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There is no real difference between 2 competitive players playing a game - both understanding beforehand it's going to be competitive - and a more casual game between 2 people. Fun can be had either way, and in fact I find the hobby much more interesting to play BOTH types of games/players. The NPE only comes in when 2 people aren't on the same page. I don't understand why people freak out about hard lists going to tournaments where you're expected to bring hard lists. I guarantee you most of these players are great opponents and fun to play against.

 Melissia wrote:

SilverAlien wrote:
Well, considering how little diversity in the marine armies we see, it's clear both that the storm raven is very competitive, and everything that isn't a storm raven also isn't.

Or that space marine players just have no imagination (who'da thunkit?), or that people just want to play with their new toys, or they saw the gimmicky list and want to try it out themselves.

I maintain that it is sad and hilarious how quick people are to jump from "THIS THING THIS MARINE CHAPTER IS GETTING IS SO OP!" in one thread to "POUR SPESS MARNIES GEE DUBZ NEVAR GIBS SPESH MRAINES ANYTIHNG GUD!" at the slightest provocation.

Yea I have a hard time believing marine players actually sat down and discussed the topic of "how do we beat the stormraven list everyone is going to take" in the scant few weeks it was revealed. The logic was instead - this gak works and doesn't require any planning so let's go with it!

You can spot the people who did think about it in the Xenos lists and those who seem totally clueless to what is coming. That said there are a handful of marine lists that went a different, but predictable way.


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 Selym wrote:

Meanwhile 40k is one of the few games in the world where you can just compare what the opposing players have brought and 6-8 times out of 10 know who will win (last edition 9.99 times out of 10).

40k does see differences between mathammer results and TT effectiveness, but it's so small you may as well just ignore player skill.

False equivalence. Chess brings the same pieces every time. If someone brings a weak list then OF COURSE you can tell who will win. If there hasn't been enough time to learn to play against Stormravens then OF COURSE they're bound to win.

 Melissia wrote:
Or that space marine players just have no imagination (who'da thunkit?), or that people just want to play with their new toys, or they saw the gimmicky list and want to try it out themselves.

I maintain that it is sad and hilarious how quick people are to jump from "THIS THING THIS MARINE CHAPTER IS GETTING IS SO OP!" in one thread to "POUR SPESS MARNIES GEE DUBZ NEVAR GIBS SPESH MRAINES ANYTIHNG GUD!" at the slightest provocation.

Because this a hyper competitive tournament and that's not really how hyper competitive players think? You don't go to something like ETC on a whim, and if you do go it is with a list you think will do well.

It's not hard to tell what works for space marines: the stromraven or darkshround, along with razorbacks sitting in one of the reroll auras. One or both of those are the keystones of most space marine lists at a glance.

Daemon Princes and brimstone horrors are the keystones for chaos. Conscripts plus artillery or primaris psykers are keystones for guard. There is some variation within it, but it's not ahrd to figure out what works and what doesn't.

Daedalus81 wrote:
Yea I have a hard time believing marine players actually sat down and discussed the topic of "how do we beat the stormraven list everyone is going to take" in the scant few weeks it was revealed. The logic was instead - this gak works and doesn't require any planning so let's go with it!

You can spot the people who did think about it in the Xenos lists and those who seem totally clueless to what is coming. That said there are a handful of marine lists that went a different, but predictable way.

"since it was revealed" okay, gonna stop you there.

1. The longest period any of them have had is since the indices were out/leaked, so it sin't like a month ago was that long

2. You are assuming that one guy noticed gunships were really good and everyone copied that person. Then why do we see other, repeated lists that didn't win smaller tournaments? These are really good players who spend obsessive amounts of time with the game, they are capable of breaking down what does and doesn't work.

3. This whole"all space marine players are bad lol" shtick is annoying enough to begin with, but using it against ETC players (who are virtually guaranteed to be infinitely better the the person posting how dumb they are) is just moronic.

SilverAlien wrote:
Because this a hyper competitive tournament and that's not really how hyper competitive players think?

Aww, the armchair psychology is adorable.

Actually, there's a lot of "hyper-competitive" players who think "okay, this guy won with X, so I should take X". It's quite well known that people will imitate those they perceive as "winners".

When someone wins with something, others copy or try to copy that something. That's human nature.

Wow that's a lot of Razorwing Flocks. Geez they have to fix that unit. Also kind of sad no one is playing Craftworld or stock Harlequins - it's all Ynnari.

I'd love to see a tournament that only allows 1 max of each unit, except troops.

