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So, I've been seeing, for some time now, people who have win/loss records in their sigs. I've got a whole thread to keep track of my own.

So, how good of a record would someone need to have in order to be considered a 'good' player, in your opinion? For the sake of this poll question, assume that the person in question plays (on average) opponents of equal skill level to himself.

The Win/Loss record on it's own is utterly worthless. Without information about the opponent, the lists, the table, etc, it's impossible to assess the actual skill level.

If I'm a fighter that wins all my fights, that doesn't make me a good fighter if I only ever take on cripples. Likewise the guy who loses all his fights isn't necessarily a bad fighter if he only ever takes on MMA champions.

1:1

This shows that the person is playing at their level, not rolling noobs. I prefer to play upstream when i can. Playing people who have stronger lists or more skill/luck than i do, and winning, is an awesome feeling. Also even if i do get beaten down i learn from my mistakes, so that i can avoid them next time.

I'm not an uber-competitive player, preferring a laid back and equal or slightly in the opponent's favor game.

Anything too far outside of 1:1 would indicate that either he needs to find opponents that are his equal , or tone things down a bit to make the game fair and enjoyable for both sides.

Win record is meaningless in such an uncontrolled environment like table top gaming, it doesn't take into account opponent skill, table quality, relative list power, having access to all the options etc. Work fine in sports and video games where the only variable is player skill but in TT gaming there are too amny variables.

For example, at a club without the money to afford much terrain tau and guard would reign supreme. What if most of my opponents onyl have to money to run basic lists without any of the new toys, while I have a paying job and can buy whatever I want? What if I play guard and all my opponents are kids with their space marine armies of two tactical squads, an assualt squad, some scouts and a dreadnought?

Too many variables. A uniquely American thing stat tracking. I should know, being an american ex-pat myself. Imagine it, in NZ no one cares about yards ran while holding a ball on tuesday when its raining. I digress...

 EmilCrane wrote:
Win record is meaningless in such an uncontrolled environment like table top gaming, it doesn't take into account opponent skill, table quality, relative list power, having access to all the options etc. Work fine in sports and video games where the only variable is player skill but in TT gaming there are too amny variables.

For example, at a club without the money to afford much terrain tau and guard would reign supreme. What if most of my opponents onyl have to money to run basic lists without any of the new toys, while I have a paying job and can buy whatever I want? What if I play guard and all my opponents are kids with their space marine armies of two tactical squads, an assualt squad, some scouts and a dreadnought?

Too many variables. A uniquely American thing stat tracking. I should know, being an american ex-pat myself. Imagine it, in NZ no one cares about yards ran while holding a ball on tuesday when its raining. I digress...

Uh...the first person I ever saw do this on Dakka was an Aussie, actually.

Do other people have more limited groups? We have such a variety of players, I kind of assumed peoples' games would level out among casual/competitive opponents. I'll adjust the poll question to reflect that.

 Jimsolo wrote:

 EmilCrane wrote:
Win record is meaningless in such an uncontrolled environment like table top gaming, it doesn't take into account opponent skill, table quality, relative list power, having access to all the options etc. Work fine in sports and video games where the only variable is player skill but in TT gaming there are too amny variables.

For example, at a club without the money to afford much terrain tau and guard would reign supreme. What if most of my opponents onyl have to money to run basic lists without any of the new toys, while I have a paying job and can buy whatever I want? What if I play guard and all my opponents are kids with their space marine armies of two tactical squads, an assualt squad, some scouts and a dreadnought?

Too many variables. A uniquely American thing stat tracking. I should know, being an american ex-pat myself. Imagine it, in NZ no one cares about yards ran while holding a ball on tuesday when its raining. I digress...

Uh...the first person I ever saw do this on Dakka was an Aussie, actually.

Do other people have more limited groups? We have such a variety of players, I kind of assumed peoples' games would level out among casual/competitive opponents. I'll adjust the poll question to reflect that.

Expect a bloody aussie to ruin things

And yeah, besides tournaments most groups here max out at 5-10 people, economies of scale and all that jazz. Your city probably has more people that all of NZ does, so there's that as well.

If someone places high in 2-3 big tournaments , then he is a good player.

Depends where you play. I had very close to a perfect record when I started out, because my group of friends wasn't all that good at tactics and just tended to push models toward me.

As soon as I started playing in another group I started losing games but quickly figured out more tactics.

