FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Didn't he get "accused" of cheating by one of the GT organizers over "Plasma gate" or am I thinking of something else. His name looks super familiar for some reason...
He's well known for winning an LVO and being the first "professional" Warhammer player. He also not only has his own tactics platform but guests stared on essentially every 40k podcast at some point. I've never heard a rumor of him cheating.
Well it's written by ITC "Super stars" so I thought this place would be all over it, even if it does contradict the first turn bias theory.
That's not quite what he said though, it's about trying to say yes but it's not a mission design and codex design issue.
You also notice he is playing one of the widely considered better factions that doesn't actually have a significant amount of variance in win ratio in relation to going first.
Design a list to go second, not a new concept for most competitive players, but is basically an admission that player with top of round had an advantage.
Take a list that can retake objectives, and exactly how do you do that with codex's with lackluster or non exsistant Melee threats?
The perennial add more obscuring terrain is also an admission that lethality is broken. It also is about as blatant as we are probably going to be getting that GW has designed 9th to make LoW unplayable competitively.
Also they specifically admit that Eldar, Drukari, Tau and both knights codex's effectively dont work in 9th edition by omitting them from the list of codex's that can do well at events.
First-turn advantage is a thing. Nick's perspective is that people just don't know how to play...but he also hasn't played at any actual events yet, where the 58% going-first win rate has been replicated over more than 3000 games now.
"The players are just bad, there wouldn't be any first turn advantage if people knew what they were doing" is a point of view, but it's not a data-based point of view. It isn't susceptible to data-based proof one way or the other - except maybe if you could show that first-turn advantage disappears among the best players. But it doesn't. So to the extent that the data says anything, it suggests that "git gud" is not a fix.
But even if it was just a "gid gud" issue, it's not a great game design to set up your game in such a way that it will have a pronounced first-turn bias for average players.
This article made my heart sink - not because of what Nick said, but because of how Mike Brandt was clearly teeing someone up who would say what he wanted, that his new missions are great and it's the player base's fault that there's a pronounced first-turn bias in the real world, and that if people would just get better at doing what he wants, they'd realize how great the missions are. It's that same top-down "take this and make it work, and if you don't, it's your own fault" approach to mission design that GW has always been guilty of in the past, not the more player-focused, open-to-input approach we were hoping we'd get when they went and hired someone from the community.
Also, that player card with bar ratings for various "skills" is ridiculous, absurd nonsense that is frankly embarrassing. Players aren't widgets, you can't rate them on a power bar with any sort of objective rigor, it's just nonsense. You can say someone is better at this than that, but to assign an effective numeric value to it is a joke.
I´ll be closely following this series on the competitive scene with collaboration between GW itself and high tier players. The inclusion of the former meaning no meaningful criticism of GW design will ever be included in the series, making it pointless.
I had a lot of hope for the article, but I didn't find a lot of substance to it. Instead, it felt like an advertising article. "Buy terrain, buy any army" was all I got out from it. Nick is a smart guy, and I'm sure he said a LOT more than what was shown here, because there's very little useful information here on ways to actual get into the meta.
Well it's written by ITC "Super stars" so I thought this place would be all over it, even if it does contradict the first turn bias theory.
That's an odd take. I see a lot more of 'it can't ever be a tournament game, competitive play doesn't matter and so on and so forth.'
Which makes it really odd that GW has spent the last couple of editions buying all the 'internet famous' tournament people to be their yes men and generally shill for them. This is just more of that.
It isn't particularly interesting, but GW apparently really wants customers to see this 'outside' validation from the competitive scene.
First-turn advantage is a thing. Nick's perspective is that people just don't know how to play...but he also hasn't played at any actual events yet, where the 58% going-first win rate has been replicated over more than 3000 games now.
Not only that, but I'd also point out that the trend has been for that first-turn win percentage to increase steadily as more data comes out. IDK why this is so unbelievably controversial for some people. Just a cursory reading of the missions themselves demonstrates a distinct advantage to going first. When the tourney data also backs this up - why is it so hard to believe? Why is the answer always "You're using wrong tactics, adapt to 9th, get gud" etc? IDK - There are portions of Dakka I'll never understand.
not because of what Nick said, but because of how Mike Brandt was clearly teeing someone up who would say what he wanted, that his new missions are great and it's the player base's fault that there's a pronounced first-turn bias in the real world, and that if people would just get better at doing what he wants, they'd realize how great the missions are. It's that same top-down "take this and make it work, and if you don't, it's your own fault" approach to mission design that GW has always been guilty of in the past, not the more player-focused, open-to-input approach we were hoping we'd get when they went and hired someone from the community.
It's especially disappointing for me because the missions are generally pretty good, and I think the first turn win thing could easily be solved by simply changing when objectives are scored. A one or two sentence FAQ could do it for most missions, but it seems like they'd rather just keep banging that drum of "all factions are viable and don't worry about 1st or 2nd turn". I can only hope they're just waiting for more data but are planning on adjusting once more comes in.
The biggest issue I have with the whole thing is that when the missions came out, a lot of the major podcasts/play testers/personalities, etc were highly critical of the scoring - stating things like "there's a reason Adepticon doesn't do it this way anymore, etc". Now, a few months later, we have data backing up the concerns, and some of us have played enough to SEE the actual problem in real life, but those same people seem to be mum on the subject. Everything is fine. Nothing to see here. Kind of ... sad really. They knew there was potential for a issue, the issue has been confirmed, but now they're silent? I guess that's what you get for signing that NDA ...
I try not to blame the community, people respond in predictable ways that aren't going to change just because of criticism. Particularly when the reason they got into the hobby in the first place was, well, because they liked it. When people have a financial interest, that just makes it all the more predictable and understandable that they don't go out on a limb to criticize the goose that laid their golden egg.
The buck stops with GW, as it always does, despite the best efforts of a large percentage of the community to argue otherwise. When things don't work, it's not the fault of playtesters or community members or anybody else IMO, it's GW's fault.
P.S. Just a FYI to anyone in the thread who wasn't aware, Nick Nanavati in particular has never participated in GW's playtesting program, because he (100% rightly) objects to the way they rely on unpaid labor to run the program, rather than paying people for their time the way they would in any other industry.
yukishiro1 wrote: I try not to blame the community, people respond in predictable ways that aren't going to change just because of criticism. Particularly when the reason they got into the hobby in the first place was, well, because they liked it. When people have a financial interest, that just makes it all the more predictable and understandable that they don't go out on a limb to criticize the goose that laid their golden egg.
The buck stops with GW, as it always does, despite the best efforts of a large percentage of the community to argue otherwise. When things don't work, it's not the fault of playtesters or community members or anybody else IMO, it's GW's fault.
P.S. Just a FYI to anyone in the thread who wasn't aware, Nick Nanavati in particular has never participated in GW's playtesting program, because he (100% rightly) objects to the way they rely on unpaid labor to run the program, rather than paying people for their time the way they would in any other industry.
I dislike that sentiment. Are video game public beta testers expecting to get paid? Often many pay to have the beta test experience.
Likewise if GW said "here's all the 9th ed codex in a zip folder, they're drafts, try them and see what you all think" you'd magically never touch them out of principal?
He's also saying, in that case, he won't volunteer his well educated services to make something he makes money off and is passionate about better, because nobody will pay him. That invalidates literally any balance complaints he could ever produce.
Aaranis wrote: Out of curiosity, when would we need to score objectives to make it more equitable ? I'm no pro player.
It's not an exactly know thing as changing when you score also tend sto have knock on consequences.
One of the things is you deploy then roll for going first, some people believe moving the roll to before deployment would be a better solution.
You know just how hard you need to mitigate without punishing slow armies if they go first.
The other answer is just based on what used to work in previous formats which is at the end of the round or start of the round.
PLAYER 1 TURN
PLAYER 2 TURN
SCORE
PLAYER 1 TURN
PLAYER 2 TURN
SCORE
Esentially it can be the end of player 2's turn or at the start of player 1's command phase. The issue with the second option is it makes turn 5 worthless. But I'm not sure if GW intends it to be a wash out turn.
I did say that this edition of 40K was "Tournament Edition".
Spoiler:
Aaaaaaahahahahahahahaha....
*deep breath*
..... hahahahahahahaha!
In the new edition, you’re often better off using a variety of relatively inexpensive, flexible units which can function autonomously. All the new Indomitus units, such as Bladeguard Veterans, Outriders, and Eradicators, fit this unit style perfectly.
Wow. What a huge coincidence that the models they just released happen to perfectly fit the new style of play? I'm shocked I tell you. Shocked. This is my shocked face.
yukishiro1 wrote: First-turn advantage is a thing. Nick's perspective is that people just don't know how to play...but he also hasn't played at any actual events yet, where the 58% going-first win rate has been replicated over more than 3000 games now.
"The players are just bad, there wouldn't be any first turn advantage if people knew what they were doing" is a point of view, but it's not a data-based point of view. It isn't susceptible to data-based proof one way or the other - except maybe if you could show that first-turn advantage disappears among the best players. But it doesn't. So to the extent that the data says anything, it suggests that "git gud" is not a fix.
But even if it was just a "gid gud" issue, it's not a great game design to set up your game in such a way that it will have a pronounced first-turn bias for average players.
This article made my heart sink - not because of what Nick said, but because of how Mike Brandt was clearly teeing someone up who would say what he wanted, that his new missions are great and it's the player base's fault that there's a pronounced first-turn bias in the real world, and that if people would just get better at doing what he wants, they'd realize how great the missions are. It's that same top-down "take this and make it work, and if you don't, it's your own fault" approach to mission design that GW has always been guilty of in the past, not the more player-focused, open-to-input approach we were hoping we'd get when they went and hired someone from the community.
Also, that player card with bar ratings for various "skills" is ridiculous, absurd nonsense that is frankly embarrassing. Players aren't widgets, you can't rate them on a power bar with any sort of objective rigor, it's just nonsense. You can say someone is better at this than that, but to assign an effective numeric value to it is a joke.
Iunno, might just be because Nick's by far the most aggressive self promoting "pro" 40ker out there. He has literally translated this into half a dozen different monetized ventures where he talks about how great he is at the game and if you want to be any good, pay him hundreds of dollars to teach you.
40k Pro, what is that supposed to mean, like a golf pro @ the local course? cuz if that's the case it really doesn't mean much....unless they're Tiger or Chi Chi Rodriguez.
Also 40k Pro is quite possibly the most gakiest statement out there....I'm just waiting for GW to pull a Pro Necromunda Player out a their ass.
Racerguy180 wrote: 40k Pro, what is that supposed to mean, like a golf pro @ the local course? cuz if that's the case it really doesn't mean much....unless they're Tiger or Chi Chi Rodriguez.
Also 40k Pro is quite possibly the most gakiest statement out there....I'm just waiting for GW to pull a Pro Necromunda Player out a their ass.
GW didn't invent Nick Nanavati. The man made his own PR and marketing. And. I mean, it worked. People do pay him a silly amount of money to be told how to git gud at warhammer.
There’s numerous reasons why the first turn advantage may not be as strong as the statistic represents. You’d be silly to ignore Nick’s opinion based on “the stats” it doesn’t matter if the data size is 3000 or 3 million, the stats ignore a human element and how we approach the game / our knowledge of it.
I dislike that sentiment. Are video game public beta testers expecting to get paid? Often many pay to have the beta test experience.
Likewise if GW said "here's all the 9th ed codex in a zip folder, they're drafts, try them and see what you all think" you'd magically never touch them out of principal?
He's also saying, in that case, he won't volunteer his well educated services to make something he makes money off and is passionate about better, because nobody will pay him. That invalidates literally any balance complaints he could ever produce.
GW doesn't do public beta tests. And yes, smart, competent gaming companies do pay their alpha testers, because they know that if you don't pay, you can't expect professional results.
Video game public betas are just an advertising thing. The game is already effectively done. They don't even usually bother to go through the fiction of asking peoples' impressions for public betas, because the game's already done. At most it's a stress test sort of thing.
The idea that someone's opinions should be invalidated because they refused to give a company worth billions of dollars free labor is downright absurd. If anything, it's the opposite - the opinions of people willing to labor to enrich a company worth billions because the company is too cheap to pay them are the ones that should be treated with the greater skepticism.
GW isn't some charity venture. They're not doing this to make the world a better place.
Aaranis wrote: Out of curiosity, when would we need to score objectives to make it more equitable ? I'm no pro player.
Some options are:
Allow the going second player to score the primary mission on their first turn, so they get five chances to score to first player's four.
Allow the second player to get a "ghost" sixth turn to score the primary mission at the end of their last turn, so they get five chances to score to first player's four.
They could even give different primary points depending on going first or second. So on a five or six objective map first could have to do hold two, hold three, hold more while second could do hold one, hold two, hold more.
Change where the objectives are. My reading of the goonhammer stat article that looked at this was that the one mission that has the least first turn bias has 50% (2 of 4) of its objectives on the mid board line. This helps second player because in order for first player to hold those objectives they have to be so far forward second player can attack them and often first player has to advance rather than normal move to reach them. The worst missions (for first/second disparity) appear to be where the objectives are furthest from the mid board line (and close to your own deployment) as moving on to them is trivial for first player and they are really far away from second player making it harder for second player to push first player off.
Change the who goes first roll off to before deployment, have first player deploy then second player can fully counter deploy. Again, goonhammer's stats article seemed to back this up, as when ITC shifted to a similar system it lowered the first turn advantage.
Racerguy180 wrote: 40k Pro, what is that supposed to mean, like a golf pro @ the local course? cuz if that's the case it really doesn't mean much....unless they're Tiger or Chi Chi Rodriguez.
Also 40k Pro is quite possibly the most bullshittiest statement out there....I'm just waiting for GW to pull a Pro Necromunda Player out a their ass.
GW didn't invent Nick Nanavati. The man made his own PR and marketing. And. I mean, it worked. People do pay him a silly amount of money to be told how to git gud at warhammer.
A fool and their money soon part ways. I guess good for him, but 40k pro isn't something one should list on their resume, unless your trying out for the Crud Creek Nosepickers new ALL-STAR 40K world tour championship team where you win all the money 40k has to offer.
I dislike that sentiment. Are video game public beta testers expecting to get paid? Often many pay to have the beta test experience.
Likewise if GW said "here's all the 9th ed codex in a zip folder, they're drafts, try them and see what you all think" you'd magically never touch them out of principal?
He's also saying, in that case, he won't volunteer his well educated services to make something he makes money off and is passionate about better, because nobody will pay him. That invalidates literally any balance complaints he could ever produce.
Can I get your mailing address to send my boots to you bud?
