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A funny thing happened to me today. I post this battle report not in search of sympathy or vindication but rather to sound out what I might have done better to make the other player happier. I think I tried to, but should perhaps have made more effort to teach, or re-teach him the rules when it became clear he was confused about them rather than pursuing the game to a finish.

So...

I spin up at my local shop for a friendly game and end up playing a chap about my age (40s) who’s running Ultramarines. I say I have Grey Knights and he groans a bit and says ‘everyone here seems to be running them’ .

(3 out of two dozen or so adult regulars run GK. Both the other GK players field Eldar and or Space Wolf armies to from time to time. There may well be other people who turn up occasionally who have GK’s but they’re not from my observation even the most popular army, which is either Space Wolves, Crimson Fists or Ultramarines, I’m not quite certain which. I think maybe here I should have said, ‘Look would you rather not play?’ in a way that – hopefully – would have allowed him to say ‘I don’t think I do, I think your list’s a bit cheesy to be honest and GK are overpowered. I’d have been disappointed not to get a game but I think he’d have been happier.)

Anyway, I smile and say sorry but GK are all I have. We agree on 1500 points, but when sorting out his list he says ‘can we do another 50? I agree as it lets me run my Dreadnought as a Venerable. Then once we have our lists, I go through my force so he’s aware of all the various powers. So far so friendly but I’m sensing a little vibe that he’s not happy. I don’t ask him to go through his list as I’m moderately familiar with standard marines but he does mention that he is entirely ‘what you see is what you get’: it later turned out his MotF, modelled with servo-harness, actually had a conversion beamer. I wasn’t bothered by that so I didn’t mention it when he used it .

(At this point I should have looked at his list a bit more closely because I noticed after the game’s end that it wasn’t legal and it also put him at a disadvantage in the scenario we rolled)

For the record, my list was Draigo, Librarian, 2 x 5 Paladins, stormraven, venerable dreadnought – 1545 pts. His list was Chief Librarian Tigurius, Master of the Forge, 5 scouts inc Telion, 10 Devastators, 2 Dreadnoughts, 5 Sternguard, 6 terminators, 7 Legion of the Damned.

(He only had one troop choice. I should have noticed that and should have pointed it out to him).

We rolled Seize Ground and 5 objectives. Spearhead. He got first turn and reserved terminators and Damned to Deep Strike. He deployed everything else and infiltrated his scouts into cover about 6” from an objective. I reserved everything, ‘raven, Librarian, Paladin squad and Venerable to come on from my board edge, Draigo and paladin squad to Deep Strike.

He spends his first turn moving his devastators and Tigurius into position. I remind him that he can run.

In his second turn he doesn’t roll for reserves. I mention that he’s obliged to. He says it’s a bit pointless as I have nothing on the board. I shrug sympathetically and say it’s why I like to go second. He rolls for reserves. I say I think Tigurius allows rerolls. He checks, finds he does and so only the Terminators come on. They deep strike in near a building objective in my half. I ask him if he wants to run them in the shooting phase. He decides to and they make it to the building. He has 2 in and 4 out. I point out if one more moves into the building they’ll be in cover. He does that.

(Here I felt what might have been a bad vibe had rather dissipated. Nothing much had happened but we were having a good time and, I think, playing cooperatively as well as competitively).

So my turn 2. My ‘raven came on, moved up near his terminators, unloaded. The ‘raven fired at his scouts and missed. Librarian and squad fired at his terminators and killed one. I forgot to fire my venerable. He didn’t mention it but he may well not have noticed. I made a mistake here and cast Quicksilver, which I shouldn’t have been allowed to do as it can only be cast at the start of the movement phase. He was unfamiliar with the GK powers and so there’s no way he could have corrected me. This was a genuine error on my part that I only realised while writing this up. It would have had some bearing on how many wounds my GK would have taken in combat but as he only had a pair of lightning claws and a power weapon (the others being Thunder Hammers), I don’t think it would have altered the result. Which was the annihilation of all his squad bar a TH/SS terminator to my 17 I10 attacks with Hammerhand and Might of Titan. He got his attacks back which did nothing and my hammer killed the remaining terminator. I consolidated into cover and the objective.

(He raised eyebrows as the number of dice I rolled for my attacks and we had a reasonably friendly discussion about how melee worked and that paladins had 2 attacks, 3 with the charge and 4 for the two models with falchions. He thought only models in base contact could fight and that each fight should be resolved separately. He also didn’t like the wound allocation I could do on my Paladins – which I said I agreed was a bit of a funny rule in that it does give an advantage to multi-wound models, but it was the rules, so... I should really at this point have gone through the melee rules and wound allocation rules for both shooting and melee with him thoroughly but I failed to do so because of a slight pressure of time. I think it would have been better to have failed to finish the game but for him to have gone away with a better understanding of how the rules actually worked. He said ‘that’s why I hate playing GK, they’re just too overpowered.’ I said ‘yeah, they are tough, but I only have 14 models’. I think maybe I should just have kept quiet on that.)

