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Hello everyone I want to talk about the mental/psychological traps that, as a player, are easy to make, and will negatively impact your performance.

To start off I want to talk about my game last night against one of my regular opponents. I saw that he had rolled three iron arms, two endurance, two enfeebles and 1 warp speed. In addition one of his daemon prices had re-roll invuls. Backed up by Belakor this is basically the worst possible combination for my T-wolves. From the get go I was playing from the position of someone avoiding a large loss instead of playing for a Win. I played more conservatively, more consistent with past games, I blamed the powers and the dice. While I was talking about the powers he got he told me that he was really worried about this game because of my mobility. He pointed out that he thought I was going to deploy differently and would have likely gotten me the win without needing to actually kill much. After he said that I looked at the table again and had used that strategy in a past game. But for some reason I got caught up in the powers that were on the table and stopped thinking outside the box.

In addition with the minimal amount of shooting he had I could have broken up my T-Wolf unit to take advantage of my speed and his lack of ability to multi-charge units. That would have minimized the effects of enfeeble, allowing me to combine back together and charge in(leaving only the originally enfeebled models to deal with it.

I let the list combined with the random powers get me down. I needed to not focus on the dice, but rather focus on the best possible scenario for his army, and then plan around that. If he gets worse than that, cool beans, if not well I have a plan in place. I was mentally prepared for the army on the sheet, not the actual army that was on the table.

There are a bunch of other things I have noticed but I wondered if anyone else has some that they have learned.

well you fell prey to basically what a lotof players do: they forget that the General matters.

The tool bag might look more full from across the table but if all he has are Phillips screwdrivers, it could be a long day of roofing for him.

Likewise, if YOU forget the objectives, then all the shots in the world wont save you.

I once got told I "placed my models down too confidently" at a tournament. He fgot it in his head by the way i approached th table and planted my models on the table, saying "Lets play" that I was kinda CLAIMING where i would deploy. the dice allowed me to deploy there as well and he was so off put by the way it seemed like the "game was going all my way" that he forgot we hadnt even deployed yet!

Getting in peoples head isnt ALWAYS intentional, as it wasnt in this case, but it happens.

You just bear down, slow the mechanism and work through the problem. I played last night against what I think might be one of the BEST tuned, well put together forces I have seen in a long time. The General was good and I knew it. But the list was BRILLIANT.

Now I coulda let that take me off my game, but I said to myself "Okay. Im going second. He has a SCOUTING Land Raider and SCOUTING dominion squads to kill me with. Time to go to work" and I won. He had me the first half of the game but I kept my eye on that prize and won 14-9 by the end of round 7.

GREAT battle. Well executed, but I had the better positional dominance despite the sehnanigans and his deathstar did what deathstars do: get isolated.

But I coulda easily made some bad decisions and tried to play a different game plan. But I bore down, thought rationally and went for it.

Stay the course!

As a dastardly Dark Eldar, being tricksie comes part and parcel of gaming, and i have found there are a few tactical blunders you can steer your opponents towards that help me take the advantage. I wouldn't call them mind tricks, because anyone could notice them, but these are a few things i see people try to do.

''Str 4 can glance AV 10!!11!! Fire the Bolters! ''

Sure it can, but when i have a 3+ Jink it's generally not very effective. I've had games where if a Raider full of Warriors and a unit of Scourges are within 18'' of Marines, and more often then not, they will move to rapid fire at the Raider for no gain (Maybe a hull point if they are lucky) save for a snap shotting Dark Lance while leaving the much more fragile Scourges.

''Dark Eldar are fragile, lets castle up!!'

Sure, we are fragile. Dark Eldar are also cheap and exceedingly fast. I can easily have my entire army in assault range turn two, and then it's just a blood bath, one Dark Eldar usually come out on top of as the game goes on.

Target priority.

This is just a tip in general, against Dark Eldar, there is usually no right answer here. If something is good, we take two or three of them. Everything is generally fast and most things are a threat. The most common problem i see here is people focusing on my troop Gunboats. They are the least of your worries, people waste loads of shots trying to down a Raider (unless they have ignores cover, then they explode like an Ork Trukk) while the Reavers and Scourges do the dirty work. Getting rid of Obj.Sec is fine, but against a faster army take out the threats to your units before the threats to your objectives.

