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Eissel wrote:
This thread is probably going to get either ignored or locked, but oh well. You get to enjoy my semi-drunken posting state, Dakkadakka.

Now, I know I'm new here, and to 40k in general, but man, when I found out about this game I was SO excited. It was so cool, and everything was neat and I got to make my own army with my own models and squeeeee!

...And then I came here. And every thread is "X is too cost-inefficient" or "Y is the best thing ever, always take 3!" and it's starting to feel like Magic the Gathering all over again.

Yes, I know this hobby is expensive, and it makes sense to want to win, but...Does anyone even consider it a hobby? I see it, occasionally, when someone defends that they want to take a Carnifex, or a Cannoness, or a...I don't know, Thunderfire Cannon, "Cudos to you for playing with what you like!" And that just boggles me. Shouldn't we all be playing with what we like? Isn't that why we started playing?

I don't understand why people get into this game and only focus on the most competitive and points efficient things. No offense meant, but this seems like a really...odd choice, to say the least, if you're going for tournaments. MtG is a competitive game, in my opinion, and tends to be balanced around it. I'm sure there's other tabletop games more competitive and well balanced than 40k. Ultimately, no matter how good your "odds" are, or how awesome and meticulously crafted your list is, it all comes down to the roll of the dice. It's entirely possible (though not probable) to roll 6 1's on your terminator armor saves; and that's before we get into things like external and internal balance. (Hello Helldrakes vs the Rest of the CSM codex, Hello 5th Edition GKs vs everything else.)

I don't know, I'm kind of just rambling, but all the time I just constantly see people treating Warhammer as some super-duper serious, ultracompetitive tourney-machine game, with netlists and "Well X did Y and Z tournament!" and it starts to feel like the change of "Beer and Pretzels with friends" to "ZOMG MUST OPTIMIZE EVERYTHING!!!1!"

Let me clarify that I don't necessarily think that people who enjoy making the most powerful lists are in the wrong; if that's your thing, that's your thing, but I really find it kind of silly to see so many threads about it, and so many that include lines like "Man, I'd love to take X, but it's just so cost-inefficient!"

tl;dr I'm kind of tanked and this forum is really really serious about tournament play even if they don't work in a tournament environment. I don't want this game to end up being Magic 2.0 for me. :C

40kers too serious? Let me see what my meter has to say about that...



You gonna burn.

 Shadowbrand wrote:
I always liked to prefer 40k as the silly "Heavy Metal in space fantasy" you saw in the 90's.

I know the guy that plays the most morbid serious angsty Legion of them all is saying this but hey.

Heresy.

Heavy Metal, one, came out in 1981 and, two, is awesome. FAKK2 had Julie Strain and was based on the art of Simon Bisley, which made it automatically awesome.

Eissel wrote:
This thread is probably going to get either ignored or locked, but oh well. You get to enjoy my semi-drunken posting state, Dakkadakka.

Now, I know I'm new here, and to 40k in general, but man, when I found out about this game I was SO excited. It was so cool, and everything was neat and I got to make my own army with my own models and squeeeee!

...And then I came here. And every thread is "X is too cost-inefficient" or "Y is the best thing ever, always take 3!" and it's starting to feel like Magic the Gathering all over again.

Yes, I know this hobby is expensive, and it makes sense to want to win, but...Does anyone even consider it a hobby? I see it, occasionally, when someone defends that they want to take a Carnifex, or a Cannoness, or a...I don't know, Thunderfire Cannon, "Cudos to you for playing with what you like!" And that just boggles me. Shouldn't we all be playing with what we like? Isn't that why we started playing?

I don't understand why people get into this game and only focus on the most competitive and points efficient things. No offense meant, but this seems like a really...odd choice, to say the least, if you're going for tournaments. MtG is a competitive game, in my opinion, and tends to be balanced around it. I'm sure there's other tabletop games more competitive and well balanced than 40k. Ultimately, no matter how good your "odds" are, or how awesome and meticulously crafted your list is, it all comes down to the roll of the dice. It's entirely possible (though not probable) to roll 6 1's on your terminator armor saves; and that's before we get into things like external and internal balance. (Hello Helldrakes vs the Rest of the CSM codex, Hello 5th Edition GKs vs everything else.)

