Look at this list that they advertised today on the Warhammer Community site:
Battalion Detachment
HQs Captain in Phobos Armour
Librarian in Phobos Armour
Troops 10 Infiltrators
5 Scouts
5 Scouts
5 Scouts
Fast Attack 3 Land Speeders
Heavy Support 3 Eliminators
Vanguard Detachment
HQ Lieutenant in Phobos Armour
Elite 10 Reivers
10 Reivers
10 Reivers
Fast Attack
3 Suppressors
Now, I ask you - what could this list possibly beat? I think this might actually be the weakest 40k army I have ever seen.
This army has laughably poor anti tank and anti elite shooting. It has basically zero close combat efficacy. It would have pretty good board control, up until your opponent actually started shooting and cleared out your poor model count in 1-2 turns.
I think a single Knight Castellan, by itself, might be able to defeat this entire 2k point army.
How can GW put this pile of trash forward as a suggested army list? They must not be playing their own game. It's the only thing that makes any sense.
beir wrote: There is no way that the people at GW play 40k.
Look at this list that they advertised today on the Warhammer Community site:
Battalion Detachment
HQs Captain in Phobos Armour
Librarian in Phobos Armour
Troops 10 Infiltrators
5 Scouts
5 Scouts
5 Scouts
Fast Attack 3 Land Speeders
Heavy Support 3 Eliminators
Vanguard Detachment
HQ Lieutenant in Phobos Armour
Elite 10 Reivers
10 Reivers
10 Reivers
Fast Attack
3 Suppressors
Now, I ask you - what could this list possibly beat? I think this might actually be the weakest 40k army I have ever seen.
This army has laughably poor anti tank and anti elite shooting. It has basically zero close combat efficacy. It would have pretty good board control, up until your opponent actually started shooting and cleared out your poor model count in 1-2 turns.
I think a single Knight Castellan, by itself, might be able to defeat this entire 2k point army.
How can GW put this pile of trash forward as a suggested army list? They must not be playing their own game. It's the only thing that makes any sense.
Or, crazy idea, it played out like this
*wigglyscreen cut to GWHQ, 3:45 in the afternoon on a friday. Here we see Steve Johnson, trying to get his coat on and leave a little early*
"Steeeeeeve!"
"Oh, gosh, Jervis, I was just uh, getting ready to....head...."
"Listen Steve I know you probably want to get home but i need you to get together something for me really quick. We're writing an article for matched play with the new game box, and we need you to come up with a list people could build this box into."
"Oh...fine...I'll get it done before I leave."
*Walks into room with case full of studio models*
"Alright, what do we have here....sniper looking guys. Throw in the scouts. Put the landspeeders in there too, those are scouting things. The new reiver armor troops. Throw some reivers in there. Ok...that's got to be about a whole army. Let me snap a picture."
*wigglyscreen cut to GWHQ, 3:45 in the afternoon on a friday. Here we see Steve Johnson, trying to get his coat on and leave a little early*
"Steeeeeeve!"
"Oh, gosh, Jervis, I was just uh, getting ready to....head...."
"Listen Steve I know you probably want to get home but i need you to get together something for me really quick. We're writing an article for matched play with the new game box, and we need you to come up with a list people could build this box into."
"Oh...fine...I'll get it done before I leave."
*Walks into room with case full of studio models*
"Alright, what do we have here....sniper looking guys. Throw in the scouts. Put the landspeeders in there too, those are scouting things. The new reiver armor troops. Throw some reivers in there. Ok...that's got to be about a whole army. Let me snap a picture."
Yeah, and that is my point. They weren't thinking at all about how these new models could fit into any SM armies to make them good. They just decided "dudes with ponchos and tacticool mall ninja gear look sweet!" and left it there. No creativity in the actual profiles or rules. No thought about how these units would actually play in a game of 40k.
Have they not learned yet that good rules sell models? I don't understand this company.
it looks like a perfectly good themed list to me. not every game has to have the current strongest net list or the most optimized units.
the theme looks liek fast/ stealthy mostly on foot. looks fun to play an open war mission with against somebody also wanting a fun game. Def looks like the attacker, maybe they are infiltrating and attacking a tau base under cover of darkness, or eliminating a high value target being protected by a chaos warband that is protecting them while they work on a ritual spell to aid the conquest of some planet.
G00fySmiley wrote: it looks like a perfectly good themed list to me. not every game has to have the current strongest net list or the most optimized units.
the theme looks liek fast/ stealthy mostly on foot. looks fun to play an open war mission with against somebody also wanting a fun game. Def looks like the attacker, maybe they are infiltrating and attacking a tau base under cover of darkness, or eliminating a high value target being protected by a chaos warband that is protecting them while they work on a ritual spell to aid the conquest of some planet.
I think what the OP was implying underneath is that it would have been better if the list included some of the existing primaris line to show how the contents of Shadowspear augmented an all primaris army.
*wigglyscreen cut to GWHQ, 3:45 in the afternoon on a friday. Here we see Steve Johnson, trying to get his coat on and leave a little early*
"Steeeeeeve!"
"Oh, gosh, Jervis, I was just uh, getting ready to....head...."
"Listen Steve I know you probably want to get home but i need you to get together something for me really quick. We're writing an article for matched play with the new game box, and we need you to come up with a list people could build this box into."
"Oh...fine...I'll get it done before I leave."
*Walks into room with case full of studio models*
"Alright, what do we have here....sniper looking guys. Throw in the scouts. Put the landspeeders in there too, those are scouting things. The new reiver armor troops. Throw some reivers in there. Ok...that's got to be about a whole army. Let me snap a picture."
Yeah, and that is my point. They weren't thinking at all about how these new models could fit into any SM armies to make them good. They just decided "dudes with ponchos and tacticool mall ninja gear look sweet!" and left it there. No creativity in the actual profiles or rules. No thought about how these units would actually play in a game of 40k.
Have they not learned yet that good rules sell models? I don't understand this company.
Yeah, no. They were.
Hmmm, what models could we put in to compliment a vanguard scouting force in light armour? Oh, I know! Anyone? You, over there- what other scouting and recon units do SMs have?
G00fySmiley wrote: it looks like a perfectly good themed list to me. not every game has to have the current strongest net list or the most optimized units.
the theme looks liek fast/ stealthy mostly on foot. looks fun to play an open war mission with against somebody also wanting a fun game. Def looks like the attacker, maybe they are infiltrating and attacking a tau base under cover of darkness, or eliminating a high value target being protected by a chaos warband that is protecting them while they work on a ritual spell to aid the conquest of some planet.
Not every list has to be the strongest net list... but they say it's a matched play list example. This will get taken apart by literally any semi-competent matched play army. You could randomly pick units from the Guard codex and crush this.
If they want to bill it as a Narrative Play list for a SM Infiltrator force, that's one thing. Calling it a matched play list is deceptive to new players.
Kanluwen wrote: It's called "Shadowspear Focus"...wtf did you expect? A soup list?
I expected them to make the new Shadowspear units actually viable. Maybe have them fill some weaknesses of the existing SM line.
Instead we just got more guys with STR4 AP0 gak bolters. Yay.
Then don't play them?
Seriously, wtf are people expecting? Primaris stuff hasn't been an "OMG MUST HAVE!" from the outset.
Why does everyone automatically think any unit GW puts out has to smash all other units turn 1.
G00fySmiley wrote:it looks like a perfectly good themed list to me. not every game has to have the current strongest net list or the most optimized units.
the theme looks liek fast/ stealthy mostly on foot. looks fun to play an open war mission with against somebody also wanting a fun game. Def looks like the attacker, maybe they are infiltrating and attacking a tau base under cover of darkness, or eliminating a high value target being protected by a chaos warband that is protecting them while they work on a ritual spell to aid the conquest of some planet.
some people have no imagination. at least that list makes more sense (fluff)than the loyal 32 + Castellan or BA smash capt.
G00fySmiley wrote: it looks like a perfectly good themed list to me. not every game has to have the current strongest net list or the most optimized units.
the theme looks liek fast/ stealthy mostly on foot. looks fun to play an open war mission with against somebody also wanting a fun game. Def looks like the attacker, maybe they are infiltrating and attacking a tau base under cover of darkness, or eliminating a high value target being protected by a chaos warband that is protecting them while they work on a ritual spell to aid the conquest of some planet.
Yes, and the problem with GW's rules design is that you can't take a fluffy, thematic list like this without first having a half hour long meeting with your opponent before the game to design their list in order to actually be able to have a fun and close game of 40k.
Let's say that my opponent thought it would be fun and fluffy to bring an armored column to that game with a land raider crusader, a couple of predators, and maybe 2-3 razorbacks. That game would be terribly one sided.
I play casually more often than not and you actually end up with more one-sided blowouts in casual play than in hardcore tourney play because the variance in power level is so great. I can't just take the units that I think are cool or thematic and expect to have a close game.
Some new player is going to get this box, build this list, and get accidentally rolled by just about everyone they play because GW can't create balanced rules.
I'm not looking for a tourney winning netlist, I just want rules that aren't ridiculously bad so I can play with some cool new toy soldiers.
Have they not learned yet that good rules sell models? I don't understand this company.
They've been doing this for 30 years, in an industry where most companies don't last 5. So it's quite likely that they actually have learnt what sells models, and equally likely (given the evidence of those 30 years) that what actually sells models is good models, and rules are really a secondary consideration.
Here's the thing: while it's easy to look at the way you personally play the game, and the way competitive players talk about it on the internet, and assume that's the norm, the simple fact is that the vast majority of players collect the models they like and write their lists based on that, with very little consideration for what actually makes a good list. And that's the style of play that GW have always encouraged. While they have at various times supported tournament play with varying levels of enthusiasm, it's never been their primary focus. So yes, GW plays their own game. It's competitive players who are playing something different.
The list you posted is about selling particular models, and will be appealing to people who like those shiny new models because it includes those models, regardless of how powerful a list it is.
I think more evidence shows that they ran the Infiltrators as a squad of 10 with an addition 3 squads of 5 scouts each, and 3 squads of 10 CSM's.
I don't think I, or anyone I know, would do that. Unless a unit is expecting psychic or stratagem buffs, which troops by and large aren't, then there doesn't seem to me to be a compelling reason to have squads of ten when you could have squads of 5 and get better special/heavy density in the combined unit.
They also apparently think way more highly of reviers than anyone else does.
G00fySmiley wrote: it looks like a perfectly good themed list to me. not every game has to have the current strongest net list or the most optimized units.
the theme looks liek fast/ stealthy mostly on foot. looks fun to play an open war mission with against somebody also wanting a fun game. Def looks like the attacker, maybe they are infiltrating and attacking a tau base under cover of darkness, or eliminating a high value target being protected by a chaos warband that is protecting them while they work on a ritual spell to aid the conquest of some planet.
I think what the OP was implying underneath is that it would have been better if the list included some of the existing primaris line to show how the contents of Shadowspear augmented an all primaris army.
maybe but i am just trying to answer the actual questions not implied ones
"Now, I ask you - what could this list possibly beat? I think this might actually be the weakest 40k army I have ever seen.
This army has laughably poor anti tank and anti elite shooting. It has basically zero close combat efficacy. It would have pretty good board control, up until your opponent actually started shooting and cleared out your poor model count in 1-2 turns. "
he doesn't really mention Primaris, though I would actual point out to all the people thinking normal marines are going away that GW just put out a list like this instead of just spotlighting pure Primaris.
could the list be stronger... sure from a power perspective and hell blasters and a primaris tank/dread might help a lot to round it out as a fighting force, but would not be a themed list then, I personally prefer beer and pretzels games of fun themed lists, but to each their own.
G00fySmiley wrote: it looks like a perfectly good themed list to me. not every game has to have the current strongest net list or the most optimized units.
the theme looks liek fast/ stealthy mostly on foot. looks fun to play an open war mission with against somebody also wanting a fun game. Def looks like the attacker, maybe they are infiltrating and attacking a tau base under cover of darkness, or eliminating a high value target being protected by a chaos warband that is protecting them while they work on a ritual spell to aid the conquest of some planet.
Yes, and the problem with GW's rules design is that you can't take a fluffy, thematic list like this without first having a half hour long meeting with your opponent before the game to design their list in order to actually be able to have a fun and close game of 40k.
Oh really? Because I've just literally come back from playing a 40k game with a themed DG list of Typhus' personal guard, where the bulk of the list is Blightlords and didn't have to have this discuioon with my opponent who was running a pretty run of the mill competitive DE list.
You can make themes without sacrificing competitiveness, I've noticed you've said nothing about the CSM list in the same article.
Oh really? Because I've just literally come back from playing a 40k game with a themed DG list of Typhus' personal guard, where the bulk of the list is Blightlords and didn't have to have this discuioon with my opponent who was running a pretty run of the mill competitive DE list.
You can make themes without sacrificing competitiveness, I've noticed you've said nothing about the CSM list in the same article.
You should go out and buy a lottery ticket, sounds like you got lucky.
I didn't say anything about the CSM list because I don't play them and have no idea how good it is.
G00fySmiley wrote: it looks like a perfectly good themed list to me. not every game has to have the current strongest net list or the most optimized units.
the theme looks liek fast/ stealthy mostly on foot. looks fun to play an open war mission with against somebody also wanting a fun game. Def looks like the attacker, maybe they are infiltrating and attacking a tau base under cover of darkness, or eliminating a high value target being protected by a chaos warband that is protecting them while they work on a ritual spell to aid the conquest of some planet.
Yes, and the problem with GW's rules design is that you can't take a fluffy, thematic list like this without first having a half hour long meeting with your opponent before the game to design their list in order to actually be able to have a fun and close game of 40k.
Let's say that my opponent thought it would be fun and fluffy to bring an armored column to that game with a land raider crusader, a couple of predators, and maybe 2-3 razorbacks. That game would be terribly one sided.
I play casually more often than not and you actually end up with more one-sided blowouts in casual play than in hardcore tourney play because the variance in power level is so great. I can't just take the units that I think are cool or thematic and expect to have a close game.
Some new player is going to get this box, build this list, and get accidentally rolled by just about everyone they play because GW can't create balanced rules.
I'm not looking for a tourney winning netlist, I just want rules that aren't ridiculously bad so I can play with some cool new toy soldiers.
that is fair, it is def not a competitive list, though on the use of matched rules even in casual games most players want points over power level. If a enw player built this army they would probably not enjoy taking it against competitive players. Against the right players though If i had my themed list and saw my opponent put this down I would look at ti and offer to change my list. then again if I go all armor and the open war cards have objectives or we are playing with cards drawing objectives they might pull it off.
Oh really? Because I've just literally come back from playing a 40k game with a themed DG list of Typhus' personal guard, where the bulk of the list is Blightlords and didn't have to have this discuioon with my opponent who was running a pretty run of the mill competitive DE list.
You can make themes without sacrificing competitiveness, I've noticed you've said nothing about the CSM list in the same article.
You should go out and buy a lottery ticket, sounds like you got lucky.
I didn't say anything about the CSM list because I don't play them and have no idea how good it is.
Says he doesn't play CSM yet immediately critiques my list....
Blightlords are good, albeit very slow. Every DG player knows this.
that is fair, it is def not a competitive list, though on the use of matched rules even in casual games most players want points over power level. If a enw player built this army they would probably not enjoy taking it against competitive players. Against the right players though If i had my themed list and saw my opponent put this down I would look at ti and offer to change my list. then again if I go all armor and the open war cards have objectives or we are playing with cards drawing objectives they might pull it off.
Yeah, this is a good point. I think GW tries to "balance" casual games by introducing variance in the mission (i.e. the open war cards). I do think that can allow a much weaker list to win a game, but I don't think that's particularly fun.
I want to win or lose because I played well or not, not because I drew the right card at random or because my army happened to be much stronger or weaker than my opponent's.
A. Never take list advice from GW directly. They give advice to sell models. The lists they wrote were fun to a theme, but would get tabled turn 1 by any concerted effort of actual list-writing.
B. GW is trying to showcase the kinds of themes that you can push with your collection. At the end of the day, it's your army and nobody can tell you how to do it right or wrong. An army full of scout and infiltration specialists is pretty badass and would probably look really cool on someone's shelf. Would it play well? Nah. But it's fun to have a theme.
C. GW doesn't cater exclusively to competitive players. I dare say that the majority of 40k players actually play casual games in their own homes or hobby stores and unless they peruse online, never hear the acronym 'ITC'. Would a competitive list stomp the lists they showed off? There's no question. Does everyone in the world play with a Castellan, Smash Captains, and the loyal 32? No. Of course they don't. GW isn't trying to sell this product to the people that have those lists or that endeavor to build lists like that. They're selling this to the larger majority of their customer base that likes to collect, build, and play casually.
Says he doesn't play CSM yet immediately critiques my list....
Blightlords are good, albeit very slow. Every DG player knows this.
I'm not critiquing your list at all, i have no idea how good your DG stuff is. I'm saying you were lucky that you got a close game without pregaming with your opponent.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
drbored wrote: A. Never take list advice from GW directly. They give advice to sell models. The lists they wrote were fun to a theme, but would get tabled turn 1 by any concerted effort of actual list-writing.
