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Martel732 wrote:
Except it isn't in practice. You are forced to carve up 4 ppm models that the opponent doesn't care about. Then you die.

I'm curious how you can say that when it is literally what we are seeing right now, in recent tournaments, successfully countering the guard meta and getting into top tables. Models with huge volume of attacks and double attack abilities/stratagems using the massive amount of free movement you get with proper micro between charge move/pile in/consolidate/pile in/consolidate to get through the chaff and to the gunline effectively silencing it for the game.

It's frankly incredible how emotionally attached you are to feeling like the underdog with the weak army, that as soon as good news for you comes up you HAVE to dismiss it, it HAS to not exist. To the point where you are actually deflecting to complaining about books that A) don't exist, and B) we don't have ANY details at all about ANY of them yet, as "oh well these are all going to stomp marines, woe is me."

You spend pages and pages complaining about how Marines weren't winning in the indexes and the codex didn't buff them so they don't win with a Codex, and how Guard and Dark Reapers were OP in the index and got buffs so they're super OP in the codex.

Well guess what? Dark Eldar, Necrons, and Tau all suck in the index. In the case of the former two, harder than pretty much any other army, and in the case of the last, they have themselves a single Flyrant unit to cling to. With what evidence at all are you projecting that they're somehow going to stomp marines? So far, we've seen every army that was good in the indexes be good in codexes, but very mixed results with armies that were bad in the index. We've seen Grey Knights and Admech, and we've seen Eldar and Tyranids.

Because I've watched four or five of the battles and these people are actively choosing to lose to BA by playing sloppy. Everyone should know what these BA lists are going to try to do. Set up accordingly. You can physically prevent what you are describing in the IG movement/deployment phase. The BA player has no input at that stage. It's so simple it's almost mind boggling. Every 4 ppm model the BA have to swing at or shoot at puts them further and further and further behind.

Now if you want to say that the tournament environment makes people rush and this goes in favor of BA, I'll buy that. But that's a very artificial meta consideration. That's not the BA actually being good vs IG. That's BA being good against IG players who are being cheated of out time to think things through.

I'd argue index Drukhari are a more effective army than GK at a minimum.

Martel732 wrote:
Because I've watched four or five of the battles and these people are actively choosing to lose to BA by playing sloppy. Everyone should know what these BA lists are going to try to do. Set up accordingly. You can physically prevent what you are describing in the IG movement/deployment phase. The BA player has no input at that stage. It's so simple it's almost mind boggling. Every 4 ppm model the BA have to swing at or shoot at puts them further and further and further behind.

Now if you want to say that the tournament environment makes people rush and this goes in favor of BA, I'll buy that. But that's a very artificial meta consideration. That's not the BA actually being good vs IG.

I'd argue index Drukhari are a more effective army than GK at a minimum.

You can argue that, and I'd say you're probably right in that there are more units in Index Drukhari that are semi-decent, but Codex GK has one single tournament-worthy choice, and Index Drukhari has zero. I don't think I've ever seen a single Drukhari model appear in a tournament list. And structurally, pre-codex, Index Drukhari is set up to benefit the least from Codex buffs than any other list out there. They have three separate <faction> tags, many core units that don't get them whatsoever, such that unless GW gives them some specific system allowing them to benefit from multiple <faction> bonuses, it's going to be extremely difficult to actually make use of detachment bonuses. Every <wych cult> bonus is going to be effectively useless unless wyches get a huge buff, because they'll be the only troop choice available to make a <wych cult> detachment. Every <Coven> bonus will require you to leave nearly every long-range shooting unit available to the army on the shelf. Core drukhari units like Incubi and Scourges will never be able to benefit from any detachment bonuses. So where you're getting this prediction from that the codex is going to be incredibly strong, I'd like to know.

As to "actively choosing to lose".... I don't know what to say to that. It's a favorable matchup for the blood angels. The best players of 40k are currently choosing to include Blood Angels in their lists because they know that it's a favorable matchup, and if you think they all got together and decided that people were going to "choose to lose" because they just "don't know" how to auto-win the matchup, I don't think anything is going to change your mind about that.

