Bringer of Victory

Checking In and Where I've Been

2013-03-13T12:16:00.000-04:00

Hello, Nikephoros checking in.

I’ve had a bunch of emails lately from you nice folks asking what I’ve been up to and what my thoughts on the state of the game is. So I think I should make a post about those things.

I have been still going strong with Guild Wars 2 to get my gaming fix. I am a member of a srs bsns guild, Death and Taxes [DnT] on Blackgate server. The guild is a PvE dungeon/fractal speed clear guild with the top players, and has been super fun. We have started playing tournament pvp for fun and its hilarious since we are so low ranked in pvp yet since most of us are really good players we still beat much higher rated teams. Lot’s of QQ and all that. A guildmate, Strife, posts video speed run guides to each dungeon some of which I am in so if anyone is interested I can post those here.

In non-gaming updates, I’m still going hard with my cycling training and racing season starts for me this Sunday. I have a 60 mile road race, which is a fun way to kick off the season since in a large field race I don’t have high expectations and I can just test myself and get a gauge for my fitness. I hit 12,000 miles on the bike last year, and I basically had to destroy my social life and alienate all my friends and family to do that. This year I am paring it back to 10,000 in hopes of maybe having some kind of interpersonal relationships with other humans.

So enough about my life, what about Warhams?!

Bluntly: 6^th Edition killed 40k for me. I played a bunch of games when 6^th came out and I didn’t have any fun. After the last game I played I asked myself, “Am I even enjoying this? If not, why am I spending my valuable Saturday free time doing something I don’t enjoy?” The answer, sadly, was that I wasn’t getting anything from it.

6^th Edition forces me to play a style of army I don’t particularly enjoy. I am 100% sure that when I say “6^th edition doesn’t reward maneuver” someone will try to prove me wrong. Fine, whatever. Maybe I am wrong. But my experience was that 5^th Edition greatly rewarded playskill by emphasizing maneuver and timing. In 6^th Edition, my experience has been that the ability to outmaneuver your opponent to gain an advantage is significantly less. Again, I’m sure someone will try to tell me that isn’t the case but I really don’t care as I’m talking about my personal experience. I don’t want to play an IG blob, I don’t want to play with allies, and I don’t want to play an all foot army against other all foot armies. So the style of army is not my cup of tea.

Additionally, I like to play Black Templars. I think we can all agree that BT are essentially unplayable in a competitive setting at this point. Especially without allies, because as I said above, I don’t want to use allies. I do still have my GK that I could readily play but I would have to spend another couple hundred dollars to make them ready for 6^th edition, and that would mean a foot army. Since I don’t enjoy foot armies, spending hundreds of dollars and hours of time modeling and painting just so I can play something I don’t enjoy… that makes no sense. My vanilla marines army is what I played in the games I did play, and it just reminded me how little I enjoy vanilla marines. Boring army with no flavor that just does stuff and has no edge to leverage. The wins are close and the losses are close. Maybe that works for some people but it’s not interesting to me.

When the new BT codex comes out in the White Dwarf in 2015 or whatever the rumor is this week, I’ll buy it and if I like the way it looks I’ll give it a shot. But I don’t see any chance of me coming back to 40k without a new BT book OR a vanilla marine book that is like the 4^th edition book that allowed you to use traits to make interesting armies.

As far as fantasy goes, 8^th Edition was never seriously competitive due to the magic system being so over the top. What killed Fantasy was the Storm of Magic or whatever supplement that came out and took the worst part of 8^th edition, Magic, and made it 10x worse. I COULD just ignore that supplement, except for a good 6 month period no one locally played anything else. And once ‘Ard Boyz was canceled there was literally no reason to play what passes for competitive Fantasy. If you’re going to go carebear fluff bunny, might as well go full carebear and play Storm of Magic. Unfortunately, going carebear doesn’t interest me. So much like 40k, I’m not going to waste my Saturday playing a game for 3 hours that I don’t find compelling. I read on the rumor site that Dark Elves are getting a new book next year. Sad to this one go as it has some pretty OP stuff I enjoyed using, but maybe the next one will rekindle some kind of interest in Fantasy for me.

That’s about it, I’ll check in again when I have something for ya!

Life on Death Row: Black Templar Allies in 6th

2012-12-04T12:18:00.005-05:00

Things look bleak for Black Templars these days. Their current codex is ancient and strictly non-competitive in a tournament setting as the main army. All the rumors point to the BT getting a White Dwarf codex sometime in 2013, and based on the history of the last few WD codices… let’s just say we might actually prefer to keep our ancient over-costed codex if the alternative is anything like the Sisters of Battle. Our current codex is a dinosaur on life support, and our future codex has a good chance of being still-born. Things could be better.

The BT are all but useless as a main army in competitive 6^th edition. Our HQ and Troops are significantly overcosted, and as those are areas that every army needs to compete, it puts a strain out. So where is the glimmer of hope? Simply put, as allies. The BT have some interesting units that can be complimentary as an allied force, and I’ll go over the options here.

HQ: BT can bring a Terminator captain with a retinue of Tank Hunting 2x Ass-can/cyclone terminators. When is this useful? Let’s say you have a good codex that has good options in heavy support and elites, but you still want some more strong and tough anti-tank. Getting a shooty anti-tank unit out of an HQ slot is rare. Not many modern armies can bring shooty anti-tank units in HQ so if you are strapped for empty FOC slots, this can really bolster your army

Troops: As I mentioned before, our troops are stiflingly overpriced. But we have one attractive option: 20x man crusader squad with krak grenades. This is a fairly tough to shift blob that is Fearless in assaults and, when a chaplain is attached, will be in your deployment zone immediately if you choose to shoot at them. This unit is pricey for a Troop choice, but it provide something only Chaos normally has access to: a 20 man MEQ unit with close combat potential. There are a lot of armies who bring allied CSM just for this type of unit, and depending on the army and their ally options, this might be better. Or at least legal.