B. GW is trying to showcase the kinds of themes that you can push with your collection. At the end of the day, it's your army and nobody can tell you how to do it right or wrong. An army full of scout and infiltration specialists is pretty badass and would probably look really cool on someone's shelf. Would it play well? Nah. But it's fun to have a theme.
C. GW doesn't cater exclusively to competitive players. I dare say that the majority of 40k players actually play casual games in their own homes or hobby stores and unless they peruse online, never hear the acronym 'ITC'. Would a competitive list stomp the lists they showed off? There's no question. Does everyone in the world play with a Castellan, Smash Captains, and the loyal 32? No. Of course they don't. GW isn't trying to sell this product to the people that have those lists or that endeavor to build lists like that. They're selling this to the larger majority of their customer base that likes to collect, build, and play casually.
My point is that a fluffy, cool theme list like this SHOULD be able to win against a reasonable opposing list.
Yeah, "viability" is completely subjective. There "competitive viability", which is probably the most commonly assumed on Dakka, even though that's still debatable. And then you have "can my models function/roll dice with the system viability and be fun" which has always seemed to be GW concern (even if they haven't succeeded in some cases)
Also remember that while online forums and tourneys are a large part of the demographic, there is a possibility that most sales GW sees have nothing to do with rule and more to do with collectors/painters. If the models look good, they will sell. Rules don't make a dent in the bottomline in most cases (with some very select exceptions)
*wigglyscreen cut to GWHQ, 3:45 in the afternoon on a friday. Here we see Steve Johnson, trying to get his coat on and leave a little early*
"Steeeeeeve!"
"Oh, gosh, Jervis, I was just uh, getting ready to....head...."
"Listen Steve I know you probably want to get home but i need you to get together something for me really quick. We're writing an article for matched play with the new game box, and we need you to come up with a list people could build this box into."
"Oh...fine...I'll get it done before I leave."
*Walks into room with case full of studio models*
"Alright, what do we have here....sniper looking guys. Throw in the scouts. Put the landspeeders in there too, those are scouting things. The new reiver armor troops. Throw some reivers in there. Ok...that's got to be about a whole army. Let me snap a picture."
Yeah, and that is my point. They weren't thinking at all about how these new models could fit into any SM armies to make them good. They just decided "dudes with ponchos and tacticool mall ninja gear look sweet!" and left it there. No creativity in the actual profiles or rules. No thought about how these units would actually play in a game of 40k.
Have they not learned yet that good rules sell models? I don't understand this company.
Well, they have when they make models that are too good, then GW is an evil conniving mastermind company that secretly makes the rules for all their new models OP broken so they can sell them.
Apparently, we can have it both ways. They can be SIMULTANEOUSLY lazy no-effort slobs who make super bad boring rules AND evil genius conspirators out to force you to buy the new hotness.
Remember when GW got all kinds of flak for only caring about competitive play when they ran a Castellan and the 32 boyos in their WD batrep like two weeks ago?
Galef wrote: Yeah, "viability" is completely subjective. There "competitive viability", which is probably the most commonly assumed on Dakka, even though that's still debatable. And then you have "can my models function/roll dice with the system viability and be fun" which has always seemed to be GW concern (even if they haven't succeeded in some cases)
Also remember that while online forums and tourneys are a large part of the demographic, there is a possibility that most sales GW sees have nothing to do with rule and more to do with collectors/painters. If the models look good, they will sell. Rules don't make a dent in the bottomline in most cases (with some very select exceptions)
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The list is GK tier. I class it below the function and be fun level. I mean the army is what 3 boxs of scouts and 3 boxs of reavers, 3 landspeeders and the new starter set. That is a ton of money. Even a Star collecting army is a lot, but this is enough money to buy a real money. I can imagine how someone would feel, if they bought the list and then tried to play it. They would not be very happy.
Galef wrote: Yeah, "viability" is completely subjective. There "competitive viability", which is probably the most commonly assumed on Dakka, even though that's still debatable. And then you have "can my models function/roll dice with the system viability and be fun" which has always seemed to be GW concern (even if they haven't succeeded in some cases)
Also remember that while online forums and tourneys are a large part of the demographic, there is a possibility that most sales GW sees have nothing to do with rule and more to do with collectors/painters. If the models look good, they will sell. Rules don't make a dent in the bottomline in most cases (with some very select exceptions)
-
The list is GK tier. I class it below the function and be fun level. I mean the army is what 3 boxs of scouts and 3 boxs of reavers, 3 landspeeders and the new starter set. That is a ton of money. Even a Star collecting army is a lot, but this is enough money to buy a real money. I can imagine how someone would feel, if they bought the list and then tried to play it. They would not be very happy.
Who cares what Tier it is? It's obviously a fluff-bunny list with all the Vanguard/forward intel units.
Sometimes lists are not built to max out on in-game advantage, but rather to show what a particular division would be comprised of. If I want to do a Saim-Hann army with mostly Windriders and Vypers, no Ynnari or Reapers, that's perfectly valid and fluffy, even though it is "not top tier"
People really need to move away from thinking lists HAVE to preform competitively to be valid. Sometimes there is a theme in mind and you want that on the table top. GW clearly plays Narrative games, not Matched play. Because Narrative matches fluff better and showcases the models better
I think that list would do fine in on a very dense urban table with streets no wider than the longest bit of a Lemon Russ with several areas that are completely unpassable areas to non-flyer, skimmer vehicles where the mission is to get as many infantry units off your opponent's table edge.
Which seems exactly what a stealthy, infiltrator force might try to do. I guess all Warhammer 40k games have to be pitched battles of trying to grab objectives though...
JamesY wrote: I regularly visit Warhammer world, and I know many of the faces that work at HQ. They are often in the gaming hall at the end of the working day.
Was there yesterday, as our game was winding down I'd say about half the people playing at the tables were GW staff.
Galef wrote: Yeah, "viability" is completely subjective. There "competitive viability", which is probably the most commonly assumed on Dakka, even though that's still debatable. And then you have "can my models function/roll dice with the system viability and be fun" which has always seemed to be GW concern (even if they haven't succeeded in some cases)
Also remember that while online forums and tourneys are a large part of the demographic, there is a possibility that most sales GW sees have nothing to do with rule and more to do with collectors/painters. If the models look good, they will sell. Rules don't make a dent in the bottomline in most cases (with some very select exceptions)
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The list is GK tier. I class it below the function and be fun level. I mean the army is what 3 boxs of scouts and 3 boxs of reavers, 3 landspeeders and the new starter set. That is a ton of money. Even a Star collecting army is a lot, but this is enough money to buy a real money. I can imagine how someone would feel, if they bought the list and then tried to play it. They would not be very happy.
Who cares what Tier it is? It's obviously a fluff-bunny list with all the Vanguard/forward intel units.
Sometimes lists are not built to max out on in-game advantage, but rather to show what a particular division would be comprised of.
If I want to do a Saim-Hann army with mostly Windriders and Vypers, no Ynnari or Reapers, that's perfectly valid and fluffy, even though it is "not top tier"
People really need to move away from thinking lists HAVE to preform competitively to be valid. Sometimes there is a theme in mind and you want that on the table top.
GW clearly plays Narrative games, not Matched play. Because Narrative matches fluff better and showcases the models better
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Why does a fluffy list like this have to be so terrible rules-wise? 40k is actually a game, not just a model showcase. At the end of the day, people want to play games on the table with these models, not just create a fluffy division to sit in a glass case at their house.
I have a very fluffy imperial knight house list as well. How much fun do you think a game between that list and this one would be?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Saturmorn Carvilli wrote: I think that list would do fine in on a very dense urban table with streets no wider than the longest bit of a Lemon Russ with several areas that are completely unpassable areas to non-flyer, skimmer vehicles where the mission is to get as many infantry units off your opponent's table edge.
Which seems exactly what a stealthy, infiltrator force might try to do. I guess all Warhammer 40k games have to be pitched battles of trying to grab objectives though...
When have you ever seen a 40k table in real life that looks like this? That much terrain is expensive as hell.
Galef wrote: Yeah, "viability" is completely subjective. There "competitive viability", which is probably the most commonly assumed on Dakka, even though that's still debatable. And then you have "can my models function/roll dice with the system viability and be fun" which has always seemed to be GW concern (even if they haven't succeeded in some cases)
Also remember that while online forums and tourneys are a large part of the demographic, there is a possibility that most sales GW sees have nothing to do with rule and more to do with collectors/painters. If the models look good, they will sell. Rules don't make a dent in the bottomline in most cases (with some very select exceptions)
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The list is GK tier. I class it below the function and be fun level. I mean the army is what 3 boxs of scouts and 3 boxs of reavers, 3 landspeeders and the new starter set. That is a ton of money. Even a Star collecting army is a lot, but this is enough money to buy a real money. I can imagine how someone would feel, if they bought the list and then tried to play it. They would not be very happy.
Who cares what Tier it is? It's obviously a fluff-bunny list with all the Vanguard/forward intel units.
Sometimes lists are not built to max out on in-game advantage, but rather to show what a particular division would be comprised of.
If I want to do a Saim-Hann army with mostly Windriders and Vypers, no Ynnari or Reapers, that's perfectly valid and fluffy, even though it is "not top tier"
People really need to move away from thinking lists HAVE to preform competitively to be valid. Sometimes there is a theme in mind and you want that on the table top.
GW clearly plays Narrative games, not Matched play. Because Narrative matches fluff better and showcases the models better
-
Why does a fluffy list like this have to be so terrible rules-wise? 40k is actually a game, not just a model showcase. At the end of the day, people want to play games on the table with these models, not just create a fluffy division to sit in a glass case at their house.
I have a very fluffy imperial knight house list as well. How much fun do you think a game between that list and this one would be?
In a terrain-heavy city board (which this list is probably themed around, you know- what a Vanguard recon force would operate in) quite fun.
Saturmorn Carvilli wrote: I think that list would do fine in on a very dense urban table with streets no wider than the longest bit of a Lemon Russ with several areas that are completely unpassable areas to non-flyer, skimmer vehicles where the mission is to get as many infantry units off your opponent's table edge.
Which seems exactly what a stealthy, infiltrator force might try to do. I guess all Warhammer 40k games have to be pitched battles of trying to grab objectives though...
When have you ever seen a 40k table in real life that looks like this? That much terrain is expensive as hell.
Yes I have. In the GW store I got into 40k in. It was a board full of city ruins with modular terrain.
The list is GK tier. I class it below the function and be fun level. I mean the army is what 3 boxs of scouts and 3 boxs of reavers, 3 landspeeders and the new starter set. That is a ton of money. Even a Star collecting army is a lot, but this is enough money to buy a real money. I can imagine how someone would feel, if they bought the list and then tried to play it. They would not be very happy.
Who cares what Tier it is? It's obviously a fluff-bunny list with all the Vanguard/forward intel units.
Sometimes lists are not built to max out on in-game advantage, but rather to show what a particular division would be comprised of.
If I want to do a Saim-Hann army with mostly Windriders and Vypers, no Ynnari or Reapers, that's perfectly valid and fluffy, even though it is "not top tier"
People really need to move away from thinking lists HAVE to preform competitively to be valid. Sometimes there is a theme in mind and you want that on the table top.
GW clearly plays Narrative games, not Matched play. Because Narrative matches fluff better and showcases the models better
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you are right. tiers may not be the most important thing. but money is. The list costs like a normal w40k army. Now I can imagine that for some people buying a starter box and 9 unit boxs is nothing. Good for them. But imagine a new player seeing this and thinking that because GW lists the army it is ment to be played, as in real game played, not played in some narrative scenario one time, and then proceed to buy a new army noob. Trust me, I have a hands on expiriance what it is to spend money and find out that your army does not work. Also no where in the GW article does it say that this is ment for narrative play, in fact it is designated as matched play legal. So a new player after hearing that the normal games are all matched play will see this and think, the list is good enough. Specially if he likes the models looks.
also dont compare eldar stuff to other armies. It is practicaly impossible to build a legal eldar list that is going to be trash tier. And this list is trash tier. It would lose to someone who bought two of the old starter boxs and some support.
It's a thematic list obviousely. Made for a scenario. You can play matched with scenarios as well.
In the WD article where they showed competitive lists they outright stated they had no idea how competitive players even approach the game or think.
On the other hand I admit GWs lists have usually been weak even for casual play. Even back in 2003 when I started Lotr I realized their lists had usually little thought put into them but were instead driven by what's actually in the Box.
I feel on the list/strength list my current fav list to play consists of nothing but bikes, buggies, and some biker Hqs (warboss, big mek, wartrike etc. It won't take any tournaments but its fun.
I'd take that list against like an ork horde army. That'd work pretty well - snipers are actually fairly valuable in picking off things like big meks/painboyz/etc and it might have juuuust enough punch with some buffed up reivers to take down a couple units of unbuffed ork boyz.
Maybe a big swarm of nids, or daemons, or a very casually built guard infantry list. That's about all I'd rate it for.
It follows the pattern of many very casual lists, which is next to no real anti-tank weaponry and a ton of antiinfantry stuff, because that's what the basic troops are equipped with.
Saturmorn Carvilli wrote: I think that list would do fine in on a very dense urban table with streets no wider than the longest bit of a Lemon Russ with several areas that are completely unpassable areas to non-flyer, skimmer vehicles where the mission is to get as many infantry units off your opponent's table edge.
Which seems exactly what a stealthy, infiltrator force might try to do. I guess all Warhammer 40k games have to be pitched battles of trying to grab objectives though...
When have you ever seen a 40k table in real life that looks like this? That much terrain is expensive as hell.
Considering I built enough 28mm terrain to do some Stalingrad city fighting gaming at 28mm and Urban Conquest just came out, locally more often than you might think. I even suspect that the Shadowspear booklet might have a mission that above list would work quite for. Especially since the opposing list will probably heavily feature the Chaos side.
I seriously suggest you leave your competitive (read: highly restrictive model choices) list building games and try and find an opponent for some narrative gaming where you use the terrain and mission to balance out the units of each army and not the points and units themselves. If you are anything like me and do it correctly, you will find 2000 point pick up games of competitive armies bland. They can take quite a bit more work while still being very difficult games to win, but I think they are far more impressive if players can pull them off than winning any tournament as they take full knowledge of the factions in question, what they are good at and how to balence that with terrain and missions that make the games as equal as possible at Initiative.
This just in, GW doesn't aim its game at the 10-15% of players who are solely Tournament/meta gaming. This may shock some people, but other folks play the game too.
I seriously suggest you leave your competitive (read: highly restrictive model choices) list building games and try and find an opponent for some narrative gaming where you use the terrain and mission to balance out the units of each army and not the points and units themselves. If you are anything like me and do it correctly, you will find 2000 point pick up games of competitive armies bland. They can take quite a bit more work while still being very difficult games to win, but I think they are far more impressive if players can pull them off than winning any tournament as they take full knowledge of the factions in question, what they are good at and how to balence that with terrain and missions that make the games as equal as possible at Initiative.
I always made it a point of mine in WMH to try and win with stuff the internet had deemed "trash". It was like you broke these players collective brains when they saw a unit they had written off performing not how the internet had told them. But this went in both directions- When one of the top players did the same the hivemind suddenly did a 180 and this unit was now "good".
Its hilarious. If I had loads of money I would specifically make this list just to prove people wrong, because I'm that petty.
Saturmorn Carvilli wrote: I think that list would do fine in on a very dense urban table with streets no wider than the longest bit of a Lemon Russ with several areas that are completely unpassable areas to non-flyer, skimmer vehicles where the mission is to get as many infantry units off your opponent's table edge.
Which seems exactly what a stealthy, infiltrator force might try to do. I guess all Warhammer 40k games have to be pitched battles of trying to grab objectives though...
When have you ever seen a 40k table in real life that looks like this? That much terrain is expensive as hell.
Considering I built enough 28mm terrain to do some Stalingrad city fighting gaming at 28mm and Urban Conquest just came out, locally more often than you might think. I even suspect that the Shadowspear booklet might have a mission that above list would work quite for. Especially since the opposing list will probably heavily feature the Chaos side.
I seriously suggest you leave your competitive (read: highly restrictive model choices) list building games and try and find an opponent for some narrative gaming where you use the terrain and mission to balance out the units of each army and not the points and units themselves. If you are anything like me and do it correctly, you will find 2000 point pick up games of competitive armies bland. They can take quite a bit more work while still being very difficult games to win, but I think they are far more impressive if players can pull them off than winning any tournament as they take full knowledge of the factions in question, what they are good at and how to balence that with terrain and missions that make the games as equal as possible at Initiative.
I'm not talking about winning tournaments. I'm talking about buying my new $60 box of models, spending all week assembling and painting them, and then walking into my FLGS on a Saturday looking for a game. I put my shiny new models on the table and discover that they are absolute trash because GW can't write rules.
But I forgot, on Dakka you're either a super fluff bunny or a WAACTFG tournament hardcore dickstomper.
I for one am glad that GW recognizes that the overwhelming majority of their playerbase plays with either no points or with power levels as a rough guide, and to stop catering to people who play ListBuilding Online.
