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Well it does help to win if your army is weaker or you are a worse player. Not everyone can be the best gamer, with best army and a ton of testing time.

Karol wrote:
Well it does help to win if your army is weaker or you are a worse player. Not everyone can be the best gamer, with best army and a ton of testing time.

It really doesn't help. A superior player isn't going to be fooled by stupid gimmicks, they're just going to make the correct counter-play and defeat it. And if you remove the assumption that your opponent makes a poor play in response to your gimmick then all of these ideas are a waste of time at best, and at worst involve playing a bad strategy yourself to set up the failed trick.

And no, your anecdote about smashing a player's models so they have to forfeit a game is not psychology, it's criminal destruction of property. The who did it should be in prison for several years, on top of having to pay for the full cost of the damage. I find it horrifying that you approve of that kind of behavior, and I'm very thankful that s like you and your friend are far enough away that I will never encounter any of you.

BrianDavion wrote:

Karol wrote:

HuskyWarhammer wrote:
Humans play the game, humans are subject to psychological warfare. Humans get tired, forget things, get distracted, are victims of biases, etc. Psychological tactics are more about exploiting unconscious tendencies or biases than anything else.

I know a guy who has a pathological fear/hatred of wraithlords. No matter what happens, he'll always try to down them first. Total distraction carnifex. Knowing that he has a tendency to do that lets me position them in hard-to-hit areas to draw him out, or act really aggressive with them to put him on the back foot. We also play a lot of 2v2 games and I know he views me as a bigger threat, so he'll target my guys first almost always...so I intentionally can take very durable units and play with that. Or, another example: you're playing with a guy who gets upset/defeated easily, so you target down his baddest boy on the table first, and be as spectacular about it as possible. He gets frustrated, starts paying less attention, makes more mistakes, and unintentionally throws the game.

Not that I think these are necessarily good practice for friendly games, but it's a real thing that happens.

Someone told me a story about a GT a few editions ago, where one dude from one team was asked to stop a dude from Warsaw winning overall. He couldn't win normally so he used a trick, the warsaw dude had his army on the table edge, and he placed it on his case on the edge of the table they were playing. The models got catapulted in to the air, by the higher mass of the case. Dudes army was broken, and because the round was already started he wasn't able to be ready to play, and the dude from our town won 13-0, as if the warsaw dude droped out.

breaking someone's army to win? christ why didn't he just send a goon to break his kneecaps well he's at it

Why is that a surprise for you? It`s called WAAC. As soon as there is a prize to be had some people display their true sociopathic personalities. I went to a tournament ten years ago and met a WAAC. He told me that to succeed you have to treat all others with utter disrespect. Funny thing was that when a bigger psycho met the WAAC in a match the latter lost his cool. These people need a straight-jacket and be locked away from other people.

Doing it right now. We play 750+750 vs 750+750 in our works group. Me and my team mate have been talking about how cool my new IK codex is and how I can fit a Gallant and two Helverins into 750 points. We have been talking in hushed tones but with just enough volume that one colleague on the other team can overhear. I'll be playing AM

That's not psychological warfare. That's deception.

Still worth doing.

Trying to psych out your opponent is one thing, but damaging their army is beyond the pale. Karol, from your other posts your gaming group sounds pretty toxic; you absolutely shouldn't be normalizing such behavior.

Occasional "Anything but a 1" is about as far as I go

Mr Morden wrote:Occasional "Anything but a 1" is about as far as I go

I've spent the last few weeks inferring my friend's dice are cursed, but given how he has been rolling lately that might actually be true rather than just a psych-out.

Karol wrote:

Doesn't really matter as long as it gets you a win.

It really does if you have to ruin another person's good time (or their army! wtf?!) to get that win.

I used to play a guy that would just gak talk the whole game, and laugh when he rolled better.

He would also immediately target and destroy your favourite unit so you stopped caring about the game after the first turn or two.

He was a heavy tournament player. He was like the Muhammad Ali of Warhammer. Just get into your head and make you mad until you couldn’t concentrate on the game.

An all knights list with a dominus class further away, everything else was nearly killed or killed but the dominus was barely touched.

 Peregrine wrote:
No. I don't bother with psychological gimmicks. The only people they work against are inexperienced or weaker players, and you don't need gimmicks to beat them. Just play your normal game and take your win.

When was the last time you played a game?

Last millenia? Seeing his hate of 40k doubtful he plays it. Assuming he even played ever.

 Peregrine wrote:

Karol wrote:
Well it does help to win if your army is weaker or you are a worse player. Not everyone can be the best gamer, with best army and a ton of testing time.