Another mind game is the idea of placing high value, high hardness targets and luring the enemy to them. As the enemy cannot reliably ASSUME their shooting can reach both disparate targets, they start to break apart their forces to pursue both objectives and the lures.

This leaves any one part of the force exposed and, should you HAPPEN to take mobile armies... Well lets just say Pacman had the right idea: One pellet at a time.

and if you don't know what Pac-Man is, I hate you for making me feel old.

 Jancoran wrote:
Another mind game is the idea of placing high value, high hardness targets and luring the enemy to them. As the enemy cannot reliably ASSUME their shooting can reach both disparate targets, they start to break apart their forces to pursue both objectives and the lures.

This leaves any one part of the force exposed and, should you HAPPEN to take mobile armies... Well lets just say Pacman had the right idea: One pellet at a time.

and if you don't know what Pac-Man is, I hate you for making me feel old.

What is that? Like a Pack-rat but more manly?

Regardless of what it actually is dumping a unit that's difficult to kill in your opponents deployment zone is a sure fire way 99% of the time to make your opponent focus his attention on that specific unit.

The biggest thing to have in the game is actually just a positive attitude.

Yeah these mental traps are super common reasons for loosing for many players. I will list all the most common ones I can think up;

1) Aversion to damage. Players do not want to let their models die. Thus they shy from sacrifices that would win them the game. This often makes nids, IG, and Orks hard for some people to play as they try to hard to keep their units alive.
2) Shock and Awe. This is an actual military tactic where you hit someone so hard they become confused or give up. This is probably the most common reason for new players to loose as they give up after you destroy 1-2 units.
3) Bloodlust. People always assume you have to kill stuff to win a 40K game. In reality most of the missions do not require you to kill anything. This is also the origin of the bait and switch strategy, where you place a high damage output unit far away from objectives and let the opponent drop in to kill it thus gaining the objectives.
4) Confusion. This happens a lot when you open up a new front to the fight (ie DS a unit behind the opponent). Often people think of board control as quadrants of the board rather than areas of control. This causes them to go and chase units behind their line that realistically are meaningless to the actual victory conditions just because they "lost board control".
5) Fortification boxes. I have seen a lot of people pinning themselves in with their own fortifications where they will not leave the confines of their fortification even though they will get charged and killed if they don't or loose the game due to loosing an objective.

I have myself fallen into some of these. I have also used many of these to win games. A great example is when I played a double foot seer council in the old codex back in early sixth against a vendetta, punisher vulture, punisher leman russ list. The opponent had the firepower to wipe me out and walk onto the objectives with little difficulty. So I charged the foot council's right into the opponent knowing they would die without making it close enough to damage anything (all that time talking about how they could rip vehicles apart, lol). The game ended with the opponent 2 turns of movement away from most of the objectives and me having a total of 10 models left on objectives. I won without killing a single model.

 ansacs wrote:

1) Aversion to damage. Players do not want to let their models die. Thus they shy from sacrifices that would win them the game. This often makes nids, IG, and Orks hard for some people to play as they try to hard to keep their units alive.

I consider a version of this the most defining point in separation of skill; you can't keep everything alive. No matter how important you might consider something to be, it might die on turn 1 before it does anything even and there's nothing you could have done practically to prevent that. Accepting that and realizing that doesn't stop you from winning anyway is taking a pretty large step in the skill department.

People get obsessed with some thing(s) abilities to survive and either become dependent upon that or write them off because of it. Either "it'll die turn 1, so it's worthless" or "it died turn 1, I can't win". Those are both the same thing*. Neither are true.

Anyone who understands that losing some models/units is just inevitable, no matter how tough/important, and plays with that in mind, is far ahead of those who don't.

*to further belabor the point, there are armies that stand a real good chance losing if they lose something on the first turn, for example, Tyranids losing their only Synapse, but players who build that kind of army are well away from the point of understanding something as subtle as this point.

 DarknessEternal wrote:
I consider a version of this the most defining point in separation of skill; you can't keep everything alive. No matter how important you might consider something to be, it might die on turn 1 before it does anything even and there's nothing you could have done practically to prevent that. Accepting that and realizing that doesn't stop you from winning anyway is taking a pretty large step in the skill department.

