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 LunarSol wrote:
Even then, the assumption is the set lists would be perfectly balanced.

This is slightly off topic from what you said, but... Two players playing the same list on symmetrical terrain would be about as balanced as 40k ever got - and even then, the major factor in winning would not be player skill, but in the outcome of the dice rolls. 40k rolls a lot of dice in order to flatten the distribution curve of results (law of really big numbers says the more data points you have, the closer the overall value will be to average - flip 3 coins and you can easily get all heads, but flip 300 and you'll have a rate closer to 50% heads), but there's a lot of results which are based on only one or two dice. For instance, if you do D6 mortal wounds - the difference between rolling a 1 and a 6 is pretty extreme, and equally possible. Doing psychic tests are 2D6. Running adds 1D6 (giving up your attacks to move only an extra 1" kind of sucks). Charges are 2D6 (and missing a charge can be devastating). 2D6 results do occur in a bell curve (a 7 is more likely to occur than a 2), but being only 2 dice, it is still going to be swingy (flip 3 coins and get 3 heads). In AoS, you've got initiative and double turns being decided by a single D6 roll, and double turns win games.

So in the most balanced situation 40k will ever be in, you can still lose the game because of a failed charge or a bad run roll, or win the game because of a particular good mortal wound roll. The STRATEGY of the game is to mitigate the randomness (I have a 77% chance of succeeding, is that good enough to attempt?) but the OUTCOME of the game is not random. You needed a 2 or higher, you rolled a 1. The majority of playing 40k is making actions that you assume will be successful, with one or more of these actions being unexpectedly unsuccessful (or hail marys where you assume it will not be successful and it unexpectedly is). Where those unexpected moments come can make or break a game.

For instance, let's say you do something which gives you D3 mortal wounds against a hero. A 1 will wound, but not kill a unit, but a 3 will kill the unit. There is an equal distribution curve of dice results meaning either opportunity is equally likely to occur. If you wound, but don't kill, the next turn, that hero will be able to inflict damage on one of your units and you'll need to waste a unit's actions fighting that hero again in order to finish it off, while defeating it makes your own units safe and allows you to take an extra action freed up by not defending/attacking against that hero. This could make a huge difference in the outcome of the game, but your strategy is essentially the same irregardless of this outcome.

I guess this is a really long way of pointing out that 40k is a terrible competitive game because the optimal strategy (that is, the thing the player has control over) can still lose due to things the player does not have control over. Even in a controlled situation where 40k is as balanced as it humanly can be, if you played four identical games between players making the absolute best decisions, you'd probably end up with four different outcomes. Player skill is entirely mitigated by dice rolls. The only way to play the game competitively would to remove the affects of swingy dice. Instead of doing D3 mortal wounds, you do 2. Instead of running MV + D6, you run MV + 3. Instead of charging 2D6, you charge 8".

However, if you approach 40k, not as a competitive game, but more as a cinematic experience, then the twists and turns of bad dice rolls create an exciting and captivating (but still extremely unfair) experience that you will remember for a long time. Winning is the goal that drives your decisions, but winning is not the goal of playing the game. You aim to win, but you play to enjoy the outcome (whatever it is).

 LunarSol wrote:

 Horst wrote:
You could (have a set list tournament), but nobody would play in that event. A 40k tournament with set lists would fail because very few people have the inclination to build an entire army for a single tournament.

Even then, the assumption is the set lists would be perfectly balanced. I suspect the TO would quickly find themselves spending more time trying to fix balance errors in their set lists than GW does trying to fix them across the game.

That isn't a necessary assumption. One could, for example, have the format where there's an overall winner for the tournament, and then the best player of each list used in the tournament.

Nurglitch wrote:

 Horst wrote:
You could (have a set list tournament), but nobody would play in that event. A 40k tournament with set lists would fail because very few people have the inclination to build an entire army for a single tournament.

I was under the impression that building entire armies for tournaments was what people did if they wanted to compete with the meta. It certainly seems to be the case around where I live. Maybe I'm mistaken? Besides, I'd imagine most people would need to add only one or two units to existing armies.

Very few people build an entire army to compete in a single tournament, unless it's like the LVO or something with 800+ people at it.

Most people build an army to compete in multiple tournaments, across multiple formats. A player might have a list that he uses for ITC events, and tweaks he can make to use it for NOVA events, and maybe mono-codex tournaments or whatever other formats exist.

