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Ailaros wrote:

ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:All game I only shot twice where his units weren't in cover. It just happened that the armies we played and the way we played them didn't really take advantage of the terrain. The dice influenced the game FAR more than the terrain did, with the exception of some bad DT rolls, which I guess is a hybrid of the two.

So, about terrain.

Firstly, if you put the pieces of terrain all in a cluster, they wouldn't have even filled a single 1/6 board pannel. That there was hills in the corner that let you shoot over said terrain meant that there really was less than appeared. I was actually pretty shocked to see the OTHER game table (see the second picture in the report), that had ONE piece of LOS blocking terrain. I should also note that making the hills area terrain was my idea. Usually, the hills in this FLGS aren't played as such.

Secondly, Yeah, I was able to get a lot of cover, but it was no short of tricky. More importantly, once I started taking casualties at the end, I had to choose between leaving guys in cover to take cover saves, or leaving my guys with weapons at the front of the squad alive. With proper terrain, that usually shouldn't happen.

More importantly, it required me to ALWAYS keep units in backfield terrain in order to have any chance of cover saves which means I ALWAYS needed to take difficult terrain tests every turn. If there was more cover, I would have been able to just move up 6" and I'd still have it.

I'm under the impression that being seriously under-terrained is actually a common feature at most large tournaments, which makes sense to practice as such, but still, it's sort of difficult to make the case that a board with half the recommended amount of terrain with a big open space in the middle of the board isn't helpful for sit-and-shoot armies. Yes, terrain wasn't the deciding factor this game. Still...

Perhaps it was just the immobility of one of the players and the lack of terrain that made this game more Yahtzee, but I'm starting to get the suspicion that there's more to it than that.

I don’t want this to turn sour because I did have a good time, but I don’t really think the terrain was that far off of what you might see in a tournament setting. A little yes, a lot, no, game influencing, absolute not. Here are my reasons:

1. You have to count the built in hills as board coverage, especially because the other hills weren’t hills but area. There was actually a fairly diverse selection of terrain on the table covering ¼ of the table. If you read the terrain section of the rule book, ¼ isn’t area terrain, ¼ is a mix of area, hills, things the block LOS, things that don’t, things that give cover, things that don’t.
2. There was a lot more LOS blocking terrain than any tournament. At Adepticon and tournaments that use Adepticons terrain you’ll be lucky to have one truly LOS blocking piece on the board. Our LOS blockers were a little smaller than usual, but there were alot more of them.

If I could have improved the terrain to make it totally tournament like there would have been fewer but bigger pieces, and they would have been mostly area. But there would have been less LOS blocking stuff, and really not much more over all.

And the immobility thing was done on purpose. I don’t play that way against everybody. But the terrain was boxing me into my deployment zone in a way I never felt like I could pounce on a particular area and blow things away. So I was having success just shooting, so I did what was working. But the immobility would be much worse at a tournament because the sphinx and two hills blocking me in would all be flat area that you could see right through.

And the table you mentioned in the other picture is silly. I did not set that up, the two guys at that table are very new to the game.

pixelgeek wrote:
That said, you didn't appear to have to move to be able shoot at his army. I don't think that any sci-fi based game should have such open firing channels in the centre of the table.

You sat in place, shot the hell out of him, with admittedly good dice, and then charged from your positions once he was wiped out.

You opponent's comments re: tactics are pretty valid in this game. You didn't appear to need to do anything and he had littlemoptions available to him.

I think the terrain really had a negative impact on the game…

I'd try a game with more terrain and some reason for your opponent to move before you come to any conclusions.

I can't think of a single game with long weapon ranges that would not have had a similar result with such large open firelanes. AT-43, Infinity and almost every other modern game I have played would have been one-side like this.

Again, the lanes would be even worse in a tournament setting. I would have 360 to everything on most tables. And they should have helped him just the same, he went first, got to shoot everything off before me, his dice just failed him.

As for my immobility, it was a combination of being boxed in by terrain and having successful dice. I’m not going to start playing silly just for the heck of it. Had he gotten to me faster or had there been some compelling reason to move I would have. I knew I won the shooting game early on, I wasn’t going to move into his melta guns on purpose. I knew I had so many flamers that he would close around turn 4, then I could flame his stuff and still have time to get to objectives on 5. It’s all intentional, and very tactical.