Also when I swapped armies with my mates and demonstrated to them how their armies could beat my army with very little changes, they started getting better too

Simple, if you dont lose you dont learn. My win record at tournies is something like 80%, locally it is a lot higher but as I only play 40k compeititvely I hardly play locally any more. I put no stock in win loss records to be honest as someone said above we have no idea on the quailty of opponents.

Also you have to think about armies. A tau player, 2++ reroll deamon player, a serp spam player etc may not be on the same skill level as an ork, BA or DA player despite having a higher amount of wins.
Think of it this way - if me and my mate played football manager and he got man city into the champions league, whilst I managed to get leeds utd promoted to the premiership, but missed out on the champs league the season he got into it. Does that make him a better player at football manager? Or does that mean he took one of the best teams in the game?

I place a record in my sig, but that is just me liking to keep track.

I suspect my Chaos Marines are very good on an uncompetetive level. I use lots of units like defilers and khorne chosen that are considered 'bad', but then, I face almost no 'overpowered' units whatsoever.

My most common enemy is an Ork player who enjoys spamming Sluggaboyz, Dreads, a Battlewagon, Nobs, a big mek with a SAG or KFF, stormboyz, warbikers...

In turn, I often face the above with Chosen, a few cultists, Khârn, a Defiler, a Vindicator, Raptors...

I suspect my positive ratio might be due to me using stronger units, or possibly him playing a bit too fluffy at times (rush EVERYTHING forward)

I can't remember actually having lost a game, even before I began recording. It's like there is some kind of weird win/loss hierarchy here, with me always beating the Ork player, the Ork player always beating the 'nid player, and so on. Almost starting to suspect I use too strong lists for my environment. Still, I have no zombies, no plague marines, no heldrakes, almost no bikers...

I manage to scrape out more wins than losses, but barely. 16/13/1 with my CSM, 7/6 with DE.
I'm one of the newer players in my meta. My advantages include playing armies people haven't played against before, so they're still getting used to how to deal with 'em; and Lady Luck smiling my way more often than not. Dice love me, and that helps me win games.
It's a better than 1:1 ratio. Does that mean I'm a good player?
Not even close.
As mentioned above, there are too many factors to determine if someone is "good" or not based on wins/losses alone. Luck is a big one in a dice game.

A meaningless statistic unless accompanied by a whole load of other information that won't fit comfortably within dakka signature guidelines.

In my opinion a good player has nothing to do with how many games they win.
They turn up on time with nicely painted, non min/maxed wysiwyg army.
They know the rules to a fair level. I have no problem with 15-20 mins rules discussion during a game.
They can tailor their gaming style to their opponents.
They are fun to play against.
They've brought beer.

I've seen people with ridiculous stuff like:

"Necrons 75-0-0" in their signatures so I don't really take win-loss records seriously.

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
In my opinion a good player has nothing to do with how many games they win.
They turn up on time with nicely painted, non min/maxed wysiwyg army.
They know the rules to a fair level. I have no problem with 15-20 mins rules discussion during a game.
They can tailor their gaming style to their opponents.
They are fun to play against.
They've brought beer.

This. Being a good player, IMO, is in the attitude not the win ratio.

In terms of skill level, 1:1 with average opponents (assuming a whole ton of things that can't be stated in a sig comfortably) is evidently average. There's only limited stock you can put into this though, because 40K is so random and unbala- narratively inclined

Can you even grasp a definition of a "good player" in a tabletop game of this magnitude? 40K's rules have a decent space for interpretations, players forge their own scenarios, people use house rules here and there, the game is unbalanced, and even the tournament gaming has its own gimmicks, since the game is HEAVILY based on luck.

This is like you're trying to determine who is the true Scotsman. In a nutshell; this is an inconsistent argument.

We're all players, yes, but like this: fluff-players, crunch-players, casual players, or a mixture of the above. That's it.

Paul Murphy from Forge the Narrative podcast says "he gets beat all the time". He is largely considered to be a damn good player. I think he placed 5th at ToF Invitational.
Win Loss record ain't got crap to do with skill.
I play Eldar and have a less then 50% win rate in tournaments. I don't take the auto win lists because I want to get better tactically.
One of the best players I know runs Orkz/Necrons or Sisters he gets beat alot but everyone agrees he is a hard opponent to deal with.

If you don't go 5-0 at a tournament, then you're a loser.

You're either the best at something or the worst at it.

There is no middle ground!

For the Emprah!

