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I'm going to ask you seriously... are you trolling?


I have my doubts that someone who owns 2000 POINTS OF EVERY ARMY would still not know how to play very well( in all respect).

Either you have waaaay too much disposable income and need to play more, or you need to stop wasting people's time on the internet.

I have been playing ayear and a half and only own 5 armies of 2000pts each. the only thing i own ever thing of is ever codex. yes i have lots of extra money and free time. And i have only played maybe 40games all at the tourneys i go to

I think this analogy might be good for you:

You are at a basketball tournament.

Who wins? The guy who never practices, never works on any aspect of his game and buys the newest shoes or the guy with the old snkeaers but who is fit and practices and understands the game?

Like we've told you before in this thread, you are not going to be able to buy a tournament win. If you don't understand your army, don't understand the game and don't understand how to put what you have to work, you're never going to find success. Especially since it seems that you do nothing to prepare or practice. Right now, you're the out of shape kid who never plays basketball who rolls in with the most expensive sneakers thinking that they will make him good. Hint, it never works that way,

Remove the word 40K from your issue and replace it with chess. This is what you are saying...

I only play chess at tournaments. I keep getting beat by chess masters and no matter how many new chess sets I buy I keep getting beat. I won't play chess at chess clubs because I don't like the younger players. Please tell me what chess set to buy so I will be a great chess player.

Like many people you believe there is a way to buy the skill that others have achieved from of years of practice.

zilka86 wrote:
I have been playing ayear and a half and only own 5 armies of 2000pts each. the only thing i own ever thing of is ever codex. yes i have lots of extra money and free time. And i have only played maybe 40games all at the tourneys i go to

So you've played 40K less than once a month and each army has been used 2-3 times?

You're barely getting started.

Not to mention, a tournament is not a good learning environment. You need to find players that are roughly your level (ideally slightly higher) and take the time during and after the game to figure out what you're doing right and what you're doing wrong.

Solis Luna Astrum wrote:
Remove the word 40K from your issue and replace it with chess.

Like many people you believe there is a way to buy the skill that others have achieved from of years of practice.

Were 40k like chess, I'd agree. As it turns out, the only way chess and 40k are similar is that they're both games, and they both involve players moving pieces around.

Really, what the OP should be saying is...

I only play go fish at tournaments. I keep getting beat by go fish masters and no matter how many new decks of cards I buy I keep getting beat. I won't play go fish at local stores because I don't like the younger players. Please tell me what deck of cards to buy so I will be a great go fish player.

 Ailaros wrote:

Solis Luna Astrum wrote:
Remove the word 40K from your issue and replace it with chess.

Like many people you believe there is a way to buy the skill that others have achieved from of years of practice.

Were 40k like chess, I'd agree. As it turns out, the only way chess and 40k are similar is that they're both games, and they both involve players moving pieces around.

Really, what the OP should be saying is...

I only play go fish at tournaments. I keep getting beat by go fish masters and no matter how many new decks of cards I buy I keep getting beat. I won't play go fish at local stores because I don't like the younger players. Please tell me what deck of cards to buy so I will be a great go fish player.

Hmm, I think your analogy doesn't work either Ailaros. It would only work if there was only 1 army we all played. Then the fact that 40k is not a deeply tactical game would make the outcome based on the luck of your dice.

However, different decks exist and some have more winning cards than others. So it's not really like go-fish at all.

Also, I think that there is a good amount of skill involved in 40k and experience is important. The skill does not lie in tactical complexity. None of us can spring a trap from an unsuspecting direction or outflank an opponent. The nature of placing and moving game pieces on the same board takes a lot of military complexity out of the equation. The skill in 40k is not only knowing the basics of shoot the choppy, chop the shooty, but knowing all the damn USRs and how different codexes behave. The people who can remember all the little rules tend to do the best. Keeping all those fresh in your mind takes practice and a good memory. That's why the same people tend to do well in different tournaments. I think being good at 40k is a lot less about being like Napoleon and a lot more like being a rich man's Lionel Hutz.

