With the new IK codex coming out, I have been thinking of starting an IK army, as I am sure a lot of people have been. But what's the latest thought on bringing LoWs or even a whole list of them to casual, pickup, and semi competitive games at flgs.
Am I going to be labeled tfg or has the stigma worn off? Are my opponents going to refuse to play when I starting taking out my units or will they be up for the challenge/climatic elements of it all?
If its like a Lord of Skulls or a Tau'nar in anything 2k or lower than its a little bit dumb.
But knights and baneblades and wraithknights? Nah. those are totally fine tbh. I'm totally down for fighting IK armies, but my issue isn't with perceived strength, its whether or not they are actually painted.
90% of knights I see aren't painted, and the ones that are aren't based at all. Forum galleries and reddit are an exemption to reality sadly.
Would you object to me fielding my 2 Stormsurges? Wouldn't you feel I was more than a little hypocritical if I said you couldn't play with your toys while I play with mine?
I think in anything outside of Competitive games such as Pickups and Casuals its always "Polite" to let an opponent know you intend on bringing LoWs to a game.
Thats just me.
you dont have too... and it would be within your rights not to say anything.
I think in anything outside of Competitive games such as Pickups and Casuals its always "Polite" to let an opponent know you intend on bringing LoWs to a game.
Thats just me.
you dont have too... and it would be within your rights not to say anything.
I like having friends..
Because you lose friends using Wraithknights or Baneblades? Get real.
I don't need your permission to bring them, and you don't need my permission to bring yours.
Baneblades have always been pretty ballanced. In 7th i had one blow up before my turn 1 and i dony think yhat has become less possible in 8th. Its honestly just normal to talk about your lists before playing anyway
In our area, its generally acceptable to bring a LoW though its a common courtesy to let your opponent know or to ask if theyre okay with it. Our area isnt competitive and sometimes people bring wacky underpowered lists for a laugh and its all they have with them that day and none of us like one sided games.
That and we are playing a lot of 1k games of late.
In games over 2k its all good and no one checks as that size everyone usually has something to deal with everything.
LOW are big expensive models but they're at the end of the day another FOC slot. some are of course better then others. but aside from Gulliman I rarely if ever see LOWs discussed in "broken lists"
I think in anything outside of Competitive games such as Pickups and Casuals its always "Polite" to let an opponent know you intend on bringing LoWs to a game.
Thats just me.
you dont have too... and it would be within your rights not to say anything.
I like having friends..
Because you lose friends using Wraithknights or Baneblades? Get real.
I don't need your permission to bring them, and you don't need my permission to bring yours.
Cool your jets... the friends comment was a joke.
i never said you need permission... im just the sort who thinks its polite to let my opponent know im bringing my 3 baneblades.
I think in anything outside of Competitive games such as Pickups and Casuals its always "Polite" to let an opponent know you intend on bringing LoWs to a game.
Thats just me.
you dont have too... and it would be within your rights not to say anything.
I like having friends..
Because you lose friends using Wraithknights or Baneblades? Get real.
I don't need your permission to bring them, and you don't need my permission to bring yours.
Cool your jets... the friends comment was a joke.
i never said you need permission... im just the sort who thinks its polite to let my opponent know im bringing my 3 baneblades.
The only thing you need to let them know is you're following the point limit. Simple as that.
meleti wrote: LoWs and similar in 500 or 1000 points is a bit obnoxious. But full size games? No problem.
how else are you going to be playing a mono IK codex game sub 1000p?
plus, when IG can bring 30 men, 1 russ, 3 heavy wep, hq and a psyker for a 500p game, then 1 or 2 knights in a 1000p game is perfectly fair.
I don't need your permission to bring them, and you don't need my permission to bring yours.
Well...yes you do need permission. If you pull out a LoW in a casual game, I'm going to look for someone else to play. I don't enjoy playing against them with my fluffy list.
Griddlelol wrote: Well...yes you do need permission. If you pull out a LoW in a casual game, I'm going to look for someone else to play. I don't enjoy playing against them with my fluffy list.
So you're really going to ragequit if I pull out a Macharius in an equally fluffy list?
I don't need your permission to bring them, and you don't need my permission to bring yours.
Well...yes you do need permission. If you pull out a LoW in a casual game, I'm going to look for someone else to play. I don't enjoy playing against them with my fluffy list.
Then you need my permission to use your "fluffy" units.
Giantwalkingchair wrote: In our area, its generally acceptable to bring a LoW though its a common courtesy to let your opponent know or to ask if theyre okay with it. Our area isnt competitive and sometimes people bring wacky underpowered lists for a laugh and its all they have with them that day and none of us like one sided games.
That and we are playing a lot of 1k games of late.
In games over 2k its all good and no one checks as that size everyone usually has something to deal with everything.
Why isn't it on the people with wacky underpowered lists to ask their opponent for special accommodation?
Apocalypse? No problem. Big games? No problem. Small game? What is that monster doing on a patrol sweep? Is a Primarch doing the night patrol?
I tend towards smaller games. Two factors - will it unbalance the game? Will we have fun? If the answer to either is no I'm not going to enthuse. I remember bringing ork flyers to an eldar game at opponent's request. He had no anti air. We played three turns, to see what happens in situation x - but it was no fun and the game was effectively over after my turn 1 before he had fired a shot. YMMV.
While nowhere near as horrendous as they were in 7th (Hey, Dark Eldar, I hope you brought plenty of D. Weapons...), I still think superheavy units are just boring.
I mean, it's nice that they actually follow some rules these days, as opposed to basically ignoring the entire rulebook ('No, that doesn't work. No, you can't destroy any of our weapons. No, we can't be Immobilised, stunned or slowed. etc.) However, even with degradation, they're still just big, boring bricks.
A single IK/WK/Baneblade/Stormsurge in a 1,500pts game is hardly worth mentioning.
A full IK or Baneblade list is still very skewed, and not really the type of list I enjoy playing against. I would prefer if the person I'm playing warns me before hand, if it's a casual/laid back game.
In a semi-competitive setup, it's fair game. Because while it corresponds to pretty skewed lists, they aren't completely broken or exploit very badly written rules.
If you want to play a fluffy list, you should be setting up a Narrative Play game. Matched Play already has a host of restrictions (Psychic Focus, Reserves, etc) on the players, and trying to limit an opponent's army list options beyond that is poor gamesmanship.
I'd expect to be told ahead of time, especially if you're running a pure knight army.
Despite what Slayer is saying pure super heavy armies are not the same as a fluff army. Super heavy armies reduce the game down to a math check of "do I have enough lascannons to kill the enemy?" and leads to boring games unless you're prepared for them. When I bring a fluffy army it doesn't invalidate 80% of the enemy units because their weapons are too weak to do anything. Despite what Dakka will tell you massed lasgun fire does not routinely kill baneblades.
I'll reiterate that ONE super heavy is probably okay. ONLY super heavies I would want to know ahead of time.
At the end of the day what it comes down to is whether the list you're brining is specifically geared towards making chunks of their army worthless; if you bring a lot of super heavy vehicles for example then while an army with good anti-tank still stands a chance, units without that firepower are effectively wasted and can't do much.
This means the game devolves into you wiping out the only threats against you, and them hoping to survive long enough to deny or claim points. Some people might enjoy the challenge, but others won't.
So I think from a courtesy perspective you should always ask an opponent first, and be ready to compromise, e.g- let them swap out a few units, or play with objectives (so they can still win even if they can't kill you). This makes sense from a fluff perspective as well as Primarchs or super heavies being present in a war zone aren't exactly going to go unnoticed, so a force that can't possibly fight them would just fall back in favour of something that can.
In bigger games Lords of War as part of a list shouldn't be an issue, but I would definitely want some discussion before playing any kind of highly specialised list; this includes any all-vehicle list, not just Lords of War, because there's the risk that the game's outcome is decided without even playing, which is no fun.
Sim-Life wrote: Despite what Slayer is saying pure super heavy armies are not the same as a fluff army.
Of course superheavies are the same as a fluff army. An army of nothing but superheavies is very fluffy, much fluffier than many of the supposed "fluff" armies that are just a random pile of units that have nothing to do with the background fiction. "Fluff army" and "bad at winning games" are not synonymous, don't use them that way.
Competitively speaking LoW are 100% suited for casual gaming. I just strongly dislike the concept of investing 400+ points in a single model and I'd avoid LoW in games under 3000 points, but it's all a matter of how I like playing and playing against. I also dislike playing everytime against the same list if that opponent has an elite army because game is boring with just the same few units on the ground. That's the only reason why I'm opposing LoW in casual games, that are supposed to be fun for both players.
I just finished painting (and basing) my knight. Ive only used it once so far and my opponent didn't mind at all. I didn't tell him either. But he's the kind of dude you bring whatever and he doesn't care.
Sim-Life wrote: I'd expect to be told ahead of time, especially if you're running a pure knight army.
Despite what Slayer is saying pure super heavy armies are not the same as a fluff army. Super heavy armies reduce the game down to a math check of "do I have enough lascannons to kill the enemy?" and leads to boring games unless you're prepared for them. When I bring a fluffy army it doesn't invalidate 80% of the enemy units because their weapons are too weak to do anything. Despite what Dakka will tell you massed lasgun fire does not routinely kill baneblades.
I'll reiterate that ONE super heavy is probably okay. ONLY super heavies I would want to know ahead of time.
I'd agree with this.
I don't like Knights because it just reduces the game down to list building.
In a tournament fine, its a skew that impacts the meta, adds an element that players have to factor in. In a friendly game though I don't think its conducive to having a fun game.
I think in anything outside of Competitive games such as Pickups and Casuals its always "Polite" to let an opponent know you intend on bringing LoWs to a game.
Thats just me.
you dont have too... and it would be within your rights not to say anything.
I like having friends..
Because you lose friends using Wraithknights or Baneblades? Get real.
I don't need your permission to bring them, and you don't need my permission to bring yours.
Cool your jets... the friends comment was a joke.
i never said you need permission... im just the sort who thinks its polite to let my opponent know im bringing my 3 baneblades.
The only thing you need to let them know is you're following the point limit. Simple as that.
Look.. its simple. In pick ups or casuals i am going to tell my opponent i have a LoW to play. He can simply say cool or refuse to play ( never had an opponent refuse). Its a casual so who cares.. i want my opponents gaming experiance to be as enjoyable as mine ( while beating his pants off ).
At our club we have all sorts of gamer types. Some guys arent fluff bunnies but they bring non optimised lists or lists of the stuff they have. I would walk over these players if they didnt know i had a Low or a couple. Whats the fun in that ?
90% of my games are pre setup.. so i mention the LoWs.. no biggie.
The other 9% are at a LGS. Some of those players are ok with them. Some not. It varies so i usually bring an alt list... no biggie
The last 1% are against braggers... they dont need to know what im bringing
so no.. you dont "need" permission ( never said you do)
I think its just polite to "mention" it. (notice i didnt say ask permission)
I don't think id ever do anything more than like a 66/33 split pointswise of knights and then either guard or Mechanicus. Both because it would inevitably be a much stronger list, able to actually contest objectives and win games, and because my opponents would be much more fun.
Nothing goes together like imperial knights and glorious formations of sydonian dragoons.
Then you need my permission to use your "fluffy" units.
See how that works?
Of course, it goes both ways. I never implied the opposite.
