Do tactics matter enough to effect a win regardless of your army/race?, this is a follow up to people saying my army is gak and me thinking they're wrong no matter how much facts there are lollll.
Like for e.g could 30 troops face off against 120 troops and win?
Not in 40k, no. It's a dice game. Tactics are targeting priority and screening (and knowing when to use what stratagem - but this comes with familiarity of your codex). That's it. I find a lot of games in 8th are decided at the list building stage.
In your scenario, suppose we have 30 marines Vs 120 guardsmen interspersed with officers. Let's make it fairer and give you a captain or lieutenant (or both) so you re-roll 1s for hits and wounds. The guard will still outgun you. And they have more board control so will be harder to shift off of objectives.
I think 30 burna boys could potentially kill 120 hormagaunts? 30 stormcast protectors could kill 120 goblins.
I mean if you have the strongest from one race in theory they could kill droves of the weakest of another race. If we're talking equivalent Soldiers I don't believe the best tactics could win in face of overwhelming numbers.
I don't understand what you're getting after though?
Tactics still has a place. But so does army composition. If you bring a sub-par list, but are a great player, you might take down someone who just downloaded a recent tournament winning list but doesn’t know how to play it well.
There is also a lot to be laid at the feet of our fickle little 6-sided friends.
But assuming players of equal skill, and average dice rolls, the better list is going to win.
There is also the factor of rock/paper/scissor matchups, meta/counter-meta lists etc.
And in more casual play, it’s OK to not squeeze all the power out of your list. Your opponent is probably also choosing units because he likes the look/lore of them as well. So it evens out. Different levels of play. What works fine for a fun game at the FLGS will just get tabled in the competitive circuits.
The issue isn't the firepower. Those 30 marines will kill more guardsmen than the guardsmen will kill marines.
The issue is wounds. The Guardsmen do give or take 13-14 wounds, while the Marines will do 18 wounds.
That's the Marines nearly halved and the guardsmen barely chipped. The durability of Marines is entirely smoke and mirrors, and without reliable ways to deal massed shots at a cost effective way against hordes, hordes will just be more durable than elites.
I am a very strong advocate of bringing over the wounding system of AoS, where all damage continues to carry over in the unit. It would fix hordes instantly, and would only need soft tweaking like a nerf to lascannons.
vaklor4 wrote: The issue isn't the firepower. Those 30 marines will kill more guardsmen than the guardsmen will kill marines.
The issue is wounds. The Guardsmen do give or take 13-14 wounds, while the Marines will do 18 wounds.
That's the Marines nearly halved and the guardsmen barely chipped. The durability of Marines is entirely smoke and mirrors, and without reliable ways to deal massed shots at a cost effective way against hordes, hordes will just be more durable than elites.
I am a very strong advocate of bringing over the wounding system of AoS, where all damage continues to carry over in the unit. It would fix hordes instantly, and would only need soft tweaking like a nerf to lascannons.
Interesting idea, but I'm not sure that it would fix the issue with hordes that you describe. The marines would kill a few more guardsmen due to their melta/plasma damage not being lost, but then the special/heavy weapons from the guardsmen murder an equal amount of more valuable marines. I'd hesitate to make 8th even more lethal. A full squad with melta guns would be incredible under these rules.
On topic: I don't see a lot of tactical depth in 40k. Positioning is important, but this is limited by a lack of rules that incentivize movement. Why bother going for a flank charge or setting up a crossfire when it has zero additional effect over frontal charges/shooting? Line of sight-blocking terrain helps here, but as far as the rules are concerned there's using meatshields, there's target priority and there's using the gamey charge mechanics to lock stuff in combat (which you have to do, else the enemy just walks away and shoots your assault squad with some other units). Don't get me wrong, I like 8th overall, but it's important to realize that it's more a game than it is a simulation.
I'd argue Warhammer 40K has never been strategic or tactical outside of the bare minimum. It was at its height in 2nd edition when it was much smaller scale (and having played loads of 2nd, most people still didn't use all the rules!). Even then it still didn't have many common actual wargaming functions. It's partly why I chuckle when people pretend 7th had tactical depth outside of vehicle firing arcs/armour facings (which were subsequently abused in super-gamey ways anyway).
The most tactical/wargame-esque 40K has ever been is still quite a shadow of a normal tactical game, mainly those in the historical genre.
That's not to say it's not a wargame by definition, but it's a very arcade style RTS in place of an actual combat simulation. This is a large reason why I'm not sure it's terribly well suited to tournaments, and generally why I think the game is best enjoyed as fun entertainment, playing out battles to enjoy the silliness of the story it can tell. From a "fun" perspective, 8th ed. is excellent when played with that idea.
To the OP's question....sort of? As mentioned, units in this game represent relatively different power levels due to dice mechanics (armour saves, equipment, skill at combat etc.). In an open field, math is simply heavily, heavily against an outnumbered side if you're using the same stats. However, are there ways to do it? Sure. Having cover while your opponent doesn't. Playing your CP/stratagems to make the most of that one unit (while perhaps your opponent doesn't). Being in the right place to benefit from the right weapons, and having good luck. That's about the only way possible.
Say, for instance, you used some of the Cities of Death rules in a normal game of 40K. You took 10 Guardsman and put them in an Imperial Bastion (ignoring it's guns). You counted this as hard cover so the Guardsman went to a 3+ save, and being elevated gave them -1 AP lasguns...could you hold off 30-40 Guardsman advancing on you in the open? Very probably, yes. However being in that building isn't necessarily a tactic/strategy.
Stormatious wrote: Do tactics matter enough to effect a win regardless of your army/race?, this is a follow up to people saying my army is gak and me thinking they're wrong no matter how much facts there are lollll.
Like for e.g could 30 troops face off against 120 troops and win?
If the 30 troops were of roughly equivalent cost to the 120, potentially.
That said, yes, tactics do matter. What's missed, though, is that you need both a good list and effective tactics. If your list is crap you'll lose. But, if you just take a good list and don't know what you're doing with it, you'll also lose.
The randomness can be generally discounted if you roll enough dice at a time, but can hurt you badly if you only roll a few dice and they just all have to be a 3+.
Stormatious wrote: Do tactics matter enough to effect a win regardless of your army/race?, this is a follow up to people saying my army is gak and me thinking they're wrong no matter how much facts there are lollll.
Like for e.g could 30 troops face off against 120 troops and win?
This depends a lot on what we're talking about. The troops/forces involved, the mission and objectives, etc.
That said, if you're talking about just straight up lining up X vs Y, then yes, there are comparisons where, no matter how genius you are, no matter what tactics you use, unless the dice do something extraordinarily out of the ordinary, the outcome is going to be basically pre-determined.
Ultimately, 40k, is a relatively tactically shallow game built more around attritional value than anything else, always has been. Tactics matter, if you don't use the tools you have correctly, you will lose, but the game very definitely also has situations where you just don't have a good enough tool to match those of the opponent. List building has always been the most important phase of the game to victory.
I'd argue Warhammer 40K has never been strategic or tactical outside of the bare minimum. It was at its height in 2nd edition when it was much smaller scale (and having played loads of 2nd, most people still didn't use all the rules!). Even then it still didn't have many common actual wargaming functions. It's partly why I chuckle when people pretend 7th had tactical depth outside of vehicle firing arcs/armour facings (which were subsequently abused in super-gamey ways anyway).
The most tactical/wargame-esque 40K has ever been is still quite a shadow of a normal tactical game, mainly those in the historical genre.
That's not to say it's not a wargame by definition, but it's a very arcade style RTS in place of an actual combat simulation. This is a large reason why I'm not sure it's terribly well suited to tournaments, and generally why I think the game is best enjoyed as fun entertainment, playing out battles to enjoy the silliness of the story it can tell. From a "fun" perspective, 8th ed. is excellent when played with that idea.
To the OP's question....sort of? As mentioned, units in this game represent relatively different power levels due to dice mechanics (armour saves, equipment, skill at combat etc.). In an open field, math is simply heavily, heavily against an outnumbered side if you're using the same stats. However, are there ways to do it? Sure. Having cover while your opponent doesn't. Playing your CP/stratagems to make the most of that one unit (while perhaps your opponent doesn't). Being in the right place to benefit from the right weapons, and having good luck. That's about the only way possible
.
Say, for instance, you used some of the Cities of Death rules in a normal game of 40K. You took 10 Guardsman and put them in an Imperial Bastion (ignoring it's guns). You counted this as hard cover so the Guardsman went to a 3+ save, and being elevated gave them -1 AP lasguns...could you hold off 30-40 Guardsman advancing on you in the open? Very probably, yes. However being in that building isn't necessarily a tactic/strategy.
There are tactics in 8th. Now since stuff like invisible death stars (gone) and everything can wound anything(new) it's not so easy to just delete stuff. Yes stiff still does enmasse, but now you actually have a chance. If you just spam stuff or minmax, play against the same. You just need to be a little more creative in how/who you deploy where & which units to use when on what.
If you are playing with like minded people and choose the fun of the insane stuff that happens in 40k on the tabletop, you will never have a bad game.
Ummm killing has never been so easy. 8th ed is the edition of "just delete X". Knight? One shot it. Unit of 30 boyz? Poof goes in turn. 20 stealers? Kaboom. Question isn't can something killed. Question is who alpha strikes crippling blow best.
My experience has been that knowledge is the biggest factor. Knowing what your army can and cannot do; knowing what your opponent's army can and cannot do.
I think the armies do have differences in power level, but the difference in knowledge and experience is going to make a much bigger difference.
As others have said, 40k lacks tactical depth. That's not to say tactics don't exist but they are relatively simplistic. In any game tactics are essentially a force multiplier but because 40k has fairly shallow tactics the effect of that multiplier is much, much weaker than in other games. So being tactically superior to your opponent might improve the effectiveness of your troops by, say, 5-10%, but if the difference in relative power between 2 armies is more like 20-30% the extra boost your superior tactics provides isn't going ot be very meaningful. This problem of lack of depth is exacerbated by 40k's pretty shocking balance.
So tactics matter, but list construction matters a lot more in 40k. The lack of tactical depth makes it extremely difficult to overcome a mismatch in list strength compared to other, deeper games.
Stormatious wrote: Do tactics matter enough to effect a win regardless of your army/race?, this is a follow up to people saying my army is gak and me thinking they're wrong no matter how much facts there are lollll.
Like for e.g could 30 troops face off against 120 troops and win?
tactics matter if there is a big difference in skill between both players or if there is a scenario or match up skew between two playing people.
tneva82 wrote: Ummm killing has never been so easy. 8th ed is the edition of "just delete X". Knight? One shot it. Unit of 30 boyz? Poof goes in turn. 20 stealers? Kaboom. Question isn't can something killed. Question is who alpha strikes crippling blow best.
This, 8th is by far the edition of hyper lethal options. I remember back in 5th edition when killing a Rhino in one turn or removing a mob of 30 boys took effort. Not so much any more.
I'd argue Warhammer 40K has never been strategic or tactical outside of the bare minimum. It was at its height in 2nd edition when it was much smaller scale (and having played loads of 2nd, most people still didn't use all the rules!). Even then it still didn't have many common actual wargaming functions. It's partly why I chuckle when people pretend 7th had tactical depth outside of vehicle firing arcs/armour facings (which were subsequently abused in super-gamey ways anyway).
The most tactical/wargame-esque 40K has ever been is still quite a shadow of a normal tactical game, mainly those in the historical genre.
That's not to say it's not a wargame by definition, but it's a very arcade style RTS in place of an actual combat simulation. This is a large reason why I'm not sure it's terribly well suited to tournaments, and generally why I think the game is best enjoyed as fun entertainment, playing out battles to enjoy the silliness of the story it can tell. From a "fun" perspective, 8th ed. is excellent when played with that idea.
To the OP's question....sort of? As mentioned, units in this game represent relatively different power levels due to dice mechanics (armour saves, equipment, skill at combat etc.). In an open field, math is simply heavily, heavily against an outnumbered side if you're using the same stats. However, are there ways to do it? Sure. Having cover while your opponent doesn't. Playing your CP/stratagems to make the most of that one unit (while perhaps your opponent doesn't). Being in the right place to benefit from the right weapons, and having good luck. That's about the only way possible
.
Say, for instance, you used some of the Cities of Death rules in a normal game of 40K. You took 10 Guardsman and put them in an Imperial Bastion (ignoring it's guns). You counted this as hard cover so the Guardsman went to a 3+ save, and being elevated gave them -1 AP lasguns...could you hold off 30-40 Guardsman advancing on you in the open? Very probably, yes. However being in that building isn't necessarily a tactic/strategy.
There are tactics in 8th. Now since stuff like invisible death stars (gone) and everything can wound anything(new) it's not so easy to just delete stuff. Yes stiff still does enmasse, but now you actually have a chance. If you just spam stuff or minmax, play against the same. You just need to be a little more creative in how/who you deploy where & which units to use when on what.
If you are playing with like minded people and choose the fun of the insane stuff that happens in 40k on the tabletop, you will never have a bad game.
Sure, but when someone says "tactics" to me, I think of real world military tactics, not "game" tactics. I agree there is a type of tactics involved with 40K, but it's not military tactics as one would actually employ if you were in the universe instead of playing the tabletop game. There's plenty of depth in 40K, in almost any edition. But you're very much playing a game vs. playing a portrayal of actual combat.
I think 40K is a good time with like-minded people, absolutely.
40K's idea of tactics are primarily listbuilding, deployment, and target priority. So I mean, if you consider those tactics, then sure, tactics matter.
If you're looking for tactics involving command and control, fire and movement, encirclement, or anything you've read in a history book, this has literally never been the game you're looking for.
In 40k, bad tactics will lose you a game, regardless of list power. If you don’t play to the objectives of the scenario, you’re going to lose.
Good strategy (mostly list building) ensures you have tactical options on the battlefield. If you have a strong list, coupled with good tactical decisions, you can beat a “Power” list played with poor tactics, because the poor tactics player does not create a win condition.
Essentially, list building / pre-game strategy establishes a cap on what you can achieve tactically in-game.
Counter-strategy / skill at counter-tactics influences how difficult you make it for your opponent to achieve their win condition.
Hypothetically, assault-focussed strategy / tactics should be viable [in 40k]. But the counter-strategy of bubble-wrapping with expendable infantry and then falling back to shoot the assault specialists is easy for most armies to include (list building / strategy) and to then apply in-game (tactically, a small squad creates a 20” diameter circle that deep strikers and the like can’t deploy into).
I’d personally like to see the deep strike range reduced to 6”, to at least give assaulting armies a better-than average chance to connect with screening troops, given how easy it is to deny “juicy” targets, but I digress.
So, yes, good tactics can overcome list shortages, and the poor tactics of other players. List building does establish the limit of tactical options you’ll have available in-game.
greatbigtree wrote: In 40k, bad tactics will lose you a game, regardless of list power. If you don’t play to the objectives of the scenario, you’re going to lose.
Disagree here, because "table them" is almost always an objective, and even when it isn't it creates such an easy game state that you just win soon after. If you have a much stronger list you can just roll better dice and kill more stuff until the other objectives become meaningless.
Tactics matter in 40k? Not really, not until points represent how effective a unit is in isolation. Then tactics matter in getting them into the best position to do their job.
Stormatious wrote: Oh ok, im getting it, and feel after this conversation that with the right tactics my army can win.
Thank you.
I'm genuinely curious: how did you reach that conclusion after reading this thread? That's the opposite of what's been said. With one possible exception, everyone has pointed out that 40k's tactics are pretty shallow and it's list building, rather than tactics, that win games.
greatbigtree wrote: In 40k, bad tactics will lose you a game, regardless of list power. If you don’t play to the objectives of the scenario, you’re going to lose.
Disagree here, because "table them" is almost always an objective, and even when it isn't it creates such an easy game state that you just win soon after. If you have a much stronger list you can just roll better dice and kill more stuff until the other objectives become meaningless.
The other aspect is that superior firepower can also drastically reduce the enemy's tactical options.
For example, Dark Eldar have options due to their speed and mobility. However, if you destroy all their transports and such, then all they've got is a load of footslogging troops, barely faster than guardsmen. Hence, at this point, the DE player is unable to use any tactics that relate to superior speed.
The same goes for Objective Secured troops. They can be used 'tactically' to sit on an objective and prevent enemy non-troop units from controlling it. However, if you reduce your opponent's troops to smouldering craters, then that tactical option is also removed for them. .
BaconCatBug wrote: No, tactics don't matter. The game is won or lost in the listbuilding stage.
That isn't true. Just like any game where you build your army, deck, team or anything of that nature, you still have to actually be good at the game to win. Just netlisting the best build will only get you so far. If you give a top tier 40k player a list that is just start collecting space marine boxes, he could still make it work against a new player using a net list.
BaconCatBug wrote: No, tactics don't matter. The game is won or lost in the listbuilding stage.
That isn't true. Just like any game where you build your army, deck, team or anything of that nature, you still have to actually be good at the game to win. Just netlisting the best build will only get you so far. If you give a top tier 40k player a list that is just start collecting space marine boxes, he could still make it work against a new player using a net list.
I'd love to see a mono-Grey Knights list come even close to beating Guard+Castellan+Dakkabots.
With like-minded people, proper scenarios and terrain tactics do matter more than anything else. Positioning and target priority are essential. 40K is still not on a Level of Lotr or Star Trek Attack Wing or what have you, but it has gotten much more tactical than in 6th and 7th Edition. Decisions matter now, but overall 40k's main appeal is its diverse listsand factions and hilarious setting. That's why narrative missions are where the game is at its best.
There are of course still some Balance issues, but they're mainly visible in a WAAC tournament setting.
I also believe a mediocre list in the hands of a veteran player has a decent chance to defeat stronger list used by a novice.
But then again, how long does it take for a new player to grasp the potentials of the strong list?
To repeat the remarks which posters have left above, there are few layers of tactical depth in 40K.
Target priority, use of stratagems, positioning units according to line of sight, piling-in to tie up adjacent enemy units, and then there is nothing much left.
Few months of playing is enough for a player to become accustomed to these tactical elements, at least in my experience.
Once the new player becomes familiar with these tactics, dice is the only saving grace of a veteran player using subpar lists.
BaconCatBug wrote: No, tactics don't matter. The game is won or lost in the listbuilding stage.
That isn't true. Just like any game where you build your army, deck, team or anything of that nature, you still have to actually be good at the game to win. Just netlisting the best build will only get you so far. If you give a top tier 40k player a list that is just start collecting space marine boxes, he could still make it work against a new player using a net list.
I'd love to see a mono-Grey Knights list come even close to beating Guard+Castellan+Dakkabots.
Did you even read the entire post? You're completely negating any level of gaming intelligence on the part of the players. People get better, and some people's skill ceiling is higher than others.
I did read the post, and I am telling you with ABSOLUTE 110% CERTAINTY, that given that both players are trying to win (i.e. one of the players isn't intentionally throwing the game), it doesn't matter if the Grey Knights player is the best player in the world and the Soup player is someone who hasn't played more than a week, it is more likely to have a proton decay in front of your eyes and cause all the oxygen in the room to spontaneously turn into Advocaat than for the Grey Knights to beat a Guard+Castellan+Dakkabots list.
You'd have to have the Grey Knights literally roll all 6's and the Soup Player roll all 1's for the Grey Knights to win.
BaconCatBug wrote: I did read the post, and I am telling you with ABSOLUTE 110% CERTAINTY, that given that both players are trying to win (i.e. one of the players isn't intentionally throwing the game), it doesn't matter if the Grey Knights player is the best player in the world and the Soup player is someone who hasn't played more than a week, it is more likely to have a proton decay in front of your eyes and cause all the oxygen in the room to spontaneously turn into Advocaat than for the Grey Knights to beat a Guard+Castellan+Dakkabots list.
You'd have to have the Grey Knights literally roll all 6's and the Soup Player roll all 1's for the Grey Knights to win.
You are entitled to your opinion, and you seem to have very, very unmovable opinions. I think you're wrong, but that isn't going to change anything.
Maybe for other armies it ain't true, but I have seen new players beat the living hell out of veterans with bad lists, and there is no worse army to play, specially in casual then GK.
In theory a well balanced game the outcome should be down to tactics, however even if 40k had this mythical "well balanced" factor that it currently lacks the vey rules themselves essentially will always dominate 'tactics' simple due to the volume of dice used. Yes you can use tactics to fiddle the odds to an extent but regardless there are some very bad matchups here.
8th edition has removed a lot of the tactics around positioning for example (removing weapon arcs, and vulnerabilities from certain directions that forced a player to make a call, a call a better player will get right more often) - and in return has allowed the game to scale up better and play faster.
pays your money etc.
I would suggest in smaller point value games though tactics start to matter more as the "point & delete" firepower tends to be less present so positioning for cover and similar starts to matter as there is less overkill.
in the end 40k is a game where you get out what both players are willing to put in, if you want to play "win in the list building phase" and both are happy with that then go for it, but last week had one of the best games I've had in ages playing 750 points on a 4'x4' table where neither player was a passenger and the choices we both made actually seemed to make a difference.
GK it would appear are a perfectly good army if your opponent is someone who like me is able to roll negative numbers on a D6 while you yourself are able to roll a 7, failing that use them in a specifically constructed scenario o something for now (I find with stuff like GK and DW to a level you can represent the whole "very special forces" thing by letting them muck about with the victory conditions - e.g. draw extra cards and discard some, maybe move objectives etc.