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
In my opinion a good player has nothing to do with how many games they win.
They turn up on time with nicely painted, non min/maxed wysiwyg army.
They know the rules to a fair level. I have no problem with 15-20 mins rules discussion during a game.
They can tailor their gaming style to their opponents.
They are fun to play against.
They've brought beer.

Have an exalt.

To directly address the question, though, I don't think it really matters, to be honest. WL/D records are based on too many variables, and therefore are not really an effective method of judging skill. Also, as has been said, a BA player who can win over half their games is probably a better player/tactician than a Cronair player who wins 80% of their games.

I can win 30% of my games with BA! I'm a badass!

I'm one of those people that tracks wins with a particular army in my sig, I do so for an easy place to list it as a friend challenged me to track my wins/loss/ties.

In terms of what win/loss ratio makes you a good player, anything greater than 1:1, as that means you have won more times than lost.

In 51 games with Tyranids in 6th edition (before the new book) I won 41, lost 8, and tied 2. Sounds pretty darn good right? I prefer to look at my GT record over that time, 12-5 in three GTs that I took my bugs to in 6th with the old book.

WLD is meaningless without background (which is why I put up a BatRep for every game I play with Tyranids.) At a small 6 man local RTT, it isn't particularly hard to win 3 games. But if some of your opponents were 13 years old and using their AOBR orks, does that really count? And when the dice takes a complete dump on you, does that count? One of my 8 losses was completely beyond my control due to my inability to roll a 3 or higher for several turns in a row. These things happen. My other 7 losses however were very close games that, even with a bad roll here or there, were at least somewhat in my control and could have been a win.

So basically, WLD doesn't mean much. There's probably some guy in smallville kansas who is undefeated in 6th edition with his Orks, but has never been to a GT, and has only played against the local High School club. Whatever. I'll still call jy2 a better player despite his inferior record, because he plays some top tier competition.

Win/Loss ratio means nothing in of itself. If I go to play down my local GW I always find more casual players or newer players, whereas at my local FLGS 90% of people have thought out their lists well at 1500 +/- some.

In the overall meta, pub-stomping a local GW really isn't impressive. Hell, I mostly tone down my lists when I go there anyway to try the more interesting units. If you were to consistently win games with mature, developed players at an FLGS then you'd be more respectable.

Does trying to pub-stomp and failing count? LOL

Not sure on how to vote this. Being a good player is more than your record. I have times where I can win on some long streaks, then, lose more in a row than I would care to admit. To me, being a good player is about knowing my army, what list I bring to the table, and to play without making mistakes. No reason for a bunch of guardsmen to shoot at a tank of any kind with the lasgun. However, that lascannon looks like a good option.

Also, if I play new players, my skill set doesn't increase. If I play good players, I will learn about my army as well as theres.

I have stated before, you won't win a game in the deployment, however, you can lose at that time.

"If you ain't first, youre last" - Reese Bobby

You can close this thread now.

A few of us have had this discussion at a couple of tournaments recently. We noticed that the same 4-5 of us where at the top tables at every event we went to in the TN, AL, GA area.

The tournaments had different formats, missions, and levels of terrain. Most of us play several different armies, but the results are the same.

So for me, routinely being on the top 3-5 tables in the final rounds of a tournament are a pretty good judge of a good/great player.

Ratio's like this are a bad thing unless you have both agreed to play competitively beforehand.

There is no magic number of win ratio to be a good player, though I guess that depends on how you define a good player. Are you talking about tournaments? Then you probably care about your ratio more than others. However you might be the only WAAC player in a laid back area, scoring a huge ratio, but nobody likes you and eventually refuses to play you.

Are you a good player if you are 10:1 but cant find a game?

On the opposite side, you could be very friendly, but have a horrid ratio. You easily find games, but your usually lose.

Are you now a good player?

It all comes down to enjoyment. Win or lose of you help your opponent and yourself have fun, you are a good player in my book.

I have played against all sorts of opponents in various games. WAAC people, people who cant remember what a bolter does, laid back "just here to relax" people, rules lawyers and generally fun people to play against.

The games I have fun with are the ones who I feel are good players. I played against DE with my daemons. He had me on the ropes, great strategy combined with some good luck and poor moves on my part. Warp storm gave me some pink horrors and I turned the game around with 7 pink horrros. He lost, but that doesn't make him a bad player, I think of him as one of the better at the shop.

Ratio in Sig = e-peen.