When I play, I play for fun. I don't want to play my less-than-competitive list against your "best" list. I'll be steam rolled in 2 turns. That to me isn't fun. I also think for someone who wants competitive, it wouldn't be fun for them either to just destroy me without any effort.
I think one of the main parts of the game is agreeing on what kind of game you're going to play.
I went with "other" since 1 LOW (<600pts) in a 1500pts is fine, and I expect it to be backed up by two tanks of up to 200pts each. A general list should have a variety of offensive options and ways to defend them. For 2k games I'd still rather not see more than 2 LOW and tanks. This is just because too heavy of a skew makes it so your opponent doesn't have a game to play unless they brought the same type of skew or the hordiest of hordes. And there's no fun to be had when one player is autowinning and the other has no option to compete.
Heck I felt a little bad for taking a brigade with longstrike and 3 hammerheads vs sicarian 3 preds deredo and guilliman just because it came down to first turn wins. Another time I played 50PL csm vs csm, brought a knight (didn't realize pl doesn't scale right for renegade, and for that I'm sorry and GW should be less lazy about updates) and got whined at for having the knight. Never mind that it was my melta raptors that killed his one and only heavy weapon that was left unprotected in the rear.
So yeah, some LOW or skew is ok in 1.5-2K games but massive skew is just not fun unless you're doing a narrative mission imo.
so for those arguing against skewed lists, how are custodes ok and IKs not? Custodes are also insanely hard nuts to crack, do I need permission to play a custodes army too? and what about a IG heavy armor list?
BrianDavion wrote: so for those arguing against skewed lists, how are custodes ok and IKs not? Custodes are also insanely hard nuts to crack, do I need permission to play a custodes army too? and what about a IG heavy armor list?
This is honestly what made me stop caring about fielding LoW anymore. You go up against enough guard armor you dont really care if people complain about seeing a primarch on the table.
The only units i really am iffy about playing are usually specific forge world models, like the fire raptor, sicaren, or that one chaos dread that has access to a mortal wound cannon.
When people complain about LoW it turns into a case of, do you wanna fight the Plasma scion list? because i can go get the plasma scion list.
BrianDavion wrote: so for those arguing against skewed lists, how are custodes ok and IKs not? Custodes are also insanely hard nuts to crack, do I need permission to play a custodes army too? and what about a IG heavy armor list?
I wouldn't say permission so much as communication. There's a difference between a known tank-off, or seige-like game and showing up with a tac list to find out after getting there and setting up the table that your opponent is playing all knights or not at all. If the only way to have fair play against a list is to build against it in particular then maybe you should let your opponent know ahead of time that your list is themed.
There probably isn't any way to put it in terms of absolutes. I woulnd't be against an opponent bringing 3preds 3rhino and 27berzerkers. Sure that's a lot of armor but it's still got more than 1 win condition and toughness. A knight lance means all S7 guns are near worthless no matter who you are, and it would take a ludicrous # of models to tie one up. Capturing objective markers might possibly make winning possible for super high body count lists but knights can kill infantry in droves even with anti-tank weapons.
As for custodes, they're annoying if that's the only type of unit being used (or worse with a cp farm ig) but not wholly unexpected. S6 and S7 weapons work against them. I don't think they were a good idea either. GW seems to care less about balance and more about hyping up pretty imperium models.
I don't want to ever be the position of telling my opponent in a friendly match that I don't like his models and he can't use them against me. Part of being a good sport is letting other people build the armies they want to build and enjoy their hobby the way they want to do so.
If it's a reasonable expectation that the LOW can be dealt with by the average army then I wouldn't try and stop you. If it was something that you brought just because it's OP then I'd be a bit irritated.
Sim-Life wrote: I'd expect to be told ahead of time, especially if you're running a pure knight army.
Despite what Slayer is saying pure super heavy armies are not the same as a fluff army. Super heavy armies reduce the game down to a math check of "do I have enough lascannons to kill the enemy?" and leads to boring games unless you're prepared for them. When I bring a fluffy army it doesn't invalidate 80% of the enemy units because their weapons are too weak to do anything. Despite what Dakka will tell you massed lasgun fire does not routinely kill baneblades.
I'll reiterate that ONE super heavy is probably okay. ONLY super heavies I would want to know ahead of time.
I'd agree with this.
I don't like Knights because it just reduces the game down to list building.
In a tournament fine, its a skew that impacts the meta, adds an element that players have to factor in. In a friendly game though I don't think its conducive to having a fun game.
What edition are you guys playing? The basic gun of a fire warrior wounds a knight on a 5+ (with the focus fire stratagem the entire Tau army's basic weapons will be wounding a knight on a 4+). Knights almost never benefit from cover, so will have a 3+ save at best and have a degrading profile. Knights haven't been a "do you have enough lascanons?" match up for a long time.
And nobody was bringing Lascannons to deal with them in the first place. Everyone avoided Lascannons in general to kill them. Everyone took run arounds like Haywire or Gauss or Grav or D.
meleti wrote: I don't want to ever be the position of telling my opponent in a friendly match that I don't like his models and he can't use them against me. Part of being a good sport is letting other people build the armies they want to build and enjoy their hobby the way they want to do so.
I have no problem with 1 super heavy in a friendly game. I would still play against multiple but don't expect me to be happy about it unless I get a warning beforehand.
Take as many none super heavy LOW as you want.
Sim-Life wrote: I'd expect to be told ahead of time, especially if you're running a pure knight army.
Despite what Slayer is saying pure super heavy armies are not the same as a fluff army. Super heavy armies reduce the game down to a math check of "do I have enough lascannons to kill the enemy?" and leads to boring games unless you're prepared for them. When I bring a fluffy army it doesn't invalidate 80% of the enemy units because their weapons are too weak to do anything. Despite what Dakka will tell you massed lasgun fire does not routinely kill baneblades.
I'll reiterate that ONE super heavy is probably okay. ONLY super heavies I would want to know ahead of time.
I'd agree with this.
I don't like Knights because it just reduces the game down to list building.
In a tournament fine, its a skew that impacts the meta, adds an element that players have to factor in. In a friendly game though I don't think its conducive to having a fun game.
What edition are you guys playing? The basic gun of a fire warrior wounds a knight on a 5+ (with the focus fire stratagem the entire Tau army's basic weapons will be wounding a knight on a 4+). Knights almost never benefit from cover, so will have a 3+ save at best and have a degrading profile. Knights haven't been a "do you have enough lascanons?" match up for a long time.
I mean sure if you have about 290 pulse rifle shots a turn.
Also I didn't literally mean lascannons. Tyranids are going to have a hard time with knights if the only thing I thought you could shoot knights with was lascannons. When I say lascannons I mean "heavy weapons capable of reliably wounding T8".
Wouldn't it be nifty if the basis for the game was balance? I mean, in a perfect world, the LOW wouldn't be so game breaking that you have to worry about whether or not to even RUN one in a pick up/casual game. A tight balanced ruleset facilitates both casual AND competitive play. The new ruleset fails in that respect.
Just Tony wrote: Wouldn't it be nifty if the basis for the game was balance? I mean, in a perfect world, the LOW wouldn't be so game breaking that you have to worry about whether or not to even RUN one in a pick up/casual game. A tight balanced ruleset facilitates both casual AND competitive play. The new ruleset fails in that respect.
Its funny you say that because one of the big complaints about Warmachine's LoW equivalent is that they don't feel powerful enough even because they're balanced.
Do people not play pickup games? Most of the time I play I have no idea what my opponent has until they pull it out their case, or if I saw them play a game earlier in the day, nor do they know what I'm bringing. Tbh the only LOW that sees regular play around here is lots of baneblades, which aren't really op, especially when there's lists like 'what If I put a commissar and some bullgryns in a stormlord and that's my list'.
LoW really aren't a problem. In a recent game I unexpectedly faced Magnus and he died to nothing but plague spitters (heavy flamers), bolters and the close combat attacks of a daemon prince. In the end, he is not any harder to kill than the same amount of points sunk into daemon princes.
Pretty much the same for baneblades. If you can't kill them, you will also fail to kill a squadron of russes, a pair of nauts or a trio of vindicators trying to line-bombard the crap out of your army.
All the examples of LoW people are giving all require an army around them to be effective. They are literally built with the knowledge they will have a full force of units to either distract, or to hit the enemy while they focus on the LoW.
The thing about IK and their codex is that it directly buffs the knights in such a way that you don't need IG or AdMech for them to be useful, or even competitive. They have been given a solid foundation, and are essentially a REALLY elite army.
The houses give some really great buffs, and the stratagems allow you to make all your knights into warlords and equip them with a relic, which, from what I have seen, they have some devastating relics.
Just saying, I wouldn't peg the new IKs into a corner with the other LoW specifically made to run with an army at their back, because they aren't.
meleti wrote: I don't want to ever be the position of telling my opponent in a friendly match that I don't like his models and he can't use them against me. Part of being a good sport is letting other people build the armies they want to build and enjoy their hobby the way they want to do so.
Agreed, although with the caveat that it is a good idea to discuss what you are taking beforehand anyway. If a game is obviosly going to be 1 sided then there may be something that can be done to alleviate that and make the game more fun. That could be a list change or a different scenario.
Just Tony wrote: Wouldn't it be nifty if the basis for the game was balance? I mean, in a perfect world, the LOW wouldn't be so game breaking that you have to worry about whether or not to even RUN one in a pick up/casual game. A tight balanced ruleset facilitates both casual AND competitive play. The new ruleset fails in that respect.
Its funny you say that because one of the big complaints about Warmachine's LoW equivalent is that they don't feel powerful enough even because they're balanced.
It's funny you say that because I had a Bacon King sandwich from Burger King yesterday as my wife and children were out with me garage saling and we had to eat on the fly. My wife chose Burger King as my daughter wanted Chicken Fries, and as Burger King is my least favorite restaurant, I had to order the least bad thing on the menu.
It's funny I say that because my statement has the EXACT same relevance on 40K power level balance issues as your statement.
Which is funny.
What's NOT funny is that current players have become so desensitized to this skewed balance issue that they soldier on despite there being more balanced games readily available that are also cheaper to buy in to. They stick with modern GW despite the absolute destruction of balance and competitive pricing, and push through out of allegiance more than anything.
Which is funny.
And to be clear, I don't play Warmachine. I will NEVER play Warmachine. I don't like the system, and the models are... well, I'll just be diplomatic and say that they are not to my tastes. It's an accurate statement, and it would do no good to the conversation to slander models solely express intensity to my distaste. Cross comparisons don't work since it's comparable to debating the balance issues and power levels of euchre vs. canasta because they both use cards.
TFG is more attitude; you could have an opponent bring a full knight army and end up being really fun to play against. I would bring maybe one at most myself unless it was more of an apocalypse like battle or if they knew in advance, but I don't think it's as much of a big deal as it was in the past.
n0t_u wrote: TFG is more attitude; you could have an opponent bring a full knight army and end up being really fun to play against. I would bring maybe one at most myself unless it was more of an apocalypse like battle or if they knew in advance, but I don't think it's as much of a big deal as it was in the past.
This. The Magnus player was one of the most awesome players I've ever played and his models were freakin' beautiful, Magnus himself looked like he jumped strait from the box art onto the table. And yes, the big red old one-eye almost cost me the game, I just barely managed a draw.
TFG will ruin your game no matter what - having a LoW, FW units (oh noes, I said it) or multiple of a certain unit are in no way a clear indicator of playing against a TFG. The'll mange with a fluffy word bearer list summoning daemons, believe me.
