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Hi, I have been watching this site here for a while and browsing in the army list section for ideas on whats everyone's ideas for armies to get ideas for my own. I have even posted on there a few times myself looking for help to make the lists as strong as they can be. Anyways, my question is: When did 40k seem to become very cut and paste? Like every time I look at the army lists forum I see almost the same army posted OR I see someone with an idea, and someone promoting this "cut and paste" army style. Is there anyone out there that just plays for the fun of it, and doesn't really care about using the most powerful "cut and paste" army. Or even creating their own because they can. Anyways I don't want this to sound like a rant or anything of that degree, was just curious as to when it started and why it does happen on here, or anywhere for that matter.

I really enjoy making my own army lists, I do ask for help occasionally when I am unsure about a list, but designing ,y own lists is something I really enjoy.

When it comes to forums I find a lot of people are cut and paste. At stores though you can tell who is there for fun and those who just go on websites looking for lists.

A guy I know who participates tournaments likes to make Unique and sometimes Cheesy lists. While it can be said he powergames he does not use forum lists and seldom posts his list online.

To make a long story short:
If you are only looking online, you are only going to see whats online.

DontEatRawHagis wrote:
When it comes to forums I find a lot of people are cut and paste. At stores though you can tell who is there for fun and those who just go on websites looking for lists.

A guy I know who participates tournaments likes to make Unique and sometimes Cheesy lists. While it can be said he powergames he does not use forum lists and seldom posts his list online.

To make a long story short:
If you are only looking online, you are only going to see whats online.

Well put, I must say. I have noticed this as well talking among my fellow gamers at MLHS and actually have someone there who almost refuses to play with people if they do look online, for that's not what the game was created for ( his opinion that I support)


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 TheAvengingKnee wrote:
I really enjoy making my own army lists, I do ask for help occasionally when I am unsure about a list, but designing ,y own lists is something I really enjoy.

I do find though, when asking for help in said forum, they direct me to a "cut and paste" list and ususally get no help as I was trying to avoid the list. It priceless to show up to a match and they know you play, say DE, and you show up with foot slogging DE with a gun line idea or a pure wych cult army as this throws off the entire strategy the enemy had to defeat you.

not sure "when" it happened but its kinda cut and paste because only so many armies are viable unless youre facing a specific kind of threat, which you have no idea is going to happen beforehand. Even playing against orks or Nids which (to me) have the least amount of army tactics that are viable you still dont know what theyre going to bring.

Every codex has that one unit that is crazy and a must-have. So the armies just mold around it depending on what youre trying to do/what you think you might face, which severely limits the number of tactics in competitive play.
I dont know a single nid player that doenst take hive guards lol.

Forum mentality. A lot of people come here looking for the 'best' and so they get the cut and paste lists. Problem is that people then begin to assume that every person that posts is looking for the 'best' which is not necessarily true. That's why you might post a list looking for critiques and instead be told how much you suck because it's not 'the best'.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
not sure "when" it happened but its kinda cut and paste because only so many armies are viable unless youre facing a specific kind of threat, which you have no idea is going to happen beforehand. Even playing against orks or Nids which (to me) have the least amount of army tactics that are viable you still dont know what theyre going to bring.

Every codex has that one unit that is crazy and a must-have. So the armies just mold around it depending on what youre trying to do/what you think you might face, which severely limits the number of tactics in competitive play.
I dont know a single nid player that doenst take hive guards lol.

I see. which can be good, but then everyone kinda starts to copy around one another. Which kinda takes the fun out of this great game IMO

I actually make a lot of different lists when I get bored(hundreds of which I find a flaw or reason I wont run them so they never see the battlefield), designing a list and thinking of scenarios where it would be week or strong and then tinkering with the list to fix it is actually very fun for me.

I do like getting input on lists to see what others think or if they see a glaring flaw in my list. Most of the time my lists have some glaring flaws but they are what I wanted to run so I run it anyways. One of my favorite necron lists only has 2 troop choices but I love fielding it. I wanted to run a deathwing list with all termies (I have wanted to make an all termie list for a while but didn't want to make a GK army) and a couple land raiders, it is far from Ideal for a lot of situations but I like thunder hammers and storm shields, I have fun running it so I run it. I have tried net lists before when I was just starting and when I didn't design the list I just don't get the same enjoyment out of the games.

 Paint_To_Redemption wrote:
Forum mentality. A lot of people come here looking for the 'best' and so they get the cut and paste lists. Problem is that people then begin to assume that every person that posts is looking for the 'best' which is not necessarily true. That's why you might post a list looking for critiques and instead be told how much you suck because it's not 'the best'.

That is EXACTLY what I mean. A little while ago I posted a list for my DE that had the Talos in it. To me its a sweet model and sounds too amazing to be true. Then got told that I obviously don't understand DE enough to have picked that unit therefore I shouldn't play them. INSTEAD I should use the list they gave me or doom myself to eternal defeat. May have been one player that kinda ruined it for me, but even posting a list for BT, I still get the same reaction.


