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Unholy_Martyr wrote:I have to say tournaments where the only way to get max points is to table all of your opponents make for bitter competition and an overall unpleasent experience.

^ This !!

Battle Points tournaments give a player a chance to recover from a minor loss or tie, at least over 5+ rounds. W/L gives a player the ability to win through with an army capable of achieving objectives but not of crushing people into the dirt.

I like them both.

So 22% of the armies in the tournament were Grey Knights and 43.75% of the top 16 were GK?

That's pretty damning evidence that the codex might be just a bit broken...

Amaya wrote:So 22% of the armies in the tournament were Grey Knights and 43.75% of the top 16 were GK?

That's pretty damning evidence that the codex might be just a bit broken...

Not really, because the finalists were basically the usual suspects who win or place highly in tournaments. It is likely that they would have made the finals regardless of what army they brought.

The Grey Knights are so OP thread was finally closed, let's not let that discussion spill over into here.

helium42 wrote:

Amaya wrote:So 22% of the armies in the tournament were Grey Knights and 43.75% of the top 16 were GK?

That's pretty damning evidence that the codex might be just a bit broken...

Not really, because the finalists were basically the usual suspects who win or place highly in tournaments. It is likely that they would have made the finals regardless of what army they brought.

The Grey Knights are so OP thread was finally closed, let's not let that discussion spill over into here.

That so many of the usual suspects have selected Grey Knights as their go-to army for a premiere competitive event says a lot.

Who are the repeats and what did we play in this and last?

Orks for both here

Thanks for the post. It made a good read.

There really is nothing special at all about the lists. The lists are the usual suspects, and look like the majority lists one would expect to run into at a tournament in the current meta. Many of the lists have what appears to be multiple small flaws and were not "optimized net lists" The players did however know what they were doing, and many frequently show up on the top of tournaments. The fact is list building is only a journeyman level skill in 40k tournament play. The really good players tailor their list to their playstyle instead of tailoring their playstyle to their lists, and perceived flaws in their lists are not flaws. The vast majority of all tournament players bring a good list, and at the end of the day the #1 factor for success is how skillfully the units are used on the board.

I agree with most of what you said, but I don't think the lists are all the usual suspects, by any means.

I haven't seen anyone else at GTs running lists similar to Alex's, Doug's, Bill's or Reece's. All of them use stuff that's pretty unique, even compared to other people who play those books. Only Doug's is even sort of similar to popular lists from his codex, but he has a Trukk squad, no Lootas and a variety of wacky upgrades to his BWs.

Mannahnin wrote:I agree with most of what you said, but I don't think the lists are all the usual suspects, by any means.

I haven't seen anyone else at GTs running lists similar to Alex's, Doug's, Bill's or Reece's. All of them use stuff that's pretty unique, even compared to other people who play those books. Only Doug's is even sort of similar to popular lists from his codex, but he has a Trukk squad, no Lootas and a variety of wacky upgrades to his BWs.

Alex's necrons, Bill's deamons, and Reece's foodar are all soft lists that would be subjected to public ridicule if a new user posted them in the army list section. The average player doesn't have enough skill to make them work, and will quickly give up on the list. Honestly I think the only way soft lists work is when exceptionally good players grow tired of their MEQ/hard list, start running a Xenos soft list that fit's their playstyle, and make it work. Other players at the top table will have next to no experience playing against a well played soft list because stomping newbs with poorly played soft lists does not give any good experience against well played soft lists. If a guy playing a soft list knows his list and his opponents list like the back of his hand, and his opponent can't seem to figure out how the soft list made it to the top tables of a GT the guy with the soft list is probably going to win.

IMO I would rather face grey knights than a soft list at the top tables. When I get to the top tables of a tournament and I run into a list that I consider soft it usually means I'm in for one hell of a tough game.

Mannahnin wrote:I agree with most of what you said, but I don't think the lists are all the usual suspects, by any means.

I haven't seen anyone else at GTs running lists similar to Alex's, Doug's, Bill's or Reece's. All of them use stuff that's pretty unique, even compared to other people who play those books. Only Doug's is even sort of similar to popular lists from his codex, but he has a Trukk squad, no Lootas and a variety of wacky upgrades to his BWs.

Wacky = Orky = AWESOME! .... and it all works together perfectly, 90% of the time, but only 33.3321% of that 90%, which is every time.
Ork math be the Best'is

schadenfreude wrote:
Alex's necrons, Bill's deamons, and Reece's foodar are all soft lists that would be subjected to public ridicule if a new user posted them in the army list section. The average player doesn't have enough skill to make them work, and will quickly give up on the list. Honestly I think the only way soft lists work is when exceptionally good players grow tired of their MEQ/hard list, start running a Xenos soft list that fit's their playstyle, and make it work. Other players at the top table will have next to no experience playing against a well played soft list because stomping newbs with poorly played soft lists does not give any good experience against well played soft lists. If a guy playing a soft list knows his list and his opponents list like the back of his hand, and his opponent can't seem to figure out how the soft list made it to the top tables of a GT the guy with the soft list is probably going to win.

