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.

Hey folks!

There's a store near me that's running an interesting event: If you buy $50 worth of stuff at the store, you have a week to challenge and play the "house pro" in a 40k game where you have 1,000 points against their 1,500 points. If you win, you're entered into a monthly drawing for a free battleforce box.

I sat there pondering that for a while. If I wasn't required to buy $50 worth of stuff at the store I'd give it a shot. I'd even toss out a few bucks for the sake of trying it.

Do YOU ever play uneven games? 1500 vs 2000? Is there any reason to within the fluff of 40k? Just curious if anyone has done this before.

I don't play uneven point games caus i think it would suck, orks=1000, space marines=1500, i wonder who would win (not sarcastic)

We're currently running a campaign with a kind of Risk metagame, this automatically leads to uneven point games.

So far it's been great fun, you're required to think differently about your play style. It does however show that a 20% difference already has quite a lot of impact on the game. So winning with a 1k army versus a 1,5k army seems quite hard to me.

It's easy, you just dont play, but if you want to play...

I will, on occasion, play a special scenario where one side has less troops but has an easier time of things, such as heavy defenses or an easy goal.

I also occasionally play handicap games to give newer players a chance. More often, though, I'll tweek my army list so it's less than optimal instead...less armour, less elite units, stuff like that.

Handicap games can be pretty fun, but you don't have to restrict yourself to points. In particular, allowing the player with fewer points to arrange the terrain (and choose the board side, mission, etc) makes for great games that are technically even, even if one side would sweep the other off a flat and featureless plain (or a dense forest, etc).

I don't play uneven point games caus i think it would suck, orks=1000, space marines=1500, i wonder who would win (not sarcastic)

If its a nob biker army they would probably win

No, because it weights the game heavily in the favour of the person with more points. In your example, that was the object of the exercise, so less people enter and so it's a challenge.

I've played it a few times. Like everything else, the skill of the players means as much, if not more, than the points involved. The higher the points, the less the disadvantage means, and at 1000 vs. 1500, that 500 points is a big gap.

That being said, have you played even games where one side got screwed in reserves rolls? Or lost a bunch of stuff to deep striking? Or got screwed by a trick maneuver such as the first-turn deffkopta attack? Or played against a bad list with throwaway points or poor deployment? Or had some bad luck immobilization on terrain, sticking your landraider with termies on the back table edge? If so, then you've played an uneven game. Did you automatically lose or win in all those scenarios? Of course not.

My point is that we've all played uneven games at some point. Your advantage is that you know going in that you're disadvantaged and can build your list accordingly rather than losing some random piece of an otherwise cohesive army. It's not an impossible challenge. I'm assuming the pro is at least above average and won't put together a bad list, but it certainly can be done. It would be even better if you can scout your opponent and know what list they are running, or at least the army.

If you could actually use $50 worth of stuff and can spare the cash (the worst thing that happens is you get your $50 worth of stuff), then why not go for it?

LeperMessiah wrote:I've played it a few times. Like everything else, the skill of the players means as much, if not more, than the points involved. The higher the points, the less the disadvantage means, and at 1000 vs. 1500, that 500 points is a big gap.

That being said, have you played even games where one side got screwed in reserves rolls? Or lost a bunch of stuff to deep striking? Or got screwed by a trick maneuver such as the first-turn deffkopta attack? Or played against a bad list with throwaway points or poor deployment? Or had some bad luck immobilization on terrain, sticking your landraider with termies on the back table edge? If so, then you've played an uneven game. Did you automatically lose or win in all those scenarios? Of course not.

My point is that we've all played uneven games at some point. Your advantage is that you know going in that you're disadvantaged and can build your list accordingly rather than losing some random piece of an otherwise cohesive army. It's not an impossible challenge. I'm assuming the pro is at least above average and won't put together a bad list, but it certainly can be done. It would be even better if you can scout your opponent and know what list they are running, or at least the army.

If you could actually use $50 worth of stuff and can spare the cash (the worst thing that happens is you get your $50 worth of stuff), then why not go for it?

First turn Deffkopta attack? What's this trick?

I once played a guy when we both forgot our codexs. We just did some estimate playing, but we ran into a little confusion: When I feild a "squad of 5 nobz," 2 will kave klaws and the rest uge' choppas and everyone gets 'Eavy Armour. This type of problem cropped up for all of our unit choices (squad of boyz for me means 30 w/Nob and PK, for him it meant 20 sluggas). In the end, I probably had AT LEAST 500 more points than him, and neither one of us picked up on it properly until near the end of the game. I gave up some models and abilities, but I still trounced his face on an epic level.