Melissia wrote: I think the question is a little self-defeating here. Big reason?
Army choice is part of your tactics. You build your army with the knowledge on how you want it to play.
Plus knowledge of your local "meta", typical terrain etc
in 5th edition I started to get people to actually read the bit on table set up that suggested a terrain covering of around 25%, a mixture of types, as opposed to what had previously been a ruin in each corner and maybe a low hill near the centre.
In my experience, tabling tends to be a result of insufficient LOS blocking terrain. Without it, yes, tabling is a completely viable strategy that’s difficult if not impossible to avoid with a weak list.
I guess I’m fortunate in that most of my games are with like-minded people that want a battlefield with plenty of terrain, so that we do have to make meaningful movement choices. Our games tend to have pockets of action that move around the board as we attempt to outmaneuver each other. I haven’t played a “clear LOS board” in a long time, so in my neck of the woods tabling is quite rare.
With substantial LOS blocking terrain, we’re able to set up “traps” and “kill zones” for each other. Want your solo-Knight to do anything? It will need to move between those two buildings to get LOS to anything, and blocks LOS from anything behind... I plan to have all my boys able to open up on it, turn 2 when it moves to the expected location.
I agree in full that powerful lists will generally win against weak lists, assuming both players are of remotely comparable skill. If both lists are of close power level, I think the better tactician will usually win. The list creates an upper limit of potential, but the player still needs to direct the army to achieve that optimal potential.
A "Bad List" could be spamming a bad unit, or writing a rock-paper-scissors army that is supposed to function as a Rock but doesn't do it very well. Spamming Grav Centurions, for example.
Or, a "Bad List" could be a retro Space Marines player who pines for the golden days of whatever their favorite edition was, and still likes running lists that are built heavily around, say, infantry and Rhinos. Or whatever.
In the former case, no amount of tactics are going to help. By writing an inflexible army list with no options on the board, the player has doomed themselves to a death of immmobility and having no options.
In the latter case, though, it's possible - albeit difficult - to play for the win. The retro player is using subpar units, but as long as he still made his army flexible and gave himself options, he has the chance to come up from the bottom.
...
Generally speaking, you need three things to win a game of Warhammer 40k:
A strong list
Luck
"Tactics"
In this case, "Tactics" involves responding to luck, mitigating the effect of bad rolls, risk calculation, and positioning. The role of tactics in a game heavily depends on the first two options, though - If you write a list that gives you no options, you can't respond to what happens on the board. Also, after a certain point it becomes impossible to compensate for bad luck.
Tactics matter enough to effect a win if your opponent is incredibly bad at the game, but assuming a base level of competence (remembering all the rules, not screwing themselves over or forgetting steps, and showing good target priority,) you're not going to be able to win against an A-tier list with a D-tier list.
BaconCatBug wrote: I did read the post, and I am telling you with ABSOLUTE 110% CERTAINTY, that given that both players are trying to win (i.e. one of the players isn't intentionally throwing the game), it doesn't matter if the Grey Knights player is the best player in the world and the Soup player is someone who hasn't played more than a week, it is more likely to have a proton decay in front of your eyes and cause all the oxygen in the room to spontaneously turn into Advocaat than for the Grey Knights to beat a Guard+Castellan+Dakkabots list.
You'd have to have the Grey Knights literally roll all 6's and the Soup Player roll all 1's for the Grey Knights to win.
As people have said, there is so little room for actual tactics in the game itself that listbuilding and the like becomes probably the most significant factor (barring extreme good/bad luck).
Unfortunately for GK players, part of getting better at playing 40k involves learning to not play GK.
I use real world tactics quite a bit in 40k, one of which is the Refused Flank in non-objective games (moving my entire force to one side while my opponent is spread out, which maximizes my firepower while minimizing his). Another good one Enfilade and Defilade positioning (maximizing my firepower into my enemy while minimizing their return fire via positioning and use of line of sight blocking terrain).
Sure, games are won in the list building phase, but they lost due poor use and/or lack of terrain. Satisfaction comes from playing smarter and making less mistakes than your opponent who is also playing an optimized list just like you are.
jeffersonian000 wrote: I use real world tactics quite a bit in 40k, one of which is the Refused Flank in non-objective games (moving my entire force to one side while my opponent is spread out, which maximizes my firepower while minimizing his). Another good one Enfilade and Defilade positioning (maximizing my firepower into my enemy while minimizing their return fire via positioning and use of line of sight blocking terrain).
Sure, games are won in the list building phase, but they lost due poor use and/or lack of terrain. Satisfaction comes from playing smarter and making less mistakes than your opponent who is also playing an optimized list just like you are.
SJ
Decent terrain certainly makes such things possible, the game rules work against it (weapon ranges relative to table size, movement of 'fast' vehicles etc), its wonderful when it works though - especially when one player has "castled" in a corner and you manage to deploy out of thier range and/or sight
Stormatious wrote: Do tactics matter enough to effect a win regardless of your army/race?, this is a follow up to people saying my army is gak and me thinking they're wrong no matter how much facts there are lollll.
Like for e.g could 30 troops face off against 120 troops and win?
I imagine you're somewhat directing this at me. I wasn't saying your army is the worst thing ever, just that it isn't an ultra-competitive list. You can still have fun with it, you just are unlikely to be winning tournaments with it. Tactics absolutely matter, but they're not the most important thing in the game. I'd rank the game's primary influencers of who will win a game in the following manner;
#1 - List Strength (60%). If you have a strong list, you're lowering the difficulty of the game. There are many models that are better for the points you're spending on them than an equivalent amount of points spent nearly anywhere else. Plasma Guns aren't expensive, but deal way, way, way more damage, and deal that damage more reliably, than a model with a bolter. Take 5 Marines, with one having a Plasma, and have them fight a unit of 6 Marines. The unit with the Plasma should win almost every time, regardless of other factors. The person with the 5 Marines + Plasma built a better list than the one who took 6 Marines. Maybe in another "meta" the 6 Marines would've been better (say, against Orks), but in this matchup, and indeed in most matchups, the 5 Marines + Plasma is better.
#2 - Tactics (24%). 8th Edition has a ton of these. By a "tactic", I mean a decision made that impacts the short-term result of the game. You just do what you're already doing, but differently. For example, you charge a unit into a tank. The player with weak tactical knowledge might just pile the models up to it. The tactically intelligent player puts a model at each corner of the vehicle such that the vehicle can no longer move out of combat and has "pinned" the unit in place. That's a tactic. A tactic can also be choosing which unit to charge in first with. Or the order in which you do shooting. Or remembering to use a stratagem. Etc. Point is, there's a lot of EASY stuff here, but it can be hard to remember it all because there really is just so much. Doing these things will massively change the effectiveness of your list.
#3 - Strategy (10%). If anything, I would say the actual strategy of 40k is the part that has the least depth. Strategy is your long-term, or even game-long plan that will influence your tactics. A good tactic may be to put a unit near 3 objectives so you can easily go to whichever one you need to hold. A good strategy is choosing to go for one of those three so that your opponent moves into a different position. List Building is, technically, part of strategy, and I would say that your choice of trying to plan against the "meta" here is where this is important. In other words, List Strength is 60% of your game, but you can make it 70% by correctly guessing the meta, or drop it to 50% by guessing incorrectly. Having a plan for your list is very important, but at this point you're putting a lot of effort into something that will only matter against people that have also nearly maxed out the other 84% of their ability through List Strength and Tactics.
#4 - Luck (6%). Yes, this is a dice game, but luck honestly has very little to do with it. At 6% you are, roughly speaking, saying that for every 20 times something happens, in the game, it happens in a way differently to what you expect in a way that actually matters. Sure, sometimes crazy things happen, but it rarely has that big of an impact, plus you are just as likely to have such a string of good or bad luck. The only way to influence this is to remove the luck element from your games by making things hit and wound on 2+ rerollables, and make things never get a save. That's possible to do, but you really start paying for it - it's not easy to do, and you leave yourself more and more open to being swarmed.
So, there you go. That's my breakdown. 30 Tactical marines should always lose to 120 Tactical Marines, regardless of strategy or tactics or even luck. 30 Rubric Marines, on the other hand, might be able to use Tactics and Strategy to defeat 120 Tactical Marines. 30 Obliterators will laugh off 120 Tactical Marines, and then eat another 120 just for good measure.
I think the importance of luck is very proportional to the size of the game and the models involved.
In a 15000 point game, luck is unlikely to be a very deciding factor. On the other hand, if an alpha strike Ynnari build faces an Imperial army with a Castellan, the game is often outright decided on turn 1 - either they kill the Castellan (effectively chunking a third of the opponent's army and taking out their strongest source of firepower) or they don't (in which case they are horribly out of position and will probably be reduced to mashed jelly).
Ashiraya wrote: I think the importance of luck is very proportional to the size of the game and the models involved.
In a 15000 point game, luck is unlikely to be a very deciding factor. On the other hand, if an alpha strike Ynnari build faces an Imperial army with a Castellan, the game is often outright decided on turn 1 - either they kill the Castellan or they don't.
This, and tactics is the opposite.
Playing at 2000 points on a 6x4 doesn't leave much to positioning, due to excessive clutter on the field.
At 1750 movement choices become more critical, and at 1500 even more.
In general the higher the point limit, the higher the chance that the opponent will control the field with overwhelming long range firepower, and the game devolves into mathammer.
If they didn't you would simply pack up your army when you played against someone with a better "Army". Dice add in a luck factor as well but positioning, target priority, and than a number of other tactics really factor into a game to determine a winner.
Case and point would be that I won a few tournaments in 7th edition with Orkz. If tactics didn't matter than I should never have broken even let alone won these events when I was playing against Net lists like Wraithknight spam, (Basically eldar of any flavor), The SM Gladius, Necrons Decurion etc etc.
Being able to use tactics can swing a game from a resounding loss into a close fought victory or even a landslide victory if you do it right. I recently had a game where my opponent speared my go to unit and somehow managed to kill it and all its guards, game over right? Nope, using tactics, locking up his shooting units in CC with throw away infantry, positioning units out of LOS, trapping characters away from units they needed to buff, i was able to pull out a solid victory.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The effectiveness of units doesn't change at varying point levels. It merely affects how many you can take.
The effectiveness of units absolutely varies with point levels.
Take standard custodes for example. They are stronger and stronger the smaller the game. In small games they are likely to face mostly tactical marines and the like, and there they thrive.
Now look at a 2k game where said tactical marines have a castellan with them. The custodes are now an absolute waste of points.
#4 - Luck (6%). Yes, this is a dice game, but luck honestly has very little to do with it. At 6% you are, roughly speaking, saying that for every 20 times something happens, in the game, it happens in a way differently to what you expect in a way that actually matters. Sure, sometimes crazy things happen, but it rarely has that big of an impact, plus you are just as likely to have such a string of good or bad luck. The only way to influence this is to remove the luck element from your games by making things hit and wound on 2+ rerollables, and make things never get a save. That's possible to do, but you really start paying for it - it's not easy to do, and you leave yourself more and more open to being swarmed.
I strongly disagree with this part of your summary, mainly because you're only focusing on certain parts of "luck" and not others.
Getting first turn will massively influence the result of the game, and is mostly the outcome of luck. (Depending on game type, you can make yourself about 16% more likely to get first turn. That's it. Otherwise, it's a coin flip.) It's dependent on the matchup, but the difference between first turn usually leads to one side having a fairly significant advantage - It can mean the difference between getting hit with a Castellan's full shooting or not, the difference between getting charged after shooting once or shooting twice, or the difference between claiming a key objective or having it denied to you.
Large pools of dice may shake out consistently, but there are also a ton of abilities that rely on a single roll, where succeeding or failing can have a massive difference. Getting "The Passion" off on a squad of repentia will double their damage output, and with the right buffs to success it's still only a 50/50 shot. Making a long charge with a key unit is a crapshoot, even with tools to make it more reliable. If someone fails to get off Warptime or some other key power on turn one, it could mess up their positioning and change how the rest of the game goes.
"Back luck" isn't just the occasional crapshoot roll where you get three 1s on three dice, it's also major influencing factors that players have little control over.
It's a serious problem just how often dice are used in 40k.
They should be used, of course. Randomisation is necessary to add an element of unpredictability and avoid having the outcome of every match being possible to just calculate beforehand. Risk management is skill.
However, 40k takes this too far. If a weapon shoots d6 shots with d6 damage each, it's absolutely impossible to make any form of even semi-reliable assessment of what this weapon will achieve. At that point there's no skill, just blind guessing. And that is before you add in weapons with random strength and AP...
Waaaghpower wrote: I strongly disagree with this part of your summary, mainly because you're only focusing on certain parts of "luck" and not others.
I can appreciate your point there; there are certain singular rolls that matter far more than others. The roll for first turn is definitely one of them. However, I think GW and tournaments in general have done a phenomenal job of balancing out the first turn. GW introducing the "all your stuff is in cover" stratagem for going second is a game changer for a bunch of lists. Having games where the last person to act has a big advantage is a real advantage. Having armies that are able to negate an opponent's first turn (like the new GSC blips can do), is a real advantage. It's getting easier and easier to make lists that don't suffer as much from going second, which makes the luck problem like the one you've given matter less and less.
Like I said; if you have a good build, good tactics, and a good strategy, then your opponent going first or not shouldn't matter terribly too much. Just had a tournament, and I went second in my first two of three games, which I won, then went first in my last game, which I lost. I won my first game because I stomped my opponent on my list, strategy, and tactics. My opponent even agreed that his luck was fantastic turn 1, and after that the luck just went statistical everywhere. I won my second game on my strategy and tactics, though probably not by my list. My opponent only had Morty alive by the end of the game, but she admitted that she had no way of stopping me from doing what I needed to do to win. I lost my last game because of my tactics, but made it a super fun game because of my strategy.
I could say that, oh yeah I got lucky rolling a 6 for an advance roll; but I get 3d6 and pick the highest to advance with Kraken, and I can move again with the Swarmlord, and I can move again with Opportunistic Advance stratagem, and I can double my advance roll with another stratagem... so really, it wasn't luck, it was that I had the tools to be where I needed to be. I could say it was luck that I didn't kill a Daemon Prince in close combat, but I forced him to fight a unit of Stealers at -1 to hit, so he only killed 3 Stealers, and it let me keep farther away from Morty that game because my opponent kept these units very far away from each other, keeping the Prince back while diving Morty in, allowing me to totally avoid Morty when I chose to do so. I could say that it was luck that my Hive Guard only hit with 1 shot on the Custode Bikers out of 10 with 4+ to hit, but I still ended that game with Swarmlord vs a Custodes Captain on Jetbike, and those were the only two models left on the board, and I totally misplaced my Genestealers on their turn 1 move. Point is, while luck may have flavoured what happened in all my games, the prime determinants of who won or lost were all the decisions leading up to those moments, rather than how those moments exactly played out.
Melissia wrote: I think the question is a little self-defeating here. Big reason?
Army choice is part of your tactics. You build your army with the knowledge on how you want it to play.
What if there is no good way to play your army, Then what steal an army from someone else ?
However, 40k takes this too far. If a weapon shoots d6 shots with d6 damage each, it's absolutely impossible to make any form of even semi-reliable assessment of what this weapon will achieve. At that point there's no skill, just blind guessing
But doesn't it depend on point costs. Cheap random stuff is acceptable. If the d6 shots d6D weapon was on a carrier that costs 8-10pts, and you could take more then 3 units of them, it wouldn't be bad. Or if the units were bigger then 10 dudes. If you roll enough dice the avarges in rolling to smooth over. What is horrible is high cost single shot or few attacks weapon choices that cost in their 10s or 20s as points go. Those make no sense.
#2 - Tactics (24%). 8th Edition has a ton of these. By a "tactic", I mean a decision made that impacts the short-term result of the game. You just do what you're already doing, but differently. For example, you charge a unit into a tank. The player with weak tactical knowledge might just pile the models up to it. The tactically intelligent player puts a model at each corner of the vehicle such that the vehicle can no longer move out of combat and has "pinned" the unit in place. That's a tactic. A tactic can also be choosing which unit to charge in first with. Or the order in which you do shooting. Or remembering to use a stratagem. Etc. Point is, there's a lot of EASY stuff here, but it can be hard to remember it all because there really is just so much. Doing these things will massively change the effectiveness of your list.
2 things:
I would not consider piling in to prevent fall back a tactical choice. It's something you should always do if you charge units that are bad at melee and it doesn't take much skill to do it (luck is more important as you need to enough attack range to reach the far corner of the vehicle). There is no real decision making involved. Likewise the 'bring only one unit into melee range after charging' trick. You just do it if against non-melee units because you have nothing to gain from not doing it.
And I would not consider actions that break down to 'Do some math in your head and you find out which choice is optimal' tactical choices. This is something a poorly programmed computer could do.
It certainly is important though, just like other easy stuff you mentioned. But that's not really tactics and while I roughly agree with your importance percentages, if you split the 24% tactics into 'Remembering the easy stuff' and actual tactics, there is not much left for actual tactics.
Karol wrote: What if there is no good way to play your army
Then I suggest you stop being a defeatist and come up with one? Change the parameters. Change your tactics. Change the terrain. Change points values, as sometimes points values favor some armies over others. And so on.
Just because you can't figure out a way to win doesn't mean there isn't one. It just means you, personally, can't figure it out.
If I can win something like a 30-40% ratio of games with my terminator-based blood angels army, you can figure something out with yours.
Armies should be designed in such a way that I wouldn't have to force people to play with odd rules. specially as no one is going to agree to play with house rules that are put there just so I can win. Am not even sure I would want to play such rules either, what sense is there in playing games one knows one will win.
Karol wrote: Armies should be designed in such a way that I wouldn't have to force people to play with odd rules
"Let's play with more terrain on the board instead of having a blank flat plain." isn't a houserule. If your opponent is playing an army that benefits massively from there being little to no terrain on the field, why should YOU have to agree to giving them that advantage? It's not fair to you. If you continue to agree to that, that's really your own damn fault, you're literally choosing to cripple your army and then whining about it afterwards, and ain't nobody got time to listen to that crap.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The effectiveness of units doesn't change at varying point levels. It merely affects how many you can take.
The effectiveness of units absolutely varies with point levels.
Take standard custodes for example. They are stronger and stronger the smaller the game. In small games they are likely to face mostly tactical marines and the like, and there they thrive.
Now look at a 2k game where said tactical marines have a castellan with them. The custodes are now an absolute waste of points.
Not as long as there are certain units with better weapon saturation.
You're also naming a unit, the Castellan, that makes Custodes look bad regardless of point level as long as it can be included. The Tactical Marines will still perform badly vs the Custodes though.
Karol wrote: Armies should be designed in such a way that I wouldn't have to force people to play with odd rules
"Let's play with more terrain on the board instead of having a blank flat plain." isn't a houserule. If your opponent is playing an army that benefits massively from there being little to no terrain on the field, why should YOU have to agree to giving them that advantage? It's not fair to you. If you continue to agree to that, that's really your own damn fault, you're literally choosing to cripple your army and then whining about it afterwards, and ain't nobody got time to listen to that crap.
That doesn't help bad armies with bad units though. Your super casual meta where you use Terminators has no bearing on this discussion.
Slayer, you aren’t the arbitrator or valid metas. You can take that notion and stuff it.
Everyone plays in different metas. There is (nigh)infinite variations in which people can play. I play in a great meta where I can play 95% WYSIWYG with my friends and have fun, close games where I use the models I like and my friends gravitate to FOTM armies. I can assert that good tactics, which is to say good decision making in reaction to changing game states, can allow lower powered armies to achieve victory.
So your desire for an echo chamber isn’t going to find traction here. Describe your experience and refrain from dismissing others opinions just because you disagree.
I would not consider piling in to prevent fall back a tactical choice. It's something you should always do if you charge units that are bad at melee and it doesn't take much skill to do it (luck is more important as you need to enough attack range to reach the far corner of the vehicle). There is no real decision making involved. Likewise the 'bring only one unit into melee range after charging' trick. You just do it if against non-melee units because you have nothing to gain from not doing it.
And I would not consider actions that break down to 'Do some math in your head and you find out which choice is optimal' tactical choices. This is something a poorly programmed computer could do.
It certainly is important though, just like other easy stuff you mentioned. But that's not really tactics and while I roughly agree with your importance percentages, if you split the 24% tactics into 'Remembering the easy stuff' and actual tactics, there is not much left for actual tactics.
Then you are in error as to what constitutes a tactic, and what does not. It doesn't matter if it's easy or not, all that matters is that it's a choice or a method of doing something that produces an immediate or short-term impact. If it's more complicated because it's trying to impact future events, then that's a part of a strategy. Boxing in to trap a unit in is a tactic. Doing this because you are trying to reduce your opponent's decisions during their turn is part of your strategy.
My current army's strategy is to play ITC games by reducing my opponent's abilities to get to objectives, while having other units appear or quickly get to objectives so that I can win by scoring "hold more" each turn, claiming the bonus objective on whatever turns I can. My tactics I use to do that involve pinning and tagging units with my genestealers. I have a lot of different tactics for doing that, from using the Swarmlord to slingshot Genestealers (instead of himself) at opponents, to using stratagems that let me move instead of consolidate, to using Hive Guard and Exocrine and Cult Leman Russ Tank to reach units that I'm not able to reach with the Stealers.