A tournament table would have been different for him, I don’t think it would have been better.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
I think at high levels of play both players know what the other guys tactics are. It's not a matter of the game not being tactical or strategic, it's just one guy gets to execute and the other doesn't.

I posted this over at http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/351913.page

to stop the derail.

kaiservonhugal wrote:Out of the three main variants (2 PLTs with 4 squads each, 4 Commissars minimum supported by Ogryns or HW teams or armored platforms) I think the HW teams show the most promise for a IG Blob.

The thing that frustrates me is that I agree, HWS spam, should, in theory, be pretty boss.

The reason I'm not particularly inclined to try again comes from 1/3 shattered dreams, 1/3 I don't want to have to make more of these guys, and 1/3rd they take forever for me to set up, given how I do them.

That, and I was already feeling how crowded things were with just 3 of them along with 3 shooty officer squads. Once you start packing in more, I'm afraid that they'll just start turning into artillery fodder with bad fire lanes.

On the other side, perhaps if I don't include HWSs, perhaps this means I should stop including a CCS.

ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:I think at high levels of play both players know what the other guys tactics are. It's not a matter of the game not being tactical or strategic, it's just one guy gets to execute and the other doesn't.

You know, perhaps it really isn't more than this.

It's not that 40k doesn't have tactics, it's that 40k only has so much tactics in it. Once you get to the point where you have two players who have the game basically figured out, the tactical part of the game just sort of fades into relative irrelevance. Likewise, if you have two lists that are roughly the same strength, the strength of the list becomes a much less deciding factor.

I suppose the one crucial thing that's out of player skill control is the way the dice work, so it's the only factor that can never truly be made irrelevant.

Ailaros wrote:
It's not that 40k doesn't have tactics, it's that 40k only has so much tactics in it. Once you get to the point where you have two players who have the game basically figured out, the tactical part of the game just sort of fades into relative irrelevance. Likewise, if you have two lists that are roughly the same strength, the strength of the list becomes a much less deciding factor.

I suppose the one crucial thing that's out of player skill control is the way the dice work, so it's the only factor that can never truly be made irrelevant.

Agreed. I find that when I play other good players the dice need to be really even for the game to be fun. If a good player gets good dice then their execution is really lopsided and it just isn't as fun. But if the dice remain even and both players are able to hang in there it is still a really interesting experience, even if you know what the other guy is bringing and trying to do.

Ailaros wrote:

ArtfcllyFlvrd wrote:I think at high levels of play both players know what the other guys tactics are. It's not a matter of the game not being tactical or strategic, it's just one guy gets to execute and the other doesn't.

You know, perhaps it really isn't more than this.

It's not that 40k doesn't have tactics, it's that 40k only has so much tactics in it. Once you get to the point where you have two players who have the game basically figured out, the tactical part of the game just sort of fades into relative irrelevance. Likewise, if you have two lists that are roughly the same strength, the strength of the list becomes a much less deciding factor.

I suppose the one crucial thing that's out of player skill control is the way the dice work, so it's the only factor that can never truly be made irrelevant.

If one player doesn't get to execute his plans and the other does, that would most likely mean that the better player just outplayed the other guy. And if you know the other guy's plan, then a very good player should make sure that the other guy won't be allowed to execute his. Saying that the tactical aspect fades to irrelevance is insane. All of the following influences who wins a game, and I would say that luck is at most 5%. (And that is probably pushing it) I've never lost a game to a "noob/much worse player", if luck was that important, I should have. Good players know how to lower the impact of luck in both list building and tactical application:
1. Lists
2. Luck
3. Strategy
4. Tactics
5. Other factors (terrain/rules misunderstandings etc)

Read one of Proximity's tourney reports, he seems to be an example of an amazing player - all games are practically perfect and that is with a "subpar" list. Players with the level of control he displays are extremely rare, I've never meet one, but even at slightly lower skill-levels, tactics+strategy is where the biggest influences on play are possible. Denying your opponent his plans, tricking him into doing mistakes and then taking advantage of those mistakes are examples of tactical application that you can never be good enough at.

