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morgoth wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:
Part of it is less about the stats and more about the codex itself. At a tourney level, where everyone takes the absolute best from their codex as many times as possible, things seem to balance out a little. Either through crutch units, unforseen combinations or simply a high-powered book, the playing field is rather level. There are a few exceptions, on both ends, but on the whole, the 'upper limit' of what most books can do isn't radically different.

However, some books have units that stand out as being so good, you don't need to really apply any thought beyond googling 'best X list'. For example, the 'best' Eldar list revolves around Serpents, Wraithknights and maybe Seer Councils, all of whom are somewhat 'point and click' units. To build a SM list on par with that, you need to build a specific combo of imabalanced units (GravCents, Tigurius, maybe some allied ICs), which requires far more thought, tactical thinking and luck than the aforementioned spam Eldar list.

Taking it down to a non-competitive level, where you aren't looking to exploit imbalance to the best of your ability, and the issue goes away somewhat, but for a tournament list, the fact some codexes are far easier to build/play at that level is pretty clear indicator that the imbalance is pretty severe. Eldar may only win just over 50% of their games, but I would hazard a guess those wins were far easier to achieve than those of the opponents that beat them the rest of the time, in terms of building the list and playing it.

The load of bull...

First of all, WS Spam is a lot harder to handle than CenturionStar.

Second, nobody plays a Seer Council in v7 because it's garbage.

Third, your vision of the good player playing SM and the bad one playing Eldar is just ridiculous.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Toofast wrote:
The problem is eldar have a 60%+ win rate against everything except tau, IK and eldar. The prevalence of those 3 armies keeps any of them from going way above a 55% win rate. ToF has a chart somewhere showing win rate of each race against every other race. Eldar are 50/50 against eldar, tau, necrons and IK. They are 60/40 or better against everyone else.

You are referring to v6, when Eldar had the BeastStar and the SeerStar for all of eleven months.

In other words, you are not well informed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Deafbeats wrote:
I know in League of Legends (bear with me) when a player has +50% win rate, they move up in rank cause they're good. When a Champion has an overall winrate above 50% (like 52-59%), they usually get nerfed. Any higher and the player is either leagues ahead playing against lowbies, or the champ has a crazy game winning bug. 50% is just about where an army should be, above that i'd say it's a pretty strong army.

Then maybe LoL is not a good reference.

Starcraft Brood War would be a much better reference, and in SC:BW, many players had a lot more than 50% win rate.

Because that's how competition is, unless you want to go ahead and call for a nerf on Michael Phelps maybe ?

That chart is from 7th edition tournaments only. Maybe you're not so well informed. I have looked at most of those lists, they aren't beast or seer star. Mostly serpent spam with WK support.

morgoth wrote:

 Deafbeats wrote:
I know in League of Legends (bear with me) when a player has +50% win rate, they move up in rank cause they're good. When a Champion has an overall winrate above 50% (like 52-59%), they usually get nerfed. Any higher and the player is either leagues ahead playing against lowbies, or the champ has a crazy game winning bug. 50% is just about where an army should be, above that i'd say it's a pretty strong army.

Then maybe LoL is not a good reference.

Starcraft Brood War would be a much better reference, and in SC:BW, many players had a lot more than 50% win rate.

Because that's how competition is, unless you want to go ahead and call for a nerf on Michael Phelps maybe ?

Champions win rates in LoL are a good comparison to Races win rates in 40K. Players in BW and completely unrelated Olympic athlete analogies are not. Why bring up BW anyway? How far out of the loop are you...

 Jancoran wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
This whole thread raises the question of how much of a 40k win can be attributed to:
- player skill,
- listbuilding skill,
- Codex selection, and
- dice luck.

And if you assume a high level of player skill and/or listbuilding skill, to what extent does Codex selection matter?

My sense is that player skill has dropped dramatically from 40k3/4 down to 40k6/7, while luck and listbuilding has gone up. But I'm not at all convinced that a "pro" with Sisters or Orks regularly loses to a n00b with Knights.

People can only speak to their own experience where they play and then look to data like this (and it is suspect data since it lacks a lot of qualifiers you'd really want to analyze it). All we see for sure is that people chose to use certain armies more often that happened to win.

Through a preponderance of the evidence we generally accept that there probably IS a pecking order for the codex in terms of HOW easy it is to create a list good enough to compete. Or to put it another way, we recognize that certain codex's require lesss list building acumen. That does not tell us that the players could not compensate with greater list building acumen if they chose. So that little statement right there is important bcause if we have no way to know for sure that ANOTHER build wouldn't work EQUALLY well, then we're really missing a big chunk of the picture.

List building aside the General himself matters and so does his ego. Ask yourself an honest question. If you were generally respected as very good and there was pressure on you to perform, so to speak, to maintain that reputation, would you chance things by taking a less common build that ISN'T known to win? Maybe. But the odds on human behavior say no. That's like asking the rich if they would stop doing accepted best business practices and bartr their companies future on a more creative mode of operating. some do but very few.

So the excellent General progressively grows less and less interested in creativity and more and more into absolute certainty. He simply knows the weapon will perform through analytics JUST LIKE THIS chart. He intuitively knows it WILL work for him and he never has to answer hard questions about his choices if he fails (see the Seahawks for details on why someone might not EVER throw on second and goal with 20 seconds to go evr again). that in't to say they will never score like that. Just that they wont bet on it probably ever again.

