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well go to adepticon this spring and if you win the sunday event. I will send you a check for your entry fee and 1 night in the hotel.

timmah wrote:This should never happen in a truly competitive environment. Building something unexpected should not work because your opponent should be able to see and counter your strategy since they have a list of your stuff right in front of them.

When you play a list that is common you know exactly how to defend against it. That is the problem with common builds, everyone knows how to beat them, and they know what they will try to do. For example; I know how to play against Mech Eldar and Seer Councils. Do you know how to beat my list? Do they know what the important units are (before it is too late?).


I played Thousand Sons last chaos codex and no one else really played them because the conventional wisdom thought that they were very bad. Everyone said that I won all my tournaments back then because of luck too, be cause they could not understand how my army worked. The people I played against never knew what the true threats were. They were busy shooting Demon Princes and heavy support choices and never realized that the true threats were the Rhinos packed with Thousand Sons Marines before it was too late.

timmah wrote:Does blackmoor really believe that 1-2 people saying his list sucks on the internet belittles his win? If so, maybe its not us, maybe its him knowing he got away with playing some outdated 4th ed list when he shouldn't have.

To say someone wins do to luck belittles the accomplishment of winning a tournament.

There is some luck involved, but to say that I won because of it is shows your ignorance. Think of a 40k tournament like a poker tournament. Some may get lucky or unlucky along the way, but more often than not, you will see the same players at the top tables.


What is funny is the lists that you do not like end up winning. Maybe you are wrong with all of your assumption about the game and what it takes to win large tournaments.

What you see with mine, and Darth’s lists are true take-all-comers lists. They are will rounded and are very dynamic and are able to counter a lot of different builds.

The fact that Darth and I play in many major tournaments and we both do very well may means that your assumptions about tournament play may be completely wrong.

As you admit, you do not play in tournaments so the lists that you think will win, or are power builds maybe just one trick ponies that do not have the tools to beat all the types of armies you may face.



Do you really know what the funny thing is about saying that I won do to luck is? I am really unlucky on the table top because I roll real bad.

Timmah wrote:


And yes that tau gunline would shoot him off the table. Oh, you fortune the avatar? Ok, bye Eldrad. And I'll shoot you off turn 2.

Fragile troop choices? 2+ cover saves on 17 man units make them fragile? Troop squad in a very well protected transport is fragile is fragile? Sure...



And yes I could go to chicago when they have something. And I will if/when I have time. However some of use have jobs and need to be able to afford the trip. Not having enough money/time to make a trip to one of these things doesn't make my opinion less valid...

Eldrad can fortune 2 things, if you can see him and if he isn't attached to a fearless Guardian squad, then you can shoot him outright. However I suspect that won't happen so that tactic won't always work. Also the Kroot do not have a 2+ save unless they are in trees right? I am not sure because I haven't seen Tau, let alone Kroot, in a competitive tournament in a long time. I don't mean this as a slight at all, I'm just not 100% sure about that. I don't think it would be that hard to take out a Devilfish at range would it? I mean you have said several times that a lone vehicle is easy to take out. You've said it in this very post I beleive. Does your thinking change when it comes to Tau Devilfish? Let's not take into account the extremely varied mission objectives in some of the biggest tournaments and let's just look at the 3 missions from the rulebook. One mission is KP and the Tau can sit back and shoot across the board to try and kill more units than the enemy. In the 2 objective mission you will have to come to the other side of the table to at least contest the other objective. Who will come over? How will you make sure they make it? In the 3-5 objective mission you will definitely need to move the Kroot. They wouldn't be able to sit in a forest the whole game, if there is a forest on the table that is.

Blackmoor wrote:

timmah wrote:This should never happen in a truly competitive environment. Building something unexpected should not work because your opponent should be able to see and counter your strategy since they have a list of your stuff right in front of them.

When you play a list that is common you know exactly how to defend against it. That is the problem with common builds, everyone knows how to beat them, and they know what they will try to do. For example; I know how to play against Mech Eldar and Seer Councils. Do you know how to beat my list?

*sigh*

Blackmoor posts Battle Reports win or lose, you've been here long enough to know that.

I think of all the participants here, the only one who is coming from an intractable position is you Timmah. This is the second time this exact scenario has happened and you really can't admit that maybe you are wrong about what makes a good list. I know that if I used Blackmoor's list I would get tabled in probably every single game but it's his army and he knows it and can use it to maximum effectiveness. Hell, I win a lot with my Dark Angels and it's not because they have an awesome list, it's because I know my army really well.

I learn more from these reports (and Darth Diggler's) precisely because they are using non-standard lists and tactics! I think to outright claim that they must have gotten lucky, or no one took a hard list absolutely belittles both their achievement and their skill. Not only that, but ignoring any evidence that doesn't fit your mold reinforces your own 'box' and stifles your growth as a tactician.

