Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Slipspace wrote:

Karol wrote:

Loading the dice isn't cheating. I could, in theory, create hundreds of loaded dice. That isn't cheating. It's using the loaded dice that's cheating. Regardless of how they became loaded.

I like the way your thinking. It is like sports, nothing is illegal besides being caught doing something illegal.

No...just no. If that's what you took from that quote you really need to read it again. The quote is pointing out that it's the use of unfair dice, not creating them in the first place, that is illegal, regardless of how those unfair dice came about. It was in no way endorsing any form of cheating.

I kind of disagree with this. If I saw someone making loaded dice. I'd pretty much suspect they would be intent on using them.

Of course you should suspect they are intent on the dice getting used. Making loaded dice is substantial evidence that the person intends to cheat (or enable cheating). But it is not, itself, cheating.

Xenomancers wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I keep saying that sometimes low terrain happens. You can't make assumptions about terrain. There is no standard, and plenty of historical battles were in pretty open areas.

LOL almost all of them.

Citation? Because, while many battles fought in ages of heavy infantry/cavalry may have been, many battles in those ages were not. And most in other ages were not.

Spot checking the "20 most important battles of WW2":
Battle of Crete: Nope
Iwa Jima: Nope
Anzo: Nope
Monte Cassino: Nope:
Bulge: Nope
Sedan: Nope
Battle of Brittan: Debateable (one side was only aircraft), but I'd say no
Brody: I don't actually know offhand. Not familiar with this battle offhand. Might be a yes?
Leyte Gulf: Nope
"Battle of the Atlantic": Not sure I'd call this a single battle, but I'd call this a yes
Coral Sea: Yes
Second Battle of Kharkov: No
Luzon: No
Philippine Sea: Yes
Berlin: No
Kursk: No
Moscow: No
D-Day: HELL NO
Midway: Yes
Stalingrad: No

So of the top 20 battles from the first source I came across, we see 3 battles in open areas, 16 clearly not open areas, and one I can't categorize.

Most battles do not happen in open areas.

Most influential battles is not the same as most battles. They could be the most influential because one side was forced to take out an enemy stronghold (or fail doing so). In a sense, they could be counted as the most important for the very reason that they were uncommon pushes through defenses (Stalingrad, D-day, Guadalcanal). I agree with you entirely, but the supporting argument has some holes.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:
Most influential battles is not the same as most battles. I agree with you entirely, but the supporting argument doesn't hold.

I didn't have the resources to expend on "20 random battles" and substituted "20 most influential" as a proxy, because it was the most reasonable I came up with off the top of my head.

Of all the battles I can think of, though, only a minority were on a mostly-open field. Not an insignificant minority; in ages of heavy infantry/cavalry, both forces in an even-ish engagement (where both sides thought they had the upper hand) tended to pursue open fields. But even in those eras, terrain was used as much as possible when it would benefit them (castles, river crossings, forests, etc).

Thats why i said plenty. The game needs to function inpedendent of terrain.

Martel732 wrote:
Thats why i said plenty. The game needs to function inpedendent of terrain.

"Plenty" would be accurate, but "Almost all" would not.

The game should work, but you shouldn't be safe in assuming terrain won't "hold you back".

That is a strangle US centric list. No mameluks beating the mongols. Nothing from Asian or east europe history unless it is WWII, not even Poltava and without that there would be no Russia. Mighty strange.

But to not be off topic, the only battles that won't be using terrain are those from the future fought in the void of space outside of a star system.

The game that went to turn 2 was earlier in the stream, not the final table.

I think the CA 2019 missions DID add to the diversity of top lists but without more tournies to see it's hard to draw conclusions.

Does anyone know if you had to bring the same list you qualified with to the finals?

1750 vs 2k points does make for different metas in my experience.

Space marines continuing to perform so well with players knowing the will face a disproportionate amount of marines and specifically list tailoring to beat marines is a fact that should stand out. It's like the dark castillian times where the first thing you did when designing a list was ask yourself if you could beat it and it still had a +50% WR.

