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 Dracos wrote:
The main issue with discussing tactics is the medium. Its not so easy to set up a proper tactical discussion via this medium.

An earlier example of chess was made - lets see what we can extrapolate from chess.

In chess, books describe tactics relative to specific positions and games. These specific positions are useful due to the static nature of the board setup. In contrast, game boards for 40k have a very dynamic and non-fixed character. Not only might each army be comprised of very different units, but they also interact differently with each other unit (as opposed to chess where the interaction is fixed).

The total number of positions in 40k is exponentially above the astronomical number in chess. This makes it harder to find positions which demonstrates concepts.

If you really want to talk tactics, you need to bring up specific board positions with diagrams. Anything else is general strategy concepts.

I agree. One interesting thing that I've noticed is that the Battle Reports forum often has more useful tactical discussion than the Tactics forum. I suspect this is because the nature of the Battle Reports forum lends itself to discussion of specific positions and matchups rather than the "oh yeah? well my X would totally blow up those Y!" trap that Tactics threads can often fall into.

While tactics are an important part of winning, army lists will trump tactics quite often. In my experience the list is nearly always the deciding factor between two opponents that are of even remotely similar experience playing 40k.

 Dracos wrote:
The total number of positions in 40k is exponentially above the astronomical number in chess. This makes it harder to find positions which demonstrates concepts.

Especially since only a tiny, tiny minority of those positions have any interesting tactics to discuss. The vast majority of the time you can just play your list on autopilot because there's exactly one correct decision and everything else is obviously wrong.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Dracos wrote:
The total number of positions in 40k is exponentially above the astronomical number in chess. This makes it harder to find positions which demonstrates concepts.

Especially since only a tiny, tiny minority of those positions have any interesting tactics to discuss. The vast majority of the time you can just play your list on autopilot because there's exactly one correct decision and everything else is obviously wrong.

Peregrine has summed up tactics in 40k into the most basic terms. It is in fact however more complicated than that. Tactics is the implementation of utilizing your units to the best of their ability while considering the factors of mission type and board setup, in direct contrast to the implementation and understanding your opponent has.

If both people know what they are doing then it will come down to most competitive list (the list statisitically most likely to succeed), whoever makes the most mistakes and luck (dice rolling)

Half the people at my FLGS dont even know the proper rules to their codex or the BRB let alone playing tactically. I find some of them easy to bait. These matches i play a fun list to make the game more interesting. There are of course the power gamers who know their , know your and know the BRB inside and out.

Peregrine would have you believe that it is as simple as "autoplay", like Connect 4 or Checkers, one wrong move looses you the game. I would argue that it is a little more complicated than that.

How many times when playing a 40k match do you relish your opponents mistakes because you know you can capitalize on them. Some times its easier to see the mistake when you are on the other side of the board.

 TheLionOfTheForest wrote:
Tactics is the implementation of utilizing your units to the best of their ability while considering the factors of mission type and board setup, in direct contrast to the implementation and understanding your opponent has.

Except that pretty much all of that is decided before the game begins, most of it in list construction. If I'm playing gunline IG I know I'm going to deploy near the back of the table with plenty of cover and I'm going to sit there shooting until my Vendettas arrive to drop a PCS on an objective late in the game. Nothing my opponent can do will change that plan. Similarly, if I'm playing assault orks I have exactly one viable plan: move forward as fast as possible, charge, and hope that I built my list with enough efficiency to succeed. I might have pre-set decisions to make, like "if my opponent has lots of tanks I drop pod my combi-melta sternguard first and kill them, if they don't I drop pod my tactical squad first into cover on my 'home' objective and save the sternguard for later", but those are pretty obvious decisions to make and you've established that "if-then" plan before the game begins. All that is left to do in the game is to identify which pre-set scenario you're dealing with and execute the appropriate game plan.

Peregrine would have you believe that it is as simple as "autoplay", like Connect 4 or Checkers, one wrong move looses you the game. I would argue that it is a little more complicated than that.

That's not what I said at all. It isn't one wrong move = auto-loss, because there are dice involved. What I said was that there are very few situations where there are non-trivial tactical decisions to make, and most of the time you're just executing a single plan based on decisions made in list construction.

I get where you are coming from, especially with the gunline guard example. I do find that my guard follow more of the situation you described.... guard can only do one thing really... shoot.

Where I do disagree with this situation is when i am playing my BA. We cant assault well anymore... we get outshot easily. What we do have on our side is mobility, which leads to more thinking outside the box.

I guess any codex that is considered out of date and not cometative anymore will require more intelligent use from the player.

 TheLionOfTheForest wrote:
Where I do disagree with this situation is when i am playing my BA. We cant assault well anymore... we get outshot easily. What we do have on our side is mobility, which leads to more thinking outside the box.

