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These sort of threads have been coming up since time immemorial. "Don't tell me I'm playing the game wrong when you're playing the game wrong" Acting like one side is ruining the game and their side is the only correct side to play. CAAC/WAAC people acting like playing CAAC makes you a neanderthal and WAAC makes you a jackass. I wonder if other gaming hobbies have such a civil war going on against people who play casual and people who play ranked games.

You shouldn't have to rationalize what you like and you shouldn't hold others to like what you like. Do people really enjoy arguing this for so many years about the same thing?

 Gamerely wrote:
I wonder if other gaming hobbies have such a civil war going on against people who play casual and people who play ranked games.

You shouldn't have to rationalize what you like and you shouldn't hold others to like what you like. Do people really enjoy arguing this for so many years about the same thing?

Coming from an MTG background, and especially EDH-magic, CAAC/WAAC players are so much worse there than I've ever seen in 40k.

But this attitude permeates any game that has, or at least pretends to have, a tournament level.

Clay_Puppington wrote:

 Gamerely wrote:
I wonder if other gaming hobbies have such a civil war going on against people who play casual and people who play ranked games.

You shouldn't have to rationalize what you like and you shouldn't hold others to like what you like. Do people really enjoy arguing this for so many years about the same thing?

Coming from an MTG background, and especially EDH-magic, CAAC/WAAC players are so much worse there than I've ever seen in 40k.

But this attitude permeates any game that has, or at least pretends to have, a tournament level.

QFT, any MTG event above FNM has a smattering of people who take it a bit too seriously, it's most of the reason I stopped and generally just muck about with EDH

 Peregrine wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:
There is, however, a fairly obvious correlation between how long someone has been playing and how many models they have in their collection and how well they know the ins and the outs of the rules.

But knowing is only part of the situation. Most of the time the issue with entitled "casual" players and the asymmetrical obligation isn't dealing with a clueless newbie who is still trying to figure out how the rules work, it's an experienced player who has had plenty of opportunities to learn the game but deliberately chooses to bring a weak list (whether out of strict adherence to fluff or virtue signalling about how "casual" they are). Very few people have any objection to toning down a list when giving a newbie a learning game.

I feel like it’s important to tone down your list against noobs, but it’s also important to not lose on purpose to them. If your playing a noob, I almost feel it’s an obligation to play well as you can so that they learn better. Keep in mind, I’m not talking about their first couple games, but the only way you stop being a noob is by getting nipped by your mistakes.

Honestly, I always ran the same list no matter what, but would pull some punches ingame, not care as much about perfect spacing, etc.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Honestly, I always ran the same list no matter what, but would pull some punches ingame, not care as much about perfect spacing, etc.

My policy has always been to do the exact opposite. Use (and point out) proper tactics, but run a very toned-down casual list, like an all footslogging wych cult list or something.

the_scotsman wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Honestly, I always ran the same list no matter what, but would pull some punches ingame, not care as much about perfect spacing, etc.

My policy has always been to do the exact opposite. Use (and point out) proper tactics, but run a very toned-down casual list, like an all footslogging wych cult list or something.

I get where you are coming from but some lists like that are innately more one-dimensional and have less play options. In 7th I ran the below list (the one with the Warband) as it had a small bit of everything.

And I had planned for this list prior to 8th:

I maintain a big part of the issue is that in 40k it's trivially easy to pick a lot of units that you like the look of, that even fit the background as GW has defined it or to imitate something seen in White Dwarf, and then just get completely curbstomped game after game after game by lists that ignore anything other than "most optimal" choices, min-maxing everything from unit selection to unit equipment.

That, in and of itself, is the biggest problem in the game. There is such a huge gulf between a "regular" army and an "optimized" one. You should not IMHO be penalized so much by choosing to NOT take all plasma guns in a squad but instead taking several different weapons or even just 1 plasma gun instead of 4, for example, or because you want to take a unit of Assault Marines or Possessed or Crisis Suits. And yet, you often are. Taking tactical squads, for example, is probably the fluffiest thing you can do but is vastly inferior to just taking naked scout squads to optimize Command Points, or whatnot.