Turn three his Damned appear near my librarian unit. He did lots and lots of shooting and killed 4 Paladins and destroyed the ‘raven. He also gated Tigurius forward and made two shooting attacks (I hooded the first, the second destroyed the ‘raven and killed a paladin). I questioned this but he said the codex allowed him to make up to three shooting attacks and I didn’t ask to see it in black and white but took his word for it when he looked it up. I notice now that the codex makes no such exception.

(We also had a discussion about cover saves, invun saves and armour saves and when it was appropriate to take each. I said you get the best available against each attack. He said I should get only one sort for the entire shooting. We went with my interpretation. But I now felt the bad vibe was back).

In my turn, Draigo’s squad deep strike and arrive a little to the rear of his devastators, in the open but with cover saves available from some shooting because of intervening terrain. They shoot and kill a devastator. My dreadnought moved into the objective building, and its shooting killed three of the Damned. The Librarian and remaining Paladin moved out of cover and assaulted Tigurius, who was in cover, but nobody inflicted any wounds.

His turn 4. He gates Tigurius out of combat and there is a massive amount of shooting at my Librarian and paladin, also some at the Dreadnought. The Dreadnought ends unharmed. The Librarian and paladin take 8 bolter hits and 4 ID hits from his devastators. I allocate 6 bolters to the Librarian and the rest to the paladin. The Librarian is okay, the paladin in a lasered and melta’d heap... He then questions this and I agree to do it his way, dividing both bolter and ID shots evenly (so taking two IDs on the Librarian). He fails one and I remove him.

(at this point I ask the shop manager whether I have been doing wound allocation wrong in all my games so far because doubt had been planted firmly in my mind. He says no and what I did was fine. He and my opponent have a short discussion. My opponent says it seems stupid, I say I kind of agree, the manager says ‘well the rules are kind of abstract’).

We play on with the Librarian restored and he dies to dreadnought shooting. Draigo takes 2 wounds and his squad take a couple of wounds from fire too.

Tigurius is now in assault range of the Venerable and assaults. He fails to cast a power and takes perils, resulting in a wound. The dreadnought kills him in the ensuing combat.

My turn. The dreadnought fires at the Damned but does nothing and then rather stupidly assaults them, killing one. There is another discussion about how krak grenades work in assault which the manager explains, and another when he wants to use hi multi-melta in assault (‘because it’s relentless). Again, gentle managerial intervention means I don’t feel obliged to let him (because by this point I’m really trying to bend over to accommodate him). Draigo’s squad assault the devastators and wipe them out. Again my opponent questions the assault rules and again he makes his comment about GK overpowerment.

His turn 5

His shooting removes another wound from Draigo and kills a paladin. The Damned destroy the dreadnought.

My turn results in no damage to him.

He rolls to see if the game continues. It doesn’t.

At this point I realise he has no scoring units claiming objectives (I had previously thought his Sternguard must be scoring and we were tied 1-1). He asks how close you have to be to an objective to claim it and I say 3” with troops. I say I have one unit and point to Draigo’s squad. He says ‘are they scoring?’ and I say yes, they’re troops. Now I point to his dreadnought which is within 3” of an objective and say ‘are your dreadnoughts troops?’ (though I know they are not, they’re Heavy Support or Elite with MotF). He says yes and so we agree a draw. I did this to save his face a little but I'm not sure in hindsight it was sensible as it meant I gave him an opening to lie and he took it (though I think he probably did believe MotF made dreadnoughts troops and so thought his list was okay).

I say I’m sorry he didn’t enjoy playing against my list but I had a good time (because putting the discussions aside, I did) and thank him. He says that he doesn’t like GK, repeats they are overpowered, says he thinks all the non-vanilla marines are overpowered and that choosing these armies is ‘cheating’. I keep a straight face at this though I’m not happy to be called a cheat by implication and content myself by pointing out that he did pretty well really, killing well over half my army. He restates the ‘cheating list’ comment but does say ‘at least they’re nicely painted’. We then chat about painting and early editions of 40K (he like me is a recent returner) and fantasy and part on what I hope are decent terms. Certainly I have no hard feelings, I’m just sorry he had a bad time.

So do you think I could have done more, without just agreeing to do everything his way and rather the rulebook’s way, to have made his game better? I do regret the Quicksilver thing on turn two but I got it wrong plain and simple. Beyond that though, I think only having taken more time to look at his list to check it was legal and perhaps running the game more as a ‘tutorial’ when it became clear he was uncertain and confused about many of the rules. But in fairness I myself have played less than 20 games of 5th ed. 40K and those in the past three months. I’m pretty new as well to this edition (and prior to this year, my last game was in 1990 or ‘91).


