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quick edit: Maybe this belongs in Dakka Discussions? I felt tactics was a better place, but this may be more of a general discussion topic. Feel free to move it if necessary

I was just reading this thread: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/340531.page and it got me really thinking... How does one become a successfully competitive player? What factors contribute to the success? How much does dice rolling factor in? Do you need to be playing the new "hot" armies to be successful?

Let's see if I can keep this to a musing that folks can jump in on.

My local gaming group has an eclectic personality/style to it. We've got mostly casual gamers with two or three who are bit more competitive than others. We have a diverse mix of armies, and not one army is overly represented. We have a good mix of MEQ and GEQ armies, and some horde players as well. Whenever we game, we always have a good time, and it is obvious that some folks are "better" than others. We value the fun factor more than winning/losing. But despite the level of skill present among our group, which with some of us is more prevalent than others, we find that whenever we head to tournaments, we get our heads handed to us. That's all fine and dandy really, we play more for the fun/love of the game than we do to win. But I'll be damned if winning isn't sweet.

So now, I can bring up the link I mentioned above. I was reading through it and I saw that there was a lot of competitive attitudes matched with success on the battlefield. I'm quite envious of that, their ability to take the game "seriously" but still have it be a fun game. But I worry that the need to be competitive ruins the love of the game. That may not be the case with all players, but I worry in my own situation, as I can get quite competitive. (I used to wrestle in high school, and compare the tournament scene of 40k to the tournament scene of my wrestling days. Maybe not the best of comparisons, but I digress.)

Now let's see if I can tie this all together. I want to become a successful competitive player. I've been playing 40k for a little over two years now. I've won one tournament in that time, against a relatively new player base. But a win is a win, right?

Anyway, Dakka, help me out here. How can I up my game to be competitive? How can I become a competitively successful player that still loves the game. Is it possible to play, win, and still have fun despite facing many, many losses? Does practice just make perfect? Or is it the latest, greatest army that determines success?

If this is written in a very muddled fashion or is difficult to understand, please let me know so that I can better explain. If the above is too muddled, I want to know one thing: How can I up my game to be competitive, successful, and still have fun. Thanks guys

Firstly, you need to be familiar with the rules, and thus the capabilities of all armies. That's right, all of them.

Secondly, you need to be familiar with the missions, as most people lose by trying to exterminate the enemy rather than achieve the mission (even when the mission is to exterminate the enemy!).

Thirdly, you need to practice, practice, practice. This is so that you can build an intuitive grasp of the game, particularly being able to judge distances, but also so you can choose the proper opening/deployment to suit your army and your opponent's own opening/deployment.

Well, I was going to link to dash's awesome thread at http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/314983.page, but then I found that it's edited out. :(

Nurglitch wrote:Firstly, you need to be familiar with the rules, and thus the capabilities of all armies. That's right, all of them.

Secondly, you need to be familiar with the missions, as most people lose by trying to exterminate the enemy rather than achieve the mission (even when the mission is to exterminate the enemy!).

Thirdly, you need to practice, practice, practice. This is so that you can build an intuitive grasp of the game, particularly being able to judge distances, but also so you can choose the proper opening/deployment to suit your army and your opponent's own opening/deployment.

I am the "Go-To" guy for the rules in our group. I know them better than anyone else around. I recognize FAQ's and Erratas as "house rules" per se, and am critical any time there is a rules dispute. I'm also pretty savvy on knowing how certain rules can be twisted. I'm fairly current on the "general" meta, meaning I know who's hot, what to expect from certain armies, and pride myself on knowing my enemy almost as good as I know my own army.

I know the game, and I know it really well. It just seems that no matter how adept I am, there is always someone that much better. That's a fact of life in things other than wargaming. It has seemed though, that despite my best efforts and tactics, it usually comes down to the superior army, not the superior general.

Pretty much, you spend a lot of time doing it. You need to know what will happen based on any decision you make. You might think, well, it's a dice game, anything can happen - and in one specific roll, you'd be right. But, over the course of a game, you're making hundreds of rolls, an math plays its part.