Elites would be... elite.
Heavy Support would be... supporting.

Imagine that?

 Melissia wrote:
Aww, the armchair psychology is adorable.

Actually, there's a lot of "hyper-competitive" players who think "okay, this guy won with X, so I should take X". It's quite well known that people will imitate those they perceive as "winners".

When someone wins with something, others copy or try to copy that something. That's human nature.

So that's we see so many duplicates of that ork list that won a tournament, right?

SilverAlien wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Aww, the armchair psychology is adorable.

Actually, there's a lot of "hyper-competitive" players who think "okay, this guy won with X, so I should take X". It's quite well known that people will imitate those they perceive as "winners".

When someone wins with something, others copy or try to copy that something. That's human nature.

So that's we see so many duplicates of that ork list that won a tournament, right?

Not necessarily but it is why Metas exist.

It's why we saw the same damn Ad-Mech lists through 7th.
It's why the top tier MtG decks are all X, Y or Z.
It's why top tier Hearthstone decks are X, Y or Z.
It's why MOBA characters tend to have set build paths.

If it works people will play it - and when people manage to break it then everyone will migrate over to the next big thing.

With 40k it's a bit more straightforward.

SM armies are ridiculously common - moreso than Orks. So if a SM army with unit X wins the tournament chances are across multiple armies people will be able to source enough of X to replicate it (cause I bet a quarter of these Stormraven spams have different coloured Stormravens floating about from 2-3 different armies). IG Conscripts are easily substituted by normal Guardsmen - another example.

The Razor-birb spam comes from the fact that the Beast-Council was one of the stronger DE builds last edition so, plenty of birbs - plus people will probably have skimped to spread the swarms out as far as possible - like when Nurglings used to be 9 per swarm and most people put 3 per base instead.

Iron Mike wrote:
I'd love to see a tournament that only allows 1 max of each unit, except troops.

Elites would be... elite.
Heavy Support would be... supporting.

Imagine that?

This is similar to highlander. You're basically allowed 1 of each unit, no duplicates, and 1 detachment.

Do people even have fun playing these lists?

Daedalus81 wrote:

 Selym wrote:

Meanwhile 40k is one of the few games in the world where you can just compare what the opposing players have brought and 6-8 times out of 10 know who will win (last edition 9.99 times out of 10).

40k does see differences between mathammer results and TT effectiveness, but it's so small you may as well just ignore player skill.

False equivalence. Chess brings the same pieces every time. If someone brings a weak list then OF COURSE you can tell who will win. If there hasn't been enough time to learn to play against Stormravens then OF COURSE they're bound to win.

Un-false equivalence, though I see how I got misinterpreted. 40k games are predictable. Almost down to a turn by turn level. Chess is not. Take both games at their startpoints. In chess, players have favoured strategies and counter strategies. You can get an idea of how this might play out, but you wouldn't want to bet on it.
40k players don't have the luxury of favoured anythings, and have differing armies. One is predictable, the other is not.

Or we can look at a hypothetically balanced wargame. The basic fact is that player skill in wargames is a somewhat unquantifiable variable. The less skill factors in, the more predictable it is.

Chess is literally nothing more than a game of memorizing movesets, and whoever memorizes the most wins. 40k is nowhere near as predictable as chess.

 DarkStarSabre wrote:
Not necessarily but it is why Metas exist.

It's why we saw the same damn Ad-Mech lists through 7th.
It's why the top tier MtG decks are all X, Y or Z.
It's why top tier Hearthstone decks are X, Y or Z.
It's why MOBA characters tend to have set build paths.

If it works people will play it - and when people manage to break it then everyone will migrate over to the next big thing.

With 40k it's a bit more straightforward

Are we still talking about ETC? The way pairing and team play works is basically a more complicated version of picking and banning from MOBA's, List composition is basically building the 8 strongest armies you can, usually split across a few roles, with limited crossover between armies. The lists you'd use wouldn't even necessarily be good lists for a normal tournament, because most of lists for ETC will be highly specialized.

Yeah, team tournaments aren't just about doing list to kill. You need to have offensive lists that score points, defensive list to NEGATE points to the other teams, etc...

I don't think SPace Marines are Garbage. No way. The Stormraven is just OP. The Space Marine codex in general (Barring other units like Guillimand, Whirmilrds, etc...) are mid tier, so very balanced.

Is a competitive tournament. Why should I bring a "mid tier" or even a good tier army build when I can just spam the OP unit?