It really doesn't help. A superior player isn't going to be fooled by stupid gimmicks, they're just going to make the correct counter-play and defeat it. And if you remove the assumption that your opponent makes a poor play in response to your gimmick then all of these ideas are a waste of time at best, and at worst involve playing a bad strategy yourself to set up the failed trick.

And no, your anecdote about smashing a player's models so they have to forfeit a game is not psychology, it's criminal destruction of property. The who did it should be in prison for several years, on top of having to pay for the full cost of the damage. I find it horrifying that you approve of that kind of behavior, and I'm very thankful that s like you and your friend are far enough away that I will never encounter any of you.

Nobody is immune to psychological warfare, everyone has a weak spot you can exploit to throw them off their stride.

It could be a sound they find irritating, endlessly telling them about rules they already know, humming off key.

The skill lies in discerning that and then exploiting it without being obvious about it.

Everyone's got a blindspot.

It would be fair to say psychology is a big part of my game. It affects how I choose my lists, how I deploy models, and how my army fights. I always want games where opponents make a series of bad decisions that were never going to work out in the first place.

Players tend towards high-risk / low-reward decisions when they feel there are no good options and they feel the need to do something to swing the game. The simplest way to get players to act this way is denial. A lot of my games are focused on stopping opponents from doing anything useful for a few turns, which gets them into a state where they're going to mess up.

So you might see me moving away from opponents, constantly falling back with screens, making charge moves where only one model gets to the target while the rest of the squad ties up 2 other units after consolidating, exposing an HQ to get them to move one way or another, putting models in places where it's not possible to charge them, etc. In missions where you get points for defending objectives, I may ignore all objectives and just focus on keeping my opponent away from them.

My lists are designed to do this. They feature a lot of long range shooting, usually lascannons, surrounded by Cultist screens that are just going to fall back (or die.) Early game, I'm trying to make it impossible to hit my guys by shooting up his tanks / elite units. Late game, I'm trying to make it impossible to charge anything of consequence.

But mid-game, I'm usually just trying to make it hard to get near my army. I tend to keep everything together as one big blob, where screens and shooters do most of the work. Placing models is kind of an art form with me, the optimal placement for denial is 1.5 inches away from each other and 3-4 inches from the nearest friendly unit.

I agree that goading players into actions with suggestions is a poor form of psychology and it doesn't usually work against experienced players. But fielding skew lists and avoiding traditional tactics can be very effective at putting people off their game.

If you're playing horde and your opponent looks out at your army and thinks "There's no way I can kill all of that!" then you're doing something right.

When playing with my Imperial Guard I tend to move my infantry squads forward aggressively unless my opponent is a dedicated CC force. Ignoring my expensive guns for piddling 40~ point infantry squads is what I want most of the time. And if they do manage kill all of my brave soldiers? I always have reserves.

If you're playing in a way that confuses, unnerves or deceives your intentions from your opponent then you're a good player. If you're sledging, insulting or verbally goading them into doing what you want then you're just a bully or worse.

EDIT: Example

Committing a throwaway unit to go for an objective where your opponent ends up over committing = Good psychological tactic.

"My carnifex is going to destroy your guys, you better hurry up and shoot her instead of those genestealers in charge range" = Pathetic and unsporting.

meleti wrote:
This is called being a dick.

This. It's the mentality of "I play to have fun, and I have fun when I win." Or put another way "I have fun when my opponent doesn't have any."

At my FLAGS I have a short list of players who, outside of tournaments, I refuse to play games with because they simply are dickheads.

I have players I refuse to play period. Tournament or not. Some people just aren't worth the time. Luckily this list is very short.

"Goal of the game is to have fun, objective is to win". Too bad some people mistake the two.

If someone is slow playing then I start to use tactics like this to speed the game up. Just start giving helpful suggestions for their army, helping with dice, etc.

For assault chaos armies there is an element of getting in your opponents head. Khorne Daemon Kin was epic at this. I usually dropped down around 200 models in a 1850 game. And the blood thirster was not in those 200 models but next to the table just to remind them what happened if the chaos lord charging at them died. :-D

3rd ed templars was great for this. If they took shooting casualties and failed a morale check they charged forward 2d6!

Opponents would be sick with worry, trying to not cause enough casualties to trigger a morale check. The last thing they wanted was to get charged before their assault phase, denying them +1 attacks etc.

You could have fun and play that up.

The only psychological tactic I use is to let a model camping an objetive and to avoid even watching him so my opponent forgets it is there.
Or moving a single dreadnought alone, for the side of tje table, so my opponent doesnt destroys it before it reaches meele.

