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 Farseer_V2 wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
40k doesn't require skill at all, it requires you get first turn and have some common sense with target priority.

In a game so ruled by random dice skill is meaningless for the most part.

Again if that's the case then why do the same group of people consistently win events.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
When such happens, especially more than once, let me know.

Otherwise what we see is such players tend to move from army to army or list to list over time, constantly optimizing armies and catering them to each event and major meta change, not running 2nd rate lists or armies and placing, especiay not anything near consistently.

Theres a reason we look at army and faction placement, not individual players, when judging army power. When you show up at a 200 person event, and none of the 20 players running army X make it into even the top 50, thats a mathematically strong argument that tactical command skill is a distinctly secondary factor next to faction power and list construction.

There's also a reason that the same names consistently show up regardless of the army they're playing. That's a mathematically strong argument that tactical command skill is an important factor in overall placement.

I'm not saying it doesn't play a role, but that lists building trumps that.


If you're playing the best lists against each other, then player skill factors in more because the list consideration is equalized. Remove that equalization and the list dominates skill.

Those players spend a lot of time and effort making new lists, switching armies, and perfecting a force before it ever touches the table, and in doing so minimize their decisonmaking tree as well. The bulk of the skill is in the listbuilding. Nobody is winning a GT running an all Grot army or pure index Necrons on tactical tabletop command ability regardless of who is running it, especially not as anything more than a one off fluke. Nobody is going to win a GT running flamer equipped Stormtroopers backed up by Vanquishers and Deathstrikes.

The people who win these events arent just good players, they're bringing lists theyve put a great deal of effort into optimizing ahead of time.

Again, theres a reason factions with decent representation and ostensibly at least one capable general routinely fail to make it anywhere near the top tables.

hobojebus wrote:
40k doesn't require skill at all, it requires you get first turn and have some common sense with target priority.

In a game so ruled by random dice skill is meaningless for the most part.

Prove it. Go to a tournament and log all the games where you get first turn.

 Vaktathi wrote:


If you're playing the best lists against each other, then player skill factors in more because the list consideration is equalized. Remove that equalization and the list dominates skill.

Those players spend a lot of time and effort making new lists, switching armies, and perfecting a force before it ever touches the table, and in doing so minimize their decisonmaking tree as well. The bulk of the skill is in the listbuilding. Nobody is winning a GT running an all Grot army or pure index Necrons on tactical tabletop command ability regardless of who is running it, especially not as anything more than a one off fluke. Nobody is going to win a GT running flamer equipped Stormtroopers backed up by Vanquishers and Deathstrikes.

The people who win these events arent just good players, they're bringing lists theyve put a great deal of effort into optimizing ahead of time.

Again, theres a reason factions with decent representation and ostensibly at least one capable general routinely fail to make it anywhere near the top tables.

That's all well and fine but it is absolutely farcical to suggest that player skill does not matter in 40k. List building matters, that is certain but player skill is still a massive element of success (disregarding that list building is player skill in 40k). Ultimately I don't debate that playing a good list is part of being a good player, I do debate the idea that somehow it is list and list only that determines how well you'll do at an event.

I only know from my own experience that lists are a giant part of it.

Our old tournament team hit up the GTs regularly back in the GW GT days and always placed high, but take away our broken lists and a lot of us were average at best.

I don't think the concept of the game has changed much from those days that suddenly skill is more important and that we were living in a golden age of discrete math > skill and suddenly thats no longer the case.

The only time I've ever seen skill matter is when the lists at the table were evenly matched. At that point your player skill will be the determinant. I've watched many great tournament players get beaten down hard when they tried to use a less optimal list vs an optimal list, which is why youu'll never see non optimal lists suddenly winning the big tournament series.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Audustum wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

DontEatRawHagis wrote:
I was listening to a few podcasts going over the top lists and heard the same names being repeated from previous episodes. Not just the armies, but also the players. Now I understand that these people have chosen these armies because they believe they are likely to win with them. But what if these tournament players had to play different, lower tier armies? How would the top tournaments look?

Would we see Ynari, Chaos Soup, Imperial Soup, and Tyranid Flyrant spam replaced with other broken builds for other armies? Would having so many high level players playing lower tier armies still make it as high in the brackets?

Most of them (not all) would still place well. Player skill (regardless of the inevitable howling that this will generate) is still tremendously important in 40k. Understanding where your opponent will screen, how he will do it, what objectives benefit him, all these things matter and a better more experienced player will come out on top most of the time.

It's not really howling, it's just wrong. Skill does matter, but army selection and list matter a lot more.

