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I was wondering the same thing but didn't want to say anything.

Heh, I guess this fits in with the other thread in that I got accused of saying none of the tournament goers have jobs. Moar proof!

This thread got hot fast, faster than normal

IMO, forcing yourself into thinking about which units are 'best' is the wrong way to play. Units that are effective at killing models are not the only units that are effective...every unit in 40K can contest an objective, no matter the mission (most of the time, sometimes it gets a bit weird) You don't necessarily have to capture all the objectives to win, you just have to contest the ones your opponent has and hold onto just one you designate as 'yours' In KPs, you don't have to wipe your opponent out, you just need one MORE KP than they have.

Granted, the massacre system makes these 'trick' wins worth less points than blowing your opponent's army off the table...but not every army is able to blast units off the table left right and center.

late as allways, but to answer the topic in my own words:

People taylor tournie lists around take on all armies.
So they expect to see most of the common power builds, as soon as something new pops up they dont know what to expect.

Just my thoughts though, being a BA player not many people near me knew they even had a list XD

JD21290 wrote:
People tailor tournie lists around take on all armies.
So they expect to see most of the common power builds, as soon as something new pops up they don't know what to expect.

Again I see this argument. These are tournament players. They should be able to analyze and know the best game plan against it with their list. Stelek's 'best of' lists by definition are take all comers lists so in the hands of a good player they should be able to w/e pops up.


@starbomber: I have said before how much I hate the massacre system that the current tournaments use and I have tried to have discussions on better ideas for a system. That said, the best unit is not always the one that puts out the best firepower. Check TH/SS terminators. They only have 2 attacks each when not charging. But they get the job down because of survivability.

Timmah wrote:

Thank you for continuing to be rude in a discussion, Eidolon. Are you 12? Can you not handle someone with opposing viewpoints to your own without insulting them? Because you are very much proving my #2 argument. Go read my previous posts. No where did I deviate from my original arguments. Maybe you didn't comprehend them correctly. (since your 12)

See heres the problem. You post something inflammatory. It turns the entire debate into a huge heated argument. You then back down with "well I just meant so and so". This happened in gardeths ardboyz thread, in black moors wild west shootout game 5 report with "was there any real competition" or something to that effect. And then when proved wrong you keep on this 'well i never really meant so and so, i just meant that he could build his list better'. And whats your reply, calling me 12?

I can discuss tournament armies in a vacuum. I understand that in a vacuum mech ig>eldar. However when played by the right guy they wont. So when someone breaks this vacuum-mold of the meta game we should find out why. "shut up when adults are talking"

Again I see this argument. These are tournament players. They should be able to analyze and know the best game plan against it with their list. Stelek's 'best of' lists by definition are take all comers lists so in the hands of a good player they should be able to w/e pops up.

They are tournament players, but still suffer the biggest flaws, they have a human brain, which does not allways calculate the best play style and tactics each game.

Most tournie players can adapt against a weird list, yet not all of them at 1st.
Lets face it, you see a very different list at a tournie and your thinking about what hes/shes going to do tactics wise.

just seems that people are allways prepaired for the worsed, yet easily beaten by the most simplistic.

JD21290 wrote:
They are tournament players, but still suffer the biggest flaws, they have a human brain, which does not allways calculate the best play style and tactics each game.

Most tournie players can adapt against a weird list, yet not all of them at 1st.
Lets face it, you see a very different list at a tournie and your thinking about what hes/shes going to do tactics wise.

just seems that people are allways prepaired for the worsed, yet easily beaten by the most simplistic.

Except this doesn't work in other hobbies. I can't go to an MTG tournament play a subpar list and expect to walk away the winner because people don't know how to deal with it. Believe me, quality pros learn real fast. Besides, I don't find how Blackmoors list was unconventional since he claims that his list style is top dog and that's what everyone was playing...


@Eidolon: I'm not quite sure what I said that was so inflammatory for you to attack me. (a couple times before I asked if you were 12)

Let's not have this locked before it's run its full course, please. This has been a testy subject but people have handled themselves very well so far. So please continue to enlighten us!