Elites: 5x Terminator squad with 2x heavy weapons and Tank Hunters. These are almost strictly better than any modern codex’ similar options.

Tank Hunting venerable dread with TLLC and Missile Launcher. The ability to glance kill the dread hurts the points investment you take in Venerable. However, your guns are 48” range and hit really hard. There are not too many better anti-heavy tank units in the game. I could easily see this incorporated into a GK list as the “fourth” psyfleman. Or in a C:SM Master of the Forge list as the “sixth” rifleman.

Heavy Support: Power of the Machine Spirit Vindicator. Our FAQ weakened this option by changing PotMS to match the new codices. However, other books can’t take PotMS on their Vindis, so this is a unique option. Many SM lists these days are bringing Vindis, and some other armies that can’t wish they could. This is the option to take an upgraded Vindi. I would definitely consider this one in any list that is considering bringing a Vindi.

That’s about it. Like I said, this codex is on life support/death row; so us remaining Black Templar players have to do the best with what good options are left.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions?

Email In: Dark Elf 2k List Advice

2012-10-01T10:00:00.000-04:00

Tom writes:

"Hey Nike,

I've been reading your blog for a little while now ever since I got back into Warhammer, and I was wondering if you could give me some tips on my Dark Elves, and probably at a later time my Space Marines too haha.

This is what my Army list looks like at the moment:

Lords:

Supreme Sorceress 315pts

- Lvl 4

- Life Taker

- Sacrificial Dagger

- Shadow

- Power of Darkness

Heroes

Sorceress 125pts

- Dispell Scroll

- Fire

- Power of Darkness

Death Hag 250pts

- Cauldron of Blood

- Rune of Khaine

- Manbane

Core

20 Dark Elf Warriors 155pts

- Shields

- Full Command

20 Dark Elf Warriors 155pts

- Shields

- Full Command

20 Dark Elf Crossbowmen 205pts

- Musician

Special

10 Cold One Knights 335pts

- Full Command

- Banner of Murder

20 Black Guard 267pts

- Musician

Rare

War Hydra 175pts

SO what's the go with what…

One Sorceress goes with one of the blocks of Spearmen, the other Sorceress goes with the other block.

Cauldron lingers behind moving up, so it can buff a unit. The Cold One Knights can get in close and personal, or provide a flank bonus, with the Black Guard being a main target too.

The Blocks of Warriors can be really buffed up by shadow, or have their enemies buffed down, and I kept the musician's in with the Crossbowmen and the Black Guard just for leadership purposes, with the reasoning behind no standard bearer being that hopefully I won't need the extra point in combat res.

I have 15pts left over to spend, so am thinking of adding a Standard of Discipline onto one of the Spearmen units, or adding in a Standard to the Black Guard.

What do you think? I haven't played a game with this army and still need to purchase some of the models such as the Hydra etc., so any criticisms or suggestions for models to buy is all good, because I don't want to waste money on things I won't use.

Thanks,

Tom"

What? No dragons?!"

Reply:

So there are some issues, both major and minor, with this list that I want to address. I’ll start with the minor ones, and then address the major ones.

Minor issues:

I don’t understand the Fire Sorceress. Random Fire magic spells are pretty lame, I guess your plan is Fireball spam? Seems weak to me. Also, you need to look at the price of the magic bunker when taking into account her cost. This is a fantastically expensive unit that is not at all scary at magic or combat. I would make her Shadow Magic, and probably lose the bunker.
I don’t get the close combat upgrades on the Cauldron. The Cauldron shouldn’t often be in close combat, and if it is in close combat things are going very wrong. Also, it’s no slouch in CC. Anything in close combat with it that actually threatens it isn’t going to be phased by those upgrades, so they seem a waste of points.
Full Command on your magic bunkers is bad. You don’t need the Lordling. He doesn’t add leadership, just one extra piddly attack. Those points would be better spent on banners that assist with Leadership or giving the unit Flaming attacks.
Banner of Murder belongs on the Blackguard, since the armor piercing actually matters. The COK need Haeg Graef for ASF. Also, you want full command on the BG. Not having a magic item on the officer is throwing away free value.
Break the Repeater Crossbowmen into MSU. You want to be able to target multiple units per turn, and reduce your vulnerability to AOE magic and warmachines.

Major Issues:

You don’t have enough threats. Before buying the COK or BG I would make sure you have a second Hydra. You need to present your opponent with more threats than he has answers.
The threats you do have are have all different speeds. This is crucial. Your opponent can focus fire on your units from fastest to slowest and destroy you bit by bit. By making target priority so easy, you are essentially making your fewer threats significantly less scary.

Changes:

Add the second Hydra.
Break the RXB into two units of 10 with banner and musician.
Lose the second magic bunker unit. Make the first one 30 strong, add banner of Leadership. Use the left over points to buy more units of RXB. Do not exceed 500 points on Core.
Lose either the BG or the COK. I recommend losing the COK. Buy a second unit of BG. Use the points savings to properly equip them with full command and offensive magic items. Any extra points will go towards the Hydra.
Lose the offensive upgrades on the Hag.
Lose the L1 Sorceress. Her contribution will be trivial, and her points will go a long way towards the second Hydra.

