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 infinite_array wrote:
How about a 40k tournament where you build the worst list possible, and then swap armies with your opponent?

Now THIS is beer & pretzels!

A.T. wrote:

 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.

You got the AdMech wargear free, which expanded their toolbox a wee bit and made them a little better at stuff they could already do, like shooting and mobility. It made the faction slightly more useable but it wasn't a Gladius. It certainly wasn't powerful enough to boost shoddy players to a placing.

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.

Yeah, because non-Conclave AdMech were awful and not even a good player could've made them work in a for-keeps setting, which is what I was saying before.

 Primark G wrote:
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.

I take from this you’be never actually played these top players. You couldn’t be more wrong having seen these players play other games and win. Or play non-spam lists and perform well.

Breng77 wrote:

 Primark G wrote:
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.

I take from this you’be never actually played these top players. You couldn’t be more wrong having seen these players play other games and win. Or play non-spam lists and perform well.

I'm gonna go ahead and take it a step farther in response to Primark G and say that that is some hard core BS. Firstly, the idea of a 'purely tactical army' is hilarious because it has no definition. If someone presents a list that isn't spam or rules gimmicks that brandon grant or aaron aelong or Andrew Gonyo won with, he's left himself the perfect little way out because no matter what it is he can always claim it isn't a 'purely tactical' army. You've also left out the part where list construction is an incredibly important part of winning and people who don't understand WHY the list is built the way it is take """super op netlists""" and finish bottom of the barrel all the time because of it.

The second half of the comment is pure projection. 'Oh it's the rules fault that I don't win and place high in tournaments. If it wasn't for spam and cheese I'd place high in tournaments instead of these guys!' Which is extra ridiculous because half the field at these tournaments are using the exact same rules """loopholes""" and "spam" as the top players are.

The truth of the matter is that these players are consistently placing high at huge events, in heavily varied metas, across multiple additions, with multiple different armies, in multiple different formats(there's more difference between adepticon and itc formats than their is between most fantasy flight's games), against the best players in the world also playing the best armies they can possibly muster. They're average skill level is higher than mine and certainly higher than yours. Now you or I may get a couple of favorable draws, a couple good die rolls, a couple strong matchups and place higher than the big name guys. You might even beat them! I know several big name players that finished basically nowhere at adepticon. But if they play ten major tournaments in a year, in 8 they'll get top 32 rankings and that's not something you or I could hope to claim.

Why we all yelling about theoretical crap? Let's campaign for them to do this and see tge results then we can yell at each other over the results! Don't just sit at you desks! Do something!

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

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?

Sure, but you may not like what I actually keep around. All I keep track of is whether new lists are appearing (that is, ones not predicted by the internet gestalt hive mind) and how high they seem to be going. As a side effect of that, I've noticed the 'top' players are consistently the ones with the least amount of deviation from what the IGHM says are good.

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.

It's unfair to address it when you're targeting that address towards literally everyone else in the thread on the opposing side as you who did NOT say that (well until Primark G posted, now there's two along similar lines, but at the time of your post there was just one).

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.

It had enough to earn a placing, sure. The top lists, at the tail end, were Renegades, Eldar and Chaos. In objective based ITC stuff the WarCon could survive and score battlepoints. Yeah sure. Now find a major player who did that with 7th edition Dark Eldar and then we can talk.

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?

It's not a school debate club. You're clueless about the subject and it's painfully obvious to everyone. Calling that out doesn't 'invalidate' anything.

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 think you get to throw the fallacy card around when you've just presented a baseless supposition?

He asking you to offer evidence to support your point. Since winning a major tournament is just about luck you should be able to point out some people who won a GT the first time they attended a tournament, right?

 Scott-S6 wrote:

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 think you get to throw the fallacy card around when you've just presented a baseless supposition?

He asking you to offer evidence to support your point. Since winning a major tournament is just about luck you should be able to point out some people who won a GT the first time they attended a tournament, right?

Good movement, good lists, etc etc increases your odds of winning. Yes luck can swing one way or another, but good players increase their odds every time they make a good choice. A unit of fire warriors can melee terminators to death with amazing rolls in their favor. Doesn't make it a good idea. If he wants evidence how being a good player can help, you can point out how good choices make you less reliant on sheer luck. Sometimes the choices are less obvious and that is where the great players separate from good players. Also as someone from the debate community who frequently placed well, it is the same there too. Pointing out fallacies is usually just childish and most people run strategies that more people are likely to understand and agree with. You reduce your odds of failure while maximizing your odds of success.

You understand that if it's about luck I could also prove my point by coming dead last because all I had was bad luck.

I could also prove it with a median result because I had average luck.

You guys are taking this very personal for no good reason, my comment wasn't aimed at anything but the poor quality of the game, random takes away from skill.

