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What? No response? No, that's not true at all, stop please.

I oftentimes deliberately place one of my superheavy tanks out of position early in deployment to see if I can bait out enemy anti-tank weapons.

The enemy can certainly fire his anti-tank weapons at that superheavy. He can even deep-strike next to it and nuke it. But that's the point. I'm building a house of cards to conceal my house of iron. If the enemy takes the bait, my response will be swift and crushing, typically crippling his anti-tank units so my two remaining superheavy tanks can participate. I'm literally planning on being able to respond to the enemy, that thing you claim which cannot be done.

And do you know what? All it takes on his part is a bit of tactics to compensate. A single move, say, a Predator Annihilator out of LOS or holding back some deep-striking units or something.

But that could leave my tank alive, and so the equation changes again, because while my response may be less successful at crippling his army's AT capacity, it is also augmented now with the firepower of the third vehicle...

something as little as a single move (e.g. a tempted charge, or hiding something out of LOS) can alter the gamestate and the opponent's ability to respond to it...

... which is something you (wrongly) assert to be impossible.

 Lance845 wrote:

ThePorcupine wrote:
Agree to disagree with you fellas. There is absolutely choice. I specifically outlined pros and cons to each of the situations in my post.

And I know it's common to say "1st turn wins. might as well quit. stupid alpha strike grumble grumble." That's certainly true when it comes to just two armies slapped down on the table with the objective of "kill the other guy" but I think the heavier emphasis on objectives and secondaries in things like ITC evens things out. Fully? Don't know. But I would like to see statistics of how often the players who go first win and what rule types those games use.

ITC missions, terrain rules, and restricted time, are all house rules. The house is ITC. Claiming they make the game better is exactly like me saying using alternating unit activation makes the game better. Just because they are widely accepted house rules doesn't make them anything other than house rules. 40k the game has official missions. Those are the ones that matter when talking about 40k official game.

I agree with this 100%. ITC is just house rules - It's not even a better game because of it ether.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

TL;DR I don't like the types of choices you make in 40ks IGOUGO system and instead of acknowledging that a different form of activation or interruption based system has DIFFERENT choices I think they're BETTER choices. To be fair that's fine for you to have your opinion but you've already posted several times that 40k somehow boils down to 'get in the best place to shoot the best' and don't seem willing to walk back from that line.

And it's fine for you to have your opinion. Lets face it, end of the day it doesn't matter what any of us think. Were just a bunch of dick heads talking about a board game on the internet. I didn't say it was JUST 'get in the best place to shoot the best'. I said there was an optimal decision to make. Like popping smoke and advancing to grab a VP. Just MOST of the time that decisions IS get in the best position to shoot the best. 99.9% of all decisions in 40k can be mathed out. Yeah, there are the .1% edge cases where things get foggy, but they are so rare as to be non existent. Especially because without time limits 40k is so killy that it mostly boils down to tabling the other player.

 Lance845 wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

TL;DR I don't like the types of choices you make in 40ks IGOUGO system and instead of acknowledging that a different form of activation or interruption based system has DIFFERENT choices I think they're BETTER choices. To be fair that's fine for you to have your opinion but you've already posted several times that 40k somehow boils down to 'get in the best place to shoot the best' and don't seem willing to walk back from that line.

And it's fine for you to have your opinion. Lets face it, end of the day it doesn't matter what any of us think. Were just a bunch of dick heads talking about a board game on the internet. I didn't say it was JUST 'get in the best place to shoot the best'. I said there was an optimal decision to make. Like popping smoke and advancing to grab a VP. Just MOST of the time that decisions IS get in the best position to shoot the best. 99.9% of all decisions in 40k can be mathed out. Yeah, there are the .1% edge cases where things get foggy, but they are so rare as to be non existent. Especially because without time limits 40k is so killy that it mostly boils down to tabling the other player.