I am all for fluffy thematic lists. But maybe the rules should be written so that fluffy thematic lists weren't actually terrible? Like the rules could be written so that what is thematic is also actually good?
judgedoug wrote: I for one am glad that GW recognizes that the overwhelming majority of their playerbase plays with either no points or with power levels as a rough guide, and to stop catering to people who play ListBuilding Online.
Do you have any hard data to support that claim? In my experience both online and off power level is borderline reviled by the majority of players and never used.
But I forgot, on Dakka you're either a super fluff bunny or a WAACTFG tournament hardcore dickstomper.
Apparently. If you are even slightly concerned with winning a single game of 40k, you are TFG.
This list is trash by literally any standards, unless you and your opponent tailor lists to fight against each other evenly. Which is fine, but thats way more Narrative or Open play.... and this list was introduced as a way to expand into matched play. LITERALLY ANY matched play list will destroy this.
They could have made it better while still keeping it in theme. The existing Primaris line has plenty of models that could help supplement this. Maybe some Plasma Interceptors, some Plasma Assault Hellblasters. Not great choices for matched play, but they keep up with the theme of rapid attack Primaris models, and they at least offer you a hope of killing tanks or heavier infantry.
Crimson wrote: I am all for fluffy thematic lists. But maybe the rules should be written so that fluffy thematic lists weren't actually terrible? Like the rules could be written so that what is thematic is also actually good?
This.
Fluffy lists trounce the absolute juice out of this nonsense list they put together. I could run my fluffy space wolves list against it - and it's not even good - and hammer this gak into oblivion.
Dakka actually follows the universe rules of Cabin in the Woods. If any of the following roles are not fulfiled at any given time, the mods pump drugs through the keyboard of a randomly selected poster to alter their personality and make sure the role stays fulfilled:
1) The Positivity Policeman. He must attack any and all posts that strike any kind of critical tone.
2) The One-Army Warrior. All threads on the front page must be twisted into threads about The OAW's chosen faction.
3) The Low Effort Troll. Required to make 14 posts a day with less than 10 words in each. Each reply sustains his unsatiable hunger.
4) The Impossible Meta Victim. All posts must be filtered through the lens of his increasingly improbable-sounding local meta, where every list he faces is a tournament-topping meta netlist, and gangs of thugs beat him up every time he loses.
5) The Rules Complainer. Each and every detail of Games Workshop's rules writing arouses his impossible rage, and he must stalk the YMDC forum as a mighty jungle cat, his nostrils flared for the scent of fresh FAQs to complain about.
Don't be too harsh on poor Karol. He is new in his role as avatar of the impossible meta victim. Martel carried that mantle for so long his spirit grew weary and now he can scarcely stir from his slumber long enough to type a single sentence about how his all jump pack blood angel list got tabled during the deployment phase by his opponents' imperial ynnari soup combo list. Soon, he shall crumble to dust at his keyboard and the spirit of the IMV will be transferred fully to Karol's shoulders.
We're currently experiencing type 5. Guess it's BCB's day off.
Kanluwen wrote: It's called "Shadowspear Focus"...wtf did you expect? A soup list?
I expected them to make the new Shadowspear units actually viable. Maybe have them fill some weaknesses of the existing SM line.
Instead we just got more guys with STR4 AP0 gak bolters. Yay.
They are a business, they are not a tournament company. GW is supposed to be for fun, tournaments exist in their own world independent of GW. They want to show off their models and they want to make it look like an actual army rather than a soup list as previously stated.
Galef wrote: Who cares what Tier it is? It's obviously a fluff-bunny list with all the Vanguard/forward intel units.
...
GW clearly plays Narrative games, not Matched play. Because Narrative matches fluff better and showcases the models better
What tier it is matters because it's advertised as a matched play list, NOT a narrative list, and the article is purely about how its units and strategies can win games. Nothing at all suggests that this is anything but a straightforward matched play list intended to be used in a pickup game with the standard matched play missions and a goal of wining the game. And it's pretty dishonest to present this as a viable list in that context when anyone who tries to use it will get wiped off the table and feel betrayed that they threw away money on a trash list.
And if GW only plays narrative games then they're incompetent idiots who should be fired. Matched play is part of the game and how many of their customers use their products, ignoring that entire market and stubbornly insisting that it's somehow the wrong way to play is directly hurting the company's profits. As is claiming to support matched play but not spending any playtesting time on it because their rule authors find narrative games more enjoyable.
I think it's clear to everyone the list in question is absolutely awful gameplay wise. We know it and probably everyone knows it but most of GW. I think the only real issue is that they advertised it as a matched play list. If it was said be a narrative army then boom no problem because that is exactly what it is. I think it is a bit of false advertising on their to pretend this list is worthy of a matched play game.
You contradict yourself here. GW is a business, and doing your job as an employee of a game business means selling the product successfully regardless of how you personally enjoy playing the game. Tournament players are customers and a source of revenue, so tournament play matters. Any GW rule author who fails to support tournament play because they don't find it "fun" should be fired for incompetence.
Asmodios wrote: >GW made what they felt is a fun themed list featuring new units
"omg this list would never win anything obviously they have never played 40k"
Asmodios wrote: >GW made what they felt is a fun themed list featuring new units
"omg this list would never win anything obviously they have never played 40k"
You can make competitive armies in 40k without it being a incoherent mess of seemingly random units. The two things are not mutually exclusive.
This list is used as a thematic example of a scouting force, something I've seen SM players making for decades before this. You know why? Because an all scout recon force is cool and doesn't play like a normal SM force does. Same goes for the CSM one (which I've still seen literally no-one moaning about). It's a themed Daemonkin list that looks cool. It's an example of how to use the Shadowspear units in a themed list.
Or should these SM go alongside Knights? Because nothing says stealth like big stompy robots.
beir wrote: Why does a fluffy list like this have to be so terrible rules-wise?
Nobody said it has to be terrible. The point is simply that GW, and most of their customer base, care far less about balanced rules than you appear to.
Which isn't saying that your point of view is 'wrong'... everyone is entitled to play the game how they prefer. But expecting GW to suddenly start caring about balanced rules, despite 30 years of evidence that they have absolutely no interest in doing so, is nailing jelly to a tree.
When have you ever seen a 40k table in real life that looks like this? That much terrain is expensive as hell.
Just about every time I set up an urban table... If there's room on the table for more terrain, you're not finished yet!
40K has always worked best with as much terrain on the table as possible.
You contradict yourself here. GW is a business, and doing your job as an employee of a game business means selling the product successfully regardless of how you personally enjoy playing the game. Tournament players are customers and a source of revenue, so tournament play matters. Any GW rule author who fails to support tournament play because they don't find it "fun" should be fired for incompetence.
The designer of a spoon isn't incompetent for not designing their spoon to function properly as a knife just because you choose to use it that way.
insaniak wrote: The designer of a spoon isn't incompetent for not designing their spoon to function properly as a knife just because you choose to use it that way.
A terrible analogy, which ignores the fact that knives and spoons have conflicting design requirements while competitive play and casual/narrative play do not. There is nothing stopping GW from making a better competitive game without sacrificing anything about narrative play, the issue is purely GW's incompetence at doing the job.
insaniak wrote: The designer of a spoon isn't incompetent for not designing their spoon to function properly as a knife just because you choose to use it that way.
A terrible analogy, which ignores the fact that knives and spoons have conflicting design requirements while competitive play and casual/narrative play do not. There is nothing stopping GW from making a better competitive game without sacrificing anything about narrative play, the issue is purely GW's incompetence at doing the job.
Hey, lil Perri. I'll let you in on a secret. We we're talking about lists, not the game. WMH is a tight rule system, so is X-Wing- which I know you're familiar with. Both systems have lists and models in them the internet has deemed "trash".
But... but, these are tight rule systems with clear rules? How can this be? GW tightening up their game rules won't magically make some units "good".
And let's not forget that, for every player that brings a ''Fluffy list of vanguard marine using lots of recon, scout, and reivers.'' There another casual player that brings a ''Fluffy list of 2 knights and 2 armigers''. Sure, both players are casual and brought themed list of their favorite army. But in that matchup, who realistically have the most chance of winning, even barring poor player skill?
Good balance is good for every level of play, not just hypercompetitive!
Yeah, and that is my point. They weren't thinking at all about how these new models could fit into any SM armies to make them good. They just decided "dudes with ponchos and tacticool mall ninja gear look sweet!" and left it there. No creativity in the actual profiles or rules. No thought about how these units would actually play in a game of 40k.
Have they not learned yet that good rules sell models? I don't understand this company.
Absolutely OP models sell more, too. Would you prefer they do that or take a reasoned approach?
Your 10-man squads of Chaos Space Marines are great for holding objectives and offering fire support while the rest of your fast-moving, melee-focussed army speeds towards the foe to engage them in combat. Alternatively, you can use them to follow up your first wave of daemonically possessed gribblies and put the new beta Bolter Discipline rules to good use at close range.
This is stated in the same article, with the rule name directly linked to the bolter discipline rule, i mean....
I'm not talking about winning tournaments. I'm talking about buying my new $60 box of models, spending all week assembling and painting them, and then walking into my FLGS on a Saturday looking for a game. I put my shiny new models on the table and discover that they are absolute trash because GW can't write rules.
But I forgot, on Dakka you're either a super fluff bunny or a WAACTFG tournament hardcore dickstomper.
Well moderate discussion tends to disappear down the post list when they come up. So often what gets seen is the extremes.
I was just commenting that list would work fine for games that were built around the them of it. My understanding was the Shadowspear was supposedly a space marine infiltration force on some sort of Chaos fallen world. So I would expect an stealthy infiltration army to perform stealth infiltration missions. So I don't think it is that much of a stretch for Games Workshop to feature the new largely stealthy, infiltration units into a stealthy, infiltration army. I wouldn't ever expect a stealthy, infiltration army to perform all that well in an open, pitched battle mission like most tournament games tend to feature. Maybe elements sure, but not the whole thing. It is just too specialized. I am willing to try and balance army lists at the terrain and mission level to try and get a better game. Just trying to find a silver lining here.
I would agree that the list isn't competitive. But that doesn't mean it isn't without merit nor that Games Workshop doesn't play their own game. It probably does mean that they don't play their own game like you play the game. I would go as far as saying the Games Workshop designers might not even take the game as serious as you do when it comes to balance. Maybe they should, but I am sure that GW sell enough kits without doing so. So we can gripe, but I don't know if it is going to do much good.
Is this list going to win tournaments, or even games in tournaments? Probably not. Could the rules be better? Always. Are the rules good enough? For where I am in my gaming life, pretty much. I generally don't play in FLGS beyond Kill Team anymore. When comes to Kill Team faction starters, I would have preferred that GW use the better model load out compared to the ones they sometimes do. I have seen a lot of new players that built their kill team based on what GW did with the kit and often they aren't happy after awhile as they liked some of the kit's other options. I don't think this will ever change. I certainly don't think I can affect that change, so I try not to get stressed out about it and try to make them work in other ways like terrain setup and mission to get the closest game possible.
A terrible analogy, which ignores the fact that knives and spoons have conflicting design requirements while competitive play and casual/narrative play do not
Nonsense. It's perfectly possible to design a spoon with a straight edge on one side, so that it would function better as a knife while still functioning as a spoon.
And since it's possible, the fact that spoons aren't designed like this is clearly, by your argument, down to incompetence, rather than, you know, the spoon just being intended to be a spoon.
. There is nothing stopping GW from making a better competitive game without sacrificing anything about narrative play, the issue is purely GW's incompetence at doing the job.
Sure there is. First off, there's whether or not they want to make a competitive game. If I have a profitable business making something I like making, the fact that I technically could make something different, that I have absolutely no interest in making, is irrelevant.
And for two, designing a more balanced ruleset requires more work, which means more time invested, which means more expense. GW, as a business, would weigh up whether the additional expense would result in a large enough uptick in sales to be justified.
If they're meeting sales targets by releasing models with rules that were scrawled on a napkin during someone's lunch break, there is absolutely no reason to invest that extra expense to write better rules.
Then there's even less of an excuse for GW's incompetence. The article was explicitly about matched play and the entire content is about how the list is good at winning games. Either GW is incompetent and doesn't have any idea that they're publishing a bad list and claiming it's good, or they're dishonestly trying to sell the new box set to competitive players by pretending that the list is good. Neither is acceptable.
Nonsense. It's perfectly possible to design a spoon with a straight edge on one side, so that it would function better as a knife while still functioning as a spoon.
And since it's possible, the fact that spoons aren't designed like this is clearly, by your argument, down to incompetence, rather than, you know, the spoon just being intended to be a spoon.
No, you're analogy still fails. A spoon with a straight edge is not a good spoon because of simple geometry. A straight-edged surface is worse at holding liquid than a round-edged cup. And if you try to make the edge sharp enough to function as a good knife you risk having the user cut themselves by putting it in their mouth. We don't make knife-spoons because they're bad spoons and bad knives, not because spoon manufacturers don't think that knives are "fun" enough.
Sure there is. First off, there's whether or not they want to make a competitive game. If I have a profitable business making something I like making, the fact that I technically could make something different, that I have absolutely no interest in making, is irrelevant.
100% wrong. GW is a publicly traded company owned by its shareholders. GW's employees have a legal obligation to maximize profit. The fact that they don't find something fun is irrelevant, if making a better competitive game would mean more sales and therefore more value to the shareholders then they are legally obligated to do it. And GW management is legally obligated to fire any designer who decides to sacrifice profit for personal enjoyment.
And for two, designing a more balanced ruleset requires more work, which means more time invested, which means more expense. GW, as a business, would weigh up whether the additional expense would result in a large enough uptick in sales to be justified.
It requires more work, but I am extremely skeptical that the additional work is significant relevant to GW's sales volume and total expenses on employee salaries. I am especially skeptical because of how commonly you (and people like you) claim that the issue is that GW's rule authors don't enjoy competitive play and don't want to do it, which is not something that matters from a budget point of view.
If they're meeting sales targets by releasing models with rules that were scrawled on a napkin during someone's lunch break, there is absolutely no reason to invest that extra expense to write better rules.
There absolutely is if GW is only meeting sales targets because the sales targets are too low and neglect to pursue the additional revenue source of competitive play. If investing the small extra expense would lead to more profit then GW is legally obligated to pursue it, settling for adequate sales is not sufficient.
Then there's even less of an excuse for GW's incompetence. The article was explicitly about matched play and the entire content is about how the list is good at winning games. Either GW is incompetent and doesn't have any idea that they're publishing a bad list and claiming it's good, or they're dishonestly trying to sell the new box set to competitive players by pretending that the list is good. Neither is acceptable.
Nope. Just re-read the article. Nothing of the sort is in it- It gives tactics for the lists, you know; like would be in any article on playing an army in a wargame.
Galef wrote: Yeah, "viability" is completely subjective. There "competitive viability", which is probably the most commonly assumed on Dakka, even though that's still debatable. And then you have "can my models function/roll dice with the system viability and be fun" which has always seemed to be GW concern (even if they haven't succeeded in some cases)
Also remember that while online forums and tourneys are a large part of the demographic, there is a possibility that most sales GW sees have nothing to do with rule and more to do with collectors/painters. If the models look good, they will sell. Rules don't make a dent in the bottomline in most cases (with some very select exceptions)
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The list is GK tier. I class it below the function and be fun level. I mean the army is what 3 boxs of scouts and 3 boxs of reavers, 3 landspeeders and the new starter set. That is a ton of money. Even a Star collecting army is a lot, but this is enough money to buy a real money. I can imagine how someone would feel, if they bought the list and then tried to play it. They would not be very happy.
Who cares what Tier it is? It's obviously a fluff-bunny list with all the Vanguard/forward intel units.
Sometimes lists are not built to max out on in-game advantage, but rather to show what a particular division would be comprised of.
If I want to do a Saim-Hann army with mostly Windriders and Vypers, no Ynnari or Reapers, that's perfectly valid and fluffy, even though it is "not top tier"
People really need to move away from thinking lists HAVE to preform competitively to be valid. Sometimes there is a theme in mind and you want that on the table top.
GW clearly plays Narrative games, not Matched play. Because Narrative matches fluff better and showcases the models better
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But, but competitive is the way I play, and since I play that way, everyone else must!
I have never purchased a model due to its rules. If it looks good and can serve a SPECIFIC function in my army, I'll buy it.
I can understand the view that new models should be better than previous ones (ruleswise) but the whole "if it isnt the best, then it might as well not exist" is moronic. The game doesn't exist in a vacuum, every community has their own experiences and they may all be alike or different or 50/50.
Grimtuff wrote: Nope. Just re-read the article. Nothing of the sort is in it- It gives tactics for the lists, you know; like would be in any article on playing an army in a wargame.
When you say "the list is good at X" it implies that the list is in fact good at X, and that you aren't lying about it to sell models. And nothing in the article talks about the stories you can create with the models, it's purely advice for how to build an army and win games with it.
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Racerguy180 wrote: But, but competitive is the way I play, and since I play that way, everyone else must!