Ask yourselves is it really worth getting so het up over a game using toy soldiers?

Random takes a little away from skill but not so much so as to be relevant in this discussion. Otherwise why do the same people always finish near the top in these big events? Are they lucky all the time?

If luck were significant you wouldn’t see the same people rising to the top, you would see more variety.

There is luck involved in winning the whole thing (avoiding other top players in early rounds, avoiding bad matchup etc), but in consistently placing high no such luck exists.

hobojebus wrote:
You understand that if it's about luck I could also prove my point by coming dead last because all I had was bad luck.

I could also prove it with a median result because I had average luck.

You guys are taking this very personal for no good reason, my comment wasn't aimed at anything but the poor quality of the game, random takes away from skill.

Ask yourselves is it really worth getting so het up over a game using toy soldiers?

you mad bro???

Very good.

Breng77 wrote:
Random takes a little away from skill but not so much so as to be relevant in this discussion. Otherwise why do the same people always finish near the top in these big events? Are they lucky all the time?

If luck were significant you wouldn’t see the same people rising to the top, you would see more variety.

There is luck involved in winning the whole thing (avoiding other top players in early rounds, avoiding bad matchup etc), but in consistently placing high no such luck exists.

As has already been said list building is what makes the difference, some people see the matrix more clearly than others it happens in other games too.

Hell during 4th wave of x-wing I designed a two defender list everyone said would fail because they were heavily overpriced, my friend did a little tinkering with it and won tournaments, our brains are not all identical some see connections others do not.

If I take a worse list in 40k I've got next to no chance of winning no matter how masterfully I play, I do the same in x-wing my personal skill in flying could still see me come out victorious after a hard fight.

There's no skill in picking targets that's just common sense, the game does not support sweeping movements that let you outflank without warning, the removal of facings on vehicles means you have no reason to outmaneuver them etc.

You write a list with the best possible combination on complementary rules and units then hope the dice don't defy probability.

40k isn't go or chess, it's not even checkers.

Too much of the game revolves around rolling dice, it was the same in 6th and 7th random does not make for a deep tactical game.

Audustum wrote:
It had enough to earn a placing, sure. The top lists, at the tail end, were Renegades, Eldar and Chaos. In objective based ITC stuff the WarCon could survive and score battlepoints. Yeah sure. Now find a major player who did that with 7th edition Dark Eldar and then we can talk.

Lawrence Baker who won multiple No Retreats with Dark Eldar.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

hobojebus wrote:
Too much of the game revolves around rolling dice, it was the same in 6th and 7th random does not make for a deep tactical game.

This should be fairly easy to prove though right? If this were the case then you'd see effectively a lottery of people winning major tournaments, but you don't. Clearly skill plays some role in it. And the reason people are blasting you is you were literally wrong. You stated that skill plays no role, the only thing that matters is going first which is flat out incorrect.

I think that people winning tournaments repeatedly or placing high does show that they have a high degree of skill at whatever skill is required for winning that tournament.

In 40k, I strongly feel that that the skill is being good at discrete mathematics, being able to reinforce your odds by manipulating and maximizing probability through discrete mathematics (list building) and then understanding basic target priority.

This does not prove nor disprove these peoples' capabilities as a tactician at the game overall, and I think a lot of people bleed their desire for 40k to be a tactical actual semblance of a real battle and then bleed that over into postulating that the tournament winners wouldn't be good at that environment.

The fact is that we don't have enough data to know if those people are good at playing a game that resembles an actual battle instead of hedging their bets on discrete mathematics represented by how heavy the list building phase is, we just know that they are definitely good at hedging probability and target priority.

The only real way to gauge someone's actual ability at gameplay where listbuilding doesn't factor in is to hold a large scale tournament where everyone plays the same army.

Which will never happen.

There are some people today that would do just as well, and there are just as many people that place high in tournaments today that would fall apart (as I have witnessed many times) because it would be a different game altogether if listbuilding wasn't a factor.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Audustum wrote:
It had enough to earn a placing, sure. The top lists, at the tail end, were Renegades, Eldar and Chaos. In objective based ITC stuff the WarCon could survive and score battlepoints. Yeah sure. Now find a major player who did that with 7th edition Dark Eldar and then we can talk.

Lawrence Baker who won multiple No Retreats with Dark Eldar.

We're talking about major tournaments. No Retreat is more like an art tournament that also happens to use ITC. It also had kind of abnormal rules that don't make it good for analysis, such as requiring all armies to first field a CAD, being at 1,750, two detachment limit, no allied detachments, all units from a single Codex (no Taudar) and no more than 400 or so on LoW, which when combined limit the ability to fill out some of the more crazy formations that were important in 7th.

