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Winning with the same list repeatedly on the contrary could be the sign that you have mastered playing that list, have developed a mature battleplan/playbook for it, and feel comfortable taking it against a wide variety of forces.

What would be hollow would be an assured win against an army despite what forces they bring, or armies having gakky mirror matches. Eldar vs Eldar in 5th was a hilarious example of army-design fail in that regard.
-Most of their ranged weapons were S6. Most everything S8 or up was hilariously overcosted (and BS 3).
-Their tanks were AV 12.
-It was almost impossible to glance a vehicle to death.

Thus, aside from your two (three tops) units of Fire Dragons that you could piece-trade with your opponent's tanks, the best way for Eldar to kill Eldar was to Ram each other.

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Winning with the same list repeatedly on the contrary could be the sign that you have mastered playing that list, have developed a mature battleplan/playbook for it, and feel comfortable taking it against a wide variety of forces.

What would be hollow would be an assured win against an army despite what forces they bring, or armies having gakky mirror matches. Eldar vs Eldar in 5th was a hilarious example of army-design fail in that regard.
-Most of their ranged weapons were S6. Most everything S8 or up was hilariously overcosted (and BS 3).
-Their tanks were AV 12.
-It was almost impossible to glance a vehicle to death.

Thus, aside from your two (three tops) units of Fire Dragons that you could piece-trade with your opponent's tanks, the best way for Eldar to kill Eldar was to Ram each other.

That would require it to be some kind of list with the unit depth to make it function as some kind of take all comers device, rather than a skew list you copied off the internet, ebayed the models for, and spray-primed three colors in the hopes that you end up encountering a higher fraction of auto-win matchups than auto-loss matchups in the tournament you're taking it to play for the first time.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

ValentineGames wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

ValentineGames wrote:

Andykp wrote:
The problem isn’t the rules. It’s the players making stupid power lists.

While the rules aren't perfect THIS is certainly the main issue.
Even worse when they start demanding players match their level or openly degrade anyone who doesn't.

Why would someone intentionally take crap units? The point of a game is to win.

Then you've missed the point.

No, I really haven't. If I play a game of Tennis, do I deliberately use a racket with no strings because using strings is for tryhards who want to win?

If I play a game of Chess, do I just move my king out into the open because using your queen is for tryhards.

Spoiler:

Well... Chess / Tic Tac Toe / Tennis are not exactly the same as 40k.

I take suboptimal units for lots of reasons.

- I don't have the points for the optimal units and don't want my list clocking in at 100 points under the limit.

- I want to experiment with new list ideas and sometimes it takes a series of games to work out what I should be doing.

- Not everyone at my FLGS is a competitive player and I don't exactly want to flatten everyone I play.

- I brought the wrong carrying case and need to put something on the table.

- I find reasons to question everyone else's opinions and decide to throw caution to the wind, because experience is the great teacher.

- Sometimes my pillow gets lumpy and I yearn for more fluff in my day.

the_scotsman wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
Winning with the same list repeatedly on the contrary could be the sign that you have mastered playing that list, have developed a mature battleplan/playbook for it, and feel comfortable taking it against a wide variety of forces.

What would be hollow would be an assured win against an army despite what forces they bring, or armies having gakky mirror matches. Eldar vs Eldar in 5th was a hilarious example of army-design fail in that regard.
-Most of their ranged weapons were S6. Most everything S8 or up was hilariously overcosted (and BS 3).
-Their tanks were AV 12.
-It was almost impossible to glance a vehicle to death.

Thus, aside from your two (three tops) units of Fire Dragons that you could piece-trade with your opponent's tanks, the best way for Eldar to kill Eldar was to Ram each other.

That would require it to be some kind of list with the unit depth to make it function as some kind of take all comers device, rather than a skew list you copied off the internet, ebayed the models for, and spray-primed three colors in the hopes that you end up encountering a higher fraction of auto-win matchups than auto-loss matchups in the tournament you're taking it to play for the first time.

And that's where the devil is in the details: Rule of Three or not, an army needs coherent design and purpose behind every option, or else you end up with "the codex that works" and the "rest of the codex that doesn't." When dealing with issues like "the army's main anti-tank is concentrated in one slot," this instantly overrules such trivial discussions like the relative merits (or more accurately, lack of them) of Banshees, Scorpions, and Harlequins.

the_scotsman wrote:
Doesn't that allow you to prove your towering intellectual superiority over the subhuman plebian scrubs across the table from you in a variety of different ways, thus enhancing the natural thrill of the winning experience?

I think their towering intellectual superiority would prefer us subhuman plebeian scrubs weren't allowed to play.
Ever.
Just to stroke their ego further.

 Peregrine wrote:

ValentineGames wrote:
While the rules aren't perfect THIS is certainly the main issue.
Even worse when they start demanding players match their level or openly degrade anyone who doesn't.

So, we're in agreement. Players who bring weak lists should stop expecting everyone else to match their level, stop insulting anyone who brings a stronger list, and improve their lists (and skill) to the point that they can win against stronger players/lists?

How can you defend at the same time that the game sucks and most people only play because it is what his or her group plays, and they like the fluff and the models (Yourself included) and then go and say that people should just bring the most OP stuff and git gud to win, ignoring any other reason to build their armies that isn't strictly based in how powerfull they are?