EDIT: Oh, and I appreciate that you agree with the percentages. I went with a classic "60/40" rule. So of your 100% performance, 60% is your list. Of the remaining 40% I re-applied the 60/40 rule. Then did that again for strategy. Whatever was left, was likely the luck factor.
Of course tactics matter, a lot. Some will say that because there are dice involved in the game that it entirely based on luck, which is untrue. It is based on probability, knowledge of the rules, and decision making. All of those components are involved in the pregame, and during actual game play.
Some people get frustrated that they can't just take a random pile of units, call it an army, and expect to have tournament winning results simply because the point values are the same. That is a disconnect in pregame decision making, fail to prepare=prepare to fail, etc.
Similarly, some people will prepare a list that is good, but past the first turn forget to play the mission and get distracted by simply killing the enemy, and then are discouraged when they lose the game. That is a disconnect in knowlegde of the rules. A good player will know it is a good idea to spend two CPs to prevent a lone guardsman from fleeing from morale when keeping him around prevents the opponent from getting VPs from First Strike, killing a unit, and killing more than your opponent (a swing of 3 VPs). A mediocre or inferior player will just let that guardsman die because he's only 4 points and the thought of VPs never even occurred to him.
Other players will waste command points on rerolling a 5+ save on a unit that doesn't matter and when they fail they claim they just have 'bad luck', when in reality they have a disconnect in understanding probabilities. The result is the player being plagued by 'bad luck' every game, which in reality is a failure to improve probabilities.
Also as I read through this thread I find that there are some that have a very lofty idea of what tactics are. A common definition of a tactic is "an action or method that is planned and used to achieve a particular goal". The idea that tripodding, or screening, or deciding how many guys to charge into the enemy, or avoiding heroic interventions, etc. etc. etc, are not tactics, is just plain incorrect. They may not be tactics people like, or seem simplistic, but that doesn't mean they aren't tactics. Just because something isn't cinematic or realistic, doesn't mean it's isn't a tactic. The goal is to have as many tactics in your back pocket as you can, and then have the judgement to know when to use them (or when not to) to your benefit.
greatbigtree wrote: Slayer, you aren’t the arbitrator or valid metas. You can take that notion and stuff it.
Everyone plays in different metas. There is (nigh)infinite variations in which people can play. I play in a great meta where I can play 95% WYSIWYG with my friends and have fun, close games where I use the models I like and my friends gravitate to FOTM armies. I can assert that good tactics, which is to say good decision making in reaction to changing game states, can allow lower powered armies to achieve victory.
So your desire for an echo chamber isn’t going to find traction here. Describe your experience and refrain from dismissing others opinions just because you disagree.
The only valid metas are the ones where armies are pushed to their logical limits. That's the way it works.
If you don't think getting cover bonuses, forcing enemies to fire at -1 to-hit due to forcing movement, or even denying shots entirely won't help, then you clearly have never actually played the game, and I suggest you go learn how to before commenting.
And I realize this is a very dismissive comment, but to be frank, man, this is not a matter of opinion that we can respectfully disagree about. It's a matter of fact. Those things all help, and are all important in ensuring an army survives. It's not up for debate. They can, will, and do make the difference between a unit dying turn one, and surviving to make an impact, "bad" or not.
If you don't think getting cover bonuses, forcing enemies to fire at -1 to-hit due to forcing movement, or even denying shots entirely won't help, then you clearly have never actually played the game, and I suggest you go learn how to before commenting.
And I realize this is a very dismissive comment, but to be frank, man, this is not a matter of opinion that we can respectfully disagree about. It's a matter of fact. Those things all help, and are all important in ensuring an army survives. It's not up for debate. They can, will, and do make the difference between a unit dying turn one, and surviving to make an impact, "bad" or not.
Yeah that's assuming the opponent doesn't get the same frickin bonuses you JUST named.
"Use more terrain"
Okay, then the opponent gets it too. Now what?
Karol wrote: Armies should be designed in such a way that I wouldn't have to force people to play with odd rules
"Let's play with more terrain on the board instead of having a blank flat plain." isn't a houserule. If your opponent is playing an army that benefits massively from there being little to no terrain on the field, why should YOU have to agree to giving them that advantage? It's not fair to you. If you continue to agree to that, that's really your own damn fault, you're literally choosing to cripple your army and then whining about it afterwards, and ain't nobody got time to listen to that crap.
It is a house rule because most terrain in 8th is purely aesthetic thanks to the poor LOS and cover rules. Under the reasonable assumption that people aren't going to buy/build more terrain because one player wants it and throw out the existing stuff making LOS-based tactics work requires adding house rules that modify the LOS and cover rules to make existing terrain more significant.
greatbigtree wrote: I can assert that good tactics, which is to say good decision making in reaction to changing game states, can allow lower powered armies to achieve victory.
The point is that "good tactics" are only a small percentage of why your lower powered army is able to win. The primary factor is that your opponent voluntarily brought a similarly weak list instead of bringing a top-tier tournament list and wiping you off the table.
In my humble opinion, and according to my playing experience, asians, blacks and whites all can be equally good players and able tacticians, so yes, tactics matter enough regardless of your race.
Slayer, you’re becoming my second favourite poster.
Everyone’s meta is valid. For what reason would metas in which all lists are pushed to their limits be the only valid metas? Everyone would play the exact same “best” list at which point *only* luck and tactics would matter.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: You're also naming a unit, the Castellan, that makes Custodes look bad regardless of point level as long as it can be included. The Tactical Marines will still perform badly vs the Custodes though.
The castellan is a very good example of why some units are so much more powerful at certain points levels. Castellans are very difficult to fit into lower points games, which means Custodes are better as a result of one of their most powerful counters not existing.
Of course, castellan obliterates guardsmen too, but not as points-efficiently as it kills custodes.
I specifically mentioned that I play against high-end lists, with my best-I-can-with-what-I’ve-got lists, and pull a solid 50% win rate against optimized soups.
In fairness, I’m rocking Mono Guard and it’s hard to build a bad list, but I am outclassed on a strict power scale. I can still play a 35% win rate with Mono-Salamanders against soups. I take them for a spin when I want a real challenge.
I think the issue with most of the “list strength is everything” crowd is they don’t seem to try lower leveled lists. So you assume you can’t win because you have a lower chance, but that’s not the case. My direct experience with playing (*well* if I do say so myself) with models I like with a solid strategy is that I have answers to a lot of *questions* that my opponents might bring.
But... I know this is going down the “dismiss that which I have not experienced as impossible” road, and I’ve got supper to make. Happy rest of the weekend!
Tactics matter but I would say tactical play matters less in 8th than it has in the past few editions. It's more about weight of dice and wounds than positional gameplay or utilizing a slew of game mechanics.
Creeping Dementia wrote: Of course tactics matter, a lot. Some will say that because there are dice involved in the game that it entirely based on luck, which is untrue. It is based on probability, knowledge of the rules, and decision making. All of those components are involved in the pregame, and during actual game play.
Yes. As you say I think it comes down to a view of "what are tactics" - or the equally infamous "what is skill" debate.
You pretty much only have 100% control over what units you bring, how you deploy them and basic movement. Almost everything else is a function of dice rolling. But that doesn't mean its entirely random. Everything you do - from list building, to unit targeting, to keeping redundant units around to grab objectives is about stacking the odds in your favour.
If you roll nothing but 1s and they roll nothing but 6s you are almost certainly going to lose. This will happen from time to time. At the danger of abusing statistics though - I feel most games have a normal amount of luck on both sides, and the player with the better stats and tactics will tend to win out.
If it was purely about luck then you would expect to see a random assortment of people win tournaments every year. That is not the case, so it seems logical to assign those people who consistently do well some "skill" over those who don't. After all they must be doing something right - and since lists are reasonably publicly available - and many tournament players are happy to share their current thinking - I don't we can say its that.
Tyel wrote: If it was purely about luck then you would expect to see a random assortment of people win tournaments every year. That is not the case, so it seems logical to assign those people who consistently do well some "skill" over those who don't. After all they must be doing something right - and since lists are reasonably publicly available - and many tournament players are happy to share their current thinking - I don't we can say its that.
IMO this isn't really true. You're going to see the same people doing well because those are the people who are consistently attending tournaments. Not many people can afford to sink a ton of money and painting time (or even more money for commissions) into always having the best tournament army and then put even more time and money into traveling to major events. It's a small and strictly selected group even before you consider skill at all.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: You're also naming a unit, the Castellan, that makes Custodes look bad regardless of point level as long as it can be included. The Tactical Marines will still perform badly vs the Custodes though.
The castellan is a very good example of why some units are so much more powerful at certain points levels. Castellans are very difficult to fit into lower points games, which means Custodes are better as a result of one of their most powerful counters not existing.
Of course, castellan obliterates guardsmen too, but not as points-efficiently as it kills custodes.
The point is that the Castellan is effective at all point levels. You really cannot deny that.
Everyone’s meta is valid. For what reason would metas in which all lists are pushed to their limits be the only valid metas? Everyone would play the exact same “best” list at which point *only* luck and tactics would matter.
Your assertion is self-defeating.
It's because a super casual player and/or area won't have a general idea about what's actually going on in the game. It isn't that difficult to grasp what my post was about.
Karol wrote: Armies should be designed in such a way that I wouldn't have to force people to play with odd rules
"Let's play with more terrain on the board instead of having a blank flat plain." isn't a houserule. If your opponent is playing an army that benefits massively from there being little to no terrain on the field, why should YOU have to agree to giving them that advantage? It's not fair to you. If you continue to agree to that, that's really your own damn fault, you're literally choosing to cripple your army and then whining about it afterwards, and ain't nobody got time to listen to that crap.
Because my opponents are having fun and have no problems with finding people to play. We also have to pay for using the store tables, and the terrain is largely pre set, getting more terrain would mean I would have to not only make my opponent be ok with it, but also take away the terrain from a table other people play. Not impossible, but hard to do, because any No means my opponent walks away and plays someone else. I would just like to win some games, or failing that don't get laugh at when I try to sell the army to some new guy at the store.
think the issue with most of the “list strength is everything” crowd is they don’t seem to try lower leveled lists. So you assume you can’t win because you have a lower chance, but that’s not the case. My direct experience with playing (*well* if I do say so myself) with models I like with a solid strategy is that I have answers to a lot of *questions* that my opponents might bring.
I understand that this is not the case for everyone, but for some people spending 200-300$ only to find out if the weaker or bad units are really that bad, is not really an option.
With all the windows, gaps between trees etc ? One would have to play with sheets of cardboard as terrain or something like that. And then knights would see over most walls anyway, as terrain has to be low enough to be stored. No idea how terrain worked in other editions, but in this one all it does is play tricks on people with bikes or big models.
I would not consider piling in to prevent fall back a tactical choice. It's something you should always do if you charge units that are bad at melee and it doesn't take much skill to do it (luck is more important as you need to enough attack range to reach the far corner of the vehicle). There is no real decision making involved. Likewise the 'bring only one unit into melee range after charging' trick. You just do it if against non-melee units because you have nothing to gain from not doing it.
And I would not consider actions that break down to 'Do some math in your head and you find out which choice is optimal' tactical choices. This is something a poorly programmed computer could do.
It certainly is important though, just like other easy stuff you mentioned. But that's not really tactics and while I roughly agree with your importance percentages, if you split the 24% tactics into 'Remembering the easy stuff' and actual tactics, there is not much left for actual tactics.
Then you are in error as to what constitutes a tactic, and what does not. It doesn't matter if it's easy or not, all that matters is that it's a choice or a method of doing something that produces an immediate or short-term impact. If it's more complicated because it's trying to impact future events, then that's a part of a strategy. Boxing in to trap a unit in is a tactic. Doing this because you are trying to reduce your opponent's decisions during their turn is part of your strategy.
My current army's strategy is to play ITC games by reducing my opponent's abilities to get to objectives, while having other units appear or quickly get to objectives so that I can win by scoring "hold more" each turn, claiming the bonus objective on whatever turns I can. My tactics I use to do that involve pinning and tagging units with my genestealers. I have a lot of different tactics for doing that, from using the Swarmlord to slingshot Genestealers (instead of himself) at opponents, to using stratagems that let me move instead of consolidate, to using Hive Guard and Exocrine and Cult Leman Russ Tank to reach units that I'm not able to reach with the Stealers.
EDIT: Oh, and I appreciate that you agree with the percentages. I went with a classic "60/40" rule. So of your 100% performance, 60% is your list. Of the remaining 40% I re-applied the 60/40 rule. Then did that again for strategy. Whatever was left, was likely the luck factor.
I don't wanna argue about what counts as tactics and what does not, because it doesn't really help with the original question.
But I guess what we can agree on is that the 'easy stuff' is not what OP thought of when creating this thread.
Peregrine wrote: It is a house rule because most terrain in 8th is purely aesthetic thanks to the poor LOS and cover rules.
Says who? Terrain can easily block line of sight entirely.
Not the typical terrain people use, or that GW sells. One fingertip of a model visible is the same as no terrain at all, and most terrain is full of holes that will allow you to see that fingertip. To fix this you either need to house rule that the holes don't count, or make your own terrain that has solid walls.
Peregrine wrote: It is a house rule because most terrain in 8th is purely aesthetic thanks to the poor LOS and cover rules.
Says who? Terrain can easily block line of sight entirely.
Not the typical terrain people use, or that GW sells. One fingertip of a model visible is the same as no terrain at all, and most terrain is full of holes that will allow you to see that fingertip. To fix this you either need to house rule that the holes don't count, or make your own terrain that has solid walls.
I find that tactics (in the sense of this never-ending discussion on dakka about whether it exists in 40k) effectively means manoeuvre, and the only way to achieve that with any sense of impact in 40k is to play a smaller point size game on a normal 6x4 with at least 4 large pieces of LOS blocking terrain. Then the game can become more about positioning than just who's list can chuck out the most dice.
40K isn't balanced well enough for you army choice to not matter. There are very good units and very bad units even in overall good armies. Bad luck and bad tactics CAN torpedo any army, but that's not the same as good tactics triumphing regardless of opposition.
Yeah, i have decided after reading this thread it would be fine to have my "look" based army fight anyone. This might require more tactics and dice rolling luck, but at the end of the day, if i can beat a army with a so called "Good List" then i can be extremely proud that i was able to take what i have and win.
Thank you all for you're thoughts and help, really appreciate it.
jeffersonian000 wrote: I use real world tactics quite a bit in 40k, one of which is the Refused Flank in non-objective games (moving my entire force to one side while my opponent is spread out, which maximizes my firepower while minimizing his). Another good one Enfilade and Defilade positioning (maximizing my firepower into my enemy while minimizing their return fire via positioning and use of line of sight blocking terrain).
Sure, games are won in the list building phase, but they lost due poor use and/or lack of terrain. Satisfaction comes from playing smarter and making less mistakes than your opponent who is also playing an optimized list just like you are.
Stormatious wrote: Do tactics matter enough to effect a win regardless of your army/race?, this is a follow up to people saying my army is gak and me thinking they're wrong no matter how much facts there are lollll.
Like for e.g could 30 troops face off against 120 troops and win?
I imagine you're somewhat directing this at me. I wasn't saying your army is the worst thing ever, just that it isn't an ultra-competitive list. You can still have fun with it, you just are unlikely to be winning tournaments with it. Tactics absolutely matter, but they're not the most important thing in the game. I'd rank the game's primary influencers of who will win a game in the following manner;
#1 - List Strength (60%). If you have a strong list, you're lowering the difficulty of the game. There are many models that are better for the points you're spending on them than an equivalent amount of points spent nearly anywhere else. Plasma Guns aren't expensive, but deal way, way, way more damage, and deal that damage more reliably, than a model with a bolter. Take 5 Marines, with one having a Plasma, and have them fight a unit of 6 Marines. The unit with the Plasma should win almost every time, regardless of other factors. The person with the 5 Marines + Plasma built a better list than the one who took 6 Marines. Maybe in another "meta" the 6 Marines would've been better (say, against Orks), but in this matchup, and indeed in most matchups, the 5 Marines + Plasma is better.
#2 - Tactics (24%). 8th Edition has a ton of these. By a "tactic", I mean a decision made that impacts the short-term result of the game. You just do what you're already doing, but differently. For example, you charge a unit into a tank. The player with weak tactical knowledge might just pile the models up to it. The tactically intelligent player puts a model at each corner of the vehicle such that the vehicle can no longer move out of combat and has "pinned" the unit in place. That's a tactic. A tactic can also be choosing which unit to charge in first with. Or the order in which you do shooting. Or remembering to use a stratagem. Etc. Point is, there's a lot of EASY stuff here, but it can be hard to remember it all because there really is just so much. Doing these things will massively change the effectiveness of your list.
#3 - Strategy (10%). If anything, I would say the actual strategy of 40k is the part that has the least depth. Strategy is your long-term, or even game-long plan that will influence your tactics. A good tactic may be to put a unit near 3 objectives so you can easily go to whichever one you need to hold. A good strategy is choosing to go for one of those three so that your opponent moves into a different position. List Building is, technically, part of strategy, and I would say that your choice of trying to plan against the "meta" here is where this is important. In other words, List Strength is 60% of your game, but you can make it 70% by correctly guessing the meta, or drop it to 50% by guessing incorrectly. Having a plan for your list is very important, but at this point you're putting a lot of effort into something that will only matter against people that have also nearly maxed out the other 84% of their ability through List Strength and Tactics.
#4 - Luck (6%). Yes, this is a dice game, but luck honestly has very little to do with it. At 6% you are, roughly speaking, saying that for every 20 times something happens, in the game, it happens in a way differently to what you expect in a way that actually matters. Sure, sometimes crazy things happen, but it rarely has that big of an impact, plus you are just as likely to have such a string of good or bad luck. The only way to influence this is to remove the luck element from your games by making things hit and wound on 2+ rerollables, and make things never get a save. That's possible to do, but you really start paying for it - it's not easy to do, and you leave yourself more and more open to being swarmed.
So, there you go. That's my breakdown. 30 Tactical marines should always lose to 120 Tactical Marines, regardless of strategy or tactics or even luck. 30 Rubric Marines, on the other hand, might be able to use Tactics and Strategy to defeat 120 Tactical Marines. 30 Obliterators will laugh off 120 Tactical Marines, and then eat another 120 just for good measure.
Thank you for this very in-depth information surrounding my questions, and yeah i know you don't mean its the worse thing ever, i should have worded it differently, perhaps " not effective enough to be considered winnable", or some thing. But yeah i will read over what you said again to get it locked in my brain.
Thank you.
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Moriarty wrote: Tactics matter in 40k? Not really, not until points represent how effective a unit is in isolation. Then tactics matter in getting them into the best position to do their job.
Yeah, so it would be good to Analise the terrain you are playing on and determine what the most tactically beneficial area to start them off in would be.
Peregrine wrote: It is a house rule because most terrain in 8th is purely aesthetic thanks to the poor LOS and cover rules.
Says who? Terrain can easily block line of sight entirely.
Not the typical terrain people use, or that GW sells. One fingertip of a model visible is the same as no terrain at all, and most terrain is full of holes that will allow you to see that fingertip. To fix this you either need to house rule that the holes don't count, or make your own terrain that has solid walls.
Yeah i guess terrain setup can really determine a lot in how you go about tactics.
Tactics matter if both players bring lists that reflect a combined understanding of what kind of game both players want. If we both take grey knights and assume we both generally role average, then the player that makes better in game decisions and a better understanding of probability will prevail most of the time.
If the above does not happen, then yes, it will come down almost purely to who took a better list from the strongest factions. No one should be under any illusion that this is not true. Lack of the proper amount of terrain will only make this worse.
All of the above is why I find competitive 40k fairly unappealing. It pretty much means that most factions, unit choices and equipment aren't worth taking and what you will see on a table top will be very limited. That's boring to me in game that has such variety and history of models and table top terrain options.
HoundsofDemos wrote: Tactics matter if both players bring lists that reflect a combined understanding of what kind of game both players want. If we both take grey knights and assume we both generally role average, then the player that makes better in game decisions and a better understanding of probability will prevail most of the time.
If the above does not happen, then yes, it will come down almost purely to who took a better list from the strongest factions. No one should be under any illusion that this is not true. Lack of the proper amount of terrain will only make this worse.
All of the above is why I find competitive 40k fairly unappealing. It pretty much means that most factions, unit choices and equipment aren't worth taking and what you will see on a table top will be very limited. That's boring to me in game that has such variety and history of models and table top terrain options.
Yeah it is a bit unappealing, i don't like this whole, less models on field and less time consumed, i don't care how much time it takes. ( the sound of the older games that took longer alot more time sounded better )
Stormatious wrote: Oh ok, im getting it, and feel after this conversation that with the right tactics my army can win.
Thank you.
I'm genuinely curious: how did you reach that conclusion after reading this thread? That's the opposite of what's been said. With one possible exception, everyone has pointed out that 40k's tactics are pretty shallow and it's list building, rather than tactics, that win games.
I mean with the right tactics and also every thing else, but tactics still mattering.
40k really is what you make it. I've always preferred making my own terrain, and I do so to create interesting board options.
Things like Hills. We have a house-rule that 1" incline has no effect on movement, 2" incline is difficult terrain (was, no longer an issue) and 3" incline was impassable. That lets us build LOS blocking terrain that also limits movement through a plane... unless you "Fly".