(EDIT: added the 'raven into my list, which I'd omitted)

I like the Sondhiem title


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Aside from that, you did him too much honour. Your list is fine, and not really an overpowered one. His army wasn't even valid! Not to mention he made up lots of rules!

I wouldn't have been so kind on him at all. I would've had my rule book to hand and proved him wrong on all the rules he tried to create. That way he'll get better and learn to stop cheating.

Well played by you, for the disadvantages he set you at.

first, I appreciate the title, got me to chuckle from the nostalgia

Aside from that, I think you were too easy on him. Yes, you were a good sport the whole time, and accomidated your slightly peeved opponent by letting some things slide. However I feel that you slighty cheated him, as you let him get away with some errors, if he is a returning player it is reasonable if some of the rules interpertations are off and leave a bad taste in his mouth. But you, being the more knowledge-able player, have to make sure he doesn't continue making these 'errors', as he might play a person not as generous as you, and get into a rather distasteful argument.

my 2 cents

I think you let him off a bit lightly, Blood. As you know, I'm a tad more competitive than you but I do know where you're coming from with this. There's not much worse than feeling that your opponent thinks his army shouldn't lose and that you're only winning because you have an overpowered list. And that's rather ironic as som many pundits seem to think a paladin list is intrinsically weak. Like you, I beg to differ...

I'm not sure what I'd have done other than making sure the rules were adhered to as closely as possible. But I'd probably have got more into 'argument' than 'discussion', though in a friendly way.

I certainly think you should have spotted his list was illegal and pointed out to him it was right away before the game start. I think if he wanted to play it anyway, knowing the handicap he'd be under in an objective mission, I'd maybe have let him.

Given he seems to have been unsure of the rules in general, it woukld have been worth making him aware of what he needed to do to draw or win in turn 4, before it was too late.

But on the whole, I think I'd just try and avoid playing him again. You've a good excuse in that you can just say you understand his issues with Grey Knights and it would be best to find an opposing army he'd like to play against.

Wow, i would have let him have it man. Maybe not right away but after callng you a cheater for using a completely legal list? What a poor sport and a cheat to boot. Multi melta in assault? Has he even read the rule book? You are a far more patient person than i am, so I commend you for that sir.

Thanks for the replies.

My thinking on the 'being lenient' side was:

It's only a game
He obviously feels unhappy
He's new to this edition of the rules

Against that was the fact his rules interpretations/personal version of the rules always seemed to benefit him and not me (I say 'seemed' as that is my recollection, but it's fair to point out that we did basically agree about most things).

I also think that his army is one designed for a rulesset that contained an Overwatch rule. Basically it's a 'stand back and shoot' army with the terminatos and the Damned able to get stuck in. His MotF scouts, sternguard, dreadnoughts and devastators camped all game -- though the MotF did make a run forward -- a turn too late, he was miles away -- to try and seize an objective. At the time this movement puzzled me but I can see now he was probably trying to claim an objective. i think he forgot the game was about objectives and not just masaccaring my army. Quite often in the shop people play Pitched Battle Annihilation in their first game playing each other. As my GK have a huge advantage in most Annihilation games, I usually suggest rolling. Here it didn't come for discussion as I just said 'shall we roll for scenario?' and he said yes. Ironically, had we played annihilation, he'd have won 4-3 (though I'd have played a bit differently had it been annihilation in fairness).

Be that as it may, as I say I was keen to avoid any bad feeling but didn't seem able to do so. I think the root cause was probably just my army choice and list, which I chose because it was relatively cheap to buy rather than for its effectiveness but not many people seem able to deal with it terribly well so far, including some pretty good local players.

I had to bite my tongue at the 'playing GK is cheating' comment but I'm not certain it was meant in exactly the way it came across. He did develop the point by saying he thought all non-standard marines were 'overpowered cheating lists'. So I think he didn't mean cheating as in 'you personally are a cheat' more in the sense that the army gave me an unfair advantage. This leads me to belive that maybe he just thinks standard marines should be the most elite army and having other marine lists that allow more elite picks bothers him. In a sense, he wants the elite army...

In hindsight in our after-game chat, which was friendly, -- he's not an unpleasant man, quite the reverse in fact -- I should have mentioned that in fantasy I'd play all-Goblins, which I think is about as far from a paladin list as you could get in terms of eliteness.

I don't think BA and GK books are overpowered. They're just a different take on power armored marines. In fact there are some builds in the vanilla marine codex that would just OWN the paladin/draigo list. You can field a lot of plasma and vindicators will just eat up paladins. He just needs to know his codex a bit better and open himself up to possibility. Rather than being a grump and spouting nonsense about "overpowered armies." And you are right it is just a game, and as you said he is in his 40's? So maybe he needs to lighten up a bit about his toy soldiers.