I don't know, I'm kind of just rambling, but all the time I just constantly see people treating Warhammer as some super-duper serious, ultracompetitive tourney-machine game, with netlists and "Well X did Y and Z tournament!" and it starts to feel like the change of "Beer and Pretzels with friends" to "ZOMG MUST OPTIMIZE EVERYTHING!!!1!"

I think a lot of people play that way because you almost have to. It's like the 40k nuclear arms race. I don't, simply because it would be boring to play uber competitively.

Hell, I run 45 fenrisian wolves for laughs, talk to your opponents, and tell them you want a friendly game. If someone I didn't know said that to me, I would be speechless.

And I would be grateful, because I could just run a "why the hell not?" type of list. Not a "have to optimize or get smashed" list.

Let me clarify that I don't necessarily think that people who enjoy making the most powerful lists are in the wrong; if that's your thing, that's your thing, but I really find it kind of silly to see so many threads about it, and so many that include lines like "Man, I'd love to take X, but it's just so cost-inefficient!"

tl;dr I'm kind of tanked and this forum is really really serious about tournament play even if they don't work in a tournament environment. I don't want this game to end up being Magic 2.0 for me. :C

Eissel wrote:"X is too cost-inefficient" or "Y is the best thing ever, always take 3!"

Savageconvoy wrote:bringing anything besides the optimal units was the equivalent of forfeiting

I'd also note something that has been missing from this conversation. Why are people assuming that the people who are focused on "powerful" and "optimised" units the competitive ones?

Let's say I went over to your house and you were playing Call of Duty over and over again in single player mode, on the easiest difficulty mode. Let's say you turned and looked at me and said "Look how competitive of a CoD player I am. Look how many times I can beat this game?"

Of course, it's nonsense. You're playing the game on easy mode over and over again. That's not being competitive, that's being either WAAC, or someone who is afraid of failure. But it's not competitive.

Likewise, when a person plays 40k with the strongest, most optimized list, they're bringing a list that requires the least amount of effort and energy in order to be able to win. They're playing the game on the easiest difficulty setting they can engineer. People who do this are either WAAC, or they're afraid of failure. But they're not competitive. No moreso than a person who plays any other game on the easiest difficulty setting.

I think what the OP is really complaining about here is people who are poser-competitive. They want to look like they care about a challenge, and about getting better at the game, and about being skilled, but in reality, they're just playing the game on easy mode and bragging about how many times they win. I agree with the OP, those kinds of people ARE annoying, in 40k as well as in any other activity.

Perhaps if the OP spent time around people who are actually competitive, rather than a bunch of phonies, his impression of competitive players would be improved.

 Ailaros wrote:

Likewise, when a person plays 40k with the strongest, most optimized list, they're bringing a list that requires the least amount of effort and energy in order to be able to win. They're playing the game on the easiest difficulty setting they can engineer. People who do this are either WAAC, or they're afraid of failure. But they're not competitive. No moreso than a person who plays any other game on the easiest difficulty setting.

While I agree to an extent, I think the generalisation is unfair.

Many would see the list building stage as part of the competition.

But competing for what? Who can play the game on the easiest difficulty setting? I guess that's a competition, of sorts (one of engineering), but there's not much of a prize at the end.

I suppose if I were to nuance what I just said, I'd take it in two directions.

Firstly, not everybody has reached the relatively low default skill threshold that 40k has, thanks to its very steep learning curve. Newer players, thus, NEED to play the game on the easiest difficulty setting they can get their hands on. In that respect, dakka's tactics board are sort of like the millions of walkthroughs on IGN.

Secondly, I'd agree that thinking about tactical things is interesting in and of itself, and sure, even if that winds up with talking about the most powerful stuff. The whole engineering exercise thing. In this case, I would note the difference between talking about things and doing things.

For example, if dakka general had a titled "how do you murder someone and get away with it?", then an interesting conversation might arise to think about this potentially rather difficult problem. Just because I'm involved in a conversation about murdering people, though, doesn't mean that I'm actually going out and murdering people.