Adding another format, where it requires a 100% fixed list, means your army would be pretty useless for any of the other formats, so nobody would be willing to buy in.

 Horst wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:

 Horst wrote:
You could (have a set list tournament), but nobody would play in that event. A 40k tournament with set lists would fail because very few people have the inclination to build an entire army for a single tournament.

I was under the impression that building entire armies for tournaments was what people did if they wanted to compete with the meta. It certainly seems to be the case around where I live. Maybe I'm mistaken? Besides, I'd imagine most people would need to add only one or two units to existing armies.

Very few people build an entire army to compete in a single tournament, unless it's like the LVO or something with 800+ people at it.

Most people build an army to compete in multiple tournaments, across multiple formats. A player might have a list that he uses for ITC events, and tweaks he can make to use it for NOVA events, and maybe mono-codex tournaments or whatever other formats exist.

Adding another format, where it requires a 100% fixed list, means your army would be pretty useless for any of the other formats, so nobody would be willing to buy in.

That would only be the case if the army in question didn't share any units with any other tournament format. The fact is that it's easy to put together a list that uses common units nearly everyone has as part of their collections.

Nurglitch wrote:

 Horst wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:

 Horst wrote:
You could (have a set list tournament), but nobody would play in that event. A 40k tournament with set lists would fail because very few people have the inclination to build an entire army for a single tournament.

I was under the impression that building entire armies for tournaments was what people did if they wanted to compete with the meta. It certainly seems to be the case around where I live. Maybe I'm mistaken? Besides, I'd imagine most people would need to add only one or two units to existing armies.

Very few people build an entire army to compete in a single tournament, unless it's like the LVO or something with 800+ people at it.

Most people build an army to compete in multiple tournaments, across multiple formats. A player might have a list that he uses for ITC events, and tweaks he can make to use it for NOVA events, and maybe mono-codex tournaments or whatever other formats exist.

Adding another format, where it requires a 100% fixed list, means your army would be pretty useless for any of the other formats, so nobody would be willing to buy in.

That would only be the case if the army in question didn't share any units with any other tournament format. The fact is that it's easy to put together a list that uses common units nearly everyone has as part of their collections.

It's really not that easy though. Most people don't have chaos, imperial, and xenos armies just lying around. Suppose your army list for your tournament decides to make an Imperial list, with Guard, some blood angels, and maybe a Knight. Pretty standard Imperium list, but if you're a Chaos player you won't have any of those units just lying around. I personally do not like Eldar, and refuse to play them, even if they're the best competitive army in the game. I consider myself a competitive player, but I still play the faction I like the most for fluff reasons. So if your tournament used an Eldar list, I wouldn't participate.

 Horst wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:

 Horst wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:

 Horst wrote:
You could (have a set list tournament), but nobody would play in that event. A 40k tournament with set lists would fail because very few people have the inclination to build an entire army for a single tournament.

I was under the impression that building entire armies for tournaments was what people did if they wanted to compete with the meta. It certainly seems to be the case around where I live. Maybe I'm mistaken? Besides, I'd imagine most people would need to add only one or two units to existing armies.

Very few people build an entire army to compete in a single tournament, unless it's like the LVO or something with 800+ people at it.

Most people build an army to compete in multiple tournaments, across multiple formats. A player might have a list that he uses for ITC events, and tweaks he can make to use it for NOVA events, and maybe mono-codex tournaments or whatever other formats exist.

Adding another format, where it requires a 100% fixed list, means your army would be pretty useless for any of the other formats, so nobody would be willing to buy in.

That would only be the case if the army in question didn't share any units with any other tournament format. The fact is that it's easy to put together a list that uses common units nearly everyone has as part of their collections.

It's really not that easy though. Most people don't have chaos, imperial, and xenos armies just lying around. Suppose your army list for your tournament decides to make an Imperial list, with Guard, some blood angels, and maybe a Knight. Pretty standard Imperium list, but if you're a Chaos player you won't have any of those units just lying around. I personally do not like Eldar, and refuse to play them, even if they're the best competitive army in the game. I consider myself a competitive player, but I still play the faction I like the most for fluff reasons. So if your tournament used an Eldar list, I wouldn't participate.

There's no reason why a Fixed Army Format would require everyone to use the same army list. There could be one list per faction option, for example. Or two lists per faction. The point is that list-building is taken out of the equation so the tournament can focus on the skill of the players.