I think many people feel the GK's are over-powered and thus, don't like playing against them too much. Right now, unless if I'm playing against my friends who all bring pretty good lists, I tend to tone down my GK army, lest I find it harder and harder to find people willing to play against me. I sometimes even give them questionable calls, lest I be branded a WAAC player - with a nasty army and arguing about rules as well! Like whether his unit gets cover or not, I just let him call it (and also whether my unit gets cover or not).

You can bring a strong list, but if your attitude is friendly and not so competitive, then even though you may thrash your opponent, they may be willing to play you again.

I tend to let my opponent make the cover calls too. I usually find a decent opponent will actually opt for a dice-off or alternate who gets the benefit from instance to instance. Someone who's a bit more WAAC will tend to not do that, but if nothing else it's a good way to judge your opponent's sportsmanship (and thus whether you'd play him again).

Personally I don't think Blood could have done much more. the bloke seems to have made up his mind before the game started that the GK rules were going to do him over. I wonder though what his attitude might have been if he'd won.

I commend you sir on a well played game.. and I commend your attitude. Not many people have such an attitude.
What I would have done in the situation:
-I would have pointed out at the time what was illegal and what wasn't. his list isn't correct? Immediate explanation, say its fine and you're willing to continue but as one of the other people before me said, you should explain that it would be at a bit of a disadvantage..
- He had a problem with the assault rules a number of times. I would have taken a 5 minute break, show it to him in the rule book, explain it.. and let him read it for himself. If he still disagreed, I would have had the store owner come and explain it. If he had any other questions I'd be happy to explain it, but the rules are the way the rules are.. and they're that way for a reason. Hopefully this would have cleared up the confusion and you would have been able to continue on after that 5-15 minutes without more disruptions.
The unfortunate part is "haters gonna hate". Lord knows I can't stand playing against my gray knights buddy, but I do because we somehow manage to have fun. GK are a bit overpowered? eh... maybe. That's one of those "every person decides for themselves" kind of thing..because everyone has their own opinion on the matter. I view it more as a situational condition.. certain lists are better geared toward one thing or another.. GK are an elite army with a bit of versatility.
Anyways the point is... Some people (a lot..) blame the game and the opponent for "cheating" because things didn't play out well for them. its wrong, rational men won't do it.. but people do it anyways. He. Was. Wrong. He was wrong in the manner he approached the game, how he treated you, his gameplay, and his manner afterward. You did your best to accommodate the man and that's all you can do.

-Sincerely,
A Codex Marine player.

Thanks.

Yes, you're all quite right, I really should have noticed his list wasn't legal and mentioned it before the game. I think I didn't notice because I didn't look too closely, and that was because I'd already begun to pick up that he was a bit unhappy, so I didn't want to dissect his list and look like I was looking for some advantage (not that I think knowing the details of a list is seeking advantage, but I diodn't want to appear so.)

We did go through the assault rules and wound allocation, but I think you're right, what was needed was basically for the game to stop because he didn't understand the rules and maybe for us to run some mock combats until he did get them clear. Partly why I didn;'t do that is just not thinking to do so, partly becasue I did want just to play a game, and partly because I've relatively limited experience with the rules myself and while I'm pretty clear, I'd hesitate to say I always get everything exactlty right (I don't, hence the Quicksilver thing that I had assumed was cast in the movement phase rather than at the start of it).

I agree entirely that advantage between armies is often situational. As i say, I thought his force did rather well, eliminating 4 of my 6 units and losing only 3 of his 9. I did bring this up about turn 4 when he was muttering about my assaults but he wasn't mollified. I'll just try not playing him again if I can help it (though a small part of me is itching to take an all-Goblin list against his lizardmen in fantasy and trounce him...). I think maybe if we'd had more time, I'd have offered him a rematch but swapping armies.

Anyway... this is really the first game I've played where I felt my opponent was just having a bad time (I've played one other where I'm not certain my opponent wasn't exploiting my relative ignorance of his codex and also -- it was my second game -- my relative ignorance of the rules, he said I couldn't multi-assault, so i didn't... but in that case I didn't mind because I felt he wasn't actually unhappy, I beat him anyway and he was basically just a lad (about 20-ish). Otherwise everyone in the shop has been great to play, including two of the older kids who gave me a hell of a time with demons and marines respectively, ultimately drew and lost but were continually cheerful, helpful and great to play against because our short rules queries were matter of fact, to the point and resolved entirely amicably.

Can't please everyone though, I suppose.