You're making statements that you don't understand. Some critiques:
1) Every situation has an optimal decision. 40k's may be easier to see than others, but in literally any game I can think of, the cost-benefit analysis has always been a thing, and only rarely (e.g. .1% that you cite) actually offers up any meaningful choice.
2) "Mathematically optimal" is not the same thing as "Tactically optimal." When I think tactics, I think of deception. I think of trying to compel your opponent to make a mistake while mitigating your own. I think of my opponent's psychology as much as I do what's on the board, and sometimes change my decision about what's happening on the board based on my opponent's psychology.
3) I would love to play a game against an opponent that makes each decision the most mathematically optimal in a vacuum. Sure, it's most mathematically optimal to point all of your antitank weapons at a single Superheavy, so you can kill it, rather than spreading out your firepower. So I'll put a superheavy out in a place where it is easy to kill, and two others where it is a bit harder. Obviously, the math favors killing the easy to kill superheavy, since it lacks cover / screens / whathaveyou. Therefore, you will point and use all of your AT weapons at it. And I know you're going to do that. I've planned accordingly..

I've just outsmarted you with better tactics, and you may very well find that the temporary mathematically-assured success of destroying a single superheavy was not worth the price of most of your anti-tank capability, even though it was mathematically optimal.

I don’t understand, are you saying destroying a 1/3 of an armies firepower is a worse choice than plinking away a few health off all 3 superheavies to little effect? It’s not like you have to declare every single attack all at once. If a super heavy dies early I can just redirect the extra firepower elsewhere. Maybe I’m not following what you’re getting at with your example.

dosiere wrote:
I don’t understand, are you saying destroying a 1/3 of an armies firepower is a worse choice than plinking away a few health off all 3 superheavies to little effect? It’s not like you have to declare every single attack all at once. If a super heavy dies early I can just redirect the extra firepower elsewhere. Maybe I’m not following what you’re getting at with your example.

What I am getting at is that I'm ready for it. I know that's the mathematically superior option, so I can deploy and act accordingly in the assumption that my opponent is going to take that route.

It's telling that in most of the games I lost at NOVA that I feel like were lost to tactics (instead of list, e.g. Necron Pylon), I usually didn't lose a superheavy until the third turn or later, because my opponent was being cagey with his anti-tank, hiding it, and allowing it to take opportunity shots from cover rather than planning to alpha-strike one Baneblade and then wipe its hands and call it a day.

IMHO losing 1/3rd of your firepower turn one should always be a plan, because it's pretty much guaranteed to happen. Even if you're going second, it is fairly likely, such is the lethality of the game we're in.

dosiere wrote:
I don’t understand, are you saying destroying a 1/3 of an armies firepower is a worse choice than plinking away a few health off all 3 superheavies to little effect? It’s not like you have to declare every single attack all at once. If a super heavy dies early I can just redirect the extra firepower elsewhere. Maybe I’m not following what you’re getting at with your example.

There are situations where bracketing two vehicles is a better choice than an attempting to destroy one. It is situational but depending on what your chances to limit movement look like and what kind of board control/target control you can exert.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
IMHO losing 1/3rd of your firepower turn one should always be a plan, because it's pretty much guaranteed to happen. Even if you're going second, it is fairly likely, such is the lethality of the game we're in.

This is also generally correct. It can be prevented and limited depending on how much LoS blocking terrain you have and what options you have to hide units (native or stratagem deepstrikes, infiltrates out of effective LoS, etc.)

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

dosiere wrote:
I don’t understand, are you saying destroying a 1/3 of an armies firepower is a worse choice than plinking away a few health off all 3 superheavies to little effect? It’s not like you have to declare every single attack all at once. If a super heavy dies early I can just redirect the extra firepower elsewhere. Maybe I’m not following what you’re getting at with your example.

There are situations where bracketing two vehicles is a better choice than an attempting to destroy one. It is situational but depending on what your chances to limit movement look like and what kind of board control/target control you can exert.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
IMHO losing 1/3rd of your firepower turn one should always be a plan, because it's pretty much guaranteed to happen. Even if you're going second, it is fairly likely, such is the lethality of the game we're in.