The idea that someone's opinions should be invalidated because they refused to give a company worth billions of dollars free labor is downright absurd. If anything, it's the opposite - the opinions of people willing to labor to enrich a company worth billions because the company is too cheap to pay them are the ones that should be treated with the greater skepticism.
Narrative articles get nothing but people whining about how the fluff apparently used to be able to give you handjobs through the pages and Hobby articles might as well just be a blank page with a link to whatever kit they're featuring for how clearly they're just an ad.
At least with this you get to PRETEND it's actual content.
Nitro Zeus wrote: There’s numerous reasons why the first turn advantage may not be as strong as the statistic represents. You’d be silly to ignore Nick’s opinion based on “the stats” it doesn’t matter if the data size is 3000 or 3 million, the stats ignore a human element and how we approach the game / our knowledge of it.
He could also just be wrong, or biased because he just happens to be playing the faction that is the single best of any of them at mitigating first turn advantage.
Especially given that the data so far has suggested that not only does first turn advantage exists, it is more pronounced in later rounds as players are matched with people closer to their own skill level.
It wouldn't be anywhere near the first time a top level player at something just didn't know what he's talking about. It reminds me of when Dopa of League of Legends said "Oh no man after this latest rework Ryze is useless garbage he won't be in Worlds" only for Ryze to, guess what, dominate Worlds once more.
For info on the meta and what's hot, I always look for people with nothing attaching them to Games Workshop or their competition for as unbiased a view as possible. From what I've heard, people think Harlequinns will hit a ceiling soon, Chaos are going to be a major player, and Space Marine lists will be looking a little different as far as composition goes, but will still be the army to build to beat going into events. Orks are the big mystery to me, since they've doing decently, but don't seem to have the tools to deal with the new Marine stuff or a dedicated Chaos force.
As to how to fix it: the first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have a problem. Instead of teeing up people to insist that everything's fine, GW should say "yeah, we see the 58% win rate for going first, and we agree with the community that this isn't acceptable. We're internally testing right now to find the best way to correct this imbalance, and we'll keep you updated."
In terms of what to actually do, one obvious option would be to allow a last set of scoring primary at the very end of the game. This alone might completely fix the issue, as it'd mean the player going 2nd has the ability to control last-turn primary scoring for both players.
Other things you could do - ditch alternate deployment and have the defender deploy second; keep alternate deployment but allow the person going second to redeploy X units right before the game starts, including placing them into strategic reserves if desired; implement a "fog of war" rule that limits shooting on player one's first turn by preventing shooting on T1 except if you're within X" of the target (could try X" = 18" as a starter here); have the player going second nominate one unit that is hidden and counts as in obscuring terrain even if it isn't for the first turn...we could go on and on here, there's a million ways to reduce first-turn bias. If GW recognizes it's a problem, fixing it is not going to be that difficult. It just requires sustained testing.
Racerguy180 wrote: 40k Pro, what is that supposed to mean, like a golf pro @ the local course? cuz if that's the case it really doesn't mean much....unless they're Tiger or Chi Chi Rodriguez.
Also 40k Pro is quite possibly the most bullshittiest statement out there....I'm just waiting for GW to pull a Pro Necromunda Player out a their ass.
GW didn't invent Nick Nanavati. The man made his own PR and marketing. And. I mean, it worked. People do pay him a silly amount of money to be told how to git gud at warhammer.
A fool and their money soon part ways. I guess good for him, but 40k pro isn't something one should list on their resume, unless your trying out for the Crud Creek Nosepickers new ALL-STAR 40K world tour championship team where you win all the money 40k has to offer.
If you do something and people like watching, you can draw spectators. Spectators who enjoy your content can sometimes be leveraged for income as they are in basically every popular game that gets played from football to nascar to chess. If people figure out a way to draw spectators enough that you can and do make a significant amount of your living off of playing warhammer, then you're a pro warhammer player. Same way as you would be a professional athlete or a professional racecar driver, or professional youtuber.
It's just commerce. He creates something people enjoy consuming so they pay him for it.
It's you attaching context to it and getting butthurt about it.
Aow40k streams pretty excellent content for free twice a week. It's by far the best competitive stream content out there. I don't pay for any of the paid stuff, but I have no problem with them trying to make a go out of it, and I wish them luck.
As to how to fix it: the first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have a problem. Instead of teeing up people to insist that everything's fine, GW should say "yeah, we see the 58% win rate for going first, and we agree with the community that this isn't acceptable. We're internally testing right now to find the best way to correct this imbalance, and we'll keep you updated."
In terms of what to actually do, one obvious option would be to allow a last set of scoring primary at the very end of the game. This alone might completely fix the issue, as it'd mean the player going 2nd has the ability to control last-turn primary scoring for both players.
Other things you could do - ditch alternate deployment and have the defender deploy second; keep alternate deployment but allow the person going second to redeploy X units right before the game starts, including placing them into strategic reserves if desired; implement a "fog of war" rule that limits shooting on player one's first turn by preventing shooting on T1 except if you're within X" of the target (could try X" = 18" as a starter here); have the player going second nominate one unit that is hidden and counts as in obscuring terrain even if it isn't for the first turn...we could go on and on here, there's a million ways to reduce first-turn bias. If GW recognizes it's a problem, fixing it is not going to be that difficult. It just requires sustained testing.
Wait, since when is 58% really that unnacceptable? Chess is like 54% FTA, is 40k supposed to be more balanced than CHESS?
I'm not necessarily arguing against any of your other points, just 58% isn't that bad. It's IMPROVABLE, not UNACCEPTABLE.
Wait, since when is 58% really that unnacceptable? Chess is like 54% FTA, is 40k supposed to be more balanced than CHESS?
I'm not necessarily arguing against any of your other points, just 58% isn't that bad. It's IMPROVABLE, not UNACCEPTABLE.
54% and 58% are hugely different, but yes, one of Chess' big problems has always been the advantage from going first. If chess didn't have a first-turn advantage, competitive chess would look completely different to what it does look like. A large percentage of chess theory - maybe even the majority - is about how to break white's advantage when playing black.
ITC 2020 had first-turn advantage around 52%. That's where the game ought to be. If some random people in the community can get to 52%, GW should be able to at least match that.
A game with a 58% win rate for going first is not really a game you can call competitive. Anything above ~55% is veering into non-competitive territory. 58% is bad for a competitive game.
I mean, I think people who voluntarily watch soccer have to be unbalanced in some way to deal with a sport where nothing happens for 1.5 hours and then just when you think you're finally free they randomly add more time on the end like they're really just trying to break your spirit. I don't begrudge them what makes them happy though, I just smile and nod.
This series will be as good as any other catalogue/advertisement. They get the competitive names in to convince the naive that, "No, no, guys THIS and THIS unit are totally awesome, you can trust me I'm a Competitive(tm) tournament player!" who will toe the party line that GW give him in order to keep both parties sweet. I'm sure some people will be suckered into making stuff from it, but it's not like GW pays these people anything beyond the promise of maybe some exposure and free kits to review (positively) for them.
It's like when they hire millionaire celebs to advertise cheap-end supermarket-sold shampoo and they pretend they actually use the stuff they're being told to shill.
Wait, since when is 58% really that unnacceptable? Chess is like 54% FTA, is 40k supposed to be more balanced than CHESS?
I'm not necessarily arguing against any of your other points, just 58% isn't that bad. It's IMPROVABLE, not UNACCEPTABLE.
54% and 58% are hugely different, but yes, one of Chess' big problems has always been the advantage from going first. If chess didn't have a first-turn advantage, competitive chess would look completely different to what it does look like. A large percentage of chess theory - maybe even the majority - is about how to break white's advantage when playing black.
ITC 2020 had first-turn advantage around 52%. That's where the game ought to be. If some random people in the community can get to 52%, GW should be able to at least match that.
Isn't that incredibly biased though? ITC 2020 was essentially a solved format(with years of minor tweaks behind it) with an absolutely massive pool games to draw from. The current format is both young and still in flux and,,,yunno...Rona. Pretty much all current results aren't necessarily representative of the actuality of the game in the long term.
I doubt it's quite where ITC 2020 was and there are some clear places where it can be improved on (allowing the go second player to counter deploy would be a start) but with how shaky any and all of our current data is, I would be incredibly reluctant to make sweeping changes.
Nitro Zeus wrote: There’s numerous reasons why the first turn advantage may not be as strong as the statistic represents. You’d be silly to ignore Nick’s opinion based on “the stats” it doesn’t matter if the data size is 3000 or 3 million, the stats ignore a human element and how we approach the game / our knowledge of it.
He could also just be wrong, or biased because he just happens to be playing the faction that is the single best of any of them at mitigating first turn advantage.
Especially given that the data so far has suggested that not only does first turn advantage exists, it is more pronounced in later rounds as players are matched with people closer to their own skill level.
It wouldn't be anywhere near the first time a top level player at something just didn't know what he's talking about. It reminds me of when Dopa of League of Legends said "Oh no man after this latest rework Ryze is useless garbage he won't be in Worlds" only for Ryze to, guess what, dominate Worlds once more.
He could be wrong, he’s not infallible. Neither are the stats. That’s why dismissing his viewpoint because of stats is silly.
I saw a good write up about someone explaining the win rate discrepancy as he saw it today
I'm also on the side that while First turn is strong, it's not gamebreakingly strong inherently. I think a considerable amount of the emphasis on first turn is just coming from how people are deciding to play the game at the start.
If you deploy super aggressively, you can make the most of first turn, but often usually means you will also get wrecked if you dont win first turn.
If you deploy conservative in expectation of your opponent going first, and they deploy super aggressive and take first turn, you can often punish them extremely and swing the game in your own favor by going second as they expose themselves trying to get on objectives and midboard with minimal ability to punish your conservative deployment. You can also force their reserves in before your own reserves which can be extremely valuable.
The problem comes if you deploy conservatively and expect to go second and then get forced into turn 1, its a little more difficult of a position.
TL;DR i suspect the over emphasis on turn 1 being too good is from people leaning into hyper-aggressive turn 1 focused deployment and positioning and putting themselves in make-or-break positioning based on a contested die roll.
This might also be wrong it’s one persons opinion. But please stop letting stats blind you to the possibility that what Nick says here might be none of the things you described and may just be accurate
There was no rule of the universe that GW had to ignore everything ITC had learned and come up with its own new thing deliberately not learning from ITC's process.
It would only be incredibly biased if GW was operating in a parallel universe to ITC and we were comparing year 1 of GW to year 10 or whatever of ITC.
I wouldn't make "sweeping" changes. As I said above, the most important thing GW can do is just tell people they see the data, acknowledge that a 58% win rate isn't acceptable, and that they are working on testing tweaks to bring it down, aiming for no more than a 52% advantage. Instead, they've done the opposite here, and tried to imply there is no problem and people just need to git gud.
yukishiro1 wrote: They obviously did, and it's a joke, because 40k doesn't keep track of any of the metrics necessary to make those ratings have any validity.
Honestly they reminded me of the old stats you used to get on Transformer toys.
Nitro Zeus wrote: There’s numerous reasons why the first turn advantage may not be as strong as the statistic represents. You’d be silly to ignore Nick’s opinion based on “the stats” it doesn’t matter if the data size is 3000 or 3 million, the stats ignore a human element and how we approach the game / our knowledge of it.
He could also just be wrong, or biased because he just happens to be playing the faction that is the single best of any of them at mitigating first turn advantage.
Especially given that the data so far has suggested that not only does first turn advantage exists, it is more pronounced in later rounds as players are matched with people closer to their own skill level.
It wouldn't be anywhere near the first time a top level player at something just didn't know what he's talking about. It reminds me of when Dopa of League of Legends said "Oh no man after this latest rework Ryze is useless garbage he won't be in Worlds" only for Ryze to, guess what, dominate Worlds once more.
He could be wrong, he’s not infallible. Neither are the stats. That’s why dismissing his viewpoint because of stats is silly.
I saw a good write up about someone explaining the win rate discrepancy as he saw it today
I'm also on the side that while First turn is strong, it's not gamebreakingly strong inherently. I think a considerable amount of the emphasis on first turn is just coming from how people are deciding to play the game at the start.
If you deploy super aggressively, you can make the most of first turn, but often usually means you will also get wrecked if you dont win first turn.
If you deploy conservative in expectation of your opponent going first, and they deploy super aggressive and take first turn, you can often punish them extremely and swing the game in your own favor by going second as they expose themselves trying to get on objectives and midboard with minimal ability to punish your conservative deployment. You can also force their reserves in before your own reserves which can be extremely valuable.
The problem comes if you deploy conservatively and expect to go second and then get forced into turn 1, its a little more difficult of a position.
TL;DR i suspect the over emphasis on turn 1 being too good is from people leaning into hyper-aggressive turn 1 focused deployment and positioning and putting themselves in make-or-break positioning based on a contested die roll.
This might also be wrong it’s one persons opinion. But please stop letting stats blind you to the possibility that what Nick says here might be none of the things you described and may just be accurate
There being scenarios where going first might not be the play doesn't imply there isn't largely a turn 1 advantage. And that write-up doesn't even talk about the fact that the turn 1 player has five turns where they can blunt your ability to score, whereas the turn 2 player largely just has four.
The difference between stats and Nanavatti's opinion is that for the former I can see how they're formed. I was able to read how the stats were compiled. I have no idea how Nick's opinion was formed and bluntly neither do you. Furthermore, given that many of the stats outright contradict his notion that it is a matter of player skill that negates first turn advantage it is much easier to dismiss his opinion.
The stats might have some problems that can be corrected on but to be frank Nick's opinion and reasoning for it don't do that and are in fact largely shown to be false by the stats already in place my man. The stats also give us a look into his mindset where we see that the faction he's been practicing with is statistically the best able to handle going second.
I'll put it another way: neither the stats nor Nick's opinion are perfect, but by any reasonable assessment of all the facts available the stats are more perfect than Nick's opinion.
Arbitrator wrote: This series will be as good as any other catalogue/advertisement. They get the competitive names in to convince the naive that, "No, no, guys THIS and THIS unit are totally awesome, you can trust me I'm a Competitive(tm) tournament player!" who will toe the party line that GW give him in order to keep both parties sweet. I'm sure some people will be suckered into making stuff from it, but it's not like GW pays these people anything beyond the promise of maybe some exposure and free kits to review (positively) for them.
It's like when they hire millionaire celebs to advertise cheap-end supermarket-sold shampoo and they pretend they actually use the stuff they're being told to shill.
