From the very start things went smoothly. Ed, Eddy (Ed’s son), Bobby (Ultrabob), and I made the trip down to Virginia in about 6 hours with minimal traffic and arrived at the Holiday Inn around 5:30 pm, just in time to schmooze with some of the guys from Brothers Grim whom we met up with at the bar and grab a bite at the hotel restaurant. The hotel itself was nicer than the other Holiday Inns I’ve stayed in and was a complete steal considering the price—split between the four of us the room came to just $28/night. I shudder to think how much that would have been back home in New York.

Having the Whiskey Challenge and open gaming tables set up in one of the hotel conference rooms was a convenience beyond measure. I was more than a little intimidated going down and being one of 8 featured players taking up the challenge, but everyone was so cool and laid back that any anxiety over the situation melted away immediately. My opponent, Hulksmash, was just great and I’ve never had such a pleasant and gentlemanly ass kicking (though my game with Mark on Saturday would be a close second).

Being at the center of attention (or standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him as he played Dashofpepper on the adjacent table) was an interesting experience in its own right. And being interviewed during for the webcast was definitely a first for Danny Internets. I can’t help but wonder how many of my 15 minutes of e-fame were used up this past weekend. Kudos to whomever had the brilliant idea to stream it all live with an accompanying chat room for the peanut gallery. I heard the attendance got above 80 at one point, which is really impressive given the niche within a niche that tournament players occupy with respect to the rest of the hobby.

The main venue for Saturday, the Dulles Expo Center, was enormous and provided us with more than enough room to play our games. (In the grimdark of the 41st millennium nothing sucks more than being elbow-to-elbow with some fat guy as he strains to move his space elves across the table.) The top tables all had high quality boards from local clubs while the lower ones were mostly just cloth mats, but the actual terrain pieces were universally extraordinary, well beyond tabletop quality. More importantly, the boards were all set up with approximate symmetry across both the horizontal and diagonal midlines to ensure a balanced field regardless of side or deployment type (ie long edge versus table quarter setup). Furthermore, every table had the recommended 25% coverage.

I was also impressed by how well-branded the event was. The words “NOVA Open” were everywhere I turned, from the giant projection screen in the center of the conference hall to the writing utensils to the poster at the bar advertising cheap drinks and appetizers for attendees. It was most obvious when looking through the “swag bags” which were given to all of the participants, every piece of which had a full color event logo printed on it. While the inclusion of the bags was welcome and unexpected, some of the items probably could have been ditched in lieu of more prize support (not that the prizes were lacking).

- Big bag o’ bits = good (we all need more warhams)
- Calculator = bad (everyone already has one built into their phone)
- Laser pointer = good (there is no better way to demonstrate line of sight)
- Cloth tape measure = bad (non-stiff tape is useless for 40k measurements)
- Shot glass = very good (bars frown on patrons who take swigs from the bottle)

That being said, the prize distribution was pitch perfect. The big winners (Renaissance Man and Tournament Champion) were rewarded handsomely but not ostentatiously (ie, ‘Ard Boyz Semi-finals). For instance, as the Renaissance Man winner, I walked away with the following:

- Ork Stompa ($100 value)
- Admission to Adepticon 2011 ($100 value)
- Gift certificate to The War Store ($20 value)
- Gift certificate to [base place] ($30 value)
- Big honkin’ trophy

- Entrance to the GW invitational tournament in Las Vegas

That’s over $250 worth of stuff from a prize pool of several thousand dollars (I imagine the Tournament Champion scored roughly the same loot). The rest of the prizes were spread out amongst not just the top performers (Tournament Aces, best painted, etc.), but also to the event participants as a whole in the form of raffles where losing games increased your chances of winning anything from a boxed set to a block of dice. The obvious method to Mike’s madness here is to increase the number of people who walk away from the event having won something, creating a long-lasting positive impression of the tournament. Between the swag bags and large volume of prizes it was not uncommon for players to leave the tournament with free merchandise worth more than the cost of admission.

I could sit here and profess my undying love for Mike Brandt’s brainchild all day long, but it takes more than planning a format to make for a successful event. Perhaps even more impressive than NOVA’s structure was its execution: the TO organized a veritable army of staff to help out at the event covering everything from rules queries to results collection to paint judging to selling concessions. And not only were these people numerous, they were all either knowledgeable on the issues or immediately capable of finding someone more qualified on that particular topic. This top-notch staffing kept everything running exactly on schedule and completing four 2000-point games in a single day left me feeling much less physically and mentally tired than I’d anticipated. Had I a board, terrain, and an opponent, I probably would have been up for a fifth. After ‘Ard Boyz I didn’t want to play for weeks, but after NOVA I’m still in high gear. That’s how it should be.

In a nutshell, the NOVA Open was a success because it embodied the trifecta of good tournament design: scoring transparency, logistical mastery, and equal recognition of different hobby interests. Tournament organizers, take note: this is how you ensure everyone both stays and leaves happy.

Since being crowned King of Warhammer 40k and being ranked the top 40k player in the country, I’ve been getting a lot of e-mails, PMs, phone calls, fan-mail, and even a plane flying over with a banner asking me how I manage to do so well.

Well, I didn’t want to answer them all individually, so I thought I’d give a bit of a walkthrough of my typical day and how I keep in top form for tournaments.

1030:  The Early Bird Gets the Worm!

My day starts early!  I roll out of bed filled with vigor for a new day and immediately sit down in front of my computer to surf the internet looking for new tactics or rules loopholes that need consideration.  You can’t let a day go by without looking for possibilities that you haven’t explored before!  The absolute worst possibility in 40k is to be surprised by someone pulling a fast one on you and pretty much all the pros work hard to stay on top of new information.

1130-1230:  Exercise!

One of the key things that separates us pro-players from the masses of regular players is that we’re ready to adapt to any situation.  I’ve got these flash cards – every one has a picture of a unit from one of the armies in 40k on it.  My trainer will shuffle up all the cards, and pull one out while shouting out an army.  Then I have five seconds to assess the tools that the army I use out of that list has and how I would deal with the unit.  If you want to be a pro at 40k, you have to keep your mental acuity up.  For every bad answer, a chapter of Dan Abnett’s horror-book Titanicus gets added to my homework to read later.  Just thinking about those titans firing their turbolasers makes me want to recoil in abject horror.  TURBOLASERS!  Being forced to read that canon-stomping garbage is powerful motivation to answer well.

1230-1330:  Fueling the Machine Spirit!

Around this time, my mom usually calls me upstairs for lunch.  Pro-gamers have a pretty regulated diet.  Fish is an important part of a pro 40k gamer’s diet to help promote memory and brain stimulation.  Fruit, vegetables, grain – all of the food groups need to be carefully represented in each meal to stay at performance levels.  Today’s compliance is meted out with a McDonalds Fillet O’ Fish Meal with a side Big Mac and an apple pie.  That pretty much hits all the food groups.

Part of being a pro 40k gamer is being ambitious, and I know that a lot of folks would watch T.V. or something while they eat, but I’m constantly training.  When I’m eating, I’m either reading my penance chapters (turbolasers *shudder*), or reciting unit statistics and special abilities.  Sometimes if I’m caught up on my work I’ll read a little bit of the fluff and backstory in the codex I’m working on, but mostly its training.

1330-1530:  Research and Development!

This is one of the most important parts of the day.  First thing in the morning is the first opportunity to see what’s going on out in the world of META, but this is the dedicated time to do it.  Being a Pro 40k player is synonymous with pushing the META envelope.  When Darkwynn took leaf-blower to ‘Ard Boyz and won, you don’t think he copied a netlist and used it do you?  NO!  He pushed the envelope of the METAGAME and created his own opportunity.  This afternoon research period is meant to look for new ways of beating enemies, reading comments and 40k blogs to stay in tune with the latest developments in the META across the various regional trends, and basically stay on top of your game.  This is also a good opportunity to answer fan-mail, give advice to worthy aspirants, and answer some of the haters.

Speaking of haters, these are the people who are always accusing us pro players of being WAAC, or of making up our win ratio, or arguing that the advice we give isn’t good.  Most of the time its best to just ignore the haters.  I mean, they probably don’t even have sponsors or a 40k trainer and if we were to ever get together for a game, my META would be so far ahead of their META that their META would just be like….ETA.  Or MEAT.  But sometimes the haters won’t stop and this is also a good time to champion your causes.  Most people will realize that as a pro-40k gamer your advice is just pretty much automatically right, but there’s always the risk of an innocent bystander or forum reader getting caught in the crossfire of haters, so you have to try keeping them in check.

1530-1730: Modeling and Converting

This is another important part of the day.  For the pro-gamer, every point that can be awarded at a tournament needs to be individually considered.  Every aspect of the scoresheet needs to be carefully addressed.  It isn’t enough to show up at a tournament and beat face, you need to be able to get all the points for painting and converting as well.  This time block is spent stripping, modeling, using green-stuff, and turning a model into a clever conversion to “Wow!” the scoring judges at the events you go to.  I mean, witness the awesomeness of this homemade Tyrannofex.  If you want to be a pro-gamer, you’ve got to always be thinking outside of the box.

1730-1830:  Refueling the Machine Spirit!

So my mom usually makes dinner around now.  If I’ve still got homework or codex exercises to do, I’ll try and get them done here.  Even though you might be a pro-gamer, you still need to pay attention to your family, so in case I get yelled at for being rude at the table, I’ll practice them in my head.  I can’t stress enough how important mental acuity is.

1830-2230:  Honing the Skills!

An important part of being a pro-40k gamer is to constantly be honing your skills.  After dinner, I try getting in a couple of games.  I want to stay sharp, so sometimes I’ll get in a couple of games at the same time, playing one of my armies on one table and a different army on a different table.  If you don’t have a shop or tables at home with a waiting list like some of the pros do, you might end up on Vassal playing 40k.  I’ll get a game going on Vassal and sometimes be dual-boxing with another computer playing Vassal there too, and with players from different areas of the country or different countries so that I have to work on my META skills for two different styles at the same time.   Nothing is worse than showing up on tournament day thinking that you’ve got the METAGAME there figured out and it turns out that someone brought some different META and you totally weren’t ready for it and can’t adapt to it on the fly.

2230-2330:  Personal Time!

This is where I poop.  I get the last of my reading assignments for the day in here as well.

2330-0200:  Painting!

Getting your models up to snuff is an important part of the hobby; its not all about beating face and clubbing people around.   This is a good time to watch a movie, or some music videos for most people.  For a pro-gamer, this is the opportunity to paint while listening to the various 40k podcasts and watching the video batreps that other people make.  One of the best ways to stay in touch with the METAGAME around the country is to check out other peoples’ batreps and listen in to what’s happening in different places.  Every nugget of information is like a bolter round – it might be the one that gives you a critical advantage in your next game.

0200-0300: Wrap-up

Its about time to call it a night.  I get the late-night postings in when all the haters are sleeping so that they can’t respond so that I win all the internet arguments here.   Being a pro at something means dedicating the time to ensuring you do your best at all aspects of your life, not just the ones you’re recognized for being good at.

That’s about it!  There’s a lot of work involved in getting to and staying at the top of your game.