And by the way, I'm sorry but I have to disagree. It does not matter how balanced a game is, competitive players, specially the high end competitive ones, will always try to cheat and use all grey areas to their advantage. Theres a reason why in most games (And videogames) people don't even like to watch the finals, or the high ranking matches, because they become a crapfest of spamming X special attack, using the same characters/strategies all the time, etc... and that happens in everything, from warhammer 40k, to Infinity, to Streeth Figther, to For Honor, to League of Legends, to Starcraft, etc... and most people just prefer to watch matches of competitive players that auto limit themselves to a style of play that is based on skill and using normal tactics/heroes/lists/etc...

 Galas wrote:
And by the way, I'm sorry but I have to disagree. It does not matter how balanced a game is, competitive players, specially the high end competitive ones, will always try to cheat and use all grey areas to their advantage.

Cheating and using grey areas to someone's advantage are two different things. One means you don't play by the rules, one means you really know the rules.

I have not met a competitive player who relied on strange rule interpretations to succeed.

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Galas wrote:
And by the way, I'm sorry but I have to disagree. It does not matter how balanced a game is, competitive players, specially the high end competitive ones, will always try to cheat and use all grey areas to their advantage.

Cheating and using grey areas to someone's advantage are two different things. One means you don't play by the rules, one means you really know the rules.

I have not met a competitive player who relied on strange rule interpretations to succeed.

Alternately, grey areas mean the rules weren't properly playtested. The Shooting Shuttle drop in Starcraft was an unintended interaction that was ultimately considered "legal" until Blizzard patched it. Ditto transporting a War Convocation in allied Drop Pods until that was also FAQed.

 MagicJuggler wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Galas wrote:
And by the way, I'm sorry but I have to disagree. It does not matter how balanced a game is, competitive players, specially the high end competitive ones, will always try to cheat and use all grey areas to their advantage.

Cheating and using grey areas to someone's advantage are two different things. One means you don't play by the rules, one means you really know the rules.

I have not met a competitive player who relied on strange rule interpretations to succeed.

Alternately, grey areas mean the rules weren't properly playtested. The Shooting Shuttle drop in Starcraft was an unintended interaction that was ultimately considered "legal" until Blizzard patched it. Ditto transporting a War Convocation in allied Drop Pods until that was also FAQed.

Yeah, sorry, I shouldn't have used the term "cheat", I was talking about your example, MagicJuggler. Thats what being competitive is all about, find the exploits, use them to your advantage until they are fixed. And thats a more glaring issue the higher you go in the rankings.

 Galas wrote:
And by the way, I'm sorry but I have to disagree. It does not matter how balanced a game is, competitive players, specially the high end competitive ones, will always try to cheat and use all grey areas to their advantage. Theres a reason why in most games (And videogames) people don't even like to watch the finals, or the high ranking matches, because they become a crapfest of spamming X special attack, using the same characters/strategies all the time, etc... and that happens in everything, from warhammer 40k, to Infinity, to Streeth Figther, to For Honor, to League of Legends, to Starcraft, etc... and most people just prefer to watch matches of competitive players that auto limit themselves to a style of play that is based on skill and using normal tactics/heroes/lists/etc...

This is a very sweeping critique of video games that are not obviously that similar.

For me at least the general issue of whether something is fun to watch is the skill involved and whether that is interactive.

Street Fighter or Quake for instance are usually not very interactive. The skill set is very limited - so the winner tends to be the person who is fractionally faster than their opponent. This is a skill - but its not really a great one to watch. (Then again people go mad for the 100 meters at say the Olympics, and arguably that's similar).

I like watching StarCraft - because micro and macro are skills. You can't "cheat" the game to win. You have to be better. Now you might think a 5 minute all in is cheese - but its a viable strategy, and one your opponent can guard against. Everything that happens in the game is a choice, you can't look back on a tournament, with games, and say "X would have won if it wasn't for the dice gods."

By contrast I find something like hearthstone to be tedious. I don't care how pro you are - you are playing the same cards, with the same locked in abilities, in the same way as anyone else. The trick is to count cards, play the odds and then "get lucky" with draws or rng effects. This isn't as easy as it sounds - but its not really rocket science. This is why I find say MTG fun to play - but the idea of taking it extremely seriously is a bit ridiculous. This isn't to say there isn't skill - you can play to lose - but I don't think the gap between the great and merely good is sufficient. Luck & list building are the main determinants in how any given hand turns out. (Someone who plays this obsessively may now explain how I am wrong, but I am not convinced.)

40k is kind of in the middle. Players like to believe its a skill based game - that they are winning matches due to making a meaningful choices in game rather than being luckier at dice. I am not totally sure this is the case - although again you can play to lose so by definition you can play well. Games determined at the list building stage however remove any illusion of skill and this is why spam or skewed lists are bad.

 Galas wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Galas wrote:
And by the way, I'm sorry but I have to disagree. It does not matter how balanced a game is, competitive players, specially the high end competitive ones, will always try to cheat and use all grey areas to their advantage.

Cheating and using grey areas to someone's advantage are two different things. One means you don't play by the rules, one means you really know the rules.

I have not met a competitive player who relied on strange rule interpretations to succeed.