Give the Adepticon champ an Adepta Sororitas army and make him fight a midling player with Ynnari/Dark Reapers. He's gonna get wrecked.

So let's disregard that a pure Sisters list is A) a fairly good list even by codex standards and that B) a pure sisters list hurts reaper spam due to access to strong indirect fire and move on to the core issue which is your overall lack of understanding of what is and isn't competitive. How can you judge the impact of player skill vs. list when you don't understand either? You've instead spouted a buzzword and then selected an army you presumably think is bad to illustrate a point. To talk to the point, Matt Root took a War Convocation to the 2017 LVO and made the top 8 with it despite at that point it being non viable against the top of the meta (and went on to win the overall ITC as a result).

I apologize for being rude but ultimately I don't see how your opinion is worthwhile given a lack of understanding of what is actually driving success in those environments. Part of the nature of these events and why they shift the meta is that the best players are making lists that take the most advantage of the tournaments individual rule sets. Its relatively provable (by looking at the final standings of Adepticon) that 'top tier netlists' don't raise poor players up to the top of the event.

No of course, I know nothing of what I speak. I only analyze every major tournament's top 10 and track their progress and pairings through BCP. I, of course, can't recognize or see patterns even though I've done this for all of 8th's existence.

A Sisters Army is absolutely terrible against Ynnari on a structural level. I have no idea where you're pulling that from. It'll be blown to bits before it gets halfway across the board and has little ways to deal with things like Crimson Hunters. I picked this example for a reason.

Success in these environments is determined first and foremost by faction selection and list optimization, which is usually determined by the internet gestalt hive mind long before the event itself. Skill comes in a fairly distant third. Now, if you have two players playing optimized factions and lists, skill becomes MUCH more important, but you still have to clear that first hurdle.

You're partially swinging at strawmen because you seem to interpret everyone in this thread as saying "ALL that matters is faction and list" but that's not what they're saying so these arguments can be discounted.

And the War Convocation was actually pretty good in 7th. I have no idea why you'd think it was some terrible or non-viable list. The top factions by that point were Renegades/Heretics, Chaos and Eldar. The War Convocation has plenty of tools to earn some points against them while crushing other factions and thus securing a nice total battle point score.

Audustum wrote:

No of course, I know nothing of what I speak. I only analyze every major tournament's top 10 and track their progress and pairings through BCP. I, of course, can't recognize or see patterns even though I've done this for all of 8th's existence.

So lets see the analysis. If that's something you're doing then of course you'd be willing to share?

Audustum wrote:

You're partially swinging at strawmen because you seem to interpret everyone in this thread as saying "ALL that matters is faction and list" but that's not what they're saying so these arguments can be discounted.

Or in this actual thread it was stated

40k doesn't require skill at all, it requires you get first turn and have some common sense with target priority. In a game so ruled by random dice skill is meaningless for the most part.

So I don't think that's unfair for me to address.

Audustum wrote:

And the War Convocation was actually pretty good in 7th. I have no idea why you'd think it was some terrible or non-viable list. The top factions by that point were Renegades/Heretics, Chaos and Eldar. The War Convocation has plenty of tools to earn some points against them while crushing other factions and thus securing a nice total battle point score.

WarCon was very solid in mid 7th but towards the tail end? It didn't have the ability to keep up with the power lists (which by the way includes Dark Angels/Space Wolves). Matt Root's play with his WarCon was (and you'll know this assuming you've analyzed the data) so good that you effectively had to discount his play because of how hard he skewed data when evaluating the mean play of Adeptus Mechanicus players.


Redacted my sisters argument, I incorrectly thought Exorcists had indirect fire.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:


If you're playing the best lists against each other, then player skill factors in more because the list consideration is equalized. Remove that equalization and the list dominates skill.

Those players spend a lot of time and effort making new lists, switching armies, and perfecting a force before it ever touches the table, and in doing so minimize their decisonmaking tree as well. The bulk of the skill is in the listbuilding. Nobody is winning a GT running an all Grot army or pure index Necrons on tactical tabletop command ability regardless of who is running it, especially not as anything more than a one off fluke. Nobody is going to win a GT running flamer equipped Stormtroopers backed up by Vanquishers and Deathstrikes.

The people who win these events arent just good players, they're bringing lists theyve put a great deal of effort into optimizing ahead of time.

Again, theres a reason factions with decent representation and ostensibly at least one capable general routinely fail to make it anywhere near the top tables.