You need to be able to make correct decisions. That means knowing what is vital and what you can suffer through. The big scary unit your opponent has may just be a distraction, while the small unit of five guys you've been ignoring might be the key to victory.

All of this is based in knowledge. You need to know what your guys are capable of, but also, what any enemy force is capable of. You need to be willing to adjust your base approach to what your opponent has presented.

You need to keep up with the meta-game. As new codexes are released, you need to figure out what they're adding to the scene, and what changes you expect in other people's armies as they change to address the new codex too.

Schnitzel wrote: It just seems that no matter how adept I am, there is always someone that much better.

There is, accept it and move on.

Schnitzel wrote: It has seemed though, that despite my best efforts and tactics, it usually comes down to the superior army, not the superior general.

That's a very self-defeating attitude. You're declaring your losses to be the result of things outside of your control rather than accepting responsibility. If you think there's nothing you can do, then there will never be anything you can do.

Unless you're playing Necrons, Tau, or Eldar, it's not the army's fault that you would lose.

First of all, all the internet talking heads have is anecdotal evidence of how awesome they are. Everyone has lost. And not everyone started great. I'm pretty good in my meta, but I still lose enough to keep me humble and always practicing. The thing is, when you read blogs or you read posts from a competitive player's point-of-view, you don't often find them writing about games they've lost. Does this mean they don't lose? I don't believe so. Writing about losing, however, is not nearly as fun as writing about winning. And then, once I've gotten a few winning articles under my belt, then you'll take my advice, right?

Personally, what I believe makes you successfully competitive is practice and knowledge of what your army can do. People will try to convince you that there is some sort of mysterious 'tier' system that rates the codices and that if you play with a certain codex, you're more likely to win. I think it's all bull. The game is more about the person behind the list than the list itself. Sure, there is an amount of luck and cohesive listbuilding that go into winning, but it is more about being comfortable and knowing your rules/army in and out. I play Eldar as my main army, Tyranids as my second army and I am always playing around with a different third army. Most people don't consider Eldar competitive, but I seem to do damn well with them. Again, anecdotal evidence - but I've lost my fair share with them as well. I've lost enough to know what works for me and what doesn't. I wouldn't be as good with Eldar as I am if I hadn't lost that much. You don't learn anything much from winning. You learn after you've lost.

Another thing that I think has contributed to my skillset is always playing different people with different builds. My brother and I travel a lot, so we always see new people and new armies, but we regular Dicehead in Tennessee for our tournaments. Why do we do this? Because the players up there are good - better than my local gaming scene. And playing better players makes you a better player. Even playing cheesy interent lists (which don't usually work out because the person fielding them doesn't know the army in and out - he's relying on a build to do the work for him) or min/maxed lists will help you, because you're facing them. If you don't win, so what? You've learned what not to do. Always surround yourself with better players. Another thing that is tough for the internet 'champions' is that they're not readily willing to admit there are others out there better than them. But there's always someone better. There is one guy that we play with in Tennessee that I've only beaten once and it was a team game. Even killing some parts of his army are moral victories. I knew I was getting better when I held his army to a draw and he told me a few months later that after that game he changed his list around. That, in and of itself, was telling me I was getting better.

Not to mention going to smaller venues around my locale and easily placing. I think the two keys are knowing your army and always playing the best you can find. That will make you better, hands down. The list and the codex are secondary. And the dice are tertiary. After all, you can't influence your luck (unless you bathe your dice in the blood of virgins, like I do.)

Schnitzel wrote:it usually comes down to the superior army, not the superior general.

The two are one and the same really. Building a strong army that matches your play style is part of being good. Copying one of the "top lists" that doesn't mesh with the way you think or the way you want to play won't get you very far.

To be good, even with the "best" lists you need to practice, practice, practice. You won’t do that with an army that does nothing for you in the fun department.