As for the terrain - the "at least 25% terrain"-blurb should be viewed as a rule, not a guideline. 40k isn't supposed to be a turkey-shoot.
- Props on beautiful terrain though

Illumini wrote:All of the following influences who wins a game, and I would say that luck is at most 5%. (And that is probably pushing it) I've never lost a game to a "noob/much worse player", if luck was that important, I should have.

Well, that's actually sort of my point. When you're talking about players with lists that contain serious flaws, or are players who have a poor grasp of the tactical basics, then yeah, luck doesn't matter as much.

Illumini wrote: All of the following influences who wins a game, and I would say that luck is at most 5%.

Sure, but I'm talking about this algebraically. When there is a relative maximum to the amount of tactics and the skill of players (as far as actionable), then, assuming both players have that amount, then those two things cancel out. It's not that list building isn't still a factor, but list building is no longer a RELATIVE factor. List quality doesn't actually effect the game if both you and your opponents bring the same list, for example.

When you screen these things out, whatever is left, regardless what percentage when you started, is what actually matters.

Illumini wrote:Denying your opponent his plans, tricking him into doing mistakes and then taking advantage of those mistakes are examples of tactical application that you can never be good enough at.

Very well, let me ask, then, how would you have forced my opponent to make mistakes in this game? What were mistakes that my opponent made that I could have taken advantage of?

If there was a significant factor to this game other than luck, what exactly was it?

Ailaros wrote:

Illumini wrote:Denying your opponent his plans, tricking him into doing mistakes and then taking advantage of those mistakes are examples of tactical application that you can never be good enough at.

Very well, let me ask, then, how would you have forced my opponent to make mistakes in this game? What were mistakes that my opponent made that I could have taken advantage of?

If there was a significant factor to this game other than luck, what exactly was it?

Tactics is IMO one of the hardest factors to actually discuss. It is almost like tacit knowlegde, and it is hard to verbalize. Forcing/tricking good opponents into mistakes is also very hard, and is certainly a sign of a player of a very high calibre, so that is even harder to point out. I will try to point to some things that probably affected the outcome.

Strategy - Once I saw the mission, I thought "you have this in the bag", you can easily walk into the centre to hold that with more units, and on your way to the centre, you have three objectives, meaning you'll get that objective too. The KP I thought would be a failsafe, if your opponent rushed the centre, he would risk giving up too many KP's. I was very surprised by your general strategy for the game.

Tactics - As said, this is much harder to verbalize, I'll give some small mistakes/missed opportunities IMO from looking at the pictures. Some might not be accurate because the picture is my source:
1 - Gave the right vendetta unnecessary side-shots (at least it looks like it on the pic)
2- 1st turn target priority - Manticore should have been priority nr1 - it is better against both your russes and your infantry than the vendettas, and both had cover anyway.
3- Vanquisher could have been placed on an extreme flank to make it harder to hide side-armour,(restricting opponent movement/options/opening for mistakes) same with other russes, but of course more restriced bc of range
4- Turn 1, looks like right exterminator could get side-shots on the manticore by moving north-east (hard to jugde)

That is first turn mistakes, I can't be bothered to look to closely for more. These mistakes, added to the uneven luck and the lack of terrain lost you the initiative (which you should have had strategically) and probably lead to your defeat. Your opponent had very good target priority and played a decent game, there were some moves in the end which could have been better, but I know how it is when you have luck with you, you get lax

Of course luck has more impact when you are up against an even opponent than a poor opponent, but the way you worded it, it sounded like you and your opponent were true masters of 40k tactics, there was nothing more to gain here, which sounds cocky and silly. That is probably not what you meant though? Maybe we are in agreement. (except I believe that the tactic aspect of the game is the one where you have the most room to grow)


Edit: I know it is hard to stop focussing on bad luck, but IMO, the focus on luck actually detract from otherwise excellent reports. There are usually some other reasons why you lost, and those reasons are more interesting for both the readers and yourself than: "I lost because of dice". I have a regular opponent that actually believes I can talk to his dice (they always roll what I ask of them), and even with his terrible luck, he beats me about half the time, probably because he doesn't dwell by his luck, but thinks about the tactical and strategic reasons for his loss.

