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 Jancoran wrote:
Every codex has something thats pretty darn cool Centurions are cool. Heldrakes are cool. the new StormSurge is col, the Militarum Tempestus Formation that twin links you every time you disembark is cool. There's a lot of cool things in every codex.

Even if something is cool, if it has stats it can die. So... Don't despair.

I'm downloading Vassal now so I can play you as loyalists vs Chaos Space Marines, and see why you think chaos is good.

I'd even limit myself to no FW and no more than 2 detachments.

Heck I'd play you with the old SM codex if you wanted.

 DoomShakaLaka wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Every codex has something thats pretty darn cool Centurions are cool. Heldrakes are cool. the new StormSurge is col, the Militarum Tempestus Formation that twin links you every time you disembark is cool. There's a lot of cool things in every codex.

Even if something is cool, if it has stats it can die. So... Don't despair.

I'm downloading Vassal now so I can play you as loyalists vs Chaos Space Marines, and see why you think chaos is good.

I'd even limit myself to no FW and no more than 2 detachments.

Heck I'd play you with the old SM codex if you wanted.

No need for that. He said "cool", not "good". He's technically correct, there's a some decent flavor and coolness in the chaos book. Sadly, it doesn't add up to a competitive level list though, but it is neat.

 Jancoran wrote:
Every codex has something thats pretty darn cool Centurions are cool. Heldrakes are cool. the new StormSurge is col, the Militarum Tempestus Formation that twin links you every time you disembark is cool. There's a lot of cool things in every codex.

Even if something is cool, if it has stats it can die. So... Don't despair.

There's also a huge difference between 'cool' and 'Cool!'.

A Hellturkey is cool. It looks awesome, isn't obnoxious/game ruining in it's power level, and plays a solid role within the army.
A unit of Gravcents on the other hand are "COOL!" They're nothing but a point-and-click 'deletes most things that can threaten them' unit, that becomes outright game-winning when you add in additional supports. (Tiggy/Draigo/Severin Lothe/etc...)

Chaos Marines have plenty of 'cool' units. We have absolutely nothing that can honestly fit within the "Cool!" tier however... When your opponents only ever play with top tier lists & options, playing Chaos outside of the one or two equally obnoxious Daemon lists is just a lesson in eating a poop sandwich with grace.

New Tau units


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 DoomShakaLaka wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Every codex has something thats pretty darn cool Centurions are cool. Heldrakes are cool. the new StormSurge is col, the Militarum Tempestus Formation that twin links you every time you disembark is cool. There's a lot of cool things in every codex.

Even if something is cool, if it has stats it can die. So... Don't despair.

I'm downloading Vassal now so I can play you as loyalists vs Chaos Space Marines, and see why you think chaos is good.

I'd even limit myself to no FW and no more than 2 detachments.

Heck I'd play you with the old SM codex if you wanted.

Sure. PM me and we'll set a date. I usually find Sundays after the Seahawks game to be an okay time. I'll need to practice with the Vassal interfeace a little to remind myself of all the little hotkeys.

I find the whole concept of a TAC list silly, and borderline insulting.

You are a military commander, not a leader of a ragtag group of mercenary who make due with what you got.
You should have at the very least approximate intelligence of your adversary, and prepare accordingly.

Your space marine capitan would have to be a brick as boreal to bring melta weapons against tyranids, same as a tau commander would be extremely dull to bring light infantry special operation teams to handle a knight household.

You are logically bringing tools who are approximately fitting for the job, because its assumed you are not just wandering around the tall grass, and suddenly a wild xeno army has appeared.


Tournaments for that matter would be so much better if they abandon the whole "TaC" mindset, and advance to sideboards too. sideboards is a major part of any game where there is a large veriaty of possible opponents, allowing you to use "silver bullet" choices, without being punished in games where they silver bullet is irrelevant.
A turnament with sideboards will be far more interesting.

(Example of side-boarding in 40k, a 1500 point turny, where you have to field at least 1000 points of fixed choices, and then fill the rest of what's left as, lets say, 3 optional "sideboards" that you pick from AFTER seeing what the opponent "fixed" choices are. you are never screwed in a fight you had no answer to if you built properly, and you are never sitting in the "free win" seat, again considering competent opponent.)

