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Those who say it is all down to luck are so silly. Look at poker. Why are the same faces around the final tables year after year. Luck? Same with 40k.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
This forum desperately, desperately, heartachingly needs an eye-roll emote.

 Hollow wrote:
Those who say it is all down to luck are so silly. Look at poker. Why are the same faces around the final tables year after year. Luck? Same with 40k.

Poker is actually a skill game though - reading peoples minds is not easy but they can do it. That and control of their own body language and experience makes them more likely to win hands. Then again - its really rare for a poker player to win consecutive events. Because in the end - it all comes down to luck and every single one of them will tell you that.

DELETED

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
There are no words for the amount of human stupidity in this thread...

...there's laughter though...

I'm not taking offense to that because my argument is grounded in statistical probability - which isn't actually stupid. I lose games all the time because my dice fail me - like roll unbelievably bad. This doesn't happen to these guys? It's pretty obvious they are cheating. I've also been practically tabled without having a go before (you can't win that game ether) these aren't really uncommon things. It's just the nature of probability.

Blaming the dice is a sign of a bad player. Sorry but it is true. It means you put yourself into a position where rolling bad lost you the game. You may not recognize that when it happens but 90% of the time that is the truth. I played a game recently where my opponent rolled hot and I lost, but I lost because I over extended my forces early game in a bad play, and then his dice didn't let me back into the game. Not because I played perfectly and he was just lucky.

Newsflash there is no statistical law that says 1/5 games you will have bad dice. Your math isn't even correct. Statistically over a large sample of games your dice should be statistically average, that could mean they are average all the time.

Breng77 wrote:

Audustum wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

Audustum wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
NOVA and ITC were actually very far apart as NOVA was not using the ITC rules changes for things like invisibility. Actual changes in the game rules. So certainly LVO isn’t valid because it is was skewed representation of the actual game rules.

What is this? You're jumping into a conversation I was specifically having with Farseer and it doesn't seem like you actually bothered to read any of it before jumping in. He and I were specifically discussing a WarConvo list that placed well in LVO. THAT'S why we're looking at LVO and things like it.

At some point events need to be considered based on number of top players and just players at an event and not the list building structure.

Which is nice as a general idea and all, but again, you jumped into a specific conversation discussing a specific thing. Please read it.

I’m certainly not saying all events are equal but if 7th ed DE were so bad how did someone win regardless of list building changes?

Probably due to the rules of the local tournament and how wildly divergent they were compared to our main tournaments, which is exactly what I attacked it for when Farseer used it as an example. Again, specific thing bring discussed here.

As to top players running only what the IGHM says is good I’d like to refer you to Sean Nayden and his lists over the last 3 editions. He has either not played the “net list” of the day, or he created said list long before it was the net list of the day.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Arguably, it it was using ITC rules/missions No retreat is closer to LVO than NOVA was.

I'm sorry, but this is just wrong. ITC applied some attempts at balancing, which was different, but otherwise they weren't all that different. I listed the huge deviances No Retreat had previously in this thread which are quite substantial, you're welcome to do the same if you really want to discuss it. I'd note, however, that even today NOVA's primer (or a draft of it) referenced the long history of the two in influencing each other.

SO they were very different in that one used rules and missions that the other did not, but you know other than being different they were not different? Seriously? I mean there were plenty of years where ITC events allowed FW and NOVA did not. The events were not all that similar when you look at winning lists etc because the rules were so different. So how can you say, there was minimal difference?

Way to wrongly paraphrase while also dodging the question. "Plenty of years" is off the mark because we were specifically discussing the tail end of 7th and the WarConvo. The topic was to find an off-meta list that did something similar to that feat. .

At thatt time, the differences between NOVA and ITC were fairly small when it came to what we were discussing: placing well with an off-meta list in a meta environment.

As I said in the previous post, if you want to outline the specific differences between the two at that time and why you think that makes No Retreat closer to something like LVO than NOVA, I'm all for it. I already outlined the No Retreat differences.

Not really wrongly paraphasing you when you say LVO, changed rules for balance, but other than changing those rules there was minimal difference.

NOVA DID have some balance changes like 2+ re-rolling being adjusted, just far less than LVO. The ones LVO had we're not significant in my opinion. You want to outline the differences and why that's wrong; let's do it, but you can't speak in generalities forever.

One piece of evidence I'll add to what I've said already is that both tournaments also has the same type of lists placing high for the time period. Renegades, Chaos and Taudar.

If right now I changed the rules because I think Hive Tyrants are too strong and say, hive tyrants are Now T7 with a 4+ save, but change nothing else, I'm sure that isn't a big difference to what is good right?

