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 Formosa wrote:
I have always laughed that we as players refuse to take our share of the blame when it comes to breaking the game, all you need is one WAAC player to go out of his way to cheese something up, bend a rule etc. then post it online, then bitch about GW sucking at rules writing when they have gone out of their way to break the rules.

So yes GW should make better rules, and also Yes we shouldnt try our best to break them for advantage!

WAAC people like you are describing are intentionally cheating and not discussing with their opponents places where the rules just don't hold up well. GW really needs to fix their rule set because it makes for a better experience for all players involved. If a game has clear and concise rules not only do competitive players benefit, but so do the casual players. Why? Because when a rule set is tight it means everyone can agree on exactly how the game plays and how certain interactions end up working out. If a narrative player wants to change the rules that is an entirely different story. They aren't binding themselves to the rules and they are looking to tell a story through their games which I am sure they have discussed with their opponent. But right now these WAAC players are taking advantage of the fact that GW isn't writing tight rules. Imagine a video game with huge game breaking bugs and glitches that allow people to become invincible, go through walls, etc. That's what Games Workshop's ruleset is. They need to fix their bugs.

That being said I feel like a competitive player's job is to find the best ways to win which means to find the best combos and exploit them (And no bending rules isn't part of this). By exploit I mean taking full advantage of these combos within the boundaries of the rule set. To most people this is the worst thing a person could do in a game and its usually referred to as cheese. I really do not understand why when it is perfectly legal and allowable. If you don't want to play against someone who is using a tournament level list then let them know. Talk to them about it and see if you can work out an agreement. In my experience people usually say 'This is cheesy', because they can't beat it. Sure some combos are incredibly overpowered in 40k, but in a tournament wouldn't you use the list that gives you the best chance of winning? Isn't the point of a tournament to win? That's what a competitive gamer wants out of a game of 40k and especially one at the competitive level. If a combo is so broken though that the rest of the game suffers for it then shouldn't we as players find it and let the game designers know? They need to fix it. Simply ignoring it and not talking about it is not the way to go about it. That leaves the problem in place and no one wins. Casual players are left having to deal with an extremely overpowered list that they can never beat and tournament players become bored with the game because there aren't any better combos to use.

So my point is I feel we should be taking advantage of everything written in the rule set and showing gw exactly how broken their rules are. I'm not endorsing people who cheat or bend rules, but I am endorsing that we find those rules that are simply unclear and leave too much open for interpretation. This benefits us so long as they continue to listen to us the players and continue to care about the feedback we give them.

Daedalus81 wrote:

 Red Comet wrote:

WAAC people like you are describing are intentionally cheating and not discussing with their opponents places where the rules just don't hold up well. GW really needs to fix their rule set because it makes for a better experience for all players involved. If a game has clear and concise rules not only do competitive players benefit, but so do the casual players. Why? Because when a rule set is tight it means everyone can agree on exactly how the game plays and how certain interactions end up working out.

Except the rules in question for the LVO debacle were 100% clear. Tony just chose to exploit an honest mistake by the other player.

Perfect rules will never defeat a rules lawyer.

You bring up a fair point BUT does anyone actually like Tony now? I don't think so. This means at any major or local event people are going to do the same thing to him over and over. He'll be made into an example of the kind of player no one wants to play with. I hate what he did and he's exactly the kind of WAAC/tournament player that shouldn't play any game that's a social contract like 40k.

Danny slag wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

Danny slag wrote:
The word competitive is misused in 40k. A competition is something with challenge between multiple parties, in 40k "competitive" means the least amount of competition ever. It's people who don't want to actually play a game, they want to win simply by the list they bring.
I prefer to put dudes on a table and roll dice and have that decide who wins, you know have an actual competition.

I just don't get it. If your ego is so fragile that you can't handle the possibility of losing so have to find ways to break the game to avoid competition, then why are you even playing. Sad people.

