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is it me or was this thread originally about tactics? and not the use, comparison, effectiveness of storboyz? (as they were just an off hand example)

40k tactically?
yeah there is a bit, look at how you build your army and how you intend to use it more so then units and whatnot, naturally you would use units that accentuate your idea's/motivations for play.
on the table see how the dice favour you, if your ideas a working out or if you have a nifty idea to mix it up or whatever. on a bad day where luck does not whisper into your ear don't worry abotu things like this unit is not working that unit sucks this unit has to be more tactical and stuff...you know it was just a unlucky bad day roll with it (pardon the pun)

and for the sake of it all, yay stormboyz, if you like em you like em nd build armys with them, if you don't you don't who cares, lets just have fun on the table top.

i hope to be surprised by a variety of choices on the tabletop i never thought of.

Play on dakka

It's not just you...

On topic, I try to play tactically all the time. Unfortunately though when it comes to tactics, you do have to rely on the dice a bit. A series of bad rolls can bork up your tactical advancement but good. Bad luck aside, I find things tend to work out best if I make consistent use of cover, play to each units strengths and if they are lacking in a certain area, support them with another unit which excells in that area. Also, hit him from the sides pincher style, DS a hammer to smash against your anvil, wave with the left and slap with the right. These tactics all work if you do it right.

Helps to understand your opponent... And if you understand the different armies, you can usually tell what kind of player they are going to be based on what they field.

The suggestion i would make is that there is no codex nor book that helps you anticipate what a perosn will do, how they will deploy, what the terrain will be and more improtantly, knowing what plan B and plan C is going to be. thats all Generalship.

I played a 5 objective game yesterday. It was against Blood Angels with a Tau list I'd never normally play. It's for the OFCC and for those who dont know, there's incentive not to bring your D-bag list. You can see it here if you care:
http://www.ordofanaticus.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=12707

Anyways, the relevant part of this story is this: I lost all my troops by the top of round 3 after epic dice failure against his storm Raven. Mephiston and his Dreadnough were standing near MY board edge saying "better kill us nooooooow".

I didn't do that immediately either. Yeah.

So despite all of that I denied him victory for 6 rounds and in the 7th he JUST managed to win after he made 4 FnP saves, anyone of which would have forced him to take a pinning check at -4. ACK! if he fails, we tie. what can ya' do.

I was able to stave off that ridiculousness with Plan C. At no point in the game was he actually ever winning until then. He pounded my face in and when plan A was done for, plan B. and when plan B was done for i had another plan and if not for a touch of basd luck... who knows.

So that is what i think being a good general is. being able to adjust on the fly to the worst possible scenarios and knowing what you'll do almost before you're there. Knowing how to place models, and in what order and at what distance... Those are all important little things that add up.

and my contention is that lots of people are that smart and are doing this stuff. i dislike people who TRY (disingenuously) to suggest there's not tactics to 40K. Very annoying to listen to.

Agree. Having a plan A and a plan B is great, but having a trukk load of plans doesn't get you anywhere. At some point you need to improvise, and improvising well needs to be practiced, too.

On topic, I try to play tactically all the time. Unfortunately though when it comes to tactics, you do have to rely on the dice a bit. A series of bad rolls can bork up your tactical advancement but good.

Is that so? There are certainly things where dice are important, but there are things where they are not. Hiding a Rhino behind a Landraider and moving the landraider outside LOS of weapons that could hurt him protecting the rhino against weapons that could hurt it. I don't care for dice, I won't be hurt as long as I tolerate my opponent to get a serious weapon over there to deal with the Landraider.
If I move so, that my opponent would need to disembark some of his troops to be able to shoot effectively at me, it is a matter of decision A or B and not a matter of dice Of course A (disembark and shoot) includes dice, but the point is that he has to disembark.
If I block someones way with an interfering unit, I dont need successful dice to pull that off. He just cant pass.

So Movement tactics can be executed without any dice help.

If I have cover and roll bad, it is still better than having no cover. So I certainly have no disadvantage looking out for cover. The absolute worst thing is that I have no advantage.
Same applies to shooting. If I move cleverly, There will be more killing possibilities.

