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I've been wondering for some time, how good can one really be at 40K? In a game so influenced by dice, and with some level of attrition assured, how good can players really be?

There are a number of people around the interwebs who think themselves great 40K players, or claim to know a great 40K player. I hear stories about how somebody was consistently wiping the table with very good players, was amazingly good. They'll come to your town and KICK YOUR FACE IN THE FACE. Or some I'm told.

In order to understand this sort of claim, I think to another form of competition I enjoy: basketball. In basketball, there are players that are so good, this sort of idea makes sense to me. There are indeed players who could show up where a bunch of guys play regularly, and just dominate those guys.

When it comes to 40K, I've never seen such a person. I've never watched or played a game where somebody was just so good, his game decisions were amazing to watch. Conversely, I've never seen somebody so terrible, they didn't kill at least a unit or two just in the process of playing the game.

I consider myself a pretty good 40K player. Nothing special, but solid. I win more than I lose, and I play people with experience, who are keeping up on the trends in the game, know the rules, etc...

I've never met a player who was so great that I felt like he could beat me every time. It just doesn't seem to me like the game works that way. In my experience, the game comes down to a series of decisions, a few of which are especially important, and if you don't blow any of them, you've got a good shot to win. If the army matchup is in my favor, the mission goes against him, a bad roll hurts him, I don't care how good this guy is, if I'm starting with an advantage in or list/mission, or pick up an edge due to a bad/good roll, as long as I don't make any mistakes, I expect to win.

How does everyone view this? Have you guys seen players that blew you away with how smart their play was? How good can one really be at 40K?

I think one of the more important assets of the "good players" isn't pure tactics, its:

- The ability to build army lists, so that the units work together as they should, or that every unit has a purpose.
This can make that player win more games against people who doesn't think about which units they take, or against players who takes fun but maybe not so efficient units.

- Also if a player knows what the opponents army can and can't do, it removes the "Oh sh-- can that unit do that?" feelings.
If you don't know what they can do, you really have a hard time knowing what to do yourself.

Theres a lot of other factors as well, but I think more than half of what makes a good player good about pre game stuff.

I mean if someone researches about his army lists for weeks, fine tuning and testing each unit extensively, surely he's going to have an advantage over say, chaos marine players with many shooty dreadnoughts that shoots through his own gunline, or a Iyanden eldar player that didn't know about wraithsight and stands still doing nothing for half the game.

And yes, an advantage, as you said the game is influenced by dice its hard to be sure of anything, but you can try and get the odds on your side.

This doesn't however mean that there isn't any tactics involved, there are a lot of tricks you can pull to change the game on the table as well. I just don't see many people winning purely because of that.


These are my 2 cents ;P YMMV

SuperioR wrote:
And yes, an advantage, as you said the game is influenced by dice its hard to be sure of anything, but you can try and get the odds on your side.

QFT

The best players i have come up against just try to stack the odds in their favour; you can never rely on one dice roll to win you the game but if you give yourself lots of chances to roll that dice, you will likely win more often than not.

Practicing with your army is the best way to take advantage of the odds, play against someones regular army, then ask them to use an un-familiar army and i reckon you'll see a marked difference in effectiveness. Take a look at some of Blackmoor's Batreps to see how an army that looks a little iffy on paper becomes an unstoppable force in the hands of someone who knows what they're doing.

What about those SM armies where they take tons of Termies and a few nasty tanks?

OoieGoie wrote:What about those SM armies where they take tons of Termies and a few nasty tanks?

What are they going to do with them? As nasty as their tanks are, a few melta blasts will see them off the board. Terminators cannot stand up to weight of fire, just Bolt-gun them to death.

This thread is about optimising your tactics so you are never relying on the dice to win you games; putting termies in LR's is not a good way to do this.

It's an intersting question. The element of luck makes it hard to quantify skill level.

I think there's a lot to it though.

1. List building.
A really good general will have decided on/built a list based on it's merits. Let's say we are talking all-comers lists, since they are geared to most opponents, from pick up games to tournaments. In the right hands they can be absolutely lethal. Take the right amount of firepower for what you expect to face - no need to load up on flamers when facing meq's. Of course these kind of lists can be completely overpowered by spam armies, but I will consider those the minority.

2. Tactics in battle.
Knowing how to use your lists is also pretty important. Knowing when and where to strike are vital to success. Again an experienced player will know what to do, sometimes through intuition (genestealers...hmmm, assault or not) and sometimes through careful testing.

3. Synergy
A word I dislike to use. Although I don't like to use it (as a word), I think it's necessary for a list to be successful - both when building a list and when using that army.