This is also generally correct. It can be prevented and limited depending on how much LoS blocking terrain you have and what options you have to hide units (native or stratagem deepstrikes, infiltrates out of effective LoS, etc.)

I mean, baiting out AT weapons with a high-value target.... that is specifically countered by AT is.... understandable. Especially when most people will be focusing one to begin with seems a bit of a stretch to call a tactic. I would have to look at the list to say more, but I suppose deciding which SHV was the least valuable and sacrificing it to keep your actually target-effective weapons is good enough to be called a tactic. Being faced with 3 superheavies tends to cause people to go into table mode.

I can't say however it is a good list still, which I will maintain as it does have glaring weaknesses which ALL skew lists do. Once again relying on overloading on one unit type to cause half of the opponents weapons to become useless isn't really a tactic... Further the line Unit used "something as little as a single move (e.g. a tempted charge, or hiding something out of LOS) can alter the gamestate and the opponent's ability to respond to it..." is incredibly dumb because yes of course the gamestate changed. That is what it does.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

ThePorcupine wrote:

 Quickjager wrote:
According to him, yes he did in fact magically pass the screen because he somehow got 4 of his vehicles charged the FIRST TURN! He either played incompetently by failing to position his vehicles correctly or he didn't in fact HAVE a screen in which case he lost in the LIST-BUILDING part of the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Let us look at his army list, oh armored company? Hmm no screens at all, alright yes I see.

He lost in the list building part of the game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Or perhaps it was his ITC competitive list? Hmm he DOES have a screen, but he STILL got charged first turn!

Haha. Boy you just can't WAIT to be right, can you? You can feel it in your bones! Yes it was the ITC list I posted about 3 weeks ago. Good job digging through my post history, kiddo! You's a real detective now.
This was 1250 vs 1250 I had ~50 guardsmen for a screen, and 7 vehicles to screen (4 basilisks, Pask, tank commander, and regular russ). The screen was 1 squad thick. I didn't know where he was gonna come from. He showed up with aggressors and some jetpack bois and shrike. The aggressors blew right through my screen (not that they needed to thanks to jetpack bois) and everyone charged in.

I still think I deployed correctly, as, apart from the screen and sniping Pask, he didn't kill much, and the following turn I blew him away. The trick with Shrike bought him another few turns and made it closer than it maybe should have been, but I ended up winning the game regardless. Sorry to disappoint.

When someone is so wrong so frequently yes I can't wait. Of course I would go through your profile to see what your lists are in the 40k army list section, its called using your tools so quit being one. The fact he used superior "tactics" and still lost to a gunline shows exactly what is wrong with thinking the game is weighted more heavily in the active part of the game rather than the list building one.

Oh here we go again with people claiming ITC missions are house rules.

I would have quit 40k a while ago if we only could play book missions. Additionally, I would wager more people play ITC in the USA than GW missions.

 Marmatag wrote:
Oh here we go again with people claiming ITC missions are house rules.

I would have quit 40k a while ago if we only could play book missions. Additionally, I would wager more people play ITC in the USA than GW missions.

And yet they still are house rules.

people put varying levels of value into it.

Even GW is putting some value into the Tourny scene so take that how you will.

 Marmatag wrote:
Oh here we go again with people claiming ITC missions are house rules.

I would have quit 40k a while ago if we only could play book missions. Additionally, I would wager more people play ITC in the USA than GW missions.

"House rules" means "rules not officially sanctioned by GW".

I strongly oppose the pejorative usage in which "house rules" means "wildly untested/unbalanced gibberish created by people who'd rather write rules that let them win than get good with the official rules", and as such I don't find calling ITC "house rules" to be inaccurate or insulting.

GW uses ITC data to balance the game.
GW has a presence at ITC events.
GW involved FrontLine in the 8th edition beta tests.
GW involves the ITC in beta-testing of rules.

I would argue these give a tacit approval of what the ITC is doing.

So, it's easy to argue that GW has indeed sanctioned ITC.

Of course none of that is relevant, and i'm mainly bristling at the attempt to denigrate the mission pack because it isn't printed in a GW publication.

