakka, at least) might find interesting, but you'd want to be really careful about applying that more broadly because of course dakka-ites are not representative of the general population, perhaps not even in their tastes in pizza toppings.
You argue as though you think we're trying to use this dataset as a be-all-end-all final word on discussions in 40k. We're not. We knew the limitations of this from the start. The data is limited, but has the level of reliability and usefulness we need for a simple internet discussion. We're well aware of this thing's faults, and we know where we can or cannot draw conclusions from it.
Seriously man, you're blowing this whole damn thing out of proportion. I would quite like it if we could just go back to the topic of the darn thread.
mrhappyface wrote: What would you have me do then? What would satisfy your idea of reliable data that can be applied to this thread?
I mean, I gave you one suggestion that I think would maybe get you to the point of being able to say something interesting about at least the performance of armies among people on this forum. You could try to adjust for any bias in favor of reporting players' armies. I'm not sure you have enough data for this, but as a first pass you might go through and look at the win rate for reporting armies vs other armies (you would want to split out games that did not involve a reporting army as their own thing too, since obviously those will always be 50/50). See if that result looks really weird -- do reporting armies win 60% of their games? You could then look at the distribution of faction choices among reporting players vs non-reporting players -- how much correlation is there between factions with overall high win rates and factions favored by reporters? Ideally you could look at this on a faction by faction basis, but I don't think you have enough data for this. You could just see if reporting Space Marines do much better or worse than non-reporting Space Marines. If there's significant reporting bias of this sort, you could use the results of this to try to adjust your calculated win rates for their popularity among reporting players to obtain a better measure of a faction's win rate that isn't reflecting reporter preference.
A second thing you should probably do is look at how many actual people are responsible for your results. I pointed out earlier that the very low Ork win rate is basically entirely due to a single player who reported on page 2. It is possible that this player reported even more games later. Surely you can agree that in light of that, the Ork results are simply not reliable -- you have never had the slightest reason to look at your results and say that they provide any real evidence that Orks are underpowered. Your results are due to a single player getting poor results with Orks. Obviously there are many possible explanations for this besides something inherent to the faction. Anyway, there are a couple more complex measures you could look at for this, but what you're looking for is something like: how many individual players do I need to eliminate from consideration in order to drive the calculated win rate to something more normal, or before I have too few data points to draw conclusions? This is difficult to work out in some cases where people are reporting watched games or may be playing against multiple opponents, but you can probably do okay here. If you can quantify that 2 or 3 Sisters players are basically wholly responsible for their results, then that's why we shouldn't really trust that. If the Marine results are really robust even after you get rid of quite a few people, then that one's a lot more likely to be telling you something real.
But yeah, there are pretty serious limitations to how solid of conclusions you can draw doing something like this. You're simply never going to be able to be really confident that you're on to something. I'm not trying to say that you're doing it wrong, really, it's just that finding stuff out is hard and you have limited tools available unless you go to unrealistic lengths. There's a limit to what I can tell you about the Moon using binoculars, but that's not really a criticism of my trying to look at the moon with binoculars because I don't want to spend a ton of money on a telescope. But I should be careful not to think that my information is actually very useful -- if you really want to know about the Moon you need a lot more than binoculars. What you're doing is largely a "for entertainment purposes only" sort of statistics gathering. It's a neat thing to do to see how stuff is working for dakka. Like how you could ask dakka what they think of pineapple pizza and that would tell you something interesting about dakka, which lots of people (on dakka, at least) might find interesting, but you'd want to be really careful about applying that more broadly because of course dakka-ites are not representative of the general population, perhaps not even in their tastes in pizza toppings.
Yet if we never bothered to learn with binoculars and even less than that first we would not have the tools for more in depth analysis to even get there. Science is a clumsy affair of trial and error and you should know that by now. We make a hypothesis based on what we have and know and test it. Then if it is wrong try again. The very corner stone of science. What you seem to want is magical fool proof data which simply doesn't exist in any field of science and never will. Your analogies are beginning to fall apart. We want to look at the moon and you want to land us on it. Two completely different tasks. Nothing you have said has refuted anything we have said in this entire topic. Not one of us said this data was solid metric with which we should place the gold standard above all. That is purely on yourself.
We are now talking about the fundamentals of science. We are so far off topic of discussion now I can't help but think your doing this to troll us on purpose.
Selym wrote: You argue as though you think we're trying to use this dataset as a be-all-end-all final word on discussions in 40k. We're not. We knew the limitations of this from the start. The data is limited, but has the level of reliability and usefulness we need for a simple internet discussion. We're well aware of this thing's faults, and we know where we can or cannot draw conclusions from it.