As a couple of examples: Our gaming group currently likes to build 1k allcomers lists. Our tau player is probably the most successful (though I do like to think I'm not that far behind). He uses a high combination of suits with plasma and missile pods and a single railgun tank. Combined with kroot to intercept charges and firewarriors held in reserve in a fish he can keep KP's to a minimum while staying mobile to contest/take objectives. He doesn't get greedy with plasma and stays out of rapid fire range to ensure you are always trying to close the gap. He plays the game at his pace and forces you to play it his way. It's a tough prospect to beat.

My list is MC heavy and extremely durable. 2 tyrants (1 with 3 guard, 1 with 2) and both have 2 S5 TL devourers. A zoanthrope holds the fort with a brood of 8 WoN gaunts and a boomfex and sniperfex provide tankstopping power. A second brood of 13 gaunts push towards the opponents objective (or are held in reserve, along with the other brood of gaunts if it's KP's).

Both of these lists have faults I'm sure, but they both make use of points 1, 2 and 3. They're also quite successful and we have racked up a series of wins with both lists.

So am I a good player? I think so...a great player, probably not. I make lists that I feel comfortable with and use units that are extremely durable so if I make a mistake it doesn't matter so much. I double up on effective weapons so that if I lose 1 it's loss is not so disastrous and I practise with my list a lot so I can learn to adapt and improve my game.

I think by their nature, the Mathammer players are a major group that believe that skill in 40k is a consistent, quantifiable thing. Since most of the build their lists around the average dice roll, they see it differently then those whose philosophy is based on adapting to whatever the dice actually does.

Also, those that can remember all the rules that are relevant to their army off the top of their heads are at a distinct advantage. For example, I'm still new to the hobby. I can still count the number of games I've played with my hands and (I'm proud to say) my toes. I'm buying alot of models, doing alot of list building, still figuring things out. My SM army is in a pretty constant state of flux. The side affect of this is i often forget things that would be advantageous, such as using Cluster Mines and Bolster Defenses before the game starts.

So, there are certainly qualities that make some players better then others, yes.

I've been around game clubs that had really good players who were clearly in a different league from the majority of players. In the absence of a national ranking system it's hard to quantify, but a small group of guys at one club I played with were all multiple GT winners (in 40K and fantasy). That club would routinely go to nearby RTTs and sweep all the top spots, and was undefeated for a long time in its regional championship as well.

Playing one of these guys is a lesson in humility. You do everything you can possibly think of, and they still win. You bring your worst tooled cheese list and they use lists that are weak according to conventional wisdom, and still win. You get a lucky break on the dice and think you've got him beat, then he pulls it out in the last turn and wins anyway.

So I'm persuaded that it's possible for some players to reach a level of skill that lets them win most of their games against the vast majority of ordinary players, because I've seen them myself. In spite of dice and list building and whatever else, they just win.

btw, if you know one of these guys, play him every chance you get because nothing will improve your own game faster.

The best players in my gaming group tend to have the worst luck. What separates a good player from a great player is innovation. They won't run the list of the month from the internet. They're the ones that run something that will cause people to go to the internet and seek help to build it. If you are taking a mix of units that are not popular and have a solid plan for using them, then you may well be a great player. Someone that consistently presents you with challenges that you haven't seen before is a great player.

Naturally, they do need to have a certain amount of tactical sense, but 40k is primarily about list building and list analysis. If you can decide what you need to do to the opponents list to win before anything hits the table, then you're already ahead of the game.

I disagree with those who are saying it's about lists. In my experience, as long as the list has the basic tools for supporting what a competent player needs to do, a really good player can win with any list most of the time. Some players I have known secretly/deliberately weaken their lists out of courtesy when playing against less experienced players.

If I had to guess, I'd say that it's analogous to the really good players in chess. Beginning and intermediate players think in terms of individual moves, maybe a couple of turns ahead. A lot of good intermediate players tend to develop skill at counter-punching--that is reacting to an opponent's mistakes--and it's possible to win a lot of games that way. But a real chess master has developed a gestalt sense of the game that lets him or her look at a board at any given point during the game and see all the best moves, automatically eliminating moves that would be mistakes. That's what puts them at a different level of play.

I think list analysis is important; I'm working to improve that aspect myself. I know my army well, and I know just enough about enemy armies that I don't need to ask most of the time about Strength or toughness or weapon skill when I'm rolling against them. In terms of enemy tactics, there are some pointed questions I ask at the start of every fight:

1. What are you keeping in reserves? I follow that one sometimes with "What do they do?"
2. That question, "What does this unit do" is a popular one for me as I try learning about other armies.
3. Where is your anti-tank? I ask them to point to their lascannons and melta guns and beam weapons and missile launchers so that I can pay attention to them in the game. I also ask where blast/ordinance weapons are.
4. What's the range on _____ guns? I like to know the range on pretty much everything to get a feel for what kind of army I'm playing against.