40k is about possibilities.

good tactics open new possibilities as well as good luck. Bad tactics will decrease possibilities as well as bad luck.

That means if I play well, I have many possibilities in the game to shift the outcome in my favour. So I can afford some of them to go wrong. Of course, if all go wrong, I will most likely lose, although the opponent also still needs possibilities to defeat me. If I deny them to him, I could still draw.

Jidmah wrote:Agree. Having a plan A and a plan B is great, but having a trukk load of plans doesn't get you anywhere. At some point you need to improvise, and improvising well needs to be practiced, too.

improvisation is just another word for contingeny plans, using nerw information. That's kind of splitting hairs but we do agree. Improvisation is the mark of a good tactician. And being able to foresee the possibility for the need of the contingency is part of it too. Sometimes you hold back a bit because a partial victory over a unit may be better than total victory given the possibility of total failure and by holding back you can now respond if it all goes to dice hell.

Flames of War does a good good job of kind of allowing you to do this. You can move, shoot and charge teams in your platoon while others do not. It's kind of unique, and it makes some sense, for various reasons too arcane to get into here.

Point is, in 40K and in the new 40K, tactics are and will be alive and well and the thread was about whether tactics was only exercized by a few. I don't think so. There are those who are CERTAINLY not as good at seeing the bigger picture, but that's matters of degree, not a toggle-switch question of yes it is or not its not seen a lot.

for me:

Plan B: Charge at nearest enemy screaming WAAAAAAGH! at the top of my lungs

It's served me well for years, though it gets me funny looks when my DE do it

-Nazdreg- wrote:

On topic, I try to play tactically all the time. Unfortunately though when it comes to tactics, you do have to rely on the dice a bit. A series of bad rolls can bork up your tactical advancement but good.

Is that so? There are certainly things where dice are important, but there are things where they are not. Hiding a Rhino behind a Landraider and moving the landraider outside LOS of weapons that could hurt him protecting the rhino against weapons that could hurt it. I don't care for dice, I won't be hurt as long as I tolerate my opponent to get a serious weapon over there to deal with the Landraider.
If I move so, that my opponent would need to disembark some of his troops to be able to shoot effectively at me, it is a matter of decision A or B and not a matter of dice Of course A (disembark and shoot) includes dice, but the point is that he has to disembark.
If I block someones way with an interfering unit, I dont need successful dice to pull that off. He just cant pass.

So Movement tactics can be executed without any dice help.

If I have cover and roll bad, it is still better than having no cover. So I certainly have no disadvantage looking out for cover. The absolute worst thing is that I have no advantage.
Same applies to shooting. If I move cleverly, There will be more killing possibilities.

40k is about possibilities.

good tactics open new possibilities as well as good luck. Bad tactics will decrease possibilities as well as bad luck.

That means if I play well, I have many possibilities in the game to shift the outcome in my favour. So I can afford some of them to go wrong. Of course, if all go wrong, I will most likely lose, although the opponent also still needs possibilities to defeat me. If I deny them to him, I could still draw.

Good tacticians also plan for the worst. All those saves you have to make you're bound to fail once in a while. Sometime you'll fail a lot. All those extra d6" moves could turn out to be 1s. All those MTC moves could land you a far cry from the cover you're trying to reach. And even though you wound on a 2 plus, there's that pesky side of the dice that only shows one pip. Sure sure, blah blah possibilities blah. 40k is also a game of chance. The concepts of Chance and Possibilities are intrinsically intertwined. The mechanic of using dice to dictate battle outcome is inextricably mired in chance. There's no way to mitigate that chance down to zero. So no matter what your tactics say, if the dice don't agree, your whole army may as well be motes of dust in the wind.

But I feel after that, I must re-iterate that I think very highly of tactical players and feel that blind attack with no plan will lead to inevitable failure.

Stormboyz are exactly what they are named.

They are shock troops.

They paralyze and discomfit the enemy long enough for reinforcements to arrive. They are fragile but they have a very definite role to play. Of course you can compare them to other units in an ork army, just as long as you look at the big picture when you make the comparison. To brush them off as simply inferior in all respects is rather simple thinking.

You could easily argue that airborne troops are inferior to ground troops. They can't carry the same amount of firepower and they cost more. So they suck, right? If you use them as ground troops, they probably do. Play to their unique strengths and they are just fine.

