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 Mezmorki wrote:
Backing up for a moment....

I have a few questions:

How do people actually define "skew." Is it about spamming the most optimal units in the army? Is it just going heavy towards a certain type of unit (eg fast attack or elites). What is it really?

Are highly competitive lists typically also skewed? Would curtailing the ability to skew in certain formats reduce the competitiveness of the list?

More broadly, what makes a list highly competitive? Is it just taking units that perform "the best" relative to the mission objectives and/or from a damage and durability standpoint?

Ultimately - I think we need to discuss the above issues so there can, potentially, be some parameters around what defines an actual competitive and tuned list versus a more casual one. The clear solution to me is defining what makes "casual list" at a technical level versus what's a "no holds bars / anything goes" highly competitive list.

I've seen "skew" most commonly attributed to a tank company or knight style list, so in this case the concept means a list that hedges it's defensive strategy to try and invalidate opponents who do not bring enough heavy weapons to deal with the high toughness threats.
The only other time I've seen "skew" list is when talking about a horde list that attempts to flood the board with more bodies than bullets, and much like the knight/tank style lists, it capitalizes on the opponents who do not bring enough high rate of fire weapons.

I do not think skew lists are a problem for the game, and more of a feature. Sure they can make some outright non-games, but in a tournament/competitive setting, the enjoyment of a well fought match is second rate to a winning no matter what (since there is usually an entry fee + prize on the line).

If someone has an example of a "skew" list that is skewed based solely on offensive potential, I would love to see it! Generally the term refers to exploiting an offensive deficiency in the opposing army's roster via hedging all your defensive bets into one aspect. Sure you will absolutely dominate some games with this, but then there are other games where you just get blown out completely because the opponent happened to have the correct offensive spread to cover your skew strategy.

I think you could qualify the Scatbikes list in 7th as offensive skew.

It was the opposite of the above: a weapon existed that was almost 100% effective against every target type (because of GW's terrible rule changes for vehicles). So if you just brought 1000000000 of that exact same weapon, it didn't matter who you were fighting; you were equipped to address all targets.

Now there is some nuance to it (e.g. scatter lasers were best on super fast platforms like Aeldari jetbikes, because armor facings meant they had to maneuver). But I think that counts.

 Dysartes wrote:

 auticus wrote:
Not trying to take the piss here but deck building is a statement indicating that army list creation is a central tenant of the game, and for some people THE central tenant of the game.

Tenet, man, tenet - a tenant is someone who occupies land or property rented from a landlord, while a tenet is a principle or belief.

Consider me schooled thanks for the clarification.

Deadnight wrote:

I disagree.

Ok.

I think the term 'list-tailoring' in this case is being used as a blanket to cover things that really are not suitable.

It apparently means different things to different people. Which is what I was trying to demonstrate.

To me, list-tailoring is building a 'gotcha!' list or a list that is effectively a 'silver bullet' to whatever the other guy has. He brings power armour, you load up on plasma. He brings loads of armour, you break out all the anti tank guns. It's about shutting them down completely with a perfect counter.

Depending on the game, the perfect counter may not exist. In my experience the tailoring was always about tilting the field in your favor, not producing the perfect hard counter. It seemed more about tweaking an existing list instead of building a new one from scratch.

 Arschbombe wrote:

Deadnight wrote:

I disagree.

Ok.

I should clarify. I disagree that list tailoring as a
term covers everything.

 Arschbombe wrote:


It apparently means different things to different people. Which is what I was trying to demonstrate.

Oh I agree Everyone! Everyone having their own definition of a [word] is pretty standard for wargaming. I just think different terms better-explain certain concepts and ideas. I don't think there's much daylight between us on the details, just the header.

 Arschbombe wrote:


Depending on the game, the perfect counter may not exist. In my experience the tailoring was always about tilting the field in your favor, not producing the perfect hard counter. It seemed more about tweaking an existing list instead of building a new one from scratch.

Yeah, this makes sense, I can't say much to disagree with you. My only caveat is I ammore used to games like wmh where those hard counters do exist though.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I think you could qualify the Scatbikes list in 7th as offensive skew.

It was the opposite of the above: a weapon existed that was almost 100% effective against every target type (because of GW's terrible rule changes for vehicles). So if you just brought 1000000000 of that exact same weapon, it didn't matter who you were fighting; you were equipped to address all targets.

