Litany of a Scrub: Protests

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**Azreal13**

I'm intrigued by the fact that the OP is the same one who, not so long ago, was making threads lecturing us all on how GSF wasn't really "that bad" and how Nids were the new secret power army (I'm paraphrasing, but not by much.)

Sounds very much a situation of willing to give out advice, not willing to listen to me

**happygolucky**

I do get and sympathize what the OP is saying. I also used to be like that. You get advertised that this game is like telling a story and your force has an interesting fight with another where a story evolves with your custom force.

However the reality is that people will treat this as a game before a story. People want to win and will exploit the game, especially if you only pay attention to social media such as Dakka and other devices, and so people will play this game to win rather than its narrative style that GW sells you on.

I do agree with the OP to an extent, however there is nothing wrong with giving advise but the social community has gotten snide and stuck up imo, from observation. Just calling people "scrubs" and so when they are just starting out or trying to evolve is antagonizing and delivers a negative connotation and stigma that you should be punished for being a new player or for trying out something new which I find wrong on basic social levels.

As to the situation proposed by the OP, this does not sound like a min/max issue but a list tailoring issue (if your story is truthful) meaning that your opponent is deliberately designing his list to destroy yours which isn't showing your a bad player but more that player should be avoided since list tailoring has been considered by the community as bad sportsmanship.

**Azreal13**

If you got sold on the "forge the narrative" element, you were mis-sold.

40K isn't an RPG. It isn't collaborative (or, at least, the format it adopts is not inherently collaborative, extracting a worthwhile gaming experience from the game these days requires collaboration, but that's not the same.)

It is, in its purest form, a test of both players to select a limited range of tools from their toolbox and deploy those tools in the most effective way possible in order to achieve victory.

It can be used for campaigns to tell a story, but there's nothing specific to 40K that makes it better or worse for this purpose than any other tabletop wargame.

There would never be an issue with people playing to win and those playing more casually if the game were better designed, but while there remains significant imbalance across and within factions, people are going to get their asses handed to them in the most unfunny ways possible, and that, at its heart, is why there's a ground swell of people dissatisfied with the game.

GW sells "forge the narrative" because it excuses their terrible design choices and poor balance. By subtly implying that players who try their best to win a game which is essentially only about determining a winner are somehow "doing it wrong" is just pointing the finger at the players when the blame lies solely with them.

**hotsauceman1**

Listen, this is a game, there are winners and losers in a game. If you want to win, step your game up, dont whine and taie it like a man when you loose

**Traditio**

Wyldhunt wrote:
I'm a big fan of negotiating lists with your opponent in advance. It sounds like you've tried and that your opponent may or may not have tried to listen. Maybe just try talking to him again?

Telling people to "get good" or what have you really isn't helpful. The people who want to play competitively will do so. The people who don't want to play competitively will just feel alienated and become more likely to stop playing. To me, what you ideally want to do is just talk to your opponents until you're on the same page. This is one of the reasons I have a banshee-centric craftworld Iybraesil list featuring lots of eldar MCs. Some opponents just have more fun against a toned-down list, and I can have fun with such a list so long as it's still interesting to use.

That said, I do wonder if your opponent is being as malicious as you're implying. It sounds like he plays eldar. Eldar aren't particularly known for lots of pie plates, and what AP2 blasts we have are generally small blasts (meaning they usually hit 2 or 3 models tops). Assuming he wasn't using some sort of titan or superheavy I'm not familiar with, I'm guessing those apocolyptic blasts were coming from his farseers, right? Farseers aren't bad, but I'd be curious to know exactly what your opponent brought. At the risk of sounding like I'm telling you to "get good," I suspect there might be a few minor tricks you could incorporate against such a list to improve your odds against his.