Honestly, how many new decisions are you making each game? Are you really coming up with new tactics every time based on a changing situation or are you just following a set of "IF X THEN DO Y" rules that you learned long ago and use every single game?

I guess any codex that is considered out of date and not cometative anymore will require more intelligent use from the player.

Not really. Tau are pretty obvious, castle up and shoot, and use JSJ and meatshields to keep your shooting units alive and out of combat. BT are pretty obvious, charge straight at the enemy and wipe them out. Etc. These armies do have less flexibility in list construction because each sub-optimal choice hurts you a lot more than, say, CSM that can depend on their 3x Helldrakes to make up for a "fun" choice elsewhere, but that doesn't really translate to more tactical decisions to make.

It is more of an "If x, do y" but keep in mind that I have been playing since 1994, so i have a lot of experience from a lot of editions to draw on. I see a lot of throwbacks in 6th ed to 2nd ed and its nice to be able to do some of the same things. I think the biggest changes that the BA have gone thru (as far as making them useless) was back in 4th ed, when i decided to start my guard army.

Perhaps we are confusing tactics and experience, or are they totally one and the same?

 Dr. What wrote:

 PipeAlley wrote:
Well, as an Ork player our Tactics are quite limited, especially if we don't talk about list building.

I don't believe that I can disagree more than with this statement.

Orks may have straitforward units, but it takes a solid tactician to make them really shine.

And that's certainly not me. One of the many attractions of Orks, for me, is their straight forward style with the occasion twist ala SAG or Weirdboy physic powers. I'm not a great tactician but I'm a good sport.

 Peregrine wrote:

 TheLionOfTheForest wrote:
Where I do disagree with this situation is when i am playing my BA. We cant assault well anymore... we get outshot easily. What we do have on our side is mobility, which leads to more thinking outside the box.

Honestly, how many new decisions are you making each game? Are you really coming up with new tactics every time based on a changing situation or are you just following a set of "IF X THEN DO Y" rules that you learned long ago and use every single game?

I guess any codex that is considered out of date and not cometative anymore will require more intelligent use from the player.

Not really. Tau are pretty obvious, castle up and shoot, and use JSJ and meatshields to keep your shooting units alive and out of combat. BT are pretty obvious, charge straight at the enemy and wipe them out. Etc. These armies do have less flexibility in list construction because each sub-optimal choice hurts you a lot more than, say, CSM that can depend on their 3x Helldrakes to make up for a "fun" choice elsewhere, but that doesn't really translate to more tactical decisions to make.

Personally, I am coming up with new stuff as I go. If something goes wrong, I gotta do something new. Granted, teams have generic tactics (orks charge forward, eldar and DE flank, etc) but that does not mean I adhere by those every time. I find that adaptability is how you win battles, not lists. it is hard to discuss tactics, but it can be done. Honestly though, the best placeto learn tactics is in a Military History book. That is where I got many of my tactics from.

 Kingsley wrote:
One thing that I've noticed is that, barring flagrant errors or extremely unbalanced matchups, the outcome of a game is typically decided by smart tactical play, not list composition. However, a lot of tactical discussion focuses on what list to take, not how to play.

To be honest, I support a different approach-- first, test a wide range of units and strategies until you find ones that you like to use and that fit well with your playstyle. Don't commit too early to certain units-- you may find that others suit your style better. For instance, in 5th edition everyone said that Predators were the optimal Space Marine Heavy Support choice, but through testing I found that I honestly preferred and did better with the then-humble Thunderfire Cannon.

Similarly, you have to play quite a few games with a unit before you have a good "feel" for it. For instance, I like to run a squad of ten Space Marine Scouts with bolters. A lot of people scoff at this unit or consider it bad-- and in some cases, it is! But in other cases it wins games for me, so I still run it despite the naysayers. If I had given up on this unit after my first few games with it (which were generally unexciting), I would be missing out on a tactical option that I've found to be very useful.

But once you've done a lot of testing and figured out what works well for you, keep your list more or less solid and focus more on tactics. When you encounter a new situation or an army you can't deal with-- first focus on changing your strategies, not your list, and then make tweaks as minor as possible in order to preserve your experience as best you can. It's certainly possible that new releases or types of opponents might cause you to have to vary your choices-- every new Codex, even if it doesn't apply directly to your primary or allied detachments, changes up the metagame-- but I for one advocate changing slowly and focusing on tactical play rather than list composition to win you games.

I love this comment. I really do. List building is a fun pastime, but itys kinda lkike asking whether Dimaggio or Ruth (or even Ken Griffey Junior in the first half of his career) were the best of all time. It depends on what you needed them to do for you, but they were all effective at something.