Except that you'd be eliminating one type of list that is highly dominant and powerful from consideration. So we couldn't, for example, compare your results to Adepticon. It's very much a totality of the circumstances test.

I Tried to find their packets to innumerate the differences but was unable to find packets from 2 years ago. Largely they would have been one using the ITC FAQ and the other not and that the missions (which are meta defining) were significantly different.

Having reviewed and played tournaments in this peiod I wouldn't say their missions were different to any great extreme. They both also had FAQ's that bring them into close enough harmony that there is less daylight between them than No Retreat and either.

Which meant one had 2++ re-rollable save, and invisiblity, and the other did not. That is a pretty large meta difference in what armies did well, Deathstars were much better at NOVA than LVO at that time.

Negative. NOVA had FAQ's covering these at this time and invisible deathstars (at least as most people would imagine a deathstars, like the Space Marine version) were not super dominant. Now invisible Wraithknight still hurt but that was true everywhere.

Further if we are talking about top players and "off meta lists" there have been plenty over the years you are the one that wants to zero in on a specific space of time.

Because Farseer started a conversation about the tail end of 7th, specifically. This is what I meant by barrelling in but without seeming to have read the branch you're joining in on.

I mean what exactly is your criteria for an off meta list. An Eldar/DE list placed second at the wet coast GT in 7th (more Dark Eldar). Harlequins won the March Madness GT in 2016. Khorne Daemonkin list with 6 Soul Grinders was 10th in NOVA in 2016.

Well, actually, Farseer and I we're specifically discussing a Dark Eldar list doing as good as a specific WarConvo list did in a specific time and a specific way in 7th. See barrelling in.

See also below.

I'm not going to pretend that a ton of such lists exist, but if you went through all the 1 loss players at most major events in any year you will find any number of different lists that are not the "current internet wisdom".

And I would say if you pick any year and we compare it to the IHMG at that time, the lists that adhere to it do correspondingly better with few outliers. I like the outliers though. They're what I hunt for specifically.

It is easier to win with the best tools, which is why the best players use them. But if they were forced to use other tools (as long as they have some list building autonomy) I guarantee they would still do well.

To open it back up to a general discussion: define "well".

I can't prove any of this ofc - so you guys can keep on believing that these guys are super genius tacticians in a game where tactics hardly even present themselves outside of list construction.

 Xenomancers wrote:
I can't prove any of this ofc - so you guys can keep on believing that these guys are super genius tacticians in a game where tactics hardly even present themselves outside of list construction.

<3

You can prove it if you seriously go aggregate all winning and losing tournament lists since 8th started, but that requires an amount of effort that really might not be worth the reward.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
There are no words for the amount of human stupidity in this thread...

...there's laughter though...

I'm not taking offense to that because my argument is grounded in statistical probability - which isn't actually stupid. I lose games all the time because my dice fail me - like roll unbelievably bad. This doesn't happen to these guys? It's pretty obvious they are cheating. I've also been practically tabled without having a go before (you can't win that game ether) these aren't really uncommon things. It's just the nature of probability.

No they don't lose games because they roll poorly. They're better than you and make sure to mitigate those concerns.

Right - because if you try really hard - you'll start rolling better? Right? The point is - IT IS OUT OF YOUR CONTROL. So stats like 96% win rate are HIGHLY suspect. You aren't suspicious? Are you by any chance a Lance Armstrong fan?

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
There are no words for the amount of human stupidity in this thread...

...there's laughter though...

I'm not taking offense to that because my argument is grounded in statistical probability - which isn't actually stupid. I lose games all the time because my dice fail me - like roll unbelievably bad. This doesn't happen to these guys? It's pretty obvious they are cheating. I've also been practically tabled without having a go before (you can't win that game ether) these aren't really uncommon things. It's just the nature of probability.

No they don't lose games because they roll poorly. They're better than you and make sure to mitigate those concerns.

Right - because if you try really hard - you'll start rolling better? Right? The point is - IT IS OUT OF YOUR CONTROL. So stats like 96% win rate are HIGHLY suspect. You aren't suspicious? Are you by any chance a Lance Armstrong fan?

If you are good at the game you will mitigate dice rolls. It is an essential skill in 40k is taking away opportunities for poor dice rolls to impact your performance.

Somebody doesn't know anything about professional bike racing...lol.

What do you mean? Like target priority? Yeah - I think we have covered that. I could teach my Siberian Husky how to prioritize targets in 40k - she still hasn't masterd lay down though - She does in fact understand lascannons are good for killing tanks. She also eats her own poop sometimes.