Now there is some nuance to it (e.g. scatter lasers were best on super fast platforms like Aeldari jetbikes, because armor facings meant they had to maneuver). But I think that counts.

I wouldn't say its a skew exactly - I'd say it was just efficient because as you say it worked versus everything, and jetbikes were clearly undercosted compared with most other things in the game.

I'm not sure for instance the tendency towards Mid S, AP2 or 3, 2 damage attacks in 8th was due to a desire for skew - but because GW undercosted it versus a load of alternatives. (The rise of Marines 2.0 also contributed).

Today meanwhile GW seems to want a huge number of armies in the game to make firing an autocannon=you lose noob.

Well you have essentially defined offensive skew away at that point, because the only kind that would plausibly exist is "spam as many of one weapon statline as possible".

I mean what would offensive skew even mean otherwise?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


I mean what would offensive skew even mean otherwise?

It continually screams obscenities and calls you many rude words as it obliterates your army.

;p

Sorry, couldn't resist. I'll.go get my coat.

Deadnight wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:


I mean what would offensive skew even mean otherwise?

It continually screams obscenities and calls you many rude words as it obliterates your army.

;p

Sorry, couldn't resist. I'll.go get my coat.

No, no, stay! That was awesome and levity is always a good thing...

... well usually a good thing anyways. I suppose there are inappropriate times for humor

 Arschbombe wrote:

 kodos wrote:

the GW games with a fixed list for all games that must be pre-written by registration is something unique

They're not. I've played exactly 3 games "competitively:"

so 3 among "many" is the definition for "none"?

I have played Warmachine/Hordes and SAGA competitive were changing the list after you know the faction of your opponent and the scenario is a thing
Overdrive, as a rather new game that aims for competitive miniature gaming, has the list building aspect as a pre-game setup as key feature

that the army list or order of battle is created after you know the scenario is the default case in most historical wargames and overall the are much more games were this is "normal" than having the list written before you know anything

this was even the goal of having Power Levels in 40k, that you can tailor your list after you know against who you play and what the scenario is, but being able to adjust the wargear without changing the point cost of a unit


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Arschbombe wrote:
Depending on the game, the perfect counter may not exist. In my experience the tailoring was always about tilting the field in your favor, not producing the perfect hard counter. It seemed more about tweaking an existing list instead of building a new one from scratch.

a hard counter is only possible if one player can adjust his list while the other one can not
if both write their list after they know the faction and the scenario it is nearly impossible to get a hard counter except the game has limited choices of playable lists per faction and you know that the opponent only has 1 choice because there are no other options

 kodos wrote:
this was even the goal of having Power Levels in 40k, that you can tailor your list after you know against who you play and what the scenario is, but being able to adjust the wargear without changing the point cost of a unit

Citation?

"Datasheets include something called a Power Level. This is a rough approximation of a unit’s relative effectiveness on the battlefield. These can be used to very quickly throw together two roughly equal forces to fight a battle."

Source: Warhammer Community

"1. SELECT BATTLE SIZE

2. MUSTER ARMIES

3. DETERMINE MISSION"

source: CRUSADE MISSION PACK

 Arschbombe wrote:
Depending on the game, the perfect counter may not exist. In my experience the tailoring was always about tilting the field in your favor, not producing the perfect hard counter. It seemed more about tweaking an existing list instead of building a new one from scratch.

a hard counter is only possible if one player can adjust his list while the other one can not
if both write their list after they know the faction and the scenario it is nearly impossible to get a hard counter except the game has limited choices of playable lists per faction and you know that the opponent only has 1 choice because there are no other options

Like if GW decided units A, B and C are fluffy and should be relatively cheap, units D, E and F should be relatively expensive because they are not fluffy, the mission makes unit C useless so you can counter unit A and B.

so yes?
those are meant to be used to quickly write an army list after you know against whom you play or the scenario

so you can adjust it easily as a 50 PL army all taking anti-tank will still be 50 PL with everyone taking anti-infantry weapons

I don't see were you quotes mean that this is not the case

 kodos wrote:

so 3 among "many" is the definition for "none"?