Ozymandias wrote:*sigh*

Blackmoor posts Battle Reports win or lose, you've been here long enough to know that.

I think of all the participants here, the only one who is coming from an intractable position is you Timmah. This is the second time this exact scenario has happened and you really can't admit that maybe you are wrong about what makes a good list. I know that if I used Blackmoor's list I would get tabled in probably every single game but it's his army and he knows it and can use it to maximum effectiveness. Hell, I win a lot with my Dark Angels and it's not because they have an awesome list, it's because I know my army really well.

I learn more from these reports (and Darth Diggler's) precisely because they are using non-standard lists and tactics! I think to outright claim that they must have gotten lucky, or no one took a hard list absolutely belittles both their achievement and their skill. Not only that, but ignoring any evidence that doesn't fit your mold reinforces your own 'box' and stifles your growth as a tactician.

I'm pretty sure all I said was that he would have a hard matchup vs mech. (which he even said in the first post...) And that he was lucky not to face any mech armies, besides in scenario 2 which was practically an auto draw for everyone. So I said he was lucky that he didn't face his worst matchup and everyone got all mad and angry at me for restating something that he said originally...

If I took an army with 0 ways to deal with AV 14 or with 1 melta gun and then won a tournament and never faced any AV 14 what would you say?

How about if I brought a tooled up anti marine army with 3x vindicators, tons of plasma weapons and proceeded to face 4 space marine foot armies?

Exactly. He never had to face any tough matchups and so I said that he was lucky to sneak through since it seems like no one brought mech to this tournament (for some reason)

@Blackmoor: Gratz on the win; seems like you had all your bases covered with that list!

@Timmah: Not entirely sure what the point of your posts is. If it's to point out that you can tailor a list to beat another then well done, you win. If you're trying to make a case for mech lists being the be all and end all of the tournament scene, then i think you're a little misguided.

Granted, mech lists are very strong in the current 5ed environment; i play mech sisters and have found them to be exceptionally good at what they do. I have however had problems with non-standard lists - 3 DSing squads of warp spiders can put a serious crimp on almost any vehicles for example.

I have learned that a list must have other things going for it besides lots of tanks with high AV. Blackmoors list is a good case in point. It has some long range AT, disgustingly good crowd control at mid/long range, and heavy counter assault elements. Personally, i reckon the only list that would really worry him would be a well tuned mech Eldar force that 'might' just have the agility to dance around him and pick off his more vulnerable units one at a time. It is the epitome of a well balanced list, and i certainly would not want to face it in a tournament.

I notice that in your final post you have said "Anyways I'm done as its obvious that you posted this Bat rep to stroke your own ego". Blackmoor has been posting his bat reps for a long time now; funny that you're the first person to make this accusation, given that you've been heartily flamed by several other Dakkaites in this very thread for posting wild polemic.

Props to Blackmoor for not rising to the bait.

P.s. This job that prevents you going to tournaments other people participate in; is it because the other trolls will kick your head in if you leave the bridge?

Congrats on the WW victory Blackmoor. I always like seeing eldar guardians in action. I'm not a big fan of dire avengers at all. I've always loved the eldar citizen soldiers.

When troll's are around it's always best not to feed them, but to rather press the ignore button. They lose all their power that way and can go back to worship at the shrine of stelek.

No Timmah, you are not paying attention. Blackmoor said he was having trouble with mech before and added the Dragons and falcons to help him deal with that. This list was his response to his need for improved anti-mech.

Your idea that 3x Vindicators is good vs. MEQ horde is not right. I can see why you have so much trouble, you don't take the right units to deal with the issues on the table. Foot horde will not advance against most armies, they will sit back and shoot at 48". If you bring an unreliable template weapon (Vindicators) with a shirt 24" range, then you will not be successful vs. MEQ foot horde.

DarthDiggler wrote:No Timmah, you are not paying attention. Blackmoor said he was having trouble with mech before and added the Dragons and falcons to help him deal with that. This list was his response to his need for improved anti-mech.

Your idea that 3x Vindicators is good vs. MEQ horde is not right. I can see why you have so much trouble making good lists, you don't take the right units to deal with the issues on the table. Foot horde will not advance against most armies, they will sit back and shoot at 48". If you bring an unreliable template weapon (Vindicators) with a shirt 24" range, then you will not be successful vs. MEQ foot horde.

Odd, I didn't know bolters could shoot 48".

Yes, he did add a falcon and a fire dragon for help against mech. BUT he took out 2 lances... So he didn't upgrade by all that much. And if his falcon gets blown up turn 1, then he loses both of his new anti tank units vs 1 if a vyper gets blown up.