Except this doesn't work in other hobbies.

Actually, it depends on the hobby.
In airsoft this is a big factor.

It may even play down to over confidence.
Lets face it, if your a good player then you may get cocky from time to time, but no one is perfect, and plans can still fall flat on turn 1.

Yes, a pro should learn quickly, but looking at it in another light, they would have never faced lists built like that if they are a tournie chaser.
So yes, it is something out of the ordinary for them, they dont know what to expect from the actual player aswell since the list doesent allways represent skill level as such.

We arent discussing MTG timmah. We are discussing 40k. Different games completely. And we have said that 40k works different then magic numerous times.

Just to be clear, I'm not calling anybody a liar. I do agree that experience with an army is a big advantage. I just wonder how people can play that many games in so little time and still somehow enjoy it.

I think one point that's been ignored that is of great value was something WC_Brian hinted at.

Some armies are very strong against a lot of builds but have serious weaknesses against others. In larger tournaments with fewer rounds, I'm thinking of Adepticon's Sunday tournaments, it benefits the player to go for broke and to play a Rock-Paper-Scissor army and hope they get good matchups and 3 massacres. Bringing an all-comers list will, at best, give you three solid to middling wins which probably won't be enough in a 3 game 100+ player tournament.

I've read Stelek's site some. His views aren't worthless but it's very clear that for many of the lists he posts he has never used them or even played that army. I've made lists for armies I'm just starting and those lists will mutate over dozens of games into a much stronger list. Just trying to come up with a list without actually using all the options available to an army really does a disservice to your army and to the game. If experience and player skill didn't matter players could easily net deck their way to victory and so far I don't see that happening.

Timmah wrote: Besides, I don't find how Blackmoors list was unconventional since he claims that his list style is top dog and that's what everyone was playing..

Where did he say that? I didn't see it, link please?

MTG has a lot of similar things to 40k in its competitiveness. I find no problem referencing it for certain things.

If you don't believe so, then we will just have to agree to disagree (I hate myself for saying something cheesy like this).

Remember your view is just an opinion and not necessarily right, just as mine is also an opinion.


I would still like to hear how darkwynn played 5.55 games a day for 3 months straight though.

CaseyVa wrote:Just trying to come up with a list without actually using all the options available to an army really does a disservice to your army and to the game.

That seems a very good point. You often see lists that use only three or four units out of an army. Is that really such a good idea? Does it really show that much skill? Or is an attempt to minimize the damage of not having experience with an army and so not being able to predict/work with the advantages and disadvantages of a variety of units? I'd especially like to hear what Eldar players have to say, having to deal with severe specialists.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Timmah wrote:MTG has a lot of similar things to 40k in its competitiveness.

I've been called on this comparison myself (not by Eidolon) and have to admit it's a shaky one, especially about competitiveness. Isn't one of the biggest complaints, especially from Stelek, that GW has intentionally undermined competitiveness in 40k? That's quite the reverse of Wizard's policy toward Magic, at least at its heart of hearts.

Timmah, in which case, you cannot say anyone is wrong, since its simply an opinion at the most.
Everyone will have an answer for this question, but it will vary depending on the person, so there will be no defining answer to this question, just alot of opinions, of which alot may clash, yet some will agree.

Playing 6 hours a day isn't too far-fetched. I know many people who spend that sort of time in front of the computer or TV. And when you factor in weekends, it's not too crazy for someone with the resources/dedication to fly to multiple large events across the country.

Timmah wrote:Heck blackmoore even said his army was not optimized.

Timmah wrote:Besides, I don't find how Blackmoors list was unconventional since he claims that his list style is top dog and that's what everyone was playing...

Um, do you actually have a coherent point?

I think, really, that the core thing is that 40k at the top levels is a lot more balanced (both between codices and within codices) than most players think. Optimizing gets into diminishing returns very quickly, and in terms of actually improving your game you're better off practicing with what you have as opposed to crunching the numbers if you have the choice.