Schnitzel wrote:
I know the game, and I know it really well. It just seems that no matter how adept I am, there is always someone that much better. That's a fact of life in things other than wargaming. It has seemed though, that despite my best efforts and tactics, it usually comes down to the superior army, not the superior general.

All armies have weaknesses. Some of the newer (better) armies have fewer weaknesses, or cost less points, allowing them to take more units to cover those weaknesses. But, there are ways to play around these things.

After each game, ask yourself, what could I have done differently to affect a different outcome. Don't ever say 'rolled better'. If you lost a game, identify at least one concrete choice you made that could have made the game different.

If that's not working, break it down further. Each turn, ask yourself, 'what if I did this instead'. Find a friend who is also interested in improving, and work through games turn-by-turn. Take back things, try other things. Playtesting is not about playing games, it is about evaluating possibilities.

Basically what Redbeard said: It's not enough to know (1 & 2)., you also need to be able to translate that knowledge into experience and thus skill (3).

For example, we all know that Space Marines are WS4. Okay, so that does that do? Well, we can infer from the WS of other models that the Space Marines will hit them variously on 3+, 4+, and 5+.

Given that knowledge, and other data, you need to thread the path between the current decision facing you, such as whether or not to charge an enemy unit, and winning the game. I find it helps if you start by working backwards from the mission's victory conditions.

daedalus wrote:Well, I was going to link to dash's awesome thread at http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/314983.page, but then I found that it's edited out. :(

I actually referenced that in the OP. It was what made me make this thread to be honest

Play alot play a good list and be good.

I want to thank you all so far for your words. There's a lot to respond to, and I don't want to leave anyone out, so I'm going to do my best to create a general response to everyone.

I'm a Dark Angel player (see sig and title :p) and up until their FAQ came out, winning games was a struggle. But I enjoy the synergy between utilizing Deathwing and Ravenwing. I have found though, that that particular build leaves me with few models on the board and am easily overwhelmed by sheer numbers against some armies. As I've since learned, Ravenwing make an excellent shooting screen for my Deathwing to advance through. A tactic I have since utilized to much success in many cases.

There are however, a few cases where it didn't matter what I did, I couldn't dent the enemy. 'Ard Boyz last year, I couldn't keep up with a Space Wolf player. Whatever I did/tried to do, he just managed to do better. There's a definite skill there, he knew his army much better than I knew mine (and I thought I knew my army pretty well! Not needing to look in my codex for point costs, special rules, etc).

Thinking back on my last few tournaments/outings with my Dark Angels, I definitely see a certain level of cockiness present in my attitude. Thinking I know my army better than they know theirs would be a benefit. This was of course, not as much of a factor as I had thought. Simple mistakes, like charging the wrong unit (bait and switch on the enemies end) or allocating a wound to the wrong guy, have definitely been present in my past.

I think, and please chime in on this, if I did up battle reports of my games, I'll have something to study/work on. There I can see what I did right, what I did wrong, and what worked, but certainly shouldn't have.

Is it recommended that I find someone in my gaming group looking to be more competitive? Team up with them and just drill our armies against each other? Maybe utilize the various codieces we have amongst us and play proxy battles against different armies?

Schnitzel wrote:I think, and please chime in on this, if I did up battle reports of my games, I'll have something to study/work on. There I can see what I did right, what I did wrong, and what worked, but certainly shouldn't have.

I don't know that you need to do formal reports, but I spend my time in between rounds at tournaments going through the same sort of process. It's good to do it while it's still fresh.

I know some guys that when they lose they just want to move on and not think about the loss. That is the exact opposite of what you need to do. You need to spend lots of time with your losses, figure out why it happened, and how to prevent it in the future.

Schnitzel wrote:
if I did up battle reports of my games, I'll have something to study/work on. There I can see what I did right, what I did wrong, and what worked, but certainly shouldn't have.

I don't do batreps (although I'd like to start), but I've heard that they are an amazing way to improve. You can keep the battle fresh - the pictures help you review your mistakes and writing things down will help you to remember why you may have done something the way you did. Especially if you write something down and say, "Now, why did I do that, when that unit was right in front of me?!" or something to that effect.

