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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.

And most of the time when someone says "I found X to be really good" in contradiction to the tournament meta consensus they're simply wrong about it being good. They might enjoy the unit's fluff or be really proud of the paint job they did on it, but it isn't an effective choice from a rules point of view. And they only fall back on "BUT ITS NOT ALWAYS TOURNAMENTS" as a way to avoid admitting that they were wrong about their strategy claim.

Only talking competitively invalidates huge swathes of options in a game that prides itself on being about options.

The problem is that "prides itself on being about options" and "actually having options" are not the same thing. Honest evaluation of list choices doesn't invalidate those options, it merely acknowledges the fact that GW invalidated them already. Pretending that they are valid doesn't make them viable choices.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Chamberlain wrote:
Our club put in place a no tournament practice rule. The tables at club night are simply not available for such purposes.

How exactly do you enforce this? Ban anyone who brings a list that is "too powerful" for your personal standards?

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.

Online discussion tends to resolve around competitive play because for casual play you simply do whatever you feel like.

What is there to discuss for list building in a casual environment? What unit is best? doesn't matter. Should I run X, Y or Z? Doesn't matter, do whatever you want.
Once you start talking about 'merit' you start going into 'what is better' which naturally leads to 'what is best' and now were back to 'competitive meta'.

That is not to say you can't have discussions about casual gaming. Fun scenario's. Interesting situations that happened ect. But when it comes to tactics & lists the answer is always 'doesn't matter, do whatever you feel like'.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
More incorrect fluff.

You're posting over-simplified formations and marketing gimmicks (obviously a LRBT bundle box is going to have LRBTs, not LRBTs and a conversion kit for a HQ Chimera and some random infantry) and ignoring explicit statements that you are wrong about unit organizations. But even if you're right in some interpretation of the fluff it's still an extremely narrow version of the fluff. You're claiming to be talking about strategy, but you're rejecting anything that doesn't fit your one extremely specific list and starting from a premise of "I don't care if this actually works". That isn't strategy discussion, it's a fluff debate in the wrong forum section.

As an example, I give this quote from you:

A sponsonless Hellhammer is 476 (roughly 24 power) and a max-sponson Hellhammer is 676 (roughly 34 power). A Hellhammer is 30 power.

I have no sponsons on any of my Hellhammers for fluff reasons. Badda bing, badda boom, I'm spending 18 power (ish) that I could have otherwise saved (30 vs 24 times 3).

You've defined your fluff so absurdly narrowly that even the secondary weapon choices on your units are absolute law that can not be changed, regardless of how it impacts the game on the table. I mean, yay for you, I'm glad you've found your one tiny niche in the hobby, but it's a mindset that is incompatible with actually playing the game.

Ordana wrote:

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.

Online discussion tends to resolve around competitive play because for casual play you simply do whatever you feel like.

What is there to discuss for list building in a casual environment? What unit is best? doesn't matter. Should I run X, Y or Z? Doesn't matter, do whatever you want.
Once you start talking about 'merit' you start going into 'what is better' which naturally leads to 'what is best' and now were back to 'competitive meta'.

That is not to say you can't have discussions about casual gaming. Fun scenario's. Interesting situations that happened ect. But when it comes to tactics & lists the answer is always 'doesn't matter, do whatever you feel like'.

You can definitely talk about good synergies for casual play with X working well with Y and when supported by Z it makes a good combo even if X,Y, and Z basically never see use on a tournament table.

Jumping back to 7th, you could have a bunch of interesting combos with formations or detachment rules that made for good synergy but would never work in a pure tournament environment because they would get rolled by psychic Death Stars, Warp Spider spam, etc. For example I loved the mess out of Blitz Brigade with Orks and that synergied decently well with the Dakkajet formation, Flash Gitz, Tankbustas, MANz, MAWB with slugga Boyz, etc. It was a list that could hold its own against a lot of stuff but it wouldn't have the chops to deal with tourny Eldar, Bark Bark Star, etc. There is a middle between the whole tournament bleeding edge min/maxing and the casual "bring whatever you want" mentality. Honestly it's a shame that more discussion wasn't given to the middle ground topics because looking back at 7th and there are a ton of interesting formations that basically never got played because it wasn't one of those that made up the top 5% of the meta.