The results will be you now have 4 seriously scary units, your magic isn’t significantly worse, and you have significantly more and better scoring units.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions?

Odds and Ends and Ramblings

2012-09-10T12:12:00.000-04:00

Hey all, long time no talk. I’ve been playing Guild Wars 2 a ton and not playing 40k at all. I did, however, follow the NOVA coverage and I have a few comments on it. I have not played enough high end competitive 6^th Edition to reach firm conclusions but here is what I have been thinking about…

1. The top lists are a radical departure from what we have seen before or what most people expected. Most people expected mech lists to be slightly weaker, but what we saw was the total dominance of heavy firepower foot lists. Full mech was definitely a second tier choice. It seemed that if you wanted to be at the competitive top your list had to have at least 50+ scoring MEQ bodies and 50+ Str 7+ shots per turn. Plus, in a startling transition, the reaction was how powerful Plasma weapons were. Because the good lists were on foot, the best lists were also foot lists that could handle other foot lists and shoot away deathstars. AP2 plasma weapons seem to fit the bill nicely.

2. Deathstars or mini-stars seemed very popular. With the new FAQ changes I think we are seeing a drastic weakening of elite deathstars like Paladins, Nobz and Wolf Guard. Blob-stars, if you can give them fearless still after the FAQs, are still just as good since they didn’t rely on bouncing wounds around to be effective.

3. I would like to think that this tournament’s lists are indicative of 6^th Edition in general. I’m just not sure. This isn’t a knock against MVB, but I think the emphasis on table quarters and the fact that vehicles didn’t score for quarters had a huge effect on the lists you saw. Unlike some, I think this is a good thing, as the lists that did well are the type of lists I like to see. While these are the types of lists that should be good in an ideal game, I don’t know that these would be the best lists if you were forced to play just the straight book missions. It will be interesting to see how future 6^th Edition GT’s play out, because, unfortunately, I think these lists may be optimized for the tournament mission structure and not the game in abstract. With that said…

4. Failure to win at NOVA is your own fault, not the specific tournament environment. Playtesting materials and FAQs were released well ahead of time. Terrain examples were released ahead of time. Yet a particularly loud 40k blog voice is blaming his failure to win on the follow: missions, terrain and luck. Luck can be immediately discounted because I’ve not yet met a human being who can statistically demonstrate that they possess a quality known as “bad luck.”

If you claim your dice rolled below average, perhaps they did, but that is almost certainly a sign that you didn’t roll enough dice to bring out an average result. That is a problem caused by one of the following: your list didn’t give you enough resources to solve the problem you faced, or your tactics were such that you couldn’t bring the resources you had to bear when and where you needed them. Both of those issues are completely under your control, so there is nothing to complain about.

As far as terrain goes, it was the same for everyone. I won’t lie, at last year’s NOVA I wasn’t happy with the terrain on one table I played on twice. While I would say it contributed to my loss, I might have still lost anyway, so who knows? What I do know is that it would be not only arrogant, but overly simplistic to say that the terrain is what caused me to lose the game. The terrain on a table is a fixed system. There is a right way to play every particular arrangement, and gaming that system is how you use it to your advantage. Chances are, if you “lost due to terrain” what really happened is you lost due to your opponent taking advantage of the terrain, and you underestimating him and not trying as hard to play the terrain.

Claiming that missions themselves were flawed is a joke. Stelek had the arrogant audacity to claim that his list was perfect for 6^th, but that the NOVA missions were such a departure from 6^th that he got screwed out. As above, there might be some validity to this concept. But that isn’t an excuse for losing. Playtesting materials were available to all. If you didn’t bring a list optimized to win the published mission pack, who is at fault? I don’t care if the mission pack doesn’t fit what you think the game should be. You paid to attend a tournament, you were given the tournament rules. Your list should take that tournament into account. Claiming the missions were flawed after the fact is mockable, and arrogant. If Mike had sprung the NOVA missions on us as a surprise with no playtesting materials, this might be an excuse. Unfortunately for this bogus criticism, the top players arrived with lists tuned to win the tournament. While you might find the entire concept of tuning your list for a particular tournament objectionable, as a competitive player you have to PLAY TO WIN. By ignoring the missions and bringing a bad list, you were not playing to win.

5. Shame on BoLS. I don’t know what their problem with Mike is, but none of their prominent writers went to NOVA for the 3^rd consecutive year. What is the deal with that? These guys are undeniably talented players, who apparently have the resources to fly to po-dunk small GTs and RTT, or even to Europe for the ETC. But they can never seem to find the time or money to get to DC in August. Strange stuff.

If that was it, I wouldn’t even mention this. But in addition to their unstated-but-still-obvious boycott, they didn’t even cover it. Arguably the #2 biggest (and #1 most important to competitive players) 40k tournament in the United States and the only coverage they got on the biggest 40k website in the United States was a bullshit article about a judge’s ruling whose only reason for being published, as far as I can see, was to imply that the tournament was run poorly. I’m sure MVB will take the high road and not mention it, but I would love to know what the issue is. Is Wargamescon threatened by NOVA? NOVA clearly has the “competitive” label and WGC less so. Is WGC jealous? Threatened? I don’t get it at all.

As a quick aside, I want to remark how amazingly good Guild Wars 2 is. The game has the depth and refinement of a game that has been out for years, at launch. The game has better PVP than anything else out besides League of Legends, and better PVE than anything else. The only thing GW2 PVE comes up short when compared to WoW is large raids, as the “end game” for GW2 PVE are 5-man dungeon instances. If you’re into 40 man raids, you might want to look elsewhere, but for literally every other aspect of PVE GW2 provide a superior experience.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions?