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 TheAvengingKnee wrote:
I actually make a lot of different lists when I get bored(hundreds of which I find a flaw or reason I wont run them so they never see the battlefield), designing a list and thinking of scenarios where it would be week or strong and then tinkering with the list to fix it is actually very fun for me.

I do like getting input on lists to see what others think or if they see a glaring flaw in my list. Most of the time my lists have some glaring flaws but they are what I wanted to run so I run it anyways. One of my favorite necron lists only has 2 troop choices but I love fielding it. I wanted to run a deathwing list with all termies (I have wanted to make an all termie list for a while but didn't want to make a GK army) and a couple land raiders, it is far from Ideal for a lot of situations but I like thunder hammers and storm shields, I have fun running it so I run it. I have tried net lists before when I was just starting and when I didn't design the list I just don't get the same enjoyment out of the games.

Exactly same with me with BT. The list everyone is using is shooty. IMO they are everything BUT shooty, so I run a list that makes me feel apart of their crusade. Sure I don't win a whole lot, but its super fun to run and getting all dramatic with my opponent (Just the way me and people at my LFGS are usually) and creating names for certain miniatures is the best part of the game, not actually winning, but the journey on the table top.

What how can you say that? It's like assuming every Space Wolves army is full of Rune Priests, Grey Hunters and Long Fangs... oh wait...

I play Tyranids with a lot of Warriors. I can't play competitively.

There are plenty of people who don't run "hard" lists all the time, or even run them at all. The thing I have discovered is that those people very rarely play at game stores, so you never get a chance to find them to play games with them.

I have personally never used an online list. Or fought against one as far as I know.

People have inflated egos on the internet.

But some people just enjoy winning the game, and for them it's the main goal and source of enjoyment. They take pride in that, and post online.

quiet... they might here you.

As a person who posts frequently on army lists, i find it boils down to a few things.

The people who comment tend to be very competitive, and several of the lists found there are for tournaments, this conditions people to create min/maxed tournament lists, using only the most fine-tuned units cherrypicked from a codex.

I myself like winning, but I find I will use sub-optimal units from time to time, and there is nothing wrong with that. Plenty of lists also include the caviat of "I want this unit to stay, so offer suggestions other than remove X"

The cookie-cutter lists just seem to be the most popular lists. I find nothing wrong with running a Monolith as Necrons, or Lychguard, because I like the concept of the units.

Cheers

Essentially, if you're going on the "Army List" section, you're going to see two things.

-One of a handful of competitive builds for competitive armies.

or

-A person posting a noncompetitive build

Option 1 is looking for critiques to make their list better, which ends up making it look "cookie cutter" because of how few TAC competitive builds there are for even the top-tier armies. Their post is for legitimate army-improvement, and will usually (after some explanations and maybe mathhammer) be willing to shift around things and fix the mistakes pointed out.

Option 2 is posting their army and, like it or not, going to get critiques consisting of "Option X, Y, and Z aren't very good. Replace them with A, B and C, because its better for reasons M, N, O, and P." to which the poster replies "Well, I'm taking X, Y, and Z because it fits my fluff." meaning they were never really looking for critique. They already have their army in their mindset, and their fluff to fit it. Their post is just there to say "look at my army list."

So since Option 2 is relatively pointless to post (unless you genuinely just want to hear what dakka thinks about your list; usually an idea that only ends in bruised egos) most of the lists in "Army Lists" tend to be Option 1. That is, competitive builds from competitive armies looking for competitive critiques

I agree with the above, a lot of times someone will post a list and immediately be told 'Get rid of this unit, add in that.' A prime example is chaos Space Marine lists - anyone posting a CSM list without a Helldrake will immediately be told to add in two of them.

On the occasions when I respond to army list posts it's generally to question people's choices, rather than demand changes - for example asking about how they will hold objectives, what mobility they have, can they deal with X unit, etc. This lets them think about how they are approaching the game and respond in their own way, rather than being given unhelpful advice that may require models and units they don't like or don't have.

When I post lists I also set out a positional piece - what is the list for, how do I want it to feel, what other options would I consider, who is the opponent, and so on. I think that the feedback available would improve if more did this.

Strangely, this links back to my job as a consultant. We use four different consultancy styles depending on the situation and personalities involved - acceptant, catalytic, confrontational and prescriptive. I tend towards the catalytic style (Why are you taking X unit?) and acceptant (You are taking X unit because...), but I think too many responses here on Dakka are prescriptive (Take Y unit because...) or even confrontational (Take Y unit because X unit sucks).

I agree with Hedgehog, I find getting feedback much more helpful when the poster is pointing out areas the list may have trouble rather than telling me to replace unit Y with unit X. I find the cookie cutter lists boring to field a lot of the time, and even if I get a little input from people a list I sat down and made myself is generally more fun to field.