• ‘Ard Boyz Preliminaries
• ‘Ard Boyz Semi-finals
• Blood Bath
• Atlanta Circuit Opener
• Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre

Since most of my batreps devolve into drama even when they shouldn’t, here’s a fair warning to you, the reader: Making personal attacks to other Dakka B&S posters commentors in this thread article is likely to result with you not posting commenting on Dakka B&S. So don’t. The point of this thread article is:

1. Humor for you.

2. Warning for the general populace about this store and its patrons.

3. Cathartic therapy for me.

Setting the stage

I recently moved to Jacksonville, FL. The gaming community here is fragmented. There are two gaming stores here (in a town of 1.5 million people). Until a few weeks ago there were three, and until a year ago, there were four. I lived here for a brief time a couple years ago, and moved back because of a promotion at work that was simply too good to pass up; it put me solidly in the mid six-figures range, and I have a home office. And I expense my cell phone, my internet, mileage….it took that to bring me back. There are several groups of gamers in Jacksonville; not official “groups,” just collections of people that socialize with each other. Like in any gathering of people, there’s a lot of good people, and a handful of jerks. One of those groups has been particularly vocal on the internet (but nice as could be in person) about their hatred for me; labeling me as a WAAC gamer, I don’t “get” their local scene, various bad names….

Mission: Integrate into the 40k community here, help raise interest in 40k, support the FLGS to keep them from following the fate of the now defunct previous stores.

Deployment: Ah…is this format dumb? There are various places that I play. SunCoast Comics is the closest gaming store to where I live. My friends and I try gaming elsewhere when we can because the air conditioning setup inside is horrid; Florida is 100% humidity with 90-105 degree temperature – the building where Suncoast rents seems to hover around 90 degrees *inside* with 100% humidity. In the army, after being outside / field exercises in the heat I would get salt stains on my BDUs (Battle Dress Uniform); the only time I’ve managed to get them since that I’ve noticed is while playing at Suncoast. As a result, we’re hesitant to game there outside of a tournament setting because of the heat….combined with the unwashed nature of some gamers…leading to a distinctly unpleasant gaming environment. I’ve got a table at my house, three of my friends have tables at their houses (including one, who has a GIANT table in his gameroom – I think its 14′ x 10′. We can have two games on it simultaneously at opposite ends, with a bunch of space in the middle for all our stuff.

Turn 1: ‘Ard Boyz Semi-Finals

I had three fantastic games against three fantastic opponents. I was on Table #1 for my third game playing for a 2500 point army against a mechanized IG player….where we had the L shaped deployment with two board edges as your deployment zone – I lost the roll, was forced to deploy first with my mechanized assault…and subsequently took the beating of my life. You can read the batrep at the appropriate link above. Since I got beaten so quickly…we finished our game in about 45 minutes. I packed up early, congratulated him on winning ‘Ard Boyz (I’m a good loser; its where I learn the most after all), and went to the in-laws, and jumped in the pool clothes and all. So….I missed the drama.

Suncoast Comics isn’t nearly large enough to host a tournament like ‘Ard Boyz semi-finals, so they borrowed the restaurant next door to put half their tables into; with the agreement that the store had to be cleared out by 5:00 PM (tables, gamers, everything) so that they could open the restaurant for dinner patrons and karaoke night. As things ended up working out….Round #3 was nowhere near finished at 5:00. All the games got cut short by an hour. To keep things fair, the store owner announced to the rest of the gamers on the store side that everyone needed to finish the turn they were on, tournament is over – to keep it fair for the people who had their games cut short in the restaurant.

Exactly.

I’m not sure that I have permission to use names from any offended parties, but there were quite a few absolutely LIVID individuals who didn’t get a massacre because of the sudden game stoppage, or lost out on placing. I understood that there was a three-way tie for third place, and that the tie-breaker was awarded to the person who had their game cut off first on the restaurant side. I got a couple PMs on Dakka about it, a phone call, an e-mail….from various people griping / wondering if I was affected, etc. I understand some phone calls were made to GW to complain, but I don’t know more – I stayed out, and the whole issue apparently disappeared quietly.

Turn 2: Moving to Jacksonville, and my first tournament!

The local club (The Guardians) hosted a unique tournament shortly after I moved here and it was the first one I got to participate in. BMF Championship. Very cool idea – you can read the tournament structure and rules at the link provided. Basically, it was a single elimination 1500 point tournament. No sportsmanship, no comp scoring, no painting – BMF = Baddest Mother F*****; and the tournament announces, “No whining, no crying…you lose, you’re out.” This tournament was to find out who the baddest mofo around is. I brought my Dark Eldar. I had fun, and I beat face. There was a bit of baby-seal clubbing. Example: My first round opponent brought foot-slogging Space Wolves + a single dreadnought. I got to go first, and deployed pitched battle in the center of my board. He attempted a “refused flank” and deployed his entire army into a single piece of rubble. They wouldn’t all fit inside, so he dropped a long fang squad and a grey hunter pack outside of cover…tight together.

Now, my 1500 DE has three ravagers with triple disintegrators, meaning massed plasma templates. It took 8 dark lance shots, but I exploded his single dreadnought 5″….hitting a total of 18 models from different units. That’s how packed in they were. He conceded at the top of turn1 after my assault phase. Not all my games were so easy, but most of my opponents got beaten on horridly. After the tournament, I posted tournament feedback noting that I thought it was a brilliant tournament idea, inventive, and that I had a great experience. Drama ensued. FYI, I’m Shelix / Justin on those forums. Apparently, my lack of knowledge of the local gamers causes me to be a “douche” because the locals are friendly, not too competitive, and my “WAAC” armies and tactics are unwelcome around here. Its a great mini-drama. There is a lot of whining, crying, name-calling of me, and general rabble rousing that I’m a horrid person. I linked that thread to the Dakka Discussion “Worst experience at a local gaming store” and a couple people from Dakka apparently registered and responded that the local gamers were being absurd.

The result was the creation of a thread all about me titled, Things I hate about Shelix. Remember that Shelix = Dashofpepper.

Now, two things hold true about me:

1.  I’ll give the shirt off my back to help someone.

2.  I won’t sit by idly while someone is being attacked – friend, stranger or otherwise…LEAST of all me.

Read that thread for more simply absurd hatred. What this boils down to is simple: I don’t conform to the demands of this group of gamers. Seriously, click and read. Good stuff. I mean, it goes so far as a note from one of the gamers about how I’m a thoughtless and inconsiderate **** because I brought a personal fan (little oscillating thing) to the tournament and kept it pointed at me instead of oscillating it for other people to enjoy. I’m not a Florida native, and while sweat was pouring off of me and I bought 5 gatorades over the course of the tournament from the store, the heat didn’t seem to be bothering any of the natives, so I didn’t think much of it.

Turn 3: Trying to Raise the Bar

After all this hate pouring down on me about being competitive, a WAAC gamer, a total <insert your word of choice>, I was talking to my friends locally as well as on Dakka and elsewhere about the situation. Their advice was for me to tone down what I use locally and focus on trying to help folks better themselves, become more competitive….slowly trying to improve the local 40k gaming scene. I thought about that one for a bit. With two of the local stores having shut down, I had an idea to knock two birds out with one stone. A lot of people buy from TheWarStore and elsewhere to not have to pay retail prices. My idea: Anyone who buys $50 of merchandise at the store gets a token for a free game against me; and if you beat me, I buy you a free battleforce box from the store. The caveat: You get 1,750 and I get 2,000. Since Risk:Reward is 100:0, I can’t make it super easy to beat me, but it should inspire people to put together competitive lists for a shot at a free battleforce box.

I talked to the store, they liked the idea, so I announced the “Store Champion” thread, where beating me nets you free stuff. Serious flames ensued. Here’s quickly locked Dakka Thread where I announced the same. The idea got universally crapped upon. Apparently, the idea that I’m giving away free stuff and trying to help my FLGS isn’t so important as where I’m declared the “House Champion” and apparently think I’m a God among gamers, worthy of praise, and therefore an egotistical ass who should be castrated and burned at the stake for daring to announce that I’m a better than average player.

Turn 4: The Ensuing Crash

With my idea universally picking up hate, and the amount of personal attacks reaching record highs, I temporarily called off the event for re-evaluation. Since the words “Store Champion” were causing me to be reviled, I put out the idea of a “Council of Paladins” – basically, I would tap a few of the competitive local gamers to act as a screen for me; earning your challenge token lets you play anyone on the council in an even game. If you beat them, you get to play me for your Battleforce box. I’m still financially supporting the idea endeavor, but at least I wouldn’t get accused of trying to club and rape baby seals for kicks, and the games I *do* have should be suitably challenging if they made it past my screeners. This idea got flamed down as well – apparently, playing two games is too much effort to try winning a free battleforce box of your choice.

However, this idea never picked up off the ground – the store owner called me to rail against me for my unacceptable behavior. I had called off the event without informing the store first (instead using the community forums that is where pretty much all information is exchanged; their store forums are dead and unread). Only one person had made a purchase and been issued a token, and the store made a very public announcement that they would refund his merchandise, despite the fact that I had already told this member that I would honor his token. It wouldn’t have mattered, the person is part of the local group that despises me and had publicly announced that he didn’t plan on using his token, and wouldn’t play me voluntarily for any amount of free stuff. He’s never met me, never gamed against me; I’ve never gamed against his friends – this all just forum drama that they instigate by the way.

Regardless of my intent to honor his token and his intent not to use it….the store offered him a refund for his purchases, and berated me at length for poorly representing the store, having unacceptable behavior in canceling my event without calling them first; and while I probably should have called in person, the owner posts in the forum too and I was out of town on business in a hotel – not exactly high on my priority list to call the store. 30 minutes of this – the store owner telling me that my behavior is unacceptable, and there’s too much drama involved in it now, and they don’t know if they even want me hosting events there or not (I had plans to run a tournament, will note in turn5), when it is a few of THEIR GAMERS causing the problems.

I’m starting to feel uncharitable by now; the whole point of this was putting my money on the line and getting nothing in return to try helping the store and increasing the competitive abilities of the local scene, and in response I’m taking flak from both some local gamers AND the store. Not cool.

Turn 5: The Tournament Not To Be:

I had announced a Boss Battle to be held at the store – easy 350 point free for all fun fight. Some of you reading this may have even participated in one that I’ve hosted before live or on Vassal. Based on further advice from friends about trying to find passive ways to help the local community, I also offered a 40k tactics class after the Boss Battle. I planned to talk about deployment, analyzing your opponent’s list, and then pairing everyone up to practice what I had just taught. The announcement was made HERE with a copycat post on Dakka made HERE. While much of the flaming involved here took place in threads already linked, the premise was “You’re not qualified to hold a tactics class.” I seriously can’t win.

Turn 6: The Tournament that Broke the Camel

With multiple failed endeavors under my belt to try and bring something positive to my 40k community, I prepped for another tournament. This one is a doozy. The TO was new to being a TO. The store has been asking for volunteers to run tournaments, and he offered. He made his own missions….which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If you know how to play 40k. Tournament Announcement. The premise: 2,200 point attrition tournament. Whatever you lose stays lost for the rest of the tournament. Winning each round is based on killing a portion of your opponent’s army. He announced at the beginning of the tournament that if the first player hit 700 points, the second player would still get a turn, and basically have to kill more than their opponent did to win.

Read the scenarios…they’re broken.

Game #1: Attacker vs. defender. Defender deploys in the middle of the board, attacker gets both flanks.

The TO is being a ringer, and places himself against me. 2,200 points of Space Wolves vs. 2,200 points of Dark Eldar. I brought Dark Eldar because they are always the attacker (codex mandate) meaning that at least I’ll get an alpha-strike. I show him my codex, explain that DE fluff requires them to be attackers. The TO then announces that all DEFENDERS will be going first. SERIOUSLY?!? He deploys in the middle of the table. He doesn’t have a particularly good list, nor does he deploy very well – long fangs in the open, thunderwolf cavalry interspersed at all points of his army. I obliquely mention that the rules call for the attacker to go first in this kind of mission, and he says, “This is my tournament, I’m making the rules.”