I love how you guys jump all over people who question your brilliance. All I did was say that it appears there weren't any mech lists there. What is wrong with that? Do you think mech is terrible in 5th?

I never said his list sucked, I never said mech was the be all end all of competitive 40k. Please stop putting words in my mouth...


I did say foot armies have trouble with mech. As do armies with only 4 long range weapons at str 8+.

Timmah wrote:
I did say foot armies have trouble with mech. As do armies with only 4 long range weapons at str 8+.

So that's all you said? Over 3 pages, all you've said is that foot armies with almost no heavy weapons struggle against mech armies? You never said anything else?

J.Black wrote:

Timmah wrote:
I did say foot armies have trouble with mech. As do armies with only 4 long range weapons at str 8+.

So that's all you said? Over 3 pages, all you've said is that foot armies with almost no heavy weapons struggle against mech armies? You never said anything else?

Go read my posts
Here is a run down

Design flaws in the lists there, mobility issues, taking 1 tank and no others
Me pointing out that people would not tailor their list for 1 mission out of 5
Me pointing out that Chaos and Space wolves don't do mech as good as space marines And then pointing out that he never had to play mech outside of an auto draw scenario
Me agreeing that a good player with a bad list will beat a bad player with a good list. Me pointing out Blackmoor doesn't have enough long range anti tank weapons to deal with true mech/gunline
Comments on the 2nd scenario
more comments on 2nd scenario (i think everyone agreed this scenario was a joke)
Me pointing out that he doesn't have enough long range weapons to deal with mech/gunline
Same as above
Me saying tournament players should know how to counter outflank
Me saying that people at the top tables of a tournament should be of equal/close to equal skill
Me saying what his opponents were playing (oh look, all foot)
Me asking how 3 fire prisms all get shaken each turn by 4 heavy weapons (still no answer)
More of me saying gunline/mech would beat this list
Me giving tournament players enough credit that they should be able to adapt to odd lists
More saying mech would be good against it
more of the same as above
ect
ect


There you go, a complete run down of all my posts. Most talking about how he would have trouble with mech/gunline

Some on a few other topics.

Timmah wrote:
There you go, a complete run down of all my posts. Most talking about how he would have trouble with mech/gunline

Well, that was worth 3 pages of your time then wasn't it...

Seriously though, you have been saying that one of your SM/Tau mech lists would have ripped this apart. I'm well aware of the more common variants on these, but i struggle to see how either could have beaten Blackmoor's list unless they were tuned to do so! (Much easier when someone has posted their list and a few bat reps explaining how they won, as opposed to running into them in a $ tournament where you have to gear your build around certain missions rather than certain builds)

A Mech/Gunline (if it's even possible to put those two in the same bracket) build was almost an auto fail in two of the scenarios offered at the tournament. IMHO, if you'd have taken the army you are suggesting to the WW, you would have scored maybe 1 spectacular victory, then been scuttled by the other missions. After all, skillful players can adapt to conditions, can they not? A good player seeing your mech list in an objective based scenario will focus all his AT on your troops, then hide in cover around the objectives for the rest of the game.

Timmah. You come into the thread and post derogatory comments about the level of competition Blackmoor had to deal with? This is just blatant trolling and is quite frankly disgustingly unnecessary, if you don't want to come across as a troll then you need to learn how express your thoughts in less provocative ways. Kudos to Blackmoor and Darth's patience and restraint.

On to the issue at hand however: You suggest that the Eldar list doesn't posses enough antitank? What changes exactly would you propose? What would you add, and what would you take away?
@Blackmoor, do you have an opinion on Timmah's actual suggestion? And are there any list changes you are considering?

I would just like to add that once you peel back the strong emotions, these threads help all the inexperienced players such as myself learn a lot about the game.

Timmah wrote:
I love how you guys jump all over people who question your brilliance. All I did was say that it appears there weren't any mech lists there. What is wrong with that? Do you think mech is terrible in 5th?

I don't think mech is terrible. I don't think mech is as good as many people make it out to be though.

What I see is that a good deal of highly competitive tournament players espouse the power of the mech list in 5th ed. And, in their hands, I'm sure mech is quite good. But, I don't think it is so good that it works easily in the hands of average players.

My personal experience is that, in the hands of an average player, mech is confusing, it causes as many mobility problems as it solves, and it suffers greatly against an army that can pop a couple transports early, especially if those popped transports block the path of other transports.

Mechs advantages are that transports are cheaper and more reliable in 5th ed than 4th ed, and that models in transports have improved longevity. And, mechanized armies have several good matchups against armies that run through foot-slogging armies. You get to ignore Lash, most daemons have trouble with mech, and so on.

