Karol wrote:
Armies should be designed in such a way that I wouldn't have to force people to play with odd rules

 Ashiraya wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
The effectiveness of units doesn't change at varying point levels. It merely affects how many you can take.

The effectiveness of units absolutely varies with point levels.

Take standard custodes for example. They are stronger and stronger the smaller the game. In small games they are likely to face mostly tactical marines and the like, and there they thrive.

Now look at a 2k game where said tactical marines have a castellan with them. The custodes are now an absolute waste of points.

 Melissia wrote:

Karol wrote:
Armies should be designed in such a way that I wouldn't have to force people to play with odd rules

"Let's play with more terrain on the board instead of having a blank flat plain." isn't a houserule. If your opponent is playing an army that benefits massively from there being little to no terrain on the field, why should YOU have to agree to giving them that advantage? It's not fair to you. If you continue to agree to that, that's really your own damn fault, you're literally choosing to cripple your army and then whining about it afterwards, and ain't nobody got time to listen to that crap.

Trollbert wrote:
2 things:

I would not consider piling in to prevent fall back a tactical choice. It's something you should always do if you charge units that are bad at melee and it doesn't take much skill to do it (luck is more important as you need to enough attack range to reach the far corner of the vehicle). There is no real decision making involved. Likewise the 'bring only one unit into melee range after charging' trick. You just do it if against non-melee units because you have nothing to gain from not doing it.

And I would not consider actions that break down to 'Do some math in your head and you find out which choice is optimal' tactical choices. This is something a poorly programmed computer could do.


It certainly is important though, just like other easy stuff you mentioned. But that's not really tactics and while I roughly agree with your importance percentages, if you split the 24% tactics into 'Remembering the easy stuff' and actual tactics, there is not much left for actual tactics.

 greatbigtree wrote:
Slayer, you aren’t the arbitrator or valid metas. You can take that notion and stuff it.

Everyone plays in different metas. There is (nigh)infinite variations in which people can play. I play in a great meta where I can play 95% WYSIWYG with my friends and have fun, close games where I use the models I like and my friends gravitate to FOTM armies. I can assert that good tactics, which is to say good decision making in reaction to changing game states, can allow lower powered armies to achieve victory.

So your desire for an echo chamber isn’t going to find traction here. Describe your experience and refrain from dismissing others opinions just because you disagree.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
That doesn't help

 Melissia wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
That doesn't help

If you don't think getting cover bonuses, forcing enemies to fire at -1 to-hit due to forcing movement, or even denying shots entirely won't help, then you clearly have never actually played the game, and I suggest you go learn how to before commenting.

And I realize this is a very dismissive comment, but to be frank, man, this is not a matter of opinion that we can respectfully disagree about. It's a matter of fact. Those things all help, and are all important in ensuring an army survives. It's not up for debate. They can, will, and do make the difference between a unit dying turn one, and surviving to make an impact, "bad" or not.

 Melissia wrote:

Karol wrote:
Armies should be designed in such a way that I wouldn't have to force people to play with odd rules

"Let's play with more terrain on the board instead of having a blank flat plain." isn't a houserule. If your opponent is playing an army that benefits massively from there being little to no terrain on the field, why should YOU have to agree to giving them that advantage? It's not fair to you. If you continue to agree to that, that's really your own damn fault, you're literally choosing to cripple your army and then whining about it afterwards, and ain't nobody got time to listen to that crap.

 greatbigtree wrote:
I can assert that good tactics, which is to say good decision making in reaction to changing game states, can allow lower powered armies to achieve victory.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You're also naming a unit, the Castellan, that makes Custodes look bad regardless of point level as long as it can be included. The Tactical Marines will still perform badly vs the Custodes though.

 Creeping Dementia wrote:
Of course tactics matter, a lot. Some will say that because there are dice involved in the game that it entirely based on luck, which is untrue. It is based on probability, knowledge of the rules, and decision making. All of those components are involved in the pregame, and during actual game play.

Tyel wrote:
If it was purely about luck then you would expect to see a random assortment of people win tournaments every year. That is not the case, so it seems logical to assign those people who consistently do well some "skill" over those who don't. After all they must be doing something right - and since lists are reasonably publicly available - and many tournament players are happy to share their current thinking - I don't we can say its that.

 Ashiraya wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
You're also naming a unit, the Castellan, that makes Custodes look bad regardless of point level as long as it can be included. The Tactical Marines will still perform badly vs the Custodes though.

The castellan is a very good example of why some units are so much more powerful at certain points levels. Castellans are very difficult to fit into lower points games, which means Custodes are better as a result of one of their most powerful counters not existing.

Of course, castellan obliterates guardsmen too, but not as points-efficiently as it kills custodes.

 greatbigtree wrote:
Slayer, you’re becoming my second favourite poster.

Everyone’s meta is valid. For what reason would metas in which all lists are pushed to their limits be the only valid metas? Everyone would play the exact same “best” list at which point *only* luck and tactics would matter.

Your assertion is self-defeating.