 Vankraken wrote:
You can definitely talk about good synergies for casual play with X working well with Y and when supported by Z it makes a good combo even if X,Y, and Z basically never see use on a tournament table.

You really can't, because it removes the entire concept of "working well" or "good combo". A choice is not "working well" if it is a weak option that can only succeed when your opponent makes an even weaker choice. What the discussion is really saying is "this is a weak choice, but I'm going to use it anyway", and that immediately puts the discussion onto something other than strategy.

Now, you can still keep the meaning of the concept if you're talking about a "what if GW fixed the major balance issues" metagame, where everyone is still playing competitively but that blatant balance mistake in {list of the month} has been changed. For example, in 8th it would still make sense to talk about strategy choices in a single-detachment, single-faction tournament format. Some of the choices you'll be making will be less than ideal in a different environment, but you aren't hyping up stuff that is utter trash in a normal game like many of these "casual strategy" threads do.

Personally, I would have preferred that rather than Stratagems (which really are shunting many of these "formation bonuses" into a "do you have the unit?" list of manabombs) or Formations, that many of these bonuses were built into loadout options. So instead of a Deliverance Broodsurge, you could pay extra points for War Rigging on a Goliath, etc.

That said and done, there were several interesting formations in 7th. I mostly made use of the Helcult and Chaos Warband myself because I at least liked to pretend towards semi-competitive (all the Obsec), but there were some fun ones out there too, especially if you built the list around it: From the Warpack letting you make a Chaos Walker a Character (and thus potentially your Warlord), to Mogrok's Bossboyz letting you play Orks as a "betastrike" list, there was some room for cheekiness.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:
You can definitely talk about good synergies for casual play with X working well with Y and when supported by Z it makes a good combo even if X,Y, and Z basically never see use on a tournament table.

You really can't, because it removes the entire concept of "working well" or "good combo". A choice is not "working well" if it is a weak option that can only succeed when your opponent makes an even weaker choice. What the discussion is really saying is "this is a weak choice, but I'm going to use it anyway", and that immediately puts the discussion onto something other than strategy.

Now, you can still keep the meaning of the concept if you're talking about a "what if GW fixed the major balance issues" metagame, where everyone is still playing competitively but that blatant balance mistake in {list of the month} has been changed. For example, in 8th it would still make sense to talk about strategy choices in a single-detachment, single-faction tournament format. Some of the choices you'll be making will be less than ideal in a different environment, but you aren't hyping up stuff that is utter trash in a normal game like many of these "casual strategy" threads do.

Eh, there's a fine line between trash and janky. Like, it's one thing to say (7th examples) "Guardians are just as competitive as Scatter Laser Windriders" while it's another thing to state that "I am in a no-Forgeworld environment and feel that a Storm Guardian Host gives me some cover-busting and semi-expendable bodies" or so. And of course, there were the units like Breachers, Deathmarks, Lictors and Mawlocs, Neurothropes, etc. that weren't "A-game" themselves but were nowhere as bad as, say, Thousand Sons.

 Marmatag wrote:
Isn't this supposed to be the play the way you want edition? No one is forcing you to play with competitive rules and matched play restrictions.

It just so happens that the ITC combined missions are far and away the most fun and balanced way to play 40k right now.

I think this 'it can be whatever you want it to be' attitude by the developers is the biggest problem with 8th. Its a lie and delusion. A game has to be designed to function, it can't be all things and expected to be any good.

Voss wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Isn't this supposed to be the play the way you want edition? No one is forcing you to play with competitive rules and matched play restrictions.

It just so happens that the ITC combined missions are far and away the most fun and balanced way to play 40k right now.

I think this 'it can be whatever you want it to be' attitude by the developers is the biggest problem with 8th. Its a lie and delusion. A game has to be designed to function, it can't be all things and expected to be any good.

Yep, precisely. "Play the way you want, as long as others agree it's the right way to play" is more like it.