You can't bring some netlist spamming nothing 20 of one broken unit then pretend you just built a good army. "I'm just being competitive" no.
If your army doesn't look like an army it's a pretty good indication that you're "that guy." No one is saying take bad units, or poor army comp, so don't try to bait and switch here, you're showing up with an army composed of 6 guard squads and 5 primarchs. You know who you are.

And one of each unit is a pretty bad looking army, so who are you to criticize multiples of the same unit?

Where did I say one of each unit? I'd like you to point it out? Nice try though to do the usual attempt at straw manning. Are you going to try to pretend there's nothing between one of every unit and spamming only one unit?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MagicJuggler wrote:
To be fair, if a game is dictated more by being able to burn your wallet in order to cycle units in and out depending on their usefulness at the time (alas poor shelf-hogging Brimstones), as opposed to an actual playbook...

Creating a rapidly-cycling bandwagon is something that David Sirlin has been critical of as not actually making for a competitively sustainable game.

And if people didn't build silly broken armies of 200 brimstone then this wouldn't happen.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Red Comet wrote:

 Formosa wrote:
I have always laughed that we as players refuse to take our share of the blame when it comes to breaking the game, all you need is one WAAC player to go out of his way to cheese something up, bend a rule etc. then post it online, then bitch about GW sucking at rules writing when they have gone out of their way to break the rules.

So yes GW should make better rules, and also Yes we shouldnt try our best to break them for advantage!

WAAC people like you are describing are intentionally cheating and not discussing with their opponents places where the rules just don't hold up well. GW really needs to fix their rule set because it makes for a better experience for all players involved. If a game has clear and concise rules not only do competitive players benefit, but so do the casual players. Why? Because when a rule set is tight it means everyone can agree on exactly how the game plays and how certain interactions end up working out. If a narrative player wants to change the rules that is an entirely different story. They aren't binding themselves to the rules and they are looking to tell a story through their games which I am sure they have discussed with their opponent. But right now these WAAC players are taking advantage of the fact that GW isn't writing tight rules. Imagine a video game with huge game breaking bugs and glitches that allow people to become invincible, go through walls, etc. That's what Games Workshop's ruleset is. They need to fix their bugs.

That being said I feel like a competitive player's job is to find the best ways to win which means to find the best combos and exploit them (And no bending rules isn't part of this). By exploit I mean taking full advantage of these combos within the boundaries of the rule set. To most people this is the worst thing a person could do in a game and its usually referred to as cheese. I really do not understand why when it is perfectly legal and allowable. If you don't want to play against someone who is using a tournament level list then let them know. Talk to them about it and see if you can work out an agreement. In my experience people usually say 'This is cheesy', because they can't beat it. Sure some combos are incredibly overpowered in 40k, but in a tournament wouldn't you use the list that gives you the best chance of winning? Isn't the point of a tournament to win? That's what a competitive gamer wants out of a game of 40k and especially one at the competitive level. If a combo is so broken though that the rest of the game suffers for it then shouldn't we as players find it and let the game designers know? They need to fix it. Simply ignoring it and not talking about it is not the way to go about it. That leaves the problem in place and no one wins. Casual players are left having to deal with an extremely overpowered list that they can never beat and tournament players become bored with the game because there aren't any better combos to use.

So my point is I feel we should be taking advantage of everything written in the rule set and showing gw exactly how broken their rules are. I'm not endorsing people who cheat or bend rules, but I am endorsing that we find those rules that are simply unclear and leave too much open for interpretation. This benefits us so long as they continue to listen to us the players and continue to care about the feedback we give them.

And this is why I'll never play "tournament" players, they aren't interested in a game, tactics, and rolling dice. They only want to build a cheese list that's won before any models even get put on the table, not through tactics but through smarmy rule bending.

'Rules bending' is called cheating. If they are doing that then please call them out on it. If they are just using a really good and over powered army build then they are doing nothing wrong. People who bring strong armies to the table via actual legal armies are usually looking for a tactical game. But in my experience playing 40k I've found that the game is very lightweight when it comes to tactics. Warmachine/Hordes and Imperial Assault have been two games where I feel table tactics mattered a ton. In 40k it feels like your list can carry you harder than it should.