Alrighty then. I reserve 2,200 points of Dark Eldar Wych Cult. With the Nova Open approaching, and my plans to attempt to beat face with my Dark Eldar, I’m getting in any practice that I can. The TO goes first and starts moving his thunderwolf cavalry models out towards the flanking edges where I’ll be coming in from reserves, and adjusting his central deployment – he’s measuring “very” loosely, taking absurd extra inches….I say nothing. Turn2 he does the same, and then I roll for reserves and get….a little more than half. I’m missing two wych squads, two warrior squads, and a RJB unit. Since I can move 12″, disembark, fleet and assault….he’s actually potentially in assault range of a few of my units because of his spreading out.

I move on carefully, have targets in mind, and boom: Turn1, I kill 658 points of his. If I could have killed 700 points, the game would have ended there. Nuts. However, I’ve cripped as much of his anti-tank as I could, so I’m not terribly worried about a response.

His turn two: More outrageous loose moves, and as he enters shooting….he rolls extra dice. Its not helping him. His vindicators scatter off my raiders, his plasma templates (on his longfangs, lol) scatter off, he focuses on Lelith’s squad with his grey hunters, she goes to ground with her retinue, and his entire turn, he kills 2 bikes, 4 wyches, and immobilizes a raider. All his Thunderwolf cavalry charged various raiders….that had all moved 12″. We’re ready to start turn3b as everyone else is finishing up turn1 because I reserved, and the score is 658 to…about 100 points killed.

Now at the beginning, he had announced that when someone hit 700 points, you would finish a full game turn to make sure everything was fair, but coming onto the bottom of turn3 I need to kill 30-50 points to win, and remember – what dies stays dead. I didn’t lose much and most of the rest of my army comes on, meaning I’m probably going to be able to nuke him so badly that his next opponent can laugh him off the table. Change of plans!!!!!!!! He announces on the spot that all games will end as soon as one player kills 700 points of another player’s army.

For our game, that meant that I killed a couple more models and the game ended. For everyone ELSES’ game….that meant that whoever went second auto-lost. And every person who *did* go second lost. Over lunch at Taco Bell (a few of us went together), several were noting that if they had gotten their turn in, they would have beaten their opponent. W…T…F. I pulled the TO off to the side before round two to *obliquely* mention that the scenarios were a bit unbalanced, and I’d be happy to help him build some for the next event. He told me to get lost.

Game #2: I’m paired up against one of the area’s “competitive” gamers. He’s playing Scout Marines, lost nothing in round 1, and I win the roll to go first. I deploy tight in the center (read the missions if you care), and he…infiltrates his entire army for the most part 18″ away from me. I’m an assault army. Well….ok. He doesn’t steal. As many wyches as possible + Lelith move 12″, disembark, fleet, mass assault. He loses 500+ points, and the game ends on *his* assault phase as we resolve more assaults. He drops out of the tournament afterwards, seriously pissed.

Game #3: My opponent had to go for a dinner engagement. The TO asked someone who had just come into the store if they wanted to fill in his spot against me, and so….I played against someone not even in the tournament. Interesting mission here: 16″ deployment zones, pitched battle, and if you’re in your deployment zone at the end of your turn, all vehicles get auto-glanced, all units on foot get auto D6 wounds. I win the roll to go first, deploy my raiders centrally, and my opponent castles up tight in his right corner (my top left). I move my entire army flat out, not really shooting anything….and wall of his deployment zone for 36″ so that he’s penned in; double thick layers to not give his daemon prince anywhere to jump out either. His turn: He tries to ram through me with land raiders and fails; assaults me with daemon prince and misses, vindicator scatters; I make all relevant cover saves….no damage. His entire army is stuck in his deployment zone. Heh. Daemon prince takes 5 wounds, fails 3 saves. vehicles all get stunned, etc. Mop up from there, and I win the tournament.

I asked who the newest gamer was, and donated my store credit to him – he happened to win second, so had enough credit to buy something pretty nice.

Turn Seven: The Game Continues!

I roll a 4+ and the game continues. ELEVEN PAGES of drama ensues, starting with the accusation that I had a tainted victory because in game2, my opponent and I treated some force field thingies incorrectly – we thought they made 12″ bubbles that you couldn’t shoot into / through etc instead of 6″ bubbles. I pointed out that if we *had* treated them correctly, I would have gotten to fire 13 dark lances and 9 plasma templates, and it probably would have been enough to end the game without my opponent actually getting a turn. Rabbling ensues. The TO, whom I had spoken to privately, shows up in the thread and VERY PUBLICLY denounces me as a douchebag who thinks I know better than him how to run a tournament. His friends join in the rabbling.

Alright.

Since he’s going to publicly rant about me, announce that I’m not going to be allowed to play in any of his future tournaments because I’m a know-it-all and a trouble-maker and such…I sent the store owner an e-mail with feedback about the tournament. Its posted in that thread – I made it public when he and friends got very ugly. Basically noting that a TO playing in his own tournament is dangerous…a TO running a tournament that automatically screws half the players is very bad, the TO playing in his own tournament, screwing half the players, and blatantly cheating….is simply unacceptable.

The store makes an announcement on their own website that they had nothing but compliments about the tournament, only a single complainer (me), and that they firmly stand behind their tournament oganizers and how they want to run their tournaments. And then, I was banned from the store.

Game End.

Post-Game tactical assessment: Seems like at every turn, my efforts to help the store and the community were beset by the store and a small group of the local gamers here. I’ve heard time and again that the little corner of the world where I live now (Jacksonville, FL) has a messed up 40k scene, and this was my segue into it.

There’s another store in town, two stores in a nearby town, and a good number of my friends (including myself) have gaming tables at our respective houses, not to mention that Vassal lets me play against anyone in the world. I find it interesting that I travel around the country playing in 40k tournaments, and always have fun, meet new friends, and have nothing but good experiences, win or lose….and my community is an absolute disaster.

Anyway, that was my real life battle report.

Not that I expected to have a serious shot at either, but getting the Renaissance Man award really came out of left field for me. Honestly, no one was more surprised by the result than I was. Hell, the only reason I was even paying attention was because I expected Jawaballs, Nick Nanavati, or Hulksmash to win it. I almost didn’t bother taking my army back out for paint judging because at no point did I think I was in contention for anything other than Tournament Ace (going 4-0 in the first day).

Having gone 3-1 on Saturday, the clincher for me was my sportsmanship scores. I tied the guy who was awarded Best Sportsman with a near perfect score (three of four opponents awarded us favorite opponent, and the other awarded us second favorite) and I guess my army looked fairly decent (you be the judge). Also, while I didn’t dominate my games, all of my wins were via the primary objective, so that might also have given me a boost relative to the other competitors who might have had to fall back on secondary and tertiary tie-breakers.

Anyways, my list was nothing special – just standard mechanized Veterans with Vendettas and Manticores:

Dan Matulich – Imperial Guard – 2000 points

120	Company Command Squad – Astropath, meltagun x4
55	Chimera – Heavy flamer
80	Psyker Battle Squad – Overseer, Psyker x6
55	Chimera – Heavy flamer
35	Ordo Malleus Inquisitor – Emperor’s Tarot
12	2 Mystics
40	2 Warriors – Meltagun x2
105	Veterans – Meltagun x2, flamer x1, autocannon x1
55	Chimera – Heavy flamer
105	Veterans – Meltagun x2, flamer x1, autocannon x1
55	Chimera – Heavy flamer
100	Veterans – Meltagun x3
55	Chimera – Heavy flamer
100	Veterans – Meltagun x3
55	Chimera – Heavy flamer
100	Veterans – Demolitions
55	Chimera – Heavy flamer
140	Vendetta – Heavy bolter x2
140	Vendetta – Heavy bolter x2
140	Vendetta – Heavy bolter x2
160	Manticore – Heavy flamer
160	Manticore – Heavy flamer
75	Hydra – Heavy bolter

Scoring

No two events in the 40k community seem to have the same scoring these days, and nearly all factor soft scores into who wins the so-called tournament portion. Personal preferences on event format aside, this presents an enormous problem when attempting to build an aggregate data set by drawing on results from different competitions. If Hobby Event A weights game outcomes 90% and Hobby Event B weights game outcomes at only 30% then is it appropriate to include winners from both in the same analysis? Obviously, the answer is no–nevermind apples and oranges, it would be like comparing apples and elephants. Throw in differences in rules, wacky scenarios, and skewed army representation and any hope to draw conclusions from the set goes out the window.

Now, some have attempted to resolve this roadblock by looking at rankings by battle points alone, thus disregarding all other scoring categories. With universal weighting (battle points = 100%) the scoring format effect should be negated, right?

The answer again is no. Like in formal research analysis, post-hoc revision of the variables under investigation must be discouraged because of bias and other subtle but powerful effects that the method of gathering data can have. Continuing with the example above, we should expect that the scoring weights will affect the types of people who choose to attend the event. In addition to ticket prices, lodging and travel can total hundreds or even thousands of dollars for gamers to make their way across the country and compete in various aspects of the hobby they love. However, not all gamers love these different aspects equally. Some people refuse to attend events that don’t place strong emphasis on presentation while others wouldn’t dream of spending money on an event that includes soft scores. The demographics of the attendees at Hobby Event A versus Hobby Event B will likely be very different, even if they take place in the same geographical location. Specifically, players chiefly concerned with competitive play will be less inclined to go to events where players compete to see who is the top hobbyist rather than the top gamer. This will in turn affect the types of armies taken and the quality of game-play featured on the tabletop.

Another issue with scoring is derived from the use of battle points as a performance metric. Though it is widely used throughout the community, battle points are not part of the core rulebook–they are a community house rule used because it provides a convenient way of comparing players based on their performance in a given event. Its establishment as a standard grows out of understandable necessity–how else can a tournament organizer be expected to select the “best” general without having every player battle each of the others?

The problem with battle points is that the system rewards players most for scoring Massacres rather than merely beating them regardless of margin, as in the rulebook. This impacts how people design their lists for tournaments, how those lists are played, and, most importantly, which lists perform best. It all stems from the baby seal phenomenon:

Assume Player A is able to play any number of games against any number of opponents and always come out on top, but by a small margin of victory.

Player B is a good general who wins about 65% of the time by a wide margin, but loses the other 35%.

Player A competes in a tournament and wins all of his games with Minor Victories, including the final game against Player B. His scores are 17, 16, 17 (total = 50).

Player B competes in the same tournament and wins the first two games with Massacres, but incurs a Minor Loss in his last match against Player A. His scores are 22, 22, 7 (total = 51).

Player B wins the tournament despite only winning 2/3 games and losing to the first runner-up.

Was the tournament successful in selecting the overall most competent general? It depends on your frame of reference. Without the battle points system, Player B was clearly superior. But with respect to actual Warhammer 40k, Player A, who does not lose and was able to beat Player B, has demonstrated more skill. The community seems content with rewarding Player B rather than Player A despite the systemic flaws that this hypothetical yet entirely possible situation makes apparent. If we’re rewarding people who don’t necessarily perform best at a 40k event and then use that data to draw conclusions about the relative balance of different armies then we are potentially drawing bad conclusions. Garbage in, garbage out.

Rules and Scenarios

Closely tied to the issue of scoring are problems with different variations of the rules and different scenarios being used between tournaments. A battle points system influences the degree of victory that players must vie for, however introducing wacky scenarios can fundamentally alter the very victory conditions of the game. Imagine playing in a chess tournament and finding out that winners will be those who capture all of the enemy pawns rather than the king. Are you still playing chess?