That's all well and fine but it is absolutely farcical to suggest that player skill does not matter in 40k. List building matters, that is certain but player skill is still a massive element of success (disregarding that list building is player skill in 40k). Ultimately I don't debate that playing a good list is part of being a good player, I do debate the idea that somehow it is list and list only that determines how well you'll do at an event.

I never claimed that the list alone will determine how you do, nor that player skill was irrelevant. Player skill at tactical tabletop command is not irrelevant, but rather secondary. Your list will put a ceiling on your performance, and that ceiling is strong. If you dont have the tools, you cant apply the skill, or if the math is so overwhelmingly one sided, skill becomes rapidly overmatched. A top tier list played ignorantly can still lose, but a bottom tier list will almost never win. There is a reason we track army performance, not generally player performance. Theres usually good commanders playing every army, but only a few armies placing in the top tiers, and the top players often are those that frequently switch between factions as the meta changes.

TL;DR tabletop command skill isnt unimportant, but it is very much secondary to list construction assuming a minimal level of player competence on both sides (like not forgetting to move and shoot with the critical unit).

So staying out of the debate for now, but it's worth mentioning that Exorcists don't have indirect fire; they're direct-fire only.

I could be misinterpreting the discussion but I thought I'd throw that out there.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So staying out of the debate for now, but it's worth mentioning that Exorcists don't have indirect fire; they're direct-fire only.

I could be misinterpreting the discussion but I thought I'd throw that out there.

Well me running. I've had those things misplayed for ages, I guess just a hang up from previous editions.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So staying out of the debate for now, but it's worth mentioning that Exorcists don't have indirect fire; they're direct-fire only.

I could be misinterpreting the discussion but I thought I'd throw that out there.

Well me running. I've had those things misplayed for ages, I guess just a hang up from previous editions.

I'm not sure they ever had it. I've been playing Sororitas since 3rd, and I'm fairly certain the only place they had anything resembling indirect fire was the Dawn of War games.

I disagree that if you gave a top player sisters, that they lose to a middling player net listing an eldar army. I think a sisters list could be built to play to the missions and have a shot against someone that doesn't understand the intricacies of the top ynnari builds. There is a lot of careful movement involved in the wins by those players how else do you explain which players make it to the top using those lists and all those that don't.

I mean how do you explain sisters being 10th(and 35th 1 loss, 63rd 2 losses) at LVO with 1 loss middling ynnari players losing 2 and 3 times down in 150th place or lower? You are telling me that top players cannot do this? They won't beat other top players with stronger lists, but they will beat most people regardless of list.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So staying out of the debate for now, but it's worth mentioning that Exorcists don't have indirect fire; they're direct-fire only.

I could be misinterpreting the discussion but I thought I'd throw that out there.

Well me running. I've had those things misplayed for ages, I guess just a hang up from previous editions.

I'm not sure they ever had it. I've been playing Sororitas since 3rd, and I'm fairly certain the only place they had anything resembling indirect fire was the Dawn of War games.

At some point they had it. I couldn't tell you when as I don't play them but I feel close to 100% at some point the pipe organ could fire out of LoS (the thing is effectively a mortar anyway).

There is also the skill of understanding every opposing list as well. Sometimes, that's more important than your actual list.

Martel732 wrote:
There is also the skill of understanding every opposing list as well. Sometimes, that's more important than your actual list.

True - knowledge of what every unit in the game does is probably about 50% of what actual skill in this game relates to.

I don't want to put a percentage on it, but it heavily dictates my movement phases.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So staying out of the debate for now, but it's worth mentioning that Exorcists don't have indirect fire; they're direct-fire only.

I could be misinterpreting the discussion but I thought I'd throw that out there.

Well me running. I've had those things misplayed for ages, I guess just a hang up from previous editions.

I'm not sure they ever had it. I've been playing Sororitas since 3rd, and I'm fairly certain the only place they had anything resembling indirect fire was the Dawn of War games.

At some point they had it. I couldn't tell you when as I don't play them but I feel close to 100% at some point the pipe organ could fire out of LoS (the thing is effectively a mortar anyway).

In 7th if the hull of the exorcist (rhino) was totally obscured but the pipes were sticking up and over the cover then the exorcist could draw line of sight from the pipes at the enemy but the enemy couldn't target the tank back. That's as close to indirect as I know.

hobojebus wrote:
40k doesn't require skill at all, it requires you get first turn and have some common sense with target priority.

In a game so ruled by random dice skill is meaningless for the most part.

I eagerly await your next tournament win, since it's so easy.

I mean the alternative would be that you're a know-nothing do-nothing and surely that can't be true?

They would just win their games vs. Mid tier tournament players.