I voted other since I do'nt think OP is aking the right question.
Lords of war as a whole are "fine". The hidden problem is skewed/spammy lists (icluding pure knight lists) creating rock-scicors-paper situations. And examples of this can be found in multiple slots across the different armies in the game.
Ofc there is also the issue of genuinely OP units. But that is another story.
But there is a difference between having Magnus and - perhaps in the not too distant future - having the Daemon Primarch Party of Magnus, Mortarion, Angron and Fulgrim, where they are all incredibly tough while dealing out solid damage.
I mean to use examples brought up - if you turned up with 9 russes/basilisks - I'd question to the extent this was a casual/friendly game.
Tyel wrote: But there is a difference between having Magnus and - perhaps in the not too distant future - having the Daemon Primarch Party of Magnus, Mortarion, Angron and Fulgrim, where they are all incredibly tough while dealing out solid damage.
You are claiming lists to be problematic before two of those models even have rules. Neither Mortarion nor Magnus are "incredibly tough" compared to the amount of points they cost, and I'm pretty sure neither Angron nor Fulgrim will be massively more durable than Mortarion, since durability is kind of the nurgle thing. Both are T7 18W 3+/4++ with Mortarion rocking an extra 5+ DR and Magnus being able to buff himself to 3++. Both have a spell for -1 to hit on themselves, something I bet we won't be seing for Angron. Note that psychic powers can be denied or fail. T7 means you don't even need lascannons to take them down, massed S4+ fire is already enough to force them to make a ton of 3+ saves, causing them to lose a lot of wounds. A winged daemon prince escorted by two bloat-drones are just 26 points more than Mortarion and leagues harder to kill. Ahriman escorted by two daemon princes are a lot harder to kill than Magnus and usually do just as much damage. If you can't kill the primarch, chances are pretty high that a regular army from that legion would also stomp you flat into the ground.
Last, but not least, for what we know both Angron and Fulgrim could be useless piles of dung once they get rules and a list containing all four Primarchs would just barely be held afloat by Magnus and Mortarion. And yet, you already declared such lists to be terrible. In general, I don't think that a list with 72 T7 wounds across four models is going to be winning a lot of games. Heck, the new knights codex can do better.
I mean to use examples brought up - if you turned up with 9 russes/basilisks - I'd question to the extent this was a casual/friendly game.
Why? What's wrong with bringing tanks and artillery to a wargame? You haven't even mentioned the armament of the russes, which surely should make a difference in your decision, right?
Thing is, if you turn up to a declared friendly game with a hard-hitting tournament list, you're being a dick. On the other hand, declining games or claiming people to be TFG just because of some arbitrary rules you have come up is no better at all.
You cannot generalize what lists are "unfriendly". One of the most unfriendly lists this year - the poxwalker farm - had mostly troops doing the heavy lifting. Are troops no longer allowed in friendly games now?
I'm fine with Lords of War of all types. I don't list tailor so whether someone tells me if they are bringing multiple Lords of War or not is fairly inconsequential. The reality is that the most aggressively irritating armies I've played against weren't based around Lords of War.
Just Tony wrote: Wouldn't it be nifty if the basis for the game was balance? I mean, in a perfect world, the LOW wouldn't be so game breaking that you have to worry about whether or not to even RUN one in a pick up/casual game. A tight balanced ruleset facilitates both casual AND competitive play. The new ruleset fails in that respect.
Its funny you say that because one of the big complaints about Warmachine's LoW equivalent is that they don't feel powerful enough even because they're balanced.
It's funny you say that because I had a Bacon King sandwich from Burger King yesterday as my wife and children were out with me garage saling and we had to eat on the fly. My wife chose Burger King as my daughter wanted Chicken Fries, and as Burger King is my least favorite restaurant, I had to order the least bad thing on the menu.
It's funny I say that because my statement has the EXACT same relevance on 40K power level balance issues as your statement.
Which is funny.
What's NOT funny is that current players have become so desensitized to this skewed balance issue that they soldier on despite there being more balanced games readily available that are also cheaper to buy in to. They stick with modern GW despite the absolute destruction of balance and competitive pricing, and push through out of allegiance more than anything.
Which is funny.
And to be clear, I don't play Warmachine. I will NEVER play Warmachine. I don't like the system, and the models are... well, I'll just be diplomatic and say that they are not to my tastes. It's an accurate statement, and it would do no good to the conversation to slander models solely express intensity to my distaste. Cross comparisons don't work since it's comparable to debating the balance issues and power levels of euchre vs. canasta because they both use cards.
Which is funny.
You know what's ACTUALLY funny? You taking such grave offence at an innocent turn of phrase.
If I'm understanding you're rant you want a balanced game however you don't feel it's appropriate to compare 40k to Warmachine despite Warmachine being considered a very well balanced game (in comparison) with models analogous to LoW? If LoW were as balanced as Colossals you'd never see them because there would never be any reason to take them over smaller versions of similar units.
This is of course ignoring the fact that 40k never has and never will be balanced. People don't play 40k for balance generally. A vast majority of people will use models because they're cool or for fluff. Sure there are people for whom balance is the be all and end all but they aren't the majority of players. I'm not saying balanced 40k would be bad or undesireable. I'm saying it's a fools errand and if I'm being honest I would prefer LoW be slightly OP than the equivalent of two tanks stuck together with less guns and less flexibility.
As I said, as long as I know someone is bringing a LoW beforehand people can play what they want because it's a two player game and the end goal is for both players to have fun. If I have to sit and watch my Nid Swarm list get shot off the board and unable to retaliate for two hours then at least one player has failed to meet the goal and it wasn't me.
Just Tony wrote: Wouldn't it be nifty if the basis for the game was balance? I mean, in a perfect world, the LOW wouldn't be so game breaking that you have to worry about whether or not to even RUN one in a pick up/casual game. A tight balanced ruleset facilitates both casual AND competitive play. The new ruleset fails in that respect.
Its funny you say that because one of the big complaints about Warmachine's LoW equivalent is that they don't feel powerful enough even because they're balanced.
It's funny you say that because I had a Bacon King sandwich from Burger King yesterday as my wife and children were out with me garage saling and we had to eat on the fly. My wife chose Burger King as my daughter wanted Chicken Fries, and as Burger King is my least favorite restaurant, I had to order the least bad thing on the menu.
It's funny I say that because my statement has the EXACT same relevance on 40K power level balance issues as your statement.
Which is funny.
What's NOT funny is that current players have become so desensitized to this skewed balance issue that they soldier on despite there being more balanced games readily available that are also cheaper to buy in to. They stick with modern GW despite the absolute destruction of balance and competitive pricing, and push through out of allegiance more than anything.
Which is funny.
And to be clear, I don't play Warmachine. I will NEVER play Warmachine. I don't like the system, and the models are... well, I'll just be diplomatic and say that they are not to my tastes. It's an accurate statement, and it would do no good to the conversation to slander models solely express intensity to my distaste. Cross comparisons don't work since it's comparable to debating the balance issues and power levels of euchre vs. canasta because they both use cards.
Which is funny.
You know what's ACTUALLY funny? You taking such grave offence at an innocent turn of phrase.
If I'm understanding you're rant you want a balanced game however you don't feel it's appropriate to compare 40k to Warmachine despite Warmachine being considered a very well balanced game (in comparison) with models analogous to LoW? If LoW were as balanced as Colossals you'd never see them because there would never be any reason to take them over smaller versions of similar units.
This is of course ignoring the fact that 40k never has and never will be balanced. People don't play 40k for balance generally. A vast majority of people will use models because they're cool or for fluff. Sure there are people for whom balance is the be all and end all but they aren't the majority of players. I'm not saying balanced 40k would be bad or undesireable. I'm saying it's a fools errand and if I'm being honest I would prefer LoW be slightly OP than the equivalent of two tanks stuck together with less guns and less flexibility.
As I said, as long as I know someone is bringing a LoW beforehand people can play what they want because it's a two player game and the end goal is for both players to have fun. If I have to sit and watch my Nid Swarm list get shot off the board and unable to retaliate for two hours then at least one player has failed to meet the goal and it wasn't me.
I disagree, for a couple years 40K was indeed balanced, Codex creep killed it, and rules changes to right the ship instead of revisiting those problem codices was the kick off of the imbalance. It never truly recovered.
If I don't like the way WMH plays, the mechanics of it, then I don't like it. Selling its balance isn't going to get me to suddenly see the light and sink tons more time and money into a system that doesn't function the way I want. I don't own Apple products because I don't like the operating system. Never have. Telling me that you think it operates better isn't going to change my preference.
Jidmah wrote:
Sim-Life wrote: You know what's ACTUALLY funny? You taking such grave offence at an innocent turn of phrase.
You would be salty as well if your wive forced you to go to Burger King
You think it'd kill her to go to White Castle every so often...
Sim-Life wrote: I'd expect to be told ahead of time, especially if you're running a pure knight army.
Despite what Slayer is saying pure super heavy armies are not the same as a fluff army. Super heavy armies reduce the game down to a math check of "do I have enough lascannons to kill the enemy?" and leads to boring games unless you're prepared for them. When I bring a fluffy army it doesn't invalidate 80% of the enemy units because their weapons are too weak to do anything. Despite what Dakka will tell you massed lasgun fire does not routinely kill baneblades.
I'll reiterate that ONE super heavy is probably okay. ONLY super heavies I would want to know ahead of time.
I'd agree with this.
I don't like Knights because it just reduces the game down to list building.
In a tournament fine, its a skew that impacts the meta, adds an element that players have to factor in. In a friendly game though I don't think its conducive to having a fun game.
What edition are you guys playing? The basic gun of a fire warrior wounds a knight on a 5+ (with the focus fire stratagem the entire Tau army's basic weapons will be wounding a knight on a 4+). Knights almost never benefit from cover, so will have a 3+ save at best and have a degrading profile. Knights haven't been a "do you have enough lascanons?" match up for a long time.
I mean sure if you have about 290 pulse rifle shots a turn.
Also I didn't literally mean lascannons. Tyranids are going to have a hard time with knights if the only thing I thought you could shoot knights with was lascannons. When I say lascannons I mean "heavy weapons capable of reliably wounding T8".
Of course that assumes you need to kill knight in one turn...Not like game has more than 1 turn and win conditions that don't require to kill all and that knights don't lose significant amount of their strength when under half strenght. Oh and fire warriors are obviously only thing you have in your list eh?
Just Tony wrote: Wouldn't it be nifty if the basis for the game was balance? I mean, in a perfect world, the LOW wouldn't be so game breaking that you have to worry about whether or not to even RUN one in a pick up/casual game. A tight balanced ruleset facilitates both casual AND competitive play. The new ruleset fails in that respect.
Its funny you say that because one of the big complaints about Warmachine's LoW equivalent is that they don't feel powerful enough even because they're balanced.
It's funny you say that because I had a Bacon King sandwich from Burger King yesterday as my wife and children were out with me garage saling and we had to eat on the fly. My wife chose Burger King as my daughter wanted Chicken Fries, and as Burger King is my least favorite restaurant, I had to order the least bad thing on the menu.
It's funny I say that because my statement has the EXACT same relevance on 40K power level balance issues as your statement.
Which is funny.
What's NOT funny is that current players have become so desensitized to this skewed balance issue that they soldier on despite there being more balanced games readily available that are also cheaper to buy in to. They stick with modern GW despite the absolute destruction of balance and competitive pricing, and push through out of allegiance more than anything.