Wayniac wrote:

Voss wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Isn't this supposed to be the play the way you want edition? No one is forcing you to play with competitive rules and matched play restrictions.

It just so happens that the ITC combined missions are far and away the most fun and balanced way to play 40k right now.

I think this 'it can be whatever you want it to be' attitude by the developers is the biggest problem with 8th. Its a lie and delusion. A game has to be designed to function, it can't be all things and expected to be any good.

Yep, precisely. "Play the way you want, as long as others agree it's the right way to play" is more like it.

GW gave you ALL the tools and continues to expand them. They're not in the business of forcing people to play any particular way.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Vankraken wrote:
You can definitely talk about good synergies for casual play with X working well with Y and when supported by Z it makes a good combo even if X,Y, and Z basically never see use on a tournament table.

You really can't, because it removes the entire concept of "working well" or "good combo". A choice is not "working well" if it is a weak option that can only succeed when your opponent makes an even weaker choice. What the discussion is really saying is "this is a weak choice, but I'm going to use it anyway", and that immediately puts the discussion onto something other than strategy.

Now, you can still keep the meaning of the concept if you're talking about a "what if GW fixed the major balance issues" metagame, where everyone is still playing competitively but that blatant balance mistake in {list of the month} has been changed. For example, in 8th it would still make sense to talk about strategy choices in a single-detachment, single-faction tournament format. Some of the choices you'll be making will be less than ideal in a different environment, but you aren't hyping up stuff that is utter trash in a normal game like many of these "casual strategy" threads do.

That is looking at it in a really narrow perspective that closes the ability to look at all options and develop strategies and tactics to make those options work to a degree of success. Flash Gitz for example never really saw tournament play but you sure as hell can discuss how to get the most mileage out of them and what tools you can use with them to develop a functional gameplan. The purpose of 40k is to be a tabletop war game that is hopefully fun to play. Building good combos (good as in these elements work well together to achieve a synergy) is part of strategy and not every strategy has to be min/max must win against all things. Also sometimes playing the unexpected gives your a tactical advantage because the opponent might not know how to handle that unit because it operates differently than the sort of stuff they are use to seeing. Might be getting a bit of hyperbole here but if anything other than the optimal choices are what should be disucssed then armies like 7th edition Dark Eldar or Orks should not be allowed to be discusses as strategy because those are inferior options when instead you could be playing Craftworld Eldar or Space Wolves.

Wayniac wrote:
Yep, precisely. "Play the way you want, as long as others agree it's the right way to play" is more like it.

That's true of every game. Your weird, poorly designed format (like power levels) might as well not exist if nobody else likes it.

In 6th, the FOC doubled at 2000 points. Many tournaments disliked this and resorted either to 1850 or "1999+1" events.

In 7th, the most common houserule (still used in 8th) is that you get to redraw a Maelstrom Objective if it's an impossible one. ("Cast a Psychic Power." "But I'm playing Necrons." "Well, you should have thought of that!"). Skies of Death was outright rejected too.

Pilum wrote:

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.

This is something people seem to learn over time. I think we all dream of more diverse scenarios, campaigns, and all the cool storytelling options, but then we actually play them and someone figures out how to game the scenario or its just unbalanced and one sided and its just not as fun as we dreamed. Dedicated players look to fix it; patch up the holes and make it work, but eventually you spend more time trying to make it fun than having fun and go back to playing something that was designed to be fun in the first place.

 Peregrine wrote:
How exactly do you enforce this? Ban anyone who brings a list that is "too powerful" for your personal standards?

No enforcement required really. This isn't a store, it's a group of people. So when you say things like "we don't do tournament practice games here" people understand what they are joining.

There's one regular who is enamoured by things like spamming minimum sized Ynnarii/Craftworld Dark Reapers because it's "so good!" but even he doesn't seem to have any trouble with the ethos of the group.