People in general are capable of pattern recognition, if nothing else. If Nick starts spouting that every unit under the sun is 'great' and 'competitive' and then they aren't and see nothing but fringe play, they lose credibility. This has already happened with Reece; who I would argue is doing it out of enthusiasm more than deceit, but that doesn't change the fact that basically no one takes his unit recommendations seriously anymore unless he's recapping an actual competitive event he went to.
Yes, these kinds of articles are going to continue GW's relentless positivity (as has been their advertising strategy since forever) but that doesn't necessarily make them wrong. They can be positive AND correct. In the article he obviously mentions a whole number of units when they ask about what the 'best' stuff is right now and he calls out a number of chaos units that have all seen a significant amount of success on the tournament circuit, IG mechspam which is just about the most effective tactic IG have at the moment, inspecific Admech and Sisters praise(which could have been used to push expensive new kits considering that both factions best units are brand new and pricey as all hell but wasn't), and references to a coupe of Xenos factions that have had lists top events in the past few weeks. These are things he'd need to talk about to accurately answer the question no matter WHO was asking.
Exposure is worth dick-all, especially from WHC. People check WHC once a day at most to see if any information about the new releases pop up. Most of the big Warhammer content creators get many more eyes on them as ever fall on any non-release based WHC article. It's actually them slumming it in a lot of cases to do WHC content.
Almost everyone who has a good quality youtube channel is already fairly well off. Do you really think the type of people who have the time and money to either devote enough resources to make high quality content OR take a risk on making 40k their primary income stream while ALSO being able to afford the overhead required of an even medium quality production youtube channel give one wet fart about a handful of free kits? The TTT guy works at google for feths sake, they could gift him an entire 2000 point painted Necron army and it wouldn't really be that big of deal to him.
Also, you undermine your whole position at the end their. How is it like millionaires pretending to like cheap shampoo(who only do it for a VERY significant payday) if they're not really even getting payed? That's nonsensical and incredibly stupid.
Nitro Zeus wrote: There’s numerous reasons why the first turn advantage may not be as strong as the statistic represents. You’d be silly to ignore Nick’s opinion based on “the stats” it doesn’t matter if the data size is 3000 or 3 million, the stats ignore a human element and how we approach the game / our knowledge of it.
He could also just be wrong, or biased because he just happens to be playing the faction that is the single best of any of them at mitigating first turn advantage.
Especially given that the data so far has suggested that not only does first turn advantage exists, it is more pronounced in later rounds as players are matched with people closer to their own skill level.
It wouldn't be anywhere near the first time a top level player at something just didn't know what he's talking about. It reminds me of when Dopa of League of Legends said "Oh no man after this latest rework Ryze is useless garbage he won't be in Worlds" only for Ryze to, guess what, dominate Worlds once more.
He could be wrong, he’s not infallible. Neither are the stats. That’s why dismissing his viewpoint because of stats is silly.
I saw a good write up about someone explaining the win rate discrepancy as he saw it today
I'm also on the side that while First turn is strong, it's not gamebreakingly strong inherently. I think a considerable amount of the emphasis on first turn is just coming from how people are deciding to play the game at the start.
If you deploy super aggressively, you can make the most of first turn, but often usually means you will also get wrecked if you dont win first turn.
If you deploy conservative in expectation of your opponent going first, and they deploy super aggressive and take first turn, you can often punish them extremely and swing the game in your own favor by going second as they expose themselves trying to get on objectives and midboard with minimal ability to punish your conservative deployment. You can also force their reserves in before your own reserves which can be extremely valuable.
The problem comes if you deploy conservatively and expect to go second and then get forced into turn 1, its a little more difficult of a position.
TL;DR i suspect the over emphasis on turn 1 being too good is from people leaning into hyper-aggressive turn 1 focused deployment and positioning and putting themselves in make-or-break positioning based on a contested die roll.
This might also be wrong it’s one persons opinion. But please stop letting stats blind you to the possibility that what Nick says here might be none of the things you described and may just be accurate
There being scenarios where going first might not be the play doesn't imply there isn't largely a turn 1 advantage. And that write-up doesn't even talk about the fact that the turn 1 player has five turns where they can blunt your ability to score, whereas the turn 2 player largely just has four.
The difference between stats and Nanavatti's opinion is that for the former I can see how they're formed. I was able to read how the stats were compiled. I have no idea how Nick's opinion was formed and bluntly neither do you. Furthermore, given that many of the stats outright contradict his notion that it is a matter of player skill that negates first turn advantage it is much easier to dismiss his opinion.
The stats might have some problems that can be corrected on but to be frank Nick's opinion and reasoning for it don't do that and are in fact largely shown to be false by the stats already in place my man. The stats also give us a look into his mindset where we see that the faction he's been practicing with is statistically the best able to handle going second.
I'll put it another way: neither the stats nor Nick's opinion are perfect, but by any reasonable assessment of all the facts available the stats are more perfect than Nick's opinion.
Doesn't that ultimately leave you in a position where making decisions based on either available data or 'competitive player opinion' are ultimately both too flawed to be viable?
Doesn't that ultimately leave you in a position where making decisions based on either available data or 'competitive player opinion' are ultimately both too flawed to be viable?
No, only too flawed to be perfect, and if you nitpick until only perfection is left you can rely on nothing to make decisions, not even your own senses.
I just read the article. YIKES, it's bad. Reads like GW wrote his responses for him. Heck, it reads like *I* could have written it if I suddenly found out I was working for GW 10 minutes ago.
Three possibilities:
1 - GW actually did write it, and he's cool with their results
2 - He's actually used to talking like that, and/or is sucking up to GW for brownie points
3 - GW will be hearing from his lawyers soon for false representation. (ok, this one's pretty unlikely)
Whatever the case - at least now I know to pay these articles absolutely *NO* attention in future.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I did say that this edition of 40K was "Tournament Edition".
Spoiler:
Aaaaaaahahahahahahahaha....
*deep breath*
..... hahahahahahahaha!
In the new edition, you’re often better off using a variety of relatively inexpensive, flexible units which can function autonomously. All the new Indomitus units, such as Bladeguard Veterans, Outriders, and Eradicators, fit this unit style perfectly.
Wow. What a huge coincidence that the models they just released happen to perfectly fit the new style of play? I'm shocked I tell you. Shocked. This is my shocked face.
Eradictors being relatively inexpensive compared to what, exactly?
They're not grotz, boys, guardsmen, eldar guardians or any many other inexpensive flexible unit. They're in fact an expensive inflexible unit that's SUPER GOOD at killing one type of target.
yukishiro1 wrote: They obviously did, and it's a joke, because 40k doesn't keep track of any of the metrics necessary to make those ratings have any validity.
Honestly they reminded me of the old stats you used to get on Transformer toys.
I almost spit my beer out when i read this, I'd bet the stats are just useful.
H.B.M.C. wrote:I guess this article is what GW looks like when they switch from "Forging a Narrative" to "Forging a Tournament".
If this is indicitive of GW trying to push 40K in the direction of becoming some weird hybrid of an E-sport, then I'm off to find other games. No thank you.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I did say that this edition of 40K was "Tournament Edition".
Spoiler:
Aaaaaaahahahahahahahaha....
*deep breath*
..... hahahahahahahaha!
In the new edition, you’re often better off using a variety of relatively inexpensive, flexible units which can function autonomously. All the new Indomitus units, such as Bladeguard Veterans, Outriders, and Eradicators, fit this unit style perfectly.
Wow. What a huge coincidence that the models they just released happen to perfectly fit the new style of play? I'm shocked I tell you. Shocked. This is my shocked face.
Eradictors being relatively inexpensive compared to what, exactly?
They're not grotz, boys, guardsmen, eldar guardians or any many other inexpensive flexible unit. They're in fact an expensive inflexible unit that's SUPER GOOD at killing one type of target.
Do people even proofread this?
Are people still crying about Eradicators? I watched a game between friends the other day and laughed as my Ad Mech buddy reduced the Eradicators to only hitting on a 4+ and then just shot them with lasfuns until they were all dead.
They're not grotz, boys, guardsmen, eldar guardians or any many other inexpensive flexible unit. They're in fact an expensive inflexible unit that's SUPER GOOD at killing one type of target.
Do people even proofread this?
You think eldar guardians are inexpensive Flexible unit... ?
Automatically Appended Next Post: And for my part this is a big pile of cringe marketing... GW producing any kind "tactica" style stuff always cringe worthy. Not dissapointed.
Nick is a smart guy. You don't bite the hand that feeds.
They're not grotz, boys, guardsmen, eldar guardians or any many other inexpensive flexible unit. They're in fact an expensive inflexible unit that's SUPER GOOD at killing one type of target.
Do people even proofread this?
You think eldar guardians are inexpensive Flexible unit... ?
Comparatively on a per model cost and target selection, they are yes.
They're not grotz, boys, guardsmen, eldar guardians or any many other inexpensive flexible unit. They're in fact an expensive inflexible unit that's SUPER GOOD at killing one type of target.
Do people even proofread this?
You think eldar guardians are inexpensive Flexible unit... ?
Comparatively on a per model cost and target selection, they are yes.
Care to elaborate what you mean by that ?
To me 2x 12" range str4 shots with no inherent AP on a T3 1W platform at 10pts .. does not seem flexible or inexpensive.
I'd like to walk back my previous statement about purging this series with fire - while I'd still like to see it heavily quarantined, and anyone dealing with it wearing PPE, if this sort of article undermines that these so-called "40k pros" are the font of all knowledge, then they're doing something good.
yukishiro1 wrote: This article made my heart sink - not because of what Nick said, but because of how Mike Brandt was clearly teeing someone up who would say what he wanted, that his new missions are great and it's the player base's fault that there's a pronounced first-turn bias in the real world, and that if people would just get better at doing what he wants, they'd realize how great the missions are. It's that same top-down "take this and make it work, and if you don't, it's your own fault" approach to mission design that GW has always been guilty of in the past, not the more player-focused, open-to-input approach we were hoping we'd get when they went and hired someone from the community.
We're talking about the same NOVA guy who did a drive-by on a thread about the CA19 missions to declare them as trash, and refused to elaborate as to why this was the case, possibly because people were talking that they were suitably balanced to provide a challenge to the solved ITC/NOVA systems...
I'm hardly surprised he would do something like what you suggest - accepting fallibility seems to be an issue for him.
I am legitimately confused (though hardly a surprise there).
With tournament play growing by leaps and bounds (prior to COVID) it would seem that having a series of articles focusing on the tournament scene would make sense. While I don't see myself as a tournament player, I do go to them on occasion, and this seems like a good series of articles that could benefit players.
I understand tournament play isn't everyone's preferred way to play, but with the growth of the game, and GW wanting to push more for tournament play as being a gameplay mode that is supported by them, it would seem logical that they would do such an article. I just don't understand why there is so much negativity towards it. I am confused as to what I am missing.
Also, why do people bash on nick navigate so much? I understanding labeling yourself a Warhammer 40k pro might be a bit "big" of oneself, but his outward personality has been pretty decent to people. I don't get the hate there too. (Though I could be reading to much into it).
I'm honestly confused. A focus on competitive play seems like the best way to get as close as possible to a balanced game, and a balanced game that is fun seems to be everyone's preferred end goal. I honestly don't understand why this is a bad thing. I'm not sticking up or white knighting for GW this time, I just literally do not understand why this is such a bad thing.
The problem of first turn advantage would be significantly diminished if GW and the rabid white knights would choose to let go of the terribly outdated IGOUGO turn structure.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Holding on to legacy rules just because "thats how it was" is incredibly immature
Most people aren't saying the idea is bad, they're making fun of the cringeworthy execution and the lack of any real actual competitive insights. But mainly the cringeworthy execution. Those supposed skill level bars...no, just no.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The problem of first turn advantage would be significantly diminished if GW and the rabid white knights would choose to let go of the terribly outdated IGOUGO turn structure.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Holding on to legacy rules just because "thats how it was" is incredibly immature
IGOUGO isn't happening for at least another 3 years, given we've just had a new edition and it doesn't have it. Seems like a pointless argument to have at this point.
ITC2020 had 1st turn advantage down to an essentially non-existent 52%. Why GW chose that particular moment to throw out the baby with the bathwater and start over I have no idea, but then, it's GW.
yukishiro1 wrote: Most people aren't saying the idea is bad, they're making fun of the cringeworthy execution and the lack of any real actual competitive insights. But mainly the cringeworthy execution. Those supposed skill level bars...no, just no.
Just more proof gw is mining the video game industry for ideas now that they've already dug deep into ccgs for them.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The problem of first turn advantage would be significantly diminished if GW and the rabid white knights would choose to let go of the terribly outdated IGOUGO turn structure.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Holding on to legacy rules just because "thats how it was" is incredibly immature
IGOUGO isn't happening for at least another 3 years, given we've just had a new edition and it doesn't have it. Seems like a pointless argument to have at this point.
ITC2020 had 1st turn advantage down to an essentially non-existent 52%. Why GW chose that particular moment to throw out the baby with the bathwater and start over I have no idea, but then, it's GW.
Ya think they maybe didn't go with ITC style missions because their primary mission writer is a dude from NOVA?
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The problem of first turn advantage would be significantly diminished if GW and the rabid white knights would choose to let go of the terribly outdated IGOUGO turn structure.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Holding on to legacy rules just because "thats how it was" is incredibly immature
GW stick with the system because they want to, it has nothing to do with any "white knights" in their fan base.
yukishiro1 wrote: Most people aren't saying the idea is bad, they're making fun of the cringeworthy execution and the lack of any real actual competitive insights. But mainly the cringeworthy execution. Those supposed skill level bars...no, just no.
Just more proof gw is mining the video game industry for ideas now that they've already dug deep into ccgs for them.
the reason this is getting soooooo much gak from everyone is summed up by the tag line from the article......
"Your indispensable guide to competitive gaming"
thru the lens of someone who thinks they're the MJ/Lebron/etc of "professional"(can't say that with a straight face) 40k. when in reality they're just some dude that does well enuff in the tourney scene(whatever that means) to get idiots to give them money.
and GW loves tourney idiots giving them money.....so it's a match made in heaven.
I dont see why people bring up chess as a reason to think you cant balance going first and second. They kinda solved it by playing more than 1 game and alternating who goes first and second in chess. If they didnt do that the game would be dead at a higher level or they would have made other changes. They wouldnt have just left it at the first player having a huge advantage and say"40k have a huge difference in winrate and they also have the same rules for both players". If they then kept Chess at best of 1 then they would probably give black a special turn 1 move that was about as good as 1,5 moves to level the playing field.
40k takes too long to play multiple games against the same opponent so instead of having the exact same rules for player 1 and player 2 they could give the second player an extra rule.