I don't follow. You pointed out that there are games where lists are written at the table after opponent faction and scenario are known. You also said GW games requiring pre-written lists at the start of an event was unique. I provided counter examples of 2 non-GW games that do the same thing. So GWs approach is not unique. That's all. I do not know which method is more common across the entirety of miniature wargaming.

 kodos wrote:
so yes?
those are meant to be used to quickly write an army list after you know against whom you play or the scenario

so you can adjust it easily as a 50 PL army all taking anti-tank will still be 50 PL with everyone taking anti-infantry weapons

I don't see were you quotes mean that this is not the case

No, it has nothing to do with knowing what scenario you're playing, you roll for the mission after making your list (including wargear choices) in both PL vs pts, PL is just for those too lazy to bother with the details. Removing or adding wargear to units on the fly after seeing the mission and your opponent's list is a house rule that isn't encouraged by anything anyone at GW has written as far as I can see.

My mind is stuck on the idea of "list-matching". I think that this phrase defines the ethos of scenario based casual and cooperative play.

Once matched, generalship and good old fashioned fortune make or break the gamer, not the deck or skew or meta or whatever.

Thanks for the above insights into other systems, Kodos. Again, really valuable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Well you have essentially defined offensive skew away at that point, because the only kind that would plausibly exist is "spam as many of one weapon statline as possible".

I mean what would offensive skew even mean otherwise?

Yeah, I pretty much figured you had got that one right straight out of the gate, too... skew to me seems to mean trying to break the game by deck building to the "meta" in every way, taking advantage of rules, what is likely to be across the table (for instance, some units are super expensive to buy, so spamming those is more unlikely than less expensive units, so maybe it is reasonable to discount the possibility that one might face a "skew" list full of mega expensive units, or maybe it means dumping huge money on a "list" to be able to spam those units to over-skew the fellow skewers, etc...)...




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 vict0988 wrote:

 kodos wrote:
so yes?
those are meant to be used to quickly write an army list after you know against whom you play or the scenario

so you can adjust it easily as a 50 PL army all taking anti-tank will still be 50 PL with everyone taking anti-infantry weapons

I don't see were you quotes mean that this is not the case

No, it has nothing to do with knowing what scenario you're playing, you roll for the mission after making your list (including wargear choices) in both PL vs pts, PL is just for those too lazy to bother with the details. Removing or adding wargear to units on the fly after seeing the mission and your opponent's list is a house rule that isn't encouraged by anything anyone at GW has written as far as I can see.

Not surprised that GW wouldn't see the potential in a change of process, but... that doesn't stop us from talking about it, even suggesting it as a standard mode of engagement, does it?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So, I think to answer the argument (as I understand it), an example of listbuilding that doesn't occur before the game:

In CoC there are the following factors that make it so list building in advance is quite difficult:
1) support points are random (determined by any number of d6 rolls and the precise matchup between forces). In one game, you could have 17 support, and in the next game, 2, even against the same opponent in the same scenario. Across all the scenarios and all the opponents, you pretty much can have anything from 1-20 support points, with the possibility for more if your platoon is super awful and you play a super elite one.

2) certain scenarios ban certain supports (preparatory bombardment is often unavailable for example).

3) some support choices are table dependent. Lots of support points available/bringing lots of vehicles? Awesome! If the table is tight though, your opponent could block off vehicle access points with minefields. Better buy the mine-clearing engineers!

4) paying more support points can give you more flexibility. You can buy an Engineer Section for 4 times the cost (usually) of an Engineer team. The team has to be a specific type (mine clearing, demolitions, wire cutting, etc). The Section comes with a junior leader and two teams, and what the roles of the two teams are can be chosen when they are deployed (rather than on your army list).

5) mind games with your opponent. Your opponent is attacking with 17 support. You have 9 to defend with. You could go all in with mines and entrenchments and wire and obstacles, but your opponent might have engineers supported by MGs and tanks, which hard counters such a build. You could suspect he is going tank platoons and try to pre-empt him with anti-tank guns. Or he might just bring a few infantry squads - possibly a whole platoon extra nearly.

Once you have picked your supports, you can't change them. Choose wisely!

Was this for me? Thanks for writing all that out if it was. The random amount of support is different for each player, so the game is not meant to be balanced right? If we play Scenario 6: Attack on Objective and you roll a 2 for support the attacker has Force A +2 and the defender has Force B +1, if you roll 10 then it's Force A +10 vs Force B +5, either the difference is 1 or the difference is 5. I watched an interview with the designer as well, making every option viable was not a big concern, making the historic combination of units and guns viable was a concern. There are books about which units used which guns in what periods and what wars, this is not true in 40k, because we make up this fluff ourselves. My dynasty might use Hexmarks, yours might not, that's what makes it my dynasty, it has what I like and plays how I want to play.