I dont think so. I think that your troops and training are what they are when invaders arrive. You cant logistically get the perfect combination of counters on the field and deployed fast enugh once youre under attack.

this always begs the question: who WAS the attacker? And we never actually know that. So if you wanted a Sideboard I suppose it would have to be an attacker only sideboard. and that in turn imbalances the game pretty significantly.

so sideboards just dont work for 40K from a fluff standpoint, as you are stating the case from a fluff standpoint.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Every codex has something thats pretty darn cool Centurions are cool. Heldrakes are cool. the new StormSurge is col, the Militarum Tempestus Formation that twin links you every time you disembark is cool. There's a lot of cool things in every codex.

Even if something is cool, if it has stats it can die. So... Don't despair.

There's also a huge difference between 'cool' and 'Cool!'.

A Hellturkey is cool. It looks awesome, isn't obnoxious/game ruining in it's power level, and plays a solid role within the army.
A unit of Gravcents on the other hand are "COOL!" They're nothing but a point-and-click 'deletes most things that can threaten them' unit, that becomes outright game-winning when you add in additional supports. (Tiggy/Draigo/Severin Lothe/etc...)

Chaos Marines have plenty of 'cool' units. We have absolutely nothing that can honestly fit within the "Cool!" tier however... When your opponents only ever play with top tier lists & options, playing Chaos outside of the one or two equally obnoxious Daemon lists is just a lesson in eating a poop sandwich with grace.

Naw, against a ravenwing army a hell turkey is pretty much point click I win with no thinking required. Black mace DPS with wings are nasty too

 BoomWolf wrote:
I find the whole concept of a TAC list silly, and borderline insulting.

You are a military commander, not a leader of a ragtag group of mercenary who make due with what you got.
You should have at the very least approximate intelligence of your adversary, and prepare accordingly.

Your space marine capitan would have to be a brick as boreal to bring melta weapons against tyranids, same as a tau commander would be extremely dull to bring light infantry special operation teams to handle a knight household.

You are logically bringing tools who are approximately fitting for the job, because its assumed you are not just wandering around the tall grass, and suddenly a wild xeno army has appeared.


Tournaments for that matter would be so much better if they abandon the whole "TaC" mindset, and advance to sideboards too. sideboards is a major part of any game where there is a large veriaty of possible opponents, allowing you to use "silver bullet" choices, without being punished in games where they silver bullet is irrelevant.
A turnament with sideboards will be far more interesting.

(Example of side-boarding in 40k, a 1500 point turny, where you have to field at least 1000 points of fixed choices, and then fill the rest of what's left as, lets say, 3 optional "sideboards" that you pick from AFTER seeing what the opponent "fixed" choices are. you are never screwed in a fight you had no answer to if you built properly, and you are never sitting in the "free win" seat, again considering competent opponent.)

While I do think that "TAC" is a dead concept and that armies should specialize toward their individual strengths, I don't think that sideboards are the answer. You end up with people sideboarding against sideboarding, and it puts another meta sideways on top of the existing meta. House rules are a much better way of leveling the playing field for all armies.

Heldrakes are excellent in all kinds of ways. They hover which is huge, can re-enter reserves and that leads up to objective stealing late game as well as combat efficacy.

I respect Heldrakes a lot.

 Arkaine wrote:
Chaos isn't allowed to have nice things. Not since we took over the galaxy back in 2003 during the Eye of Terror campaign and proved Chaos was superior to the smurf fanboys GW caters to. Chaos isn't allowed to win anymore. We reached for the sun and in doing so burned our wings.

At least Chaos had its day in the sun with the Legions Codex.

I don't think Dark Angels have ever had the privilege of sitting atop the megagame, not even for a moment like IG "Leafblower".

 BoomWolf wrote:
I find the whole concept of a TAC list silly, and borderline insulting.

You are a military commander, not a leader of a ragtag group of mercenary who make due with what you got.
You should have at the very least approximate intelligence of your adversary, and prepare accordingly.