No! I have it! Have every tournament winner play an avarage Ork list vs their winning list! And I'm not talking boyz hordes. I'm talking friendly game Ork list... so like 60-90 boyz with trukks and killa kanz and a Naut (or even a Stompa if we feel evil).

Also their list will be played by an amateur who hardly plays the game or something.

They'd not reach the final places, though it wouldn't be as bad as some previous editions.

And they'd probably beat the odds in some games. Top tournament lists are written to deal with other perceived top tournament lists - you can spend a lot of points on protecting against deepstrike, or psykers, and so on and then have them wasted against and army that brings none of it.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
B) a pure sisters list hurts reaper spam due to access to strong indirect fire

Sisters don't have any indirect fire at all ...

Edit - ah, from seeing your comment I know what you mean.
They've never had indirect fire but LoS in past editions was from the ends of the barrels, so people would park them behind things for cover and poke the guns over the top.

They are fairly bad in 8th edition - the firepower of a razorback, albeit at strength 8 rather than 9. Sister heavy support is pretty much down to heavy bolters.

This is a totally hypothetical discussion. The players who win major events always use spam and design army lists to take advantage of any perceived loop holes regarding rules. If these said players ever tried to play a purely tactical army I think they would get their arses handed to them and of course publically speaking they deny spamming and breaking rules.

 Earth127 wrote:
Give players like that a basic list and they would probably make it work better than you would. Skill matters.

You're right to an extent, but there are some things player skill just can't compensate for.

The best example I can think of is Matt Root's AdMech in 7th. He took a faction with huge glaring holes in its toolset and placed really well with them at big events - people at the time said it was because War Convocation was cheesy, but he was the only player who managed to get any real results out of it so it can't have been all that OP. On the other hand, reading the post-action interviews he did, the man himself admitted there were games he just couldn't win no matter what he did because his army simply didn't have the tools he needed in order to pull it off.

tl;dr - Good players can squeeze results out of gakky armies when the tools are there, even in adverse match-ups, but there are some things even player skill can't work around.

 BBAP wrote:
...people at the time said it was because War Convocation was cheesy, but he was the only player who managed to get any real results out of it so it can't have been all that OP. On the other hand, reading the post-action interviews he did, the man himself admitted there were games he just couldn't win no matter what he did because his army simply didn't have the tools he needed in order to pull it off.

You got a truly staggering amount of freebies with the convocation (and he was running the double-cheese mix with allied pods). But it lacked the tools to deal with the extra-strong cheese like invisible deathstars.

Give him a regular 'low tier' non-conclave list and he'd have gotten nowhere. The gap was much bigger in 7th than 8th though.

I think they'll occupy the 20-40 places out of a 100 man tourney just above the regular players with ok lists and below regular players with killer lists.

With the new ITC rules and multiple ways to score, your ability to win games is way more skill based than in the past with eternal war, where you saw the obsec jetbike hop coming but could do nothing about it.

I have beat players scoring virtually 0 kill objectives outside of the "1 per turn" thing.

People arguing there's no skill involved in 40k have a narrow view of it.

To quote Bum Phillips, "he could take his'n and beat ur'n, and take ur'n and beat his'n."

ATC - Ravenspam
NOVA - Smitespam
LVO - Reaperspam
Adepticon - Flyrantspam

 Marmatag wrote:
With the new ITC rules and multiple ways to score, your ability to win games is way more skill based than in the past with eternal war, where you saw the obsec jetbike hop coming but could do nothing about it.

I have beat players scoring virtually 0 kill objectives outside of the "1 per turn" thing.

People arguing there's no skill involved in 40k have a narrow view of it.

To quote Bum Phillips, "he could take his'n and beat ur'n, and take ur'n and beat his'n."

Accusations soon to follow of 'you play bad opponents, where I'm from only the spam wins!'

 Corrode wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
40k doesn't require skill at all, it requires you get first turn and have some common sense with target priority.

In a game so ruled by random dice skill is meaningless for the most part.

I eagerly await your next tournament win, since it's so easy.

I mean the alternative would be that you're a know-nothing do-nothing and surely that can't be true?

You get that throwing ad homs around invalidates any point you think your making right?

hobojebus wrote:

 Corrode wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
40k doesn't require skill at all, it requires you get first turn and have some common sense with target priority.

In a game so ruled by random dice skill is meaningless for the most part.

I eagerly await your next tournament win, since it's so easy.

I mean the alternative would be that you're a know-nothing do-nothing and surely that can't be true?

You get that throwing ad homs around invalidates any point you think your making right?

You get that being flat out wrong invalidates any point you think your making right?

Let's keep it civil, folks.