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I think there's a healthy balance to be struck between buying whatever looks cool (and running the risk of building a list that will lose every game) versus building the strongest wombo-combo netlist you can.

The problem Tittliewinks22 and CCS are articulating is that there's a tendency for Internet advice to devolve into histrionics where everything is either 'good' or 'trash'. It's good to know if you're setting yourself up for disappointment with a particular unit, but dismissing three-quarters of a codex because it isn't 'top-tier' really limits your options.

That attitude is also incredibly off-putting for players who want to field a themed list or the units they like without getting crushed by someone who will never actually play in a tournament yet is treating the game like practice for LVO. And yet that's an increasingly common approach to the game. The competitive mindset is not only pervasive, not only dominating in online discussion, but in many places now the default way that people play.

 catbarf wrote:
I think there's a healthy balance to be struck between buying whatever looks cool (and running the risk of building a list that will lose every game) versus building the strongest wombo-combo netlist you can.

The problem Tittliewinks22 and CCS are articulating is that there's a tendency for Internet advice to devolve into histrionics where everything is either 'good' or 'trash'. The competitive mindset is not only pervasive, not only dominating in online discussion, but in many places the default way that people play.

It's good to know if you're setting yourself up for disappointment with a particular unit, but dismissing three-quarters of a codex because it isn't 'top-tier' really limits your options. That attitude is also incredibly off-putting for players who want to field a themed list or the units they like without getting crushed by someone who will never actually play in a tournament yet is treating the game like practice for LVO.

I mean... Ideally, a tournament list and a beginner list wouldn't have that much space between them.

I don't mind list-building giving you an edge, but it should be a MINOR edge. Like, if you take two equally-skilled players, one with a cutting-edge, super optimized tourney list; and the other with a basic list a competent individual made; it shouldn't be more than 60-40 in the tourney list's favor. Hopefully closer to 55-45.

 JNAProductions wrote:
I mean... Ideally, a tournament list and a beginner list wouldn't have that much space between them.

I don't mind list-building giving you an edge, but it should be a MINOR edge. Like, if you take two equally-skilled players, one with a cutting-edge, super optimized tourney list; and the other with a basic list a competent individual made; it shouldn't be more than 60-40 in the tourney list's favor. Hopefully closer to 55-45.

Hey, I agree wholeheartedly, that's the way it ought to be. But 40K's been around a long time and it hasn't happened yet.

And even if it were that way, I'm dead certain we'd still see units described as 'good' and 'trash' on the basis of minor differences, because I would sooner expect peace in the Middle East than for competitive 40K discussion to become 'everything's great, no need to hyper-obsess over options, take what you want and you can make it work'.

The present reality is that more than once I've seen a casual community turn into a competitive arms race because a couple of players take it seriously enough that everyone else can either try to keep up or start losing a lot, and that's just not everyone's cup of tea. Even in a less cutthroat environment, it's lame if you're facing the same archetypical lists over and over again because people are scared to take options that aren't considered meta. Knowing that a unit underperforms and taking that into account when you build your list is one thing; mistaking 'underperforms' for 'unusable garbage' is another, and then building an army specifically to be competitively effective is a deliberate decision.

The present reality is that more than once I've seen a casual community turn into a competitive arms race because a couple of players take it seriously enough that everyone else can either try to keep up or start losing a lot...

My FLGS ran a weekly league night for a long while. The exact nature of the league tended to change over time, but for a while it was a ladder league. The end result was that we had about 3 or 4 people who would just be playing each other with cutthroat competitive lists while the rest of us floated up and down in our lower ranks, trying out gimmicky fluff lists and talking out the narrative for our games.

And then you occasionally had the one unlucky guy who happened to be at the top of the low-rankers and thus ended up playing one of the high-rankers for the night.

Not making a point here or anything. Just sharing an amusing anecdote about competitive and non-competitive players inhabiting the same ecosystem.

problem starts if one player needs to have the top tier net-list to even have a chance against the gimmicky fluff list from another

that there is a competitive meta were you only take A-tier units and never consider B-tier or lower as an option is not a problem in general

that one faction needs to take all A-tier units t even have a chance against another factions C-tier is a problem that hits casual gamers much harder than competitive ones

It doesn't solve everything, but running leagues where you have to have 3 different army lists, each 50%+ different to the next and then you roll 1d3 to see which one you use, tempers people's competitiveness and prevents too much overt meta gaming.

People who are more causal care less about it and it creates more interesting gaming match ups and extends the variety for longer.

 catbarf wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I mean... Ideally, a tournament list and a beginner list wouldn't have that much space between them.

I don't mind list-building giving you an edge, but it should be a MINOR edge. Like, if you take two equally-skilled players, one with a cutting-edge, super optimized tourney list; and the other with a basic list a competent individual made; it shouldn't be more than 60-40 in the tourney list's favor. Hopefully closer to 55-45.

Hey, I agree wholeheartedly, that's the way it ought to be. But 40K's been around a long time and it hasn't happened yet.

And even if it were that way, I'm dead certain we'd still see units described as 'good' and 'trash' on the basis of minor differences, because I would sooner expect peace in the Middle East than for competitive 40K discussion to become 'everything's great, no need to hyper-obsess over options, take what you want and you can make it work'.

