Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Loborocket wrote:
After reading multiple "competitive" threads it seems to me the problem here is the fact that in 40k the difference between a "tier1" list and a "tier 2" list is at the moment too great. A tier 2 list has little to no chance to win when matched up against a tier 1 list. In other games I have played in the past a player bringing a tier 2 list has some kind of chance even if matched against a tier 1 list. That is missing in 40k.

I played a game a couple of weeks ago and my opponent brought some kind of flyer. I had NOTHING in my lust to even have a chance to counter that. The game at that point became somewhat academic. I went through the motions but of course lost in the end. On the opposite side I played last week and had instances where my opponent could do nothing to my models because they had nothing in the list capable of penetrating the armor.

When the game gets to a point where a person can bring a list full of thing you have no chance of even damaging something is wrong. It is like a game of rock, paper, scissors and only being able to select 2 of the 3 and just hoping the opponent does not bring the thing you can't counter.

I know someone can spend some more $$$ and perhaps get some kind of counter, but because of the way codexes work even that might not help some players.

I have fun most of the games I play, but I. Know every time I set up a game there is a chance I will show up to the game with a bunch of paper when my opponent will have a list full of scissors. Then it is not fun for anyone. This happens too often in 40k. I like the models and like the painting part of the hobby, I just wish he game portion was a bit more playable.

I hate to ask, but what do you consider tier 1 and tier 2?

Is tier 1 a cheesy list with lots of gimmicky combos?
(scremer star, riptide spam with eldar psykers, etc.)

Is tier 2 ....something bad? or just anything that is not the current meta cheese list?
(which changes are ever year).

Also in this example;

I played a game a couple of weeks ago and my opponent brought some kind of flyer. I had NOTHING in my lust to even have a chance to counter that. The game at that point became somewhat academic. I went through the motions but of course lost in the end.

Nothing? Most flyers are av10 in the back...I have seen them shot down by bolters, or once even kroot rifles.
I have a buddy with a bike list that his AA is just his twinlinked bolters, works for most games so far.

Also, I don't consider a single flyer to be tier 1....most armies should be built to handle at least a flyer or two.
Finally, unless this flyer destroyed all your scoring units - its just one model....did you focus on his scoring units? or on denying objectives?
Did he have an amazing list as well and you just rolled bad?

or this...

On the opposite side I played last week and had instances where my opponent could do nothing to my models because they had nothing in the list capable of penetrating the armor.

You bring some AV14? and he was unprepared? I call that poor list building not a tier 1 vs. tier 2.
So, your av14 vehicle, unless you were playing 1 objective....did he not take the others?
Did he focus on your scoring units? Did he out manuver you? Or was it the relic and you parked your av14 vehcile on it?
Did he even try? I have been almost completely tabled before, and pulled out a draw.

Now, I was not there - so maybe the games were truly hopeless....but in my experience very few games are - especially ones with the limited details we have here.

Now, those two examples aside (neither one sounds like a tier 1 vs. tier 2) yes, there is a huge different between a guy running a screamerstar list and something else, but unless a list is cheesy (again, which we have every year, only the codex changes) or someone is playing something VERY out of date I think player/mission/terrain etc. matter most.

Yeah the current meta cheese lists are what seems to be talked about when the "competitive" threads come up. I guess that is what I am calling tier 1.

I was up against a storm raven gunship AV12 all around. And I did have a team of devastators that could have maybe done something, but they were shot off the board before they even had a chance to shoot at the thing. I also had a dreadnought that could not move which could have done something. Of course without "sky fire" the deck is pretty stacked against you. The game happened to be " purge the alien" so I pretty much knew I was screwed before turn 1.

The other game where I had the upper hand, yes I had a land raider. I took out his ork guns first turn with a Thunderfire Cannon. At that point he needed his power claws to get close to be able to do anything. It was the relic game so I was able to keep him tied up long enough away from it for the win.

Both of these game did not feel incredibly " competitive" to me. They were both won when the main counter was removed early in the game. It is a bit like going to the roulette table and betting your whole bankroll on black and the ball falling on red. Not a whole lot of fun and not really competitive at all.

Loborocket wrote:
Yeah the current meta cheese lists are what seems to be talked about when the "competitive" threads come up. I guess that is what I am calling tier 1.

I was up against a storm raven gunship AV12 all around. And I did have a team of devastators that could have maybe done something, but they were shot off the board before they even had a chance to shoot at the thing. I also had a dreadnought that could not move which could have done something. Of course without "sky fire" the deck is pretty stacked against you. The game happened to be " purge the alien" so I pretty much knew I was screwed before turn 1.