I had a game recently against him where it felt like it was the opposite, he got all the rolls he needed and I failed lots of important rolls. I won the game barely, with 7 models left and having killed 12 of his. Battlereport here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRZ9gTPMOjg&feature=player_embedded#at=40 (that is just friendly hazing in the end )

After this game, I focussed on the luck, but after a while, I knew exactly what i had done wrong tactically to make it a turkey-shoot and what I had done right strategically to actually win regardless. It was all down to ONE wrong move in my first turn (so luck didn't actually matter)

Illumini wrote:Tactics is IMO one of the hardest factors to actually discuss. It is almost like tacid knowlegde, and it is hard to verbalize. Forcing/tricking good opponents into mistakes is also very hard, and is certainly a sign of a player of a very high calibre, so that is even harder to point out. I will try to point to some things that probably affected the outcome.

I must ask, then, what is the utility of the idea of tactics if it can not be demonstrated in the real world?

Furthermore, without a correlation to reality, how can we determine the accuracy of statements like "tactics are an important part of the game"?

Illumini wrote:
1 - Gave the right vendetta unnecessary side-shots (at least it looks like it on the pic)
2- 1st turn target priority - Manticore should have been priority nr1 - it is better against both your russes and your infantry than the vendettas, and both had cover anyway.
3- Vanquisher could have been placed on an extreme flank to make it harder to hide side-armour,(restricting opponent movement/options/opening for mistakes) same with other russes, but of course more restriced bc of range
4- Turn 1, looks like right exterminator could get side-shots on the manticore by moving north-east (hard to jugde)

The problem is that what you're talking about here isn't "mistakes", it's "trade-offs".

Had I moved forwards to take a side shot on the manticore (which I'm not entirely convinced was possible either), I would have exposed my side armor to the vendettas. Had I put my tanks on the extreme corners of the board, I would have had fewer targets, and I wouldn't have had the hill to sit on to get LOS to everything.

You can't have everything at once, which means that you're always going to have to do things that are less than perfect in order to prevent an even worse outcome.

Illumini wrote:I know it is hard to stop focussing on bad luck, but IMO, the focus on luck actually detract from otherwise excellent reports. There are usually some other reasons why you lost, and those reasons are more interesting for both the readers and yourself than: "I lost because of dice".

Referring to the luck is actually very important in these. Without it, you can't judge if what happened in this case is what you should reasonably expect in any similar case. Should you expect a pair of hydras, a pair of vendettas, and a manticore to destroy 45% of your opponent's list on turn 1? If I should, I need to quick change my list. If I shouldn't, then I shouldn't.

If you are making the assumption that 40k is a game of tactics with just a touch of luck added in, then yeah, it would be silly to talk about luck at all. I see no reason to hold this viewpoint, however. Currently, in fact, I'm seeing the opposite to be true, which is only the more reason to include how die rolls went.

I'm not going to argue that serious mistakes or problems with list building, or whatever, can't have an effect on the game, but, unless they're really egregious relative to your opponent, I really don't see how it's the primary determiner of how games go the way they do, especially given your definition of "mistake".

Illumini wrote:but the way you worded it, it sounded like you and your opponent were true masters of 40k tactics, there was nothing more to gain here, which sounds cocky and silly.

If I make such an assertion, it is only upon the foundation that, unlike chess, which is easy to learn, and difficult to master, 40k is difficult to learn, and easy to master.

So far, I've yet to see why I should believe other.

Ailaros wrote:
I must ask, then, what is the utility of the idea of tactics if it can not be demonstrated in the real world?

Furthermore, without a correlation to reality, how can we determine the accuracy of statements like "tactics are an important part of the game"?

I think you misunderstood what tacit knowlegde means here. Tacit knowlegde = silent knowlegde = knowlegde that is hard to verbalize and that has to be learned through experience/learing by doing. (like riding a bike or driving a car - try to learn that by reading a book/forum post)

Ailaros wrote:The problem is that what you're talking about here isn't "mistakes", it's "trade-offs".

Where you took what looks like the worse choice. It looks like the vanq would have a fine and dominating PoV from the left f.ex. And from the pictures it doesn't look like you would have needed to expose any sidearmour to the vendettas to get those side-shots. I can't comment too much on this though, I wasn't there, and I only have still shots to go from. You will of course "win" any discussion on what actually happened.