Again, this is an article about competitive play, not narrative/casual/whatever. Please do not build straw man arguments.
Grimtuff wrote: Nope. Just re-read the article. Nothing of the sort is in it- It gives tactics for the lists, you know; like would be in any article on playing an army in a wargame.
When you say "the list is good at X" it implies that the list is in fact good at X, and that you aren't lying about it to sell models. And nothing in the article talks about the stories you can create with the models, it's purely advice for how to build an army and win games with it.
No gak Sherlock... You play games to try and win? That is literally the object of the game. What do you want GW to say. Run these guys forward and go "pew pew"?
Grimtuff wrote: No gak Sherlock... You play games to try and win? That is literally the object of the game. What do you want GW to say. Run these guys forward and go "pew pew"?
If you're playing a narrative game then yeah, you're making choices based on the story and not just what is best at winning games. GW explicitly describes this as a matched play list, not narrative, and only talks about how the list can win games while saying nothing about any story elements behind it. Pretending that this is somehow an article about narrative gaming is incredibly dishonest.
Your 10-man squads of Chaos Space Marines are great for holding objectives and offering fire support while the rest of your fast-moving, melee-focussed army speeds towards the foe to engage them in combat. Alternatively, you can use them to follow up your first wave of daemonically possessed gribblies and put the new beta Bolter Discipline rules to good use at close range.
This is stated in the same article, with the rule name directly linked to the bolter discipline rule, i mean....
Honestly this quote alone is scary, anyone who thinks 10 man chaos marine squads are “great for holding objectives,” or even half decent at, “offering fire support.” Shouldn’t be writing these type of articles. The reason I say it’s scary is becuase if this is what they believe then god help the playtesters.
100% wrong. GW is a publicly traded company owned by its shareholders. GW's employees have a legal obligation to maximize profit.
This is a myth.
And also still presupposes that making a more balanced ruleset would actually increase profits.
Clearly you think it would. Equally clearly, the company that has remained successful for 30 years in an extremely fickle industry disagrees that it is necessary to their continued success.
Grimtuff wrote: No gak Sherlock... You play games to try and win? That is literally the object of the game. What do you want GW to say. Run these guys forward and go "pew pew"?
If you're playing a narrative game then yeah, you're making choices based on the story and not just what is best at winning games. GW explicitly describes this as a matched play list, not narrative, and only talks about how the list can win games while saying nothing about any story elements behind it. Pretending that this is somehow an article about narrative gaming is incredibly dishonest.
Your 10-man squads of Chaos Space Marines are great for holding objectives and offering fire support while the rest of your fast-moving, melee-focussed army speeds towards the foe to engage them in combat. Alternatively, you can use them to follow up your first wave of daemonically possessed gribblies and put the new beta Bolter Discipline rules to good use at close range.
This is stated in the same article, with the rule name directly linked to the bolter discipline rule, i mean....
Honestly this quote alone is scary, anyone who thinks 10 man chaos marine squads are “great for holding objectives,” or even half decent at, “offering fire support.” Shouldn’t be writing these type of articles. The reason I say it’s scary is becuase if this is what they believe then god help the playtesters.
In a fluffy match they do ok, what scares me more they literally LINKED THE BOLTER BETA RULE and MESSED IT UP IN THE CONTEXT OF THE MARINES.
A terrible analogy, which ignores the fact that knives and spoons have conflicting design requirements while competitive play and casual/narrative play do not
Nonsense. It's perfectly possible to design a spoon with a straight edge on one side, so that it would function better as a knife while still functioning as a spoon.
And since it's possible, the fact that spoons aren't designed like this is clearly, by your argument, down to incompetence, rather than, you know, the spoon just being intended to be a spoon.
. There is nothing stopping GW from making a better competitive game without sacrificing anything about narrative play, the issue is purely GW's incompetence at doing the job.
Sure there is. First off, there's whether or not they want to make a competitive game. If I have a profitable business making something I like making, the fact that I technically could make something different, that I have absolutely no interest in making, is irrelevant.
And for two, designing a more balanced ruleset requires more work, which means more time invested, which means more expense. GW, as a business, would weigh up whether the additional expense would result in a large enough uptick in sales to be justified.
If they're meeting sales targets by releasing models with rules that were scrawled on a napkin during someone's lunch break, there is absolutely no reason to invest that extra expense to write better rules.
Bootstrapping into relevant subthread.
Here Perry, I present you a spork: https://www.scoutshop.org/original-spork-612317.html it's been available for ages now and many variants of universal cutlery exist. But as you can see it is not all that great spoon nor all that great fork and definitely not all that great knife. And exactly the same goes with games that people expect to support narrative and competetive with same success. We've been discussing this many times already - balancing game for competetive play does not warrant improvement for narrative or even broadly defined casual gaming and more often than not it comes at an expense of flavour and variety which is crucial in narrative. As Saturmorn Carvilli aptly pointed out earlier, this list can fulfill a perfectly valid role in scenarios/games that are cooperatively concieved with "matched game experience" in mind and balanced using terrain and scenario minutiae. And you should now by now, from countless prior discussions, that there are many people playing like that even here on Dakka. You cannot simply shut your eyes and mantra your denial long enough so those people will dissapear. And really, 30 year of continuous existence of 40K that did not revolve around any-tier tournaments at any moment is all evidence that is required to conclude, that most people do not use this game as interwebz thinks they do.
As to calling this list a Matched Play list. Matched play does only mean a mode of play, not meta that comes with it. You can play perfectly matched play game using this vs Guardian based Eldar list or GK, or fluffy Tac marines, or myriad other builds. It will be deemed as lowest tier matched by meta focussed players, but nevertheless matched.
I've been saying this for years. They constantly make hilariously obvious mistakes and decisions that anyone who's played any amount of 40k can immediately see is silly.
From reading about their structure and looking at the rules it's become pretty clear that writers get a picture of a mini, and just write random rules based on what it looks like in a complete vacuum. "he has a big gun so it's probably AP -2" they don't look at other units in the codex, similar units in other dexes, the core rule book and how those rules interact, points values, nothing. They just kinda throw something out oblivious to the overall rule structure and how the game is played.
Danny slag wrote: I've been saying this for years. They constantly make hilariously obvious mistakes and decisions that anyone who's played any amount of 40k can immediately see is silly.
From reading about their structure and looking at the rules it's become pretty clear that writers get a picture of a mini, and just write random rules based on what it looks like in a complete vacuum. "he has a big gun so it's probably AP -2" they don't look at other units in the codex, similar units in other dexes, the core rule book and how those rules interact, points values, nothing. They just kinda throw something out oblivious to the overall rule structure and how the game is played.
They have explicitly and repeatedly admitted, that designing nice looking minis comes first, rules second and design considerations of "what army X needs to become valid tournament choice" literally never happen.
Danny slag wrote: I've been saying this for years. They constantly make hilariously obvious mistakes and decisions that anyone who's played any amount of 40k can immediately see is silly.
From reading about their structure and looking at the rules it's become pretty clear that writers get a picture of a mini, and just write random rules based on what it looks like in a complete vacuum. "he has a big gun so it's probably AP -2" they don't look at other units in the codex, similar units in other dexes, the core rule book and how those rules interact, points values, nothing. They just kinda throw something out oblivious to the overall rule structure and how the game is played.
They have explicitly and repeatedly admitted, that designing nice looking minis comes first, rules second and design considerations of "what army X needs to become valid tournament choice" literally never happen.
and yet no one is saying anything about "valid tournament choice" which translates to overpowered and poorly balanced. What we're saying is just design rules that aren't hilariously bad. They'd sell more minis if they did.
The idea that balance is only important in "competitive" (which is a misnomer anyway because the tourney scene isn't about competition it's about boring netlists with no tactics) and that 'casual' means just not caring about rules, is a silly idea. I play exclusively casual games, and I like a tight well written rule system just like every casual player. Casual just means we get enjoyment out of the game regardless of if we win or lose, as long as it's a good game.
Your 10-man squads of Chaos Space Marines are great for holding objectives and offering fire support while the rest of your fast-moving, melee-focussed army speeds towards the foe to engage them in combat. Alternatively, you can use them to follow up your first wave of daemonically possessed gribblies and put the new beta Bolter Discipline rules to good use at close range.
This is stated in the same article, with the rule name directly linked to the bolter discipline rule, i mean....
Honestly this quote alone is scary, anyone who thinks 10 man chaos marine squads are “great for holding objectives,” or even half decent at, “offering fire support.” Shouldn’t be writing these type of articles. The reason I say it’s scary is becuase if this is what they believe then god help the playtesters.
In a fluffy match they do ok, what scares me more they literally LINKED THE BOLTER BETA RULE and MESSED IT UP IN THE CONTEXT OF THE MARINES.
nou wrote: They have explicitly and repeatedly admitted, that designing nice looking minis comes first, rules second and design considerations of "what army X needs to become valid tournament choice" literally never happen.
nou wrote: They have explicitly and repeatedly admitted, that designing nice looking minis comes first, rules second and design considerations of "what army X needs to become valid tournament choice" literally never happen.
Then they should be fired for incompetence.
Seriously, dude, get some perspective.
Calling for people to be fired because they're not making the product you personally want is ridiculous.
nou wrote: They have explicitly and repeatedly admitted, that designing nice looking minis comes first, rules second and design considerations of "what army X needs to become valid tournament choice" literally never happen.
Then they should be fired for incompetence.
Perri, a man who has never heard of UK employment law...
You contradict yourself here. GW is a business, and doing your job as an employee of a game business means selling the product successfully regardless of how you personally enjoy playing the game. Tournament players are customers and a source of revenue, so tournament play matters. Any GW rule author who fails to support tournament play because they don't find it "fun" should be fired for incompetence.
Not at all, they base their business around collecting and playing they have never based it in regards to tournament play all though they pay lip service to it.
You contradict yourself here. GW is a business, and doing your job as an employee of a game business means selling the product successfully regardless of how you personally enjoy playing the game. Tournament players are customers and a source of revenue, so tournament play matters. Any GW rule author who fails to support tournament play because they don't find it "fun" should be fired for incompetence.
Not at all, they base their business around collecting and playing they have never based it in regards to tournament play all though they pay lip service to it.
Bingo.
First and foremost they sell to the collectors which pay more.
Makes me sad that these kind of topics always seem to devolve into two groups of players who both seem to suspect that the other group is hell bent on burning down their treehouse.
Things which seem obviously true to me:
1) The game would be better if themed lists like this were genuinely good.
2) These lists are genuinely bad.
3) If you want a list that looks like either of these you are not automatically bad, terrible at the game nor are you stupid.
4) If you never want a list that looks like either of these you are not bad, disrespecting the lore nor are you stupid.
Less obviously true, but my opinion;
1) Fluff is best when it is represented and elaborated in the operation of interesting and engaging game mechanics.
2) Competitive play of a tabletop game is most interesting when simply giving an account of the events of a game creates a "fluffy" story. 40k does not provide this.
3) 40k is fun, but you can't tell an engaging story on the tabletop by following its rules.
While you can play pretend around the rules (which is awesome, because role-playing is awesome) the actual game quite often renders one side in a campaign or scenario the jobbing NPCs by default (due to inconsistent power levels within and between factions). This does not make for interesting narrative experiences without significant creative work.
4) GW do play their own game but they really don't care about being good at it. They sometimes seem slightly embarrassed that anyone does care.
This makes me very sad.
Delvarus Centurion wrote: Not at all, they base their business around collecting and playing they have never based it in regards to tournament play all though they pay lip service to it.
Again, the two are not in conflict. There is no excuse for ignoring tournament play when supporting it generates more sales with no cost to the collecting aspect of the hobby.
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Grimtuff wrote: Perri, a man who has never heard of UK employment law...
If UK employment law doesn't allow you to fire an employee who is incapable of doing their job then UK employment law is broken. But that's a subject for another thread, even if UK employment law is broken those employees should be fired.
Calling for people to be fired because they're not making the product you personally want is ridiculous.
They should be fired because of poor job performance, just like employees in a similar situation in other fields would be fired. If you're an engineer and you can't do math you don't keep your job. If you're a customer service person and are rude to customers you don't keep your job. So why should GW be any different? Why should people who are obviously incapable of meeting reasonable job performance expectations, in large part because they refuse to do work that isn't "fun", continue to be employed?
Delvarus Centurion wrote: Not at all, they base their business around collecting and playing they have never based it in regards to tournament play all though they pay lip service to it.
Again, the two are not in conflict. There is no excuse for ignoring tournament play when supporting it generates more sales with no cost to the collecting aspect of the hobby.
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Grimtuff wrote: Perri, a man who has never heard of UK employment law...
If UK employment law doesn't allow you to fire an employee who is incapable of doing their job then UK employment law is broken. But that's a subject for another thread, even if UK employment law is broken those employees should be fired.
Grimtuff wrote: Perri, a man who has never heard of UK employment law...
If UK employment law doesn't allow you to fire an employee who is incapable of doing their job then UK employment law is broken. But that's a subject for another thread, even if UK employment law is broken those employees should be fired.
Oh, you're so entertaining...
Unlike the USA, you cannot sack someone for trivial reasons like "they don't make a game the way I like". There are tribunals, do you really in your honest heart think GW should take their game designers into the office and let them go because some bird of prey on the internet said so?
What job do you do, other than pontificate on the internet? You really don't have an understanding of how this works. How would you like it if someone tried to sack you because you did something in a way they don't like but the company does?
Except that's not how it works. A big part of the issue is the incompetence of the existing employees and their mindset of "I don't think competitive play is fun, so I'm not working on it", replacing them with competent game designers would improve the quality of the rules without increasing costs.
Models are on the other hand 1 and done. afterwards you have negligible spending in producing them.
Do you honestly think that GW would sell as much as they do without the game existing at all? Of course not. GW can't survive with nothing but model designs.
GW is smart enough to know that rules sell models. They have to see the sales difference between the Castellan and the Valiant. They are both Dominus class and the Valiant actually looks cooler. Yet, one is clearly outselling the other. Why?
Acting like they aren't aware of rules influencing sales is bonkers.
Grimtuff wrote: Unlike the USA, you cannot sack someone for trivial reasons like "they don't make a game the way I like". There are tribunals, do you really in your honest heart think GW should take their game designers into the office and let them go because some bird of prey on the internet said so?
Yep, that's exactly what I think. GW's rule authors have demonstrated, over an extended period of time, an inability to create a good game and a refusal to do work they don't personally enjoy. Fire them and replace them with better game designers, just like any other employee would be replaced for poor job performance.
What job do you do, other than pontificate on the internet? You really don't have an understanding of how this works. How would you like it if someone tried to sack you because you did something in a way they don't like but the company does?
I'm an engineer, and if I consistently failed at basic engineering tasks or refused to work on a project because I didn't think it would be fun then yes, I would expect to be fired for it. And if the management of my company refused to develop a new product because it wouldn't be fun, or consistently ignored market demand in favor of settling for "good enough" profits then I would expect that management to be fired and replaced by people more capable of doing the job.
I'm an engineer, and if I consistently failed at basic engineering tasks or refused to work on a project because I didn't think it would be fun then yes, I would expect to be fired for it.
Well folks, lets just leave this in a quote for all to see as this explains everything...
One would think someone would understand that the standards of a field that people can potentially get killed in if something they design goes wrong applies equally to games designers.
Grimtuff wrote: One would think someone would understand that the standards of a field that people can potentially get killed in if something they design goes wrong applies equally to games designers.
The field of engineering I'm in is not one where there is a significant risk of injury or death. The primary failure would be a product that doesn't work and a customer that is demanding a refund. So your objection fails.
Considering that sales are higher then they have been in years, I'd say that GW's rules designers are doing exactly what the company wants them to do: make a product that sells. You are not the arbitrator of what constitutes a "good game"; the market is. The market seems to think the game is just fine.
EnTyme wrote: Considering that sales are higher then they have been in years, I'd say that GW's rules designers are doing exactly what the company wants them to do: make a product that sells. You are not the arbitrator of what constitutes a "good game"; the market is. The market seems to think the game is just fine.
The casual side was always bigger in 40k as much as you don't like that perregrine.
That said more competent balancing Team would go a long way.
EnTyme wrote: Considering that sales are higher then they have been in years, I'd say that GW's rules designers are doing exactly what the company wants them to do: make a product that sells. You are not the arbitrator of what constitutes a "good game"; the market is. The market seems to think the game is just fine.
Currently making a profit =/= couldn't be making more profit.
You're assuming that changing the design philosophy of the most successful tabletop wargame of all time will make it more profitable. I guarantee you that suits with a way bigger investment in the game have done far more research than you ever could into how to maximize their profit. Guess which design philosophy won?
. A big part of the issue is the incompetence of the existing employees and their mindset of "I don't think competitive play is fun, so I'm not working on it",
No, that's a narrative that you've made up, because it fits your worldview.
GW hires people based on their attitude. In other words, they hire people based on how well they fit into the specific hole that GW want them to fill.
So your assumption that designers are producing the game as is due to incompetence is far less likely than that they are producing exactly what their employer is telling them to produce.