Alternately, grey areas mean the rules weren't properly playtested. The Shooting Shuttle drop in Starcraft was an unintended interaction that was ultimately considered "legal" until Blizzard patched it. Ditto transporting a War Convocation in allied Drop Pods until that was also FAQed.

Yeah, sorry, I shouldn't have used the term "cheat", I was talking about your example, MagicJuggler. Thats what being competitive is all about, find the exploits, use them to your advantage until they are fixed. And thats a more glaring issue the higher you go in the rankings.

Ideally, it could just mean planning several moves ahead of your opponent, but then that's idealism talking.

Anyway, back on-topic, Rule of three=bandaid. Alternatives require more coherent army design.

 MagicJuggler wrote:

 Galas wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Galas wrote:
And by the way, I'm sorry but I have to disagree. It does not matter how balanced a game is, competitive players, specially the high end competitive ones, will always try to cheat and use all grey areas to their advantage.

Cheating and using grey areas to someone's advantage are two different things. One means you don't play by the rules, one means you really know the rules.

I have not met a competitive player who relied on strange rule interpretations to succeed.

Alternately, grey areas mean the rules weren't properly playtested. The Shooting Shuttle drop in Starcraft was an unintended interaction that was ultimately considered "legal" until Blizzard patched it. Ditto transporting a War Convocation in allied Drop Pods until that was also FAQed.

Yeah, sorry, I shouldn't have used the term "cheat", I was talking about your example, MagicJuggler. Thats what being competitive is all about, find the exploits, use them to your advantage until they are fixed. And thats a more glaring issue the higher you go in the rankings.

Ideally, it could just mean planning several moves ahead of your opponent, but then that's idealism talking.

Anyway, back on-topic, Rule of three=bandaid. Alternatives require more coherent army design.

Actually, this is a very interesting point with relation to the Rule of Three.

Exploit is a weird word to use as a noun, at least with relation to 40k. I can exploit legal options within the rules to my advantage, but I can't really find an exploit to abuse the rules the way I could with a server - which would mean to get it to operate in an unintended manner.

Game designers put a certain amount of work into coming up with a ruleset that satisfies all parties. They don't consider every possible combination of events, and it's clear they make some guesses about what will lead to a fun and enjoyable game. But I don't get the sense they intend the rules to work a certain way. To some extent they do, but there's a limit to what they can foresee prior to letting the rules loose to hundreds of thousands of people. It's more like they say, here's a bunch of rules, do what you will with them and we will try to fix the most egregious errors we come across.

This invites a lot of scrutiny over how the rules actually work and different combinations that lead to the best outcomes. Everyone wants to find some advantage running their army a certain way, and there is no single list that leads to victory 100% of the time. While not everything has a hard counter, dice rolls are still random.

I was pointing out that the Rule of Three inordinately affects Xenos armies in that Imperial and Chaos armies have a lot of redundant options in the Forgeworld Indexes. There's very little difference between a CSM Predator and a Hellforged Predator, so you can get away with taking 3 of each. It's debatable whether this matters unless Predators are considered something that would give you an overwhelming advantage on the tabletop (I personally think 6 laspreds is very tough against most armies, but I wouldn't call it an overwhelming advantage.)

Flyrants / Dark Reapers - these units are very efficient in terms of price and performance on the tabletop. Other than named HQs, I'm not aware of anything in the Imperial warchest that comes close, and there's other Xenos units I could point at to say there's a problem.

I get the sense there's a tug of war when it comes to Xenos Codexes. Game designers want to make them distinct from IoM / Chaos armies, but they run into limits based on available models / product release cycles / actual market interest. So the way they make them distinct is by fiddling with the mechanics of the game - some Xenos shoot farther, some Xenos are choppier, some Xenos are more psychic, etc. Army lists tend to reflect these choices.

i think the Rule of Three is really just there as a limit to the fiddling by games designers. They recognize how they differentiate Xenos armies, they recognize they don't always know how it will affect the game, and they don't want their lack of insight to dominate competition. It's a failsafe for game design practices moreso than a limitation on players. And it would be wrong to say competitive players are breaking the game or using rules other than how they were intended. If there's not a lot of intent on the game designers part, and the way they manage risk is failsafes, it would be more accurate to say competitive players are playing it exactly as intended (i.e. the rest of us have a lot left to figure out.)

 techsoldaten wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:

 Galas wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Galas wrote:
And by the way, I'm sorry but I have to disagree. It does not matter how balanced a game is, competitive players, specially the high end competitive ones, will always try to cheat and use all grey areas to their advantage.

Cheating and using grey areas to someone's advantage are two different things. One means you don't play by the rules, one means you really know the rules.

I have not met a competitive player who relied on strange rule interpretations to succeed.

Alternately, grey areas mean the rules weren't properly playtested. The Shooting Shuttle drop in Starcraft was an unintended interaction that was ultimately considered "legal" until Blizzard patched it. Ditto transporting a War Convocation in allied Drop Pods until that was also FAQed.

Yeah, sorry, I shouldn't have used the term "cheat", I was talking about your example, MagicJuggler. Thats what being competitive is all about, find the exploits, use them to your advantage until they are fixed. And thats a more glaring issue the higher you go in the rankings.