The present reality is that more than once I've seen a casual community turn into a competitive arms race because a couple of players take it seriously enough that everyone else can either try to keep up or start losing a lot, and that's just not everyone's cup of tea. Even in a less cutthroat environment, it's lame if you're facing the same archetypical lists over and over again because people are scared to take options that aren't considered meta. Knowing that a unit underperforms and taking that into account when you build your list is one thing; mistaking 'underperforms' for 'unusable garbage' is another, and then building an army specifically to be competitively effective is a deliberate decision.

I've seen exactly that happen plenty of times. One guy shows up with a comp list, destroys a casual player and casual play slowly dies as nobody wants to be Bob and get absolutely destroyed in a lopsided game, so eventually everyone starts playing more competitively. What I find most intriguing is that there is a solution with nobody wants to do which is just ask people to not bring the strong stuff or if they do then don't play them. Instead it seems like people will rather play a bad game than not play a game at all knowing full well that if they play it's going to be a miserable experience.

I'm continually amazed that it's the casual players who will always, without fail, roll over and die and accept their competitive overlords rather than stand up to the guy who turns up to game night with some boring netlist and let them conform or find games elsewhere.

Every single time.

Wayniac wrote:


I've seen exactly that happen plenty of times. One guy shows up with a comp list, destroys a casual player and casual play slowly dies as nobody wants to be Bob and get absolutely destroyed in a lopsided game, so eventually everyone starts playing more competitively. What I find most intriguing is that there is a solution with nobody wants to do which is just ask people to not bring the strong stuff or if they do then don't play them. Instead it seems like people will rather play a bad game than not play a game at all knowing full well that if they play it's going to be a miserable experience.

I'm continually amazed that it's the casual players who will always, without fail, roll over and die and accept their competitive overlords rather than stand up to the guy who turns up to game night with some boring netlist and let them conform or find games elsewhere.

Every single time.

The problem there is being able to recognize that what your opponent has is strong, or that they have satisfied the "please don't bring strong stuff" requirement, does require you to be somewhat more knowledgeable on the competitive scene than a truly casual player would be. Sure, a casual player could ask a more competitive player to "please don't bring THAT list", but that opponent might just swap out a tier 1 unit for a tier 2 unit. Hey, it's a different list, and doesn't specifically have that one unit you always complain about, right?

So at the point you're able to recognize what's strong and what's not, instead of going through the rigamarole of asking people to tone down their lists, why not just play at the level you're at yourself?

Your post weirdly seemingly conflates competitive with "high skill" and casual with "low skill", when that's not really the case. In my experience, players who bring net lists are trash at actually playing the game. High skill players are just in general more likely to a) be able to recognize themselves what makes their list so strong, and tone those aspects down either through gameplay itself or through changing the list b) have a better attitude & be willing to do so, whereas low skill players are going to want to farm their wins where they're getting them.

Wayniac wrote:
I've seen exactly that happen plenty of times. One guy shows up with a comp list, destroys a casual player and casual play slowly dies as nobody wants to be Bob and get absolutely destroyed in a lopsided game, so eventually everyone starts playing more competitively. What I find most intriguing is that there is a solution with nobody wants to do which is just ask people to not bring the strong stuff or if they do then don't play them. Instead it seems like people will rather play a bad game than not play a game at all knowing full well that if they play it's going to be a miserable experience.

I'm continually amazed that it's the casual players who will always, without fail, roll over and die and accept their competitive overlords rather than stand up to the guy who turns up to game night with some boring netlist and let them conform or find games elsewhere.

Every single time.

At the same LGS that I mentioned earlier, I was talking to a few of the regulars there and asking them their thoughts on more casual play. They all shared the same mentality "Treat every game as practice for a tournament." I would say it's isolated to a specific store in my area, but I know this is championed at all 4 LGS's in my city. The group I play games with use to play at these stores against these crowds, but something changed in the past 5 years or so, and now everything is hyper competitive all the time.

With the rise of this competitive stance we did not "roll over and die" instead we became cliquish and now I host game nights at my place where we have enough table space for a few games. We run campaigns and play a host of wargames. I am firmly in belief that the introduction of the "three ways to play" fragmented the community.

I would not be surprised if most casual players just don't play at the LGS anymore, or at least don't play pick-up-games since the competitive seed has began to blossom.

Thing is, casual players can also end up with "OP tournament armies" between editions.

I'm not a tournament player (Except for the small 8-man ones we do in my LGS, which are more of a gameday than tournament) but i'm pretty much the raidboss of my LGS. I've been playing mostly chaos stuff since 8th, with Daemonless NightLords ever since i read the omnibus, now in 8th and 9th, chosen were bad yet i still ran them, now in 10th theyre finally strong and i look like i'm only brining them because of that. No, i just like my veterans.

GW is so inconsistent with its balance that i see multiple players bring units that were good/bad in older editions only for them be bad/good now, i don't think you can blame the players for that.

I think the problem with "build for casual" swings back to the extremes of the early days of Age of Sigmar when there were no points for games at all and it was a "take what you feel is right".


Essentially building for a victory is simple because it follows a set pattern of rules and concepts. Even if you don't understand the underlaying mathematics, you can pick up on "what's good" and "what's bad" as well as cobble together what works from your own player experiences.

It follows rules, has structure to it and is something most people can grasp.


Casual on the other hand, has no real foundation as such. It's a reason online you find very little "how to build a casual list" discussions because the foundations for it are widely variable.

Some groups will have some conventions for their own casual play; this might even come down to avoiding specific "its too good" models from even being taken. Some groups might have conventions that vary between matches; or which vary between players and more reflect the group trying to adapt their army building toward a kind of handicap system to account for varied skill and performance differences between armies (ergo they are building using matched play concepts, just not for all out victory).