So then there are the outlyers. A GREAT example of this was that awesome Deathleaper list that went berzerk and won it all. WHAT a great list for SO many reasons and it was from WAY in left field. Sometimes the road less traveled in the hands of excellent generals is EXACTLY what you need to win. But analytics like this won't ever show you what the best generals could do with the road less travelled because, simply put, they themselves wont put themselves out there like that.

Good reply, good stuff there.

Back when I played a lot, I didn't worry much about data, as there wasn't a lot of netlisting going on locally. I played several Codices, against pretty much everything. At the time, I was a pretty decent general, and I very strongly preferred Eldar when prizes were on the line because it was a less-common army and I knew it inside out. Not at all unlike the Deathleaper example. Take prizes off the table, and I'd play things out of left field to switch things up and challenge myself. I'd switch among lots of Codices and random sublists of all types, just for the variety and challenge. You'd be surprised how much your playing ability grows when you rotate among a dozen army lists and get to know both sides of the table. When you can win with just about anything, that only enhances one's reputation further. Analytics also help, but it's more important to get a "feel" for the army, an army that you like and complements your play style.

While I think that there is a heirarchy of Codices, I think it's more of a tiebreaker, assuming you did a good job of listbuilding and have the playing chops to make it work.

Akiasura wrote:

Morgoth wrote:
615-720 points of your army in just one type of unit that has quite a few hard counters is just too much of a risk .

Thank you for posting reasons. The two players I know have gone to GT's, I never have. The only tournaments I ever traveled for where smash bros, and that was a long long time ago, when I was an undergrad. But this is all appeals to authority, which I am loathe to reach for given my profession.

I am not sure about the meta. To be honest, it doesn't seem like GW has a meta like WMH does, because the tournaments aren't taken as seriously here (compared to 5th edition). I can't tell you the top 8 lists in the last major tournaments, meanwhile I do know the top 8 for the last major warmachine tournament. I didn't look either up, the latter just comes up a lot more on their forums. Usually the winners post on the forums quite frequently and discuss their lists in detail and provide battle reports.

I wouldn't call grav star a hard counter to a riptide. The riptide out ranges it by quite a bit, and can put some wounds on it. The rest of the tau army is also very effective at putting wounds in the grav star (better than any other army in the game, especially with Tiggy included). The riptide also has a nice invul save and FnP, so it is unlikely to get one rounded by the grav star.

Missile sides and crisis suits are great units. Very good for the points, though crisis suits aren't what they used to be last edition. Which is a good thing.

EDIT
Throwing a lot of points in one unit type has always been what competitive 40k is about. Beast stars, FMC spam, Starcannon Spam, Rhino Rush, The Flying Bakery...they all rely on the premise of skewing hard in a way that makes most of the enemy's list unable to deal with it, and just walking over the opponent. What the unit type is changes from edition to edition, but that has always been a staple of the better builds.
Even grav star is basically taking one giant unit, from 2 types, and mashing them together to create an insane unit that doesn't die.

40K has a meta, and I am frequently looking at the top lists in major tournaments.

The Grav Star has free Deep Strike every turn, invisibility and 25 Prescienced Grav Shots.
Not only does it one turn a Riptide (rerollable 2+ to wound, AP2), it can two turn three Riptides.
But it would probably start by one turning your Commander + Drones + Crisis and split firing into something else.

Competitive 40K is not just about skew or deathstars, sometimes it is, like any competitive strategy-related game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
This whole thread raises the question of how much of a 40k win can be attributed to:
- player skill,
- listbuilding skill,
- Codex selection, and
- dice luck.

And if you assume a high level of player skill and/or listbuilding skill, to what extent does Codex selection matter?

My sense is that player skill has dropped dramatically from 40k3/4 down to 40k6/7, while luck and listbuilding has gone up. But I'm not at all convinced that a "pro" with Sisters or Orks regularly loses to a n00b with Knights.

Oh yes, the glorious past.

There was a lot less skill involved in v4 than v7, listbuilding was a lot simpler too.

Just go back to 3rd and 4th, list the top 3 builds, present them in a thread and ask people to give a relative complexity level to each.

Rhino Spam was dumb as feth, so were Falcon-based Eldar.
I mean, those armies were really point and click. Move forward and nothing can go wrong.


v6 SeerStar and BeastStar are not noob units
v7 Wave Spam is a lot more complex because it has true hard counters. You can't bumrush and expect to win, except maybe against Tau where it could be one of the best strategies.... damn fishpeople.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Toofast wrote:

That chart is from 7th edition tournaments only. Maybe you're not so well informed. I have looked at most of those lists, they aren't beast or seer star. Mostly serpent spam with WK support.

My dear TooFast, I often check the ToF website for new articles on statistics and I know what I'm talking about.

The statistics you speak of that have Eldar at 60% win rate or more are not v7 statistics, they're from v6, where the big point earners for Eldar were Beast and Seerstars.

In v7, as can be seen on the ToF website, the Eldar have about 56% win rate.
The chart presented here is only January 2015, or a pretty much irrelevant share of v7 because it's only one month and doesn't contain any major GTs (?).
And yes, since the new Dark Eldar codex, Eldar have fallen back to mostly WKWS, which is not that good of a build in my opinion, and will surely drag the Eldar win rate down from the Iyanden BeastStar days of early v7.