But, mechs disadvantages include having a lot of your firepower geared for short-range, so if you get stuck at long range, you're in trouble. Also, if your guys are all embarked, you cut your own ability to put out firepower. A lot of non-top mech players don't know when to get out and when to stay in. 16 bolter shots has value often enough...

In any particular local metagame, if your regular opponents include daemons and not a lot of autocannons, then mech is clearly pretty good. But, as this happens, and people stop running daemons and Lash, and bring hydras and scatterlaser warwalkers, mech stops looking quite as good. Especially for the average player who deploys in a block, obstructs his own movement, and doesn't know when to get out and when to stay in.

Timmah wrote:

Blackmoor wrote:

When you play a list that is common you know exactly how to defend against it. That is the problem with common builds, everyone knows how to beat them, and they know what they will try to do. For example; I know how to play against Mech Eldar and Seer Councils. Do you know how to beat my list?

This argument is such a complete load of crap. Its like saying competitive 40k players are dumb and can't analyze different threats without the internet telling them how to play.

That is exactly what I am saying. Do you know how people learn 40k? By experience. If you have experience with the common builds you will do a lot better than you would if you played against an army that you have never seen before.

Timmah wrote:Haha, I just saw in your first post you wrote that you were having trouble with mech armies. So why are you so mad that I told you that you would have trouble with mech armies? Did you really believe that 1 falcon and a couple fire dragons were going to make the matchup infinitely easier?

Yes

Timmah wrote:Anyways I'm done as its obvious that you posted this Bat rep to stroke your own ego. That is why no one can have a differing opinion from you, otherwise you wouldn't care that one person on the internet thought your list was bad.

timmah, timmah, timmah, you are so funny.

Here are the last 4 Tournaments and the last 15 games that I played in:
Aug. 15th at GMI Games in Riverside Ca. It was a 2000 point RTT with about 10 people and I won it with my Chaos. 3-0
Aug. 20th One-off game against Shep’s Mech Guard at his house in Santa Monica Ca. with my Eldar. I won.
Aug 23rd at The So. Cal. Slaughter. Garden Grove, Ca. I won it with the first version of my Eldar army 3-0.
Sept. 26th. RTT at Empire Games in Mesa, AZ. I played my Eldar again and went 2-0-1 and tied with Mundar for the win. We were both 2-0 going into the final round and it was a command and control mission and he just fortified his objective and did not even try for mine. I tried to crack his castle, but I was unable to do it in time.
And the Wild West Shootout I went 4-0-1.

I have pictures and the batreps partially written for all of them. If I wanted to stroke my ego, I would post all of them.

But I will give you a secret of why I really post my batreps: It is to show that you can will with non-conventional lists. There is a groupthink about what armies are good, and what are bad and what units are good and what units are bad and I want to show that you can win with many different builds, and that you don’t always have to play with the flavor of the month to win.

Timmah wrote:I never said I don't play in tournaments. I said I didn't travel across the country to play in tournaments. There is a difference.

That is the difference between you and I. I go out their and play across the country to test my skill and abilities against the best players in the country, in the largest tournaments, and you don’t. In this thread alone I have played Redbeard in Chicago, Darth Diggler in Baltimore, and Green Blow Fly in Tampa, and Mundar in Mesa. I have played in large tournaments from Salem, OR, to San Diego, and from Chicago, to Baltimore down to Orlando. I put into practice what I know rather than sit at home and think about what could be better.

1) There is no reason not to take Eldrad if you play eldar. To me he was the first force multiplier character introduced to the game as we moved from 4th edition into 5th. Sure farseers have always been a force multiplier in general but no one does it quite like Eldrad. I think special characters in 5th edition were in part an answer from GW to warcasters in Warmachine. You no longer need permission from your opponent to play them. That's a step in the right direction. When I hear people complain about special characters I feel that they instrinsically don't understand 5th edition and long for earlier versions of the game. Nothing is worse than having to play a weekend warrior in a tournament that wants to turn back time and play an earlier version of the game. It's unfair to try imposing this point of view on newer players to the game or veterans who can adapt to the change.

If you had the option to field Eldrad on a jetbike like Khan in the SM codex then mounted seer councils would be much more prevalent.

I have seen some games where a veteran eldar player would field a vanilla farseer for whatever reason and do very well. Maybe they wanted to save some points, have the ability to mount the farseer or just prove a point. It's not worth arguing about.

2) As Allan has demonstrated eldar don't need to be mounted. They have mobile weapon platforms and can fleet. Mechdar is a very good list but I like Allan's list a lot better because to me it is a throwback and also because he does very well with it. I remember Tulio doing very well with a walking eldar army at the first Vegas GT. Guys like Allan and Tulio are deep and that's just the way it is.

G

Well, I think I could take on a Mech Eldar army.

Like a lot of games, it will depend on who will goes first.

