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A good 40k player is a guy with a good personality and sense of humor.

Everything else, from list-building to intelligence, painting skill, grammar, age, none of that matters if you're a complete PITA.

Oh, except hygiene. Hygiene and a good sense of humor. Those are what make a great 40k player.

A strong list is like a sledge hammer. You have a lot of power.

But like anything, learning how to make the most of your power is the skill part. *CAN* a weak list beat a power list? Yes. If there’s a large enough skill and luck difference, it is possible, if unlikely.

The reason tournament lists are the “most powerful” is because a highly skilled player with a sledge hammer is going to (probably) beat a highly skilled player with a sack of potatoes.

Most lists aren’t at the ends of that spectrum. Most lists are in the middle-ish where skill and luck tend to decide the games. Taking a stronger list tips the scale in your favour, if winning is your primary objective. But you can make decisions like, “I really like this model, and although it isn’t peak efficiency I’m going to play it as best it can be played, and tweak my list to account for its shortcomings.” Most units are playable, but not all units are playable together all at once. To make a decent list, I tend to take some. “Powerful” stuff and also some “just for fun” stuff, and play it to the best of my ability. If you play those units a few times, and get a feel for them, you may find they can fill a role you didn’t know you needed.

Flexibility. Don't get buck fever, in list building or game playing.

Think about how you want to use any given unit. Then think about ways you can use it if the plan isn't working.

In previous editions, I let my opponent tell me how to play. I watched his target priority to see what he was scared of, and used that to make another unit better.

I had one friend who said he hated my lists because he couldn't make a target priority. They were all the same. That was my goal. If every unit is 1/10th of my strength, then letting them tunnel vision on one unit left me 90% of my power to use. If one unit was 50% of the power and he focused on that, I had much less to work with.

I had multiple ways to use each unit, and multiple ways those ways could work with each of my other unit's strengths and weaknesses.

 BaconCatBug wrote:
List Building. 40k is won at the List Building stage in 8th. The best player in the world playing Mono Grey Knights won't beat the average player using Imperial Knights+Custodes+Guard.

While it's certainly true that 40k can be won and lost in the list building stage, it's not always the case and is often an excuse I see from players who refuse to properly analyse their own performance in-game. The refrain of "your list was just so much better than mine, I had no chance" is one I hear all too often and even when it's partially correct it can gloss over deficiencies in play that could easily be improved upon. Reflecting on the quality of your list is definitely something any player should do when attempting to get better, but even weaker lists can often achieve better results through better play on the tabletop.

Slipspace wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
List Building. 40k is won at the List Building stage in 8th. The best player in the world playing Mono Grey Knights won't beat the average player using Imperial Knights+Custodes+Guard.

While it's certainly true that 40k can be won and lost in the list building stage, it's not always the case and is often an excuse I see from players who refuse to properly analyse their own performance in-game. The refrain of "your list was just so much better than mine, I had no chance" is one I hear all too often and even when it's partially correct it can gloss over deficiencies in play that could easily be improved upon. Reflecting on the quality of your list is definitely something any player should do when attempting to get better, but even weaker lists can often achieve better results through better play on the tabletop.

Taken one step further a flaw in list building will frequently be matched by a flaw in play. Being enamored with a unit in list building will probably result in being enamored with it in the game - meaning you either won't risk it as much as you should, or expect it to do more than it will. The inverse also occurs frequently. If you only take a unit because you have to "fill a slot" you're likely to throw it away needlessly, or not use it to accomplish something it can out of doubt. Taking a bunch of units because you hope your opponent will play a certain way can result in indecision and scattered play when they don't and you don't know what to do with those units you had a plan for.

There will always been the odd (usually thematic) list that will do well against a generic take-all list. I recently was playing around on some theory and made a list with something like 360 grots to play the 40K equivalent of Small Ball baseball. The average take-all list isn't going to have 360 shots a game, let alone 360 hits and wounds. I doubt I'd kill much, but I'd be King of the Objectives. On the other extreme I was playing with non-battalion detachments to see what they could do, and made a version of the Spear of Macragge from the Damnos book.. Chronus, some techmarines, a Land Raider, an LRC, Predators split AC/HB and LC types, and Razorbacks split HB/LC - I would be hard pressed to take a single objective. But few "normal" lists would have enough AT to slow me down. Take All List should be able to take any other Take All list with superior play and a balanced game board/objective list.

echoing movement phase... the game is won with movement. especially when there is enough terrain. keep units out of LOS when needed within reasonable assault ranges when not. keepign out of LOS before a charge on a specific unit that you then can tripoint models on so they cannot fall back etc.

once you figure that part out its a matter of knowing your army every special rule and how it interacts with strategems etc. there is no replacment for experience here. you can get tabletop simulator and play games on your computer if you want or just become a regular at a club./ meet up with friends to get in more and more matches

 Insectum7 wrote:

Gitdakka wrote:
Money and no attachment to your old models make a better player. Buy the new stuff with OP rules and ROFL-stomp the noobs. Then when the nerf bat comes sell the new stuff and get the next high tier unit. Players trying to make 10 year old models work are left behind. Old strategies become obsolete. The less attached you are to the fluff and story the better.

Also dont spent too much time painting. That gives less time to abuse units before they are nerfed. Quick effective schemes or comissions are the way to compete.

Couldn't disagree more. Buying the latest hotness will NOT make you a better player.

Yeah, it actually most definitely makes you learn how to make the best move in a given situation much harder, particularly if you're changing factions all the time.