Wayniac wrote:
I maintain a big part of the issue is that in 40k it's trivially easy to pick a lot of units that you like the look of, that even fit the background as GW has defined it or to imitate something seen in White Dwarf, and then just get completely curbstomped game after game after game by lists that ignore anything other than "most optimal" choices, min-maxing everything from unit selection to unit equipment.

That, in and of itself, is the biggest problem in the game. There is such a huge gulf between a "regular" army and an "optimized" one. You should not IMHO be penalized so much by choosing to NOT take all plasma guns in a squad but instead taking several different weapons or even just 1 plasma gun instead of 4, for example, or because you want to take a unit of Assault Marines or Possessed or Crisis Suits. And yet, you often are. Taking tactical squads, for example, is probably the fluffiest thing you can do but is vastly inferior to just taking naked scout squads to optimize Command Points, or whatnot.

I actually think that an even worse problem is for 2 players, both picking what they like the look of, or even that they like the background of, or to imitate something seen in White Dwarf, and then one curbstomps the other game after game.

For example, if you have one player that likes Baneblades Imperial Knights (and only wants to play them), and another player who really really likes Primaris Marines and only plays those, then their first 2k game is going to go the same as every subsequent game, and it'll be unfun for both, even if their armies are built using exactly the same "innocent" manner, until one of them abandons the army and theme they adore to play something else.

That's an even worse problem. Min-maxers beating casuals is, comparatively, easy to solve.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
I maintain a big part of the issue is that in 40k it's trivially easy to pick a lot of units that you like the look of, that even fit the background as GW has defined it or to imitate something seen in White Dwarf, and then just get completely curbstomped game after game after game by lists that ignore anything other than "most optimal" choices, min-maxing everything from unit selection to unit equipment.

That, in and of itself, is the biggest problem in the game. There is such a huge gulf between a "regular" army and an "optimized" one. You should not IMHO be penalized so much by choosing to NOT take all plasma guns in a squad but instead taking several different weapons or even just 1 plasma gun instead of 4, for example, or because you want to take a unit of Assault Marines or Possessed or Crisis Suits. And yet, you often are. Taking tactical squads, for example, is probably the fluffiest thing you can do but is vastly inferior to just taking naked scout squads to optimize Command Points, or whatnot.

I actually think that an even worse problem is for 2 players, both picking what they like the look of, or even that they like the background of, or to imitate something seen in White Dwarf, and then one curbstomps the other game after game.

For example, if you have one player that likes Baneblades Imperial Knights (and only wants to play them), and another player who really really likes Primaris Marines and only plays those, then their first 2k game is going to go the same as every subsequent game, and it'll be unfun for both, even if their armies are built using exactly the same "innocent" manner, until one of them abandons the army and theme they adore to play something else.

That's an even worse problem. Min-maxers beating casuals is, comparatively, easy to solve.

Yes, which is still a fundamental game design problem and one that GW seems content to ignore in favour of just stating that the onus is on the players, and in your case the person who likes Primaris Marines and the person who likes [Superheavy of Choice] basically should not play each other since they want different things out of the game. Unfortunately, short of a rules revamp, there is no way around such a thing other than actually talking to their opponent. If neither player wants to budge, for example if the [Superheavy of Choice] person absolutely must play 3 of them to get any enjoyment whatsoever out of the game and the Primaris player really doesn't want to (or can't) deal with that, then they need to just understand that a game they play will not be fun at all. The problem is that there needs to be a line drawn, regardless of if someone gets "hurt", because that's not sustainable.

Wayniac wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
I maintain a big part of the issue is that in 40k it's trivially easy to pick a lot of units that you like the look of, that even fit the background as GW has defined it or to imitate something seen in White Dwarf, and then just get completely curbstomped game after game after game by lists that ignore anything other than "most optimal" choices, min-maxing everything from unit selection to unit equipment.