No you can't, and it is unfortunate when you can't.. but don't take it to heart. He will be like that, whether or not he plays against you. I have a guy who complains about how Necron's are underpowered on a constant basis. I've offered to play with a few addendums to the codex (specifically gauss glances and -1 and if squad is swept, leave knocked over models to still have their WBB). He's done this and it works out quite well. Upon hearing about Matt ward possibly writing the new codex? What does he do? He complains about how they'll be Robo-Space marines. He complained of the possible transports and the getting rid of pariahs (you know..the one's he never used?) and how the fluff will be ruined. Long story short I got fed up with the man and realized that some men just need something to complain about.. and if they realize they can't really complain about it, they'll find something new to complain about. Its just the way people work.
I had a friend complain about GK's because one HQ model defied the odds and defended against a mob of 30 boys by himself... well he did the same thing when he assaulted my Codex Marines P.Sword/Pistol Power armor captain... who survived 3 rounds of combat just to win the game (contesting an objective). Its a game, its meant for you to enjoy yourself.. if people won't play the game or won't enjoy it then don't play with them. Find someone else to do so with. you sound as though your shop has quite a handful of 40k players.. so one less possible opponent isn't a bad thing.

I suppose I'd just like to have been able to have realised that my list wasn't overpowered - I think that, played decently, it's pretty hard to beat, but that's not quite the same thing - and that by being a bit bolder say, moving his scouts from cover to grab an objective in the open on his turn 5 and having moved his dreadnoughts rather than just had them static all game so he could have moved to contest the objective I held, he might have won. ie if he'd played to the mission rather than to his preconceived tactics of 'stand and fire', which I recall working well with Overwatch, he'd have maybe snatched a win.

I think encountering this sort of situation again, I'll be more forthright in offering to stop the game and call it a no-contest and maybe just run a few practise shootings and assaults. I think my previous experience in the shop probably led me to believe that everyone there was pretty relaxed about who won and who lost (though of course we all like to win) or whether an army is 'broken'. My most frequent opponent playes Templars and we agree that the GK psychic powers are probably a wee bit too much in some respects, but he never hesitates to square up and we always have good, close games and we're entering a doubles tournament together later this month (he brings the solid stodge, I bring the cheese to our particular army sandwich, which will be, as I recall: Draigo, paladin, paladin, stormraven, vindicare; brotherhood champion, vindicator, 2 templar squads in rhinos, land speeder, venerable dreadnought. two 750 point lists).

Your list isn't overpowered. its competitive and epitomizes an elite force of guys. That group of guys will kick the average space marine teeth in. It'll seem scary for the most part.. but for the same points I could field a ton of shoota boys or lasgun IG. With enough shots I drop the 17 models and table you.. its all a matter of situation and context. My brother hates playing orks.. why? because 9/10 games he plays in, he faces Spacemarines or Power armored equivalents. so he loses 2/3 of his army before they get to do what orks do best, and might not even succeed because the opponents armor is far stronger and tend to be a bit more durable than most ork units (with the exception of nobs and HQ's.) So he gets frustrated. That doesn't mean orks are bad... that doesn't mean Orks are bad against space marines. That doesn't even mean orks are less powerful... it means his list tends not to do well against the lists his friends play and that's one of the hundreds of factors that change each match of this game we know and love. the codex doesn't win games... it's what you do with the army you have, and how you apply your strategy verse what your opponent does with his force..that determines the outcome of the games. Positioning, luck, dicerolls, the board layout, equipment.. even down to what squad your IC joins... that changes everything. The sad thing is.. the last 3 games he's utterly dominated his opponent. Which.. 2/3 have been GKs.

Black templar are a helluva good time, and that list sounds rather nasty. good luck together.

yeah dude i would have slapped the rulebook in his face:

not to be rude or anything but if he is calling your faction that you chose because you like it "cheating", then call everything that over powered on the vanilla dex cheating (obviously i hate GK with a passion but that because i play chaos, the only race GK kill efficiently).

and to think that he a dreadnought was troops, even the most basic noob knows that they arnt, i would have ask for his dex for this conformation.

now assessing the view:

Ok i understand that he has a hatered for GK (a lot of us do) and thinks they are OP (i think so too) and i also understand that you just wanted a game and you were under pressure of time (as you said) so you let a few things slip, my advice?

-call him out on some things (because he will try it again)
-tell him a few rules (or give him a better understanding of them)
-don't go all out "im gonna beat you" (that could scare him out of the hobby)
-if this is a GW you are in, stop the cheating ASAP (he will try this again maybe on some young noobs or people younger than him who know the rules an it WILL spark up a major
argument).

just my two cents

You must be a better man than I, because I would not have put up with half that BS. One look at his army would tell me he lacks two troops choices, and while your list was certainly well designed and far better than his, it was by no means a crazy, over the top list that should be classified as cheating.