But things aren't black or white. This is the min/maxing mentality and extremes that just isn't true. Things aren't "OP" or "Trash". Theres a good amount of units in between. And many units maybe aren't usefull in the context of one list but are usefull in the context of other one.
Yeah maybe deepstriking 20-man guardian blobs aren't as OP as spamming Dark Reapers and Shining Spears+Ynnari detachment but they are actually a competitive choice that works in other kind of lists.

 Galas wrote:

Spoiler:

 Peregrine wrote:

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.

And most of the time when someone says "I found X to be really good" in contradiction to the tournament meta consensus they're simply wrong about it being good. They might enjoy the unit's fluff or be really proud of the paint job they did on it, but it isn't an effective choice from a rules point of view. And they only fall back on "BUT ITS NOT ALWAYS TOURNAMENTS" as a way to avoid admitting that they were wrong about their strategy claim.

Only talking competitively invalidates huge swathes of options in a game that prides itself on being about options.

The problem is that "prides itself on being about options" and "actually having options" are not the same thing. Honest evaluation of list choices doesn't invalidate those options, it merely acknowledges the fact that GW invalidated them already. Pretending that they are valid doesn't make them viable choices.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Chamberlain wrote:
Our club put in place a no tournament practice rule. The tables at club night are simply not available for such purposes.

How exactly do you enforce this? Ban anyone who brings a list that is "too powerful" for your personal standards?

But things aren't black or white. This is the min/maxing mentality and extremes that just isn't true. Things aren't "OP" or "Trash". Theres a good amount of units in between. And many units maybe aren't usefull in the context of one list but are usefull in the context of other one.
Yeah maybe deepstriking 20-man guardian blobs aren't as OP as spamming Dark Reapers and Shining Spears+Ynnari detachment but they are actually a competitive choice that works in other kind of lists.

But that requires, like, um, nuance.

(Couldn't agree more, Galas)

Powergaming *is* black or white though. Its either undercost for what it does and worth taking, or its balanced or overcost and thus not worth taking.

 auticus wrote:
Powergaming *is* black or white though. Its either undercost for what it does and worth taking, or its balanced or overcost and thus not worth taking.

Its pretty much the definition of min maxing.

even if something is like 1% slightly weaker than another choice you end up not taking it.

everyone else wouldn't care and it really wont effect anything but thats how certain people in certain formats think.

In a "casual" world of one-off scenarios, asymetrical terrain and "non-meta representative landscape of available players" such things as "how to best utilise miniatures available at hand" against a non-"meta compliant" lists and units are great tactics (actual tactics, not mere list building excersises) discussion topics. Of course, in some cases the only conclusion is that a particular unit is beyond saving, but in most cases you can actually learn how to use things properly... But to understand this one have to actually play the game this way, not theoreticize about a game he last played a decade and three editions ago...

 auticus wrote:
Powergaming *is* black or white though. Its either undercost for what it does and worth taking, or its balanced or overcost and thus not worth taking.

According to Internet opinions, but that doesnt often translate to the table for sensible people.

All you have to do is go to a Thousand Sons thread to see people proclaiming doom by tzaangor. That doesn't mean we listen or don't find success with other options. Especially with the gaps narrowing more and more.

 auticus wrote:
Powergaming *is* black or white though. Its either undercost for what it does and worth taking, or its balanced or overcost and thus not worth taking.

I don't agree with this.

Every single discussion about competitive balance is discussed in the context of the meta, or how units perform based on what you're *most* likely to see. It's safe to assume that if you go to a tournament, you will see Dark Reapers. You will also see Guard, be it as a standalone or part of Imperium. There will be Chaos, too.

So when you're building your list, you might be vulnerable to a Necron list, or a Tyranid list. But you don't worry about that during construction, because those are the edge cases.

That said, some units are objectively good, regardless of what your opponent brings, and some units are objectively bad. These are generally consistent across game types and styles.

Yeah and I agree, but I see people respond to Perigrine and a few others stating that its not black or white, when indeed to them it *is* very much black or white.

I agree that the min/maxing mentality is black or white. What I was responding is that barring some units that obviously are objetively bad in all scenarios or objetively OP in every situation, theres a ton of options that maybe are a little less effective in raw mathematics but can be used properly to achieve a good competitive result. With more effort from the player, of course. Thats why most people netlists and go the min/maxing route.