I only play pogs at tournaments. I keep getting beat by pog masters and no matter how many pogs I buy I keep getting beat. I won't play pogs at local stores because I don't like the younger players. Please tell me what pogs to buy so I will be a great pog player.

haha, practice makes perfect, and really it pays off a lot to practice with your army, learn their ins and outs for yourself, and stick with it through thick and thin. That is how you figure out what you are doing, and develop the target priority, objective placement and other skills needed to win.

/thread

OP -> i have money and time, wont play game to learn skill.
Believes warhammer is skill less -> uses internet lists.
OP -> why doesn't internet list win me game?

Because of conditions you don't understand.

Table setup, deployment, unit to unit combat.

Their is skill in placing your models and moving your models to the right spot to win a game. A cannon in the perfect spot is a win button. But put cannons in bad places you lose.

Play another 40 games with in two months like the rest of and become a skilled player.

Game is chance - you want to say you lost only because of dice, not because you made mistakes.

Both are usually true, but the greatest players lose because the dice gods had said screw you.


EDIT: i am saying this as an Ork player with a 4ed codex, I win most of my matches. I lose, but it is because of skill over actually anything else. With Orks their is no buy units to win games. Their is the no brainers like Lootas, and Boyz but their is a lot to choose from for Orks to win a game. Even when our waghh broke, we still fight hard.

Ailaros & bogalubov, you both miss the point, the comparison is not about the game, it's about the attitude of what it takes to win.

True, chess is all strategy and 40k is strategy combined with a good amount of randomness, this does not change the fact that even if you put the same armies with the same list on the board the player with greater experience is going to beat the less experienced one almost all of the time. The played who better understands how his pieces (units) interact with each other, and plays several moves ahead in strategy has a major advantage in both games.

You have 5 armies of 2,000. You most likely have a table of some sort in your home. Get a friend, lend him an army, teach him, and now you have a person you can play against without having to go to a club.

Solis Luna Astrum wrote:
Ailaros & bogalubov, you both miss the point, the comparison is not about the game, it's about the attitude of what it takes to win.

True, chess is all strategy and 40k is strategy combined with a good amount of randomness, this does not change the fact that even if you put the same armies with the same list on the board the player with greater experience is going to beat the less experienced one almost all of the time. The played who better understands how his pieces (units) interact with each other, and plays several moves ahead in strategy has a major advantage in both games.

bogalubov wrote: Also, I think that there is a good amount of skill involved in 40k and experience is important.

bogalubov wrote: The people who can remember all the little rules tend to do the best. Keeping all those fresh in your mind takes practice and a good memory.

I agreed with your sentiment. However, there is no reason to bring up chess if your only point is that practice and experience are useful. When you liken 40k to chess you set off an argument about the tactical complexity of 40k.

It's the nature of a game where events are determined by random elements that the entirety of the jurisdiction of player skill is summed up as the ability to play the odds.

40k is like blackjack. In this case, playing with a stronger list allows you to play the odds more exactingly, and, of course, some amount of experience or education is required to understand which odds are "better" to play, but that doesn't mean that there are "best" odds, and that you need a "certain" list to play them and that everything else will "only" help you lose games because they're "stinky" units.

So besides spending thousands of dollars to play this game i need thousands of playing hrs witb each army to be any good. then ever5yrs you have to buy the books all ove again and new models.

I've spent maybe a thousand or so dollars on my Imperial Guard army. That's it, because I bought what I needed for my army and that was it (well, besides rules and stuff). I sat down, and I dedicated myself to mastering that army before moving on to anything else. I played nothing but IG weekly for a good two years, and you can bet I got much better. I went from just barely not getting tabled, to being able to pull first place at tourneys.

All the money in the world doesn't matter if you don't put the time in to dedicate to an army and PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE with it. Switching armies constantly is a very, very bad thing to do as you can't learn the consistency each army has. Your brain just can't do that. Focus on at most 3 armies at a time at most (once you get really good and you've been playing for years, feel free to take up every single army in the game...)

And I don't see how you are concerned about buying a new book every 5 years (you don't need new models really), when you have 2,000 points of every army supposedly...

zilka86 wrote:
So besides spending thousands of dollars to play this game i need thousands of playing hrs witb each army to be any good. then ever5yrs you have to buy the books all ove again and new models.

Zilka, you need to stop and listen instead of becoming emotionally reactive. You are not listening at all, and it makes you posting here absolutely pointless for you, and everyone trying to help you.

