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Hey. It might be a burnout but i can't deal with a feeling that if you would rate the importance of factors that make you win, tactics would be by far the least important one.
1. Listbuilding. It seems to be the cornerstone of success. You can look at lists before the game and have a 95% success rate at guessing who's gona win.
2. First turn and general dice luck. With how killy things are and with how little you can do to protect your forces other than bring the 'right' ones (see listbuilding) this is more important than ever before.
3. Tactics. Seems that it goes last after all the other things. There is just not much you can do.

At least i feel so. And i'm not alone within our gaming group. We've tried some new games like walking dead and seen the diffedence. Even necromunda and shadowwar armageddon aren't that hollow. And it's hard to say this, but EVEN 7th edition was better than what 8th currently is.

Less than in former editions.
E.g., Refused flank and symetrie de position were decent tactical options.
But tactics got killed a bit in the world of maelstrom. Same goes for the 8th edition shallow board game variant.

I would say this is only true in competitive circles. In non-competitive games, tactics starts taking a higher and higher position. As for first turn and general dice luck, again, I feel like first turn wins only matters for tourney-level lists where they ARE crazy-killy, but otherwise isn't a dominant factor. Dice are dice, and you can't control them, but I feel like 8th has done a remarkable job of reducing "lulz, the dice" compared to many previous editions, as it's so much rarer to one-shot vehicles, and monsters have many wounds.

I'm tempted to do a very careful recording of a game, making notes on every group of dice rolled, tracking the value of every dice rolled, and tracking expected values for dice roll results. In this way, I could determine if one player or another was truly lucky, and if so, in which way.

 Yarium wrote:
I would say this is only true in competitive circles. In non-competitive games, tactics starts taking a higher and higher position. As for first turn and general dice luck, again, I feel like first turn wins only matters for tourney-level lists where they ARE crazy-killy, but otherwise isn't a dominant factor. Dice are dice, and you can't control them, but I feel like 8th has done a remarkable job of reducing "lulz, the dice" compared to many previous editions, as it's so much rarer to one-shot vehicles, and monsters have many wounds.

I'm tempted to do a very careful recording of a game, making notes on every group of dice rolled, tracking the value of every dice rolled, and tracking expected values for dice roll results. In this way, I could determine if one player or another was truly lucky, and if so, in which way.

Perhaps. But it's still 'lists' that you're excluding.

1. I don't know that you've got a 95% prediction accuracy based on the lists today; that might have been true in 7th, but I suspect it's closer to 60-70% these days. List-building is still important but I don't think it renders the rest of the game irrelevant anymore.

2. This one varies widely depending on what you're doing; armies that roll a lot more dice (e.g. Guard) and armies with more redundancy rather than single critical models (no superheavies, for instance) care a lot less about a few spikey rolls, and the first-turn problem is dramatically more of a problem when you've got hardcore gunlines and squishy armies on the table. I've found that while first turn helps with my Custodes the immensely high defensive stats (which render S3-S5 (easily spammable weapons) vastly less useful) let me survive the alpha strike with enough damage output left that I'm not really on the back foot, except for some extreme edge cases.

3. Tactics in 40k is certainly simpler than it is for many other games, and how relevant it is does depend heavily on what missions you're using and how much terrain you're using, but tactical decisions can make some difference.

So I'd say in summary that I sort of agree with your assessment, but I think you're blowing the difference between said three factors out of proportion. List-building and dice can make victory more difficult, but an experienced player who's making more intelligent tactical decisions (movement/target priority) can make a lot more of a difference today than they could back in 7th.

The main "tactic" in 40k atm seems to be target priority.
Movement/positioning is important as well, for most armies.

I'd say it's unfair to both the game and the players to claim that there's no tactics involved in 40k.

 Yarium wrote:
...I'm tempted to do a very careful recording of a game, making notes on every group of dice rolled, tracking the value of every dice rolled, and tracking expected values for dice roll results. In this way, I could determine if one player or another was truly lucky, and if so, in which way.

The problem with this methodology is that some die rolls matter more than others; there aren't very many single rolls on which the whole game rest anymore (unless you're, say, trying to play something like a ten-man Custodian Warden squad at 1,000pts, at that point the charge roll is very much a win/loss thing), but it should be fairly obvious that a hit roll with a lascannon is more important than one with a lasgun, or that a save against a lascannon is more important than a save against a lasgun.