Sometimes scenarios help give some structure. Eg a last-stand where one side has 1/4 the points of the other or such.




It's hard to pin down because its so insanely variable and because there aren't really any guidelines that you can establish which are universal

 Rihgu wrote:

Wayniac wrote:


I've seen exactly that happen plenty of times. One guy shows up with a comp list, destroys a casual player and casual play slowly dies as nobody wants to be Bob and get absolutely destroyed in a lopsided game, so eventually everyone starts playing more competitively. What I find most intriguing is that there is a solution with nobody wants to do which is just ask people to not bring the strong stuff or if they do then don't play them. Instead it seems like people will rather play a bad game than not play a game at all knowing full well that if they play it's going to be a miserable experience.

I'm continually amazed that it's the casual players who will always, without fail, roll over and die and accept their competitive overlords rather than stand up to the guy who turns up to game night with some boring netlist and let them conform or find games elsewhere.

Every single time.

The problem there is being able to recognize that what your opponent has is strong, or that they have satisfied the "please don't bring strong stuff" requirement, does require you to be somewhat more knowledgeable on the competitive scene than a truly casual player would be. Sure, a casual player could ask a more competitive player to "please don't bring THAT list", but that opponent might just swap out a tier 1 unit for a tier 2 unit. Hey, it's a different list, and doesn't specifically have that one unit you always complain about, right?

This. The whole "tone down your list" thing is subjective and subject to interpretation, its essentially an unenforceable policy and one which easily results in hurt feelings and feelsbad if the maturity level of both parties is lacking. I've had this exact argument out with one of my super-competitive friends, who insists that casual play is too complicated because there are too many unwritte social rules to follow, such as "dont bring too powerful a list" but then also "what does too powerful a list mean" and "what does an appropriate list look like", etc. and he kind of has a point. Ask 100 people, get 100 answers, basically.In competitive, according to him, its more straightforward - he shows up with his best list, you show up with yours, and you play. If you feel bad, thats on you.

In my own experience, I have witnessed the casual crowd show up with absolutely bunkers busted lists which they were able to spin as being fluffy, likewise I've seen them play against people who took what were in my view perfectly fluffy casual lists which they then called cheesy powergamer lists for arbitrary reasons ("he took a land raider in a fluffy 2000 pt game, how dare he!").

At the same LGS that I mentioned earlier, I was talking to a few of the regulars there and asking them their thoughts on more casual play. They all shared the same mentality "Treat every game as practice for a tournament." I would say it's isolated to a specific store in my area, but I know this is championed at all 4 LGS's in my city. The group I play games with use to play at these stores against these crowds, but something changed in the past 5 years or so, and now everything is hyper competitive all the time.

This is the mentality around here. I've heard the same thing verbatim from countless players at my locals.

With the rise of this competitive stance we did not "roll over and die" instead we became cliquish and now I host game nights at my place where we have enough table space for a few games. We run campaigns and play a host of wargames. I am firmly in belief that the introduction of the "three ways to play" fragmented the community.

Agreed. In the case of my local community, the casual players all rebelled against the "narrative" format as being too unbalanced and most quit playing 40k altogether. The irony of course being that the narrative format, with its power levels and points, was intended to basically give players a freer hand in terms of how lists were built and how players approached the balance of their own games as opposed to locking them into the rigidity of the matched play points system. Prior to this though, they used to play games where they skipped points calculations entirely and set up games based on what they perceived as being cool and fluffy setpiece battles, etc. Its truly ironic that they were fine with this approach right up until GW tried offering them a system that more easily enabled it to occur outside of the context of pre-arranged planned in advanced games, and instead of accepting it as a tool they rejected the concept entirely and quit something that they invested decades of their lives into. Its part of the reason my signature here is what it is, because my experience with other gamers (of all stripes) within this community is overwhelmingly that everyone always hates the current state of the game, but also hates any changes made to try to improve it (even if its ones that they previously advocated for or which aligns with their gameplay philosophy.

Wayniac 811846 11610231 wrote: What I find most intriguing is that there is a solution with nobody wants to do which is just ask people to not bring the strong stuff or if they do then don't play them. Instead it seems like people will rather play a bad game than not play a game at all knowing full well that if they play it's going to be a miserable experience.

I'm continually amazed that it's the casual players who will always, without fail, roll over and die and accept their competitive overlords rather than stand up to the guy who turns up to game night with some boring netlist and let them conform or find games elsewhere.

Every single time.

And what else are they suppose to do, besides to quit the game and stop playing. Telling Jimmy that he has to take a month salary of his dad, or if he is a JIm his own, and now rebuy his army to be weak would requier some godlike persuasion powers. And I don't even know what the player is suppose to do, if his army is just powerful and it is just not possible to make that 2000pts list bad enough to face bad armies on equal footing. Force people to buy more models for different armies?

Wayniac wrote:
I'm continually amazed that it's the casual players who will always, without fail, roll over and die and accept their competitive overlords rather than stand up to the guy who turns up to game night with some boring netlist and let them conform or find games elsewhere.

Oh, I've also seen communities that 'enforce' casual-ness. It can be as simple as a verbalized edict that we're not here to play competitively, but it can also take form of bizarre house rules or game balance hot takes.