Me going first:
If I go first, I would start with my whole army on the board so I can shoot him with my whole army before he can move, and cast psychic powers. If he chooses to place his whole army in reserve, he will shoot at me first with half his army (on average) without the benefit of psychic powers. Then I get so shoot back at him with my whole army with psychic powers. I am ok with that matchup.

Me going second:
I might go to reserves or I might not depending on the match up, and shoot him up when I come on, but thinking about it, that might be harder for me.

As to my shooting at Mech Eldar, the guardians can hurt one elder tank, the falcon can hurt another and each war walk squad can hurt a serpent, so I can hurt or down about 4 serpents a turn.




Do I think my army is perfect? Heck no, but I think it is good. I have thought about what armies might give me trouble and the answer is oblit heavy chaos. To kill oblits you need a lot of strength 8 ap 2 shooting and at BS3 I have 2 brightlances and 2 pulse lasers and I do not like my odds.

Blackmoor wrote:
That is exactly what I am saying. Do you know how people learn 40k? By experience. If you have experience with the common builds you will do a lot better than you would if you played against an army that you have never seen before.

Experience helps you, but it is not the be all end all of list building. Most (All) of the best MTG deck builders can't play a game against a pro to save their life. Same concept here. You don't need to be an amazing player in order to build a good list. List building and actual tactics are 2 very very different things.

Blackmoor wrote:

That is the difference between you and I. I go out their and play across the country to test my skill and abilities against the best players in the country, in the largest tournaments, and you don’t. In this thread alone I have played Redbeard in Chicago, Darth Diggler in Baltimore, and Green Blow Fly in Tampa, and Mundar in Mesa. I have played in large tournaments from Salem, OR, to San Diego, and from Chicago, to Baltimore down to Orlando. I put into practice what I know rather than sit at home and think about what could be better.

I'm confused, so you have to travel across the country to play the best players? Yet when you do, you say that by bringing an unconventional list, you give them fits and they don't know what to do against it? These don't sound like top players to me...

Redbeard wrote:
But, mechs disadvantages include having a lot of your firepower geared for short-range, so if you get stuck at long range, you're in trouble. Also, if your guys are all embarked, you cut your own ability to put out firepower. A lot of non-top mech players don't know when to get out and when to stay in. 16 bolter shots has value often enough...

What mech armies are you playing??? Tau, IG, Eldar, SM? Which one has only/mostly short range fire power...


Seriously though, if you guys are going to get all bent out of shape because one person on the internet said your tournament wasn't competitive, you really need to develop some thicker skin. 40k isn't in some way special compared to other competitive events. If you are going to post your tournament wins on an internet forum you better be prepared to take the criticism as well as the praise.

You weren't there, you have no idea if it was competitive or not.. You also don't attend major tournaments, so again, your opinion on "competitive play" means very little.
Why should tried and true top table players be taking critisim from a forum noob that doesn't attend any of said events and offers nothing other than assumptions and generalizations?

You make sweeping claims that there was no competition and lists suck, or weren't that good.. Yet offer nothing else.

You could say "I'm having trouble understanding the list, could you offer a explanation of how you got it to work?"
Or even say "I find units X and Y perform better, why did you opt to not include them?". That as a whole helps the community, and you come off like less of a jealous prick.

Instead you throw around the assumption everyone there sucked and not a single list other than shep's was competitive.. Did you see every army list? Did you talk to every player? Have you played everyone there to even know if they're good or not? No.

List building isn't deck building.. Get over it. The game doesn't work like that. Maybe someday you'll understand that fact.

Actually list building is quite a bit like deck building. 40k isn't special its just like every other hobby. Some people can read the strategy of the game without playing it and some people can play it without knowing what goes into building a proper list.

Also I didn't say every list but Shep's was competitive. I said his was the only real mech list in anyone's report.

Please stop putting words into my mouth and trying to make me sound like a prick. Thank you very much.

Timmah wrote:Actually list building is quite a bit like deck building. 40k isn't special its just like every other hobby. Some people can read the strategy of the game without playing it and some people can play it without knowing what goes into building a proper list.

Also I didn't say every list but Shep's was competitive. I said his was the only real mech list in anyone's report.

Please stop putting words into my mouth and trying to make me sound like a prick. Thank you very much.

It's not hard to make you sound like a prick.. You've done a pretty bang up job yourself thus far.

You said the lists I went against weren't good. Must be that MTG deck building mentality at work. Last time I checked, the majority of those were "good builds" according to your internet cookie cutters.

Anyones report.. You mean the 2 people on dakka who have written reports out of 60 players? Or you can count my blog for another. So that makes three. 3x5 = 15.. That leaves 45 lists you haven't the foggiest idea about. Not counting those of us who had the same opponents.