This is a great point, and one that a lot of people get caught up with. I'm sure that has happened to everyone: playing your first game with a brand new model that you just painted, and having it die quickly without accomplishing much. That can take the wind out of your sails, and put you in a bad place mentally for the rest of the game. New players especially can get thrown off-balance by how many casualties their army takes over the course of the game, and sometimes get into that "Oh my god I'm screwed" funk even if they're actually in okay shape.

A few weeks ago I was playing a demo game against a brand-new player: I was using my Eldar, he was using the store's Ork army. I was purposely giving him an easy time, but by turn 2 I realized my mistake in giving him the Ork army: about half his army was dead, and he thought he was about to lose. On the next turn, he would have assaulted my squishy eldar infantry and torn apart my whole army - a dramatic turnaround, which is was purposely engineering to give him a good first game. But I didn't count on how huffy and down he would be by turn 2, and so he packed up his stuff and left before we could play the third turn...

Though some might be slight repetition, these are things I've seen across the table and have been guilty of myself, more when I was new to the game than now.

1) This unit is unkillable
If it can bleed, it can die. That Wraith Knight with Seers in support to throw wounds back on might seem like an invincible monster, and to be sure it will be a headache to kill. But it can, and likely will, die.
2) Hiding behind a save
A part of the psychology behind number one, some players hide behind 2+/3++ or similar, and act shocked when their units are slowly but surely taken from the table. To be sure it will take a lot of concentrated effort to kill a unit like that, but die it will. Hard to understand with this mindset that six wounds from lowly lasguns will, statistically, kill at least one Thunderhammer/Stormshield Terminator
3) All the toys in the toybox (Eggs > Baskets)
Wargear and relics should be looked at as tools in a toolbox. You want the unit(s) to threaten armor and/or MC's? High Strength/Low AP. You want your chapter master in combat? Bikes it is. However, newbies in particular fall into the trap of giving one model/unit all the toys. Sure, that unit can do a lot. If (when) it dies, a quarter of your army is dead.
4) Shock and Awe
Some players don't know how to respond to a well-executed Alpha Strike. As an example, a tournament I was recently at I brought an 1850 Grey Knight force with no allies, and my first game I faced Ultra Marines with an Allied Imperial Knight. One of two Libby's arrived, dropped next to it, and brought the beast down with one shot (Vortex of Doom). My opponent essentially gave up there. To be fair that is a big blow, but with Calgar and Tiggy, Centurions, and 30 tacticals left on the board, he was far from out.
5) It's a threat til its dead
I think we've all learned the painful lesson that a Riptide/Wraith Knight/ Dread Knight at one or two wounds can bring the same amount of pain as one at full wounds. Rather than put two wounds on each Dread Knight, just make one dead.
6) Get in the thick of it
While some armies/units understandably shy away from the thick of things, this is a mindset that will lose some armies game after game. Grey Knights and Tyranids to name those that first come to mind cannot be afraid to get toe to toe with the enemy. As a Grey Knight player myself, if you're afraid to be nose to nose with your opponent for most the game, this is not the army for you.
7) To the last man
Don't count yourself out because of a heavy loss. I've lost two Dread Knights turn one. I've seen flyrants and carnifex broods ripped apart before they got to where they needed to be. Know when you're beat, but never count yourself out of a fight until you've exhausted all options.

I could probably think of others, but at risk of turning into a wall of text, these are the mistakes I see most commonly.

I think DarknessEternal hit dead on on a point that forum goers are so famous for emphasizing. The "Psychology" behind underestimation and overestimation.

I cant even count how many times a person has dismissed a unit as "too easy to kill". My answer is invariably: so what?

Unless your strategy actually REQUIRES that unit, it is just the first to die. Also: from a resource management perspective, how many units did its death save? It's a worthy question. there's a reason I only have one Broadside in my current list I'm building for a friend. Its a psychology play.

Also: "easy to kill" does not mean important. Many times a unit that is easy to kill may survive simply because there are bigger fish to fry. In some ways, the weak unit may live longer than anyone. and if it deploys through reserves, theenemy is not as strong at the point of its entry and the ability to focus on it diminishes as does the impact. JUST DONT TELL THE OPPONENT. MAYBE THEY'LL FALL FOR UNDERESTIMATING IT!

EXAMPLE:

Devilfish Drones. Incredibly useful. They dont score, theres only two of them, they hit on 5's, and they can't fight their way out of a paperbag. "Easy to kill". Now tell me: are YOU going to fire at them if there's ANY other target you can put in front of it in priority? Heck no. And their usefulness goes beyond the damage they can deal. their usefulness is in fact realized most of the time when they die for you at convenient times. Tau playaz know what I mean.