My blog has done some serious list hammering lately, but tactics and how to use certain units in imaginative ways is the real talent in the game and I try to put a bigger does of that out there than lists or failing that, explain how to use those lists, suboptimal or otherwise. I've been beaten by worse lists and beaten others with the same. We've all been there.

The General Matters was one of my first blog entries. So amen brother. Sing it from the mountain top!

I feel that most of the time tactics are put on the backburner to list building because most people see that unit X destroyed Y. It's harder to go back to deployment and think that if I deployed my army this way as opposed to that way I would have done much better.
Examples are denying flanks, castling in two corners to weaken an assault army realizing that you should be able to keep half your army out of assault. We can also include tarpitting, and other things.
The bottom line is that the way lists are built is based off of these tactics and playstyles. Some tactics are easier to use, and/or harder to counter, and this trickles into list building.
The other thing is that after you get the basic tactics laid out the only other thing to discuss is usually what options to bring on a squad.

Well the strategy informs the list building. So in my book it starts with the strategy.

For an example, in my armies:

Tau: Timing. I plan to beat you by not actually being where you can get and then being able to ambush your weakest point with no time to respond. Pretty much literally.

Sisters of Battle: Position. I bring a torrent to the point of attack and block which ends counterattack hopes and then I push, sometimes even foregoing the shooting phase if it means I can keep the enemy further from where they want to go. Blocking is a key piece of the plan. Units are highly disposable, even in KP missions and I mitigate that by simply having larger units for the enemy to devote energy to but slimming the wargear way down in anticipation of extreme attrition, then counter attacking the exposed enemy who tends not to be as numerous as I am. I can win the exchange battle.

Dark Eldar: attack morale is the goal. I tank shock, pin and whittle every available enemy unit to try and force as many checks as possible. Against Fearless enemies, I bring a couple brick houses to keep the primary threats busy while the units continue to kill from the perimeter. Speed gives me the edge, and volume of fire gives me a lot of morale checks. I dont rush the enemy like Dark Eldar wyche cults. I prefer to keep things moving and limit return fire or just kinda focus it into my brick houses. It's a totally different strategy than my Sisters of Battle who want to get up on you and position you to death or the Tau who are barely more than a whisper on the baord until they are right behind you late game.
The Dark Eldar can bog an enemy down with their brick houses, but the real damage is done at range or with lots of movement ending with liquefier juices everywhere as we make our moves.

Chaos Space marines: Casualties. I try to win by killing so many warm bodies that Khorne himself asks me to stop for desert. Using powerful augmented Marines and smashing into the enemy with audible brute force (read: clacking of many dice) is the goal. Chaos has little subtlety in its list. Obliterators, Heldrakes, Khornate berserkers and the like typify the casual disregard for lives the forces of Chaos bring to the table! Its the smashiest high AP list I play, and it essentially wants to leave nothing in its wake but grisssle. It tends to ignore objectives and simply cut the threat away from them en masse. Its not artful, but it is effective and its the one army I play wherein I kinda get to take my frustrations out in a fun "Hey they're bad guys anyways, so if they lose me the game...meh..." kinda way. Always like it when the good guys win anyhow.

Grey Knights: Playing for secondary objectives. First blood is easy to get with this army, it hunts characters really well (assassins, Crowe, and obviously precision shot in general), it is tough and mobile when played with a GrandMaster making LineBreaker a near given... It is ideal for fighting for the Secondaries. Their range disallows them from playing against the entire field, in the broad sense and getting flanked at distance is a danger for them so the force sort of has to "scoop" around not too far from center and can usually hold enough objectives to make it about the secondaries on a fairly consistent basis...at which they excel in getting. Overall, lower model count armies tend to need to play to this way because they just cant cover all the ground they need to and stay effective but they are pretty killy a lot of the time.

So each strategy calls for certain units. I could choose to try winning with Casualties with Tau. I'd need entirely different units to try...and Tau have those units. I could play to attack morale with Chaos OR Tau. My IG kind of do this too.

The Strategy informs the list building. =) When you have a good plan, the units you need aren't always the power units. In fact some codex's dont even HAVE what one would call a terrifying singular hammer per se without taking allies. They rely on some other form of winning besides casualties or they rely on terrain a lot!

Fun to talk about.

Da_Boss wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 TheLionOfTheForest wrote:
Where I do disagree with this situation is when i am playing my BA. We cant assault well anymore... we get outshot easily. What we do have on our side is mobility, which leads to more thinking outside the box.

Honestly, how many new decisions are you making each game? Are you really coming up with new tactics every time based on a changing situation or are you just following a set of "IF X THEN DO Y" rules that you learned long ago and use every single game?