Seriously man, you're blowing this whole damn thing out of proportion. I would quite like it if we could just go back to the topic of the darn thread.
Right, this is exactly the kind of mistake I'm talking about. This data does not have the level of reliability and usefulness you need for a simple internet discussion, except to the extent that for simple internet discussions no one cares about what's actually true (which, maybe). You are clearly not aware of the limitations of this kind of data, as presented, if you think it can tell you anything at all interesting about the broader game. Once again, I am not saying that people are trying to use this as the be-all end-all. I'm saying people are using it as if it constitutes more than incredibly weak evidence of the sort that we ordinarily would dismiss out of hand as not worth our time in considering a question.
You can insist all you like that you're aware of your parachute's limitations, but when I'm pointing out that the pack is full of silverware instead of an actual parachute, and you're fixing to jump out of the plane anyway, I'm going to question whether you're really aware, or whether even though you say you're aware, you're actually still overestimating it. And, to be clear, I'm not intending that to be exactly analogous in every way to this situation, since apparently my binocular analogy in the last post was misunderstood.
Selym wrote: You argue as though you think we're trying to use this dataset as a be-all-end-all final word on discussions in 40k. We're not. We knew the limitations of this from the start. The data is limited, but has the level of reliability and usefulness we need for a simple internet discussion. We're well aware of this thing's faults, and we know where we can or cannot draw conclusions from it.
Seriously man, you're blowing this whole damn thing out of proportion. I would quite like it if we could just go back to the topic of the darn thread.
Just report him he is trolling us now going around in circles. Don't feed him.
One new game at my shop today. Wooo lots of debate.
Tyranids vs. Necrons - Tyranid win.
I am almost hesitant to play this because the necron player is very new. However I'm really new to Tyranids (maybe my 4th game) so it mostly washes out. After the game we discussed ups and downs and we both agreed he needs some good heavy support to hurt my my big units like Hive Tyrand and Carnifex.
Morphuess wrote: One new game at my shop today. Wooo lots of debate.
Tyranids vs. Necrons - Tyranid win.
I am almost hesitant to play this because the necron player is very new. However I'm really new to Tyranids (maybe my 4th game) so it mostly washes out. After the game we discussed ups and downs and we both agreed he needs some good heavy support to hurt my my big units like Hive Tyrand and Carnifex.
Necrons struggle with big stuff in general, his best bet is probably to invest in a couple Doomsday Arks. FW has a few more solutions but it's probably not the best idea for a new player to be jumping right into FW models.
Orks vs. DE = Orks win
Orks vs. Eldar = Close but Orks win
Blood Angels vs. Eldar = Very close BA win.
Of note, for the ork wins I was playing relatively boyz heavy lists and found everything but the warboss, wierdboy and boyz to be quite lacklustre. (I miss my old cheap deffkoptas)
Him: hemlock wraithfighter, dakka wraithknight, a few squads of shuriken jetbikes, 1 squad of wraithguards + wave serpent, farseer, quite a bit of fire prisms, another HQ i forget. 5 command points.
The FAQ released the morning of this game, so i had to re-do my drops. Previously the strike squads would deep-strike in, but that isn't possible anymore, since Ravens don't count for your 50% on the ground requirement. This made my strike squads far less valuable in these games. I may give up on the battalion, and either combine them into 1 squad and try for a deep strike, or switch them to interceptors and try to get the points back elsewhere. All in all they proved to be wasted points on the table. But, we were playing eternal war. They could have done much more in an objective based game.
Celestine is still strong as ever. I was dumb not to be using her this entire time. Acts of Faith are absurdly good. Oh look. I moved 24" turn 1. Now i'm assaulting you. I love this model and i will exploit it for victories. I might even add more Ministorum / Sisters simply because their mobility is outstanding and they're fighty and shooty as hell, with low cost. I can't see much of a downside to them as a compliment for GK. I feel dirty using acts of faith. It just feels unfair.
Draigo is still the MVP in every game. Providing rerolls, and also being tanky as hell, denying 2 spells, and manifesting 2, is really solid at 240 points. I can't decide if he's on par with Marneus, who gives +2CP, or Dante, who has an inferno pistol and a 12" move, but he's really solid, and he's one of my favorite models. I know for a fact that stormshield came up big against the Wraithknight. I don't believe Dante or Marneus could tank a WK like Draigo did.
Psilencers proved to be really solid against jetbikes. Gating them into a key ruins or cover on turn 1, with a 24" range on 24 D3 damage shots, is nothing to sneeze at. They chewed through bikes like it was going out of style. I have found that psilencers do more than incinerators in my games so far, simply because I've encountered shooty armies. I do have my squad of incinerators, riding in the bird, just waiting to body block a charge...
