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Shaden, because you also combine lists into your tier system, its not really a 5 tier system for skill.

Extrapolating a bit, I see your above as follows for just ranking player skill. Correct it if its wrong please?

5:doesnt know the rules
4:bad tactics but knows some rules
3:good tactics and good rules
2:excellent tactics/rules
1:same knowledge as above but didnt make a mistake that game for whatever reason

DevianID wrote:Shaden, because you also combine lists into your tier system, its not really a 5 tier system for skill.

Extrapolating a bit, I see your above as follows for just ranking player skill. Correct it if its wrong please?

5:doesnt know the rules
4:bad tactics but knows some rules
3:good tactics and good rules
2:excellent tactics/rules
1:same knowledge as above but didnt make a mistake that game for whatever reason

Yep pretty much. The only other point I was trying to make is list building as a skill caps out at tier 2 or 3, and players can town down their tier by knowingly building soft lists.

I can't say anything about fantasy, as I've never played, but I would say that 40k doesn't have a skill ceiling, because I'd like to disabuse you of the idea that 40k is a game of skill. 40k is not playing the piano, is not painting a fresco or baking a souffle, and is not like games that actually require skill like chess or go. 40k is just a game where you roll a bunch of dice, and whoever has the best rolls wins.

Once you understand this, you can then start to understand the subtle places where skill actually does creep into the game. 40k is a game of chance, and thus the people who are more successful in the long run (though not necessarily in any given game), are the people who are able to play the odds in certain ways that are conducive to big-picture success.

For example, blackjack is fundamentally a game of chance. That said, there are some people who can sit at a table for a night and do reasonably well, while there are those who will consistently lose all their chips in the first hour of play. Those who do well are the people who really understand the odds, and deliberately play them in a certain way.

Such it is for 40k. It's a game where you throw around 6-sided die, so it's not really a game of skill, but the skill that is there is the skill to bring the right tools (contained in a good list) to play the odds exactly the way you want to play them (dependent on good deployment and movement). Those who can do this tend to be more successful regardless of luck over the course of many games.

There is one core difference, however, between a game like blackjack and 40k, and that is that in 40k, your opponent actually has some degree of control over what odds you play. With fieldcraft, your opponent can force you to take odds that are longer or shorter than you'd like, or can stack things in such a way where lots rides on a single die roll in a situation that you'd rather rely on the law of large numbers for.

Certainly there are bad players, and there are bad lists. I've made bad lists, and I've made bad decisions. In the end, though, the game boils down to luck, which becomes more and more important as the fieldcraft and list quality of two opponents becomes more similar, as is what happens when players become better at playing the odds they want.

Once you get out of the bad list building phase (pretty easily achieved by copying an internet list, or by spending time playing or really thinking about things), and once you are able to reasonably deploy and move your units, then you've basically hit the point of seriously diminishing returns compared to the power of random chance. If this is your definition of a "skill ceiling", then I'd say that in 40k, that ceiling is pretty low.

I disagree. In blackjack, a skilled player does a lot to count cards. Meanwhile, a bad chess player can just push pieces around randomly. The skill is present in all games despite an overt luck element like dice.

Also, consider skill along different lines. How easy is it to get.a computer to play chess or the piano? Pretty easy, seeing as it has been done. How easy is it to get a computer to play 40k?

DevianID wrote:I disagree. In blackjack, a skilled player does a lot to count cards.

Which, in common parlance is called "cheating".

Otherwise, imagine a form of blackjack that is slightly more purely random, like a version played with 12-sided dice.

DevianID wrote:Meanwhile, a bad chess player can just push pieces around randomly.

And win?

DevianID wrote: How easy is it to get.a computer to play chess or the piano? Pretty easy, seeing as it has been done. How easy is it to get a computer to play 40k?