That, in and of itself, is the biggest problem in the game. There is such a huge gulf between a "regular" army and an "optimized" one. You should not IMHO be penalized so much by choosing to NOT take all plasma guns in a squad but instead taking several different weapons or even just 1 plasma gun instead of 4, for example, or because you want to take a unit of Assault Marines or Possessed or Crisis Suits. And yet, you often are. Taking tactical squads, for example, is probably the fluffiest thing you can do but is vastly inferior to just taking naked scout squads to optimize Command Points, or whatnot.

I actually think that an even worse problem is for 2 players, both picking what they like the look of, or even that they like the background of, or to imitate something seen in White Dwarf, and then one curbstomps the other game after game.

For example, if you have one player that likes Baneblades Imperial Knights (and only wants to play them), and another player who really really likes Primaris Marines and only plays those, then their first 2k game is going to go the same as every subsequent game, and it'll be unfun for both, even if their armies are built using exactly the same "innocent" manner, until one of them abandons the army and theme they adore to play something else.

That's an even worse problem. Min-maxers beating casuals is, comparatively, easy to solve.

Yes, which is still a fundamental game design problem and one that GW seems content to ignore in favour of just stating that the onus is on the players, and in your case the person who likes Primaris Marines and the person who likes [Superheavy of Choice] basically should not play each other since they want different things out of the game.

I thought we started with the premise that they both want exactly the same thing out of the game; the part where "they like the look of the models, or like the background of the models, or are imitating something seen in White Dwarf."

To say they want different things out of the game is to miss my point: 40k is in trouble because you can want the same thing out of the game and still have an awful disastrous game.

They want different things out of the game because what the enjoy is fundamentally different. I really don't have an answer without putting the blame squarely on the person wanting the superheavies, which isn't fair to them, but that's my gut instinct whether it's right or wrong.

Wayniac wrote:
They want different things out of the game because what the enjoy is fundamentally different. I really don't have an answer without putting the blame squarely on the person wanting the superheavies, which isn't fair to them, but that's my gut instinct whether it's right or wrong.

I feel like you're realizing my point but not admitting it.

They don't want something different out of the game. They want to play with models they think look cool, they like the background of, or were inspired to buy when they saw them in White Dwarf.

What is different about what those players want?

And it's not a "blame" issue. That's my whole point. It's no one's fault but GW's that these two players cannot get along, because the players don't want anything different from the game. They both want exactly the same thing.

You're right, there isn't really a different and it is only GW's fault. The problem comes when you can ONLY have fun a certain way, and anything else means you don't have fun. Whether that's only playing narrative, or only playing cutthroat tournament games, or only playing with multiple superheavies. I place the blame on the player only in the sense that it's binary: Either I do exactly X, or I don't have fun. There's no compromising, either you field your 3 Superheavies, or you don't enjoy the game (which is your right). But if you field the 3 superheavies, your opponent doesn't enjoy the game (which is their right).

That's quite the quandary. There's no solution to it without SOMEBODY not having fun (and, arguably, even the third choice i.e. don't play that person can result in a loss of fun)

Well, yes, the players not being willing to compromise sucks.

But the whole point is that if the game were balanced and not awful, they wouldn't have to.

EDIT:
The obvious solution is for GW to balance the game.

About those 'all super heavy' armies. I really don't think that such armies, nor 'all vehicle' or 'all flyer' armies should be allowed in matched play. Hell, even 'all infantry' is questionable, although in much lesser degree. If the game has weapons that are really good or really bad against certain thing, and you can have whole armies composed solely of that certain thing, then it just is impossible to balance. You'd need to dumb down things to AOS level, where it rarely matter which unit you use against which target, but that eliminates a massive amount of strategic depth. The game works best when the both armies are pretty TAC, and have a varied mix of things.

 Crimson wrote:
About those 'all super heavy' armies. I really don't think that such armies, nor 'all vehicle' or 'all flyer' armies should be allowed in matched play. Hell, even 'all infantry' is questionable, although in much lesser degree. If the game has weapons that are really good or really bad against certain thing, and you can have whole armies composed solely of that certain thing, then it just is impossible to balance. You'd need to dumb down things to AOS level, where it rarely matter which unit you use against which target, but that eliminates a massive amount of strategic depth. The game works best when the both armies are pretty TAC, and have a varied mix of things.