Your space marine capitan would have to be a brick as boreal to bring melta weapons against tyranids, same as a tau commander would be extremely dull to bring light infantry special operation teams to handle a knight household.

The thing is though, you're assuming that armies always know exactly who they'll be facing *and* that they always have the resources to prepare accordingly.

It seems far more likely that this simply won't be the case.
- They might be initially sent to deal with one threat, but then redirected because a different threat has taken priority.
- They might destroy one threat, and then have to deal with a new threat (this is a setting where Daemons, Necrons, Eldar etc. can basically just pop into existence next to them).
- They might not be able to get intelligence on their enemy until, and so have to be prepared for several possible threats.
- Their intelligence might simply be wrong. It might under- or overestimate the number of tanks the enemy has, or make other mistakes that cause them to take the wrong weapons for the situation.
- They might have suffered a defeat, and are then attacked (either by the same enemy or a different one) and have to make do with whatever they managed to escape with.
- There may be problems with their supply lines.
- They might have fought a battle against one opponent, and are immediately called to fight a different one, with their supply base being too far away for them to properly restock and re-equip themselves.

In addition, even if tailoring is possible, in most cases it's likely to be extremely one-sided. e.g. if Necrons invade a planet, you might expect them to prepare for the guardsmen holding it. But, if SMs are then told about the Necron incursion and sent to deal with it, would the Necrons really be prepared for those as well?

Also, to take things a step further, let's say the SMs defeat the Necrons and then a DE fleet chooses that moment to launch a raid. The SMs were tailored to fight Necrons, and the DE (like the Necrons) were expecting to be fighting IG. So, neither side will have prepared for the other.

TLDR: There are many, many possible reasons why an army won't automatically be able to tailor to its opponent. And, it's even less likely that both armies will be able to tailor against each other.

 BoomWolf wrote:
I find the whole concept of a TAC list silly, and borderline insulting.

You are a military commander, not a leader of a ragtag group of mercenary who make due with what you got.
You should have at the very least approximate intelligence of your adversary, and prepare accordingly.

The problem is that list tailoring might make sense fluff-wise, but in a game like 40k what it really means is that players with more money get to win more. Playing TAC lists puts a cap on the maximum cost of an army because you only have one list to build. But once you start tailoring for specific opponents you have to buy a bunch of extra options to swap in and out, and that costs a lot more money. So what happens is that newbies and players with limited budgets are stuck with a TAC list and maybe a melta/flamer swap or two, while the veterans with unlimited budgets always have the perfect army for each opponent.

 Jancoran wrote:

Akiasura wrote:


Thanks, I looked over some of your battle reports.
First off, I think I should mention that the lists your opponent run are pretty weak, imo. I didn't see a single example of the stuff you'd see in a competitive meta, and many bad choices are being made. The best example of this I can find is your mechdar battle report, the list your opponent took is....just awful, with not a single strong choice outside of eldrad.
I think this may be coloring your ideas on what can work, like on your article about why warp talons are useful. You don't seem to have a competitive meta, or even a semi competitive meta (which I would consider to be no formations/Allie stuff, but still strong mono dex builds).

You didn't think wave spam was powerful? Lol. Im pretty sure the entire interwebz would disagree, if thats the one you're talking about. I'm not really daunted by your opinion because I've played since 4th Edition and i assure you my meta is competitive and veteran.

Its a really easy thing to test though. Play me on VASSAL. then you wont have to wonder anymore.

EDIT: Better yet, play them!

He is right. Wave spam wasent been real competitive since last codex. And "oh yeah, fite me' dosent help you sound right in the argument. If someone brings wave spam against me noe its a huge sigh of relief over REAL eldar cheeze.

I wasn't expecting this post to go this far , keep it up, lots of discussion

 Orock wrote:


He is right. Wave spam wasent been real competitive since last codex. And "oh yeah, fite me' dosent help you sound right in the argument. If someone brings wave spam against me noe its a huge sigh of relief over REAL eldar cheeze.