You know what sucks? Showing up with a casual, ordinary list and being told it's 'too competitive' because it contains Pyrovores, because someone at the club has gotten the idea in his head that they're super powerful, and if you insist on playing anyways you become That Guy.

Or worse, bringing your thematic list you've had for multiple editions and finding that now it's the meta hotness, and once again you are That Guy for bringing a cheesemonger list to casual game night. Stopped playing 9th shortly after that happened to my Tyranids.

This is why I really detest the argument that the game doesn't need to be balanced because you can just work it out on the fly. Doing so requires a lot of game knowledge and that everyone is on the same page about relative power levels of the units involved, which is an even taller ask in casual communities that may not be as up-to-date on game knowledge as competitive communities. Competitive play at least is no-holds-barred, bring your best list and your opponent will do the same, and if you get creamed you can reasonably blame the game designers instead of resenting your opponent.

The social contract involved in casual play is fragile if it isn't just an extension of your friend group, and I don't find it surprising at all that casual communities are so easily splintered.

Tittliewinks22 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
I've seen exactly that happen plenty of times. One guy shows up with a comp list, destroys a casual player and casual play slowly dies as nobody wants to be Bob and get absolutely destroyed in a lopsided game, so eventually everyone starts playing more competitively. What I find most intriguing is that there is a solution with nobody wants to do which is just ask people to not bring the strong stuff or if they do then don't play them. Instead it seems like people will rather play a bad game than not play a game at all knowing full well that if they play it's going to be a miserable experience.

I'm continually amazed that it's the casual players who will always, without fail, roll over and die and accept their competitive overlords rather than stand up to the guy who turns up to game night with some boring netlist and let them conform or find games elsewhere.

Every single time.

At the same LGS that I mentioned earlier, I was talking to a few of the regulars there and asking them their thoughts on more casual play. They all shared the same mentality "Treat every game as practice for a tournament." I would say it's isolated to a specific store in my area, but I know this is championed at all 4 LGS's in my city. The group I play games with use to play at these stores against these crowds, but something changed in the past 5 years or so, and now everything is hyper competitive all the time.

With the rise of this competitive stance we did not "roll over and die" instead we became cliquish and now I host game nights at my place where we have enough table space for a few games. We run campaigns and play a host of wargames. I am firmly in belief that the introduction of the "three ways to play" fragmented the community.

I would not be surprised if most casual players just don't play at the LGS anymore, or at least don't play pick-up-games since the competitive seed has began to blossom.

The community was always fragmented, they just didn't know it. This isn't just common among gaming communities by the way. It's something inherent to any large group of people. People are different. So many misunderstandings and conflicts happen due to people not realizing this and assuming they're not.

Karol wrote:

And what else are they suppose to do, besides to quit the game and stop playing. Telling Jimmy that he has to take a month salary of his dad, or if he is a JIm his own, and now rebuy his army to be weak would requier some godlike persuasion powers. And I don't even know what the player is suppose to do, if his army is just powerful and it is just not possible to make that 2000pts list bad enough to face bad armies on equal footing. Force people to buy more models for different armies?

40k isnt a cheap hobby, one should know this before getting in the game. It sucks but its the reality of things. Most people i know don't own only one faction, and if they do, they have way more than only 2000pts so they have options to flex into.

Alternatively, just ask your opponent to play something more relaxed if you feel like your army is that bad


Automatically Appended Next Post:

artific3r wrote:


The community was always fragmented, they just didn't know it. This isn't just common among gaming communities by the way. It's something inherent to any large group of people. People are different. So many misunderstandings and conflicts happen due to people not realizing this and assuming they're not.

Exactly this, my local playgroup that frequents the LGS weekly is about 10-15 people, but i see a lot more of random people i never see play in store buy some boxes while i'm there.

Kitchen table 40k is very much a thing, and a huge portion of the playerbase

I don't think I've ever seen someone actually struggle to tone down their list when they earnestly set out to do so. And in cases where a more experienced player doesn't have different units on-hand to swap out, I've seen them tone down their tactics; basically just playing sloppy or "role-playing" their army harder to make some fluffy but suboptimal decisions.

I also had a guy rage quit when he lost a tactical squad to 8th edition howling banshees (when they were considered really underwhelming) and then rant about how his opponent at his old store used to sweep every table with howling banshee spam. So uh. I think it's also valid to just avoid playing against certain people if your playstyles are "incompatible."

 catbarf wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
I'm continually amazed that it's the casual players who will always, without fail, roll over and die and accept their competitive overlords rather than stand up to the guy who turns up to game night with some boring netlist and let them conform or find games elsewhere.

Oh, I've also seen communities that 'enforce' casual-ness. It can be as simple as a verbalized edict that we're not here to play competitively, but it can also take form of bizarre house rules or game balance hot takes.

You know what sucks? Showing up with a casual, ordinary list and being told it's 'too competitive' because it contains Pyrovores, because someone at the club has gotten the idea in his head that they're super powerful, and if you insist on playing anyways you become That Guy.

Or worse, bringing your thematic list you've had for multiple editions and finding that now it's the meta hotness, and once again you are That Guy for bringing a cheesemonger list to casual game night. Stopped playing 9th shortly after that happened to my Tyranids.

This is why I really detest the argument that the game doesn't need to be balanced because you can just work it out on the fly. Doing so requires a lot of game knowledge and that everyone is on the same page about relative power levels of the units involved, which is an even taller ask in casual communities that may not be as up-to-date on game knowledge as competitive communities. Competitive play at least is no-holds-barred, bring your best list and your opponent will do the same, and if you get creamed you can reasonably blame the game designers instead of resenting your opponent.