Ideally, it could just mean planning several moves ahead of your opponent, but then that's idealism talking.

Anyway, back on-topic, Rule of three=bandaid. Alternatives require more coherent army design.

Actually, this is a very interesting point with relation to the Rule of Three.

Exploit is a weird word to use as a noun, at least with relation to 40k. I can exploit legal options within the rules to my advantage, but I can't really find an exploit to abuse the rules the way I could with a server - which would mean to get it to operate in an unintended manner.

Game designers put a certain amount of work into coming up with a ruleset that satisfies all parties. They don't consider every possible combination of events, and it's clear they make some guesses about what will lead to a fun and enjoyable game. But I don't get the sense they intend the rules to work a certain way. To some extent they do, but there's a limit to what they can foresee prior to letting the rules loose to hundreds of thousands of people. It's more like they say, here's a bunch of rules, do what you will with them and we will try to fix the most egregious errors we come across.

This invites a lot of scrutiny over how the rules actually work and different combinations that lead to the best outcomes. Everyone wants to find some advantage running their army a certain way, and there is no single list that leads to victory 100% of the time. While not everything has a hard counter, dice rolls are still random.

I was pointing out that the Rule of Three inordinately affects Xenos armies in that Imperial and Chaos armies have a lot of redundant options in the Forgeworld Indexes. There's very little difference between a CSM Predator and a Hellforged Predator, so you can get away with taking 3 of each. It's debatable whether this matters unless Predators are considered something that would give you an overwhelming advantage on the tabletop (I personally think 6 laspreds is very tough against most armies, but I wouldn't call it an overwhelming advantage.)

Flyrants / Dark Reapers - these units are very efficient in terms of price and performance on the tabletop. Other than named HQs, I'm not aware of anything in the Imperial warchest that comes close, and there's other Xenos units I could point at to say there's a problem.

I get the sense there's a tug of war when it comes to Xenos Codexes. Game designers want to make them distinct from IoM / Chaos armies, but they run into limits based on available models / product release cycles / actual market interest. So the way they make them distinct is by fiddling with the mechanics of the game - some Xenos shoot farther, some Xenos are choppier, some Xenos are more psychic, etc. Army lists tend to reflect these choices.

i think the Rule of Three is really just there as a limit to the fiddling by games designers. They recognize how they differentiate Xenos armies, they recognize they don't always know how it will affect the game, and they don't want their lack of insight to dominate competition. It's a failsafe for game design practices moreso than a limitation on players. And it would be wrong to say competitive players are breaking the game or using rules other than how they were intended. If there's not a lot of intent on the game designers part, and the way they manage risk is failsafes, it would be more accurate to say competitive players are playing it exactly as intended (i.e. the rest of us have a lot left to figure out.)

But how much of this "xenos vs imperium" stuff is you just seeing certain chaos/imperial options more often and getting used to them vs them being actually that drastically different?

The rules for, for example, Necrons, Tyranids, and Orks are arguably far less outlandish than the rules for Death Guard, Daemons, Grey Knights, Imperial Knights or Adeptus Mechanicus. The Eldar factions have some pretty wacky stuff, but Daemons are far more complex to deal with than, say, Harlequins, with their army split in four, a huge number of different units and characters, different loci and banners and summoning.

The only xenos codexes I'd say contain really truly unique mechanics that are really tough to understand and deal with are Tau, Eldar, and Drukhari.

-Necrons have res protocols, and quantum shielding. Those are pretty much their two actually unique mechanics. Their weapons are on the whole quite basic, their stats are consistent through the codex, their army traits are easily understood.

-Orks have mob rule. That's the only thing that's actually truly unique. Other factions have equivalents to "ere we go" and if it takes you over 2 seconds to grasp it....well, then 40k might not be for you.

-Nids have synapse, which is such a massive non-factor in 8th I hesitate to call it a mechanic.

-GSC have cult ambush, which is one table you have to explain. Besides that they use very basic stat-swap weapons for the most part, and share stuff with familiar imperial weaponry.

heck, just look at the unique stuff that Guard has in relation to other factions. Each army trait has two different effects, you've got tanks that fire twice, commissars that can execute infantrymen, orders (with unique orders for each regiment), several different units that use the same models (vets, Special weapon teams, command squads, infantry squads, conscripts....)

You're just used to seeing the imperials more commonly.

Once again, this only creates fluffy armies in YOUR mind.

the_scotsman wrote:
But how much of this "xenos vs imperium" stuff is you just seeing certain chaos/imperial options more often and getting used to them vs them being actually that drastically different?

The rules for, for example, Necrons, Tyranids, and Orks are arguably far less outlandish than the rules for Death Guard, Daemons, Grey Knights, Imperial Knights or Adeptus Mechanicus. The Eldar factions have some pretty wacky stuff, but Daemons are far more complex to deal with than, say, Harlequins, with their army split in four, a huge number of different units and characters, different loci and banners and summoning.

The only xenos codexes I'd say contain really truly unique mechanics that are really tough to understand and deal with are Tau, Eldar, and Drukhari.

-Necrons have res protocols, and quantum shielding. Those are pretty much their two actually unique mechanics. Their weapons are on the whole quite basic, their stats are consistent through the codex, their army traits are easily understood.

