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Wayniac wrote:But let's be honest, how often do both people pick whatever the hell they want without any thought to how it performs? Outside of the GW Studio, I guess.

Hi. Pleased to meet you.

I don't really pick my units based on how good they are at a role. I'll pick them if they fill the niche I want in my list, and if they fit with the theme I want. For example, I'd never take Scouts as the core of my normal SM list because they're not main-line troops, like Intercessors or Tacticals are. I'd happily take Reivers to fulfil the Close Assault portion of my Battle Company. My Black Company of my Cadian forces are a Vanguard Detachment of Veteran Squads, because that's what makes up Black Company.

In my experience, which I know is different from yours, more people pick what they like more than those who choose what's powerful.

NinthMusketeer wrote:It is advertised as a viable matched play list. There is no indication that it will show up and get -hosed- in almost any match.

It is viable. It uses points, it's battleforged, it uses GW models, and features all the necessary Warlord Traits and psychic powers. It's perfectly viable - if you're not fretting about competitive. Matched =/= competitive.

Now, could you argue "this list isn't competitive"? Yeah, sure. But why does that matter? It matters just as much as "this list isn't fluffy!", and that's only a problem if you value fluff. Just because GW don't obsess over competitive play doesn't mean they don't play their game. They just play it differently to you.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
It is advertised as a viable matched play list. There is no indication that it will show up and get -hosed- in almost any match.

I reckon if you took that list to my local GW store and played some games you would have around a 50% win rate.

At my local FLGS that would drop to probably about a 33% win rate

At one of our local tournaments you would be lucky to win any games with it.

At a big tournament it would be a miserable experience for a serious competitive player - but then again my observation is that the people on the bottom tables with rubbish armies always appear to be drinking more beer and having a lot more fun than the super-serious types on the top tables with top tier armies.

It is a matched play list to the extent that it obeys the rules of matched play. Everything else is context.

happy_inquisitor wrote:
drinking more beer and having a lot more fun

I think it says a lot that the so-called "casual" players so often emphasize how much alcohol they're consuming, and none of it is good.


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 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Matched =/= competitive.

Nope. Read GW's own description of what matched play is, it's a textbook definition of competitive gaming.

Writen words are context? This is why don't get human interactions most of the time.

If the army was a car, and was advertised as an all terrain car, but in fact it would only be able to drive for 500m in a stright line, when pushed by people or drawn by horses, people would be taking them to court for false advertasing. It is as if word stoped having meaning, and everything was build on how people feel.

 Peregrine wrote:

happy_inquisitor wrote:
drinking more beer and having a lot more fun

I think it says a lot that the so-called "casual" players so often emphasize how much alcohol they're consuming, and none of it is good.

It is just what I have observed at any number of tournaments, the guys on the bottom tables are usually having a lot more fun than me.

I am certainly not going to tell them that they are playing the game wrong because they are not being competitive enough, clearly they are playing the game just how they enjoy playing it.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Matched =/= competitive.

Nope. Read GW's own description of what matched play is, it's a textbook definition of competitive gaming.

I say again, no gak Sherlock....

The objective of the game is to win (even in Narrative and Open, shock!), though you somewhere along the way seem to have confused that with the point. The game by its very nature is a competition, you're really grasping at straws and if you think that is what GW meant based on how they present their product and their history.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Matched =/= competitive.

Nope. Read GW's own description of what matched play is, it's a textbook definition of competitive gaming.

I say again, no gak Sherlock....

The objective of the game is to win (even in Narrative and Open, shock!), though you somewhere along the way seem to have confused that with the point. The game by its very nature is a competition, you're really grasping at straws and if you think that is what GW meant based on how they present their product and their history.

I agree with nearly all of that. We all play a game with a win condition, but we play it for different reasons.
(none of which are bad, unless you are TFG, but there are as many flavors of TFG as there are reasons to play the game)

GW is not pushing MLG, it does not really seem to understand that mindset at all.

Peregrine wrote:

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
Matched =/= competitive.

Nope. Read GW's own description of what matched play is, it's a textbook definition of competitive gaming.

I don't see that at all. Please, show me where it says Matched has to be competitive. I see a "can" in there, which to me implies if you want to be competitive, this is where you do it. Simply by playing Matched, you aren't necessarily being competitive.