The NDK seems like a bad unit. He seems like he's got overall weak melee and mediocre shooting. But he's really much better than you'd think. 18 shots per turn, and they all are 2 damage or d3 damage, you can't ignore him. Also, his melee is 4 attacks, D6 damage, ignoring most tank armor. With 12 wounds, and a 2+/5++, with a manifest & deny, he can deep-strike right into the heart of the fighting, and just get absolutely pummeled and keep on trucking. The 5++ came up big in both games. He survived game 2 with 1 wound remaining, saving 2 stomps with a 5 and a 6. Not typical, I know, but you can't get lucky on invulns if you don't have an invuln. I prefer him to dreadnoughts.
Terminators seem to be a target whenever I run them. They've got falchions and a nemesis warding stave (for the 4++ in melee). 2 wounds isn't super durable, but the mass of falchion swings at d3 a pop scare people. In one round of combat they did 6 wounds to the WK. That's not amazing, but it's also not shabby, considering he denied my hammerhand.
On the Eldar side, hemlock wraithfighters are really, really good. You can give them conceal, and you're looking at a -2 to hit them. Also, they fire 2D3 shots that auto-hit, and are strength 10, -2. A psyker wraithfighter can cast conceal on himself. They did solid damage. Wraithguard are good too, but they were my primary target. I killed them first in every game. Their weapon kit is too scary to let them live. The dakka wraithknight was a boss. Considering it can receive fortune & guide, I would say that it's probably better overall in the context of the Eldar army, than an imperial knight. Is it worth the points? I don't know. But it handled the dreadknight in melee, and only lost 12 wounds with a full squad of terminators, draigo, celestine, and the NDK punching it for a turn. For comparative purposes, an imperial knight would have been riggidy wrecked by that in 1 turn. Fortune gave it a 3+/5++/5+++ statline on defense. Wow.
In any case, our second game was more competitive and actually made it to turn 4. Pretty rare in 8th edition. It was a really good game, but I pulled out the victory. I lost much of my list, but was still en-route to pulling off a tabling.
Celestine is still strong as ever. I was dumb not to be using her this entire time. Acts of Faith are absurdly good. Oh look. I moved 24" turn 1. Now i'm assaulting you. I love this model and i will exploit it for victories. I might even add more Ministorum / Sisters simply because their mobility is outstanding and they're fighty and shooty as hell, with low cost. I can't see much of a downside to them as a compliment for GK. I feel dirty using acts of faith. It just feels unfair.
So since the start of 8th Edition here's my Space Wolves W/L record:
(Loss) Space Wolves vs. Thousand Sons
(Win) Space Wolves vs. Space Wolves
(Win) Space Wolves vs. Orks
(Win) Space Wolves vs. Khorne Demons
(Win) Space Wolves vs. Tau
(Win) Space Wolves vs. Eldar
(Loss) Space Wolves vs. Eldar
(Win) Space Wolves vs. Eldar
(Win) Space Wolves vs. Eldar
In addition to my previous games.. we've been busy!
Tyranids vs Orks and Tau - Tyranid Loss
Tyranids vs Dark Angels - Tyranid Win
Tyranids vs Necrons - Draw
Tyranids vs Tau - Tyranid Loss
Tyranids vs Dark Angels - Tyranid Win
Tyranids vs Ultramarines - Tyranid Win
Tyranids vs Necrons - Tyranid Win
Tyranids vs Tau and Necrons - Tyranid Loss
Tyranids vs Necrons - Tyranid Win
Tyranids vs Necrons - Tyranid Win
I set up my gunline, pretty much the same as I've always done. Enemy had first go, burrowed up a Mawloc behind my lines next to Pask and a Basilisk, and unloaded two Tyrannocytes, one of 'stealers, one of hormagaunts. He charged my perimeter, wiped out the conscripts with the Genestealers, then piled in with the Hormagaunts and a Hive Tyrant into some more of my infantry and a Leman Russ, respectively. I fell back, my Shadowsword melted the Mawloc and did a number of the 'gaunts, who had strayed out of synapse range and then all died from battlshock, and Pask did a big hit on the Hive Tyrant that was assaulting my tank. A second Mawloc burrowed up where the first one died, and some Hive Guard killed Pask. His Genestealers closed with my infantry guarding my Shadowsword, the unhurt Tyrant charged my infantry in the center, and the wounded Tyrant charged the Battle Tank, but was killed in Overwatch. He wiped out my infantry and officers. once again, the Shadowsword did a number on the Genestealers and wiped out the second Mawloc, and I put some hits on the remaining Tyrant. The Tyrant charged the Basilisk and the 'Stealers charged the Shadowsword, killing the Basilisk and doing 12 wounds to the Shadowsword. The Shadowsword killed the Tyrant and a Tyrannocyte, the Leman Russ killed the other Tyrannocyte, then fought in melee with the Genestealers. One survived by hiding under the tank. He fought me again, doing nothing, then I killed it and finished off the Hive Guard to win.