Nurglitch wrote:

There's no reason why a Fixed Army Format would require everyone to use the same army list. There could be one list per faction option, for example. Or two lists per faction. The point is that list-building is taken out of the equation so the tournament can focus on the skill of the players.

Right, that was the assumption I was going on. One list per faction set. That still faces the issue of those lists needing to be perfectly balanced or else you're just shifting the blame of the problem off of GW and onto whoever made them. I think you'd find even set lists per faction extremely difficult to get just right.

 LunarSol wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:

There's no reason why a Fixed Army Format would require everyone to use the same army list. There could be one list per faction option, for example. Or two lists per faction. The point is that list-building is taken out of the equation so the tournament can focus on the skill of the players.

Right, that was the assumption I was going on. One list per faction set. That still faces the issue of those lists needing to be perfectly balanced or else you're just shifting the blame of the problem off of GW and onto whoever made them. I think you'd find even set lists per faction extremely difficult to get just right.

As mentioned, we're not expecting the lists in open format tournaments to be balanced, so why expect the fixed list formats to be perfectly balanced? All they need to be is close enough. With a Fixed Army Format you have lots of opportunity as an organiser to put up the lists well ahead of time for feedback on their perceived strengths.

And if you might wonder why someone would decide to play in a tournament where they perceive themselves to be at a disadvantage, Horst points out plenty of people play in Open Format tournaments and voluntarily place themselves at a disadvantage even though they're there to compete.

Indeed, many many years ago as a competitive swimmer I would typically attend a swim-meet every month where entrants were seeded according to their best official time. The fact was that the people with the best times were going to win 9/10, but people still entered and competed even if they were very unlikely to win. Because they were there to compete and have fun, and hopefully make their own personal best. I know 40k isn't a sport, but there's plenty we can learn from the sporting perspective.

Nurglitch wrote:

As mentioned, we're not expecting the lists in open format tournaments to be balanced, so why expect the fixed list formats to be perfectly balanced?

Because if they're not, there's little reason to force your additional restrictions on players.

 LunarSol wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:

As mentioned, we're not expecting the lists in open format tournaments to be balanced, so why expect the fixed list formats to be perfectly balanced?

Because if they're not, there's little reason to force your additional restrictions on players.

I'm not sure that offering players the option of a different format is forcing restrictions on players. Let's go back to swimming, because it's something I know about. There's four competitive races, and a combo-race; there's the breast stroke, the back stroke, butterfly, and freestyle. There's a number of restrictions involved in performing the first three, and breaking those restrictions can get you disqualified from a race. Interestingly some of the restrictions on breast stroke, for example, happened when a Japanese swimmer innovated a better arm recovery, which was split off into the butterfly. Yes, people have managed to min/max swimming. Neat huh? Anyhow, notice that last one: freestyle. There's no stroke called 'freestyle' but the fastest way of freestyle swimming is what we commonly call the front-crawl. But if you're swimming a freestyle race it's very permissive compared to the others. You could, for example, swim a freestyle race using butterfly. You'd put yourself at a distinct disadvantage presuming seeded heats and so on, but you could.

Notice the theme? Because of additional restrictions on how some strokes could be performed, we got more strokes, and the Medley races where people swam one of each, and the freestyle, open format. Swimming as a sport has benefitted from these restrictions for several reasons. The first is that some people are better at different strokes. I, for example, could not do the back-stroke to save my life. Don't know why, never figured out how, and never had a problem except where I attempted the Individual Medley events. But I was okay at breast stroke and good at butterfly. Other people were better at back stroke and terrible at breast stroke and butterfly. Some people were just lousy swimmers, but liked the fitness part and enjoyed the competition anyways. It made for a diverse range of competitors, and certainly made the IM events interesting.

There's an argument to be made about perhaps an over-proliferation of swimming events, usually at the Olympics where a good all-round swimmer can win far more medals than comparable competitors in other sports, but the fact is that having some formats with more restrictions than others broadens the range of competitors, competitions, and enriches the sport of swimming. Maybe I'm nostalgic for the days when I could weekends swimming, but as a former competitive swimmer that's my perspective on Warhammer; some people are terrible at it, some people want to compete at it, and there's lots of different ways for lots of different people to enjoy it.