-Orks have mob rule. That's the only thing that's actually truly unique. Other factions have equivalents to "ere we go" and if it takes you over 2 seconds to grasp it....well, then 40k might not be for you.

-Nids have synapse, which is such a massive non-factor in 8th I hesitate to call it a mechanic.

-GSC have cult ambush, which is one table you have to explain. Besides that they use very basic stat-swap weapons for the most part, and share stuff with familiar imperial weaponry.

heck, just look at the unique stuff that Guard has in relation to other factions. Each army trait has two different effects, you've got tanks that fire twice, commissars that can execute infantrymen, orders (with unique orders for each regiment), several different units that use the same models (vets, Special weapon teams, command squads, infantry squads, conscripts....)

You're just used to seeing the imperials more commonly.

That's possible.

Other than PBCs, HQs and (maybe) IG Mortars, what other Imperial / Chaos units do you see as the ones this rule was designed to affect?

I’m basing the fact that certain people on here aren’t having fun on the fact they are on here complaining about rules and how bad the game is constantly. It doesn’t sound like you are having fun. Hence my point. So I can take 7 tyrants, should u? No. These all conquering tournament lists bare no relation to the universe the game is set in. Yes you can play that way, should u? Let’s make the game strict and so tight that tournament players will have nothing to complain about and all things are equal, but it will alienate all the players who want games that are set in the universe we all love and feel like the stories they write. 5e was boring. 3rd, 4th and 5th all lacked character and the armies were bland. Yes us had regimental doctrines and all that but it was still a fundamentally dull rule set, especially compared to the flavour fest that was second edition. 6th and 7th were a mess of detachments trying to add flavour but all just confusing everything. Encouraging power gaming and optimising and winning!

8th has addressed some of that. Is it perfect,no. But it is trying to please everyone. So many rules that are for organised play which are optional. But the basics work brilliantly for me and people like me. Peregrine, you are saying I shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy the way I play. I should have to play mono faction non spammy lists. GW isn’t trying upset anyone. It’s trying to sell games and models and doing a bloody good job of it.

I stil, believe the only way to fix organised play and keep people like me and everyone in between happy is separate rule sets. Tight balanced simpler and quicker tournament edition and the current style bloated fun open edition with lots of options and flavour. Just make a second book. £30 for tournament players. All rules in one place, very army, every unit. Simplified stats like in epic 40000, no weapon options, just unit x does this damage in Melee or in ranged. Easy. Same models and units available for both styles. No need to buy two armies and no need to to Ruin the game in the quest for “balance”. It doesn’t benefit everyone if it stops the fun.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

ValentineGames wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:

ValentineGames wrote:

Andykp wrote:
The problem isn’t the rules. It’s the players making stupid power lists.

While the rules aren't perfect THIS is certainly the main issue.
Even worse when they start demanding players match their level or openly degrade anyone who doesn't.

Why would someone intentionally take crap units? The point of a game is to win.

Then you've missed the point.

No, I really haven't. If I play a game of Tennis, do I deliberately use a racket with no strings because using strings is for tryhards who want to win?

If I play a game of Chess, do I just move my king out into the open because using your queen is for tryhards.

Spoiler:

I don’t set up a game of 40k desperate to win. It’s a social experience for me not a competitive one. I enjoy games I win as much as I enjoy ones I lose. What really makes me enjoy them is the story they tell. Win or lose it’s not important. People seem to find it hard to believe that I don’t mind who wins but I really don’t. I used to play compete every sports and do like the challenge of that but that’s not what 40k is to me. I used to have a dark angel army and could never win a game with them to the point it became funny how bad I do. 7th edition codex came in and I didn’t win anymore but the army played how I imagined dark angels to play. I felt better. So I was happy with the codex. Still lost.

Any hobby where people spend a lot of time and make a lot of choices based on their personal preferences and the story they invent for "their guys" is going to run into a lot of people who treat the experience as anything other than purely adversarial.

There's a reason you don't see every RPG treated as a strictly competitive "one vs many" game with "tournament tier GM players" and net-sheeted characters with all the players whinging on about how as a dedicated Call of Cthulhu Egyptologist main, Sportsmen and Soldier classes are completely OP.

 Galas wrote:
How can you defend at the same time that the game sucks and most people only play because it is what his or her group plays, and they like the fluff and the models (Yourself included) and then go and say that people should just bring the most OP stuff and git gud to win, ignoring any other reason to build their armies that isn't strictly based in how powerfull they are?

No, you're missing the point here. I am not telling people they should play in any particular way, I'm simply objecting to the idea that "fluff" lists (usually not very fluffy, but bad at winning) are the morally superior way to play and anyone who plays competitively is a bad person. That's nonsense. Both options are valid, do whatever you have fun with.

and most people just prefer to watch matches of competitive players that auto limit themselves to a style of play that is based on skill and using normal tactics/heroes/lists/etc...

You're assuming that playing with weaker stuff is "normal" and using the strongest options (against the other player doing the same) requires no skill. Both of these assumptions are wrong.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Andykp wrote:
I don’t set up a game of 40k desperate to win. It’s a social experience for me not a competitive one. I enjoy games I win as much as I enjoy ones I lose. What really makes me enjoy them is the story they tell. Win or lose it’s not important. People seem to find it hard to believe that I don’t mind who wins but I really don’t. I used to play compete every sports and do like the challenge of that but that’s not what 40k is to me. I used to have a dark angel army and could never win a game with them to the point it became funny how bad I do. 7th edition codex came in and I didn’t win anymore but the army played how I imagined dark angels to play. I felt better. So I was happy with the codex. Still lost.