 Melissia wrote:

Karol wrote:
Armies should be designed in such a way that I wouldn't have to force people to play with odd rules

"Let's play with more terrain on the board instead of having a blank flat plain." isn't a houserule. If your opponent is playing an army that benefits massively from there being little to no terrain on the field, why should YOU have to agree to giving them that advantage? It's not fair to you. If you continue to agree to that, that's really your own damn fault, you're literally choosing to cripple your army and then whining about it afterwards, and ain't nobody got time to listen to that crap.

think the issue with most of the “list strength is everything” crowd is they don’t seem to try lower leveled lists. So you assume you can’t win because you have a lower chance, but that’s not the case. My direct experience with playing (*well* if I do say so myself) with models I like with a solid strategy is that I have answers to a lot of *questions* that my opponents might bring.

 Peregrine wrote:
It is a house rule because most terrain in 8th is purely aesthetic thanks to the poor LOS and cover rules.

 Yarium wrote:

Trollbert wrote:
2 things:

I would not consider piling in to prevent fall back a tactical choice. It's something you should always do if you charge units that are bad at melee and it doesn't take much skill to do it (luck is more important as you need to enough attack range to reach the far corner of the vehicle). There is no real decision making involved. Likewise the 'bring only one unit into melee range after charging' trick. You just do it if against non-melee units because you have nothing to gain from not doing it.

And I would not consider actions that break down to 'Do some math in your head and you find out which choice is optimal' tactical choices. This is something a poorly programmed computer could do.


It certainly is important though, just like other easy stuff you mentioned. But that's not really tactics and while I roughly agree with your importance percentages, if you split the 24% tactics into 'Remembering the easy stuff' and actual tactics, there is not much left for actual tactics.

Then you are in error as to what constitutes a tactic, and what does not. It doesn't matter if it's easy or not, all that matters is that it's a choice or a method of doing something that produces an immediate or short-term impact. If it's more complicated because it's trying to impact future events, then that's a part of a strategy. Boxing in to trap a unit in is a tactic. Doing this because you are trying to reduce your opponent's decisions during their turn is part of your strategy.

My current army's strategy is to play ITC games by reducing my opponent's abilities to get to objectives, while having other units appear or quickly get to objectives so that I can win by scoring "hold more" each turn, claiming the bonus objective on whatever turns I can. My tactics I use to do that involve pinning and tagging units with my genestealers. I have a lot of different tactics for doing that, from using the Swarmlord to slingshot Genestealers (instead of himself) at opponents, to using stratagems that let me move instead of consolidate, to using Hive Guard and Exocrine and Cult Leman Russ Tank to reach units that I'm not able to reach with the Stealers.


EDIT: Oh, and I appreciate that you agree with the percentages. I went with a classic "60/40" rule. So of your 100% performance, 60% is your list. Of the remaining 40% I re-applied the 60/40 rule. Then did that again for strategy. Whatever was left, was likely the luck factor.

 Melissia wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
It is a house rule because most terrain in 8th is purely aesthetic thanks to the poor LOS and cover rules.

Says who? Terrain can easily block line of sight entirely.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
It is a house rule because most terrain in 8th is purely aesthetic thanks to the poor LOS and cover rules.

Says who? Terrain can easily block line of sight entirely.

Not the typical terrain people use, or that GW sells. One fingertip of a model visible is the same as no terrain at all, and most terrain is full of holes that will allow you to see that fingertip. To fix this you either need to house rule that the holes don't count, or make your own terrain that has solid walls.

 greatbigtree wrote:
Hey Storm, for the giggles, what’s your army / theme?

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
I use real world tactics quite a bit in 40k, one of which is the Refused Flank in non-objective games (moving my entire force to one side while my opponent is spread out, which maximizes my firepower while minimizing his). Another good one Enfilade and Defilade positioning (maximizing my firepower into my enemy while minimizing their return fire via positioning and use of line of sight blocking terrain).

Sure, games are won in the list building phase, but they lost due poor use and/or lack of terrain. Satisfaction comes from playing smarter and making less mistakes than your opponent who is also playing an optimized list just like you are.

SJ

 Yarium wrote:

 Stormatious wrote:
Do tactics matter enough to effect a win regardless of your army/race?, this is a follow up to people saying my army is gak and me thinking they're wrong no matter how much facts there are lollll.


Like for e.g could 30 troops face off against 120 troops and win?

I imagine you're somewhat directing this at me. I wasn't saying your army is the worst thing ever, just that it isn't an ultra-competitive list. You can still have fun with it, you just are unlikely to be winning tournaments with it. Tactics absolutely matter, but they're not the most important thing in the game. I'd rank the game's primary influencers of who will win a game in the following manner;

#1 - List Strength (60%). If you have a strong list, you're lowering the difficulty of the game. There are many models that are better for the points you're spending on them than an equivalent amount of points spent nearly anywhere else. Plasma Guns aren't expensive, but deal way, way, way more damage, and deal that damage more reliably, than a model with a bolter. Take 5 Marines, with one having a Plasma, and have them fight a unit of 6 Marines. The unit with the Plasma should win almost every time, regardless of other factors. The person with the 5 Marines + Plasma built a better list than the one who took 6 Marines. Maybe in another "meta" the 6 Marines would've been better (say, against Orks), but in this matchup, and indeed in most matchups, the 5 Marines + Plasma is better.