What harm, exactly, do tournament players pose to the narrative folks? If you and your group play campaigns recreating your favourite Black Library book then what a tournament player thinks or does should not factor in. He's not breaking into your game and forcing you to play Matched Play with the Rule of Three and the latest hot list. Play your game your way and avoid looking down your nose at those who chose to do another way.

Now, I do think that the frame in which 40K was and continues to be designed is a game between two friends with shared expectations. That has not stopped it being a game played widely in competitive tournaments between strangers under Matched Play conditions (where the players do not agree on the terms - they just work within pre-arranged ones). That tournament players are having fun their way should not dismay anybody. They (we) are not doing it wrong. They are just enjoying the game in a different way than you (a hard-core Narrative player) do. The reverse, of course, is also true. Its just that the theme of this thread seems to be aimed against tournament players.

Let the market decide. LVO is growing each year - looks like a good format.

TangoTwoBravo wrote:
What harm, exactly, do tournament players pose to the narrative folks? If you and your group play campaigns recreating your favourite Black Library book then what a tournament player thinks or does should not factor in. He's not breaking into your game and forcing you to play Matched Play with the Rule of Three and the latest hot list. Play your game your way and avoid looking down your nose at those who chose to do another way.

Now, I do think that the frame in which 40K was and continues to be designed is a game between two friends with shared expectations. That has not stopped it being a game played widely in competitive tournaments between strangers under Matched Play conditions (where the players do not agree on the terms - they just work within pre-arranged ones). That tournament players are having fun their way should not dismay anybody. They (we) are not doing it wrong. They are just enjoying the game in a different way than you (a hard-core Narrative player) do. The reverse, of course, is also true. Its just that the theme of this thread seems to be aimed against tournament players.

Let the market decide. LVO is growing each year - looks like a good format.

I agree with you, but from reading this thread, I think I understand where the narrative and more casual players are coming from... they see more and more people at their stores wanting to play with competitive rules and armies, so newer players are steered in that direction, and fewer and fewer people share their view on how the game is "meant" to be played. Essentially, the growth of competitive 40k is coming a the expense of casual 40k. I can certainly see the point of that, and to an extent agree... but I think it falls more on the individual clubs / stores to set expectations for their players than to blame competitive players for poisoning their groups. I'll use my group as an example... I'm a fairly competitive player, and this coming weekend I'm going to a narrative match that 10 of us have set up ahead of time, for a 6k vs 6k large scale battle with "fluffy" lists. The guy leading it coordinated it through facebook, and made his expectations of what an "appropriate" vs "not appropriate" army to bring would be, so everyone is on the same page. It takes a bit more effort on his part, true, but he's including me and at least one other tournament player into his decidedly not tournament game, because he's set up clear rules for who brings what. Since the game is leaning more and more towards competitive lately, it seems like this is the way to go if you want narrative games. You gotta set them up ahead of time and talk out with other players what is expected, instead of just bringing your fluffy army to a store and hoping for a like minded player.

 LunarSol wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:

As mentioned, we're not expecting the lists in open format tournaments to be balanced, so why expect the fixed list formats to be perfectly balanced?

Because if they're not, there's little reason to force your additional restrictions on players.

I'm pretty sure it'll never happen, but just as a thought, what if the TO provided all the models?

Snugiraffe wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:

As mentioned, we're not expecting the lists in open format tournaments to be balanced, so why expect the fixed list formats to be perfectly balanced?

Because if they're not, there's little reason to force your additional restrictions on players.

I'm pretty sure it'll never happen, but just as a thought, what if the TO provided all the models?

I think you lose a lot of the appeal of playing with your toys, though its worth noting that there's a big midwest Guild Ball event where the TO brings every model in the game and players draft their teams for the tournament breaking all factions lines, so its not exactly impossible.

The entire draw of the WH 40k experience is to be able to play with others than your close ring of friends.
It is nice to play a "pick-up" game at the local FLGS and play a stranger and be able to play a "common" game.

I LOVE playing new players because it is a chance to teach and discuss rules and the "fluff" and generally a game is all good.
I learned from a guy that was WAY out of my league in chess that with less knowledgeable players you just impose harder win conditions for yourself and do not say anything (kinda a handicap).

My friends and I take it to the max competitively with each other, it makes for some really brain melting games using everything we can (legally!) to win.
Heck, we model defeated warlords on occasion under the heel of our own (still trying to figure out how to do that in a modular way).