In all honesty, I find it sad that someone of his age had to resort to obvious lying and rules manipulation to try and come out with a draw. You would think a certain maturity level would have developed, but I guess not. Most of the players I play against are half this guy's age or slightly more, and I've only had that kind of experience with the ones under 12 years old.

If you don't make an effort to learn the rules properly, and learn every codex that is released, you deserve to be surprised (and possibly massacred) by what people bring to the table. You were far too lenient on him, and I think I'd have been more inclined to stop the game and teach him the various rules he seems to be having trouble with, as well as some basic list design philosophy. That is....I'd have done that right up until he called me a cheater for choosing to play Space Wolves, at which point I'd have explained to him exactly why his army sucks, then read off a list of every time he broke the rules in game and told him to shove it.

Yea we have a few people in our area like that, but no one plates them unless they feel like handing themthe rulebook before they start, and we are rude, so cudos to you I can't do that.

Blood, you sound like a thoroughly decent chap; if I lived in your neck of the woods I'd be delighted to give you a game.

With regards to the handling of the game, my thought is that you fell between two stools. You could have either pulled him up on every point and given him a decent grounding in 5th Ed rules for future games (although this wouldn't have been a fun option for you) or you could have accepted that this was a no-win and let it all slide / packed up and withdrawn.

As it is, you riled the guy and let him walk away with some of his 'misunderstandings' unchallenged / uncorrected.

Please note I mean no criticism of your decision-making - merely my observations.

That was a hard situation to be in - I doubt I would have had your patience.

Aldarionn - I've not really encountered the situation myself. Milder aspects of it, to an extent, but not the whole kaboodle tioogether. You're right, we should have called it a day after the first assauklt and just run through the rules. Though the full extent of his misapprehansions only revealed themselvbes to me gradually and as I say, I was quite keen just to play, so i doidn't think clearly about what was going on until it was a bit too late, and I probably tried 'damage limitation' when we should just have stopped.

Happy - Actually i've found my two games against demons quite tricky but I think that's because my usual reserve everything tactics aren't actually so good against demons as against virtually everything else. I think he just misermembered the MotF rule that says dreadnoughts can be taken as elites or heavy supports with the troop thing. At least i hope so. I honestly don't think he was deliberately cheating (certainly not on everything), I think it was a combination of him not really knowing the rules and his codex coupled with a belief that he was just outclassed by the GK and so he wanted to 'even the odds'. Which is silly as he killed a lot of my army and if he'd had, say, another scout squad instead of sternguard, he'd have got a draw easily. If he hadn't been so obviously ungha[[y at game's end, I'd have liked to have a post mortem chat with him to show how close he actually was to a draw or even a win.

Endless - yeah, i agree with you, a lot of the tactics in GK are to do with pre-game start stuff (deployment options, etc) and target priorities. Also being flexibel enough in approach to change your plan if it doesn't work and, I think, being bold because the rules tend in my limited experience of 5th, to reward boldness (at least for GK).

Cain - part of the problem was my assumption that he'd be like me in his approach because he was of a similar background (played older editions but new to 5th).

Necro - Thanks, nice of you to say so. I think you're right, I selected a middle road that didn't really work. Even when the managger was explaining things to him, he didn't seem in the frame of mind to understand. But I think once one gets into a certain mindset like 'army x is just stupidly overpowered' then you tend to see everything as being slanted against you so non-GK specific rules suddenly seem to be biased to GK too...

Thanks again to everyone for your thoughts.

Can I just clarify something for my own well being

Your two man unit that took the bolter and 4 devastator shots

If all the shots came from the one devastator unit, Isn't it an even split between the two for both weapons? So I think it was 10 shots total (6 bolter, 4 heavy weapons). You could put all 4 heavy weapons on one guy plus a bolter shot and take 5 bolters on your librarian to give him the best chance to survive.

I thought that was pretty much the crux of wound allocation. You can blow one poor model to bits by giving him every single heavy weapon shot but every model in a unit must take as even number of wounds as possible.

That's my interpretation of the rules but I'm only just starting 5th edition.

Saying all that though, the guy clearly had you written off as a cheater before you even put any models down. That's not your fault and it sounds like you gave him a tutorial throughout the game and he still tried to cheat you.

Yes, it threw me into a sudden doubt too when he said it.

But in fact I had, and you have allocation right. With six non-ID shots and 4 ID shots to divide between 2 models you can lump all the IDs on one unfortunate.

In fairness, I think he just couldn't get his head round allocation at all, especially since my paladins are equipped to allow Wound Allocation.

I've been very fortunate in that one of my opponents who I've played often knows the rules inside out and is very, very helpful in giving consise explanations as he's playing. I think my opponent in this game would benefit from a few games against him (he surely can't think templars are a 'cheating list...)

I think you did fine. I've done things like that from time to time, backed off a little, etc.