Another example:
Scourges. They are better than they were but their fragility was often cited in the old codex as a reason not to take them over a pair of Lance Ravagers. the reality is that their fragility often was not only a bit overstated but the ten man unit could usually fire twice (during the game) even WHEN targetted on the round they show up and sometimes more! The unit does as much damage as the Ravagers but hurts infantry more. and really its true value is whether it can be deployed to get 2+ turns of shooting in, which justified its cost quite often.

Good thread so far.

 ansacs wrote:
Yeah these mental traps are super common reasons for loosing for many players. I will list all the most common ones I can think up;

1) Aversion to damage. Players do not want to let their models die. Thus they shy from sacrifices that would win them the game. This often makes nids, IG, and Orks hard for some people to play as they try to hard to keep their units alive.
2) Shock and Awe. This is an actual military tactic where you hit someone so hard they become confused or give up. This is probably the most common reason for new players to loose as they give up after you destroy 1-2 units.
3) Bloodlust. People always assume you have to kill stuff to win a 40K game. In reality most of the missions do not require you to kill anything. This is also the origin of the bait and switch strategy, where you place a high damage output unit far away from objectives and let the opponent drop in to kill it thus gaining the objectives.
4) Confusion. This happens a lot when you open up a new front to the fight (ie DS a unit behind the opponent). Often people think of board control as quadrants of the board rather than areas of control. This causes them to go and chase units behind their line that realistically are meaningless to the actual victory conditions just because they "lost board control".
5) Fortification boxes. I have seen a lot of people pinning themselves in with their own fortifications where they will not leave the confines of their fortification even though they will get charged and killed if they don't or loose the game due to loosing an objective.

I have myself fallen into some of these. I have also used many of these to win games. A great example is when I played a double foot seer council in the old codex back in early sixth against a vendetta, punisher vulture, punisher leman russ list. The opponent had the firepower to wipe me out and walk onto the objectives with little difficulty. So I charged the foot council's right into the opponent knowing they would die without making it close enough to damage anything (all that time talking about how they could rip vehicles apart, lol). The game ended with the opponent 2 turns of movement away from most of the objectives and me having a total of 10 models left on objectives. I won without killing a single model.

This is an excellent post!!!! This! All of this!

Indeed, what is really fun about this for me is that when I was facing the blood thirster with the 2+ rerollable(so basically no chance of doing anything to it) I played it right, I played it cagey, forced him to commit and then left one unit behind while everything else scattered and ran away.

But for some reason when there was a CHANCE to kill them I suddenly started playing it wrong.......

I think this ties into the idea of dont get caught up in your old tactics. When you need to adapt to the situation be ready to adapt instead of looking for any reason to play like you normally would.

Also a second one I am notorious for is dont get fixated on an idea or strategy at the expense of seeing something objectively better. When I first was using my eldar I was stuck on the idea of being able to heal 2 wounds a turn back on the wraithknight(with the wraithstone and the like). that completely blinded me to using telepathy. In addition it left me blind to other relics that are quite fantastic in the eldar book.

Turn1: "What can a bunch of grots and lobbas do if i've brought 2 imperial knights, lol!"
...
Turn3: "Darn, i can't charge your boyz cause there are grots in the way..."
Turn4: "Darn, i can't charge your boyz cause there are lobbas in the way..."
Turn5: "How come you have 2 times more VP than i do, you haven't even done any damage!?"

I admit I've had a rough go of it when I play. I get a little sullen when I see my carefully painted men have their life snuffed from their bodies. Granted I was playing Imperial Guard but yeah... still tough to stomach. But I'm still new and I don't understand counters and how to avoid things. W40K is a game of learning... literally everything. Learning how to take losses and how to lose units is very much a part of it.

My first game I lost every unit except my mini-Deathstar (with my totally loaded Tau commander) my allied Warboss (who got isolated with his Nob buddies and did nothing), my flyers, 1 broadside, and some measly Grots (sum total I had like 600 points but they were all isolated and weakened and he had like 1200 points left), but I eeeked out a tie on VP. It was funny to see he had only lost a squad of guardsmen, one tank, and some lascannons but I still made a tie (and that was mostly because there was a house rule in play that I didn't know about that gave him 3 VPs to end the game. Something about a point for every maelstrom objective controlled at the end of the game... I could've won if I'd known that as I hadn't charged one with my mini-Deathstar on the final turn.) I felt really proud of my tie because looking at the casualties it would've been really easy to give up early.