And if Wave Spam in 7E codex ws the issue that would be fine. But it isn't. so its not fine. We were talking about a battle report that used the old codex.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:

If GW's sales don't go well this next few months - say, until xmas - I guarantee you that a CSM release will be coming within the year.

With a huge slew of new kits for Tau AND Horus Heresy in plastic!!! on tap, I think GW will be swimming through oceans of money by Xmas this year!

 vipoid wrote:

Experiment 626 wrote:
Chaos Marines won't get any attention until after Dark Eldar & Orks get their 7.5 books

What on earth makes you think DE and Orks are getting new books before 8th or 9th edition?

My well founded pessimism as a long suffering Chaos player of course.

I'd be willing to bet having to wear a Maple Leafs jersey for an entire month that *IF* we get updated, it won't be until just before/after 8th edition drops, AND, we won't see any new/redone kits we actually need.
My bet is for a half baked codex that fixes nothing, removes options, and 2-3 "new" kits which will be Khorne and/or Nurgle themed, while keeping the rest of our gak-fest model line firmly stuck in early 4th edition. (because god forbid we ever get something more effective than an Autocannon!)

Yes, I'm bitter... Just like all of my brethren.

No gak, right? There are 2 other major chaos gods and then there's Cypher's little buddy just chillin in the Warp and Savin his ass.

The anit-forgeworld sentiment hurts Slaneesh cult and even FW hasn't touched 1k Sons. Instead we got Astral Claws, which was fine as a story about a new chapter falling in its entirety, but the cults and Legions see no love outside of Khorne and Nurgle...

TheNewBlood wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
I find the whole concept of a TAC list silly, and borderline insulting.

You are a military commander, not a leader of a ragtag group of mercenary who make due with what you got.
You should have at the very least approximate intelligence of your adversary, and prepare accordingly.

Your space marine capitan would have to be a brick as boreal to bring melta weapons against tyranids, same as a tau commander would be extremely dull to bring light infantry special operation teams to handle a knight household.

You are logically bringing tools who are approximately fitting for the job, because its assumed you are not just wandering around the tall grass, and suddenly a wild xeno army has appeared.


Tournaments for that matter would be so much better if they abandon the whole "TaC" mindset, and advance to sideboards too. sideboards is a major part of any game where there is a large veriaty of possible opponents, allowing you to use "silver bullet" choices, without being punished in games where they silver bullet is irrelevant.
A turnament with sideboards will be far more interesting.

(Example of side-boarding in 40k, a 1500 point turny, where you have to field at least 1000 points of fixed choices, and then fill the rest of what's left as, lets say, 3 optional "sideboards" that you pick from AFTER seeing what the opponent "fixed" choices are. you are never screwed in a fight you had no answer to if you built properly, and you are never sitting in the "free win" seat, again considering competent opponent.)

While I do think that "TAC" is a dead concept and that armies should specialize toward their individual strengths, I don't think that sideboards are the answer. You end up with people sideboarding against sideboarding, and it puts another meta sideways on top of the existing meta. House rules are a much better way of leveling the playing field for all armies.

Yet I have yet to see a fair set of house rules that does not invalidate armies (highlander for example, invalidates DA, as they count on multiple scourges for AT)
And why is a meta within the meta a bad thing?

vipoid wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
I find the whole concept of a TAC list silly, and borderline insulting.

You are a military commander, not a leader of a ragtag group of mercenary who make due with what you got.
You should have at the very least approximate intelligence of your adversary, and prepare accordingly.

Your space marine capitan would have to be a brick as boreal to bring melta weapons against tyranids, same as a tau commander would be extremely dull to bring light infantry special operation teams to handle a knight household.

The thing is though, you're assuming that armies always know exactly who they'll be facing *and* that they always have the resources to prepare accordingly.

