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Can you explain the following terms to me from another post.
I understand some of them but not others:

meta armies

Instead, consider the archtypes you need to deal with--mech, alpha strike, horde/blob, ninja, crazy psychic powers, deathstars, ect.

Thanks.

meta armies

This is one posters opinion that there is a "meta-game" that you need to build your army list around, and this "meta-game" includes things like fully mechanized army, Land Raider Spam, Ork Horde, etc.

Instead, consider the archtypes you need to deal with--mech, alpha strike, horde/blob, ninja, crazy psychic powers, deathstars, ect.

Mech: lots of vehicles, ideally no foot-slogging troops at all, everything is in a transport. The idea is to over-load the number of targets for your opponents anti-tank guns

Alpha Strike: the ability to bring in the majority of your firepower down in one turn, (preferably turn 1) and cripple your opponent before he has the opprotunity to do anything to you.

Horde/Blob: generally either Orks or Imperial Guard, its playing "against the mechanized meta-game" in all reality, its making army lists that focus on lots and lots of infantry and preferably no vehicles whatsoever. the idea is to make your opponents anti-tank guns useless.

Ninja: this is generally a Tau strategy where they hold everything in reserve and wait untill their last turn to deepstrike in the vast majority of their army and barely squeak out a win by eliminating one facet of your army and not suffering any return casualties becase the game ends.

Crazy Psychic Powers: A few armies can rely on this... Chaos have Lash Princes and obliterators, Eldar have Eldrad, Space Wolves have Njal and Runepriests, IG have Psyker battle squads, Nids have Zoanthropes...

Deathstars: a term used to refer to an army that has a single super-powerful unit that soaks up most of the points in your opponents army. A large unit of bloodcrushers lead by Skulltaker for example, Or a large unit of thunderwolves led by Canis Wolfborn/thunderwolf lord, Also Seer council on jetbikes, Nob Bikers, Meganobs with Gazzy in a battlewagon, Swarmlord and tyrant Guard, the list goes on..

Excellent, much obliged

Okay, I know I'm a word snob, but...

"Archetype" is a word coined by Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung to describe a universal symbolic form that grows from the race memory of humanity. The form itself cannot be described, but only represented symbolically in myths, legends, folklore, etc. The prefix "arche" means "ancient," so the word was meant to describe only really ancient, powerful, universal forms.

The term has drifted into popular usage to describe any kind of "type," or "symbol," even though it's not strictly accurate to use the term in this way.

[/word snob]

...and I think Demogerg's rundown of common army types is very accurate & concise.

Flavius Infernus wrote:Okay, I know I'm a word snob, but...

"Archetype" is a word coined by Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung to describe a universal symbolic form that grows from the race memory of humanity. The form itself cannot be described, but only represented symbolically in myths, legends, folklore, etc. The prefix "arche" means "ancient," so the word was meant to describe only really ancient, powerful, universal forms.

The term has drifted into popular usage to describe any kind of "type," or "symbol," even though it's not strictly accurate to use the term in this way.

[/word snob]

The word archetype has been in use since the mid 1500's, several hundred years before psycology became the subject of study. It has meant a typical example or an original for centuries and in a literary sense has little to do with jungs psycological form. Also it isnt really appropriate to talk of what a word is supposed to mean, but only what it does mean, as language evolves and previous meanings become irrelevant.

Here is the current definition

http://www.askoxford.com/results/?view=dev_dict&field-12668446=Archetype&branch=13842570&textsearchtype=exact&sortorder=score%2Cname

Oh, snap. Yep, there it is in 1599. I guess that's where Jung lifted it from.

I stand corrected.

Regwon wrote:
The word archetype has been in use since the mid 1500's, several hundred years before psycology became the subject of study. It has meant a typical example or an original for centuries and in a literary sense has little to do with jungs psycological form. Also it isnt really appropriate to talk of what a word is supposed to mean, but only what it does mean, as language evolves and previous meanings become irrelevant.

Here is the current definition

http://www.askoxford.com/results/?view=dev_dict&field-12668446=Archetype&branch=13842570&textsearchtype=exact&sortorder=score%2Cname

Wow, apparently I'm not the only person here who studied language history in college....