Victory conditions are the most important factor when considering game balance because everything in every codex ultimately exists to serve one purpose: winning the game. And if one unit helps satisfy the victory conditions better than another it generally costs more points to field to ensure a fair game. This is overly simplistic, but it holds true in general. In order to see the consequences of wacky missions one needs look no further than this year’s ‘Ard Boyz Preliminaries; during the first round, the third mission of the tournament modified the kill points condition so that any unit capable of moving more than 6″ in a single phase would be grant triple points. Naturally, this gave a tremendous advantage to infantry-based armies as opposed to mechanized ones, and, unsurprisingly, many horde armies advanced to the semi-finals.

The same can happen, albeit to a lesser extent, when house rules are used. For the sake of commensurability (and fairness!), the 40k rulebook should be the ultimate authority when it comes to deciding how to play 40k. A tournament FAQ can be a good thing, but one must take caution not to overstep one’s bounds and start re-writing the game, as has been the case with the INAT FAQ. For example, the INAT FAQ includes a rule that allows units to gain cover saves by moving flat-out in their Scouts moves despite this not being permitted in the rulebook. This has a dramatic impact on certain armies, such as Imperial Guard, who can field large fleets of scouting Vendettas, all of which can now gain a 4+ before the game begins. Yourtyk is not always compatible with 40k.

Popularity, Population, and Sample Size

Not all armies are fielded equally – an obvious and yet frequently overlooked fact. Dark Eldar, for instance, are respected by many as having a codex capable of generating some very powerful armies, particularly in a mech-dominated environment. But despite this inherent power, the army is probably the most rare in all 40k. If no one brings Dark Eldar to tournaments then obviously no Dark Eldar armies will be winning tournaments. Even with a standardized set of data one might erroneously conclude that the book is weak given the lack of tournament success. People often claim that Tau suck, but how often do you actually come across Tau armies? Now think about how often you come across properly designed Tau armies. It’s probably close to the number of times you’ve been struck by lightning while high-fiving Jesus in your hover car.

How can this issue be overcome? Statistically speaking, it is possible to compare how often certain armies take the top spots at tournaments to how often they should be expected to do so based on their prevalence with random outcomes. However, as with any small population, sample size matters. In order to accurately determine the likelihood that placings are due to skill rather than chance there needs to be a large volume of data with which to work, which brings us to another problem: the size of the 40k community.

While many areas are able to maintain healthy 40k communities, our hobby remains an obscure niche. Only a select few among us have the means and desire to travel across the country to tournaments and hobby events. There are many excellent players whom I know locally and from afar who can’t or simply don’t want to spend hundreds/thousands of dollars to jet-set around the USA playing with toy soldiers. Consequently, event attendees don’t necessarily represent a good cross-section of the community.

More importantly, most of the well-known tournament competitors attend multiple events per year, further skewing the results. If one stellar player manages to attend every independent GT in the country and place in all of them with, say, Necrons, does that it stand to reason that Necrons are a top army? It’s possible for talented players to have multiple good showings and therefore over-represent their army within the data set. Garbage in, garbage out. If the same handful of players keep winning tournaments then it doesn’t really tell us much about the relative strengths of their army books. Arguably, better insights would be obtained by looking beyond just the top finishers and examining the entirety of each tournament’s placings.

Just some food for thought next time someone brings up tournament performance in a 40k discussion. As always, it’s important to view all evidence through a critical lens.

Last week, the FAQ for the 5th edition Tyranids codex was finally released after five and a half months of waiting with bated breath. Credit should be given to whomever was responsible for selecting the questions in this FAQ because they touch on all of the contentious issues that gamers have been arguing over for almost half a year now. However, as usual, we have a large number of rules changes disguised as clarifications, many of which harm existing army builds and limit effective combinations in an already decidedly gimped codex.

It’s not that Tyranids armies are bad, but the codex is written in such a way that it puts severe limitations on the types of armies people can take if they wish to remain even remotely competitive. By paging through the book it becomes immediately clear that most of the premiere (and interesting) selections are crammed into the Elites section of the Force Organization Chart, a poor decision compounded by the poor options available in the Fast Attack section (Gargoyles being the notable exception). The competition over these three coveted spots is made all the more intense by simultaneously concentrating all effective firepower options (Hive Guard and Zoanthropes) here (except the Tyrannofex). This ultimately serves to undermine the greatest strength of the codex, which is the emphasis on synergy and lack of spammable units. Unfortunately, this synergy does not come without making painful sacrifices, many of which doom armies to failure.

Because of the difficulty of devising an effective Tyranid list in 5th edition I have yet to face an army that can go toe-to-toe with my Imperial Guard. Certainly the strength of the IG codex is a factor, but every book (with the exception of Necrons) can churn out at least all-comers list that can overcome Guard with a little luck. Not so with Tyranids, at least from what I’ve seen so far. While it’s possible to refer to one of Shep’s super shooty, which have been extensively play-tested and documented on Dakka, these are ultimately impractical experiments in list-tailoring; a Tyranid army designed to out-shoot IG will be capable of little else. Assault armies will wreck it any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

The Good

• Mawlocs can now, without any doubt, attempt to deep strike directly on top of enemy units. (If you argued that they couldn’t before the FAQ you deserve a dragon uppercut to the testicles.)
• The effects of Tyranid Close Combat Weapons stack. This is a big deal for monstrous creatures, all of which have the option to take multiple types of TCCs with different effects (ex, scything talons + rending claws).
• Hive Tyrants and Swarmlords with Tyrant Guard cannot be targeted like Independent Characters in shooting or close combat. Most people played it like this already with regards to shooting, but the assault ruling is an unexpected bonus.

The Bad

• Hive Tyrants and Swarmlord who have joined with Tyrand Guard cannot leave them of their own free will at any point in the game. Giving Tyrants Wings and detaching from its bodyguards after getting within 18″ charge range was a common tactic, but no more. Tyranids are squadmates for life it seems.
• You can no longer attach Independent Characters to units arriving via Mycetic Spore.Allowing a Tyranid Alpha to attack to a unit of Genestealers, Zoanthropes, or Tyranid Warriors arriving via pod was a useful tactic that granted the codex a small amount of flexibility without being that powerful, and it has been removed from existence without even a justification provided. This tidbit of errata disguised as a clarification is beyond my comprehension.
• In another rules change, the Doom of Malantai can no longer affect units embarked in transports. Furthermore, his psychic ability has been changed to a shooting attack, which allows cover saves to be made against it. Strike one more viable option from the codex; you will now never see this unit fielded in a competitive army.

The Ugly

• The Hive Commander bonus does not stack, so even if you take two Hive Tyrants with this upgrade you will still only receive +1 to your reserves. While this is consistent with the Officer of the Fleet and Astropath rulings from the IG codex FAQ, it flies in the face of both math and the English language. Worse, this is a major kick in the teeth to Tyranid reserve-based armies (ie, all dual deep striking Tyranid builds). More unnecessary nerfs to something that wasn’t even that good to begin with.
• Shadow in the Warp no longer affects psykers embarked in transports. This is what the French call “a big fucking deal.” Tyranid psychic defense just went from mediocre to crap and going mechanized just got slightly more mandatory. Even with their new tools, Nids still struggle badly against armor-centric builds and this makes the uphill battle twice as painful.

To sum it up, the Tyranids were given a weak codex. To make matters worse, their FAQ weakens them further. But it’s not all bad (just mostly).

Can gimmicks work in competitive 40k? In a condensed tournament format limited to only three games it’s very possible to be paired up with opponents unable to deal with your one trick pony. This is true for any army build, however. Many armies lean either towards a shooting or assault-heavy build and their strategies involve leveraging superiority in these domains to achieve victory. For instance, my mechanized IG will exploit its long-range superiority over an Ork force, but when faced by an even shootier Tau army I’ll look to another strength, mobility, and make that the core of my battle plan. A gimmick list, however, depends on a single overwhelming aspect–if the enemy can’t deal with it then they will lose. If they can, then they win. There is very little room for middle ground and games are often reduced to rocks-paper-scissors.

Some gimmick armies depend on an oddball tactic, some unexpected or powerful combination of rules, but most rely on good old-fashioned unit spam. Whether we’re talking about 180 Orks or 120 Genestealers or 9 Leman Russes it’s all the same, and consequently they all suffer from the same fundamental weakness. Believe it or not, Warhammer 40,000 is a fairly well-balanced game overall. While every codex has some completely worthless units (Possessed, Ratlings, Swooping Hawks, Pariahs, Vespids, etc.) there are few units without weaknesses. Those well-rounded selections equipped with 31 flavors of kickass and no Achilles’s heel to speak of tend to be prohibitively expensive, and rightly so.

As a result, just as a unit’s strength is magnified through increased numbers, so are its weaknesses. An army that spams Ork Boyz is vulnerable to mechanized units, flamers, and blast weapons. Massed Genestealers fall prey to high volume small arms firepower. Drop podding Dreadnoughts get blown to bits by concentrated meltaguns. Forces full of elite, well-rounded models often can’t deal with superior numbers. Gimmick armies can be expected to crumble when faced with their direct counter, even in comparatively small amounts.

If a gimmick army can be beaten by the presence of its counter then it stands to reason that it should be smaller points games in which gimmicks are more successful (from my experience, this is exactly the case). With only 1000 or 1500 points to spend it can be difficult for even the most modern and efficient codexes to put together forces capable of taking on whatever opponents can muster. As ranks swell in 1750, 1850, 2000, and 2500-point games, more well-rounded forces can be generated to fill gaps and eliminate glaring weaknesses in army structure.

It’s no secret that well-rounded armies are the most successful in tournament environments. Independently, many of the lists we see taking top spots at hobby events can be judged as sub-par (and others as downright garbage), however they usually share a common theme: a take all-comers approach. Being “well-rounded” doesn’t mean that your army has a balance between assault and shooting units, or between static and mobile elements; being well-rounded means that your army is capable of competing against a wide range of different builds (and gimmicks). Tactics and strategy are important in this game, but match-up is the context in which the former are applied. An army that can’t compete against a wide range of oddball builds or a narrow range of common builds is a poorly designed one. Given equally competent generals, these are the ones that get beaten by gimmicks.

At 2500 points, ‘Ard Boyz is therefore the worst arena in which to test one-trick ponies, yet every year I read (and hear) so much about these supposedly unbeatable combinations. If these combinations are so powerful then why don’t we see them at smaller points levels? With fewer points it should be less likely to bump up against counter units/weapons/combinations embedded in a larger army structure.

While I don’t claim to be an expert on winning ‘Ard Boyz, I have qualified in all four preliminaries I’ve attended, though I’ve only been able to play in the semi-finals twice due to scheduling conflicts. In terms of getting to the national finals, I’m one for two. What I’ve observed is that while you occasionally see gimmick lists make it to the second round, they get knocked out quickly and decisively by experienced players. My second game of the semi-finals is a good example of this, about which Fritz made the following comment:

“First things first, I’m totally stealing that picture of the dude kicking the rhino in the nutz. Second, it sounds like this guy thought he had an auto-win for just showing up with land raiders- must have never heard of melta? Why take a 250 point model that can be negated by a 10is[h] point model? How much is a single IG vet with a melta?”

Fritz touches on what I’ve been saying about the magnified weaknesses of gimmicky builds, specifically spamming elite models whose only real weakness is their cost. Land Raiders can be great choices when used appropriately, but taking 7 Land Raiders in what has become a melta-saturated metagame is not using the unit appropriately. While my mech IG features a truckload of meltaguns, this is pretty standard for my list archetype. It wasn’t designed to destroy Land Raider spam, just simply to be able to deal with it on the off-chance someone decided to go this route. Jawaballs took the same approach with building his army and also stomped down hard on an identical list run by a different player.

‘Ard Boyz has plenty of its own wackiness integrated into its format, but every year the results send us the same message:

Balance works. Gimmicks don’t.