I would say asking a judge if you can make an illegal move is cheating if you know the move is illegal. If i know one of the many FAQs covers for instance that i can't deep strike Genestealers with a Lictor, and i show some newbie judge my stratagem, he'd say sure, no problem. Because the power was fundamentally changed in an errata. I know i'd be cheating... but the judge said ok so i'm good? NO! Not at all. That would make me a cheater. Honesty is a huge component to this game. In any tournament there are a billion ways to cheat. Don't be a cheater.

And the discussion of "pure" armies is where things get really difficult.

Dark Eldar can be really strong if they're the primary detachment in a space elf soup. Just like GK can be passable with significant IG allies. Although, GK+IG pairing has been squatted wholly in place of BA+IG.

Drukhari won't be strong in the meta, because gunlines will just zorf them. They can however dictate range of engagement vs marines and turn off all those precious cc stats.

Martel732 wrote:
Except it isn't in practice. You are forced to carve up 4 ppm models that the opponent doesn't care about. Then you die. It's almost like the fall back mechanic is broken or something. I can't help it if these guys at the LVO failed screening 101. My opponents sure as hell don't. BA are just about the most useless army in the game vs IG.

This is what I read:

"Top-level tournament players are bad at some of the most basic mechanics of 40k. Worse than my opponents in my local meta. It certainly couldn't be the case that I am a bad player, and it must instead be my army that is failing me."

Sure thing. Except that i've watched several of these battles and players are indeed failing at screening 101. I find that ba can do exactly what you describe...to other marines and eldar who don't bring the magic win button.
Armies with cheap models hard counter ba. If they take the time to make sure their ducks are in a row.

This is going off on a slight tangent but i'll share something purely anecdotal.

I've observed that skilled 40k players are drawn away from Imperial Guard due to how simple the army plays. You can literally create a flow chart on how to take your turns, and what to do strategically. The army is strong. But people who are actually interested in having a real 40k gaming experience don't play IG. It's mind numbing and dull. Your only decisions are deployment and target priority. After that it's pretty much the same game, over, and over, and over.

Did i put down my screens? Check.
Did i put down my artillery? Check.
Did i put down my tanks? Check.
Are my scions in reserve? Check.

Great! Let's play the *exact same game* that i play every single time. Funsauce

 Marmatag wrote:
This is going off on a slight tangent but i'll share something purely anecdotal.

I've observed that skilled 40k players are drawn away from Imperial Guard due to how simple the army plays. You can literally create a flow chart on how to take your turns, and what to do strategically. The army is strong. But people who are actually interested in having a real 40k gaming experience don't play IG. It's mind numbing and dull. Your only decisions are deployment and target priority. After that it's pretty much the same game, over, and over, and over.

Did i put down my screens? Check.
Did i put down my artillery? Check.
Did i put down my tanks? Check.
Are my scions in reserve? Check.

Great! Let's play the *exact same game* that i play every single time. Funsauce

Let me just check my logical flowchart here.

Hypothesis: Imperial Guard are overpowered, Blood Angels are underpowered.

Observation: Imperial Guard wins.

Conclusion: Imperial Guard are overpowered.

Observation: Imperial Guard lose.

Rationalization: Imperial Guard players are universally unskilled.

Conclusion: Imperial Guard are overpowered.

Observation: Blood Angels lose.

Conclusion: Blood Angels are underpowered.

Observation: Blood Angels win.

Rationalization: Blood Angels players are universally skilled.

Conclusion: Blood Angels are underpowered.

How can we evaluate your hypothesis given the conditions that you have set up such that it can be falsified and either proven correct or incorrect?

you have constructed a happy little universe where any thing that happens in favor of your pre-determined conclusion supports it, and anything that happens against it is immediately rationalized into the categories you've picked out ("Unskilled opponents" "lucky matchups" "single data point" and "contains some allied element").

Martel732 wrote:
Because I've watched four or five of the battles and these people are actively choosing to lose to BA by playing sloppy.