Roughly from memory:

Two 4 man squads of dark reapers (one of which in each squad was an exarch with a tempest launcher).
Seer council: some named farseer (it might have been eldrad), a regular farseer and 3 warlocks. He had at least two guys in that blob who could do Eldritch storm.
2 5 man squads of wraithguard with d-scythles.
4 10 man squads of dire avengers.
1 10 man squad of fire dragons.
A 5 man ranger squad with Illic Nightspear.

We were playing longways. He deployed a dark reaper squad on either side of the table, seer council in the middle. A squad of wraithguard on either side. The rangers infiltrated/scouted into a tower in the middle of the board. He had the firedragons and a couple of squads of dire avengers in ruins on one side of the map, and a squad or two of dire avengers on the other side.

So...yeah. Lots of AP3/AP 2 pie plates. At least one of which was an apocalyptic blast. Every turn.

And he had some formation to give practically everyone on his side BS 5.

**War Kitten**

That was probably the Aspect Host. You take 3 Squads of Aspect Warriors (from a list), and you get to choose between +1 BS or +1 WS as a formation bonus.

**Traditio**

War Kitten wrote:
That was probably the Aspect Host. You take 3 Squads of Aspect Warriors (from a list), and you get to choose between +1 BS or +1 WS as a formation bonus.

Yes, that sounds right.

Frankly, it would have been a relatively fun, even game...my complaint is his insistence on taking both the dark reaper squads and the seer council.

Given that he was playing vs. blob marines, taking both seemed like overkill to me.

When I said as much (in a perfectly polite, calm tone of voice), he accused me of whining (here, I paraphrase) and blady blady blah.

I know for a fact that the dude owns at least 60 dire avengers and at least 15 rangers. He could have brought something else instead.

**Blacksails**

Do you own anything more competitive? Could your list be better optimized?

If the answer is yes, then you need to meet half way and up your game too.

**Grimskul**

Yeah...honestly for Eldar that's a pretty tame list for the most part. No scatbikes, no wraithknights. It looks like he already brought a lot of dire avengers (40 out of the 60 you mentioned...that's more than half...way more than most lists run). What the heck did you bring? Did you try to use any kind of cover or hide behind LoS blocking terrain? Did you spread out properly? Did you use any transports? If you see this put out on the table you at the very least can hold things in reserve so they don't get wiped out if you don't get turn one.

If you get shrekt'd, you wise up and adapt, otherwise tough luck.

**Tenzilla**

Another problem with playing SM is they have always been and still are the standard for troops. Meaning anyone making a TAC list is building with the thought of having to kill MEQs. So AP3 and AP2 weapons are to be expected in every game.

**Korinov**

Azreal13 wrote:
If you got sold on the "forge the narrative" element, you were mis-sold.

Blam.

Current 40k is too broken to work outside of playing in an environment/group whose players share a similar mindset.

As for the OP's complaints though, you asked for no wraithknights and no scatbikes. He met your demands. Eldar are the most broken army in a broken game, simple as that.

**cosmicsoybean**

Traditio wrote:
Wyldhunt wrote:
I'm a big fan of negotiating lists with your opponent in advance. It sounds like you've tried and that your opponent may or may not have tried to listen. Maybe just try talking to him again?

Telling people to "get good" or what have you really isn't helpful. The people who want to play competitively will do so. The people who don't want to play competitively will just feel alienated and become more likely to stop playing. To me, what you ideally want to do is just talk to your opponents until you're on the same page. This is one of the reasons I have a banshee-centric craftworld Iybraesil list featuring lots of eldar MCs. Some opponents just have more fun against a toned-down list, and I can have fun with such a list so long as it's still interesting to use.

That said, I do wonder if your opponent is being as malicious as you're implying. It sounds like he plays eldar. Eldar aren't particularly known for lots of pie plates, and what AP2 blasts we have are generally small blasts (meaning they usually hit 2 or 3 models tops). Assuming he wasn't using some sort of titan or superheavy I'm not familiar with, I'm guessing those apocolyptic blasts were coming from his farseers, right? Farseers aren't bad, but I'd be curious to know exactly what your opponent brought. At the risk of sounding like I'm telling you to "get good," I suspect there might be a few minor tricks you could incorporate against such a list to improve your odds against his.