]]> http://www.baldandscreaming.com/commentary/gimmicks-how-not-to-win-ard-boyz/feed/ 25 http://www.baldandscreaming.com/commentary/allies-no-more/ http://www.baldandscreaming.com/commentary/allies-no-more/#comments Thu, 24 Jun 2010 12:30:16 +0000 Danny Internets http://www.baldandscreaming.com/?p=596 Today GW made good on their promise in White Dwarf to release updated and totally free versions of the Inquisition codexes. Both the Daemon Hunters and Witch Hunters books for Warhammer 40k are now available on the articles section of the Games Workshop website. Of course, everyone already knew that they could be found in 3 seconds flat on Scribd, but now it’s legit and everything.

These releases caught me off guard for two reasons. First, I don’t read White Dwarf (it sucks) so I had no idea this was coming. Second, with the recent success of the semi-finals ‘Ard Boyz scenarios and higher-than-usual-quality of recent FAQs, I would have expected a little effort put into these updates. Instead, GW chose to chop out a couple of pages and simply post these absurdly outmoded codexes online. They had the perfect opportunity to correct some of the hugely glaring issues with these books, such as how DH stormshields function, clarification on what counts as a Daemon, Machine Spirit, and so on, but instead they half-assed it.

It seems clear that the true intent of this release was to remove the ability to use DH allies. But rather than re-wording the rules for allies, some lazy intern decided to simply chop out the offending page altogether. Interestingly, this page also had the Force Organization Chart requirements for Daemon Hunters. The 40k rulebook never states that armies must take the standard 1 HQ 2 Troops loadout, so technically DH armies are now exempt from this. To complicate things further, different versions of the army books have been uploaded to the various international GW sites–some have the allies rules page of the DH codex removed while others don’t. Was the omission of the page a simple mistake?

Stupid RAW consequences aside, what does this mean for armies of the Imperium? While all SM variants have formerly had access to DH goodies, it is undeniable that IG had benefited most from the DH allies rules (strangely, WH allies are still fair game). But will this new change really matter?

IG benefits from DH allies in four significant ways:

1. Mystics
2. Psychic Hood
3. Emperor’s Tarot
4. Grey Knight Terminators

Mystics

A cheap 20 point Ordo Malleus Inquisitor grants access to Inquisitorial Henchmen including Mystics which can be used to provide semi-reliable deep strike defense. Though amazing for the paltry 32 points it costs to field, Mystics are one of the most overrated units (formerly) available to the Imperial Guard. I’ve been fielding these guys for over a year and I can count the number of times they’ve helped me out on one hand. The truth is that most IG players are fielding mech armies and 4D6″ doesn’t grant a lot of coverage, certainly not enough to protect your entire army. Their biggest benefit is psychological as they will make inexperienced opponents think twice about deep striking aggressively, however there are a number of ways to minimize their effectiveness.

Psychic Hood

Though each new codex seems to one-up the others when it comes to introducing new psychic powers, I’ve still yet to encounter a situation where my mech IG army has felt the need for psychic defense. Lash? I’ve got transports for that. Fortune? Even re-rollable saves ultimately wither in the face of a torrent of lasgun and multi-laser fire. Zoanthropes? Sure, S10 lances hurt, but IG stomps Nids so badly that it hardly matters. Space Wolves and Blood Angels are the only armies that really have powers to threaten IG–considering the variety of armies out there toting psychic powers that’s not too bad. I never took a Psychic Hood even when it was available so I don’t see this as a game-changer.

Emperor’s Tarot

Statistically, the Emperor’s Tarot only increases the owning player’s odds of winning the initial roll-off by (roughly) 14%. Despite being my favorite bonus from the codex, this loss is far from huge. IG alpha strike is a powerful gimmick, but only against opponents who don’t know how to defend against it. Reserves, sacrificial units, bubble wrap–there are several extremely effective way to nullify a Vendetta/Veterans alpha strike. Going first is certainly desirable when rocking a dozen lascannons, but IG is perfectly capable of weathering the storm or simply holding units in reserves themselves, especially with the Astropath to facilitate timely arrivals.

Grey Knight Terminators

With the exception of Straken, the IG codex doesn’t have much in the way of viable assault units. Grey Knight Terminators help to fill this gap, but these units still pale in comparison to TH/SS Assault Terminators (even before taking the mandatory Null Zone into account). I initially included a unit of GKTs in my list–4 at first, which eventually was reduced to 3, then just a Brother Captain, and then none at all. Truth is, GKTs were simply a crutch that I leaned on before getting accustomed to how to use a fully mechanized army. I ditched these allies months ago in exchange for more firepower and haven’t looked back since. Again, not a huge loss.

Conclusion

Though the removal of DH allies does limit IG relative to before the changes, I don’t see much to cry over here. IG armies are effective because of the inherent power and cost-effectiveness of Veterans, Chimeras, and Vendettas, not because of DH or WH allies. The biggest loss is probably the removal of access to the Emperor’s Tarot and, really, is +14% chance to get first turn really that big of a deal?

More importantly, no more allies makes Daemon Hunters armies essentially unplayable. Using IG allies in a DH army allowed for some very viable builds, especially after FAQ clarifications regarding how to integrate particular unit selections.

Swing and a miss, GW.

ARTICLE UPDATE 06/28/10:

In response to being inundated with questions regarding the legitimacy of the online DH and WH codexes, GW has been sending out the following response:

I would like to clear up some questions regarding the PDF downloads of Codex: Daemonhunters and Codex: Witch Hunters that we recently made available on games-workshop.com.

These downloads do not replace or invalidate the printed codex books that customers may own; we are making the rules to field an army of Daemonhunters or Witch Hunters available, for free, to registered members of the Games Workshop website who do not already own copies of these books. We are not taking anything away from any customers, we are offering something to them. For free.

We have also removed the rules for Allied Space Marines and Inducted Imperial Guard from the PDF downloads. Again, if customers with the printed codex books wish to continue to use these rules from the books they have bought, they can do so. Customers who have the downloadable PDF will be able to use it to build dedicated Daemonhunters and Witch Hunters armies. Customers should use whatever resources are available to them for building armies and playing games, whether those are printed books or PDF downloads.”

So, as you can see, people can still use the full rules for both armies.

So there you have it. Allies are still legal.

Having only practiced one of the scenarios prior to the event I was curious to see if they would play out as I had envisioned. I spent a lot of time this past week thinking about strategies to use against different army archetypes in these contexts, particularly with the third mission’s radically different deployment options. My overall impressions of the missions were ultimately spot-on. Thanks to search lights, the fog in Mission 1 had almost no impact on my game and with 8 Troop units I had no problem seizing 3 objectives. Getting a Massacre in Mission 2 was obviously going to be hard without tabling someone due to the need to capture all 5 objectives (and it was). Finally, Mission 3 was dominated by shooty armies both at my venue and elsewhere according to battle reports across the internet.

Interestingly, there were no Orks or Tyranids represented at Brothers Grim. I know at least one of the players won the preliminaries with Orks, but chose to take a different army based on the nature of the semi-finals scenarios. From memory, the codex representation was as follows:

4 Blood Angels
3 Space Marines
2 Chaos Daemons
1 Space Wolves
1 Eldar
1 Tau
1 Chaos
5 ? (can’t remember)

Based on the objective-heavy scenarios I made only two significant changes to my list (found here):

(1) Dumped a Vendetta + 1 Hydra for a minimum-sized Infantry Platoon + Chimera.

(2) Picked up Sanctuary on my Inquisitor.

The first change was to allow me to use throw-away Troops to capture backfield objectives while advancing all 5 Veteran squads towards the enemy. The second change was basically to give myself a free win against Daemons in either of the first two scenarios. (This is something I typically do in all tournaments of 2k+ because it can almost guarantee a win against Daemons in objectives missions for a scant 15 points.)

My results:

Game 1: Massacre (+23)
Game 2: Minor Victory (+16)
Game 3: Major Victory (+19)

Rank: 1st place

Yep, I won the ‘Ard Boyz Semi-finals this time around (to my great surprise). A Fatecrusher army managed to take 2nd place and Jawaballs took 3rd with his mechanized Blood Angels. For my prize I chose… what else? More mech guard, of course. Why? Well, I expect that I’ll sell some of it off to fund my trip down to the NOVA Open…

Keep an eye out this week for some battle reports from the big day.

The changes include the following:

Scenario 1
Clarified the conditions for using fog and the Night fight rules
Clarified that in the case of a tie when determining highest points units, you must choose one.

Scenario 2
Added impassable terrain rules for deepstriking objectives.
Changed the first battle point modifier to be more obtainable and not require a massacre.
Clarified that in the case of a tie in objectives, having 5 or more Kill Points than your opponent counts as a Minor Victory.

Scenario 3
Clarified that all reserves come in via either the short or long table edges and is an exception to the Dawn of War deployment.
Clarified that in the case of a tie when determining highest points units, you must choose one.

Source

Also worth noting, Sieze the Initiative IS NOT ACTIVE in any of the scenarios, as was pointed out by a Dakka poster and later confirmed by GW’s John Shaffer. This change is pretty huge for any army that can leverage their alpha strike alpha strike, particularly IG. No more uncertainty after making that risky scout move to get your demo Vets and meltaguns into position for first turn carnage. I, for one, welcome our new imperial overlords.

Hello again. Just a few more points to clear things up.

Scenario 2
The tie condition should read 5 or more Kill Points, not 4 or more. Doh! I’ll update it soon, but I’d rather wait a day or so to see if there need to be more clarifications.

Overall
Controlling players should declare what unit counts as their most expensive in the case of a tie.

Tjkopena is correct. There will be no Seizing of Initiative in these games. As ‘Ard Boyz scenarios are not standard missions, we try to state if the StI rule is in effect or not in the scenario rules.

Chaos Demons ALWAYS use their special deployment rules. We just had to clarify it because of weirdness that one year. Going forward, that should always be assumed unless stated otherwise in the scenario rules.

Thanks again for the input. Have fun!

John

Source

In all seriousness though, I find it odd that they have chosen to eliminate the rule in this particular context. In 1750/1850/2000 it feels as though going first and having to deploy first perfectly counter-balance one another. Some armies want to go first, but no good list feels crippled by being denied the opportunity.

This changes in 2500 where some lists pack enough firepower to cut the balls off of your force in the very first turn. At 2500 points, 40k can often feel like a first turn game. Look at last year’s winner, Darkwynn, and how he crushed each opponent not necessarily through tactics or the power of his list, which wasn’t really optimized (nor is mine, for that matter), but by winning first turn in all three games at the finals. (Aside: this is not a dig on Darkwynn’s generalship. Even the army’s moniker, “Leafblower,” suggests that it’s the tool rather than the craftsman that was responsible for its performance.)

In addition to 2500-point game heavily favoring the opponent who goes first, the large volume of units crammed into the typical 4′x6′ battlefield makes it very difficult to exploit the tactical advantages of deploying second, namely taking cover and setting up firing lanes.  What we have is the double whammy–first turn gets better because there are more guns and second turn gets worse because there is nowhere to hide from them.

Seize the Initiative is a crude but necessary device to prevent those who win the roll to go first from sticking their neck out too far. I don’t find it necessary in smaller games, but it definitely helps stave off devolution to 4th edition MSU gunline dominance after the 2k mark.

Click here for a direct link to the PDF.

Because the missions don’t change the fundamental victory conditions of the game (like scenario 3 did in the preliminaries) I don’t foresee the need for people to tailor their armies. As such, any complaints about putting the missions online on such short notice are mostly hot air. There’s very little to complain about here.