Sisters of Battle v. Thousand Sons
Fairly short. He started with only cultists on the board. I scouted forward and wiped them out, then he dropped Scarab Terminators all over the place. He focused fire on Celestine, and I had to burn a CP to make her pass her resurrection test, which I remembered a turn later he wasn't allowed to do because she's a Character and I had tanks that were closer, and killed off my Meltaguns, whom I shouldn't have unloaded. From then on, I dumped gunfire into them until they were all gone. His sorcerer also blew up with Perils, which was nifty, since he would have been a pain to deal with. Anyway, win for the Sisters.
In four 50 PL games:
DW vs Eldar - lost (tabled)
DW vs Space Marines - lost (tabled)
DW vs Space Marines - won
DW vs Eldar - lost (tabled)
-Probably- gonna shelve the DW until I can figure out some brilliant strategy, or until I can figure out vanilla marine analogues to field them as. Even when cheesing hard for the four 'free' frag cannons, I still come up short.
So what seems to be the issues for Death Guard and Deathwatch players so far? I can imagine that maybe pure DG are having issues with anti armor since they have a limited model range right now, since that seemed to be a prob in the one game against them I have played. I don't have any experience against the Deathwatch but is it a model count issue or something else?
Tau vs Nids - Nid win
IG vs Tau - IG win
IG vs Nids - IG win
Tau vs Nids - Nid win
Orks vs Eldar - Ork win
Sisters vs Orks - Sister win
Sisters vs Eldar - Sister win
Sisters vs IG - Sister win
Sisters vs IG - Sister win
Thats all my games I've seen/played in my group so far. I play the Sisters and Nids incidentally. I've still to fix up my necrons for 8th.
Imperial Knights vs Ad Mech - Knights win
Imperial Knights vs Blood Angels - Knights win
Imperial Knights vs Eldar - Eldar win
Nurgle CSM vs Nids - Nids win
Marines vs Eldar - Eldar win
Orks vs Eldar - Orks win
Win vs GSC/AM Win vs Renegade Knights and Daemons
Loss vs Eldar
Loss vs Tyranids
Loss vs AdMech
Win vs AdMech
Win vs Tau
Win vs Tau
Loss vs Renegade Knights
Win vs Grey Knights
Win vs Khorne Daemons
Loss vs AM
Rockfish wrote: So what seems to be the issues for Death Guard and Deathwatch players so far? I can imagine that maybe pure DG are having issues with anti armor since they have a limited model range right now, since that seemed to be a prob in the one game against them I have played. I don't have any experience against the Deathwatch but is it a model count issue or something else?
It's mostly a model count issue, especially under power levels. Because the way power levels are for standard kill teams, it's actually CHEAPER to take two five-man units with four frag cannons a piece than a ten-man unit with six not-frag-cannon weapons. So unless I ever get to play points (which seems less and less likely to be the case among my group), I'll NEVER field DW in squads of more than five. In any case, I can easily vaporize a unit with the aforementioned fragging, but they're still only five space marines when it comes to taking hits, and the extremely low model count means they'll almost never have the kind of supporting units that SM or IG gets.
I think I finally figured out what to do with rubrics: pack the squads full of warpflamers. They're a damn good anti-horde weapon; genestealers were not half as good as they could have been because of being dusted by warpflamers (Ahriman denying the psychic power that lets you bypass overwatch helped a lot as well).
IG player set up kind of poorly, all things considered, and failed to properly screen his tanks in favor of seeking cover. I had first go, and scouted up the board and blew 2 of them up with my meltaguns, and wounded Pask. I also shot about 25 men dead with Storm Bolters and flamers. Hooray for hedgerows! I assault Pask with Celestine, to make sure he can't shoot. On his turn, he drops 3 squads of Stormtroopers plus their leader in my rearguard and ganks my Exorcist,. He dumps heavy weapons fire into my army, but most of it is autocannons and it's not very impressive, but it does damage a tank. He also destroys a meltagun team and almost wipes out a flamer team. On my turn, I turn my tanks around to deal with the Stormtroopers and press forward with my infantry. Celestine jumps on a Basilisk and I meltagun Pask dead, as well as converge on and kill about a dozen more infantrymen. His Stormtroopers kill my Penitent Engine, and he sticks a bit of damage to Celestine, but that's about it for his turn 2. Celestine regenerates and continues to chase the Basilisk, while I kill more of his infantry and some of his scions. He almost blows up one of my tanks on his turn with the Scions, and kills off the rest of m flamer team. Celestine blows the basilisk up, and it explodes, dealing her some pretty nasty damage, but it's okay, because all she's left facing is a Lascannon and a few guardsmen, and she hasn't gone down yet. I clean up his infantry and his scions with overwhelming firepower, and that's the game, my win.