I'm sure that there will come a day when I know much more about enemy armies than I do now and don't need to ask those questions. People say, "Here's my list," and I say, "Don't bother, I don't know your codex." Instead, I'll ask some questions as the game goes along about wargear, and Eternal Warrior, and weaponry and AV. All these things are secondary to what Lukus already mentioned, which sort of stole the thunder from the post I was going to make. =p

1. Your list
2. Its Synergy
3. Your use of it.

Those three things are known quantities. Build an army list that meshes and works together in supporting each unit, that has the synergy to adapt and tackle particular threats. The question, "What is my answer to [Threat]" should never not have an answer. How you use that list matters too. There are some people who change lists all the time, looking for an advantage, who lose a game and change tactics. Personally, I use the same army list. I change it a little to fit whatever point scale I'm playing, but I bring the same army list to every game, every tournament, it never changes (anymore). It HAS evolved as I've revisited those three steps and had to answer the question "What is my answer to [Threat]" but the premise has been the same. I'd argue that I have a default advantage because I know precisely the capabilities of my army. I've been using the same units; I know their capabilities; I know how they work in conjunction with the rest of the army, how much they can handle, where to use them the best....I think there's something to be said about learning to play a single list very well and getting to know the ins and outs of it.

Granted, I'm a relative noob to 40k compared to some seasoned previous edition veterans, and eventually I'll be able to address things without so many questions, and probably use any combination of army list that I know equally well.

I'm not sure that anyone would disillusion themselves that a player who has an army list crafted for a theme and knows how to use it, and is constantly assessing the battlefield for ways to create and exploit an advantage is the same as a player who threw together an army list that they think is competitive and is throwing down at the table without the rest of the work.

And if I haven't tossed out enough bad analogies; when you play poker, you're playing your opponent and their cards as much as your own cards. Why should 40k be different?

Flavius Infernus wrote:Some players I have known secretly/deliberately weaken their lists out of courtesy when playing against less experienced players.

Yes but basically, as you yourself pointed out, he would do better with a better list.

And its not only about lists, but a "good" list has better odds of winning against a "poor" list.
However its not that black and white, as there are different lists that excel against other things, like a list that is great versus hordes but weak in the anti tank department, might win against a "good" horde list but lose horribly to a "poor" mech list.

The key is to make your list viable all around, and get the odds on your side, both pregame and whilst playing.

@SuperioR: I wouldn't characterize lists as a spectrum of lists from "poor" to "good."

To me it seems more like a threshold thing. There are lists that are "good enough," and lists that are "not good enough." A good enough list to me is as you say: balanced, capable of dealing on some level with pretty much anything an opponent might have. A list that can do everything a competent player needs it to do against a wide range of opponents is a basic expectation as far as I'm concerned.

But when both players have good enough lists, it becomes about the skill of the players and the list becomes pretty much irrelevant IMHO.

An advanced intermediate player analyzes lists and looks for strengths and weaknesses in a static way. But a really good player (and I don't think of myself as one, for the record) analyzes the battlefield and sees the strengths and weaknesses happening dynamically, regardless of lists.

Let me put it this way.

People say it's a dice game. That it's random. It's not.

How many times do you have to roll to do something? Just shooting requires roll to hit, roll to wound, then an armor or cover save. Considering how much dice gets thrown, it's almost a nonfactor in many cases. You could argue...well that "lucky" meltagun shot.

Well, I'll quote Freddie Roach, Manny Pacquiao's trainer,
"At the highest level there is no such thing as a lucky punch."

The true mark of a great player is the ability to win during adversity. Any monkey can beat someone down with a lash list. But only a great player wins games when he has bad dice rolls. If you haven't met that person, that's probably a good thing. However, you see the same names over and over every year. How come you aren't beating them then?

On the flip side, I've never seen a such thing as a perfect game at the highest level. Even our top players have room to grow.

Also, I don't think you can truly understand a great move until it's done to you. Watching isn't the same as playing. Only during a game will you think, "Why would he move that there?" Then when the result is unexpected you truly appreciate it better.

Let me add this as well:
40k is underevolved. You look at competitive video games like street fighter, and the top players are clearly heads and tails above the rest. That's because the game has evolved past the point of normalcy. 40k routinely changes codecies and edition and keeps the game from getting to that level. On top of that, top players in the US don't routinely travel to find other top players like competitive video game players do. If top players keep playing each other they eventually evolve and get better. Trust me, you don't want to get the game to that level. My eyes can see something to within a quarter inch even if they're 37 inches apart. I never need to measure to know if something is in range or not. There are other little things you can learn (like trig) that can affect the game in ways that haven't been explored. You don't want that to be a requirement to be successful.