We like the occasional "fluff" but one of us very carefully prepare a balanced scenario with the understanding that either one of us can choose to play the other guy's army: it keeps us both honest.
We still talk about a scenario that forced a situation where joe-normal tactical squads were going into heavy melee with IG/AM... it was glorious.

So, "the hate".
When a tooled-up semi- or full-competitive player takes on a full fluff-casual.
I would make a suggestion for both groups:

Competitive player needs to work on figuring out a handicap for himself.

Casual player needs to try to "up" his game as best he can (make a show of looking up things in the BRB or Codex).

That would be considered playing nice and getting along.

What is always painful in these threads is confusing the WAAC player vs the competitive: there is one that follows few rules and one that strives to follow them always.

 Jjohnso11 wrote:

crimsyn wrote:

 Jjohnso11 wrote:


This is the millennial everyone should have fun at tournaments and it should be as close to a tie as possible so me and my opponent both win mindset.

Unmmm, everyone should have fun at tournaments. If you aren’t going to have fun, why would you bother paying an entry fee and going to a tournament? If I am organizing a tournament and someone is t having fun, I would consider that to be a problem.

Fundamentally, I think this is what a “zero sum” game truly means. It has nothing to do with the details of how you score, but it has to do with the attitude that I’m only having fun if I am actively making the game unfun for my opponent. The more I make it unfun for them, the more fun I have. This sort of attitude is what is truly toxic.

Tournaments are based around getting the best players to compete against each other to see who is better. If I am organizing a tournament I'm celebrating the best players and hoping that the competitions are close because everyone is there to compete and win. How is wanting to bring the best army and destroy everyone I play toxic at a tournament? Should professional athletes tone down their skill so they don't win more games than other teams?

I'm not confusing that with casual games where you are playing with friends or family or having matches at your FLGS to play with people you know. If you think this whole thing is solely around having fun play more narrative games or go with PLs when you build your lists.

You said that not everyone should have fun at a tournament because that is not what tournaments are about; they are about proving who is the best and you should be merciless and do what you can to win.

I don't disagree that in competitive play, you should give it your all and try to win. But this is where we get into the big difference between good competitive players and tryhards.

A good competitive player plays to develop their skills and explore the depth of the game. They understand that them getting better at the game is in some ways a community effort (as it is hard to get better if you have no one to play with), so they play with the utmost sportsmanship and are humble in victory and gracious in defeat. They seek out challenges and try new strategies, and try to win based on superior tactics rather than "gotcha" moments like the whole "Alex and Tony at the LVO" debacle. To a good competitive player, a hard-fought victory against an equal adversary, both at the top of their field, is the pinnacle of the game. But if you aren't at that level, then they are the sort of person who you can lose to but still have fun. They know when to turn it off and are generally respectful of their opponents.

A tryhard plays only to win. To them, they just want to rack up the highest W/L ratio, no matter if it is at a high level of competition or against someone who just bought his first models that afternoon. They don't have fun if they aren't winning, and the more thoroughly they crush the spirits of their opponent and make them never want to play again, the more fun they have. They want to express dominance on the game table (sometimes because they aren't satisfied with their real life), and that leads them down the path of all sorts of toxic behaviour. Unsportsmanlike conduct, noob-stomping, trash-talking, bullying, mind games, and even outright cheating.

I've seen a lot of people quit a game I love because of tryhards, and there were times when I was tempted to get rid of my nicely painted army because I was sick of it. That is why it is important for communities to keep competitive play somewhat in check and keep everything in perspective. Not all competitive players are bad people and the truly good competitive players who are at the top of their game and don't have anything to prove are often quite pleasant. I've had a good time losing to someone who was travelling around to win major tournaments, and a bad time winning against a wannabe. The problem is that too singular of a focus on competitive play attracts tryhards, and that can poison a community because these tryhards engage in this zero sum thinking -- "I'm only having fun if you aren't"

You said that not everyone should have fun at a tournament because that is not what tournaments are about; they are about proving who is the best. That is a profoundly negative attitude. I say not everyone is going to win a tournament and that's fine, but if not everyone is having fun, then there is a problem somewhere.

 Talizvar wrote:

Competitive player needs to work on figuring out a handicap for himself.

Casual player needs to try to "up" his game as best he can (make a show of looking up things in the BRB or Codex).

