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Have you ever won a game of 40K and in retrospect thought that the only reason for your victory was ultimate stupidity on the part of your opponent? Case in point, I was facing Black Templars and he had three dreadnoughts, all kitted out with assault cannons, fists and flamers. My first thought was "Aw crap, my flank with the objective is toast!" However, instead of boldly charging forward with the ancient space marines, they ambled around in circles and split their fire, accomplishing little beyond destroying my warbikers, but not before the warbikers killed all but one initiate squad and half of another. I was prepared to sacrifice my warbikers, deffkoptas and deff dread to fend off what I thought was going to be dreadzilla, but it totally sputtered. On the other hand, I swamped his objective, saved my fire for squads other than the terminators, weakened the rest of his initiate squads and destroyed them, the terminators, a termie chaplain and the emperor's champion with massed boys and meganobs. And on top of that, deffrolla'd his vindicator into the machine afterlife. Am I an arrogant S.O.B. for basking in the glow of such a win, or should I just take it and move on?

Look at it this way, if he really was a BT marshal than a loss of that magnitude would be cause for his execution for being an utter failure, in a way that thought is reward enough.

Seriously though take the victory and move on to greater glory.

Oh yeah, all the time. Some players just suck. Especially certain Guard players that want to utilize leafblower but suck at it.

I've won games due to opponent's incompetence on more than one occasion. The number of times I got a victory due to a really stupid error (like forgetting the shooting phase), or due to really good luck can be counted on approxomately 1 finger.

Of course, the number of times I've had a victory at the last minute turned into a LOSS due to bad luck requires an abacus...

Every victory my Salamanders had against my friend back in 3rd/4th edition. It was a footslogging Marine army with multimeltas and plasmaguns in tactical squads, a chaplain leading it, an assault squad, some scout snipers that never hit anything, a land raider and a predator destructor.

My friend had Black Templars, Imperial Fists, Night lords and Tau. Every one of them was tailored to beat my Salamanders, since I was basically his only opponent. I think I beat him about 75% of the time.

Most times I win a game that I felt my opponent really shot himself in the foot its because they forgot what the mission was and tried to table me. Its really hard to table people unless your really CC oriented and your opponent doesn't have a sufficient counter. Ive seen more games that could of gone either way early on go to a severe loss for my opponent because he went for the table. Moral of the story... Don't get greedy folks you only need to win by one objective/killpoint. Indecently some of my worst losses are from doing the same thing lol.

I tend to shoot myself in the foot a lot by forgetting i have wargear. It usually doesnt cost me a loss but sometimes it really kicks me in the teeth.

The problem with feeling like a victory is undeserved is that you have to define just how bad a mistake is required for it to be undeserved. A slight strategical mistake? Not playing the odds enough? Bad luck?

Unless its something super obvious generally its more that you put yourself in a position to punish a mistake. Its generally better to just take away from a game that you put yourself in a good position and although your opponent didn't make optimal plays, you were the one who set yourself up to win.

Although, yeah sometimes you can get a win that obviously was not deserved. Like if the dice favor one person extremely heavily. You can't fight the dice. Those are not near as frequent as mistakes in play.

I have a friend who has been proxying armies for a while and finally settled on an all tank IG list. I took chaos marines, with Chosen w/ melta guns (only way to take em in 5th) that outflanked, raptors, obliterators, a greater daemon, daemon prince and a few squads of basic guys and tabled him 3 games in a row. each time he set up a squad of 3 tanks on the two sides of the table...I had a 66% chance of getting both chosen units to take out a squad each, and that left the rest of my army going up the middle to take out the other 3 tanks. It was a slaughter. The way my list was set up, if he bunched his units in the middle of his deployment zone, my two chosen units would have become swiss cheese in a turn, regardless of their protective rhino. Yes, I pointed it out to him how to fix things for the next game. It did feel a bit undeserved though, because it was his foolish decision to place his models in the same spot every game...and let me walk through them each time

I had a game the other day that I think falls into this category. I was playing vs. orks with my SW. He had a Nob Biker squad that he deployed right up on the line. I had my Land Raider move up (I had first turn) then he moved the bikers forward. I assaulted out of the Land Raider with Ragnar, Wolf Priest, and some Blood Claws, and more or less wiped the unit. Things didn't get any better for him from there. He said after the game that he forgot that Land Raiders had Assault Ramps, and that had he remembered, he would've used the bikes differently.