The other game where I had the upper hand, yes I had a land raider. I took out his ork guns first turn with a Thunderfire Cannon. At that point he needed his power claws to get close to be able to do anything. It was the relic game so I was able to keep him tied up long enough away from it for the win.

Both of these game did not feel incredibly " competitive" to me. They were both won when the main counter was removed early in the game. It is a bit like going to the roulette table and betting your whole bankroll on black and the ball falling on red. Not a whole lot of fun and not really competitive at all.

Neither were cheese lists (lets segregate cheese from competitive). I would also so both lists from a "competitive" stand point were just lists that were missing things.

Of coruse, some codexes have a harder time with this than others - the ork fight is a perfect example - a bad match up - exacerbated by the mission (why I asked if it were relic - some armies/builds do very poorly in relic).

I would not call a list with a raider "tier 1" I would call it a list with a raider.

So....what is it then?
A cheese list is one that maximizes a single unit combo, or rules combo to get a result that dominates play with little skill involved.
*(we have had cheese for years, only the flavor changes....just some of the recent cheese is very strong).
Usually cheese lists because they will maximize something, have some deficit, and can usually fail if they meet the counter to this deficit - the challenge of course, is that the cheese list usually blows the enemy off the table before they can take advantage of this deficit (assuming of course the other player realizes this...many don't).

A competitive list is one that has the capability to do several things, and to try and do them with reasonable success given good play; take objectives, anti-infnatry, anti-light armor, anti-heavy armor, anti flyer. etc.
Some codexes do this better than others, as they have more versatility and/or more units that can do fill more than one role.

A "casual' or "fun" this is one that does not really try to do those key things (take objectives, anti tank, etc.). Its often built around a concept, or maybe even a model.

Finally, a list is not "binary" you dont have to be 100% casual or competitive - most players try to build lists that will do well (this would be competitive) or even when maybe building a "theme" or fluffly list, at least try to make it so it won't do too bad (I might take one unit of vespid in my mercenaries list, but I won't take three....). Furthermore, some lists might have only a small amount of potentially cheesy units in them, and not be cheesy themselves...running a riptide, or a few wave serpents/nightscythes/razorbacks is fine....running six or more of them, makes you a cheese monger.

Loborocket wrote:
Yeah the current meta cheese lists are what seems to be talked about when the "competitive" threads come up. I guess that is what I am calling tier 1.

I was up against a storm raven gunship AV12 all around. And I did have a team of devastators that could have maybe done something, but they were shot off the board before they even had a chance to shoot at the thing. I also had a dreadnought that could not move which could have done something. Of course without "sky fire" the deck is pretty stacked against you. The game happened to be " purge the alien" so I pretty much knew I was screwed before turn 1.

The other game where I had the upper hand, yes I had a land raider. I took out his ork guns first turn with a Thunderfire Cannon. At that point he needed his power claws to get close to be able to do anything. It was the relic game so I was able to keep him tied up long enough away from it for the win.

Both of these game did not feel incredibly " competitive" to me. They were both won when the main counter was removed early in the game. It is a bit like going to the roulette table and betting your whole bankroll on black and the ball falling on red. Not a whole lot of fun and not really competitive at all.

Stormravens are actually kind of marginal. You can shoot them down without skyfire with twin linked weapons. Especially single ravens.

Maybe marginal, but by the time I had an opportunity to shoot at it I had exactly 2 weapons on the table at all that could have done ANYTHING to it. So I had a 15% chance of doing a single point of damage to it each turn. 3 turns left in the game, so yeah that was really "competitive". That is the problem. He gets lucky enough (I don't think it was as much luck as pure volume of fire) to take out my devastators in one turn BEFORE I had a chance to use them once. They were the one thing that had any real chance of killing the stormraven. So the game essentially "broke" at that point (turn 3). It is those kinds of things that make the game not really "competitive".

davethepak wrote:

Loborocket wrote:
After reading multiple "competitive" threads it seems to me the problem here is the fact that in 40k the difference between a "tier1" list and a "tier 2" list is at the moment too great. A tier 2 list has little to no chance to win when matched up against a tier 1 list. In other games I have played in the past a player bringing a tier 2 list has some kind of chance even if matched against a tier 1 list. That is missing in 40k.