That would be considered playing nice and getting along.

What is always painful in these threads is confusing the WAAC player vs the competitive: there is one that follows few rules and one that strives to follow them always.

Lots of nice distinctions here. As someone who usually ends up on the competitive side of these arguments, I will say that there's a world of difference depending on the attitude of the opponent. When a casual player is interested in learning; I'm incredibly happy, probably more excited than playing a competitive game; to teach. What's frustrating is someone uninterested in learning that still expects to win. This is where some of the poor feelings about trying to hard and trying to figure out how hard is too hard come in.

I suppose the thing that's not super obvious to the casual player is that, at least for me, I LOVE losing. Games in which you win easily are always in your control. Games in which you lose slip out of your control and force you to adapt and learn to try and take it back. That's fundamentally what's missing when you play down. It's boring, because its losing without losing control. You remain in control of the game right up until you choose to lose. Teaching is fun because someday they surprise you. Playing against someone that wants you to let them win isn't because it feels like they don't really want to beat you; they just want to win.

Playing down in terms of playing a less optimal list is a different experience. There's fun in the challenge; and personally, I like trying new things too much to not do this to a degree all the time, but does kind of dull some of the excitement from a loss. I find it works better when you're familiar with just how experienced someone is. Where this can feel bad is when someone requests that you handicap yourself and you learn they really didn't need the advantage.

Really though, I find a good game is rarely about winning and losing. Some of the most competitive games I've ever played have also been the most casual because the latter is more about how you interact with your opponent than how hard to try to win.

crimsyn wrote:


I don't disagree that in competitive play, you should give it your all and try to win. But this is where we get into the big difference between good competitive players and tryhards.

I'm not arguing that there are subsets of the competitive players that ruin the gaming experience for everyone. That individual exists in every type of competition. I think there was an X-Wing player at a major tournament a couple years ago spinning their maneuver dial when their opponent was executing their movement and was busted by the camera. This is a type of person issue not a competitive 40k issue.

crimsyn wrote:
A tryhard plays only to win. To them, they just want to rack up the highest W/L ratio, no matter if it is at a high level of competition or against someone who just bought his first models that afternoon. They don't have fun if they aren't winning, and the more thoroughly they crush the spirits of their opponent and make them never want to play again, the more fun they have. They want to express dominance on the game table (sometimes because they aren't satisfied with their real life), and that leads them down the path of all sorts of toxic behaviour. Unsportsmanlike conduct, noob-stomping, trash-talking, bullying, mind games, and even outright cheating.

I've seen a lot of people quit a game I love because of tryhards, and there were times when I was tempted to get rid of my nicely painted army because I was sick of it. That is why it is important for communities to keep competitive play somewhat in check and keep everything in perspective. Not all competitive players are bad people and the truly good competitive players who are at the top of their game and don't have anything to prove are often quite pleasant. I've had a good time losing to someone who was travelling around to win major tournaments, and a bad time winning against a wannabe. The problem is that too singular of a focus on competitive play attracts tryhards, and that can poison a community because these tryhards engage in this zero sum thinking -- "I'm only having fun if you aren't"

You said that not everyone should have fun at a tournament because that is not what tournaments are about; they are about proving who is the best. That is a profoundly negative attitude. I say not everyone is going to win a tournament and that's fine, but if not everyone is having fun, then there is a problem somewhere.

I said that it wasn't the tournament organizers responsibility to ensure everyone is having fun and it isn't a tournament failure if everyone didn't have fun. How people enjoy the game is different person to person. People enjoy seeing painting minis on a table, people enjoy building lists, people enjoy winning by a blowout, and people enjoy winning closely contested games. You can enjoy one of those or all of those and a tournament organizer can't possibly ensure that all of those conditions will be met every single game. It would be impossible to ensure everyone is having fun at a competitive tournament. I don't believe people enjoy losing. They may enjoy playing the game and enjoy the competition but does the person who came in last place walk around talking about how much fun they had losing every game they played?

You are interpreting it as a profoundly negative attitude because you believe that the person who goes to the tournament to win/destroy their opponent/be the best is not a gracious loser or humble winner. How do you know that the person attending the tournament doesn't gain satisfaction(fun) out of being able to test their army and strategy against multiple different people and is having fun the entire tournament regardless of winning or losing? The issue with this thread is everyone is typecasting competitive players as try hards.