Likewise, you can have conversations about strong guard forgeworld units without then immediately going into your next game with a list full of sabre defense platforms. Just because it's interesting to think about powerful things doesn't mean I play the game on easy mode.

Just ignore the internet and play as you want.

 Peregrine wrote:

Lanrak wrote:
The more care and deliberation the game developer takes in crafting the game play , the more relaxed and easy going the players of the game are.

I disagree with this. MTG, for example, is the result of vast amounts of care and deliberation by the developers but it still has a large number of extremely serious and competitive players.

I've personally found that the extremely serious and competitive players (the actual ones, who playtest a bunch, have all the cards they need, and go to major tournaments) are some of the most relaxed and easy going people I know. Just because someone enjoys one aspect of a game doesn't mean they hate all the other ones.


... also, why is it that people seem to think that way? At least in my experience (although I guess I might be lucky), optimizing games, picking the best stuff, and thinking about how best to win in a ruleset isn't something that people do to the exclusion of all else. A good example of this is the majority of the D&D players I see on forums or in real life-- they have the capacity to create things that push the rules to their full potential, but enjoy that more as a thought exercise and occasionally in real games, but mostly play the game for fun.

40k is the same way for me. I love looking through the books, building lists, playing SRS BSNS in games where there's a prize on the line, or if it's practicing for such a game, or if it's simply the style my opponent and I decide to play, but then I can turn around and pull out, say, Deathwing, and play a fluffy bad list to go with the fluffy good lists.

Maybe I'm an outlier, or lucky, or just don't see this sort of stuff.

 Ailaros wrote:
Let's say I went over to your house and you were playing Call of Duty over and over again in single player mode, on the easiest difficulty mode. Let's say you turned and looked at me and said "Look how competitive of a CoD player I am. Look how many times I can beat this game?"

You keep repeating this absurd analogy, but that doesn't make it true. Playing a single-player game on the easiest possible difficulty level is entirely different than playing a two-player game where both players have the same tools to improve their chances of winning. What you keep ignoring is that most competitive players don't spend all of their time crushing newbies with battleforce armies, they prefer to play a game where both players are playing competitively.

Likewise, when a person plays 40k with the strongest, most optimized list, they're bringing a list that requires the least amount of effort and energy in order to be able to win. They're playing the game on the easiest difficulty setting they can engineer. People who do this are either WAAC, or they're afraid of failure. But they're not competitive. No moreso than a person who plays any other game on the easiest difficulty setting.

Why do you keep acting like list-building is something that happens outside of the game? List-building is part of the game. You wouldn't say someone is "playing on the easiest difficulty setting" if they made optimal moves in the movement phase or always assaulted the optimal target, so why should you complain about someone who makes the optimal decisions in a different part of the game?

That is a little weird, Alairos.

It'd it be like saying that Olympic sportsmen are not as competitive in their respective sport than fat people, because they're body is so optimized for it before the game even starts that they're doing it on easy mode.

To which I say:
What?

I think there's confusion between being competetive and loving a challenge. As stated the game analogy doesn't really work and it's even a bit backwards.

Playing a fluffy or theme list that you know isn't exactly competitive is more like playing a game on easy mode, especially when you're requesting an opponent to use a fluffy or theme list as well . You aren't doing it to play the game and enjoy the challenge, you're doing it because you want to experience the story with no actual effort put into it.

Personally I think list building is one of the most important skills to learn because you're trying to figure out something that you will be able to work with in the majority of tables, in the majority of missions, against the majoritiy of armies. If you want to do a theme list in a set battle, that's fine. But much like Civil War reenactments and wrestling, not everyone really wants to have a completely staged fight.

 Savageconvoy wrote:
I think there's confusion between being competetive and loving a challenge. As stated the game analogy doesn't really work and it's even a bit backwards.

Playing a fluffy or theme list that you know isn't exactly competitive is more like playing a game on easy mode, especially when you're requesting an opponent to use a fluffy or theme list as well . You aren't doing it to play the game and enjoy the challenge, you're doing it because you want to experience the story with no actual effort put into it.

Personally I think list building is one of the most important skills to learn because you're trying to figure out something that you will be able to work with in the majority of tables, in the majority of missions, against the majoritiy of armies. If you want to do a theme list in a set battle, that's fine. But much like Civil War reenactments and wrestling, not everyone really wants to have a completely staged fight.