It's all your fault, people! Acknowledge what has been done! Morgoth has learnt to operate with valid arguements! You haven't listened! You haven't listened...

 Zande4 wrote:

morgoth wrote:

 Deafbeats wrote:
I know in League of Legends (bear with me) when a player has +50% win rate, they move up in rank cause they're good. When a Champion has an overall winrate above 50% (like 52-59%), they usually get nerfed. Any higher and the player is either leagues ahead playing against lowbies, or the champ has a crazy game winning bug. 50% is just about where an army should be, above that i'd say it's a pretty strong army.

Then maybe LoL is not a good reference.

Starcraft Brood War would be a much better reference, and in SC:BW, many players had a lot more than 50% win rate.

Because that's how competition is, unless you want to go ahead and call for a nerf on Michael Phelps maybe ?

Champions win rates in LoL are a good comparison to Races win rates in 40K. Players in BW and completely unrelated Olympic athlete analogies are not. Why bring up BW anyway? How far out of the loop are you...

Because BW is a strategy game, like 40K, whereas LoL is a much simpler game with a lot less in common with 40K.

Exceptional people are exceptional people, whether they chose to focus on work, 40K (that generally doesn't happen because even the top of 40K is pretty low), SC:BW (and SCII when it stabilizes) and Olympics are all the same: people who give their all to one single discipline and compete with others who do the exact same.

Competition in Olympics (Usain Bolt anyone), BW (Flash) and anything else sees the best competitors with win rates far above 50%, because that's how competition is.
In LoL, it's surely the same thing except you didn't see it. The best LoL players are sure to have a lot more than 50% win rate, and cannot go any higher because they're the top of the ladder already.

morgoth wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

Morgoth wrote:
615-720 points of your army in just one type of unit that has quite a few hard counters is just too much of a risk .

Thank you for posting reasons. The two players I know have gone to GT's, I never have. The only tournaments I ever traveled for where smash bros, and that was a long long time ago, when I was an undergrad. But this is all appeals to authority, which I am loathe to reach for given my profession.

I am not sure about the meta. To be honest, it doesn't seem like GW has a meta like WMH does, because the tournaments aren't taken as seriously here (compared to 5th edition). I can't tell you the top 8 lists in the last major tournaments, meanwhile I do know the top 8 for the last major warmachine tournament. I didn't look either up, the latter just comes up a lot more on their forums. Usually the winners post on the forums quite frequently and discuss their lists in detail and provide battle reports.

I wouldn't call grav star a hard counter to a riptide. The riptide out ranges it by quite a bit, and can put some wounds on it. The rest of the tau army is also very effective at putting wounds in the grav star (better than any other army in the game, especially with Tiggy included). The riptide also has a nice invul save and FnP, so it is unlikely to get one rounded by the grav star.

Missile sides and crisis suits are great units. Very good for the points, though crisis suits aren't what they used to be last edition. Which is a good thing.

EDIT
Throwing a lot of points in one unit type has always been what competitive 40k is about. Beast stars, FMC spam, Starcannon Spam, Rhino Rush, The Flying Bakery...they all rely on the premise of skewing hard in a way that makes most of the enemy's list unable to deal with it, and just walking over the opponent. What the unit type is changes from edition to edition, but that has always been a staple of the better builds.
Even grav star is basically taking one giant unit, from 2 types, and mashing them together to create an insane unit that doesn't die.

40K has a meta, and I am frequently looking at the top lists in major tournaments.

The Grav Star has free Deep Strike every turn, invisibility and 25 Prescienced Grav Shots.
Not only does it one turn a Riptide (rerollable 2+ to wound, AP2), it can two turn three Riptides.
But it would probably start by one turning your Commander + Drones + Crisis and split firing into something else.

Competitive 40K is not just about skew or deathstars, sometimes it is, like any competitive strategy-related game.

How do crisis suits survive that any better then a riptide does, point for point? It seems to come out about the same...actually worse for the suits due to invuls and FnP, plus longer range on the guns means tides don't bunch up.

40k doesn't have a meta because one person looks into the top lists. People on this forum often argue about their metas and what is strong or not. This is not the case in other games, like LoL, WMH, WoW, or some other game with a strong meta.
If I say WS spam, what do I mean? 2? 3? 7? Where is the cut off?
If I say grav death star, do I need to include all the pieces or just a few?
Just how many fliers is the flying bakery, etc etc

In WMH, if I say MMM, few things change. You know I'm looking at warders, champs, kriel stone, mulg, and maybe 1 different unit.
Fist varies on what you take more of for medium bases but is very similar and plays the same.
Wold War offers nearly no variation when taken to T4.

In LoL, counter picks and who to ban is well known. Pick wrong in a game and people will lose their minds. Champions have certain lanes they excel at, and certain lanes they excel at only if certain champs are picked. Commonly, a small list of champs are banned. This meta shifts (like when twitch got nerfed, or hermie upgraded) but it is well known among the better players. Part of this is this is an online game and it's easier to establish a meta here.

Yes, the grav star is able to delete pretty much any unit in the game (unless invisibility is thrown into the equation, or it has a comically low armor save). It still costs quite a bit more then a riptide, and will not be able to reach 2 riptides at the same time unless the Tau player castles. Given the long range of the guns, I doubt he needs to.