Which is funny.
And to be clear, I don't play Warmachine. I will NEVER play Warmachine. I don't like the system, and the models are... well, I'll just be diplomatic and say that they are not to my tastes. It's an accurate statement, and it would do no good to the conversation to slander models solely express intensity to my distaste. Cross comparisons don't work since it's comparable to debating the balance issues and power levels of euchre vs. canasta because they both use cards.
Which is funny.
You know what's ACTUALLY funny? You taking such grave offence at an innocent turn of phrase.
If I'm understanding you're rant you want a balanced game however you don't feel it's appropriate to compare 40k to Warmachine despite Warmachine being considered a very well balanced game (in comparison) with models analogous to LoW? If LoW were as balanced as Colossals you'd never see them because there would never be any reason to take them over smaller versions of similar units.
This is of course ignoring the fact that 40k never has and never will be balanced. People don't play 40k for balance generally. A vast majority of people will use models because they're cool or for fluff. Sure there are people for whom balance is the be all and end all but they aren't the majority of players. I'm not saying balanced 40k would be bad or undesireable. I'm saying it's a fools errand and if I'm being honest I would prefer LoW be slightly OP than the equivalent of two tanks stuck together with less guns and less flexibility.
As I said, as long as I know someone is bringing a LoW beforehand people can play what they want because it's a two player game and the end goal is for both players to have fun. If I have to sit and watch my Nid Swarm list get shot off the board and unable to retaliate for two hours then at least one player has failed to meet the goal and it wasn't me.
I disagree, for a couple years 40K was indeed balanced, Codex creep killed it, and rules changes to right the ship instead of revisiting those problem codices was the kick off of the imbalance. It never truly recovered.
If I don't like the way WMH plays, the mechanics of it, then I don't like it. Selling its balance isn't going to get me to suddenly see the light and sink tons more time and money into a system that doesn't function the way I want. I don't own Apple products because I don't like the operating system. Never have. Telling me that you think it operates better isn't going to change my preference.
Jidmah wrote:
Sim-Life wrote: You know what's ACTUALLY funny? You taking such grave offence at an innocent turn of phrase.
You would be salty as well if your wive forced you to go to Burger King
You think it'd kill her to go to White Castle every so often...
No one is trying to get you to play Warmachine. I don't know why you're so focussed on telling me you dislike it. I don't like iOS either but I still think it's fair to compare it to Windows and acknowledge that it's does a similar thing in a different way.
Sim-Life wrote: I'd expect to be told ahead of time, especially if you're running a pure knight army.
Despite what Slayer is saying pure super heavy armies are not the same as a fluff army. Super heavy armies reduce the game down to a math check of "do I have enough lascannons to kill the enemy?" and leads to boring games unless you're prepared for them. When I bring a fluffy army it doesn't invalidate 80% of the enemy units because their weapons are too weak to do anything. Despite what Dakka will tell you massed lasgun fire does not routinely kill baneblades.
I'll reiterate that ONE super heavy is probably okay. ONLY super heavies I would want to know ahead of time.
I'd agree with this.
I don't like Knights because it just reduces the game down to list building.
In a tournament fine, its a skew that impacts the meta, adds an element that players have to factor in. In a friendly game though I don't think its conducive to having a fun game.
What edition are you guys playing? The basic gun of a fire warrior wounds a knight on a 5+ (with the focus fire stratagem the entire Tau army's basic weapons will be wounding a knight on a 4+). Knights almost never benefit from cover, so will have a 3+ save at best and have a degrading profile. Knights haven't been a "do you have enough lascanons?" match up for a long time.
I mean sure if you have about 290 pulse rifle shots a turn.
Also I didn't literally mean lascannons. Tyranids are going to have a hard time with knights if the only thing I thought you could shoot knights with was lascannons. When I say lascannons I mean "heavy weapons capable of reliably wounding T8".
Of course that assumes you need to kill knight in one turn...Not like game has more than 1 turn and win conditions that don't require to kill all and that knights don't lose significant amount of their strength when under half strenght. Oh and fire warriors are obviously only thing you have in your list eh?
No it doesn't. A knight will still take 290 shots to kill over 5 turns. You were the one that brought up Fire Warriors. I just pointed out that massed small arms fire is an inefficient way to deal with a knight.
Also it might be. Maybe the person likes playing an infantry heavy Tau list and the Knight army manages to damage/degrade the heavy weapons the Tau player has in the first turn. Which was exactly my original point before you decided to take everything I say literally.
Sim-Life wrote: No it doesn't. A knight will still take 290 shots to kill over 5 turns. You were the one that brought up Fire Warriors. I just pointed out that massed small arms fire is an inefficient way to deal with a knight.
Also it might be. Maybe the person likes playing an infantry heavy Tau list and the Knight army manages to damage/degrade the heavy weapons the Tau player has in the first turn. Which was exactly my original point before you decided to take everything I say literally.
Seeing I replied to your post which mentions fire warrior...No you were the one saying it before me. How can I reply your post mentioning them first? You claiming you replied to my future post? Well okay. you mentioned pulse shots. What are shooting those if not fire warriors
And yes they arent' dealing all wounds but a) it takes up wounds from them b) you have more than 1 turn to deal with the knights c) you don't even need to kill all to win d) merely taking them to half damage will help you a lot.
And if tau player has only fire warriors...Well then he'll have good time on scenarios. The 4-5 knights(to get 5 he needs h2h only knights. Not useful knights vs tau fire warriors to begin with). Taking 1 or 2 knights to dead or crippled state isn't that hard. They aren't that much tougher than Mortarion that was yesterday taken down by massed ranks of fire warriors.
Just Tony wrote: I disagree, for a couple years 40K was indeed balanced, Codex creep killed it, and rules changes to right the ship instead of revisiting those problem codices was the kick off of the imbalance. It never truly recovered.
I disagree, 40k has never been more balanced than it currently is.
You can't make Knight lists balanced, in the same way you can't make a Russ spam list balanced, the list is really good against some and really bad against others, the only way to prevent these things is to force people to play varied lists. Make 5 grades of units, horde (Termagants/Orks), medium infantry (Firewarriors, Guardsmen), heavy infantry (MEQ), light vehicle (TEQ or 4+ Sv vehicles), heavy vehicle (3+ Sv vehicles), no more than 50% in any one category. 40k is a rock papers scissors game, as it should be, and if people choose entirely rock or entirely scissors then they'll have imbalanced games, but GW is actually trying to limit this with the new anti-spam rule.
I'm sure that you get WarmaHordes games where one player has the perfect counter for the other guy's army, that's just wargaming. But as a whole, the game is pretty balanced. The amount of games I've had that were decided before the game began have been very low compared to previous editions. I'm not a GW fanboy, I'm actually a hater most of the time, but I think the core rules of 8th are perfect and I while some codices miss the ball on design choices (Iyanden spams Guardians!?), all the balance issues will slowly get ironed out through CA (Dark Reapers).
I think 1 LoW at 1750 or 2000 points is fine and dandy. 2 is okay too, as long as I know I'll be playing a skew list - in fact I welcome it. But why it's *nice to be told* is that I too might be trying out a new list design, having some fun with kooky listbuilding, dusting off my underpowered but beloved army from yesteryear, etc etc. In such situations it would be nice to be told that 'no, this game we're going to have is not that kind of game, bring something with teeth.'
So there's a gentlemen's agreement in place - if you're skewing in a friendly game, give your opponent a vague heads up.
However, if your unsaid standing agreement with a friend is 'come at me bro', then of course you should bring whatever list is legal: whether that agreement is in the spirit of a standing rivalry, or in active prep for a tournament, or at an actual tournament.
Sim-Life wrote: No it doesn't. A knight will still take 290 shots to kill over 5 turns. You were the one that brought up Fire Warriors. I just pointed out that massed small arms fire is an inefficient way to deal with a knight.
I think you are missing his point here. You don't need to kill the knight with pulse rifles alone (or any other weapon not meant to kill T8 high wound models). They still chip a non-trivial number of wounds off them each turn, similar to smite. If a good chunk of your army opens fire on a knight, it will be able to down it and usually take out at least as many points as if they had been shooting regular models, since the points per wound are quite high on all LoW.
Is the LOW list at or under the points limit?
Is it battleforged?
Does it follow any other criteria we set beforehand?
If all those are yes, game on. All knights is just as legal an army choice as all cheap infantry, (and arguably not as good.)
Refusing a game because of a list when you declared no other criteria beyond matched play is poor sportsmanship. If you specifically don't want to play them, the onus is on you to ask the opponent to play a specific list for you, not on him to magically know what you want or don't want to play against.
Sim-Life wrote: No it doesn't. A knight will still take 290 shots to kill over 5 turns. You were the one that brought up Fire Warriors. I just pointed out that massed small arms fire is an inefficient way to deal with a knight.
I think you are missing his point here. You don't need to kill the knight with pulse rifles alone (or any other weapon not meant to kill T8 high wound models). They still chip a non-trivial number of wounds off them each turn, similar to smite. If a good chunk of your army opens fire on a knight, it will be able to down it and usually take out at least as many points as if they had been shooting regular models, since the points per wound are quite high on all LoW.
No, I get what he's saying. But what he said is irrelevant because we're talking about playing a skew into casual games. The OP asked about pure IK armies. Not one and some normal sized friends. His opinion also hinges on the opponent being clinically stupid and not understanding target priority or possibly not shooting back at all.
niv-mizzet wrote: Is the LOW list at or under the points limit?
Is it battleforged?
Does it follow any other criteria we set beforehand?
If all those are yes, game on. All knights is just as legal an army choice as all cheap infantry, (and arguably not as good.)
Refusing a game because of a list when you declared no other criteria beyond matched play is poor sportsmanship. If you specifically don't want to play them, the onus is on you to ask the opponent to play a specific list for you, not on him to magically know what you want or don't want to play against.
No. If it's not a tournament, but a casual game, you should be polite enough to give your opponent a heads-up if you bring something potentially unfun. This is true for 120 Plaguebearers as well as for 4 Knights. Lists like these just don't make fun games if the opposing list doesn't have the tools to potentially deal with it.
Sure, it's legal to bring it, just as it's legal to take a half-hour post-beer-and-taco-bell dump at your friends house, but it's still polite to ask and/or give people a heads' up.
And if I see a list that is mismatched and there're no tournament points on the line, just whether I have fun on my Saturday afternoon at the store or waste precious hours of my free time, it's just as legal to "refuse" the game or "concede" before I bother unpacking to spend my time doing more useful/fun things.
And honestly, if you are a competitive player, you probably want to tell your opponent what you bring and ask him to bring some more lascannons or something to deal with your knights. Or allow your opponent 200 points extra, if you know he's less experienced, etc.. . You wanna challenge yourself for tough possible match-ups, no?
I've never met a an even semi-competitive player who would want or have fun playing a "free win" in a non-tournament setting where they get no points for it anyhow. What'd be the purpose of that for a person looking for a challenge in their 40K?
niv-mizzet wrote: Is the LOW list at or under the points limit?
Is it battleforged?
Does it follow any other criteria we set beforehand?
If all those are yes, game on. All knights is just as legal an army choice as all cheap infantry, (and arguably not as good.)
Refusing a game because of a list when you declared no other criteria beyond matched play is poor sportsmanship. If you specifically don't want to play them, the onus is on you to ask the opponent to play a specific list for you, not on him to magically know what you want or don't want to play against.