If you seriously can't find ONE tactical mistake you did in this battle though, then you should think for a little while if you're maybe looking a bit too hard for excuses instead of real causes. (humans do this)

Ailaros wrote:Referring to the luck is actually very important in these. Without it, you can't judge if what happened in this case is what you should reasonably expect in any similar case. Should you expect a pair of hydras, a pair of vendettas, and a manticore to destroy 45% of your opponent's list on turn 1? If I should, I need to quick change my list. If I shouldn't, then I shouldn't.

Extreme fluctuations in luck is fine to include, but blaiming luck every time you loose is a fallacy, and it detracts from your opponent's performance and your own + readers learning. I usually learn much more when I loose a game than when I win, even those times I thought it was about luck.

Ailaros wrote:
If I make such an assertion, it is only upon the foundation that, unlike chess, which is easy to learn, and difficult to master, 40k is difficult to learn, and easy to master.

So far, I've yet to see why I should believe other.

I think we have different views on "mastering" something, if you actually feel that you have mastered 40k now. I'm a good player, I'm ranked top 5 in my country, but I sure as hell don't claim to be a "master". I know that there are people out there in the big world that could beat me consitently.

I know that if you don't want to see something, it is impossible to actually make you see it (chimera multilasers vs heavy bolters ), so I won't bother too much. Just explain how one player can dominate every single tourney he attends (as in picking up at least 90% of the BP's every single time).

We do agree that the % of influence of "win-influencers" fluctuate though. Lists are very important if one list is crap, if players are tactically even (which is not the same as both having mastered 40k), then luck will have a bigger influence.

Ailaros wrote:Referring to the luck is actually very important in these. Without it, you can't judge if what happened in this case is what you should reasonably expect in any similar case. Should you expect a pair of hydras, a pair of vendettas, and a manticore to destroy 45% of your opponent's list on turn 1? If I should, I need to quick change my list. If I shouldn't, then I shouldn't.

Hydras are twin-linked, Vendettas are twin-linked, Manticores throw out d3 ordnance barrage blasts a turn. These are exactly the kind of units you can expect to do the majority of the heavy-lifting in a mechanised army. You're picking bad examples in an attempt to illustrate your point. If you'd said 'Can I expect 5 Chimeras to destroy 50% of my army' I'd've said no and *then* had a look at how your dice were behaving. As is, you got pounded by the heavy hitters in the list and the heavy hitters did their job very well.

lllumini wrote:Extreme fluctuations in luck is fine to include, but blaiming luck every time you loose is a fallacy, and it detracts from your opponent's performance and your own + readers learning. I usually learn much more when I loose a game than when I win, even those times I thought it was about luck.

This also has a ring of truth about it. I enjoy your battle reports, Ailaros, as it allows me to see how a wildly different IG army performs on the table. This is overshadowed somewhat by the constant reference to luck, or more specifically the lack of it. When you lose one or two games and blame the dice I can sympathise, as can 99% of people on this forum. When every time you lose is blamed on bad dice...well....*gestures at what Illumini wrote*

L. Wrex

Lycaeus Wrex wrote:Hydras are twin-linked, Vendettas are twin-linked, Manticores throw out d3 ordnance barrage blasts a turn. These are exactly the kind of units you can expect to do the majority of the heavy-lifting in a mechanised army... As is, you got pounded by the heavy hitters in the list and the heavy hitters did their job very well.

Just because you call something a "heavy hitter" doesn't mean statistics don't matter. In this case, a vendetta scored 2 penetrating hits and a glance against AV14. Regardless of how you chose to label them, is that what we should more or less expect to happen every time vendettas shoot at russes?

No, in fact, this should only happen roughly 1% of the time a vendetta shoots at a russ.

lllumini wrote:When you lose one or two games and blame the dice I can sympathise, as can 99% of people on this forum. When every time you lose is blamed on bad dice...well....*gestures at what Illumini wrote*

That I have bad luck is repeated because it has unfortunately stayed relevant. I don't refer to bad luck in games when I don't have it. If it appears that I'm complaining about bad luck, it's because things consistently go far worse for me than statistically expected.

When other people see my battle reports, it can be easy to draw conclusions from the results. For example, if someone read this game they would come to the conclusion that guard armies can't hurt land raiders, or if they read this game, they'd come to the conclusion that, even with commissars, guard have SERIOUS morale problems, or if they read this game, they would come to the conclusion that tau small arms can easily rip through guardsmen, even in cover, which is also not true.