How do people actually define "skew."

Spamming a particular Toughness or Sv characteristic to make your army resistant to some of your opponent's weapons. Thin City is a list with mostly Wracks that are resistant to lascannons, Thick City is a list with mostly Pain Engines that are resistant to heavy bolters.

I define skew as skewing a list heavily to a certain element. Spam is often a part of skew though it doesn't have to be.

For example heavy weapons skew would just be a list loaded down with heavy weapons, whereas starcannon spam would be a list loaded down with a particular weapon (a starcannon).

Skew is often brought about to enjoy redundancy and to try to hard counter your opponent's list (whatever it is you are skewing against).

For example if for whatever reason high toughness tank lists were common, taking heavy weapon skew would hard counter the all armor and the opponent couldn't just take out a couple elements, the redundancy of the skew would make it so taking one weapon out has other replacements.

It is a form of paper/rock/scissors.

I top-10d a 40k GT in the late 90s by using starcannon skew, because 9 out of 10 opponents fielded space marines, and 99 out of 100 tournament tables had very little terrain / cover, and starcannons in 3rd edition evaporated marines.

My counter was swarm armies like nids or orks, but those were rare so I enjoyed lengthy win streaks and high tournament placings simply because I was rock in a meta that heavily featured scissors and very very rarely encountered paper. (incidentally this also made me feel that I was an awesome 40k player for a number of years and it was during 4th edition when my chaos marines got nerfed into being a normal army that I realized how heavily on army lists I relied on and my skills were... really not so hot and the list carried me through most of those wins by itself)

 vict0988 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So, I think to answer the argument (as I understand it), an example of listbuilding that doesn't occur before the game:

In CoC there are the following factors that make it so list building in advance is quite difficult:
1) support points are random (determined by any number of d6 rolls and the precise matchup between forces). In one game, you could have 17 support, and in the next game, 2, even against the same opponent in the same scenario. Across all the scenarios and all the opponents, you pretty much can have anything from 1-20 support points, with the possibility for more if your platoon is super awful and you play a super elite one.

2) certain scenarios ban certain supports (preparatory bombardment is often unavailable for example).

3) some support choices are table dependent. Lots of support points available/bringing lots of vehicles? Awesome! If the table is tight though, your opponent could block off vehicle access points with minefields. Better buy the mine-clearing engineers!

4) paying more support points can give you more flexibility. You can buy an Engineer Section for 4 times the cost (usually) of an Engineer team. The team has to be a specific type (mine clearing, demolitions, wire cutting, etc). The Section comes with a junior leader and two teams, and what the roles of the two teams are can be chosen when they are deployed (rather than on your army list).

5) mind games with your opponent. Your opponent is attacking with 17 support. You have 9 to defend with. You could go all in with mines and entrenchments and wire and obstacles, but your opponent might have engineers supported by MGs and tanks, which hard counters such a build. You could suspect he is going tank platoons and try to pre-empt him with anti-tank guns. Or he might just bring a few infantry squads - possibly a whole platoon extra nearly.

Once you have picked your supports, you can't change them. Choose wisely!

Was this for me? Thanks for writing all that out if it was. The random amount of support is different for each player, so the game is not meant to be balanced right? If we play Scenario 6: Attack on Objective and you roll a 2 for support the attacker has Force A +2 and the defender has Force B +1, if you roll 10 then it's Force A +10 vs Force B +5, either the difference is 1 or the difference is 5. I watched an interview with the designer as well, making every option viable was not a big concern, making the historic combination of units and guns viable was a concern. There are books about which units used which guns in what periods and what wars, this is not true in 40k, because we make up this fluff ourselves. My dynasty might use Hexmarks, yours might not, that's what makes it my dynasty, it has what I like and plays how I want to play.

It was for everyone, but also for you.

And yes, the game is actually meant to be balanced. There's an emphasis on historical accuracy for sure, but the game wouldn't be any fun if you said "oh, you brought panzer grenadiers again to fight my Soviet Cavalry, why bother playing" which you DO get for some 40k armies. So it's at least better balance than that. The reason different platoons have different force ratings (as in Scenario 6) is one is the attacker and one is the defender, and the defender has the advantage over the attacker.