With our ruined buildings, we've taken to making most of our (foamboard) ruins have at least one facing that's 9" tall and 9" wide. Something a Knight can hide behind / be hidden from. While we still include windows, it's easy enough to put some inside walls in place to prevent LOS, or to stagger small windows so that it's *very difficult* to draw LOS through.
Forests... we either houserule that shooting through a forest gives cover to the units behind, or that 3" of forest blocks LOS. It's stupid that it doesn't. Same thing with low walls and the like.
I acknowledge that the game shouldn't need houserules to be fun / playable, but 40k is what I make it. After 20 years, I'd rather have a fun time with friends than be super-hardcore about adhering to the RAW. We have a better time playing that way, and we find more interesting games as a result.
I hope you enjoy your Black Legion! That's how I started back in 2nd edition, with Abbadon leading my Termies to occasional wins!
greatbigtree wrote: 40k really is what you make it. I've always preferred making my own terrain, and I do so to create interesting board options.
Things like Hills. We have a house-rule that 1" incline has no effect on movement, 2" incline is difficult terrain (was, no longer an issue) and 3" incline was impassable. That lets us build LOS blocking terrain that also limits movement through a plane... unless you "Fly".
With our ruined buildings, we've taken to making most of our (foamboard) ruins have at least one facing that's 9" tall and 9" wide. Something a Knight can hide behind / be hidden from. While we still include windows, it's easy enough to put some inside walls in place to prevent LOS, or to stagger small windows so that it's *very difficult* to draw LOS through.
Forests... we either houserule that shooting through a forest gives cover to the units behind, or that 3" of forest blocks LOS. It's stupid that it doesn't. Same thing with low walls and the like.
I acknowledge that the game shouldn't need houserules to be fun / playable, but 40k is what I make it. After 20 years, I'd rather have a fun time with friends than be super-hardcore about adhering to the RAW. We have a better time playing that way, and we find more interesting games as a result.
I hope you enjoy your Black Legion! That's how I started back in 2nd edition, with Abbadon leading my Termies to occasional wins!
Hey cool man that's awesome you started with Black Legion . Yeah i agree with you regarding house rules and having fun.
Stormatious wrote: Yeah, i have decided after reading this thread it would be fine to have my "look" based army fight anyone. This might require more tactics and dice rolling luck, but at the end of the day, if i can beat a army with a so called "Good List" then i can be extremely proud that i was able to take what i have and win.
IOW, the post earlier about your attitude nailed it: you aren't looking for discussion, you're just looking for people to agree with you so you can "prove" that you're right. in a thread full of people saying that tactics are minimized and list building is the most important factor you somehow manage to single out the minority view agreeing with you and conclude that your poorly-optimized army can fight anyone.
Stormatious wrote: Yeah, i have decided after reading this thread it would be fine to have my "look" based army fight anyone. This might require more tactics and dice rolling luck, but at the end of the day, if i can beat a army with a so called "Good List" then i can be extremely proud that i was able to take what i have and win.
IOW, the post earlier about your attitude nailed it: you aren't looking for discussion, you're just looking for people to agree with you so you can "prove" that you're right. in a thread full of people saying that tactics are minimized and list building is the most important factor you somehow manage to single out the minority view agreeing with you and conclude that your poorly-optimized army can fight anyone.
Yeah you assume. Im looking to see how much tactics matter, and based on the discussion of this thread i have concluded i can fight any one, that doesn't mean im dismissing the fact they are saying tactics are minimal, not every is saying tactics are completely minimal, and infact if you look at some other posts here you can see that tactics can play a strong part depending on circumstances, like terrain for e.g.
Don't know why you think im trying to do what you say.
I never said i have concluded i can win against any one. Man talk about taking what i say out of context
Peregrine wrote: It is a house rule because most terrain in 8th is purely aesthetic thanks to the poor LOS and cover rules.
Says who? Terrain can easily block line of sight entirely.
Not in the current edition and not with official gw terrain.
Only super small msu units have hope to hind behind los, and only if you house rule all those windows and doors to not exist.
Peregrine wrote: It is a house rule because most terrain in 8th is purely aesthetic thanks to the poor LOS and cover rules.
Says who? Terrain can easily block line of sight entirely.
Not in the current edition and not with official gw terrain.
Only super small msu units have hope to hind behind los, and only if you house rule all those windows and doors to not exist.
Why would you be limited to official terrain anyway? This is THE hobby for people who like to build things, creating terrain that provides cover and eye-candy should be trivial. You people do also realize there are official GW sanctioned rules for terrain both in the main rulebook and Chapter Approved and it's only your own fault if you aren't using hit minuses, harder cover saves, hindered movement and all the other things terrain has going for it before we even need to start houseruling things?
Sherrypie wrote: Why would you be limited to official terrain anyway? This is THE hobby for people who like to build things, creating terrain that provides cover and eye-candy should be trivial.
Because most player-made terrain looks like . Getting to the quality of GW's terrain kits requires way more effort than most people are willing to spend on terrain, so you either buy the GW kits or have a table that looks like . And obviously many/most people choose the GW kits.
You people do also realize there are official GW sanctioned rules for terrain both in the main rulebook and Chapter Approved and it's only your own fault if you aren't using hit minuses, harder cover saves, hindered movement and all the other things terrain has going for it before we even need to start houseruling things?
Those additional rules only apply to the Cities of Death expansion, not to normal games.
Sherrypie wrote: Why would you be limited to official terrain anyway? This is THE hobby for people who like to build things, creating terrain that provides cover and eye-candy should be trivial.
Because most player-made terrain looks like . Getting to the quality of GW's terrain kits requires way more effort than most people are willing to spend on terrain, so you either buy the GW kits or have a table that looks like . And obviously many/most people choose the GW kits.
Now that's just both lazy and silly. Great many hobbyists have excellent tables without any GW kits besides occasional bits here and there. Other manufacturers also exist if one is in no position to make their own, like Deathray or Gamemat.eu. Even if one was to choose to only use GW kits for some bizarre reason, all those windows and holes can be arranged so you can't necessarily peer through entire buildings from every angle unless you are also very lazy or careless in the way you put them on the table.
You people do also realize there are official GW sanctioned rules for terrain both in the main rulebook and Chapter Approved and it's only your own fault if you aren't using hit minuses, harder cover saves, hindered movement and all the other things terrain has going for it before we even need to start houseruling things?
Those additional rules only apply to the Cities of Death expansion, not to normal games.
What's normal is up to the players at the table, I can tell you for a fact that my local group uses those as the norm because they make the game so much better. I'm pointing them out here because too often people in these discussions seem to be somehow unaware of their existence or refuse to accept they are there while crying out for exactly those kinds of rules to be added into the game. If people think terrain doesn't matter in the game, start using rules that make it matter: these are sanctioned with the GW stamp if that matters and they work well, knock yourself out.
Tactics don't really come into play if both players are comfortable with their armies and know how to play them optimally. I could see there being some strategy involved in the meta gaming of trying to win an event but as far as the official ruleset is concerned, there isn't much room for tactics in a match between two experienced players. An experienced player can definitely destroy a newbie with a subpar list via skill alone, but that's only because the newbie doesn't really know how to play yet.
Treated purely as a sport, Warhammer 40k is actually pretty dull. Which is why I assume the average 40k player doesn't treat it that way.
Peregrine wrote: It is a house rule because most terrain in 8th is purely aesthetic thanks to the poor LOS and cover rules.
Says who? Terrain can easily block line of sight entirely.
Not in the current edition and not with official gw terrain.
Only super small msu units have hope to hind behind los, and only if you house rule all those windows and doors to not exist.
Why would you be limited to official terrain anyway? This is THE hobby for people who like to build things, creating terrain that provides cover and eye-candy should be trivial. You people do also realize there are official GW sanctioned rules for terrain both in the main rulebook and Chapter Approved and it's only your own fault if you aren't using hit minuses, harder cover saves, hindered movement and all the other things terrain has going for it before we even need to start houseruling things?
Because I play in game clubs, and club owners use official GW terrain to play GW games. Sounds reasonable, right? Assuming that official GW terrain is not suitable for GW games is ridiculous.
Because I play in game clubs, and club owners use official GW terrain to play GW games. Sounds reasonable, right? Assuming that official GW terrain is not suitable for GW games is ridiculous.
That's fair and reasonable, sure. That does not mean one couldn't use it better in the light of the current edition either by putting more on the table, aligning existing pieces in such a fashion they limit line of sight over longer distances better, building higher and more enclosed structures, using Citied of Death and other more indepth rules for said terrain and so forth. The rules are also written to encompass all sorts of tables quite freely, not just GW's pretty looking cheeseblocks filled with holes, it's the players who decide how much they wish terrain to influence their experience.
If you say terrain can't block line of sight in the current edition, you're simply wrong. If you say that's because of GW's current kits, you're less wrong, but still somewhat as using those alone (built in such a fashion that there are no solid walls anywhere / not going high enough) is a choice and not any forced standard in the rules. I get many people don't do terrain themselves, which is a shame as it's really fun, but I don't get why so many use that as any sort of argumentative leverage against the rules. The problem is not the physical terrain, it is in the way you lay it out on the table that clashes with how the rules are written.
You want the terrain to matter more? Use Cities of Death, where even that official GW rubble gives you penalties to hit and cover saves instead of complaining how those rules don't exist.
Don't want to use CoD? Build tighter ruins, position more ruins closer to each other so there really is no LoS through, use liberal heaps of scatter terrain to block streets and open windows.
Heck, just use different elevations on the field. People seem to have forgotten hills and slopes exist during the last decade, haven't seen those in pictures for years. Just putting some books under your game mat can drastically alter the mileage you get out of your GW ruins situated on top of them.
We have 2 and a half tables to play here. The half is a really nice infinity table. It really isn't suited for w40k, plus one would have to fight the infinity guys to use it. This leaves two other tables to play with. There are buildings and hills, a lot of terrain for WFB and warmachine and WWII games. They also have at least one of most terrain sets GW made this edition, plus some other plastic stuff, which maybe GW too, but am just guesing.
All the terrain has a ton of windows, doors, gaps, are is in that odd form which makes playing a realistic street pointless. We mostly deploy the buildings in arrow formations facing the opponents deployment zones and plop some LoS breakers in the middle. It is still not enough. There is too much stuff that ignores LoS or just flies over it.
we have no tried CoD here, I don't think anyone owns it, as the box was general considered not worth the huge cost here. I don't think our store even had more then one box of it.
Now that's just both lazy and silly. Great many hobbyists have excellent tables without any GW kits besides occasional bits here and there. Other manufacturers also exist if one is in no position to make their own, like Deathray or Gamemat.eu. Even if one was to choose to only use GW kits for some bizarre reason, all those windows and holes can be arranged so you can't necessarily peer through entire buildings from every angle unless you are also very lazy or careless in the way you put them on the table.
Buying terrain for a store, when your army suck seems like a bad idea to me. I wouldn't do it even if I had the money. Am not sure which GW terrain you think about as the windows and doors go, but the ruins block LoS to maybe a grot or a model that is kneeling or crawling.
Castellan knight is totally fine. It's just the players fault. Should they play monofaction, solo knights will not have screen and limitless CP for all those strategems. It is a shame that players do not change their way to play for better experience.
See? Not every player will accept the game with monofactions only. Not every player will accept houserules or CoD in regular games, as well as 4x times amount of terrain just to make solid losblocks, and even then there are too many doors, slits and windows. Should just a tiny piece of my marine's purity seal be vidible and all this buildings magically disappeared for this shooting phase. This was never a thing in previous editions.
It's ok to play in your local groups with houserules and certain addons, but it is not expected in average tournament and pick-up games.
Castellan knight is totally fine. It's just the players fault. Should they play monofaction, solo knights will not have screen and limitless CP for all those strategems. It is a shame that players do not change their way to play for better experience.
See? Not every player will accept the game with monofactions only. Not every player will accept houserules or CoD in regular games, as well as 4x times amount of terrain just to make solid losblocks, and even then there are too many doors, slits and windows. Should just a tiny piece of my marine's purity seal be vidible and all this buildings magically disappeared for this shooting phase. This was never a thing in previous editions.
It's ok to play in your local groups with houserules and certain addons, but it is not expected in average tournament and pick-up games.
how about solid 9-11" tall labyrinth of styrofoam? You could even model them in a such a way that a knight could only fit in to some "streets" Whole armies could run around it, if they were fast enough.
Castellan knight is totally fine. It's just the players fault. Should they play monofaction, solo knights will not have screen and limitless CP for all those strategems. It is a shame that players do not change their way to play for better experience.
See? Not every player will accept the game with monofactions only. Not every player will accept houserules or CoD in regular games, as well as 4x times amount of terrain just to make solid losblocks, and even then there are too many doors, slits and windows. Should just a tiny piece of my marine's purity seal be vidible and all this buildings magically disappeared for this shooting phase. This was never a thing in previous editions.
It's ok to play in your local groups with houserules and certain addons, but it is not expected in average tournament and pick-up games.
how about solid 9-11" tall labyrinth of styrofoam? You could even model them in a such a way that a knight could only fit in to some "streets" Whole armies could run around it, if they were fast enough.
I play at the store, can only use terrain which is there or stuff which is part of the army. Even If I got the materials somehow, and created the terrain, I would have no way to transport it to the store. Plus they would have to store the normal store terrain somewhere, as they don't have enough space to fit all under the tables.
Stormatious wrote: Yeah, i have decided after reading this thread it would be fine to have my "look" based army fight anyone. This might require more tactics and dice rolling luck, but at the end of the day, if i can beat a army with a so called "Good List" then i can be extremely proud that i was able to take what i have and win.
IOW, the post earlier about your attitude nailed it: you aren't looking for discussion, you're just looking for people to agree with you so you can "prove" that you're right. in a thread full of people saying that tactics are minimized and list building is the most important factor you somehow manage to single out the minority view agreeing with you and conclude that your poorly-optimized army can fight anyone.
Well they can fight anyone, they're just not going to win much. I don't think anyone's advocating for a world where poorly optimized armies are not allowed to be fielded against superior ones. What a merry world that would be.
The inescapable fact is, 40k is generally broken on most levels. The great 8th edition overhaul just shuffled around which bits of it are garbage, it didn't actually improve the the game's quality as a whole in any appreciable way. The yokels at GW are totally incapable or unwilling to design a ruleset that actually works, which, for people with, presumably, "Game designer" printed on their business cards, is truly pathetic.
Castellan knight is totally fine. It's just the players fault. Should they play monofaction, solo knights will not have screen and limitless CP for all those strategems. It is a shame that players do not change their way to play for better experience.
See? Not every player will accept the game with monofactions only. Not every player will accept houserules or CoD in regular games, as well as 4x times amount of terrain just to make solid losblocks, and even then there are too many doors, slits and windows. Should just a tiny piece of my marine's purity seal be vidible and all this buildings magically disappeared for this shooting phase. This was never a thing in previous editions.
It's ok to play in your local groups with houserules and certain addons, but it is not expected in average tournament and pick-up games.
I know you're trying to be snarky, but what you're saying is also partly true. It IS a shame players don't want to change their way of playing for making a better experience on both sides, because that is the proper road to good games of 40k: talking with your opponent about what sort of game you want to play first. I know I wouldn't bring superheavies on the table without asking my opponent first, outside tournaments where powerplay is the name of the game. Nor would many others, even if it is legal and cool to do so. Reasonable adults and stuff, you know?
I know some people don't like using stuff like CoD, but that does not mean it isn't better as it directly somewhat counters the constant complaining about shooting a toenail sticking out over a corner. "Fine, shoot away, but take -1." Current GW tends towards giving players a buffet of parts they can use or not, so even if I'd like CoD rules to just be the standard, it's not likely while tournament folks like to have the core rules reasonably streamlined. Personally I just find it odd that someone wouldn't use them if they have some beef with the simplistic ones, especially if their opponents are more easily swayed towards official GW products.
I also know it might not be the expected baseline for pick-up games, but If you'd like to have such culture fostered in your area, how about approaching it like Beta Rules? Take your CA18 in hand, show CoD to your opponents and ask nicely if they'd be interested in trying them out. "As a test..." Nothing lost if they just say no, eventually someone might be intrigued enough and the show gets rolling. The expectation of using just the baseline usually already includes the latest faqs and beta rules, why not try one more layer to make it more interesting?
Karol, the Cities of Death rules are not the same thing as Urban Conquest. You can find one version of them in the main rulebook or the updated one in Chapter Approved 18.
While some of what you say has merit, GW should be making rules for the customers it has, not the ones it wishes it had. 40k gamers have historically mostly rejected optional rules such as Cities of Death, and have preferred competitive games to narrative ones. For the past 20 years, anyway.
we have no tried CoD here, I don't think anyone owns it, as the box was general considered not worth the huge cost here. I don't think our store even had more then one box of it.
The latest version of the Cities of Death rules can be found in chapter approved 2018. You don't need anything else to play CoD.
Technically GW has no such compulsion and their designers work with the competitive crowd from the framework they have, which sometimes leads to baffling decisions like cutting granularity from terrain rules to the optional rules. They are however toying around with them and as we have seen, the current process they use often finds to 40k through other games like AoS or Kill Team. Especially in Kill Team, they've been pushing very similar ideas as they have in CoD (-1 to hit from obscuration, close confines...) while trying the competitive waters with tourney packs and now Arena. If they feel confident enough or get good feedback from players, they might eventually try to nudge that into the main 40k rules. That would ease some complaining about nonexisting terrain rules.
Also, remember that whereas previously many folk have rejected optional rules, they've been some singular designers "for fun" thoughts more than serious attempts and nowadays we have the whole beta rule system which competitive people too seem to embrace wholeheartedly. Things like detachment limits, smite nerf, astartes bolters and such are similarily optional as CoD are but many use them as they were immediately carved into stone. If GW were at some point come out and more confidently say "yup, we'd like to make these the base rules for terrain" with the exactly same setup they currently have in CoD, I bet quite a lot of people would be happy even if they wouldn't previously have touched the "optional" rules.
Agamemnon2 wrote: While some of what you say has merit, GW should be making rules for the customers it has, not the ones it wishes it had. 40k gamers have historically mostly rejected optional rules such as Cities of Death, and have preferred competitive games to narrative ones. For the past 20 years, anyway.
And yet 8th edition seems to be very popular judging by GW's sales figures and the feedback online (possibly an echo chamber effect). 8th has some of the most bare bones rules ever and is far more of an exercise in optimal list building winning games over a focus on tactical depth. People want "competitive" but it also seems that mind numbingly basic rules are fine if balance is decent.
Optional rule sets seem to get limited adoption but if it's labeled as beta rules or some formation (basically not sold as an optional rule) then it gets generally picked up no matter the quality of the rule. It takes a horribly bad core rule change to be ignored such as the idiotic "drop pod doors count as the vehicle hull" ruling from the 7th edition big FAQ.
For me personally, the lack of meaningful cover rules is the straw that broke the camel's back. I was almost fine with them taking away my Medusa and Colossus, and wept bitter tears when they excised my Penal Legionnaires and Rough Riders, but this isn't fun anymore.
Fifth edition wasn't perfect, but it was what I played the best of my games with. Nearly everything they've added to 40k since then, for the Guard especially, has been something I didn't want, and almost every single thing they've cut out of the codex has been something I did. I'm just sad and disappointed because I know I can't compete in this brave new world of gods and monsters. So I'll probably not want to play the game, and I say that as someone who just spent god knows now much money on three codices and CA18 so that I could.
And yet 8th edition seems to be very popular judging by GW's sales figures and the feedback online (possibly an echo chamber effect). 8th has some of the most bare bones rules ever and is far more of an exercise in optimal list building winning games over a focus on tactical depth. People want "competitive" but it also seems that mind numbingly basic rules are fine if balance is decent.
What's curious to me is that they pared the core rules down to the bone, and then introduced the complicated stratagem rules to compensate, so now there's entire tournament list-building strategies devoted to maximizing your CP, and metagame builds revolve around stacking relics and strats on units until your Blood Angels captain can thunderhammer titans to death. I don't really see how this is an improvement over past editions.
Agamemnon2 wrote: For me personally, the lack of meaningful cover rules is the straw that broke the camel's back. I was almost fine with them taking away my Medusa and Colossus, and wept bitter tears when they excised my Penal Legionnaires and Rough Riders, but this isn't fun anymore.
Fifth edition wasn't perfect, but it was what I played the best of my games with. Nearly everything they've added to 40k since then, for the Guard especially, has been something I didn't want, and almost every single thing they've cut out of the codex has been something I did. I don't think there's anything they could do at this point to make me want to try 8th edition, and I say that as someone who just spent god knows now much money on three codices and CA18 so that I could.
Out of curiosity, did you try CoD and other "optionals" in the rules before coming to that conclusion?
I've not played 8th. Between my unimpressed reading of the rules, the games I've seen played, and the bizarre metagame (and the accompanying complaints), I'm just not feeling motivated enough.
At any rate, my army is very fragile, and taking them out to a game is not something I do lightly, as damage to them is annoying and discouraging to have to constantly repair.