Yes for armies that have to do something besides just spam one undercosted thing in a gunline. Target priority & screening is the weakest form of tactics.

40k has never been heavy on tactics. It was always the easy simpler game between it and whfb, called checkers to the whfb chess.

I'd say that today's game is even simpler and less tactical than ever before, but that slope started slipping after 5th to be honest.

The game uses modern game design philosophies that stress fun, easy to grasp, and synergy building over all else.

The only tactic that I can find in 40k is target priority. The rest really plays itself and is a form of knowing some middle school math to make ssure your statistics are going to be in your favor or at least make yourself not at a disadvantage to the RNG.

Screening / bubble wrap is also required now that movement doesn't matter anymore and you can just deploy models wherever you want with deepstrike.

There's tactics like falling back a unit out of combat so that you can shoot at the attackers, charging with one tough/survivable unit to prevent overwatch taking out more effective but softer units, blocking line of sight to small units with big units, using pile-in and consolidation moves to trap units in combat, surrounding transports so that all the passengers die, spacing out units so that enemy deep strikers and assault troops can't access their ideal targets, and charging shooty units so that you can prevent them from shooting in the next turn. That's off the top of my head.

 MinscS2 wrote:
The main "tactic" in 40k atm seems to be target priority.
Movement/positioning is important as well, for most armies.

I'd say it's unfair to both the game and the players to claim that there's no tactics involved in 40k.

This is about right to me.

1. List building only determines the winner in advance when you have competitive vs. non-competitive. Once lists clear a certain level of alpha strike power, movement/terrain becomes more important. Some armies struggle to clear this level, which is one of the big reasons we see imbalance.

2. This is true when your meta has one of two things: 1. Lack of LoS blocking terrain. 2. Lots of fielding of units that ignore LoS. Tables with lots of terrain and that don't utilize tons of indirect fire units don't fall into this. So this is on the players, not GW.

3. This can reverse with 2 depending on table and unit comp.

The problem is really if you don't min/max or spam the undercosted units your already fighting a lossing battle. Unless you have both chosen to do so at which point its more friendly so win/loose doesn't matter.
Pick up games and comp games are pretty obvious who should win once deployment is over.

First turn depends upon the army as to importance of first time.

Tactics these days with nols, screening and deepstrike bombs has crushed any real manoeuvring for advantage. Its either static gunlines for days or a first turn rush rush rush. Its still tactics just very low player involving.

There are tactics, its just not as apparent as it was in WHFB. It was always like that, really.

With WHFB gone I guess GW doesn't have particularly tactical games. Which is fine I guess.

Maelstrom does open up some tactical options, I suppose, as you have to adapt your tactics to get those points, and points win maelstrom games.

Terrain and cover use to really matter as it restricted movement and gave bigger defensive bonuses which created more difficult target priority decisions and gives defensive options to the player (which units you keep in hard cover, which units you keep behind screens for soft cover, which vehicle facing do you keep exposed and which is getting cover, etc). Now it's just mathhammer the most dakka and use the ideal weapon against the ideal target with little option for the defender to protect their units outside of list building options. Add to that the lack of a robust morale/status effects which takes pinning, retreating, blinded, shaken, etc from the equation which gave ways to incapacitate a unit outside of just outright killing the target.

I'm going to disagree here and say yes there are 100% tactics.

Just as an example - understanding not just screening but also how to replenish screens as well as gaining more board control with screening is a very valuable skill in the game. Much the same as understanding how to effectively charge vs. just moving everything in a line (avoiding OW and then using pile-ins to wrap a unit for example). I'm sure this will be belittled as 'gaming the system' or something similar as opposed to tactics but ultimately it is a decision made inside the rules of the conflict that can garner you an advantage if you understand how and when to apply.

 AnomanderRake wrote:


So I'd say in summary that I sort of agree with your assessment, but I think you're blowing the difference between said three factors out of proportion. List-building and dice can make victory more difficult, but an experienced player who's making more intelligent tactical decisions (movement/target priority) can make a lot more of a difference today than they could back in 7th.

The problem is that "movement/target priority" is just a math equation.

There is an optimal position for shooting this gun and assaulting wit this unit. And these are the targets where on average they will have the most impact this turn.