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 Elbows wrote:
Somebody doesn't know anything about professional bike racing...lol.

No - I think you missed the underlying point there. Lots of people "at the top" are probably cheating too. They might even feel justified about it because they know lots of people are doing it. People cheat in literally every sport until they get caught. Funny thing is in those sports people actually try to catch cheaters - in 40k the going consensus is..."cheating? Why would anyone do that?"

It's a game of toy soldiers.

 Elbows wrote:
It's a game of toy soldiers.

I've known people to cheat at monopoly.

 Xenomancers wrote:
What do you mean? Like target priority? Yeah - I think we have covered that. I could teach my Siberian Husky how to prioritize targets in 40k - she still hasn't masterd lay down though - She does in fact understand lascannons are good for killing tanks. She also eats her own poop sometimes.

More like putting yourself in situations where you only need to hit with 20% of your shots to accomplished a desired outcome, or putting yourself in a position where rolling a 4 or less on a charge is still successful, or managing the game so that when you make the charge sub par rolls will carry you through the combat. Its about understanding that you are playing a dice game and doing everything you can to remove the ability for dice to impact the game. If you know that you make an 8" charge 55% of the time - don't put yourself in position to need to make 8" charges. 40k rewards being good at linear math which is is effectively probability management. The fact that I'm having to explain this to you is fairly indicative of your actual skill. If you ever find yourself needing to roll consistently average to win a game you've done it wrong.

Audustum wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

Audustum wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

Audustum wrote:

Breng77 wrote:
NOVA and ITC were actually very far apart as NOVA was not using the ITC rules changes for things like invisibility. Actual changes in the game rules. So certainly LVO isn’t valid because it is was skewed representation of the actual game rules.

What is this? You're jumping into a conversation I was specifically having with Farseer and it doesn't seem like you actually bothered to read any of it before jumping in. He and I were specifically discussing a WarConvo list that placed well in LVO. THAT'S why we're looking at LVO and things like it.

At some point events need to be considered based on number of top players and just players at an event and not the list building structure.

Which is nice as a general idea and all, but again, you jumped into a specific conversation discussing a specific thing. Please read it.

I’m certainly not saying all events are equal but if 7th ed DE were so bad how did someone win regardless of list building changes?

Probably due to the rules of the local tournament and how wildly divergent they were compared to our main tournaments, which is exactly what I attacked it for when Farseer used it as an example. Again, specific thing bring discussed here.

As to top players running only what the IGHM says is good I’d like to refer you to Sean Nayden and his lists over the last 3 editions. He has either not played the “net list” of the day, or he created said list long before it was the net list of the day.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Arguably, it it was using ITC rules/missions No retreat is closer to LVO than NOVA was.

I'm sorry, but this is just wrong. ITC applied some attempts at balancing, which was different, but otherwise they weren't all that different. I listed the huge deviances No Retreat had previously in this thread which are quite substantial, you're welcome to do the same if you really want to discuss it. I'd note, however, that even today NOVA's primer (or a draft of it) referenced the long history of the two in influencing each other.

SO they were very different in that one used rules and missions that the other did not, but you know other than being different they were not different? Seriously? I mean there were plenty of years where ITC events allowed FW and NOVA did not. The events were not all that similar when you look at winning lists etc because the rules were so different. So how can you say, there was minimal difference?

Way to wrongly paraphrase while also dodging the question. "Plenty of years" is off the mark because we were specifically discussing the tail end of 7th and the WarConvo. The topic was to find an off-meta list that did something similar to that feat. .

At thatt time, the differences between NOVA and ITC were fairly small when it came to what we were discussing: placing well with an off-meta list in a meta environment.

As I said in the previous post, if you want to outline the specific differences between the two at that time and why you think that makes No Retreat closer to something like LVO than NOVA, I'm all for it. I already outlined the No Retreat differences.

Not really wrongly paraphasing you when you say LVO, changed rules for balance, but other than changing those rules there was minimal difference.

NOVA DID have some balance changes like 2+ re-rolling being adjusted, just far less than LVO. The ones LVO had we're not significant in my opinion. You want to outline the differences and why that's wrong; let's do it, but you can't speak in generalities forever.

One piece of evidence I'll add to what I've said already is that both tournaments also has the same type of lists placing high for the time period. Renegades, Chaos and Taudar.

If right now I changed the rules because I think Hive Tyrants are too strong and say, hive tyrants are Now T7 with a 4+ save, but change nothing else, I'm sure that isn't a big difference to what is good right?