Competitive 40k is always about skews and deathstars. It has been since 2nd edition (I have never played rogue trader, can't comment there). Unless a codex itself is just so broken that anything in it can be taken, which is rare throughout history, it is usually the case.
This is not true in many of the other table top games, with few exceptions.
WMH the strongest list are not skews, though they can be strong. MMM and Fist is a thing, but the best lists remain Wold War, Haley2, Goreshade3, and a huge list of others that are quite varied, but remain focused on a strategy.

morgoth wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
This whole thread raises the question of how much of a 40k win can be attributed to:
- player skill,
- listbuilding skill,
- Codex selection, and
- dice luck.

And if you assume a high level of player skill and/or listbuilding skill, to what extent does Codex selection matter?

My sense is that player skill has dropped dramatically from 40k3/4 down to 40k6/7, while luck and listbuilding has gone up. But I'm not at all convinced that a "pro" with Sisters or Orks regularly loses to a n00b with Knights.

Oh yes, the glorious past.

There was a lot less skill involved in v4 than v7, listbuilding was a lot simpler too.

Just go back to 3rd and 4th, list the top 3 builds, present them in a thread and ask people to give a relative complexity level to each.

Rhino Spam was dumb as feth, so were Falcon-based Eldar.
I mean, those armies were really point and click. Move forward and nothing can go wrong.


v6 SeerStar and BeastStar are not noob units
v7 Wave Spam is a lot more complex because it has true hard counters. You can't bumrush and expect to win, except maybe against Tau where it could be one of the best strategies.... damn fishpeople.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Toofast wrote:

That chart is from 7th edition tournaments only. Maybe you're not so well informed. I have looked at most of those lists, they aren't beast or seer star. Mostly serpent spam with WK support.

My dear TooFast, I often check the ToF website for new articles on statistics and I know what I'm talking about.

The statistics you speak of that have Eldar at 60% win rate or more are not v7 statistics, they're from v6, where the big point earners for Eldar were Beast and Seerstars.

In v7, as can be seen on the ToF website, the Eldar have about 56% win rate.
The chart presented here is only January 2015, or a pretty much irrelevant share of v7 because it's only one month and doesn't contain any major GTs (?).
And yes, since the new Dark Eldar codex, Eldar have fallen back to mostly WKWS, which is not that good of a build in my opinion, and will surely drag the Eldar win rate down from the Iyanden BeastStar days of early v7.

Rhino spam was solid, but it didn't last forever in 3rd. Eldar could counter it with certain units due to the way transports worked (block all the exits and everything inside dies), and starcannons plus falcons made it somewhat capable of being dealt with. Chaos eventually dropped and had their siren bombs and iron warriors.

List building is harder now, because of the data slates, allies, and all the options. I think its very hard to argue against that.
But the game itself is much easier to play. Power combos are developed in the list building stage, like the grav star or some other star. It doesn't require much on board work other then remembering to turn the powers on.
You then just move around deleting 1-2 units a turn until you win. Its not hard.

When people say "what could I have done different?" the answer is usually "should have taken this" and not "should have done this". Look at the tactics forums. It dicusses builds, data slates, allies, but rarely on table strategies more complex then target order.

You're just listening to the wrong people.

Try the competitive game for yourself, I'm sure you'll be able to see what I'm talking about.

morgoth wrote:
You're just listening to the wrong people.

Try the competitive game for yourself, I'm sure you'll be able to see what I'm talking about.

Again, this is an appeal to authority.
Also, I work at a job that demands a lot of my time. I'm responsible for over 1000 students each semester and I have several education based grants that I'm responsible for.

Try arguing the points, rather than hand waving people away.

morgoth wrote:

Because BW is a strategy game, like 40K, whereas LoL is a much simpler game with a lot less in common with 40K.

Hmm lemme come back with this, a Champion is to league of legends as an army is to 40k. millions of people play a Champion or Army, resulting in an average win/lose ratio or win percent. If that number is higher than most other, I think that's acceptable that that Champ/Codex is strong.

No doubt there are skill Codexes, as there are skill Champions who are difficult to play but extremely rewarding, but if you're looking at the over all, I think a win% above 50 is the mark of a strong codex.

edit:

morgoth wrote:
In LoL, it's surely the same thing except you didn't see it. The best LoL players are sure to have a lot more than 50% win rate, and cannot go any higher because they're the top of the ladder already.

I wouldn't say they're much higher, they're still playing against other who are of nearly equal skill level. World Famous players like Faker don't play against scrubbies like me and carry a 90% win rate.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:


People can only speak to their own experience where they play and then look to data like this (and it is suspect data since it lacks a lot of qualifiers you'd really want to analyze it). All we see for sure is that people chose to use certain armies more often that happened to win.

Through a preponderance of the evidence we generally accept that there probably IS a pecking order for the codex in terms of HOW easy it is to create a list good enough to compete. Or to put it another way, we recognize that certain codex's require lesss list building acumen. That does not tell us that the players could not compensate with greater list building acumen if they chose. So that little statement right there is important bcause if we have no way to know for sure that ANOTHER build wouldn't work EQUALLY well, then we're really missing a big chunk of the picture.

List building aside the General himself matters and so does his ego. Ask yourself an honest question. If you were generally respected as very good and there was pressure on you to perform, so to speak, to maintain that reputation, would you chance things by taking a less common build that ISN'T known to win? Maybe. But the odds on human behavior say no. That's like asking the rich if they would stop doing accepted best business practices and bartr their companies future on a more creative mode of operating. some do but very few.