As a computer scientist, I can tell you this doesn't matter. Computers are not human minds, and simply can't do some things, while being able to do others, it has nothing to do with skill. Plus, as has been mentioned...

schadenfreude wrote:Depth of rules does not = complexity of gameplay.

... and, I would add, more rules does not by itself make a game more dependent on skill - it just makes for more trips back to the rulebook.

Counting cards is not cheating when playing by yourself. Thats like saying you are not.allowed to know your odds of success. Casinos dont allow it because they would lose money--all casino games are rigged to favor the house after all.

There is a concept of skills that are hard for humans and easy for machines, and hard for machines and easy for humans. It does matter, especially when a game like chess is compared to 40k, to point out that 40k requires a different kind of skill. Otherwise you come to the unfair assumption that chess requires more skill like some posters have.

DevianID wrote:Also, consider skill along different lines. How easy is it to get.a computer to play chess or the piano? Pretty easy, seeing as it has been done. How easy is it to get a computer to play 40k?

Uh... the reason Chess is used in those Kasparov vs. Deep Blue matches is because Chess is so varied and complex, despite having a very linear gameplay.

And as to 40k:

Warhammer 40k: Space Marine
Warhammer 40k: Chaos Gate
Warhammer 40k: Fire Warrior
Warhammer 40k: Rites of War
Warhammer 40k: Glory in Death
Warhammer 40k: Kill Team
Warhammer 40k: Squad Command
Warhammer 40k: Dark Millennium Online
Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade
Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War: Winter Assault
Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War: Soulstorm
Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War 2
Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War 2: Chaos Rising
Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War 2: Retribution
Space Hulk
Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels
Space Crusade
Final Liberation

I'd say it's fairly easy to get a computer to play 40k.

It's all luck.
Just play cool and remind yourself that all the people who brag about how good they are have probably never been laid, let alone having any friends.

Joey wrote:It's all luck.
Just play cool and remind yourself that all the people who brag about how good they are have probably never been laid, let alone having any friends.

So now, all people who know they are good at the game are social pariahs?

Ailaros pretty much summed it up, the game itself is pretty random but put enough effort into it and you'll certainly see yourself improve in terms of manipulating chance to your favour.

Iranna.

I would say that 40k is 50% list building, 30% rules knowledge, 15% math, 5% tactics to win a game. There's very little you can do to make a bad list work in game, If you don't have the melta to take care of the land raider before it hits the bulk of your army, you're hosed. If you don't know how the rules work, you're going to misuse units and weapons and have bad assaults. I say math because it is the determinate to likely hood of success. Lists are designed to maximize odds, rules are learned to take advantage of the odds or change them, tactics are effected by the probability of something happening. Tactics in the end are just positioning and application of fire in this game. Are you in cover? Great, here's a cover save. Want to capture an objective? Move something that can still do it's job there. Want to capture an objective? Move your beat stick to it. Should you use the melta against the tank or your missile launcher? Should I rapid fire or bolt pistol assault? In the end, these all become easy questions knowing list, rules and math.

Now am I saying 40k is bad? No. I'm just seeing it more and more as a spectacle game. You play it to see the Imperium of Man fight against the Xenos. I see it as a fluff driven game.

Those posting about the importance of luck also think playing poker is the same as playing a slot machine.

"Skill" is a term that we can apply broadly here that includes the discipline to prepare properly by knowing the rules and abilities of yourself and your opponent, and applying your mind to finding the ways to use your strengths against his weaknesses. List building and tactical gameplay are both parts of that- I honestly don't think they need to be separated. If I put together a great list and let a first time rookie field it against a 10 year vet, he's still likely to lose. Conversely, a skilled player with years of experience can do more with a lesser list.

Luck does factor in, but having a contingency plan in place is something you can use to help nullify the role that luck does play. That's where preparation and experience come in, both parts of what I think help define the nature of "skill".

