Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Which proves you to be the better player in a game:

1. Winning when you start with an advantage.

2. Winning when it's fair and balanced.

3. Winning when you have taken a handicap.

Which one? Why?

1. You've just tricked your opponent into giving you an advantage.

2 - it's fair and you'll have a good game.

the others 1-it's a bit beardy, 2-you either saying you're better in a big headed sort of way or playing someone you know you can win against which isn't that much fun. (I'd rather play a better peron and loose in a fair game than a better person with a handicap and still loose)

Nurglitch wrote:Which proves you to be the better player in a game:

1. Winning when you start with an advantage.

2. Winning when it's fair and balanced.

3. Winning when you have taken a handicap.

Which one? Why?

None of the above. A single game doesn't prove you're a better player. You can take a massive disadvantage, suck at playing and just have a good day.

Playing over a long time, gaining the respect of other players through sound play and clever strategies, making the right moves from positions of strength and from positions of weakness, showing the adaptability to win with a wide variety of lists and playing styles, then maybe you've proven you're pretty good.

So go onto the field with an advantage built into your powerful list. But play other games with weak lists and average lists as well. But more importantly play with lists built around mobility and lists built around stationary firepower, lists built around adaptable units and lists built around specialists, lists built around shooting and lists built around assault. Test yourself with every kind of play your model collection will allow.

That means you can't always take the most powerful list, because you lose that variety... but then for some people winning each game is more important than testing your skills.

that is the real answer! a better player turns up hoping to loose to learn from the experience while having a good time and helping someone else to enjoy their day. someone who doesn't needs to think about what their playing for. (either that or they are the best player in the world, in anycase why bother playing if you know you'll win? why not just watch someone else play for the social side?)

Nurglitch wrote:Which proves you to be the better player in a game:

1. Winning when you start with an advantage.

2. Winning when it's fair and balanced.

3. Winning when you have taken a handicap.

Which one? Why?

Does "better" mean "more skilled" in your question? Since your answers are based on winning I will have to assume so.

Since dice rolls do have the ability to skew the results of the game none of these prove the better player in a single table top game such as 40k.

If you mean the results truely are based on how well the player plays then both 2 & 3 since winning with an advantage is not really a sporting win.

I think better is a player that's showers regularly(extremely important) and is a good sportsman or gamesman

Yes, lets go onto a competitive board and make a topic suggesting that the best players are the ones playing to lose.

If that's the case, then I must be the world's best player!

Not that I play TO lose, I just don't play solely to win.

I've never really been competitive (I'll blame my dad for trying to push me into competitive sports that I had zero interest in), and to me, a better game is one where both players have learned something from it, while having fun.

Hell it is a competitive game.
You are betting that your toy soldiers can beat up the other guys toy soldiers.

I think a better set of questions might be:
1 - Losing against a better player, but still having a good game

2 - Winning against a better player, but still having a good game.

3 - Winning or losing against a player of equal skill, but still having a good game.

4 - Losing against a player of lesser skill, but still having a good game.

5 - Winning against a player of lesser skill, but still having a good game.

Obviously, we all like to win whether it be baseball, football, downhill skiing, or table top games.
But if your end all-be all of the hobby is "MUST WIN" then I think one is taking this g-a-m-e a little bit too seriously.

Laserbait wrote:Hell it is a competitive game.
You are betting that your toy soldiers can beat up the other guys toy soldiers.

That’s not really very true. I’ve played plenty of game where I don’t really care if I win or lose, I’m just happy to see how things play out. 40L can obviously be a competitive game because a lot of people play it that way, but a lot of people don’t. Best just to play your opponent on terms you’re both happy with and not worry about what kind of game 40k ‘is’.

Which proves you to be the better player in a game:

1. Winning when you start with an advantage.

2. Winning when it's fair and balanced.

3. Winning when you have taken a handicap.

Smiling when you lose.(ie) none of the above.
Shaking your opponents hand after a game either way, win or lose, and saying"That was fun" and meaning it.

Getting to play said opponent many more times in the future, due to being a great player, not neccessarily the best General.

It is my humble opinon that all of the op questions are invalid. At least in as much as I and most of those I game with define such. The definition af a good player is one that everyone who knows him/ her, wants to play him/her. They offer a fun, challenging match that is punctuated with laughter and exciting bursts of action. That "good" player also plays to his opponants level and does not needlessly take an easy win. For example, at a recent touney, I entirely miss-deployed, lossed the first turn roll, and through a combination of good moves, good dice rolls and poor saves he wiped out fully 3/4 of my army on his half of turn one. He could have wiped me out at any point, but instead pulled back and allowed the game to play out. He deliberately played down the rest of the game so that it wasn't all over in 15 min. He still won, but allowed me to gain a few vp's so that one mistake didn't ruin the rest of the tourney, or my chances to make up for the loss in other rounds. To be sure, he made me earn those few points, but overall his good sportsmanship saved my tournament. This is the soul and definition of a good player. Lists and skill don't make the player, class and good will make the player.