I find the biggest "bad taste" games I detect from my opponents come from them not knowing the rules. Not knowing a rule and getting surprised by it is always disappointing. I had someone think power WEAPONS doubled your strength and he tried killing my vehicles. It's more common than I'd ever thought that people think you can shoot pistols into cc. Many logically deduce that if you have 2 attacks, and a power weapon and a pistol, that each weapon makes one of those attacks. Wound allocation, when abused properly, always makes peoples' weapons less effective than they could be, and they think it's cheating.

GK are overpowered, though, totally. Nobody's a cheater for playing them, but the codex is ridiculously broken, and in my opinion not that fun to play against. I do, still, and generally do ok because people can't unlock the potential of the list, but at its core the codex is broken.

GK are overpowered, though, totally

I'm not sure about that. I think, having discussed that very thing with a few of my regular opponents, and with a chap I haven't yet played who was in the shop today, that the actual units are basically fine, it's the psychic powers (the good ones: Might, Quicksilver, Sanctuary, The Shrouding and Warp Rift) that are either undercosted or are a bit too strong. Fortitude should maybe adda bit more to vehicle costs too.

Shrouding and Sanctuary should probably only affect one unit, for instance, not all GK units withing 6" and 12" respectively. Warp Rift is pretty much just as silly as The Space Wolf Power Jaws...both should really allow invulnerable saves. Might should give the +d6 to a specified model, not the whole unit (the extra +1S to the whole unit is probably fine though and Quicksilver is probably fine as is, no more powerful than the similar generic marine power whose name escapes me for the moment).

Otherwise the problem comes from people's perception that the GK are 'just overpowered' because they haven't yet worked out how to beat them. I'm coming to the conclusion that most assault slanted armies are actually better just shooting (if they can) rather than getting stuck in, or rather holding off getting stuck in for as long as they can. And 'stand back and shoot' armies need to actually move position sometimes, even if that means giving up some shots.

Some armies or lists will always be at a disadvantage against GK (and other sorts of armies too) because of their composition. But I think GK might just be changing what constitutes a proper 'all comers' list and that adjustment is hard for some people to make. I'm pretty sure I could make a marine list (any codex), Guard lists (plural) and Dark Eldar lists that would give the GK an extraordinarily hard time whatever GK list was chosen and that would also be a reasonable all-comers list, not just anti-GK. So I don't think GK are in fact broken, I think there's maybe a period of adjustment needed for people to find ways of coping and that's exacerbated by the fact a well-handled Purifier list will not behave in the same way as a well-handled Paladin list. In fact i think what seems often touted as the strongest Grey Knight build, Coteaz plus six Inquisition squads, is probably the one that most people would feel most comfortable facing as it's actually pretty 'familiar'.

In other news, I played a lad of about 14 today who brought marines painted in a very fetching black and purple. He was a bit shaky on the rules but said so up front and we had a fantastic game. He nearly snatched a draw (it was Capture and Control) at the end, only the game running til turn 7 prevented that, and had an extraordinary run of bad luck (including a Predator firing all weapons at a Paladin squad out in the open and rolling all 1s...), while I had the good fortune that all my units came on in my turn 2. But he was cheerful throughout and played a good tactical game (running his sole surviving Rhino to contest an objective on turn 5 and moving it an inch each turn afterwards so I couldn't auto-hit.It survived a furious onslaught by Draigo but unfortunately Warp Quake exploded it allowing me to win). It was one of those games that was actually closer than the result showed (if a few key rolls had gone differently the game would have had a very different character). I tried to remind him of stuff he'd forgotten and allowed him to take back an asssault when we realised he had no model capable of hurting the dreadnought he's assaulted bar with krak grenades. All in all it was the same sort of scenario as the game in the title post (me against a less experienced marine playing opponent) but the whole atmosphere was different. Sometimes it seems 14 is decidedly more mature than 40... he went away saying he was going to puzzle out how to beat me, and I think next time he could well do so.

I agree (to an extent) on the psychic powers but wholeheartedly on the 'people just don't know how to deal with GK lists' thing.

On the whole, and I can think of at least a few exceptions, assaulting Paladin or Purifier GK early doors is a terrible idea, you have to whittle them down first.

I think too often people, especially faced with Paladin lists, think 'too few models, I'll have an easy win' and then get a bit narked if that doesn't happen . But I also think there's a bit of sour grapes from some players of 'elite' armies that they are being 'out-elited' (like maybe you opponent from the OP).

I don't think I've approached any game with my paladin list where I've thought I had a definite advantage (except vs. Necrons), in fact I'm usually nervous about objective based games due to only fielding 2 troops plus maybe 1-3 dreadnought as troops. Individual combats I can be prety sanguine about winning. Games much less so.