Warhammer 40k: Space Marine Warhammer 40k: Chaos Gate Warhammer 40k: Fire Warrior Warhammer 40k: Rites of War Warhammer 40k: Glory in Death Warhammer 40k: Kill Team Warhammer 40k: Squad Command Warhammer 40k: Dark Millennium Online Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War: Winter Assault Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War: Soulstorm Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War 2 Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War 2: Chaos Rising Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War 2: Retribution Space Hulk
Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels Space Crusade Final Liberation

If we are listing games which are not the warhammer 40k tabletop game, and thus do not prove your point at all, might I add some more?

Halo
Sykrim
GTA 4
Half Life 2
Mechwarrior 4
Fallout 3
Mortal Kombat

Computers programs have been made for 40k like rts games. Don't know of any turn based 40k games that resemble 40k more than a rts. In actual 40k a computer would be terrible, the game is too fluid open ended for a computer to master.

Evocatus wrote:Those posting about the importance of luck also think playing poker is the same as playing a slot machine.

What?

Firstly, 40k isn't exactly the same as a slot machine. In a slot machine, you play the odds the machine gives you, while in 40k, you're playing the odds you want to play.

Secondly, poker is HUGELY different from both slot machines and 40k. Poker is a game of skill with a little bit of random garnish sprinkled on. In poker, your hand can have a 6 as it's high card and you can beat someone with a straight flush if you can bluff them into folding. In poker, the players determine the outcomes of the hands more than the cards (the random element) does. There is nothing even remotely analogous to this in 40k.

In 40k, the dice determine the outcome of any choice you make, thus it's a game based on random chance. In poker, more often than not (especially once the players start getting good at the game), it's the players who determine the outcome, making it much more a game of skill, rather than chance.

schadenfreude wrote: In actual 40k a computer would be terrible, the game is too fluid open ended for a computer to master.

And even if it could, it would be a sign of the power of algorithm engineers, not the skill level of 40k.

In 40k, the dice determine the outcome of any choice you make, thus it's a game based on random chance.

That's terrible reasoning. We're not playing War or roulette here. Dice add a randomizing element, but it's one you can make predictions about, as the number of dice rolled means you're mostly going to fall into bell curves. There will obviously be outliers, and occasionally an extraordinary roll will ruin a good plan, but part of play skill is putting yourself into situations where one or two bad rolls will not wreck your plan.

If you're playing with at least the recommended amount of terrain, and playing the missions provided, and your list isn't dramatically better or worse than your opponent's, then the most important factor is player skill. Making a workable plan to counter your opponent's units and achieve the mission objectives. Maneuvering to execute that plan, and adjust those maneuvers to adapt to casualties suffered in the game, and to capitalize on unexpected successes.

People who overemphasize the role the dice play in this game usually aren't interested in the game as a competitive experience.

Agreed Mannahnin.

There is even some very good evidence that skill plays a much more significant role - individuals who consistently win events/ games. If luck was a bigger factor than skill, then you would expect to see a tournament feature a random winner more often than a skilled winner. That is to say, the winner would more often be the person who had the best luck during the event and not the person who played the most skillful games.

However, what we see tends to be the opposite. In fact, its not uncommon to see the exact same set of players all finish in the top places at every event they attend. This is strong evidence that the role of luck is significantly less than skill.

Mannahnin wrote:That's terrible reasoning. We're not playing War or roulette here.

Right, which is what I've been saying. You still PLAY the odds, rather than sit there and let them wash over you like a slot machine or a roulette wheel or something. That said...

Mannahnin wrote:Dice add a randomizing element, but it's one you can make predictions about

Yes, you can talk about the odds that you're playing in the abstract thanks to statistics. The thing is, though, that statistics talk about expectations, but they never, ever make predictions. Unless you're using loaded dice, you can never make a prediction about what the end result will be from one of your actions as the end result is determined randomly.

It is precisely because dice determine the outcome and you can not predict dice that 40k is a game of chance.