Since the reality where people play tends to differ from this weird world of the internet where everything is soup-Castellans all day erryday and you have smashcaptains launched out of Whirlwinds flying all over the place, one might find it very different to their expectations through play. 8th edition has a wonderful core system for those games where people don't aim for the maximum alpha death and instead are willing to talk with their opponents about what they'd like to see on the field and then expand the core towards that. It's not hard to bolt on stuff like better terrain rules in a group of likeminded people. If you're from around Helsinki area, hit me a PM and let's try a game out someday
To not be so nefative all the time, it does warm my heart that Ogryns are apparently worth taking in the current edition. Seeing as how I own approximately fifteen of them.
Peregrine wrote:
Because most player-made terrain looks like . Getting to the quality of GW's terrain kits requires way more effort than most people are willing to spend on terrain, so you either buy the GW kits or have a table that looks like . And obviously many/most people choose the GW kits.
'People being lazy' isn't an excuse. The options are out there, and are within the abilities of most people.
Finding examples of good quality home made terrain, and how to guides is trivially easy. Finding examples of good quality third party terrain options is likewise trivially easy.
Peregrine wrote:
Those additional rules only apply to the Cities of Death expansion, not to normal games.
Its an option. Players can use it. It's on them. 'Normal' is a relative term. What you choose to use becomes the new 'normal' Choosing to straightjacket yourself with a hypercritical view of RAW officialdom, or an extremely particular view of 'normal' does no one any favours.
Silver144 wrote: I can play this game too:
Castellan knight is totally fine. It's just the players fault. Should they play monofaction, solo knights will not have screen and limitless CP for all those strategems. It is a shame that players do not change their way to play for better experience.
I do think it's a shame that players don't change their ways to play for the better experience.
[
Silver144 wrote: I can play this game too:
See? Not every player will accept the game with monofactions only. Not every player will accept houserules or CoD in regular games, as well as 4x times amount of terrain just to make solid losblocks, and even then there are too many doors, slits and windows. Should just a tiny piece of my marine's purity seal be vidible and all this buildings magically disappeared for this shooting phase. This was never a thing in previous editions.
That's their choice. It's also my choice whether I choose to play them or not. If there are issues with the game, and yet options exist that make the game 'interesting', and/or solve, or offer potential solutions to said problems, but players refuse to use them, then I know where at least some of the blame needs to go.
Silver144 wrote: I can play this game too:
It's ok to play in your local groups with houserules and certain addons, but it is not expected in average tournament and pick-up games.
Fair. But by extension, could one then also argue, that the issue then (at least partially) exists within the 'average tournament and pick up game ' culture? Sounds to me like if those expressions of the game didn't give me the game I wanted, I wouldn't play them? If it can work with local groups with houserules and certain addons, it sounds to me like that's the community I need to put my time and energy into building and maintaining, rather than doubling down a road that doesn't actually work for me. Let's be clear, I am not having a go and pick up games or tournaments. I used to be heavily involved in both. Both have a viable niche within this hobby. But I have found that a lot of things get sacrificed on the altar to make those kind of games happen, and Frankly, I don't think it's worth it all of the time.
Sherrypie wrote:
I know you're trying to be snarky, but what you're saying is also partly true. It IS a shame players don't want to change their way of playing for making a better experience on both sides, because that is the proper road to good games of 40k: talking with your opponent about what sort of game you want to play first. I know I wouldn't bring superheavies on the table without asking my opponent first, outside tournaments where powerplay is the name of the game. Nor would many others, even if it is legal and cool to do so. Reasonable adults and stuff, you know?
Agreed.
Sherrypie wrote:
I know some people don't like using stuff like CoD, but that does not mean it isn't better as it directly somewhat counters the constant complaining about shooting a toenail sticking out over a corner. "Fine, shoot away, but take -1." Current GW tends towards giving players a buffet of parts they can use or not, so even if I'd like CoD rules to just be the standard, it's not likely while tournament folks like to have the core rules reasonably streamlined. Personally I just find it odd that someone wouldn't use them if they have some beef with the simplistic ones, especially if their opponents are more easily swayed towards official GW products.
Agreed. As I get older, i tend to see more and more value in the DIY approach, and seeing the game as a modular construct. Is up to us to put the bits and pieces together to give us the game we want.
Sherrypie wrote:
I also know it might not be the expected baseline for pick-up games, but If you'd like to have such culture fostered in your area, how about approaching it like Beta Rules? Take your CA18 in hand, show CoD to your opponents and ask nicely if they'd be interested in trying them out. "As a test..." Nothing lost if they just say no, eventually someone might be intrigued enough and the show gets rolling. The expectation of using just the baseline usually already includes the latest faqs and beta rules, why not try one more layer to make it more interesting?
Agreed, but I'd personally take it one further. If a game isn't necessarily working for the playerbase because of the playing culture, I personally put a lot of value on the players willingness to change their culture.
Sherrypie wrote:Since the reality where people play tends to differ from this weird world of the internet where everything is soup-Castellans all day erryday and you have smashcaptains launched out of Whirlwinds flying all over the place, one might find it very different to their expectations through play. 8th edition has a wonderful core system for those games where people don't aim for the maximum alpha death and instead are willing to talk with their opponents about what they'd like to see on the field and then expand the core towards that. It's not hard to bolt on stuff like better terrain rules in a group of likeminded people. If you're from around Helsinki area, hit me a PM and let's try a game out someday
Hmm, I wouldn't describe 8th as a 'wonderful core system'. It's a problematic, yet more-or-less functional set of rules. But that's about it. I think it's necessary for people to talk about what they'd like to see on the board, and the game they'd like to play. But I'd say that for every game anyway. The rules for 40k don't necessarily help or hinder this. In this'll, it's almost entirely on player attitudes to said game, and if they need to change, then they're need to change.
And while I'm not from the Helsinki area, it's my wife's favourite place in the world, so I might take you up on that (I even found the gw there the last time!) meanwhile, if you're ever in Scotland and fancy a beer, let me know.
"In truth there is no right or wrong way to go about engaging with the Warhammer 40,000 hobby – it’s best to just find what you most enjoy and go for it. From gaming tournaments and campaign events to world-class painting competitions, from dining- table warfare to exciting battles at local clubs, there’s a world of fun to be had with Warhammer 40,000 [...]"
"The kind of game people look for varies immensely, however, from friendly mutual storytelling to highly competitive tournament play. Luckily, whether you are seeking to forge a thrilling narrative, play in a blistering head-to-head deathmatch, or even weave game after game into an ongoing campaign of conquest, the Warhammer 40,000 hobby offers ample opportunity to engage with any or all of these ways to play."
Something along the lines existed in every edition's BRB, and GW sales are not going through the roof currently because a handfull of meta chasing tournament sworn competetive players, which amount to few thousands around the world and most certainly not because of a few permanent dakka whiners, but because of all that anonymous garagehammer players who never set foot in competetively focussed FLGSs - GW even admit it openly from time to time in various interviews on various conventions, that majority of their playerbase never attended a tournament.
As to terrain discussion - GW sells not only swiss cheese ruins, but also stackable Munitorum Containers, Sector Mechanicus terrain with Ferratonic Furnaces and Haemotrope Reactors, and Wall of Martyrs pieces - all those are official terrain without windows to draw LOS or with explicit official rules for cover and if you have watched any GWGT you'll see they use plenty of solid container walls and rows of Ferratonic Furnaces to completely block LOS between entire table areas.
And to adress the absurd notion, that homemade terrain looks like gak - go and google or pinterest "warhammer 40k terrain" and repeat with straight face, that all non-official terrain looks like gak and is unsuitable for serious play... The amount of easy to build LOS blocking foam rock tables, Necron scenery without a single window or fully blown diorama tables will last you for weeks of just scrolling through all this eye candy.
The only true part of this terrain discussion here is that for some bizarre reasons, a large part of 40K crowd neglects terrain as an important part of wargaming experience for the last 20+ years. Most 40K centric FLGSs I've been to have miserable terrain selection and as soon as you step outside and look at historicals this changes drastically and you can see in person and play on fully blown thematic tables, no problem. It is the same in case of Necromunda - people invest many times more money and time into their Necro tables than they do invest in their gangs and nobody there argues, that only officially supplied terrain kits are allowed, INQ28 is another GW inspired game with no terrain problems. Even here on dakka there are plenty of painting and modeling blogs with stunning homemade terrain.
As to the OP question - as seen in discussion above, YMMV. If you play on "standard tournament table" with "four pieces of terrain in the corners and one humble partial LOS block in the middle" then tactics are limited or non existent - the very existence of static gunlines is enough argument in favor of "listbuilding is all that matters". But as soon as you step out of those ruts, tactics begin to matter a lot, no matter if you houserule or if you stick only to official GW supplied material available in Narrative sections of BRB. Many people in this thread would get a fit if they saw how terrain dense my typical 40K table is and I bet that even some of tournament veterans would suddenly lose their prowess faced with multilevel labirynths of LOS blocking, impassable and difficult terrain to manouver around.
Trully, you get out only what you put in.
@Greatbigtree
Your vertical ascent limitations are very similar to those I use, they indeed change both figurative and literal landscape of the game a lot.
Sherrypie wrote: Why would you be limited to official terrain anyway? This is THE hobby for people who like to build things, creating terrain that provides cover and eye-candy should be trivial.
Because most player-made terrain looks like . Getting to the quality of GW's terrain kits requires way more effort than most people are willing to spend on terrain, so you either buy the GW kits or have a table that looks like . And obviously many/most people choose the GW kits.
You people do also realize there are official GW sanctioned rules for terrain both in the main rulebook and Chapter Approved and it's only your own fault if you aren't using hit minuses, harder cover saves, hindered movement and all the other things terrain has going for it before we even need to start houseruling things?
Those additional rules only apply to the Cities of Death expansion, not to normal games.
Between third party terrain and 3d printers not having a board that has the kind of terrain to ensure the type of game you want is a cop out. Additionally rules being optional is the point. 40k doesn't work with out both players having a conversation about what kind of game they are looking for.
Agreed. As I get older, i tend to see more and more value in the DIY approach, and seeing the game as a modular construct. Is up to us to put the bits and pieces together to give us the game we want.
There is one other quote perfectly apt here, this time from 7th ed BRB:
"The Spirit of the game: Warhammer 40,000 may be somewhat different to any other game you have played. Above all, it's important to remember that the rules are just the framework to support an enjoyable game. Whether a battle ends in victory or defeat, your goal should always be to enjoy the journey. What's more, Warhammer 40,000 calls on a lot from you, the player. Your responsibility isn't just to follow the rules, it's also to add your own ideas, drama and creativity to the game. Much of the appeal of this game lies in the freedom and open-endedness that this allows; it is in this spirit that the rules have been written."
What constantly amazes me is that for some parts of community, adhering to this is a fatal flaw of character and going against "the norm". This is even more amazing in times of social media, when it takes no more than an evening of surfing to find plenty of places in which this approach is cherished and people who utilize 40K this way. I have recently found a guy who sought after, bought and build an original Anphelion Base FW kit for his table - the single most expensive terrain kit, made especially for the most complex official campaign FW ever published. I won't be very surprised if most of dakkanauts don't even realize, that Zone Mortalis expansion was not only played, but original FW kits were bought and many people made their DIY tables for it "before it was cool", that is before third party producers made alternatives for Newcromunda.
"In truth there is no right or wrong way to go about engaging with the Warhammer 40,000 hobby – it’s best to just find what you most enjoy and go for it. From gaming tournaments and campaign events to world-class painting competitions, from dining- table warfare to exciting battles at local clubs, there’s a world of fun to be had with Warhammer 40,000 [...]"
"The kind of game people look for varies immensely, however, from friendly mutual storytelling to highly competitive tournament play. Luckily, whether you are seeking to forge a thrilling narrative, play in a blistering head-to-head deathmatch, or even weave game after game into an ongoing campaign of conquest, the Warhammer 40,000 hobby offers ample opportunity to engage with any or all of these ways to play."
Something along the lines existed in every edition's BRB, and GW sales are not going through the roof currently because a handfull of meta chasing tournament sworn competetive players, which amount to few thousands around the world and most certainly not because of a few permanent dakka whiners, but because of all that anonymous garagehammer players who never set foot in competetively focussed FLGSs - GW even admit it openly from time to time in various interviews on various conventions, that majority of their playerbase never attended a tournament.
As to terrain discussion - GW sells not only swiss cheese ruins, but also stackable Munitorum Containers, Sector Mechanicus terrain with Ferratonic Furnaces and Haemotrope Reactors, and Wall of Martyrs pieces - all those are official terrain without windows to draw LOS or with explicit official rules for cover and if you have watched any GWGT you'll see they use plenty of solid container walls and rows of Ferratonic Furnaces to completely block LOS between entire table areas.
And to adress the absurd notion, that homemade terrain looks like gak - go and google or pinterest "warhammer 40k terrain" and repeat with straight face, that all non-official terrain looks like gak and is unsuitable for serious play... The amount of easy to build LOS blocking foam rock tables, Necron scenery without a single window or fully blown diorama tables will last you for weeks of just scrolling through all this eye candy.
The only true part of this terrain discussion here is that for some bizarre reasons, a large part of 40K crowd neglects terrain as an important part of wargaming experience for the last 20+ years. Most 40K centric FLGSs I've been to have miserable terrain selection and as soon as you step outside and look at historicals this changes drastically and you can see in person and play on fully blown thematic tables, no problem. It is the same in case of Necromunda - people invest many times more money and time into their Necro tables than they do invest in their gangs and nobody there argues, that only officially supplied terrain kits are allowed, INQ28 is another GW inspired game with no terrain problems. Even here on dakka there are plenty of painting and modeling blogs with stunning homemade terrain.
As to the OP question - as seen in discussion above, YMMV. If you play on "standard tournament table" with "four pieces of terrain in the corners and one humble partial LOS block in the middle" then tactics are limited or non existent - the very existence of static gunlines is enough argument in favor of "listbuilding is all that matters". But as soon as you step out of those ruts, tactics begin to matter a lot, no matter if you houserule or if you stick only to official GW supplied material available in Narrative sections of BRB. Many people in this thread would get a fit if they saw how terrain dense my typical 40K table is and I bet that even some of tournament veterans would suddenly lose their prowess faced with multilevel labirynths of LOS blocking, impassable and difficult terrain to manouver around.
Trully, you get out only what you put in.
@Greatbigtree
Your vertical ascent limitations are very similar to those I use, they indeed change both figurative and literal landscape of the game a lot.
So terrain can really determine how much tactics are going to be involved, like if you were playing on flat grass meadow with no hills then naturally tactics become less relevant in terms of movement. And just like real life, if the terrain has alot of obsticals, then tactical movement etc will play a much larger part.
8th Edition has followed the trend of the past few editions where Army composition matters more and more, with tactics being less and less prevalent. 8th Edition has become the turning point where Army choice has a greater impact than the Gameplay of the army user (in general. There's always exceptions of course). This doesn't mean that "tactics" or "gameplay" of the player doesn't matter. It just matters less than their choice of army does. Smart play can always give you an advantage, just less so with the new edition.
Yeah, i still think its better to win with a army you like for various reasons and not only for competitive list. Being that tactics are minimal in obvious situations like a lack of terrain i would probably insist on playing in more of a tactics based landscape, but if i cant find one and have to play in a flat field,that's fine because even though its unlikely, its still possible with the right luck to win, and coming out with a win with the army you like instead of it being a army based just on a list, would be much more rewarding and cooler i think.
Agamemnon2 wrote: Eh, Helsinki is all right, but Espoo, man, that's where all the cool people live.
Tampere for us. Plus, that's where the moomin museum is. And that wins any debate about Finland!
Also the games museum. They have a copy of one of the earliest war/board games made in Finland, which came out for Christmas 1918, depicting the just-ended Finnish Civil War, and has its rulebook written entirely in verse (in two languages!).
I think with a culmulative victory point game the toolbox of tactics closes down a lot. So in this type of game(which most of 8th is) the Armies with the best units to deny your opponent objectives and the cheapest/hardest to remove units to hold will win. The Tactics involved have to fit that framework.
End of game scoring can lead to a lot of camping and end turn objective grabs...until then you just point and shoot, but with a lot of terrain you could have a larger framework of Tactics.
fFghting to the last man obviously has the most Tactics, but many seem bored without a mission after a set number of those games.
So the best games should combine the 3.
Killing the enemy should matter....on some scoring ...somehow.
NOT being forced to grab an objective that your army is ill suited to do and results in suicidal units
And anything that prevents camping and mobility and LOS with lots of Terrain.
Those are the best....Not everyone likes to play that way so sometimes you will find games you don't like.
It isn't broken...it is just that players all like different shakes.
admironheart wrote: I think with a culmulative victory point game the toolbox of tactics closes down a lot. So in this type of game(which most of 8th is) the Armies with the best units to deny your opponent objectives and the cheapest/hardest to remove units to hold will win. The Tactics involved have to fit that framework.
End of game scoring can lead to a lot of camping and end turn objective grabs...until then you just point and shoot, but with a lot of terrain you could have a larger framework of Tactics.
fFghting to the last man obviously has the most Tactics, but many seem bored without a mission after a set number of those games.
So the best games should combine the 3.
Killing the enemy should matter....on some scoring ...somehow.
NOT being forced to grab an objective that your army is ill suited to do and results in suicidal units
And anything that prevents camping and mobility and LOS with lots of Terrain.
Those are the best....Not everyone likes to play that way so sometimes you will find games you don't like.
It isn't broken...it is just that players all like different shakes.
I don't know. It sounds more like you just don't like progressive scoring missions. I haven't had issues with them. In fact, some of the closest (and therefor funnest for me) were such missions. Most have been with one side taking an early lead and the other coming back to toward the end. A rare thing in my experience in Warhammer 40k where the game actually swings between the players. I have even played forces that were better for leading early or coming back in the end. I will go as far as saying these games are one of the few times there is tactical play involved as both players have to decide how early to commit to capturing the objectives opposed to how long they can hold them. Additionally, these missions are usually were Troop choices get to shine a little bit which I think is where a 28mm game such as 40k should put the focus.
I think end of mission objective captures are a fine mission type. One of my favorites is the Battlefront (of Flames of War fame) where each player places two objectives in their deployment zone and the first player to have one of their units near an enemy objecitve with no enemy units nearby wins within a set/variable number of rounds. I like this mission as it requires both offensive and defensive play, requires division of forces both for offense and defense but also objective 1 and 2.
I disagree that Kill Points or total elimination of units has the most tactics used. In fact, I think it has some of least. Again, I think you are showing your bias to a killy army/playstyle and not a more balanced one. I have never played a miniatures war game with that kill point mission objective that didn't feel rather hallow. The can be fun sure, but they don't have much going one often devolving into long range pot shots or one or both side castling up. There is a good reason why many games suggest these types of mission as first one new players should try.
I have played very few games where killing the enemy didn't matter even if it had no direct effect on the mission win conditions. Crippling/removing enemy units from the battlefield is to remove the influence your opponent has on said battlefield. The less control your opponent has the more you can predict and further influence their actions as you have more control over the battlefield accomplishing what you want to while deny them the same. The only times killing didn't mater was with games that required too much moving and not enough time to accomplish mission objectives. Think hammer and anvil with small deployment zones and only 4 rounds of play. Again, I think you are too biased toward enemy elimination. As a player that constantly suffers from tabletop blood lust as well, it is easy and fun to be killing your opponent's army. However, concerning yourself with the mission objectives is where tactics often come to play.
Think of it this way, in chess you must eliminate only the king to win. No other pieces matter. Removing your opponent's pieces removes your opponent's influence to prevent you from winning as well as prevent them from winning. At the same time, removing too many of you opponents pieces can make it more difficult to win as their king now has more room to maneuver and thus is harder to pin down in checkmate. You have to play to capturing the king not killing all your opponent's pieces. Otherwise, you might find yourself having a lot of games of chess ending in stalemate.
Darsath wrote: 8th Edition has followed the trend of the past few editions where Army composition matters more and more, with tactics being less and less prevalent. 8th Edition has become the turning point where Army choice has a greater impact than the Gameplay of the army user (in general. There's always exceptions of course). This doesn't mean that "tactics" or "gameplay" of the player doesn't matter. It just matters less than their choice of army does. Smart play can always give you an advantage, just less so with the new edition.
Disagree. 6th and 7th put more emphasis on faction selection and list building than 8th does. Those editions were truly won or lost during list building, in 8th you have that only with extreme matchups like GK versus Aeldari soup. Anything else is winnnable, maybe not with equal chances on both sides, but still winnable.
Also, don't play 2000 point games on 6x4 tables, they are too cramped and the rulebook actually discourages that point level. Play the standard format (1750 on a 6x4), you have more tactical options, those 250 points matter a lot.
Darsath wrote: 8th Edition has followed the trend of the past few editions where Army composition matters more and more, with tactics being less and less prevalent. 8th Edition has become the turning point where Army choice has a greater impact than the Gameplay of the army user (in general. There's always exceptions of course). This doesn't mean that "tactics" or "gameplay" of the player doesn't matter. It just matters less than their choice of army does. Smart play can always give you an advantage, just less so with the new edition.
Disagree. 6th and 7th put more emphasis on faction selection and list building than 8th does. Those editions were truly won or lost during list building, in 8th you have that only with extreme matchups like GK versus Aeldari soup. Anything else is winnnable, maybe not with equal chances on both sides, but still winnable.
Also, don't play 2000 point games on 6x4 tables, they are too cramped and the rulebook actually discourages that point level. Play the standard format (1750 on a 6x4), you have more tactical options, those 250 points matter a lot.
