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 BlackLobster wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

And yes, I did damn near lose every game I play. And you know what? I never met anyone who hated playing me except the CAACs who just tore their own eyes out at the idea someone could use 10 LRBTs.

Had these people not heard of entire tank regiments?

Please, don't encourage him...

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I'm fairly certain it was the army list section, not the tactics section.

I'm fairly certain you're wrong, I looked up the thread when you mentioned it. Link. And the army list section is considered a "how to win games" section as well, otherwise what's the point of posting a list for feedback?

As for the rest, you're just demonstrating my point: you must have exactly 10 tanks because that's what your mistaken understanding of the fluff dictates, and you continue to make excuses for why it's a good idea. Fine, it's your weird fluff rules, you're free to lose every game if that's what makes you happy. But it's ridiculous to post a tactics thread that starts with the premise of "I'm ok with losing every game I play". That isn't about tactics, it's about getting people to tell you what you want to hear.


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 BlackLobster wrote:
Had these people not heard of entire tank regiments?

We have. The list in question was based on a limited and very biased understanding of the fluff, not a fluff-accurate representation of an IG armored force. A "realistic" IG tank regiment consists of far more than just LRBTs, and its supporting assets (mechanized infantry, artillery, air cover, etc) would appear in a typical battle. And aside from the fluff issue, even if you can find an example of a force like that in the fluff it's still reasonable to object to seeing it on the other side of the table. Back in 6th, when this discussion happened, it was a one-dimensional list with zero scoring units and no hope of winning unless you tabled your opponent. It produced boring one-sided games, you either had answers for LRBTs with zero scoring units and won effortlessly, or failed to have answers and got wiped off the table. There was very little middle ground where the game was interesting, and you could probably guess the outcome of the game before anyone put models on the table. And that kind of game shouldn't happen, even if you can find some obscure fluff reference that says it's possible.

Oh, you're right about the Tactics section, my mistake!

As for the rest of your post:
Would you like me to cite a "realistic" tank regiment for you? Perhaps the relevant diagrams from four editions of Imperial Guard codexes/Apocalypse, or perhaps just Forge World's take on what an Armoured Company is from the Imperial Armour books? Or maybe you'd like to read, rather than see a diagram, the part that says Imperial Guard regiments are deliberately devoid of supporting units? I'm happy to screenshot/photograph any citation you need, but it is demonstrably provable that the core company formation of an Imperial Guard tank regiment is 10 vehicles. I can promise 3 citations, and more besides if you're unconvinced.

As for your little rant about games, sure, yeah, you're exactly right. Which is why in my local area people enjoyed games against it and asked me to play them (save CAACs who didn't know me).

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Would you like me to cite a "realistic" tank regiment for you? Perhaps the relevant diagrams from four editions of Imperial Guard codexes/Apocalypse, or perhaps just Forge World's take on what an Armoured Company is from the Imperial Armour books?

Please do. You'll find that the diagram in question (from the back of IA1: Second Edition) clearly has supporting units included, not just lots of LRBTs. And that's not even including the temporarily attached units from other IG regiments that would accompany the armored regiment in battle.

Or maybe you'd like to read, rather than see a diagram, the part that says Imperial Guard regiments are deliberately devoid of supporting units?

Paper regiments, yes, depending on the source. Some sources claim that regiments are literally one-dimensional and have zero supporting units, other sources (like IA1:2nd) claim that regiments are heavily focused on one particular unit type but include the relevant supporting units. In practice IG regiments fight together. To quote the FW armored battlegroup list: "even the most jaded tank commander knows that without the infantry his tank is impotent". A tabletop representation of an IG armored force would consist of a substantial number of tanks, but also include mechanized infantry, air cover, etc, because that's how an armored regiment would actually fight in a real battle.

As for your little rant about games, sure, yeah, you're exactly right. Which is why in my local area people enjoyed games against it and asked me to play them (save CAACs who didn't know me).