Here is one of my threads from Bolter and Chainsword, I was very happy that I got advice but not told to fundamentally change what is in the list: http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/269691-1850-deathwing-list/#entry3284893

My lists are always Fluff first competitive second.

For example my PDF guard are mostly foot with heavy weapon teams and a very few tanks to back them up. Plus the tanks I do have are kitted out for urban warfare.

My Orks can be Armour and Flyer heavy if I take my blood axe warboss or Nobz and boyz heavy if I take my Goff Warboss

I do see what the above are saying, and I agree with Hedgehog that people are mostly trying to almost tell you how to build your list, and has TheAvengingKnee says the best help is advice, not remove x for y ect. It would be nice to see more, even if you post " looking for advice only" people still like to tell you how to run your list not say wheres your AT coming from ect.

Well when I build a list I have reasons for putting something in a list, not always amazingly great but at least a reason. When I get told what to field then I don't learn why I would want it just that everyone tells me to have the unit in the list.

A great example would be Immortals in my Necron army, everyone says to bring Gauss Immortals to glance vehicles to death, but I know my list and I know I can kill vehicles with ease and I like the amount of long range shots that Tesla can produce, it also fits the Tesla weapon theme in my army more. So I leave the Tesla Immortals in and in some cases just say they are Gauss on forums where I know I will get no useful feedback if I don't say they are Gauss.

There are players that simply copy/paste army lists, and always have, more so since the internet has been around.

There are others, like myself, that build their own lists without any kind of reference. Oddly enough, players that copy/paste lists never become good players.

Well when you copy paste you don't learn why a unit is good or bad you just learn that everyone says it's good. It is funny to watch the people who use net lists be unable to cope with a shift in the meta.

The idea of netlists is absurd anyway. Your army's power depends entirely on your meta, something that most "advice" tends to ignore.

For me it's just that I get tired of seeing the same things everytime.

SoB.. take Celestine.... I don't have the model, and never will, so ..No.

Eldar... you need to have warwalkers, and get rid of guardians completely..... I don't run anything with an AV, and guardians are fluffy, and in a competent players hands, competitive

DE... Venom spam.... Who really wants spam, it's greasy and not really tasty

I could go on, but you get the point.

I try to get players around here to just try new things, and do something different

I wanted a pure deathwing army(with land raiders as transports for a couple squads) but I bought them before the new codex even came out(actually ordered the new codex with the models), The one downside is that it does cause me to have to bring some things in the list to make it work(Belial or Azrael, to make the deathwing troops) but the rest of the list I am making to combat what I play and I have asked for input but I don't want to be told what to field just where people see weakness in the army so I know to address it.

Im pretty much the same, ive played orks for the last about 5 years, havnt posted an army list on here yet, but for a 1750 pt list i kept getting told (on heresy-online) that i would never win with the list, that there is several flaws etc, but yet i win every 8-9 out of 10 games.

there are quite a few people out there that have it stuck in their mind that a unit only has one role. i.e put all AT weapons in one squad, Anti Infantry in another, not realising that if you had a mix in both, if you lost one squad it wouldnt effect you as bad.

It always depends on your local players as well, I added more thunder hammers and storm shields to my termie list because I know both of my opponents have a decent amount of AP2 or better to use on them, it's all about making an army list for your group and fielding what you want to field.

Bigger tournaments are a bit of a different monster though, and when you are designing a list for one of those you really need to limit spots where your army is week and flaws in a list.

why would someone post his army , if he didnt want to hear if it is good or not ? if he doesnt care what he is taking , then posting it in the list section is equal to spaming .

as to when it happened I would say chaos Gav Thorpe dex. Since then many codex were plagued with being mono build . some werent [SW/GK/Necron/IG] and those generaly are the top tier armies . while a SW players can have a long tactica about using different set ups of GH , other armies are kind of a stuck to one thing . I mean what can you say to lets say a nids or sob player then take tervigons/exorcists every time ?

 juraigamer wrote:
Oddly enough, players that copy/paste lists never become good players.

Oddly enough, players that make such broad, sweeping generalizations containing absolutes tend to be wrong.

Makumba wrote:
why would someone post his army , if he didnt want to hear if it is good or not ? if he doesnt care what he is taking , then posting it in the list section is equal to spaming .

as to when it happened I would say chaos Gav Thorpe dex. Since then many codex were plagued with being mono build . some werent [SW/GK/Necron/IG] and those generaly are the top tier armies . while a SW players can have a long tactica about using different set ups of GH , other armies are kind of a stuck to one thing . I mean what can you say to lets say a nids or sob player then take tervigons/exorcists every time ?

to your first part of your post: I try to post in the army list section to see where my army may be lacking, by looking for advice, not get rid of x for y. I want people to make me almost explain my list and show me where it will struggle and where it will be at it's best, by using their own experience.