Not to be harsh but some of the players at this event were not practiced competitive players from what I observed on the stream. This does need to be factored in when we are discussing army strength based on placing and why we really need more than a months data (or one tournament) to draw any real conclusions.

Some of the power imbalance issues are pretty clear from just looking at the stats of the units (compare a TFC to a quad-mortar launcher).

I wish we had more data points. I wish we had more data points from different tournament formats. I wish space wolves, dark angels and DW were not completely invalidated by the new marine codex launch (I'll just throw this one in here in case wishes come true).

Drawing conclusions based off of this one tournament is only slightly more reckless than drawing off the limited December data set. Lucky for us the largest 40k individual tournament is right around the corner so let's see where we end up.

Karol wrote:
That is a strangle US centric list. No mameluks beating the mongols. Nothing from Asian or east europe history unless it is WWII, not even Poltava and without that there would be no Russia. Mighty strange.

20 most important battles of WWII only including battles from WWII? What's strange about that? It wasn't a list of the 20 most important battles, or 20 random battles.

But to not be off topic, the only battles that won't be using terrain are those from the future fought in the void of space outside of a star system.

That's kinda in line with the list. The only battles on that list that weren't heavily influenced by terrain were naval battles. Almost as if the only cases where a battle is unlikely to be influenced substantially by terrain is when you can't reasonably expect there to be any...

One thing though I wish they standardized on 1750. 2000 seems a bit too much, and dropping it to 1750 reduces some of the filth.

Just to add a bit of contrast to the GW event here's a list of the ITC winners from last weekend:

https://old.reddit.com/r/WarhammerCompetitive/comments/eo5jvu/pandas_weekend_rundown_111112/?st=k5cpe84s&sh=78a49ca9

I count 12/16 top 4 as marines (IH/RG/IF/WS). Don't know what was going on at the Caldeonian Uprising but if we drop that outlier we get 11/12 marines in the top 4 (and that one was Skarii with DE who is a world class player).

Bad news for you Wayniac is I think I heard them say on the stream that GW is moving to 2k for their tournies. Looks like 1.75k is dead, long live 2k...

Bharring wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Thats why i said plenty. The game needs to function inpedendent of terrain.

"Plenty" would be accurate, but "Almost all" would not.

The game should work, but you shouldn't be safe in assuming terrain won't "hold you back".

Before WW1 armies would literally line up in front of each other in an open area intentionally. Honestly the game plays a lot more Napoleonic than post WW1 anyways. Modern armies do not line up with each other or engage in small areas. The battlefield has next to unlimited size and things as a result are MUCH more spread out. Almost all the battles fought in history were fought on open battlefield.

Also if you want to look at realism. If a forest is giving you trouble you just blow it up. If troops are inside of a building shooting at you - you just drop a 155mm shell into the roof and everyone inside is dead. Realism is not fun. Pitched battles are actually a lot of fun. We just need the next version of the game to adopt alternating activation OR casualties removed at end of turn like in apoc.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Wayniac wrote:
One thing though I wish they standardized on 1750. 2000 seems a bit too much, and dropping it to 1750 reduces some of the filth.

The points of the game is fine. Lowering points just punishes elite armies because their HQ's and troops are more expensive.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
Thats why i said plenty. The game needs to function independent of terrain.

OFC it does. They should probably just do away with ILOS weapons too. Just change ILOS to naturally ignore cover and call it a day. Bring back the ordinance/barrage rule too where open topped tanks take bonus damage against them. Shooting threw wall is REALLY dumb in a game this small.

 Xenomancers wrote:

Bharring wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Thats why i said plenty. The game needs to function inpedendent of terrain.

"Plenty" would be accurate, but "Almost all" would not.

The game should work, but you shouldn't be safe in assuming terrain won't "hold you back".