Karol wrote:If the army was a car, and was advertised as an all terrain car, but in fact it would only be able to drive for 500m in a stright line, when pushed by people or drawn by horses, people would be taking them to court for false advertasing.

Not quite. All-terrain has a defined meaning, and can be legally defined.

Matched has never been advertised as "always competitive". It's what competitive players most often use, but Matched alone isn't it. Nor are GW's claims that "this army can play games" wrong. It can play 40k games. Even arguments of "it can't WIN games" are wrong too, seeing as it's perfectly possible to play a game with that army, and, depending on your opponent, can win.

What you mean to say is "this army can't win in the circumstances I want it to", which GW has never advertised.

Grimtuff wrote:The objective of the game is to win (even in Narrative and Open, shock!)

Actually, as much as I disagree with Peregrine, I don't agree with this. 40k isn't all about winning. There's more to the game than that - you can just as well play games to take part and enjoy the experience.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Grimtuff wrote:The objective of the game is to win (even in Narrative and Open, shock!)

Actually, as much as I disagree with Peregrine, I don't agree with this. 40k isn't all about winning. There's more to the game than that - you can just as well play games to take part and enjoy the experience.

Yes, that's the point of the game. I thought the phrase was well known enough I didn't need to complete it. Apologies, we're not disagreeing.

Again, the problem here is those lists are just terrible in any context that doesn't involve you negotiating with your opponent to tone down their list or bring a similarly bad list or agree to some lopsided scenario that would give you a chance to win.

Don't get me wrong here, I *want* those sort of lists to be viable. Both of them look flavorful and pretty cool. But in the game, as it is now (and how it's been) they are terrible lists and essentially throwing money away.

Wayniac wrote:
Again, the problem here is those lists are just terrible in any context that doesn't involve you negotiating with your opponent to tone down their list or bring a similarly bad list or agree to some lopsided scenario that would give you a chance to win.

Don't get me wrong here, I *want* those sort of lists to be viable. Both of them look flavorful and pretty cool. But in the game, as it is now (and how it's been) they are terrible lists and essentially throwing money away.

Then change the context.

for those of us who have no issue with negotiating/chatting with someone regarding the rosters in a game, or toning down our lists when someone's stuff can't deal with it, or who enjoy writing/playing 'lopsided' scenarios, it's not really a 'problem'. It's just something you do.The 'garage' community is a lot bigger than you imagine. Most gamers haven't even heard of dakka, or don't really give a damn about 'competitive' play. I play with friends and loved ones. I accommodate friends and loved ones. I can combine both 'playing with friends and loved ones' and 'accommodating' them. Who knew?

What you refer to when you say 'the game, as it is now' isn't actually 'the game', it's 'the gaming culture'. Specifically, yours. And sometimes, cultures can, or have to change. That list is fine to me. Theme the scenario. Recon force. Build a good map, 'match' it with an appropriate opponent, and off you go. Frankly, plenty potential there for fun.

In this thread, hyper-competitive players whining that GW doesn't cater to them when it never has done so in the past.

Also in this thread, hyper-competitive players presuming everyone plays like them and then looking down on anyone who disagrees.

You know, I got a competitive spirit and all (I go in to every game trying to win, even against my ten year old nephew), but dedicated competition players often come across as arrogant and self-entitled in conversations like this.

It's not "hyper-competitive". It's the general pickup game mindset that I will wager is prevalent across the vast majority of the USA. These lists will fail miserably even at casual night at the local game store. That's the issue with them.

Wayniac wrote:
It's not "hyper-competitive". It's the general pickup game mindset that I will wager is prevalent across the vast majority of the USA. These lists will fail miserably even at casual night at the local game store. That's the issue with them.

Why is it going to fail miserably?
I don't think its a great list - but if you focused on playing the CA18 objectives I don't think it would be that awful.

A good player can easily win with that list in a casual setting. PTFO.