Your example is accurate, in that the attacker gets twice as many support points as the defender - this is because the defender gets to start his Patrol Phase 18" into the board (a rarity in Chain of Command) establishing control of critical terrain features far faster (i.e. before deployment) than the attacking player. This makes sense since the defender, obviously, defends the terrain.

So, the double support points compensate the attacker for having to attack into prepared positions in terrain. Yes, it will be more difficult with 2 support points to 1, than with 10 support points to 5. But you'll notice it's a 2d6 roll for support, not a flat d12. This means that the chances of rolling a 10 (or more) are about 17% - and an eight or more (giving you an 8-to-4 advantage, typically enough to field a heavy tank or two light tanks into some limited AT support) is 42%. Conversely, the chance of rolling a 2 is about 3%.

Having the Attacker struggle against harder odds (because you rolled the minimum number about 3% of the time) is part of the challenge for CoC players - as is defending against the equally-difficult 10-5, where you might have enough for one entrenched 37mm gun and be fighting something like a KV-1E or Churchill heavy tank (or a 45mm gun against a Tiger 1 if the situations are reversed ).

And no, making every option viable for every mission is not a concern - but making every option viable sometimes is a concern. Mine-clearing engineer teams are totally nonviable if the enemy doesn't bring mines - but the player who resolves to NEVER bring mine-clearing engineer teams to any game will certainly suffer!

It's a different mindset than 40k, where you have "your list" with "your units". In Chain of Command, "your dudes" are the core platoon - the support options that come and go are just that. Support. So if "your dudes" includes Hexmarks, then the goodness or badness of hexmarks will be accounted for in the platoon rating.

 Arschbombe wrote:
I don't follow.

i guess I just understood you wrong (or me being lost in translation)

Thanks for everyone chiming in on skew. A few synthesizing remarks:

* Skew is a list-building strategy that seeks to stack units/abilities/weapons around a particular performance metric and that is anticipated to yield above average results within a competitive meta.

Does that definition sort of capture it? It could be that you're maximizing certain types of weapons due to the way certain gameplay mechanics make those weapons extremely useful in dealing with most common threats and/or a wide range of threats. It could also be picking units with a certain combination of mobility and endurance features in order to align with the mission objectives used in the competitive mission set. Does that ring true?

Is it fair to say that a "skew" list is largely synonymous with "tuned" or "min-maxed" or "optimized" or "competitive-focused" list?

* Spam is then about just taking a lot of a certain thing. That thing might or might not be skewed. It could be something over-powered or under-powered.

* Casual lists are ones that are explicitly "not skewed", either by deliberately not optimizing the list or as a product of simply using the models a player has available and which aren't skewed.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are a few (possibly competing) objectives here...

I like the notion of having a game format that functions like "matched" play but that doesn't encourage "skew" lists. But how to achieve this?

The problem with the suggestion of "finalizing your list after seeing the mission" in either a casual or competitive setting is that it doesn't really address the skew problem. In fact, it makes it possible for people to skew their lists even more to counter their opponent and the specific mission parameters they face. From an equity standpoint, someone with 7,000 points of models is going to have a much easier time successfully skewing their list than someone that has 2,000 points and is stuck with what they have. The problem still remains - how to encourage non-skewed lists?

One option I'll come back to - because it REALLY doesn't get enough discussion - is the mission set itself. Skew, as defined above, pertains to two things (a) skewing to counter likely army types seen more frequently in the meta or local community and/or (b) skewing to gain an advantage relative to the type of mission being played.

The mission parameters are half of the equation. The more narrow the range of mission types and parameters are in a set of missions, more incentivized players are to skew towards that. It makes people ask: what units do I take because their are best suited to the mission(s) and what does my army look like? This is much different than approaching list-building from the standpoint of: what units do I take because I like them and/or because they can play a role under a bunch of conditions?

If the mission set for "casual matched play" was vastly more diverse, with some missions even being asymmetric attack/defend type scenarios, I think overtime lists would be less skewed as player's would be buildings lists that perform well over a range of scenarios rather than being optimized around just one.