You claim to not care about who wins, but yet you spend so much time complaining about competitive lists/players, how awful they are, and how you refuse to play against them. If you genuinely don't care if you win then why does it matter if your opponent has a better list? Play the game, have fun losing, and tell a story about your defeat. The truth here is that you do care about winning, you just try to take some weird moral high ground by pretending that you don't and judging everyone who is honest about trying to win.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Galas wrote:
How can you defend at the same time that the game sucks and most people only play because it is what his or her group plays, and they like the fluff and the models (Yourself included) and then go and say that people should just bring the most OP stuff and git gud to win, ignoring any other reason to build their armies that isn't strictly based in how powerfull they are?

No, you're missing the point here. I am not telling people they should play in any particular way, I'm simply objecting to the idea that "fluff" lists (usually not very fluffy, but bad at winning) are the morally superior way to play and anyone who plays competitively is a bad person. That's nonsense. Both options are valid, do whatever you have fun with.

and most people just prefer to watch matches of competitive players that auto limit themselves to a style of play that is based on skill and using normal tactics/heroes/lists/etc...

You're assuming that playing with weaker stuff is "normal" and using the strongest options (against the other player doing the same) requires no skill. Both of these assumptions are wrong.

Theres a difference between a option being stronger than other one (Theres a reason why 78% players in Meele tournaments use Fox), and then using a "cheese" move thats only there until nerfed or fixed, based in some hole in the rules/programing, that it isn't strictly a bug but is nearly it, like Diddy Kong upper kick in Smash Bros or Nobusy Grab Break in For Honor, over, and over, and over, and over. Thats the kind of mechanic I say you see abused in many tournaments, and yeah, normally they have a counter tactic that the very pro-players know how to do, but then those matches end up being one guy trying to spam the same move again and again and the other one trying to counter it in that 0,3 sec window where he can do it.

Basically, the warhammer equivalent of that would be Rule Lawyering, not using a strong list. Thats expected. And if you are gonna say to me that the top players in the top tables don't do rules lawyering agaisnt their opponents... I'll disagree.

About your first point, I agree, theres nothing wrong with playing competitively. The problem arises when people with a different approach to the game play without talking beforehand about what kind of experience they want to have. It is not superior to have a "competitive" match than a "casual" one, but it would be better for both to decide what are they gonna play.

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Galas wrote:
And by the way, I'm sorry but I have to disagree. It does not matter how balanced a game is, competitive players, specially the high end competitive ones, will always try to cheat and use all grey areas to their advantage.

Cheating and using grey areas to someone's advantage are two different things. One means you don't play by the rules, one means you really know the rules.

I have not met a competitive player who relied on strange rule interpretations to succeed.

It is in spain, just ask anyone who went to interplanetario and what happens there.

I not only live in Spain, but I live in Vigo, I can take a 10 minutes walk to where Interplanetarion, for Infinity, happens.

So yeah.

 Peregrine wrote:



You're assuming that playing with weaker stuff is "normal" and using the strongest options (against the other player doing the same) requires no skill. Both of these assumptions are wrong.

Playing with weaker stuff is, in fact, normal. Most people who play 40k have a collection of about 2000-2500 points and most of the time, that collection is built slowly, over the course of several years, because most people A) don't have 500 dollars to drop all at one time on a new army and B) don't have 800 hours of time to invest in building and painting it all at once.

I don't think it's that much of a crazy idea, and I'll be happy to put a poll up if you dispute this, but I'm going to say I assume that when most people buy miniatures, they buy them 1-2 kits at a time and build/paint 1-2 kits at a time, instead of ebaying a whole army and build/paint it over a single 4 day period of continuous sleep-deprived madness.

Even if you work off the assumption that every single player is a good little gamer and makes each weekly or bi-weekly purchase with the express purpose of creating a 100% power-gamed tournament list, by the time you finish that army it will not be optimal.

Week 1: Okay 8th ed has dropped and I have my tournament list. Time to rock baby! Purchase a Stormraven and a tactical squad

Week 2: Second stormraven, second tactical squad.

Week 3: Guilliman, scout squad.

Week 4: gak flyers got nerfed and can't hold objectives anymore. Uh... two razorbacks, lets shift our tactical squads in there.

Week 5: two forgeworld assault cannon upgrades, that's my hobby budget for the week and boy oh boy to I have painting to catch up on.

Week 6: Damn, guard codex has dropped and those spammed basilisks do crazy things to kill my marines. I gotta soup up, get me some of that turn 1 charge action! Celestine and a couple Primaris Psykers for a nice smite-spamming Imperium detachment.

Week 7: Two predators and a lieutenant, I've decided I'm gonna add a Killshot into my marine guilliguns list.

Week 8: Two more predators. Doesn't make sense to take just three, if I get second turn I'm screwed!

Week 9: Eldar drops, those dark reapers are demolishing my stormravens in every tournament I attend now. Nuts! That's 500 points I have to replace.