Was it warmachine that had different deployment depth depending on who went first or second? I think the second player got to start another 2" up the board.
There are multiple small rule changes GW could try out that would reduce the difference between going first or second.
Seabass wrote: I am legitimately confused (though hardly a surprise there).
With tournament play growing by leaps and bounds (prior to COVID) it would seem that having a series of articles focusing on the tournament scene would make sense. While I don't see myself as a tournament player, I do go to them on occasion, and this seems like a good series of articles that could benefit players.
I understand tournament play isn't everyone's preferred way to play, but with the growth of the game, and GW wanting to push more for tournament play as being a gameplay mode that is supported by them, it would seem logical that they would do such an article. I just don't understand why there is so much negativity towards it. I am confused as to what I am missing.
I think the problem is more about how GW are doing it, rather than the fact they're doing it at all. It just seems like such a forced approach and the content comes across far too much like a marketing pitch (because that's what it is, not an in-depth look at tournament play). The stats card with the completely made-up stat bars is a perfect example of how cluelessly the whole thing has been constructed. As vapid and banal as most of the text is, that player card thing is just embarrassing for all involved.
I think GW should probably look to be more organic with how it supports the tournament scene. Instead of trying to co-opt it with articles like this, they need to forge closer ties with sites like Goonhammer or Nick's own various online sites and channels. That's how most other companies work and it's especially important for a company like GW who have shown time and again they lack the credibility to be taken seriously when talking about their system in any competitive sense.
Anything on the GW site is marketing. If you’re surprised by this, well...
GW acknowledging they’ve a competitive market to cater to is fine. There are probably better competitive resources out there but not everyone knows about them and this might be someone’s first look at that way to play. It’s not inherently bad.
Totally didn’t expect to see so much salt for GW embracing tourney play as this site is obsessed with pretending every game is a minmax WAAC situation with netlists and zero fun. Go figure!
Racerguy180 wrote: 40k Pro, what is that supposed to mean, like a golf pro @ the local course? cuz if that's the case it really doesn't mean much....unless they're Tiger or Chi Chi Rodriguez.
Also 40k Pro is quite possibly the most bullshittiest statement out there....I'm just waiting for GW to pull a Pro Necromunda Player out a their ass.
GW didn't invent Nick Nanavati. The man made his own PR and marketing. And. I mean, it worked. People do pay him a silly amount of money to be told how to git gud at warhammer.
A fool and their money soon part ways. I guess good for him, but 40k pro isn't something one should list on their resume, unless your trying out for the Crud Creek Nosepickers new ALL-STAR 40K world tour championship team where you win all the money 40k has to offer.
If you do something and people like watching, you can draw spectators. Spectators who enjoy your content can sometimes be leveraged for income as they are in basically every popular game that gets played from football to nascar to chess. If people figure out a way to draw spectators enough that you can and do make a significant amount of your living off of playing warhammer, then you're a pro warhammer player. Same way as you would be a professional athlete or a professional racecar driver, or professional youtuber.
It's just commerce. He creates something people enjoy consuming so they pay him for it.
It's you attaching context to it and getting butthurt about it.
Nanavati operates subtly, but perceptively, differently than, say, a tabletop tactics and their patreon system. If he was just a podcast and video man who had premium content, I mean, he'd still be very arrogant about it, but eh. But he offers coaching services for hundreds of dollars. And it's pure grift. I mean you can respect the hustle of it, but it's still a hustle.
Nitro Zeus wrote: There’s numerous reasons why the first turn advantage may not be as strong as the statistic represents. You’d be silly to ignore Nick’s opinion based on “the stats” it doesn’t matter if the data size is 3000 or 3 million, the stats ignore a human element and how we approach the game / our knowledge of it.
He could also just be wrong, or biased because he just happens to be playing the faction that is the single best of any of them at mitigating first turn advantage.
Especially given that the data so far has suggested that not only does first turn advantage exists, it is more pronounced in later rounds as players are matched with people closer to their own skill level.
It wouldn't be anywhere near the first time a top level player at something just didn't know what he's talking about. It reminds me of when Dopa of League of Legends said "Oh no man after this latest rework Ryze is useless garbage he won't be in Worlds" only for Ryze to, guess what, dominate Worlds once more.
He could be wrong, he’s not infallible. Neither are the stats. That’s why dismissing his viewpoint because of stats is silly.
I saw a good write up about someone explaining the win rate discrepancy as he saw it today
I'm also on the side that while First turn is strong, it's not gamebreakingly strong inherently. I think a considerable amount of the emphasis on first turn is just coming from how people are deciding to play the game at the start.
If you deploy super aggressively, you can make the most of first turn, but often usually means you will also get wrecked if you dont win first turn.
If you deploy conservative in expectation of your opponent going first, and they deploy super aggressive and take first turn, you can often punish them extremely and swing the game in your own favor by going second as they expose themselves trying to get on objectives and midboard with minimal ability to punish your conservative deployment. You can also force their reserves in before your own reserves which can be extremely valuable.
The problem comes if you deploy conservatively and expect to go second and then get forced into turn 1, its a little more difficult of a position.
TL;DR i suspect the over emphasis on turn 1 being too good is from people leaning into hyper-aggressive turn 1 focused deployment and positioning and putting themselves in make-or-break positioning based on a contested die roll.
This might also be wrong it’s one persons opinion. But please stop letting stats blind you to the possibility that what Nick says here might be none of the things you described and may just be accurate
I trust stats immensely before I trust someone giving a PR interview to a buddy invested in the strength of the system. The whole thing is entirely compromised and biased.
Totally didn’t expect to see so much salt for GW embracing tourney play as this site is obsessed with pretending every game is a minmax WAAC situation with netlists and zero fun. Go figure!
Eh I've come to expect a lot of salt on Dakka. I think part of the issue is we've a population of people who, for a multitude of different reasons, are "done" with "GW" as a company. They might still play or buy models, but they hold little to no respect for the company, thus they tend to look for the most negative ways to interpret GW's actions.
Now GW is not innocent, some of their efforts can be cringeworthy or they are a take on fun and jovial that some dislike. They also clearly have some issues with a competitive mind-set in that they are far more narrative and fluffy based than competitive in their attitude toward the game. Which has its up sides as well as its down sides.
In the end perhaps this is a bit of a wobbly step, but I would hope many might see that its a step in "the right direction" and a direction many have been calling for. So GW didn't get off to a flying head start, but its new ground for them in truth. It's not like when they bungled AoS on multiple fronts at launch. This is GW doing something in the competitive world which is something they really haven't done in a serious way in what, a decade?
I'd hope its a first step and that more can GROW and develop from it.
Also on the subject of "there's no depth to the tactical discussion". This isn't GW's problem. This is a problem the ENTIRE WARGAMING sector has (at least for anything sci-fi and fantasy - historicals might be very different). We can cry and call foul of GW not having it in the article, but in truth its rarely anywhere else in the market either. We might dip into dice theory and probabilities now and then, but there is very little actual game and tactical depth discussion going on anywhere in the hobby. We are more content to tear apart things with list building and dice theory than we are to talk about deployment strategies; target selection; movement theory; denials and such. At best we might throw out the tired old bone of "play to the objectives", but its a bone with no meat on the statement nor elaboration as to how one achieves that; nor how one might differentiate choices between that and other approaches.
Indeed perhaps this article's light nature highlights the very real and present issue with tactical discussion and teaching within the hobby and community at large. We can do fantastic with building models and terrain; outstanding with artwork and painting. We, as a community, CAN do it. There is potential and resources in the community, but getting it out and in the open and promoting it is a whole other ballgame.
It would be foolish for any maker of rules to say that they have bad grasp on the rule implementation or dealing with core rule problems. No one is going to do it. And GW doesn't even have to worry about stuff like sponsors or countries law systems, just investors and core of their buyers.
Choosing to got second, two out of three times made me laugh and his explanation of "git gud" cracked me up. Most tournament players worth their salt have a general idea of the game and don't just build first turn or nothing lists when there's a coin flip involved.
Of course he's going to be fine with turn 2 as Harlies are the fastest and best army in game right now. The stats don't lie that there's a problem with first turn advantage this edition.
I mean it is kind of a funny considering he plays harlis. And I generaly don't get fun stuff most of the time.
I mean I really have to struggle to imagine what would have to happen to a list and table for a 20% difference in win/lose ration to not matter and a GK or Tau player decide, that they want to go second. Non of the scenarios had a higher win ratio for going second, according to the huge data pool the Goons showed. The best are close to balance, but still with a favour to the player going first. And this is including those armies not having a 50% win ratio.
But I am not a tournament player, not even a skilled player. Still it made me chuckle with the just use more terrain thing. I seen enough games of dense terrain, that vehicles couldn't enter parts of the table , and the person in first turn still has the edge. He sometimes even has more of an edge, becuase now all the extra terrain is blocking off any shoting that could happen turn 1, so they get free objectives.
A typical Nick Nanavati article. He is without doubt an exceptionally good player and very talented, but whenever he does an analysis or tries to predict how the meta changes he is wrong as often as he is not.
Just because you're a extremely talented player doesn't mean that you can put that talent into words - just like a star player in sports often isn't fit to be a coach either.
I am legitimately confused (though hardly a surprise there).
With tournament play growing by leaps and bounds (prior to COVID) it would seem that having a series of articles focusing on the tournament scene would make sense. While I don't see myself as a tournament player, I do go to them on occasion, and this seems like a good series of articles that could benefit players.
Totally didn’t expect to see so much salt for GW embracing tourney play as this site is obsessed with pretending every game is a minmax WAAC situation with netlists and zero fun. Go figure!
If the article *actually* embraced tourney play - it would be a different story, but that's not what this is. It's a cringeworthy effort to trot out a figurehead in order to be a mouthpiece for their messaging. Nothing more. If you search my post history, you'll see that while I've been critical lately, I'm typically defending GW and I'm often one of the last people to go after them for something like this, but this is .... just bad.
@ERJAK -
The problem isn't just that the 1st turn win rate is 58%. You have to look at the stat across the entire span of the edition (short though it's been). When the missions came out, most people could see the immediate potential for first turn advantage and snowballing. The white knights screamed about "tactics" and "change your mindset" even though it was right in front of them. The first weekend of tournaments happened and the percentage was something like 54%. The white knights rejoiced. The next tournament, that percentage crept up. The tourney after that ... the percentage went up again. Add to that that the percentage gets higher as you get deeper into each tourney and the skill gap narrows, and it's a pretty clear upward trend. There is unequivocally, a very clear advantage to going first. The fact that GW felt the need to trot Nick out to try and address that should say something.
The problem isn't just that the 1st turn win rate is 58%. You have to look at the stat across the entire span of the edition (short though it's been). When the missions came out, most people could see the immediate potential for first turn advantage and snowballing. The white knights screamed about "tactics" and "change your mindset" even though it was right in front of them. The first weekend of tournaments happened and the percentage was something like 54%. The white knights rejoiced. The next tournament, that percentage crept up. The tourney after that ... the percentage went up again. Add to that that the percentage gets higher as you get deeper into each tourney and the skill gap narrows, and it's a pretty clear upward trend. There is unequivocally, a very clear advantage to going first. The fact that GW felt the need to trot Nick out to try and address that should say something.
Nitro Zeus wrote: There’s numerous reasons why the first turn advantage may not be as strong as the statistic represents. You’d be silly to ignore Nick’s opinion based on “the stats” it doesn’t matter if the data size is 3000 or 3 million, the stats ignore a human element and how we approach the game / our knowledge of it.
Ah yes - how could I forget! That inviolable bastion of logic, and the ever-present fall-back position of those who don't like inconvenient things. Like numbers, and stats and evidence and such ...
There’s numerous reasons why the first turn advantage may not be as strong as the statistic represents. You’d be silly to ignore Nick’s opinion based on “the stats” it doesn’t matter if the data size is 3000 or 3 million, the stats ignore a human element and how we approach the game / our knowledge of it.
^ that
And thus the cycle continues:
"There is no first turn advantage! Wait and see!"
Week 1 of tournaments yields something like 54% 1st turn advantage - "Hazzaah! No advantage! Just as we saw! The numbers prove it!"
Week 2 of tournaments yields a larger advantage - " ..."
Current stats show a clear advantage with the number worsening as the skill-gap narrows and a steady upward trend "There are many reasons why the numbers are wrong here! Listen to this man who hasn't played a tourney yet! On this website with a vested interest in there NOT being a 1st turn advantage! This is just like ... your opinion man!"
TL;DR:
Unbiased numbers > than the opinion of a man likely doing a paid advertisement ....
Karol wrote: I mean it is kind of a funny considering he plays harlis. And I generaly don't get fun stuff most of the time.
I mean I really have to struggle to imagine what would have to happen to a list and table for a 20% difference in win/lose ration to not matter and a GK or Tau player decide, that they want to go second. Non of the scenarios had a higher win ratio for going second, according to the huge data pool the Goons showed. The best are close to balance, but still with a favour to the player going first. And this is including those armies not having a 50% win ratio.
But I am not a tournament player, not even a skilled player. Still it made me chuckle with the just use more terrain thing. I seen enough games of dense terrain, that vehicles couldn't enter parts of the table , and the person in first turn still has the edge. He sometimes even has more of an edge, becuase now all the extra terrain is blocking off any shoting that could happen turn 1, so they get free objectives.
GK can go second, especially the builds with a low model count. You hide your stuff and let your opponent come to you so you can get into combat with more stuff on turn one.
Personally, i'd rather go second no matter what army i play. Granted i do play with more terrain than tournaments usually use.
It's really hard to glean much of anything from tournament results right now for 9th edition. After all, the number of games has been a lot lower (for obvious reasons), plus the new Space Marines and Necrons codexes will make a difference in what we're seeing. I hate to be the guy who always says "wait and see", but I think in this case it is warranted. Maybe give it until the end of October before we start to make judgement with true voracity.
It's really hard to glean much of anything from tournament results right now for 9th edition.
The issue at play with the missions isn't going to be fixed via the codexes. It's an inherent fault in the missions themselves and how they're scored. "wait and see" doesn't really work here imo.
I had said "wait and see" on some other issues in 9th as I thought the books could fix those, and they very well may (although - despite the Marines being pulled more in-line, there is still a marked difference between Codex Marines and Codex Necrons that is fairly concerning), but THIS problem, isn't likely to be fixed with new books.
I'm not gonna lie, eveyrthing about this "article" made me embarrassed for everyone involved in it on both a personal and professional level. It just reeks of personal fantasies and tryhard wish fulfillment wrapped up in hamfisted marketing, and delivers basically nothing of actual informational value to the reader regarding tournament play. The ego stroking involved in what is a painfully product marketing puff piece is nauseating.