You mention that anything short of bottom army versus top army, any match is winnable. But this has been true of past editions aswell, and really depends on what you define as winnable, since technically any match-up, even one where you only have half the points of your opponent is "winnable". I think it would be realistic to call "winnable" in these circumstances as "having a reasonable and substantial statistical chance of winning". In this context, 8th doesn't perform as well as 6th or 7th (though those editions were pretty bad when it comes to this aswell). I think the easiest way to change this would be to change the way Command points are gained and a change to the allies system. These 2 wouldn't be a perfect fit, but would make it better than it was in 7th.
Well bigger then 6x4 tables don't fit in to most stores, some tables are even smaller. Plus am not sure that people who spend money to buy an army optimised for 2k points would now like to either buy a 1750pts army or rebuild the one they have now. Specially if they are winning right now.
The less control your opponent has the more you can predict and further influence their actions as you have more control over the battlefield accomplishing what you want to while deny them the same. The only times killing didn't mater was with games that required too much moving and not enough time to accomplish mission objectives.
I have very little expiriance with scenarios where killing didn't matter as much. One was a game where you had to bring an objective to your deployment zone after it spawned turn 3 on one 9 markers. That ended with my opponent zipping his jetbikes to the other side of the table and conga the unit with the relic to their deployment zone for an automatic win at the end of their turn.
The other was a scenario where my army was suppose to leave through a designated table edge. My opponent charge all of my army turn one. Didn't even kill most of it, but I just couldnt kill 200orcs fast enough.
I don't think that non kill scenarios work very well outside of maybe narrative games.
Darsath wrote: 8th Edition has followed the trend of the past few editions where Army composition matters more and more, with tactics being less and less prevalent. 8th Edition has become the turning point where Army choice has a greater impact than the Gameplay of the army user (in general. There's always exceptions of course). This doesn't mean that "tactics" or "gameplay" of the player doesn't matter. It just matters less than their choice of army does. Smart play can always give you an advantage, just less so with the new edition.
Disagree. 6th and 7th put more emphasis on faction selection and list building than 8th does. Those editions were truly won or lost during list building, in 8th you have that only with extreme matchups like GK versus Aeldari soup. Anything else is winnnable, maybe not with equal chances on both sides, but still winnable.
Also, don't play 2000 point games on 6x4 tables, they are too cramped and the rulebook actually discourages that point level. Play the standard format (1750 on a 6x4), you have more tactical options, those 250 points matter a lot.
You mention that anything short of bottom army versus top army, any match is winnable. But this has been true of past editions aswell, and really depends on what you define as winnable, since technically any match-up, even one where you only have half the points of your opponent is "winnable". I think it would be realistic to call "winnable" in these circumstances as "having a reasonable and substantial statistical chance of winning". In this context, 8th doesn't perform as well as 6th or 7th (though those editions were pretty bad when it comes to this aswell). I think the easiest way to change this would be to change the way Command points are gained and a change to the allies system. These 2 wouldn't be a perfect fit, but would make it better than it was in 7th.
Hmm, no, not in my experience. Necron decurion was not a "top" army in 7th, but i can assure you that half the factions of the game had no chance against it. The distance between "good" factions and "bad" factions in 7th was enormous. 6th was a bit better, but not by much. In 8th a mid tier faction can win against an imperial soup played by an average player, maybe not 50% of the time, but 35-40% isn't unheard of. I have seen battle reports of DE vs GK which were quite close until turn 3-4. I played CSM against Eldar once in 7th and was almost tabled in turn 1, and that was with an "optimized" CSM list not even a fluffy one (not either ultra competitive though).
How does a GK army survive till 3ed turn vs DE, normaly with doom the GK should have a crippled army by the end of turn 3. Plus stuff like vect+doom do a huge number of GM NDKs.
Darsath wrote: 8th Edition has followed the trend of the past few editions where Army composition matters more and more, with tactics being less and less prevalent. 8th Edition has become the turning point where Army choice has a greater impact than the Gameplay of the army user (in general. There's always exceptions of course). This doesn't mean that "tactics" or "gameplay" of the player doesn't matter. It just matters less than their choice of army does. Smart play can always give you an advantage, just less so with the new edition.
Disagree. 6th and 7th put more emphasis on faction selection and list building than 8th does. Those editions were truly won or lost during list building, in 8th you have that only with extreme matchups like GK versus Aeldari soup. Anything else is winnnable, maybe not with equal chances on both sides, but still winnable.
Also, don't play 2000 point games on 6x4 tables, they are too cramped and the rulebook actually discourages that point level. Play the standard format (1750 on a 6x4), you have more tactical options, those 250 points matter a lot.
You mention that anything short of bottom army versus top army, any match is winnable. But this has been true of past editions aswell, and really depends on what you define as winnable, since technically any match-up, even one where you only have half the points of your opponent is "winnable". I think it would be realistic to call "winnable" in these circumstances as "having a reasonable and substantial statistical chance of winning". In this context, 8th doesn't perform as well as 6th or 7th (though those editions were pretty bad when it comes to this aswell). I think the easiest way to change this would be to change the way Command points are gained and a change to the allies system. These 2 wouldn't be a perfect fit, but would make it better than it was in 7th.
Hmm, no, not in my experience. Necron decurion was not a "top" army in 7th, but i can assure you that half the factions of the game had no chance against it. The distance between "good" factions and "bad" factions in 7th was enormous.
6th was a bit better, but not by much. In 8th a mid tier faction can win against an imperial soup played by an average player, maybe not 50% of the time, but 35-40% isn't unheard of. I have seen battle reports of DE vs GK which were quite close until turn 3-4. I played CSM against Eldar once in 7th and was almost tabled in turn 1, and that was with an "optimized" CSM list not even a fluffy one (not either ultra competitive though).
I would disagree quite a bit. There are plenty of armies that could compete (from both above and below) when it came to the decurion. Space Marines, Eldar, T'au, and Mechanicus for example all have pretty favourable match-ups. Some armies, though, like Tyranids, Orks and Grey Knights didn't really have much of a chance against the army though, as they were the bottom tier armies of the edition. Still, some armies like Tyranids had tricks that could help them win at least on objectives if nothing else (not ideal, but at least decurion didn't grant obj secure) with their 2+ cover save trick being a decent way to hold objectives against Necrons. All of this is without mentioning the typical Daemon lists that dominated the tournament setting near the end of 7th, or the mess that was Ynarri. In the latter case, though, that was almost assuredly designed with 8th in mind, and is still a mess to this day.
Darsath wrote: 8th Edition has followed the trend of the past few editions where Army composition matters more and more, with tactics being less and less prevalent. 8th Edition has become the turning point where Army choice has a greater impact than the Gameplay of the army user (in general. There's always exceptions of course). This doesn't mean that "tactics" or "gameplay" of the player doesn't matter. It just matters less than their choice of army does. Smart play can always give you an advantage, just less so with the new edition.
Disagree. 6th and 7th put more emphasis on faction selection and list building than 8th does. Those editions were truly won or lost during list building, in 8th you have that only with extreme matchups like GK versus Aeldari soup. Anything else is winnnable, maybe not with equal chances on both sides, but still winnable.
Also, don't play 2000 point games on 6x4 tables, they are too cramped and the rulebook actually discourages that point level. Play the standard format (1750 on a 6x4), you have more tactical options, those 250 points matter a lot.
Lies, a 4×6 is too small for anything over 1000 points, and even then only if you're setting up on the 4' edges. 2000 points needs at least a 6x8 (or a 4x10 with corner deployment zones 48" apart). And twice as much LoS-blocking terrain as you think you need in either case.
admironheart wrote: I think with a culmulative victory point game the toolbox of tactics closes down a lot. So in this type of game(which most of 8th is) the Armies with the best units to deny your opponent objectives and the cheapest/hardest to remove units to hold will win. The Tactics involved have to fit that framework.
End of game scoring can lead to a lot of camping and end turn objective grabs...until then you just point and shoot, but with a lot of terrain you could have a larger framework of Tactics.
fFghting to the last man obviously has the most Tactics, but many seem bored without a mission after a set number of those games.
So the best games should combine the 3.
Killing the enemy should matter....on some scoring ...somehow.
NOT being forced to grab an objective that your army is ill suited to do and results in suicidal units
And anything that prevents camping and mobility and LOS with lots of Terrain.
Those are the best....Not everyone likes to play that way so sometimes you will find games you don't like.
It isn't broken...it is just that players all like different shakes.
I don't know. It sounds more like you just don't like progressive scoring missions. I haven't had issues with them. In fact, some of the closest (and therefor funnest for me) were such missions. Most have been with one side taking an early lead and the other coming back to toward the end. A rare thing in my experience in Warhammer 40k where the game actually swings between the players. I have even played forces that were better for leading early or coming back in the end. I will go as far as saying these games are one of the few times there is tactical play involved as both players have to decide how early to commit to capturing the objectives opposed to how long they can hold them. Additionally, these missions are usually were Troop choices get to shine a little bit which I think is where a 28mm game such as 40k should put the focus.
Big blobs of hard to kill units camping an objective when other armies may not have such a neat and nasty combo....is not always fair.
I think end of mission objective captures are a fine mission type. One of my favorites is the Battlefront (of Flames of War fame) where each player places two objectives in their deployment zone and the first player to have one of their units near an enemy objecitve with no enemy units nearby wins within a set/variable number of rounds. I like this mission as it requires both offensive and defensive play, requires division of forces both for offense and defense but also objective 1 and 2.
I like it too but I have heard of horror stories.
I disagree that Kill Points or total elimination of units has the most tactics used. In fact, I think it has some of least. Again, I think you are showing your bias to a killy army/playstyle and not a more balanced one. I have never played a miniatures war game with that kill point mission objective that didn't feel rather hallow. The can be fun sure, but they don't have much going one often devolving into long range pot shots or one or both side castling up. There is a good reason why many games suggest these types of mission as first one new players should try.
I disagree. I will give you an example. I Play a very mobile list. It has not Holding power.(not much does in 8th) Most of 8th is a devolved game of lining up and charging up the middle. Who does the most shooting/hacking wins that portion of the board. The surviving units win the objectives....That is a very small toolbox of tactics. In a kill game I can send out a bait unit....goad the berzerkers to come kill it.....then shoot the berzerks off the table as I round the Buildings. So there is a set up, decisions the opponent needs to make if he should or should not take the bait, and executing the hammer and anvil. THAT does not happen in rush to claim the objectivs. On a simpler note...you may have a second wave to help re take or keep the objective....but sill a Much much simpler tactic and game play.
I have played very few games where killing the enemy didn't matter even if it had no direct effect on the mission win conditions. Crippling/removing enemy units from the battlefield is to remove the influence your opponent has on said battlefield. The less control your opponent has the more you can predict and further influence their actions as you have more control over the battlefield accomplishing what you want to while deny them the same. The only times killing didn't mater was with games that required too much moving and not enough time to accomplish mission objectives. Think hammer and anvil with small deployment zones and only 4 rounds of play. Again, I think you are too biased toward enemy elimination. As a player that constantly suffers from tabletop blood lust as well, it is easy and fun to be killing your opponent's army. However, concerning yourself with the mission objectives is where tactics often come to play.
Again I will give you a simple example where this is mostly wrong. So this weekend I had a game vs some Titans with big choppy swords. The mission stated you need to occupy the center. I had a huge lackluster moment of bad decisions and moved my army to do WHAT THE MISSION said. The titans chopped open my tanks and slaughtered my units. AS I said in my post. No tactics....Just a dumbed down game where you move up and kill. Whoever has the most dakka/choppa or the hardest to kill units to hold wins.
In that game I still ended up with more points left over. I still killed all the titans. But I was slaughtered on VPs. My army has a hard time getting a First Strike accomplished, but by turn 3 or 4 I can pretty much table or almost table most other armies. But if for 3 turns I lose on VPs and the enemy has a couple grots hiding in the corner and I have 50+ models I still lose....DOES NOT SOUND like tactics.
Think of it this way, in chess you must eliminate only the king to win. No other pieces matter. Removing your opponent's pieces removes your opponent's influence to prevent you from winning as well as prevent them from winning. At the same time, removing too many of you opponents pieces can make it more difficult to win as their king now has more room to maneuver and thus is harder to pin down in checkmate. You have to play to capturing the king not killing all your opponent's pieces. Otherwise, you might find yourself having a lot of games of chess ending in stalemate.
See I play chess quite a bit differently. I have defeated many better players by doing a non standard game play. I hate queens and am bad at them. Most players will use the queen well and is their center piece. I trade Queen for Queen. then kill off both Knights while leaving usually 1 knight for myself and 1 bishop for the opponent. A bishop can ONLY touch half the board. So after this Tactic, I now have board control and can stay away from his area....making him useless. Coupled with most players not used to such an aggressive playstyle and losing their most fined tool piece....I catch them off guard or they hide their Queen for most of the game. Either way its a win for me. These are decision making tactics.
In another game this weekend the Bozy mobbed up and threw a 40 man unit in my side of the board. At the same time a hard unit of Bikers made it into my back field. So he controlled all the objectives. (From this simple combo of powers/strats to disrupt his opponent.) It is some nice combos....but does not take more than a 12 year old grasp to pull it off and charge. He was counting on the very hard to kill Mob and Bikers to hold the ground. Before his next turn both units were eliminated and I was flanking on both sides. My tanks and few hth units plus psychics plus strats won the day....I had to keep units together. move them in place. offer the original bait, then deliver the hammer and anvil. Even if he knew that his army is a one trick poiney and he could not really change his play. After turn 2 he was crushing me in objectives. By turn 3 he had almost no units and then I was crushing. We ran out of time before turn 5 but he conceded and I doubled his points. I really have no units other than a full squad of wraithmodels with back up that could have hoped to hold ANY ground....Any things else would have been evaporated like the titans did to me.
The Winners of the game have big hard to kill monsters. They have multiple units of 30 Plague Bearers/30Pink Horrors, They have Massive hard to kill units that they plob on objectives. THAT IS the most SIMPLE of tactics. Then they dare you to remove them.
This is a Game about Models. so Miniatures should MATTER in a game other than to see how pretty they look. LOS and maneuvering should matter. And progressive scoring in some way should count...but you should not lose the game on turn 2 of a 6 round game just because you did not try to rush a mob into his mob to see who had more dakka or choppa and harder to kill unit. That is a very very BORING game.
Some armies have obvious tactics which are comparatively easy to pull off. Others require a good deal more effort.
But if anyone thinks their list alone will do the heavy lifting, they’re dead wrong. Especially when it comes to Tactical Objectives and the scoring thereof.
How can the same game have units that can camp on an objective and be tough to shift and not have much staying power? You have claimed both in your post. If it is the former use them, if is the later eliminate them and take the objective.
Why can't you bait those bererkers to an objective and do the same thing? I can't possibly see a good player bother being kited around the table for that to be a worthwhile tactic. Have you tried using your speed to capture an objective, leaving as the enemy approaches and blasting them off again to re-take it? If you have the speed and firepower at your disposal use it.
If your faction doesn't have methods to capture and hold objectives that is a failure the game since it is a very common mission type. However, if you build an army that is only built for speed and killing without the ability capture and hold objectives that is on you. Again, it sounds like you build a very scissor heavy list (/moving and killing) and don't like the fact that rock (hold objective) units exist.
It sounds like your opponents in both Warhammer 40k and Chess are rather mediocre players they are falling for the tactics you mention. Those tactics are on the same level of the distraction carnifax, they work only up to a middling level of player before they don't work at all.
The problem is that the degree to which they matter diminishes greatly depending on the the matchup. Also, dice and randomness can reduce the impact of tactics (for example, spiked overwatch killing something it shouldn't.)
The problem is that the degree to which they matter diminishes greatly depending on the the matchup. Also, dice and randomness can reduce the impact of tactics (for example, spiked overwatch killing something it shouldn't.)
I agree with the sentiment but use different terminology. A lucky or unlucky dice roll is where tactics happen. It is when things go according to plan that you are just following your strategy.
Why can't you bait those bererkers to an objective and do the same thing? I can't possibly see a good player bother being kited around the table for that to be a worthwhile tactic. Have you tried using your speed to capture an objective, leaving as the enemy approaches and blasting them off again to re-take it? If you have the speed and firepower at your disposal use it.
In 8th edition with 90% of the missions it is hard for someone not to be on every objective by turn 2 if they want. I wish I could find a game in 8th where units would move slower than their bullets that you could actually do what you suggested.
Other than a maxed size unit of Wraithguard(Blaces/axes) Name a unit that I can put in the middle of the table.
Then take a hit from the enemy shooting, psychic, and assault phases without evaporating?
There are quite a few units that are like that in the various armies...and cheap. (wraith units that size are a quarter of the list)
Those hard to kiil units you referenced. (the only reason I did kill them was due to my very 'scissor' list) in 3 out of my 4 games...my opponents said no one had removed their 'hard' units in as short a period as I was able. I have lots of Dakka and choppa.
The winner had two 28 Plague Bearers, 30 Pink Horrors, 2 Daemon Princes of Tzeentch, Sorcerors,and a slew of Terminators.
You don't kill that easily if at all with most lists. YOUR favorite game play would see those units rush an objective, hold it and win the game. Simple and effective (extremely low tactics) but would win the game. Explain to me how building an effective list like that and utilizing simple tactics (I am sure the player has a profound grasp of the game I will never have, can deploy better, anticipate my moves better and hardly ever make a mistake) Nothing wrong with that. BUT to claim that is better tactics is ludicrous!
"How does a GK army survive till 3ed turn vs DE, normaly with doom the GK should have a crippled army by the end of turn 3. Plus stuff like vect+doom do a huge number of GM NDKs."
Well, first off, if DE DOOMed you, they're cheating. DE don't have DOOM. Aeldari Soup and DE are not the same thing.
Second, wasn't GK vs Aeldari Soup the one excepted scenario to "winnable"?
Third, I think you'd be surprised by either how good the best players are or how bad the worst players are. Also, dice. A GK army certainly *does* have a chance vs a DE army. Just not a good chance.
I think one nice idea to improve Progressive scoring in a 6 round game would have Round 1 and 2 gain standard VPs,
Rounds 3 and 4 would double the mission VPs And Rounds 5 and 6 would triple those same VPs.
Someone holds an objective for the first 4 rounds would get 6 VPs but if you kill them then hold it for turns 5+6 you would get 6 as well. So deciding how long you want to be vulnerable would be a tactical choice. And some of those camping Guard Armies would have the chance to actually move across the field of play.
admironheart wrote: I think one nice idea to improve Progressive scoring in a 6 round game would have Round 1 and 2 gain standard VPs,
Rounds 3 and 4 would double the mission VPs And Rounds 5 and 6 would triple those same VPs.
Someone holds an objective for the first 4 rounds would get 6 VPs but if you kill them then hold it for turns 5+6 you would get 6 as well. So deciding how long you want to be vulnerable would be a tactical choice. And some of those camping Guard Armies would have the chance to actually move across the field of play.
Now THAT would be Progressive Scoring.
Except most games don't make it past turn 2, let alone turn 5.
In 8th edition with 90% of the missions it is hard for someone not to be on every objective by turn 2 if they want. I wish I could find a game in 8th where units would move slower than their bullets that you could actually do what you suggested.
I can't help you much, I don't any experience with CWE. I play Chaos Space Marines and mostly play against other kinds marines and Necrons. I know in a five objective, progress scoring game my plan would shore up my deployment zone objectives with my Chaos Space Marines/Cultists with rhinos on hand. I would have my land raider and chosen or mauler fiend try to take the center objective, though' I doubt they are going to last any amount of time. I would hope they buy me enough time to figure out what my opponent is going to do. I would try speed bump the enemy with my Raptors but not really expecting anything out them. Best case scenario, my opponent wants to kill them and maybe I can pull them away for a bit. I would plan to use my terminators to deep strike on to an objective they can hold. I don't think I would try for all of the objectives as it would thin my forces too much. I would probably let my opponent have one of their objectives all game long. I want to keep my deployment zone objectives mine, but the moment I could, I would try to take a Rhino full of marines to reinforce the center objective as what I have trying to hold it isn't likely to last. I would like to use at least one of my Terminator squads to take one of my opponent's objectives or at very least tie up some of their larger threats from affecting my other held/capturing efforts. One of the terminators squads might need to also shore up the center objective as that is where the game is likely to be won or lost. As you can tell not exactly a great list with little chance of pulling off this strategy especially against a good probably even an average list.
As for Eldar, couldn't you use Guardian Defenders or Storm Guardians cheaply defend your nearer objectives or even contest the center via whatever the Eldar Objective Secure ability is called? They don't look like they can take much punishment, but they look cheaper than a marine scout. They shouldn't be too much of your army point total to allow you units that can pry an objective away from your opponent. I also think relying a single unit to hold anything but your back line isn't going to work in 8th edition. You are going to have to redirect forces where they are needed since you have speed but not durability. I think that is were the tactics are. You need to figure out which objectives you want to take and hold and at very least decide which objective you are going to ignore. Just like my army, you will be spread too thin if you try to hold all the objectives all the game. It might even be for the best to ignore the center and go for the rest. If I remember correctly, at least one of the 5 objective, progressive scoring missions has weighted VP objectives though. So ignoring the middle objective is risky.