I haven't even gotten to Chapter Approved, the current deep strike rules, beta rule disallowing Imperium detachments, Rule of 3 (which is going to screw our poor little competitive gamer with his 4 predators), or any eventual marine buffs that might happen in the coming months.

This is completely disregarding the huge, huge numbers of players that

-are new, and have not learned what is good yet
-are primarily interested in modeling, and buy only what they think looks good
-are old veterans, and have access to a collection that may have been competitive in a previous edition but isn't now

all of the above is why it is considered normal to play with suboptimal list choices.40k isn't a video game where you can just swap characters when one gets nerfed. There is a 40$+ investment and a 10+ hour time investment for each box you buy.

the_scotsman, you just described why I cannot keep most of my friends in 40k.
GW's schizophrenia and lack of vision make people that want just to slowly build a decent force frustrated and disenfranchised.

@Scotsman

You've pretty described my experience with 8th so far, apart from starting with 4kish points of BT that barely see the table at all, neophites as ravenguard scouts are pretty much the only thing that I can use and a couple devastators, bolt pistol+chainsword crusaders (nope), assault marines (nope), land raider crusaders (nope), rhinos (at least I could add the forgeworld dual A.C.s before they got nerfed), assault termies (nope), regular termies (nope), emperor's champ (nope), chaplins (lol)...

Also the vanity purchases (I gotta have at least some primarius, and I already have land raiders so I might as well get a repulsor...)

Celestine and assassins got nerfed, well they were fun to paint. I guess some Custode bikers will fill that void (oh snap, everyone is running 12 of them, guess they'll get nerfed next, but the models are cool and fun to paint as well). Guard CP battery is a must have for any imperial army (I still haven't bought this one yet but I really should)

After all that meta chasing I have another 2-3k of models and still can't put out an army that can get a fun game against a semi-competitive DE, Eldar, Tau, IG or Nid army...

 Kaiyanwang wrote:
the_scotsman, you just described why I cannot keep most of my friends in 40k.
GW's schizophrenia and lack of vision make people that want just to slowly build a decent force frustrated and disenfranchised.

Have you tried building a varied list that contains a large number of different choices instead of spamming what is at this millisecond the competitive best option around?

That usually nets you a list that lands somewhere around midtier, as long as you don't actively seek out units that are terrible or make squads with muddled roles that don't make sense.

the_scotsman wrote:

 Kaiyanwang wrote:
the_scotsman, you just described why I cannot keep most of my friends in 40k.
GW's schizophrenia and lack of vision make people that want just to slowly build a decent force frustrated and disenfranchised.

Have you tried building a varied list that contains a large number of different choices instead of spamming what is at this millisecond the competitive best option around?

That usually nets you a list that lands somewhere around midtier, as long as you don't actively seek out units that are terrible or make squads with muddled roles that don't make sense.

I generally do not build spam lists. I could have in case the opposite problem, in case.
And I was talking about other people initially interested in the hobby. You described a sudden nerf, a new codex changing everything and people get frustrated because the few time dedicated was made useless.

bananathug wrote:
@Scotsman

You've pretty described my experience with 8th so far, apart from starting with 4kish points of BT that barely see the table at all, neophites as ravenguard scouts are pretty much the only thing that I can use and a couple devastators, bolt pistol+chainsword crusaders (nope), assault marines (nope), land raider crusaders (nope), rhinos (at least I could add the forgeworld dual A.C.s before they got nerfed), assault termies (nope), regular termies (nope), emperor's champ (nope), chaplins (lol)...

Also the vanity purchases (I gotta have at least some primarius, and I already have land raiders so I might as well get a repulsor...)

Celestine and assassins got nerfed, well they were fun to paint. I guess some Custode bikers will fill that void (oh snap, everyone is running 12 of them, guess they'll get nerfed next, but the models are cool and fun to paint as well). Guard CP battery is a must have for any imperial army (I still haven't bought this one yet but I really should)

After all that meta chasing I have another 2-3k of models and still can't put out an army that can get a fun game against a semi-competitive DE, Eldar, Tau, IG or Nid army...

Then play less competitive games.

Look, for all of this, I'm not advocating for any kind of 'moral superiority' that peregrine is playing. No moral superiority here - just practical superiority. My number one rule that I hammer in again and again and again is never buy a model just to get the rules.

If you don't have some other reason to put it on the table besides "I want the rules that this model provides my army" it will nearly one hundred percent of the time be useless to you in a years time.

If your black templars are weak (and black templars certainly are weak, I am in no way arguing that) then there's a couple of courses of action you can take.

Option 1 (the one I'd take, personally) is find the best way to run them the way you want to, and work to learn them better. When they get buffed, you'll be better at playing them. If you forced me at gunpoint to play Black Templars, I'd run Crusader squads and characters with melee dreadnoughts out of Stormravens backed up by deep striking units to take advantage of the reroll, make sure I've got the suicide attack banner in the unit and pile 'em in baby. Is it going to be tournament quality? feth no. Would it be the least bad way to run black templars the way theyre supposed to feel? I'd bet that for sure.

Option 2 (and there's no reason you can't take multiple here) is don't play against semi-competitive lists of the currently strong factions. Ask your opponents to tone your list down because you are choosing to play less competitive units, as they're the army you like.