EnTyme wrote: You're assuming that changing the design philosophy of the most successful tabletop wargame of all time will make it more profitable. I guarantee you that suits with a way bigger investment in the game have done far more research than you ever could into how to maximize their profit. Guess which design philosophy won?
Given that the "suit" before 8th was a guy with no previous experience in the game industry who was universally criticized and oversaw GW run into serious financial problems, while the direction since his departure has been in favor of more recognition of competitive play. If the suits are so persuasive to you then I'll let their actions demonstrate that I'm right.
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insaniak wrote: No, that's a narrative that you've made up, because it fits your worldview.
GW hires people based on their attitude. In other words, they hire people based on how well they fit into the specific hole that GW want them to fill.
So your assumption that designers are producing the game as is due to incompetence in far less likely than that they are producing exactly what their employer is telling them to produce.
Then GW's management should be fired for deliberately hiring people with an attitude of "we shouldn't pursue that market segment, I don't consider it fun" instead of WOTC's approach of "design for everyone and maximize profits".
I'm an engineer, and if I consistently failed at basic engineering tasks or refused to work on a project because I didn't think it would be fun then yes, I would expect to be fired for it.
Well folks, lets just leave this in a quote for all to see as this explains everything...
One would think someone would understand that the standards of a field that people can potentially get killed in if something they design goes wrong applies equally to games designers.
You're comparing apples to oranges.
Bro you don't understand! If they don't make MeQs good soon I will literally die.
I miss the cutlery chat from a couple of pages ago. I was hoping it was still going so I could chime in with “Sporks exist and function as a spoon, knife AND fork!” to explode all the analogies... two pages too late. Dayum.
Anyway, one fluffybad list isn’t worth getting riled up over. Just... don’t buy and/or play it?
EnTyme wrote: You're assuming that changing the design philosophy of the most successful tabletop wargame of all time will make it more profitable. I guarantee you that suits with a way bigger investment in the game have done far more research than you ever could into how to maximize their profit. Guess which design philosophy won?
Given that the "suit" before 8th was a guy with no previous experience in the game industry who was universally criticized and oversaw GW run into serious financial problems, while the direction since his departure has been in favor of more recognition of competitive play. If the suits are so persuasive to you then I'll let their actions demonstrate that I'm right.
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insaniak wrote: No, that's a narrative that you've made up, because it fits your worldview.
GW hires people based on their attitude. In other words, they hire people based on how well they fit into the specific hole that GW want them to fill.
So your assumption that designers are producing the game as is due to incompetence in far less likely than that they are producing exactly what their employer is telling them to produce.
Then GW's management should be fired for deliberately hiring people with an attitude of "we shouldn't pursue that market segment, I don't consider it fun" instead of WOTC's approach of "design for everyone and maximize profits".
Whilest you might be an engineer your knowledge about markets or economics is bad.
It makes NO SENSE to pursue a tiny market Segment if you locked down the majority of the market allready if that tiny Segment requires more cost to be achieved then you gain via benefits of scale due to the other Segments you locked down.
Given that the "suit" before 8th was a guy with no previous experience in the game industry who was universally criticized and oversaw GW run into serious financial problems, while the direction since his departure has been in favor of more recognition of competitive play. If the suits are so persuasive to you then I'll let their actions demonstrate that I'm right.
Sure, the change from Kirby's approach to Rowntree's showed that the state of the game is certainly important. That doesn't mean that there isn't a point of diminishing return, though. In other words, having a good game is clearly better for selling miniatures than having a bad one. But having a better game than you currently have isn't always going to result in a big enough increase in sales to be worth the effort.
What they're looking for is the game that is going to be popular enough to be good for sales while requiring the least effort to produce.
That's unlikely to ever be the game that you seem to be demanding. And that's nothing to do with the competence of the designers, and everything to do with the goals of the business.
JohnnyHell wrote: I miss the cutlery chat from a couple of pages ago. I was hoping it was still going so I could chime in with “Sporks exist and function as a spoon, knife AND fork!” to explode all the analogies... two pages too late. Dayum.
Anyway, one fluffybad list isn’t worth getting riled up over. Just... don’t buy and/or play it?
I have joined this thread a page ago for the very reason of linking in a spork
JohnnyHell wrote: I miss the cutlery chat from a couple of pages ago. I was hoping it was still going so I could chime in with “Sporks exist and function as a spoon, knife AND fork!” to explode all the analogies... two pages too late. Dayum.
Anyway, one fluffybad list isn’t worth getting riled up over. Just... don’t buy and/or play it?
I have joined this thread a page ago for the very reason of linking in a spork
Oh you excellent being, I see that post now! Great minds!
JohnnyHell wrote: I miss the cutlery chat from a couple of pages ago. I was hoping it was still going so I could chime in with “Sporks exist and function as a spoon, knife AND fork!” to explode all the analogies... two pages too late. Dayum.
Anyway, one fluffybad list isn’t worth getting riled up over. Just... don’t buy and/or play it?
I have joined this thread a page ago for the very reason of linking in a spork
Oh you excellent being, I see that post now! Great minds!
How could I miss such a great opportunity to mock a [not mocking-] bird...
Galef wrote: Yeah, "viability" is completely subjective. There "competitive viability", which is probably the most commonly assumed on Dakka, even though that's still debatable. And then you have "can my models function/roll dice with the system viability and be fun" which has always seemed to be GW concern (even if they haven't succeeded in some cases)
Also remember that while online forums and tourneys are a large part of the demographic, there is a possibility that most sales GW sees have nothing to do with rule and more to do with collectors/painters. If the models look good, they will sell. Rules don't make a dent in the bottomline in most cases (with some very select exceptions)
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The list is GK tier. I class it below the function and be fun level. I mean the army is what 3 boxs of scouts and 3 boxs of reavers, 3 landspeeders and the new starter set. That is a ton of money. Even a Star collecting army is a lot, but this is enough money to buy a real money. I can imagine how someone would feel, if they bought the list and then tried to play it. They would not be very happy.
Who cares what Tier it is? It's obviously a fluff-bunny list with all the Vanguard/forward intel units.
Sometimes lists are not built to max out on in-game advantage, but rather to show what a particular division would be comprised of.
If I want to do a Saim-Hann army with mostly Windriders and Vypers, no Ynnari or Reapers, that's perfectly valid and fluffy, even though it is "not top tier"
People really need to move away from thinking lists HAVE to preform competitively to be valid. Sometimes there is a theme in mind and you want that on the table top.
GW clearly plays Narrative games, not Matched play. Because Narrative matches fluff better and showcases the models better
The problem is still that some ''Theme'' are clearly better than other! Even for casual gamers, a Ynnari themed or Imperial Knight themed list will vastly outperform a marine Vanguard theme list, even if they're being played by completly new players. Doesn't that seem unfun to you?
Delvarus Centurion wrote: Not at all, they base their business around collecting and playing they have never based it in regards to tournament play all though they pay lip service to it.
Again, the two are not in conflict. There is no excuse for ignoring tournament play when supporting it generates more sales with no cost to the collecting aspect of the hobby.
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Grimtuff wrote: Perri, a man who has never heard of UK employment law...
If UK employment law doesn't allow you to fire an employee who is incapable of doing their job then UK employment law is broken. But that's a subject for another thread, even if UK employment law is broken those employees should be fired.
Calling for people to be fired because they're not making the product you personally want is ridiculous.
They should be fired because of poor job performance, just like employees in a similar situation in other fields would be fired. If you're an engineer and you can't do math you don't keep your job. If you're a customer service person and are rude to customers you don't keep your job. So why should GW be any different? Why should people who are obviously incapable of meeting reasonable job performance expectations, in large part because they refuse to do work that isn't "fun", continue to be employed?
I never said they ignore it, I said they pay lip service to it. If they focused on it, they would make universal tournament rules instead of having so many different tournaments by other organisers. They've never focused on tournament play as a business, they have been happy to let the other organisations deal with that.
As for UK employment law, you can absolutely fire someone for being incompetent, its a hassle to fire them as there are a lot of procedures that have to take place first.
EnTyme wrote:Considering that sales are higher then they have been in years, I'd say that GW's rules designers are doing exactly what the company wants them to do: make a product that sells. You are not the arbitrator of what constitutes a "good game"; the market is. The market seems to think the game is just fine.
Funny thing about a market driven economy, if 40k sucked so bad I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have as much market share and killer financial returns as they currently do.
40k might as well be dead since the rules blow so bad.
Crimson wrote:Peregrine, I think more people would agree with the basic idea of your point if you wouldn't be so absurdly hyperbolic about it...
I think the reason the armies in this article are getting so much gak has nothing to do with them not being good tournament armies, and everything to do with the fact they aren't good lists at all. Even a casual player will curbstomp these lists. That's the problem.
There's nothing even remotely good about these armies. They are absolute trash lists incapable of performing at any level in the game, casual or otherwise. Nobody is expecting a competitive tournament list, but god damn we should expect at least some sort of understanding of the game to make a list that can actually perform.
A newbie who sees this article and thought this is good list building advice is going to spend a large amount of money, turn up for even the most friendly of pickup games at their local store, proceed to get the gak kicked out of them and then say feth this game and feel lied to and cheated after every single game they play they get crushed.
Wayniac wrote: I think the reason the armies in this article are getting so much gak has nothing to do with them not being good tournament armies, and everything to do with the fact they aren't good lists at all. Even a casual player will curbstomp these lists. That's the problem.
There's nothing even remotely good about these armies. They are absolute trash lists incapable of performing at any level in the game, casual or otherwise. Nobody is expecting a competitive tournament list, but god damn we should expect at least some sort of understanding of the game to make a list that can actually perform.
A newbie who sees this article and thought this is good list building advice is going to spend a large amount of money, turn up for even the most friendly of pickup games at their local store, proceed to get the gak kicked out of them and then say feth this game and feel lied to and cheated after every single game they play they get crushed.
This is exactly my point. This article is toxic to new players and shows a fundamental lack of understanding of how to make a list that is FUN to play (i.e. has some remote chance to win a casual game).
A 40k army should not require your opponent to tailor their list and the mission to have some semblance of fair play. That kind of game would get old very quick as well. How many games like this can you realistically play with your $400+ investment?
Wayniac wrote: I think the reason the armies in this article are getting so much gak has nothing to do with them not being good tournament armies, and everything to do with the fact they aren't good lists at all. Even a casual player will curbstomp these lists. That's the problem.
There's nothing even remotely good about these armies. They are absolute trash lists incapable of performing at any level in the game, casual or otherwise. Nobody is expecting a competitive tournament list, but god damn we should expect at least some sort of understanding of the game to make a list that can actually perform.
A newbie who sees this article and thought this is good list building advice is going to spend a large amount of money, turn up for even the most friendly of pickup games at their local store, proceed to get the gak kicked out of them and then say feth this game and feel lied to and cheated after every single game they play they get crushed.
This is exactly my point. This article is toxic to new players and shows a fundamental lack of understanding of how to make a list that is FUN to play (i.e. has some remote chance to win a casual game).
A 40k army should not require your opponent to tailor their list and the mission to have some semblance of fair play. That kind of game would get old very quick as well. How many games like this can you realistically play with your $400+ investment?
I have no problem with asking your opponent to tailor a list or the mission, but those are not the default scenarios for the vast majority of games played. A list should at least be able to work in friendly, non-competitive games. These lists cannot (maybe the Chaos one could, barely, and realistically that's more because I think it would look cool and *want* to believe it could. It probably couldn't).
There's building a fun casual list, and there's this where the list can't even do that.
To put it bluntly: These lists suck even for casual play, let alone competitive.
I think it's more the fact that a list being this bad is even possible. People are told pick what you want, and the fact is if you do that you will lose most of your games. With some armies if you do that you will lose every game which is part of GWs buisness model.
Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote: I think it's more the fact that a list being this bad is even possible. People are told pick what you want, and the fact is if you do that you will lose most of your games. .
So what happens if both players do this? Does the table implode?
Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote: I think it's more the fact that a list being this bad is even possible. People are told pick what you want, and the fact is if you do that you will lose most of your games. .
So what happens if both players do this? Does the table implode?
I suppose in that case you actually can have an equally matched game if both lists are terribad.
But let's be honest, how often do both people pick whatever the hell they want without any thought to how it performs? Outside of the GW Studio, I guess.
Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote: I think it's more the fact that a list being this bad is even possible. People are told pick what you want, and the fact is if you do that you will lose most of your games. .
So what happens if both players do this? Does the table implode?
Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote: I think it's more the fact that a list being this bad is even possible. People are told pick what you want, and the fact is if you do that you will lose most of your games. .
So what happens if both players do this? Does the table implode?
Yes, lol.
I get the point, but your missing mine. The fact that we went from bottom tier army to bottom tier units leaves us in the same situation in we were in, now fewer people are getting screwed.
GW should be fixing the game not making new models. Then AFTER they have a well balanced game they can start adding new things.
Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote: I think it's more the fact that a list being this bad is even possible. People are told pick what you want, and the fact is if you do that you will lose most of your games. .
So what happens if both players do this? Does the table implode?
Dakkadakka screeches in rage
Oh wait... it does that already.
Because it's totally unreasonable for a person that pays 400 dollers for a product to be able to enjoy that product.
But let's be honest, how often do both people pick whatever the hell they want without any thought to how it performs? Outside of the GW Studio, I guess.
Far more often than you would think, I suspect. Certainly most of the lists I've made over the last 25 years.
I'm more interested in trying to do well with the units I want to see on the table than in choosing units purely based on their effectiveness on paper.
Because it's totally unreasonable for a person that pays 400 dollers for a product to be able to enjoy that product.
Then you should do some easy research on that product because you're spending 400 bucks on it, learn that it's not good, and if you are looking for that playstyle, not buy it, or do if you are.
Anyone that drops 400 dollars without any research and expecting to run a good army has what they get coming to them, as much as it sucks.
Because it's totally unreasonable for a person that pays 400 dollers for a product to be able to enjoy that product.
Then you should do some easy research on that product because you're spending 400 bucks on it, learn that it's not good, and if you are looking for that playstyle, not buy it, or do if you are.
Anyone that drops 400 dollars without any research and expecting to run a good army has what they get coming to them, as much as it sucks.
Easy research like looking at GWs website or their magazine?
EnTyme wrote: Why would you look at marketing material when researching strategies? Even when I'm trying to find good builds in videogames, I use forums and blogs.
This. Never look at the marketing material, that's like, 101 of any game.
Because it's totally unreasonable for a person that pays 400 dollers for a product to be able to enjoy that product.
Then you should do some easy research on that product because you're spending 400 bucks on it, learn that it's not good, and if you are looking for that playstyle, not buy it, or do if you are.
Anyone that drops 400 dollars without any research and expecting to run a good army has what they get coming to them, as much as it sucks.
Research like looking at what the game developers run in a list? I mean it's not unreasonable to think a person that helped develop a game knows how to build a good list.
Look here's a list on the Warhammer Community page.
Battalion Detachment
HQs Captain in Phobos Armour
Librarian in Phobos Armour
Troops
10 Infiltrators
5 Scouts
5 Scouts
5 Scouts
Fast Attack
3 Land Speeders
Heavy Support
3 Eliminators
Vanguard Detachment
HQ Lieutenant in Phobos Armour
I believe the problem is less "Any build should be viable" and more "Nobody should buy a unit that they like and then find that the rules for that unit are so bad that is basically pointless"
I play in a very friendly meta (last list I fielded included 4 Grav-Centurions, a Land Raider Redeemer, some Heavy Flamer Landspeeders, a couple of Dreadnoughts and a bunch of Tactical Marines), but even that list made me cringe.
At one point, a list stops being "friendly" and becomes downright "stupid". That Community-list is the latter.
It doesn't even look fun to play...
Galas wrote: I believe the problem is less "Any build should be viable" and more "Nobody should buy a unit that they like and then find that the rules for that unit are so bad that is basically pointless"
Which would be fine if the rules were set in stone, but there not. Even if a person does research and reasons out a good list GW can just nerf everything they have into dust and what recourse do they have? Nothing, they can be salty and discourage anyone who comes around asking about 40K to play something else.
Whilst I don't normally subscribe to the mindset of "your list must be able to win a tournament or its essentially unplayable", if a casual list is going to get tabled every game then it really isn't going to be fun. It seems like people want to deliberately be obtuse to argue about this for 5 pages (so far). As for GW''s target player base, I'm sure they've done their research. Given how popular the game is right now, and GW's profits, it really is ridiculous to suggest that they are incompetent from a business standpoint. It's entirely possible however that they haven't played this particular list, and just put it together to show that the Shadowspear armies could be used in the wider game. If it's as bad as people say then I would agree that in this instance they're risking new players spending a lot of money and being put off.
Tibs Ironblood wrote: I think it's clear to everyone the list in question is absolutely awful gameplay wise. We know it and probably everyone knows it but most of GW. I think the only real issue is that they advertised it as a matched play list. If it was said be a narrative army then boom no problem because that is exactly what it is. I think it is a bit of false advertising on their to pretend this list is worthy of a matched play game.