Chess requires open book study. Why? Because the high level players broke the game down so much that open book became a basic. You don't want 40k to get to that level. I don't want to spend 3 weeks perfecting a technique just so I can play.

Oh let me add this as well:
Top 40k players don't like to collaborate with each other. They keep their tricks to themselves, for better or for worse. That's slowed down game evolvement too, and in my opinion that's a good thing. I know I do.

An understanding of statistics is important in this as well. Yes there is a degree of luck. But a point in 40k's favor, from a strategic perspective, is the sheer amount of dice being rolled.

Lets take flipping a coin. Flip it once and you win, congratulation, you won 100% of the time. Flip it 3 times, you may win 66% of the time. Ten times, maybe I win 70% of the time.

Flip it a thousand times, it is a good bet that we are close to 50/50. Flip it 1,000,000 times and it is nearly a mathematical certainty.

It isn't as random as people think, especially not over several games. A poor tactician may do win a single game against a superior one due to luck, but over the course of several games you should be able to tell who is better.

If you have a group players where none consistently outdo the others, congratulations, you have a group whose tactical skills are similar.

But I've had a lot of different groups in fifteen years of gaming. I'm confident in my tactical acumen, and can count on beating most people I play against, but there have been a few who I knew far outstripped me, and every time I managed to beat them it was a huge accomplishment.

Long story short, it is not as random as people think. The to hit/to wound/save system goes a LONG way towards marginalizing the effect of luck.

*edit*
Sorry, couple more things.
I agree with the poster above me, though under-evolved is not the word I would use. There are SO many ever changing possibilities in 40k that the game can't be broken down into a set of memorized actions like in chess or Street Fighter. This levels the playing field a lot, as even the most advanced players rarely see the hole picture.

On top of that, there is more to tactics than just moving people on the board. The meta game and psychological game are huge. Risk is a good example I think. In a five player game no one player could hope to beat the others through sheer tactics, and good players should get creamed from the start. But the psychological game is king there. As random as the game is, some people can win consistently. A smile, and understanding of your enemies, and a hidden dagger often gets you a lot farther than a chain sword and a battle cry.

Really tactics isn't about tricks or lists, but principles. A trick or tactic has a limited life span before a counter is formulated. Those who truly excel seem to see the big picture and combine sound tactical principles with an understanding of their opponent and a knowledge of the meta game.

You do everything you can possibly think of, and they still win. You bring your worst tooled cheese list and they use lists that are weak according to conventional wisdom, and still win.

What do you think the player is doing to get this result? I'm particularly curious about your observations as to what they're doing with relatively mundane lists...

Because...

In my experience, not that much really happens in a game of 40K. It's not a pitched battle of back and forth, changes in direction, etc. etc. By the start of turn 2, you pretty much know what's happening. "He's trying to send his bikes around the flank to my objective, and then the rest of his force is focused on stopping my push down the middle at his objective." Then you just play that out.

Ultimately I look at the game coming down to this:

1) Build a good list, so that you maximize your options in #2...
2) Look at his list and the mission, and figure out how you're going to win. This is usually not a very complex plan, due to the relatively small number of turns in a game of 40K.
3) Execute on #2, react correctly to bad/good rolls, play the game well (i.e. know all the rules, make all relevant measurement guesses right, use the right firepower for the right jobs, etc).

It seems like the best opportunity for surprise is #1. We see people coming up with crazy takes on a given Codex which are then the rock to everyone's scissors, and the originator has a good run. Nob Bikers and Immolator Spam come to mind here.

But you're talking about people dominating with unremarkable lists. So, if you're not bringing some crazy new list that nobody is ready for, you're basically reduced to winning in items 2 and 3. A "competent" player will probably have #3 pretty well figured out, so that leaves 2.

Does this view hold any water for you? And if so, what is happening in #2 that makes these players so remarkable?

And if I haven't tossed out enough bad analogies; when you play poker, you're playing your opponent and their cards as much as your own cards. Why should 40k be different?

I was thinking about poker when I was starting this thread. I think it's informative to consider poker, 40K and basketball, because of how competition works in each. For example, in poker, if I played the best player in the world for a hand, I could beat him fairly often. If I played one on one with an NBA player, I'd never beat him, ever. I probably couldn't even score. And I'm better at basketball than at poker.