Seemingly illogical probability fallacies. The most common being independent variables.

Example: Squad of Ork boyz with 3x Rokkit Launchas. With BS2 they each have a 33.33% of hitting. Seems like you should get 1 hit per shooting phase. Over the long run this is true. But that is averaging over a large sample size (eg a whole game or three of 5-7 turns each). Maybe first turn you get that one expected hit on opposing armor. Then Turns 2 and 3 they all whiff. So you commit the KMB from a squad of shootas "because all those rokkits missed, so this blasta is due to hit."

No it is not. That KMB has the same 33.33% chance to hit that it always had. It doesn't care about what those rokkits did. And now all those shootas can't shoot at the infantry they should be annihilating. You've talked yourself out of a whole turn of shooting from an otherwise strong unit.

[Tangentially, this example could also be a lesson in bad list-building; really that KMB should be with the rokkits anyway, but I was trying to make a point]

I get too caught up in the fluff sometimes and don't make decisions based upon tactics or strategy, but based on what's fluffy for the moment or what I believe my units would do.

 Otto Weston wrote:
I get too caught up in the fluff sometimes and don't make decisions based upon tactics or strategy, but based on what's fluffy for the moment or what I believe my units would do.

While it's not always the best tactical choice, it's certainly a fun way to play the game. Should my Grand Master accept a challenge from a Necron Lord with mind shackle scarabs? Tactically, probably not, but the idea that the head of an entire Brotherhood of the Emporer's Finest would back down from the foul xenos warlord is heresy! Heresy I say!

Over-focusing on dice. Big time. I've noticed this over and over again-a person list-builds poorly and makes poor tactical decisions and they get mad about dice.

My last game against SM was an extreme example. Guy had three drop pods full of stock TAC marines, and one MM dread backed up by Legion of the damned packing, bafflingly, heavy bolters paired with melta guns.

He dropped in EXTREMELY close to the edge of the board with everything. One squad drifted off (statistically very likely). He rolled, I got to place them, *boop* off into his corner of the board. One squad was right next to a Triarch stalker, which proceeded to tie them up, and who won the sweep test when they "weapons are useless'd" to run away. The game continued basically like that. He dropped his dread within rapid fire range of 15 Gauss guns and complained about how broken gauss was. He charged his bike star armed with power swords into a squad of wraiths, complained about how lucky I was when they tied combat. He blamed luck (either my good or his bad) for every occurrence, not noticing when he managed to get extremely lucky several times (his only anti tank weapon destroyed my barge turn 1 with 1 melta shot, for instance) then after the game loudly complained about how he suspected "some" players might be using loaded dice. Given that mine are A) the exact same chessex brand he was using and B) clear, I just had to laugh at that statement.

well mentally speaking, Dice get in some peoples heads for sure. and if you have NICE dice like i bought, and the cool looking 6's come up, even though they ARENT coming up any more often than normal luck allows, he's quirking his eyebrow should he be happening to lose.

Yet when winning, he doesnt notice the 6's. Weird how that works.

I purchased dice for every participant of the Elvensword ambassadorial Tournament, and required they be used exclusively. This eliminated any chance of players saying a word about dice.

=)

But it goes to show how psychological the game can be. If the dice "seem" not to go your way, you might just start doing foolish things or stop caring. And of course this exacerbates the problem.

Dice. Yeah. they affect some folks. Ive been dice screwed hard on a game or two. Its inevitable over the course of the number of games Ive played...and its a lot of games. But that is the last thing that should be on your mind when you play.

In terms of the mistakes I know I make:

- The main one is that there's usually one character in my army that I don't want to die (usually my Warlord). And, I might get a bit too focussed on trying to protect him, when just letting the inevitable happen may be the better tactical move. I don't know if this has actually cost me any games, but it's something I know I need to be more careful (and objective) about.

It's perhaps a little ironic, because I'll happily throw just about any other model or unit in my army to the wolves if I think it will gain me even a marginal advantage.