No. If it's not a tournament, but a casual game, you should be polite enough to give your opponent a heads-up if you bring something potentially unfun. This is true for 120 Plaguebearers as well as for 4 Knights. Lists like these just don't make fun games if the opposing list doesn't have the tools to potentially deal with it.
Sure, it's legal to bring it, just as it's legal to take a half-hour post-beer-and-taco-bell dump at your friends house, but it's still polite to ask and/or give people a heads' up.
And if I see a list that is mismatched and there're no tournament points on the line, just whether I have fun on my Saturday afternoon at the store or waste precious hours of my free time, it's just as legal to "refuse" the game or "concede" before I bother unpacking to spend my time doing more useful/fun things.
And honestly, if you are a competitive player, you probably want to tell your opponent what you bring and ask him to bring some more lascannons or something to deal with your knights. Or allow your opponent 200 points extra, if you know he's less experienced, etc.. . You wanna challenge yourself for tough possible match-ups, no?
I've never met a an even semi-competitive player who would want or have fun playing a "free win" in a non-tournament setting where they get no points for it anyhow. What'd be the purpose of that for a person looking for a challenge in their 40K?
Again, if there are things that you won't play against, the onus is on you to tell the opponent that, not on them to let you know they might be there. If you let him unpack his 120 plaguebearers and then walk away because you never told him not to bring 'certain' legal lists, you're the TFG, not him.
Now yeah I'll agree, if you get to that point and realize you should've said something earlier, you could say "hey, I really wasn't expecting this kind of list and I should've said something during our scheduling, but would you mind if I threw in some points or changed some loadouts to make my army a bit more of a challenge for you?" That would be fine, and if I were him I'd totally say "go ahead."
I just want people to stop "shaming" the guy bringing the legal list for not magically knowing what they find acceptable, and start taking accountability for the fact that they need to communicate what they find acceptable in the first place.
Again, if there are things that you won't play against, the onus is on you to tell the opponent that, not on them to let you know they might be there. If you let him unpack his 120 plaguebearers and then walk away because you never told him not to bring 'certain' legal lists, you're the TFG, not him.
Now yeah I'll agree, if you get to that point and realize you should've said something earlier, you could say "hey, I really wasn't expecting this kind of list and I should've said something during our scheduling, but would you mind if I threw in some points or changed some loadouts to make my army a bit more of a challenge for you?" That would be fine, and if I were him I'd totally say "go ahead."
I just want people to stop "shaming" the guy bringing the legal list for not magically knowing what they find acceptable, and start taking accountability for the fact that they need to communicate what they find acceptable in the first place.
No. People who think a social game works strictly on the basis of "legal" and refuse to acknowledge politeness, etiquette, mutual respect and a million other things that go into (preparing/setting up) a game of 40K deserve all the shaming they get and more.
If you think there is any onus on me/your opponent to play you just because your list is "legal", than, sorry, it's also perfectly "legal" to not play for any reason, whether I don't like your paint job or your list or don't like playing against people born on a Monday or whatever.
The only way to get out of this is acknowledging a) that "legal" doesn't exist in 40K because there's no enforcement or punishment as in actual legislation and b) that just because million ingredients are possible, in theory available and "legal", still not all of them should go into ever meal at all time if you actually wanna taste something, so to speak.
niv-mizzet wrote: Refusing a game because of a list when you declared no other criteria beyond matched play is poor sportsmanship. If you specifically don't want to play them, the onus is on you to ask the opponent to play a specific list for you, not on him to magically know what you want or don't want to play against.
The criteria is a casual game. The game stops being casual when you bring a game that's doesn't help create a fun game, the onus is on you to create a casual list if you agree to a casual game, if you don't want to play casual games all you have to do is ask if he wants to do a competitive game instead.
It's really not any more or less skew than fielding an army made of dreads, eldar hovertanks, wraith constructs or dinobot lists. All of them have been around since forever and no one has ever had an issue with them unless they were the current best thing.
So the point is very relevant. Skew implies that a regular army which is equipped to handle all sorts of enemies cannot handle it. We no longer have armor values that make vehicles immune to small arms. Most knights can be wounded reliably with S5+ weaponry, so unless you didn't bring any of those, you should be able to handle even three knights. Not shoot them dead in one turn, win games against them.
Most of them cannot contest objectives, none of them can be in two places at once and all of them must declare targets of all their weapons at once. Playing a game of maelstrom is a knightmare for them.
So blanket calling all lists which focus on some hard to kill units "skew" is nonsense. Casual doesn't mean that you need to bring an optimal choice to shoot for each of your opponent's weapons.
An army that only has T8 targets is just as skewed in 8th as one that has just an AV13 wall was in 6th or 7th. Or an 8th Edition army that does the opposite with 200 bodies and no valid target for your anti-tank.
Again, if there are things that you won't play against, the onus is on you to tell the opponent that, not on them to let you know they might be there. If you let him unpack his 120 plaguebearers and then walk away because you never told him not to bring 'certain' legal lists, you're the TFG, not him.
Now yeah I'll agree, if you get to that point and realize you should've said something earlier, you could say "hey, I really wasn't expecting this kind of list and I should've said something during our scheduling, but would you mind if I threw in some points or changed some loadouts to make my army a bit more of a challenge for you?" That would be fine, and if I were him I'd totally say "go ahead."
I just want people to stop "shaming" the guy bringing the legal list for not magically knowing what they find acceptable, and start taking accountability for the fact that they need to communicate what they find acceptable in the first place.
No. People who think a social game works strictly on the basis of "legal" and refuse to acknowledge politeness, etiquette, mutual respect and a million other things that go into (preparing/setting up) a game of 40K deserve all the shaming they get and more
So what you're saying is you think he needs to magically know what you find acceptable without you having to say anything. No that's not how the social contract works. The rules are the baseline. If you want to deviate from the baseline, you are the one that needs to say something, or you are the one that deserves the shaming.
There's nothing wrong with wanting to deviate from the base rules. But making unspoken rules and then getting miffed when they're broken because you didn't communicate them is on you, not the guy following the written rules.
Sunny Side Up wrote: An army that only has T8 targets is just as skewed in 8th as one that has just an AV13 wall was in 6th or 7th. Or an 8th Edition army that does the opposite with 200 bodies and no valid target for your anti-tank.
Those are not casual lists.
A lascannon can reliably kill an ork. A lagun cannot reliably kill a knight.
niv-mizzet wrote: Refusing a game because of a list when you declared no other criteria beyond matched play is poor sportsmanship. If you specifically don't want to play them, the onus is on you to ask the opponent to play a specific list for you, not on him to magically know what you want or don't want to play against.
The criteria is a casual game. The game stops being casual when you bring a game that's doesn't help create a fun game, the onus is on you to create a casual list if you agree to a casual game, if you don't want to play casual games all you have to do is ask if he wants to do a competitive game instead.
Okay, where's your detailed-down-to-the-smallest-detail guide of what is casual/fun and what isn't? We don't have one here. So rather than make the baseline something completely ambiguous and up to interpretation, we just say "the rules are the baseline, ask if you want something different."
Putting the onus on the other guy to magically match your opinion of what is and isn't a fun list without communication is what makes all these "Dude dared to bring X unit so I walked from the table, shame him internet!!!1!" threads. If you don't want to theoretically face anything legal in the game, use your words and say that.
niv-mizzet wrote: Refusing a game because of a list when you declared no other criteria beyond matched play is poor sportsmanship. If you specifically don't want to play them, the onus is on you to ask the opponent to play a specific list for you, not on him to magically know what you want or don't want to play against.
The criteria is a casual game. The game stops being casual when you bring a game that's doesn't help create a fun game, the onus is on you to create a casual list if you agree to a casual game, if you don't want to play casual games all you have to do is ask if he wants to do a competitive game instead.
You do realize that both fun and casual are not well defined right?
According to what multiple different people posted here on dakka during 8th editon, the following things are not casual and/or unfun:
- Forgeworld
- LoW - Primarchs
- Named characters
- T8 units
- Fielding two battalions
- Eldar
- Grey Knights
- Khorne berzerkers
- World Eaters
- Skull cannons
- Daemon princes
- Painboyz
- IG guardsmen
- LRBT of any load-out
- Basilisks
- Putting infantry in front of tanks
- Using transports
- TS cultists
- Using anything more than twice
- Using anything more than once
- All horde units
- Snipers
- Smite
- Denying powers
- Deploying in ruins
- Tabling your opponent
- Not tabling your opponent
- Trying to win the game
I hope you never did any of those you sleazy neckbeard WAACTFG
niv-mizzet wrote: Refusing a game because of a list when you declared no other criteria beyond matched play is poor sportsmanship. If you specifically don't want to play them, the onus is on you to ask the opponent to play a specific list for you, not on him to magically know what you want or don't want to play against.
The criteria is a casual game. The game stops being casual when you bring a game that's doesn't help create a fun game, the onus is on you to create a casual list if you agree to a casual game, if you don't want to play casual games all you have to do is ask if he wants to do a competitive game instead.
You do realize that both fun and casual are not well defined right?
According to what multiple different people posted here on dakka during 8th editon, the following things are not casual and/or unfun:
- Forgeworld
- LoW - Primarchs
- Named characters
- T8 units
- Fielding two battalions
- Eldar
- Grey Knights
- Khorne berzerkers
- World Eaters
- Skull cannons
- Daemon princes
- Painboyz
- IG guardsmen
- LRBT of any load-out
- Basilisks
- Putting infantry in front of tanks
- Using transports
- TS cultists
- Using anything more than twice
- Using anything more than once
- All horde units
- Snipers
- Smite
- Denying powers
- Deploying in ruins
- Tabling your opponent
- Not tabling your opponent
- Trying to win the game
I hope you never did any of those you sleazy neckbeard WAACTFG
Don't forget any flyer, anything with a "minus to hit me" ability, and any unit that ever appeared at an event, (even at the bottom tables,)
Sim-Life wrote: A lascannon can reliably kill an ork. A lagun cannot reliably kill a knight.
If a KFF is involved, you need three lascannons to kill an ork, and 90 to kill a mob. That's 450 lascannons or 11.250 points to kill a knight's points worth of ork boyz, with no costs included for the model to hold the lascannon. On the other hand, you get 2812.5 guardsmen holding lasguns for those points, causing 234 .375 wounds to a knight. Assuming it has the relic for 2+ armor, you still kill it on one salvo with 39 damage done. Twice that much in rapid fire range.
So lasguns are more efficient at wounding knights than lascannons are at wounding orks.
Just Tony wrote: Wouldn't it be nifty if the basis for the game was balance? I mean, in a perfect world, the LOW wouldn't be so game breaking that you have to worry about whether or not to even RUN one in a pick up/casual game. A tight balanced ruleset facilitates both casual AND competitive play. The new ruleset fails in that respect.
That's the thing though: Lord of Wars aren't so imbalanced that they ruin the game, or whatever people think...unless you're playing a mission that's massively imbalanced/stacked to favor them like Kill Points (which is honestly such an incredibly stupid game objective that anyone who willingly plays it then whines about balance afterwards deserves exactly what they get).
If you're playing a mission with an objective that is not "no objective, just kill the opposing army as efficiently as possible" then all LOWs are completely hamstrung. A 400-something point imperial knight just does not put out enough firepower to reasonably table a half-decent TAC list, and when it comes to objectives, their army consists of 5-6 models realistically. Maybe a couple more now that they've got the little speedy dreadnought duders. When one player can have their ENTIRE ARMY on an objective but could find themselves trumped by a single 10-man 40 point guardsman squad, that's a pretty significant game advantage.