Extended Absence: Guild Wars 2

2012-08-24T12:35:00.000-04:00

Hello. Short but sweet: Guild Wars 2 comes out tonight and I'll be playing that for the next few weeks hardcore enough that I don't anticipate writing anything for this blog, though maybe I'll write about GW2? In any event, I'll see you on the other side.

If you are playing GW2 I'll be on Stormbluff Isle server with my guild doing what you'd expect: crushing faces in PVP.

40k Theory: Power vs. Synergy

2012-08-18T16:07:00.000-04:00

I decided to post this on the weekend because it's too short of a thought for a full article, but the theory is interesting so I thought I'd share.

It's clear to me that the Grey Knights codex is made of up pretty darn powerful individual units, even when you take their high costs into consideration. It's equally clear to me that there is a lot of synergy missing from the codex, which is a hugely limiting factor which keeps the codex from being absolutely nuts.

For example, the HQ you'd love to take in most GK armies, a Librarian, has terminator armor which means that he can't be put in the units you'd want him with, namely MSU guys in Razorbacks. So a list with the best possible troops can't have the best possible HQ without some awkward, non-synergistic changes. Another great example would be Crowe. He cannot join a unit, so the most obvious build in the codex, MSU Purifiers suffers from his awfully awkward HQ choice.

On the other hand, some codices are nothing but synergy. IG and Dark Eldar jump out to me as the 'dexes where raw power is least, but due to special rules and the ease of army construction, the armies are often greater than the sum of their individual parts.

In other competitive strategy games this conflict between synergy and power ebbs and flows. Sometimes the tools are there for synergy to trump power, other times it is reversed. While your mileage may vary, my experience in this game and others tells me that Power trumps Synergy when they are around equal to each other.

Do allies change that? I'm not sure. Allies can create insane synergy. Allies can also provide very awkward additions that have no synergy but have tons of power. I'm anxious to see how NOVA goes to give some insight as to which way the wind is blowing.

Better Playtesting: Cross Training

2012-08-13T17:19:00.001-04:00

At least some of you are aware that I am a competitive cyclist and I train like a zombie. As far hobbies go, bike racing is about as far from Warhammer 40,000 as you can conceivably get. While they are very different activities from a physical and mental standpoint, a very lot of the lessons you learn from one can help you get better at the other. I’d like to focus on some of those similarities today. While your mileage may vary (pun!) I hope that some of the concepts resonate with you.

Cycling: Ride a lot

40k: Play a lot

The first step in training for an endurance sport is to build up a base. This means simply riding a lot of hour and miles so that your body becomes accustomed to long distances. It builds up a base of fitness and helps get you into shape. This is a step you cannot skip. If you go straight into practicing sprints or trying to race without having a base fitness built up, you’ll fail spectacularly and possible hurt yourself. Therefore, it is essential to put in the long hours establishing a base.

In Warhammer, you have to play a lot to become good. This doesn’t mean focused playtesting or list building. It means just playing the game, regardless of competitive level of your competition or points levels of your game. You have to do this for a few reasons; first is learning the rules. You never want to lose a game because you were wrong about the rules and made plays that only worked if you were right about the rules. Learn the rules until they are second nature. Second, you have to establish the concept of the possible. Playing a lot and experiencing the range of the game will give you a good idea of what is and isn’t possible. Knowing the possible allows you to know what you have to do, or what you can do, in order to win a game. This is fairly basic, but knowing your own codex and the other codices is important in establishing the possible. How can you expect to be competitive if you have huge gaps in your knowledge about the game? You can’t, and the only way to do it is to play a lot of games.

Cycling: Focused Training

40k: Focused Playtesting

In cycling, once you have a base in order to get faster you have to do high intensity interval training, and there is no way around it. There are dozens of different types of intervals and the specific program you do should be catered to the type of skills you want to develop. Need to work on your 40k time trialing? Nothing beats 2x20 intervals for that. Want to get faster at criterium racing where there are tons of sudden accelerations? Do tabata intervals until you puke. The lesson here is that if you want to get faster you have to focus on that particular skill and do focused training to grow it.

In 40k, I’ve written a lot about the benefits of playtesting as well as how to do it better. The bottom line is that when you playtest, each session should be focused on learning a particular lesson. One playtest session might be about “how does my tournament list fare after I switch all the missile launchers to lascannons,” or, “can my current list beat a Necron flier list without radical changes?” The point is you test for something. Scientists don’t just random mix chemicals together just to see what happens. They make a hypothesis, and then they test it. Cyclists don’t just go on random bike rides and then expect to dominate sprints in races. They train for sprinting to maximize their 20 second power output. Competitive 40k players shouldn’t “playtest” by smash two armies against each other with no goal. Rather, they should play games to see if particular concepts work in practice to confirm or reject their theory. Focused training leads to specific results.

Cycling: Don’t innovate on race-day

40k: Don’t change your list the night before a tournament

One of the first lessons a cyclist learns, almost always the hard way, is not to change your diet on race day. If you normally put watered down Gatorade in your drink bottles during training, that’s what you should do during a race. A race is not the time to experiment with new foods or drinks. Many an otherwise fit racer has been sidelined by an upset stomach resulting from trying a new energy drink, or eating a special energy bar, during a race. It seems like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how tempted people are to try some new type of energy drink on race day “for a boost.” The reward, maybe an extra 1% better output, is hardly worth the potential risk of getting totally blown out by an upset stomach.