There's a way to have done this, and this was not it. I agree with many other posters here, and it's classic GW, a great idea executed abysmally.
yukishiro1 wrote: They obviously did, and it's a joke, because 40k doesn't keep track of any of the metrics necessary to make those ratings have any validity.
Honestly they reminded me of the old stats you used to get on Transformer toys.
Amusingly enough, when I was 12 or so, I took a massive piece of cardboard and drew a grid on it, then kept all my Transformers stat records, and tried to create a hybrid chess/tabletop game that relied on those stats to determine the outcome of the battles. It did not end well, but it was a really fun thing to think up at 12. Probably contributed to some of my bad grades in school, but whatever.
GK can go second, especially the builds with a low model count. You hide your stuff and let your opponent come to you so you can get into combat with more stuff on turn one.
Personally, i'd rather go second no matter what army i play. Granted i do play with more terrain than tournaments usually use.
It depends on if my opponent infiltrates. If they infiltrate onto objectives I'd think about going first. If not, I'd go second. Can't score Turn 1, and the pre-placed objectives are all but guaranteed to give chargers free movement.
yukishiro1 wrote: Most people aren't saying the idea is bad, they're making fun of the cringeworthy execution and the lack of any real actual competitive insights. But mainly the cringeworthy execution. Those supposed skill level bars...no, just no.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The problem of first turn advantage would be significantly diminished if GW and the rabid white knights would choose to let go of the terribly outdated IGOUGO turn structure.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Holding on to legacy rules just because "thats how it was" is incredibly immature
IGOUGO isn't happening for at least another 3 years, given we've just had a new edition and it doesn't have it. Seems like a pointless argument to have at this point.
ITC2020 had 1st turn advantage down to an essentially non-existent 52%. Why GW chose that particular moment to throw out the baby with the bathwater and start over I have no idea, but then, it's GW.
AKA use all the houserules you can and everything is okay. Did you know the game is super balanced too when you ask your opponent to not bring models they might have wanted to bring as well? Did you also forget as the codices get released that gap gets a lot larger? Did you also forget this statistic for the previous editions?
Nope, not buying it, and quite frankly neither should you.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The problem of first turn advantage would be significantly diminished if GW and the rabid white knights would choose to let go of the terribly outdated IGOUGO turn structure.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Holding on to legacy rules just because "thats how it was" is incredibly immature
GW stick with the system because they want to, it has nothing to do with any "white knights" in their fan base.
It absolutely does because as long as they're not criticized they will continue to do the same old song and dance. We HAVE people in this thread denying that first turn advantage exists, despite the historical precedence of that statistic and those people forgetting how much worse it gets as time goes on with each new edition as people have basically solved it.
Ah yes - how could I forget! That inviolable bastion of logic, and the ever-present fall-back position of those who don't like inconvenient things. Like numbers, and stats and evidence and such ...
There’s numerous reasons why the first turn advantage may not be as strong as the statistic represents. You’d be silly to ignore Nick’s opinion based on “the stats” it doesn’t matter if the data size is 3000 or 3 million, the stats ignore a human element and how we approach the game / our knowledge of it.
^ that
And thus the cycle continues:
"There is no first turn advantage! Wait and see!"
Week 1 of tournaments yields something like 54% 1st turn advantage - "Hazzaah! No advantage! Just as we saw! The numbers prove it!"
Week 2 of tournaments yields a larger advantage - " ..."
Current stats show a clear advantage with the number worsening as the skill-gap narrows and a steady upward trend "There are many reasons why the numbers are wrong here! Listen to this man who hasn't played a tourney yet! On this website with a vested interest in there NOT being a 1st turn advantage! This is just like ... your opinion man!"
TL;DR:
Unbiased numbers > than the opinion of a man likely doing a paid advertisement ....
No more nor less than any other competitive event that gains sponsorship.
I'm prepared to agree with that. Paying enough real money outside of your own hobby gains to give some kid $300,000 a year or some such to play a video/tabletop game.... And we haven't even scratched the surface of fan merch etc ala NFL Jerseys and MLB Team Caps.
Ah yes - how could I forget! That inviolable bastion of logic, and the ever-present fall-back position of those who don't like inconvenient things. Like numbers, and stats and evidence and such ...
There’s numerous reasons why the first turn advantage may not be as strong as the statistic represents. You’d be silly to ignore Nick’s opinion based on “the stats” it doesn’t matter if the data size is 3000 or 3 million, the stats ignore a human element and how we approach the game / our knowledge of it.
^ that
And thus the cycle continues:
"There is no first turn advantage! Wait and see!"
Week 1 of tournaments yields something like 54% 1st turn advantage - "Hazzaah! No advantage! Just as we saw! The numbers prove it!"
Week 2 of tournaments yields a larger advantage - " ..."
Current stats show a clear advantage with the number worsening as the skill-gap narrows and a steady upward trend "There are many reasons why the numbers are wrong here! Listen to this man who hasn't played a tourney yet! On this website with a vested interest in there NOT being a 1st turn advantage! This is just like ... your opinion man!"
TL;DR:
Unbiased numbers > than the opinion of a man likely doing a paid advertisement ....
Yeah, no. This person that posted this is just mad they don't get 40k. If they were actually correct on this topic we would've been seeing more occasional toppings because of that "human element". 40k isn't complicated. There's only so much you can put on the human element.
I've actually seen that post. The line "The statistics are a measure of what IS, CURRENTLY, doing well." is particularly interesting because, what is currently doing well is going first. Something that seems to do better and better the more data we collect. This was reflected in my own groups 200+ games of 9th as well.
Additionally, the following isn't wrong:
Just because an opinion isn't represented by the stats doesn't mean it disagrees with them.
Just because an opinion is mirrored by the statistics, doesn't make it correct.
The statistics themselves are objective. Your interpretation of them may not be.
BUT in this case, we have the opinion of a man on the manufacturer's website. A man known to, on occasion schill for said manufacturer, a man who charges hundreds of dollars for "coaching" and a man who, as far as I know, has not actually played in a tourney yet, vs a rule set that, if you read it, clearly lays out a bias for first turn and stats that, increasingly back that up. So, which way you leaning? 'cause while the numbers COULD be wrong, and while my interpretation of them COULD be incorrect, current evidence says the article's interpretation may not be so reliable.
It's especially funny because so many people said "Wait till we see the numbers! They'll show that there is no advantage." Now, we have them. They are leaning heavily towards said advantage, and those SAME PEOPLE are saying "Well, you see, your interpretation of the numbers - it may not be correct. Numbers are not wholly reliable and don't get me started on statistics and how they get gathered."
I suppose we shall wait and see.
You mean the guy who specifically brought up all the new units, including the obviously meh Outriders, might be trying to help GW sell something?
Slayer - I mean ZERO offense when I say this, but the fact that you and I are on the same page here should be screaming that there's something wrong!
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: The problem of first turn advantage would be significantly diminished if GW and the rabid white knights would choose to let go of the terribly outdated IGOUGO turn structure.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Holding on to legacy rules just because "thats how it was" is incredibly immature
GW stick with the system because they want to, it has nothing to do with any "white knights" in their fan base.
It absolutely does because as long as they're not criticized they will continue to do the same old song and dance. We HAVE people in this thread denying that first turn advantage exists, despite the historical precedence of that statistic and those people forgetting how much worse it gets as time goes on with each new edition as people have basically solved it.
I know it's your 'thing' to drop in IGOUGO references all. the. time. but you know GW aren't going to change, now, soon, no indication of ever... that horse has been beaten to death, flogged into undeath, and is praying the resurrection spell fails so it can sleep peacefully now.
I think you should read all of it instead of stopping at the points you can easily attack.
Read it all as well. I just don't think it really changes much in regards to this discussion.
The whole thing is generally "Wait and see", "the best player in world went against the grain so your point is invalid" etc etc.
We started the "first turn advantage" discussion way back months ago with people saying "Wait and see - we need numbers". Now that we have them, it's "you may not be interpreting the numbers right, they don't mean what you think they mean, someone said something different than the numbers and that may be valid but it could also not be valid, the stats gathered across hundreds of games are meaningless as soon as an outlier appears" etc etc.
Like I said, his point about an opinion going against the grain doesn't automatically make the opinion wrong is absolutely correct, but you have to REALLY want to White Knight for GW if, at this point, you aren't at least suspicious of both this WarCom article as well as the first turn problem.
Honestly, the player profile reminded me of the Rock in The Rundown, its more tongue in cheek than anything else
If you're actually offended by this article I'd say you have bigger problems.
As someone said, its always marketing, all the time. Its not rocket science.
I saw the inherent flaw to this edition the first game I set up to deploy. Like literally the first thing I said. Oh? Objectives scored at the start of the turn and the game length reduced to 5? Well that's 2 turns of scoring removed from the player going second.
I'm telling you. The way you fix this is make tabling a win and increase game length to 6 turns. Give the player going second a way to win if they logistically can't compete in the objective game due to the fact they have the first opportunity to be denied an objective.
Xenomancers wrote: I saw the inherent flaw to this edition the first game I set up to deploy. Like literally the first thing I said. Oh? Objectives scored at the start of the turn and the game length reduced to 5? Well that's 2 turns of scoring removed from the player going second.
I'm telling you. The way you fix this is make tabling a win and increase game length to 6 turns. Give the player going second a way to win if they logistically can't compete in the objective game due to the fact they have the first opportunity to be denied an objective.
No, feth having tabling as a wincon. I know youve got a hardon for blasting your opponents off the table but that would just make people bring lists that are 100% based on killing stuff. Which would make the already high lethality go even higher.
Xenomancers wrote: I saw the inherent flaw to this edition the first game I set up to deploy. Like literally the first thing I said. Oh? Objectives scored at the start of the turn and the game length reduced to 5? Well that's 2 turns of scoring removed from the player going second.
I'm telling you. The way you fix this is make tabling a win and increase game length to 6 turns. Give the player going second a way to win if they logistically can't compete in the objective game due to the fact they have the first opportunity to be denied an objective.
No, feth having tabling as a wincon. I know youve got a hardon for blasting your opponents off the table but that would just make people bring lists that are 100% based on killing stuff. Which would make the already high lethality go even higher.
Xenomancers wrote: I saw the inherent flaw to this edition the first game I set up to deploy. Like literally the first thing I said. Oh? Objectives scored at the start of the turn and the game length reduced to 5? Well that's 2 turns of scoring removed from the player going second.
I'm telling you. The way you fix this is make tabling a win and increase game length to 6 turns. Give the player going second a way to win if they logistically can't compete in the objective game due to the fact they have the first opportunity to be denied an objective.
No, feth having tabling as a wincon. I know youve got a hardon for blasting your opponents off the table but that would just make people bring lists that are 100% based on killing stuff. Which would make the already high lethality go even higher.
How exactly would lists change?
You would see even less models that are good because of their scoring capabilities (nurglings, termies, wracks) and you'd just see even more big guns and lists with damage output in mind.
It would mostly be a change in mentality where someone could completely ignore the mission and decide to just table the other guy, removing any sacrifices like making an action to score some points or sacrificing a unit to get engage on all front.
Its an easy way out and makes the game a slightly more complex dice roll, a stat check. Does your army have enough dakka to take mine down, feth the rest.
Xenomancers wrote: I saw the inherent flaw to this edition the first game I set up to deploy. Like literally the first thing I said. Oh? Objectives scored at the start of the turn and the game length reduced to 5? Well that's 2 turns of scoring removed from the player going second.
I'm telling you. The way you fix this is make tabling a win and increase game length to 6 turns. Give the player going second a way to win if they logistically can't compete in the objective game due to the fact they have the first opportunity to be denied an objective.
No, feth having tabling as a wincon. I know youve got a hardon for blasting your opponents off the table but that would just make people bring lists that are 100% based on killing stuff. Which would make the already high lethality go even higher.
Xenomancers wrote: I saw the inherent flaw to this edition the first game I set up to deploy. Like literally the first thing I said. Oh? Objectives scored at the start of the turn and the game length reduced to 5? Well that's 2 turns of scoring removed from the player going second.
I'm telling you. The way you fix this is make tabling a win and increase game length to 6 turns. Give the player going second a way to win if they logistically can't compete in the objective game due to the fact they have the first opportunity to be denied an objective.
No, feth having tabling as a wincon. I know youve got a hardon for blasting your opponents off the table but that would just make people bring lists that are 100% based on killing stuff. Which would make the already high lethality go even higher.
Dead units don't hold objectives very well
Whats your point?
Thats exactly why i think tabling shouldnt be part of the game as a wincon. Killing your opponent already is its own reward. Its the same reason why i disliked the kill/kill more bonuses because you were double dipping in your scoring.
Honestly, the player profile reminded me of the Rock in The Rundown, its more tongue in cheek than anything else
If you're actually offended by this article I'd say you have bigger problems.
As someone said, its always marketing, all the time. Its not rocket science.
I thought the profile was really funny.
I don't think that too many people are actually truly offended by the article. I think the bigger issue stems from people NOT realizing that this is, as you say, simply marketing.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: You mean the guy who specifically brought up all the new units, including the obviously meh Outriders, might be trying to help GW sell something?
Nah. I'm just in favor of nuance. I don't typically bother with WarCom articles unless there's rules posted. Marketing makes me bleh.
Yeah, I'd agree nuance is a thing and pretty important to keep in mind. IMO a lot of my current crits of 9th can be solved at the codex stage and I'm also fine with waiting to make a judgement on the over-all meta until the majority of factions have a proper 9th ed book because, IMO, 9th is just different enough that the 8th ed. books are "compatible" in only the loosest possible sense.
That said, when it comes to first turn - If we don't have enough evidence to outright declare the 1st turn issue, we do have enough to say it's not looking good.
Xenomancers wrote: I saw the inherent flaw to this edition the first game I set up to deploy. Like literally the first thing I said. Oh? Objectives scored at the start of the turn and the game length reduced to 5? Well that's 2 turns of scoring removed from the player going second.
I'm telling you. The way you fix this is make tabling a win and increase game length to 6 turns. Give the player going second a way to win if they logistically can't compete in the objective game due to the fact they have the first opportunity to be denied an objective.
No, feth having tabling as a wincon. I know youve got a hardon for blasting your opponents off the table but that would just make people bring lists that are 100% based on killing stuff. Which would make the already high lethality go even higher.
Dead units don't hold objectives very well
Whats your point?
Thats exactly why i think tabling shouldnt be part of the game as a wincon. Killing your opponent already is its own reward. Its the same reason why i disliked the kill/kill more bonuses because you were double dipping in your scoring.