There's kind of a disconnect here between us, and one I don't understand. You say by wanting to do a fluffy/theme list, I'm not doing it to enjoy the challenge.

...What's the challenge? You look at your opponents field, decide what the target priority should be, point at it, roll dice, and hope everything turns out correctly.

This doesn't really change, regardless of if you're doing it with say, a squad of vespid vs a riptide. Most of 40k's gameplay is knowing how to move correctly, target priority, and hoping the dice like you. This is true regardless of your list.

You can say List Building is a challenge but I don't really see how it is. If you want to go to an optimized list, it's not really that challenging, especially with the advent of the internet. Sure, you need to know how to maneuver your soldiers, and maybe learn to balance certain things vs your local meta (i.e. "Well, people say space wolves are bad, but there's not a single chaos player at my store, so no Heldrakes, so....")

I don't really see how your giving up the "challenge" of 40k gameplay by not doing super optimized list play, because the challenge seems to be very similar. Decide target priority, act on it, roll the dice and hope they favor you. Unless you mean messing up is more punishing against an optimized list than a non-optimized one, but that still doesn't seem to me like it'd be much of a challenge. At that point it just seems more luck-based because a bad roll can screw you even harder.

 Dakkamite wrote:
I've tried, but few people are interested.

40k has terrible balance in pretty much every regard, and going first in this game is an enormous advantage. Thats not opinion, thats fact.

OP, if you want to see how deep this rabbit hole goes, go check out "You make da call". You'll never look at this hobby the same way again

Goi first being a huge advantage is an opinion it is most certainly not a fact as they are many instances where going second is a huge advantage.

Eissel wrote:

There's kind of a disconnect here between us, and one I don't understand. You say by wanting to do a fluffy/theme list, I'm not doing it to enjoy the challenge.

...What's the challenge? You look at your opponents field, decide what the target priority should be, point at it, roll dice, and hope everything turns out correctly.

This doesn't really change, regardless of if you're doing it with say, a squad of vespid vs a riptide. Most of 40k's gameplay is knowing how to move correctly, target priority, and hoping the dice like you. This is true regardless of your list.

You can say List Building is a challenge but I don't really see how it is. If you want to go to an optimized list, it's not really that challenging, especially with the advent of the internet. Sure, you need to know how to maneuver your soldiers, and maybe learn to balance certain things vs your local meta (i.e. "Well, people say space wolves are bad, but there's not a single chaos player at my store, so no Heldrakes, so....")

I don't really see how your giving up the "challenge" of 40k gameplay by not doing super optimized list play, because the challenge seems to be very similar. Decide target priority, act on it, roll the dice and hope they favor you. Unless you mean messing up is more punishing against an optimized list than a non-optimized one, but that still doesn't seem to me like it'd be much of a challenge. At that point it just seems more luck-based because a bad roll can screw you even harder.

Well if you're going to break it down to just move, shoot, rinse, and repeat then you don't seem to understand the point I'm making. Basically an optimized list will try to balance itself to handle a wide array of threats and even be able to answer to some hard counters. A fluffy/fun list doesn't have to take into consideration that you're going to be facing a living and breathing opponent. You're bringing what you want to bring because it fits some story or theme you happen to like. To me it seems more like designing a tank to have surfaces you can affix balloons and decorations to for a parade instead of trying to make it combat ready. The challenge from optimized list making is to have a single answer to many problems and just because the internet exists doesn't mean that people can't be skilled in making a list of what they like and what they know will work. And I'd like to point out that I run one of the Tau net lists. I wrote it myself the week tau came out because I know how games work and eventually others came to the same consensus.

 Ailaros wrote:

Likewise, when a person plays 40k with the strongest, most optimized list, they're bringing a list that requires the least amount of effort and energy in order to be able to win. They're playing the game on the easiest difficulty setting they can engineer. People who do this are either WAAC, or they're afraid of failure. But they're not competitive. No moreso than a person who plays any other game on the easiest difficulty setting.