Before WW1 armies would literally line up in front of each other in an open area intentionally. Honestly the game plays a lot more Napoleonic than post WW1 anyways. Modern armies do not line up with each other or engage in small areas. The battlefield has next to unlimited size and things as a result are MUCH more spread out. Almost all the battles fought in history were fought on open battlefield.

Sounds like someone hasn't read about Napolean's Spanish campaign.

In the early modern era, there was a heavy dependence on heavy infantry. Armies based on heavy infantry that thought they had the upper hand wanted an open field. So we saw more open field engagements than eras not dominated by heavy infantry. But even then, it was a preference not a rule. There were plenty of non-open-field engagements in that era, too. Washington crossing the Delaware. Nathan Bedford Forrest's battles. Bull Run (either). Gettysburg. Bunker Hill. Yorktown. Open fields might have been the preference, but they were not the norm. Historically, terrain features were a critical piece of campaigning, as you needed to maximize your use of them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, specific to

Before WW1 armies would literally line up in front of each other in an open area intentionally.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco-Prussian_War

They didn't "line up in front of each other in an open area intentionally". Trying to do so was suicide for either force.

You are right that there was a shift away from lining up, but you're way off on timing, and don't seem to understand the reasoning.

40k has a pretty sizeable proportion of competitive gamers though, and that's quite different in attitude to a more historical approach.

Tailoring your equipment and your force to terrain and your opponent is historically accurate. Tanks exist because charging infantry against WWI trenchlines was suicide.

Yoyoyo wrote:
40k has a pretty sizeable proportion of competitive gamers though, and that's quite different in attitude to a more historical approach.

Tailoring your equipment and your force to terrain and your opponent is historically accurate. Tanks exist because charging infantry against WWI trenchlines was suicide.

But having perfect intelligence before the battle about what the terrain is, what your opponent's got, and having perfect access to every possible thing in your own armoury isn't historically accurate.

I like Infinity's approach where you get to know what the scenario is and what faction your opponent's playing before you build your list but nothing about what's actually in their list or what the table looks like.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:
40k has a pretty sizeable proportion of competitive gamers though, and that's quite different in attitude to a more historical approach.

Tailoring your equipment and your force to terrain and your opponent is historically accurate. Tanks exist because charging infantry against WWI trenchlines was suicide.

But having perfect intelligence before the battle about what the terrain is, what your opponent's got, and having perfect access to every possible thing in your own armoury isn't historically accurate.

I like Infinity's approach where you get to know what the scenario is and what faction your opponent's playing before you build your list but nothing about what's actually in their list or what the table looks like.

Which is why you bring forces that can adapt to likely terrain. You don't bring a list that only performs well on Planet Bowlingball or Planet Claustrophobia. You bring a mix.

"In real life" you can have battles where the sides have practiced and drilled for months or years either in-place or in facimilies of the exact terrain they wind up fighting on. So I can't really say "it's not realisitic" when complaining about people knowing tournament terrain layout before the game itself. That said, I still don't like it.

Developments like Field Artillery and the machine gun made open field fighting something to avoid unless you're a tank. Airpower has reduced a tank's desire to be in an open field, too. Navy's only "territory" is when you get close in to land, and like the Pacific campaigns demonstrate, archipelagos.

However, the armor of space marine and alien alike have promoted the ability to run through the open more easily then we can consider these days.

 Charistoph wrote:
Developments like Field Artillery and the machine gun made open field fighting something to avoid unless you're a tank. Airpower has reduced a tank's desire to be in an open field, too. Navy's only "territory" is when you get close in to land, and like the Pacific campaigns demonstrate, archipelagos.

The bolt-action firearms, rifling, and the success of guerrilla engagements in Spain against Napolean and in the US against Britain started shifting combat away from heavy infantry to more light infantry before the Machine Gun was popular (although field guns predate the end of heavy infantry warfare). The Machine Gun makes it suicide, but heavy infantry was losing out before it became popular.