To connect it back to wrestling in high school, as the OP mentions, we used to tape our matches and rewatch them to see where we went wrong, to see what we did right, etc. While a full on pictoral battle report may be a bit over kill for what me, I do think a pad of paper and a pen next to me during my games may help. And if you guys are suggesting it, I'd say it's at least worth a try.

Thanks again for everyone who is contributing

Don't forget to keep track of your dice rolls. Sometimes the dice really do screw you over, and keeping a tally of your actions and their results (if not the particular rolls) lets you figure out what might have happened otherwise.

I would say that practice is the best way but thats strictly not true.

When you play over and over again you may never change your play style or types od decisions you make so practice can be wasteful. My best advice is Play a person then after the game talk to each other about what you should of done or what you think you would of been weakened by.

This helped me a lot when I was a complete noob, as it gave me a different perspective of the battlefield.

My first thing I done was pick someone who uses the same army as me (and are skilled) and practice with them. Once you know how to defeat your own army you know how to defend it. -There is a difference between thinking you know and physically playing that way.

Heh, it used to be the motto of my old swimming club that practice didn't make perfect, only perfect practice made perfect. Which is actually kind of true, as slacking off in practice simply trains you to slack off in the race, as I learned to my detriment...

Interesting topic.
Rules are the most important. If you know how everything works then you know what the possible outcomes are and how the final result can be manipulated.
Reading the BRB several times, visiting YMDC frequently playing different armies and/or lists help with this.
Experience comes next. It is one thing knowing a rule and another applying it in different situations. Experience also boost other skills such a distance judgement, calculating your chance of success in combat etc. The best way to gain experience is to practice constantly and get games against DIFFERENT opponents. This is critical otherwise you get used to playstyles and not variety of tactics. The opponent you want to play against the most is the one you can't beat.
Finaly it's the planning. Being a competitive player means that against most opponents you can win before rolling a single dice. I am reffering to the army list and your deployment/gameplan. If the list is taylored to be able to deliver in most situations and you have a sound plan then you will find that once the dice start rolling you will be walking it.
Once you have reached a certain level adapting to situations in game should not be too hard as if your are strong in the above sectors then you will have forseen the possibility and thought of a some way to manage it. If you have no answer to something that pops up in game then you are lacking in the "planning" section

With regard to your comment about superior armies it's not that simple. The skill of the general is the biggest decider, after all it is the general that builds the army that he fields. I could give several of my friends DoP battlewagon orks list or one of the Spacewolves-Bloodangels lists from YTTH and could still beat them with codex Deamonhunters because they are not competitive and are lacking in the fields above. That beeing said, if the skill of the generals is close then the tools at his disposal do make all the difference. A master ninja with a sword is scarier than a master ninja with a pointy stick.. but if you are a baby seal your fecked no matter who you meet

EDIT : Talking to your opponent after games is also critical. Hopefully it will help you notice critical points in the game where the battle could have gone either way or a point/mistake where the games was decided. It will definitely offer a different perspective on the same battle

Schnitzel wrote:I actually referenced that in the OP. It was what made me make this thread to be honest

Wow. So you did. That'll teach me to post sleep deprived.

Here's my 2 cents:

1. In addition to knowing all the rules and generally all the stats & special abilities of all the units in every army, it's also a basic expectation IMO that you know all the common tactics & gimmicks that different armies use and how to counter them. For example, if you see LS Storms in your opponent's army and he gets first turn, you have to know how your army will counter his turn 1 cheese assault.

2. You need an army that is capable of doing what you need it to do. It doesn't need to be the latest Intertubes power build, but it should be optimized for your own playstyle and codex so that it can provide the various resources (firepower, durability, mobility) that you as a player need.

3. As already mentioned, play against the best players you can find as often as you can. Ask questions after the game--the more specific the better--about what your opponent was expecting, or things he did that didn't make sense to you at the time. This is how you pick up tips on deploying, how your army can win specific missions, and how veteran players think.