That's not a relevant comparison. Playing a game on easy mode is the equivalent of deliberately playing weaker players in 40k to win. A relevant comparison would be someone who has picked out their equipment in order to give them the best chance of winning. I ask you, what's wrong with that? What's wrong with trying to win?

Unit1126PLL wrote:It'd it be like saying that Olympic sportsmen are not as competitive in their respective sport than fat people, because they're body is so optimized for it before the game even starts that they're doing it on easy mode.

I wouldn't, actually.

Look at an olympic 200M race. The whole point is who can get from point A to point B faster. I could EASILY beat Husein Bolt in the 200M race. All I'd do is get in my car and drive there. I'd get from point A to point B faster, hence I'd win. The mind boggles just how many ways I could win a race.

But nobody would watch a 200M race if people could use cars (or whatever), because it would be boring. Instead, we put LOADS of restrictions on the racers. They have to race on foot. They can't use certain materials in their uniforms. They can't use steroids or certain other nutritional supplements.

In 40k, an olympic runner would be like a player showing up to a game with nothing but troops choices. They're playing with lots of self-imposed restrictions to make the game harder for them.

Meanwhile, lots of "competitive" gamers would look at Husein Bolt and say "Running isn't an optimal way to move 200M. You should reach out and buy a car, which is much better."

Savageconvoy wrote:I think there's confusion between being competetive and loving a challenge.

But what is the meaning of competitive without the idea of challenge?

Do you have competitive lotto players? Competitive bingo players? Competitive craps players?

Without the serious chance of losing, whatever you're playing isn't a game, and without challenge there's no competition. You're just doing a chore over and over again.

To bring back to the running analogy, if you had a race between Husein Bolt and a handful of kindergardners, is there a competition, or is there just Bolt doing some running training while a bunch of little kids follow behind him? If the only difference is that someone is declared a winner, than that debases the very idea of winning to the point of being worthless.

Players who actually look to compete don't play for worthless prizes. In order for a prize to be worthwhile, it has to be difficult to achieve. It has to be a challenge.

PrinceRaven wrote:Playing a game on easy mode is the equivalent of deliberately playing weaker players in 40k to win.

Well, that's playing the game on EASIEST mode. That still doesn't mean it's not on easy mode.

PrinceRaven wrote:What's wrong with trying to win?

Nothing.

The problem is with people who play the game on easy mode and then brag about how often they win, and believe that somehow their victories make everything they think and say somehow more credible and that other people should just believe them more. And then they believe that their word is law, and they'll just try to impose it on everyone else because after all, they're just right and everyone else is wrong, because they won more games, regardless of difficulty level.

And this is what the OP is really complaining about. It's about people behaving in nit-picky, domineering, thoughtlessly assertive, and outright rudely towards others. He's complaining about the self-righteous and proselytizing behavior that comes from hubris. Hubris that comes from winning too much (and not having good enough abstract reasoning skills), and winning too much comes from playing games on too easy of a difficulty level.

I mean, if I walked up to you and told you that you're running wrong because I win 100% of the foot races that I win against kindergardeners, you'd probably dismiss me as a horrid douche. Now imagine a whole forum of people with this kind of attitude, and you get at what the OP is upset over.

 Ailaros wrote:
I mean, if I walked up to you and told you that you're running wrong because I win 100% of the foot races that I win against kindergardeners, you'd probably dismiss me as a horrid douche. Now imagine a whole forum of people with this kind of attitude, and you get at what the OP is upset over.

And this is why you are wrong. You keep assuming that competitive players are finding the weakest possible opponents to play against so they can win 100% of the time, rather than being better at the game (which includes list building) than people who have access to the exact same tools for winning.

Not that I should be surprised that you continue to be wrong. It's very obvious that you just hate the idea of people having fun in ways that isn't your preferred no-FW no-flyers no-optimization version of 40k. You're obviously allowed to play that way, but the constant "I'm the real competitive player and you're all doing it wrong" attitude is getting old.

Idk man. I think rocks are the real winners in 200m races. I mean, look at the challenges it has to overcome!

If a rock beat Husein Bolt in the 200M that would, by far, be the biggest win in the history of ever. Certainly if it did win that would show you just how astonishingly good at sprinting that rock is, given the serious number of handicaps it had to overcome.