So this is part of why I started this thread. It feels to me like the best 40K player in the world is probably only, say, 25% better than a comptent one, while the best basketball player in the world is something more like 250% better than a competent one.

This caused me to wonder about these suggestions of dominance and overkill on the miniatures table. I just don't see that level of superiority as even being possible in 40K.

Considering how much dice gets thrown, it's almost a nonfactor in many cases.

This is absolutely true, BUT... In many cases very small numbers of dice can have very big impacts.

Roll for first turn can be huge. One roll, major consequence. My Drop Pod list, for example, is WAY better going second.

And that's just one example. Seize the Initiative. Leadership tests (a high priced squad with Ld10 still manages to fail a Pinning test, totally changing the battle). Etc. etc. etc.

Yes, as more and more dice are rolled, the bell curve assures that nothing too crazy happens. But when one big outcome comes down to one or two dice, the randomness creeps back in.

If you haven't met that person, that's probably a good thing.

I don't think I have, I guess... But I'm interested in knowing what that person is doing to be so effective in 40K.

"Why would he move that there?"

I really don't have that experience... Whatever the other guy does, I know why he's doing it. I might question the utility of it, but I know what he's trying to do. If it works out for him, great, but it's not really shocking, it's just that he made his guess.

Games can be won or lost before setup with weak army lists, they can be won or lost with deployment strategy, they can be won or lost in the initial maneuvers, and they can be won or lost with dice. The best players minimize uncertainty (dice) and maximize what they can control, so, yeah, I can see skill being a fairly distinctive advantage. What you will often see is good players getting "bored" with successful armies and playing harder challenges in order to keep an edge with the game. A good player can win with a bad army or bad luck, but a bad player will still find a way to lose with a good army and good luck. I've found that most gaming clubs or groups, unless you're really fortunate, are usually dominated by a small group of skilled players with good armies, then a pecking order of average to below average players/armies.

In general, I think that skill is more important than list building. A good player with a "bad" list is more intimidating to me than a bad player with a good list. It seems to me that units/lists have "potential" and that your skill influences how much of that potential you can actually use. Someone with a "top tier" army who doesn't know what he's doing won't be able to use it to its full potential, and could very well be defeated by an army with less potential that is being used to the fullest.

I think more than half of what makes a good player good about pre game stuff.

I know this was really high up in the thread, but I agree 100% with this.

There really is ALOT more factors then just random dice rolls. Its true, that if you rely on just dice doing the work for you, your toast. Its the person playing, how they play, how they think, how the build the army, how they use the table/terrain, how well they know the rules and then its dice rolls.
Sure dice rolls can completely screw you in the butt. We have all had it happen. Then on the flip side Ive had 11 sluggas shoot, and KILL 7 space marines. Sure the odds are way low, but it happens. Just saying its all about dice is a bit crazy though. I think Im a pretty decent player, my oldest brother is one of the best SM players Ive ever seen. I used to play with a group when I was younger that had one of those "Big ass fish is a tiny pond" types. You simply could not beat the guy when he played Nids. But it wasnt just nids, he would take it easy on all of us and use handicaps and any army we could pick for him, and would usually kick us in the pants.

Thats just my 2cents

That's a misconception about poker. It's not about winning or losing. Effective poker is winning big and losing small. It is inevitable that you will lose hands, it's about how you lose them that determines your worth as a player.

As an example, think of a basketball game. Even the worst team will score at least one point right? But the better team has more points. You're looking at it wrong.

If you've seen top players play, they usually spend the first couple of turns working for position. If you don't see that in a game, then the players aren't very good.

No matter how good something is, it has a weakpoint. Exploiting weakpoints is how you beat a top list. Nothing is perfect in every situation. Understanding this fundamental concept is why top tournament armies often don't take the top spot.

Against a good player, you don't "look a list and figure out how to win". Against a good player, you look at his deployment and start considering how things will play out. I don't know what type of games you are playing, but the same list doesn't play the same way twice in a good player's hands if i'ts a decent list. If you're gonna beat a top player, you definitely need to be able to do this.

Besides, one of the benefits of 40k is it's entry level...it's easy to get into the game. In basketball, the game is old enough that you have to learn fundamentals and this or that before you can even play the game. THere's some of that in 40k, but we don't talk about such things ever.

I consider my abilities to see a position within a quarter inch a basic of 40k. Many strategies are unviable if you can't tow the line between 24" and 25". Do people ever talk about that? No. They don't.

Here's the thing too. How would people know I have this ability? Does it show during the game? It just looks like I"m always in range when I need to be. How would you know watching the game that I can do that? You wouldn't. That's but one of many things that good players do.