The social contract involved in casual play is fragile if it isn't just an extension of your friend group, and I don't find it surprising at all that casual communities are so easily splintered.

Agreed with every word of this. i consider myself a casual, but this is what I've seen from other casuals who try to "enforce" casualty... casualness... whatever. And that pyrovore example is right on the nose. So often the arguments are over the most ridiculous thing, because someone believes that a particular unit which is widely considered to be absolute dog-gak is the most OP thing in an army.

I've definitely played with groups that are very outwardly hostile to the idea of competitive play, which was really surprising to me because usually the gatekeepy-ness is the other way around. The pendulum swings hard in both directions I guess .

Luckily most people just want everyone to have a good time. I found that as long as you put some effort into explaining what you enjoy about the hobby, just about everyone will understand. Again, the important thing is to realize that people are different. That's part of what makes this hobby great.

I used to get pretty annoyed at opponents who didn't paint their minis and showed absolutely zero interest in the lore and modeling aspects of the game. But eventually it became clear to me that they were just really enthusiastic about playing the game. They were drawn to the optimization and the puzzle-solving. And they liked the social aspects. They ended up teaching me a lot about becoming a better player.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
I'm continually amazed that it's the casual players who will always, without fail, roll over and die and accept their competitive overlords rather than stand up to the guy who turns up to game night with some boring netlist and let them conform or find games elsewhere.

Oh, I've also seen communities that 'enforce' casual-ness. It can be as simple as a verbalized edict that we're not here to play competitively, but it can also take form of bizarre house rules or game balance hot takes.

You know what sucks? Showing up with a casual, ordinary list and being told it's 'too competitive' because it contains Pyrovores, because someone at the club has gotten the idea in his head that they're super powerful, and if you insist on playing anyways you become That Guy.

Or worse, bringing your thematic list you've had for multiple editions and finding that now it's the meta hotness, and once again you are That Guy for bringing a cheesemonger list to casual game night. Stopped playing 9th shortly after that happened to my Tyranids.

This is why I really detest the argument that the game doesn't need to be balanced because you can just work it out on the fly. Doing so requires a lot of game knowledge and that everyone is on the same page about relative power levels of the units involved, which is an even taller ask in casual communities that may not be as up-to-date on game knowledge as competitive communities. Competitive play at least is no-holds-barred, bring your best list and your opponent will do the same, and if you get creamed you can reasonably blame the game designers instead of resenting your opponent.

The social contract involved in casual play is fragile if it isn't just an extension of your friend group, and I don't find it surprising at all that casual communities are so easily splintered.

Agreed with every word of this. i consider myself a casual, but this is what I've seen from other casuals who try to "enforce" casualty... casualness... whatever. And that pyrovore example is right on the nose. So often the arguments are over the most ridiculous thing, because someone believes that a particular unit which is widely considered to be absolute dog-gak is the most OP thing in an army.

The tragedy here is, that all it would take for GW to maintain a minimum of accurate balance which should be possible. The issue is, GW would have to release the full new edition at once (all rules) and have them propperly playtested against each other.

 catbarf wrote:
I think there's a healthy balance to be struck between buying whatever looks cool (and running the risk of building a list that will lose every game) versus building the strongest wombo-combo netlist you can.

The problem Tittliewinks22 and CCS are articulating is that there's a tendency for Internet advice to devolve into histrionics where everything is either 'good' or 'trash'. It's good to know if you're setting yourself up for disappointment with a particular unit, but dismissing three-quarters of a codex because it isn't 'top-tier' really limits your options.

That attitude is also incredibly off-putting for players who want to field a themed list or the units they like without getting crushed by someone who will never actually play in a tournament yet is treating the game like practice for LVO. And yet that's an increasingly common approach to the game. The competitive mindset is not only pervasive, not only dominating in online discussion, but in many places now the default way that people play.

This also manifests more intensely when the game lacks mechanical depth. If there is enough meaningful mechanical depth then you can get units to fill niche roles and take advantage of "soft factors" instead of the raw shoot, stab, save stats aka hard factors. When the game has dozens of units and they all basically boil down to their point cost vs killing/not dying ability then it becomes hard to justify using X unit when Y unit does the job better for the points cost.

I'll use an example with something like the Speeder Storm in 7th. It had the ability to be a dedicated transport for scouts but also its weapon was a large blast blinding attack. It wasn't very good for the points at killing things but being able to effectively flash bang multiple enemy units was quite impactful despite it not actually being all that good at removing models from the table (unless they were something like gaunts, Boyz, guardsmen, etc). It being a relatively cheap transport skimmer, it they shot at it then it could just jink and waste some of their shooting. In the blandscape that is modern 40k, its Cerberus launcher is effectively the same thing as about two basic bolters and the whole thing has paper thin defense.

 Vankraken wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
I think there's a healthy balance to be struck between buying whatever looks cool (and running the risk of building a list that will lose every game) versus building the strongest wombo-combo netlist you can.

The problem Tittliewinks22 and CCS are articulating is that there's a tendency for Internet advice to devolve into histrionics where everything is either 'good' or 'trash'. It's good to know if you're setting yourself up for disappointment with a particular unit, but dismissing three-quarters of a codex because it isn't 'top-tier' really limits your options.