It seems far more likely that this simply won't be the case.
- They might be initially sent to deal with one threat, but then redirected because a different threat has taken priority.
- They might destroy one threat, and then have to deal with a new threat (this is a setting where Daemons, Necrons, Eldar etc. can basically just pop into existence next to them).
- They might not be able to get intelligence on their enemy until, and so have to be prepared for several possible threats.
- Their intelligence might simply be wrong. It might under- or overestimate the number of tanks the enemy has, or make other mistakes that cause them to take the wrong weapons for the situation.
- They might have suffered a defeat, and are then attacked (either by the same enemy or a different one) and have to make do with whatever they managed to escape with.
- There may be problems with their supply lines.
- They might have fought a battle against one opponent, and are immediately called to fight a different one, with their supply base being too far away for them to properly restock and re-equip themselves.

In addition, even if tailoring is possible, in most cases it's likely to be extremely one-sided. e.g. if Necrons invade a planet, you might expect them to prepare for the guardsmen holding it. But, if SMs are then told about the Necron incursion and sent to deal with it, would the Necrons really be prepared for those as well?

Also, to take things a step further, let's say the SMs defeat the Necrons and then a DE fleet chooses that moment to launch a raid. The SMs were tailored to fight Necrons, and the DE (like the Necrons) were expecting to be fighting IG. So, neither side will have prepared for the other.

TLDR: There are many, many possible reasons why an army won't automatically be able to tailor to its opponent. And, it's even less likely that both armies will be able to tailor against each other.

Jancoran wrote:I dont think so. I think that your troops and training are what they are when invaders arrive. You cant logistically get the perfect combination of counters on the field and deployed fast enugh once youre under attack.

this always begs the question: who WAS the attacker? And we never actually know that. So if you wanted a Sideboard I suppose it would have to be an attacker only sideboard. and that in turn imbalances the game pretty significantly.

so sideboards just dont work for 40K from a fluff standpoint, as you are stating the case from a fluff standpoint.

You both fall for the sameissue, assuming there are real attacker/defender conditions in the base scenarios.
There aren't. these clearly stand for an fight in a greater ongoing conflict. in an ongoing conflict-you'd have an idea of who and what you are fighting.
Not full fledged intel, but a general concept.

Peregrine wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
I find the whole concept of a TAC list silly, and borderline insulting.

You are a military commander, not a leader of a ragtag group of mercenary who make due with what you got.
You should have at the very least approximate intelligence of your adversary, and prepare accordingly.

The problem is that list tailoring might make sense fluff-wise, but in a game like 40k what it really means is that players with more money get to win more. Playing TAC lists puts a cap on the maximum cost of an army because you only have one list to build. But once you start tailoring for specific opponents you have to buy a bunch of extra options to swap in and out, and that costs a lot more money. So what happens is that newbies and players with limited budgets are stuck with a TAC list and maybe a melta/flamer swap or two, while the veterans with unlimited budgets always have the perfect army for each opponent.

That's why you give a fixed number of "sideboards" to pick from. so its not "unlimited choices with unlimited cash".
If each player can prepare just 2-3 sideboards, he needs to prepare the right ones.

And considering most sideboards will probably revolve mostly around gun upgrade choices, and that most people magnitse multi-gun units, it really should not be any more tilted towards budget-heavy players than it's already is.
Especially with casual games, where by facing the same opponent the third+ time, if he has a fixed army-you know what it is.

 BoomWolf wrote:
That's why you give a fixed number of "sideboards" to pick from. so its not "unlimited choices with unlimited cash".
If each player can prepare just 2-3 sideboards, he needs to prepare the right ones.

It's still a significant cost increase. Your example of 1000 points of "core" units and 3x500 sideboards means doubling the cost of that 1500 point army. And if you can't afford to buy a 3000 points worth of models instead of 1500 points then your ability to compete is seriously limited.

And considering most sideboards will probably revolve mostly around gun upgrade choices, and that most people magnitse multi-gun units, it really should not be any more tilted towards budget-heavy players than it's already is.

Changing gun upgrades doesn't necessarily work. For example, a flamer unit and a plasma unit are probably going to have different tactics, so they might need different transport choices or even to be different units entirely. So the poor player will be limited to marginally-effective gun swaps for their existing units, while the rich player can bring entirely new units for their sideboards and always have the most effective options. The poor player can trade melta for flamers, the rich player can trade infantry for AA tanks.