I can read strategy. I can tell you within 10 minutes of seeing a brand new codex what the power builds and most point efficient units are. But that doesn't mean they are going to own anything they look at... There is no such thing as a "proper" list. Again, the concept you are completely failing to understand here. You can take whatever and make it work.. I've done it several times. But that doesn't matter, you'll just belittle the competition or whatever I used or went against.

So whats the bottom line? Anyone who wins a tournament without a Forum-mech list is some lucky noob?

Mundar wrote:

Anyones report.. You mean the 2 people on dakka who have written reports out of 60 players? Or you can count my blog for another. So that makes three. 3x5 = 15.. That leaves 45 lists you haven't the foggiest idea about. Not counting those of us who had the same opponents.

So whats the bottom line? Anyone who wins a tournament without a Forum-mech list is some lucky noob?

I'd say 25% of a tournament should give you a pretty good view of whats there.

Also where is this forum mech lists you keep talking about? Cause no one seems to be using them...

You have made so many assumptions about what I am saying its not even funny. Whenever I post about any tournament lists people make up crap and then try to tell me how much of a jerk I am based on what they made up about my posts.

I didn't make up anything Timmah. You're the one who came in here saying this list and that build suck and nothing more. One doesn't have to make up anything about your posts to classify you as a jerk.. That was already done for them.

You claimed there was no competition because you didn't see any "properly built mech lists". When challenged on this, failed to provide any of such lists or just out right dismissed the requests.

No one seemed to be using them at our event, and in your opion the competition was lacking because of it and lists "weren't that good".

Timmah wrote:

I would love to put up, but sadly I have a job and can not fly across the country for a 2 day tournament.

...because only jobless people play at 2 day tournaments.



If you dont attend a tournament, you have no idea how competetive it is...period.

You dont know the intelligence/proficiency level of each player with each of their "flawed" armies.

What's the more competetive atmosphere? A tournament composed entirely of 'Best-of' lists with novices at the helm or one with highly intelligent and practiced players playing their armies that they're comfortable with due to playing at least twice a week EVERY week.

Point being is that only the attendees know how competetive this tourney was. If you werent there, you have no idea.

Knowing that, lists aside, claiming that a tourney isnt competetive and belittling someones victories when you have no clue in the first place is pretty funny....well, no, actually its ignorant.

@timmah- claim I'm wrong? How would you know, you cannot be bothered to go to these two day tourneys....you have a job.

I think you are seriously underestimating the strengths of Blackmoor's list. All his firepower is completely mobile and can move forward 6" a turn to contest objectives or for better positioning without diminishing its volume or range. More importantly, he can slide backwards or sideways to maintain his spacing from mech assault units longer. As long as the Guardians are in the Avatar bubble, they are fearless and you have to kill all of them to make the heavy weapon go away. Not nearly as easy as killing 25% and forcing that LD8 test. The Harlequins are virtually immune to long range shooting (max spotting distance 24", average is 14") and the Warwalkers each throw out a hail of shoots that allows them to deal with AV12 reliably even though they are only S6 (24 shots, 12 hits, 2 glances BEFORE guide). While its not a typical power build, he has alot of options when playing objective missions, including the rare ability for his troops to take an oblique route to their end destination without sacrificing fire power.

@ Timmah---I posted the above earlier but you never responded. I am curious as to what you consider the strengths/weaknesses of Blackmoor's list.

Mundar wrote:I didn't make up anything Timmah. You're the one who came in here saying this list and that build suck and nothing more. One doesn't have to make up anything about your posts to classify you as a jerk.. That was already done for them.

Sorry, where did I say this?

Deadshane1 wrote:

Timmah wrote:

I would love to put up, but sadly I have a job and can not fly across the country for a 2 day tournament.

...because only jobless people play at 2 day tournaments.

Again putting words in my mouth...
Are you guys that childish that you have to pretend I said something and then make fun of it.
All I said was my job, atm, doesn't allow me to fly across the country for a 2 day tournament.

Deadshane1 wrote:
If you dont attend a tournament, you have no idea how competitive it is...period.

You don't know the intelligence/proficiency level of each player with each of their "flawed" armies.

What's the more competitive atmosphere? A tournament composed entirely of 'Best-of' lists with novices at the helm or one with highly intelligent and practiced players playing their armies that they're comfortable with due to playing at least twice a week EVERY week.

How come there is not an option 3? Like highly intelligent and practiced players playing their good armies.
If a bunch of MTG pros go to an event and play some random crappy deck, people would not claim the event to be competitive no matter how good the players are.