Not true, unless, of course, the dice go the specific way they went in these games, but the odds of that happening are so incredibly low, that people shouldn't attempt to gain "quiet knowledge" from the end results.

Illumini wrote:Extreme fluctuations in luck is fine to include, but blaiming luck every time you loose is a fallacy

Which fallacy?

Illumini wrote:

Ailaros wrote:The problem is that what you're talking about here isn't "mistakes", it's "trade-offs".

Where you took what looks like the worse choice.

Perhaps it only appears that way because of the ultimate outcome?

This might be useful, were it not for other, much more important factors that affected the outcome.

Illumini wrote:If you seriously can't find ONE tactical mistake you did in this battle though, then you should think for a little while if you're maybe looking a bit too hard for excuses instead of real causes.

Illumini wrote:I know that if you don't want to see something, it is impossible to actually make you see it

Firstly, I did make at least one mistake on turn 3 with my movement in my right hand infantry squad. I don't see how failing to make that mistake would have had any impact on the ultimate end of this game.

Secondly, I'm not denying some upper level of tactics and clinging to luck as the only answer out of superstition. It genuinely appears to be the most determining factor to me.

So far, your arguments about upper level tactics seem to be merely the assertion that they exist, and that they are important. So far, this has been based on arguments that they are difficult to define, and can't be adequately paired to real-world events. You'll have to excuse me if this isn't convincing. I have seen examples of what you're talking about at what I would consider the upper level of 40k tactics (which you would consider somewhere at the middle, at the highest), so I don't doubt it exists, but at the particular level of play my opponent and I were at, I'm skeptical, and haven't seen any real evidence to make my skepticism seem unjustified.

Meanwhile, I posit that a non-average end result to a game can be determined by non-average rolling of dice. My hypothesis would tell me that when my opponent rolls 1:100 well with his alpha strike on his vendettas or 1:20 well-hitting with his multilasers and I doing 1:142 poorly with my alpha strike, that the end result should be MUCH less in my favor than a game played with average rolling.

I see the dice going the way they do, and I'd predict I do very poorly. The end result was that I did very poorly. Talking about luck alone is a sufficient theory for determining the output of games at this level of play. I've yet to see why this is a poor theory, especially when it seems to match the data so well.

Perhaps if I could see several games in which very tiny tactical differences at a high level of play made all the difference despite of off-average die rolling, I'd see things differently. So far, I've got zero data points to support this hypothesis, and several to support the current one I hold.

It's less a matter of being stubborn, more than a matter of being scientific. If there is more to be said other than simple assertions and personal preferences, I'd really like to hear it. The conclusion that I've maxed out what I can do on the field that matters compared to luck is somewhat disheartening.

To be fair, Ailaros complains about his luck and dice when he wins as well.

He also likes to provide analysis and explain why X and Y occured in a game, regardless of win/lose.

pretre wrote:To be fair, Ailaros complains about his luck and dice when he wins as well.

Well right. I can still win games with bad luck when my opponents make obvious mistakes.

When serious mistakes aren't made, though, I fail to see how it's not just a matter of luck.

It takes a lot of hubris for two players to assume they have nothing left to learn about strategy and tactics.

This isn't about ego, here.

I'm making the assertion that there is a limit to the usefulness of tactics in 40k, and that that limit is much lower than I'd previously thought.

It's not that there's a practically infinite amount of useful tactical nuance and that if I claim I've reached the top, I must be a god. I mean, tic-tac-toe is easy to master. Once you've gotten to the height of tactics that make a difference, are you suffering from hubris, or is tic-tac-toe simply a tactically limited game?

40k is obviously more complex and nuianced than tic-tac-toe, but I'm still arguing that it's practically limited, and that I seem to already be at that limit where tactics no longer make much of a difference. I don't reserve this level only for myself in any regard. I'm simply unconvinced that 40k is infinitely complex and that every step up the ladder is still meaningful.

It's a difference of philosophy, not a difference of head size.

Ailaros: The biggest thing I see here that would make you assume it is nothing more than a Yahtzee roll off is that you are playing a horde style army against a sit back and shoot army. These games really almost are a roll off.