I am not going to say that Warhammer 40k has good balanced armies. I can tell you my marine/terminator/raptor Black Legion definitely feels very lack luster. I am not some expert gamer especially not with 40k. I don't fall for distraction carnifaxes and I know how to position my forces to keep my opponent from causing too much trouble with deep strike though. I will admit I can be baited still as blowing up units is fun even if it doesn't help win. However, your descriptions always seem show your army has plenty of punch and even speed to get it where you want. I don't see how you couldn't use that to either take objectives early and leave them if your opponent is mounting an attack. Conversely, you could hold up a bit until your opponent show their hand and redeploy to deal with it. Which it seems deep strike is making that difficult if I am reading between the lines correctly.
It is easy to say you are going to rush an objective, hold it and win, but actually doing it isn't. In the Battlefront style mission I mentioned, you have also have to have units camping both your objectives to keep your opponent from doing the same rush, hold, win. So you have to balance out how many units to commit to attack and how many to keep in defense. You can't gun line out the game as you will likely run out rounds before mounting a counter attack. You also can't readily alpha strike as you leave yourself open to deep strike force eliminating your weak defense and taking the objective. In addition to splitting your force for attack and defense, the most common Battlefront mission strategy is to put your objectives as far as part from each other to further split your attacker's force. This is less effective in 40k without templates, but if you have a faster army you could at very least keep your objectives close enough that a few units between them could rush over to prevent total capture. Which again because 40k is IGOUGO can be tough especially if a deep strike attack occurs (which is easy enough to say deep strikers can't capture the turn the came in).
Again, I think you need to look into how you use your fast, hard hitting playstyle to take and capture objectives with the understanding that Warhammer 40k is an unbalanced mess that even if you do everything right, your opponent only needs to have a much better list and do a couple of things right and win. Which is what this whole thread is about. Because 40k is an unbalanced mess largely won before the first model touches the table, I don't really worry about it. My marines fight and die in the name of Abbadon and end up losing most of the time. There are certainly rules that bother me and more than handful imbalances I can't possible imagine the game designers didn't see, but I try to not let it get me down.
Except if you play double frag cannon Deathwatch in Kill Team. Then you are just the worst./s...kinda.
Stormatious wrote: Do tactics matter enough to effect a win regardless of your army/race?, this is a follow up to people saying my army is gak and me thinking they're wrong no matter how much facts there are lollll.
Like for e.g could 30 troops face off against 120 troops and win?
Of course they do otherwise why would you even play the game.
Stormatious wrote: Do tactics matter enough to effect a win regardless of your army/race?, this is a follow up to people saying my army is gak and me thinking they're wrong no matter how much facts there are lollll.
Like for e.g could 30 troops face off against 120 troops and win?
Of course they do otherwise why would you even play the game.
Lol wish that was the first comment of this thread and it ended there. But seems to be more complicated then that.
@ Nou: The vertical numbers worked out for us, as I bought some 1” pink insulation foam to build with. So hills would always have levels in convenient 1” height increments. Which made it simple for us to agree on the whole 1/2/3+” height limits for what does what. Tiered hills that rise to one side are some of my favourite terrain, as the “long slope” side could have no movement impact, while the long sides were difficult, while the final side would be impassible. The low part of the hill would be cover for infantry, 2nd their blocks LOS to most infantry but (Tall, IG tanks) would only have cover while the tallest parts would block LOS to everything... except Knights and Flyers.
Honestly? If you (general you, nobody specific) need some terrain to increase the importance of movement and positioning, teardrop shaped hills are fantastic and easy for total novices to build. Hint! Cut the covered sections out from lower tiers to build the higher tiers! Saves material, and the glue will dry better / faster.
To me, GW terrain is terribly overpriced. I’m happier to play on my modest looking but FUN terrain pieces that I build with game mechanics in mind, to ensure my battlefields have terrain that is impactful to the game.
And yes, I also find that 8ths terrain rules are lacking, so we improved them! If I have to shoot through trees to hit you, you get cover. Even if you aren’t touching the terrain. Because that change was stupid, and diminished the importance of placement. Same deal with ruins. We changed the game to make it better for us. On the basis that I enjoy playing 40k again, whereas the hardcore RAW adherents complain endlessly about what a mess the 40k rules are and how there’s no tactics to it, all I can say is that I am getting what I want from 40k. A pretty decent core of a game that I can tweak with my opponents to make a really fun experience that can be challenging *after* the list building stage.
Obviously I’m not a tournament player these days. Never was much into tournaments, but my gaming group has always been competitive. We all like to win, and we all want an interesting game so as of 8th, we have started house ruling to make a more interesting experience. Mostly to do with terrain. I also let my friends know I won’t play against a 3+ Knight list without warning. That’s something I carried forward from 7th. I did it a few times with my TAC lists and win or lose... it wasn’t fun. My Knight playing friend also didn’t find it fun, so we agreed to that. I want him to have fun with his minis, so when he wants to run that type of list he lets me know and I bring a list to have an interesting game with. Amusingly, that puts the balance of the game on my shoulders, to take a tailored list that isn’t perfectly optimized! I’ve gotten pretty good at that, so that those games are close.
Wow, much off topics. So rambly. I hope you have the good fortune of finding like minded people to play with, and if you don’t, that you have the courage to talk to strangers and *ask* if they’d like to play with the tweaks you like. I rarely have a pickup game these days, but when I do I ask my opponent about the shooting “through” forests or over low walls granting cover. I rarely encounter the RAW adherents in real life. Most people are happy to play with someone (like me) that likes the cinematic sense of, “yes, even though you aren’t in the cover you should benefit from it being in the way.”
Take ownership and responsibility for your fun. It doesn’t take much to make the game better, and most people are happy to try it.
Depends on the meaning of "tactics". My last game against Tau, I ended up having to outshoot them. With Blood Angels. I relied on my guys have a 2+ in cover and Tau maxing at 3+, because I couldn't survive a charge. In this case, "tactics" was accepting math that was absurd thematically.
nou wrote: As to terrain discussion - GW sells not only swiss cheese ruins, but also stackable Munitorum Containers, Sector Mechanicus terrain with Ferratonic Furnaces and Haemotrope Reactors, and Wall of Martyrs pieces - all those are official terrain without windows to draw LOS or with explicit official rules for cover and if you have watched any GWGT you'll see they use plenty of solid container walls and rows of Ferratonic Furnaces to completely block LOS between entire table areas.
Ok, yes, GW sells some terrain that blocks LOS. They also sell lots of terrain that doesn't. And maybe having a wall of a bunch of furnaces for the sole purpose of blocking LOS is acceptable in a purely competitive game, but it's appalling from a narrative point of view to have such repetitive and boring terrain. The majority of terrain that real players are using is going to be GW ruins and similar things that do have holes and therefore don't block LOS very well.
And to adress the absurd notion, that homemade terrain looks like gak - go and google or pinterest "warhammer 40k terrain" and repeat with straight face, that all non-official terrain looks like gak and is unsuitable for serious play... The amount of easy to build LOS blocking foam rock tables, Necron scenery without a single window or fully blown diorama tables will last you for weeks of just scrolling through all this eye candy.
Those tables are the rare exception to the rule. Homemade terrain can be awesome, but most of the time it's made by lazy s whose only motivation is trying to get something vaguely terrain shaped on the table with a minimum of effort and cost. The majority of people who care about having decent terrain are buying GW's kits and similar kits from non-GW companies trying to duplicate the GW style.
Again it's called third party terrain, creativity and 3d printing. Even GWs newer buildings, with windows, are big enough it's not that hard to hid a small squad. Even with windows, enough terrain on a table and you will create plenty of LOS blocking and fire lanes.
IDK what your board looks like, but the one I have at my house has a mix of all of the above and requires a good amount of movement during a game if you want to keep shooting/assaulting things.
Falls outside of their experience therefore does not / can not exist.
The argument against there being tactical movement, at least, is that it is inconvenient to have that terrain. Some people spend 40 hours on a single miniature, but can’t spend a rainy afternoon making terrain?
greatbigtree wrote: Some people spend 40 hours on a single miniature, but can’t spend a rainy afternoon making terrain?
I don't know. But I'm not trying to understand their reasons, I'm just pointing out that the trend exists. Across multiple stores/groups I've encountered three types of terrain: GW kits (including third-party kits in the GW style), homemade terrain heavily using GW (and GW-style) components and GW-like features, and . The true homemade terrain has almost universally been a bunch of ugly , lazy attempts to put something vaguely terrain-like on the table to keep the 40k players coming in to buy stuff. And a lot of the lazy didn't even block LOS very well, because in 8th edition gluing some model railroad trees to a piece of foam does approximately nothing that matters.
Peregrine wrote: in 8th edition gluing some model railroad trees to a piece of foam does approximately nothing that matters.
Which is flatly and absolutely absurd in the context of a tabletop wargame.
"Does not block LOS" is not equal to "Does approximately nothing that matters". The element you described provides cover to small infantry units, or small/mid vehicles/monsters and decreases charge range by 2". This isn't exactly anything.
Note: Before we again devolve in the old argument "Vehicles and monsters cannot realistically claim cover", please read the FAQs, thank you. We have been over that in at last half a dozen threads.
Spoletta wrote: "Does not block LOS" is not equal to "Does approximately nothing that matters". The element you described provides cover to small infantry units, or small/mid vehicles/monsters and decreases charge range by 2". This isn't exactly anything.
Thus "approximately nothing", not "absolutely nothing". So what if you can get a small bonus for a small infantry unit (as long as that unit is in the exact perfect spot and doesn't move, god help you if you need to be somewhere useful like capturing an objective), most of the time those trees barely matter. Put them in the middle of the table and they're doing nothing against the first turn alpha strike and even when everything goes right and a unit gets a bonus at all it's rarely significant enough to change anything about either player's tactics. 95% of the value of those trees is aesthetic.
Peregrine wrote: in 8th edition gluing some model railroad trees to a piece of foam does approximately nothing that matters.
Which is flatly and absolutely absurd in the context of a tabletop wargame.
And houseruled away in approximately three seconds ("woods block LoS through them or grant cover in them, cool?") or using the officially sanctified GW's optional rules like CoD at least provide obscuring to give -1 to hit. Also -2 to charge through difficult terrain, if one likes.
The funny thing is, I feel many haven't yet woken to the possibility of letting GW know about their beef with the lack of terrain. They do listen to a lot of politely and eloquently written feedback nowadays. Most is of course directed to singular units and how they are over- or underpowered, but writing about possible changes to terrain as a whole en masse could potentially bring about better terrain rules, be that as a beta or something else.
Spoletta wrote: "Does not block LOS" is not equal to "Does approximately nothing that matters". The element you described provides cover to small infantry units, or small/mid vehicles/monsters and decreases charge range by 2". This isn't exactly anything.
Thus "approximately nothing", not "absolutely nothing". So what if you can get a small bonus for a small infantry unit (as long as that unit is in the exact perfect spot and doesn't move, god help you if you need to be somewhere useful like capturing an objective), most of the time those trees barely matter. Put them in the middle of the table and they're doing nothing against the first turn alpha strike and even when everything goes right and a unit gets a bonus at all it's rarely significant enough to change anything about either player's tactics. 95% of the value of those trees is aesthetic.
If you think that a +1 save in not a significant bonus then we are done talking.
Spoletta wrote: If you think that a +1 save in not a significant bonus then we are done talking.
It's not significant compared to not being able to shoot a unit at all because LOS is properly blocked. It's absurd that being completely obscured except for one fingertip of a model is the same +1 cover as having one toe inside the boundary of the "forest", and being behind the trees instead of standing on top of the piece of foam they're glued to gives no bonus whatsoever.
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Sherrypie wrote: And houseruled away in approximately three seconds ("woods block LoS through them or grant cover in them, cool?") or using the officially sanctified GW's optional rules like CoD at least provide obscuring to give -1 to hit. Also -2 to charge through difficult terrain, if one likes.
"It works fine if you change the rules" is hardly a compelling response to the claim that the rules are broken. In fact, it's a concession that I'm right.
Spoletta wrote: If you think that a +1 save in not a significant bonus then we are done talking.
It's not significant compared to not being able to shoot a unit at all because LOS is properly blocked. It's absurd that being completely obscured except for one fingertip of a model is the same +1 cover as having one toe inside the boundary of the "forest", and being behind the trees instead of standing on top of the piece of foam they're glued to gives no bonus whatsoever.
.
Ok, if you put it like this, then it is more legit. That said, it's the same as old editions. Toe in cover = 4++, all in cover except a toe=4++.
Sure if an interposed element could provide cover like we had in previous editions, it would be a welcome addition to the game. That small suggestion of "Do not count tentacles, wings, antennas and stuff like that for LoS" would also be welcomed.
You don't need to change the rules. The only factions that don't make use of cover are Harlequins and Daemons. For everything else Cover is helpful, Space Marines in cover become more durable than Cultists, for example. -2 to charge range is always important and not a City of Death rule. If you decide to not use Cover because there's no objektive chose by then you had to make a tactical decision and Cover fulfilled its purpose.
And your notion about selfmade terrain is the most ridiculous and unfounded nonsense I have ever read from you, Peregrine.
Being right depends on your view of the game, Peregrine. As has been said before, current GW likes to give players a bunch of things to choose from. The fact that many people choose to play with the barebones part instead of the CoD-system that would give meaning to all that terrain does not mean the system is broken. I'd like GW to put those in their core rules, but people have already always had the choice.
People are in charge of making their own hobby fun for them, their loss if they don't own it.
People are in charge of making their own hobby fun for them, their loss if they don't own it.
yeah, and in order to have a car or a bike or TV you should buy it and then fix it yourself so it actually works. This could maybe be the truth if someone likes building terrain, and a lot. Problem with this is that to me this makes as much sense as those that, if an army sucks you just start painting stuff, because playing the game isnt The Hobby.
People are in charge of making their own hobby fun for them, their loss if they don't own it.
yeah, and in order to have a car or a bike or TV you should buy it and then fix it yourself so it actually works. This could maybe be the truth if someone likes building terrain, and a lot. Problem with this is that to me this makes as much sense as those that, if an army sucks you just start painting stuff, because playing the game isnt The Hobby.
Wrong, and Bad example. If we are talking about 'build it yourself', then there are such a thing as kit cars, and there is a community of car enthusiasts that buy, build, repair and restore old, and broken cars. If we are taking about everyone should fix the cars they bought, well, Fixing cars (big jobs) requires technical expertise and tools not everyone has. Regarding bikes or other 'small things'- everyone should have some understanding of their workings do you can do basic maintenance and repairs like change a light or flat tire. I've been fixing my bike since I was ten.There just common sense. Making terrain requires a lot less technical skill than doing an mot on a car and is far less physically demanding than changing a tire.It's trivially easy to find good guides and good examples of terrain making online. It's also easier than you think to get into a mindset and find joy in building terrain. Because in the long run, you are the one benefitting. We get the group together for painting evenings and hobby evenings for example. Not wanting to bother is just laziness.
You get out what you're willing to put in. That's as true for training for a marathon as it is tourney practice as it is for anything else. If you wan a zero-investment hobby, get prepared for a bare-minimum minimum return on that investment. And then don't bother complaining because you'll get no sympathy from me.
You might not like making terrain. It may not be as 'fun' as having your dudes on the board, and rolling dice for them. That's fair. There's plenty things I don't necessarily like doing either. But I do them nonetheless for the bigger picture. Like those twenty mile runs I did for marathon training were hardly 'fun'. And they certainly sucked out a lot of time when I could be doing other 'fun' things. Sometimes we have to do things we don't necessarily like for a greater return down the road. And frankly, if putting in some effort to make some terrain over the course of some weekends and weeks results in a far better hobby and gaming experience for me In the long term, it's a very small price to pay.
greatbigtree wrote: Some people spend 40 hours on a single miniature, but can’t spend a rainy afternoon making terrain?
I don't know. But I'm not trying to understand their reasons, I'm just pointing out that the trend exists. Across multiple stores/groups I've encountered three types of terrain: GW kits (including third-party kits in the GW style), homemade terrain heavily using GW (and GW-style) components and GW-like features, and . The true homemade terrain has almost universally been a bunch of ugly , lazy attempts to put something vaguely terrain-like on the table to keep the 40k players coming in to buy stuff. And a lot of the lazy didn't even block LOS very well, because in 8th edition gluing some model railroad trees to a piece of foam does approximately nothing that matters.
Regardless of your experiences, there is a fourth type of terrain: homemade terrain that looks perfectly fine (sometimes even better than that!) This line of argument seems especially odd to me when you look around the average gaming store/club and see a huge range of armies from brilliantly painted to bare grey plastic. Terrain is the same: you get out what you put in, but the fact crappy looking homemade terrain exists doesn't alter the fact it's not necessarily the norm. I'm also not sure what's so problematic about a simple house rule to say, for example, the ground floor of ruins block LoS. There's enough abstraction in the game already that an additional rule like that is pretty widely accepted and often improves the game significantly. Yes, it's a house rule, but the reality is that doesn't actually matter for the vast majority of people because they only ever play in the places where that rule is in effect.
greatbigtree wrote: Some people spend 40 hours on a single miniature, but can’t spend a rainy afternoon making terrain?
I don't know. But I'm not trying to understand their reasons, I'm just pointing out that the trend exists. Across multiple stores/groups I've encountered three types of terrain: GW kits (including third-party kits in the GW style), homemade terrain heavily using GW (and GW-style) components and GW-like features, and . The true homemade terrain has almost universally been a bunch of ugly , lazy attempts to put something vaguely terrain-like on the table to keep the 40k players coming in to buy stuff. And a lot of the lazy didn't even block LOS very well, because in 8th edition gluing some model railroad trees to a piece of foam does approximately nothing that matters.
Regardless of your experiences, there is a fourth type of terrain: homemade terrain that looks perfectly fine (sometimes even better than that!) This line of argument seems especially odd to me when you look around the average gaming store/club and see a huge range of armies from brilliantly painted to bare grey plastic. Terrain is the same: you get out what you put in, but the fact crappy looking homemade terrain exists doesn't alter the fact it's not necessarily the norm. I'm also not sure what's so problematic about a simple house rule to say, for example, the ground floor of ruins block LoS. There's enough abstraction in the game already that an additional rule like that is pretty widely accepted and often improves the game significantly. Yes, it's a house rule, but the reality is that doesn't actually matter for the vast majority of people because they only ever play in the places where that rule is in effect.
It should be called The cool house rule where los is always implemented, then fully integrated eventaully in all aspects in GW.
@Peregrine: You seriously build your argument against Sector Mechanicus terrain on boring repetition and narrative limitations and counter it by boring repetition and narrative limitations of ruins? C'mon...
You made hilariously exaggerated claim and tried to shove your opinion as undeniable fact and you were countered from numerous angles, by multiple people, with whole google search and multiple lifetimes worth of counterexamples. But we all perfectly know that you will now go at absurd lengths to defend it, because well, that's what you do. But maybe, just maybe you could try another path this time - you made a mistake, you are clearly, fundamentally, hilariously wrong on this one. Man up, own it, learn from the experience, it will only do you good.
@Karol & thread: Back in 2nd ed, when I used to have "my regular FLGS" I have brought my terrain to the shop because I liked having options and actual landscape to play on. And when I quit 40K after 3rd I have donated all this terrain to the shop for people to enjoy it for the years to come. And I wasn't the only one, shop owner did not own/made a single piece of terrain, it was all made and brought by players. Fast forward to modern times, my local FLGS had a huge terrain collection and it was a mix ranging from unpainted lasercut MDF ruins or infinity dwellings, through GW ruins, bastions and wall of martyr pieces, to entire based and painted hillside bunkers/military bases that spanned across a third of the table, really huge pieces. And guess what 40K players typically used (I witnessed it in person and then went through FLGSs photo album to confirm this observation) - 4-6 ruins and a bastion or two, rarely more than 8 pieces of medium medium sized terrain and no barricades, low walls, rarely any hills... The terrain was there, Bolt Action or Flames of War players used those, infinity players had access to appropriately dense tables, 40K players played standard scarce setups... The problem is not with adequate rules availability (even 8th ed has CoD) or terrain availability (at least not universally in all cases), but with tournament standard mindset spilling out on every 40K pick-up game and treated as a "norm". Heck - I saw the exact same discrepancy between 40K and historicals on various wargame conventions, where everything must be brought with you, there is no supply of terrain on the spot. Historicals had mostly beatuifull, adequately dense terrains, 40K had typical minimal effort mess. Battletech crowd even came with a special wooden gaming table with hex based 3D eye-candy diorama, specifically made for this system, no excuses made.
I do think if terrain had proper rules like virtually every non-Warhammer wargame, you would see more tactics. But GW went for highly abstracted rules that encourage listbuilding as the major skill instead of what you do on the battlefield, and the players see to want and even encourage listbuilding and stacking combos as though this was Magic as the major skill you need in the game.
40K players played standard scarce setups... The problem is not with adequate rules availability (even 8th ed has CoD) or terrain availability (at least not universally in all cases), but with tournament standard mindset spilling out on every 40K pick-up game and treated as a "norm".
I agree completely with this.
check out my Gallery to see how we play both 8th and 2nd ed games weekly.
One of my friends came to play and said there was too much stuff on the table. ???????
How can a more thematic game be less fun.
I hear people say you need progressive scoring and missions to have fun. Just killing stuff is to plain.
IT IS THE EXACT line of thought that more terrain will make more fun. A boring INTRO game is just about killing....and a boring INTRO game is about having 4 to 8 pieces of terrain.