Roughly from memory:

Two 4 man squads of dark reapers (one of which in each squad was an exarch with a tempest launcher).
Seer council: some named farseer (it might have been eldrad), a regular farseer and 3 warlocks. He had at least two guys in that blob who could do Eldritch storm.
2 5 man squads of wraithguard with d-scythles.
4 10 man squads of dire avengers.
1 10 man squad of fire dragons.
A 5 man ranger squad with Illic Nightspear.

We were playing longways. He deployed a dark reaper squad on either side of the table, seer council in the middle. A squad of wraithguard on either side. The rangers infiltrated/scouted into a tower in the middle of the board. He had the firedragons and a couple of squads of dire avengers in ruins on one side of the map, and a squad or two of dire avengers on the other side.

So...yeah. Lots of AP3/AP 2 pie plates. At least one of which was an apocalyptic blast. Every turn.

And he had some formation to give practically everyone on his side BS 5.

Eldritch storm is WC 4 and if in a blob like you said he has like 8 WC, and casting that every turn? I call shenanigans

**Swampmist**

Eh, the farseer's get re-rolls, harness on a 3+, and can drop it to WC3 with the one relic. Not a hard set up, really.

**Traditio**

Grimskul wrote:
Yeah...honestly for Eldar that's a pretty tame list for the most part. No scatbikes, no wraithknights. It looks like he already brought a lot of dire avengers (40 out of the 60 you mentioned...that's more than half...way more than most lists run). What the heck did you bring? Did you try to use any kind of cover or hide behind LoS blocking terrain? Did you spread out properly? Did you use any transports? If you see this put out on the table you at the very least can hold things in reserve so they don't get wiped out if you don't get turn one.

If you get shrekt'd, you wise up and adapt, otherwise tough luck.

I was playing:

Pedro Kantor
Captain with power fist, stormbolter and artificer armor
Chaplain

4 5 man tactical squads, sarges with bolters and meltabombs
1 5 man tactical squad, sarge with stormbolter, 1 guy with multimelta; free rhino with dozer blades
1 5 man tactical squad, 1 guy with plasma cannon
1 5 man assault squad with two flamers in free rhino with dozer blades
1 5 man assault squad with one flamer in a free rhino.
1 5 man devastator squad with 4 missile launchers
1 6 man devastator squad with 4 missile launchers with flakk.
3 5 man sternguard squads
1 5 man honor guard squad; 4 maces and champion with power sword

Automatically Appended Next Post:

cosmicsoybean wrote:Eldritch storm is WC 4 and if in a blob like you said he has like 8 WC, and casting that every turn? I call shenanigans

Well, every turn after the first. First turn, he was out of range. After that, at least 1 eldritch storm went off every turn. He was harnessing on 3+ and I had no psykers on the table.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Korinov wrote:
Azreal13 wrote:
If you got sold on the "forge the narrative" element, you were mis-sold.

Blam.

Current 40k is too broken to work outside of playing in an environment/group whose players share a similar mindset.

As for the OP's complaints though, you asked for no wraithknights and no scatbikes. He met your demands. Eldar are the most broken army in a broken game, simple as that.

He met the letter of my request, but not the spirit of my request. That's what annoys me.

**hotsauceman1**

Well, your list is kindacweird, how did you get free rhinos

**Traditio**

hotsauceman1 wrote:
Well, your list is kindacweird, how did you get free rhinos

Battle company.

**BTNeophyte**

Blacksails wrote:
Do you own anything more competitive? Could your list be better optimized?

If the answer is yes, then you need to meet half way and up your game too.

This. At some point you have to up your game.

**Traditio**

BTNeophyte wrote:This. At some point you have to up your game.

This just hammers in the points of my OP.