However, the armor of space marine and alien alike have promoted the ability to run through the open more easily then we can consider these days.

This is what is often meant by "Space Marines are walking tanks". In theory, that's their battlefield role.

 Charistoph wrote:

However, the armor of space marine and alien alike have promoted the ability to run through the open more easily then we can consider these days.

Yet the terrain rules are written so that the cover benefits the heavily armoured models more!

Bharring wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:
Developments like Field Artillery and the machine gun made open field fighting something to avoid unless you're a tank. Airpower has reduced a tank's desire to be in an open field, too. Navy's only "territory" is when you get close in to land, and like the Pacific campaigns demonstrate, archipelagos.

The bolt-action firearms, rifling, and the success of guerrilla engagements in Spain against Napolean and in the US against Britain started shifting combat away from heavy infantry to more light infantry before the Machine Gun was popular (although field guns predate the end of heavy infantry warfare). The Machine Gun makes it suicide, but heavy infantry was losing out before it became popular.

Bolt Action rifles weren't very much in use till well after Napoleon. Both sides in the American Civil War largely used muzzle loaders like many of the skirmishers of the American Revolution, as the bolt action rifles were considered "too complicated" for a base soldier, and the Henry repeating rifle was still relatively new (though loved by those who got their hands on them). Pikes weren't even involved in the American Civil War, though, I can't say much about the English wars with the French at the time.

The biggest problems with muskets versus pikes was the slow-loading, and the lack of spiky reach to counter cavalry. The advent of the bayonet in such a way as to be able to have it mounted and fire changed that, making the pike non-existant in the Colonies, along with the general lack of cavalry to counter.

Crimson wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

However, the armor of space marine and alien alike have promoted the ability to run through the open more easily then we can consider these days.

Yet the terrain rules are written so that the cover benefits the heavily armoured models more!

They do for now. It wasn't so long ago that it was very different. It may change again.

why are people looking at the results of one single WHW tier list with like no big names in attendance, as though its some indisputable tier list? Are we really at this level of stupid today?

 Charistoph wrote:

Bharring wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:
Developments like Field Artillery and the machine gun made open field fighting something to avoid unless you're a tank. Airpower has reduced a tank's desire to be in an open field, too. Navy's only "territory" is when you get close in to land, and like the Pacific campaigns demonstrate, archipelagos.

The bolt-action firearms, rifling, and the success of guerrilla engagements in Spain against Napolean and in the US against Britain started shifting combat away from heavy infantry to more light infantry before the Machine Gun was popular (although field guns predate the end of heavy infantry warfare). The Machine Gun makes it suicide, but heavy infantry was losing out before it became popular.

Bolt Action rifles weren't very much in use till well after Napoleon. Both sides in the American Civil War largely used muzzle loaders like many of the skirmishers of the American Revolution, as the bolt action rifles were considered "too complicated" for a base soldier, and the Henry repeating rifle was still relatively new (though loved by those who got their hands on them).

The American Civil War was still fought primarily with heavy infantry, not light. Because, in part, bolt action rifles weren't really there yet, as you say. Muzzle-loaders favored heavy infantry over light.

Pikes weren't even involved in the American Civil War, though, I can't say much about the English wars with the French at the time.

Certainly. I don't think I implied otherwise?

The biggest problems with muskets versus pikes was the slow-loading, and the lack of spiky reach to counter cavalry. The advent of the bayonet in such a way as to be able to have it mounted and fire changed that, making the pike non-existant in the Colonies, along with the general lack of cavalry to counter.

Cavalry in the Civil War tended to be various types of light cavalry, not the heavy cavalry most think of. A pike doesn't do much to most light cavalry. Whether we're talking dragoons or carbines or whatnot, they don't care about pikes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
why are people looking at the results of one single WHW tier list with like no big names in attendance, as though its some indisputable tier list? Are we really at this level of stupid today?