That attitude is also incredibly off-putting for players who want to field a themed list or the units they like without getting crushed by someone who will never actually play in a tournament yet is treating the game like practice for LVO. And yet that's an increasingly common approach to the game. The competitive mindset is not only pervasive, not only dominating in online discussion, but in many places now the default way that people play.

This also manifests more intensely when the game lacks mechanical depth. If there is enough meaningful mechanical depth then you can get units to fill niche roles and take advantage of "soft factors" instead of the raw shoot, stab, save stats aka hard factors. When the game has dozens of units and they all basically boil down to their point cost vs killing/not dying ability then it becomes hard to justify using X unit when Y unit does the job better for the points cost.

I'll use an example with something like the Speeder Storm in 7th. It had the ability to be a dedicated transport for scouts but also its weapon was a large blast blinding attack. It wasn't very good for the points at killing things but being able to effectively flash bang multiple enemy units was quite impactful despite it not actually being all that good at removing models from the table (unless they were something like gaunts, Boyz, guardsmen, etc). It being a relatively cheap transport skimmer, it they shot at it then it could just jink and waste some of their shooting. In the blandscape that is modern 40k, its Cerberus launcher is effectively the same thing as about two basic bolters and the whole thing has paper thin defense.

While it sounds like the speeder storm didn't get translated over very well, I will say that I feel like 10th does a much better job of adding in "soft factors" than at least some of the previous editions. I'm mostly thinking of special rules like guardian defenders being able to generate fate dice for the army, rippers/scarabs being able to reduce the OC of enemy units, etc. We could probably go harder in that direction (I'd love to see debuff weapons like blinding weapons and haywire-as-stuns come back), but I do feel like 10th is better about including "soft factors" than 8th or 9th were.

 Vankraken wrote:

 catbarf wrote:
I think there's a healthy balance to be struck between buying whatever looks cool (and running the risk of building a list that will lose every game) versus building the strongest wombo-combo netlist you can.

The problem Tittliewinks22 and CCS are articulating is that there's a tendency for Internet advice to devolve into histrionics where everything is either 'good' or 'trash'. It's good to know if you're setting yourself up for disappointment with a particular unit, but dismissing three-quarters of a codex because it isn't 'top-tier' really limits your options.

That attitude is also incredibly off-putting for players who want to field a themed list or the units they like without getting crushed by someone who will never actually play in a tournament yet is treating the game like practice for LVO. And yet that's an increasingly common approach to the game. The competitive mindset is not only pervasive, not only dominating in online discussion, but in many places now the default way that people play.

This also manifests more intensely when the game lacks mechanical depth. If there is enough meaningful mechanical depth then you can get units to fill niche roles and take advantage of "soft factors" instead of the raw shoot, stab, save stats aka hard factors. When the game has dozens of units and they all basically boil down to their point cost vs killing/not dying ability then it becomes hard to justify using X unit when Y unit does the job better for the points cost.

I'll use an example with something like the Speeder Storm in 7th. It had the ability to be a dedicated transport for scouts but also its weapon was a large blast blinding attack. It wasn't very good for the points at killing things but being able to effectively flash bang multiple enemy units was quite impactful despite it not actually being all that good at removing models from the table (unless they were something like gaunts, Boyz, guardsmen, etc). It being a relatively cheap transport skimmer, it they shot at it then it could just jink and waste some of their shooting. In the blandscape that is modern 40k, its Cerberus launcher is effectively the same thing as about two basic bolters and the whole thing has paper thin defense.

This guy gets it.

 catbarf wrote:

Or worse, bringing your thematic list you've had for multiple editions and finding that now it's the meta hotness, and once again you are That Guy for bringing a cheesemonger list to casual game night. Stopped playing 9th shortly after that happened to my Tyranids.

This is why I really detest the argument that the game doesn't need to be balanced because you can just work it out on the fly. Doing so requires a lot of game knowledge and that everyone is on the same page about relative power levels of the units involved, which is an even taller ask in casual communities that may not be as up-to-date on game knowledge as competitive communities. Competitive play at least is no-holds-barred, bring your best list and your opponent will do the same, and if you get creamed you can reasonably blame the game designers instead of resenting your opponent.

This. I first bought my Tau in 3rd, played them all through 4th and 5th, then along comes the 6th edition codex and the Riptide. Suddenly Tau are OP and, even though I've still to this day never owned a Riptide, I got tarred with that brush by many of the more "casual" players in that store because they have heard that Tau are the new hotness (and also coupled with the typical "they don't belong in my grimdark!" bollocks) and that's where they stop listening.

The stuff about toning down your list/whatever is the MAIN reason I stopped playing pick-up 40k and focused on a core group of 4-5 players that:

I don't NEED to have a conversation about what our expectations for the game are.
We know that the other player may not bring a "tourney" list but it's not necessarily gonna be "weak"
EVERYTHING IS WYSIWYG!


The one fun thing about pick-up 40k is quickly learning whom NOT to play.
I'd rather sit there not having fun than sitting there playing a game AND not having fun.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
While it sounds like the speeder storm didn't get translated over very well, I will say that I feel like 10th does a much better job of adding in "soft factors" than at least some of the previous editions. I'm mostly thinking of special rules like guardian defenders being able to generate fate dice for the army, rippers/scarabs being able to reduce the OC of enemy units, etc. We could probably go harder in that direction (I'd love to see debuff weapons like blinding weapons and haywire-as-stuns come back), but I do feel like 10th is better about including "soft factors" than 8th or 9th were.