- Target priority. Possibly because I started this army recently (and so am still getting used to the limits of the different weapons), but I think I tend to focus on what I can potentially take out, rather than what I need to take out. e.g. If my enemy has a Land Raider, I might target it early on with my lascannons because I haven't got much else that can kill it and they might be dead soon. However, it might be that there are better targets for those lascannons - which they also have a better chance of incapacitating (and which, if removed, might even prolong their lives).

- In terms of list-building, the biggest one is probably 'but I might need it'. with IG, I almost seem to have this fear that I'll really need my CCS to take out something big - yet all they have is lasguns. So, I always end up giving them meltas or plasma, only for them to spend the whole game hiding behind a wall like they always do. My Lord Commissar also has far too much gear (in fact, I usually end up doubling his cost), but that is at least for reasons of flavour.


In terms of mistakes I see some of my opponents making:

- Eggs in one basket. One opponent in particular seems to love building his army around one big death star (usually in a Land Raider). His armies tend to have too few units, and his big one is too prone to being whittled. It's tough and can obliterate units in combat, but it can't be everywhere at once. Also because it obliterates units in combat, it can't hide in combat - and so ends up getting shot every round.

- Wanting to see his units 'do something'. I think some people really can't stand to see their units 'doing nothing' for a turn - even if 'doing nothing' would allow them to get in a better position for next turn. So, if there are no good targets for his assault units, he'll disembark (or leave cover) and assault a bad target instead.

- Charging elite units into my blob squad . I really don't know why said blob squad attracts so much attention - I don't generally use it to block off charges to other units (that would be far too sensible), and it rarely does much in the shooting phase, And yet, almost every game one opponent will make a beeline for it with some sort of elite unit - which will then be stuck there for most of the game.

- Hiding units. This goes back to the 'not wanting units to die'. All too often I've seen a player hide a tough unit (e.g. 3 carnifexes) at the back, because he wants to keep it safe. However, all this actually does is make our target priority that much easier - because we can just focus on the closest MCs (and, those carnifexes don't have any long-range guns). So, by the time he finally moves them out, most of his other MCs are dead and they're still nowhere near our front lines.

I am an offender of the dice one as well. Not in necessarily thinking that the dice gods are against me, but in trying to continue to see the pattern of past dice, extrapolate that to the entire game, and incorporate it into my strategy.

For example it would have been much smarter to charge X unit, however with past dice being factored in the overwatch will kill me" Or "Man this unit just demolished that last unit, lets see it do it again"

Basically letting the dice in the game so far determine my tactical decisions.

One of the things I am trying to teach myself is that there are few to no situations where the dice actually mattered if you played it right. Moving forward find what you just played WRONG at different points in the game(mainly the movement phase) where dice didn't matter at all.

A little "sleight of hand" for lack of a better term is a trap I like to exploit in mission based games. A unit out of sight, or not necessarily being used (not moving or active in shooting/assaulting) will tend to disappear from an opponent's mental picture of the battle field, and sometimes even your own! I've made some stellar moves by jumping out from behind terrain at the right time to claim/deny an objective or to sideswipe an enemy. Of course, I've had a couple of times where I've literally had a unit hidden behind some ruins until I'm cleaning up post-game.

 Leth wrote:

One of the things I am trying to teach myself is that there are few to no situations where the dice actually mattered if you played it right.

...i feel the ground trembling beneath the thousands feet of 40k naysayers approaching your thread.

 Leth wrote:
One of the things I am trying to teach myself is that there are few to no situations where the dice actually mattered if you played it right. Moving forward find what you just played WRONG at different points in the game(mainly the movement phase) where dice didn't matter at all.

I certainly believed that back in 5th.

Now, with some of the stuff in 7th. I'm less sure.

I mean, if your opponent is drawing 'capture objective 1' (which he's sitting on), 'destroy an enemy unit with shooting', 'cast a psychic power' etc., while you're drawing 'capture every objective' or 'kill the enemy warlord' (while he's still in reserve), it's hard to feel that luck isn't having an effect on the game.