A valid concern, but is the current "guesswork" method any better?
It still allows the rich player to respond to the changing meta, even more so than the sideboard as an entire army switch is a thing, the poor player will always be behind, but sideboards means he can be at least not useless without changing faction.

TCGs are all sideboards, or even multiple decks because it's a system that works.
Yes, the costs are not the same. But at least in will give a semblance of a fighting chance for everyone involved.
Even that minor melta to plasma change, or combi
-type can be relevant in a list, and it doesn't really cost any more.
Yes, the rich will have more room to make wacky sides, but it's a win for everyone.

 BoomWolf wrote:

You both fall for the sameissue, assuming there are real attacker/defender conditions in the base scenarios.
There aren't. these clearly stand for an fight in a greater ongoing conflict. in an ongoing conflict-you'd have an idea of who and what you are fighting.

Can I ask how you're so certain that it's always an ongoing conflict?

Because it's equal grounds fight with both forces just arriving at the scene, and setting up forces for mutually unexpected contact.
Neither force plays as if he knew exactly when and where contact will happen, but both were ready for a fight. Meaning, it's a known warzone.
And known warzone happens in ongoing conflict areas.

Maelstrom and eternal war are not a defined attacker and defender case, unlike many of the scenarios in campaign books, supplements and such.

An attacker /defender case is not played on equal ground.

 BoomWolf wrote:
Because it's equal grounds fight with both forces just arriving at the scene, and setting up forces for mutually unexpected contact.

That's a dubious explanation. For one thing, why even fight? Surely fast races like Eldar and DE would just zip away and pick a better time to ambush their enemy?

 BoomWolf wrote:

Neither force plays as if he knew exactly when and where contact will happen, but both were ready for a fight. Meaning, it's a known warzone.

Really?

What happened to all the intelligence you talked about earlier? You're seriously telling me that neither of these races in the 41st millennium had any idea that they were about to blunder into one another?

I mean, we can easily have armies of SMs drop-podding in. Had they been planning to drop in the middle of nowhere and just happened to land smack bang in the middle of the enemy army?

I'm sorry, but this simply doesn't hold up. Frankly, I think the only reason battles are fought like this is that GW either couldn't be bothered working out proper attacker-defender scenarios, or else wanted to charge extra for them.

 BoomWolf wrote:

And known warzone happens in ongoing conflict areas.

But so do ambushes and, even more commonly, attacker-defender scenarios. Also, it is *extremely* rare for two forces to just blunder into one another at the exact same time. More likely, you'd expect one to have been there first and started to set up some sort of defensible position (hence we're back to the attacker-defender scenario).

Why fight - go figure. Maybe something important came up and you can't wait for a better chance.(relic)

What happened to intelligence - its imperfect. You know the area they are in, not the pinpoint coordinates.

Space Marines dropping in are only serving my argument, do you expect then to drop with random guns hoping they fit, when they know enemy positions?
Drop pod armies turn the game to a nearly attacker defender scenario.

There ARE attacker defender scenarios, all over, they are just not the basic ones as it's not "fair" (not mirror matched rules)

And two forces blundering into each other is extremely common.
War is a mess. Battle lines are not set in stone and change all the time, forces are moving, get lost, destroyed, found and engage at seemingly random.
I'm an IDF Mobile Artillery soldier in real life (reserves these days), and we trained at anti-tank, anti-infantry and anti-gunship scenarios for the very reason that despite we are not supposed to meet them directly, it happens. Has happened before. And will happen again.
But we do know what armies we will run into, and what weapons/armor/tools they have in their disposal, even if not exactly who I'll run into in a specific battle.
I know not to bring AT weapons against enemies without tanks, no AA guns if they got no airforce, pack multiple mine cleaners and booby trap defenses because they use it a lot. I have a vague clue of my possible enemies in each boarder, and equip myself appropriately. (and the high ups position relevant units to relevant sectors.)

 BoomWolf wrote:
Why fight - go figure. Maybe something important came up and you can't wait for a better chance.(relic)

And where did this sodding relic come from? Did the Chaos God of Weak Plot Elements just fart it out while they weren't looking? Why do both factions need it? And, if they do both need it, isn't there a better way to get it? e.g. in the aforementioned Eldar/DE example, why fight on an open battlefield? Why not instead use mobility to harass/ambush the enemy after they've captured it?