That has nothing to do with my point. It's the tactics section, not the "talk about how we all had fun" section. Implicit in calling it the tactics section (and its related list forum, which only exists to keep the tactics forum clear of list threads) is that it's for discussion of tactics, how to win games. A thread that starts with a premise of "I don't care if I lose every game I play" is not about tactics, and does not belong in the section for that kind of discussion.

And this is what I find so incredibly irritating: people that have no interest in winning games or improving their skill at winning still, for some reason, feel compelled to participate in the discussion areas dedicated to the subject. And then, when the responses they get inevitably consist of "that's a terrible idea, don't do it" they get annoyed and complain about how "WAAC" players are ruining everything and don't want to allow "casual" players to enjoy the game the way they want. Which isn't true at all, you just voluntarily posted in the place where winning is the goal.

So it begins, the great battle of our time...

I already admitted it was a mistake to post it in Tactics rather than Army List or General Discussion. That was an error and perhaps I could ask the mods to move it if you're so incensed about the category it's in.

And let me get those pictures for you.

The current Imperial Guard Codex blurb about tank regiments.

The current Imperial Guard codex illustration of a regulation tank company

Forge World's illustration of an Imperial Guard Armoured Brigade, that includes 3 Companies. Each Company is a Command Tank and 3 Squadrons, exactly matching the ten tanks illustrated in the Imperial Guard codex

I will find the apoc rulebook stuff about it in a bit.

Even the codex tells you that the reason regiments are done that way is to make them inefficient figthing without support.
Now, I run infantry DA with support RW so im not gonna tell you you cant play full tanks if you like, just as I dont use sm tanks because i dont like them, and use bikers and dreadnoughts for that role.

Here's 7th Edition's take on the Leman Russ Tank Company... and whaddya know, 10 vehicles (and 3 enginseers) at full strength. I wonder if there is some kind of pattern.


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 Galas wrote:
Even the codex tells you that the reason regiments are done that way is to make them inefficient figthing without support.
Now, I sam infantry DA with support RW so im not gonna tell you you cant play full tanks if you lije, just as I dont use sm tanks because i dont like them.

Right, yes, but I am playing a regiment, not a battlegroup. Inefficiency is part of the gig if people don't like to team me with other regiments.

Fortunately, I do actually bring support from other regiments for the last 400-500 points. If the points gets bigger, the support gets bigger, because I can't afford 20 LRBTs until like 4k, at which point I've about 1k of support.


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WOW! Even the plastic box set for a Leman Russ tank company has had exactly 10 tanks, no more, and no less. I wish the fluff and the boxes matched up this well always!

 Galas wrote:
So it begins, the great battle of our time...

I do have to side with Perry on this one.

Do we really need another thread gak up by Unit trying to peddle his tank armies and complaining no one wants to play his baneblade spam?

Can we go back to whining about Competitive players please? Much more fun.

Its like Godwin's law, but for Martel and Unit, where the longer the thread the greater the chance of complaining about BA or a discussion about tanks/baneblades.

Ordana wrote:
Do we really need another thread gak up by Unit trying to peddle his tank armies and complaining no one wants to play his baneblade spam?

Can we go back to whining about Competitive players please? Much more fun.

I'm actually whining about the competitive players and not trying to peddle anything. EDIT: If you prefer I can take it to PMs.

I thought you guys would be in favor of fluff trumping competitiveness. Have you even read the thread?

Also, for Peregrine, I found the apocalypse diagram:
Would ya look at that, 10 tanks. Weird.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Peregrine, I found a "how to paint tank companies" blurb that shows 10 tanks in a company.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Peregrine, now we can reach WAAAY BACK into the depths of 2nd edition when an Imperial Guard tank company had exactly 10 tanks. Since 2nd Edition.

Oh! Oh! I got one! The old Epic formation organization cards with the Leman Russ Battle Company:


I miss that game.

 Insectum7 wrote:
Oh! Oh! I got one! The old Epic formation organization cards with the Leman Russ Battle Company:

Spoiler:

I miss that game.