Lastly, your basketball comparison is unfair. In the 250% case, that's physical talent talking, not skill. I could, in fact, be more skilled than someone and always lose because my opponent is bigger. There is no such baloney in 40k. It's you and me, no matter how crippled you are, it's my wits vs. yours.

Phryxis wrote:

You do everything you can possibly think of, and they still win. You bring your worst tooled cheese list and they use lists that are weak according to conventional wisdom, and still win.

What do you think the player is doing to get this result? I'm particularly curious about your observations as to what they're doing with relatively mundane lists...

Because...

In my experience, not that much really happens in a game of 40K. It's not a pitched battle of back and forth, changes in direction, etc. etc. By the start of turn 2, you pretty much know what's happening. "He's trying to send his bikes around the flank to my objective, and then the rest of his force is focused on stopping my push down the middle at his objective." Then you just play that out.

I think poker is a good analogy, Phryx, but not in the way that you use it later in this post. Few games can be more random than poker, and for everybody who knows the rules and the odds, there's nothing really obscure to learn or perfect through rote practice. There's nothing like list-building in poker--everybody brings the same deck to the table--and there's nothing like physical ability or training as in basketball. But if you look at the list of the top poker players in the country, you find the same short list of master players over and over again beating everybody else. The only way there can be such a thing as a long-standing poker champion is that s/he must be doing something independent of the deck, the rules, and the element of random chance.

Based on my best guess about how master players think about 40K game (based mostly on their descriptions because, like I say, I don't consider myself one of them) is that they have a holistic, intuitive grasp of the game that allows them to look at the tabletop, immediately understand the best available options given all the various factors in play, and pick the best move.

When I look at a chess board, I see a lot of possible moves, but I don't know which ones are good and which ones are bad. Master chess players talk about how they look at the whole board and don't actually even "see" the bad moves anymore--only the good ones. All the really good players I've ever played against play comparatively quickly, and I think that's a sign of how they're really only working with a couple of options in mind because they've already automatically (unconsciously) evaluated and rejected all the bad ones. Also all the really good players I've played against almost never make a tactical mistake--or at least not one that I can see--but will always see when you make a mistake and know just how to exploit it. I think that's also part of the skill of being able to tell the good moves from the bad ones.

I think something that holds advanced intermediate players back is that we get bogged down in the details of units and lists, in our ideas of what units are supposed to be able to do and various tricks and techniques that--like all programmed routines--work fine unless something goes wrong. But a really good player will send that unit that's not supposed to be able to do X into the spot that it's not supposed to be going because he sees a weakness that unit can exploit that's drawn from the situation actually on the table, and not limited by ideas of how things are supposed to work.

And that seems, in my experience, to trump the mathammer, the synergistic-list-design obsession, the "psychological tricks", the Sun Tzu quotes (and Clausewitz quotes), the "which is better, Typhoons or MM/HF?" debates and all the other stuff that we advanced intermediate players spend all our time on. All that stuff is important and sometimes fun, but IMO it won't get you to the highest level of gameplay in 40K.

I have to admit, though, that I've only met a handful of these really really good players in 10 years of playing GW games. I've just been lucky enough to live in places where they were concentrated. The vast majority of players I play are at or slightly above my own level of play, and the games are semi-predictable in the way you describe, Phryx.

To explain in more depth about beating a top list, this is the example I use.

The power fist is considered always better than the power sword. That's because not only does the fist do more damage and can't be removed, but it can also hurt monstrous creatures, insta-kill characters, and destroy tanks.

Awesome.

Now let's say your power fist guy is in a situation where he fights a power weapon guy one on one. Who wins then?

So if you want to beat a powerfist, there is at least one situation where the power weapon is superior right? That says something about how to defeat something that's "always better".

The key in the game is to remember these concepts and to look for them. You can't usually actively plan them. But knowing about them means when the opportunity shows up, you make your opponent regret it. You do this enough and the small advantages start to add up.

Here's the other thing too: After the game, my opponent complains to me that his powerfists always die against me. "It's the dice!" is the complaint. I nod my head and shrug my shoulders. The dice indeed.

Opportunity and chance, thats what good players see over the bad ones. Ill give you an example

Lash of submission, one of the better powers in the game. A bad or even average player will almost always use this power to get a unit into charge range. I want to charge that with my prince, I want to charge those with my zerkers so ill lash them. And this works. A very good player will use lash to push shooty units behind buildings, to take units off objectives, pull stuff out of cover to be shot. Now this is pretty academic, and most people know about these tricks. But its the good players who can figure this stuff out without reading it on the internet.

As an example, think of a basketball game. Even the worst team will score at least one point right? But the better team has more points. You're looking at it wrong.