It's not interesting, there is no real risk vs reward. It's just knowing what works best and then doing it.


When people say they feel like tactics don't exist in 8th I think what they actually mean is meaningful choice doesn't exist in the game. They are correct. All you do is move your entire army into the best position you can and shoot at the best targets you can pick, see what gets weakened/removed and then wait for you to suffer the same. To have the amount of actual tactical choice people are looking for you need more nuance to the situation so there is no clearly optimal positioning and shooting. You have to gamble doing this instead of that.

40k has no had meaningful tactical choice outside of list building/deployment in a long time.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

 Yarium wrote:
...I'm tempted to do a very careful recording of a game, making notes on every group of dice rolled, tracking the value of every dice rolled, and tracking expected values for dice roll results. In this way, I could determine if one player or another was truly lucky, and if so, in which way.

The problem with this methodology is that some die rolls matter more than others; there aren't very many single rolls on which the whole game rest anymore (unless you're, say, trying to play something like a ten-man Custodian Warden squad at 1,000pts, at that point the charge roll is very much a win/loss thing), but it should be fairly obvious that a hit roll with a lascannon is more important than one with a lasgun, or that a save against a lascannon is more important than a save against a lasgun.

For funnies then, how would you wish to change that methodology? My current thought was in how I would break down the different "luck" results, like "whom was luckiest with damage rolls" or "whom was luckiest with Advancing rolls", etc.

Tactics as we related to them in a real world setting? Warhammer 40,000 has never ever come close to a wargame that simulated actual combat, so I'd give it a sweeping no. Not just now, but ever.

Outside of "don't stand in the open", there's very little that would crossover into a normal historical wargame kind fo approach.

Are there strategies within Warhammer 40,000 as a game? Certainly. I would not confuse them with actual military based tactics, however.

Things I've done lately:

- Charge with a rhino to delay/silence a unit
- Swap a spell out to adjust to developing opportunities
- Sacrificed a character to spawndom to teleport him into a unit
- Shoot out a unit closest to my helbrute so that Fire Frenzy can double tap a more desirable target
- Reposition psykers to use CF on an incoming termie sorc
- Deployed Tzaangors as if they were a screen and then DMC'd them when all the support was in position
- Deployed a predator in an odd position to try and give a sense of security and then push it out 12" along with Blasphemous to get it hitting full strength

 Elbows wrote:
Tactics as we related to them in a real world setting? Warhammer 40,000 has never ever come close to a wargame that simulated actual combat, so I'd give it a sweeping no. Not just now, but ever.

Outside of "don't stand in the open", there's very little that would crossover into a normal historical wargame kind fo approach.

Are there strategies within Warhammer 40,000 as a game? Certainly. I would not confuse them with actual military based tactics, however.

I think the term "tactics" in warfare during the actual battle really means the same thing as it does in 40k. It's target priority. Think about the battle of midway - target priority lost that battle for the Japanese - attacking the airfield at midway rather than American carriers early in the battle. Same for Napoleon at Waterloo spending much of the battle wasting time trying to capture a worthless farmhouse - when he should have been making a flank move to cut the British off from the ocean and their supply. I just don't see any kind of tactic that exist in real warfare battles that doesn't exist in 40k. If we are talking about pre battle tactics (which 40k doesn't even touch) there is a lot missing. However - it's almost impossible to simulate that kind of tactics when you just play the battle. Axis and allies does a pretty good job at representing those tactics but the battle just comes down to lining up and blowing each other up (but target priority is removed).

I assume that Chess has no tactics, at the end of the day a Computer is unbeatable because its always know whats the best movement.

But we humans aren't computers. No one will in any game do all movements in the MOST optimal way. And when you make mistakes, and we all do mistakes in the middle of the game, things get dire, and when they gent dire you have to adapt and improvise, as Bear Grylls sais. Those are the tactics of the game.
I can agree that in the extremely skew competitive meta where lists are made to win if they go first, lose if they go second, tactics are much less relevant. But thats not how 90% of the games are played.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
Tactics as we related to them in a real world setting? Warhammer 40,000 has never ever come close to a wargame that simulated actual combat, so I'd give it a sweeping no. Not just now, but ever.