**hotsauceman1**

Where is the auxiliary

**Azreal13**

Traditio wrote:
BTNeophyte wrote:This. At some point you have to up your game.

This just hammers in the points of my OP.

Your original post is literally all "me, me, me."

There's a middle ground you're refusing to acknowledge.

**Sgt_Smudge**

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Korinov wrote:
Azreal13 wrote:
If you got sold on the "forge the narrative" element, you were mis-sold.

Blam.

Current 40k is too broken to work outside of playing in an environment/group whose players share a similar mindset.

As for the OP's complaints though, you asked for no wraithknights and no scatbikes. He met your demands. Eldar are the most broken army in a broken game, simple as that.

He met the letter of my request, but not the spirit of my request. That's what annoys me.

**Ratius**

I was playing:

Pedro Kantor
Captain with power fist, stormbolter and artificer armor
Chaplain

4 5 man tactical squads, sarges with bolters and meltabombs
1 5 man tactical squad, sarge with stormbolter, 1 guy with multimelta; free rhino with dozer blades
1 5 man tactical squad, 1 guy with plasma cannon
1 5 man assault squad with two flamers in free rhino with dozer blades
1 5 man assault squad with one flamer in a free rhino.
1 5 man devastator squad with 4 missile launchers
1 6 man devastator squad with 4 missile launchers with flakk.
3 5 man sternguard squads
1 5 man honor guard squad; 4 maces and champion with power sword

Its an okish list but overall its very static. Its static/Ds Marines which under 7th ed rules are.....suboptimal.
You were playing Eldar (or variants?). I would assume a very tough matchup either way - even if you OP is a bit of a "meany".
Look - you can play your list over and over or adapt sightly (even I see glaring flaws).

Kinda agree with above - chat, adapt, evolve or lose

**Traditio**

hotsauceman1 wrote:
Where is the auxiliary

1st Company - Sternguard X 3

**troa**

After reading through.... It appears you are grumpy because you lost, and grumpy because one person didn't make a more "fun funsies" list. You then continue to say that it's all his fault, and you play not part in your own not enjoying the game.

You then state that anyone trying to tell you that you may need to also do something, and not entirely rely on the other person to dumb down his list for you, is in fact reinforcing your first point. You are also acting like your post has air tight logic and absolutely correct.

In short, you're just looking for people to validate you and telling the rest that they're terrible people. I don't understand why you think this is a productive topic or that you're going to accomplish anything productive in this thread.

**Terminal**

On one hand, I can sort of - sort of - commiserate with the OP, as a marine player using second hand models, with a very restricted budget to buy new stuff with.

But really, I can't agree much. I used to play Eldar myself, and that is a pretty tame list. For an Eldar list to come down to the SAME level as that terrible Marines list, they'd have to be nothing but rangers and banshees on foot. Even Wraithlords, a bad unit, would give that marine list trouble.

You're using Gladius. You really need to ACTUALLY make use of the ability to take free transports - put every squad in a transport, and make a good number of them Razorbacks with Assault Cannons or Lascannons. Otherwise, why use Gladius at all, instead of say, two CADs?

And if you're not going to maximize the transports, why are you avoiding using Special or Heavy weapons? Where are your Grav-Guns, your Plasma Guns, your Meltaguns?

Codex Space Marines don't do 'blob'. They can't join units into bigger ones like Guard can, and they aren't great in combat like Berserkers are.

And I still don't get how that Eldar list has 'lots of pie plates'. Outside of the psychic powers, the Reapers' blasts are small and AP4, and the D-Scythes are flamer templates.

**HoundsofDemos**

Traditio wrote:
Grimskul wrote:
Yeah...honestly for Eldar that's a pretty tame list for the most part. No scatbikes, no wraithknights. It looks like he already brought a lot of dire avengers (40 out of the 60 you mentioned...that's more than half...way more than most lists run). What the heck did you bring? Did you try to use any kind of cover or hide behind LoS blocking terrain? Did you spread out properly? Did you use any transports? If you see this put out on the table you at the very least can hold things in reserve so they don't get wiped out if you don't get turn one.