I agree that 10th Ed has done a much better job than the previous two editions of giving each unit something interesting it can do that can't be easily boiled down to raw numerical efficiency. However, the monkey's paw curls one finger as this is primarily accomplished through a gakload of special rules that add back in much of the cognitive burden that the streamlining of subfactions and stratagems removed. It works, it's just a very 'artificial' solution.

Not to put words in Vankraken's mouth, but when I think of soft factors in wargames I tend to think more about capabilities that arise organically from the core rules, where a unit might have certain stats (or even just utility from existing) that don't directly relate to combat effectiveness but are important considerations nonetheless. Often this comes from mechanics like suppression, flanking, morale, unit type (infantry vs vehicle) or terrain interactions. In other words, force-multipliers that make practical combat effectiveness more difficult to quantify than spreadsheet math, and non-combat factors that influence how the unit interacts with the table. 40K has gradually watered these down over time until the depth comes almost entirely from the interplay of special abilities. You've got OC as a soft factor to consider, the atavistic and marginally relevant Leadership stat, and... that's about it, really.

You do need to think about taking objectives, but it's pretty rare for a unit to suck at combat, not have any useful special abilities, and still be worth taking. Contrast to, say, WHFB, where units like Gnoblars and Skavenslaves were crap but could cheaply fulfill important roles in adding rank bonuses and preventing flanking. Fast cavalry weren't great at fighting but could deny marching, run down fleeing enemies, and opportunistically flank. High Ld didn't directly affect your combat ability but made a huge difference in how likely your units were to stick around. Skirmishers weren't great in a stand-up fight but could more fluidly navigate the battlefield to get to where they were most useful. You could argue roles and relevance for units that had neither optimal combat capability nor relevant special rules on account of these soft factors, and it was harder to number-crunch a codex into 'worth taking' and 'not worth taking' within days of release.

I'd love to see more of that sort of design in 40K, but I'm not holding my breath.

Rihgu wrote:

Wayniac wrote:


I've seen exactly that happen plenty of times. One guy shows up with a comp list, destroys a casual player and casual play slowly dies as nobody wants to be Bob and get absolutely destroyed in a lopsided game, so eventually everyone starts playing more competitively. What I find most intriguing is that there is a solution with nobody wants to do which is just ask people to not bring the strong stuff or if they do then don't play them. Instead it seems like people will rather play a bad game than not play a game at all knowing full well that if they play it's going to be a miserable experience.

I'm continually amazed that it's the casual players who will always, without fail, roll over and die and accept their competitive overlords rather than stand up to the guy who turns up to game night with some boring netlist and let them conform or find games elsewhere.

Every single time.

The problem there is being able to recognize that what your opponent has is strong, or that they have satisfied the "please don't bring strong stuff" requirement, does require you to be somewhat more knowledgeable on the competitive scene than a truly casual player would be. Sure, a casual player could ask a more competitive player to "please don't bring THAT list", but that opponent might just swap out a tier 1 unit for a tier 2 unit. Hey, it's a different list, and doesn't specifically have that one unit you always complain about, right?

So at the point you're able to recognize what's strong and what's not, instead of going through the rigamarole of asking people to tone down their lists, why not just play at the level you're at yourself?

Your post weirdly seemingly conflates competitive with "high skill" and casual with "low skill", when that's not really the case. In my experience, players who bring net lists are trash at actually playing the game. High skill players are just in general more likely to a) be able to recognize themselves what makes their list so strong, and tone those aspects down either through gameplay itself or through changing the list b) have a better attitude & be willing to do so, whereas low skill players are going to want to farm their wins where they're getting them.

I actually used to play against one of those kind of people back in the day. i didn't mind the fact he was basically copy/paste tournament winning lists because they were not his lists and he really didn't know how to use them so i could bring a general list i normally use and beat him with it.

Tittliewinks22 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
I've seen exactly that happen plenty of times. One guy shows up with a comp list, destroys a casual player and casual play slowly dies as nobody wants to be Bob and get absolutely destroyed in a lopsided game, so eventually everyone starts playing more competitively. What I find most intriguing is that there is a solution with nobody wants to do which is just ask people to not bring the strong stuff or if they do then don't play them. Instead it seems like people will rather play a bad game than not play a game at all knowing full well that if they play it's going to be a miserable experience.

I'm continually amazed that it's the casual players who will always, without fail, roll over and die and accept their competitive overlords rather than stand up to the guy who turns up to game night with some boring netlist and let them conform or find games elsewhere.

Every single time.

At the same LGS that I mentioned earlier, I was talking to a few of the regulars there and asking them their thoughts on more casual play. They all shared the same mentality "Treat every game as practice for a tournament." I would say it's isolated to a specific store in my area, but I know this is championed at all 4 LGS's in my city. The group I play games with use to play at these stores against these crowds, but something changed in the past 5 years or so, and now everything is hyper competitive all the time.

With the rise of this competitive stance we did not "roll over and die" instead we became cliquish and now I host game nights at my place where we have enough table space for a few games. We run campaigns and play a host of wargames. I am firmly in belief that the introduction of the "three ways to play" fragmented the community.

I would not be surprised if most casual players just don't play at the LGS anymore, or at least don't play pick-up-games since the competitive seed has began to blossom.

i played in exactly 2 GTs and i find the tournament play mindset to be toxic. not that i didn't run into a couple guys here and there that were a blast to play with but it wasn't the standard. it is also why i swore off the entire scene. i really only have one list for my oldhammer dark angels and admech where i make minor tweaks from time to time. in the case of the dark angels (using the 3rd ed mini codex in 5th ed) it is Azrael, 2-3 tac squads a couple razorbacks, deathwing venerable dreads and a deathwing terminator command squad (because you could do that back in 3rd) about the most tweaking i do is swapping between the 4 different land raiders i own for them.