That being said, each mission has its own set of wacky special rules and deserves targeted commentary:

Mission 1: Da Fog of War

Spearhead deployment? Good. Three objectives? Not bad. Hold all objectives for a massacre? OK. Wacky night fight randomness depending on which table quarter you’re in? Stupid, but could be worse.

So many armies have searchlights as standard equipment that the impact of this will be minimal, but the armies that do without could potentially suffer. The only problem with this scenario is the randomness. Assault armies will obviously choose approach paths that skirt through the edges of fogged quarters and hope that the weather holds out. Depending on the dice, it very well could–on average, the fog won’t be completely gone until the beginning of Turn 4.

Mission 2: Git Da Shiny’s

Pitched Battle deployment with 4 objectives that get placed by deep strike on each player’s first turn, with the objective closest to the center counting double.

Most armies will be inclined to deep strike objectives in their own deployment zone, but the mission cleverly rewards the player who drops an objective within reach of both armies. Gunline armies will be inclined to dump objectives in their own back field while aggressive forces will instinctively drop them in the mid-field since they plan on advancing. As such, this mission has a very clear bias towards armies that want to take the fight to the enemy rather than vice-versa.

Mission 3: Dem Boyz is in Da Side

Kill points with Dawn of War deployment. The catch? Your units coming in on the first turn can do so from your long board edge (as normal) or from one of the short board edges, determined randomly. If you get the right edge then your opponent gets the left.

If anything, this scenario severely punishes players who deploy poorly by giving their opponent the opportunity to either maximize or minimize the distance between the respective armies by using short edge deployment. I think that using the deployment rules to one’s advantage will be mostly intuitive for experienced players, but some practice is still warranted here.

Also worth noting, there is no Night Fight in this scenario. Most first turn armies will probably want to go second in order to take advantage of (1) knowing where the enemy is, and (2) getting the alpha strike. Overall, I feel this scenario benefits long-range shooty armies at least as heavily as scenario 2 does for assault-based lists.

Verdict

Congratulations to GW for providing a refreshing take on the standard scenarios while simultaneously maintaining balance between favored builds. These represent a vast improvement over the preliminaries.

Regarding soft scoring and Adepticon, Mannahnin put it this way:

“As I’ve repeatedly pointed out, and as should be obvious to anyone taking the time to do any kind of analysis, the percentages of total points that each category can potentially score have very little meaning. What matters is the real points spread within each category. If Sports has a nine-point checklist, but 95% of the players score a 7-9, then over a three round event, sports actually only gives a functional spread of 9pts out of the total. In Battles, OTOH, in the Adepticon Championship (for example), the possible spread of points is 135pts. Each game can realistically earn you between 0 and 45pts.

The sportsmanship scoring system and minimalist composition scoring system in use at Adepticon mean that the actual points spread between a poor-scoring army/player and a perfect-scoring army/player is minimal.”

Normally, I abhor blogs that resort to reporting on forums threads, but this is a noteworthy topic that think deserves a little more attention given how rampant and ingrained myths validating comp scoring remain. Some healthy iconoclasm is desperately needed here.

Before we analyze the results of the event we begin by examining its structure to create a clear framework for discussion. The 2010 Adepticon 40k singles event consisted of 220 total players split evenly into two identical but independently operated competitions labeled as the blue and yellow brackets. Each event consisted of only three games using scenarios that included primary, secondary, and tertiary objectives in addition to bonus points. The total possible points awarded by scoring category were as follows:

Battle points: 135
Sportsmanship: 40
Painting: 45
Quiz: 10

Hard score points: 135 (59%)
Soft score points: 95 (41%)

In discussing this topic the word “spread” is sprinkled about liberally, as in “the points spread.” Spread is really just another word describing the variance of a data set, the set in question being the results from this year’s dual Adepticon hobby events. It is claimed that the competitions are battle points-centric because the soft scores of the top ranking players are so similiar that they have a neglible impact on the results.

Using Excel, I put together a simple spreadsheet with data from the top 10 players in both the yellow and blue Adepticon heats. Using this data, I calculated some basic measures of central tendency, including the mean scores for both the hard and soft components. I then used these measures to determine the standard deviations (o) for these distinct sets within each heat, yielding four values. These values were then standardized by calculating their respective coefficients of variation (Cv) by dividing the standard deviation by the mean.

When compared we see that hard scores are indeed responsible for the majority of the variance of the data sets for the top ten players. However, a closer look reveals that the majority is extremely slim in the yellow heat where the variance of soft scoring has a contribution to overall variance almost matching (83%) that of the hard scores. In laymen’s terms, soft scores mattered just about as much as hard scores in determining the ranking of top performers in the yellow heat at Adepticon. Even the blue heat demonstrates that soft scores account for almost 40% of the differences between player scores. It is worth noting that these rates of variance match the total contributions of potential soft and hard points to the maximum possible overall score (41% and 59%, respectively).

(The spreadsheet is accessible online here via Google Docs and does not require Excel to view)

Another poster (Airmaniac) in the Dakka thread on Adepticon provides a different perspective on scoring dynamics at the event by analyzing the data of all 110 participants in the heat and comparing variance factors to that of just the top 10:

“Analysis of Standard Deviation values (the most commonly used measure of variance) showed the following:

Standard Deviation of Overall Scores over all data (N=110): 29.665
Standard Deviation of Hard Scores over all data (N=110): 26.159
Standard Deviation of Soft Scores over all data (N=110): 10.470
Standard Deviation of Overall Scores over Top 10 placements (N=10): 8.168
Standard Deviation of Hard Scores over Top 10 placements (N=10): 12.658
Standard Deviation of Soft Scores over Top 10 placements (N=10): 8.744

This means that Standard Deviation of the Soft Scores of the Top 10 placements can explain a larger percentage of the Standard Deviation of the Overall Scores of the Top 10 placements, than Standard Deviation of the Soft Scores of all competitors can explain of the Standard Deviation of the Overall Scores of all competitors.

This indicates that it is correct to assume that, the higher one ranks in the Tournament, the more important Soft Scores become.”

In conclusion, using data from the most widely-respected and so-called “hardest” 40k competition in the country we see that soft scoring accounts for a very large part (close to half) of the differences among overall scores for the top 10 performers. In fact, the contribution of soft scores to ranking participants, in practice, roughly equals the the maximum possible soft points relative to maximum points overall. Furthermore, we see that the importance of soft scores increases dramatically as you get closer to the top.

As usual when it comes to the defense of soft scoring, we have a case where reality > wishful thinking.

While officially scheduled for May 15th, Games Workshop gave venues the option of holding the tournament on either that Saturday or on the following Sunday, May 16th, presumably to better accommodate store owners and local gaming groups. This also gave players the option of attending the event twice, once on Saturday and once again on Sunday. Living just north of NYC, I had the luxury this year of having about a dozen stores within driving distance hosting the first round of the tournament. Leading up to the event, I was undecided as to whether or not I would attend tournaments on both days because it’s not very often I have the opportunity of playing Warhammer all weekend long without having to pay for a flight and hotel room.

While I intended to forfeit one of my tickets to the semi-finals if I happened to qualify at both tournaments, I still felt it was morally ambiguous to attend both events. I ultimately did attend ‘Ard Boyz tournaments on both Saturday and Sunday for a legitimate reason; I placed 3rd on Saturday, however the TO was a store employee filling in for the original organizer who was recently let go. Unfortunately, the latter never handed over the relevant materials or correspondence to the new guy and there were no certificates (or prizes) to be handed out to the winners, which are required for entry to round 2. Even though I managed to qualify there’s a strong chance that it might not be recognized without that piece of paper. Rather than risk not being able to play in the semi-finals due to a technicality I decided to pass that ticket (if it ever materializes) to the guy who took 4th place (and who tied me on battle points anyway) and give it another shot on Sunday at a different venue. Fortunately, I also qualified at this event (2nd place) and now have an official ticket to round 2 in my possession.

I will post some picture-less battle report summaries, but I’m curious as to what people think about attending tournaments on both days, as I know a number of people did so. In previous years I was critical of the idea, but after giving it more thought I don’t really see anything wrong it.

Hi Dan,

I was really intrigued by your Salamanders 1750 point list and how it works, I’ve been looking for a nice competitive list at the 1750 point level because I’m tired of spending money on mistakes…my first and most glaring was a 2k point Deathwing army.

I was interested in maybe adopting this list because I like the idea of a close range shooting army with a fast delivery system on top of putting that crucial sliver of psychological doubt in the opponent in the second turn. I also have always loved the lore of the Salamanders and so before I saw this list I knew I wanted to use Vulkan for a new project in some way already.

My question is how do you use the Vindicators when the rest of the army is engaging in close range actions, isn’t there risk of wandering template syndrome? Or do you use them as out flankers to take care of isolated units?

Additionally, do you include Vulkan in one of the drop pods to ensure he comes in on the first turn? And if so do you worry about him getting destroyed with the tac squads?

Any info on this would be great!

Thanks

In the Warhammer community, direct accusations of cheating are rare, even in large tournaments when hefty prizes and bragging rights are on the line. On the occasions when they are made these accusations are generally met with disdain in full force from others players, even when the facts are substantiated. A good example of this comes from the 2008 ‘Ard Boyz Tournament finals in which the overall winner was found to have disregarded his army’s disadvantageous deployment rules (the Daemonic Assault rule) in one of the scenarios, one in which he happened to score a massacre against his opponent. When news of what transpired was broken on Dakka Dakka an astonishing number of posters immediately tried to play down the events, claiming that everything was on the up-and-up, it was an honest mistake, and so on—anything other than to confront the possibility that someone had cheated their way to victory in a premiere community event.

Psychologists might refer to this collective behavior in terms of cognitive dissonance resulting from the simultaneously held beliefs that GW would never allow such an egregious violation at a national tournament and that such a violation did indeed occur. To ease the uncomfortable tension caused by holding conflicting beliefs we simply rationalize one or the other. For the generally passive, non-confrontational nature of the hobbyist crowd the decision defaults along the lines of authoritarian thinking: GW didn’t sanction the player so therefore the player is guilty of no wrongdoing. Instead, the accuser becomes the accused and “sour grapes” becomes the favorite buzz phrase. Rabble, rabble, rabble, et cetera.

Most anecdotal accounts of cheating cite instances of dice loading, rolling techniques (i.e., palming, sliding), moving figures when a player isn’t looking, measuring front-to-back, and so on, each embodying explicit intent to gain an unfair advantage over their opponent. While these may be the most famous methods, they are not the most common. I drudge up the aforementioned ‘Ard Boyz example not to further beat a dead horse (even if he deserves a few anniversary whacks), but to illustrate one of the most frequently encountered and most subtle forms of cheating in Warhammer 40k: rules manipulation.

At this point I’m sure many of you have the phrase “rules lawyer” flashing in your heads. Let me be the one to nip it in the bud. The term “rules lawyer” is generally use in a derogatory sense by poor players offended at the notion that they should be required to play the rules as they are written. While most of the 40k rules are quite clear, there are also many instances where they are not and interpretation is required. At these junctures we are all lawyers of the rules, charged with finding the most appropriate and sensible interpretation of what is said and, sometimes, what is meant. In fact, I would go as far as to say that being a “rules lawyer” is a necessary condition for the Competitive Gamer because treating the rules as law and applying them unconditionally and consistently across situations is absolutely vital to fair play. And, as stated in previous parts of this series, fair play is the backbone of competitive play. Leveraging an unfair advantage to win would neither be satisfying to nor tolerated by the Competitive Gamer.