Likewise, establihsing clear metrics for how much terrain should be on the board - and also building in variations on this as part of mission setup - should also be considered. What if you rolled for the "density of terrain" as part of the mission setup. Sparse means approximately 25% of the board area is covered in terrain, ample is 33%, and dense is over 50% (or something like this) - along with that percentage of terrain features need to be LoS blocking. This would, like the mission setup itself, require players to consider how their army performs "if in the open" versus "if fighting in dense terrain." It might encourage more diversity in unit selection.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That said, I do like the idea of trying to formalize a sideboard method. While, as pointed out above, being able to adjust your list based on seeing the mission IS skew-enabling. But if it's kept within certain reasonable limits it builds in the expectation that players will tailor their forces to the mission - and if the mission pool is more diverse, you'll still have to account for that in assembling your sideboard.

So for example - what if players had to have a core list of at least 1,250 points in a 2,000 point match. Then, players would have up to 1,250 points in their sideboard/reserves (all combined at 2,500 points). You'd pull units from the sideboard to get up to 2,000 points total for the match. As a variation on this, what if players have to deploy their core 1,250 points on the board, and ANY units remaining in the sideboard can be brought on as reserves, so long as you don't field more than 2,000 points in total over the course of the match.

Both of these seem like they could be a workable direction to explore. The former adds more upfront decision-making, the latter lets players be more responsive in deciding what units to bring down. Heck - you could even make this distinction part of the mission parameters (e.g. Objective Focused versus Escalating Engagement or something fluffy like that).

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Last, I don't think manipulating points is the solution to any of this, outside of egregious cases where certain units just vastly outperforms the completion across a range of likely situations (or in all situations). If that's the case, sure, tweaking points can help with that. But as was pointed out, tweaking points is really just, at the end of the day, pushing around what "optimal or not" relative to a given mission and meta. Something will always be optimal. The objective instead should be to make it much harder to predict what will be optimal, so that the pressure to optimize is simply relieved.

Also, I don't think that messing around with the FOCs really accomplishes much either. Regardless of what approach you take, people will find ways to skew their lists. And if you make the FOC system too rigid, you'll just end up hamstringing certain armies that have a harder time fitting into that FOC than those that naturally align with it. Better to just tackle skew at the root by leveraging the law of averages and encouraging diverse, non-skewed armies that can perform across a range of scenarios.

* Casual lists are ones that are explicitly "not skewed", either by deliberately not optimizing the list or as a product of simply using the models a player has available and which aren't skewed.

Nope. Casual lists can easily be skewed. Wanting to do a tank company or a pure infantry regiment for theme or background reasons can easily wander into skew territory.

Hell, just wanting to play Custodes or Knights out of the book is automatically a skew list. No thought to optimization or competitiveness required.

'Availability of product' is just a downright weird metric. If someone wants to run a tank company, they're gonna buy a bunch of tanks. That's... what they have available.

Is it fair to say that a "skew" list is largely synonymous with "tuned" or "min-maxed" or "optimized" or "competitive-focused" list?

So, no.
A green tide list is inherently skewed, even if it isn't very good currently (I presume, from ork player complaints?)

 Arschbombe wrote:
We've seen this play out since 5th when terrain became a more significant part of the game because TLOS was introduced.

TLOS has been a thing in 40k since day 1* it was not a new concept introduced in 5th, no matter what myths people keep peddling.


3rd ed. Rulebook page 36- "Sometimes it may be hard to tell if a LOS is blocked or , so players must stoop over the table for a "model's eye view". This is the best way to see if LOS exists...
Enemy models and all vehicles, friend or foe, do block a unit's LOS if they are in the way, just like buildings and other terrain. enemy models will block the LOS to other models up to twice their height."

2nd ed. rulebook page 26- "However in some cases it will be difficult to tell if a LOS is blocked or not, and players must stoop over the table for a model's eye view. This is always the best way to determine if LOS exists- some players even use small periscopes or mirrors to check the views from their models!..."


*Can't speak for RT as I never played it but I'm 99% sure it has the same LOS rules as 2nd. Also, 4th's LOS rules were also TLOS with the sole exception of area terrain, which had size categories and it's own set of rules. TLOS has been a thing since Rick Priestley himself wrote the 40k rules.

 Mezmorki wrote:
That said, I do like the idea of trying to formalize a sideboard method. While, as pointed out above, being able to adjust your list based on seeing the mission IS skew-enabling. But if it's kept within certain reasonable limits it builds in the expectation that players will tailor their forces to the mission - and if the mission pool is more diverse, you'll still have to account for that in assembling your sideboard.