Mannahnin wrote:If you're playing with at least the recommended amount of terrain, and playing the missions provided, and your list isn't dramatically better or worse than your opponent's, then the most important factor is player skill.

Firstly, define skill.

Secondly, when you start taking everything else as constant, luck becomes the most important thing in 40k, not "skill".

Player skill may allow you to play certain odds the way you want, and disparities in player skill may make it that you play less the odds you want rather than more, but you can not force a favorable outcome with skill, only loaded dice can do that.

Mannahnin wrote:Making a workable plan to counter your opponent's units and achieve the mission objectives. Maneuvering to execute that plan, and adjust those maneuvers to adapt to casualties suffered in the game, and to capitalize on unexpected successes.

Right, certainly there is an element to skill, just like there is in any other game of chance wherein the player can make meaningful decisions. You can play "better" odds (whatever that means), but you're still making decisions about how many dice you're going to roll, and what numbers you need to succeed.

Mannahnin wrote:People who overemphasize the role the dice play in this game usually aren't interested in the game as a competitive experience.

I've always taken 40k very seriously as a competitive venture. The seriousness with which a person takes the game, however, has little bearing on the mechanisms of the game itself. There are people who take blackjack very seriously, and can even play it successfully, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a card game. Some people take russian roulette seriously, but that doesn't change the fact that there is the possibility that you wind up with a bullet in your brain that you have no way of predicting what the specific outcome will be until after you pull the trigger.

It's really easy to see all of the possible choices that you, as a player, are given the opportunity to make and to delude yourself into thinking that the game is really determined by nothing more than the decisions you choose to make. I'm not saying that decisions don't matter (far from it), but that you can not create a desireable outcome based on the quality of your decisions. In the end, any given event is determined by chance, not force of will, and any belief to the contrary isn't taking the game more seriously, it's just misunderstanding how the game works.

Ailaros wrote:In 40k, the dice determine the outcome of any choice you make, thus it's a game based on random chance. In poker, more often than not (especially once the players start getting good at the game), it's the players who determine the outcome, making it much more a game of skill, rather than chance.

You have just shown why poker is a great analog to 40k. Mostly skill, with some luck thrown in. Some players, bad ones, play to get lucky and hope they win. A skilled player does everything he can to make the win happen and while he can be beaten by bad luck, skill will prevail more consistently as the luck naturally balances out over time. What I'm hearing in your defense of luck vs. skill is the same thing I hear from a poker player who relies on luck- that you aren't very good, and think your losses aren't your fault.

To say "the game is based on random chance" is to reduce it to the same level as flipping cards or spinning a roulette wheel. Which it is not.

The first and more important factor in this game is making good decisions and maneuvering your units to achieve the mission objectives. The dice control individual events in the game, but they rarely play anywhere near as important a role in the outcome of the game as the decisions made by the players. It's actually not easy to see all the possible decisions available to you. Particularly when it comes to playing a turn or two ahead and being able to predict an opponent's moves, accurately estimate what units will still be in play, where they will be, and how damaged.

As others have noted, if play skill wasn't the most important factor, you wouldn't see the same players consistently winning and placing high at events.

I think Schadenfreude's "tier" classifications of players are largely very accurate, and probably the most insightful content in this thread.

Evocatus wrote:You have just shown why poker is a great analog to 40k. Mostly skill, with some luck thrown in. Some players, bad ones, play to get lucky and hope they win. A skilled player does everything he can to make the win happen and while he can be beaten by bad luck, skill will prevail more consistently as the luck naturally balances out over time.

Poker, in the short term, is more luck-dependent than 40k. In the long term, however, you've very right that the luck is largely overcome by skill, which is why some people are able to become wealthy and consistently place highly in competitive Poker events. For the most part the nature of 40k's rules mean that even over the course of a single game luck is a lesser factor than skill and good decision-making.

Joey wrote:It's all luck.
Just play cool and remind yourself that all the people who brag about how good they are have probably never been laid, let alone having any friends.