It is my humble opinon that all of the op questions are invalid. At least in as much as I and most of those I game with define such. The definition af a good player is one that everyone who knows him/ her, wants to play him/her. They offer a fun, challenging match that is punctuated with laughter and exciting bursts of action. That "good" player also plays to his opponants level and does not needlessly take an easy win. For example, at a recent touney, I entirely miss-deployed, lossed the first turn roll, and through a combination of good moves, good dice rolls and poor saves he wiped out fully 3/4 of my army on his half of turn one. He could have wiped me out at any point, but instead pulled back and allowed the game to play out. He deliberately played down the rest of the game so that it wasn't all over in 15 min. He still won, but allowed me to gain a few vp's so that one mistake didn't ruin the rest of the tourney, or my chances to make up for the loss in other rounds. To be sure, he made me earn those few points, but overall his good sportsmanship saved my tournament. This is the soul and definition of a good player. Lists and skill don't make the player, class and good will make the player.

Answering in the spirit of the question, you obviously have more skill and thus are a "better player" if you can pull victory out of the jaws of defeat. So the "better player" would be the one that can still win even if they are at some sort of disadvantage going into the fight.

That said, this doesn’t mean that they are people I want to play with. The best players to play against are the ones that pose a significant challenge and that are fun to play with. That is really the "best player".

If you want to purely look at it from a skill stand point, the best players are the ones who can design the best lists (preferably without internet help but the days of that are long gone) and then go on to win with those lists. In some cases, it might be even better to take the list building out of it and rely purely on generalship. A player who can win with a sub standard list is "better" than one who wins with a top tier list. The only exception would be if the "sub standard" list were tailored to fight the top tier list. Another point of importance is time. Victory in one battle does not necessarily make you better than your opponent. Dice are fickle and a lot of times games come down to a single roll (its really annoying when that roll is who goes first). So to prove one is better than others takes time and many games.

A tournament that I've always wanted to run was "the worst army ever" tournament. You design the worst army possible, take all kinds of junk units and worthless upgrades that must equal or exceeded the point limit (for this tournament the point limit...say 1500 points...becomes the minimum rather than the maximum). Then you show up, trade armies with your opponent and try to defeat your crappy army with theirs...thus proving that your's was really the worst army ever. Kind of the reverse of the normal idea, but it would really show a players understanding of the game based on the army they design (and how many internet boards discuss the worst army composition ever?) and their ability to adapt poor quality troops to the battle in order to win.

Pheonix-

A tournament that I've always wanted to run was "the worst army ever" tournament. You design the worst army possible, take all kinds of junk units and worthless upgrades that must equal or exceeded the point limit (for this tournament the point limit...say 1500 points...becomes the minimum rather than the maximum). Then you show up, trade armies with your opponent and try to defeat your crappy army with theirs...thus proving that your's was really the worst army ever. Kind of the reverse of the normal idea, but it would really show a players understanding of the game based on the army they design (and how many internet boards discuss the worst army composition ever?) and their ability to adapt poor quality troops to the battle in order to win.

Sign me up Big-guy!!!

sebster wrote:

Laserbait wrote:Hell it is a competitive game.
You are betting that your toy soldiers can beat up the other guys toy soldiers.

That’s not really very true. I’ve played plenty of game where I don’t really care if I win or lose, I’m just happy to see how things play out. 40L can obviously be a competitive game because a lot of people play it that way, but a lot of people don’t. Best just to play your opponent on terms you’re both happy with and not worry about what kind of game 40k ‘is’.

Sorry to disagree Sebster, but it IS competition. Not caring whether you win or lose is irrelevant. It is still a competition.

You and your best bud decide to see who can spit the farthest. Does it matter who wins? nope, but it is still competitive.

And, I agree with your premise of seeing how things play out. The game is meant to be fun, not a life or death struggle to win at all costs. At least, that is my take on it.

But, win or lose, the better player is the one who can shake hands with his oppenent and say 'Good game. Look forward to the rematch.'

NOT the one who gripes and complains about his opponents playlist or style. Or curses the dice, the fates, the universe for his lose.

Laserbait wrote:Sorry to disagree Sebster, but it IS competition. Not caring whether you win or lose is irrelevant. It is still a competition.