If you get shrekt'd, you wise up and adapt, otherwise tough luck.

I was playing:

Pedro Kantor
Captain with power fist, stormbolter and artificer armor
Chaplain

4 5 man tactical squads, sarges with bolters and meltabombs
1 5 man tactical squad, sarge with stormbolter, 1 guy with multimelta; free rhino with dozer blades
1 5 man tactical squad, 1 guy with plasma cannon
1 5 man assault squad with two flamers in free rhino with dozer blades
1 5 man assault squad with one flamer in a free rhino.
1 5 man devastator squad with 4 missile launchers
1 6 man devastator squad with 4 missile launchers with flakk.
3 5 man sternguard squads
1 5 man honor guard squad; 4 maces and champion with power sword

Automatically Appended Next Post:

cosmicsoybean wrote:Eldritch storm is WC 4 and if in a blob like you said he has like 8 WC, and casting that every turn? I call shenanigans

Well, every turn after the first. First turn, he was out of range. After that, at least 1 eldritch storm went off every turn. He was harnessing on 3+ and I had no psykers on the table.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Korinov wrote:
Azreal13 wrote:
If you got sold on the "forge the narrative" element, you were mis-sold.

Blam.

Current 40k is too broken to work outside of playing in an environment/group whose players share a similar mindset.

As for the OP's complaints though, you asked for no wraithknights and no scatbikes. He met your demands. Eldar are the most broken army in a broken game, simple as that.

He met the letter of my request, but not the spirit of my request. That's what annoys me.

Your taking a horrible list with a lot of sub par options and little synergy. Maybe your opponent can tone the list down a bit but at some point bad options are just that bad options. For instance why bother with a battle company if most of your squads don't have a transport.

**Traditio**

Terminal wrote:
On one hand, I can sort of - sort of - commiserate with the OP, as a marine player using second hand models, with a very restricted budget to buy new stuff with.

That's basically my situation.

But really, I can't agree much. I used to play Eldar myself, and that is a pretty tame list. For an Eldar list to come down to the SAME level as that terrible Marines list, they'd have to be nothing but rangers and banshees on foot. Even Wraithlords, a bad unit, would give that marine list trouble.

I disagree. My complaint specifically was with the use of both the reapers and the seer council.

You're using Gladius. You really need to ACTUALLY make use of the ability to take free transports - put every squad in a transport, and make a good number of them Razorbacks with Assault Cannons or Lascannons.

I don't actually have that many transports.

Otherwise, why use Gladius at all, instead of say, two CADs?

To make use of the transports that I do have for free, in addition to getting to use combat doctrines.

And I still don't get how that Eldar list has 'lots of pie plates'. Outside of the psychic powers, the Reapers' blasts are small and AP4, and the D-Scythes are flamer templates.

His reaper exarchs were able to fire 3 pie plates with their tempest launchers every turn. And you are mistaken: the reaper blasts are all AP 3.

**pm713**

If you can't use transports for every squad why are you bothering to use a Gladius? You could take a less restricted list instead.

**Traditio**

pm713 wrote:
If you can't use transports for every squad why are you bothering to use a Gladius? You could take a less restricted list instead.

It basically allows me to use all of the models that I actually own, with the exception of a few models, at an 1850 points level.

At any rate, the simple fact is that I have what I have, and my friend has what he has. He has the option to take weaker units (he has a rather extensive inventory of eldar units; he easily could use an avatar of khaine, wraithlords, wave serpents, etc.) and basically play at my power level. To significantly increase my power level would be a rather extensive monetary investment on my part.

That's basically what it comes down to.

And I asked him why he insisted on using both the seer council and the reapers. "Would you have lost?" "No, but it would have made things more difficult."

That annoys me. Again, refer to the OP.

**Blacksails**

Sounds like you just want to win without having to change anything about your list.