This is a good example of GW being bad at game design; they could easily have done this.

G.W. needs to choose whether they are narrative or not, instead of trying to allow both in 1 ruleset.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
About those 'all super heavy' armies. I really don't think that such armies, nor 'all vehicle' or 'all flyer' armies should be allowed in matched play. Hell, even 'all infantry' is questionable, although in much lesser degree. If the game has weapons that are really good or really bad against certain thing, and you can have whole armies composed solely of that certain thing, then it just is impossible to balance. You'd need to dumb down things to AOS level, where it rarely matter which unit you use against which target, but that eliminates a massive amount of strategic depth. The game works best when the both armies are pretty TAC, and have a varied mix of things.

This is a good example of GW being bad at game design; they could easily have done this.

G.W. needs to choose whether they are narrative or not, instead of trying to allow both in 1 ruleset.

They have done this to an extent through missions: the new Chapter Approved, for example, has missions where only certain units/keywords can score objectives. Having an all-vehicle army and rolling up the "only infantry can score" mission would mean the player cannot score those objectives. The tournament scene is slowly catching up with this idea, but ITC has done a lot to comp that out, which favours lopsided army builds.

In my experience, whenever players bring extreme builds (often), if they roll a mission that does not favor them they will re-roll. Their opponent always lets them because few people want a one-sided game.

If you're going to break the game, try to
make sure the rules interactions for the Perfect Storm are accurate and legal. I cannot tell how many times (in 7th mostly) that there would be some cheese thrown on the tabletop that long afterwards, upon my own rules investigations were found to played incorrectly. Most of these players didn't have physical copies of books or even rules and asking to check something wasn't worth their time.

If you're going to break the game, all I ask is for proof of evidence that you're breaking it LEGALLY. If so, it isn't exactly players fault. Well played. Tip of the hat. Slow clap. Etc.

strepp wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Crimson wrote:
About those 'all super heavy' armies. I really don't think that such armies, nor 'all vehicle' or 'all flyer' armies should be allowed in matched play. Hell, even 'all infantry' is questionable, although in much lesser degree. If the game has weapons that are really good or really bad against certain thing, and you can have whole armies composed solely of that certain thing, then it just is impossible to balance. You'd need to dumb down things to AOS level, where it rarely matter which unit you use against which target, but that eliminates a massive amount of strategic depth. The game works best when the both armies are pretty TAC, and have a varied mix of things.

This is a good example of GW being bad at game design; they could easily have done this.

G.W. needs to choose whether they are narrative or not, instead of trying to allow both in 1 ruleset.

They have done this to an extent through missions: the new Chapter Approved, for example, has missions where only certain units/keywords can score objectives. Having an all-vehicle army and rolling up the "only infantry can score" mission would mean the player cannot score those objectives. The tournament scene is slowly catching up with this idea, but ITC has done a lot to comp that out, which favours lopsided army builds.

Yes, but this doesn't actually help. The Primaris player in our example may be able to "win" games in the competitive sense, but that's not actually what bothers him; what the real issue is is the lopsided nature of the engagement even if the actual victory conditions are balanced.

auticus wrote:In my experience, whenever players bring extreme builds (often), if they roll a mission that does not favor them they will re-roll. Their opponent always lets them because few people want a one-sided game.

I am actually very happy to play missions that disfavour me as I think it's, as you say, my "just desserts" for playing a skew army. Sadly, that doesn't seem to help the game be any more fun - because there is more to fun than the victory conditions.

I think one of the main problems that arise is that there are too many individuals on the internet that take everything they read as gospel. I've sat through the entire thread and wow, I felt there was going to be someone who would identify themselves as an angel-demigorgon-cat-at-all-costs somewhere with all this labeling. WAAC? TAAC? CAAC? It's just a load of over-generalizations that are tossed onto minority of gamers. The Internet just likes to over-exaggerate these themes as a common type of problem. Feels a bit like everyone is walking on eggshells, waiting for judgement to pass.