If you could refrain from posting stuff like this, it'll help you keep your access to post on this site. Some jokes just don't come across well in text.

Thanks.

Evocatus wrote:

Ailaros wrote:In 40k, the dice determine the outcome of any choice you make, thus it's a game based on random chance. In poker, more often than not (especially once the players start getting good at the game), it's the players who determine the outcome, making it much more a game of skill, rather than chance.

You have just shown why poker is a great analog to 40k.

Then I certainly didn't explain myself well enough, as what I was trying to say is the opposite.

Poker is a game where you have two players who lie to each other and the better liar wins. What they're lying over happens to be random, but that's ancillary to the actual way in which the game resolves itself. You could just as easily have a game similar to poker in which there isn't actually a random element at all.

In 40k, however, you can't just say "I blew up your land raider" and have it be so when your opponent can look at the result of your die roll.

Mannahnin wrote:To say "the game is based on random chance" is to reduce it to the same level as flipping cards or spinning a roulette wheel. Which it is not.

That's not what I'm trying to say. 40k is a game where you play odds. The playing of those odds in the way you want to play them requires skill. Playing odds in certain ways are more conducive to success.

What I'm also saying is that no matter how "smart" you play your odds, you're still playing odds. It's still random.

Mannahnin wrote:The first and more important factor in this game is making good decisions and maneuvering your units to achieve the mission objectives. The dice control individual events in the game, but they rarely play anywhere near as important a role in the outcome of the game as the decisions made by the players.

The results of (virtually) any event are determined by dice. The result of the game is the aggregate of the specific events that happened therewithin. Thus the result of the game is determined by dice.

Explain to me how a person's decision directly determines the outcome of their decision.

Mannahnin wrote:As others have noted, if play skill wasn't the most important factor, you wouldn't see the same players consistently winning and placing high at events.

Actually, you could use this exact same logic to say that the players who consistantly win are the ones who are the most lucky, therefore luck is the most important factor.

Ailaros wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:The first and more important factor in this game is making good decisions and maneuvering your units to achieve the mission objectives. The dice control individual events in the game, but they rarely play anywhere near as important a role in the outcome of the game as the decisions made by the players.

The results of (virtually) any event are determined by dice. The result of the game is the aggregate of the specific events that happened therewithin. Thus the result of the game is determined by dice.

Explain to me how a person's decision directly determines the outcome of their decision.

If I tank shock Kairos Fateweaver so that he is no longer within 6" of the daemon unit I want to kill, that directly determines that the unit I want to kill will no longer have access to re-rolls on its saves.

If I position my shooty unit 12.5" away from a unit of Bloodcrushers rather than 11.5" away (and eliminated any opportunities for my opponent to move my models closer, such as with Pavane), I have guaranteed that my unit will not be assaulted by his unit next turn.

If both my opponent and I hold one objective each at the end of turn 7, and I am going second, and I am able to move (e.g.) a Fast Skimmer within 3" of his objective without entering terrain, I win the game.

There are many decisions and maneuvers you can make during a game which will guarantee that certain things do or do not happen. There are many more which, as you've noted, involve playing the odds correctly, and represent calculated gambles. Over the course of a long series of correctly-calculated gambles, the outcomes of those gambles will predominantly fall in your favor. If they don't, as a rule, those gambles weren't correctly evaluated and calculated.

Ailaros wrote:

Mannahnin wrote:As others have noted, if play skill wasn't the most important factor, you wouldn't see the same players consistently winning and placing high at events.

Actually, you could use this exact same logic to say that the players who consistantly win are the ones who are the most lucky, therefore luck is the most important factor.

Sure. Alex Fennell and Ben Mohlie are just luckier than I am. Naturally! No point in me trying to get better at the game then, as since luck is beyond my control, I have no influence over whether I'll ever be able to consistently beat either of those guys.