I think that dice tend to actually come out average usually. For example, my 20 man boyz unit tends to do average wounds, the expected amount, in combat. People won't notice their extreme luck or extreme strangeness when they don't need it. If someone rolled 8 2s out of 12 dice, when they hit on 5s and 6s, and they get their statistical 4 hits, they don't notice the spectacular 8 2s. However, when they need to get a 3+ save and they get 2 tries, they are extremely disappointed with 2 2s. I'm always trying to see the dice and notice spectacular rolls even if they don't help me. Also, I think its funny how if people need a 5, they'll think a 4 is closer than a 3. It is just as much of a miss and it's just humorous for them to say, "So close."

 vipoid wrote:

 Leth wrote:
One of the things I am trying to teach myself is that there are few to no situations where the dice actually mattered if you played it right. Moving forward find what you just played WRONG at different points in the game(mainly the movement phase) where dice didn't matter at all.

I certainly believed that back in 5th.

Now, with some of the stuff in 7th. I'm less sure.

I mean, if your opponent is drawing 'capture objective 1' (which he's sitting on), 'destroy an enemy unit with shooting', 'cast a psychic power' etc., while you're drawing 'capture every objective' or 'kill the enemy warlord' (while he's still in reserve), it's hard to feel that luck isn't having an effect on the game.

5th was awful for many other reasons, I played grey knights(not paladin star) and would literally win by placing my models, shunting forward and saying "you have one turn, GO". If I don't have the ability to get into my opponents deployment zone and do something, that is a deficit of the list, not the chance draws. For example if you focus on killing his troops now all of a sudden an important unit might have to double back to get his objectives giving you more zone control. We always play if you cant possibly get it you discard it and every d3 is a 2. I find the very extreme examples are very rare unless you are already destroying them anyway.

Sure there is an element of "luck", but its no different than rolling low on a crucial run move, so on and so forth. I think people who say this edition is more random don't understand/realize how important pre-measuring is. Seriously being able to premeasure removes so much variance from the game it is ridiculous, it gives you so much more control of the game than you had before. Now I can measure out to 24.1 instead of having to guess and play it safe at 23/24. I can plan out my moves accurately 2 turns in advance. Charging into cover is a fixed value that can be accounted for(sometimes the dice screw you) I will take knowing how far the charge is rather than having to guess if I had to make a 6 inch charge.

But I digress. I want to add to the dice to mattering point that it assumes you build a solid list. Not WAAC, or a Netlist but a solid list that has some answers for everything, or if you dont have a good answer for them(say against fliers) then you have the durability and the ability to dominate the ground and movement phase.

Here's an example of where one could fall into a mental trap. linky linky

 Leth wrote:

5th was awful for many other reasons, I played grey knights(not paladin star) and would literally win by placing my models, shunting forward and saying "you have one turn, GO".

I've seen GK lists do this in the current edition, what's your point?

 Leth wrote:
If I don't have the ability to get into my opponents deployment zone and do something, that is a deficit of the list, not the chance draws.

Yes, because obviously every army can just teleport units into the enemy deployment zone and clear his units off that objective. And, obviously, that's no more difficult than just staying on an objective in your deployment zone.

 Leth wrote:
For example if you focus on killing his troops now all of a sudden an important unit might have to double back to get his objectives giving you more zone control.

It's possible, but most of the time he's already grabbed those objectives. Maybe he'll draw them again, but generally he's ahead anyway.

 Leth wrote:
We always play if you cant possibly get it you discard it and every d3 is a 2. I find the very extreme examples are very rare unless you are already destroying them anyway.

So do we, and we still end up with crap like the above in every game. One team gets 3 easy missions that they can complete immediately, the other gets 2 that they can't complete for another couple of turns (at best), and maybe one that's possible but very unlikely. Every. Single. Game.

 Leth wrote:

Sure there is an element of "luck", but its no different than rolling low on a crucial run move, so on and so forth.

I have rarely - if ever - seen a "crucial run move", yet alone one which impacted the game as much as the Maelstrom cards.

The only times I've seen important run moves is when that player didn't move his units into position early enough. Which certainly isn't comparable.

 Leth wrote:
I think people who say this edition is more random don't understand/realize how important pre-measuring is.

Yep, I'll just pre-measure and my objective cards will magically swap themselves with better ones.

 Leth wrote:
Seriously being able to premeasure removes so much variance from the game it is ridiculous, it gives you so much more control of the game than you had before.

Except that they then added random charges, as well as random psychic powers and further buckets of random tables. Hell, even before pre-measuring, it's not like much was random. The only thing I can think of was Night Fighting - everything else was about being able to judge distances - which has nothing to do with randomness.

Don't get me wrong - I agree that pre-measuring was a good addition to the game, but it still does naff-all to make any of that less-random.