 BoomWolf wrote:
Why fight - go figure. Maybe something important came up and you can't wait for a better chance.(relic)

What happened to intelligence - its imperfect. You know the area they are in, not the pinpoint coordinates.

Space Marines dropping in are only serving my argument, do you expect then to drop with random guns hoping they fit, when they know enemy positions?

But, wait, I thought you just said that they *didn't* know the enemy position. And yet they can somehow land with pinpoint accuracy right in the middle of his army.

 BoomWolf wrote:

And two forces blundering into each other is extremely common.
War is a mess. Battle lines are not set in stone and change all the time, forces are moving, get lost, destroyed, found and engage at seemingly random.

Far less common than you seem to think. Certainly not something you can just say is the reason for every 40k battle.

But, even then, if they're just blundering into one another then how do you know it's always the same forces? What if they blunder into a demonic incursion or a DE raid or such?

 BoomWolf wrote:

War is a mess. Battle lines are not set in stone and change all the time, forces are moving, get lost, destroyed, found and engage at seemingly random.

The forces that 'get lost' are generally small ones that got separated after being forced to flee or such. Not the full (and flawlessly equipped) armies you're talking about.

I mean, it's one thing for some IG veterans and a sentinel to flee a battle and end up lost. It's quite another for an entire IG tank column to end up lost with the enemy apparently having no idea where they are. Moreover, you expect us to believe that this happens for every 40k battle. Can you not see how absurd this is?

 BoomWolf wrote:

I'm an IDF Mobile Artillery soldier in real life (reserves these days), and we trained at anti-tank, anti-infantry and anti-gunship scenarios for the very reason that despite we are not supposed to meet them directly, it happens. Has happened before. And will happen again.

So then, it's entirely possible to end up facing an enemy that you weren't equipped to fight? Isn't that the exact opposite of what you've been arguing?

 BoomWolf wrote:

I know not to bring AT weapons against enemies without tanks

But, you just said you could end up fighting other units. What if you bring no anti-tank guns because you think your enemy has no tanks, only to discover that your intelligence was wrong and they do have tanks? Or that they're being supported by another force with tanks? Or that they've got some newly-acquired tanks from somewhere?

Furthermore, this is just in the real world - where there are no demonic incursions or such. I ask again - what if a force is prepared for one enemy, but then another arrives unexpectedly (Necrons, DE, Eldar, Daemons etc.)?

You are being difficult on purpose, you know full well there is no need or reason for a blanket answer to cover every single case. There are many forces out there, with many reasons to fight.
Why didn't the DE ambushed? What else you call infiltrators, Webway portals and stuff?
The relic could come from a dropped jet and both sides scrambled to get it.



Nobody ever said it's the way every single 40k fight happens, but it's the only way to have a mirror scenario. And basic must be mirror because it's basic.
It's a game design decision, not a reality one. In real fights you won't always have equal forces, it's just for maintaining the game.
If you want attacker defender cases, there are countless ones in campaigns, altar of war, and such.


You should watch more historical battles, it happens more than you think. Entire divisions just get separated in the mess, paratroopers in mass miss the drop zone, a dumbass field commander understood orders wrong and went somewhere he shouldn't be, or just decided he knows better, etc.


Facing the wrong unit? Yes, alot. The wrong ARMY? nearly never.
If I'm around the Syrian boarder, there will be resources directed for AA and AT. At Gaza, the resources would be diverted to tunnel detection, surveillance and pinpoint strikes as the enemy us completely different and has a different set of units I might encounter. No reason to pack AT in the Gaza boarder when they have no tanks.
And these are two human armies here. Dealing with aliens, the difference should be far more glaring.
Bringing anti tank to a nid insurance is absurd, plasma against human renegades is wasteful, psyker defense against tau is redundant, etc.

You shouldn't know the exact mash of your enemy, but at least have a general idea of what races are you facing, and what are their common tools of the trade.