A friend of mine has the habit of math-hammering some of his stronger units and telling me what they're capable of. These capabilities are usually a "in a best case scenario" kind of situation, but he doesn't always frame it that way. So then, when I face these supposed super-units for the first time, I would focus an unnecessary amount of attention on them, realizing about mid game that they weren't as OP as he was originally describing. I don't know that he would do this on purpose, as he does have a natural flair for the dramatic.

He would do this a lot back in 5th, when I first started playing. In recent years, though, I bring my salt when he's hyping up something new he wants to try against me. My philosophy, "Let experience teach me what will kick my teef in."

Actually no - the people I play with - I am not trying to trick them. Instead - I point out mistakes I think they are making and explain what I would do in that situation. We have discussions about game decisions. If they make a small order of operations mistake I let them fix it. This is how the game is meant to be played.

 Xenomancers wrote:
Actually no - the people I play with - I am not trying to trick them. Instead - I point out mistakes I think they are making and explain what I would do in that situation. We have discussions about game decisions. If they make a small order of operations mistake I let them fix it. This is how the game is meant to be played.

Oh yeah, I do this all the time, even in tournaments. Asmuch as my teanmates tell me to stop helping my opponents, but normally they are legal and are cool with me in return.

WHFB, block of Grail Knights, always end up as the focus of the enemy - who seldom realised they had no attached characters and as such were actually the cheapest unit of knights in the list.

in 40k there is a Gretchin with a red cap, occasional taunting about how hes still alive may occur...

One of my opponents in our group took psychological warfare to a wholly new level. He always takes super-strong T'au lists against our fun'n'fluffy lists, tableing us on round 3 every game.

I (and few others) lose interest in playing whenever we two have to play. Telling him does not work. :/

+1 on the point on hordes above, get your opponent on the back foot and keep them there.

my Mid War V3 Flames of War Soviet infantry force had a lot of mediocre models, similar to my 40k 5th edition IG (I need to get these guys out again), basically a tide of boots - many look and think have I got enough bullets?.

Difference being if the Soviets caught you, you died to weight of dice (in an Early war game one unit swallowed most of a Japanese assault army whole), where as the IG tend not to do much as just infantry - they are great fun though.

Key is get your opponent convinced you have a plan, I have found #1 with this is deploying and moving quickly, never give the impression of dithering, give your opponent the impression that no matter what they do your steam roller just keeps moving

Yeah, you break my army and you're leaving the tournament with multiple broken bones. There is no fething way. But I'd bet my ass someone who did that is a massive coward and instead picked some poor nerdy kid!s army and apparently bragged about it to you afterwards, speaking to your character just as much as his own. Wonder if he'd do that to some of the ex-military/corps types.

Also, that's not psychological warfare, dirt bag. Deliberately breaking someone's army is physical warfare and is just cowardice.

I really wish that blocking people hide their quotes from other people's posts. Why does the site allow people like this to continue posting?

Once at a Magic tourney there was an "interesting" tactic I saw. In a room of 32 people there were maybe 3 women. Two of these women looked "normal" to slightly nerdy. ( I say this as a nerd myself). The third woman was attractive, somewhat "top heavy",wore short-shorts, flip flops, and a size too small white tank top, sans bra.

The nerd distraction was noticeable. While I have no proof this was intentional, I bet it was.

I played a person once who used bio warfare on me and other opponents. It was like playing a smelly skunk and I should have wore M.O.O.P level 4 protective gear.

 cuda1179 wrote:
Once at a Magic tourney there was an "interesting" tactic I saw. In a room of 32 people there were maybe 3 women. Two of these women looked "normal" to slightly nerdy. ( I say this as a nerd myself). The third woman was attractive, somewhat "top heavy",wore short-shorts, flip flops, and a size too small white tank top, sans bra.

The nerd distraction was noticeable. While I have no proof this was intentional, I bet it was.

Ah yes, the true crime of being an attractive woman in a room full of neckbeards. How were they supposed to finish a match of 40k between all the hat tipping and bows

 SHUPPET wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
Once at a Magic tourney there was an "interesting" tactic I saw. In a room of 32 people there were maybe 3 women. Two of these women looked "normal" to slightly nerdy. ( I say this as a nerd myself). The third woman was attractive, somewhat "top heavy",wore short-shorts, flip flops, and a size too small white tank top, sans bra.

The nerd distraction was noticeable. While I have no proof this was intentional, I bet it was.

Ah yes, the true crime of being an attractive woman in a room full of neckbeards. How were they supposed to finish a match of 40k between all the hat tipping and bows

I'm not saying she shouldn't be able to wear what she wants. She should. But on the other hand, I do suspect she did it on purpose for attention and distraction. I mean really, in the right lite that tank top was translucent.