Secondly there are just too many variables behind each individual to truly slap on a label. What if someone does not have much income but they don't want to buy into a force that will be an inherently 'bad' choice as they want to enjoy a close game of 40k? Are they WAAC? Are they TFG? Similarly if someone really likes a certain sub-faction that may not be the most optimized in their book and may get frustrated when people tell them that said individual should have taken a 'better choice', does that make the individual CAAC? these are all rhetorical questions. What it really boils down too is you and your gaming group. Communication is the key. Someone down in Texas, Moscow or somewhere else 14,0000 miles away from where your sitting on the screen is not going to help issues to an individuals case with 15 different labels they could call them.

To directly answer the OP's question. The game could be better. It could be tighter, unfortunately because it isn't and that the GW dev. team clearly has favoritism issues between armies and sub-factions within armies it never will resolve to become better. I've been in the game for 10 years and they might have changed up the game but the same power-issues persist, anyone who has played longer could probably reinforce this point more or to a better quality than I can. What the issue boils down to is investment, not just in income but also in time. People no matter what their preference are, want to be included in our hobby and we pride ourselves in general that we tell others that we are inclusive. The reality of this is very quick to change as this thread points out, due to not having as tight of a rule set we get the inconsistencies and the conflicts that arise as the anecdotes of multiple users have said in thread already. The main consensus I drew from this thread for the majority is that no one likes sitting for two and a half hours sitting around either winning to easily or losing to easily. Unfortunate the Internet and the online community cannot help with that or trying to help the game become better because A) The community is just too big. There are far too many voices that GW cannot listen to them all B) within the Wargaming community at large the 40k is far too zealous to listen to reasonable discussion, far too eager to pass judgement with blanket statements rather than trying to help gamers. C) Going back to investment I feel a big difference between this community and say a TCG like Yu-Gi-Oh (which actively promotes bringing only the best metas) is most gamers spend time in making an army, building, painting, etc. It's far more time consuming to make an army than a deck which is near-instant. Due to this people want to at least know they got something a bit more worthwhile than just wasting their own time either curbstomping or being curbstomped.

The only way people can resolve the issues they get is to just talk it out, be open and civil with your own personal group, and try not to the Internet dilute your perspective. Otherwise your just gonna have a rough time perpetuating the problems in your group.

 The Warp Forge wrote:
I think one of the main problems that arise is that there are too many individuals on the internet that take everything they read as gospel. I've sat through the entire thread and wow, I felt there was going to be someone who would identify themselves as an angel-demigorgon-cat-at-all-costs somewhere with all this labeling. WAAC? TAAC? CAAC? It's just a load of over-generalizations that are tossed onto minority of gamers. The Internet just likes to over-exaggerate these themes as a common type of problem. Feels a bit like everyone is walking on eggshells, waiting for judgement to pass.

Secondly there are just too many variables behind each individual to truly slap on a label. What if someone does not have much income but they don't want to buy into a force that will be an inherently 'bad' choice as they want to enjoy a close game of 40k? Are they WAAC? Are they TFG? Similarly if someone really likes a certain sub-faction that may not be the most optimized in their book and may get frustrated when people tell them that said individual should have taken a 'better choice', does that make the individual CAAC? these are all rhetorical questions. What it really boils down too is you and your gaming group. Communication is the key. Someone down in Texas, Moscow or somewhere else 14,0000 miles away from where your sitting on the screen is not going to help issues to an individuals case with 15 different labels they could call them.