So the excellent General progressively grows less and less interested in creativity and more and more into absolute certainty. He simply knows the weapon will perform through analytics JUST LIKE THIS chart. He intuitively knows it WILL work for him and he never has to answer hard questions about his choices if he fails (see the Seahawks for details on why someone might not EVER throw on second and goal with 20 seconds to go evr again). that in't to say they will never score like that. Just that they wont bet on it probably ever again.

So then there are the outlyers. A GREAT example of this was that awesome Deathleaper list that went berzerk and won it all. WHAT a great list for SO many reasons and it was from WAY in left field. Sometimes the road less traveled in the hands of excellent generals is EXACTLY what you need to win. But analytics like this won't ever show you what the best generals could do with the road less travelled because, simply put, they themselves wont put themselves out there like that.

Good reply, good stuff there.

Back when I played a lot, I didn't worry much about data, as there wasn't a lot of netlisting going on locally. I played several Codices, against pretty much everything. At the time, I was a pretty decent general, and I very strongly preferred Eldar when prizes were on the line because it was a less-common army and I knew it inside out. Not at all unlike the Deathleaper example. Take prizes off the table, and I'd play things out of left field to switch things up and challenge myself. I'd switch among lots of Codices and random sublists of all types, just for the variety and challenge. You'd be surprised how much your playing ability grows when you rotate among a dozen army lists and get to know both sides of the table. When you can win with just about anything, that only enhances one's reputation further. Analytics also help, but it's more important to get a "feel" for the army, an army that you like and complements your play style.

While I think that there is a heirarchy of Codices, I think it's more of a tiebreaker, assuming you did a good job of listbuilding and have the playing chops to make it work.

You're welcome.

Akiasura wrote:
List building is harder now, because of the data slates, allies, and all the options. I think its very hard to argue against that.
But the game itself is much easier to play. Power combos are developed in the list building stage, like the grav star or some other star. It doesn't require much on board work other then remembering to turn the powers on.
You then just move around deleting 1-2 units a turn until you win. Its not hard.

When people say "what could I have done different?" the answer is usually "should have taken this" and not "should have done this". Look at the tactics forums. It dicusses builds, data slates, allies, but rarely on table strategies more complex then target order.

The problem with your statement that you just get a powerbuild, and kill stuff until you win is that you completely ignore your opponent's ability to do the same. What if you're running a Centstar at a tournament and come up against me with an identical list? What if we both roll the powers we want, and we both roll average over the course of the game? Who wins then? To use another example; Tony Kopach won Nova Open (180ish attendees) with a Serpent spam list, but if you do some digging, I can guarantee you that you'll find a very similar list in the bottom thirty placers.


As for the tactics forums, the problem with those are twofold.

Firstly, listbuilding is important, and a lot of people have no idea how to do it (assuming "it" is ending up with a competitive list). It's not super complicated, and doesn't need any buzzwords, it simply means that a list needs to include all the tools necessary to win games. You try telling that to someone who wants to know if Wraitknights are better than Wave Serpents, or how to beat their friend's Tau army. And this being the internet, you're guaranteed that there are at least three pedantic posters just waiting to latch onto a red herring and flog it until it's well and truly dead (along with the rest of the thread). But if you somehow, full of pedagogic passion, manage to stumble past these initial hurdles you need to explain abstract concepts precisely, concisely, understandably, and in a way such as the recipient will understand when and how exceptions and alternatives come into play. For instance, dealing with Eldar depends on the exact Eldar list, your list (which should probably be better than it is), how your Eldar opponent plays, what the mission is, and whether or not, and when, or if, you got very lucky/unlucky during the game. I could write 10k words on how to do that, and get ignored, red herringed to death, or exalted. And since it's not gonna be the last one, I could instead just tell the OP to take Khan and a bunch of grav-bikes and have at it.

Secondly, competitive players who actually know what they're talking about can't be bothered to deal with it. Not because of an elitist attitude that the ignorant plebs with their battle force armies are below any consideration and effort, but because you'll simply end up getting shouted down by either anti-competitive nutters who have a quasi-religious attitude towards how 40k should be enjoyed and cling to the delusions that their favourite units are actually good, or by the eloquent Sun Tzu-quoting tossers who seemingly only play against 12 year olds, and thus get their Vypers to rule the tabletop alongside their totally underrated Howling Banshees, and have the time and willingness to repeat their arguments ad nauseum. And there's no incentive to try to beat back the tides either. For instance, there's no way I can be bothered to get involved with the Sicaran thread going on right now, and try to tell people it's pretty overrated, because I'd have to jump through millions of hoops explaining exactly what I mean by overrated, and how that doesn't mean it's completely useless, and that I don't also think Wave Serpents are garbage.

 Thud wrote:
Firstly, listbuilding is important, and a lot of people have no idea how to do it (assuming "it" is ending up with a competitive list). It's not super complicated, and doesn't need any buzzwords, it simply means that a list needs to include all the tools necessary to win games. You try telling that to someone who wants to know if Wraitknights are better than Wave Serpents, or how to beat their friend's Tau army. And this being the internet, you're guaranteed that there are at least three pedantic posters just waiting to latch onto a red herring and flog it until it's well and truly dead (along with the rest of the thread).

Well, thank goodness that doesn't happen here on Dakka.