Except that you'd be eliminating one type of list that is highly dominant and powerful from consideration. So we couldn't, for example, compare your results to Adepticon. It's very much a totality of the circumstances test.

I Tried to find their packets to innumerate the differences but was unable to find packets from 2 years ago. Largely they would have been one using the ITC FAQ and the other not and that the missions (which are meta defining) were significantly different.

Having reviewed and played tournaments in this peiod I wouldn't say their missions were different to any great extreme. They both also had FAQ's that bring them into close enough harmony that there is less daylight between them than No Retreat and either.

Which meant one had 2++ re-rollable save, and invisiblity, and the other did not. That is a pretty large meta difference in what armies did well, Deathstars were much better at NOVA than LVO at that time.

Negative. NOVA had FAQ's covering these at this time and invisible deathstars (at least as most people would imagine a deathstars, like the Space Marine version) were not super dominant. Now invisible Wraithknight still hurt but that was true everywhere.

Further if we are talking about top players and "off meta lists" there have been plenty over the years you are the one that wants to zero in on a specific space of time.

Because Farseer started a conversation about the tail end of 7th, specifically. This is what I meant by barrelling in but without seeming to have read the branch you're joining in on.

I mean what exactly is your criteria for an off meta list. An Eldar/DE list placed second at the wet coast GT in 7th (more Dark Eldar). Harlequins won the March Madness GT in 2016. Khorne Daemonkin list with 6 Soul Grinders was 10th in NOVA in 2016.

Well, actually, Farseer and I we're specifically discussing a Dark Eldar list doing as good as a specific WarConvo list did in a specific time and a specific way in 7th. See barrelling in.

See also below.

I'm not going to pretend that a ton of such lists exist, but if you went through all the 1 loss players at most major events in any year you will find any number of different lists that are not the "current internet wisdom".

And I would say if you pick any year and we compare it to the IHMG at that time, the lists that adhere to it do correspondingly better with few outliers. I like the outliers though. They're what I hunt for specifically.

It is easier to win with the best tools, which is why the best players use them. But if they were forced to use other tools (as long as they have some list building autonomy) I guarantee they would still do well.

To open it back up to a general discussion: define "well".

My definition for well would be winning 75-80% of games, and finishing in the top 25% at an event. As for IHMG I would say that the Internet rarely has the exact top spotted, just a rough idea. The tweaks to the net list by top players are what push the general concept to the top. So flyrants are good is a given, exactly how many, what wargear supporting units etc. i’ve Rarely seen a winning list exactly posted all over the internet prior to an even, other than by a top player running that list at said event.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Xenomancers wrote:
What do you mean? Like target priority? Yeah - I think we have covered that. I could teach my Siberian Husky how to prioritize targets in 40k - she still hasn't masterd lay down though - She does in fact understand lascannons are good for killing tanks. She also eats her own poop sometimes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Elbows wrote:
Somebody doesn't know anything about professional bike racing...lol.

No - I think you missed the underlying point there. Lots of people "at the top" are probably cheating too. They might even feel justified about it because they know lots of people are doing it. People cheat in literally every sport until they get caught. Funny thing is in those sports people actually try to catch cheaters - in 40k the going consensus is..."cheating? Why would anyone do that?"

Positioning, board control, weight of numbers/spamming re-rolls to the point that “bad dice” are a thing like 1/1000 games not 1/5, using rules to their advantages (character targeting nonsense), building to the missions.

I have three anecdotes which sum up my view on the matter:

1. I played Tony Kopach at a Nova in 7th edition. He played Eldar, mix of bikes, warpspiders, and hornets (and won handily). I asked him if he usually played Eldar since he was the first 40K celebrity I had interacted with, and his response was essentially "yeah, I've pretty much always played Eldar, except for in 5th when I played Space Wolves".

2. The following year my team at Nova was questioning an organizer about pairings...basically after round 1 several of our guys won their games 15-14 (or similar) and faced off against guys who went 19-0 and the swiss pairings didn't make sense. He told us that he tries to work the pairings because "I hate to see my GT winners end up in bracket 3 or 4".

3. I knew a mid-level player whose success was primarily due to cooked dice.

I'm not at all saying that GT winnners are cheaters, I've played against some of them and never had a bad experience. I think though that "player skillz are everything!!!!1111" is not exactly a true argument.

 Hollow wrote:
Those who say it is all down to luck are so silly. Look at poker. Why are the same faces around the final tables year after year. Luck? Same with 40k.