As a horde player myself (orks, der) I see were you are coming from. A couple dys ago I had a 750 pt game against some eldar and it was a dawn of war with me deploying first against his gun line. The only thing I could do was move forward to get to assault, and the only real tactical choices I had too make was what mob goes first? and were do I send snikrot? The only tactical choices he had to make? What mob do I shoot first? and were do I send my striking scorpions?

But that just has to do with the army style, I am trying to put more bodies on the field than he can kill, and he is trying to kill all my boyz, its a roll off between his shooting and my movement/shooting you know? I'm trying to make his being able to kill all my boyz statistically hard to do and thus will play out like a Yahtzee game. And you know what? unless you switch up your play style every once in a while the idea will become stale and seem like it is less and less tactical.

40k can be tactical, or a dice off, depending on whats on the table is what I'm getting at here.

There is also the fact that a d6 system will produce sometimes statistically off events, I have heard of grotz beating terminators in combat, it happens. I for 1 actually like those quirks.

Then there is the nature of our you go I go system, its a byproduct of that.

Good report though, thumbs up.

Ailaros wrote:So far, your arguments about upper level tactics seem to be merely the assertion that they exist, and that they are important. So far, this has been based on arguments that they are difficult to define, and can't be adequately paired to real-world events. You'll have to excuse me if this isn't convincing

Not sure I get what you are looking for. Are you looking for an example of high-level tactics? The videoreport I posted has just that. I'll try to describe it:
Turn 1 eldar: My opponent moves his firedragon skimmers to block my land raider movement. My attention is of course at these units - they present me with lots of issues and deny me some options. What I don't really notice, is that his autarch is hanging in engagement range should I jump behind the bottom waveserpent with assault marines. (something I wish to do because of the waveserpent special rules)
Turn 1 BA: I fell in the trap, loosing one scoring unit + the land raider. Looking back, the right action would have been to screen the land raider with the assault marines + smoking the land raider, denying meltarange for the firedragons = probably securing the land raider another turn of movement and not auto-loosing a scoring unit.

My opponent handed me a situation with no good options. I took the worst, but even if I had seen the trap, or had simply thought through it a bit more, I would still not have any really "good" options, merely a decent one.

I lost all initiative because I fell in that trap.

Stuff like:
Denying your opponent good choices
Setting up traps
Foiling opponent's plans
Setting up attacks

Are generic examples of tactics that you can never be good enough at. There is always room to grow tactically and even good players can fall into traps, especially in timed events.

My assumption about tactics being more tacit knowlegde is backed up by the tactics forum on this board - very little actual tactics are discussed. Most of it is on lists and units, some strategy and a tiny bit general tactics.

Of course luck can screw anybody over, take a look at the next two pictures. It looks like my opponent just got screwed royally by luck, but it didn't actually have to be that way (the grey serpents all have firedragons)


- After Eldar turn 2


- After BA turn 2

I was saved by luck in this case, but my opponent could have denied me much of that "chance at luck". If he had executed his box better, my options would have been much fewer. F.ex: He left me enough room to get those termies out - without them, I would have very close to 0% chance of actually taking out his firedragons. Then again, I could have moved my land raiders better to deny such a move by my opponent. Small tactical things like this can make or break a game for you and can lessen the impact of other factors, such as luck. You can never totally remove it, but the best players are certainly also the ones that are least affected by luck.

Not sure if this is what you are asking for? If you still don't get what I'm talking about here, I don't think I can add anything to make it more clear. Maybe we just have too different mind-sets about 40k.

Illumini wrote:Not sure I get what you are looking for.

What I'm looking for is an example of two good players, where one makes a tiny mistake, and even with good luck, the mistake trumps the luck. What I'm looking for is examples of GOOD tactics trumping luck.

I mean, I can find several examples of mistakes seeing a person lose (I can show you an example or two of me losing a game to just such a reason), and I can find several examples of a person making serious mistakes and still coming out ahead because of really good luck (once again, several examples from my battle reports alone).

What I'd need for data points to question my theory is for good play from both players to beat really bad luck for one of them.

yournamehere wrote:But that just has to do with the army style...40k can be tactical, or a dice off, depending on whats on the table is what I'm getting at here.

So is the need for tactics merely a by-product of list complexity? I'd like to think there's more to 40k than that, but perhaps that's it. The most competitive lists are the ones that take the tactics out of the game.