Not that its impossible, but you better be damn good.

Pika_power wrote:

LeperMessiah wrote:I've played it a few times. Like everything else, the skill of the players means as much, if not more, than the points involved. The higher the points, the less the disadvantage means, and at 1000 vs. 1500, that 500 points is a big gap.

That being said, have you played even games where one side got screwed in reserves rolls? Or lost a bunch of stuff to deep striking? Or got screwed by a trick maneuver such as the first-turn deffkopta attack? Or played against a bad list with throwaway points or poor deployment? Or had some bad luck immobilization on terrain, sticking your landraider with termies on the back table edge? If so, then you've played an uneven game. Did you automatically lose or win in all those scenarios? Of course not.

My point is that we've all played uneven games at some point. Your advantage is that you know going in that you're disadvantaged and can build your list accordingly rather than losing some random piece of an otherwise cohesive army. It's not an impossible challenge. I'm assuming the pro is at least above average and won't put together a bad list, but it certainly can be done. It would be even better if you can scout your opponent and know what list they are running, or at least the army.

If you could actually use $50 worth of stuff and can spare the cash (the worst thing that happens is you get your $50 worth of stuff), then why not go for it?

First turn Deffkopta attack? What's this trick?

I get tired of typing this out, really.

Its when Deffkoptas Turbo-boost on their scout move (yeah, its been FAQ'd mate, its legal) and they get their 3+ cover save. Then on their next turn (preferably they have first turn) they move another 12", and get rear armour shots on with their T-L Rokkit Launcha's. They should have buzzsaws, and then they assault tanks, affording a 3-4 S7 attacks on the charge, against rear armour. The ones that don't have buzzsaws tie up units.

If you play planetary empire campaigns, you will routinely see uneven sides (50 points per tile controlled difference and points per command section controlled), sides with bonuses to reserve rolls (+1 to +3), and sides with free universal skills to distribute to their units (1 to 3 free skills).

In one game, I controlled 3 more tiles, so my opponent got 150 "bonus points". Additionally, he controlled more than 3x the number of command points as I did, giving him an additional 150 points. In an 1800 point game, he got 2100 to my 1800.

However, I had +3 to my reserves and got them all on turn 2.

It would depend on the scenario. I think some armies could do well. I could see in kill points; fielding a rediculously low kp army, like IG with command and two platoons. If you can kill 4 units and not get tabled you win. For objectives something reserve heavy like ninja tau or drop pod marines would have a chance

For dash something like like 30 ard boyz with mad dok grotznik, 30 Boyz w/Big mek and KFF and deffcoptas could be really effective for kill points

For objectives ninja tau

I remember playing a short little round against a friend where none of us even bothered to make army lists, we just wanted to try stuff out. I had two trukks with boys and a PK nob, a warboss in one of them, too, two kans, three buggies...I think that was it. He had two LRMBTs, a Deathstrike missile system that we agreed could fire second round (he wanted to try it out) and a special weapon squad with plasma guns.

Well, in the end the two trukks with boyz totally krumped everything on the table. Round two we had two dead Leman Russes, the Deathstrike next round killed some boyz, but the rest of the force was still intact. The important thing is: He just had a bad first round of shooting with a shooty army against a close combat wreckage force. My point, however, is: He didn't bother to shoot at the buggies, while the buggies had almost no game impact. the kans were basically useless, too. So, theoretically, it was two trukks of boyz against his army.

Warhammer 40,000 ist so much about luck that things like this can work, I guess. It might help to have an army that goes in a clear direction - no mixed half-CC half-shooty, just one "theme" - and if this theme is the right counter to your opponents army you might get lucky and win the game even with a serious point disadvantage.

Done it quite a lot, at least half the games I've played. Generally because they were a series of campain battles generally involving 3 players, so points costs were shifting to suit the scenario. For example, a slave raid where DE started in full reserve with only half the points of the other sides, but had the entire army come in on one reserve roll and at least a turn after the orks and BA had started beating each other up.

Or BA and DE making an alliance (apparently the BA commander needs to re-read his alien spotting guide to tell the difference between craftworld and spiky eldar) to take out a really dangerous ork gun/bastion that was ripping holes in reality. We'd have tossed in a fourth player with daemons if we could find one.