A big difference here is that in poker, even if you get dealt the occasional bad hand, everyone plays with the same deck. Moreover, playing poker well is all about knowing how to bluff and read your opponents. 40k doesn't really require you to read your opponent, as a lot of the decision making is pretty much spelled out for you. It's not a particularly good comparison.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
There are no words for the amount of human stupidity in this thread...

...there's laughter though...

I'm not taking offense to that because my argument is grounded in statistical probability - which isn't actually stupid. I lose games all the time because my dice fail me - like roll unbelievably bad. This doesn't happen to these guys? It's pretty obvious they are cheating. I've also been practically tabled without having a go before (you can't win that game ether) these aren't really uncommon things. It's just the nature of probability.

What if your deployment made it too easy for them to point their click at you?

 greyknight12 wrote:
I have three anecdotes which sum up my view on the matter:

1. I played Tony Kopach at a Nova in 7th edition. He played Eldar, mix of bikes, warpspiders, and hornets (and won handily). I asked him if he usually played Eldar since he was the first 40K celebrity I had interacted with, and his response was essentially "yeah, I've pretty much always played Eldar, except for in 5th when I played Space Wolves".

2. The following year my team at Nova was questioning an organizer about pairings...basically after round 1 several of our guys won their games 15-14 (or similar) and faced off against guys who went 19-0 and the swiss pairings didn't make sense. He told us that he tries to work the pairings because "I hate to see my GT winners end up in bracket 3 or 4".

3. I knew a mid-level player whose success was primarily due to cooked dice.

I'm not at all saying that GT winnners are cheaters, I've played against some of them and never had a bad experience. I think though that "player skillz are everything!!!!1111" is not exactly a true argument.

In response to #2 that pairing style was a feature of NOVA (at one point not sure if it still is). Because it was straight win/loss and not a battle point even they didn’t Swiss pair but instead paired the high point winners against the low point winners. The idea was to reward those who won more convincingly and not people trying to submarine their way to the top.

As for working the pairings I have no idea but I do know plenty of events where two top players faced off round 1.

I think though that "player skillz are everything!!!!1111" is not exactly a true argument.

Another part of it is that player skillz are being confused as tactical battlefield skillz. I think player skill does account for a whole lot in 40k. But its not tactical battlefield skillz that I'm referring to.

Its the knowledge and skill at working in discrete mathematics and more specifically how well one is with probability calculations and knowing how to maximize those.

40k tournaments do not really measure a player's tactical battlefield skill as much as it does at how well they can manage probabilities and make sure that their bets are hedged more than their opponent. This is why listbuilding is so huge.

If you wanted to get a measure of how well a player actually plays the game where lists weren't a thing, you'd have to set up a tournament where everyone had the same army, but that will never happen and it would be measuring a completely different set of standards and abilities than 40k tournaments today do.

Good players playing with poor lists could probably make it to the middle of the tournament, beating poor players with poor, average, or good lists, but a poor list by iitself is a major handicap because the probabilities are stacked against that player should they face a good list run by a good player.

I think a large chunk of the conflict is that some people expect tournaments to be a test of skill, but the skill being tested seems to vary with the individual. 40k is not really a game about battlefield tactics and strategies... only very loosely so. It is a game about maximizing probabilities and number crunching.

Breng77 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
There are no words for the amount of human stupidity in this thread...

...there's laughter though...

I'm not taking offense to that because my argument is grounded in statistical probability - which isn't actually stupid. I lose games all the time because my dice fail me - like roll unbelievably bad. This doesn't happen to these guys? It's pretty obvious they are cheating. I've also been practically tabled without having a go before (you can't win that game ether) these aren't really uncommon things. It's just the nature of probability.

Blaming the dice is a sign of a bad player. Sorry but it is true. It means you put yourself into a position where rolling bad lost you the game. You may not recognize that when it happens but 90% of the time that is the truth. I played a game recently where my opponent rolled hot and I lost, but I lost because I over extended my forces early game in a bad play, and then his dice didn't let me back into the game. Not because I played perfectly and he was just lucky.

Newsflash there is no statistical law that says 1/5 games you will have bad dice. Your math isn't even correct. Statistically over a large sample of games your dice should be statistically average, that could mean they are average all the time.

Not acknowledging the random chance in this game is the sign of a delusional mind. Your argument is dumbfounding to me. Makes me wonder if you actually play this game or just putting up a smoke screen. Dude...you don't put yourself in situations where a dice roll loses you the game - that is what this game is - every step. Fail to get a crucial spell off - you lose. Have a shooting phase where you kill nothing - you lose. Fail all your charges - you lose. END OF DISCUSSION. This is the game we play. Aint no one winning all their games with fair dice. Not 46-2 anyways (supposedly playing at the most competitive events - where the competition is supposed to be the best)


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nareik wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
There are no words for the amount of human stupidity in this thread...