Since when is "overcoming handicaps" what competition is about? You don't see sprinters deciding to cut their own feet off so that if they do win it will be even more impressive, they assume that everyone will be competing under the same rules and do their best to win within those rules.

Also, your analogy about things like not using steroids is ridiculous. Those restrictions are imposed by the governing body for the sport, not by the competitors themselves. The equivalent of that in 40k is the FOC and point cost system GW created, not your arbitrary self-imposed limits like not using FW units or flyers.

I'm with peregrine here, a significant strategic part of the game is writing an effective army list. That is not to say you should run around curbstomping weak players, tone down as necessary, but in a competitive game having a weak army is handicapping yourself needlessly.

Sure, it takes some amount of skill to write a strong list. Unfortunately, most of the skill is being able to copy/paste a net list.

Plus, even if you do write a strong list, so what? It just debases your victories when you play the game itself. That's not to say, of course, that you can't be an amateur list-builder (that is, building lists for the sake of list-building), but I can't imagine that there are many people out there who have this hobby that don't also then actually play games with the lists they bring.

 Ailaros wrote:
Sure, it takes some amount of skill to write a strong list. Unfortunately, most of the skill is being able to copy/paste a net list.

Plus, even if you do write a strong list, so what? It just debases your victories when you play the game itself. That's not to say, of course, that you can't be an amateur list-builder (that is, building lists for the sake of list-building), but I can't imagine that there are many people out there who have this hobby that don't also then actually play games with the lists they bring.

I kind of have to inch in to slightly disagree that building a strong list debases your victories, because you just make it your victory in the pre-game stage instead of on the tabletop. And people who are in it to win generally don't care where the victory comes from so long as they get that victory.

What I don't get is people who act like it is the ONLY way to win, and like it MUST be done every single game, to the exclusion/detriment of other aspects of the hobby. 40k really just doesn't hold up well as a competitive game to me so I don't understand why people get so darn intense about it. It's like if a bunch of little kids were sitting around hitting each other with pretend swords, and some guy walked up and went "Well, see here kids, those swords are bad! You see this katana? It's finely crafted and super sharp and thus if you use this katana you will have the best chance of winning! Use this instead of your longswords!" And then he goes on to explain how he spent hours theorycrafting how to best win in this pretend swordfight.

And then the guy with the katana jumps into the little kid's game and slaps them all with it, just to prove he's right.

Eissel wrote:because you just make it your victory in the pre-game stage instead of on the tabletop.

Sure, you could take that tac, but there's still not much to it.

I mean, let's say that you didn't even netlist. Take two players, player A who is a great list builder, and player B who is skilled at 40k, but has never made a list in their life. B decides to play the same army as A.

In the first game A and B play, A wins easily, because he's playing the game on a much easier difficulty than B, due to list strengths. Now let's say that B simply copies A's list, and asks to play another game. Now A and B are equal, despite B having no skill whatsoever.

Of course, A could make a better list, but odds are it's not going to be very much better, because the list A brought last game was already the best list he could bring. Assuming he can even make a better list (rather than merely a different one), it's going to have a microscopic impact on the game, because the lists are still going to be so close in power level.

Then let's say that A and B played a third game, where B once again copied A's list. By this point, there's really no way that A is going to bring a better list. And now the two lists are equal.

As such, a player with no skill can always draw (or virtially draw) against a person with lots of skill. Because skill in list building is just so shallow. You can't necessarily copy the way a person approaches deepstriking units, or the choices they make with cover, or any of the other on-table player skill, but you can just copy list-building. It's not really much of a challenge, and thus, not much of a competition.

And it still doesn't change the fact that having one part of player skill making the game easier doesn't dilute the rest of player skill. I don't know how much you're really gaining by copying a gunline netlist just so that you can play it brain-dead by only using the shooting phase and pulling out a win. That sounds like you can be a much worse player and still win, rather than the other way around.

 Ailaros wrote:
Sure, it takes some amount of skill to write a strong list. Unfortunately, most of the skill is being able to copy/paste a net list.

Don't forget the skill required to buy the models. That's at least as important as the ability to copy a list you find on the internet, right?

