Fetterkey wrote:I generally find that lists matter a *lot* at low levels of play, but as people know more about how to play the game, lists start meaning less. In a tournament setting, lists seem to matter very little, as long as nobody has a truly bad list. Note that, when new armies come out, *everyone* is at a low level of play with those armies, so it's a lot easier for lists to achieve surprise and dominate regardless of skill-- hence "fad lists" such as Nob Bikers and the like.

Catyrpelius wrote:Screw comp in a tournement. Thats like showing up to a tournement and shouting, I'm Not Here To Win!

When I'm at a tournement I play to win. With that I spend weeks building and refining my list so that I either a direct or indirect counter to every possible army I could go up against. While skill is important for this to, I wouldnt be able to do anything with a poorly built list. Maybe my Meta is just more competitive then most.

UbiSwanky2 wrote:I honestly don't think you can rank one above the other. Even the "powah" list will eventually come up against somthing that was made to smash it. Does that make the other list the new "powah"?...no it dosen't. I'm pretty sure it's up to the players to adapt to different situations using some skill. Say you have a poorly skilled player with a good list against say a skillfull player who had 15 min to throw somthing together to play, I'd put my money on the skillfull player. Too sum it up...a moderatly skilled player will not just make a "bad" list it may be lacking in some areas situatonally but then that's where skill comes in.

Gaz Taylor wrote:

leontheconfused wrote:It would seem that UK players believe that a skilled player can take a not very competitive list and do well with it and I am trying to understand the US view point.

I think the US see list over player for a couple of reasons

1.) Terrain
2.) Game size

Most of the pictures or youtube reports of games I have seen in the US seem to consit of one large LOS blocking bit of terrain near the centre of the board, and then a couple of other bits of terrain normally placed in each quarter. Because of the lack of terrain, a lot of the US armies tend to lean more towards shooting and is one of the reasons why you can say a list is more important than the player, as it's about how much you can pump out and take before moving around the board to claim objectives or finish units off. Also in the US they seem to regularlly play 2000 point games while in the UK we tend to play 1500 to 1750. The difference between what you can have in a 2000 point list to a 1500 point list is massive. This is why I think this is why some US players see the list as being really important.

I would also like to add that I'm not saying that UK players are better than US players or visa versa (although in the ETC the US did better than the UK), it's just we play in different enviroments

Red_Lives wrote:

leontheconfused wrote:I have been listening to a lot of 40k podcasts recently and have noticed something, why is it folks in the US believe that player skill comes second to building a good army list?

It would seem that UK players believe that a skilled player can take a not very competitive list and do well with it and I am trying to understand the US view point.

2 reasons.

1. In the US most tourney are 1850-2000, this large points value really places an emphasis on optimization. Since if your list is not optimized and your opponents is, you are at a disadvantage.

2. Americans like to win, and win hard. ITs in our nature its part of our culture. If we don't win, we lost.

Ma55ter_fett wrote:I don't know.

I would say that this trend is also extremely prevalent in starcraft 2, where top American and European players tend to focus on meta style game play while Asian players tend to focus on quick, fast, and brutal early game attacks.

dkellyj wrote:2nd place is the first loser.

kronk wrote:Without either, you're a necron player.