Any poll I saw here on dakka throughout last few years shows that only about 10-25% of dakkanauts is focused on competition/tournament approach to this game. And every time such a poll comes up competetively focused players don’t believe results because it contradicts their FLGS or discussion experience. But there is perfectly fine, instant and easy to verify explanation: people who frequent rules/army composition discussions and those who frequent background painting blogs parts of dakka have only small overlap and such polls are one of few occasions for those groups to meet. Most of the time garragehammer/fluff bunnies/collectors are invisible to pick-up/competetive players. But they aren’t invisible to GW and have been a main source of GW income for the last 30 years. Kirby once said, that their customers don’t really play this game, they mostly collect and he was right in general scope of things. What he did wrong there and what modern GW is trying to counter is that playing part of community is the vocal one and that discontented tournament crowd can really hurt publicity and thus sales. People who believe that making this game competively focused and watertight would significantly increase sales aren’t paying enough attention to the big picture... 8th and 3rd aren’t/weren’t the most succesfull because they are best competetively (which they coincidentially are), but because the were reboots and thus the best opportunity to hop in without the need to ingest huge material at once. Just compare momentary level of complexity and volume of ruleset of todays 8th and index fresh 8th, after just two years after reboot...

Even arguments of "it can't WIN games" are wrong too, seeing as it's perfectly possible to play a game with that army, and, depending on your opponent, can win.

Dude am not sure if it would win vs my army, and I consider my army the worse of any army I have ever seen or seen posted on a forum. What kind of an opponent lets such a bad marine or csm list win? One that forgets to move and shot for 1-2 turns, or maybe who gets too late for the game and you win through disqualification? Both of the lists can't shot and can't melee, are slow and don't have the bodies to take objectives. They also can't deal with any big target. It doesn't have to be a walled off castellan with 120 guardsman. A gallant can walk over the primaris army . 3 flyers in an eldar army can stop the chaos army from being able to move in to range of anything whole game.

but because the were reboots and thus the best opportunity to hop in without the need to ingest huge material at once

If someone hoped in to starting with BA or GK, after a few months they had to buy a new army. How is that no a huge investment. Unless we assume that someone who plays w40k is a veteran from the early 90s with 12 armies from different factions.

 Melissia wrote:
In this thread, hyper-competitive players whining that GW doesn't cater to them when it never has done so in the past.

Also in this thread, hyper-competitive players presuming everyone plays like them and then looking down on anyone who disagrees.

You know, I got a competitive spirit and all (I go in to every game trying to win, even against my ten year old nephew), but dedicated competition players often come across as arrogant and self-entitled in conversations like this.

Problem is, taking the exact same approach (which this post does) only helps build the mythical casual vs competitive war, which is tiresome in its own right.

Karol wrote:

Even arguments of "it can't WIN games" are wrong too, seeing as it's perfectly possible to play a game with that army, and, depending on your opponent, can win.

Dude am not sure if it would win vs my army, and I consider my army the worse of any army I have ever seen or seen posted on a forum.

Victim complex. You army isn't the worst, and even if an army might lose against yours, is that a problem? It's only a problem if you care more about winning than a good time, or winning is the only way to have that good time.

From what I gather with you and your meta, you try to play to win. For you, seeing an army that doesn't try that is unheard of. That's not every person's goal though. The armies GW has presented there *can* win. Just not in YOUR meta. In GW's own meta, those lists are just fine.

What kind of an opponent lets such a bad marine or csm list win?

One who's taking an army that's built in the same way?

One that forgets to move and shot for 1-2 turns, or maybe who gets too late for the game and you win through disqualification?

Are you incapable of understanding that someone might have a list in the same way? Or is it impossible that only one person could have built a list like this?

Both of the lists can't shot and can't melee, are slow and don't have the bodies to take objectives. They also can't deal with any big target. It doesn't have to be a walled off castellan with 120 guardsman. A gallant can walk over the primaris army . 3 flyers in an eldar army can stop the chaos army from being able to move in to range of anything whole game.

Then it's a good thing that they're not playing those lists. Most likely, in the meta those armies are being taken in, you don't see 120 Guardsmen with a Castellan, or a Gallant taking on an army themed around RECON.

You're putting the list into a context that it's clearly not designed to be in, and complaining that it's bad at it. I'd like for any list to be capable in any situation, but if you actually see how the world really is, that's not happening right now. Just because the armies wouldn't win in YOUR meta doesn't mean they can't win overall. GW didn't claim for a second they could win in your meta. They said they could win - in general - which they can.

text removed.