But here's the problem: Your average player will still whinge and moan about a win where they didn't kill more of their opponents stuff than vice versa. I've seen people playing against elite armies win victories by 10 or more points and never stop complaining the entire time because "God those custodes are SO BROOOOKEN, I can't even cause a single wound, it takes my whole army to kill one model, why do they all have invulnerable saaaaves, why do they all have three wouuuunds, why can they kill so many guuuuuys...?"
People don't care that when it comes to the actual objective of the game, they have a massive advantage. It feels broken because they don't get to kill as many dudes. This is why Decurion kept being complained about in late seventh when it had been totally eclipsed by much more competitive lists.
niv-mizzet wrote: Refusing a game because of a list when you declared no other criteria beyond matched play is poor sportsmanship. If you specifically don't want to play them, the onus is on you to ask the opponent to play a specific list for you, not on him to magically know what you want or don't want to play against.
The criteria is a casual game. The game stops being casual when you bring a game that's doesn't help create a fun game, the onus is on you to create a casual list if you agree to a casual game, if you don't want to play casual games all you have to do is ask if he wants to do a competitive game instead.
You do realize that both fun and casual are not well defined right?
According to what multiple different people posted here on dakka during 8th editon, the following things are not casual and/or unfun:
- Forgeworld
- LoW - Primarchs
- Named characters
- T8 units
- Fielding two battalions
- Eldar
- Grey Knights
- Khorne berzerkers
- World Eaters
- Skull cannons
- Daemon princes
- Painboyz
- IG guardsmen
- LRBT of any load-out
- Basilisks
- Putting infantry in front of tanks
- Using transports
- TS cultists
- Using anything more than twice
- Using anything more than once
- All horde units
- Snipers
- Smite
- Denying powers
- Deploying in ruins
- Tabling your opponent
- Not tabling your opponent
- Trying to win the game
I hope you never did any of those you sleazy neckbeard WAACTFG
yes and no. All of them or none of them.
It's not a particular thing. It's refusing to communicate and claiming the other guy violates some unspoken rule and "is TFG" for potentially not wanting to play a game they won't enjoy while simultaneously refusing to accept the very notion of "unspoken rules" and arguing that the dichotomy of "legal/not-legal" is the only thing that matters.
If it's only legal/not-legal, it's perfectly legal to refuse to play for whatever reason or no reason at all. End of story.
If there are unspoken rules beyond legal/not-legal, they apply to both sides, simple as that.
Find an opponent who I know is in the hobby for the same reasons I am.
Set up a game.
If I'm going to bring things that can skew the game and make it super one-sided, mention it so that they can react accordingly.
If he's going to bring something that can skew the game and make it super one-sided, he'll mention it so that I can react accordingly.
Play the game.
I learned long long long ago that people have different approaches to the game and as 40k has always been bent and broken and had shoddy rules that playing with like-minded players is vital to enjoy yourself.
I'm not referring to tournaments here. If you go to a tournament you should already be expecting to be facing powergamers and powerlists.
I'm referring to my casual free time which can only be used sparingly.
Jidmah wrote: As long as you keep insisting that any pure knight list ever will be an unfair skew list, there is nothing left to talk about.
I just hope no poor casual knight players get their fun ruined by TFGs walking away from their games for no reason.
But no one is saying that. Most people are saying they would just like some ability to prepare in advance or adjust their list when they find out they're going to be playing against a skew list.
Jidmah wrote: As long as you keep insisting that any pure knight list ever will be an unfair skew list, there is nothing left to talk about.
I just hope no poor casual knight players get their fun ruined by TFGs walking away from their games for no reason.
But no one is saying that. Most people are saying they would just like some ability to prepare or adjust their list when they find out they're going to be playing against a skew list.
In my experience at least that tends to make the game more, not less, one sided. Most possible skew lists are actually solidly less optimal than TAC lists, because having only one type of thing is actually usually a disadvantage, especially if that one thing can't deal with all threats.
There's a difference between a skew list and an actually competitive skew list, where you get both the natural advantage of skewing (presenting only one kind of available target) without the natural disadvantage. Most competitive lists do this by presenting only one type of target but having other types in the list, just unavailable to shoot at (Putting them in transports, having them as characters behind a screen, having them in reserve, etc.)
If you said "I'm going to take my list and base it around just this one unit", and you picked a unit at random, 98% of your lists would be hot garbage. 100% of them would be skew lists. You'd have all terminator lists, all dreadnought lists, all Eldar Guardian lists, all Termagant lists and the like right alongside your reasonably competitive all ork boy lists and all guardsman lists.
If you and I were playing a game, and you were going to play a GK list with only Terminators, and while you unpacked I made a scene about how I should have been informed beforehand so I could take all my special weapons as plasma guns and add a couple culexus assassins into my list, you'd rightfully think of me as TFG wanting to list-tailor against you for an easy win.
Why then are you justified in demanding that when playing against Knights that every squad have the capability to efficiently damage knights, even though a unit that can't damage knights at all can still do things to stop them from winning a game?
Jidmah wrote: As long as you keep insisting that any pure knight list ever will be an unfair skew list, there is nothing left to talk about.
I just hope no poor casual knight players get their fun ruined by TFGs walking away from their games for no reason.
But no one is saying that. Most people are saying they would just like some ability to prepare in advance or adjust their list when they find out they're going to be playing against a skew list.
Ah so facing already hardly overpowered list you'll list tailor for easy winning.
You really enjoy curb stomping others by list tailoring?
I'll throw it right back at you. You prepare vs my knight list so I'll bring ig infantry swarm instead. If you want to list tailor it works both ways.
Jidmah wrote: As long as you keep insisting that any pure knight list ever will be an unfair skew list, there is nothing left to talk about.
I just hope no poor casual knight players get their fun ruined by TFGs walking away from their games for no reason.
But no one is saying that. Most people are saying they would just like some ability to prepare in advance or adjust their list when they find out they're going to be playing against a skew list.
Ah so facing already hardly overpowered list you'll list tailor for easy winning.
You really enjoy curb stomping others by list tailoring?
I'll throw it right back at you. You prepare vs my knight list so I'll bring ig infantry swarm instead. If you want to list tailor it works both ways.
Ahhh, that brings back a happy memory. At one point we had a guy coming in stomping newer players by heavily list tailoring his guard army (magnetized/just a huge collection of special weapons, magnetized leman russes) and I set a game up with him asking if he'd like to play against Orks.
His list ended up having 40 flamers and 5 triple-HB punisher russes, I brought 9 killa kanz, 3 deff dreads and a stompa.
UMGuy wrote: With the new IK codex coming out, I have been thinking of starting an IK army, as I am sure a lot of people have been. But what's the latest thought on bringing LoWs or even a whole list of them to casual, pickup, and semi competitive games at flgs.
Am I going to be labeled tfg or has the stigma worn off? Are my opponents going to refuse to play when I starting taking out my units or will they be up for the challenge/climatic elements of it all?
As always with these threads, just talk to your fething opponent. Use your pie holes for discussion instead of Cheetos and Mountain Dew.
1. What kind of game do you want? Super competitive, semi competitive, or something lighter.
2. Narrative or battleforged?
3. Objectives or just blow gak up?
4. ITC missions or book?
5. Points?
6. Cool, let’s play Pew-Pews. OR Sorry, I’m not looking for that kind of game today.
Either way, shake their fething hand. Be civil.
Don’t give me any gak about “But what’s a fething competitive game? How do you define it??” You fething talk to the other person.
I would play against knights, sure. I am working on my own. But I accept that nor everyone wants to play against them, and that’s OK.
Jidmah wrote: As long as you keep insisting that any pure knight list ever will be an unfair skew list, there is nothing left to talk about.
But no one is saying that. [...]playing against a skew list.
I'm confused.
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the_scotsman wrote: Ahhh, that brings back a happy memory. At one point we had a guy coming in stomping newer players by heavily list tailoring his guard army (magnetized/just a huge collection of special weapons, magnetized leman russes) and I set a game up with him asking if he'd like to play against Orks.
His list ended up having 40 flamers and 5 triple-HB punisher russes, I brought 9 killa kanz, 3 deff dreads and a stompa.
Gotta love orks for the ability to do that. Tau armed to the teeth with guns and missiles to kill as many ork boyz as possible bouncing off the deff dreads and facing a gruesome death by buzzsaw. The only time a deff dread has reached combat this edition.
Knight Player: Well, my stuff is fairly well costed, if not a little overcosted when balanced externally... but I don't care. I want my Authurian experience in 40K!
Casual Player: But your list isn't fluffy! Don't play me bro.
Knight Player: Well... fine... I guess I'll go find someone else to play. Hey, want to play? I got my new Excalibur IKs I want to play! I figured I'd let you know ahead of time because the last guy threw a tantrum about list skew and bailed.
Casual Player 2: Sure, let me get a list up for you right quick.
Casual Player 2 casually puts away all of his IG Guardsmen and brings out swarms of Lascannons supported by Basilisks.
Knight Player: Wow... totally out of my league to handle, but at least I got a game...
Yeah, you can cram that "politeness" right back up where it came from.
You know, because you gotta teach that pesky knight player that he's a bad man for playing busted models.
I mean, I get there is a social contract... but it is between two players, both ways. So if you want the onus to be on the knight player to inform everyone that he is playing with GW supported 40K models ahead of time... better be darn well certain that the other player won't do something jerky like list tailor just to smack that guy around. That's probably more of a negative experience than getting blindsided by the knights to begin with.
To those who would refuse to play against Knights or tailor your lists to them, you'd have more of a leg to stand on in 7th. In 7th, they ignored half the rules of the game and were immune to anything S5 or less (S6 on the front end). Now... They're big models, but they play by all the same rules, and can hurt by Lasguns, Grots, and Nurglings.
Yes, if you field nothing but Grots, you're probably gonna lose against a Knight list, but to be fair, you were gonna lose anyway.
Purifying Tempest wrote: Knight Player: Well, my stuff is fairly well costed, if not a little overcosted when balanced externally... but I don't care. I want my Authurian experience in 40K!
Casual Player: But your list isn't fluffy! Don't play me bro.
Knight Player: Well... fine... I guess I'll go find someone else to play. Hey, want to play? I got my new Excalibur IKs I want to play! I figured I'd let you know ahead of time because the last guy threw a tantrum about list skew and bailed.
Casual Player 2: Sure, let me get a list up for you right quick.
Casual Player 2 casually puts away all of his IG Guardsmen and brings out swarms of Lascannons supported by Basilisks.
Knight Player: Wow... totally out of my league to handle, but at least I got a game...
Yeah, you can cram that "politeness" right back up where it came from.
You know, because you gotta teach that pesky knight player that he's a bad man for playing busted models.
I mean, I get there is a social contract... but it is between two players, both ways. So if you want the onus to be on the knight player to inform everyone that he is playing with GW supported 40K models ahead of time... better be darn well certain that the other player won't do something jerky like list tailor just to smack that guy around. That's probably more of a negative experience than getting blindsided by the knights to begin with.
You add insult to that injury when the first statement (about external balance being out of whack) is entirely unsupported by any kind of evidence.