One other way of looking at it is instead of allowing armies to adjust to match the mission, which implicitly requires that you have enough extra models to make meaningful change, you can instead look at adjusting the mission to match the armies.

Dust Warfare had a 'battle builder' mechanic where both players had a finite number of points to spend on mission type and battlefield conditions. The exact mechanic was a series of tracks, with each player alternating bidding points to advance along the tracks (linearly, so one player couldn't just cancel out the other player's bid).

This meant you were still limited to the roster you brought, but if you were facing a skew list you could push for scenario/conditions that would help you counter it. On the flip side, it was also possible for skew lists to push towards scenarios/conditions that favored them, so it's a non-trivial design task to make the mechanic function as a balancing mechanism rather than exacerbate bad matchups.

Just some food for thought.

@Voss

I'm not talking about product availability. I'm talking about what models a particular player actually owns. If you allow pre-game tuning, the player with a bigger collection of models to draw from will likely have an advantage over a player with fewer (or no) extra models to draw from.

Regarding skew - I get that it can be competitive or non-competitive skew. That makes sense.

But the core issue in this thread, in my understanding, is how skewed lists (from whatever source enables it) can lead to a poor experience versus someone playing a more casual list.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Arschbombe wrote:
We've seen this play out since 5th when terrain became a more significant part of the game because TLOS was introduced.

TLOS has been a thing in 40k since day 1* it was not a new concept introduced in 5th, no matter what myths people keep peddling.


3rd ed. Rulebook page 36- "Sometimes it may be hard to tell if a LOS is blocked or , so players must stoop over the table for a "model's eye view". This is the best way to see if LOS exists...
Enemy models and all vehicles, friend or foe, do block a unit's LOS if they are in the way, just like buildings and other terrain. enemy models will block the LOS to other models up to twice their height."

2nd ed. rulebook page 26- "However in some cases it will be difficult to tell if a LOS is blocked or not, and players must stoop over the table for a model's eye view. This is always the best way to determine if LOS exists- some players even use small periscopes or mirrors to check the views from their models!..."


*Can't speak for RT as I never played it but I'm 99% sure it has the same LOS rules as 2nd. Also, 4th's LOS rules were also TLOS with the sole exception of area terrain, which had size categories and it's own set of rules. TLOS has been a thing since Rick Priestley himself wrote the 40k rules.

Ah but TLOS was never the default until 5th.

4th edition Area Terrain categorically blocked LoS to lower size-category models behind it. (So Size 3 area terrain blocked all LoS period, end of story).

Woods in 4th blocked LoS after 6" - so you could see 6" in or out, but more than that it blocked LoS. Another example.

None of those examples were valid for 5th. 5th ditched every line of sight abstraction and went purely with true LoS.

The area terrain rules in 4th were mostly the default as any terrain was area terrain if it had a base. The only things that weren't were things like barricades or tank traps (and even then they usually were too if baked onto a base with multiples of them). Therefore, player experience was that TLOS was the exception rather than the rule.

a side board in 40k could be the following:

a core detachment, this need to be at least 1200 and maximum 1500 points

2 support detachments, those can be each from 500-800 points

the total army size of core+support must be between 1950-2000 points
the final composition of the army is chosen before the game starts

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Arschbombe wrote:
We've seen this play out since 5th when terrain became a more significant part of the game because TLOS was introduced.

TLOS has been a thing in 40k since day 1* it was not a new concept introduced in 5th, no matter what myths people keep peddling.


3rd ed. Rulebook page 36- "Sometimes it may be hard to tell if a LOS is blocked or , so players must stoop over the table for a "model's eye view". This is the best way to see if LOS exists...
Enemy models and all vehicles, friend or foe, do block a unit's LOS if they are in the way, just like buildings and other terrain. enemy models will block the LOS to other models up to twice their height."

2nd ed. rulebook page 26- "However in some cases it will be difficult to tell if a LOS is blocked or not, and players must stoop over the table for a model's eye view. This is always the best way to determine if LOS exists- some players even use small periscopes or mirrors to check the views from their models!..."


*Can't speak for RT as I never played it but I'm 99% sure it has the same LOS rules as 2nd. Also, 4th's LOS rules were also TLOS with the sole exception of area terrain, which had size categories and it's own set of rules. TLOS has been a thing since Rick Priestley himself wrote the 40k rules.