IMO I would rather face grey knights than a soft list at the top tables. When I get to the top tables of a tournament and I run into a list that I consider soft it usually means I'm in for one hell of a tough game.

I would (obviously) disagree with the characterization of my, Alex, and Reese's lists as "soft." What they are is really calculated gambles. All of our lists are essentially anti-meta lists designed to take advantage of weaknesses in the current metagame. They tend to be excessively powerful in certain aspects. The trade-off is that they have key weaknesses, that we're aware of, and that the current meta struggles to exploit.

For example, my Daemons were designed to emphasize three aspects.

#1 - Survivability. With fateweaver, and large unit sizes, they're surprisingly resilient against enemy fire, at least for a turn or two and at range. I can take casualties without units becoming non-viable. Almost all of my units are designed to take casualties and still be able to hit hard.

#2 - Speed. Obviously, with the majority of my army being cavalry, I can cover a huge amount of range in a turn or two.

#3 - Hitting power. With Skarbrand, there's force multiplier effect,. There are other aspects too...I can engage multiple units, especially transports, and reliably destroy them with single units.

My daemons were designed for synergistic effect, essentially. Stuff works together to hit the ground, survive a turn of shooting, charge, survive one more turn of shooting, and then charge again. Usually, I've essentially won the game by that point and the rest is just mopping up. I don't fear the razor/henchmen long-fang spam if stuff comes in like its supposed to. They simply (barring extremely bad rolls on my part) don't have the ability to do enough damage in two turns by shooting. The only shooting I really fear is massed templates...and they're pretty rare in this day and age.

The weakness is fairly obvious. I can deal with it if my secondary arrives. MY secondary drops and hides, and bides their time until reinforcements arrive. But I can't deal with it if my secondary arrives, and my reserve rolls are bad. Barring extremely friendly terrain, there's usually just not enough places to hide stuff for more than a turn or two. But that's the gamble - I need to have more or less everything on the table by turn 3 if my secondary comes in first, or I'm screwed. Probability is in my favor...but the dice have no memory.

Centurian99 wrote:

schadenfreude wrote:
Alex's necrons, Bill's deamons, and Reece's foodar are all soft lists that would be subjected to public ridicule if a new user posted them in the army list section. The average player doesn't have enough skill to make them work, and will quickly give up on the list. Honestly I think the only way soft lists work is when exceptionally good players grow tired of their MEQ/hard list, start running a Xenos soft list that fit's their playstyle, and make it work. Other players at the top table will have next to no experience playing against a well played soft list because stomping newbs with poorly played soft lists does not give any good experience against well played soft lists. If a guy playing a soft list knows his list and his opponents list like the back of his hand, and his opponent can't seem to figure out how the soft list made it to the top tables of a GT the guy with the soft list is probably going to win.

IMO I would rather face grey knights than a soft list at the top tables. When I get to the top tables of a tournament and I run into a list that I consider soft it usually means I'm in for one hell of a tough game.

I would (obviously) disagree with the characterization of my, Alex, and Reese's lists as "soft." What they are is really calculated gambles. All of our lists are essentially anti-meta lists designed to take advantage of weaknesses in the current metagame. They tend to be excessively powerful in certain aspects. The trade-off is that they have key weaknesses, that we're aware of, and that the current meta struggles to exploit.

For example, my Daemons were designed to emphasize three aspects.

#1 - Survivability. With fateweaver, and large unit sizes, they're surprisingly resilient against enemy fire, at least for a turn or two and at range. I can take casualties without units becoming non-viable. Almost all of my units are designed to take casualties and still be able to hit hard.

#2 - Speed. Obviously, with the majority of my army being cavalry, I can cover a huge amount of range in a turn or two.

#3 - Hitting power. With Skarbrand, there's force multiplier effect,. There are other aspects too...I can engage multiple units, especially transports, and reliably destroy them with single units.

My daemons were designed for synergistic effect, essentially. Stuff works together to hit the ground, survive a turn of shooting, charge, survive one more turn of shooting, and then charge again. Usually, I've essentially won the game by that point and the rest is just mopping up. I don't fear the razor/henchmen long-fang spam if stuff comes in like its supposed to. They simply (barring extremely bad rolls on my part) don't have the ability to do enough damage in two turns by shooting. The only shooting I really fear is massed templates...and they're pretty rare in this day and age.

The weakness is fairly obvious. I can deal with it if my secondary arrives. MY secondary drops and hides, and bides their time until reinforcements arrive. But I can't deal with it if my secondary arrives, and my reserve rolls are bad. Barring extremely friendly terrain, there's usually just not enough places to hide stuff for more than a turn or two. But that's the gamble - I need to have more or less everything on the table by turn 3 if my secondary comes in first, or I'm screwed. Probability is in my favor...but the dice have no memory.