Also, these are the top competitors supposedly. WHY ARE THEY ONLY COMFORTABLE WITH 1 ARMY???? You tell me how good all these players are but when you actually talk about them you treat them like idiots.
(oh, they are only good with 1 army, they are confused by non-standard lists, they don't know how to counter outflanking)
Seriously, if these are really top competitors please treat them as such, but apparently they are not. Even my casual playing friends play more than 1 army, heck my casual playing friends can do all of the above, yet your tournament competitors can't...

Timmah wrote:
What mech armies are you playing??? Tau, IG, Eldar, SM? Which one has only/mostly short range fire power...

The approach taken by most people posting online is to load up as many guys with meltas (and rapid fire guns) into their transports, and then close with their opponents in order to use their meltas. Obviously the main battle tanks for these armies have more range, but you can take a main battle tank in a non-mech army too. And it is the guys with rapid fire guns that get overlooked in these mech armies.


As for your comparisons to M:TG, you are simply off-base. The games are so vastly different at the top level that trying to use M:TG-like thinking and apply it to 40k is doomed to failure. I've played M:TG competitively, had a national ranking in the 30s, and top-8'ed a tournament with over 500 participants. I do know what I'm talking about when I say they're different.

In M:TG, you have constants that you simply don't have in 40k. There is a limited pool of cards for any event that is much smaller (except, perhaps, in Type 1) than the possible different unit configurations in 40k. You have a limited set of in-play cards at any time, unlike 40k, where everything is in play. You have a fixed environment, unlike 40k, where the terrain differs from one table to the next. You have a finite number of decisions to make at any given time, constrained by cards in-play and in-hand, and possible guesses as to the opponent's hand. In 40k, your possible moves are far less restricted, and even the positioning of space between models in a unit can make a difference.

M:TG leads itself to the sort of analysis that you're trying to do. There is no "this list absolutely sucks when there is too much/too little terrain on the table". Because there are less possible competitive cards to pick from (compared to units in 40k), the good decks all tend to feature the same cards. And, because of this, the metagame tends to be really well defined. If you're playing a top-level deck, and go to an event and play a scrub with a random deck, they just get crushed by the power level discrepancy in the decks - player skill has little to do with it at that point. At any top-level event, you're likely to see nothing but minor variations on 2 to 4 deck concepts.

In 40k, the meta-game is far more open. At a major event, you'd be hard-pressed to find 2 to 4 different people running variations on a single list. In general, every army will be present, so there will be at least 12 different lists to account for. What, on paper, might be the most competitive list will get a fluke match-up against the one Dark Eldar darklance spam army, and knocked into the lower bracket, while an otherwise "uncompetitive" list will land a match-up that favours it.

And that's the other thing. At any given M:TG tournament, you're expected to play eight rounds, with finals following that. Each round consists of 2-5 games. This reduces the impact of both fluky luck in any given game, and of a weird match-up outside the meta-game.

The 40k meta-game is a joke. It exists solely in the minds of people online. I don't play as many tournaments as some people, but I've never played against a dual-lash list. I've played one whole game against nob bikers. I did play a couple of games against nidzilla at the height of its popularity - but I've played more games against it since it was declared dead. At the last tournament I went to, I played against a Necron army, while conventional online thinking is that Necrons don't even exist in 5e.

It takes time to paint an army. And, armies are expensive. Maybe the BoLS guys can make a new army for every codex, but they're definitely a minority. Most people, in my experience, have one or two armies and make do with them, even when they're not considered the most competitive. In M:TG, if a new piece of tech is revealed, the worst thing that happens is people drop $60 for 4 copies of the card and move on. When it becomes no-longer useful, you can resell it. In 40k, not only do you have to pay for the new toy, but you've then got to paint it to work with your army - if it's even allowed in your codex. Once you put that work in, it's hard to let it go.

In Magic, you have sideboards, and these account for much of the difference between decks. The choice of whether to main-deck certain cards or keep them in the sideboard is often all that separates decks at the top level, and it's a decision that's based on what you expect to see. You can bring 'tech' to help with certain match-ups and never use it if you don't see those opponents. Again, there's no way to do this in 40k.

All this adds up to make the sort of analysis you're looking for rather meaningless. The sort of post-event analysis I see for M:TG events is 'there was more of Deck-type A than I expected, I should have main-decked such a card instead of sideboarding it'.

In 40k, you cannot add another anti-tank weapon without cutting something else somewhere. You cannot sideboard an extra CC unit just in case. At the end of the day, you're looking at each player's guess about what they'll have to face in that tournament. The only measure of this is did they have to tools to deal with what they did face. Clearly, Blackmoor did here, and DarthDiggler did at 'ard boyz.