An advanced gamer will have fleshed out missions, interesting scoring and as many terrain pieces as models on the table.
40K players played standard scarce setups... The problem is not with adequate rules availability (even 8th ed has CoD) or terrain availability (at least not universally in all cases), but with tournament standard mindset spilling out on every 40K pick-up game and treated as a "norm".
I agree completely with this.
check out my Gallery to see how we play both 8th and 2nd ed games weekly.
One of my friends came to play and said there was too much stuff on the table.
Agreed, I too heard that my board is overcrowded and unfair to gunlines (sic!). Especially this industrial setup of yours is dense enough and landing pad big enough for my taste. You can check out my old WIPs of lava board to see a different approach to LOS blocking via mixed vertical elevation of the base ground - even flyers have at least a quarter of the table in their blind zones at any moment on that specific setup, ground troops rarely see their full shooting range without LOS block or obscurity cover and that is even before I put any forifications/bunkers/buildings/sector mechanicus stuff on top of that, and a third of the table is usually contiuous crater equivalent (those negative elevation labirynths). On such board gaining height advantage matter a lot even without any specially pronounced rules, pure true LOS is enough. For our Necromunda games we actually use special made, large, felted cotton pliers to manipulate models in the center of the board, as well as laser pointers and periscopes to check LOS through what we consider "dense enough".
Yeah, tournament standard tends to be lax on terrain so as a result, all games are lax on terrain because of the push to use tournament standard as the norm for games. The same problem you find with not using interesting missions that can change up the tactics you find with the lack of good terrain. It all goes back to "tournament standard" being A) bland and boring and B) infecting non-tournament games as the "right" way to do things.
if you need to move several turns before you can shoot your opponent you get a more interactive and expansive experience in 40K
Oh, I missed those large cliffs of yours earlier (I went straight to your Battlefields gallery, which has only a few tables in it). My biggest 40K regret is that I have limited space available, so 7'x'5 table footprint is my upper limit and and going vertical more than 15" is problematic due to height of one of my regular opponents (a rather short gal). But still, I have as many terrain projects on my to-do list as I have plastic/resin to acquire, convert and paint.
And agreed, starting more than standard 24" apart or having no initial LOS to deployment zones helps with immersion and need for tactics greatly, but for many players I have met it comes with an unacceptable cost of lenghtening the game - you don't roll dice and remove enemy models right away you waste time...
While I like more terrain, lots more terrain, there has been one downside in 8th; table space.
With a pair of 2k armies, and 2k buying a lot more than it did in previous editions, there's only so much realestate. So, with lots of terrain, there are no dead zones, no gaps in overlapping fields of fire. Just more doods everywhere.
Tons of terrain, lots of it impassible and/or LOS-blocking (preferably some of one, some of the other, and some both), and lower points games add a lot more to the game.
Stormatious wrote: Like for e.g could 30 troops face off against 120 troops and win?
Absolutely. 30 Custodes should handily be able to deal with 120 Guardsmen.
If you mean equivalent troops, then no. Not without absurd luck. There is simply not enough room for skill and tactics in this game to let you beat 120 Custodes with 30 Custodes simply by outplaying your opponent.
Maybe if your opponent is so new they forget they can order their units to fire in their shooting phase...
Stormatious wrote: Like for e.g could 30 troops face off against 120 troops and win?
Absolutely. 30 Custodes should handily be able to deal with 120 Guardsmen.
If you mean equivalent troops, then no. Not without absurd luck. There is simply not enough room for skill and tactics in this game to let you beat 120 Custodes with 30 Custodes simply by outplaying your opponent.
Maybe if your opponent is so new they forget they can order their units to fire in their shooting phase...
I think equivalent troops wouldn't be a good example anyways while the first example is closer to what is wanted. Guardsmen are cheap but weak, Custodes are very expensive but each is basically a hero. That should, in theory, balance each other out. If you want a small elite army you take custodes, if you want a lot of average/subpar guys you go Guard, and in a well-written wargame, these forces assuming an equal point game should have a roughly equal chance of winning (give or take, but not a gross imbalance). 40k doesn't have that at all and at the same points there is often way too large a spread of which army could win in a given scenario.
Wayniac wrote: Yeah, tournament standard tends to be lax on terrain so as a result, all games are lax on terrain because of the push to use tournament standard as the norm for games. The same problem you find with not using interesting missions that can change up the tactics you find with the lack of good terrain. It all goes back to "tournament standard" being A) bland and boring and B) infecting non-tournament games as the "right" way to do things.
Counter-point: I've seen plenty of "casual" games played with random cardboard boxes and such as terrain, while tournaments seem to at least attempt to make legitimate terrain even if it's only the boring old GW kits and they can't afford enough to properly fill every table.
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nou wrote: Agreed, I too heard that my board is overcrowded and unfair to gunlines (sic!).
Which is a fair point. Gunlines and long-ranged weapons in general exist and it isn't fair to cover the table in terrain so thoroughly that all those long-ranged units/armies (which pay for their range) are forced to pretend to be armed with chainswords and pistols.
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nou wrote: @Peregrine: You seriously build your argument against Sector Mechanicus terrain on boring repetition and narrative limitations and counter it by boring repetition and narrative limitations of ruins? C'mon...
There's a substantial difference between using ruins on a themed table, mixing up the kits (which are designed to be converted) for variety, and putting a bunch of copies of the exact same model in a row to build a LOS-blocking wall.
You made hilariously exaggerated claim and tried to shove your opinion as undeniable fact and you were countered from numerous angles, by multiple people, with whole google search and multiple lifetimes worth of counterexamples. But we all perfectly know that you will now go at absurd lengths to defend it, because well, that's what you do. But maybe, just maybe you could try another path this time - you made a mistake, you are clearly, fundamentally, hilariously wrong on this one. Man up, own it, learn from the experience, it will only do you good.
Sigh. Of course image searches show pictures, but that's a very biased way of getting information. Those pictures are generally selected to be the best of the best, the tables that people found to be impressive enough to post about. The lazy people with their cardboard boxes and model railroad trees don't appear as much because nobody wants to promote something so boring.
Fast forward to modern times, my local FLGS had a huge terrain collection and it was a mix ranging from unpainted lasercut MDF ruins or infinity dwellings, through GW ruins, bastions and wall of martyr pieces, to entire based and painted hillside bunkers/military bases that spanned across a third of the table, really huge pieces. And guess what 40K players typically used (I witnessed it in person and then went through FLGSs photo album to confirm this observation) - 4-6 ruins and a bastion or two, rarely more than 8 pieces of medium medium sized terrain and no barricades, low walls, rarely any hills... The terrain was there, Bolt Action or Flames of War players used those, infinity players had access to appropriately dense tables, 40K players played standard scarce setups...
Your store seems to be the exception to the rule. I have never, out of any of the stores I've visited, seen anything like that. Maybe 2-3 conversions (using GW kits with all the standard issues of GW kits) that look pretty nice, but mostly foam hills and model railroad trees and such. Most if it is mediocre at best, and never have these stores had enough of it to make multiple terrain-heavy tables at the same time.
Would that not perhaps indicate that if most people are down with lots of terrain, and your area is not... your meta isn’t an accurate reflection of “most” people’s meta?
Perhaps your opinions of the game are less widely applicable than you might think?
If you make the assumption that most people are down with lots of terrain instead of the opposite assumption that, as demonstrated by the people I have encountered in multiple stores in multiple states, some people may claim to be down with lots of terrain but most people don't really give a about it. Perhaps your meta is the fortunate exception to the rule.
I came to a conclusion ages ago based on what was said here that tactics do matter, and the amount of tactics that you can used is limited to what terrain you are playing on and also what kind of army's are fighting. Considering there is a lot of luck involved with dice rolling, and considering it seems that LOS is a popular thing in a lot of house rule casual games, i think tactics in general can play a larger part then a lot of people are saying, maybe not so much for competitive, but like i say this can depend on the circumstances e.g what terrain or type of army, so it for me doesn't rule out having a army that you built on looks is completely un winnable in a competitive situation, and as i stated earlier winning in this situation instead of having a list based army would be more rewarding IMO.
Stormatious wrote: I came to a conclusion ages ago based on what was said here that tactics do matter, and the amount of tactics that you can used is limited to what terrain you are playing on and also what kind of army's are fighting. Considering there is a lot of luck involved with dice rolling, and considering it seems that LOS is a popular thing in a lot of house rule casual games, i think tactics in general can play a larger part then a lot of people are saying, maybe not so much for competitive, but like i say this can depend on the circumstances e.g what terrain or type of army, so it for me doesn't rule out having a army that you built on looks is completely un winnable in a competitive situation, and as i stated earlier winning in this situation instead of having a list based army would be more rewarding IMO.
What am i completely wrong? - Edit
If I understand what you're saying correctly then you're not entirely wrong, but I would say you haven't really grasped the essence of the discussion. For example, saying "the amount of tactics that you can used is limited to what terrain you are playing on and also what kind of army's are fighting" is a bit of an odd statement since those are 2 of the 3 main variables in a game of 40k, with the other being the mission. Your statement is correct but devoid of any useful application because the "limit" you're talking about is everything in the game. An army that's built on looks, or any criteria other than trying to be as competitive as possible, will be extremely unlikely to win against a competitive army. No amount of tactics will overcome the disparity in power between two lists like that. None of this might matter, of course, if your local meta doesn't feature such competitive lists.
@Peregrine:
Have you even looked for any actual Sector Mechanicus setups before going down your ridiculous path of argument? This whole range of terrain kits was specifically designed for easy kitbashing and converting, with matching diameters and lenghts of components. Straight copies of Ferratonic Furnaces may be repetetive, but throw in an Alchomite stack parts or Haemotrope Reactor or two and you now have a silo or a horizontal tank or whatever you can come up with. There are even official GW videos to inspire such approach (just look at their GT sets and tell me that they are boring) and even if you go with “by the book” assembly, there is enough variation in those kits that if you have enough of them the sheer density of overlaping parts blocks LOS perfectly fine. Stock GW terrain, without any converting.
And it must be the first time ever that I find a person who thinks that google search actually filters for quality... Depending on exact phrase you’ll find an entire spectrum of examples, from thrash to jaw dropping. Same with Pinterest - some searches will return eye candy only results, but include a “magical” DIY abbreviation with your search phrase and now you have mostly a range of pictures straight out from tutorials on how to turn XPS board into a themed set of landscape pieces in a single evening using a knife, a glue and a couple of pots of paint. Will those look as good as Realms of Battle boards? If you throw in some sand and some plaster to the mix they will, but even a simple knife or soldering iron will give you great looking rocky board easily. And people do make those.
The main flaw in your logic is dismissing entire garagehammer movement as marginal (when in reality it is where most of the hobby happens and even GW themselves openly admit that) and focusing solely on US based FLGS pick-up culture. We have gaming clubs all across Europe (which, btw, have a larger population than US) and here in Poland many of those originated from general hobby clubs, so terrain building skills are pretty common and cross-polination from historicals is fairly typical - most places are multi system gaming dens. Something as basic as utilising styrofoam appliance packaging as a basis for accurately looking concrete bunkers has a 30 year long tradition - and that is the lowest, most simple and straightforward way of populating a table with themed terrain and every FLGS here had at least a couple of those even during 2nd ed, when GW didn’t even produced terrain sets. Nowadays most FLGSs here have a range of MicroArtsStudio hardfoam terrain pieces (MAS is polish company) and lasercut Kromlech or similar kits, and at the very least accomodating 40K, general fantasy/rural WWII and Infinity themes, with some GW terrain and some donated unique pieces usually added into the mix. A place with the worst selection of terrain I’ve been to here was a primarily boardgame club which tried branching into Warmahordes and AoS and indeed had only few simple hills and huts and not even a single tree. What is indeed rare are scenic modular boards - I had to make one myself to actually play on one, but otherwise availability of usefull and nice enough terrain is not a problem here.
And the whole point of non-tournament standard terrain is to discourage static gunlines and alpha deep strikes and promote on board thinking and tactics - this is the topic of the very thread we are discussing here.
Stormatious wrote: I came to a conclusion ages ago based on what was said here that tactics do matter, and the amount of tactics that you can used is limited to what terrain you are playing on and also what kind of army's are fighting. Considering there is a lot of luck involved with dice rolling, and considering it seems that LOS is a popular thing in a lot of house rule casual games, i think tactics in general can play a larger part then a lot of people are saying, maybe not so much for competitive, but like i say this can depend on the circumstances e.g what terrain or type of army, so it for me doesn't rule out having a army that you built on looks is completely un winnable in a competitive situation, and as i stated earlier winning in this situation instead of having a list based army would be more rewarding IMO.
What am i completely wrong? - Edit
If I understand what you're saying correctly then you're not entirely wrong, but I would say you haven't really grasped the essence of the discussion. For example, saying "the amount of tactics that you can used is limited to what terrain you are playing on and also what kind of army's are fighting" is a bit of an odd statement since those are 2 of the 3 main variables in a game of 40k, with the other being the mission. Your statement is correct but devoid of any useful application because the "limit" you're talking about is everything in the game. An army that's built on looks, or any criteria other than trying to be as competitive as possible, will be extremely unlikely to win against a competitive army. No amount of tactics will overcome the disparity in power between two lists like that. None of this might matter, of course, if your local meta doesn't feature such competitive lists.
TBH terrain design is something that is not wholly implemented into the game design of 40K. Think about maps in computer games like Starcraft or Quake - the whole level of design and thought that goes into them to create fair play, like symmetry, spawn and resource placement, etc. The general opinion on advantages of having some los blocking and cover providing pieces is more of a common hobby knowledge, nothing more. Terrain, for example, is not implemented in any way into set up phase of the missions or anything like that. Wouldn't it be nice if every mission had some recommendations with pictures on how to set up proper terrain for it, with idea of balance, equal opportunities for attack and defence and LOS consideration?
Was it back in 5th where terrain set up was tactics? As part of the game set up you carved the table up into 2x2 sections and rolled a d3 for each for how many pieces of terrain each one got. Players then took turns adding things to the table until all the spots were filled.
You want cover in you deployment zone, plonk some down. Big LoS blocker in the middle, got for it. But you were taking turns, and there were limited slots. So that gunline player might stick a tiny little hut in the center to make sure that no major objects were placed there.
Obviously not everyone played with these rules, as they required a lot of spare terrain and took time to do. Most tournaments just wouldn’t have the resources per table. Heck, most FLGSs couldn't cover all their tables if the d3 rolls were good.
i have a feeling that things are turning more simplistic in order to bring in more people to the game, if that's the case, there needs to be a big tent that is created for those who don't want that sort of simplistic change, and it should also be highly encouraged that, if you really want to go to war the proper way you should be playing in the "players" tent, or call it what you want, ma bey a new name sort of like how there is 30k, it could be renamed some thing else, but its important that this takes over this other stuff, to encourage also GW to roll back. Yes i know you can always just make your own rules up etc etc, but im talking about making it a mainstream gameplay style.
Stormatious wrote: I came to a conclusion ages ago based on what was said here that tactics do matter, and the amount of tactics that you can used is limited to what terrain you are playing on and also what kind of army's are fighting. Considering there is a lot of luck involved with dice rolling, and considering it seems that LOS is a popular thing in a lot of house rule casual games, i think tactics in general can play a larger part then a lot of people are saying, maybe not so much for competitive, but like i say this can depend on the circumstances e.g what terrain or type of army, so it for me doesn't rule out having a army that you built on looks is completely un winnable in a competitive situation, and as i stated earlier winning in this situation instead of having a list based army would be more rewarding IMO.
What am i completely wrong? - Edit
No you are not wrong. Tactics are still a huge part of the game. The complexity of the tactics this game uses can be debated but the fact that tactics are used and important is a given.
Shadenuat wrote: TBH terrain design is something that is not wholly implemented into the game design of 40K. Think about maps in computer games like Starcraft or Quake - the whole level of design and thought that goes into them to create fair play, like symmetry, spawn and resource placement, etc. The general opinion on advantages of having some los blocking and cover providing pieces is more of a common hobby knowledge, nothing more. Terrain, for example, is not implemented in any way into set up phase of the missions or anything like that. Wouldn't it be nice if every mission had some recommendations with pictures on how to set up proper terrain for it, with idea of balance, equal opportunities for attack and defence and LOS consideration?
A huge issue with 8th terrain and cover rules is that you need very specific types of terrain (large piece of area terrain or completely solid LoS blocking stuff) for it to have much of an impact. Unless your counting everything as statues then most terrain isnt very impactful when you can't cram every model of a unit inside a piece of area terrain or behind a LoS blocker. All the small pieces of terrain that use to give 5+ cover saves when shooting through or slowed movement when crossing tend to have zero impact in 8th and thus making the board feel barren even when it's full of stuff.
Shadenuat wrote: TBH terrain design is something that is not wholly implemented into the game design of 40K. Think about maps in computer games like Starcraft or Quake - the whole level of design and thought that goes into them to create fair play, like symmetry, spawn and resource placement, etc. The general opinion on advantages of having some los blocking and cover providing pieces is more of a common hobby knowledge, nothing more. Terrain, for example, is not implemented in any way into set up phase of the missions or anything like that. Wouldn't it be nice if every mission had some recommendations with pictures on how to set up proper terrain for it, with idea of balance, equal opportunities for attack and defence and LOS consideration?
A huge issue with 8th terrain and cover rules is that you need very specific types of terrain (large piece of area terrain or completely solid LoS blocking stuff) for it to have much of an impact. Unless your counting everything as statues then most terrain isnt very impactful when you can't cram every model of a unit inside a piece of area terrain or behind a LoS blocker. All the small pieces of terrain that use to give 5+ cover saves when shooting through or slowed movement when crossing tend to have zero impact in 8th and thus making the board feel barren even when it's full of stuff.
If one is only using the barest skeleton of the core rules, then sure. Counting all little things as statues is a step in the better direction, as is restricting Advance and Charge moves through difficult terrain, as is -1 for obscuration, as is +2 to saves when in hard cover, as is... List goes on. Terrain and rules for it are still there, if people just wanted to take that step and use them. It's not the edition's fault if it does in fact offer those very tools people say it doesn't, but they just don't utilize.
I encourage everyone to send coherent and non-hostile words to 40kfaq@gwplc.com and petition them to make those rules mandatory, perhaps they'll put them in Beta and everyone will start using them
Shadenuat wrote: TBH terrain design is something that is not wholly implemented into the game design of 40K. Think about maps in computer games like Starcraft or Quake - the whole level of design and thought that goes into them to create fair play, like symmetry, spawn and resource placement, etc. The general opinion on advantages of having some los blocking and cover providing pieces is more of a common hobby knowledge, nothing more. Terrain, for example, is not implemented in any way into set up phase of the missions or anything like that. Wouldn't it be nice if every mission had some recommendations with pictures on how to set up proper terrain for it, with idea of balance, equal opportunities for attack and defence and LOS consideration?
A huge issue with 8th terrain and cover rules is that you need very specific types of terrain (large piece of area terrain or completely solid LoS blocking stuff) for it to have much of an impact. Unless your counting everything as statues then most terrain isnt very impactful when you can't cram every model of a unit inside a piece of area terrain or behind a LoS blocker. All the small pieces of terrain that use to give 5+ cover saves when shooting through or slowed movement when crossing tend to have zero impact in 8th and thus making the board feel barren even when it's full of stuff.
I'm not following you.
A turned barrel can give the cover save to a baneblade with proper positioning. Are you sure that you are playing the correct way?
Sherrypie wrote: Counting all little things as statues is a step in the better direction, as is restricting Advance and Charge moves through difficult terrain, as is -1 for obscuration, as is +2 to saves when in hard cover, as is... List goes on
I am not sure I personally want more imperal guardsmen in 3+ instead of 4+ and more penalties to hit in the game like the "Kill Team: You always hit on 5s" game
greatbigtree wrote: Would that not perhaps indicate that if most people are down with lots of terrain, and your area is not... your meta isn’t an accurate reflection of “most” people’s meta?
Perhaps your opinions of the game are less widely applicable than you might think?
Night Perils, it’s been fun.
I asked around polish forums, and more then normal terrain is not something people want to do. Specially if the change is to be made so good armies get worse. From what other people write about other countries meta, it seems like Poland is not the only one where having a ton of terrain is the norm. Plus it isn't even a garente that it fixs stuff. Fast moving fly armies would still have an edge, as would armies with ignore LoS stuff. Meq armies that have to walk to their objectives would have just more problems of a different kind.
Sherrypie wrote: Counting all little things as statues is a step in the better direction, as is restricting Advance and Charge moves through difficult terrain, as is -1 for obscuration, as is +2 to saves when in hard cover, as is... List goes on
I am not sure I personally want more imperal guardsmen in 3+ instead of 4+ and more penalties to hit in the game like the "Kill Team: You always hit on 5s" game
The benefits to power armour are better, though, as that cuts their casualties in half more often than not. Sitting in the cover also negates the most broken abilities guardsmen have, taking up space and running faster than planes. My plague marines with -1/-2 to hit with 1+ armour save have traded fire all day long with guardsmen while sitting on objectives. When you can still kill them with potshots from bolters and they must divert actual antitank fire to shift power armour infantry, I'm reasonably happy to force those decisions on them.
Mission first, making the greatest number of guardsmen explode second
. Getting to the quality of 