This reminds me so much of a friend of mine. No matter what army you play or how the battle goes, he knows how to do it better, and he isn't quiet about it. Ignore the fact that he loses most of his games and blames RNG, he always has the superior plan and idea of how things work. And he'll tell you about it. Repeatedly. You bad players over there always choose to lose, whereas I'm just a poor victim of RNG, despite my Ender-esque skills.

Yeah, no. It's just another less-motivated and -knowledgeable variant of TFG.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Marmatag wrote:
But people who are actually interested in having a real 40k gaming experience don't play IG.

Not to mention someone who thinks he's going to judge people for what armies they play and call them "not real Scotsme...er, 40k gamers." Seriously, we don't need the toxicity poisoning our game.

>BA get two armies in the top 8 at LVO guard get 0
Martel
>Well this obviously shows how great IG is
>BA are only every competitive because of IG
>Yet IG is never competitive because of SM elements added to it.

Asmodios wrote:
>BA get two armies in the top 8 at LVO guard get 0
Martel
>Well this obviously shows how great IG is
>BA are only every competitive because of IG
>Yet IG is never competitive because of SM elements added to it.

You know, you'd be a lot more believable if you actually adressed the arguments put forth instead of making a strawman that you then handily defeat.

They're better than the Vanilla codex but that's it.

Once people learned to counter Descent Of Angels they're going back to not showing up a lot. Mark my words.

Martel732 wrote:
Except it isn't in practice. You are forced to carve up 4 ppm models that the opponent doesn't care about. Then you die. It's almost like the fall back mechanic is broken or something. I can't help it if these guys at the LVO failed screening 101. My opponents sure as hell don't. BA are just about the most useless army in the game vs IG.

Yeah I agree how BA could've placed in the top levels (even before getting caught) doesn't make sense given that if his opponents had proper screens for his gunline. A proper screen should've had limited the BA from tying up at most 2 units.

To the OP: Blood angels are competitive, but I would only suggest them to someone if you really enjoy using Special Characters who perform well in and when buffing the assault phase. That does not mean your entire army should revolve around close combat marines, but if you're not planning on playing Death Company and / or Sanguinary Guard alongside the special characters that make them shine, I'd look elsewhere.

Then again, if you love painting red, black, and gold marines...The BA codex may be for you!

Martel732 wrote:
Sure thing. Except that i've watched several of these battles and players are indeed failing at screening 101. I find that ba can do exactly what you describe...to other marines and eldar who don't bring the magic win button.
Armies with cheap models hard counter ba. If they take the time to make sure their ducks are in a row.

Armies with cheap models are hard counter to the entire game.

It devalues the strategic elements of the game by allowing any and everything to be expendable.

It's like playing chess with 16 pawns, 4 knights, 4 rooks, 4 bishops, and 4 queens.

 skchsan wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Sure thing. Except that i've watched several of these battles and players are indeed failing at screening 101. I find that ba can do exactly what you describe...to other marines and eldar who don't bring the magic win button.
Armies with cheap models hard counter ba. If they take the time to make sure their ducks are in a row.

Armies with cheap models are hard counter to the entire game.

It devalues the strategic elements of the game by allowing any and everything to be expendable.

It's like playing chess with 16 pawns, 4 knights, 4 rooks, 4 bishops, and 4 queens.

Not quite. Gunlines can ignore chaff by shooting past it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

HuskyWarhammer wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Because I've watched four or five of the battles and these people are actively choosing to lose to BA by playing sloppy.

This reminds me so much of a friend of mine. No matter what army you play or how the battle goes, he knows how to do it better, and he isn't quiet about it. Ignore the fact that he loses most of his games and blames RNG, he always has the superior plan and idea of how things work. And he'll tell you about it. Repeatedly. You bad players over there always choose to lose, whereas I'm just a poor victim of RNG, despite my Ender-esque skills.

Yeah, no. It's just another less-motivated and -knowledgeable variant of TFG.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Marmatag wrote:
But people who are actually interested in having a real 40k gaming experience don't play IG.

Not to mention someone who thinks he's going to judge people for what armies they play and call them "not real Scotsme...er, 40k gamers." Seriously, we don't need the toxicity poisoning our game.