I guess any codex that is considered out of date and not cometative anymore will require more intelligent use from the player.

Not really. Tau are pretty obvious, castle up and shoot, and use JSJ and meatshields to keep your shooting units alive and out of combat. BT are pretty obvious, charge straight at the enemy and wipe them out. Etc. These armies do have less flexibility in list construction because each sub-optimal choice hurts you a lot more than, say, CSM that can depend on their 3x Helldrakes to make up for a "fun" choice elsewhere, but that doesn't really translate to more tactical decisions to make.

Personally, I am coming up with new stuff as I go. If something goes wrong, I gotta do something new. Granted, teams have generic tactics (orks charge forward, eldar and DE flank, etc) but that does not mean I adhere by those every time. I find that adaptability is how you win battles, not lists. it is hard to discuss tactics, but it can be done. Honestly though, the best placeto learn tactics is in a Military History book. That is where I got many of my tactics from.

This is why we can't have nice things. The majority of people playing this game aren't approaching it as a game that they are capable of understanding (like Peregrine), they're just trying to find an excuse to stand around with their buddies and LARP that they are Sun Tzu or this century's Napoleon whatever (like this cancer-causing abomination above).

Frankly, 40k isn't that complicated. If you think it's really complicated, or intricate or requiring some special level of "finesse", or takes the honed application of thousands of years of military history texts (HAHA) to play well once the models hit the table, then you are *bad at the game* - if you say "But I won XYZ tournament and I totally stomp the guys at my FLGS" well guess what? They're awful too! You can all pat each other on the back and pretend you're master strategists and buy each other sweet epaulets and talk about how your opponents are all totally awesome but your masterful tactical prowess saves the day every time, but you will not fool anyone good, because you suck.

If things like bolter scouts or Blood Claws or Krootox or Flash Gitz are the unsung heroes of your games, then your opponents suck, and you're too bad to notice, or ignoring it on purpose to pat yourself on the back for being this generation's Next Top General.

Then don't play.

 Peregrine wrote:

 TheLionOfTheForest wrote:
Where I do disagree with this situation is when i am playing my BA. We cant assault well anymore... we get outshot easily. What we do have on our side is mobility, which leads to more thinking outside the box.

Honestly, how many new decisions are you making each game? Are you really coming up with new tactics every time based on a changing situation or are you just following a set of "IF X THEN DO Y" rules that you learned long ago and use every single game?

I guess any codex that is considered out of date and not cometative anymore will require more intelligent use from the player.

Not really. Tau are pretty obvious, castle up and shoot, and use JSJ and meatshields to keep your shooting units alive and out of combat. BT are pretty obvious, charge straight at the enemy and wipe them out. Etc. These armies do have less flexibility in list construction because each sub-optimal choice hurts you a lot more than, say, CSM that can depend on their 3x Helldrakes to make up for a "fun" choice elsewhere, but that doesn't really translate to more tactical decisions to make.

Do you consider chess a deep and tactical game? You may have noticed computers beat the living out of humans in chess now and computers only ever do if _ does X then Y. They literally have no ability to "think". So if that is the criteria for a game devoid of tactics then your criteria is flawed or you will have to fight real wars against groups of people to get tactics.

MikeMcSomething wrote:

Da_Boss wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 TheLionOfTheForest wrote:
Where I do disagree with this situation is when i am playing my BA. We cant assault well anymore... we get outshot easily. What we do have on our side is mobility, which leads to more thinking outside the box.

Honestly, how many new decisions are you making each game? Are you really coming up with new tactics every time based on a changing situation or are you just following a set of "IF X THEN DO Y" rules that you learned long ago and use every single game?

I guess any codex that is considered out of date and not cometative anymore will require more intelligent use from the player.

Not really. Tau are pretty obvious, castle up and shoot, and use JSJ and meatshields to keep your shooting units alive and out of combat. BT are pretty obvious, charge straight at the enemy and wipe them out. Etc. These armies do have less flexibility in list construction because each sub-optimal choice hurts you a lot more than, say, CSM that can depend on their 3x Helldrakes to make up for a "fun" choice elsewhere, but that doesn't really translate to more tactical decisions to make.

Personally, I am coming up with new stuff as I go. If something goes wrong, I gotta do something new. Granted, teams have generic tactics (orks charge forward, eldar and DE flank, etc) but that does not mean I adhere by those every time. I find that adaptability is how you win battles, not lists. it is hard to discuss tactics, but it can be done. Honestly though, the best placeto learn tactics is in a Military History book. That is where I got many of my tactics from.

This is why we can't have nice things. The majority of people playing this game aren't approaching it as a game that they are capable of understanding (like Peregrine), they're just trying to find an excuse to stand around with their buddies and LARP that they are Sun Tzu or this century's Napoleon whatever (like this cancer-causing abomination above).