The fundamental distinction between a good player piloting a good list and a bad player piloting a good list is super evident when I see one of our resident competitive players do when facing people who get heavily stomped and their opponent starts complaining about how OP the units on the field are: He offers to switch the lists and re-rack, if the other person has time for another game.

I have never seen him lose the second game in these scenarios, though I absolutely concede that there is obviously a point where you can create a list so bad that it's just unwinnable. But that's not the actual situation that most newer players are in: they're trying to construct a list with some semblance of functionality, they just don't quite hit the mark. But they're not loading hundreds of points of pointless upgrades on characters or spamming empty transports or whatever braindead crap you can come up with in any game to say "See, list building is the only thing that matters! See?"

It makes people uncomfortable to admit that in a very large percentage of cases, the distinction between a fairly competitive list and a list that while not being tournament-worthy, makes some attempt to be "Take All Comers" is small enough that player skill can and will result in a different outcome. Yes, sometimes (particularly with new players who have extremely limited collections) it is not possible - maybe you've got the worst faction of the game, and only a single combination of models that can result in a big enough list to play the game size you've selected. You've probably got bad odds there. But a lot of the time there are more wins in the cards than you're currently getting, and very often there is a greater win percentage to be gained in learning to use the models you have now than in buying more models.

But pretending the distinction is only in buying more models allows you to offset and remove responsibility for losses. It allows you to shake your fist at the accursed Games Workshop or the accursed Competitive Douchebag who did not have your pious moral high ground that unfairly caused your loss.

In general, I'd say mastery of the Close Quarters Phases, and how to use the precise positions and permitted movements to your advantage, will tend to separate good players from adequate players.

You should also always be working on your list: what you bring is important, it will govern what options you have available when you make decisions. Having A: a good list, B: a good understanding of what is in your list, and C: a good understanding of why it's in your list will divide poor players from adequate players. Your list shouldn't only have answers, it should also have a clear strategy when going forward that the enemy has to respond to.

I consider myself a "good player", so I don't can't say what separates good players from top-tier tournament players.


Functionally, though, if your list is bad, it's the easiest thing to teach and the easiest thing to fix, so start there. However, I think taking a netlist and just playing that isn't doing yourself any favors. You should build your list yourself; looking through the resources at your disposal. Decide what capability you need to fulfill your strategy, then select a unit or units to meet that capability to a satisfactory degree. Then, after every game, review what happened. Did your units of choices perform that tasks that you envisioned they would to an adequate degree? Was there some capability that your didn't have, but could have used, and need to include that capability next time? Sometimes, your whole evaluation of what capabilities you need to have and how you're going to use them needs to change, and you need to start from scratch. Sometimes, a small substitution is what could make the list that much better. The key thing is know what is in your list, what it can do, and why it's in your list.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
In general, I'd say mastery of the Close Quarters Phases, and how to use the precise positions and permitted movements to your advantage, will tend to separate good players from adequate players.

Sooo much this. The potential for gaining advantage with some careful positioning for the assault phase is incredibly high. So many times do I look back at an assault phase and see some better way I could have managed my units. Like all the time. It's one of my weakest areas in the game at the moment.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

I consider myself a "good player", so I don't can't say what separates good players from top-tier tournament players.

This can come off wrong, but I'll try: Back when I played 4th edition I felt the most on top of my game. Most of the time, at the start of the game I felt like I could see a few turns ahead, and sometimes the endgame, during deployment. X was going to do X, Y was going to do Y, and all I had to do was execute and mitigate risk, with a little variation. For some combination of reasons, I could 'feel out' the table with a lot of confidence. I suspect the top players tend to operate that way. There's the level of being comfortable with the game, and then a level of being "in the zone" with the game. The difference isn't exactly technical knowledge of the rules, or knowing particular tricks, but more a familiarity that means the solutions to any given problem come to you almost without thinking.

My current play is muddy in comparison. The aforementioned shoddiness in the assault phase, I forget important stratagems all the time, and my knowledge about other armies is pretty terrible these days.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
In general, I'd say mastery of the Close Quarters Phases, and how to use the precise positions and permitted movements to your advantage, will tend to separate good players from adequate players.

Sooo much this. The potential for gaining advantage with some careful positioning for the assault phase is incredibly high. So many times do I look back at an assault phase and see some better way I could have managed my units. Like all the time. It's one of my weakest areas in the game at the moment.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:

I consider myself a "good player", so I don't can't say what separates good players from top-tier tournament players.

This can come off wrong, but I'll try: Back when I played 4th edition I felt the most on top of my game. Most of the time, at the start of the game I felt like I could see a few turns ahead, and sometimes the endgame, during deployment. X was going to do X, Y was going to do Y, and all I had to do was execute and mitigate risk, with a little variation. For some combination of reasons, I could 'feel out' the table with a lot of confidence. I suspect the top players tend to operate that way. There's the level of being comfortable with the game, and then a level of being "in the zone" with the game. The difference isn't exactly technical knowledge of the rules, or knowing particular tricks, but more a familiarity that means the solutions to any given problem come to you almost without thinking.

My current play is muddy in comparison. The aforementioned shoddiness in the assault phase, I forget important stratagems all the time, and my knowledge about other armies is pretty terrible these days.

I think I'm pretty good at seeing a few turns ahead [to possibly having the whole game planned based on deployment], and predicting enemy plays and knowing my own counterplays [I also think I should be, I've been playing wargames since 3rd Grade]. That said, you bring up a good point that I forgot previously, but ties into list building. When playing the game, you should not only be considering your options, but your foes options as well. To this end, mastery of not only your own force's capabilities, but your enemy's as well, will see you far.