 Thud wrote:

Akiasura wrote:
List building is harder now, because of the data slates, allies, and all the options. I think its very hard to argue against that.
But the game itself is much easier to play. Power combos are developed in the list building stage, like the grav star or some other star. It doesn't require much on board work other then remembering to turn the powers on.
You then just move around deleting 1-2 units a turn until you win. Its not hard.

When people say "what could I have done different?" the answer is usually "should have taken this" and not "should have done this". Look at the tactics forums. It dicusses builds, data slates, allies, but rarely on table strategies more complex then target order.

The problem with your statement that you just get a powerbuild, and kill stuff until you win is that you completely ignore your opponent's ability to do the same. What if you're running a Centstar at a tournament and come up against me with an identical list? What if we both roll the powers we want, and we both roll average over the course of the game? Who wins then? To use another example; Tony Kopach won Nova Open (180ish attendees) with a Serpent spam list, but if you do some digging, I can guarantee you that you'll find a very similar list in the bottom thirty placers.


As for the tactics forums, the problem with those are twofold.

Firstly, listbuilding is important, and a lot of people have no idea how to do it (assuming "it" is ending up with a competitive list). It's not super complicated, and doesn't need any buzzwords, it simply means that a list needs to include all the tools necessary to win games. You try telling that to someone who wants to know if Wraitknights are better than Wave Serpents, or how to beat their friend's Tau army. And this being the internet, you're guaranteed that there are at least three pedantic posters just waiting to latch onto a red herring and flog it until it's well and truly dead (along with the rest of the thread). But if you somehow, full of pedagogic passion, manage to stumble past these initial hurdles you need to explain abstract concepts precisely, concisely, understandably, and in a way such as the recipient will understand when and how exceptions and alternatives come into play. For instance, dealing with Eldar depends on the exact Eldar list, your list (which should probably be better than it is), how your Eldar opponent plays, what the mission is, and whether or not, and when, or if, you got very lucky/unlucky during the game. I could write 10k words on how to do that, and get ignored, red herringed to death, or exalted. And since it's not gonna be the last one, I could instead just tell the OP to take Khan and a bunch of grav-bikes and have at it.

Secondly, competitive players who actually know what they're talking about can't be bothered to deal with it. Not because of an elitist attitude that the ignorant plebs with their battle force armies are below any consideration and effort, but because you'll simply end up getting shouted down by either anti-competitive nutters who have a quasi-religious attitude towards how 40k should be enjoyed and cling to the delusions that their favourite units are actually good, or by the eloquent Sun Tzu-quoting tossers who seemingly only play against 12 year olds, and thus get their Vypers to rule the tabletop alongside their totally underrated Howling Banshees, and have the time and willingness to repeat their arguments ad nauseum. And there's no incentive to try to beat back the tides either. For instance, there's no way I can be bothered to get involved with the Sicaran thread going on right now, and try to tell people it's pretty overrated, because I'd have to jump through millions of hoops explaining exactly what I mean by overrated, and how that doesn't mean it's completely useless, and that I don't also think Wave Serpents are garbage.

I'm interested to know - what is your opinion of tactical squads?

Akiasura wrote:

morgoth wrote:
You're just listening to the wrong people.

Try the competitive game for yourself, I'm sure you'll be able to see what I'm talking about.

Again, this is an appeal to authority.
Also, I work at a job that demands a lot of my time. I'm responsible for over 1000 students each semester and I have several education based grants that I'm responsible for.

Try arguing the points, rather than hand waving people away.

You don't have a point, there is nothing to argue.
If what you said had any connection to reality or logic, there would be a discussion.
But there's not, because you don't bother about listing the builds and openly ignore the builds that do not match your description of competitive 40K, have no experience or interest in it, yet insist to talk about it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Deafbeats wrote:

morgoth wrote:

Because BW is a strategy game, like 40K, whereas LoL is a much simpler game with a lot less in common with 40K.

Hmm lemme come back with this, a Champion is to league of legends as an army is to 40k. millions of people play a Champion or Army, resulting in an average win/lose ratio or win percent. If that number is higher than most other, I think that's acceptable that that Champ/Codex is strong.

No doubt there are skill Codexes, as there are skill Champions who are difficult to play but extremely rewarding, but if you're looking at the over all, I think a win% above 50 is the mark of a strong codex.

edit:

morgoth wrote:
In LoL, it's surely the same thing except you didn't see it. The best LoL players are sure to have a lot more than 50% win rate, and cannot go any higher because they're the top of the ladder already.

I wouldn't say they're much higher, they're still playing against other who are of nearly equal skill level. World Famous players like Faker don't play against scrubbies like me and carry a 90% win rate.

1. Codexes are WAY more complex than Champions. There is no comparison here. If you take a race in SC2, ok that's comparable. But a single champion in LoL ? noway.
2. You have no idea do you ? Go do your research on pro gaming, then come back informed and agree with me.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Thud wrote:
To use another example; Tony Kopach won Nova Open (180ish attendees) with a Serpent spam list, but if you do some digging, I can guarantee you that you'll find a very similar list in the bottom thirty placers.

It's a very bad example.

Tony Kopach won thanks to lucky matching and a very unlucky finals opponent.

Statistically he did not stand a chance.

He was running a light-ish Serpent Spam list that would have lost 9 matches out of ten against his last opponent, yet it was that one match out of ten that came true.

Another proof if necessary that "Serpent Spam" is nowhere as strong as previous Eldar shenanigans were.