Frankly, 40k isn't that complicated. If you think it's really complicated, or intricate or requiring some special level of "finesse", or takes the honed application of thousands of years of military history texts (HAHA) to play well once the models hit the table, then you are *bad at the game* - if you say "But I won XYZ tournament and I totally stomp the guys at my FLGS" well guess what? They're awful too! You can all pat each other on the back and pretend you're master strategists and buy each other sweet epaulets and talk about how your opponents are all totally awesome but your masterful tactical prowess saves the day every time, but you will not fool anyone good, because you suck.

If things like bolter scouts or Blood Claws or Krootox or Flash Gitz are the unsung heroes of your games, then your opponents suck, and you're too bad to notice, or ignoring it on purpose to pat yourself on the back for being this generation's Next Top General.

Well that would be fun for LARP people I suppose. I am definitely not Napolean and/or Sun Tzu non of us are and anyone who is playing a game can never hope to be. The joy of a game is immediate results/satisfaction combined with a narrowed scope from the real world. In the real world the options approach infinity (but never reach it) and the possible outcomes are never cut and dry and normally are not fully felt for years. We simplify the game and this makes it never as complex and "tactical", however, this doesn't mean it is devoid of tactics. The game has exactly as much tactics as you put into it.

If you play gunline guard then the tactical situations narrowed to shooting. Is that the game or is that you? That is YOU, you chose to focus your army around 1 of 3 phases in the game and ignore the other phases as much as possible. If you play a SW drop pod/vendetta/gunline hybrid list then suddenly you use the 3 games phases and the tactical complexity of the games is cubed. Be honest with yourself though you took the gunline guard as it simplifies the math of what effect each unit/choice your list building has on the game. This is why list building is so important though as there are dynamic elements in each army and if you do not take them and in sufficient numbers the tactical complexity of the game and of your army decrease exponentially.

This post seriously rambles like a boss but from what I can tell you're missing the point. "Tactical Complexity" is jargon, it's two war/combat/strategy-sounding words put together to obfuscate the fact that you feel like the game somehow gets legitimately more complicated or difficult to think about when you have some of your points arrive by drop pod and some of them fly in from a board edge. That's the entire problem - those aren't complicated scenarios. You aren't "Cubing" anything, that's just math being done to a term you just invented. That is exactly the problem I'm talking about.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jancoran wrote:
Then don't play.

This is also why we can't have nice things. You tell a LARPer they're LARPing and they don't say "Yeah you know maybe I really get into the whole blood for the blood god thing but it's cool it's a miniatures game and I don't care if I win" they say "Rawr go away!"

The lightss! It burnss you!

 ansacs wrote:
Do you consider chess a deep and tactical game? You may have noticed computers beat the living out of humans in chess now and computers only ever do if _ does X then Y. They literally have no ability to "think". So if that is the criteria for a game devoid of tactics then your criteria is flawed or you will have to fight real wars against groups of people to get tactics.

When you have a series of if-then circumstances, you generate a decision tree. Chess has many of these scenarios. So many that even our most powerful computers cannot enumerate them all. While they might be adequate to defeat even the best human players, Chess is of sufficient complexity that computers have yet to create a definitive strategy for it -- and most algorithms use heuristics to some degree or another.

Peregrine mentioned a single if-then circumstance. Nothing was contingent upon it, and the game proceeds very much according to plan once the decision is made. The decision tree is not very complex, and so we say that the game is not complex. While 40k might in principle have lots of different specific scenarios, subtle differences won't generally make a difference in the strategy you employ. And while you can make a statistical model for randomness, you can't fully predict what's going to happen in advance. So if you're depending upon a particular event occurring for a strategy's success, that's going to limit the effectiveness of that strategy. When these events are iterated, the reliability of the strategy diminishes. And so the utility of a complex decision tree is rendered worthless.

This is why Chess is a more tactically rich game than 40k. Small variances in circumstance are more apt to contribute to changes in strategy, and reliable action-consequence relationships allow for more complex decision trees.

I feel compelled to throw my name into the ring. This is just about the best topic ive read here on DakkaDakka in a long time. That being said this is an issue that has merit on both sides. Tactics and List-building. It has been said in earlier posts that it is very difficult to write about tactics and discribe events because of the ever-changing boards that we play on. Hardly ever do we play on the same looking board twice. So i agree unless ur posting pictures or graphics of your battles, tactics are hard to translate without using the age old "X beats Y" or "A counters B" . which is where List-building comes in, building a list is a big deal and Mathhammering away for hours or days to find the perfect synergy for your army is something just about everyone who plays and enjoys this hobby does. And if you deny it, your just kidding yourself. Trust me you have, even if it is in very small degrees. Because everyone wants to be better and to win. Period.