...there's laughter though...

I'm not taking offense to that because my argument is grounded in statistical probability - which isn't actually stupid. I lose games all the time because my dice fail me - like roll unbelievably bad. This doesn't happen to these guys? It's pretty obvious they are cheating. I've also been practically tabled without having a go before (you can't win that game ether) these aren't really uncommon things. It's just the nature of probability.

What if your deployment made it too easy for them to point their click at you?

L2P - solid argument.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Not acknowledging the random chance in this game is the sign of a delusional mind. Your argument is dumbfounding to me. Makes me wonder if you actually play this game or just putting up a smoke screen. Dude...you don't put yourself in situations where a dice roll loses you the game - that is what this game is - every step. Fail to get a crucial spell off - you lose. Have a shooting phase where you kill nothing - you lose. Fail all your charges - you lose. END OF DISCUSSION. This is the game we play. Aint no one winning all their games with fair dice. Not 46-2 anyways (supposedly playing at the most competitive events - where the competition is supposed to be the best)

-Never put yourself in a position to require a single spell to go off to win the game (also stack your +s to cast and re-rolls for that spell).
-Never put yourself in a situation where you fail to do anything meaningful in the shooting phase. Acknowledge the goal for the phase, plan for over kill.
-Never put yourself in a position to fail all your charges. Set charge priority, save re-rolls, find bonuses to the charge roll, etc.

These are basic elements of being good at 40k.

 Farseer_V2 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

Not acknowledging the random chance in this game is the sign of a delusional mind. Your argument is dumbfounding to me. Makes me wonder if you actually play this game or just putting up a smoke screen. Dude...you don't put yourself in situations where a dice roll loses you the game - that is what this game is - every step. Fail to get a crucial spell off - you lose. Have a shooting phase where you kill nothing - you lose. Fail all your charges - you lose. END OF DISCUSSION. This is the game we play. Aint no one winning all their games with fair dice. Not 46-2 anyways (supposedly playing at the most competitive events - where the competition is supposed to be the best)

-Never put yourself in a position to require a single spell to go off to win the game (also stack your +s to cast and re-rolls for that spell).
-Never put yourself in a situation where you fail to do anything meaningful in the shooting phase. Acknowledge the goal for the phase, plan for over kill.
-Never put yourself in a position to fail all your charges. Set charge priority, save re-rolls, find bonuses to the charge roll, etc.

These are basic elements of being good at 40k.

Solid strategies - not saying they aren't. They still fail sometimes though - especially if your opponent is using the same strategies. Sometimes you fail 5+ charges with rerolls (ask my greyknights). Also - sometimes your opponent makes all their invo saves. The game is a RNG man - anyone winning 95% of their games is cheating - straight up. There is no doubt in my mind. Because I know for a fact - this game does not have enough depth for the player to make that big of a difference. He might be at an advantage for always having the cheesiest list but at a big event - everyone should be playing these lists. This leaves only 2 options. Phenomenally amazing luck (unprobable) - or cooked dice (very probable). There is also more discrete ways of cheating. Like not removing models when they die - putting extra units on the table - fudging dice rolls - lying about army rules and pretending it was a mistake when they call the judge (your ynnari boy actually got caught doing this). It's a sham bro.

There are a few ways to cheat at dice games. Cooking dice is one but leaves one open to being caught easily as well.

Cooking dice and then miixing them in with normal dice to weigh the overall odds is another common one.

We ran yearly large leagues for many years and three indiviiduals over the course of ten years were caught with loaded dice (knowingly using them) so it would not surprise me at all to know that several tournament guys going to adepticons etc would be tossing cooked dice in the mix to give them an advantage.

An even more nefarious one that you cannot catch are the guys that know how to manipulate normal dice into rolling whatever they want.

At the Baltimore GT back in 2001 there was a fellow who was putting on a dice clinic that friday night (not in game). He would let you pick a number on 2d6 and he'd roll them and it would always come up that value. He also did the same on 1d6. He didid this for a solid half hour with a whole bunch of us crowding around applauding. But it definitely left me wondering how many of my opponents did this in games.

I've known guys that can do this with D8 and D10s as well, and I've suspected a couple blood bowl players of doing this with the D16 for MVP and sponsor rolls since they always get what they want on the dice but if you roll their dice it comes up random.