It's only black and white when you have singularly OP units.

It's not black and white for Tyranids.
It is black and white for Eldar.
It is black and white for Tau.

I can't "spam" a single unit, and i have to think about synergy in my list to have a snowballs chance in hell. The Tyranid codex isn't strong, but it is balanced, so i'm happy with it. So far i think it is the best codex they've released in 8th edition.

I was listening to the Long War podcast and they started talking about Knight Crusaders. They described them as "not existing in the current state of 40k."

Any approach that does that to a given unit is probably worth some serious thought about pros and cons.

 Galas wrote:
But things aren't black or white. This is the min/maxing mentality and extremes that just isn't true. Things aren't "OP" or "Trash". Theres a good amount of units in between. And many units maybe aren't usefull in the context of one list but are usefull in the context of other one.
Yeah maybe deepstriking 20-man guardian blobs aren't as OP as spamming Dark Reapers and Shining Spears+Ynnari detachment but they are actually a competitive choice that works in other kind of lists.

You're right, it isn't black and white. There are tiers of lists/units in competitive play, and most competitive players acknowledge this. But with the posts I'm talking about it usually is trash-tier choices being hyped up as "good in casual games" or whatever, and "casual" becomes an excuse to avoid admitting that the person who proposed the idea was wrong.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Chamberlain wrote:
I was listening to the Long War podcast and they started talking about Knight Crusaders. They described them as "not existing in the current state of 40k."

Any approach that does that to a given unit is probably worth some serious thought about pros and cons.

The "approach" is playing 40k. Players did not do something to a unit, they simply acknowledge the fact that GW has published poor rules for it and the unit is not viable if you're planning to make good list-building decisions.

Don't you think there is a fundamental problem when everything involves "good list-building decisions" which, by your own admission, often involves ignoring over 50% of a book? When
"good list-building decisions" basically means "Ignore the fluff, ignore the background, ignore everything that you wanted to take and take this other stuff instead because it's just way better" that seems like a pretty big problem. If you're going to ignore almost everything that makes 40k worth considering as a game, why even play such an awful game?

Wayniac wrote:
Don't you think there is a fundamental problem when everything involves "good list-building decisions" which, by your own admission, often involves ignoring over 50% of a book? When
"good list-building decisions" basically means "Ignore the fluff, ignore the background, ignore everything that you wanted to take and take this other stuff instead because it's just way better" that seems like a pretty big problem. If you're going to ignore almost everything that makes 40k worth considering as a game, why even play such an awful game?

There's a problem, but it's one that comes from GW. Pretending that bad units are somehow not bad is not fixing the problem, it's just denying that one exists.

Wayniac wrote:
Don't you think there is a fundamental problem when everything involves "good list-building decisions" which, by your own admission, often involves ignoring over 50% of a book? When
"good list-building decisions" basically means "Ignore the fluff, ignore the background, ignore everything that you wanted to take and take this other stuff instead because it's just way better" that seems like a pretty big problem.

Good list building decisions will always exist.

If you play Ultramarines versus Ultramarines, each player can still make good and bad choices given the same exact codex. And this is because, even in a fair scenario, there are good and bad choices based on context.

The problem arises when there is ALWAYS a best choice. This is what you have with Eldar Dark Reapers right now, and what you've had with Imperial Guard since the jump of 8th. There is always a best choice regardless of context. Competitive play highlights this, and we get adjustments that are beneficial for everyone.

 Peregrine wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
Don't you think there is a fundamental problem when everything involves "good list-building decisions" which, by your own admission, often involves ignoring over 50% of a book? When
"good list-building decisions" basically means "Ignore the fluff, ignore the background, ignore everything that you wanted to take and take this other stuff instead because it's just way better" that seems like a pretty big problem. If you're going to ignore almost everything that makes 40k worth considering as a game, why even play such an awful game?

There's a problem, but it's one that comes from GW. Pretending that bad units are somehow not bad is not fixing the problem, it's just denying that one exists.

This could not have been said better.