I think the point he is trying to make is the same one I am trying to make. List wouldn't change in the slightest. You are already rewarded for killing.Tabling is a risky condition though and you would still likely have an advantage focusing on scoring objectives. The ability to win by table really helps the player going second if the player going first just keeps sacrificing units to hold objectives.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: You mean the guy who specifically brought up all the new units, including the obviously meh Outriders, might be trying to help GW sell something?
Nah man, he's legit. Did you see his stats?
I've always been baffled by the drive some companies have to make their games 'E-Sports'. I am double baffled that GW is copy pasting it. If it's supposed to be a joke, it's rather confusing and not particularly funny. I could swear just an edition or so ago the game was advertised as 'beer and snacks' or whatever, wasn't it? Could swear that excuse was being thrown around as a reason for why balance didn't matter or something, and now they want 'competitive balance' to be part of their marketing? Feels like someone really needs to pick a lane XD
I've always been baffled by the drive some companies have to make their games 'E-Sports'. I am double baffled that GW is copy pasting it. If it's supposed to be a joke, it's rather confusing and not particularly funny. I could swear just an edition or so ago the game was advertised as 'beer and snacks' or whatever, wasn't it? Could swear that excuse was being thrown around as a reason for why balance didn't matter or something, and now they want 'competitive balance' to be part of their marketing? Feels like someone really needs to pick a lane XD
I honestly don't think GW is trying to push the e-sport thing. I think they are just finally coming around to openly embracing the tourney scene and acknowledging its value, rather than shunning those players and acting as if they don't exist. They just haven't *quite* figured out the best way to do that yet. lol
a_typical_hero wrote: I think a better change would be to move scoring points to the end of Player's 2 round for both sides.
That would completely and utterly break the game the other way, much much more then it is now.
I think the small table has a bigger impact on the power of first turn then when objectives are scored. Small table means more stuff is in range from the start and harder to put stuff out of range to protect it.
Xenomancers wrote: I saw the inherent flaw to this edition the first game I set up to deploy. Like literally the first thing I said. Oh? Objectives scored at the start of the turn and the game length reduced to 5? Well that's 2 turns of scoring removed from the player going second.
I'm telling you. The way you fix this is make tabling a win and increase game length to 6 turns. Give the player going second a way to win if they logistically can't compete in the objective game due to the fact they have the first opportunity to be denied an objective.
No, feth having tabling as a wincon. I know youve got a hardon for blasting your opponents off the table but that would just make people bring lists that are 100% based on killing stuff. Which would make the already high lethality go even higher.
Dead units don't hold objectives very well
Whats your point?
Thats exactly why i think tabling shouldnt be part of the game as a wincon. Killing your opponent already is its own reward. Its the same reason why i disliked the kill/kill more bonuses because you were double dipping in your scoring.
I think the point he is trying to make is the same one I am trying to make. List wouldn't change in the slightest. You are already rewarded for killing.Tabling is a risky condition though and you would still likely have an advantage focusing on scoring objectives. The ability to win by table really helps the player going second if the player going first just keeps sacrificing units to hold objectives.
I disagree that focusing on scoring objectives gives an advantage if youre aiming to table your opponent. If there is a situation where your opponent has max pts yet he can still lose because his you castled in a corner of the map and blasted him, then whats the point of even trying for objectives?
a_typical_hero wrote: I think a better change would be to move scoring points to the end of Player's 2 round for both sides.
That would completely and utterly break the game the other way, much much more then it is now.
I think the small table has a bigger impact on the power of first turn then when objectives are scored. Small table means more stuff is in range from the start and harder to put stuff out of range to protect it.
that would give more power to player 2 since a speedy army could just take his opponent off the objectives to deny him all his pts. Scoring at the start of your turn makes sense because each players can try and deny objectives from the other one. the problem is that the first player gets one more scoring opportunity and gets to take c ontrol of the map faster.
GK can go second, especially the builds with a low model count. You hide your stuff and let your opponent come to you so you can get into combat with more stuff on turn one.
Personally, i'd rather go second no matter what army i play. Granted i do play with more terrain than tournaments usually use.
My expiriance playing, although does not come from tournaments, shows that If I go second two things happen. First my opponents swarm the primary objectives and I can't shift them, plus because they practicaly get free max secondaries playing vs GK, if I don't cripple their army real fast I will just lose on points. And that is assuming they are not an donkey-cave and start claiming that because my bases are just painted green , yellow and purple and non of my models have edge highlights they get extra 10VP.
I said it before in the stats thread about the tournaments results, and I will say this again. Playing GK going first and going second is like playing two different armies, going second doesn't come even close to a fun game in which I have a chance to do much stuff.
that would give more power to player 2 since a speedy army could just take his opponent off the objectives to deny him all his pts. Scoring at the start of your turn makes sense because each players can try and deny objectives from the other one. the problem is that the first player gets one more scoring opportunity and gets to take c ontrol of the map faster.
Then maybe scoring every turn is a bad idea. Or there should be some sort of equalizer. Because right now the first player doesn't just get the option to be first on the objective and doing the first scoring, but also the last turn of the player going second isn't much of a thing besides doing stuff that gives points for killing stuff. Which in case of some slower armies or armies that took big loses means that it is sometimes not worth to play the second player 5th turn.
GK can go second, especially the builds with a low model count. You hide your stuff and let your opponent come to you so you can get into combat with more stuff on turn one.
Personally, i'd rather go second no matter what army i play. Granted i do play with more terrain than tournaments usually use.
My expiriance playing, although does not come from tournaments, shows that If I go second two things happen. First my opponents swarm the primary objectives and I can't shift them, plus because they practicaly get free max secondaries playing vs GK, if I don't cripple their army real fast I will just lose on points. And that is assuming they are not an donkey-cave and start claiming that because my bases are just painted green , yellow and purple and non of my models have edge highlights they get extra 10VP.
I said it before in the stats thread about the tournaments results, and I will say this again. Playing GK going first and going second is like playing two different armies, going second doesn't come even close to a fun game in which I have a chance to do much stuff.
I play thousand sons. Its a similar thing where the army having its buffs on or not is a huge difference. I still mostly prefer to go second. Hiding my models isnt hard.
Also, ive never seen anyone claim the 10vp for the painting in all my games of 9th so far, even when playing against/with fully painted armies.
I don't think that 1ksons are comperable to GK that much. And hidding models maybe isn't always hard, but hidding them in a such a way that after 2 opponents turns your units get to do something impactful very much is. Plus sometimes there isn't much to do at all. I have yet to find a way of shifting 30 primaris with HQ support of 2 objectives in a 3 objective game.
Specialy when turn 2-3 are often the alfa strike ones. So it not like I can just go out in the open on my turn two and start plinking stuff with storm bolters.
Plus this is hardly a me problem. My army is neither optimised, nor is its player a top of the game tournament one. But the data from all the US tournament shows a very big difference between ratio when GK players go first and second. It is like 20% + difference. I think only tau have a bigger gap between win/lose ratios, but they are under 50% win rate anyway, so it is hard to compare to them anyway.
Karol wrote: I don't think that 1ksons are comperable to GK that much. And hidding models maybe isn't always hard, but hidding them in a such a way that after 2 opponents turns your units get to do something impactful very much is. Plus sometimes there isn't much to do at all. I have yet to find a way of shifting 30 primaris with HQ support of 2 objectives in a 3 objective game.
Specialy when turn 2-3 are often the alfa strike ones. So it not like I can just go out in the open on my turn two and start plinking stuff with storm bolters.
Plus this is hardly a me problem. My army is neither optimised, nor is its player a top of the game tournament one. But the data from all the US tournament shows a very big difference between ratio when GK players go first and second. It is like 20% + difference. I think only tau have a bigger gap between win/lose ratios, but they are under 50% win rate anyway, so it is hard to compare to them anyway.
With the PA they are quite comparable, yes. We're both armies that are centered around buffing a unit to maximize damage with supporting HQs around them. You buff palading, we buff infiltrating rubrics. We even have Gate now so we can emulate your board presence.
that would give more power to player 2 since a speedy army could just take his opponent off the objectives to deny him all his pts. Scoring at the start of your turn makes sense because each players can try and deny objectives from the other one. the problem is that the first player gets one more scoring opportunity and gets to take c ontrol of the map faster.
No I don't think it would. Let's look at it. Right now, I go first. I run everything onto the objectives I want. Player two now has to get there and remove me. I just have to get there. So I score turn 2 and can keep him from scoring, thus setting up the snow-ball effect. Additionally, since the objectives are scored at the top of the turn, in the final turn, as "player 1", I can score my objectives and then leave them as needed to make sure my opponent can't do anything about it. He's potentially completely shut out of scoring that turn with no way to address it. That's going to happen occasionally regardless of where scoring happens, but it shouldn't happen BY DESIGN of the missions.
So now, let's flip it - we score at the end of the full turn. I'm player 1. I still get to rush to objective, and he still has to "get there" but now, since we score at the same time, I no longer have that advantage of scoring, taking my turn to prevent player 2 from scoring, and then setting up additional scoring for the end game. Instead, we have to fight over those objectives. Obsec and timing suddenly matter much more and you can't be shut out of the scoring for a phase simply because you didn't go first.
I think the issue with the first turn win rate is that the "name of the game" has shifted, and the meta is still built around 8th edition expectations. I would assume that the 8th edition data that shows a closer to even win rate going 1st vs going 2nd was during a time when the meta was more developed.
Axxion51 wrote: I think the issue with the first turn win rate is that the "name of the game" has shifted, and the meta is still built around 8th edition expectations. I would assume that the 8th edition data that shows a closer to even win rate going 1st vs going second was during a time when the meta was more developed.
During 8th it was a more settled meta but with 3 missions sets at the time and one of them showed minimal advantage to first second, other showed a slightly higher go first advantage.
The issue is 9th edition is seeming to be getting more first turn wins as players play more. Ie as the meta is solved it's getting worse not better.
Also the goon hamer stats covering the go first go second disparity by faction shows that the game as it stands it a mess and seems to be trending away from balance as the meta evolves not towards it.
During 8th it was a more settled meta but with 3 missions sets at the time and one of them showed minimal advantage to first second, other showed a slightly higher go first advantage.
The issue is 9th edition is seeming to be getting more first turn wins as players play more. Ie as the meta is solved it's getting worse not better.
Also the goon hamer stats covering the go first go second disparity by faction shows that the game as it stands it a mess and seems to be trending away from balance as the meta evolves not towards it.
Exactly. It's a pretty large upward trend. Plus, if you look at a lot of the lists used - many of them are NOT just "I brought my 8th ed list to a 9th ed game and tried to play the same game." A lot of the "But we need to shift our thinking" type responses ignore the fact that when people DID start picking up on the differences, that first turn advantage GREW rather than shrink.
During 8th it was a more settled meta but with 3 missions sets at the time and one of them showed minimal advantage to first second, other showed a slightly higher go first advantage.
The issue is 9th edition is seeming to be getting more first turn wins as players play more. Ie as the meta is solved it's getting worse not better.
Also the goon hamer stats covering the go first go second disparity by faction shows that the game as it stands it a mess and seems to be trending away from balance as the meta evolves not towards it.
Exactly. It's a pretty large upward trend. Plus, if you look at a lot of the lists used - many of them are NOT just "I brought my 8th ed list to a 9th ed game and tried to play the same game." A lot of the "But we need to shift our thinking" type responses ignore the fact that when people DID start picking up on the differences, that first turn advantage GREW rather than shrink.
Thanks for this. I have only a few 1,000 point games under my belt in 9th so far, and I doubt we have what Nick would call the proper amount of terrain. I have noticed that the BRB doesn't give too many guidelines. Are these more dense terrain guidelines within the tournament pack?
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: You mean the guy who specifically brought up all the new units, including the obviously meh Outriders, might be trying to help GW sell something?
Thanks for this. I have only a few 1,000 point games under my belt in 9th so far, and I doubt we have what Nick would call the proper amount of terrain. I have noticed that the BRB doesn't give too many guidelines. Are these more dense terrain guidelines within the tournament pack?
Depends on which tournament pack I think? I haven't seen the newest one, but the one most tourneys will have used at this point generally recommends the same amount as the BRB. "You need more obscuring terrain" is another common refrain for those who don't think there is a turn 1 advantage. Honestly, in some cases that's actually true, but most of the time even this doesn't make a difference. The way turns are scored, combined with a significantly smaller board size is pretty much what is causing it.
The funny thing about the "moar terrain!!11" thing being pushed by GW is that their own books don't call for the amount of terrain they are claiming is necessary for a good game. It's like uh...ok, if you thought that, why didn't you actually say so in the book?
It very much reads like a post facto excuse for why the missions aren't performing in the real world the way they think they should be.
that would give more power to player 2 since a speedy army could just take his opponent off the objectives to deny him all his pts. Scoring at the start of your turn makes sense because each players can try and deny objectives from the other one. the problem is that the first player gets one more scoring opportunity and gets to take c ontrol of the map faster.
No I don't think it would. Let's look at it. Right now, I go first. I run everything onto the objectives I want. Player two now has to get there and remove me. I just have to get there. So I score turn 2 and can keep him from scoring, thus setting up the snow-ball effect. Additionally, since the objectives are scored at the top of the turn, in the final turn, as "player 1", I can score my objectives and then leave them as needed to make sure my opponent can't do anything about it. He's potentially completely shut out of scoring that turn with no way to address it. That's going to happen occasionally regardless of where scoring happens, but it shouldn't happen BY DESIGN of the missions.
So now, let's flip it - we score at the end of the full turn. I'm player 1. I still get to rush to objective, and he still has to "get there" but now, since we score at the same time, I no longer have that advantage of scoring, taking my turn to prevent player 2 from scoring, and then setting up additional scoring for the end game. Instead, we have to fight over those objectives. Obsec and timing suddenly matter much more and you can't be shut out of the scoring for a phase simply because you didn't go first.
End of battle round scoring means player 2 can throw cheap worthless units that can't survive a stiff breeze onto objectives and score, aswell as deny his opponent scoring (through obsec) at practically no cost. While if he was going first he would never be able to hold an objective. Forcing player 1 to have to survive a round to score but not requiring it from player 2 is a HUGE imbalance that utterly dwarfs any advantage that may or may not exist in 9th now.
End of battle round scoring means player 2 can throw cheap worthless units that can't survive a stiff breeze onto objectives and score, aswell as deny his opponent scoring (through obsec) at practically no cost. While if he was going first he would never be able to hold an objective. Forcing player 1 to have to survive a round to score but not requiring it from player 2 is a HUGE imbalance that utterly dwarfs any advantage that may or may not exist in 9th now.