No, I think I'm just not making my point well enough... I was talking about playing one on one, then poker, then basketball, etc. Disorganized.

I understand that even the best poker players will lose hands, and that it's all about knowing the pot odds, betting right based on those odds, etc. I also understand that even bad basketball teams score some points in a game.

My point is this:

I'm nobody in the world of poker. If I played the best player in the world for, say, four hours, I'd probably have fewer chips. But I might not. The odds aren't great, but some non-trivial percentage of the time, I could win over that time period.

I'm also nobody in the world of basketball. If a team of players of skill similar to mine went against an NBA team for a single game, my team would NEVER EVER win. EVER.

The reason for this, in my estimation, is that there is a large component of luck in poker, and very little at all in basketball. I think 40K is more like poker.

Against a good player, you look at his deployment and start considering how things will play out.

I think we're saying the same thing. I said you "look at his list" because that's the baseline of what you will have to work from. For example, you might be forced to deploy first, in which case you're having to look at his list, and guess how he will deploy.

Fundamentally you're thinking "what is this guy going to do, and how am I going to defeat that?"

We all know that this involves seeing turns ahead. Saying good players do this is cliche at this point. I'm more interested in how accurately this can be done, given the vagaries of dice, and how much this is worth, given that some lists are just scissors to another list's paper.

That's why I'm particularly interested in the experiences of folks who are describing the guy kicking ass with the unremarkable list.

I consider my abilities to see a position within a quarter inch a basic of 40k.

I'll have to take some time to test this out. I rarely have trouble estimating distance, but I have no idea what the exact precision of my guesses are. What you're describing here could be ridiculous exaggeration, or totally reasonable, I really don't have a basis to judge.

Do people ever talk about that? No. They don't.

Sure they do... People are always very aware that (for example), a Chimera can drive 12", disembark 2", and then Melta out to 6", making 20" a magic number... I'm constantly aware of the "bands" of range on the table, and trying to be in the right space for a bike, or a Chimera, or counter charge infantry, or whatever.

An example of this, and how I put myself in a bad spot: I was playing a guy who was fielding Shrike. He won the roll to choose turn, stayed in reserve and made me go first with my Drop Pod list (no surprise). So I dropped on an objective, and then disembarked/ran to where I thought I was about 20" from the table edge. I had forgotten that Shrike gives Fleet. He assaulted me turn 1.

So, point being, I estimated the distance just fine, was well aware of the distances I needed to maintain, I just forgot that Shrike gave him Fleet, and that cost me.

It just looks like I"m always in range when I need to be.

Meh, there's a lot more to this than distance estimation. Half of the equation is the other guy's movements, and in many cases you're forced to not move in order to do what you need to do, so it's not just a matter of choosing to be 19" away, or what have you.

It's certainly a great skill to have, but it doesn't give you any extra range, or let you move when you can't, etc.

In the 250% case, that's physical talent talking, not skill. I could, in fact, be more skilled than someone and always lose because my opponent is bigger. There is no such baloney in 40k.

I disagree... In the end, any competition comes down to natural talent, and acquired/trained skill.

In basketball that natural talent tends to be very obvious. You don't have to look at Dwight Howard to notice that he's 6'11", has shoulders the size of his head, and a 40" vertical leap. Yes, the guy's a freakshow, and he could probably beat me in basketball the first time he picked up a ball.

However, there are other less visible talents. For example, somebody might have very good spatial processing in their brain, which lets them estimate distances very precisely. They might have very good math ability, allowing them to quickly and accurately estimate the likely outcomes of shooting, assaults, etc. They might have very good memory, focus, etc. etc.

The capabilities of the mind are far less visible, but in a game that's basically chance, experience and mental acuity, there's still a natural talent component.

The only way there can be such a thing as a long-standing poker champion is that s/he must be doing something independent of the deck, the rules, and the element of random chance.

Sorta... There are players who are known to be very good who don't win a WSOP (Phil Ivey). And then there are lots of randoms winning the WSOP, or making the final table, without being anybody of any particular note. There really aren't long standing champions, just players with good reputations. Take a look at the WSOP winners. There are about 40 winners, and maybe three guys ever won more than one.

I think there's a desire by competitors to seek perfection, and it's somewhat demoralizing to know that perfection in your chosen game might not mean as much as in others. Because of the effects of chance, I think poker and 40K muddy the distinction between an average player and a great player in a way that doesn't happen in basketball.

A better player is better in poker "most of the time." A better player in basketball is better all the time, in every way.

I'm still hoping to get some more concrete examples of what a great player does to win 40K, especially when playing an unremarkable list. Being good at sight measurement is a good example, but I'm looking for more.