Ailarios, your movement decisions are not based on dice, unless you are moving through terrain by your own decision. Thus, for at least 1/3rd of the phases of a turn, you have direct control over your units and dice play no part. The movement phase alone invalidates your argument.

Also, you can win a game without shooting once or assaulting once. Its not even particularly hard with some armies.

Ailaros wrote:Actually, you could use this exact same logic to say that the players who consistantly win are the ones who are the most lucky, therefore luck is the most important factor.

And since your interpretation requires that this be the reason those players finish in the top spots, instead of skill, it's exactly why you are not correct.

As the number of events you attend increases, the more likely your "luck" is to normalize and close on the average luck. Therefore while you might get lucky and win an event or place well once, the chances of it happening multiple times is diminished.

Your interpretation seems to require then that some people have more "luck" than others on something other than a temporary or single - event basis.

I think this is a debate that can't be argued from a polarized standpoint, and yet is.

Here's my take, well within those wonderfully ubiquitous shades of grey:

This game is just like M:tG. If your deck/army is so much better than the other guy's, then you're going to win 9 times out of 10. That doesn't mean skill isn't an important factor, it just means that skill is mostly within your army list creation, and the rest is tabletop ability. And yes, luck plays a role, but a skilled player will mitigate any effects of luck, because luck is just a four-letter word for probability, and probability can be manipulated. Same thing as with M:tG, which is why every competitive Type II deck has 19-22 land cards, and never has more than 61 cards total. We manipulate the probability of our outcomes in army building all the time; that's why we call it 'math hammer'.

Poker is a decent analogy, but it's very flawed in that poker has a perceived notion about it being almost entirely skill-driven, which is seriously not the case. The top poker players are just those who have a good blend of luck and skill. I mean, even Moneymaker won a WSOP, and he was a terrible player. He just couldn't NOT draw into a full house the year he actually won the WSOP. That never happens with M:tG or Warhammer (that I know of) because the deck/army creation overall will far outweigh any lucky rolls.

Anyway, a tremendous amount of luck is involved in 40k, but its effect should be controlled by the skill of the player, which is found in about 80% army building & research, and 20% tabletop skill. And of that tabletop skill, most of it is measuring distance accurately.

I disagree with the 80% list building and 20% tabletop skill. If this was true, then by simply using a very good list off the internet a player would improve their total win record greatly.

Instead I see that the great players, who use a terrible list, perhaps one they didnt even write, still win games.

DevianID wrote:Ailarios, your movement decisions are not based on dice, unless you are moving through terrain by your own decision. Thus, for at least 1/3rd of the phases of a turn, you have direct control over your units and dice play no part. The movement phase alone invalidates your argument.

Also, you can win a game without shooting once or assaulting once. Its not even particularly hard with some armies.

Yes, you have a great deal of control over the movement of your units (though not total when difficult terrain and running are involved), this does not, however "invalidate everything, so there".

As mentioned the movement phase is only a third of a player's game turn, not all of it. If the game were actually only a game of movement, like chess, then certainly there needn't be any use for luck. But the thing is, it's not. There is absolutely no way that you can guarantee that over the course of a game that no one rolls a single die. Ignoring obvious things like you have to roll for first turn and who gets to pick which side of the board, etc. at some point it's highly probable that your opponent, in the very least, is going to attempt to damage at least one of your units. The idea that you could win a game without a single die roll ever being thrown is simply preposterous.

Yes, the movement phase is the main place in which a person controls what odds they play. It's a clear skill element of the game. Moving your units so that they are in assault range or if they're not, will CERTAINLY affect how many dice you roll, and how many your opponent does. It also affects the kinds of odds your opponent gets to play (as in the example of forcing something outside of a leadership buff bubble). However, just because it affects the odds doesn't mean that you can pretend that you're not playing them.

Mannahnin wrote:No point in me trying to get better at the game then, as since luck is beyond my control, I have no influence over whether I'll ever be able to consistently beat either of those guys.