Outside of "don't stand in the open", there's very little that would crossover into a normal historical wargame kind fo approach.

Are there strategies within Warhammer 40,000 as a game? Certainly. I would not confuse them with actual military based tactics, however.

I think the term "tactics" in warfare during the actual battle really means the same thing as it does in 40k. It's target priority. Think about the battle of midway - target priority lost that battle for the Japanese - attacking the airfield at midway rather than American carriers early in the battle. Same for Napoleon at Waterloo spending much of the battle wasting time trying to capture a worthless farmhouse - when he should have been making a flank move to cut the British off from the ocean and their supply. I just don't see any kind of tactic that exist in real warfare battles that doesn't exist in 40k. If we are talking about pre battle tactics (which 40k doesn't even touch) there is a lot missing. However - it's almost impossible to simulate that kind of tactics when you just play the battle. Axis and allies does a pretty good job at representing those tactics but the battle just comes down to lining up and blowing each other up (but target priority is removed).

As much as people said that WHFB had better tactics than W40K, ad the end of the day is what you are saying. You put your army in lines, you move forward. You use some small units to redirect tactics, and you try to game the sistem to be where you want to be. Thats it, the rest is maths.

The tactics are when things go different from what you where expecting. How you adapt to those situations and how you use your tools to win the batle are the real tactics. Thats why stratagems are so good. Yeah, some are just auto use, but others offer you actual choices, for when or in what to use them.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Things I've done lately:

- Charge with a rhino to delay/silence a unit
- Swap a spell out to adjust to developing opportunities
- Sacrificed a character to spawndom to teleport him into a unit
- Shoot out a unit closest to my helbrute so that Fire Frenzy can double tap a more desirable target
- Reposition psykers to use CF on an incoming termie sorc
- Deployed Tzaangors as if they were a screen and then DMC'd them when all the support was in position
- Deployed a predator in an odd position to try and give a sense of security and then push it out 12" along with Blasphemous to get it hitting full strength

These all fall under deployment and target priority. Getting the most out of your units - like charging with a rhino that has nothing else to do. I'm not sure that's tactics...That is just common sense.

 Xenomancers wrote:


These all fall under deployment and target priority. Getting the most out of your units - like charging with a rhino that has nothing else to do. I'm not sure that's tactics...That is just common sense.

Give me an example of an in-battle tactic (40K or otherwise) that isn't deployment or target priority.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Things I've done lately:

- Charge with a rhino to delay/silence a unit
- Swap a spell out to adjust to developing opportunities
- Sacrificed a character to spawndom to teleport him into a unit
- Shoot out a unit closest to my helbrute so that Fire Frenzy can double tap a more desirable target
- Reposition psykers to use CF on an incoming termie sorc
- Deployed Tzaangors as if they were a screen and then DMC'd them when all the support was in position
- Deployed a predator in an odd position to try and give a sense of security and then push it out 12" along with Blasphemous to get it hitting full strength

These all fall under deployment and target priority. Getting the most out of your units - like charging with a rhino that has nothing else to do. I'm not sure that's tactics...That is just common sense.

Whats tactics then?

By Oxford Dicctionary a tactic his:

1An action or strategy carefully planned to achieve a specific end.

All those things seem like tactics to me.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Things I've done lately:

- Charge with a rhino to delay/silence a unit
- Swap a spell out to adjust to developing opportunities
- Sacrificed a character to spawndom to teleport him into a unit
- Shoot out a unit closest to my helbrute so that Fire Frenzy can double tap a more desirable target
- Reposition psykers to use CF on an incoming termie sorc
- Deployed Tzaangors as if they were a screen and then DMC'd them when all the support was in position
- Deployed a predator in an odd position to try and give a sense of security and then push it out 12" along with Blasphemous to get it hitting full strength

These all fall under deployment and target priority. Getting the most out of your units - like charging with a rhino that has nothing else to do. I'm not sure that's tactics...That is just common sense.

These are actually all Tactics. A tactic is any action you're taking at the moment. Charge with the Rhino to Delay/Silence a unit (assuming "silence" means either preventing overwatch or forcing the unit to be unable to shoot the next turn) is very definitely a tactic. You could choose not to employ this tactic, but "common sense" tells you that it's probably a good move. Still, probably isn't definitely, since there are many possible reasons that you WOULDN'T charge with the Rhino (nearby strong CC character that might Heroic Intervention, Rhino only has 1 or 2 wounds remaining, moving Rhino may leave an objective more vulnerable to being captured, etc.).

