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So after a game today, and talking to a buddy of mine afterwards, I'm seeing again what I think is a bit of a problem in 40k that I'm sure everyone here is aware of, namely that rocking up to a game with particular kind of list (horde/anti-armour/anti-infantry/Take All Comers), and being presented with the hard counter to that list in a rock-paper-scissors way can make the game less fun.

For example, my friend who plays orks on occasion finds mostly that his green tide lists are most effective as not everyone prepares for massive horde armies, and when his horde shows up against a Take-all-comers list, he does very well. I arrived at match today with a full ravening list mostly geared for anti-infantry, but with a good amount of melt and plasma, in what I figured would be a list that would do well against infantry (dakka banner) and put up a good battle against a mixed list, to find the other side of the board populated by 8 necron 13-13-11 (shields) vehicles, and though I almost won that game, it felt not super fun. I had the reverse happen one game against my CSM friend, when he brought a thousand sons army (great anti-MEQ, and I showed up with a Iron Hands wall of Rhino/Razorback blitz.

The same thing happens with flyers, where if one person brings them and the other guy brings little to no AA/Fliers then its not super fun for the other guy.

The problem is then that you need to be able to deal with horde, armour walls, flyers/FMC, all at once, and if both teams take a bit of everything, then you get a great game, last week I played my Salamander friend, we both had storm ravens, both had marines, both long and short range, and it was a good back and forth close game, but if one person brings a balanced list and the other brings a specialized (Horde, Armour, Flying Circus / Air Force) list, the specialist seems to have the advantage.

The time when they may not is if both people bring heavily specialized lists (Mirror matches are fun), and huge hordes vs expensive tanks/flyers is a mess and could go either way as both teams lack the ability to kill each other in an expedient way.

My question is therefore, is there a way to fix this seemingly deeply set problem with the way 40k games are arranged and armies constructed?

You could obviously say to your friend "hey lets have a horde on horde game", and that'd be fine if you both had hordes, same goes for tanks, air force, etc..... but in the case of a pick-up game either at a FLGS or a match with friends that is not pre-arranged, could there be a change to the system, or a house rule or something that could make this less of an issue.

The first thing that comes to my mind is that GW has already decreed how many troops/fast/elite/heavy we may have, but it is easy to still take all/mostly one thing (armour/horde) within the confines of the FOC. Could there be a system by which in non-prearranged games you are limited in what fraction of your points may be spent on certain things, for example (and this is totally off the top of my head) , no more than 50% spent on troops (prevent horde), no more than 50% spent on vehicles/MC , etc...

Obviously this would not work for several reasons, it affects different codices unequally, and further limits the variations of armies you can bring, but I'm just spitballing ideas, I hope someone else has thoughts on this and will share their insights, because it would be nice to show up for a pick-up game and not suddenly have something deployed across from you that you have no hope at all of beating with a balanced list (LR spam, Serpent spam, green tide, 2+/2++ rerollables, etc)

/rant

I'm finding this with my tyranids too. While they aren't a tournament army i'm finding they have developed strong flyer lists with the new release. I find it fun to play since it seems to be the only way to get mobile tyranids these days but unless my friend brings a good amount of AA its not a fun game for him.

We list tailor before the game. We plan it well. We dont know every detail about the enemy list but we generally have a good idea of what each player is gonna take.

With planning and communication games are much better.

Its just a matter of allowing proxies if you have to and having a 10 minute talk before the game. I think. But yes its difficult when you dont play with friends.

I came up with a no-spam rule to list building that was reasonably popular a while back and *could* help towards reducing specialization somewhat.
See what you think: (the rules are in the link)
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/555867.page

Poly Ranger wrote:
I came up with a no-spam rule to list building that was reasonably popular a while back and *could* help towards reducing specialization somewhat.
See what you think: (the rules are in the link)
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/555867.page

this post makes me want to do a bit of necromancy. i don't think i have doubles of anything currently except some troops (i do own 2 wave serpents though..)

my thoughts about specialized vs TAC is that the specialized force *should* have a better chance most of the time over a balanced TAC list most of the time, but when it doesn't it will fall very VERY flat.

 Swastakowey wrote:
We list tailor before the game. We plan it well. We dont know every detail about the enemy list but we generally have a good idea of what each player is gonna take.

With planning and communication games are much better.

Its just a matter of allowing proxies if you have to and having a 10 minute talk before the game. I think. But yes its difficult when you dont play with friends.

I think this is the best answer, and is the way GW envisions us playing. the whole "super secrect list with no feedback to the other guy etc" just doesn't seem to go with the Vibe I get from reading/hearing ANYTHING GW talks about.

they seem to envision 40K being more a beer and rpetzels game where you have a rough idea who your fighting, what he's got etc. maybe not exact numbers but some rough idea.

BrianDavion wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
We list tailor before the game. We plan it well. We dont know every detail about the enemy list but we generally have a good idea of what each player is gonna take.

With planning and communication games are much better.

Its just a matter of allowing proxies if you have to and having a 10 minute talk before the game. I think. But yes its difficult when you dont play with friends.

I think this is the best answer, and is the way GW envisions us playing. the whole "super secrect list with no feedback to the other guy etc" just doesn't seem to go with the Vibe I get from reading/hearing ANYTHING GW talks about.

they seem to envision 40K being more a beer and rpetzels game where you have a rough idea who your fighting, what he's got etc. maybe not exact numbers but some rough idea.

It helps go a long way to making the game enjoyable to anyone in any situation.

It only works , if for some un understandable reason people own twice or three time as many points as it is needed for a normal list.

Also what about lists that don't have counter match ups , I can't think about anything an IG army could do against eldar other then taking a titan , hoping to go first and the the eldar playing his +4 anti D saves.

This can be a bit of a problem with people who play at FLGS. My solution has typically been to bring 3 different army lists and the models in my car so I can give my opponent a choice of which list to play against. However I don't mind playing at disadvantages most of the time and I don't mind having a limited supply of the counter to a unit type.

I think that much of this has to do with the type of player you are. It is really how much challenge you want and whether you like to tweak a list into the "perfect" meta TAC list. If you like a playing games on god mode then you will take 1 TAC list against any comer no matter what. If not then communicate with your opponent. (notice I am not saying take some super optimized list, by all means take a rough riders and penal legion list just bring enough of each counter to have a double digit chance at winning)

BTW exact mirror matches are usually pretty boring in my experience as I pretty much know what the other person is going to do and I probably am doing similar. Therefore if the game is played perfectly by the players the outcome is pure luck. With different lists at least their is a certain degree of list A has good defense and poor speed so list B uses it's mobility to win.