The superior plan is too shoo the gak out of people with dark reapers. Look at the finals and tell me I'm wrong. Instead, people are holding up a cheater as an example of why BA are the paragon of competitiveness. And yes, he's a cheater regardless of what the judge said. Know your own rules. 40K 101.

 Marmatag wrote:
This is going off on a slight tangent but i'll share something purely anecdotal.

I've observed that skilled 40k players are drawn away from Imperial Guard due to how simple the army plays. You can literally create a flow chart on how to take your turns, and what to do strategically. The army is strong. But people who are actually interested in having a real 40k gaming experience don't play IG. It's mind numbing and dull. Your only decisions are deployment and target priority. After that it's pretty much the same game, over, and over, and over.

Did i put down my screens? Check.
Did i put down my artillery? Check.
Did i put down my tanks? Check.
Are my scions in reserve? Check.

Great! Let's play the *exact same game* that i play every single time. Funsauce

Yes, I'm sure the only thing stopping the top tournament players in the duking it out for several thousand in prizes from bringing IG to LVO was because they wanted a real 40k experience. And if you boil it down, every army can undergo a similar checklist followed by target priority.

Did I put down my Reapers?
Did I put down my Wave Serpent to hide the Reapers?
Did I put down my ranger screen?
Did I put down my bikes anywhere within their ludicrous threat range from the enemy's artillery?

After that, it's all a preset combo of psychic powers and Stratagems followed by target priority. It's not like it takes some serious tactical acumen to pull off the shining Spears charge or the hop in and out of a wave serpent trick.

Close combat armies naturally need to worry about positioning more in order to get the most out of the charge/pile in/consolidate mechanics, but that's not decision making so much as making sure you don't screw up the measurements. It's a pain in the ass when your opponent falls a unit back from a base-sized gap that you had the distance and models to fill but just didn't due to sloppy placement/time concerns.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Asmodios wrote:
>BA get two armies in the top 8 at LVO guard get 0
Martel
>Well this obviously shows how great IG is
>BA are only every competitive because of IG
>Yet IG is never competitive because of SM elements added to it.

You know, you'd be a lot more believable if you actually adressed the arguments put forth instead of making a strawman that you then handily defeat.

This is his and every SM players reasoning in every single thread.
>It starts off with "guard are OP"
>point out that guard is not longer crushing the tournament seen
>the response is to point out (XYZ soup army is competitive)
>but for some reason its guard that is the broken or OP part of all these lists its never the other added component and only guard gets called to get hit with a nerf.

His arguments would go better if he actually looked at tournament results and incorporated them into the argument instead of making excuses of why they aren't valid

Against BA if your screen is far infront Death Company with their pre-game free move + normal movement will just jump over it and charge the meat.
If its to close the screen gets torn to pieces and they consolidate into the meat.

I think you need more then 'lol just screen' to beat a good BA player/list

Asmodios wrote:

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Asmodios wrote:
>BA get two armies in the top 8 at LVO guard get 0
Martel
>Well this obviously shows how great IG is
>BA are only every competitive because of IG
>Yet IG is never competitive because of SM elements added to it.

You know, you'd be a lot more believable if you actually adressed the arguments put forth instead of making a strawman that you then handily defeat.

This is his and every SM players reasoning in every single thread.
>It starts off with "guard are OP"
>point out that guard is not longer crushing the tournament seen
>the response is to point out (XYZ soup army is competitive)
>but for some reason its guard that is the broken or OP part of all these lists its never the other added component and only guard gets called to get hit with a nerf.

His arguments would go better if he actually looked at tournament results and incorporated them into the argument instead of making excuses of why they aren't valid

And we're done.

 Ordana wrote:
Against BA if your screen is far infront Death Company with their pre-game free move + normal movement will just jump over it and charge the meat.
If its to close the screen gets torn to pieces and they consolidate into the meat.

I think you need more then 'lol just screen' to beat a good BA player/list

Not really. Most people have their DC up high because trying to use Forlorn Fury is indeed a gamble. You also discount double, triple and even quadruple layer screens. Which I see regularly. Turns out IG players from 3rd ed have plenty of painted infantry.