To people who say the tactics are obvious and simplistic, I assume you

1) Can predict with an extremely high degree of accuracy the winner of every game before it has begun, and when your prediction is wrong,
3) Can categorically prove that luck won/lost the game.

Unless one of those things are true in every game, then the game has skill-based, non-obvious tactics as a deciding factor. Tactics such as deployment, movement, timing of abilities and target priority.

 Mymearan wrote:
To people who say the tactics are obvious and simplistic, I assume you

1) Can predict with an extremely high degree of accuracy the winner of every game before it has begun, and when your prediction is wrong,
3) Can categorically prove that luck won/lost the game.

Unless one of those things are true in every game, then the game has skill-based, non-obvious tactics as a deciding factor. Tactics such as deployment, movement, timing of abilities and target priority.

My take (validity suspect) is that once players reach a certain competency player agency is on the low side relative to comparable games. There obviously are meaningful decisions to be made and the random factor will always give rise to plans needing to be altered on the fly. The problem with using the predictability of games as a guide is the fallibility of players, in game it is easy to miss things (I still forget the psychic phase occasionally ^.^). People make sloppy movements, things get knocked over/replaced in the wrong place, rules get misremembered or misapplied, people are distracted/drunk/hungover/whatever etc etc all of which can diminish the impact of perfect decision making in a vacuum.

 Quickjager wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

dosiere wrote:
I don’t understand, are you saying destroying a 1/3 of an armies firepower is a worse choice than plinking away a few health off all 3 superheavies to little effect? It’s not like you have to declare every single attack all at once. If a super heavy dies early I can just redirect the extra firepower elsewhere. Maybe I’m not following what you’re getting at with your example.

There are situations where bracketing two vehicles is a better choice than an attempting to destroy one. It is situational but depending on what your chances to limit movement look like and what kind of board control/target control you can exert.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
IMHO losing 1/3rd of your firepower turn one should always be a plan, because it's pretty much guaranteed to happen. Even if you're going second, it is fairly likely, such is the lethality of the game we're in.

This is also generally correct. It can be prevented and limited depending on how much LoS blocking terrain you have and what options you have to hide units (native or stratagem deepstrikes, infiltrates out of effective LoS, etc.)

I mean, baiting out AT weapons with a high-value target.... that is specifically countered by AT is.... understandable. Especially when most people will be focusing one to begin with seems a bit of a stretch to call a tactic. I would have to look at the list to say more, but I suppose deciding which SHV was the least valuable and sacrificing it to keep your actually target-effective weapons is good enough to be called a tactic. Being faced with 3 superheavies tends to cause people to go into table mode.

I can't say however it is a good list still, which I will maintain as it does have glaring weaknesses which ALL skew lists do. Once again relying on overloading on one unit type to cause half of the opponents weapons to become useless isn't really a tactic... Further the line Unit used "something as little as a single move (e.g. a tempted charge, or hiding something out of LOS) can alter the gamestate and the opponent's ability to respond to it..." is incredibly dumb because yes of course the gamestate changed. That is what it does.

This thread isn't about list power, but yes, it does have glaring weaknesses, with only between 400-800 points of non-superheavy at 2k for support depending on which three vehicles I run. But the point is twofold, which you avoided addressing:
1) The tactic isn't about lists, that's the whole point. You could do it with Russ squadrons or Predator tanks and fundamentally it is the same: throwing at least one vehicle under the bus to tempt out enemy AT assets which may otherwise hide or make themselves hard to kill.

2) Why is it dumb to point out that the gamestate changed? That's what tactics are. To say there is "no tactics" is to claim that the gamestate does not change, because there is nothing to react to. You can't simultaneously out of one side of your mouth say "of course the gamestate changes" and then out the other side say "but there is no tactics." Reacting to the game-state in an appropriate manner is good tactics, reacting to it badly (including not reacting at all) is bad tactics. But it's tactics either way, no two ways about it.