In any case, I've spawned a new thread for this, if you all care to participate.

I'll bite one last time.

Ailaros wrote:What I'm looking for is examples of GOOD tactics trumping luck.

I can't deliver such a specific example as the one you want, you will have to use your imagination

In the above example, (with two good players+tiny mistake) perfect tactical execution would have made luck a much lesser factor than what it did. I would still have blown up at least two of those serpents, but I would not have been able to get rid of all the firedragons as well, so the end result would most likely have been two slagged land raiders in turn 3 and then walking termies getting slowly ripped apart by massed S6 shooting, instead of me gaining the initiative for the rest of the game and my opponent struggling to deny me some points. Very GOOD tactics WOULD have trumped LUCK. Tiny mistake allowed LUCK to become a much bigger factor. Good tactics usually minimize risks for failure and maximize chances for success so luck becomes a very small factor.

Also, I would love to hear your answer to my earlier question: If skill has such low value, how can a player dominate every single tourney he goes to? How can some players win 99% of their games?

Try the thread he spawned off, Illumini.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/352134.page#2534019

Statistically, The Vendetta has a 75 % chance of hitting, and 33% chance of glancing or penetrating
Chance of atleast 1
Shock : 22.975%
Stun : 11.986%
Weap : 11.986%
Immo : 11.986%
Wrec : 6.121%
Expl : 6.121%


That's a 1/10th chance of your tank getting destroyed, a far cry from the 1% chance you seem to have thought it was. That's a very reasonable chance that your tank would die.

Ailaros wrote:

Illumini wrote:Not sure I get what you are looking for.

What I'm looking for is examples of GOOD tactics trumping luck.

Have you read Dash's Dark Eldar battle reports? His Dark Lances are BS 0.

VERY nicely written report, I really liked the lord's commentary...

Having been on the recieving side of guard firepower, it's nice to see that sometimes fail. However, you did admirably despite the bad dice!

Hey, where is part 37? I WANT PART 37 NOW!

me too. its a shame that your moving towards CSM's. i loved reading your battle reports Ailaros

Ailaros next game bring a nut cracker and an extra commisar, after the first few dice get summary execution the rest may roll better.

My friend lost 'Ard Boyz two years ago when his army, ARMY, was in combat with three space marines for three turns of combat. Those three marines passed over 60 armour saves over the course of the six rounds of combat, as they were fighting over three full squads of chaos space marines. After rolling over the rest of the guy's army, this kind of insult was just horrible to see. Those three marines were on the central objective of the board.

Doing the math, the chances of him passing that many saves were one in BILLIONS. It was pretty depressing.

In the END, the game comes down to dice. What we can do is improve the odds. But just as the man that buys one lottery ticket may win while the man who buys a million tickets does not, this is sometimes how this goes.

Spellbound wrote:My friend lost 'Ard Boyz two years ago when his army, ARMY, was in combat with three space marines for three turns of combat. Those three marines passed over 60 armour saves over the course of the six rounds of combat, as they were fighting over three full squads of chaos space marines. After rolling over the rest of the guy's army, this kind of insult was just horrible to see. Those three marines were on the central objective of the board.

Doing the math, the chances of him passing that many saves were one in BILLIONS. It was pretty depressing..

Depressing?

That kind of thing is the stuff of legend.

Instead of lamenting dice and worrying about wins and losses how about being excited about being part of a game with such a cinematic and heroic moment as three outnumbered heroes of the Imperium stood against a horded of Chaos?

Sometimes I lament the fact that 40k has become more and more a "sport" to so many players and less and less about the imaginative storytelling potential at it's heart...

Well see that's fine, and the space marine player should go on and on about how awesome his guys are. They are afterall the god-soldiers of the emperor.

Unfortunately though we chaos space marines have fluff too, and in that fluff we are awesome bitter combat experts who only know hatred better than we know how to kill space marines, and to see some twelve times the number of space marines fail miserably to kill their former brothers says we are inept weaklings. That's NOT cool and not exactly something we can be proud of.

So that guy can preach all day about his awesome marines, and more power to him. While he lost the battle, his men sold their lives dearly and three marines held off the chaos legion long enough for his brothers to regroup and mount a counterattack....or something.

My friend? He just lost a tournament, and that's all there is.