I find that these issues again only really manifest in GW games so strongly. I find a lot of that is also due to the balance issues.

Competitive tournament players know the balance is bad, and shell out for new forces every season to stay up with the meta and stay competitive.

Casual narrative players know the balance is bad, but don't want to shell out for new force every season because they are tied to the faction they enjoy. As such they also cannot have good games against the competitive players unless their faction just happens to be riding the OP for the moment.

Players that don't know any better that assume "hey I have 2,000 points, that means my force is reasonably balanced" and then get table stomped because their opponent was rocking a 4000 point force in the guise of a 2000 point force due to min/max hit a crossroads.

Some embrace it and sell off the garbage and churn and burn with the competitive guys, and some get mad and quit and post negative commentary on social media and forums.

But I notice a very distinct lack of this same issue in pretty much any other game that I play. I saw it a bit in xwing because xwing had the same problem. I saw it a bit in warmachine forums for same reasons.

My other games though, are mostly quiet in this topic because its simply not as bad. I feel largely because the balance issues are not as bad.

I think a lot of the fuel for toxicity comes from the fact that chasing the meta involves your models being nerfed to obsolescence every few months when points get updated.

The other half is the rules exploits from people finding weird loopholes between rules interacting with each other.

This problem isn't unique to 8th but I feel the constant updates we have nowadays accelerates this issue.

 Sqorgar wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Even then, the assumption is the set lists would be perfectly balanced.

This is slightly off topic from what you said, but... Two players playing the same list on symmetrical terrain would be about as balanced as 40k ever got -

This is perhaps the least accurate statement in the thread so far. I am surprised by the # of players still out there who don't yet realize player skill is a/the dominant factor in success.

MVBrandt wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Even then, the assumption is the set lists would be perfectly balanced.

This is slightly off topic from what you said, but... Two players playing the same list on symmetrical terrain would be about as balanced as 40k ever got -

This is perhaps the least accurate statement in the thread so far. I am surprised by the # of players still out there who don't yet realize player skill is a/the dominant factor in success.

My hope for Fixed Army Format tournaments would be that it would help players realise it's player skill, what you do with your resources (including luck), rather than luck or army list.

Nurglitch wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Even then, the assumption is the set lists would be perfectly balanced.

This is slightly off topic from what you said, but... Two players playing the same list on symmetrical terrain would be about as balanced as 40k ever got -

This is perhaps the least accurate statement in the thread so far. I am surprised by the # of players still out there who don't yet realize player skill is a/the dominant factor in success.

My hope for Fixed Army Format tournaments would be that it would help players realise it's player skill, what you do with your resources (including luck), rather than luck or army list.

I think it would. My point was the guy I quoted basically said fixed army tourneys would just come down to dice rolls, and that's ... very, very wrong.

Nurglitch wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Even then, the assumption is the set lists would be perfectly balanced.

This is slightly off topic from what you said, but... Two players playing the same list on symmetrical terrain would be about as balanced as 40k ever got -

This is perhaps the least accurate statement in the thread so far. I am surprised by the # of players still out there who don't yet realize player skill is a/the dominant factor in success.

My hope for Fixed Army Format tournaments would be that it would help players realise it's player skill, what you do with your resources (including luck), rather than luck or army list.

Fixed army lists are easy - proxies are allowed!

Advertise the tourney as fixed list must be as close to WYSIWIG proxy army as possible,
with all entrants playing the same "list"
represented by different models.


TOs can give prizes for people who go all out,
and convert their armies to match the tourney them, and so on...

MVBrandt wrote:
I think it would. My point was the guy I quoted basically said fixed army tourneys would just come down to dice rolls, and that's ... very, very wrong.

No, I said it would come down to swingy dice rolls. The vast majority of rolls will occur in a bell curve with extremely good or extremely bad rolls generally being outliers because you roll a lot of dice. But in cases where you only roll one or two D6s, the chances of getting extremely good or extremely bad rolls increases quite a bit. They are also more likely to have consecutive extremes, like missing three charges in a row or doing max mortal damage multiple times. The basic strategy of the game is built around the bell curve of average rolls, but the extreme rolls can be decisive in the outcome of the battle.

