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Now lately I've been hearing the word "cheese" tossed around in warhammer forums, vids and in general about the game. What exactly does it mean and when do things "get cheesy" on the tabletop ?


What constitutes cheese. Is it the same as being over powered or spamming powerful units or is there another meaning to it force organization wise (like for going a fast attack in favor of more heavy support) ?

Cheese is often used to refer to a unit that can be countered in a variety of ways, but said person crying "cheese" either cannot figure out or chooses not to run the counters because it gives them something to complain about. For example, wave serpents, lords of war, daemon summoning, flyers, etc. A long time ago (2nd edition), named characters were "cheese". Then we progressed through to 3rd and 4th where high AV was "cheese", 5th where rhino/razor spam was "cheese", 6th where flyers were "cheese" and now we have 7th where anything above average power level is called cheese by casual fluffhammer players who refuse to change the list they've been running since 4th edition. Unbound, lords of war, multiple CAD, Flyer heavy armies, drop pod spam, wave serpents, wraithknights, riptides, imperial knights, all cheese and should be banned!

/rant

It's a unit or playstyle that you don't like.

Ahh, I remember my introduction to cheese back in 3rd:
-Starcannons are so cheesy.
*Dude I only took two in 1850.
-Wraithlords are cheesy.
*I only have one.

People who can't adapt to the game generally call everything cheese.

I have a name for people who are always whining about cheese: Mice!

....then I squash them with my 3 Imperial Knights (lance formation of course), 3 Riptides and 6 Wave Serpents.

Basically it's a term that refers to fielding OP units just to win, without regard for your opponent's fun. E.g. someone who fields a Titan every game not because they like it or because it's for some cool scenario, but because it's amazingly strong and can wipe out their opponent's army. Playing to win versus playing to have fun, often by ignoring anything resembling good sportsmanship.

Basically the game equivalent of being a bully and wanting to just steamroll opponents to feel like a tough guy instead of having an enjoyable game.

It tends to have been misused now to mean "Something that beats me", but typically it's a derogatory term to refer to tabletop versions of the min/maxer and munchkin from RPGs who have no issue bending the rules or combining questionable rules together just for the power advantage. The UK version of the term is/was "beardy" which was often used for the same thing in WHFB context, while cheese was used in 40k and tends to be the most common term used now.

Cheese is playing grey knights, allying in SW and AM. Giving palsfins 3 priests and purifiers a drop pod :p


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Paladins*

 raiden wrote:
Cheese is playing grey knights, allying in SW and AM. Giving palsfins 3 priests and purifiers a drop pod :p


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Paladins*

Is that legit or not?! If it was legit then what about guardsmans in droppods spam.....

This is the first time i hear the term cheese thanks for the info guys.

AutarchRion wrote:
I have a name for people who are always whining about cheese: Mice!

....then I squash them with my 3 Imperial Knights (lance formation of course), 3 Riptides and 6 Wave Serpents.

That list is so cheesy...

In video games it's often use for a tactic that is relatively easy to pull off taking advantage of certain things to beat many standard playstyles. The issue being it takes no skill to win using that tactic or setup. Often what separates cheese from the most optimal tactic is that it can be beaten if opponent knows about it ahead of time and can do a particular counter to it.

So in 40k running all Knights would be cheesy especially in low point games but if you being plenty of AV weapons (more than an army at that point value would normally bring) that tactic can fall flat fairly quickly. Same with flyer spam but if you make a list against that ( lots of sky fire) then you can fairly easily beat it.

Cheese = anything that beats me consistently.

Cheese is also often extremely subjective. apart from the really extreme cases (there are some things most players of a certain game agree to as 'cheesy' or 'not cheesy'), you will often find that everyone draws the line between 'cheese' and 'not cheese' in a different place.

If you're familiar with Starcraft in general...

Think of cheese as a unorthodox style, where your opponent is committing to an idea 100%, like an all-or-nothing list.

Cheese lists are essentially lists that take the good quality of a unit forms a strategy around that one quality, and then crank it to 11. MOST cheesy lists have a hard counter where if they come up against it, they will pretty much auto-lose.

Cheese is what a person would call an 'excess' list. Serpent Spam, Drop Pod Spam, anything that takes a single idea and does it again and again and again until they run out of points. Some people will extend that to a unit that they particularly don't like, assuming that anyone that plays one of them plays ALL of them every time. Still more will call an entire faction cheese, such as eldar, just because their own codex took a big hit and is outclassed in every way now.

It's just another word to complain with.

 SharkoutofWata wrote:
Still more will call an entire faction cheese, such as eldar, just because their own codex took a big hit and is outclassed in every way now.

The end result is the same if other codices get their powerlevel lowered, or a single codex rises above the rest. The Eldar are the highest winrate codex currently on average in a tournament enviroment ( the enviroment where the powerlevels matter most and inwhich they are most likely put to best use. )

If anyone argues Eldar don´t have the most powerful Codex right now, I expect proof of similiar level and detail as what has been provided that this is indeed the case.

Cheese in starcraft roughly refers to "tactics that have a high chance of winning if they go undetected but are easily countered if scouted".

It's pretty similar in 40k - spamming units in the height of their power is cheese such as heldrakes at their launch, serpent spam and so on. If you know that you'll be facing these you can customise your list to have a much better chance of winning.

 Dalymiddleboro wrote:
People who can't adapt to the game generally call everything cheese.

cough.