#2 - Tactics (24%). 8th Edition has a ton of these. By a "tactic", I mean a decision made that impacts the short-term result of the game. You just do what you're already doing, but differently. For example, you charge a unit into a tank. The player with weak tactical knowledge might just pile the models up to it. The tactically intelligent player puts a model at each corner of the vehicle such that the vehicle can no longer move out of combat and has "pinned" the unit in place. That's a tactic. A tactic can also be choosing which unit to charge in first with. Or the order in which you do shooting. Or remembering to use a stratagem. Etc. Point is, there's a lot of EASY stuff here, but it can be hard to remember it all because there really is just so much. Doing these things will massively change the effectiveness of your list.

#3 - Strategy (10%). If anything, I would say the actual strategy of 40k is the part that has the least depth. Strategy is your long-term, or even game-long plan that will influence your tactics. A good tactic may be to put a unit near 3 objectives so you can easily go to whichever one you need to hold. A good strategy is choosing to go for one of those three so that your opponent moves into a different position. List Building is, technically, part of strategy, and I would say that your choice of trying to plan against the "meta" here is where this is important. In other words, List Strength is 60% of your game, but you can make it 70% by correctly guessing the meta, or drop it to 50% by guessing incorrectly. Having a plan for your list is very important, but at this point you're putting a lot of effort into something that will only matter against people that have also nearly maxed out the other 84% of their ability through List Strength and Tactics.

#4 - Luck (6%). Yes, this is a dice game, but luck honestly has very little to do with it. At 6% you are, roughly speaking, saying that for every 20 times something happens, in the game, it happens in a way differently to what you expect in a way that actually matters. Sure, sometimes crazy things happen, but it rarely has that big of an impact, plus you are just as likely to have such a string of good or bad luck. The only way to influence this is to remove the luck element from your games by making things hit and wound on 2+ rerollables, and make things never get a save. That's possible to do, but you really start paying for it - it's not easy to do, and you leave yourself more and more open to being swarmed.

So, there you go. That's my breakdown. 30 Tactical marines should always lose to 120 Tactical Marines, regardless of strategy or tactics or even luck. 30 Rubric Marines, on the other hand, might be able to use Tactics and Strategy to defeat 120 Tactical Marines. 30 Obliterators will laugh off 120 Tactical Marines, and then eat another 120 just for good measure.

Moriarty wrote:
Tactics matter in 40k? Not really, not until points represent how effective a unit is in isolation. Then tactics matter in getting them into the best position to do their job.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
It is a house rule because most terrain in 8th is purely aesthetic thanks to the poor LOS and cover rules.

Says who? Terrain can easily block line of sight entirely.

Not the typical terrain people use, or that GW sells. One fingertip of a model visible is the same as no terrain at all, and most terrain is full of holes that will allow you to see that fingertip. To fix this you either need to house rule that the holes don't count, or make your own terrain that has solid walls.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
Tactics matter if both players bring lists that reflect a combined understanding of what kind of game both players want. If we both take grey knights and assume we both generally role average, then the player that makes better in game decisions and a better understanding of probability will prevail most of the time.

If the above does not happen, then yes, it will come down almost purely to who took a better list from the strongest factions. No one should be under any illusion that this is not true. Lack of the proper amount of terrain will only make this worse.

All of the above is why I find competitive 40k fairly unappealing. It pretty much means that most factions, unit choices and equipment aren't worth taking and what you will see on a table top will be very limited. That's boring to me in game that has such variety and history of models and table top terrain options.

Slipspace wrote:

 Stormatious wrote:
Oh ok, im getting it, and feel after this conversation that with the right tactics my army can win.


Thank you.

I'm genuinely curious: how did you reach that conclusion after reading this thread? That's the opposite of what's been said. With one possible exception, everyone has pointed out that 40k's tactics are pretty shallow and it's list building, rather than tactics, that win games.

 greatbigtree wrote:
40k really is what you make it. I've always preferred making my own terrain, and I do so to create interesting board options.

Things like Hills. We have a house-rule that 1" incline has no effect on movement, 2" incline is difficult terrain (was, no longer an issue) and 3" incline was impassable. That lets us build LOS blocking terrain that also limits movement through a plane... unless you "Fly".

With our ruined buildings, we've taken to making most of our (foamboard) ruins have at least one facing that's 9" tall and 9" wide. Something a Knight can hide behind / be hidden from. While we still include windows, it's easy enough to put some inside walls in place to prevent LOS, or to stagger small windows so that it's *very difficult* to draw LOS through.

Forests... we either houserule that shooting through a forest gives cover to the units behind, or that 3" of forest blocks LOS. It's stupid that it doesn't. Same thing with low walls and the like.

I acknowledge that the game shouldn't need houserules to be fun / playable, but 40k is what I make it. After 20 years, I'd rather have a fun time with friends than be super-hardcore about adhering to the RAW. We have a better time playing that way, and we find more interesting games as a result.

I hope you enjoy your Black Legion! That's how I started back in 2nd edition, with Abbadon leading my Termies to occasional wins!