 BoomWolf wrote:
You are being difficult on purpose, you know full well there is no need or reason for a blanket answer to cover every single case. There are many forces out there, with many reasons to fight.
Why didn't the DE ambushed? What else you call infiltrators, Webway portals and stuff?

That's not am ambush because the enemy already knows they're there and is prepared for them. That's the opposite of an ambush.

 BoomWolf wrote:

Nobody ever said it's the way every single 40k fight happens, but it's the only way to have a mirror scenario. And basic must be mirror because it's basic.
It's a game design decision, not a reality one. In real fights you won't always have equal forces, it's just for maintaining the game.

But why is is you're prepared to let that go, and yet refuse to accept that the equality of the mission itself is also for gameplay purposes? i.e. you can't use it to accurately determine the state of conflict or the nature of the encounter.

In any case, I'm not being deliberately difficult. You're the one who made the claim in the first place - I'm just saying why I disagree with it. I think it's entirely possible that, in many cases, armies won't be perfectly prepared for one another.

Also, you keep referring to real-world conflicts and ignoring the fact that in 40k armies can literally pop out of nowhere. So, even if you *think* you know who you're fighting against, it can change at the drop of a hat.

You can talk all you want about it but when it comes down to it, you're not a general, and this isn't war. This is first and foremost a game, and as such should have some semblance of balance and fair play. Otherwise there isn't much point in playing, or spending all that time and money building an army, when you can essentially decide the winner with the roll to see who goes first or seizes.

5th edition is often cited as the height of 40k's popularity in recent years, and there's a good reason why; because even with an old or "bad" army in 5th edition, you could still participate in the fething game. It would be kind of an uphill struggle sometimes, you couldn't win as easily or as spectacularly as some of the top tier armies, but you could still build a list that could try and compete with them, and if you knew your army and how to play the game well, you could probably win. 5th edition still had lots of issues, but they could have been easily fixed with a few tweaks to the core rulebook, and making an effort to update every army. Far cry from the current state of the game where some armies might as well not even participate because of how uneven the playing field is.

Regardless of how "realistic" it is to field the perfect counter to your opponent's army, it makes for a pretty boring game, since with such a big advantage over your opponent the outcome becomes a lot more predictable. As a Tau player in particular it's even worse, as you said yourself you have a plethora of options, an arsenal that can be equipped to deal with virtually any enemy, whereas some armies legitimately lack answers to certain threats, and/or are forced to commit way, way more points to try and shore up that weakness, which then hamstrings the rest of the army. Tau can pack in anti-vehicle weaponry and still have plenty of S5 shooting to deal with anything else, and building a list to deal with flyers is as simple as slapping an upgrade on the units you already have.

I like the customization, I like the options the Tau codex has, but since not every army is designed that way, it kinda gives us an inherent advantage over everyone else, and our codex is already strong enough as it is simply because of how powerful a Tau shooting phase is. List-tailoring with that in mind is almost like playing Rock, Paper, Scissors where you always know what your opponent's going to pick.

One thing that puzzles me with regard to list tailoring is that some people say that they and their opponent tailor against each others lists.

But, how does that work? I mean, if you both show each other your armies and then tailor against the other chap's army... well now both your armies have changed. They're no longer the ones you tailored against, if you see what I mean.

So, do you need to then show each other your 'revised' armies and tailor again?

Yeah, I don't get it either. "Oh, you're taking lots of melta and haywire for my vehicle-heavy army? Well now I'm playing a horde list instead." It just sounds like it would create an endless loop where you're countering each other with lists instead of playing a game.

Unless it's something less specific than that, like Bob plays Orks all the fething time so I'm taking more flamers and template weapons, or no one runs flyers in our club/store so AA is unnecessary.

It's not tailoring to their list, you both tailor to each others army if choice. More like
"I'm bringing tau today ", " I'm bringing dark angels "
Then you make lists when knowing the enemy army as a whole, but not the specifics.
So you font bring brain dead choices like melta against nids, framers against imperial knights and grav against deamons, but can still be taken by surprise by uncommon unit choices, or a shift from your usual style against repeating opponents.