Blood Angels, and some other space marine factions, has a favourable matchup against IG.

As many tournaments play with progressive scoring and LOS-blocking ground floors, scouts will start with complete board-control which it is just very hard for IG to dislodge.

If you play eternal war and with regular GW ruins, then IG will dominate most other factions easily.

pismakron wrote:
Blood Angels, and some other space marine factions, has a favourable matchup against IG.

As many tournaments play with progressive scoring and LOS-blocking ground floors, scouts will start with complete board-control which it is just very hard for IG to dislodge.

If you play eternal war and with regular GW ruins, then IG will dominate most other factions easily.

The opaque windows do help a lot.

"point out that guard is not longer crushing the tournament seen "

Thanks to dark reapers and Altioc. Not anything that the marines are putting out.

Martel732 wrote:

pismakron wrote:
Blood Angels, and some other space marine factions, has a favourable matchup against IG.

As many tournaments play with progressive scoring and LOS-blocking ground floors, scouts will start with complete board-control which it is just very hard for IG to dislodge.

If you play eternal war and with regular GW ruins, then IG will dominate most other factions easily.

The opaque windows do help a lot.

"point out that guard is not longer crushing the tournament seen "

Thanks to dark reapers and Altioc. Not anything that the marines are putting out.

So what your saying is that BA have the ability to deal with other top lists while guard dont????? but somehow BA bad guard good?

No, because BA can't beat Altioc dark reapers, either.

RogueApiary wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
This is going off on a slight tangent but i'll share something purely anecdotal.

I've observed that skilled 40k players are drawn away from Imperial Guard due to how simple the army plays. You can literally create a flow chart on how to take your turns, and what to do strategically. The army is strong. But people who are actually interested in having a real 40k gaming experience don't play IG. It's mind numbing and dull. Your only decisions are deployment and target priority. After that it's pretty much the same game, over, and over, and over.

Did i put down my screens? Check.
Did i put down my artillery? Check.
Did i put down my tanks? Check.
Are my scions in reserve? Check.

Great! Let's play the *exact same game* that i play every single time. Funsauce

Yes, I'm sure the only thing stopping the top tournament players in the duking it out for several thousand in prizes from bringing IG to LVO was because they wanted a real 40k experience. And if you boil it down, every army can undergo a similar checklist followed by target priority.

Did I put down my Reapers?
Did I put down my Wave Serpent to hide the Reapers?
Did I put down my ranger screen?
Did I put down my bikes anywhere within their ludicrous threat range from the enemy's artillery?

After that, it's all a preset combo of psychic powers and Stratagems followed by target priority. It's not like it takes some serious tactical acumen to pull off the shining Spears charge or the hop in and out of a wave serpent trick.

Close combat armies naturally need to worry about positioning more in order to get the most out of the charge/pile in/consolidate mechanics, but that's not decision making so much as making sure you don't screw up the measurements. It's a pain in the ass when your opponent falls a unit back from a base-sized gap that you had the distance and models to fill but just didn't due to sloppy placement/time concerns.

I totally agree in regards what you said above - reapers are effectively the same playstyle so ultra competitive people are going to ditch their guard for reapers, because it doesn't really change how you play the game, it just changes how well you do while playing it.

Asmodios wrote:

This is his and every SM players reasoning in every single thread.

I know it's the hip thing to hate on all Space Marines Players, but you're not making many friends by doing it.

Martel732 wrote:
No, because BA can't beat Altioc dark reapers, either.

Sorry they have the ability to make it further into tournaments and place higher then IG..... Clearly IG broken BA bad

Asmodios wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
No, because BA can't beat Altioc dark reapers, either.

Sorry they have the ability to make it further into tournaments and place higher then IG..... Clearly IG broken BA bad

You wrote "tournaments" but you mean to write "tournament." One tournament, no matter how large, is still not statistically significant when discussing balance. Part of the reason i'm not up-in-arms about Tyranids placing the same as Orks, despite having a codex, and Orks don't have a codex. Because it's one event.