Oh hey thanks, I'll add that to my pile.

Epic was awesome. I'd probably feel less of a drive to replicate it in 28mm if I could still play it XD

 Insectum7 wrote:
Oh! Oh! I got one! The old Epic formation organization cards with the Leman Russ Battle Company:

Spoiler:

I miss that game.

You and me both.

I have a decent sized Eldar and Chaos army in Epic. I'd be so on board if GW would release new Epic 40k boxed set.

I think both casual and competitive are perfectly viable and you can choose how to play the game the way you like personally. The only issue with competitive play I have right now is soup. While its fine if people want to play soup to min max it does have me concerned for things it could do to mono faction players. A unit has the potential to be well balanced when maintained inside a specific codex but is very under costed when used with other codexes. Hopefully, GW can make it so the unit is costed appropriately both in soup and mono faction but the ability to combine armies so easily definitely makes balancing units more difficult.

I like variety. I've noticed that competitive lists can spam whatever units the person thinks are the best in the codex. So I tend not to spend too much time playing against them.

So no, I don't think competitiveness ruins 40k. I suppose if it came to dominate my local scene, then I'd change my tune.

Something tells me though that I'd still be able to find other people like me who make army list choices based on model preference or story rather than points efficiency, synergy or some other way the rules can impact decision making. Most of my opponents just want the rules to let their stuff do something cool.

Yes, but if the game were designed better it wouldn't be as big a problem. Granted, I still think eighth is the healthiest this game has been in years.

 Blacksails wrote:
Its like Godwin's law, but for Martel and Unit, where the longer the thread the greater the chance of complaining about BA or a discussion about tanks/baneblades.

Wait, there's two of them now?...




As for actually being on topic I don't think competitiveness ruins things. I think people taking that extra set to game a system, and a poorly structured system that leaves a lot of holes in it for that to happen, are what ruins things.

There’s one thing which I don’t think has been touched on where I believe that the mindset does harm the game, but it’s not really just a 40k problem. Or ‘Warhammer games’ problem. It’s something I’ve felt for a very, very long time but a ‘Malign Portents’ thread expressed it well:

Wayniac wrote:
Cons: Like basically everything here will never see the light of day in any sort of Matched Play game, even though there are two pitched battle scenarios that don't seem too bad...

So basically, another cool idea that will be totally ignored because it doesn't really fit into the "100% balance" matched play concept so prevalent in the game. Like most interesting things, there are just too many potentials to get bonuses and whatnot for it to be accepted.

For ‘fantasy’ gamers we all do exhibit a lack of imagination at times. Far too often do we succumb to “2000pts, line up across roughly symmetrical board, go” syndrome. If we actually read some of the rulebooks and fiction - and not just the GW ones, it afflicts all games - heck even the history books there are usually some fantastic scenario ideas in there somewhere, but we still turn up with The One List for The One Way To Play.

Historicals too - though at least there is often less pushback if you can tie it in as a (sometimes approximate) refight of a particular battle / skirmish, even if different sides are involved (Waterloo as Thirty Years War for instance). Can still be difficult, and this is in the context of a long-term group of regulars who - to be fair to them - don’t usually need much persuasion.

I appreciate that time is often the limiting factor, it may be our only ‘hobby night’ of the week and “line up and go” at least gets us going. But it gets slightly depressing after a while. And to quote Slaanesh from that ‘Portents’ book:

“It would be ... dull.”

(Edit for clarification - yes, I know that doing it ‘on the fly’ is rarely a good idea - though not universally bad. But I have often met a strange resistance even to “hey mate, I’ve got an idea we could try some time...”)

I think restricting to oneself (and possibly others in terms of setting norms in the community) to a subset of possible scenarios (equal points matched play), at a certain points level (whatever "normal full sized" game points value are), only using the items in a given army list that have been determined as competitive (are they worth it? is this unit viable?) pretty much impoverishes ones hobby experience by definition.