So here is my own humble opinion: Building a List tailored to how you play is probably 70% of the Tactical part of 40k. And i think its important for people to play different armies and styles, read the fluff and find what you like and how you enjoy playing. Because if you enjoy Gaunts ghosts or Caiphis Cain and you decide to rock with the IG because of that, tailor a list of IG how you want. 40k is a very personal and situation game. The only true Gods we have are the Dice Gods and we all have felt them shine on us and we certainly have felt it when they turn their back on us.

So since i'm liable to become long winded i will conclude: Make a list you like, that works with the style of play you favor and let the Dice fall where they may, because the other 30% is how you use your army when you deploy and play. And that is all Straight tactics, i don't care how much people say "X beats Y" or make sup'd up lists for Tourneys. If you deny that your using tactics when you decide how far you move, or what your lascannon is shooting at first, or whom your going to assault and where. Then your an ignoramous!!

Because target Priority, Movement of Troops, and timing of your Assaults is all huge in Tactics and they change every game you play, against every army you play. Thank you, i bid you Au Revoir

Wanna talk complex...managing the quotes is starting ti get there. The nested labels are starting to look like a logic tree in an of itself.

MikeMcSomething I don't care what you call it call it a decision tree if you want (see Corollax's link).

MikeMcSomething/Corollax:
Chess is more complex as the decision tree branches and splits more due to the entire game being linked. If you want a measure for "tactical" then this is probably relatively good compared to vague hand waving.

Corollax:

Peregrine mentioned a single if-then circumstance. Nothing was contingent upon it, and the game proceeds very much according to plan once the decision is made.

Where do you get this? Think a little about a shooting turn it is basically a series of simple if/then loops if you discount range. If you do not discount range then it becomes more complex and the complexity increases when LoS and weapon effectiveness is considered. Are you honestly just shooting your weapons at the nearest enemy unit and then doing this until you kill it to move onto the next unit? This is still a linked series of if/then statements that in programming would be simplified into a loop.

I would rank tactics as this order Machiavellian manipulation(Only cause modern politics are pretty sad)>>>Normal Diplomacy/War>>>>>(Several lines down worth)>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Chess>>>40K>>Backgammon>>>checkers>>>>>>tictactoe>>>tying your shoes(can become higher than Machiavellian manipulation if you get sufficiently "expensive" shoes)

Games by definition are shallow versus life. Are you a master of war if you know chess. NO
Is 40K devoid of tactical thought and decision making. NO
If it were as devoid of thought as you say people would stop playing it when they turn 10 and learn you cannot win tictactoe.

On another note the link is a nice one to put into this thread I however was trying to only make the point that if the criteria we judge the complexity of a game is that it can be boiled down to if/then statements then it applies to chess and any game...in fact it pretty much applies to life completely.

Computers do and have been beating humans in chess completely for a while and there is no "thinking" involved on the part of the computer. This is a fact even if the computation has to use approximations to get to the result experience based or otherwise.

Corollax wrote:
Summarizing it better than I could.

Exactly.

Every game can be solved in theory, given infinite processing power and time. The question is how humans play it, not computers that can brute force a solution in a way that no human could even attempt. So, the question is how much depth does a game have?

A game like chess has a lot of depth because you very frequently encounter situations where there is an elaborate interaction between strategy and counter-strategy and picking the right outcome requires not only seeing the best move, but seeing your opponent's likely reaction to that best move and making a move that counters their reaction (and on forever). Even the best chess players have to work very hard to find the right answer, or even a good answer.

A game like 40k has very little depth because the choices are usually very simple. Most of them are decided in list construction (unit X is my anti-tank, for example), and most of the ones that come up in actual gameplay have very obvious correct answers (no, you shouldn't charge assault terminators with fire warriors). Newer players still have to think about it a bit, but you quickly get to the point where you can play the game pretty well purely on autopilot.

 ansacs wrote:
Where do you get this? Think a little about a shooting turn it is basically a series of simple if/then loops if you discount range. If you do not discount range then it becomes more complex and the complexity increases when LoS and weapon effectiveness is considered. Are you honestly just shooting your weapons at the nearest enemy unit and then doing this until you kill it to move onto the next unit? This is still a linked series of if/then statements that in programming would be simplified into a loop.

Except you're just talking about basic target priority. It doesn't take a genius to figure out things like "shoot the assault terminators before they wipe out your whole army" or "use your melta against that Land Raider". So while these decisions technically exist they're rarely very interesting ones.

Is 40K devoid of tactical thought and decision making. NO
If it were as devoid of thought as you say people would stop playing it when they turn 10 and learn you cannot win tictactoe.