Money doesn't win for you, nor do canned lists you find on the internet; you need to practice and learn. Don't just go play in tournaments. Go play at your local store, and deal with the "immaturity". There is not ANY game in existence where you can play only at tournaments and expect to be good. PERIOD. Spending thousands of dollars was YOUR choice, and it was you who shotgunned instead of actually figuring the game out. That was YOUR fault that you chose to spend lots of money on 5 armies, instead of focusing on one or two until you had a really good grasp. No one else's. You don't need to spend thousands of hours, you need to not be dramatic about it. Nor do you have to buy all new models every 5 years. A new codex every few years which results in a very few new models, sure, but not entire replacement of an army or anywhere near. If you are going to be that pissy about it, do realize it is your choice to play this game, no one is forcing you to do it.

Now, please, actually read the advice given here. If that is not possible, we cannot help you and the thread should simply be closed.

Dang, I missed the start of this thread

I just want to chip in!

I had some Ork Grots for Christmas, and I wanted them becaus they looked cool and I can honestly say I would love to play a small game with them!

Sure, their weapons are cack but thoes little buggers have the best aim out of all my Orks!

I played a little "mock" game the other night and I put a small group of Grots against a group of Kroot, obviously the Kroot won but the Grots took one of them down.

The thing is, I suppose, 40K should be more about playing with models you enjoy rather than playing to win, but winning always helps!

I play ice hockey in a set of blades that are 5 years old now, yet i still outskate a good 80% of the other players with brand new blades.

Does not matter how good something looks.
If you have no idea how it works or how to make it work, then your shot down before you even start.

If your really set on winning, pick a good solid list.
DE, Tau, or SW is a nice start.

Stick to that army for atleast a year and get in as many games as possible.

Try different units, even if people dont rate them that highly as they may fit into your play style alot better than someone elses.

A bad unit is only a bad unit if it does not match your play style and other units in the army.



Just keep playing, and by that i mean any and all games.
Tournies are nice, but if you dont have a good grasp on how an army works, then you wont get anywhere, and you wont learn anything from it.

zilka86 wrote:So besides spending thousands of dollars to play this game i need thousands of playing hrs witb each army to be any good. then ever5yrs you have to buy the books all ove again and new models.

Thankfully, none of this is true. You don't need to spend thousands of dollars to play the game, you need to spend a couple hundred for a balanced army, and you will be good. You also don't need to spend thousands of playing hours. 40k isn't THAT complex of a game. You do need to get a new codex every five years or so, but the models are a durable good, which means you DON'T need to buy anything new. You can, of course, but you don't have to.

troa wrote:Zilka, you need to stop and listen instead of becoming emotionally reactive. You are not listening at all, and it makes you posting here absolutely pointless for you, and everyone trying to help you.

Right, I don't even know why I bothered saying the above. If I've learned anything in life it's not to speak to those who don't listen. Silence, in this case, is better than vanity.

That said, other people are reading this and might have vaguely similar concerns. Said people should be told not to worry.

 TheDraconicLord wrote:

 evildrspock wrote:
I encourage the use of "bad units." Why? It challenges us all to become better generals.

Say that to Dark Eldar Mandrakes and Necron's Flayed Ones. *shudder* The first one at least looks cool, the other is a piece of gak in every sense. There are genuine BAD units in the game that you don't want to touch. I agree that there are units that aren't that good but you can still use them, try something new, like my Lychguard or Triarch Praetorian or the Monoliths. They aren't ultra competitive units, but they look cool and allow us different tactics. But certain units? Not even while playing for fun

Pyrovores say hi.

Right, a little analogy for you....