Timmah wrote:

just seems that people are allways prepaired for the worsed, yet easily beaten by the most simplistic.

Except this doesn't work in other hobbies. I can't go to an MTG tournament play a subpar list and expect to walk away the winner because people don't know how to deal with it. Believe me, quality pros learn real fast.

I’ve had exactly this happen at a M:tG tournament. One of the local pro-tour hopefuls offered to chop 1st/2nd with me when I made the final round with a homebrew deck he didn’t recognize. Did he play more than me and thus was probably more skilled? Yep. Did he have a more tuned tournament deck? Yep. But he was still wary of the list with which he was unfamiliar. Enough so to offer to chop the prizes. Of course, I had to win my way through other tournamenrt regulars first.

Timmah wrote:Besides, I don't find how Blackmoors list was unconventional since he claims that his list style is top dog and that's what everyone was playing...

What? When did he say this?

I still want an answer on that lol. I mean, I've heard of elfzilla lists with avatard and eldrad and some combination of really big vehicles protecting a horde of guardians, but I've never actually seen it...and it seems unorthodox in 5th (to me anyways).

He obviously read it somewhere, or perhaps he was thinking of someone who wasn't blackmore, but I wanted a link to where he read it, so I could read it and verify it.

I find it funny that half the thread just asked for a citation lol. It's like wikipedia! With warhammer!

timmah is right not everyone takes the hardest list possible to events.
why? its boring
my next event I am bringing
bloodthirster
skarbrand
unit of flamers
2 units of 6 crushers
5 units of 6 letters
and 1 unit of horrors

yes this list loses big time to some builds, but it is fun to play and if I get lucky have a chance to play for the top spot.

Taking my stuff outa context.

He said it was unoptimized and tweaked to his playstyle. I was trying to get at that he himself didn't believe it to have all the best units, but the general theme of the army was the best eldar could do.

If your going to quote me at least take my entire post since a lot of my ideas are involved.

And yes, in a discussion of opinions, no one can truly be correct. That is why we argue. Because we try and rally people to our side of the belief. In a hobby like this nothing can be proven 100%. So in my opinion you are wrong, but you are not necessarily actually wrong.

Timmah wrote:MTG has a lot of similar things to 40k in its competitiveness.

How many matches you have to play to win an MtG tournament? As opposed to 40k tournament?

You simply can't compare them across. Furthermore, I'd like to make one additional point: in MtG, there is always the same "mission": beat the other guy in any way you see fit (usually, by reducing him to zero life or depleting his deck). By contrast, permutations of 40k missions is much greater.

Although there have been personal attacks made in this thread earlier, it seems to have gotten back on track for the most part, so we're going to leave it open.

But beware: leave the personal attacks at the door! Discuss the topic, do not attack the poster even if you vehemently disagree with their viewpoint. Remember, you always have the option not to respond if you don't like what someone has written.


Further personal attacks in this thread will result in disciplinary actions against the users who make them.

Mannahnin wrote:
I’ve had exactly this happen at a M:tG tournament. One of the local pro-tour hopefuls offered to chop 1st/2nd with me when I made the final round with a homebrew deck he didn’t recognize.

In MTG there is always a chance to lose. Was it a grand prix or something? If he wanted first for the invite and he knew you wouldn't use it then he was very valid in his decision. Most pro tour people don't care all that much about the product they could win at small events.

Playing type 1 mtg I knew how to play against all the best decks. I also could easily identify how to beat any home brew deck (there's a lot in type 1) its definitely a skill required for pros because of the amount of continuous innovation in the ever changing MTG world.

I was pretty sure blackmoor claimed the unconventionalness (not a word, I know) of his list helped him beat people because other people didn't know how to play against him. Maybe it was other people in the thread or darkwynn on his ard boyz list.


when I compared 40k competitiveness to MTG I meant in the strategy. There are a lot of the same concepts in it, like redundancy, being able to take on all comers ect.

Taking my stuff outa context.