You seem to want the 40k tournament scene to be something it cannot be. It will never be an established meta-game like M:TG. People will always take "uncompetitive" lists to tournaments, because they like the fluff - or because they just painted something new. The outlying lists hang-around longer because of the labour involved in making a new army. At any given tournament, you may well play against 200 orks, 4 land-raiders, a rhino-rush, a DE raider-spam, and a nidzilla list. That's way more to prepare for than the 2 or 3 archetypes you'll see at a M:TG tournament, and each of these match-ups has a greater impact on your final placement to boot.

It's one thing to tell a guy who lost 4 games to mech armies that his list doesn't have enough anti-mech for the current environment, but that's a no-brainer. You're trying to tell people who won all their games that they didn't have the right list to deal with competitive lists. I think that the real problem here is your belief in the internet myth of good lists. You want it to be M:TG, and it simply isn't. The people who actually go to the tournaments know what they really expect to face, and have lists that can cope with that reality, not the myth that the net wants to perpetuate, and that you've bought into.

Timmah wrote:So were there any competitive armies at this tournament?

This was the total of your first post in the thread. It was a veiled insult to everyone at the tournament. You did not elaborate about mech or any of your other 'points' until much later (which continues with devisive language). That first post set the tone for the rest of thread and colors anything else you post.

If you did not intend to troll the thread, then learn the fine art of contructive criticism.

Redbeard wrote:

Timmah wrote:
What mech armies are you playing??? Tau, IG, Eldar, SM? Which one has only/mostly short range fire power...

The approach taken by most people posting online is to load up as many guys with meltas (and rapid fire guns) into their transports, and then close with their opponents in order to use their meltas. Obviously the main battle tanks for these armies have more range, but you can take a main battle tank in a non-mech army too. And it is the guys with rapid fire guns that get overlooked in these mech armies.

The bad ones maybe...

Redbeard wrote:
As for your comparisons to M:TG, you are simply off-base. The games are so vastly different at the top level that trying to use M:TG-like thinking and apply it to 40k is doomed to failure. I've played M:TG competitively, had a national ranking in the 30s, and top-8'ed a tournament with over 500 participants. I do know what I'm talking about when I say they're different.

More random claims about how you were good at a game so you must be right...

Redbeard wrote:
In M:TG, you have constants that you simply don't have in 40k. There is a limited pool of cards for any event that is much smaller (except, perhaps, in Type 1) than the possible different unit configurations in 40k. You have a limited set of in-play cards at any time, unlike 40k, where everything is in play. You have a fixed environment, unlike 40k, where the terrain differs from one table to the next. You have a finite number of decisions to make at any given time, constrained by cards in-play and in-hand, and possible guesses as to the opponent's hand. In 40k, your possible moves are far less restricted, and even the positioning of space between models in a unit can make a difference.

You still have set choices to make even if there might be a few more in 40k. And in Type 1 there is a way bigger pool of cards, but that doesn't count for some reason...(and if you give me the old, type 1 is a coin flip, I will assume your an idiot that knows nothing about MTG)

Redbeard wrote:
M:TG leads itself to the sort of analysis that you're trying to do. There is no "this list absolutely sucks when there is too much/too little terrain on the table". Because there are less possible competitive cards to pick from (compared to units in 40k), the good decks all tend to feature the same cards. And, because of this, the metagame tends to be really well defined. If you're playing a top-level deck, and go to an event and play a scrub with a random deck, they just get crushed by the power level discrepancy in the decks - player skill has little to do with it at that point. At any top-level event, you're likely to see nothing but minor variations on 2 to 4 deck concepts.

Again in Type 1, you might not play any of the top tier decks for multiple tournaments, instead facing meta game decks and hate decks. Very much like playing a non standard build in 40k. (also not getting into the meta game discussion here)

Redbeard wrote:
It's one thing to tell a guy who lost 4 games to mech armies that his list doesn't have enough anti-mech for the current environment, but that's a no-brainer. You're trying to tell people who won all their games that they didn't have the right list to deal with competitive lists. I think that the real problem here is your belief in the internet myth of good lists. You want it to be M:TG, and it simply isn't. The people who actually go to the tournaments know what they really expect to face, and have lists that can cope with that reality, not the myth that the net wants to perpetuate, and that you've bought into.

I did not say that at all. I said they did not have the right list to deal with competitive mech armies. (which he never faced)

In MTG this would be like telling someone who won a tournament without ever facing a control deck that they did not have the right tools to deal with a control deck. Most people would just agree with you, tell you they accepted the matchup as a near auto loss and say they didn't expect much control and then move on.

Instead of defending to the death that they can easily beat one of their worst matchups... I know its a tough concept to admit your "finely tuned" army list has weaknesses, but it does. All army lists do. For example certain fast assault armies will ruin my tau list. Can I beat them? sure, with some luck/skillful playing. Am I happy to see them across the table? Heck no.


@winterman: Sorry if you took my original jest the wrong way. I apologize for offending you over the internet.