Aw, man... we were back on track for a second there...

Tactics are for nubs. Go ahead and use tactics if you like loosing.

I don't think its a lack of tactics, you're just naturally going to shoot the unit that poses the biggest threat. If there was a unit of Boyz closer than I like I'd shoot them first, but its always obviously the Stormboyz or his Warbikes.

My friend loves his warbikes, and he upgrades them, and they would be devastating if they lasted to the tird turn, but what else am i going to shoot at if the only thing in everyones range are them.

There's no way to mitigate that chance down to zero. So no matter what your tactics say, if the dice don't agree, your whole army may as well be motes of dust in the wind.

This are 2 completely different things. Saying that you can't control dice completely is correct. But concluding that tactics are worthless when the dice don't go well, is not correct.

If I am a bad player and my opponent is one of the best, then he doesnt care if I only roll 6s and he only rolls ones, he will win.
We have to compare the fact that all 1s and all 6s are rolled with the extremes of good and bad tacticians.

As a bad tactician, I will always choose the worst possible unit for a certain task, I will have the worst possible army list and I will do everything I can, not to win. Yes, a killpoint Mission is impossible to win if you cant roll better than 1, but the extreme bad tactician won't win it either because he won't even shoot. So we will have a tie on killpoints. But an objective mission will be won by the good tactician given that the bad tactician helps him to do so with is bad tactics regardless of any given dice rolls.

If I am evenly matched with lists, (mirrormatch) if I am on the same skill level with my opponent, the result will be an indicator of how dice went. But: It also depends on the style of a list. If you have a glass cannon list, the results will be more extreme than with a resilient list lacking punch.
And the style of play is also important. If you play hyper aggressively and very risky, you will have extreme results and if you play very conservatively and overcautious you will also have close results.

Example 1: 3 Landraider vs 3 Landraider. Overcautious players (remember both are equal) will hide all 3 of them the whole game. Result will be a draw. regardless of good or bad luck because no shot will be fired.
Example 2: Necron Scythe+Tesla spam list. Hyperaggressive players will win or lose the game outright turn 1 if they are extremely lucky or unlucky with their dice. 10 teslaimmortals rolling only 6es are... fun... oO

I think though that we can all agree that those events don't happen (of course with the small possibility that they could...). First, the players are not so extreme, but second, dice aren't so extreme as well.
A die has the habit of rolling all numbers equally often in the long run, but in an uncontrollable order.

111112222233333444445555566666 is as likely (or lets say extremely unlikely) as this exact (seemingly random though) order: 154632541362453612624315.
If you want a certain number from a die, you will be disappointed 5/6 times. If there are more dice involved the odds will decrease that every die will score the desired number.

An exact average result is also more unlikely than we think. Statistical deviations are very common. Extreme statistical deviations are uncommon though. The bigger the deviation is, the more unlikely it will be that they actually happen.

If we have 3 dice and need to roll 3+ saves, we have these expectations:

3 saved: 64 possibilities
2 saved: 108 possibilities
1 saved: 36 possibilities
0 saved: 8 possibilities

so we have an exact 50% chance to roll the average 2/3 saves. The chance of failing all is less than 5% (about 3,7%), And it is significantly more likely to save all than it is to save only one (16,7% vs 29,6%)

But it is still a 50% chance to not roll average! What is the conclusion? Just because you dont roll average very often that doesn't mean you are lucky or unlucky.

I enjoy list building lists that are very fragile, and then doing my absolute best to win or tie a game. Every once in a while I'll pull out a list I think is a beast just to make myself feel good about my list building skills.

In this sense, I've had succesfull games with horrible lists, (mathhammer and internet advice wise) I have three seperate 750pnt lists that are Gretchin heavy, and 1000pnt and 1250 pnt lists that are kommando heavy, and I've still won and drawn with all of them.

I have yet to try Stormboyz, because they just don't appeal to me. They are just boyz. why six more points for less boyz who can move farther but may lose some on the move and "deepstrike", has always just not interested me, but when I start playing again, I will move into Stormboyz lists until I can win and draw with them as well.