It's a subset of a subset of a subset of the possible game experience.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Ordana wrote:
Do we really need another thread gak up by Unit trying to peddle his tank armies and complaining no one wants to play his baneblade spam?

Can we go back to whining about Competitive players please? Much more fun.

I'm actually whining about the competitive players and not trying to peddle anything. EDIT: If you prefer I can take it to PMs.

I thought you guys would be in favor of fluff trumping competitiveness. Have you even read the thread?

Also, for Peregrine, I found the apocalypse diagram:
Would ya look at that, 10 tanks. Weird.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Peregrine, I found a "how to paint tank companies" blurb that shows 10 tanks in a company.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Peregrine, now we can reach WAAAY BACK into the depths of 2nd edition when an Imperial Guard tank company had exactly 10 tanks. Since 2nd Edition.

And then comes questions like how many tanks are in reality operational at all(it's not like there's these things called "casualties" or "damage" now is it?) and even more pressing how many tanks of company would in reality be assigned to the pittance sized battle field of about football field 40k games are located at. Tanks don't generally move side by side and cover large width. Larger than your typical 40k board represents.

My experience has overwhelmingly also been players typically just want tournament standard points, line up... go.

I do agree it makes for a very dull experience over time, and I attribute the churn and burn I have experienced to exactly that. I've noted that the average lifespan of a GW gamer is about 2.5 years. After that they tend to sell their stuff off and move on because they are bored, because their experience is essentially rush paint to play in tournaments, then play the same tournament style or scenarios for a couple years until burnout is achieved.

A lot of that comes down to "other scenarios aren't fair". A lot of those guys also never touch a piece of 40k fiction nor care to, so in terms of experiencing a lot more of the 40k universe on the table than they could be with their standard scenarios, I hear a lot of times during campaigns that they dont' care about that stuff.

Its kind of a self fulfilling thing.

 auticus wrote:
My experience has overwhelmingly also been players typically just want tournament standard points, line up... go.

I do agree it makes for a very dull experience over time, and I attribute the churn and burn I have experienced to exactly that. I've noted that the average lifespan of a GW gamer is about 2.5 years. After that they tend to sell their stuff off and move on because they are bored, because their experience is essentially rush paint to play in tournaments, then play the same tournament style or scenarios for a couple years until burnout is achieved.

A lot of that comes down to "other scenarios aren't fair". A lot of those guys also never touch a piece of 40k fiction nor care to, so in terms of experiencing a lot more of the 40k universe on the table than they could be with their standard scenarios, I hear a lot of times during campaigns that they dont' care about that stuff.

Its kind of a self fulfilling thing.

Yep. I mean, for me there's so much more than "matched play, 2000 points, symmetrical missions". I absolutely get why those are a staple of tournament play (although, and my memory is very hazy as I'm going back over 15 years, 2nd and 3rd edition 40k had Attacker/Defender missions and I seem to recall those being used in tournaments), but I get increasingly frustrated when that becomes the ONLY way people want to play. Nobody just wants to kind of eyeball some roughly equal forces (who cares about a few points difference here and there?) and come up with a cool terrain layout and use a variant mission or even just an ad-hoc mission that we both come up with on the fly, and have some fun. It's always "What size game?" and "Which eternal war/maelstrom/ITC mission are we using" and while those are okay, they get very boring very quickly. There's all this cool stuff that GW puts out that basically just gets ignored because it's "different", and even for a regular pick-up game people are completely unwilling to adjust their perception of balance and just look to have a good time, instead of seeing the whole thing as a competition to win. That's why I feel competitiveness ruins 40k; because it so frequently bleeds out of a tournament setting, instead of staying contained, and as a result I feel a lot of the hobby gets lost.

Its the player bases strong desire to play "real 40k" and use the same scenarios as tournaments do, because tournaments are the game standard.

Either because they are practicing for tournaments, or because they just want to play by the same rules as everyone else.

A lot of people have said on forums, in talks, and in campaign voting sessions that alternate scenarios are not "real 40k" (just like you've heard forgeworld and expansion splat books like cityfight, etc in the past were not "real 40k") and there is a very strong need to make sure every game is the same as every game in terms of rules and scenarios being chosen from.