In 40k, players will playtest for weeks, get a tuned list ready, painted and modeled. …and then they will get to the hotel the night before the tournament, see a guy carrying 5 Vendettas, panic, and then hastily change their list and have to stay up all night painting and modeling the changes to their list. Like in the cycling example this seems to be a no-brainer, but we all know this happens. People second guess months of playtesting only to panic at the last second and make irrational changes. This is so obviously wrong that you don’t need me to tell you why it’s wrong. The night before a tournament is when you should be getting plenty of sleep, not panicking about your list. Leave the panicking and hand-wringing to the guys who didn’t playtest enough. You playtested enough, so be confident that your hardwork will be rewarded.

Cycling: There is always somebody faster

40k: Set realistic goals

No matter how fast you are, there are people faster than you. Lot’s of them. You have to accept that no matter how hard you work, there are always going to be guys who are either genetically superior to you, willing to work harder than you, or often both. If you’re ever totally satisfied with your current fitness level, or your current results, you need to seek out tougher competition. So on one hand, you have to reconcile that you’re often going to lose to people who are just plain faster than you and you have to learn to accept it. But on the other hand, you have to learn not to accept the status quo and keep pushing yourself. It seems paradoxical to say “learn to like losing, and learn not to be happy winning” but it’s true. If you ever get satisfied with your good results, you’ll get lazy. If you get too discouraged by your defeats you’ll lose motivation

In the Warhams, much the same is true. Unlike cycling where there is a category system and ways to rank riders, there is nothing so formal in 40k. So you have to determine your own goals. If you’ve never played in a tournament before, you should probably have a different set of goals before your first NOVA than a guy who has top 8’ed NOVA two years in a row. Managing expectations properly will set you up for happiness. If you’ve never played in a tournament before, and you end up going 4-4, I’d say that you should be pretty happy about that finish. On the other hand, if you’ve top 8’ed two years in a row you have to avoid growing complacent. You can’t test less than previous years, and you can’t take your competition for granted. If you feel like you lost the competitive fire, don’t be upset when you get knocked off the top. Resting in old laurels is not the best way to maintain continued success.

Cycling: Ride with faster people

40k: Play against better players

This is somewhat related to the above concept, but a key turning point in the development of a bike racer is when you realize that the fastest way to improve is to ride with people faster than you, who will push you to your limits and beyond. If you ride with guys who can drop you, eventually you’ll stop getting dropped as you get stronger and able to handle the pace and intensity. Plus, it’s great motivation. On the other hand, if you are the fastest guy in your group it’s time to seek out a new group. Riding with those slow folks because you’re friends with them is fine, just don’t consider it a work out or part of your training program.

In 40k, you have to find players who are better than you if you want to get better. Beating up on the same scrubs at your LGS is only going to teach you so much about the game. Playtesting with guys who aren’t on the same level as you will hold you back. You need to find a group that will push you. If you can beat your normal crew without breaking a sweat, you will get lazy. There will be nothing to force you to properly tune your lists. There will be nothing to get you to play with perfect technical skills. Playing with players better than you will do the opposite; you’ll have to bring the best lists possible and you’ll have to play without making mistakes. The big obstacle is that you’re probably friends with the scrubs at the LGS and dumping them to go hang with a new crew is probably unappealing. Without delving too deep into hypothetical issues I just hope you have enough social skills to maintain multiple groups of friends at the same time without alienating them.

Cycling: Train heavy, race light

40k: Playtest strictly, have fun at the tournament

If you’re rich (or insane) enough to own a $4,000.00 set of feather-light race wheels for your bicycle, you should only use them during races. For starters, the lighter your wheels, the less durable they are and every day training rides will beat them to hell quickly. But the main reason is the age old dictum in cycling, “train heavy, race light.” What this means is, if you do your training rides with heavier equipment and you are used to going fast on a heavy bike, when you race on a lightweight bike you’ll go that much faster. Not everybody has the option to flip between two bikes or two wheelsets, but you’ll find that among those that do this is a rule that people tend to stick to. If you switch to a bike that’s 3lbs lighter than your training bike the day of the race, that’s like 3lbs of fat being sucked out of your body, and not an advantage to be scoffed at.

In 40k, this translates to you being strict with yourself during playtesting. Don’t allow yourself take backs. Be a rules lawyer… with yourself. If you playtest strictly, your technical play will be tighter and you’ll make fewer mistakes. During the tournament, the strict playtesting will pay off and you will play tightly while feeling at ease and having a casual demeanor. Not being oppressed by your nerves, or by being obsessed with trying to maintain technical play you aren’t used to will let you appear to be playing casual, which goes a long way to both players having fun, and for you to be considered a good sportsman.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions?

40k Metrics: Building a Better Devastator

2012-08-09T20:27:00.000-04:00

In 5^th Edition, if someone said they were bringing Long Fangs, Devastators or Havoks you could safely assume that they were going to be armed with missiles. It was a no brainer for the most part because they were simply the most points efficient weapon available. Does this hold true in 6^th? The way we go about killing vehicles, and to a lesser extent Monstrous Creatures, has changed quite a bit. The old paradigm might not hold true at all anymore.

It's all about the numbers

A long while ago, I put forward some 40k theory that said it’s better your unit does something, at any cost, than doing nothing for cheap. For example, if your only Troops choices were the following two units:

5 Space Marines with bolters for 50 points or

10 Space Marines with two lascannons for 225 points

What would you bring? If those were your only two choices, the answer would be to bring the 10 marines with two lascannons by a mile. The first unit, while extremely points efficient, does nothing. It will not advance your position in the game one bit. The second unit, while way overcosted, at least does something. It has a chance to impact the game.