It is a matched play list. It follows the rules of have X # of units filling Y slots & uses points.
Beyond that there's no rule mandating a matched play list has to be any good. Though perhaps I've missed it in a FAQ or something & you could point it out to me?
Tibs Ironblood wrote: I think it's clear to everyone the list in question is absolutely awful gameplay wise. We know it and probably everyone knows it but most of GW. I think the only real issue is that they advertised it as a matched play list. If it was said be a narrative army then boom no problem because that is exactly what it is. I think it is a bit of false advertising on their to pretend this list is worthy of a matched play game.
It is a matched play list. It follows the rules of have X # of units filling Y slots & uses points.
Beyond that there's no rule mandating a matched play list has to be any good. Though perhaps I've missed it in a FAQ or something & you could point it out to me?
I think it’s covered in the “Stepping Into Dakka” FAQ document, where it states all games are 2K Matched Play ITC Chess Clock Rule Of Three or your game AND opinions are ‘objectively invalid’.
Tibs Ironblood wrote: I think it's clear to everyone the list in question is absolutely awful gameplay wise. We know it and probably everyone knows it but most of GW. I think the only real issue is that they advertised it as a matched play list. If it was said be a narrative army then boom no problem because that is exactly what it is. I think it is a bit of false advertising on their to pretend this list is worthy of a matched play game.
It is a matched play list. It follows the rules of have X # of units filling Y slots & uses points.
Beyond that there's no rule mandating a matched play list has to be any good. Though perhaps I've missed it in a FAQ or something & you could point it out to me?
I think it’s covered in the “Stepping Into Dakka” FAQ document, where it states all games are 2K Matched Play ITC Chess Clock Rule Of Three or your game AND opinions are ‘objectively invalid’.
I think it’s covered in the “Stepping Into Dakka” FAQ document, where it states all games are 2K Matched Play ITC Chess Clock Rule Of Three or your game AND opinions are ‘objectively invalid’.
It would be great if we could stop suggesting that 'Dakka' is some sort of gestalt hive mind with a single opinion on any given topic.
Particularly in threads where this is rather self evidently not true.
Tibs Ironblood wrote: I think it's clear to everyone the list in question is absolutely awful gameplay wise. We know it and probably everyone knows it but most of GW. I think the only real issue is that they advertised it as a matched play list. If it was said be a narrative army then boom no problem because that is exactly what it is. I think it is a bit of false advertising on their to pretend this list is worthy of a matched play game.
It is a matched play list. It follows the rules of have X # of units filling Y slots & uses points.
Beyond that there's no rule mandating a matched play list has to be any good. Though perhaps I've missed it in a FAQ or something & you could point it out to me?
Yes it is a matched play list which at least to me and apparently many others, indicates some level of rule efficiency. When I hear matched play I am thinking of a least medium strength lists and up and that if you are playing matched play (what with it's superior rule set being focused on creating a more balanced and enjoyable experience) you are doing so because you are trying to have a more competitive and balanced gaming experience. Putting this out there as an army that could be that could potentially screw over a new player by giving them a false impression. If they said hey this is a narrative army we made using these models then boom no problem because it's not being advertised as something a large part of the community deem as having to meet a certain quality level to actually be. I think the absolute inverse is true so for example when WD showcased the more competitive lists they made it very clear what they were. Imagine if they said "hey here are these narrative lists we made for open play" that completely changes the perception of people inside and outside of the hobby.
Tibs Ironblood wrote: . When I hear matched play I am thinking of a least medium strength lists and up and that if you are playing matched play (what with it's superior rule set being focused on creating a more balanced and enjoyable experience) you are doing so because you are trying to have a more competitive and balanced gaming experience. Putting this out there as an army that could be that could potentially screw over a new player by giving them a false impression. If they said hey this is a narrative army we made using these models then boom no problem because it's not being advertised as something a large part of the community deem as having to meet a certain quality level to actually be. I think the absolute inverse is true so for example when WD showcased the more competitive lists they made it very clear what they were. Imagine if they said "hey here are these narrative lists we made for open play" that completely changes the perception of people inside and outside of the hobby.
Or maybe you could just stop equating 'Matched Play' and 'Competitive Play'...?
GW is under no obligation to adhere to your preconceptions of what Matched Play should be.
Well, I remember that in the older WDs they had always battle reports.
In some of them, Gav Thorpe was playing and it is said that he NEVER won a game there.
insaniak wrote: Or maybe you could just stop equating 'Matched Play' and 'Competitive Play'...?
Or maybe you could stop pretending that they aren't the same thing. From the 40k rulebook:
Matched play games give you the
option to fight battles with armies
that are intentionally balanced against
one another, allowing you to test not only
your tactical skill on the battlefield, but
also your strategic ability to choose an
army that can defeat all opponents!
That's a textbook description of competitive play, and explicitly states that part of matched play is building a list that can defeat all opponents. And the list in the OP is a dismal failure at that, making it rather dishonest to pretend that it's a viable option against other players who are following GW's statements about what matched play involves.
What I think is amusing is the deployment advice, they suggest using the deep striking elements in order to see what their opponent is deploying, which is a good and valid tactic, except that the form of deployment that GW has moved into with its most recent mission set doesn't work like this.
Peregrine wrote: Matched play games give you the
option to fight battles with armies
that are intentionally balanced against
one another, allowing you to test not only
your tactical skill on the battlefield, but
also your strategic ability to choose an
army that can defeat all opponents!
Perhaps it's a test of your strategic ability to choose a different army?
Peregrine wrote: Matched play games give you the
option to fight battles with armies
that are intentionally balanced against
one another, allowing you to test not only
your tactical skill on the battlefield, but
also your strategic ability to choose an
army that can defeat all opponents!
Perhaps it's a test of your strategic ability to choose a different army?
the it should say it so in the description. Otherwise it would be like givng someone 10 math problems to do, and only after the exam tell them that you weren't checking if the problems are done right or wrong, but how fast you can do one.
secretForge wrote: What I think is amusing is the deployment advice, they suggest using the deep striking elements in order to see what their opponent is deploying, which is a good and valid tactic, except that the form of deployment that GW has moved into with its most recent mission set doesn't work like this.
I mean it's the same article that quotes the beta Bolter rule, explicitly and fails to realise that walking up with csm is exactly what the rule does not boost.....
The lists themselves are bad, but also themed, nothing wrong with that but if you quote a rule and then missinterpret it, EVEN THOUGH YOU QUOTED IT, i mean that is just plain attrocious from a article writing stance.
If I write my philosophical paper and quote Russeau and state the exact opposite, that bigger states are better for a republic rather then smaller, then i will get gak on by anyone that follows the quote.
NinthMusketeer wrote: It is advertised as a viable matched play list. There is no indication that it will show up and get -hosed- in almost any match.
Didn't you hear? The Rune Priest and his Chooser of the Slain have already consulted the ancient Runestones of farseeing and decreed this list will never EVER perform well on the battlefield, and if it does the board will implode in an explosion of a logical paradox as the universe itself cannot comprehend how this happened. If you play this list financial consultants will come to your house to take your credit card away as you clearly don't know how to use money for having the temerity to buy these models. GW designers will be stripped naked a whipped through the streets with Dakka posters shouting SHAME! and ringing the bells of the Cult of Competition as the now sacked staff go to their fates of being hung, drawn and quartered for simply making a game Perri doesn't like.
NinthMusketeer wrote: It is advertised as a viable matched play list. There is no indication that it will show up and get -hosed- in almost any match.
Didn't you hear? The Rune Priest and his Chooser of the Slain have already consulted the ancient Runestones of farseeing and decreed this list will never EVER perform well on the battlefield, and if it does the board will implode in an explosion of a logical paradox as the universe itself cannot comprehend how this happened. If you play this list financial consultants will come to your house to take your credit card away as you clearly don't know how to use money for having the temerity to buy these models. GW designers will be stripped naked a whipped through the streets with Dakka posters shouting SHAME! and ringing the bells of the Cult of Competition as the now sacked staff go to their fates of being hung, drawn and quartered for simply making a game Perri doesn't like.
My Runepriest forced me at gunpoint to exalt this comment. So i do.
Peregrine wrote: Matched play games give you the
option to fight battles with armies
that are intentionally balanced against
one another, allowing you to test not only
your tactical skill on the battlefield, but
also your strategic ability to choose an
army that can defeat all opponents!
Perhaps it's a test of your strategic ability to choose a different army?
the it should say it so in the description. Otherwise it would be like givng someone 10 math problems to do, and only after the exam tell them that you weren't checking if the problems are done right or wrong, but how fast you can do one.
Or maybe I was joking and you need to chill out a bit. Not everything posted on dakka needs arguing against.
insaniak wrote: Or maybe you could just stop equating 'Matched Play' and 'Competitive Play'...?
Or maybe you could stop pretending that they aren't the same thing. From the 40k rulebook:
Matched play games give you the
option to fight battles with armies
that are intentionally balanced against
one another, allowing you to test not only
your tactical skill on the battlefield, but
also your strategic ability to choose an
army that can defeat all opponents!
That's a textbook description of competitive play, and explicitly states that part of matched play is building a list that can defeat all opponents. And the list in the OP is a dismal failure at that, making it rather dishonest to pretend that it's a viable option against other players who are following GW's statements about what matched play involves.
I had previously assumed that matched and competitive play were the same thing, but on reflection I think that a distinction really can be drawn:
"Matched play" is a set of rules that seek to balance the structure of gameplay.
As such, the game mode is value neutral; it tells you what you can and cannot do, as well as what counts as winning, but that need not imply that people who play matched play are actually playing in order to win.
"Competitive play" is an attitude towards the act of playing.
It's the attitude that says that what is important about play is the winning, that what counts as good play, is play that stays within the rules and gets one closer to the win.
(I don't mean this as judgement by the way, good competitive play is exhilarating both to watch and be a part of - if you care about it)
It is logically possible to play matched play with a non-competitive style (where winning is non-normative). Similarly, there is no reason that narrative play and open play can't be played with a competitive mindset (although this often ends with matches played this way becoming horrific dumpster fires).
The GW quote above points to the fact that matched play provides options for a certain mode of play which removes certain areas of fuzziness from the game, attempting to make skill the primary differentiating factor between the win and the loss. However, while a test of skill is a competition, it's not always a competitive practice (cheese rolling is a competition, but no one cares who wins).
The equivocation between the two can be harmful, because it can make people who don't care about winning think that they are being accused of playing wrong. That said, it's people with a competitive attitude that are most likely to be useful in achieving a balanced game. That's because balance is about who wins, and why they win, in any given match up, and competitive people care the most about that.
In my opinion GW don't have a competitive attitude, their company atmosphere is more about sheer enthusiasm and creativity. Further, I think that there is an assumption within the company that competition is the enemy of creativity, and because they see creativity as their USP, they are shy of letting the game devs take control of the production process.
As a consequence, matched competitive play kind of sucks in 40K, and all the other game modes suffer because they share a flaccid balance that is unlikely to make for actually interesting narratives on the tabletop. To suggest that they fire all their game devs is ass-backwards, the devs have almost no control of the models that they are given - IMO there's not a dev team in the world that could balance the strange melange of 40k models and leftovers in an interesting way.
This is the game we play, and it probably will always be this way. I enjoy it, but it does make me sad that I know a lot of people can't.
I think that a lot of confusion between GW and matched pick-up playerbase arises from the fact, that most of those players never played an elaborate, cooperatively developed narrative scenario and does not have a reference in their minds how much of a step down on preparation time matched play confines and restrictions really are. If you look at WD batrep history, they were usually narratives focused on showcasing new storytelling/one-off scenarios opportinities that new model introduces. An example: when Eldar Vypers (or Falcons, don’t remember which one exactly) were first introduced in late 2nd ed, the batrep to show them off was a Gorkamorka/Ash-Wastes style, rolling ground race like mission - nothing about how they would add to cookie cutter, planet bowling ball clash against a castled up gunline...
If you consider that, then how exactly GW sees Matched Play and why they think it is a reasonably “level ground” for “zero effort preparation” mode of play become much clearer. Is it enough for this particular playerbase? Obviously not, as complaining never stopped for the last 30 years...
Wayniac wrote:But let's be honest, how often do both people pick whatever the hell they want without any thought to how it performs? Outside of the GW Studio, I guess.
Hi. Pleased to meet you.
I don't really pick my units based on how good they are at a role. I'll pick them if they fill the niche I want in my list, and if they fit with the theme I want. For example, I'd never take Scouts as the core of my normal SM list because they're not main-line troops, like Intercessors or Tacticals are. I'd happily take Reivers to fulfil the Close Assault portion of my Battle Company. My Black Company of my Cadian forces are a Vanguard Detachment of Veteran Squads, because that's what makes up Black Company.
In my experience, which I know is different from yours, more people pick what they like more than those who choose what's powerful.
NinthMusketeer wrote:It is advertised as a viable matched play list. There is no indication that it will show up and get -hosed- in almost any match.
It is viable. It uses points, it's battleforged, it uses GW models, and features all the necessary Warlord Traits and psychic powers. It's perfectly viable - if you're not fretting about competitive. Matched =/= competitive.
Now, could you argue "this list isn't competitive"? Yeah, sure. But why does that matter? It matters just as much as "this list isn't fluffy!", and that's only a problem if you value fluff. Just because GW don't obsess over competitive play doesn't mean they don't play their game. They just play it differently to you.
NinthMusketeer wrote: It is advertised as a viable matched play list. There is no indication that it will show up and get -hosed- in almost any match.
I reckon if you took that list to my local GW store and played some games you would have around a 50% win rate.
At my local FLGS that would drop to probably about a 33% win rate
At one of our local tournaments you would be lucky to win any games with it.
At a big tournament it would be a miserable experience for a serious competitive player - but then again my observation is that the people on the bottom tables with rubbish armies always appear to be drinking more beer and having a lot more fun than the super-serious types on the top tables with top tier armies.
It is a matched play list to the extent that it obeys the rules of matched play. Everything else is context.
Writen words are context? This is why don't get human interactions most of the time.
If the army was a car, and was advertised as an all terrain car, but in fact it would only be able to drive for 500m in a stright line, when pushed by people or drawn by horses, people would be taking them to court for false advertasing. It is as if word stoped having meaning, and everything was build on how people feel.
I think it says a lot that the so-called "casual" players so often emphasize how much alcohol they're consuming, and none of it is good.
It is just what I have observed at any number of tournaments, the guys on the bottom tables are usually having a lot more fun than me.
I am certainly not going to tell them that they are playing the game wrong because they are not being competitive enough, clearly they are playing the game just how they enjoy playing it.
Nope. Read GW's own description of what matched play is, it's a textbook definition of competitive gaming.
I say again, no gak Sherlock....
The objective of the game is to win (even in Narrative and Open, shock!), though you somewhere along the way seem to have confused that with the point. The game by its very nature is a competition, you're really grasping at straws and if you think that is what GW meant based on how they present their product and their history.
Nope. Read GW's own description of what matched play is, it's a textbook definition of competitive gaming.
I say again, no gak Sherlock....
The objective of the game is to win (even in Narrative and Open, shock!), though you somewhere along the way seem to have confused that with the point. The game by its very nature is a competition, you're really grasping at straws and if you think that is what GW meant based on how they present their product and their history.
I agree with nearly all of that. We all play a game with a win condition, but we play it for different reasons.
(none of which are bad, unless you are TFG, but there are as many flavors of TFG as there are reasons to play the game)
GW is not pushing MLG, it does not really seem to understand that mindset at all.
Nope. Read GW's own description of what matched play is, it's a textbook definition of competitive gaming.
I don't see that at all. Please, show me where it says Matched has to be competitive. I see a "can" in there, which to me implies if you want to be competitive, this is where you do it. Simply by playing Matched, you aren't necessarily being competitive.
Karol wrote:If the army was a car, and was advertised as an all terrain car, but in fact it would only be able to drive for 500m in a stright line, when pushed by people or drawn by horses, people would be taking them to court for false advertasing.
Not quite. All-terrain has a defined meaning, and can be legally defined.
Matched has never been advertised as "always competitive". It's what competitive players most often use, but Matched alone isn't it. Nor are GW's claims that "this army can play games" wrong. It can play 40k games. Even arguments of "it can't WIN games" are wrong too, seeing as it's perfectly possible to play a game with that army, and, depending on your opponent, can win.
What you mean to say is "this army can't win in the circumstances I want it to", which GW has never advertised.
Grimtuff wrote:The objective of the game is to win (even in Narrative and Open, shock!)
Actually, as much as I disagree with Peregrine, I don't agree with this. 40k isn't all about winning. There's more to the game than that - you can just as well play games to take part and enjoy the experience.
Grimtuff wrote:The objective of the game is to win (even in Narrative and Open, shock!)
Actually, as much as I disagree with Peregrine, I don't agree with this. 40k isn't all about winning. There's more to the game than that - you can just as well play games to take part and enjoy the experience.
Yes, that's the point of the game. I thought the phrase was well known enough I didn't need to complete it. Apologies, we're not disagreeing.