Because it confirms our biases. If it opposed them, it'd just be an outlier.

Bharring wrote:

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
why are people looking at the results of one single WHW tier list with like no big names in attendance, as though its some indisputable tier list? Are we really at this level of stupid today?

Because it confirms our biases. If it opposed them, it'd just be an outlier.

Yeah, this feels extremely transparent.

Bharring wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

Bharring wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:
Developments like Field Artillery and the machine gun made open field fighting something to avoid unless you're a tank. Airpower has reduced a tank's desire to be in an open field, too. Navy's only "territory" is when you get close in to land, and like the Pacific campaigns demonstrate, archipelagos.

The bolt-action firearms, rifling, and the success of guerrilla engagements in Spain against Napolean and in the US against Britain started shifting combat away from heavy infantry to more light infantry before the Machine Gun was popular (although field guns predate the end of heavy infantry warfare). The Machine Gun makes it suicide, but heavy infantry was losing out before it became popular.

Bolt Action rifles weren't very much in use till well after Napoleon. Both sides in the American Civil War largely used muzzle loaders like many of the skirmishers of the American Revolution, as the bolt action rifles were considered "too complicated" for a base soldier, and the Henry repeating rifle was still relatively new (though loved by those who got their hands on them).

The American Civil War was still fought primarily with heavy infantry, not light. Because, in part, bolt action rifles weren't really there yet, as you say. Muzzle-loaders favored heavy infantry over light.

I think we're using different definitions of heavy infantry. One of the key aspects of heavy infantry is armor, and armor has only recently seen a use in the American military. American troops have been less armored than the Imperial Guard for most of their existence, even going back to the Colonial period. Even before that, it was more a mark of the Spanish conquistadors which were still in the Pike & Shot era to wear any armor with their firearms.

With the advent of kevlar and "dragon" armor, there is consideration in bringing back such a role, though, to say nothing of the development of exo-frames for powered armor.

 Charistoph wrote:

Bharring wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

Bharring wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:
Developments like Field Artillery and the machine gun made open field fighting something to avoid unless you're a tank. Airpower has reduced a tank's desire to be in an open field, too. Navy's only "territory" is when you get close in to land, and like the Pacific campaigns demonstrate, archipelagos.

The bolt-action firearms, rifling, and the success of guerrilla engagements in Spain against Napolean and in the US against Britain started shifting combat away from heavy infantry to more light infantry before the Machine Gun was popular (although field guns predate the end of heavy infantry warfare). The Machine Gun makes it suicide, but heavy infantry was losing out before it became popular.

Bolt Action rifles weren't very much in use till well after Napoleon. Both sides in the American Civil War largely used muzzle loaders like many of the skirmishers of the American Revolution, as the bolt action rifles were considered "too complicated" for a base soldier, and the Henry repeating rifle was still relatively new (though loved by those who got their hands on them).

The American Civil War was still fought primarily with heavy infantry, not light. Because, in part, bolt action rifles weren't really there yet, as you say. Muzzle-loaders favored heavy infantry over light.

I think we're using different definitions of heavy infantry. One of the key aspects of heavy infantry is armor, and armor has only recently seen a use in the American military.

Heavy Infantry was infantry that fought in formation. Light infantry was infantry that didn't. Light infantry tends to have lighter kit, but that's not actually part of the definition. So some schlub with a spear in a battleline would be heavy infantry, whereas a Seal in body armor toting full combat kit would be light infantry - despite which one is carrying heavier kit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_infantry

That said, with modern warfare being so anti-heavy-formation, the old "Light Infantry" vs "Heavy Infantry" dichotomy isn't useful. So terms change.

American troops have been less armored than the Imperial Guard for most of their existence, even going back to the Colonial period. Even before that, it was more a mark of the Spanish conquistadors which were still in the Pike & Shot era to wear any armor with their firearms.

With the advent of kevlar and "dragon" armor, there is consideration in bringing back such a role, though, to say nothing of the development of exo-frames for powered armor.