I played a game a couple of weeks ago and my opponent brought some kind of flyer. I had NOTHING in my lust to even have a chance to counter that. The game at that point became somewhat academic. I went through the motions but of course lost in the end. On the opposite side I played last week and had instances where my opponent could do nothing to my models because they had nothing in the list capable of penetrating the armor.

When the game gets to a point where a person can bring a list full of thing you have no chance of even damaging something is wrong. It is like a game of rock, paper, scissors and only being able to select 2 of the 3 and just hoping the opponent does not bring the thing you can't counter.

I know someone can spend some more $$$ and perhaps get some kind of counter, but because of the way codexes work even that might not help some players.

I have fun most of the games I play, but I. Know every time I set up a game there is a chance I will show up to the game with a bunch of paper when my opponent will have a list full of scissors. Then it is not fun for anyone. This happens too often in 40k. I like the models and like the painting part of the hobby, I just wish he game portion was a bit more playable.

I hate to ask, but what do you consider tier 1 and tier 2?

Is tier 1 a cheesy list with lots of gimmicky combos?
(scremer star, riptide spam with eldar psykers, etc.)

Is tier 2 ....something bad? or just anything that is not the current meta cheese list?
(which changes are ever year).

Also in this example;

I played a game a couple of weeks ago and my opponent brought some kind of flyer. I had NOTHING in my lust to even have a chance to counter that. The game at that point became somewhat academic. I went through the motions but of course lost in the end.

Nothing? Most flyers are av10 in the back...I have seen them shot down by bolters, or once even kroot rifles.
I have a buddy with a bike list that his AA is just his twinlinked bolters, works for most games so far.

Also, I don't consider a single flyer to be tier 1....most armies should be built to handle at least a flyer or two.
Finally, unless this flyer destroyed all your scoring units - its just one model....did you focus on his scoring units? or on denying objectives?
Did he have an amazing list as well and you just rolled bad?

or this...

On the opposite side I played last week and had instances where my opponent could do nothing to my models because they had nothing in the list capable of penetrating the armor.

You bring some AV14? and he was unprepared? I call that poor list building not a tier 1 vs. tier 2.
So, your av14 vehicle, unless you were playing 1 objective....did he not take the others?
Did he focus on your scoring units? Did he out manuver you? Or was it the relic and you parked your av14 vehcile on it?
Did he even try? I have been almost completely tabled before, and pulled out a draw.

Now, I was not there - so maybe the games were truly hopeless....but in my experience very few games are - especially ones with the limited details we have here.

Now, those two examples aside (neither one sounds like a tier 1 vs. tier 2) yes, there is a huge different between a guy running a screamerstar list and something else, but unless a list is cheesy (again, which we have every year, only the codex changes) or someone is playing something VERY out of date I think player/mission/terrain etc. matter most.

I agree so much with what you said. People still play as if it was 4th edition. Your units are to make it's points back, nothing about winning the game. They win games by killing more points.

I said it once, I will say it again. A 1000 point unit can kill you one point and you still win the game, because your enemy is concentrating on your 1000 point unit. You can have a one point unit, kill 1000 points, and still loose the game. Why? Because you didn't claim your objectives.

It almost seems, only the tourney players know how to win games, by game objectives, while the casuals just complain when they don't bother with trying to win objectives, but just kill points. Not saying this is all people but that is what it sounds like lately on the internet.

Want to win games, claim objectives. Want to kill points, don't complain when you loose.

It's easy to claim objectives when your opponent has very few models left.

Loborocket wrote:
I played a game a couple of weeks ago and my opponent brought some kind of flyer. I had NOTHING in my lust to even have a chance to counter that. On the opposite side I played last week and had instances where my opponent could do nothing to my models because they had nothing in the list capable of penetrating the armor.
I have fun most of the games I play, but I. Know every time I set up a game there is a chance I will show up to the game with a bunch of paper when my opponent will have a list full of scissors. Then it is not fun for anyone.

Flyers are part of the game now - you have to have something to counter them. If you create a list that can't handle flyers you'll be in just as poor a state as if you brought a list that can't handle AV14.

All lists need to be able to comfortably handle everything below because all of these things crop up in common lists.
- 2 flyers
- 2 AV14 vehicles
- 6+ AV11 vehicles
- 2+ save infantry
- large quantities of GEQ
- high toughness monstrous creatures
- AV12 walkers

This is something I see too often - people take lists that simply have not been thought through at all and then wonder why the game doesn't seem fair.

Flyers other than helldrakes can be ignored for the most part. Even Stormravens aren't that impressive for the points.