The scenario you laid out makes no sense unless player 1 just sat there and didn't claim anything? And if the scoring happens at the end of the full battle round then both players have a shot of scoring. As it is set up now, player 1 can claim his objectives and shut down the other player's ability to score them before player 2 has a chance to do anything at all. Scoring jointly at the end of the round prevents this from either player. Plus, the way it's laid out now, the way you seem to be arguing to keep, already has player 1 needing to survive the round. I don't think you've thought this through all the way?
that would give more power to player 2 since a speedy army could just take his opponent off the objectives to deny him all his pts. Scoring at the start of your turn makes sense because each players can try and deny objectives from the other one. the problem is that the first player gets one more scoring opportunity and gets to take c ontrol of the map faster.
Not exactly. The current system gives player 1 two additional chances. The first turn grab to set up the initial scoring PLUS being able to score turn 5 while preventing player 2 from scoring at all. The missions are designed so that there is literally no counter play in turn 5 if player 1 played well enough. Not because he dominated his opponent, but rather because he took advantage of a rule set that allows him to prevent the other player form getting points due to the luck of a die roll at the start of the game. Scoring at the end of the full round does not give "more advantage to player 2" imo. That same scenario happens NOW except that it has to happen because he's instantly behind on points because he went second with no way to counter it.
My first tweak would be to try scoring primary again at the end of the game. This gives the 2nd player a significant advantage in the last turn, instead of the current situation, where they have a significant disadvantage in both turn 1 and turn 5. I wouldn't be surprised if that change alone would deal with most or all the first-turn advantage right there.
Yeah, no. This person that posted this is just mad they don't get 40k. If they were actually correct on this topic we would've been seeing more occasional toppings because of that "human element".40k isn't complicated. There's only so much you can put on the human element.
That's not the point being made in the write-up at all. It outright says as much in the comments too. Did you read through it?
That post got agreements from top players including Richard Siegler himself, and even a person from the team who helps COLLECT the stats agreed with it and says they are being misused. It's also like the most upvoted post of all time by competitive players on that sub now. If you think all these people misunderstand 40k, but you and the stats are the ones that got things completely figured out because aye "40k is simple" (even though there's literally proof and examples that you're wrong in this belief inside the post itself), well then, you carry on thinking that.
To be honest, this seems much more like you didn't even properly read the article, and that you're just mad that your constant claim of 40k being so simple that the stats tell the whole story has been so thoroughly and completely disproved. If you genuinely think those two salty sentences you've written here are a more compelling argument than the pages of sound logical reasoning given to support the perspective given in the article, well that would probably be your biases speaking lol. You're on your own there.
Just p.s. very little of the argument in that write-up hinges on depth. Even if 40k is as simple as you seem to claim it is, there was a bunch of reasons given that would still hold true and have been been proven to be the case in the past.
Ah yes - how could I forget! That inviolable bastion of logic, and the ever-present fall-back position of those who don't like inconvenient things. Like numbers, and stats and evidence and such ...
There’s numerous reasons why the first turn advantage may not be as strong as the statistic represents. You’d be silly to ignore Nick’s opinion based on “the stats” it doesn’t matter if the data size is 3000 or 3 million, the stats ignore a human element and how we approach the game / our knowledge of it.
^ that
And thus the cycle continues:
"There is no first turn advantage! Wait and see!"
Week 1 of tournaments yields something like 54% 1st turn advantage - "Hazzaah! No advantage! Just as we saw! The numbers prove it!"
Week 2 of tournaments yields a larger advantage - " ..."
Current stats show a clear advantage with the number worsening as the skill-gap narrows and a steady upward trend "There are many reasons why the numbers are wrong here! Listen to this man who hasn't played a tourney yet! On this website with a vested interest in there NOT being a 1st turn advantage! This is just like ... your opinion man!"
TL;DR:
Unbiased numbers > than the opinion of a man likely doing a paid advertisement ....
Nobody is saying to just believe Nick at face value with no explanation. Although if you've ever spoken to the guy, you'd know he has way more integrity than many of you are implying, but that's neither here nor there. The overall point is if you have a good reason to believe that 1st turn is overpowered (as it does seem many of you do), then by all means, especially if you can't see a valid counter argument to that reasoning, you know what, you're very probably right. The point is that the stats aren't a valid counter argument because so often are they flawed, and there's already been very practical reasons given as to why they could be in this case. I'm saying don't blindly believe statistics OR blindly believe a person because they are a known name, both are a flawed approach. Nick Nanavati is an excellent player and has gone directly against the grain of what the groupthink and the stats-quoters believed many times in the past and been later proven correct, so I'd be inclined to want to hear out his reasoning for why first turn isn't overpowered before dismissing it off hand, and basing my opinion from there as until I heard convincing logic it wouldn't change my opinion. I personally suspect there is a slight bit of a first turn advantage, though I also suspect that it's not as slanted as the stats would show for some of the reasons given - it's how we're currently approaching the game as players. Reading his explanation as to why he believes it, seems he is also of a similar opinion.
Haven't looked at the Goonhammer articles, so I don't know if this has been done, but it occurs to me that with sufficient raw data (and a sufficiently stable game, so as to rule out changes tot he game influencing things) you could run an analysis to see what influence player skill has.
At any tournament, round 1 should be completely (or almost completely) random when it comes to the pairings. Your "beer and pretzels" attendees are mixed in with your "hardcore WAAC donkey-cave" attendees, and everyone in between. This round makes up your baseline first turn win %.
Round 2 is where we may start to see performance influencing the first turn percentage. As a result, we can split the field into (roughly) three groups - both players won, both players drew (probably a small group), and both players lost. Not sure where you split games where one player is paired down, admittedly. Anyway, look at those three groups, and see if the first turn win % varies from the round 1 figure.
Rinse and repeat for the following rounds - I'd lean towards keeping games split into three bands, along the lines of "winning more than losing", "average performance", and "losing more than winning", and see how those figures change round on round. I'll let someone else figure out breakpoints for those bands
After all, in theory winning multiple games should be a sign of player skill, right?
Dysartes wrote: Haven't looked at the Goonhammer articles, so I don't know if this has been done, but it occurs to me that with sufficient raw data (and a sufficiently stable game, so as to rule out changes tot he game influencing things) you could run an analysis to see what influence player skill has.
At any tournament, round 1 should be completely (or almost completely) random when it comes to the pairings. Your "beer and pretzels" attendees are mixed in with your "hardcore WAAC donkey-cave" attendees, and everyone in between. This round makes up your baseline first turn win %.
Round 2 is where we may start to see performance influencing the first turn percentage. As a result, we can split the field into (roughly) three groups - both players won, both players drew (probably a small group), and both players lost. Not sure where you split games where one player is paired down, admittedly. Anyway, look at those three groups, and see if the first turn win % varies from the round 1 figure.
Rinse and repeat for the following rounds - I'd lean towards keeping games split into three bands, along the lines of "winning more than losing", "average performance", and "losing more than winning", and see how those figures change round on round. I'll let someone else figure out breakpoints for those bands
After all, in theory winning multiple games should be a sign of player skill, right?
Careful, that sounds like it'd make for a decent player score card.
Nitro Zeus wrote: Although if you've ever spoken to the guy, you'd know he has way more integrity than many of you are implying, but that's neither here nor there.
I don't know enough about the competitive scene to comment on the rest of your post, but I will say this. Unless we hear of an imminent lawsuit from him, I'd say that the article I'm about 90% sure GW wrote for him tells me everything I need to know about his "integrity".
End of battle round scoring means player 2 can throw cheap worthless units that can't survive a stiff breeze onto objectives and score, aswell as deny his opponent scoring (through obsec) at practically no cost. While if he was going first he would never be able to hold an objective. Forcing player 1 to have to survive a round to score but not requiring it from player 2 is a HUGE imbalance that utterly dwarfs any advantage that may or may not exist in 9th now.
The scenario you laid out makes no sense unless player 1 just sat there and didn't claim anything? And if the scoring happens at the end of the full battle round then both players have a shot of scoring. As it is set up now, player 1 can claim his objectives and shut down the other player's ability to score them before player 2 has a chance to do anything at all. Scoring jointly at the end of the round prevents this from either player. Plus, the way it's laid out now, the way you seem to be arguing to keep, already has player 1 needing to survive the round. I don't think you've thought this through all the way?
that would give more power to player 2 since a speedy army could just take his opponent off the objectives to deny him all his pts. Scoring at the start of your turn makes sense because each players can try and deny objectives from the other one. the problem is that the first player gets one more scoring opportunity and gets to take c ontrol of the map faster.
Not exactly. The current system gives player 1 two additional chances. The first turn grab to set up the initial scoring PLUS being able to score turn 5 while preventing player 2 from scoring at all. The missions are designed so that there is literally no counter play in turn 5 if player 1 played well enough. Not because he dominated his opponent, but rather because he took advantage of a rule set that allows him to prevent the other player form getting points due to the luck of a die roll at the start of the game. Scoring at the end of the full round does not give "more advantage to player 2" imo. That same scenario happens NOW except that it has to happen because he's instantly behind on points because he went second with no way to counter it.
If there is only 1 set of objectives in no mans land (like Scorched Earth, Vital Intel, Surround and Destroy, Battlelines) then someone is always going to get on them first and make the other player remove them (and have to survive himself). This won't change by moving scoring to end of turn.
In the missions if objectives for each side in no-mans land (Retrieval, Scouring, Overrun) both player 1 and 2 move on to objectives on their half and both have to survive a turn currently. In your system player 2 would score with no counterplay from player 1 since he scores right after his own turn.
Additionally I play GSC, a deepstriking glass cannon army. 9th edition has been difficult since I am trying to claim objectives with basically guardsmen. If we score at the end of battle round and I go 2nd I can just deepstrike an Acolye squad next to you, charge your unit holding an objective (7" charge is pretty reliable) and take it from you while scoring with 0 possible counterplay from you. That you then kill the unit in your turn and again claim the objective doesn't matter, because I can do the exact same thing again next turn. With again no real counterplay.
Or take Tyranids, they can run up 10 hormagants 16"+2d6 (thanks to double move stratagem) and stand on your objective with a bunch of obsec, they score with no counter play, denying you points and you can kill them in your turn but it doesn't matter because they already scored. If they are Kraken they can do another 8"+2d6 with a 2nd unit per turn.
I'm sure other armies could do similar things, I just don't know their statagems well enough to tell you.
Player 1 getting to shoot twice before player 2 scores is definitely a thing tho and a likely problem. Same with player 1 having no need to care about objectives in his final turn and player 2 basically having no final turn outside of secondaries.
Its a tough problem to solve. Giving an extra scoring at the end of the game for Primary's would give both players something to fight over (and keep objectives) in the final turn but then player 2 gets to score at the end without answer. Might be the best solution off the top of my head. The 'free' scoring being balanced by the first turn disadvantage.
Another option would be to let player 2 score at the end of his first turn (again no counter play option) so there are no 2 shooting phases before his first scoring and let player 1 score at the end of the game, but that just moves the final turn 1 issue to player 2.
Or heck Player 1 doesn't start to score until turn 3 but gets to score at the end of the game.
I think a lot of it boils down to ranges being to long in 40k. especially with the smaller table. I would ideally want ranges to be so that player 1 in his first turn is out of range for almost all of his guns, even after having moved forward. So player 1 moves forward onto objectives in his first turn and is mostly out of range. Player 2 moves forward and is now in range. So player 1 gets to move and score first but player 2 gets to shoot first. Both players get shot at once before scoring.
Nitro Zeus wrote: Although if you've ever spoken to the guy, you'd know he has way more integrity than many of you are implying, but that's neither here nor there.
I don't know enough about the competitive scene to comment on the rest of your post, but I will say this. Unless we hear of an imminent lawsuit from him, I'd say that the article I'm about 90% sure GW wrote for him tells me everything I need to know about his "integrity".
The article on WHC doesn't read much different from things has written or said in the past. He always had this "the game is a great puzzle you just need to solve" attitude (and he was wrong about it often enough) and he rarely, if ever, called out the issues with the game because those issues are usually just one more tool that helps you win games. He also is a professional, so him not slamming GW on the first interview they ever do with him is just natural.
Maybe the 2ed player should get a special 2ed player secondary or be able to take one extra, but that would probably require a rewrite of all secondaries, so will never happen within the same edition.
Nitro Zeus wrote: Although if you've ever spoken to the guy, you'd know he has way more integrity than many of you are implying, but that's neither here nor there.
I don't know enough about the competitive scene to comment on the rest of your post, but I will say this. Unless we hear of an imminent lawsuit from him, I'd say that the article I'm about 90% sure GW wrote for him tells me everything I need to know about his "integrity".
The article on WHC doesn't read much different from things has written or said in the past. He always had this "the game is a great puzzle you just need to solve" attitude (and he was wrong about it often enough) and he rarely, if ever, called out the issues with the game because those issues are usually just one more tool that helps you win games. He also is a professional, so him not slamming GW on the first interview they ever do with him is just natural.
You guys are so hilariously out of touch with who this person is but speak with full confidence about this identity you've invented for him, since he's a big bad pro player.
He was on live yesterday, outspokenly criticising GW for their contributions to this very article. Which is way more than others would do. What do you actually expect him to jump on WHC and start bitching about Eradicators OP and GW needs price drops? They aren't gonna print that lol. There's nobody who wants to grow the hobby more than Nick Nanavati does he works so hard to improve and build the community, you guys are such jerks on here lol
Nitro Zeus wrote: Although if you've ever spoken to the guy, you'd know he has way more integrity than many of you are implying, but that's neither here nor there.
I don't know enough about the competitive scene to comment on the rest of your post, but I will say this. Unless we hear of an imminent lawsuit from him, I'd say that the article I'm about 90% sure GW wrote for him tells me everything I need to know about his "integrity".
The article on WHC doesn't read much different from things has written or said in the past. He always had this "the game is a great puzzle you just need to solve" attitude (and he was wrong about it often enough) and he rarely, if ever, called out the issues with the game because those issues are usually just one more tool that helps you win games.
He also is a professional, so him not slamming GW on the first interview they ever do with him is just natural.
You guys are so hilariously out of touch with who this person is but speak with full confidence about this identity you've invented for him, since he's a big bad pro player.
He was on live yesterday, outspokenly criticising GW for their contributions to this very article. Which is way more than others would do. What do you actually expect him to jump on WHC and start bitching about Eradicators OP and GW needs price drops? They aren't gonna print that lol. There's nobody who wants to grow the hobby more than Nick Nanavati does he works so hard to improve and build the community, you guys are such jerks on here lol
I said the very same thing, but good job jumping me for no reason as usual.