We have established that you would, and should, spend extra points when necessary to bring a unit that will actually be effective rather than one that is points efficient but doesn’t help you win the game.

Let’s look at some easy to compare units then, Long Fangs, Devastators, Havoks. First we will look at them with the old standard loadout, 4x Missile Launchers.

Unit Cost

Fangs: 115

SM Devs: 150

BA Devs: 130

Havs: 155

Results:

Units	Kills	AV10	AV11	AV12	AV13	AV14
4x missile	Ave. by HP	3.4913	1.876	1.4349	0.9523	0.1684
	Ave. by Insta	0.5651	0.6725	0.4751	0.2559	0
	Ave. Total	4.056	2.549	1.91	1.208	0.168

This will be our baseline. Clearly Havocs are so inefficient as to be unplayable. I know said before that you can play inefficient units, but there has to be a reason to. Obliterators and Predators and Vindicators are pretty efficient so there is no reason to bring a pretty trashy Havoc unit. Same for vanillas. Blood Angels are definitely playable, but Wolves are clearly undercosted. Let’s see what Lascannons are up to…

Unit Cost

Fangs: 175

SM Devs: 230

BA Devs: 190

Havs: 215

4x Lascannon	Kills	AV10	AV11	AV12	AV13	AV14
	Ave. by HP	3.3045	1.7604	1.483	1.1879	0.4706
	Ave. by Insta	1.2985	1.6758	1.3515	0.9667	0.6054
	Ave. Total	4.603	3.436	2.835	2.155	1.076

Wow those are expensive. But look at those stats, they pack a punch. Against AV11 and 12 they are almost a full dead tank better per game, which is a huge difference. But the real selling point is how strong they are against AV13. 2 dead AV13 per game is no joke, if you team can drop two Predators per game you are pulling your weight. These will definitely attract enemy attention, which is why I would say that BA Devs do these the best thanks to a FNP priest nearby. Point for point, the SW are probably better off with Missiles. Vanilla marines shouldn’t bother with these.

Lastly, how about a reason to take Havocs at all? Glad you asked…

Havocs: 155

4x Autocannon	Kills	AV10	AV11	AV12	AV13	AV14
	Ave. by HP	4.1082	2.6421	1.9382	1.0677	0
	Ave. by Insta	0.6033	0.7494	0.4334	0	0
	Ave. Total	4.712	3.392	2.372	1.068	0

Yep you are reading those stats properly. They are better than missile devs at every light mech killing task. Almost a full Rhino per game ahead. Almost half a Chimera ahead. That is big game, and a reason for this unit to exist. While not as cheap as a Long Fang unit, these actually do more, and like I said above, paying more points for something is fine if you get more value from it. If you’re playing Chaos Marines you could do a lot worse than bringing these. Where I see these shining, though, is as an ally for Daemons. Daemons want can openers, these are can openers.

Conclusions? Space Marines should be playing AV13 heavy support units, or Rifleman Dreads via MotF. Space Wolves can spend an extra 50% points on their unit to upgrade to lascannons to gain around 50% value, so it’s debatable which to bring. Blood Angels gain more than they spend to upgrade to lascannon Devs, so it bears serious consideration. And Chaos? If 4x autocannons are a joke, I’m not laughing.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions?

40k Metrics: MEQ Vehicle Busting

2012-08-06T11:00:00.000-04:00

I've pushed the commonly seen MEQ heavy support choices through the my vehicle kill calculator and some things jumped out that may or may not interest you, but I thought I would share.

First up are Long Fangs with four Krak Missile Launchers. Blood Angels often take 4x missile Devastators and you sometimes see vanilla marines bring them too, but much more rare since they cost significantly more. These guys were in almost every 5th Edition SW list, so lets see how they stack up in 6th.

4x Long Fangs w/Missiles - 115 points

Kills                             AV10               AV11               AV12               AV13               AV14
Ave. by HP                  3.4913             1.876               1.4349             0.9523             0.1684
Ave. by Insta                0.5651             0.6725             0.4751             0.2559             0.0
Ave. Total                    4.056               2.549               1.91                 1.208               0.168

As you would hope, these shred AV10. They can kill a Rhino a bit better than every other turn. They almost kill two Chimeras per game. The jump to AV13 isn't nearly as bad as AV14, but killing one Predator per game is not what you want to be spending your time doing. Lastly, you barely have a chance to hurt Land Raiders, so your best bet is to shoot at literally anything else.

Next up we have the Space Marine Rifleman Dread. While not technically a heavy support choice, they fulfill the same role and it should be taken into consideration. These guys are very common again in 6th, since they take on fliers. They are not exactly amazing at taking down fliers, but they are better than most alternatives.

Rifleman Dread - 125 points

Kills                             AV10               AV11               AV12               AV13               AV14
Ave. by HP                  3.5365             1.7968             1.2385             0.5806             0.0
Ave. by Insta                0.53                 0.5643             0.3029             0.0                   0.0
Ave. Total                    4.067               2.361               1.541               0.581               0.0

So what does 10 more points than a Long Fang Squad buy you? First, you lose any hope against AV14, which is hardly worth mentioning anyway. As you can see, against AV13 the single point of strength lost translates to half effectiveness. Since a lot of MEQ armies are bringing more AV13 and Necrons love it as well, this is a painful loss. You're half a Chimera worse than Long Fangs. Against Rhinos, you are at virtual parity and against AV10 you are at even more of a parity situation. So what are the advantages of Riflemen? Two things: game against fliers, and the fact that they come from Elites rather than Heavy Support. Those are definitely assets in their favor.