As for my salamanders i am sitting on 7-8k worth of minis including inquisitorial allied units so i have loads of options to change things up to make the game more fun and dynamic. i hardly ever run the same list more than a couple times.

last month in fact at the request of one of the regulars i ran the exact same list against 2 of his different armies with no changes and some added in game restrictions. i built a general list knowing i would be facing totally different play styles and i still managed to win both games. the first was very close (as he had to kill one unit to win the game) he had the range and firepower advantage so i had to play the objectives (5th ed 5 capture points) very hard. the second game it was more of an even slog that happened to turn out in my favor.

As Racerguy180 pointed out i also have the benefit of playing with a mostly regular group of a dozen or so oldhammer players who have the same mindset of the game so we don't have to have a conversation every single time to make sure we are not being "that guy" when we build our lists. when we bring new people in we also try to steer them in a similar direction. as none of us care about optimized tournament play. especially since we do not even play the newest edition.

 aphyon wrote:

I actually used to play against one of those kind of people back in the day. i didn't mind the fact he was basically copy/paste tournament winning lists because they were not his lists and he really didn't know how to use them so i could bring a general list i normally use and beat him with it.

Honestly these are some of the absolutely most satisfying victories.

Them: "Oldmarines are so small. Tactical squads are baaad."
Me: "Oh I'm sorry did I just wreck you?"

 catbarf wrote:

 Wyldhunt wrote:
While it sounds like the speeder storm didn't get translated over very well, I will say that I feel like 10th does a much better job of adding in "soft factors" than at least some of the previous editions. I'm mostly thinking of special rules like guardian defenders being able to generate fate dice for the army, rippers/scarabs being able to reduce the OC of enemy units, etc. We could probably go harder in that direction (I'd love to see debuff weapons like blinding weapons and haywire-as-stuns come back), but I do feel like 10th is better about including "soft factors" than 8th or 9th were.

I agree that 10th Ed has done a much better job than the previous two editions of giving each unit something interesting it can do that can't be easily boiled down to raw numerical efficiency. However, the monkey's paw curls one finger as this is primarily accomplished through a gakload of special rules that add back in much of the cognitive burden that the streamlining of subfactions and stratagems removed. It works, it's just a very 'artificial' solution.

Not to put words in Vankraken's mouth, but when I think of soft factors in wargames I tend to think more about capabilities that arise organically from the core rules, where a unit might have certain stats (or even just utility from existing) that don't directly relate to combat effectiveness but are important considerations nonetheless. Often this comes from mechanics like suppression, flanking, morale, unit type (infantry vs vehicle) or terrain interactions. In other words, force-multipliers that make practical combat effectiveness more difficult to quantify than spreadsheet math, and non-combat factors that influence how the unit interacts with the table. 40K has gradually watered these down over time until the depth comes almost entirely from the interplay of special abilities. You've got OC as a soft factor to consider, the atavistic and marginally relevant Leadership stat, and... that's about it, really.

Fair points put well. Have an exalt.

You do need to think about taking objectives, but it's pretty rare for a unit to suck at combat, not have any useful special abilities, and still be worth taking. Contrast to, say, WHFB, where units like Gnoblars and Skavenslaves were crap but could cheaply fulfill important roles in adding rank bonuses and preventing flanking. Fast cavalry weren't great at fighting but could deny marching, run down fleeing enemies, and opportunistically flank. High Ld didn't directly affect your combat ability but made a huge difference in how likely your units were to stick around. Skirmishers weren't great in a stand-up fight but could more fluidly navigate the battlefield to get to where they were most useful. You could argue roles and relevance for units that had neither optimal combat capability nor relevant special rules on account of these soft factors, and it was harder to number-crunch a codex into 'worth taking' and 'not worth taking' within days of release.

I'd love to see more of that sort of design in 40K, but I'm not holding my breath.

Yeah. I'd be in favor of more of this sort of thing in 40k. I like rules like plunging fire. I wish we'd get some sort of universal crossfire rule in 11th. Maybe some spotter rules and something like the screening rules we're discussing in the other thread.

As an eldar player, I have a pretty high tolerance for special rules per unit, but it does feel like past editions sometimes did more with less.

aphyon wrote:
As Racerguy180 pointed out i also have the benefit of playing with a mostly regular group of a dozen or so oldhammer players who have the same mindset of the game so we don't have to have a conversation every single time to make sure we are not being "that guy" when we build our lists. when we bring new people in we also try to steer them in a similar direction. as none of us care about optimized tournament play. especially since we do not even play the newest edition.

My homie & I have a game tomorrow, he's bringing his Eldar(which has basically been same list since 8th with minor additions/changes) & I know what that entails. His list is really strong currently and we normally don't tell each other what list we are bringing so he felt the need to let me know.

Am I going to tailor my list to exactly counter his...no, but I am going to meet him on a more equal footing(given my own fluff/minis restrictions).

The thing the irks me to no end is that I like playing against everyone in my group & they are what make the game fun, But the game feels increasingly shallow and devoid of meaningful choice once on the table. Which in turn diminishes the POSSIBILITY of fun, not the total lack of it.