This is basically like pulling a FLGS tournament and saying it's results are conclusive.

Ah yes the "no true Scotsman tournament" fallacy argument.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Ah yes the "no true Scotsman tournament" fallacy argument.

While that is a fallacy, it doesn't actually prevent criticism of any sort of a cited reference. Specifically, the no true Scotsman fallacy requires that you do NOT deny the counter-example but instead change the definition of your generalization.

I did the opposite. I maintained the definition of my generalization and denied the counter-example with reference to a specific objective rule (pointing out how heavily house ruled the tournament (with rules that limit meta builds) was and it's lack of emphasis on competition by focusing on art). Thus, this is not an appropriate application of the fallacy.

Let me give an example
Spot the difference:

No Scotsman drinks black coffee.
But Angus drinks black coffee.
Ah but no true Scotsman does.

Vs.

No Scotsman drinks black coffee.
But Angus drinks black coffee.
Angus only moved to Scotland yesterday.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:
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

So now that the indirect fire issue has been cleared out, I want to know, do you still believe that a pure sisters list hurt reaper spam, and could face eldars with good chances of success?
Just checking.

Audustum wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Ah yes the "no true Scotsman tournament" fallacy argument.

While that is a fallacy, it doesn't actually prevent criticism of any sort of a cited reference. Specifically, the no true Scotsman fallacy requires that you do NOT deny the counter-example but instead change the definition of your generalization.

I did the opposite. I maintained the definition of my generalization and denied the counter-example with reference to a specific objective rule (pointing out how heavily house ruled the tournament (with rules that limit meta builds) was and it's lack of emphasis on competition by focusing on art). Thus, this is not an appropriate application of the fallacy.

Let me give an example
Spot the difference:

No Scotsman drinks black coffee.
But Angus drinks black coffee.
Ah but no true Scotsman does.

Vs.

No Scotsman drinks black coffee.
But Angus drinks black coffee.
Angus only moved to Scotland yesterday.

You might have a point if not for the fact that every major tournament in 7th used different rules. NOVA was different than ITC, was different from adepticon.

Breng77 wrote:

You might have a point if not for the fact that every major tournament in 7th used different rules. NOVA was different than ITC, was different from adepticon.

Are you postulating that every tournament which has house rules (which is all of them since they have, at minimum, a time limit) is essentially identical? You can't acknowledge that some are significantly more divergent from both the core rules and the typical tournament house rules than others?

I’m postulating that each has their own meta and you can easily say that 7th ed ITC was as far from the book as anything else might be.

Audustum wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Audustum wrote:
It had enough to earn a placing, sure. The top lists, at the tail end, were Renegades, Eldar and Chaos. In objective based ITC stuff the WarCon could survive and score battlepoints. Yeah sure. Now find a major player who did that with 7th edition Dark Eldar and then we can talk.

Lawrence Baker who won multiple No Retreats with Dark Eldar.

We're talking about major tournaments. No Retreat is more like an art tournament that also happens to use ITC. It also had kind of abnormal rules that don't make it good for analysis, such as requiring all armies to first field a CAD, being at 1,750, two detachment limit, no allied detachments, all units from a single Codex (no Taudar) and no more than 400 or so on LoW, which when combined limit the ability to fill out some of the more crazy formations that were important in 7th.

This is basically like pulling a FLGS tournament and saying it's results are conclusive.

Ahh so you've shifted the goal posts. Very well, argument over.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Audustum wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Audustum wrote:
It had enough to earn a placing, sure. The top lists, at the tail end, were Renegades, Eldar and Chaos. In objective based ITC stuff the WarCon could survive and score battlepoints. Yeah sure. Now find a major player who did that with 7th edition Dark Eldar and then we can talk.

Lawrence Baker who won multiple No Retreats with Dark Eldar.

We're talking about major tournaments. No Retreat is more like an art tournament that also happens to use ITC. It also had kind of abnormal rules that don't make it good for analysis, such as requiring all armies to first field a CAD, being at 1,750, two detachment limit, no allied detachments, all units from a single Codex (no Taudar) and no more than 400 or so on LoW, which when combined limit the ability to fill out some of the more crazy formations that were important in 7th.

This is basically like pulling a FLGS tournament and saying it's results are conclusive.

Ahh so you've shifted the goal posts. Very well, argument over.

Perhaps you misunderstood, but major tournaments have been the focus since pg. 1. I'm not sure the rest of us can be responsible it you can't keep up.

Audustum wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Audustum wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Audustum wrote:
It had enough to earn a placing, sure. The top lists, at the tail end, were Renegades, Eldar and Chaos. In objective based ITC stuff the WarCon could survive and score battlepoints. Yeah sure. Now find a major player who did that with 7th edition Dark Eldar and then we can talk.