What you're missing is the fact that few people play 40k for the tactics, they play it because they like the models/background, their friends play it, etc. The fact that it has very little tactical depth doesn't mean you can't enjoy playing the game, it just means that winning has more to do with optimizing your list than tactical genius.

 Peregrine wrote:

Corollax wrote:
Summarizing it better than I could.

Yay. I appreciate the compliment, but a lot of the ideas aren't strictly my own. If you're interested in reading about general game strategy from a designer with some serious credentials, I should point you to Sirlin. If you read nothing else, check out Playing To Win.

Not all of it is directly applicable to 40k, but the general principles should apply.

 Peregrine wrote:
A game like 40k has very little depth because the choices are usually very simple. Most of them are decided in list construction (unit X is my anti-tank, for example), and most of the ones that come up in actual gameplay have very obvious correct answers (no, you shouldn't charge assault terminators with fire warriors). Newer players still have to think about it a bit, but you quickly get to the point where you can play the game pretty well purely on autopilot.

I can see the thrust of your argument here, but I don't really find it to be necessarily the case. For instance, let's say there's a Land Raider coming at me. I have many options, some of which are "soft" and some of which are "hard."

I could fire long range anti-tank weapons of varying effectiveness-- railguns from my Broadsides, lascannons from my rear objective claimer squads, assault cannons from my Stormtalons, Demolisher Cannon from a Vindicator-- at it to try to remove it from play outright. I could move a melta team up to attempt to engage the Land Raider directly. I could fire Thunderfire Cannon subterranean detonation rounds to give me a 1/6 chance of immobilizing the LR and taking a Hull Point if it attempts to move. I could move vehicles or infantry with melta up in the Land Raider's face to block its movement. I could attack the opponent's backfield objective claimers with Deep Strikers or Outflankers to make him consider reallocating the Land Raider to protecting his area instead of menacing mine. I could even hide.

Every one of those choices is heavily influenced by situational factors. What turn is it? What primary and secondary objectives can I try to claim? Do any of the relevant units want to move instead? The "correct choice" is far from obvious in 40k as it is actually played, despite the fact that it may seem obvious in theory. Units can be both played and countered in a variety of ways, there are decisions you can take to mitigate potential bad luck, etc. Overall the complexity of a game of 40k, once you factor in the totality of both armies, the scenario, etc. makes the game far more tactically interesting than it would seem at first glance.

A lot of the list building which goes appears on dakka tends to be focused on one or two of the standards 6 missions; the one with multiple objectives and the one with two objectives. List building is important but to have a "straight (ish) arrow" for all of the missions the army ends up being relatively balanced; then it comes back to how you use it, little army specific trick and overall tactics.

There is a great value in list building and seeing how other people do it as it does help develop ideas to test out in play.

 Kingsley wrote:
For instance, let's say there's a Land Raider coming at me. I have many options, some of which are "soft" and some of which are "hard."

But that's just math. If the Land Raider is a priority threat you attack it with anti-tank weapons in descending order of effectiveness until it dies. That's just basic target priority and understanding the odds of success for your various units, not a complex tactical decision. And it's a situation where you probably already know the answer, since part of list construction was "how do I deal with AV 14" and all you need to do is apply the anti-tank weapons you brought.

Every one of those choices is heavily influenced by situational factors. What turn is it? What primary and secondary objectives can I try to claim? Do any of the relevant units want to move instead? The "correct choice" is far from obvious in 40k as it is actually played, despite the fact that it may seem obvious in theory. Units can be both played and countered in a variety of ways, there are decisions you can take to mitigate potential bad luck, etc. Overall the complexity of a game of 40k, once you factor in the totality of both armies, the scenario, etc. makes the game far more tactically interesting than it would seem at first glance.

I think you're vastly overstating how much these factors really matter. Yes, there are slight advantages and disadvantages to consider, but they're offset by the randomness of the dice. Once you cut it down to the options that are actually a viable plan (for example, taking a scoring unit off an objective on turn 6 to melta it is easily dismissed) you usually have a very small set of options, and your default answer is probably going to be the one you picked in list construction.

 TheLionOfTheForest wrote:
I get where you are coming from, especially with the gunline guard example. I do find that my guard follow more of the situation you described.... guard can only do one thing really... shoot.

Where I do disagree with this situation is when i am playing my BA. We cant assault well anymore... we get outshot easily. What we do have on our side is mobility, which leads to more thinking outside the box.

I guess any codex that is considered out of date and not cometative anymore will require more intelligent use from the player.