You and your best bud decide to see who can spit the farthest. Does it matter who wins? nope, but it is still competitive.

And, I agree with your premise of seeing how things play out. The game is meant to be fun, not a life or death struggle to win at all costs. At least, that is my take on it.

But, win or lose, the better player is the one who can shake hands with his oppenent and say 'Good game. Look forward to the rematch.'

NOT the one who gripes and complains about his opponents playlist or style. Or curses the dice, the fates, the universe for his lose.

I guess it all depends what you mean by competitive, I guess. If 'competitive' means anything where one person will be announced a winner, then 40K meets the definition. But that means every game of Scrabble or Monopoly you play with your 6 year old niece at the holiday home is 'competitive'. Then there's really competitive play, where every action you take is the one that increases your team's chance of winning - I play genuinely competitive cricket at a reasonable standard, and only a few of the game of 40K I've seen meet that level of competitiveness.

Most games fall somewhere holiday games with the family and serious competition. I guess they all meet the definition of 'competitive', but just describing 40K as competitive is missing an important part of the culture of the game, don't you think?

sebster wrote:Most games fall somewhere holiday games with the family and serious competition. I guess they all meet the definition of 'competitive', but just describing 40K as competitive is missing an important part of the culture of the game, don't you think?

This is true about basically every game though. Even in your competitive cricket example, you still play because you find it challenging, rewarding, and fun. But with 40k, people have somehow decided that playing to win is bad.

Nurglitch wrote:Which proves you to be the better player in a game:

1. Winning when you start with an advantage.

2. Winning when it's fair and balanced.

3. Winning when you have taken a handicap.

Which one? Why?

Well the first thing I'd say is that these questions are a little weighted to start.

Two, I'm going to have to assume by better player you mean better player at winning the game which is an important distinction.

With that in mind, I'm going to say 1. If what makes you a better player is winning, and if you want to play to win games, then taking an army at a disadvantage is silly. The game introduces acts of random chance, terrain often creates odd scenarios, good players will take lists that minimize the impact that these things have upon their game plan and their ability to win.

Of course you can argue that Good Players are the ones that can take bad lists and win with them, but in the context that the question is being framed in I'd say that the best player is the one who isolates what he wants out of his army and creates his list accordingly. If your objective is to win every game then taking a bad list is simply just a failsafe to avoid embarrassment should you lose. Just because you took a bad list and won with it doesn't mean you're good at winning games, it means that you're good at handicapping yourself and your opponents are simply unlucky, bad at exploiting this handicap, or they're simply not squeezing the advantages out of their army that they could.

Not to say that a good list with a good player will win every game, all I'm saying is simply that if what matters in this context is winning, then the better player is the one that facilitates that before the game even starts.

Of course, very few (if any) people legitimately claim to play like that, and even fewer groups of people can attest to that. Personally, if I'm playing to win, then I want to take every advantage available to me to do so. Often that isn't the case, but sometimes it is. I never could understand the people that hated losing so much with bad armies they'd insist that other people were being "cheesy" or "unfluffy" and try to warp the way the game worked around their personal expectations, instead of simply playing a winning game, from conception to finish. The game can be competitive, and if you have a competitive nature then play that way. If you don't care about winning or losing, however, please don't whine, complain, and come up with a million reasons why the other person who beat you was wrong. Just take the loss, it's only a game, right?

If you permanently handicap the best players in the game,
you'll end up ruled by a master gamer named Harrison
Bergeron.

IntoTheRain wrote:This is true about basically every game though. Even in your competitive cricket example, you still play because you find it challenging, rewarding, and fun. But with 40k, people have somehow decided that playing to win is bad.

When I play cricket I play in a serious team that wants to win. Winning grand finals is what my team and my club is about. When I bat I play a boring, defensive game to get the team off to a solid start, its ugly but it works. I don’t bowl, as even though I’d like to, as we have better bowlers. Every decision is made to increase our chance of winning.

But then I also play cricket on the beach with mates and with family. Everyone has a bat, and everyone has a bowl. Some people count their scores or their wickets, and others don’t even bother running, just trying to hit catches. It’s all for fun.

40K is exactly the same, really. Some situations demand the highest level of commitment, everything thrown into it to win, and some things are more relaxed.

There are people who refuse to see the distinction, and have the same attitude whether they’re playing in a tournament or in a game against a mate. I’m not sure if there’s something missing in their brains or if they’re simply just jerks. It certainly works both ways… turning up to a tournament and complaining that someone else brought a strong list is as obnoxious as turning up to a friendly match with a win or die attitude.

I agree with you Sebster.

It really does depend on the situation.

Go to a tourney, bring your 'A' game, play your best, and try to crunch the competition.