Again, the problem here is those lists are just terrible in any context that doesn't involve you negotiating with your opponent to tone down their list or bring a similarly bad list or agree to some lopsided scenario that would give you a chance to win.
Don't get me wrong here, I *want* those sort of lists to be viable. Both of them look flavorful and pretty cool. But in the game, as it is now (and how it's been) they are terrible lists and essentially throwing money away.
Wayniac wrote: Again, the problem here is those lists are just terrible in any context that doesn't involve you negotiating with your opponent to tone down their list or bring a similarly bad list or agree to some lopsided scenario that would give you a chance to win.
Don't get me wrong here, I *want* those sort of lists to be viable. Both of them look flavorful and pretty cool. But in the game, as it is now (and how it's been) they are terrible lists and essentially throwing money away.
Then change the context.
for those of us who have no issue with negotiating/chatting with someone regarding the rosters in a game, or toning down our lists when someone's stuff can't deal with it, or who enjoy writing/playing 'lopsided' scenarios, it's not really a 'problem'. It's just something you do.The 'garage' community is a lot bigger than you imagine. Most gamers haven't even heard of dakka, or don't really give a damn about 'competitive' play. I play with friends and loved ones. I accommodate friends and loved ones. I can combine both 'playing with friends and loved ones' and 'accommodating' them. Who knew?
What you refer to when you say 'the game, as it is now' isn't actually 'the game', it's 'the gaming culture'. Specifically, yours. And sometimes, cultures can, or have to change. That list is fine to me. Theme the scenario. Recon force. Build a good map, 'match' it with an appropriate opponent, and off you go. Frankly, plenty potential there for fun.
In this thread, hyper-competitive players whining that GW doesn't cater to them when it never has done so in the past.
Also in this thread, hyper-competitive players presuming everyone plays like them and then looking down on anyone who disagrees.
You know, I got a competitive spirit and all (I go in to every game trying to win, even against my ten year old nephew), but dedicated competition players often come across as arrogant and self-entitled in conversations like this.
It's not "hyper-competitive". It's the general pickup game mindset that I will wager is prevalent across the vast majority of the USA. These lists will fail miserably even at casual night at the local game store. That's the issue with them.
Wayniac wrote: It's not "hyper-competitive". It's the general pickup game mindset that I will wager is prevalent across the vast majority of the USA. These lists will fail miserably even at casual night at the local game store. That's the issue with them.
Why is it going to fail miserably?
I don't think its a great list - but if you focused on playing the CA18 objectives I don't think it would be that awful.
Any poll I saw here on dakka throughout last few years shows that only about 10-25% of dakkanauts is focused on competition/tournament approach to this game. And every time such a poll comes up competetively focused players don’t believe results because it contradicts their FLGS or discussion experience. But there is perfectly fine, instant and easy to verify explanation: people who frequent rules/army composition discussions and those who frequent background painting blogs parts of dakka have only small overlap and such polls are one of few occasions for those groups to meet. Most of the time garragehammer/fluff bunnies/collectors are invisible to pick-up/competetive players. But they aren’t invisible to GW and have been a main source of GW income for the last 30 years. Kirby once said, that their customers don’t really play this game, they mostly collect and he was right in general scope of things. What he did wrong there and what modern GW is trying to counter is that playing part of community is the vocal one and that discontented tournament crowd can really hurt publicity and thus sales. People who believe that making this game competively focused and watertight would significantly increase sales aren’t paying enough attention to the big picture... 8th and 3rd aren’t/weren’t the most succesfull because they are best competetively (which they coincidentially are), but because the were reboots and thus the best opportunity to hop in without the need to ingest huge material at once. Just compare momentary level of complexity and volume of ruleset of todays 8th and index fresh 8th, after just two years after reboot...
Even arguments of "it can't WIN games" are wrong too, seeing as it's perfectly possible to play a game with that army, and, depending on your opponent, can win.
Dude am not sure if it would win vs my army, and I consider my army the worse of any army I have ever seen or seen posted on a forum. What kind of an opponent lets such a bad marine or csm list win? One that forgets to move and shot for 1-2 turns, or maybe who gets too late for the game and you win through disqualification? Both of the lists can't shot and can't melee, are slow and don't have the bodies to take objectives. They also can't deal with any big target. It doesn't have to be a walled off castellan with 120 guardsman. A gallant can walk over the primaris army . 3 flyers in an eldar army can stop the chaos army from being able to move in to range of anything whole game.
but because the were reboots and thus the best opportunity to hop in without the need to ingest huge material at once
If someone hoped in to starting with BA or GK, after a few months they had to buy a new army. How is that no a huge investment. Unless we assume that someone who plays w40k is a veteran from the early 90s with 12 armies from different factions.
Melissia wrote: In this thread, hyper-competitive players whining that GW doesn't cater to them when it never has done so in the past.
Also in this thread, hyper-competitive players presuming everyone plays like them and then looking down on anyone who disagrees.
You know, I got a competitive spirit and all (I go in to every game trying to win, even against my ten year old nephew), but dedicated competition players often come across as arrogant and self-entitled in conversations like this.
Problem is, taking the exact same approach (which this post does) only helps build the mythical casual vs competitive war, which is tiresome in its own right.
Even arguments of "it can't WIN games" are wrong too, seeing as it's perfectly possible to play a game with that army, and, depending on your opponent, can win.
Dude am not sure if it would win vs my army, and I consider my army the worse of any army I have ever seen or seen posted on a forum.
Victim complex. You army isn't the worst, and even if an army might lose against yours, is that a problem? It's only a problem if you care more about winning than a good time, or winning is the only way to have that good time.
From what I gather with you and your meta, you try to play to win. For you, seeing an army that doesn't try that is unheard of. That's not every person's goal though. The armies GW has presented there *can* win. Just not in YOUR meta. In GW's own meta, those lists are just fine.
What kind of an opponent lets such a bad marine or csm list win?
One who's taking an army that's built in the same way?
One that forgets to move and shot for 1-2 turns, or maybe who gets too late for the game and you win through disqualification?
Are you incapable of understanding that someone might have a list in the same way? Or is it impossible that only one person could have built a list like this?
Both of the lists can't shot and can't melee, are slow and don't have the bodies to take objectives. They also can't deal with any big target. It doesn't have to be a walled off castellan with 120 guardsman. A gallant can walk over the primaris army . 3 flyers in an eldar army can stop the chaos army from being able to move in to range of anything whole game.
Then it's a good thing that they're not playing those lists. Most likely, in the meta those armies are being taken in, you don't see 120 Guardsmen with a Castellan, or a Gallant taking on an army themed around RECON.
You're putting the list into a context that it's clearly not designed to be in, and complaining that it's bad at it. I'd like for any list to be capable in any situation, but if you actually see how the world really is, that's not happening right now. Just because the armies wouldn't win in YOUR meta doesn't mean they can't win overall. GW didn't claim for a second they could win in your meta. They said they could win - in general - which they can.
Voss wrote: Problem is, taking the exact same approach (which this post does) only helps build the mythical casual vs competitive war, which is tiresome in its own right.
I would imply that I cared, but that would be lying. There is no "war", just kinda whiny and judgmental posters, and I'm glad to call them out on it even if it annoys you.
There are DIFFERENT ways to play this game then just super broken soup.
Ever heard about themed, or narrative, or rule of cool??
Ever considered that there might be more players on the planet that DONT go the GW store or local club and just plays at home with their very limited playgroup that only uses the vanilla codex, then there are players that seek out the clubs and the competative settings??
i`ll tell you something, i have been working on and off on a themed IHSM army for about half a year now i will tell you what is in that 2000p army; 10 dreadnoughts, nothing else!
is it playable? prolly not but is 100% rule of cool.
Melissia wrote: In this thread, hyper-competitive players whining that GW doesn't cater to them when it never has done so in the past.
Also in this thread, hyper-competitive players presuming everyone plays like them and then looking down on anyone who disagrees.
You know, I got a competitive spirit and all (I go in to every game trying to win, even against my ten year old nephew), but dedicated competition players often come across as arrogant and self-entitled in conversations like this.
LMAO this comment, is golden.
Stick your head into a conversation to tell people they sound self-entitlted and arrogant.
EnTyme wrote: I think you just proved her point, TSS
Agreed.
Moreover, once the discussion moves from the actual topic to discussing the way people are behaving that's the sign the thread is probably done. Or at least that nothing constructive will happen from here.
Voss wrote: Problem is, taking the exact same approach (which this post does) only helps build the mythical casual vs competitive war, which is tiresome in its own right.
About as tiresome as being told interesting games you played didn't happen because no one uses the unit involved? I mean, my argument was literally about how non-optimal choices can produce interesting an effective results. Meanwhile next post is someone telling me it didn't happen because no one takes those units.
Gonna say, lots of overly competitive folks on these boards who want everything done their way.
I have only ever said game balance is an issue and the difference between top tier armies and bottom tier armies should be more narrow.
This is a wet dream of every competetive 40K player since 2nd ed premiered and it kinda sorta happened briefly only twice in history of this game - during index 3rd and index 8th, both times the game was so bland than many old players that were in for the narrative and immersion quit the game... 40K will always be in this space of being playable by everyone and exceptional for no one, it simply has to cater to too wide spectrum of hobbyists.
Does anyone actually think, that if "good enough" balance not conflicting with perpetual release model would be possible GW (or any other developer for that matter) would refuse to introduce it simply out of sadistic tendencies of infuriating parts of it's playerbase? Or out of 30 years of nurturing mind boggling incompetence as some birds out there like to believe?
I have only ever said game balance is an issue and the difference between top tier armies and bottom tier armies should be more narrow.
This is a wet dream of every competetive 40K player since 2nd ed premiered and it kinda sorta happened briefly only twice in history of this game - during index 3rd and index 8th, both times the game was so bland than many old players that were in for the narrative and immersion quit the game... 40K will always be in this space of being playable by everyone and exceptional for no one, it simply has to cater to too wide spectrum of hobbyists.
Does anyone actually think, that if "good enough" balance not conflicting with perpetual release model would be possible GW (or any other developer for that matter) would refuse to introduce it simply out of sadistic tendencies of infuriating parts of it's playerbase? Or out of 30 years of nurturing mind boggling incompetence as some birds out there like to believe?
Index 8th is what? Nearly balanced?
Between no restrictions on soup, unnerfed conscripts and malefics, brimstones etc.?
Wayniac wrote: Again, the problem here is those lists are just terrible in any context that doesn't involve you negotiating with your opponent to tone down their list or bring a similarly bad list or agree to some lopsided scenario that would give you a chance to win.
Don't get me wrong here, I *want* those sort of lists to be viable. Both of them look flavorful and pretty cool. But in the game, as it is now (and how it's been) they are terrible lists and essentially throwing money away.
There is a issue I think with this, not every list should or would be viable under the rules for a normal game. Thought does need to be put into lists fielding units that can do the task at hand.
In a special and narrative mission this opens up. But in the standard game, letting bad and thoughtless lists be good often just leads to some units being way to powerful and furthering the gap between good and bad.
GW are the ones sacrificeing players and honestly they do not care that they are selling a bad list. Just reality. People buy it, so no reason to change it.
Apple fox wrote: ...There is a issue I think with this, not every list should or would be viable under the rules for a normal game...
Maybe not. That said every army book and every model should be somehow viable under normal conditions; the thing that actually pisses people off is when the answer to "what do I do with (army X)/(unit Y)?" is "throw it out and buy something else." Grey Knights, Tactical Marines, Blackstars...
They do, if you go to warhammer world you can see them do so. Many in the development teams (especially AOS) play competitively. Your premise is wrong.
Apple fox wrote: ...There is a issue I think with this, not every list should or would be viable under the rules for a normal game...
Maybe not. That said every army book and every model should be somehow viable under normal conditions; the thing that actually pisses people off is when the answer to "what do I do with (army X)/(unit Y)?" is "throw it out and buy something else." Grey Knights, Tactical Marines, Blackstars...
This is what I tend to think would be best. There are ways to do it, but until GW has to they won’t bother much with it. To GW they want you to forge that narative, even if it’s kinda dumb they want players to think it’s cool and run with it as a standard.
nou wrote: This is a wet dream of every competetive 40K player since 2nd ed premiered and it kinda sorta happened briefly only twice in history of this game - during index 3rd and index 8th, both times the game was so bland than many old players that were in for the narrative and immersion quit the game... 40K will always be in this space of being playable by everyone and exceptional for no one, it simply has to cater to too wide spectrum of hobbyists.
Nope. The needs of competitive players and the needs of casual/narrative players do not conflict here, at all. Making the game more balanaced and cleaning up rule ambiguity does not hurt the game for non-competitive players. In fact, those non-competitive players arguably benefit more from balance improvements. Competitive players are much more willing to just exploit the overpowered thing and win with it, as demonstrated by all the soup lists winning tournaments. It's the casual/narrative/etc players who are most vulnerable to building a list like the one in the OP because GW says it's viable, taking it to their local store's 40k night, getting wiped off the table in 2-3 turns, and discovering that they need to spend another $500 to buy a better army if they want any other result.
Does anyone actually think, that if "good enough" balance not conflicting with perpetual release model would be possible GW (or any other developer for that matter) would refuse to introduce it simply out of sadistic tendencies of infuriating parts of it's playerbase? Or out of 30 years of nurturing mind boggling incompetence as some birds out there like to believe?
I don't think it's a sadism thing, I think it's a contempt thing. GW's rule authors do not enjoy competitive play and smugly declare that their particular way of playing is the One True Way To Play, with any other approach to the game getting minimal attention. They'd rather yell BEER AND PRETZELS and tell the competitive players about the virtues of being an alcoholic than do the work required to make a good competitive game.
nou wrote: This is a wet dream of every competetive 40K player since 2nd ed premiered and it kinda sorta happened briefly only twice in history of this game - during index 3rd and index 8th, both times the game was so bland than many old players that were in for the narrative and immersion quit the game... 40K will always be in this space of being playable by everyone and exceptional for no one, it simply has to cater to too wide spectrum of hobbyists.
Nope. The needs of competitive players and the needs of casual/narrative players do not conflict here, at all. Making the game more balanaced and cleaning up rule ambiguity does not hurt the game for non-competitive players. In fact, those non-competitive players arguably benefit more from balance improvements. Competitive players are much more willing to just exploit the overpowered thing and win with it, as demonstrated by all the soup lists winning tournaments. It's the casual/narrative/etc players who are most vulnerable to building a list like the one in the OP because GW says it's viable, taking it to their local store's 40k night, getting wiped off the table in 2-3 turns, and discovering that they need to spend another $500 to buy a better army if they want any other result.
Does anyone actually think, that if "good enough" balance not conflicting with perpetual release model would be possible GW (or any other developer for that matter) would refuse to introduce it simply out of sadistic tendencies of infuriating parts of it's playerbase? Or out of 30 years of nurturing mind boggling incompetence as some birds out there like to believe?
I don't think it's a sadism thing, I think it's a contempt thing. GW's rule authors do not enjoy competitive play and smugly declare that their particular way of playing is the One True Way To Play, with any other approach to the game getting minimal attention. They'd rather yell BEER AND PRETZELS and tell the competitive players about the virtues of being an alcoholic than do the work required to make a good competitive game.
Jeeze. Pere, I agree with you a lot but you're going off the deep end a bit. Do you really think GW is actively attempting to ignore the competitive community? The fact that they're doing things like CA and Beta rules tells me otherwise, weather they're good at balance is another matter but it's not the end of the world. You're sounding like a conspiracy nut.
I don't think it's a sadism thing, I think it's a contempt thing. GW's rule authors do not enjoy competitive play and smugly declare that their particular way of playing is the One True Way To Play, with any other approach to the game getting minimal attention. They'd rather yell BEER AND PRETZELS and tell the competitive players about the virtues of being an alcoholic than do the work required to make a good competitive game.
Again, this is simply not true. Many of the design team play and win in tournaments, independent and GW. Criticise their product all you want but what you are saying has no basis in reality.
Sir Heckington wrote: Jeeze. Pere, I agree with you a lot but you're going off the deep end a bit. Do you really think GW is actively attempting to ignore the competitive community? The fact that they're doing things like CA and Beta rules tells me otherwise, weather they're good at balance is another matter but it's not the end of the world. You're sounding like a conspiracy nut.
It's hardly a conspiracy. GW's rule authors have, in the past, openly stated that they think that ALCOHOLISM AND PRETZELS is the correct way to play the game and that people who do things like spam overpowered units are doing it wrong. It's getting better, likely because management told them to STFU and do their jobs because their attitude was costing GW money, but it IMO still prevents GW from making the best version of 40k they can when their primary rule authors aren't buying in to the idea. And really, is it that hard to believe that GW's rule authors would feel that way when so many people in this thread have stated that competitive play is bad and shouldn't be supported? That 40k is not a competitive game, and competitive players should leave and play something else?
I have only ever said game balance is an issue and the difference between top tier armies and bottom tier armies should be more narrow.