Some people have a lot of success by building one army and sticking to it (with minor tweaks) for years, getting to know it really well. Some people do better by playing a lot of different armies from different codexes to get an idea about how armies they're likely to face work (I'm the second kind). I think either approach works.

I wrote an article on this subject you may find interesting.

http://captureandcontrol.blogspot.com/2011/03/anatomy-of-good-player.html?showComment=1299711224424#c8588367673213518258

Check it out, it may prove helpful.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Flavius Infernus wrote:Here's my 2 cents:


Some people have a lot of success by building one army and sticking to it (with minor tweaks) for years, getting to know it really well. Some people do better by playing a lot of different armies from different codexes to get an idea about how armies they're likely to face work (I'm the second kind). I think either approach works.

This is definitely true. I find myself building a lot of armies and playing them to learn how they tick but choosing ONE army that I want to really learn well.

sn0zcumb3r wrote:A master ninja with a sword is scarier than a master ninja with a pointy stick.. but if you are a baby seal your fecked no matter who you meet

I love how this is really summarizes, yet doesn't detract from what you said. There's so much good advice in here. I hope newer players stumble on to this thread and can find some wisdom in it.

Here's a question for you all: Do you run the same list every time, do you use a different list every time, or do you have a basic "skeleton" list that you start with, then build upon for variation?



Automatically Appended Next Post:

OverwatchCNC wrote:I wrote an article on this subject you may find interesting.

http://captureandcontrol.blogspot.com/2011/03/anatomy-of-good-player.html?showComment=1299711224424#c8588367673213518258

Check it out, it may prove helpful.

I've book marked it for later tonight when I can dedicate more time to it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Flavius Infernus wrote:Here's my 2 cents:

1. In addition to knowing all the rules and generally all the stats & special abilities of all the units in every army, it's also a basic expectation IMO that you know all the common tactics & gimmicks that different armies use and how to counter them. For example, if you see LS Storms in your opponent's army and he gets first turn, you have to know how your army will counter his turn 1 cheese assault.

2. You need an army that is capable of doing what you need it to do. It doesn't need to be the latest Intertubes power build, but it should be optimized for your own playstyle and codex so that it can provide the various resources (firepower, durability, mobility) that you as a player need.

3. As already mentioned, play against the best players you can find as often as you can. Ask questions after the game--the more specific the better--about what your opponent was expecting, or things he did that didn't make sense to you at the time. This is how you pick up tips on deploying, how your army can win specific missions, and how veteran players think.

Some people have a lot of success by building one army and sticking to it (with minor tweaks) for years, getting to know it really well. Some people do better by playing a lot of different armies from different codexes to get an idea about how armies they're likely to face work (I'm the second kind). I think either approach works.

This ties into my next question of list building, and I think it answers it pretty well with what I've bolded.

Schnitzel wrote:

Here's a question for you all: Do you run the same list every time, do you use a different list every time, or do you have a basic "skeleton" list that you start with, then build upon for variation?

Generally speaking I use a CORE or Skeleton for my army, something I know works well and will provide me with a solid base.

Salamanders= TH/SS termies and Vulkan
Space Wolves= Long Fangs OR Thunderwolf Cavalry
Chaos Marines= My Slaanesh Terminators, I love them get over it.
Imperial Guard= 4 Squads of Veterans with Plasma or Meltaguns
Blood Angels= Librarian and Honor Guard with Jump Packs
Tyranids= Swarmlord

One thing that hasn't been mentioned yet: Do any ethical thing it takes to win. By ethical I mean don't cheat, don't bully, etc. Otherwise, look at your losses to figure out what went wrong, and then do whatever is necessary to fix it. Be willing to drop underperforming units. Take risks when you need to. One thing I know I need to get better at is estimating distances without measuring, so I'm starting to practice that on it's own.