All of these are balanced by the player's Strategy, which guides the use of all tactics. Deploying the Tzaangors as if it were a screen is a tactic, but is also part of the player's strategy to go nuts with them later, meaning the player is ready to use multiple tactics on unit in the future. It's a tactic that further's the player's strategy.

 Xenomancers wrote:

These all fall under deployment and target priority. Getting the most out of your units - like charging with a rhino that has nothing else to do. I'm not sure that's tactics...That is just common sense.

Tomato, tomato. Looks like tactics to me.
Not sure why you're trying to make it sound like "common sense" and "tactics" are mutually exclusive.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Things I've done lately:

- Charge with a rhino to delay/silence a unit
- Swap a spell out to adjust to developing opportunities
- Sacrificed a character to spawndom to teleport him into a unit
- Shoot out a unit closest to my helbrute so that Fire Frenzy can double tap a more desirable target
- Reposition psykers to use CF on an incoming termie sorc
- Deployed Tzaangors as if they were a screen and then DMC'd them when all the support was in position
- Deployed a predator in an odd position to try and give a sense of security and then push it out 12" along with Blasphemous to get it hitting full strength

These all fall under deployment and target priority. Getting the most out of your units - like charging with a rhino that has nothing else to do. I'm not sure that's tactics...That is just common sense.

Not saying we're Sun Tzu here, but what is common sense to one is tactical mastery to another. They ARE tactics. I'd say a tax tical game should strive to have more and varied of them though.

Part of the problem isn't 40k exclusive. It's just part of game design culture. Currently, developers view premade combos and modifiers as tactics. They are, but they're very obvious ones. Complex tactics, like we see in the real world, are harder to provide for in a game because they're meant to play on perceptions or break norms as a rule.

One good example is commanders who had their soldiers hold two torches apiece at night instead of one. This made the army seem twice as large to the enemy. How could you do this in game mechanics?

What about Zhuge Liang's mythic borrowing of arrows at Chi Bi? He secretly filled the boats with hay and taunted the enemy army. He then collected all the arrows into the hay.

Napoleon crushed a retreating army by having his artillery break the ice under their feet after pushing them onto the water.

Multiple commanders used the empty fort strategy: staying quiet in the woods near a village so the enemy thought they were hiding in the village and deployed their backsides to the woods.

These are examples of tactics, but figuring out a way to allow players this kind of freedom of thought and ability in a game like 40k is a quick way to frustrate your mind.

I don't want to harp on the "alt activation" or "interruptions" aspect, but 40k does have a certain degree of "target dummy syndrome," where you can pop-up and play reverse-whack-a-mole before your opponent gets to do stuff. It becomes more noticable as the scale of 40k climbs ever-higher.

The question is: What sorts of tactics should a game be able to model? Suppression, bounding overwatch, spot barrages (artillery generally gets used more for area denial than for direct elimination), and such sound like a reasonable start. However, 40k doesn't have any real "suppression mechanic", Overwatch is simply an automagic "oh, so you're charging" mechanic, and Basilisks might as well be the Railgun from Eraser (or the Farsight from Perfect Dark).

 Lance845 wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:


So I'd say in summary that I sort of agree with your assessment, but I think you're blowing the difference between said three factors out of proportion. List-building and dice can make victory more difficult, but an experienced player who's making more intelligent tactical decisions (movement/target priority) can make a lot more of a difference today than they could back in 7th.

They are correct. All you do is move your entire army into the best position you can and shoot at the best targets you can pick, see what gets weakened/removed and then wait for you to suffer the same. To have the amount of actual tactical choice people are looking for you need more nuance to the situation so there is no clearly optimal positioning and shooting. You have to gamble doing this instead of that.

40k has no had meaningful tactical choice outside of list building/deployment in a long time.

That's interesting because I've played several games lately where making sure that I deployed my screening units in turns 1, 2, and 3 were incredibly important to my being able to win the game. Where they could assault and shoot were of no real concern so much as zone and board control were.

8th seems to be about stacking Auras with soup lists, abusing the best Stratagems, and the current cover system is pretty bad.