I believed him when he said he hadn't played in a long time, since, while I had never seen him in the 8 months I'm been going to my local GW, some of the other regulars recognized him.

Its not stupidity of my opponents that have given me a few wins, but rather that they develop tunnel vision.

I had one game where on the last turn he was so frustrated that my small group of 6 grey hunters that were camping on an objective (in cover) were shrugging off all the Eldar shooting or were just killing them in HTH.

The thing is, he had two wave serpents that were doing nothing but shooting. Had he moved them both within three inches of the objective, he would have contested it and the game would have been a draw. There was no way I was going to drop two serpents with a unit that didn't have a P-fist or melta-gun.

And thats the sort of tunnel vision I see a lot. You don't have to kill the other guy, you just have to neutralize them. But its just too easy to get frustrated.

cromwest wrote:Most times I win a game that I felt my opponent really shot himself in the foot its because they forgot what the mission was and tried to table me. Its really hard to table people unless your really CC oriented and your opponent doesn't have a sufficient counter. Ive seen more games that could of gone either way early on go to a severe loss for my opponent because he went for the table. Moral of the story... Don't get greedy folks you only need to win by one objective/killpoint. Indecently some of my worst losses are from doing the same thing lol.

Conversely; Every time i have played my Wife's Orks and not gone for the Table, I have lost. The 1 Time she actually went for the objective against me has also netted her a Loss. And her Army is a Combined-arms with mixes of Fast CC trukk Boyz, and foot slogging Shoota Boyz(with 2 large units of Foot-slogging Slugga boyz). All dakka wisdom/Convention says her army should suck and fail, and in Objective games playing to the objective that Convention/wisdom holds true. however i have failed against her army in all but 1 occasion(the one wherein she attempted to take the objectives). She knows and understands Target priority very well and just today we decided to have a small 1000 point game together; I lost pretty bad with my close-range firer-fighting SWs(who are also kitted for Melee). After she finished tabling me she had 14 Shoota boyz Left, her Warboss, and all 10 Lootas. Yesterday I played my Same SW list vs a friends Blood Angels(Dante, 2 units Sang guard, and 5 JP-DC) and tabled him by turn 3.

I will admit i never really allow her to make Basic mistakes(forgetting phases, etc) but then I make sure i don't make them myself(although against other opponents I have forgotten to use Psychic powers or Issue orders when i had planned to from time to time).

Against the Blood Angels player(from above, he has quite a few other armies as well and has been playing for almost as long as me) I usually try out "bad Lists"; I will Write up as bad of a list as I can think of(generally poor unit choices, or truly "fluffy" lists) and see how well i can do with them. Unfortunately he still has issues in building balanced lists and/or playing to his lists strengths(and we have been playing since the beginning of 3rd edition) So even with these bad lists he shows up with generally an even worse list; thus changing the outcome of my experiments(he is never allowed to be my lab assistant).

I've not been playing 40k for but about 8 months, but what I hate more then anything is winning because I screwed up on a rule. Oh, it KILLS me when I figure it out later. I buy my opponent a soda from the game store and appologise next time I see him :(

For example, I dropped my dread near my guard opponent's tanks. It lived through his round of firing, and on my turn, charged his tanks. I charged the tanks so that my dread was in base to base with a Chimmera and a Manticore. I trash both of them. Later, I find out (Thanks to Dakka) That a single unit can only assault a single unit, and must stay 1 inch from other units that I'm not assaulting. That it take a second model in my unit to multi assault.

Another example, (Same game, Same Dread) I charged a HUGE guard blob squad with a dread. The guard sqaud was holding his only objective. He asked if the whole squad had to pile in, and I said yes, the whole squad had to get as close as they could. This movement caused him to be pulled off the objective, and I won 1-0. Later, I found out the proper pile in order (Base to base -> 2 inch -> Coherent) So, he could have kept some of his squad on his objective.

Thank goodness my buddy knows that I don't do it on purpose. And I buy him alot of soda >_>

Thats a good mentality.