I have trouble visualizing what this could be, given how "rough" control over a 40K army is.

I think baseball is actually a better analogy.

Take two baseball players' hitting record:

Player A bats .300
Player B bats .250

In a small number of samples, these two players will look, for all intents and purposes, identical. If each takes 20 swings, the difference between Player A and B is going to be 1 single hit or miss. Almost inconsequential.

And yet Player A is paid ten times as much as B, who struggles just to stay on the team. The difference between the two is that over hundreds of replications, Player A begins to substantially outperform Player B.

This is the problem with competitive 40k; the sample sizes are so very small that there's little opportunity to get a true 'representation' of a player's skill level. Added to that, all things are not equal; terrain can be favorable or not, matchups can be favorable or not (Rock lists like Nidzilla versus Paper lists like Dark Eldar), dice/rolling distributions can be favorable or not.

Over many hundreds of games, these factors won't matter; the better designed lists and better generals will eventually 'beat the spread' and settle into the top few percent of the Bell Curve as list variety and dice distributions are flushed out by the averages. In actual head-to-head competition, however, we simply don't get the opportunity for this to happen.

How good can a 40k player be? No idea. It's like a talent scout recruiting for the season but he only gets to watch the first half of one game.

I guess we'll have to disagree.

I do agree that it isnt' like basketball. It's too slow. Heck it isn't even as dramatic as chess. A competent player rarely just makes a strait up BAD move.

It's more about choosing the right move out of many possible GOOD moves. Unlike basketball or chess it isn't often a sudden move that changes things. It is about slowly stacking odds and planning for the future. That is how it is for most meticulous turn based strategy games.

Slowly they move themselves into the best position and try to move their opponent into a worse position. At the end of the game, if there is a significant difference in skill levels, the good tactician will be in a winning position, and often the loser will not know what he did wrong. And the truth is, he may NOT have done anything wrong. He made good choices every step of the way, but the good tactician made better ones, thought one step ahead, and manipulated the board.

I'm not an amazing tactician, but I am a competent one. I don't know how it is for you, but for me, when playing a strategy game, each unit has a set of possibilities for the future, and so does my opponent's. There are a number of possible layouts for future turns. Some are more likely then others, and some layouts are better for me than others. Some layouts offer me more choices, others less. A big part of any strategy game, for me, is getting them to get in the position I would like them to, and to shape the layout of future turns for my benefit. Lots of things affect what option my opponent may choose: perceived threat (most useful if you can get them to fear something more than they should, or less), past experience (my wife is terrified of terminators), perception of what I seem to be scared of, and finally how they think I will move. By manipulating those perceptions I can often get them to make the choice I prefer. Obviously I can't make them choose a bad choice, but I can often get them to choose the wrong good choice.

This shapes future turns, and if all went according to plan then hopefully near the end of the game my pieces are in a more advantageous position than my opponent's.

It is a lot like chess. A novice player sees possible moves, an intermediate player sees future moves, and advanced player sees future moves AND his opponents future moves, and attempts to influence how they will move.

It is fun to watch my wife's progress. When we first got married she simply reacted to what she saw happen, and lost nearly every game we played (not bragging, I've been gaming for 15 years, and I introduced her too it). Now she reacts to what she thinks will happen and has been able to stalemate me, and even pull off the occasional win. And as she plays more and more she begins to anticipate more and more, and I find manipulating and defeating her becomes more and more difficult, and thus the games more fun.

So like I said, I guess we will have to disagree. You seem pretty stuck on the fact that in your area you don't see it, but I've experienced it enough that I have little doubt.

I agree with OP and I must say. When I give new players advice and when I'm asked the question "whats the best army?" I say "You can have a dicklist but if you roll crap its over."

Warhammer is all abut playing the odds, just like a good poker player, a good warhammer player can look at a a situation and figure out what course of action will yield the most benificial results with comparativly low risk margin. You can take huge risks and have them pay off, but that is luck, skill is about consistency. Plus 98% of the game is played before the models are even down. Sure a crappy list can wipe the floor with a great one, but again, not consistently.

I tend to agree with OP. I think 40k is intentionally written to keep the playing field as flat as possible so that, all other things being equal*, new comers are just as likely to win as old hands. That would be, after all, the best marketing strategy (braces for flaming). If you notice, the people who seem to hate GW rules the most are the more competitive players. All the talk about skill seems like 90% ego-masturbation, 10% truth to me.

*To consider that slice of things included under "all things being equal" there's ability/desire to memorize rules (not just your army's), list-building motive (fluff v. tournament emphases), and desire or capability to IRL intimidate/put off your opponent (there are a disproportionate amount of jerks in this hobby).