That helps define their current standings. If I beat you in a tournament scenario, that gives me an idea of how I may fare in a tournament I'm going to. It also means I can hop on Dakka and discuss tactics because my experience is in the standard scenarios.

If I beat you in some non standard scenario, the proves nothing and I can't really even discuss it in the same context as the overall public if their discussions center around standard tournament play because I will be discredited for winning a scenario that "doesn't count" or "was unfair and unbalanced" or "didn't follow standard tournament protocol".

Our club put in place a no tournament practice rule. The tables at club night are simply not available for such purposes. There's a local store that has tournament practice night on the same day and we send people interested in that there. They'll get a wider variety of opponents who will offer a greater challenge, an opportunity to analyze the meta with like minded individuals and contacts for organizing things like car pools and shared accommodations for traveling to events in nearby cities.

People are free to play matched play games with the scenarios they like but they are doing themselves no favours if they think that gaming on our non standard terrain tables, against some of the least efficient army lists ever, is going to help their performance at an upcoming event. Especially when there's a dedicated group for that at the exact same time less than 10 minutes away.

 auticus wrote:
My experience has overwhelmingly also been players typically just want tournament standard points, line up... go.

I do agree it makes for a very dull experience over time, and I attribute the churn and burn I have experienced to exactly that. I've noted that the average lifespan of a GW gamer is about 2.5 years. After that they tend to sell their stuff off and move on because they are bored, because their experience is essentially rush paint to play in tournaments, then play the same tournament style or scenarios for a couple years until burnout is achieved.

No bias in there at all...a 2.5 year span would create a considerable churn and you'd see tons more armies on eBay.

Anecdote fight!

I've been at it for 10 years in tournaments and over 20 in the hobby. The people at my shop are the same guys for at least 6 years now. Any players "lost" had life events (kids) or moved.

Wayniac wrote:

 auticus wrote:
My experience has overwhelmingly also been players typically just want tournament standard points, line up... go.

I do agree it makes for a very dull experience over time, and I attribute the churn and burn I have experienced to exactly that. I've noted that the average lifespan of a GW gamer is about 2.5 years. After that they tend to sell their stuff off and move on because they are bored, because their experience is essentially rush paint to play in tournaments, then play the same tournament style or scenarios for a couple years until burnout is achieved.

A lot of that comes down to "other scenarios aren't fair". A lot of those guys also never touch a piece of 40k fiction nor care to, so in terms of experiencing a lot more of the 40k universe on the table than they could be with their standard scenarios, I hear a lot of times during campaigns that they dont' care about that stuff.

Its kind of a self fulfilling thing.

Yep. I mean, for me there's so much more than "matched play, 2000 points, symmetrical missions". I absolutely get why those are a staple of tournament play (although, and my memory is very hazy as I'm going back over 15 years, 2nd and 3rd edition 40k had Attacker/Defender missions and I seem to recall those being used in tournaments), but I get increasingly frustrated when that becomes the ONLY way people want to play. Nobody just wants to kind of eyeball some roughly equal forces (who cares about a few points difference here and there?) and come up with a cool terrain layout and use a variant mission or even just an ad-hoc mission that we both come up with on the fly, and have some fun. It's always "What size game?" and "Which eternal war/maelstrom/ITC mission are we using" and while those are okay, they get very boring very quickly. There's all this cool stuff that GW puts out that basically just gets ignored because it's "different", and even for a regular pick-up game people are completely unwilling to adjust their perception of balance and just look to have a good time, instead of seeing the whole thing as a competition to win. That's why I feel competitiveness ruins 40k; because it so frequently bleeds out of a tournament setting, instead of staying contained, and as a result I feel a lot of the hobby gets lost.

auticus wrote:Its the player bases strong desire to play "real 40k" and use the same scenarios as tournaments do, because tournaments are the game standard.