When did we make the switch from 'beardy' to 'cheese', anyway?

I'm sure back in the nineties, people talked about things being beardy.

Someone mentioned earlier that "beardy" is the Brit term, while "cheese" has been an American staple for this sort of thing for a long, long time, even as far back (to my recollection) as D&D 1st Ed, where certain class builds/gear sets were just stupidly broken, "cheesy" (there was an addendum to the "cheese" when referring to the player) character builds.

I find it interesting how many people here are joking on people that call things cheesy. A Wraithknight is not cheesy, but running 3 at low points it.


My definition of cheese is when you exploit the gak out of a stupid combo, or spam something that you know is extremely difficult for people to deal with, just for the fact that it's difficult to deal with.

Things I consider cheesy:

3 Wraithknights - Sorry, Necrons don't have many ways to deal with that many. Plus, it's not fun to play against.

Triptide - While IMHO not very effective, it is cheesy because you are obviously spamming something hard to kill just for the sake of doing so.

Wave Serpent spam - Bringing min squads of Dire Avengers just to bring a WS. That's stupid.

Flyer spam - Yes, I play Necrons, but my two, count'em, two, Night scythes are carrying full squads of Immortals, not min squads of 5 warriors just to have a Night scythe.

Screamer Star - Extremely dumb


6th Edition stuff, which isn't doable anymore, but was still cheesy:

Farseer on a jetbike with a riptide. Dumb as hell, and exploited the IC rule IMHO.

Buffmander with a Riptide as well as another commander and a bunch of drones. Yet again, dumb.


Now you all may accuse me of being wrong or dumb or whatever you like. Proceed.


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 SharkoutofWata wrote:
Cheese is what a person would call an 'excess' list. Serpent Spam, Drop Pod Spam, anything that takes a single idea and does it again and again and again until they run out of points.

Exactly. Spamming is when the player doesn't know how to make a good list otherwise, or lacks the drive to do so. Thus they bring things that are universally strong just to win.

Cheese is a great compliment to wine.

 Desubot wrote:
Cheese is a great compliment to wine.

You mean cheese is a great compliment to whine

But yeah, cheese typically just implies trying to win at the expense of your opponent's fun.

Honestly both cheese and whine are both completely subjective and there is no Line drawn on the sand.

Cheese is something legit OP.

Something that for it's points value is fantastic. Not good for it's points, something that would smash anything of equal points value not matter what army.

A Riptide for example would beat most any other Elite choice from any other army, unless it starts the game in close combat or up very close to the enemy.

 krodarklorr wrote:

My definition of cheese is when you exploit the gak out of a stupid combo, or spam something that you know is extremely difficult for people to deal with, just for the fact that it's difficult to deal with.

The definitions of 'exploit' and 'stupid' varying from person to person. One man's 'cheesy' list is another man's 'perfectly normal' list.

 krodarklorr wrote:
Exactly. Spamming is when the player doesn't know how to make a good list otherwise, or lacks the drive to do so. Thus they bring things that are universally strong just to win.

What do you exactly understand by a good list? If you judge a list by it's performance a list that wins is a good list

LordBlades wrote:

 krodarklorr wrote:
Exactly. Spamming is when the player doesn't know how to make a good list otherwise, or lacks the drive to do so. Thus they bring things that are universally strong just to win.

What do you exactly understand by a good list? If you judge a list by it's performance a list that wins is a good list

On the contrary. There are good, balanced lists that still win. Many of my friends are very skilled players and win often without resorting to "cheese". But, then you have people at my local store that show up with 3 dreadknights and expect me to wanna play. I respectfully decline. I suppose it's not quite along the lines of "cheese", per se, but spamming of any kind, especially of powerful units, doesn't make for a fun game. Hence why I stay away from tournaments.

Cheese is the types of armies that GW hit with a hammer on there next codex and cause all the people that use them it Whine. It's normally a broken army not faqed that is way more powerfull then all the other armies. It goes back to the old saying if it seems to good it is probobly broken and should not be used. But now everyone loves to be the king of the hill using crap they know it probobly not suppost to work. IE the rambow arch wave serpents or stuff that should not be put in drop pods magicly now allowed to and jump on the bandwagon. Cheese is the you cannot beat them join them crowd.

OP means different things to different people.

I found in the past it typically meant leaning heavily on an "auto-include" item (or couple) in an army list.
Lots of Wave Serpents is an easy choice for elder, Venoms with trueborn for Dark Eldar, Riptides for the Tau...

We could go a step further and anywhere the wording is contested or unclear for a rule someone can choose to interpret it how they want until the next FAQ.
(Dark Eldar ARE Eldar so I can cast what I want with my Farseer on that guy with the 2+ Invulnerable save...)

The title for this thread alone has guaranteed the attendance of some of the worst cheese offenders out there, myself included.

The "classic" configuration of an army is a "balanced" or mixed force, the further you move away from that, the more likely the claim of cheese.

Go all foot-slog = horde =
Go all tank armor =
Spam a whole lot of anything =

New definition in 7th edition:
Lords of War =
Fortifications =
Super heavies =
Mixed codex armies =
Multiple detachments of the same army =
Unbound armies =
Anything not from the "normal" army lists =

The whopping catch-all (I think others had said) Anything your opponent fields you have no good answer to with your army =

Remember "perceived" as being called cheese. No please...
Did I miss anything?