You can point out all the stuff that knights can do - "OMG, there's a stratagem that lets them shoot a missile at a character! OMG, they can squish a character with the gauntlet weapon!" but it doesn't actually change anything about their ability, or more accurately lack thereof, to win games solo. Pure knights operate on 6CP, have 5-6 bodies on the table, and have fairly low killing power to show for it compared to most standard TAC lists. You can totally cockblock their movement with anything non-infantry, or infantry that don't start the turn in combat with it. They have firepower roughly equivalent to a single Leman Russ tank on a platform that costs over 3 times as much. They struggle to kill a single guard infantry squad that costs over ten times less than themselves in combat.
One knight, with the CP from an allied battery funneled into it and all the character and freeblade bonuses stacked on it plus a relic, might be competitive in the same way a trio of custode biker captains are. Maybe. We'll see what people come up with. An army of them is roughly as effective as a fluffy GK terminator army.
Individual knights cannot be characters... thus cannot take relics, cannot gain warlord traits or any of that other jazz. That is locked behind using the Super Heavy Detachment (aka: 3 knights, and I have not seen the wording specifically... but it may be 3 non-armiger knights to add a bit more lemon to that cut).
So to get traits and a relic, you're possibly dropping at least 1200 points. And at that point, you're an Imperial Knights army.
Oh, and 6 CP. But then you could probably get another 20 CP from Imperial Guard with restoring it on 5+, but that isn't a problem with Imperial Knights, now is it?
Purifying Tempest wrote: Knight Player: Well, my stuff is fairly well costed, if not a little overcosted when balanced externally... but I don't care. I want my Authurian experience in 40K!
Casual Player: But your list isn't fluffy! Don't play me bro.
Knight Player: Well... fine... I guess I'll go find someone else to play. Hey, want to play? I got my new Excalibur IKs I want to play! I figured I'd let you know ahead of time because the last guy threw a tantrum about list skew and bailed.
Casual Player 2: Sure, let me get a list up for you right quick.
Casual Player 2 casually puts away all of his IG Guardsmen and brings out swarms of Lascannons supported by Basilisks.
Knight Player: Wow... totally out of my league to handle, but at least I got a game...
Yeah, you can cram that "politeness" right back up where it came from.
You know, because you gotta teach that pesky knight player that he's a bad man for playing busted models.
I mean, I get there is a social contract... but it is between two players, both ways. So if you want the onus to be on the knight player to inform everyone that he is playing with GW supported 40K models ahead of time... better be darn well certain that the other player won't do something jerky like list tailor just to smack that guy around. That's probably more of a negative experience than getting blindsided by the knights to begin with.
Psh... Knight players apparently don't deserve the same game as everyone else. At least according to what some of these people are saying. They should be happy to get to deploy their models and honored to get blown up by my 30 lascannons! The knight player having any kind of chance isn't faaaaaaaaair.
Jidmah wrote: There is no such thing as unspoken rules.
If you don't communicate your rules for fun and casual, how is the other person supposed to know them?
The only person to blame in such a scenario is the one who didn't communicate.
Exactly. So communicate before putting Knights (or anything really) on the table.
The one rule of casual is “dont be a sociopath” just plonking models down without a word and expecting “legal” to be an argument for anything at all.
I'm really not concerned with how some guys on the internet feel angry that someone would turn down a game, legal or no. My free time is precious to me.
Playing a one sided game in either direction is not something that interests me.
I don't play random pick up games. If I did, and I showed up with a meh powered list and my opponent wanted to run knights, then we would discuss what could be done to make the game fun for both sides.
I play campaigns only, with people I know though... so this scenario doesn't happen unless its part of the narrative we're writing. In which case we design lists appropriately.
And the game is not one sided in either direction. And everyone is happy and has a positive game experience.
And players that cannot or will not do this play the tournament players instead where its all "if its legal its good". And they are also happy. And everyone has a positive game experience.
Because the campaign players I play with also dont want one sided games where they won in the list building phase; they leave that for their LVO/Adepticon training lists and games.
Sunny Side Up wrote: The one rule of casual is “dont be a sociopath” just plonking models down without a word and expecting “legal” to be an argument for anything at all.
Funny, plonking down models after agreeing on point levels and mission is how every game at a GW store ever has worked for me for in the last decade.
The only time anyone I know discusses army choices with their opponents is when playing narrative games or campaigns.
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auticus wrote: I'm really not concerned with how some guys on the internet feel angry that someone would turn down a game, legal or no. My free time is precious to me.
Playing a one sided game in either direction is not something that interests me.
I don't play random pick up games. If I did, and I showed up with a meh powered list and my opponent wanted to run knights, then we would discuss what could be done to make the game fun for both sides.
I play campaigns only, with people I know though... so this scenario doesn't happen unless its part of the narrative we're writing. In which case we design lists appropriately.
And the game is not one sided in either direction. And everyone is happy and has a positive game experience.
And players that cannot or will not do this play the tournament players instead where its all "if its legal its good". And they are also happy. And everyone has a positive game experience.
Because the campaign players I play with also dont want one sided games where they won in the list building phase; they leave that for their LVO/Adepticon training lists and games.
Look, another one claiming every single knight army ever is going to be overpowered and unfun.
Tell me, have you read the codex? Have you played a game with or against them? Have you ever faced a knight in 8th?
Let me tell you a story about a guy at one of the stores I play at. When 5th edition came about and released the Grey Knight codex he went all in, sold his Blood Angels and bought an entire army of them. Thing is, Grey Knights in 5th were the wet dream of any tournament player back then and not until long they were considered the cheesiest cheese there is. People would outright tell him that they would not play his Grey Knights and walk away, he got kicked out of campaigns for playing Grey Knights and was forbidden from joining an Apoc game at one guy's home because that guy was a daemon player and had played a game where GK simply prevented him from deploying a single unit - against a different player though. Best part: The GK player didn't even play the hot cheese everyone was so worried about. He had no psyflemen, no paladin star, no shunting dreadknights and wasn't running a single named character because he disliked them. His army pretty much looked like a GK diorama and was no match for my orks - competitive GK armies were unbeatable for me. Recently, I saw him playing GK in 8th. Despite everyone being TFG because he was playing GK he still seems to run that army. Some long-playing neckbeard walked up to his table and made a fuss about ridiculously overpowered GK are and that an army full of smiters was OPBS.
All of the people judging knight armies and their players right now: You are that neckbeard.
I don't really get the arguments of "lol what emotional noobs, they want to kill stuff".
Yes. Yes I do. Playing Necrons in 7th was awful. I guess everyone has different variations of fun (sotto voice: Hi I'm a superfriends dark angels player, hitting me on 6s when I have a rerollable 2++ is fine) - but doing no negligible damage turn after turn and just hoping they fluff their dice sufficiently I can steal objectives to win isn't that fun. Its certainly not very casual.
I mean say I turned up with a 540 grot list (I think this is doable in 2000 points.)
What am I saying with this list? "Hope you brought the guns/swords to kill most of those grots, because if you didn't I am just going to sit on all the objectives and then I'm going to win."
Could it be a fun game? Sure. Would I be playing as TFG? Probably not. But it would undoubtedly be a skewed match up - rendering a large array of units you have brought horribly inefficient.
I am pretty sure Knights would be totally screwed - I don't think they can kill 100 grots per turn, although I could be wrong. If Grots don't do it for you take 200~ plaguebearers etc etc.
Its not unreasonable to ask my opponent if they want to give this a go or they would prefer to play something more conventional.
Tyel wrote: I don't really get the arguments of "lol what emotional noobs, they want to kill stuff".
Yes. Yes I do. Playing Necrons in 7th was awful. I guess everyone has different variations of fun (sotto voice: Hi I'm a superfriends dark angels player, hitting me on 6s when I have a rerollable 2++ is fine) - but doing no negligible damage turn after turn and just hoping they fluff their dice sufficiently I can steal objectives to win isn't that fun. Its certainly not very casual.
I mean say I turned up with a 540 grot list (I think this is doable in 2000 points.)
What am I saying with this list? "Hope you brought the guns/swords to kill most of those grots, because if you didn't I am just going to sit on all the objectives and then I'm going to win."
Could it be a fun game? Sure. Would I be playing as TFG? Probably not. But it would undoubtedly be a skewed match up - rendering a large array of units you have brought horribly inefficient.
I am pretty sure Knights would be totally screwed - I don't think they can kill 100 grots per turn, although I could be wrong. If Grots don't do it for you take 200~ plaguebearers etc etc.
Its not unreasonable to ask my opponent if they want to give this a go or they would prefer to play something more conventional.
I guess at this point for me, it's been around long enough and has enough variation within the army that I'm not looking at it as "unconventional."
A knight army with several of the smaller Armiger guys, maybe one of the new big ones, and 2-3 regular sized knights is no more a skew list in my eyes than a space marine list with marines and characters in rhinos, a few predator tanks, a dreadnought or two and a land raider.
I doubt you'd look at a list like that and go "OMGWTFBBQ?!?!? everything on the table has a 3+ save? There's only t7+ on the table for me to shoot, so all my anti infantry weapons are #unviable????!?! I'm afraid you're going to have to get something more conventional, sonny jim."
So really, "conventional" in this instance means "Skew I have seen before and know to be less powerful so I think I can win."
Mileage may of course vary, and I’m not claiming to be an authority by any stretch. But hopefully they’ll prove useful enough to show how a person can do something and not in fact be a Phallus, even when doing something only slightly different can indeed make them a Phallus,
Sunny Side Up wrote: The one rule of casual is “dont be a sociopath” just plonking models down without a word and expecting “legal” to be an argument for anything at all.
Funny, plonking down models after agreeing on point levels and mission is how every game at a GW store ever has worked for me for in the last decade.
The only time anyone I know discusses army choices with their opponents is when playing narrative games or campaigns.
Funny, I've played 40K for nearly 2 1/2 decades now, mostly 1 game a week minimum, and I've never played a single game like that yet.
It's always specified .. I wanna practice for a tournament, I wanna just have a laugh, etc.., etc.. with more talk about specifics to follow. It's been that way since 2nd Ed. for everyone I ever played in 6 countries across 3 continents.
Sure, ‘true’ pick up games happen. But relatively rarely. Instead you’ll find the players have pre-arranged. Especially if their first game as a ‘true’ pick up both parties fancy a rematch.
The Shadowsword is a stand out, and bringing 3 of them is an unpleasant thing to do, but it's still far from the nastiest you could be doing.
I'm biased, I like mine and I've played with it in most games since Escalation came out, and my friends use their Stormsurges, Pylons, and Knights liberally too, so it's pretty normal to see a Lord of War on each side.
I think LoW are pretty fair game on the table. It's intimidating if you don't have one, but generally handle-able. Or bluntly, if you can't deal with the Shadowsword, you probably couldn't have dealt with the 3 Leman Russ Commanders, 4 Manticores, or 5 Baslisks [combination thereof] that would have been in its place.
the_scotsman wrote: I guess at this point for me, it's been around long enough and has enough variation within the army that I'm not looking at it as "unconventional."
A knight army with several of the smaller Armiger guys, maybe one of the new big ones, and 2-3 regular sized knights is no more a skew list in my eyes than a space marine list with marines and characters in rhinos, a few predator tanks, a dreadnought or two and a land raider.
I doubt you'd look at a list like that and go "OMGWTFBBQ?!?!? everything on the table has a 3+ save? There's only t7+ on the table for me to shoot, so all my anti infantry weapons are #unviable????!?! I'm afraid you're going to have to get something more conventional, sonny jim."