Obviously, you shouldn't make any changes that would ruin the fun of playing the game, and being a jerk has no place in our hobby, but the less attached you are playing a particular way, and the less you care about catering to the preferences of other players the more options you will have. In my limited experience, a lot of people choose to limit the effectiveness of their army, and therefore worsen their results, because they think "Missile spam is cheesy" or "Razorspam is boring to play". You don't have to play in a way you don't enjoy, but you limit your competitiveness if you are prone to thinking this way. The best solution to players who don't like facing armies they think are cheesy, unfair or whatever is to play against someone else.

Schnitzel wrote:


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Flavius Infernus wrote:Here's my 2 cents:

2. You need an army that is capable of doing what you need it to do. It doesn't need to be the latest Intertubes power build, but it should be optimized for your own playstyle and codex so that it can provide the various resources (firepower, durability, mobility) that you as a player need.

This ties into my next question of list building, and I think it answers it pretty well with what I've bolded.

For about the first four or five years that I was playing I didn't improve much because I was playing lists that were really suboptimal. The first time I stumbled across an optimized list by trial and error (it was an Eldar harlequin assault list back when those armies ruled) and took it to a tournament, I beat players who I had never beaten before in my life. Unfortunately I'm a slow learner and I thought it was I who had improved, rather than my list, so I went back to weak lists and couldn't figure out why I was losing again.

Then I realized it was because I, the player, often knew exactly what I needed to to do win, but my army wasn't capable of doing what I needed. It just didn't have the units or firepower or durability that I as a player needed. In a sense, I was a better player than my army lists.

I still like to experiment and try to make subopitmal things work. But when I want to play competitively, I know from experience what armies in my collection will do the job for me.

I am in no way a great player, but I know 2 advices to make you compettive.

1: Not all advice is good.

This one is kind of hard to se, but it is good to keep in mind. The advice you are looking for is the good advice, the top 10/5%. If all advice was good, then all people would be playing good. You are looking for the good advice witch is good. On the internet if there is one idea that is easy to understand, but one idea that is better but harder to understand will usualy lead to the intenrnett saying the best advice is good, and spamming the medocer advice. Also, on the internett since it is easier to discuss lists instead of actual play sitiations people tend to discuss list building and not playing skill.

2: Use the power of posetive thinking.

Moast players give up in there head before they lose. That is usualy the same as loosing. I took mitivation psycology at the universaty, and as soon as you focus on negative thinking patterns you will have a harder time loosing since your skill will be fighting against 2 people. Moast people who do it great in sports have a very very very keen brain. They are very good at motivating themselves, going through what they must do in there head, and then do it. And if they do not winn they will not admit it until after the competition.

If you are finding yourself in negative thought patterns about your disabilaty to pull of a game, or a tournament, then start focusing on all the silver linings in the cloud.

Good luck.

I run several list. See point 2 in my comments.
Try out various list that you think will work. Then establish what does work by experience and from opponents opinions. You will now have a core to your army. After that you build around it adding to cover parts where you feel the list is weakest(or to buff your strengths).
Doing this for more than one list at a time, and helping a friend, who plays a different race to you, to do the same gives you an excellent feel for the game and different armies capabilities.

Redbeard wrote:

All armies have weaknesses. Some of the newer (better) armies have fewer weaknesses, or cost less points, allowing them to take more units to cover those weaknesses. But, there are ways to play around these things.

After each game, ask yourself, what could I have done differently to affect a different outcome. Don't ever say 'rolled better'. If you lost a game, identify at least one concrete choice you made that could have made the game different.

If that's not working, break it down further. Each turn, ask yourself, 'what if I did this instead'. Find a friend who is also interested in improving, and work through games turn-by-turn. Take back things, try other things. Playtesting is not about playing games, it is about evaluating possibilities.

This is some great advice. Any post game between a good friend of mine and I always start with "So what worked...or what went wrong?". Just talking to your opponent post game to see what he was thinking at certain turns kind of raises your consciousness. Places where you thought he messed up, he was baiting, places where you had a missed opportunity, etc. Post game chatter is always insightful.

The only thing I would stress (which has already been mentioned) is know the damn army you're playing. You simply cannot make informed decisions....if you're not informed.