I think we've reached the point where Morgoth really needs to outline his qualifications - he called me out for being unqualified to discuss GW's financials (despite the fact I have, you know, qualifications)

So, I think if one is going to throw around accusations of incompetence and ignorance, one really needs to qualify one's own experiences that inform the opinion one's offering.

Because it would be dreadful if he were as rude as he is to so many other posters if it was based on second hand information he read off the net and very little, if any, first hand experience or success.

lol Morgoth, i'm saying it's a large player base, using 1 thing, making an average win loss. It's practically the same thing.

Morgoth... Seriously man... Yer killin' us.

Xenomancers wrote:I'm interested to know - what is your opinion of tactical squads?

Depends. Ultramarines or Blood Angels in Pods, for example, are pretty good. So are Raven Guard in Rhinos. They're not an auto-include in any competitive list, but you can build many super strong lists based around them.

morgoth wrote:It's a very bad example.

Tony Kopach won thanks to lucky matching and a very unlucky finals opponent.

Statistically he did not stand a chance.

He was running a light-ish Serpent Spam list that would have lost 9 matches out of ten against his last opponent, yet it was that one match out of ten that came true.

Another proof if necessary that "Serpent Spam" is nowhere as strong as previous Eldar shenanigans were.

No, it's a good example of what I was trying to convey; which is that a list perceived to be cheesy/good/OP/whatever isn't enough to win, you also need skill. And you can point to instances where he got lucky, but it's no way he's won however many 8 round NOVAs on luck alone.

It is, however, a bad example on how adding too much salt ruins pancakes. So, yeah, you can have that one.

Azreal13 wrote:I think we've reached the point where Morgoth really needs to outline his qualifications - he called me out for being unqualified to discuss GW's financials (despite the fact I have, you know, qualifications)

So, I think if one is going to throw around accusations of incompetence and ignorance, one really needs to qualify one's own experiences that inform the opinion one's offering.

Because it would be dreadful if he were as rude as he is to so many other posters if it was based on second hand information he read off the net and very little, if any, first hand experience or success.

I was talking to some of the Belgian ETC guys about them coming up to Norway for a tournament in April, so maybe Morgoth could tag along with them and impress me with his skills?

Well one can hope.

Azreal13 wrote:I think we've reached the point where Morgoth really needs to outline his qualifications - he called me out for being unqualified to discuss GW's financials (despite the fact I have, you know, qualifications)

So, I think if one is going to throw around accusations of incompetence and ignorance, one really needs to qualify one's own experiences that inform the opinion one's offering.

Because it would be dreadful if he were as rude as he is to so many other posters if it was based on second hand information he read off the net and very little, if any, first hand experience or success.

What, you think he's a Stelek?
____

 Thud wrote:
I was talking to some of the Belgian ETC guys about them coming up to Norway for a tournament in April, so maybe Morgoth could tag along with them and impress me with his skills?

That would be ideal. I wonder if morgoth qualiifed for the Belgian ETC team, based on his mad skillz. It's not like Belgium is a large country with a lot of players *cough*America*cough*. Belgium is like the smallest country that's larger than a city (Luxembourg / Monaco). A piddly country like Belgium should be trival to qualify in.

Stelek had pretty good builds for 5th ed. Don't know about since then.

Man, now I miss Dashofpepper and his ridiculous flower necrons.

Dash was awesome. No idea where Stelek is now.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Another bait thread from SGTPozy.

Why do you people continue to encourage him?

Because zilka86

 Azreal13 wrote:
I think we've reached the point where Morgoth really needs to outline his qualifications - he called me out for being unqualified to discuss GW's financials (despite the fact I have, you know, qualifications)

So, I think if one is going to throw around accusations of incompetence and ignorance, one really needs to qualify one's own experiences that inform the opinion one's offering.

Because it would be dreadful if he were as rude as he is to so many other posters if it was based on second hand information he read off the net and very little, if any, first hand experience or success.

Cuz no one can fake qualifications on a forum.....

If he's going to cite tournament participation and/or wins/placing, that can be confirmed by public record or other participants.

Thud already seems to be in contact with the sort of people who would know him.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Another bait thread from SGTPozy.

Why do you people continue to encourage him?

So my bleeding heart can feel for morgoth's poor misunderstood eldar, of course

morgoth wrote:

Akiasura wrote:

morgoth wrote:
You're just listening to the wrong people.

Try the competitive game for yourself, I'm sure you'll be able to see what I'm talking about.

Again, this is an appeal to authority.
Also, I work at a job that demands a lot of my time. I'm responsible for over 1000 students each semester and I have several education based grants that I'm responsible for.

Try arguing the points, rather than hand waving people away.

You don't have a point, there is nothing to argue.
If what you said had any connection to reality or logic, there would be a discussion.
But there's not, because you don't bother about listing the builds and openly ignore the builds that do not match your description of competitive 40K, have no experience or interest in it, yet insist to talk about it.

My points are twofold, since you seemed to have missed them in a mad rush to dismiss my points out of hand.

1) Crisis suits aren't any more survivable against Gravstars then riptides, point for point. This was your argument for crisis suits being better then riptides, and I countered it. It's now up to you to either refute my claim, or admit I was right. This is generally how debates work.

2) 40k is no longer a competitive game, and doesn't encourage a competitive meta like many other games do. There are many reasons for this, but generally this is true.