I used to play the Star Trek TCG, and mostly played against 2 people. None of us where very good, and, typically, our games lasted 3-4 hours. Due to the fact that none of us where very good, we didn't really improve, because we had no one really pushing us to improve. We all had great collections of cards (I had EVERY single ultra rare available at that time), and kinda understood how to play, but that made no difference.
Then one day, I met the UK champion in my local comic shop, and ended up playing against him. I got UTTERLY beaten in under 15 minutes. Then we played another game, and the exact same thing happened again. However, as this was a social game, rather than at a tournament, he was more than happy to tell me how to improve and what he was doing that made him so good. I went back to my mates, and beat them fairly easily after that, with our games lasting nearer to an hour, but I also told them what to do to help them play better. A few games later, and its back to a fairly even match up between us. When I next played the champ, I put up a much better fight, but still lost, but it was much closer this time. This back and forth between me playing him and my mates continued a few times more, until I was putting up a really good fight against him, which in turn helped him get better, because I threw out really random moves that 'proper' players generally wouldn't.
If I'd met him in a tournament, he would have just destroyed me and moved on, but because he wanted someone to play socially, he helped me improve, and then in turn, I could provide him a better opponent.

So, in conclusion, find someone to play regularly, and keep practicing. Realise you WILL get beaten badly by someone who has put a lot of time and effort into the game, but try to learn something from the game. If you don't, you will never improve, and that is entirely your fault. If you do want to play in tournaments, go to a few more for fun rather than wanting to win, and try to make a few friends, because then you can play against them, and they can drag your skill level up, so long as you're fun to play against, they won't mind helping you out, because in the long run, it'll help them

I want to say there geuinely are bad units in the game, no amount of practice or list synergy will ever make them better.

I want someone to try and convince me the SoB Celestians are in anyway useful.

 Kain wrote:

Pyrovores say hi.

Hi, Pyrovores, nice to meet you

 Madcat87 wrote:
I want to say there geuinely are bad units in the game, no amount of practice or list synergy will ever make them better.

I want someone to try and convince me the SoB Celestians are in anyway useful.

We kinda got past that point, at this point the thread is about trying to get the point across that "Skill doesn't equal money" and you can't just buy victories (okay, maybe you can bribe people, but that's not the point!)

But yes, there are some genuinely bad units. Either through age, overcost, or just bad writing. Which is unfortunate...

As important as it is to actually learn to play the game and your army, its equally important to find out what your play style is and find an army that compliments that.

Are you an aggressive player that can't stand to keep units in one place for long and wants to get stuck in quickly? Are you the tricky manuever type player that likes to realign units all over the board? Are you a defensive minded player that feels a good defense is the best offense? Each army tends to lean one way or the other towards a specific playstyle, and learning what suits you takes time, and is certainly not something you are going to figure out sticking to tournaments.

You have five decent sized armies, slow down, figure out which one works best for you, sell the others (keep one as a change of pace army), and build up your chosen 1-2 armies so you have plenty of options. I've played this game for 25 years, and have played exactly 3 armies, and currently still own 2 of them. The idea that this game shouldn't take that long to master is laughable.

The thing about limiting when and where you play keeps you from seeing (and learning) how the game is really played. I spend as much time watching friends play than playing myself, and I tend to learn more about opposing armies this way.

 Ailaros wrote:
It's the nature of a game where events are determined by random elements that the entirety of the jurisdiction of player skill is summed up as the ability to play the odds.

This is completely and laughably wrong. The mere fact that a random number generator exists does not remove all skill from a game. For example, MTG has a strong random element in what cards you draw but you'd be absolutely insane (or just ignorant) if you tried to claim that player skill in MTG is nothing more than playing the odds better than your opponent.

I have a SOB army that is hardly competitive. But its fluffy and I like it. I'm slowly building it to be more competitive for when I feel like it, but that's far down the road. Basically, I'm stuck with what I have for a long time.
Repentia. Not the best unit in the game. In face, they kinda suck. But, they do have their uses and are paper to someone's rock. I'm making them work and its quite challenging. But its also fun.
In the gun nuts world, you'll get a guy with a dozen high end rifles and doesn't know how to use any of them. There's a saying. "Don't fear the man with a dozen guns, fear the man with one gun that knows how to use it."

Believe it or not, there are some people who like to play for the sake of fun! However, unless GW returns to something remotely similar to the original sculpt, I will definitely NOT be touching Flayed Ones (who really aren't THAT gakky, just everything else is better).

 TheDraconicLord wrote:


Say that to Dark Eldar Mandrakes and Necron's Flayed Ones. *shudder*

To that I add Flash Gitz and the Blitzabomma. Yuck.

 curran12 wrote:
I think this analogy might be good for you

Lol, thats massively understating the influence of the army list on the outcome of the game.