Agreed with each point. Our difference in views seems to be entirely about terms.

My argument was that "heavy infantry" - meaning infantry that fought in tight/heavy formations en masse - often wanted to fight in open fields. So the time periods you'd see the most open-field engagements would be the time periods where heavy infantry (or cavalry) was the norm. That said, even in those periods much of the fighting was done in places where terrain had an impact.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
But having perfect intelligence before the battle about what the terrain is, what your opponent's got, and having perfect access to every possible thing in your own armoury isn't historically accurate.

Dude, there's a big delta from "perfect intelligence" to not knowing how to read a map.

Do you not think there was a difference in what units and tactics were used in WW2 North Africa versus trying to clear out a heavily fortified urban area?

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
why are people looking at the results of one single WHW tier list with like no big names in attendance, as though its some indisputable tier list? Are we really at this level of stupid today?

And there we have it "no big names". As if that mattered.

It is a different tournament circuit, not surprisingly it has some different players.

Not all players are different but playing the GW tournaments does take away from playing ITC tournaments. The Tau player in 2nd place there is the 5th ranked Tau player in the ITC. He is the top ranked UK Tau player even though he does not focus on ITC events - e.g. he was playing in the GT final rather than trying to grab more ITC points at Caledonian Uprising.

There is a tendency for only players on certain tournament and podcast circuits to be considered "big names" - I am not convinced this precludes other players from being just as good.

I think the point of comparison was between the different balance we see in ITC and the GW mission packs. So the culmination of a whole year of tournaments with only good capable players permitted to enter may not be the single biggest tournament but it is certainly interesting data worthy of discussion. Comparing that with the ITC results of the same weekend shows a very different balance of top armies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Nitro Zeus wrote:

Bharring wrote:

 Nitro Zeus wrote:
why are people looking at the results of one single WHW tier list with like no big names in attendance, as though its some indisputable tier list? Are we really at this level of stupid today?

Because it confirms our biases. If it opposed them, it'd just be an outlier.

Yeah, this feels extremely transparent.

Sigh.

To my knowledge 2 large events last weekend did not use the ITC missions. The GW GT final and the Caledonian Uprising (which used a blend of Maelstrom/Eternal War from CA19)

The top lists at those two events were pretty balanced.

By contrast, the top lists at the other 3 events were 11/12 marines across the top 4 in each.

But you just carry on dismissing anything you don't like as "outlier" if you really like.

happy_inquisitor wrote:
Sigh.

To my knowledge 2 large events last weekend did not use the ITC missions. The GW GT final and the Caledonian Uprising (which used a blend of Maelstrom/Eternal War from CA19)

The top lists at those two events were pretty balanced.

By contrast, the top lists at the other 3 events were 11/12 marines across the top 4 in each.

But you just carry on dismissing anything you don't like as "outlier" if you really like.

That part is pretty important to note. The lists were pretty balanced, but "strong". Not like the ITC lists that are just skewed and spam whatever is the best points.

"To my knowledge 2 large events last weekend did not use the ITC missions. The GW GT final and the Caledonian Uprising (which used a blend of Maelstrom/Eternal War from CA19)

The top lists at those two events were pretty balanced.

By contrast, the top lists at the other 3 events were 11/12 marines across the top 4 in each."

If this trend continues, I'll concede that ITC is too biased towards marines. Probably the shooty kind. Which is surprising, given GW's crap terrain rules.

Didn't Caledonia Uprising have eldar flyerwing winning the thing above tau, or somehting like that?

Karol wrote:
Didn't Caledonia Uprising have eldar flyerwing winning the thing above tau, or somehting like that?

Nope.

1. Anthony Chew – TSons/Demons

2. James Mackenzie – GSC/Nids

3. Mani Cheema – CSM/Demons/DG

4. Markus Hinson – IF

Eldar flyers were nowhere near the top.