Ah but TLOS was never the default until 5th.

Did.. did... you just quite literally skip over the quotes from the rulebooks there? Both of them refer to TLOS, just under a different name.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Arschbombe wrote:
We've seen this play out since 5th when terrain became a more significant part of the game because TLOS was introduced.

TLOS has been a thing in 40k since day 1* it was not a new concept introduced in 5th, no matter what myths people keep peddling.


3rd ed. Rulebook page 36- "Sometimes it may be hard to tell if a LOS is blocked or , so players must stoop over the table for a "model's eye view". This is the best way to see if LOS exists...
Enemy models and all vehicles, friend or foe, do block a unit's LOS if they are in the way, just like buildings and other terrain. enemy models will block the LOS to other models up to twice their height."

2nd ed. rulebook page 26- "However in some cases it will be difficult to tell if a LOS is blocked or not, and players must stoop over the table for a model's eye view. This is always the best way to determine if LOS exists- some players even use small periscopes or mirrors to check the views from their models!..."


*Can't speak for RT as I never played it but I'm 99% sure it has the same LOS rules as 2nd. Also, 4th's LOS rules were also TLOS with the sole exception of area terrain, which had size categories and it's own set of rules. TLOS has been a thing since Rick Priestley himself wrote the 40k rules.

Ah but TLOS was never the default until 5th.

Did.. did... you just quite literally skip over the quotes from the rulebooks there? Both of them refer to TLOS, just under a different name.

No, what I did instead was ignore your cherry picked quotes that don't include the 4th edition book at all and omit huge portions of the terrain sections of the rulebooks so that people could know what the whole truth was, rather than the tiny portion of it you shared.

Not only that, but the quotes you provide don't even espouse TLOS. Unless you think a Guardsman blocks all TLOS to a Space Marine just by being in front of him.

What those editions (and 4th) did was espouse TLOS for some situations, with heavily abstracted terrain for others.

5th removed those abstractions and it was TLOS all the time.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Arschbombe wrote:
We've seen this play out since 5th when terrain became a more significant part of the game because TLOS was introduced.

TLOS has been a thing in 40k since day 1* it was not a new concept introduced in 5th, no matter what myths people keep peddling.


3rd ed. Rulebook page 36- "Sometimes it may be hard to tell if a LOS is blocked or , so players must stoop over the table for a "model's eye view". This is the best way to see if LOS exists...
Enemy models and all vehicles, friend or foe, do block a unit's LOS if they are in the way, just like buildings and other terrain. enemy models will block the LOS to other models up to twice their height."

2nd ed. rulebook page 26- "However in some cases it will be difficult to tell if a LOS is blocked or not, and players must stoop over the table for a model's eye view. This is always the best way to determine if LOS exists- some players even use small periscopes or mirrors to check the views from their models!..."


*Can't speak for RT as I never played it but I'm 99% sure it has the same LOS rules as 2nd. Also, 4th's LOS rules were also TLOS with the sole exception of area terrain, which had size categories and it's own set of rules. TLOS has been a thing since Rick Priestley himself wrote the 40k rules.

Ah but TLOS was never the default until 5th.

Did.. did... you just quite literally skip over the quotes from the rulebooks there? Both of them refer to TLOS, just under a different name.

lol your own quotations disproved your claim, buddy.

"Enemy models will block the LOS to other models up to TWICE THEIR HEIGHT."

Does that sound like a true line of sight system to you?

 Mezmorki wrote:
@Voss

I'm not talking about product availability. I'm talking about what models a particular player actually owns.

So am I. I literally said someone who wants a tank company is going to _buy_ tanks.

If you allow pre-game tuning, the player with a bigger collection of models to draw from will likely have an advantage over a player with fewer (or no) extra models to draw from.

Well... yes. Horizontal power options (breath of choice) aren't as bad as vertical power issues (some units are just better), but its still an obvious advantage.

But the core issue in this thread, in my understanding, is how skewed lists (from whatever source enables it) can lead to a poor experience versus someone playing a more casual list.

Sure. But the skew list can be just as casual. 'More casual' isn't a metric. A green tide might struggle more against a tank company than against a pure infantry regiment due to a lack of anti-tank, but no one involved is being 'more casual.' They can all be thinking that they're doing themed lists properly