Lawrence Baker who won multiple No Retreats with Dark Eldar.

We're talking about major tournaments. No Retreat is more like an art tournament that also happens to use ITC. It also had kind of abnormal rules that don't make it good for analysis, such as requiring all armies to first field a CAD, being at 1,750, two detachment limit, no allied detachments, all units from a single Codex (no Taudar) and no more than 400 or so on LoW, which when combined limit the ability to fill out some of the more crazy formations that were important in 7th.

This is basically like pulling a FLGS tournament and saying it's results are conclusive.

Ahh so you've shifted the goal posts. Very well, argument over.

Perhaps you misunderstood, but major tournaments have been the focus since pg. 1. I'm not sure the rest of us can be responsible it you can't keep up.

Yeah what you asked for was a Dark Eldar player who did well in ITC events during 7th. I provided that, you then eliminated that result since it didn't fit your criteria. Perhaps you should have asked a better or more specific question? You'd think for someone as interested in the nuance of language as yourself (per your participating in the YMDC Blood Angels thread) you'd understand the value of specificity. It isn't my fault you lack clarity in your communication.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Audustum wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Audustum wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

Audustum wrote:
It had enough to earn a placing, sure. The top lists, at the tail end, were Renegades, Eldar and Chaos. In objective based ITC stuff the WarCon could survive and score battlepoints. Yeah sure. Now find a major player who did that with 7th edition Dark Eldar and then we can talk.

Lawrence Baker who won multiple No Retreats with Dark Eldar.

We're talking about major tournaments. No Retreat is more like an art tournament that also happens to use ITC. It also had kind of abnormal rules that don't make it good for analysis, such as requiring all armies to first field a CAD, being at 1,750, two detachment limit, no allied detachments, all units from a single Codex (no Taudar) and no more than 400 or so on LoW, which when combined limit the ability to fill out some of the more crazy formations that were important in 7th.

This is basically like pulling a FLGS tournament and saying it's results are conclusive.

Ahh so you've shifted the goal posts. Very well, argument over.

Perhaps you misunderstood, but major tournaments have been the focus since pg. 1. I'm not sure the rest of us can be responsible it you can't keep up.

Yeah what you asked for was a Dark Eldar player who did well in ITC events during 7th. I provided that, you then eliminated that result since it didn't fit your criteria. Perhaps you should have asked a better or more specific question? You'd think for someone as interested in the nuance of language as yourself (per your participating in the YMDC Blood Angels thread) you'd understand the value of specificity. It isn't my fault you lack clarity in your communication.

Really now, where did I ask for well placement in any ITC event in 7th? You might want to re-read my post before you climb up a soapbox.

The question specifically asked for a major player (of which this fellow also doesn't seem to qualify but that aside) who replicated a feat similar to the WarCon. No Retreat was far too household to specifically be anti-meta to qualify as a similar feat.

Audustum wrote:
[ Really now, where did I ask for well placement in any ITC event in 7th? You might want to re-read my post before you climb up a soapbox.

The question specifically asked for a major player (of which this fellow also doesn't seem to qualify but that aside) who replicated a feat similar to the WarCon. No Retreat was far too household to specifically be anti-meta to qualify as a similar feat.

You specifically said "Now find a major player who did that with 7th edition Dark Eldar and then we can talk" - I provided you with a Dark Eldar placed well in more than one ITC event. Lawrence is a fairly well known player - he also won the GW GT Heat 1 in 2017 and almost made top 8 at 2017's LVO. You discarded the point because No Retreat doesn't count because it doesn't meet the criteria you established. That's fine, however since you didn't lay out that criteria ahead of time I have no interest in having a conversation with you - there is nothing to be gained other than being talked down to which I don't really enjoy. You have your opinion - it is firmly held, I don't intend to attempt any further to challenge that because the outcome if I engage is the same if I don't.

Dark Eldar are quite functional for an index army. It helps that raiders are poor targets for lascannons and other low RoF weapons.

Martel732 wrote:
Dark Eldar are quite functional for an index army. It helps that raiders are poor targets for lascannons and other low RoF weapons.

Lawrence won Heat 1 with Guilliman + Backs (prior to the CA nerfs) so he wasn't running DE for that event. I just bring it up because he is a player with solid placings in several events.

 infinite_array wrote:
How about a 40k tournament where you build the worst list possible, and then swap armies with your opponent?

Dude i would love this.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Dark Eldar are quite functional for an index army. It helps that raiders are poor targets for lascannons and other low RoF weapons.

DE get duked on by Sisters, Orks, and pre-codex Tau. What other index armies are there that they could possibly be considered functional by relative comparison? Space Wolves? Necrons, for sure, but they're getting a codex..