Up next, their more feared Grey Knight cousin...

Psyfleman Dread - 135 points

Kills                             AV10               AV11               AV12               AV13               AV14
Ave. by HP                  4.0199             2.3237             1.8023             1.2341             0.3076
Ave. by Insta                0.6171             0.785               0.5708             0.3102             0.0
Ave. Total                    4.637               3.109               2.373               1.544               0.308

Fairly obvious looking at these numbers why these are so justifiably feared. They have the same game against fliers as the Rifleman, but they gain half a Rhino, almost half a Chimera, have significant game against AV13, but like the others they have no business shooting at Land Raiders. This is a hefty 5 point upgrade indeed. The superiority of these are such that it makes GK with Marine allies a much stronger consideration than Marines with GK allies.

The next two saw little play in 5th Edition, but are seeing a resurgence in 6th thanks to the AV13 numbers we've been seeing above.

Predator Destructor - 120 points

Kills                             AV10               AV11               AV12               AV13               AV14
Ave. by HP                  3.2828             1.5964             1.2486             0.8354             0.0976
Ave. by Insta                0.8751             1.1639             0.8665             0.5534             0.3467
Ave. Total                    4.158               2.76                 2.115               1.389               0.444

This guy has some serious game. Not only is he tough to kill, but he is competitive against AV10, better at killing Rhinos than everyone so far besides Psyfleman Dreads. His Chimera game is quite superior to most, especially in the above the rim odds to Explode one thanks to two Lascannons. Against other AV13 the Lascannons show their worth. I sound like a broken record, but don't waste shots against Land Raiders.

Vindicator - 115 points

Kills                             AV10               AV11               AV12               AV13               AV14
Ave. by HP                  0.886               0.3611             0.2608             0.1776             0.014
Ave. by Insta                1.2233             1.2269             1.191               0.7725             0.5501
Ave. Total                    2.109               1.588               1.28                 0.95                 0.564

Simply put, these are brought for their ability to kill elite infantry and deathstars. Only a foolish opponent would parking lot his vehicles against these so I only assumed one hit per turn. So the big selling point of these guys are killing Paladins and Nob Bikerz really, not to fight against vehicles. One thing to note though, being Strength 10 AP2 Ordinance means they have a much higher ability to pop vehicles in a single volley than the others. While this isn't something you really need to consider during list building, it should be something you have in your pocket tactically. Sometimes you absolutely HAVE to kill a vehicle this turn, or else. And the ability to one shot with this guy is worth knowing.

Lastly is something that nobody is bringing, but perhaps these numbers will surprise you?

Land Raider Godhammer - 250 points

Kills                             AV10               AV11               AV12               AV13               AV14
Ave. by HP                  3.2872             1.5378             0.953               0.712               0.1892
Ave. by Insta                1.2585             1.3177             1.0029             0.6948             0.4268
Ave. Total                    4.546               2.856               1.956               1.41                 0.616

The Godhammer Land Raider is much maligned, but as you can see it is insanely hard to kill with anything short of Lance weapons or Melta. It certainly trumps the others on this list. It also has very, very good game against fliers since it can shoot them dead and is very tough for most fliers to kill in return. The small price you pay for this? Double the points. From looking at these stats, you aren't bringing a Godhammer to kill AV10. It's good against Rhinos and Chimeras, but you can easily fall into a trap where you ignore Rhinos to have the Land Raider "earn its points back." But honestly, as we can see you're aren't bringing it for those purposes. What it DOES do well is going over the top of AV13. If everyone is bringing Predators, the guy with Godhammers is king.

Conclusions:

These choices seem very balanced against each other... except the Psyfleman which is in a class by itself. When in doubt, take a Psyfleman against any comers. Lastly, you may laugh at the very idea of the inclusion of a Land Raider in this list, but consider what it is very strong against: AV13 and fliers. These were obviously big winners in the new edition. If the worst case scenario happens and 6th Edition becomes Flierhammer (and we don't get a Flakk FAQ boost) you could do worse than bringing Land Raiders. They shoot the fliers out of the sky and those very same fliers are going to struggle to do more than scratch the paint in return. While Land Raiders are somewhat a joke now, if AV13 and fliers become what Rhinos and Razorbacks were in 5th Edition the joke might get a lot less funny.

The 40k Community Has a Loser Mentality Part II

2012-07-30T12:40:00.001-04:00

In my previous angry rant, I went off on some BoLS commentors who are clearly idiots. It isn’t just that they have strong ideas about what the game should be, it’s that they feel that their ideas are superior to everyone else’s’ and consequently anything contrary is to be dismissed, and dismissed with maximum indignation.

WhenI talked about scrub mentality on 3++, I was NOT talking about them. As I admitted in that article, I have my own self-imposed rules and limits about what kind of army I would play. These rules do probably limit how competitive my armies could ever be, but there is always a chance that my rules would happen to coincide with what’s good, and I could end up playing a hyper competitive army. But really, the point is, my rules are for me, not anyone else.

Unlike these BoLS commentors, I don’t think the type of lists I prefer should apply to everyone else. I don’t think that the level of competitiveness I prefer to play at is the only level everyone else should play at. I cannot fathom being under the delusion that my happy medium is what everyone else should be forced into.

So this brings me to my conclusion. The scrub mentality is completely different than the loser mentality.