Are you saying you can hide all 3 on a regular basis? that you would rather lose one than not? I'm not sure. Whatever, I don't think debating the merits of an obvious (?) tactic with a super skew force means much in the big picture of this discussion.

Ix_Tab wrote:
[spoiler]Are you saying you can hide all 3 on a regular basis? that you would rather lose one than not? I'm not sure. Whatever, I don't think debating the merits of an obvious (?) tactic with a super skew force means much in the big picture of this discussion.

No? I am saying there's usually a way to get them cover, or put screens around them, or do any number of other things to protect them, and usually only two. The third I put ou- you know what I've explained it twice already.

The point is that tactics exist. I used my own anecdote as an example of tactics which exist, and people don't seem to be able to look past that. You can't say "tactics don't matter because of list" and then when an example is given, just say "well, it's a skew list so it doesn't matter." Yes, yes, if you exclude all the lists that do tactics then there are no tactics. Similarly, if we only play chess against pigeons we somehow always lose.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Ix_Tab wrote:
[spoiler]Are you saying you can hide all 3 on a regular basis? that you would rather lose one than not? I'm not sure. Whatever, I don't think debating the merits of an obvious (?) tactic with a super skew force means much in the big picture of this discussion.

No? I am saying there's usually a way to get them cover, or put screens around them, or do any number of other things to protect them, and usually only two. The third I put ou- you know what I've explained it twice already.

The point is that tactics exist. I used my own anecdote as an example of tactics which exist, and people don't seem to be able to look past that. You can't say "tactics don't matter because of list" and then when an example is given, just say "well, it's a skew list so it doesn't matter." Yes, yes, if you exclude all the lists that do tactics then there are no tactics. Similarly, if we only play chess against pigeons we somehow always lose.

The title of this thread is unfortunate, the question would perhaps be better posed "what degree of player agency do the tactical options emerging in a game of 40k give rise to". Frankly anyone saying there are no tactics in 40k is probably not worth engaging with.
You are describing a strategy which we may or may not decide is prescribed by the list. Where it gets interesting is in how many decisions go into enacting that strategy on the table and the degree to which they impact outcomes.

Ix_Tab wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Ix_Tab wrote:
[spoiler]Are you saying you can hide all 3 on a regular basis? that you would rather lose one than not? I'm not sure. Whatever, I don't think debating the merits of an obvious (?) tactic with a super skew force means much in the big picture of this discussion.

No? I am saying there's usually a way to get them cover, or put screens around them, or do any number of other things to protect them, and usually only two. The third I put ou- you know what I've explained it twice already.

The point is that tactics exist. I used my own anecdote as an example of tactics which exist, and people don't seem to be able to look past that. You can't say "tactics don't matter because of list" and then when an example is given, just say "well, it's a skew list so it doesn't matter." Yes, yes, if you exclude all the lists that do tactics then there are no tactics. Similarly, if we only play chess against pigeons we somehow always lose.

The title of this thread is unfortunate, the question would perhaps be better posed "what degree of player agency do the tactical options emerging in a game of 40k give rise to". Frankly anyone saying there are no tactics in 40k is probably not worth engaging with.
You are describing a strategy which we may or may not decide is prescribed by the list. Where it gets interesting is in how many decisions go into enacting that strategy on the table and the degree to which they impact outcomes.

We can have that discussion if you want. I think there's actually a lot of player agency in 40k, but not as much as there could be, perhaps.

An example of a misconception is I once heard someone say "you might as well try to shoot; no reason not to." when discussing their in-turn plans with their teammate. That's a terrible misconception. Advancing can have distinct advantages in gaining, expanding, and securing board-control, blocking charge lanes, and can contribute to being in the right place at the right time, even if it precludes shooting for most weapons. In the case of a vehicle, blowing smoke launchers may affect the opponent's target priority in confusing ways. Sometimes you want to charge, and so shooting is the wrong decision because it gives the opportunity to the opponent of removing the nearest models and extend the charge distance. Other times you may not shoot an opponent because that would make their job easier (a destroyed unit is one fewer units to think about after all, while a crippled unit that might be saved can severely alter people's thinking, depending on the player). Perhaps shooting the enemy requires you to put yourself in a dangerous position, moving in the open in front of enemy guns or wandering within charge range of a nasty charger. Perhaps shooting the enemy will inhibit your ability to get an objective (e.g. Blood and Guts in the Maelstrom deck) or only gives them the opportunity to make some kind of retaliation (e.g. killing a SOB character means you may get shot in the face in your own shooting phase). There are tons of reasons not to shoot.