Nitro Zeus wrote: He was on live yesterday, outspokenly criticising GW for their contributions to this very article. Which is way more than others would do. What do you actually expect him to jump on WHC and start bitching about Eradicators OP and GW needs price drops? They aren't gonna print that lol. There's nobody who wants to grow the hobby more than Nick Nanavati does he works so hard to improve and build the community, you guys are such jerks on here lol
Is he claiming that they've misrepresented his statements? If so, he should seek legal action rather than just go to camera. Likely he knows this, of course, and actually agreed with the content for the cash, but is now covering his butt to not lose the audience.
Like I said, I will only believe in any notion of integrity if I hear about that lawsuit.
I'm very familiar with that style of writing as I've had to use it myself before at work - it's full of fluff and nonsense and buzzwords, which is another hint that it's absolute rubbish.
Nobody is saying to just believe Nick at face value with no explanation. Although if you've ever spoken to the guy, you'd know he has way more integrity than many of you are implying, but that's neither here nor there. The overall point is if you have a good reason to believe that 1st turn is overpowered (as it does seem many of you do), then by all means, especially if you can't see a valid counter argument to that reasoning, you know what, you're very probably right. The point is that the stats aren't a valid counter argument because so often are they flawed, and there's already been very practical reasons given as to why they could be in this case. I'm saying don't blindly believe statistics OR blindly believe a person because they are a known name, both are a flawed approach. Nick Nanavati is an excellent player and has gone directly against the grain of what the groupthink and the stats-quoters believed many times in the past and been later proven correct, so I'd be inclined to want to hear out his reasoning for why first turn isn't overpowered before dismissing it off hand, and basing my opinion from there as until I heard convincing logic it wouldn't change my opinion. I personally suspect there is a slight bit of a first turn advantage, though I also suspect that it's not as slanted as the stats would show for some of the reasons given - it's how we're currently approaching the game as players. Reading his explanation as to why he believes it, seems he is also of a similar opinion.
But like I said, right now, we actually HAVE solid evidence of the advantage. We ALSO can just read the missions and pretty plainly see the bias for player 1. We also have a guy who is likely doing what is essentially a paid advertisement here in that article. You seem to be pretty up in arms about people saying the article needs taken with a grain of salt because it's a GW marketing channel. I'm sorry if that's upsetting, but it's the flat out truth. He's not going to go on a GW marketing channel and say ANYTHING negative. Well and good he criticised them after, but a lot of people won't see that. They will only see this article ad take it as gospel. COunter to your point above, people HAVE suggested we just take him at his word despite the fact that ALL of the stats say otherwise. At this point, the people (IMO of course) with the best work on this are Goonhammer, who's stats show there IS a distinct first turn advantage that actually gets worse as the skill gap narrows (with the exception irc of ONE mission I think). It's pretty clear. So now the folks that said "wait and see -the stats will prove you wrong" are saying "but - the stats are wrong! Totally unreliable!" It makes no sense. I'm all for listening to dissenting opinions, but the other end of it is that this community tends to get very fuzzy thinking. 1000 unconnected people have the exact same experience and that's dismissed as "group think/bad tactics/you aren't using enough obscuring terrain". ONE GUY says something he hasn't actually even had the chance to demonstrate yet, and it's "SEE! The stats are wrong!" lol And yeah, just like the other top players, he's succeeded in the past by going against the grain. But even there we draw the wrong conclusion. If it takes a player of that caliber, who spends most of his time doing just this to pull it off - it means there's a larger issue with the game.
If there is only 1 set of objectives in no mans land (like Scorched Earth, Vital Intel, Surround and Destroy, Battlelines) then someone is always going to get on them first and make the other player remove them (and have to survive himself). This won't change by moving scoring to end of turn.
Ignoring the fact that there are many missions without that setup, and the fact that we can change where they are, imo you're missing my point. Right now, player 1 rushes out and gets the objectives. Player 2 has to try and knock him off BUT since player 1 immediately scores top of his turn, he can score, then kill off player 2 and player 2 cannot score. At all. It's less tactical because you generally know where everyone is going and we get the "mosh pit" effect. Move the scoring to the END of the full round in round 2, turn 1 suddenly becomes much more tactical. You're not going to just rush out and take something knowing you can't immediatly score it top of turn 2. Turn 1 becomes jockeying for position, planning, and maneuvering. Then, turn 2 becomes about making the first claims, but the difference is, we actually have to fight it out. Player 1 can't just shutout player 2 before they even have a chance to score. That's the key. Currently player 2 can be easily shut out on turns 1 and 5 because scoring doesn't happen at the same time.
Additionally I play GSC, a deepstriking glass cannon army. 9th edition has been difficult since I am trying to claim objectives with basically guardsmen. If we score at the end of battle round and I go 2nd I can just deepstrike an Acolye squad next to you, charge your unit holding an objective (7" charge is pretty reliable) and take it from you while scoring with 0 possible counterplay from you. That you then kill the unit in your turn and again claim the objective doesn't matter, because I can do the exact same thing again next turn. With again no real counterplay.
If scoring happens at the end of the full round, player 1 knows you have the potential to do this, and must plan for it. Player 2 on the other hand has to time it very well. There actually IS a chance for counter play. The difference is, the counter play happens BEFORE the thing happens. What you describe is a thing that literally happens RIGHT NOW but with the difference that scoring can be cut off before a player even has a chance at it. Have you actually tried the type of scoring I'm talking about? If you played some games with it I think you'd see the advantages.
I think a lot of it boils down to ranges being to long in 40k. especially with the smaller table. I would ideally want ranges to be so that player 1 in his first turn is out of range for almost all of his guns, even after having moved forward. So player 1 moves forward onto objectives in his first turn and is mostly out of range. Player 2 moves forward and is now in range. So player 1 gets to move and score first but player 2 gets to shoot first. Both players get shot at once before scoring.
Table size and ranges are for sure a issue to be considered. We found 9th played better at a size in between the minimum recommended and the traditional max size. That actually was a significant improvement to our games once we did it.
Nitro Zeus wrote: Although if you've ever spoken to the guy, you'd know he has way more integrity than many of you are implying, but that's neither here nor there.
I don't know enough about the competitive scene to comment on the rest of your post, but I will say this. Unless we hear of an imminent lawsuit from him, I'd say that the article I'm about 90% sure GW wrote for him tells me everything I need to know about his "integrity".
People are acting like this dude is 40k Jesus and can do no wrong.
he wanted money, will shill for said money, then will back off of the shill for different money.
Man, if this dude is what integrity is......
But like I said, right now, we actually HAVE solid evidence of the advantage.
You don't at all. You have a completely unnuanced statistics which are the opposite of solid evidence.
Tycho wrote: You seem to be pretty up in arms about people saying the article needs taken with a grain of salt because it's a GW marketing channel. I'm sorry if that's upsetting, but it's the flat out truth.
I'm not up in arms even remotely ive posted like 3 times in this entire thread. I too have said I'd be skeptical at taking anything here at face value. You're really going hard out here mate for someone to be accusing others of being up in arms.
Tycho wrote: At this point, the people (IMO of course) with the best work on this are Goonhammer, who's stats show there IS a distinct first turn advantage that actually gets worse as the skill gap narrows (with the exception irc of ONE mission I think). It's pretty clear.
The stats show that more people who are going first are winning. The stats do not show a distinct first turn advantage, thats what you've read into it. This is a point of principal, but it's important to know the difference. There may well be a first turn advantage. Or, as top players are telling us and SHOWING us, like Richard Siegler electing to go second in the majority of his games, maybe the first turn advantage isn't such a thing after all and it's simply how people are approaching their list building and deployment - two aspects of 40k many people struggle HEAVILY with. This is not an unrealistic possibility by any stretch.
Tycho wrote: So now the folks that said "wait and see -the stats will prove you wrong" are saying "but - the stats are wrong! Totally unreliable!" It makes no sense.
I've never said the stats will prove anything, and I should say I'm speaking on behalf of just myself. If I've worded anything so far that made it seem that I'm speaking on behalf of anyone who has cited stats as their argument, I'd like to clarify that was most definitely not my intent, I'm speaking only for myself, and you responding with statements that others have made is not a counter to my argument. I'm also not saying the stats are wrong. Just like that big reddit write-up, the stats are objective - but your interpretation of them may not be.
Tycho wrote: I'm all for listening to dissenting opinions, but the other end of it is that this community tends to get very fuzzy thinking. 1000 unconnected people have the exact same experience and that's dismissed as "group think/bad tactics/you aren't using enough obscuring terrain". ONE GUY says something he hasn't actually even had the chance to demonstrate yet, and it's "SEE! The stats are wrong!"
I feel like you are arguing past me with statements I haven't made.
Tycho wrote: And yeah, just like the other top players, he's succeeded in the past by going against the grain. But even there we draw the wrong conclusion. If it takes a player of that caliber, who spends most of his time doing just this to pull it off - it means there's a larger issue with the game.
Top players display how the game plays when you are good at it. If you're bad at it, you may see much different results to the top. There's an argument to be made that this is the level we should balance it at, but doing so almost inevitably leaves imbalances at the upper end.
You don't at all. You have a completely unnuanced statistics which are the opposite of solid evidence.
Which is still much better than what the opposite claim has, which is the point you seem to have difficulty grasping my friend.
You are technically correct in that the stats do technically just show that at the moment most people going first are winning (though you have yet to also acknowledge that they also show that the first turn win percentage actually gets higher in later rounds when player skill is more even), sure.
Yet it is still the best evidence anyone can provide concerning first turn advantage, either for or against it. Your appeal to authority is much flimsier evidence by comparison, and even if you're just saying that these dudes thinking this way means we should just wait and see no, feth off lol. Atm the best evidence (not just the stats, bluntly the reasoning for why going first is much stronger than second is better than Nanavatti's) suggests going first generally provides a big advantage, so that's what I'm going to believe. If the meta evolves and Nick is ultimately vindicated and the gap between first and second turn narrows then great, I sincerely hope he's right.
But until there's compelling evidence to believe otherwise I'm going to continue thinking first turn carries a notable advantage. There isn't always an advantage to going first. Just usually.
I'm pretty sure going first is an advantage *for most lists* because going first allows you to control the board, and a game where half the points rely on controlling points, that's going to matter.
Its increasingly clear 9th edition is an assault edition, not because assault is overpowered ludicrous damage output (although some instances exist) - but because assault is the main mechanism of contesting/claiming objectives in your or, potentially, your opponents turn. If by contrast you shoot a unit holding an objective off in your turn, you then have to move a unit to the point in your next turn, it has to then survive, and you might finally score some points in 2 turns time. Your opponent has two turns to respond, and so should be able to counter you.
So for example, since Tau have essentially no viable assault options, and slow obsec, they would appear to be screwed - especially if going second. If I blob up on objectives with just about any faction, then even if the Tau player can shoot my entire army to death by turn 3, they will not be able to claim significant primary points until turn 5. If as a result they are say 20-25 primary points behind, they are likely to lose. (Especially if I'm playing a faction which doesn't throw out 25+ secondary points just for killing stuff you had to kill anyway.)
I think the games where its complicated, as outlined in the reddit thread, are when two armies both have potent assault elements, and so getting the charge off is valuable. This may become more common at the top end - with factions that don't have such an element being driven out. In that case the usual bundle forward on turn 1 can actively be harmful, even if it gives you board control, as it potentially sets up your opponent for turn 1 charges. Which should give them the advantage, and puts them all over the central points. Obviously the scenarios are not all the same, so it will also impact this.
You also have the fact dead units do no damage and claim no points, so going first *should* also be an advantage there. So armies which will work are likely to be ones which are fast enough to stay out of range/LOS in the early game and can then deliver a decent assault phase later on. This would perhaps suggest why Harlequins are good. It might also explain why, in the Goonhammer statistics, Harlequins perform well going first and second, while there is a much bigger separation for certain other factions.
WHC has started a new series of articles, focused on competitive play, with its first guest: Nick Nanavati himself !
I just read it. It feels disingenuous to put the onus of insufficient terrain on the players rather than the TOs, and to say "build your army to go second" (don't die) versus maximizing firepower. The ability to proliferate firepower, plus the relative ease to include LOS-ignoring attack profiles to cripple "key" firepower units means that in general, you will want to go first anyway. So long as 40k is IGOUGO, and firepower easier to obtain over cover...you want yo go first.
Edit: Looks like I was late to the party. GW editing and decontextualizing statements? Fun.
WHC has started a new series of articles, focused on competitive play, with its first guest: Nick Nanavati himself !
I just read it. It feels disingenuous to put the onus of insufficient terrain on the players rather than the TOs, and to say "build your army to go second" (don't die) versus maximizing firepower. The ability to proliferate firepower, plus the relative ease to include LOS-ignoring attack profiles to cripple "key" firepower units means that in general, you will want to go first anyway. So long as 40k is IGOUGO, and firepower easier to obtain over cover...you want yo go first.
Edit: Looks like I was late to the party. GW editing and decontextualizing statements? Fun.
Players do play games outside of tournaments, I'm not going to be angry at a tournament organiser about terrain when playing a competitive level match at my brothers house.
Reminder time - being polite is not optional. You may disagree with what Mr. Nanavati has to say or how this article has been presented until you are blue in the face, being rude about him personally is not okay though. Anymore insults directed his way will earn their poster a vacation.
WHC has started a new series of articles, focused on competitive play, with its first guest: Nick Nanavati himself !
I just read it. It feels disingenuous to put the onus of insufficient terrain on the players rather than the TOs, and to say "build your army to go second" (don't die) versus maximizing firepower. The ability to proliferate firepower, plus the relative ease to include LOS-ignoring attack profiles to cripple "key" firepower units means that in general, you will want to go first anyway. So long as 40k is IGOUGO, and firepower easier to obtain over cover...you want yo go first.
Edit: Looks like I was late to the party. GW editing and decontextualizing statements? Fun.
Players do play games outside of tournaments, I'm not going to be angry at a tournament organiser about terrain when playing a competitive level match at my brothers house.
Except the statement was in reference to competive play; context is key.
"It’s my understanding that the vast majority of the competitive Warhammer 40,000 community believe that having the first turn leads to a nearly insurmountable advantage over your opponent in most games."
That statement is not an unreasonable one by any means. What is more debatable is the idea "the players do not play with enough terrain" is a burden on the players rather than the TOs. Terrain is a potential problem, but there are at least quite a few other "historic" problem areas throughout the editions.
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