You can youtube the dice tricks as well. It takes a lot of practice, but I'd bet anything that most of us know someone that can do this, even if they themselves don't realize that the person is able to do it.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Solid strategies - not saying they aren't. They still fail sometimes though - especially if your opponent is using the same strategies. Sometimes you fail 5+ charges with rerolls (ask my greyknights). Also - sometimes your opponent makes all their invo saves. The game is a RNG man - anyone winning 95% of their games is cheating - straight up. There is no doubt in my mind. Because I know for a fact - this game does not have enough depth for the player to make that big of a difference. He might be at an advantage for always having the cheesiest list but at a big event - everyone should be playing these lists. This leaves only 2 options. Phenomenally amazing luck (unprobable) - or cooked dice (very probable). There is also more discrete ways of cheating. Like not removing models when they die - putting extra units on the table - fudging dice rolls - lying about army rules and pretending it was a mistake when they call the judge (your ynnari boy actually got caught doing this). It's a sham bro.

So you stated in another thread you actually like ignoring the missions objectives and just going for a tabling. So please forgive me if I don't take your tactical acumen or power lists very seriously. You simply don't know what you're talking about, you play in a small pool with 'power lists' so you have an incredibly skewed perspective. You've decided that you, Xenomancers, have reached the skill cap of 40k and cannot acknowledge that there are players out there who far outclass you. And in regards to my 'ynnari boy' - I have no clue what you're talking about? Nick Nanivati? Didn't play Ynnari at Adepticon (this year or last). I'd try getting your story straight before you accuse people of cheating. I guess the big thing here it is inconceivable that a player cheated through 46 games at a major tournament without getting caught. You're telling me in the era of Dakka detectives that he was never once caught on stream or by any opponent? The guys who do consistently well understand the tournament they're going to, they understand its missions, terrain, everything and they build lists to excel at that event. And no you don't know anything for a fact about competitive play as you've never actually engaged in it. You've engaged in some farcical production of it and have absorbed some knowledge about it via others but you yourself don't know what its like at the big top.

And yeah its easy to fail 5+ charges with an army when you need to make 5+ 8" charges, its easy for your opponent to make all their invulnerable saves when you only make them take 6. What you are missing (and these other guys aren't) is that isn't what a good player does.

Me and my friends just table each other in 3-4 turns - playing the actual game which doesn't end with a 2 1/2 hour time line. If at the end of turn 3 my opponent has 2 models left and the game is clearly over we just shake hands and call it a table - because that game is over turn 4. At a tournament at the end of turn 3 you can lose with 1800 points vs 30 points because you are out of time to have a turn 4 but have a worse objective score. Basically - Tournaments suck. Lets not confuse my play-style with the discussion here - it's completely unrelated and is an argument based in fallacy.

The topic has to do with army power and skill. My personal opinion is skill doesn't go much past list design and higher tier armies absolutely dominate the lower tier ones regardless of who plays them.

The Ynnari guy that won LVO - I watched his game live vs aliotic. He clearly tried to cheat his opponent with a redeploy stratagem being played out of turn. He got called on it - and in the process 30 minutes of the game was wasted waiting for a judgement. He then proceeded to destroy almost the entire enemy force with a single unit of shining spears.

This particular case is really interesting though because it reinforces all my points. In his redeploy attempt - he ether did it deliberately (affirming he is a cheater) or (did it unknowingly) proving he isn't very skilled. Then in the case with his spears destroying or tying up about half of his opponents army - even after going second - he was already set up for a turn 2 table. The best list won - it was ultimately inevitable (I knew it ahead of time when I saw both the lists). The Aliotoc army was hard countered by the ynnari one - even after going second he had no problem destroying all his flyers (with weapons that ignore -2 to hit) and his reapers were no match for spears. There was no tactic aliotic could have played that would have won him the game. He's paying for abilities his opponents army completely ignores and didn't have any answer for shining spears (then again NO ARMY has an answer for those - except maybe 7 flyrants)

You got to be pretty skilled to roll dice. For example, rabbits are not very good at rolling dice. Especially multiple at a time. Especially multiple rabbits.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
There are no words for the amount of human stupidity in this thread...

...there's laughter though...

I'm not taking offense to that because my argument is grounded in statistical probability - which isn't actually stupid. I lose games all the time because my dice fail me - like roll unbelievably bad. This doesn't happen to these guys? It's pretty obvious they are cheating. I've also been practically tabled without having a go before (you can't win that game ether) these aren't really uncommon things. It's just the nature of probability.