Not exactly I didn't think, it's just that line jumped out at me, and a few others.

Timmah wrote:

JD21290 wrote:
They are tournament players, but still suffer the biggest flaws, they have a human brain, which does not allways calculate the best play style and tactics each game.

Most tournie players can adapt against a weird list, yet not all of them at 1st.
Lets face it, you see a very different list at a tournie and your thinking about what hes/shes going to do tactics wise.

just seems that people are allways prepaired for the worsed, yet easily beaten by the most simplistic.

Except this doesn't work in other hobbies. I can't go to an MTG tournament play a subpar list and expect to walk away the winner because people don't know how to deal with it. Believe me, quality pros learn real fast. Besides, I don't find how Blackmoors list was unconventional since he claims that his list style is top dog and that's what everyone was playing...

There, your entire post, now, I'm going to try and figure out your point. The only one I can discern is sarcasm, and it's not done very well either. My request for a link still stands

Timmah wrote:MTG has a lot of similar things to 40k in its competitiveness.

It does have some things in common. It has a lot more different though, and it is those differences that break your analysis.

If you go to a magic tournament, you go to win. Period. People don't take decks because they like the fluff. They don't bring decks because they painted the cards nicely. They don't bring a deck from three years ago (because in most competitive M:TG circles, a deck from 3 years ago isn't even valid, let alone competitive - and don't bring up type I because it's far less competitive than standard or extended). They don't lose one game and face weird oddball matchups for the rest of the day either.

Go to any large Warhammer tournament and ask around how many people are there to win. The answer is almost certainly less than half. People go to socialize. They go because it's something they can put on the calender months in advance and their wives won't give them crap for spending a whole day playing toy soldiers...

The objectives are different from game to game, and a random mission against a random opponent means that you're SOL on the bottom tables for the rest of the day. And tournament organizers love to put random missions out there. You can find yourself on the one table at the event that's devoid of terrain - or overly cluttered with dangerous terrain, bottlenecking your mech.

Magic doesn't have these considerations. Skill is much more of a factor in Magic. You cannot randomly lose one game - you play at least two against each opponent. You can't win after playing 3 matches, you're generally playing 8 just to get to the finals. This alone makes skill a far greater factor in a Magic tournament, as everyone suffers bad luck (whether dice or draws) from time to time. Playing 24 games in a tournament means that any one bit of bad luck gets lost in the mix. Playing three games of 40k??

This is why it is so much harder to analyze skill/builds in 40k. The best build may have had one bad turn, at the beginning of the tournament. His opponent's dice got randomly hot and he lost half his firepower before he took a turn. Now he's playing lower tables for the next three games, and whatever data his list was going to generate is completely lost by this one bad turn. His final result is middle-of-the-pack, and no one will post his results, or list, after the fact.

To reiterate about the MTG comparison (since we're getting off track), game mechanics aside, WotC supports a sharper competition than GW does.

Timmah wrote:In MTG there is always a chance to lose. Was it a grand prix or something? If he wanted first for the invite and he knew you wouldn't use it then he was very valid in his decision. Most pro tour people don't care all that much about the product they could win at small events.

It was Type 2, and it wasn't a qualifier. He just wasn't confident that he could beat my deck, as it was both unfamiliar and (evidently, based on my results up to that point) good. I didn't mind chopping, since a) I wasn't entirely convinced that I would win, and b) I wanted to go get dinner with friends.

Timmah wrote:I was pretty sure blackmoor claimed the unconventionalness (not a word, I know) of his list helped him beat people because other people didn't know how to play against him. Maybe it was other people in the thread or darkwynn on his ard boyz list.

No, I'm sure he did at some point opine that his having an unfamiliar build is an advantage, at least some of the time. But that's kind of the opposite of what you claimed he was saying when you wrote:

Timmah wrote:I don't find how Blackmoors list was unconventional since he claims that his list style is top dog and that's what everyone was playing...

MMMM I love freaky missions and screwy terrian. I think most events should have bizarre boards esp on higher tables