I once cheated a Blood Ravens player on accident and he done cheated me. I misused the FnP rule and he assured me a unit that is fleeing is destroyed if it run into impassible terrain (instead of going around it -it was a small rock)

When I found out I apologised and corrected him then we had a rematch. At the end he has one tac squad and I had 1 FW squad in a devilfish and he gave in because he couldn't harm it. Was really close though, I think he made a bad choice in his terminator tactics, he choose to stand back and fire.

I find the mind numbing stupidity of the human brain can at times be unparalleled How do you forget a shooting phase when you are IG? It is not like you are going to roll up the board with cc? However someone I know always forgets his shooting phase at least once per game and when this is pointed out he looks totally confused like I have just presented him with Keynes Economic theory in Greek. Of course I regularly forget things but some of the things people do in games amazes me.

I had a game vs a Chaos Daemon player with my Blood Angels. His list comprised of the following:-

Fateweaver
Lord of Change

10 Daemonettes
5 Horrors
3 Flamers

Soul Grinder
Nurgle Daemon Prince

In his special Daemonic Deployment, he chose Fateweaver, the Lord of Change, Soul Grinder and the Daemon Prince to arrive first. In his hubris, he places all his units' landing points too close to my units, as he was hoping for a first turn charge...All of his units mishaped.

Fateweaver - Destroyed
Lord of Change - Destroyed
Soul Grinder - Misplaced
Daemon Prince - Misplaced

Losing most of his army during deployment - nuff said!

I've noticed lately that I do best when playing capture and control missions, because some many players get obsessed with killing as many of my Orks as possible that they don't see that I am willing to sacrifice most of my army so that I can take or at least contest both objectives when the game ends. Of course, this does mean that I really suck at annihilation battles, especially against space marines or Tyranids. I've known people who have played against each other so many times that they have discovered that whomever wins the roll to deploy first usually wins the battle, weird dice rolling notwithstanding. So much for the massive randomness of 40K.

Valkyrie - even though he isnt allowed to charge from deepstrike as well!

Happens to me. Alot. When I was playing this, like, 11-year-old who kept badgering me for a game because he saw me wipe this adult earlier in the week (I won 5-0 on killpoints- he had 5 units ), and thought he would beat me. He had SW (he keeps changing them- first it was vanilla, then BA, now SW) he is reknowned for being a crybaby when it comes to losing. This game served to only boost his position as a whinger.

I pretty much wiped out his entire army with a squad of th/ss GK termies and a squad of vanguard veterans. He remembers he has a squad of termies left, Deepstrikes them- chooses them to land 1" away from my chapter master's vanguards. He hits, Rubs it in my face, carries on doing so until I point out he's within 2" of an enemy model. He then decides, after placing them, that he can move them back 6". I point out he can't do that , since he's already placed them, and that he has to roll for mishap. He does so, the unit gets destroyed. He goes off to a group of regulars, whines, and they point out that i am right . He then declares that I cheated, and If the termies had arrived they would have killed my men with storm bolter fire (despite the fact that there were 20 men next to where he wanted them to arrive, and that nearly all of them had 2+ armour and packed away all his stuff in the 4th turn in a strop. I've noticed that every game he starts to lose, he immediately packs his stuff away, then goes b*tching to everyone else, moaning how the opponent cheated.

Don't play him then. That sounds like a deserved victory because you played a silly child

I refuse to play people who are like that. I don't care if it looks or sounds rude but I refuse to waste my time upsetting a crybaby and I am not throwing a game just to make them feel better.

Its the same reason I refuse to play my friend at X-box games. If he beats me it is all well and good, if he loses he smashes up another controller and game over for the rest of the day.

Just ask yourself, is it really worth being polite if the little gaks going to throw it back in your face?

There's a guy at my FLGS who is very aggressive, and when he plays with his Sanguinary guard army, he always gets worked up and shouts at the other players - a lot of which are really great guys and just too timid to argue back with him. And half the time he is a cheating little SOB - he often makes claims like "My infernus Pistol can fire 12", or "No you don't roll for the end of the game after Turn 5, its always the end of turn 6" (as he was currently losing - he went on to "win" that game).

NOTHING was more satisfying than tabling them with my BT - he now refuses to play me because I "made him look stupid" in front of the whole store.