Blaming the dice is a sign of a bad player. Sorry but it is true. It means you put yourself into a position where rolling bad lost you the game. You may not recognize that when it happens but 90% of the time that is the truth. I played a game recently where my opponent rolled hot and I lost, but I lost because I over extended my forces early game in a bad play, and then his dice didn't let me back into the game. Not because I played perfectly and he was just lucky.

Newsflash there is no statistical law that says 1/5 games you will have bad dice. Your math isn't even correct. Statistically over a large sample of games your dice should be statistically average, that could mean they are average all the time.

Not acknowledging the random chance in this game is the sign of a delusional mind. Your argument is dumbfounding to me. Makes me wonder if you actually play this game or just putting up a smoke screen. Dude...you don't put yourself in situations where a dice roll loses you the game - that is what this game is - every step. Fail to get a crucial spell off - you lose. Have a shooting phase where you kill nothing - you lose. Fail all your charges - you lose. END OF DISCUSSION. This is the game we play. Aint no one winning all their games with fair dice. Not 46-2 anyways (supposedly playing at the most competitive events - where the competition is supposed to be the best)

I acknowlege random, but there is no law that says random means you lose x % of the time, especially when you mitigate for it. And no fail to get crucial spell off does not equal lose for good players because they aren't relying on 1 thing to win them the game. Sorry that is not what the game is at all. Don't set yourself up to kill nothing in the shooting phase that is either a symptom of a bad army, or bad planning, not bad dice. If you have re-rolls on everything, or 200+ shots, you don't straight fail to do anything. You can have sub par turns, but when the game is about scoring points, and not tabling (news flash when terrain is good the game isn't just about tabling). I think if you looked deeper at the games you lose you wouldn't be straight blaming dice, but instead looking at "wow I exposed myself to a ton of return fire, thinking I would roll average didn't plan to overkill stuff and left myself open to getting stomped." I mean look at top armies and tell me how much "bad luck" would be involved in them having terrible turns. I think you would be surprised when you really look at the math how rare it is that they have truly useless turns.

As for your assertion that higher tier armies dominate lower tier ones regarless of player that is provably false if you look at results over the past 4 editions. Plenty of poor players brought strong armies on paper and got stomped, the same is true in 8th. I think you just want to believe that because it doesn't force you to admit there are players who are better than you, instead they are either lucky, or cheating, or playing power factions with power lists, and you aren't. But if you did you could go win adepticon. Sorry that simply isn't the case. I'm not a great player I could go pick up a 7 tyrant list, and I would dominate against my local meta which isn't very strong, but at a large tournament I would probably go something like 4-2 because I would make mistakes and lose to top players. Back in 6th when I was at my competitive top, 4-2 was about my cap at GTs even when I brought top lists (Flamer/screamer spam Daemons in early 6th, FMC spam daemons, Screamer Star) I would do pretty well until I faced top level players, who also had strong lists and I would get out played, I didn't lose because my dice went bad, I lost because they understood positioning better than me, practiced way more etc.


As for your play style being irrelevant, it isn't if that is how you understand the game to be played because that is how you and your buddies play, then it is absolutely relevant to your view that luck will cost you the game 1 out of 5 games, and if it doesn't you are either supernaturally lucky or you are cheating.

I've said before luck matters in tournaments because matchups matter, for instance Sean Nayden went 3-1 on day 1 of adepticon because he faced Matt Root the eventual winner round 2, and had a close loss (not by score, but by account of the game by Root), that is bad luck that he faced another top player early in the event, who had a list that was a difficult match-up. The same would have been true if Nick faced him earlier than the final game. As for your LVO game review, that is only true if the Spear Player plays everything well, if he positions wrong things can go differently, he needs to know exactly where to place them, how to manipulate the charge move and pile in moves etc.

Gotta say I disagree with Xenomancer's enthusiasm.

Sure, it's a dice based game, but the player is making the decisions which determine how many dice are rolled, and against what. I'd argue though with a game like Warhammer 40K, it's probably 60-70% list and 30-40% skill. If we take it to a more absurd level, imagine a player whose read the rulebook, comprehends the rules of the game and is playing his first game against someone who's played 40K for 10 years, and the current edition for 8-9 months. The outcome is extremely likely to be in the veteran player's favour if he's a good player. The experience and general "skill" level will be his advantage.

He could be let down by abysmal dice rolling, sure, but the decisions of how and where to employ those dice (for lack of a better term) still matter. A new player, unguided might end up shooting Krak missiles at a group of gretchin, etc. It's a somewhat absurd example, but skill does matter.

On the flip side, if both players are equally good at list making, and equally strong at playing the game, then the dice results will have a larger impact on the game result.