I'm not calling you out lion, but this is exactly the kind of thinking that sells the tactics of 40k short. Gunlines are a great example of tactics in 40k. Every decision that you make is one with tactics. In a gunline, do you line up at the 12''? Your initial volley will likely include more guns, but you will be closer later. Maybe at the 6''? You are sacrificing firepower for survivability late game. Tanks in front of men or men in front of tanks? Men in front is bubble wrap, tanks in front is partial cover. Do you sit heavy left to draw assaulters away from your right? You will give the right the freedom to move up in safety if they don't commit resources to it. Should you spread infantry out wide so the assault elements don't sweep through you in seconds? It will make it harder to kill all of your resources, but you may limit your ability to respond to threats with firepower.

THAT WAS JUST DEPLOYMENT. Every decision you don't see, you don't make. Every decision you don't make, your opponent has made for you. When we fail to see the tactics of the scenario, we fail to see the solutions.

I have played death guard on foot for nearly a decade. Same army, and yes I'm that cheap. Initially I thought running across the field was great, leaving my heavies behind. Then I thought keeping them in the backfield every time was just as wise. Now I keep everything clustered close and moving forward slowly so it's hard to engage without engaging the entire army. I change my deployment and my tactics to each of my opponents.

One final point please. List making is tactics. Choosing what resources to allocate to a battle is the same as knowing where to place and move them. It is every bit as important, but not more so that the use of those resources.

I'm not sure what's actually being argued here anymore. In a nutshell, I think everyone agrees that good lists are better than bad lists, and being a smart/experienced player is better than being a dumb/inexperienced player. We may be too far in the forest to see the trees, so lets take it from a different angle...

Magic The Gathering, in many ways, is similar to 40k. We have deck building (list building), game management (battlefield tactics), and random chaos that will effect the game, be it the way the deck is shuffled in Magic vs. dice rolling in 40k. Now, I have a friend I used to play magic with that basically COULD NOT beat me in magic unless I got mana screwed. It didn't matter what deck he used....we could play 3 games with 2 given decks, and then switch decks and play 3 more, I'd beat him every single time unless I got totally mana screwed.

Oddly enough, now that we both play 40k, it's pretty rare that he wins games unless something insane happens in his favor. Usually dice related.

Is my friend dumb? Not really. Am I the greatest Magic or 40k player alive? Not by a long shot. It's just happens that when it comes to playing games, I have and edge over him when it comes to tactics...or something....

Frankly, the idea that tactics don't matter in 40k is absurd. If the game only consisted of building the best list, people would meet at their LFGS, exchange lists, then go home. There would no point in actually playing the game.

Of course, as I said, this is absurd. We do have to play the game because the choices we make during the game affect the outcome.

Conversely, to say that list building has no effect on the game is also absurd. If that were true, I could pick units from a codex at random and still win every time.

The reality is somewhere in the middle. The list you make informs an overall strategy, and the choices you make during the game affect the outcome.

The only point up for debate is where in the gray area you think the division between list-building and tactics lies. Everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Oh yeah, deployment is important too! That's a tactically situation, along with deciding reserves and such. Yes, it flows from your list but decisions change every game depending on opponent, their list, the mission, number of objectives, which type of deployment. All tactics right?

Also, I have 1 psychological tactic. I tell every opponent how easy it is to kill Orks, they're nothing to worry about etc. I win most games. Therefore: what exactly?

 Peregrine wrote:

 Kingsley wrote:
For instance, let's say there's a Land Raider coming at me. I have many options, some of which are "soft" and some of which are "hard."

But that's just math. If the Land Raider is a priority threat you attack it with anti-tank weapons in descending order of effectiveness until it dies. That's just basic target priority and understanding the odds of success for your various units, not a complex tactical decision. And it's a situation where you probably already know the answer, since part of list construction was "how do I deal with AV 14" and all you need to do is apply the anti-tank weapons you brought.

But target priority is itself contingent on many other factors, such as what units have line of sight to what other targets, whether or not you have First Blood and your opponent's chance of claiming it in their next turn if you don't. You also have to commit to a lot of this in the Movement phase prior to seeing the results of any shooting.

 Peregrine wrote:
I think you're vastly overstating how much these factors really matter. Yes, there are slight advantages and disadvantages to consider, but they're offset by the randomness of the dice. Once you cut it down to the options that are actually a viable plan (for example, taking a scoring unit off an objective on turn 6 to melta it is easily dismissed) you usually have a very small set of options, and your default answer is probably going to be the one you picked in list construction.

I dunno. I usually have 3-4 good or at least interesting options for any given threat. When you get right down to it, even basic tactical decisions don't seem to be fully understood by the community (such as "going second is better in the abstract"), while there's tons of information out there about list building. The way I see it, listbuilding should stay in the Army Lists forum, while actual tactics are in the Tactics forum.