A lot of players who "cheat", are players who know the rules better than most, and try to be assertive when they speak, which makes the less confident players believe them, handicapping themselves in the process. A little confidence goes a long way.

If I win due to poor tactics by my opponent I feel cheated out of a good game. Especially if I'm trying a new list out and want to see how it performs. It isn't a good measure of how you or your list fares when your opponent doesn't use good tactics.

For example recently I played nids against marines with 5 objectives as the mission. When my gribblies started to get close to his line he walked all of his guys, including heavy weapon team,s back into a corner off his objectives handing me the game just so he didn't loose more guys. Bwuh?

Jayden63 wrote:Its not stupidity of my opponents that have given me a few wins, but rather that they develop tunnel vision.


And thats the sort of tunnel vision I see a lot. You don't have to kill the other guy, you just have to neutralize them. But its just too easy to get frustrated.

This for sure. Ive had some amazing rolls sometimes (or the opponent would roll really poorly) and they would become so annoyed they would forget or make mistakes. Im playing just to enjoy it, so bad rolls, good rolls, Im just laughing and enjoying it. But some people take games so personal it gets to them when a rocket launcher deviates (and of course instant SM WOULDNT MISS!!!! ARRRRRRRRRGGGG) or their SC gets mulched by Thraka. I dont care either way, if Thraka dies because of a bad roll, then that lone IG sgt just earned himself a promotion lol


also to the OP, maybe the guy was new? It takes time for someone to figure out if you focus your attacks unit at a time, its better then trying to whittle the whole army down. Maybe nobody told him? Hard to learn new things if no one teaches him

Yeah when new to the game no one really taught me much. I would ask whats that thing do and get answers like 'oh its a power fist' So yeah asking what a powerfist does and getting told it is a power fist is like being told to go feth yourself I'm not telling you.

Okay so my very first game and I am expected to know your codex off by heart when I dont even know my own? Oh gee. Although it was obvious to me it was going to be used for punching things, it just doesnt help when you are new to be treated like you are an idiot during your first few games.

Although the people teaching me liked to win so they would leave out things on purpose.

nosferatu1001 wrote:Valkyrie - even though he isnt allowed to charge from deepstrike as well!

Oops, I didn't mean first turn charge, I meant like a charge very early in the game.

I cheated my friend pretty bad one day, I misread the "lumbering behemoth" rule when the new IG codex came out and wiped out an entire termie squad with an executioner after moving. I called him up and apologized for it because I found out later that if I move I can only use one of my weapons and not all of my weapons + turret weapon.

Although there are times I've lost because I forgot that I had certain units available, like my ratlings who have a dark color for their clothing and now wear bright orange bandanas/hats so that I can see them when they're in cover.

I've also been cheated by a BT player who apparently misused their special charge rule for people who shoot at them. I lost to him, but my younger brother took him out in another game using his eldar so I was happy.

Also, my brother and I play each other a lot although we both screw each other over. If he chooses where we play he usually puts a gap of about 20 inches between our armies(mind you this is when he uses his orks) with a lot of cover and I get tabled pretty quickly. When I choose where we play I put about 40 inches between our two armies( I use IG) and not as much cover and I table him pretty quickly so that's how it usually goes down at our house. We don't care though because we're playing and bonding and laughing about funny things like my sergeant taking out an Avatar with a laspistol or him using over 90 when charges my command squad with a full squad of boyz.

Does "he took a really bad list" count? Most of my biggest victories are against opponents who are completely unprepared for what I'm bringing against them, or bring lists that are more about what they own than what they need.

Ed_Bodger wrote:Don't play him then. That sounds like a deserved victory because you played a silly child

true, i suppose. And no, after 2 hours of that, I will never play him again


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erwos wrote:Does "he took a really bad list" count? Most of my biggest victories are against opponents who are completely unprepared for what I'm bringing against them, or bring lists that are more about what they own than what they need.

I had that once. I was playing with my raven guard against eldar. The highest strength weapon he had was S8. I had 2 land raiders. They walked through half the army. He then went and got a load of S9 stuff.

Why is it undeserved to beat someone who makes bad decisions? You made better decisions, therefore you deserved to win. That's how the game is supposed to work.