I don't think 40k is a particularly skillful game (I reserve that designation for games like Go), but whatever strategy you use is susceptible to the will of the dice. If there are no extreme rolls, I agree that a good strategy can win. But there will be extreme rolls, and in some cases, many more of them than you can strategize around. Confirmation bias just convinces you that when you win or lose, it was entirely due to skill.

 jeff white wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Even then, the assumption is the set lists would be perfectly balanced.

This is slightly off topic from what you said, but... Two players playing the same list on symmetrical terrain would be about as balanced as 40k ever got -

This is perhaps the least accurate statement in the thread so far. I am surprised by the # of players still out there who don't yet realize player skill is a/the dominant factor in success.

My hope for Fixed Army Format tournaments would be that it would help players realise it's player skill, what you do with your resources (including luck), rather than luck or army list.

Fixed army lists are easy - proxies are allowed!

Advertise the tourney as fixed list must be as close to WYSIWIG proxy army as possible,
with all entrants playing the same "list"
represented by different models.


TOs can give prizes for people who go all out,
and convert their armies to match the tourney them, and so on...

That's a great idea!

 Sqorgar wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:
I think it would. My point was the guy I quoted basically said fixed army tourneys would just come down to dice rolls, and that's ... very, very wrong.

No, I said it would come down to swingy dice rolls. The vast majority of rolls will occur in a bell curve with extremely good or extremely bad rolls generally being outliers because you roll a lot of dice. But in cases where you only roll one or two D6s, the chances of getting extremely good or extremely bad rolls increases quite a bit. They are also more likely to have consecutive extremes, like missing three charges in a row or doing max mortal damage multiple times. The basic strategy of the game is built around the bell curve of average rolls, but the extreme rolls can be decisive in the outcome of the battle.

I don't think 40k is a particularly skillful game (I reserve that designation for games like Go), but whatever strategy you use is susceptible to the will of the dice. If there are no extreme rolls, I agree that a good strategy can win. But there will be extreme rolls, and in some cases, many more of them than you can strategize around. Confirmation bias just convinces you that when you win or lose, it was entirely due to skill.

Based on your clarification, I would still disagree. But I am mostly just noting your observation that 40k is not a particularly skillful game. That's ... simply untrue. And no, most games would not come down to swingy dice rolls.

40k is an incredibly shallow game with the illusion of a lot of skill and complexity. It's not high skill, but it's not entirely dice either. It's a far cry from what I would consider requiring a lot of skill or even deep and complex skill, however, no matter how much the competitive 40k crowd wants to pretend it does.

Nurglitch wrote:

 jeff white wrote:

Nurglitch wrote:

MVBrandt wrote:

 Sqorgar wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
Even then, the assumption is the set lists would be perfectly balanced.

This is slightly off topic from what you said, but... Two players playing the same list on symmetrical terrain would be about as balanced as 40k ever got -

This is perhaps the least accurate statement in the thread so far. I am surprised by the # of players still out there who don't yet realize player skill is a/the dominant factor in success.

My hope for Fixed Army Format tournaments would be that it would help players realise it's player skill, what you do with your resources (including luck), rather than luck or army list.

Fixed army lists are easy - proxies are allowed!

Advertise the tourney as fixed list must be as close to WYSIWIG proxy army as possible,
with all entrants playing the same "list"
represented by different models.


TOs can give prizes for people who go all out,
and convert their armies to match the tourney them, and so on...

That's a great idea!

Or simply force unit choices and points distributions, like:

1750 points
20% HQ max.
no named characters.
no character over 150points after wargear.

50% max troops
30% min troops
maximum 6 separate troop units

20% max hvy spt

20% max fast attack

20% max elites

no flyers
no relics
all units must belong to a single faction or clan, etc.

At the start of every game,
each player will choose one unit from the opposing player's army
and remove it from the game.

Whoever is determined to move first chooses first,
and after the unit is removed, the opposing player chooses.

Wayniac wrote:
40k is an incredibly shallow game with the illusion of a lot of skill and complexity. It's not high skill, but it's not entirely dice either. It's a far cry from what I would consider requiring a lot of skill or even deep and complex skill, however, no matter how much the competitive 40k crowd wants to pretend it does.

It's an interesting fissure between the competitive and casual crowds that casual people tend to believe that the dice rolls overwhelm skill, and competitive players believe it doesn't. I mean, Mike organises the premiere 40k competitive event, the NOVA Open, so I would think he has some experience in the matter, and it's definitely not the only event at NOVA - it has narrative events too.