 Galas wrote:
Yeah, team tournaments aren't just about doing list to kill. You need to have offensive lists that score points, defensive list to NEGATE points to the other teams, etc...

I don't think SPace Marines are Garbage. No way. The Stormraven is just OP. The Space Marine codex in general (Barring other units like Guillimand, Whirmilrds, etc...) are mid tier, so very balanced.

Is a competitive tournament. Why should I bring a "mid tier" or even a good tier army build when I can just spam the OP unit?

Okay well that all Wraiths with 4 ccb list make a little more sense now.

Lol that DarkTalon List is great.

Looks like it'll be a neat event.

 Selym wrote:

 ncshooter426 wrote:
They should make tournaments fun. Like... your opponent has to build your list, and you theirs. Or award 4x the points outcome for any underdog/under strength army.

"Oops, I only own 4 Hemlock Wraithfighters, and Autarch, 3 units of Guardians, and (coincidentally) 3 Wave Serpents..."

That's why each round has a sealed scenario, which set mandatory requirements for each side. Failure to bring enough to cover means you auto lose. Or, for fun - roll off before the fight starts. Whomever has the highest has the option of swapping armies for that fight. Ohhh... howabout rolling per turn to see if warp storms interrupted your ability to do ANYTHING that round (aka lose a round).

Randomized events are fun, and counter the hell out of cheesy things.

Or switch to a battle value system determined by the TO before hand.
Or make matched play actually that - per-determined armies of equal (actual) combat effectiveness. Each player takes command and must fight it out.

Std. Tourney layouts is why very few actually give a gak about them. Points systems can always be abused, especially in GW based games.

Randomized events that cause you to randomly lose (losing a turn = auto loss) are trash game design.

I will say this: if the ETC results end up turning the hype/panic over IG and Sisters into a bandwagon, I hope this at least leads to GW releasing some new model lines for them.

 ncshooter426 wrote:

Randomized events are fun, and counter the hell out of cheesy things.

I think every single CSM player who survived 6th and 7th has just given you the Look of Death.

 DarkStarSabre wrote:

 ncshooter426 wrote:

Randomized events are fun, and counter the hell out of cheesy things.

I think every single CSM player who survived 6th and 7th has just given you the Look of Death.

Ugg you just gave me PTSD that we possibly regain a random table in our codexes.

Daedalus81 wrote:


Ugg you just gave me PTSD that we possibly regain a random table in our codexes.

That sentence does not make sense.

 Selym wrote:

Daedalus81 wrote:


Ugg you just gave me PTSD that we possibly regain a random table in our codexes.

That sentence does not make sense.

He's saying his ptsd was triggered by bringing up the possibility of random tables again. It makes sense if RAI not RAW

Ecdain wrote:

 Selym wrote:

Daedalus81 wrote:


Ugg you just gave me PTSD that we possibly regain a random table in our codexes.

That sentence does not make sense.

He's saying his ptsd was triggered by bringing up the possibility of random tables again. It makes sense if RAI not RAW

I get the RAI, but the RAW is so nonsensical as to be objectionable...

It somehow manages to be wrong logically, grammatically and chronologically...

I could give an explanation of why PTSD is the wrong thing to use here, but it will probably bring us off topic. So... yea.

Back OT, though, what this list of lists tells us is mostly what we already knew.

SPAM SPAM SPAM SPAM SAPM SMAP MAPS ASPM

So you get what he was trying to say, let's go with that instead of obsessing over grammar.

Grammar is everything

No, I mostly aggro'd on the misuse of PTSD.

 Verviedi wrote:
Randomized events that cause you to randomly lose (losing a turn = auto loss) are trash game design.

Funny, that seems to work fine in AoS.

Tau mishmash narrow win vs ork biker horde.

 ncshooter426 wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:
Randomized events that cause you to randomly lose (losing a turn = auto loss) are trash game design.

Funny, that seems to work fine in AoS.

Explain.

 Verviedi wrote:

 ncshooter426 wrote:

 Verviedi wrote:
Randomized events that cause you to randomly lose (losing a turn = auto loss) are trash game design.

Funny, that seems to work fine in AoS.

Explain.

Age of Sigmar doesn't follow a set you-go-I-go round. At the beginning of each round, opponents roll off to see who will go first. That means that there is always a chance the guy who just finished his round gets go go again - a pretty big tactical consideration (either boon or bane) to be aware of.

Funny, AoS is panned as the easier of the games - but I find it far more tactically driven than 40K.