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I hear a lot of people talk about mind tricks in tabletop games, 40K in particular. What is Dakka's opinion on this? Is a blob of Plague Marine on an objective scary? Does a trio of Russes make you gak your pants?

What say you?

Well not to the extreme, however some things can make the enemy nervous and perhaps overthink some stuff.

Among this units, the ones that stand out for me are the Imperial Assassins, sure yeah, they are VERY strong, however there is only so much one unit can do, yet the enemy will almost always go out of his/her way to kill it.

I find 3 fexes with T7, W5, 2+ Sv and regenerate scares the crap out of a lot of players...initially. My regular opponents just ignore them at first and just kill my tyrants.

But yeah, psychology plays a part in most games. It's very difficult to become detached emotionally from the game which I guess separates the mediocre players from the good players. Knowing what to kill at what time and making sure you have the tools for the job shows tactical acumen (IMHO).

Most 40k players don't have a very good grasp on statistics and averages, which can be used to your advantage in the psychology metagame. You can exploit this by taking a relatively inexpensive unit that has a very high killing potential, but low likelihood of actually doing very much. These units tend to scare other players into devoting way too much attention and firepower to it while ignoring units that appear to be less threatening, even when they are statistically likely to cause far more damage.

Vindicators are the perfect example of this. They are solid tanks for their cost, however they don't regularly do much against intelligent opponents who know how to make use of cover. Many players remember what S10 AP2 ordnance could do in 4th edition, where cover saves were lower and more scarce, and will focus an inordinate amount of firepower on them. In 5th edition you'll probably scatter 3", hit half of what you intended, and then divide by 2 again for the number of models who fail their cover saves. Not too scary.

Yes, it works.
Quite we||.................

If you were to find yourself playing a game against someone you don't know too well at your local FLGS, and somewhere in the midst of your shooting phase, after using your opponent's dice for a while, that they spent a good 2 hours with those very dice lodged firmly in their butt last week, would it get a reaction out of you?

I thought it might.


Psychology comes into play when reading your opponents mindset and trying to mask your own. If you're fidgeting slightly, looking at the table, that suggests to me that you've made a mistake that I need to capitalize on, I just need to find it. I try to play with a poker face if I'm plotting something, but since I generally play friendly games, the psychology aspect tends to be a little lower on the spectrum, as I play more for the social aspect than the competition aspect.

Alright I'll bite and go ahead and add some tricks.


1. Put your army on the side of the board you want. Most people will tend to be polite and just pick the side opposite you. This is generally just marking your territory.

2. Leave a unit in reserve or deepstrike. Opponents generally try to deal with something like can't deal with and a unit of whatever sitting off the board generally bothers them.

3. People hate big gak in their deployment zone. Generally if you can just dump a unit in someones deployment zone they'll generally move to completely take it out putting them in a poor position against the rest of your army.

Hollismason wrote:Alright I'll bite and go ahead and add some tricks.


1. Put your army on the side of the board you want. Most people will tend to be polite and just pick the side opposite you. This is generally just marking your territory.

Never noticed it until you brought it up but looking back that is so true! Even just standing on that side while you roll for mission/deployment probably works. I very rarely see people pick a side other than the one they're standing on unless there's an obvious terrain disadvantage.


Also, morale can play a part in an opponent's decision making skills. If you have some exceptional luck early on, play it up. Don't brag or anything, but maybe look at your dice after a great round of shooting and say "man... that shouldn't have happened... dude i'm sorry, that sucks.." Almost like you feel bad for crippling them, even if it should really be an acceptable loss. If you can get them to feel like they're in more trouble than they actually are, they can start to get desperate or apathetic. Both states of mind are huge disadvantages.

Oh course it does, if I am ever behind in a game I lift up my shirt and shake my Moobs (man boobs) as soon as they turn away in pain a knock a couple of there models off the table.

Works every time!

3 whole broods of Genestealers popping up in one place is sure to make your men suffer from PDSD if they survive.

I'm going to list this under dirty filthy tricks but...


At the start of the game, say your stomache hurts. Then excuse your self to the bathroom. Hurry up and move all your stuff then come back. Do this like 3 times or so eventually your opponent will start rushing because he thinks you have the runs or something similar and generally start making mistakes.


Its a very nasty thing to do but it does work and although I generally only use the table side thing I have seen players do this.

Hollismason wrote:I'm going to list this under dirty filthy tricks but...


At the start of the game, say your stomache hurts. Then excuse your self to the bathroom. Hurry up and move all your stuff then come back. Do this like 3 times or so eventually your opponent will start rushing because he thinks you have the runs or something similar and generally start making mistakes.


Its a very nasty thing to do but it does work and although I generally only use the table side thing I have seen players do this.

I wouldn't play with someone who acts so unprofessional. I think I draw the line when someone trying to get an off-the-table advantage to win a game (TFG?), not appropriate.

Well, I have psychology to thank for a majority of my wins. I'm pretty happy/outgoing/joking around during my games with my friends/other people at the FLGS that it spreads onto them usually or they are creeped out and spend to much time insulting me in their minds to pay 100% attention to the table. I don't purposely do it to make me win, I just play the game for fun... and, well, isn't that mainly the point of playing a game anyways?

Lukus83 wrote: It's very difficult to become detached emotionally from the game which I guess separates the mediocre players from the good players. Knowing what to kill at what time and making sure you have the tools for the job shows tactical acumen (IMHO).

On the other hand, the players who get deeply emotionally attached to the game probably enjoy it more. Making dakka-noises, telling the story about my stealer magus ongoing conflict with my regular opponents librarian and laughing over horribly dieing units (usually my broodbrothers) is a very big part of the fun of this game. No matter if I win or not.