Plus, even if you do write a strong list, so what? It just debases your victories when you play the game itself. That's not to say, of course, that you can't be an amateur list-builder (that is, building lists for the sake of list-building), but I can't imagine that there are many people out there who have this hobby that don't also then actually play games with the lists they bring.

So, your argument is that using the tools allowed by the rules somehow devalues winning a game played under those rules?

Okay.

As with everything in any gaming-related hobby, you are free to do what you want with your toys. If you can find like-minded people to play with, that's even better. For the various groups I play with, leaving out whatever tools I felt worked best for my particular army would either a) result in short, unsatisfying games, as my opponents have no such arbitrary handicaps; or b) insult whomever I was playing against, that I thought so little of them as to bring an intentionally-handicapped list. Neither scenario seems like a good use of my limited gaming time.

Janthkin wrote:Don't forget the skill required to buy the models. That's at least as important as the ability to copy a list you find on the internet, right?

Well, or enough skill to proxy.

I suppose you could make the argument that if a person can't afford more minis it's because they're poor, and they're poor because they're not a hard enough worker, or are too dumb to land a good job, or whatever, but that seems pretty tangential to the actual games of 40k themselves.

... I mean... it would be roughly on the same level of saying "well, you beat me in this game, but at least my mom isn't a drunk".

Janthkin wrote:So, your argument is that using the tools allowed by the rules somehow devalues winning a game played under those rules?

My argument is that winning a game on an easier difficulty mode isn't as good as winning a game on a harder difficulty mode. The quality of the victory is directly proportional to how difficult it was to achieve.

Winning world war 2 was hard, which is why we have a monument to it. Winning candy by stealing it from a baby isn't, which is why we don't. In fact, we REVILE easy victories, rather than celebrating them because they are still wins.

 Ailaros wrote:

Janthkin wrote:So, your argument is that using the tools allowed by the rules somehow devalues winning a game played under those rules?

My argument is that winning a game on an easier difficulty mode isn't as good as winning a game on a harder difficulty mode. The quality of the victory is directly proportional to how difficult it was to achieve.

Winning world war 2 was hard, which is why we have a monument to it. Winning candy by stealing it from a baby isn't, which is why we don't. In fact, we REVILE easy victories, rather than celebrating them because they are still wins.

I suspect that the monuments related to WW2 have more to do with the service and sacrifice of millions around the world. Let's not compare the situations, please - 40k just isn't that serious.

But the general argument looks like a strawman. What's the "difficulty mode" coming from? This isn't a single-player video game, where the opponents & responses are scripted. A large part of what keeps the game interesting, even if you play against the same people repeatedly, is the evolution of (loosely speaking) strategies & tactics, both on the tabletop and, yes, OFF it.

An army list will very rarely win you a game. The wrong list can lose you the game before it starts. Given the investment of time & treasure required to even get to the tabletop to play the game, and never mind the time required to play a game, what does handicapping yourself prove?

Personally, if I'm playing against a player with an obviously deficient list in a casual situation, I adjust my on-board tactics; it's easier to turn down the gameplay, rather than pull out another 500 or so points of painted models.

 Ailaros wrote:
Sure, it takes some amount of skill to write a strong list. Unfortunately, most of the skill is being able to copy/paste a net list.

Net-listing is a suboptimal list-building strategy. You will lack the understanding of the list the original creator had and it will not be personalised to play to your strengths or local metagame.

Janthkin wrote:What's the "difficulty mode" coming from?

Is it easier to win a game with a strong list or a weak list?

A strong list. Therefore the stronger the list, the easier mode of difficulty you're playing on.

This whole "easy mode" analogy is completely wrong and doesn't make a lick of sense to the argument here.
List building is part of the hobby. Period. Some people just have different priorities. I sometimes play for fluff and sometimes I play more competitively. But I always play to win. If I find a player that wants to play a fluffy/non-optimized game, we both play to win. The skill level involved in playing hasn't changed. It's just as hard to win as before.
One problem comes from a fluffy person playing a more competitive person and then complaining when he gets stomped.
Another problem is a competitive person that only wants the most optimized face wrecking list possible and will stomp noob players to the curb.

Just make sure you know who and what you're playing. Communication with your opponent can clear a lot of this up.