In short, I think a properly selected Purifier list and probably a decently played Paladin list can compete on equal terms with the likes of Vampire ansd Werewolf wannabes, Space Fairies and Imperial Weaklings, but I'd not say they were stronger than any of those armies in terms of their lists.

Spellbound wrote:
GK are overpowered, though, totally. Nobody's a cheater for playing them, but the codex is ridiculously broken, and in my opinion not that fun to play against. I do, still, and generally do ok because people can't unlock the potential of the list, but at its core the codex is broken.

There were two Grey knights players at the 'Ard Boyz qualifier I attended, and neither placed very well. Both took variations on the Draigo Wing (which seems to be what most people complain about), and while the one player I faced in the first round did give me a tough time due to the small size of his army (He had less than 500 points of his army left on the board at the end, though I only scored 6 KP's from it), I did manage a minor victory. I will say that of the lists I faced, his was the hardest in the scenario we played, but that does not make it broken. In fact, if you look over the people posting in the thread about the qualifier, only 7 of 19 had a Grey Knights player in the top 3, and only 2 of those won the tournament by my count.

No, Grey Knights are not broken. They aren't even all that amazing to be honest. They are fun, and they have very nice models, but they have some severe weaknesses that set them well behind other codices out there right now, especially Blood Angels and Space Wolves.

I think you were more then fair. As a new player, he should have been much more willing to approach each game as a learning experience. He has a terrible attitude towards the game. I am a newly returned player and i can't imagine having the conceit to believe my outdated (by 15 years!) understanding of the game should entitle me to autowin through my troop selection.

Your involvement of a neutral 3rd party (the store manager) was great; i would have thought it would have taken some of the tension away from him (he seemed very adversarial, well beyond what you'd expect from a friendly 1v1). Too bad he couldn't appreciate your patience.

There is a silver lining; it does show that WH40K players are very nice to new / returned players. In other hobbies (e.g. MMO's) players with even an iota of this type of attitude would be curbstomped.

I disagree with a lot of what you did. Keep in mind that you are playing an adult, not a child here, and their happiness is something generated from within from someone with emotional maturity.

Meanwhile, you may have in fact done a disservice to others by letting a lot of those things go, rules wise. There is nothing wrong, at all, about following the rules. He may now go onto other games quoting these interpretations of rules as law.

RE: GK are overpowered... I find that most people just quote others on this not really understanding it. I mean, do you really think someone with so little grasp of the rules of the game can objectively decide what is too strong? You fired back the exact correct answer, "Well, look how little I have on the table," to which there is no response.

I think I should clarify that I'd have described my opponent's attitude as 'defensive' rather than 'adverserial'. It wasn't so much that I, and later the manager, weren't trying to explain, or explaining how things actually worked and he was flat out disagreeing, rather one of these things:

he would do something and I'd say 'I think the rule works like this', then he'd maybe disagree but more often would fall back on 'that's stupid' (I paraphrase) than an actual counter argument.

I would do something and he'd say it was ridiculous and/or overpowered that I could do so (again I paraphrase)

The manager would spell out in a very nice, friendly way exactly how a rule worked and he would again fall back on overpowered/stupid.

Now partly I didn't get the rulebook out and dispute point by point - I did get the rules out from time to time to consult them and quote them, but less often as the game went on, partly because of the sheer time it was taking - and partly because it was meant to be a friendly game, nothing was riding on it and I didn't really want to come across as the sort of person who was always reaching for the book to try and prove a point. We were playing in public (albeit the shop wasn't very busy) and I really wanted to avoid arguing everything and have it look like we were win at all costs kinds of guys.

In a way his grudge really seemed to be firstly with the GK Codex (and by extension GW for not having basic Space marines as the most elite army any more), second with me for having chosen them and thirdly with the rules having changed from what he remembered 2nd edition rules to have been (I don't actually think had 2nd edition straight, though I can't say for sure as I stopped in 1990 or '91).

I am F****** tired of people calling GK overpowers, I normally just smile and give them a reason why they are not and point that their army can be overpowered.

I hate is when people complains and says I hate losing and I give them advice on how to win and they complain again on how its stupid to have a certain army to win and doesn't want an army of just of same things (purifers).

Whats with the marine hate, Why the hell people hate marines with a passion. Its a game not real life, space marines don't really kill dark eldar or orks, its a bloody story.

In your situation I would have corrected on all his rules and if he says GK is overpowered and then proceed to tell him how his army can be overpowered too.

I completly agree marthike. GKs are still just PA marines. They die just as easy. Hell, I've even beaten a 2k Draigo wing with the "underpowered" Tyranid codex. Quite handily at that. The point is, any army can beat any army. My advice would be to stop complaining and start making a better strategy on how to handle them. OT Blood you keep playing those knights and just give a little smile anytime someone says you army is "overpowered"