I don't understand what you mean by "listing the builds". I'm saying many builds do not have hard definitions of when they are OP (as you have argued in the many WS threads, when are they considered spam?) or even what they are (leaf blower from long ago, Ironwarriors, Siren bomb).
I do not have experience in highly competitive 40k, in the sense that I have traveled to GT's. Have you? If so, which one, and how did you rank? I play against people who have attended them long ago, but most of us are a little old and settled to travel for a tournament like this.

Are you claiming that no one can talk about 40k unless they have participated in a major tournament, such as NOVA?
If so, I demand you stop discussing statistics. You do not have a doctorate in a scientific or engineering field, and are therefore not an authority on the subject. I do and am
See how silly that gets?

morgoth wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Deafbeats wrote:

morgoth wrote:

Because BW is a strategy game, like 40K, whereas LoL is a much simpler game with a lot less in common with 40K.

Hmm lemme come back with this, a Champion is to league of legends as an army is to 40k. millions of people play a Champion or Army, resulting in an average win/lose ratio or win percent. If that number is higher than most other, I think that's acceptable that that Champ/Codex is strong.

No doubt there are skill Codexes, as there are skill Champions who are difficult to play but extremely rewarding, but if you're looking at the over all, I think a win% above 50 is the mark of a strong codex.

edit:

morgoth wrote:
In LoL, it's surely the same thing except you didn't see it. The best LoL players are sure to have a lot more than 50% win rate, and cannot go any higher because they're the top of the ladder already.

I wouldn't say they're much higher, they're still playing against other who are of nearly equal skill level. World Famous players like Faker don't play against scrubbies like me and carry a 90% win rate.

1. Codexes are WAY more complex than Champions. There is no comparison here. If you take a race in SC2, ok that's comparable. But a single champion in LoL ? noway.
2. You have no idea do you ? Go do your research on pro gaming, then come back informed and agree with me.

Pro gaming doesn't really include 40k. LoL, however, is an esport and has lead to people getting college scholarships and even citizen ship.
An individual champion is not more complex then a codex (though it's closer than you might think depending on the codex). A big part of this is the fact LoL is much more complicated then a table top game.
It's real time, has fog of war, and involves a lot more players then 2. Skill level matters. My brother in law plays the game competitively, if he joins me and my friends in a bronze game, he easily scores over 30 kills and just dominates every match.
40k is not like that, though a big factor there is dice. LoL has very little RNG outside of crit builds and certain champs.

Maybe you should research the game before knocking it.

morgoth wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Thud wrote:
To use another example; Tony Kopach won Nova Open (180ish attendees) with a Serpent spam list, but if you do some digging, I can guarantee you that you'll find a very similar list in the bottom thirty placers.

It's a very bad example.

Tony Kopach won thanks to lucky matching and a very unlucky finals opponent.

Statistically he did not stand a chance.

He was running a light-ish Serpent Spam list that would have lost 9 matches out of ten against his last opponent, yet it was that one match out of ten that came true.

Another proof if necessary that "Serpent Spam" is nowhere as strong as previous Eldar shenanigans were.

How did he statistically not stand a chance? Did you compute the chances of every single one of his units hurting all of his opponents' units, and vice versa?
Sometimes people win matches, through luck, this is true. Recently a bradigus player lost a major WMH tournament with a top of turn 2 caster kill attempt that had something like a 68% chance to work. It happens.
But calculating statistics for a whole game in any table top game is very complex and I seriously doubt you have done it.
If so, please provide the math, which I can only assume you have done, since you not only used the word statistics, but gave him a 90% lose rate.

Jancoran wrote:Through a preponderance of the evidence

I'm sorry, but what preponderance? Or, rather, what evidence? All we have is a pile of anecdotes, nothing rigorous or controlled. It's just an amalgamation of people's stories, which has never been real proof of anything.

Jancoran wrote:there probably IS a pecking order for the codex in terms of HOW easy it is to create a list good enough to compete.

And it's a tie for last place. The internet makes it very, very easy to create lists good enough to compete.

Jancoran wrote:Ask yourself an honest question. If you were generally respected as very good and there was pressure on you to perform, so to speak, to maintain that reputation, would you chance things by taking a less common build that ISN'T known to win? Maybe. But the odds on human behavior say no.

What? I do this all the time. So do several people I've known.

You're assuming that what a vast majority of people want is the easiest win. That's not even remotely true. There are a LOT of other reasons to play 40k.

Jancoran wrote:So the excellent General progressively grows less and less interested in creativity and more and more into absolute certainty.

Then what do you define as strategy? I'm pretty sure successful generals use creativity, even if it means taking risks.

I think what you're talking about is a bad general - someone who needs everything to go exactly according to a certain plan.

Thud wrote:because you'll simply end up getting shouted down by either anti-competitive nutters who have a quasi-religious attitude towards how 40k should be enjoyed and cling to the delusions that their favourite units are actually good, or by the eloquent Sun Tzu-quoting tossers who seemingly only play against 12 year olds, and thus get their Vypers to rule the tabletop alongside their totally underrated Howling Banshees, and have the time and willingness to repeat their arguments ad nauseum.

And, of course, the third category of positivists who believe 40k is a science like chess, and get all pouty when people point out that creative people can also prosper, and that a lot of 40k is based on the results of random number generators.

Believing there is a, one, the truth, isn't any more flattering on learn to play types as people who mindlessly knee-jerk against learn to play types.