The average player would fall on their face attempting to use your deamon list. A bit of operator error + a bit of bad luck should lead to a complete disaster. Those 2 facts make your list what the internet would call a soft list. Between to possibility of getting screwed by deep strike reserves, non preferred wave coming in first, and the heavy GK population in a GT chaos deamons is one of the more difficult armies to play in the current meta. Would you ever recommend an army list similar to yours to a new player as their first army?

You placed in 5th after the 1st day because you're a good player, and an assault list with a lot of speed (12 fiends + 16 seekers) is synergistic with advanced player skill. Conventional wisdom is that fatecrusher is the hard list for chaos deamons, and it's correct for most players until they start to get really good at what they do. Once a chaos deamon player reaches a certain skill level fatecrusher caps out because it lacks speed. At that point fiends become much better. I feel very confident I could take you if you ran fatecrusher against my IG, but your Adepticon list would slaughter my IG. Fateweaver alone can't save fiends and seekers from an IG shooting phase, but Fateweaver + a skillful deployment can save fiends and seekers from an IG shooting phase. The fiends and giant 16 block of seekers would hit my IG army where it is most vulnerable, and a skilled multi charges with that giant seeker unit into vehicles + guardsmen would spare enough of my guardsmen that they would stick around through my shooting phase before being wiped out. The synergy in your list is downright deadly, but it's not user friendly. In my area we have 1 really good deamon player that would tear me to shreds with your list, and a bunch of other deamon players that would fall flat on their face if they attempted to use your list. If the majority of players would fall on their face so if you average the performance of a list throughout beginning players, intermittent players, and exceptionally good players the average results from your list would back up my statement that it's a soft list.

Which brings me back to my main point: Opponents that bring a "soft list" to the top tables at a tournament are trouble with a capitol T. There is a reason they made it as far as they did, and if the person playing them can't figure out how a "soft list" made it that far the game is already lost to a "soft list"

I think most of us use soft list to mean a list that can't punch hard, or that requires exceptional dice luck to beat good lists run by competent players. Not one that has to be used right to punch hard.

Mannahnin wrote:I think most of us use soft list to mean a list that can't punch hard, or that requires exceptional dice luck to beat good lists run by competent players. Not one that has to be used right to punch hard.

Quoted for truth.

Reecius wrote:My army is actually really resilient, more so than it looks. It relies heavily on synergy between units to function, being patient, misdirection, bait, screening and setting traps. You have to think a turn ahead and you have to deploy well or you're hosed.

The key is setting up advantageous close range engagements, and everything I do in the movement phase is aimed at that goal. Within 24" I can outshoot dang near any other army in the game, and still assault after. Harlies and the avatar, especially with farseer support, will kill most other units. If I can't fight them, I can flak them to death, usually. If all elsd fails, like a true elf I can run and hidd, using fearless and firtune to keep my units in the fight.

It's a fun army to play, you just need to be able to look at any list in the game and be able to see how to beat it given the mission before the game starts, or you're going to get hosed in bad match-ups.

The reason I like the army so much is because it can do something in every phase of the game, and units can combo with each other to take individually weak units and make them much more powerful. Every uniy can move, shoot, and assault, so it is a very fluid force, too which makes it deceptively mobile.

So long as you can use each unit in the army to it's best effect, even in bad match-ups units that would look to be useless can still serve a purpose.

Sorry I didn't have more concrete tactics, but it honestly is a really different gameplan depending on mission, terrain and opponent. Each game is different, with sometimes radically different on the table tactics.

Reecius, I hope you don't mind if I try to pick your mind for a bit, but I play Footdar myself (when I still play 40K), and I consider this a great chance to learn something new. Now, you explained that you don't have specific strategies / tactics to share because the army is highly situational. So, if you don't mind, I'd like to approach this with the reason you run specific units, and what would happen (in your estimation) if you had to drop them.

I'd like to start with the sole unit of Guardians. It's the one thing I've been puzzled by more than by anything else. I just don't see why they are there, except possibly as a cheap backfield objective holder - but then again, for just a few points more they would get a gun that's actually useful for a backfield unit. Or perhaps cheap screening???

What about the Dire Avengers? I assume they offer cheap firepower that allows you to deal with hordes as well as small units of heavy infantry (terminators and stuff, including stormshields), with Doom as support. Three units lined up next to each other also bring the firepower to dismantle their target in a single turn, I guess. What about upgrades? Not worth it in your oppinion? What else? Cheap screeners? Potential scorers? How do you keep them alive, or don't you even bother to protect them, knowing their job is to threaten and die?

The last thing I don't get are the two Walkers. I would have probably maxed out the AT-Wraithlords, which are also more resilient, especially with several in play. Are there situations you absolutely prefer the 4 Shurican Cannons? What about their melee capabilities? Do you ever use them, or do they always stay back and fire?

Finally, how are the foot-slogging Fire Dragons working out for you? They seem so fragile and so shortranged on foot...

Sorry for bothering you, and I really want to thank you in advance for all advice you might offer, and I just registered an account for this one question, actually... ^^

RT