As a tyranid player, having raveners, biovores, and genestealers makes people nervous. People never fear my biovores until I bust the AV13 tank on the second turn (as I do almost 85% of the time). Because of their decent range and ability to kill marines outright people start spreading out. Then they get nervous about outflanking when I use it.

However, as I have more and more doubts about outflanking stealers I've gotten into the habit of putting them on the table towards the front. They're ALWAYS in cover but you wouldn't believe how much fire a squad of 12 gets while the 26 man termagaunt squad with warriors and a tyrant gets very little. The shock value of genestealers is amazingly effective, no matter what they're equipped with.

Clthomps wrote:Oh course it does, if I am ever behind in a game I lift up my shirt and shake my Moobs (man boobs) as soon as they turn away in pain a knock a couple of there models off the table.

Works every time!

That's what they want you to think........

It does work. Never show frustration or let yourself take yourself out of the game. There have been many times I was behind in a game and kept thinking positive to dig out and win. We should psychology on ourselves not the opponents.

G

Play well enough and you dont need cheap tricks and mind games. Seriously, beat people with skill and solid strategy. Leave your psych-outs at home, thats kid stuff.

Hollismason wrote:I'm going to list this under dirty filthy tricks but...


At the start of the game, say your stomache hurts. Then excuse your self to the bathroom. Hurry up and move all your stuff then come back. Do this like 3 times or so eventually your opponent will start rushing because he thinks you have the runs or something similar and generally start making mistakes.


Its a very nasty thing to do but it does work and although I generally only use the table side thing I have seen players do this.

God, who the hell would do this? Despite this being the single worst case of sportsmanship I have ever heard of I highly doubt it would work at all, in fact I think if I ever come across an opponent who is genuinely sick than the only way his 'breaks' would affect me would be to prompt me to slowly think through the battle in more depth.

I do however agree with GBF 110%. The best way to display strong psychology is to not allow yourself to get too worked up, and to conduct yourself in a fair natured, positive manner.

Another thing: some tournaments give credit for sportsmanship, so try not to go overboard with psychology.

I have to say I really like the "stand in the side you want to be at" trick since it is invisible and is just an extension of innocent behavior. I think it is most important to defend against such a strategy than anything else.

Unit based psych-outs are just playing off some people's lack of experience and lack of statistical knowledge, good but naturally transparent to skilled players.

Other psych-outs are usually just too visible to be all that effective against a focused player.
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I do wonder if people can capitalize on dynamic target fixation (as opposed to pregame ones), especially after frustrations and in not so clear situations. For example, if your marines managed to do the statistically impossible job of living through a entire turn of fire to get close to a Landraider and pop it, while a rhino is nearby, I'd expect certain kinds people to want to kill those marines (for revenge) despite them not being so important anymore.

I also wonder if it possible to do visual illusions via deployment and stuff to mess up opponents judgment of distance.... Hell, paint models with stripes and other visual impediments to make visual illusions a reality....muhahahaha

After doing the "stand at the side you want to be" for a while I developed a new trick. Put most of your army out on the side you DON'T want. Make it look almost like it would via deployment such as hiding tanks behind cover.

Trust me, if the other guy chooses sides he's going to choose your side so you get "screwed"

I want to see Derren Brown play 40k. "I rolled all 6's" "wow look at that so you did" *dice are actually a wild mix of 2's and 3's etc..*

my friend is a much better player than I (he is the LGS best player, with a pretty good tournie record and almost encyclopedic knowledge of rules) When im playing against him and I move a model all it takes is him to raise an eyebrow and ill spend the next five minutes looking at everything on the board trying to work out if ive done something stupid that I havnt seen but he has.

This only works if your opponent deploys first.

When you unpack your army in front of your opponent before deployment, unpack models not actually in your list.

Say put a massive Broodlord squad or 6 drop pods on the side. Your opponent will deploy to compensate then when you deploy pull the actual units out.

I find that certain units tend to draw inordinate amounts of attention, like Exorcists and the aforementioned Vindicators and Assassins. Sometimes I think taking these units and painting them bright, stand out colors really does make an opponant focus on them way too much.

If your opponent has one thing in their army that's especially cool-looking, well-painted, and that they've obviously lavished attention on, go out of your way to kill or cripple it. Even if the game is still fairly even, some people will become demoralized once their prized squad/tank/character is taken out.

Problem is, then you've just wasted a large amount of firepower on something that may not be particularly useful in-game.

Hokkaido23 wrote:Play well enough and you dont need cheap tricks and mind games. Seriously, beat people with skill and solid strategy. Leave your psych-outs at home, thats kid stuff.

Quite the contrary

Actually, pyschology is an adult's game. The power of the human brain is something kids don't fully understand, in terms of pyschology. And most kids don't even know what psychology *really* is.

The ability to alter one's way of thinking, or reading a person's face/eyes in order to determine what they are thinking is hard to obtain, and depending on the person, can be hard to use.

There's a difference between being a brat and saying "hey, I think you should shoot at this squad, cuz next turn they'll be in rapid fire range and will utterly destroy your squad" in order to desuade them from an important unit and playing with the opponent's mind, and have them think they've done something wrong.

How many kid games use psychology? Monopoly, if anything.
How many grown-games use psychology? Pretty much everything. Poker, or any card game for that matter, and strategic tabletop games.

Strategy IS psychology. And vice versa

I wouldnt use 'dirty tricks' (ie fake bowel movements/pretending to be dying), but psyche-outs are a part of both war and professional sports - so i say have at them!

If you have a unit that you want to use as a 'drawing fire' unit and not much else, talk them up as 'your key unit'.

when placing objectives, put one deep in a building, and way out on the side. Very very easy to forget after four turns... then run!

get them second guessing themselves by asking 'are you sure?' after every move.

If you are a member of the Australian Cricket team, make nasty comments about the opposing HQ's mother.