Reds8n

Voss wrote:
Problem is, taking the exact same approach (which this post does) only helps build the mythical casual vs competitive war, which is tiresome in its own right.

I would imply that I cared, but that would be lying. There is no "war", just kinda whiny and judgmental posters, and I'm glad to call them out on it even if it annoys you.

There are DIFFERENT ways to play this game then just super broken soup.
Ever heard about themed, or narrative, or rule of cool??
Ever considered that there might be more players on the planet that DONT go the GW store or local club and just plays at home with their very limited playgroup that only uses the vanilla codex, then there are players that seek out the clubs and the competative settings??

i`ll tell you something, i have been working on and off on a themed IH SM army for about half a year now i will tell you what is in that 2000p army; 10 dreadnoughts, nothing else!
is it playable? prolly not but is 100% rule of cool.

 Melissia wrote:
In this thread, hyper-competitive players whining that GW doesn't cater to them when it never has done so in the past.

Also in this thread, hyper-competitive players presuming everyone plays like them and then looking down on anyone who disagrees.

You know, I got a competitive spirit and all (I go in to every game trying to win, even against my ten year old nephew), but dedicated competition players often come across as arrogant and self-entitled in conversations like this.

LMAO this comment, is golden.

Stick your head into a conversation to tell people they sound self-entitlted and arrogant.

I fething can't even I'm dying.

I think you just proved her point, TSS

 EnTyme wrote:
I think you just proved her point, TSS

Agreed.

Moreover, once the discussion moves from the actual topic to discussing the way people are behaving that's the sign the thread is probably done. Or at least that nothing constructive will happen from here.

Stop supporting unbalanced garbage systems. Its as simple as that.

 EnTyme wrote:
I think you just proved her point, TSS

Yes because arguing for balance is very self entitled.

I have never said that a person shouldn't be able to run that army.

I have never said all armies should be perfectly balanced.

I have only ever said game balance is an issue and the difference between top tier armies and bottom tier armies should be more narrow.

Voss wrote:
Problem is, taking the exact same approach (which this post does) only helps build the mythical casual vs competitive war, which is tiresome in its own right.

About as tiresome as being told interesting games you played didn't happen because no one uses the unit involved? I mean, my argument was literally about how non-optimal choices can produce interesting an effective results. Meanwhile next post is someone telling me it didn't happen because no one takes those units.

Gonna say, lots of overly competitive folks on these boards who want everything done their way.

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:


I have only ever said game balance is an issue and the difference between top tier armies and bottom tier armies should be more narrow.

This is a wet dream of every competetive 40K player since 2nd ed premiered and it kinda sorta happened briefly only twice in history of this game - during index 3rd and index 8th, both times the game was so bland than many old players that were in for the narrative and immersion quit the game... 40K will always be in this space of being playable by everyone and exceptional for no one, it simply has to cater to too wide spectrum of hobbyists.

Does anyone actually think, that if "good enough" balance not conflicting with perpetual release model would be possible GW (or any other developer for that matter) would refuse to introduce it simply out of sadistic tendencies of infuriating parts of it's playerbase? Or out of 30 years of nurturing mind boggling incompetence as some birds out there like to believe?

nou wrote:

 Thousand-Son-Sorcerer wrote:


I have only ever said game balance is an issue and the difference between top tier armies and bottom tier armies should be more narrow.

This is a wet dream of every competetive 40K player since 2nd ed premiered and it kinda sorta happened briefly only twice in history of this game - during index 3rd and index 8th, both times the game was so bland than many old players that were in for the narrative and immersion quit the game... 40K will always be in this space of being playable by everyone and exceptional for no one, it simply has to cater to too wide spectrum of hobbyists.

Does anyone actually think, that if "good enough" balance not conflicting with perpetual release model would be possible GW (or any other developer for that matter) would refuse to introduce it simply out of sadistic tendencies of infuriating parts of it's playerbase? Or out of 30 years of nurturing mind boggling incompetence as some birds out there like to believe?

Index 8th is what? Nearly balanced?
Between no restrictions on soup, unnerfed conscripts and malefics, brimstones etc.?