Why would you take that as the moral, even sarcastically?

The whole time that I'm taking the shocking standpoint that a game where you roll dice is a game of chance, I've also been saying that what odds you play is important, and more or less under your control. Just influencing odds in a certain way will NEVER, on its own, give you victory over some skilled adversary, but at no point have I ever said that influencing things isn't influential.

Dracos wrote:Your interpretation seems to require then that some people have more "luck" than others on something other than a temporary or single - event basis.

Heh, rest assured that I'm not implying any sort of spiritual force inherent to any human being here. Saying that a particular person, in a particular series, had a particular set of random die rolls that is describable based on certain expected values is hardly voodoo.

Dracos wrote:As the number of events you attend increases, the more likely your "luck" is to normalize and close on the average luck.

Yes, as the number of die rolls approaches infinity, sure. The thing is, though, for any given event, you only get to make a single roll, and you don't get to repeat that exact set of circumstances again with another die roll. As the result of a game is an aggregate of a small, finite number of events, the law of large numbers only really applies so much.

Take it the next step up and yes, as the number of times you play a game against a certain person approaches infinity (all else being controlled, which it likely isn't), then the random factor becomes more controlled. Playing a few games at each of a few tournaments hardly stacks up against infinity.

I am not trying to say that playing odds better has no bearing on overall success (in fact, I've explicitly stated the opposite). What I am saying is that the existence of general success is not, necessarily, proof of playing better odds on the first hand, and on the second hand that playing better odds will not necessarily win you any given game, much less a tournament.

To summarize :

Ailaros : dice have the last word on every decision of the player.
luck > decisions

Mannahnin : the player decides which dice are roll.
decisions > luck

I tend to agree with the latter. Skill in games that incorporate randomized elements encompasses the ability to manipulate the odds in every non-random way possible to overcome the influence of luck.

By the way, I'm very surprised I've found so few concern about the definition of "skill" in such a thread. People tend to refer to wildly varying things when referring to that word, which can make mutual understanding difficult.

To me azazel is definitely onto something, though some might disagree with the strategy (planning ahead) / tactics ratio. Not to remind you that very precisely 83.735% of percentages are made up on the spot

Yeah, I should specify that the 80-20 split is just me grasping at the aether, but it does feel about right. Maybe 75-25. My point was just that proper planning and preparation is where the true skill lies, not in the tabletop shenanigans. I just don't think that it matters how good your eye for measurement is, is your army is built well, you won't have to rely on minor points like that. And where two excellent army-builders match up, the difference then becomes who has that extra edge.

I consider myself somewhere between 'decent' and 'good', but if I gave a complete newbie my Space Wolves army (4x lazorbacks, 3x long fangs, bjorn, 2x ven dreads and 4x wolf guard leading grey hunters, kitted appropriately) that newbie would probably mop the floor with me if I were using my friend's Tau list (3x broadsides, 1x hammerhead, 1x transport, lots of fire warriors and kroot, 5x battlesuits, 1x ethereal, maybe some sniper drones). So long as both me and the other guy know the rules and know what each army does, I will win maybe 1 in 10. All because my SW army is well-built (mostly) and geared towards good target saturation, widespread power and utility, and his Tau are just a grab bag of lots of odds & ends.

If two armies are both well-designed and well-rounded, it's usually going to be about skill. Sometimes the lists will match up in a bit of an R/P/S manner, or the table setup will favor one player, slanting the situation a bit towards one of the players.

There is definitely a huge factor of skill in the game. I've been able to win a lot of my games, even with horrible dice rolls, just because I've out played my opponents. However, if it was up against someone who was my equal or better, I'd probably have been trashed for that reason.

I do believe once you reach a certain point in skill against another person with that same point of skill, it does come down to the dice. I've seen many very close games, between two highly skilled generals, that just came down to one or two critical dice rolls.