Option 3 is take some rules that do work for your marines and use those as a counts-as temporarily. Black Templars are in a terrible spot. Try them as blood angels? Maybe space wolves when we see what they can do? My dark eldar were corsairs any time I took a competitive match in 7th. I find most players, particularly tournament players, tend to understand that and are fine with it.

To keep in on subject, I like the rule of 3. I feel it does address the issue of skew and spamming units that GW is incapable of costing correctly.

My real problem is GW putting out such an imbalanced piece of gak codex of vanilla space marines vs those on the other end of the power spectrum (Eldar of all flavors, nids, guard, certain tau builds). I math-hammer the hell out of my options, work on the best synergies and at best I can offer my opponent a competitive game if they gimp their army.

That's not fun for them or I and I think GW needs to take responsibility for putting out armies with such an imbalance of power (disentegrator cannon @ 15 points vs grav cannon @ 28 points....) instead of putting the blame on players who dare to take them.

Playing less competitive games, for my personal situation, means not playing games. I came back to 40k based on the marketing that this was going to be the most playtested version ever and naively believed that it would allow two strangers to build lists and go at it and at least have a reasonably balanced game (I mean so much of the game is tossing dice, there is so much chance involved that armies that are reasonably close should have some drama involved due to the outcomes being random). It really shows how out of balance the game is when even my dice are hot and my opponents are terrible the outcome is still never really in doubt...

I don't expect to win the LVO but it would be nice to be able to play against the semi-competitive lists at my FLGS on game night or attend the monthly tourney without feeling like I'm a point pinata for whoever gets lucky enough to play me.

I went from winning a couple tourneys at the beginning of 8th (index and then when SM were the only codex) to placing well (a win here or there) and then having games that I just could not win (reapers and shining spears) to now being happy to not get tabled (DE and eldar soup do it now, Tau given the right list/general stomp, Tsons before the deepstrike nerf were a problem). This all with my chasing the meta, buying the "best" available marine units, knowing my enemies lists, having a fair amount of tactical acumen, knowing the missions and being a relatively "smart" gamer (you know, "get gud").

For now I'm working on painting up the models that I like to paint. Doing a ton of basing (which I hate so I have plenty of work ahead of me) and trying my hand at some conversions while I wait for some sort of balancing from GW since the last two attempts made my personal experience worse. I enjoy these aspects of the hobby (as terrible as I am at them, gaining/improving a skill is always a fun personal challenge) and hopefully by BAO 2019 I'll have an army that I can show up with and not get laughed out of the building...

Galas wrote:
And by the way, I'm sorry but I have to disagree. It does not matter how balanced a game is, competitive players, specially the high end competitive ones, will always try to cheat and use all grey areas to their advantage. Theres a reason why in most games (And videogames) people don't even like to watch the finals, or the high ranking matches, because they become a crapfest of spamming X special attack, using the same characters/strategies all the time, etc... and that happens in everything, from warhammer 40k, to Infinity, to Streeth Figther, to For Honor, to League of Legends, to Starcraft, etc... and most people just prefer to watch matches of competitive players that auto limit themselves to a style of play that is based on skill and using normal tactics/heroes/lists/etc...

I follow a bunch of competitive games including some of the ones you listed, and literally not once have I ever seen the phenomena you describe. Finals get more views than any other match, by literally multiples of the proceeding games. This sounds like a "you" problem.

Tyel wrote:
For me at least the general issue of whether something is fun to watch is the skill involved and whether that is interactive.

Street Fighter or Quake for instance are usually not very interactive. The skill set is very limited - so the winner tends to be the person who is fractionally faster than their opponent. This is a skill - but its not really a great one to watch. (Then again people go mad for the 100 meters at say the Olympics, and arguably that's similar).

I like watching StarCraft - because micro and macro are skills. You can't "cheat" the game to win. You have to be better. Now you might think a 5 minute all in is cheese - but its a viable strategy, and one your opponent can guard against. Everything that happens in the game is a choice, you can't look back on a tournament, with games, and say "X would have won if it wasn't for the dice gods."

You clearly haven't played fighting games competitively, this couldn't be a less accurate description of Street Fighter, or fighters in general. Literally everything you do is a direct interaction with your opponent. There is so much room for freedom and decisions. And reactions are not the deciding point of the game at all, with most top players having very similar levels of reactions, hell most competitive players in general do, that's something that is mostly just a human limit. Sometimes you see some big game changing "reactions", most of these are half reads anyway and they are far from common. I've played StarCraft since WoL and even that is less interactive than fighters. Both take a similar skillset however. If it's not for you it's not for you, but you probably shouldn't just completely write off a game like this as "usually being decided by whoever has fractionally faster reaction times than their opponent", if you have literally no experience or understanding of the genre. Just hard facts.

The point of the game is to have fun, the objective of the game is to win. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Funnily enough, back when i was playing i preferred to play the power gamers, because they were less likely to cheat or 'accidentally' get fundamental rules wrong. My impression of 'casual's isn't too flattering in that respect.

Meanwhile, when everyone's using the correct rules and playing to the objective of the game, it starts becoming noticable that certain units and armies aren't at the power level. This is not the fault of players who are all on the same page in what they're looking for.