Unfortunately, not all members of our gaming community subscribe to this philosophy, and even those who do are prone to straying from its ideals. It is not uncommon for players to conveniently forget inconvenient rules. Sometimes they play dumb, acting like they didn’t know the rule existed if and when it is pointed out to them. Other times these players will forcibly argue for one particular interpretation of a vague rule that benefits them in that moment, but then argue the opposite when the tables are turned. Even more subtle are situations where players question the validity of unquestionably clear rules in order to cast doubt on the conventional interpretation and convince their opponent to agree to a roll-off, giving the perpetrator a 50/50 chance of cheating their way to an advantage. There are even times when players will attempt to manipulate tournament judges by approaching them alone and providing one-sided arguments so as to improve the chances of a favorable ruling (judgehammer). I have witnessed these in both casual and in tournament play, and they are all forms of cheating.

Why do people cheat? It should be noted that not all cheating is intentional. There will always be times when you roll 11 shots instead of 10, when you’re convinced the range on that power is 18” not 12”, or when you play a full game, go home, and then realize that your list was 50 points over. While these are technically cheating and the “victim” deserves to be notified (especially at a competitive event), intent carries a lot of weight here. I firmly believe that these infractions deserve a special category separate from more insidious methods of cheating opponents.

Freud would argue that there are no mistakes, that these are a result of subconscious motivations that bleed through into our behavior. This theory goes a long way to explaining why tournaments sometimes seem to bring out the worst in people. Everyone is prone to bias, particularly when it comes to highly subjective rules interpretations, and this bias can be greatly magnified when prizes and egos are on the line. It is important for all players interested in fair play to recognize this bias and to do their best to eliminate it. Whether you intend to cheat or not, it is ultimately the outcome of that cheating that matters to other players, each of whom have the right to expect a fair game. At a tournament, by cheating your opponent you not only cheat him, but everyone else participating in the event by skewing the scores and the pairings. The competition aspect is compromised, which, depending on the severity of the infraction, can ruin the whole tournament.

There is never an acceptable reason to cheat, even if you feel you’ve been cheated yourself. Ironically, psychology studies have shown that many people who suspect that they have been the victims of foul play will rationalize cheating themselves as a defensive response to restore fairness. This in turn increases the likelihood that the victim will retaliate, and soon things spiral out of control. Of course, this goes hand in hand with psychological projection: the cheaters are themselves inclined to cheat and so they expect others are as well, then their expectations of being cheated increase their likelihood of cheating.

In many discussions of ethics it seems pertinent to invoke the Golden Rule (“do unto others…”), but a more appropriate normative prescription in this case is the lesser-known Silver Rule: do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you.

(Coming next: Part VI – Tournaments, not Hobby Competitions)

When at the top of their game, elitists take great pleasure at trumpeting their own prowess and claiming that luck has nothing to do with winning. When on the down-and-out, they will often (not so) humbly admit to being victims of the cruel dice gods. While it’s no coincidence that players stratify in mostly predictable patterns when subjected to repeated sorting (e.g., tournament rounds), it takes but a few ounces of common sense to recognize that luck also plays an important role in the 41^st millennium.

Good strategy is based on good tactics. Good tactics require good rules knowledge. And practical application of rules knowledge needs an understanding of probabilities. Dedicating units to block an enemy’s retreat from assault is only a good idea if you stand a reasonably good chance of winning that assault, and if the enemy has a good chance of falling back as a result. Figuring out the right application of force likely to bring about a desired outcome is a critical part of 40k. Remember those 3rd grade lessons on fractions, boys and girls:! So-called “mathhammer” forms the hard core of Warhammer tactics.

Rudimentary statistical theory demonstrates that increasing sample size is a surefire way to ensure that actual outcomes approach predicted outcomes (based on probability). Those that have taken introductory statistics courses will recognize this as the basis of the chi-square test. Practically speaking, you’re much more likely to get all hits when rolling 3 dice than when rolling 30. Over the course of a game we roll hundreds of dice which will probably conform to our expectations when taken as a whole, however when we recognize that these many roll are split up into a large number of different types of rolls we begin to see how individual sample sizes are actually fairly small. Say you roll 180 dice over the course of you game but only 12 of them were for leadership tests. Perhaps you rolled exactly 30 6’s, which is expected, but 10 of them were rolled for leadership tests. Looking at the game as a whole one might conclude you were neither lucky nor unlucky, however you clearly got the wrong end of the leprechaun.

Not only is luck intertwined with tactics, but good strategy must also take chance into consideration. Good strategies are adaptable and are not overly reliant on things going according to plan—if your hopes of victory can be dashed by a single bad roll then your overall strategy wasn’t sound to begin with. Understanding probabilities involves the acknowledgement that improbable events can and will, in fact, happen. Part of being a successful strategist is planning for when things don’t go according to plan.

The above sentiment is partially expressed in a thread by Deadshane posted a few months ago on Dakka Dakka. The initial claim, that luck is never (ever!) to blame for outcomes, is patently false by virtue of its absolutism. While it is true that players will often scapegoat luck when their own inadequacies are to blame, to completely minimize the effects of chance on winning and losing is a curious notion. More curious is that he actually attempts to defend this assertion before ultimately caving to mounting criticism, backpedaling just far enough to maintain that luck is rarely to blame, but is sometimes a factor.

Strangest of all is the support he receives from one member in particular (Nurglitch):

If hypothetical player X fails every single roll in game Y then he failed as a player because he did not adjust his strategy to cope with the worst possible luck. There’s more to 40k than rolling dice.

Even when presented with a hypothetical situation where Player A makes every roll and player B fails every roll he maintains that a “good” player would be able to overcome the disadvantage through skill/tactics/force of will/whatever. I don’t like to use this space to badmouth people, but it’s these kinds of posters who drag down the quality of online discussion. He seems intelligent enough, but despite his verbosity (read the thread to get a taste) he seems utterly incapable of forming a singular thought, much less a coherent argument. Not that it stops him from posting. Yay internets.

(Coming next:  Part V – The Cheater Within)

Strategy

Strategy is your over-arching framework, your master plan from the point of conception of your army. Strategy begins with list building which in turn determines what assets your army will have at its disposal and, by extension, what you can or cannot hope to accomplish. Your choices will impact how you play 40k and they should always be made with fulfilling mission goals in mind. Each and every selection will affect the vital balancing act that is army composition.

Because mission goals are normally unknown at the outset of each match, whether rolled for randomly in a pickup game or kept secret prior to tournament rounds, strategy has a necessary fluid component. Based on the scenario presented to us we must be able to evaluate the abilities of our list, the abilities of the opposing list, and commit to a course of action that will lead to fulfillment of the victory conditions. This often involves identification and leverage of strengths, but can also include psychological elements, such as misdirection and surprise. Some strategies are geared towards combating a list and others towards combating an opponent—both are valid, effective, and can be employed concurrently.

An example of a employing a strategy would be building a mechanized, Chimera-based Imperial Guard list and pushing your tank line forward to establish a line of scrimmage on the enemy’s side of the board. In an objective-based mission this would ensure that you have control over the battlefield and, hopefully, the majority of the objectives. Leveraging your mechanized strengths (durability and volume) you can make it very difficult for the enemy to break through your line and reach objectives in later turns.

Tactics

Complementary to the broadly conceived master plan are the details-oriented tactics which are used to ensure the plan is carried out. Tactics are micro-strategies grounded in a low-level application of the rules. The best plan in the world is useless if you can’t figure out  how to make it work. Similarly, being detail-oriented without direction is equally doomed to fail. If you expect to beat competent opponents you must be capable of both coming up with adaptable plans and have the tools to set them in motion.

When I say “tools” I am really speaking of rules knowledge. Warhammer 40,000 is a game composed entirely of complex interactions between large numbers of rules pertaining to physical objects (models). Yes, the game is an approximation of science fiction warfare, but it is only that: an abstraction. Knowing how things function in real life has no bearing on how things play out in a game where evil robots and space aliens alternate turns murdering each other with laser cannons and psychic powers. However, understanding basic logic and knowing the individual rules gives you a distinct advantage of those who do not. It’s important to note that both of these traits are universally available to everyone with average intelligence and the willingness to put forth a even a modicum of effort. Because everyone is capable of developing this competency, exercising it becomes a fair part (in fact, integral part) of the game.

Continuing with the example put forth previously, let’s say one of the Chimeras on the end of the tank wall suffers a Vehicle Destroyed result by an assault-oriented unit shooting it at close range. The unit embarked must now disembark within range of the rear access point, however there are any number of ways that this unit can now be positioned even within the two-inch bubble. Knowledge of the rules becomes invaluable here as many players are unaware that the models each individually must be within 2”, but only partially so. Using this knowledge, the IG player can place the unit wholly on the side of the wrecked Chimera furthest from the attacking unit, outside of its 6” charge range. Not only does this prevent a charge, but it guarantees that the unit will be targetable in the following Shooting Phase.

Match-up

In any game system featuring distinct factions there will naturally be some that are better than others across domains. Even in a perfectly balanced rules set it is impossible to completely eliminate the rock-paper-scissors factor. Obviously, Warhammer 40,000 is not perfectly balanced and there are many match-ups which are heavily weighted in favor of one side winning over the other, even with all others factors being equal. For instance, take Necrons. Take them and drop kick them right out a third story window.

The hypothetical IG army suits our purposes again. Mechanized Imperial Guard excels in games versus opponents that struggle against vehicles, especially those who need to use assault troops as their can-openers. With players of equal skill, equally powerful lists, and equal luck, the IG player should be able to take out most Daemon and Ork armies with little effort. Likewise, well-built and well-played Dark Eldar (i.e., dark lance-heavy) will utterly crush IG armor spam.

Match-up is somewhat distinct from luck, but there are overlapping considerations. Most of the time our opponents are not selected at random, and we always have the discretion of turning down a match. In tournaments we have less control over who we face, especially in the first round where pairings are usually random. While all armies have good and bad match-ups, one of the most important features of a “good” army list is its ability to compete with a wide variety of opposing forces. Poorly designed lists (by virtue of being one-trick ponies or just plain sucktastic) will either have more direct counters or will be countered more efficiently. Consequently, more often than not, what players attribute to bad match-up luck is really rooted in bad army list design.

Mistakes

We all make mistakes, which are distinct from poor decisions. A poor decision is assuming your IG list doesn’t need any assault units; a mistake is forgetting to fire your Vendetta during the Shooting Phase. A poor decision is taking heavy flamers on your Crisis Suits; a mistake is forgetting that the unit you’re about to tank shock has three meltaguns in it. Often, a single mistake can determine how an entire game plays out, especially if that mistake is made at the game’s outset or during a critical turn.

You can minimize mistakes by exercising your 40k muscle (i.e., practicing), but, being merely human, you’ll never completely eradicate your own propensity to screw up. Just try and make less mistakes than the other guy.

(On deck: Part IV – Lucky You)

Like play, the struggle is an end but not a means for the Competitive Gamer. The Competitive Gamer revels in an equally matched struggle and he is just as happy to loser a well-played game as he is to win one. The outcome is subordinate; it is relevant only to the extent that it is determined by skill. The fun derived from the game is sporting and cerebral, not egoistic.

Sportsmanship rarely crosses the mind of the Competitive Gamer because sportsmanship comes naturally by means of self-interest: to gain an advantage through any means other than the application of skill would compromise the authenticity of the competitive struggle and dilute the fun that can be derived from it. It’s Adam Smith’s self-regulating “invisible hand” theory in the 41^st millennium. The Competitive Gamer is an athlete turned nerd with an uncompromising love and, more importantly, respect for the game, and for gaming in general.