I.E. I play orks, and thus, I love tactics.
For me it is a more interesting game of chess, in the fact I am always trying to understand what my opponent thinks I am going to do, how they want to deal with my list, and how I can trick, work around, and ultimately out General them.

If it was not for the tactical part of the game, I would just play a video game and get a new hobby. Hell, when I went on a 17 game win streak, I lost interest in the game, when my opponent got more familiar with their list and defeated me, it brung back my spirits, and I was returned. Draws in the game make me even more anxious to play again.

So I have never assumed tactics are dead, I believe each move on the field is a tactic, just with many tournament list, people follow the same tactics as others playing the same list. I did notice that.

There's no way to mitigate that chance down to zero. So no matter what your tactics say, if the dice don't agree, your whole army may as well be motes of dust in the wind.

The chance of you dying at any given moment are above zero, presumably you never bother to do anything whatsoever because that chance will never be 0?
Logic fail.

DX Nin wrote:Aw, man... we were back on track for a second there...

lol! yea, i was thinking the samething. But what can you do?

For me and Die rolls,... well my friends seen me with the dreaded ones curse. I can make great Ld. checks through

You need to Max. the Odds to get a better result, at least thats what i try to do

DX Nin wrote:

There's no way to mitigate that chance down to zero. So no matter what your tactics say, if the dice don't agree, your whole army may as well be motes of dust in the wind.

But I feel after that, I must re-iterate that I think very highly of tactical players and feel that blind attack with no plan will lead to inevitable failure.

I have a question... Is my second statement there unclear? I'm advocating tactical play here. I am also conceding that the dice play a heavy role in the outcome of a game. You don't have to roll poorly for the whole game to lose the tactical advantage... One shooting/assault phase is enough. Your opponent fields a bunch of tanks and in his first shooting phase gets a bunch of lucky pens on all your heavy support and you fail 3 out of 5 cover saves. It's a string of bad luck but it can happen. Now you don't have enough firepower to reliably defend against all his armor...

Also, bad tacticians don't "always make the worst choice possible" they simply don't think ahead. They'll pick a unit based on cosmetics, or one special rule that they like the sound of, or because they saw that unit dismantle someone in the past, or heard it was "broken." Whether or not the unit is actually good or effective in the ensuing battle is irrelevant. The point is they didn't chose that unit for a purpose. Their choice was arbitrary. Then, they will attack the closest unit to them. Or the biggest IC you see. Or the unit that hit them hardest in the last turn. It's all reactive as opposed to proactive. SOMETIMES, that's the right move to make. Sometimes they just happen to pick te right tools and use them correctly. The difference between a good and a bad tactician is intent and forethought.

Joey's "logic fail" comment doesn't even warrant a response. I don't even know why I'm talking about it. Forget I said anything. What?

drunkorc wrote:

DX Nin wrote:Aw, man... we were back on track for a second there...

lol! yea, i was thinking the samething. But what can you do?

For me and Die rolls,... well my friends seen me with the dreaded ones curse. I can make great Ld. checks through

You need to Max. the Odds to get a better result, at least thats what i try to do

Yea I have that luck too. I can and have passed the unbelievable LD checks before. Not to mention my PK Nobs are almost total gak. They seem to miss or fail to wound on everything

I think that the tactics of the game are so ingrained that most people completely miss how many important tacitcal decisions are made every move. Every time you move a unit, you will have to make a tactical decision about it. Every unit deployed is in a specific place for a specific reason. When you see all the little choices that you have to make all the time, that's when you can make "tactical" choices to help win you the game. Even the way you handle your models on the field will affect how your opponent plays. My Hormagaunts may be more importants to my plan than my hive guard, but the way they charge up, headless of danger compared to how my hive guard are specifically placed to maximise cover and range and the like makes the hive guard look like a more important target. There are feints and tricks that are played out on the tabletop all the time like sometimes simply go unnoticed. If my hormaguants are eating all sorts of fire, but keeping it off other units, then I need to make sure I DON't go to ground, as they will no longer be a threat next turn and will no longer be fired at. Although, if half the venoms have already fired, maybe it's time to go to ground as best case, they will keep firing through an extra +1 coversave, or they will switch targets and fire at something else, a cardinal sin when fighting against nids.