Guard vs Gene Stealer Cult: Cult Victory
Guard vs Dark Eldar: Dark Eldar Victory
Craftworld Eldar vs World Eaters: World Eaters Win
Thousand Sons vs Space Wolves: Draw
Imperial Soup (Guard, Ad Mech and an Inquisitor as a warlord with Monkeys and Acolytes) vs Guard: Inquisitor Wins
Ad Mech vs Adepta Sororitas: Ad Mech Win
Dark Eldar vs Adepta Sororitas: Dark Eldar Win
Guard vs Chaos Marines: Chaos Win
Guard vs Tyranids: Tyranid Win
Guard vs Adepta Aroritas: Guard Win
Guard vs Tau: Guard Win
Tau vs Guard: Guard win (though this one was super close, basically coming down to a single dice roll, only losing cause my Commander rolled a 1 on one of his MP shots meaning he failed to kill the Commissar holding the game winning objective).
IG player set up kind of poorly, all things considered, and failed to properly screen his tanks in favor of seeking cover. I had first go, and scouted up the board and blew 2 of them up with my meltaguns, and wounded Pask. I also shot about 25 men dead with Storm Bolters and flamers. Hooray for hedgerows! I assault Pask with Celestine, to make sure he can't shoot. On his turn, he drops 3 squads of Stormtroopers plus their leader in my rearguard and ganks my Exorcist,. He dumps heavy weapons fire into my army, but most of it is autocannons and it's not very impressive, but it does damage a tank. He also destroys a meltagun team and almost wipes out a flamer team. On my turn, I turn my tanks around to deal with the Stormtroopers and press forward with my infantry. Celestine jumps on a Basilisk and I meltagun Pask dead, as well as converge on and kill about a dozen more infantrymen. His Stormtroopers kill my Penitent Engine, and he sticks a bit of damage to Celestine, but that's about it for his turn 2. Celestine regenerates and continues to chase the Basilisk, while I kill more of his infantry and some of his scions. He almost blows up one of my tanks on his turn with the Scions, and kills off the rest of m flamer team. Celestine blows the basilisk up, and it explodes, dealing her some pretty nasty damage, but it's okay, because all she's left facing is a Lascannon and a few guardsmen, and she hasn't gone down yet. I clean up his infantry and his scions with overwhelming firepower, and that's the game, my win.
IG player set up kind of poorly, all things considered, and failed to properly screen his tanks in favor of seeking cover. I had first go, and scouted up the board and blew 2 of them up with my meltaguns, and wounded Pask. I also shot about 25 men dead with Storm Bolters and flamers. Hooray for hedgerows! I assault Pask with Celestine, to make sure he can't shoot. On his turn, he drops 3 squads of Stormtroopers plus their leader in my rearguard and ganks my Exorcist,. He dumps heavy weapons fire into my army, but most of it is autocannons and it's not very impressive, but it does damage a tank. He also destroys a meltagun team and almost wipes out a flamer team. On my turn, I turn my tanks around to deal with the Stormtroopers and press forward with my infantry. Celestine jumps on a Basilisk and I meltagun Pask dead, as well as converge on and kill about a dozen more infantrymen. His Stormtroopers kill my Penitent Engine, and he sticks a bit of damage to Celestine, but that's about it for his turn 2. Celestine regenerates and continues to chase the Basilisk, while I kill more of his infantry and some of his scions. He almost blows up one of my tanks on his turn with the Scions, and kills off the rest of m flamer team. Celestine blows the basilisk up, and it explodes, dealing her some pretty nasty damage, but it's okay, because all she's left facing is a Lascannon and a few guardsmen, and she hasn't gone down yet. I clean up his infantry and his scions with overwhelming firepower, and that's the game, my win.
Nicely done...
Thanks, I guess. I pulled my punches a bit because I could tell he was a bit, well, let's just say less-skilled, on set up when he set his tanks without adequate screening.
First round was pretty meh overall for me, but I did manage to get first blood.
.