The Competitive Gamer as described above is akin to a Greek ideal and rarely makes an appearance in real life. We’re all human and egos often overcome hubris. Nonetheless, those who really understand what it means to enjoy competition, fair competition, will incorporate these ideals into the gaming philosophy. (Call it perspective if you find the notion of a gaming philosophy pretentious). This incorporation can be conscious or unconscious, but it nonetheless forms the cornerstone of this approach to 40k.

The differences between the Competitive Gamer and the WAAC Gamer should now be readily apparent. While there exist those who have no interest in fulfilling game objectives (i.e., winning) and are content to play 40k as sci-fi role-play, most 40k gamers shuffle their plastic army men around with at least some intention of winning. Some may be less motivated to win than others, but playing the game as it is presented by the developers necessitates an attempt to accomplish some abstract goal at the expense of your opponent’s opportunity to do the same. The primary difference between Competitive and WAAC Gamers is how a win is achieved, namely that it matters to the former but not the latter.

(Continue reading: Part III – The Road to Victory)

Face to face discussions of the topic play out differently but are often equally worthless. Even within our small communities there exist factions that are easily discernable by veterans and anyone with a keen eye for social dynamics. Let’s face it, 40k is nerdy hobby and our circles tend to over-represent individuals who shy away from confrontation. Applied as a general rule, it should be no surprise that conversations on emotionally charged subjects, such as this, take place only in contexts where offense is least likely to be perceived. As a result, these conversations occur between like-minded individuals within the group, thus avoiding dissenting opinions and any worthwhile discussion. In the end it’s just a bunch of whiny twats complaining and patting each other on the back for preaching to the choir.

That last statement might seem at odds with my first. If there exists a real ideological split in the 40k community then how can I claim the dichotomy is false? It is important here to make a distinction between a true, fundamental dichotomy and the manifestations of a perceived dichotomy. Regardless of truth, a perceived mutual exclusivity between having fun and playing competitively always results itself in subpopulations of gamers who identify more with one side over the other. Subtle differences in opinion are enhanced through repeated confrontation with one another ultimately causing a clear stratification. Call them sides or camps or whatever label suits your group best.

In truth, this dichotomy is imaginary. For something to be dichotomous its partitions must be both mutually exclusive and mutually exhaustive. In other words, one must be interested in competition or fun, but not both. The absurdity of this statement is obvious to some, but many others cannot shake off their perceived polarization of the hobby and wage endless wars of words over the subject. Just like in politics, arguments tend to intensify through repetition and participants push further to the fringes of extremism.

Players on one side of the debate accuse the others of playing to “win at all costs”, a phrase slung so often that it has its own instantly recognizable shorthand (WAAC). These gamers frequently assume the moral high-ground and inform everyone how they rarely attend tournaments, despite being vocal advocates of soft scores, and that when they do it’s purely for “fun” (as distinct from winning). They’re often spotted on the sidelines of rules discussions, occasionally chiming in with their loud sighs and laments, and sometimes participating briefly to remind everyone what [their take on] the spirit of the game is.

The other side of the aisle is no picnic either. There’s no shortage of self-described “competitive gamers” who go to extraordinary lengths to win, including conveniently forgetting inconvenient rules, fudging movement, and even (more blatant) outright cheating. Some of the more extreme subscribers to the WAAC mentality will concoct absurd rationalizations for their behavior, and rare indeed is the exemplar who will admit to his own misaligned principles.

The false dichotomy fails to recognize that we all play games to have fun because being fun is a necessary condition for something to be defined as a game. Mortimer Adler, contemporary Aristotelian philosopher, succinctly defines play as a leisure activity which is partaken of for its own sake, partaken of because the activity itself holds intrinsic value. This differs from activities which are a means to an end; leisure activities, and, by extension, games are ends in and of themselves. Rather than waxing philosophically, I will assume the laymen definition of fun: enjoyment derived from activity.

While a given game is not necessarily fun for all people, any given game is necessarily fun for some people. There are those who claim that WAAC gamers are amongst those for whom Warhammer 40k is not fun; however, this begs the question of why they choose this particular game amongst the nearly infinite myriad of others to exercise their Napoleon complex. The likely answer is that the game itself is fun for them, and the likely rebuttal is that these individuals only experience fun when winning. Perhaps the “for fun” camp has it right; most of us know “that guy” (distinct from, but not mutually exclusive with “that fucking guy”), the one who gets high off crushing newbies and storms off angrily after every defeat. There is but one problem with this argument…

Win-At-All-Costs gamers aren’t remotely interested in competition and therefore they are not competitive gamers.

(Continue reading: Part II – The Competitive Gamer)

Why did I choose IG? Obviously it’s not for the models. The old school WW1 army men theme is fun, but not particularly interesting. Mostly it has to do with fielding lots of tanks and artillery. But that’s not the only reason.

When the IG book was released there was lots of rabble about how overpowered the army is, which is typical for any codex release, and then there were the contrarians who point out that everyone overestimates the potential of new armies which inevitably end up being balanced. I usually find myself arguing in defense of the latter, however I firmly believe that the IG codex is hard. Not just hard, not even just rock hard, but fucking titanium hard. This is one army that I don’t think is going to sink to the level of mediocrity. And it takes the mech metagame to a whole new level by scaling twice as well as any other army thanks to the copious vehicle squadron options.

My first attempt at the army was as follows:

HQ
175 – Company Command Squad (Astropath, meltagun x4, Chimera w/ HF)

TROOPS
155 – 10 Veterans (meltagun x3, Chimera w/ HF)
155 – 10 Veterans (meltagun x3, Chimera w/ HF)
135 – 10 Veterans (grenade launcher x2, Chimera w/ HF)
70 – 5 Inquisitorial Storm Troopers (meltagun x2)
70 – 5 Inquisitorial Storm Troopers (meltagun x2)

FAST ATTACK
130 – Vendetta Gunship
130 – Vendetta Gunship
130 – Vendetta Gunship

HEAVY SUPPORT
160 – Manticore
140 – Colossus
300 – 2 Leman Russ Battle Tanks

Total: 1750

From the very start I knew that the core of my army would be Veterans in Chimeras. The first draft had 4 units, but I nixed one in favor of IST after stealing borrowing the idea from Edwin’s list posted on Yes the Truth Hurts. The potential to use the Vendetta 24″ scout move to get an alpha strike against Land Raiders with IST meltaguns is just too good to pass up. Also, the obvious alternative was to use Hellhounds/Devil Dogs, however this would result in an army far too similar to my LS-heavy Vulkan marines and for the sake of diversity I chose to pass.

Unfortunately, my experience with IG so far has not conformed to my expectations. However, in my defense, I’ve only been able to get a scant handful of games in since assembling the list a month and a half ago. I have no qualms about retreating from a position in the face of contrary evidence and reasoning, but it’s not time to throw in the towel just yet. I’ve confidently been able to attribute each and every poor outcome to either mistakes in strategy or list building, both of which are correctable.

A brief run-down of my games thus far:

Game 1: IG versus Kris’s Salamanders

I expected this one to be a fairly even match because Kris is a very savvy player and he has an optimized list which can hold its own against IG, but it turned out that I was my own worst enemy. We randomly decided on Capture and Control with Spearhead deployment.

I won the initial roll-off and, given that it was an objective mission, opted to take second turn out of habit. This was a mistake that was subsequently compounded by electing to deploy my entire army on the board, rather than hold in reserve and take advantage of my Astropath.

The game opened with Kris using his pair of dakka predators to go 4/4 with penetrating hits from their autocannons on my Valkyries, crippling my return firepower. We managed to pummel each other until I was left with a just couple of IST’s to contest my own objective. Fortunately, I had also killed most of Kris’s Troops, so I barely managed to eek out a draw.

Lesson learned: Take first turn.

Game 2: IG versus Charlie’s Nob Bikers

Charlie’s Ork army has traditionally given my Salamanders a lot of trouble because of my reliance of Drop Pods, however I was able to turn the metatable on him this time around with my mech IG list. As predicted, my army completely stomped his Orks even with the unfavorable Dawn of War deployment.

The game was more or less over before it began. Charlie deployed his two Nob units and a Warboss while I held everything off the board, and he used his first turn to turbo-boost toward my board edge in order to limit the amount of shooting I’d be able to do before facing multi-charges. I brought in everything on the first turn and repeatedly tank shocked one Nob unit with Chimeras until it finally failed its Ld test. The other unit was subjected to two battlecannons, a Manticore, 9 twin-linked lascannons, and 10 meltaguns.

With Charlie’s core completely dismantled on the first turn, he threw in the towel.

Lesson learned: Mech IG > Orks.

Game 3: IG versus Bob’s Ultramarines

This match taught me more about the dynamics of my army’s tactics as opposed to general strategy (despite some truly abysmal rolling). For reference, it was an Annihilation mission with Pitched Battle deployment.

Bob’s army is led by Cassius and relies heavily on Tactical Squads in Rhinos (and one in a Drop Pod). It also features a melta Dread in a second Drop Pod and some bikes. I think Bob reads this so perhaps he can chime in with the exact list.

In any event, I again relied on habits developed by years of playing Space Marines and was overly aggressive with my infantry. Instead of listening to my own advice and staying put in my transports I got out on several occasions to maximize firepower and extend my melta range. In each and every case this turned out to be a mistake, and Bob was smart to charge even lone tactical marines into full units of Veterans, each time winning, breaking, and killing my units in the sweeping advance. Without any counter-attack option, I was at his mercy. I ended up losing by about three points.

Lesson learned: Stay in the damn tanks.

Also: Not having counter-attack is bad.

Following my match with Bob I decided to alter my list, albeit slightly.

The decision was made to trade my Astropath for a Master of the Fleet since I generally want to be taking first turn. If I will the roll-off I’ll go first, and my opponents will likely give me the first turn in objective-based missions if they win. I imagine many enemies will attempt to mitigate the damage received by my opening volley by holding their units in reserve, the act of which is severely punished by my MotF.

By applying a -1 modifier to reserve rolls, the Master increases the likelihood of enemy reserves arriving piecemeal, which I should have no problem dealing with in most situations (see a forthcoming battle report against James’s Crimson Fists for an example). While I think the Astropath is excellent (in larger games I would take both), the MotF fits my build better.

Game 4: IG versus Matt’s Chaos (dual lash)

Full battle report in the works. Stay tuned.

Game 5: IG versus Fareed’s Space Marines (Crimson Fists)

Fareed plays a a Drop Pod army that wasn’t really optimized for tournament play until more recently. There are still some tweaks to be made, but this list was much stronger than its previous incarnation. It features Kantor leading 2 full  Sternguard units loaded with meltas and combi-meltas, 3 Tactical Squads, and an Ironclad in pods. For some mobile firepower it also includes 3 Attack Bikes with (MM x2, HB x1).

The mission was Seize Ground with Pitched Battle deployment. I won the roll-off and gave Fareed first turn while keeping my army in reserve in order to avoid losing half of my vehicles to meltaguns on the first turn (both Sternguard units were to be separated into combat squads). My reserve rolls without the Astropath were poor, however I’m not sure it was a bad strategy. 12 point-blank meltaguns would have been bad news on turn 1.

I managed to kill almost all of Fareed’s army, however he managed to hide a tac squad behind a large terrain feature and squat on an objective. I managed to secure my own, and a third was contested by a handful of surviving marines and my Imperial Storm Troopers who had just been shot out of their airplane. Result: Tie game.

I made some mistakes, but in general I was forced to play cautiously because my lack of any assault troops to mop up units and intimidate basic infantry from throwing grenades at my tanks and charging headlong into my puny guys.

Lesson learned: Even Imperial Guard needs assault units.

Next up: battle report for my game against Matt’s dual lash Chaos army, giving my IG some close combat punchiness, and laying the smackdown on James and his Crimson Fists.