To directly answer the OP's question. The game could be better. It could be tighter, unfortunately because it isn't and that the GW dev. team clearly has favoritism issues between armies and sub-factions within armies it never will resolve to become better. I've been in the game for 10 years and they might have changed up the game but the same power-issues persist, anyone who has played longer could probably reinforce this point more or to a better quality than I can. What the issue boils down to is investment, not just in income but also in time. People no matter what their preference are, want to be included in our hobby and we pride ourselves in general that we tell others that we are inclusive. The reality of this is very quick to change as this thread points out, due to not having as tight of a rule set we get the inconsistencies and the conflicts that arise as the anecdotes of multiple users have said in thread already. The main consensus I drew from this thread for the majority is that no one likes sitting for two and a half hours sitting around either winning to easily or losing to easily. Unfortunate the Internet and the online community cannot help with that or trying to help the game become better because A) The community is just too big. There are far too many voices that GW cannot listen to them all B) within the Wargaming community at large the 40k is far too zealous to listen to reasonable discussion, far too eager to pass judgement with blanket statements rather than trying to help gamers. C) Going back to investment I feel a big difference between this community and say a TCG like Yu-Gi-Oh (which actively promotes bringing only the best metas) is most gamers spend time in making an army, building, painting, etc. It's far more time consuming to make an army than a deck which is near-instant. Due to this people want to at least know they got something a bit more worthwhile than just wasting their own time either curbstomping or being curbstomped.

The only way people can resolve the issues they get is to just talk it out, be open and civil with your own personal group, and try not to the Internet dilute your perspective. Otherwise your just gonna have a rough time perpetuating the problems in your group.

Well put! You get a new title, TFGWMS or That Fing Guy Who Makes Sense.

"Blah blah blah, I'm just playing the game smart. blah blah, anything less then full cheese is not playing with tactics. I don't know the difference between viable and not snaking through goofy nonsensical loopholes in the current popular net list." Yes we've heard all the excuse, but here's the thing, we're all really just going "pew pew" at each other's army men for a good time, so maybe worry less about how to do things that were obviously not intended in the rules and instead have fun and play a game.
Oh I know, you're going to misconstrue "have fun" with "don't try to win," which really just shows that you're not capable of enjoying the game, only enjoying winning. That's sad. You can play hard and have a challenging battle you lose and still have fun, trust me.

What would fix balance and the WAAC/CAAC issue?
Play two games each time you play a match-up.

After the first game, you set up the armies exactly the same way and the same army gets first turn just like the first game. The only difference is players swap sides and have to play the other guy's stuff.

Just think, the CAAC guy might discover that playing a crafted power-play list where he gets to do some serious destruction is fun. The WAAC guy might discover that it sucks getting to face his army.

Nobody will do such a swap because:
"Nobody touches my models" and other reasons like it takes too long. Never mind these same cats will play an Apoc game and bring out fifty-eleven hundred points for 4+ hours of gaming.

But I suspect it's more to do with not wanting the same dose of cod liver oil that you just handed your opponent.

Not touching other person models is valid reason. You want your paint job be damaged? Model damaged? I know i don't and i'm not pro painter

The idea that not being a huge douche is "casual" is a straw man made by insecure cheesers trying to make excuses for themselves. Most people don't play cheese, and they play just as smart and just as tactful.

For example in ad Mech the derby mcderpersons will declaring that anything other than cawl+robots and allied IG and an outrider of stymies dragons, anything other than that exact list is "garbage, non viable, useless." But in reality there are several ways to make ad Mech lists that can and do play well and win games.

The real difference is that WAAC cheese players want to win at the list building step and not have to actually play well. They don't want to risk having to rely on tactics. Where as the supposed "casual" player wants to play a game and try to win with tactics.

WAAC players are the kid everyone knew growing up who would cheat at monopoly, and none of the other kids could understand why, it's just a game and that takes all the fun out of playing it. But that kid couldn't understand how everyone else could have fun playing the game if they didn't win. That kid grew up to be every tournament player in 40k.

Danny slag wrote:
The idea that not being a huge douche is "casual" is a straw man made by insecure cheesers trying to make excuses for themselves. Most people don't play cheese, and they play just as smart and just as tactful.

Issue is there is also varying degrees of "not being a huge douche", just like there are varying degrees of "competitive" and "casual" and everything in between.

In a casual setting, if you set up your minis, and you know you're going to win before dice are rolled, that's a problem. Beer and pretzels games aren't about winning and losing, it's about playing your stuff and having a good time. I like to throw in ad-hoc game balance if the battle is getting one sided in my favor, like "Wow, that was a bad roll. Let's just play it as though you made that charge with a 9."