Either because they are practicing for tournaments, or because they just want to play by the same rules as everyone else.

A lot of people have said on forums, in talks, and in campaign voting sessions that alternate scenarios are not "real 40k" (just like you've heard forgeworld and expansion splat books like cityfight, etc in the past were not "real 40k") and there is a very strong need to make sure every game is the same as every game in terms of rules and scenarios being chosen from.

That helps define their current standings. If I beat you in a tournament scenario, that gives me an idea of how I may fare in a tournament I'm going to. It also means I can hop on Dakka and discuss tactics because my experience is in the standard scenarios.

If I beat you in some non standard scenario, the proves nothing and I can't really even discuss it in the same context as the overall public if their discussions center around standard tournament play because I will be discredited for winning a scenario that "doesn't count" or "was unfair and unbalanced" or "didn't follow standard tournament protocol".

Both those points are sadly true - for some strange reason 40K is "publicly" used almost exclusively as a "serious game for measuring skill" despite it being quite disfunctional for this purpose. From my experience, 40K becomes drastically different experience when you can find a true "let get out of ruts and explore" type of 40K companion and can actually play all those special rules/scenarios/terrain etc...

As to post-game discussions, that is also very true and is also a form of community self-filtering - people who like custom scenarios eventually wander off due to lack of feedback, either to other games/communities (inquisimunda/inq28 and necromunda communities come to mind) or to closed groups (like I do) as it is the only way for productive discussion. Most "tournament preparation, standard games only" folks here probably don't even realise, that tournament/meta focused tactical talks often fail to apply when the context shifts to more involved scenarios (and not because "if you don't play optimal lists you don't try to win" reasons) or strange, localised "metas" as "what is usefull, what is useless" can also shift substantially.

That's my other issue; it stagnates discussion because everyone assumes you are talking about hypothetical "GT top table competition" with everyone online, so you get advice that may/may not work, but pointing out something like "I've found unit x to be really good" gets dismissed as being useless because "everyone" says unit x sucks in tournaments.

There should be a way to discuss merit of units without always assuming that you mean the top tables of LVO or whatnot. Only talking competitively invalidates huge swathes of options in a game that prides itself on being about options.

Daedalus81 wrote:

 auticus wrote:
My experience has overwhelmingly also been players typically just want tournament standard points, line up... go.

I do agree it makes for a very dull experience over time, and I attribute the churn and burn I have experienced to exactly that. I've noted that the average lifespan of a GW gamer is about 2.5 years. After that they tend to sell their stuff off and move on because they are bored, because their experience is essentially rush paint to play in tournaments, then play the same tournament style or scenarios for a couple years until burnout is achieved.

No bias in there at all...a 2.5 year span would create a considerable churn and you'd see tons more armies on eBay.

Anecdote fight!

I've been at it for 10 years in tournaments and over 20 in the hobby. The people at my shop are the same guys for at least 6 years now. Any players "lost" had life events (kids) or moved.

I'm speaking from my own local experience here. I don't claim to know everyone outside of my area or their habits. A lot of our lost players also had life events (mainly they got girlfriends, married, and had kids) but almost all cite boredom and burn out when they put their stuff up on ebay or the local buy/sell page.


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Wayniac wrote:
That's my other issue; it stagnates discussion because everyone assumes you are talking about hypothetical "GT top table competition" with everyone online, so you get advice that may/may not work, but pointing out something like "I've found unit x to be really good" gets dismissed as being useless because "everyone" says unit x sucks in tournaments.

There should be a way to discuss merit of units without always assuming that you mean the top tables of LVO or whatnot. Only talking competitively invalidates huge swathes of options in a game that prides itself on being about options.

On warseer, on here, and on a few other forums I have suggested tags to posts that let you explain the context of your desire. IE if I am discussing how to pwn my opponents into submission I would tag my topic as [tournament] or something and if I wanted a more casual or general topic it would be tagged with [casual play] or something.

That never worked out though lol because that idea gets binned since the majority of people already talk tournament and just as assume you are as well.