At the LGS, enjoy the game, try out new troops, ideas, and tactics. Try 'what if...?' scenarios. Have FUN.

But in either case, be a sportsman about it. Congratulate your opponent if he/she wins. And don't be an obnoxious prat if you win.

Actually, don't be an obnoxious prat in either case.

Phoenix wrote:A tournament that I've always wanted to run was "the worst army ever" tournament. You design the worst army possible, take all kinds of junk units and worthless upgrades that must equal or exceeded the point limit (for this tournament the point limit...say 1500 points...becomes the minimum rather than the maximum). Then you show up, trade armies with your opponent and try to defeat your crappy army with theirs...thus proving that your's was really the worst army ever. Kind of the reverse of the normal idea, but it would really show a players understanding of the game based on the army they design (and how many internet boards discuss the worst army composition ever?) and their ability to adapt poor quality troops to the battle in order to win.

I played someone with the "worst army" set up but without the army switch (which I wanted to do). I must say that in my opinion cracked out infantry IG will be the worst possible army because you can make 20+ point T3 guys with 7 or 8 leadership and warrior weapons (no shooting) that your opponent will have no problem shooting down. Even Grot armies end up with just too many grots to lose to the IG.

I also found out it is hard/impossible to make a total crap Space Marine Army.

No one has defined what is actually meant by "player" yet.

By "player" do you mean the lad (or lass) on the other side of the table who you interact with, or the opposing army's "general."

Depending on your preferred means of definition, the answer to this question varies profusely.


Example:
I have two friends that I enjoy playing 40K with whenever possible. One person is usually very abrasive, but is a very good general. The other is a competent general, but is a very agreeable person to play.

I honestly prefer playing the latter at times, as it is easier to enjoy the game, but I know when I play the former I'm definitely up for a challenge.

Nurglitch wrote:Which proves you to be the better player in a game:

1. Winning when you start with an advantage.

2. Winning when it's fair and balanced.

3. Winning when you have taken a handicap.

Which one? Why?

Without consideration of how the advantage was lost or gained - either by rules or army choice/deployment - I'd have to go with 3. Pulling out of a "losing" situation takes skill and perseverance. Then again . . .

On second thought, I think I'm going to go with 2. When the opponent starts with an advantage, they can fall into overconfidence and make mistakes. It's difficult to pull yourself out of a hole, but you may not be facing your opponent's top game, mentally speaking. In the ideal situation of everything being fair and balanced, it comes down to a test of minds. Victory will truly go to the better player in the game. Not necessarily the better player overall, but the better player in the game - just like the question asks.

Of course, we're talking about a game of chance here. We have to overlook the fact that a can't beat a no matter how sneaky you are.

Laserbait wrote:Hell it is a competitive game.

Except the people who made the game say it isn't a competitive game. However, people all over the world say it is. I'm so confused. R.A.W. tells me it can't be competitive, while R.A.I. leaves the possability of 40K being a competitive game open. This sounds like it needs to go to the rules forum.

Why is it confusing?
In 40K there will be a winner and a loser in almost every game. Except in cases where it is a draw.
Just like chess, checkers, poker, tiddly winks, battleship, stratego.

Except, unlike those other games, you get to tailor make your force to try to outwit, outgun, outrange, and overcome your opponent.

And, where does GW say it ISN'T competive? Just look at the tournaments they host. The very nature of them literally screams 'cutthroat competitiveness'.

Laserbait wrote:And, where does GW say it ISN'T competive? Just look at the tournaments they host. The very nature of them literally screams 'cutthroat competitiveness'.

The designers have been saying for years that 40K is not designed to be competitive. I think it is even in the rulebook, but I don't have it handy at the moment to quote chapter and verse. Therefore, I'm sure my argument is false.

The behavior is GW hosts a tournament, the inference you supply on your own is that a tournament equals "cutthroat competitieness". A tournament can have a variety of goals. You decide to bring the goal of "cutthroat competiveness".

Anyway, it's really neither here nor there. If "cutthroat competitieness" is what you want out of the game. Enjoy yourself. We are all playing 40K to get what we want out of it. I just encourage everyone to talk to their opponents before you sit down to play. No point in wasting anybodies time if you have different expectations from the game.

Now, to Nurglitch's question. I would imagine the most skilled players could consistently beat a variety of opponents with a variety of lists in a variety of situations. I am not one of those players.

Cut throat tournies are not made cut throat by GW. Its made cut throat by "us" and by us i meen you lot who come up with loop holes in the rules and design great lists and play really well with the single intention of winning the tournie, like thats gona get you all the girls or something. well it wont