This is a wet dream of every competetive 40K player since 2nd ed premiered and it kinda sorta happened briefly only twice in history of this game - during index 3rd and index 8th, both times the game was so bland than many old players that were in for the narrative and immersion quit the game... 40K will always be in this space of being playable by everyone and exceptional for no one, it simply has to cater to too wide spectrum of hobbyists.
Does anyone actually think, that if "good enough" balance not conflicting with perpetual release model would be possible GW (or any other developer for that matter) would refuse to introduce it simply out of sadistic tendencies of infuriating parts of it's playerbase? Or out of 30 years of nurturing mind boggling incompetence as some birds out there like to believe?
Index 8th is what? Nearly balanced?
Between no restrictions on soup, unnerfed conscripts and malefics, brimstones etc.?
You missed "kinda sorta" remark in my post? Imbalance was ever present in 40K, just to varying degree. Broken units/combos existed in every iteration of this game, I judge the overall balance not only by power of the most broken thing but also by the number of evidently broken things, which in both cases of 3rd and 8th indexes were lowest by the very virtue of nearly evertyhing being "samey" in feel.
The most common comments one could saw in early months of 8th were something along the line of enthusiastic "everything is now so closer to balanced and valid or nearly there and GW just needs to tweak some evident outliers here and there" and people actually expected from GW to not add any new content ever again, just iron out some wrinkles. Complaints about overall balance and factions disparity and power creep returning begun when codices dropped and there was an evident power gap between index/codex armies and then between particular codices and reached a steady maximum after Guard codex when people realized that this is stratagem edition and CP farming is the most powerfull thing in the game. Soup became vastly more problematic with codex stratagems and the most broken things like razorwings got nerfed immediately with first faqs.
Tl;dr, best balanced moment of 8th ed is somewhere between raw index release day and Guard codex and it is now in a quite stable state of giving no illusions about level of balance GW intents for this game, which is clearly way below some people's wishes.
Peregrine wrote: Nope. The needs of competitive players and the needs of casual/narrative players do not conflict here, at all. Making the game more balanaced and cleaning up rule ambiguity does not hurt the game for non-competitive players. In fact, those non-competitive players arguably benefit more from balance improvements. Competitive players are much more willing to just exploit the overpowered thing and win with it, as demonstrated by all the soup lists winning tournaments. It's the casual/narrative/etc players who are most vulnerable to building a list like the one in the OP because GW says it's viable, taking it to their local store's 40k night, getting wiped off the table in 2-3 turns, and discovering that they need to spend another $500 to buy a better army if they want any other result.
I'm glad you do mention "arguably", but I do agree with you.
Having better balance is good for everyone (well, everyone who isn't TFG looking for an advantage), but it's a question of how much of a priority is it for some. For hardcore non-comp players, it doesn't really bother them if the game is balanced or not, so to them (and myself included), having balance in all aspects of play isn't a massive priority.
However, I don't think it's ever any single person's fault in particular, if a non-comp player goes in and gets curbstomped, be that GW, the comp player, or the person who got beat. Play who you think will give you a game you'll enjoy. Yes, a lot of it is about finding the right kind of person and group, but that's the same with so many hobbies. You can like the same video game as another person, but you two might be wholly incompatible in what you want from that experience. It's not the game dev's fault, nor is it either one of the players'.
GW's rule authors do not enjoy competitive play and smugly declare that their particular way of playing is the One True Way To Play,
Yeah, hard disagree. Just because GW's team overall (not all of them, of course), play the game a certain way, they've never once said that there is "One True Way To Play". They've always advocated for "ignore what we say if you and your opponent thing you know better". They literally call it their most important rule.
It's not that they hate competitive play. It's just that they don't have the necessary personal drive to do that. As a company, they have no obligation to HAVE to deliver that to you, only to do what their shareholders want. If the shareholders are fine as they are (and honestly, right now, why wouldn't they be!), then they have no "obligation" to do anything. As a consumer, if you don't like the attitude of the company, you have every right to take your business elsewhere. GW don't have to accomodate for competitive players, if they didn't want to.
However, GW DO have an interest in competitive players. Their support of competitive events, hosting some themselves, making more balance changes and beta rules than ever before, all speak to me like they do want to make things better for the competitive crowd.
They'd rather yell BEER AND PRETZELS and tell the competitive players about the virtues of being an alcoholic than do the work required to make a good competitive game.
Hey, there's nothing wrong with being an alcoholic!
But on a serious level, if GW ever did tell people to "beer and pretzels" it up (and they've never made that an official message), how is that any different to people here telling non-comp players to have to change their lists or "git gud" if they want to play the game "properly". Far more people on this site specifically have made more claims about there being "One True Way To Play" (that being competitive Matched Play with points) than GW ever have.
NinthMusketeer wrote:It is advertised as a viable matched play list. There is no indication that it will show up and get -hosed- in almost any match.
right?
insaniak wrote:
Tibs Ironblood wrote: . When I hear matched play I am thinking of a least medium strength lists and up and that if you are playing matched play (what with it's superior rule set being focused on creating a more balanced and enjoyable experience) you are doing so because you are trying to have a more competitive and balanced gaming experience. Putting this out there as an army that could be that could potentially screw over a new player by giving them a false impression. If they said hey this is a narrative army we made using these models then boom no problem because it's not being advertised as something a large part of the community deem as having to meet a certain quality level to actually be. I think the absolute inverse is true so for example when WD showcased the more competitive lists they made it very clear what they were. Imagine if they said "hey here are these narrative lists we made for open play" that completely changes the perception of people inside and outside of the hobby.
Or maybe you could just stop equating 'Matched Play' and 'Competitive Play'...?
GW is under no obligation to adhere to your preconceptions of what Matched Play should be.
this further illustrates that there needs to be a specific tourney ruleset. but I'd be fine if they never do it and all complainers just keep on keeping on.
Would I be opposed to gw "fixing" the game, No. would I want them to focus on only the game how they play no. do I want them to continue to make the best models, Yes.
If they "fixed" the game for everybody, I would dare to say that there might be consensus amongst Dakka(but prob not certain people). but most likely not.
I don't think it's a sadism thing, I think it's a contempt thing. GW's rule authors do not enjoy competitive play and smugly declare that their particular way of playing is the One True Way To Play, with any other approach to the game getting minimal attention. They'd rather yell BEER AND PRETZELS and tell the competitive players about the virtues of being an alcoholic than do the work required to make a good competitive game.
Or, here me out, balancing a game so vast to a level that some people think is trivial is actually literally impossible and no one, GW or not, ever succeeded at it. You supposedly are an engineer but you have so little knowledge about complex systems it is literally painfull to read your comments sometimes.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: However, I don't think it's ever any single person's fault in particular, if a non-comp player goes in and gets curbstomped, be that GW, the comp player, or the person who got beat. Play who you think will give you a game you'll enjoy. Yes, a lot of it is about finding the right kind of person and group, but that's the same with so many hobbies. You can like the same video game as another person, but you two might be wholly incompatible in what you want from that experience. It's not the game dev's fault, nor is it either one of the players'.
No, it isn't one person's fault in every situation. But we're talking about a specific situation here, where GW has explicitly said "this is a viable matched play list" and talked about how good its units are at winning games despite the list being utter trash. It absolutely is GW's fault if someone buys the models for this list and has a miserable experience because of it, because they've betrayed that player's trust. If they had been honest and presented this list as a narrative one for a stealth-focused mission between armies built to a similar power level with the "sneaky infantry" theme in mind then nobody would have had any problem with it.
Yeah, hard disagree. Just because GW's team overall (not all of them, of course), play the game a certain way, they've never once said that there is "One True Way To Play". They've always advocated for "ignore what we say if you and your opponent thing you know better". They literally call it their most important rule.
Public statements by GW's rule authors in the past would disagree with you. They might not explicitly say that there's a single way to play, but they've said plenty of times that ALCOHOLISM AND PRETZELS is great and you shouldn't exploit any of the balance issues because story is more important than winning.
It's not that they hate competitive play. It's just that they don't have the necessary personal drive to do that. As a company, they have no obligation to HAVE to deliver that to you, only to do what their shareholders want. If the shareholders are fine as they are (and honestly, right now, why wouldn't they be!), then they have no "obligation" to do anything. As a consumer, if you don't like the attitude of the company, you have every right to take your business elsewhere. GW don't have to accomodate for competitive players, if they didn't want to.
Shareholders shouldn't be fine with it because there's more profit to be made, even if the company is currently profitable. It just happens to be the case that GW is a tiny company owned by large investment funds and probably gets minimal attention beyond a quarterly check of the financial report to confirm that GW still made a profit and the stock price hasn't crashed. If they got more attention there would likely be shareholder pressure to do more to exploit the competitive market.
Also, if you're really arguing that it's a matter of personal drive then it's a concession that GW's rule authors should be fired and replaced with people that are more willing to do their job. Personal enjoyment should not drive business decisions.
But on a serious level, if GW ever did tell people to "beer and pretzels" it up (and they've never made that an official message), how is that any different to people here telling non-comp players to have to change their lists or "git gud" if they want to play the game "properly". Far more people on this site specifically have made more claims about there being "One True Way To Play" (that being competitive Matched Play with points) than GW ever have.
It's not different, but you highly overstate the number of people saying "git gud or git out". Much more common is competitive players pointing out that competitive play is legitimate and arguing against the CAAC attitude that competitive players are all WAACTFGs who ruin the hobby, or acknowledging the fact that if you walk into a store's 40k night the default expectation is probably going to be matched play with points and TAC lists and lists built to at least a minimum standard of competitive viability.
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nou wrote: Or, here me out, balancing a game so vast to a level that some people think is trivial is actually literally impossible and no one, GW or not, ever succeeded at it. You supposedly are an engineer but you have so little knowledge about complex systems it is literally painfull to read your comments sometimes.
Again with the straw man of perfect balance. There is nothing impossible about balancing 40k to a much higher level, only a question of whether or not GW is willing to do it. You can repeat ITS IMPOSSIBLE DRINK MORE BEER all you like, but that doesn't make it true.
I don't think it's a sadism thing, I think it's a contempt thing. GW's rule authors do not enjoy competitive play and smugly declare that their particular way of playing is the One True Way To Play, with any other approach to the game getting minimal attention. They'd rather yell BEER AND PRETZELS and tell the competitive players about the virtues of being an alcoholic than do the work required to make a good competitive game.
Or, here me out, balancing a game so vast to a level that some people think is trivial is actually literally impossible and no one, GW or not, ever succeeded at it. You supposedly are an engineer but you have so little knowledge about complex systems it is literally painfull to read your comments sometimes.
Thank you!
I've been waiting all thread for this, agree so much.
It is so complicated to make a game as broad as 40k truly balanced, I agree that for practical purposes it is impossible.
It's not that GW doesn't care about competitive play. It's that they've made a value judgement, of the kind that Peregrine would advocate, and come to the conclusion that there are significant and serious diminishing returns in throwing money after making it a tight balanced game, and that the most profitable model is to make it fairly casual, with nods to competitive play.
I don't think it's a sadism thing, I think it's a contempt thing. GW's rule authors do not enjoy competitive play and smugly declare that their particular way of playing is the One True Way To Play, with any other approach to the game getting minimal attention. They'd rather yell BEER AND PRETZELS and tell the competitive players about the virtues of being an alcoholic than do the work required to make a good competitive game.
Or, here me out, balancing a game so vast to a level that some people think is trivial is actually literally impossible and no one, GW or not, ever succeeded at it. You supposedly are an engineer but you have so little knowledge about complex systems it is literally painfull to read your comments sometimes.
Thank you!
I've been waiting all thread for this, agree so much.
It is so complicated to make a game as broad as 40k truly balanced, I agree that for practical purposes it is impossible.
It's not that GW doesn't care about competitive play. It's that they've made a value judgement, of the kind that Peregrine would advocate, and come to the conclusion that there are significant and serious diminishing returns in throwing money after making it a tight balanced game, and that the most profitable model is to make it fairly casual, with nods to competitive play.
That's it.
Kinda sums it all up, it's not worth it for GW to throw £ at a problem that isnt really a problem.
Rules dont sell models(they do help tho) but if the models sucked and had great rules, a significant proportion of players wouldn't build/paint/collect/play.
Sgt_Smudge wrote: However, I don't think it's ever any single person's fault in particular, if a non-comp player goes in and gets curbstomped, be that GW, the comp player, or the person who got beat. Play who you think will give you a game you'll enjoy. Yes, a lot of it is about finding the right kind of person and group, but that's the same with so many hobbies. You can like the same video game as another person, but you two might be wholly incompatible in what you want from that experience. It's not the game dev's fault, nor is it either one of the players'.
No, it isn't one person's fault in every situation. But we're talking about a specific situation here, where GW has explicitly said "this is a viable matched play list" and talked about how good its units are at winning games despite the list being utter trash.
Trash in comparison to lists you might deal with. It might not be a trash list in GW's meta.
Fundamentally, the list *is* viable. You cannot argue that it's not a viable list in the basic definition of it. What you can argue is it's viability in your meta, which GW never claimed it was.
It absolutely is GW's fault if someone buys the models for this list and has a miserable experience because of it, because they've betrayed that player's trust. If they had been honest and presented this list as a narrative one for a stealth-focused mission between armies built to a similar power level with the "sneaky infantry" theme in mind then nobody would have had any problem with it.
So if I buy a perfume and I don't become instantly swarmed by potential partners, I was lied to? It's a Matched Play list, it physically CAN win games, and just because it wouldn't do well in your meta doesn't mean it wouldn't in others.
Yes, this comes down to the point of "if the game was balanced better, there wouldn't be a difference in metas, all would be equal", but as I've expressed, this can be more easily avoided by just playing people with similar goals to you.
Yeah, hard disagree. Just because GW's team overall (not all of them, of course), play the game a certain way, they've never once said that there is "One True Way To Play". They've always advocated for "ignore what we say if you and your opponent thing you know better". They literally call it their most important rule.
Public statements by GW's rule authors in the past would disagree with you.
I can take comments from anyone in the past. Doesn't mean it's relevant now.
They might not explicitly say that there's a single way to play, but they've said plenty of times that ALCOHOLISM AND PRETZELS is great and you shouldn't exploit any of the balance issues because story is more important than winning.
They've also said that their most important rule is do what you and your opponent agree fits you best. If you don't like what GW have done, you have every right to modify the game to suit your play better.
The "exploiting balance issues" comes down to personal etiquette. If you're willing to abuse broken elements of the game to curbstomp someone, then I don't want to play you. But that's my right as a person who can choose what to invest my time into.
It's not that they hate competitive play. It's just that they don't have the necessary personal drive to do that. As a company, they have no obligation to HAVE to deliver that to you, only to do what their shareholders want. If the shareholders are fine as they are (and honestly, right now, why wouldn't they be!), then they have no "obligation" to do anything. As a consumer, if you don't like the attitude of the company, you have every right to take your business elsewhere. GW don't have to accomodate for competitive players, if they didn't want to.
Shareholders shouldn't be fine with it because there's more profit to be made, even if the company is currently profitable.
Well, if you want to talk to them and convince them about it instead of a bunch of random folks on Dakka, be my guest. I'm sure they're happy as they are, even if they don't obey the One True Word of the Bird.
It just happens to be the case that GW is a tiny company owned by large investment funds and probably gets minimal attention beyond a quarterly check of the financial report to confirm that GW still made a profit and the stock price hasn't crashed. If they got more attention there would likely be shareholder pressure to do more to exploit the competitive market.
You *do* know that, out of nearly all high street stores in the UK, Games Workshop is one of the only ones to actually beat off the encroaching closing of stores and financial problems of last year, and actually improved their standing?
For a "tiny company", they're doing exceptionally well.
Also, if you're really arguing that it's a matter of personal drive then it's a concession that GW's rule authors should be fired and replaced with people that are more willing to do their job. Personal enjoyment should not drive business decisions.
You don't run GW, nor do you have any more stake in it than me. If you don't like their business decisions, find a way to convince them, or deal with it how you choose. I don't like a lot of business decisions by lots of companies, but guess what? I deal with it, or communicate that to them.
But on a serious level, if GW ever did tell people to "beer and pretzels" it up (and they've never made that an official message), how is that any different to people here telling non-comp players to have to change their lists or "git gud" if they want to play the game "properly". Far more people on this site specifically have made more claims about there being "One True Way To Play" (that being competitive Matched Play with points) than GW ever have.
It's not different, but you highly overstate the number of people saying "git gud or git out".
I'm really not, unfortunately.
Much more common is competitive players pointing out that competitive play is legitimate and arguing against the CAAC attitude that competitive players are all WAACTFGs who ruin the hobby, or acknowledging the fact that if you walk into a store's 40k night the default expectation is probably going to be matched play with points and TAC lists and lists built to at least a minimum standard of competitive viability.
No-one saying comp isn't legitimate, nor do all CAAC players think comp players are TFG. However, expecting comp to be the norm is exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about - it's assumed you play competitively, and if not, you're an aberration, and that kind of attitude is toxic in my opinion. More open mindedness and communication about what people want from a game would be preferable.
I think this discussion has more than run its course, by this point. There's nothing to be gained by everyone continuing to yell past each other over it.