So really, "conventional" in this instance means "Skew I have seen before and know to be less powerful so I think I can win."
At the danger of special pleading - I guess it depends on whether Knights are good now. They were pretty good in 7th - and I imagine with the new codex they will be good again.
The whole "what if your opponent brings terminators & land raiders, huh, what then?" just prompts "well... they suck. We know they suck, so it isn't really the same."
With that said I can't imagine playing a 3 Land Raider list would be that fun for either side.
See, my mates know the armies I have, and know my general preferences.
In Warhammer Fantasy, i favoured my Dark Elves with loads Of Big, Gribbly, Monsters. A list started when Hydras were crap.
So someone expecting to face that, then finding out that, tee hee heeId actually turned Gobbo over night is at a disadvantage. List tailored against Big Gribbly Monster or not, they’d not been have the tactical brainstorms on how to stop Gobbos, but their gaming polar opposite.
That right there is a Phallus Move. Don’t say your bringing X, then turn up with Y.
Bit of list optimising is fine with me. After all I tend to get very, very good with my armies, because they tend to be a bit leftfield. Suddenly switching out just to bag another win is too close to WAAC for me.
But as I said, my list is just my brains. It’s not definitive, exhausative or authorative.
I think it depends on which lord of war. A lot of them are not that beefy, but some of them can be pretty crazy. A knight titan or a baneblade can be dealt with, and are just not the badshit crazy trains they once were.
If you show up to a 2K game with like, a Mastodon, that might be pretty TFG.
I know because I did it once Mastodon with a buttload of CC death guard, it was disgusting! I wouldn't, and didn't do it without permission from my opponent.
the_scotsman wrote: I guess at this point for me, it's been around long enough and has enough variation within the army that I'm not looking at it as "unconventional."
A knight army with several of the smaller Armiger guys, maybe one of the new big ones, and 2-3 regular sized knights is no more a skew list in my eyes than a space marine list with marines and characters in rhinos, a few predator tanks, a dreadnought or two and a land raider.
I doubt you'd look at a list like that and go "OMGWTFBBQ?!?!? everything on the table has a 3+ save? There's only t7+ on the table for me to shoot, so all my anti infantry weapons are #unviable????!?! I'm afraid you're going to have to get something more conventional, sonny jim."
So really, "conventional" in this instance means "Skew I have seen before and know to be less powerful so I think I can win."
At the danger of special pleading - I guess it depends on whether Knights are good now. They were pretty good in 7th - and I imagine with the new codex they will be good again.
The whole "what if your opponent brings terminators & land raiders, huh, what then?" just prompts "well... they suck. We know they suck, so it isn't really the same."
With that said I can't imagine playing a 3 Land Raider list would be that fun for either side.
If you want to say "If I judge that a particular skew list is more powerful then I will refuse to play against it" then that's kind of up to you.
But the proposed reasoning I was seeing was "This list is no fun for me to play against because it only contains T7/T8 3+ targets, so it's just a list check where you either have enough lascannons or you don't and all your anti-infantry guns are useless."
That's not the same. A perfectly standard, normal space marine list will extremely commonly present you with nothing but T7/T8 3+ bodies to shoot at initially. That's just playing a normal mechanized list. Same deal with dark eldar: it's perfectly normal to see a dark eldar list presenting nothing but T5 5++ vehicles, making any lascannons you bring pretty inefficient.
You're not making a judgement based on what these things do in game, you're making a judgement based on what they did in a completely different version of the game. They can't totally ignore light infantry anymore. The codex brought them significant points drops (looking like roughly 40-50 points off a regular sized knight compared to current index values, meaning a full army of knights could get one of the little guys for free) and it brought them the ability to take the little guys which cost and shoot similarly to a loaded-up marine predator.
None of this changes that in 8th edition, you can target them with a large number of guns that could not scratch them before (Heavy Bolters and up basically are now fine, it's only when you drop to S4 or below where you're going to be totally inefficient) and you can impede them with units you could not before (light infantry have something to do in a game against them).
It's not just about whether I can bring enough toys to deal with T7/T8 3+ bodies. It also might just not be fun.
One of the things that ruined WarMachine for me, before I got into 40k, was gargants. I won most of my games against gargants (not that I'm good, gargants just weren't great then). But I enjoyed almost none of them. I'd rather a stomping from a non-gargant list than a win against a gargant list any day.
So, a pure LoW list may be autowin or autolose (which one? don't care), but I can say with a great deal more certaintly that I'm not going to enjoy it.
So I'll play against it from time to time, sure. But I'll prioritize games with people who aren't bringing it.
See, my mates know the armies I have, and know my general preferences.
In Warhammer Fantasy, i favoured my Dark Elves with loads Of Big, Gribbly, Monsters. A list started when Hydras were crap.
So someone expecting to face that, then finding out that, tee hee heeId actually turned Gobbo over night is at a disadvantage. List tailored against Big Gribbly Monster or not, they’d not been have the tactical brainstorms on how to stop Gobbos, but their gaming polar opposite.
That right there is a Phallus Move. Don’t say your bringing X, then turn up with Y.
Bit of list optimising is fine with me. After all I tend to get very, very good with my armies, because they tend to be a bit leftfield. Suddenly switching out just to bag another win is too close to WAAC for me.
But as I said, my list is just my brains. It’s not definitive, exhausative or authorative.
That "optimising" is used far more often to stomp people with limited model collections than it is to close the gap with a very experienced player (not least because the experienced player usually has a substantial range of models to chose from making tailoring much harder).
Personally, I'll always encourage people dealing with that to mix up what they bring specifically to punish people for list tailoring.
UMGuy wrote: With the new IK codex coming out, I have been thinking of starting an IK army, as I am sure a lot of people have been. But what's the latest thought on bringing LoWs or even a whole list of them to casual, pickup, and semi competitive games at flgs.
Am I going to be labeled tfg or has the stigma worn off? Are my opponents going to refuse to play when I starting taking out my units or will they be up for the challenge/climatic elements of it all?
As always with these threads, just talk to your fething opponent. Use your pie holes for discussion instead of Cheetos and Mountain Dew.
1. What kind of game do you want? Super competitive, semi competitive, or something lighter.
2. Narrative or battleforged?
3. Objectives or just blow gak up?
4. ITC missions or book?
5. Points?
6. Cool, let’s play Pew-Pews. OR Sorry, I’m not looking for that kind of game today.
Either way, shake their fething hand. Be civil.
Don’t give me any gak about “But what’s a fething competitive game? How do you define it??” You fething talk to the other person.
I would play against knights, sure. I am working on my own. But I accept that nor everyone wants to play against them, and that’s OK.
Ackshually I think you'll find they're multi-pose (or at least they were) action figurines and the suggestion that these high class works of engineering and art are dolls!!
rolls eyeballs then adjusts glasses Is frankly preposterous.
See, my mates know the armies I have, and know my general preferences.
In Warhammer Fantasy, i favoured my Dark Elves with loads Of Big, Gribbly, Monsters. A list started when Hydras were crap.
So someone expecting to face that, then finding out that, tee hee heeId actually turned Gobbo over night is at a disadvantage. List tailored against Big Gribbly Monster or not, they’d not been have the tactical brainstorms on how to stop Gobbos, but their gaming polar opposite.
That right there is a Phallus Move. Don’t say your bringing X, then turn up with Y.
Bit of list optimising is fine with me. After all I tend to get very, very good with my armies, because they tend to be a bit leftfield. Suddenly switching out just to bag another win is too close to WAAC for me.
But as I said, my list is just my brains. It’s not definitive, exhausative or authorative.
If they are mates why are they list tailoring in the first place?
If they are list tailoring vs what you bring it's totally fair to switch gears unannounced. Thing about GW games is that if you list tailor you WILL have huge advantage. There's very little things in the game that don't have hard counter. So list tailoring is hardly most sporting thing(especially vs friends) and isn't really efficient if your goal is to make interesting game.
Not all SH are Titanic, to be sure, but it cuts down on the whining that SH are overpowered.
Almost no-one brings them anyway, except the occasional Mortarion (who isn't Titanic anyway IIRC) and my Lord of Skulls showing up once in a blue moon...
Ascalam wrote: My local has a houserule of ONE titanic model.
Not all SH are Titanic, to be sure, but it cuts down on the whining that SH are overpowered.
Almost no-one brings them anyway, except the occasional Mortarion (who isn't Titanic anyway IIRC) and my Lord of Skulls showing up once in a blue moon...
Your local, your rules, but is anyone ever going to complain about a Lord of Skulls? I'd love to see one.
See, my mates know the armies I have, and know my general preferences.
In Warhammer Fantasy, i favoured my Dark Elves with loads Of Big, Gribbly, Monsters. A list started when Hydras were crap.
So someone expecting to face that, then finding out that, tee hee heeId actually turned Gobbo over night is at a disadvantage. List tailored against Big Gribbly Monster or not, they’d not been have the tactical brainstorms on how to stop Gobbos, but their gaming polar opposite.
That right there is a Phallus Move. Don’t say your bringing X, then turn up with Y.
Bit of list optimising is fine with me. After all I tend to get very, very good with my armies, because they tend to be a bit leftfield. Suddenly switching out just to bag another win is too close to WAAC for me.
But as I said, my list is just my brains. It’s not definitive, exhausative or authorative.
If they are mates why are they list tailoring in the first place?
If they are list tailoring vs what you bring it's totally fair to switch gears unannounced. Thing about GW games is that if you list tailor you WILL have huge advantage. There's very little things in the game that don't have hard counter. So list tailoring is hardly most sporting thing(especially vs friends) and isn't really efficient if your goal is to make interesting game.
Simply, it’s kind of expected. And also at least partially reflective of real world stuff.
As I mentioned, I tend to do better than my skills because very, very few of my lists are predictable - I’ve a personal penchant for taking lesser seen units and finding a way to make it work. No, it doesn’t always work.
Hence on my list of ahem Phallusies (do you see what I did there? Clever, innit), knowing which Codex your opponent is using in advance is fine (with me). But waiting to see exactly what I’m fielding and tailoring from there, isn’t. At all.
So to run with my previous Dark Elf army. Those who’ve faced me before know roughly what I’ll be fielding and can better plan. But someone who attempts to list tailor to punish relatively lightly armoured T3 Pansy Elves would be in for a real shock, because I found a way to make a ‘sub-optimal’ list. All monsters, all chariots, compulsory 3x10 Repeater Crossbows. And no Magic. At all. Not even magical defence.
Most of my armies are comprised of the unexpected. And I tend to do very well against the fabled ‘netlist’, because it’s so well documented, I can more-or-less, with reasonable accuracy, guess at what I’m likely to face off against.
Compare to the near definitive Phallusy of ‘yeah man, I’ll being my, erm, Orks next time’, then rocking up with pure Imperial Knights. That’s an incredibly different force composition by their very nature.
Now again for clarity, I’m only speaking for me and mine. When the club lads are looking for Tournament Practice, I’m up for it. Not because I’ll attempt to net list, but because I know, tactically, they’ll be on a level I’ve never personally aspired to, so I get added experience and challenge. When my Knights are all built, they’re welcome round mine, knowing I’ve done my best to create a Tournamentesque list.
But outside of arranged games, just don’t gloat when your meta oddity roflstomps your foe. Knights aren’t what they once were thanks to 8th Ed, but for the unprepared they’re still a helluva hill to climb.