And shooting is one of the simplest, most straightforward things in the game.

IMHO the ITC missions change the dynamic of the game but in the wrong way. They encourage MORE listbuilding/skewing. I personally feel the Chapter Approved Eternal War missions (changing the first two to be progressive scoring rather than end-of-game scoring) are really good for encouraging non-skew/TAC type lists over ITC where you want to game the system to minimize points your opponent can get while making sure you can get the most secondaries yourself.

ITC basically stays popular because during 6th/7th they had to "fix" the game for tournament play to happen at all, since GW at that time didn't care. However, it is rather telling that ITC uses house ruled 40k while their AOS rules are basically "Use the General's Handbook as written" with zero adjustments to the actual game.

FWIW, our group has never used the ITC missions. Granted, except for myself most of our members have never attended a major tournament, nor do they have any desire to do so. Having read the ITC missions I personally prefer the Chapter Approved ones. It just seems too easy to game the secondary objectives the way the ITC ones are designed. JMO though and I confess the last time I attended an ITC event was years ago so take that with as much salt as you wish.

Wayniac wrote:
IMHO the ITC missions change the dynamic of the game but in the wrong way. They encourage MORE listbuilding/skewing. I personally feel the Chapter Approved Eternal War missions (changing the first two to be progressive scoring rather than end-of-game scoring) are really good for encouraging non-skew/TAC type lists over ITC where you want to game the system to minimize points your opponent can get while making sure you can get the most secondaries yourself.

ITC basically stays popular because during 6th/7th they had to "fix" the game for tournament play to happen at all, since GW at that time didn't care. However, it is rather telling that ITC uses house ruled 40k while their AOS rules are basically "Use the General's Handbook as written" with zero adjustments to the actual game.

i think ITC stays popular, because it seems well thought out and makes for fun games. Remove the crazy top end lists and there isn't much I can complain about currently.

Yes there are certainly tactics - advantageous positioning, screening, target denial, dispersal and concentration of forces, using terrain to advantage, feints, etc, but it is at heart an action game, there's definately not a strong emphasis on tactics compared to games like Gates of Antares, Warpath or even Bolt Action which add unit orders, supression and alternate activation. Even these I would consider 50:50 action:tactical games. Further along the scale there are games like Force on Force / Tomorrow's War.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
If you ask me, 40k has tactics, as much as any wargame.

If the only thing that makes a game "tactically deep" is how obfuscated the best course of action is, then clearly the most tactical game is one with 700 pages of rules that is very disorganized. After all, there's no obvious best course of action.

We've played walking dead and it has tons more tactics in an 8-page rulebook cause of threat, noise, alternative activation, how terrain 'works' and the 3-d party of zombies you got to deal with either. It's not about the volume of rules, it's about their quality.

Actually, adding suppressing fire as an option might be fairly do-able.

Have a unit declare suppressing fire, and roll a die based on BS. If the unit succeeds, then the target gives whoever it shoots at (A: 6+ FNP, or +1 to FNP), or (B: cover, even in the open), or (C: takes a -1 to hit.) I'm not suggesting there should be options for what happens, but that A/B/C are three possibilities of what SF could grant.

Maybe have the roll on a -1 BS, so guard would need a 5+, Space marines would need a 4+, ect. You could give orks a bonus so they keep their 5+ as that basically all they end up doing anyway. Set it for anti-infantry weapons, basically rapid fire, assault, and a selection of heavy weapons, such as heavy bolters and multi-lasers, and maybe things like frag grenades.