A scrub would say: I only enjoy playing foot lists, but I try to have the best foot lists possible and I love smashing people’s mech armies.

A loser would say: Full mech armies are WAAC garbage and if I see my opponent put down 8 razorbacks I’ll pack my army up and leave.

I have no problem with the scrub mentality, and I’ll admit I have strong scrub tendencies as do most competitive players in the hobby, simply because aesthetic appeal of the armies and units is a strong reason to play a particular army. Playing an army you hate aesthetically just to be as competitive as possible seems really rare in the 40k community.

I have a big problem with the loser mentality. Whether they use fluff, or “what the game designers intended,” or claim to not be competitive, they are similar to the scrub. But the scrub holds only himself to these rules; the loser tries to hold everyone else to them.

The 40k community is, in fact, a community. The key to being a member of a community is understanding that people can hold incompatible ideas to yours, but rather than “packing up your army and leaving” you learn to coexist. If you don’t like playing against hyper-tuned competitive opposing lists: don’t play against them. Find members of the community with a similar interest to you, and play against them. There is nothing wrong with asking your opponent before the game whether he is bringing a tournament testing list or a fun list. Packing up your stuff and leaving is a sign that you are not ready to be a member of the community, and it’s seems clear to me that if you’re that upset you should probably avoid playing publicly.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions?

The 40k Community Has a Loser Mentality

2012-07-27T12:10:00.001-04:00

Reference: This article.

No, not the article itself, but the comments. The author of the article has a winner mentality, actually. He, or his playgroup, found a cool and innovative combo that most people probably hadn’t discovered. And being justifiably excited about this discovery, he posted it to share with the world.

And he got pilloried for it. By a bunch of people who take being ‘scrubs’ to a new level.

Could you imagine this happening in another game with a different community? Imagine a Magic player discovering a new combo that no one ever thought of, crafting a pretty cool deck out of it, and sharing it with the community. He would be complimented, encouraged and would set off a chain reaction hundreds of other players rushing out to test it out themselves in order to tune and improve the new interaction further. If the deck turned out to be really good, he would probably have it named after him, and would have a measure of immortality in the community.

Not in this community. Nope! All innovation is strictly punished by a bunch of fucking losers who hate the idea of progress, innovation or competition. These are the types of players who want to play infinite games of their Space Marine battle company list against their buddy’s 180 Boyz Ork army until the end of time. They interpret any sort of discovery of a clever rules interaction as ungentlemanly at best, and cheating at worst. Fuck them. They are holding this game back, and holding the rest of the community back.

And let’s be frank: this Daemon/Ork list probably isn’t even very good. But it isn’t about whether it’s good or not. It’s fucking creative and innovative. It pushes the boundaries of what players consider possible further out. That is good! Even if the idea itself isn’t good, we should encourage this kind of experimentation and innovation and creativity. That is what a winner mentality is. If you’re not on board for it, you’re a fucking loser, so shut your mouth.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions?

40k Metrics: 6th Edition Vehicle Mathhammer

2012-07-24T12:20:00.001-04:00

It’s rather obvious to everyone that I enjoy mathhammer. I feel that there is an edge to be gained by being aware of the average potential of your units, and the ability to know which of the units in your book are most points efficient.

6^th Edition threw the old mathhammer for a loop in regards to killing vehicles. It used to be rather straight forward to calculate the amount of shots it would take to shoot down a Rhino, but in 6^th Edition it is very, very difficult. I doubt most players have bothered trying to do it, so they may not be aware how tough it is to hammer out. What makes it so hard?

It's still all about the numbers

In short, it’s because we have two parallel systems for killing vehicles operating at the same time. One system is the hull point system, and the other is the penetration chart. It is rudimentary to calculate how many hull points a unit can shoot away per turn, but what you cannot account for within that is the fact that at least 1/6ths of penetrating shots will explode a vehicle. If you explode a vehicle with the first shot, it doesn’t matter how many hull points you can peel off with the rest of the shooting for the unit. Additionally, some weapons are better at exploding vehicles than others, and that has to be taken into account. Simply put, you have to take into account the overall likelihood that either one of these systems will kill a vehicle in a given turn, which is a really rather complex set of maths.

To solve this dilemma I created a script within Excel that calculates the odds of a particular unit to kill vehicles and I’m rather proud of it. It uses the following logic to calculate the vehicle kills:

1. At the very start of a simulation, create a unit of AV___

2. Start Round 1

3. For weapon #1, do a hit/miss roll.

1. If the weapon hits, do a strength roll

1. If strong enough, do a point of damage.

1. If the damage kills the unit, skip remaining weapons and move to Round 2.

2. Otherwise, if damage is high enough for penetrate check, then do it.

1. If penetrate succeeds for instakill, then skip remaining weapons and move to Round 2.

2. If the weapon misses, go to the next weapon for the round.

4. If the unit still lives, repeat Step #3 for Weapon 2, 3, ....

5. Start Round 2

1. If the unit never died, it starts Round 2 at its current hull level. Otherwise, start Round 2 with a fresh unit.

2. Round repeats as Round 1 above.

6. Repeat through Round 5.

A few comments. As you can see, it presumes a 5 turn game, but you can tweak the settings for longer games if you like. It runs 10,000 simulated games to get an average that should eliminate the outliers. Also, it doesn’t allow for split firing, so units that can do that are shit outta luck. This is much more refined than the 5^th Edition mathhammer, since it allows for vehicle damage to carry over to the next turn. You’ll also notice that logically the most vehicles any unit can destroy per 5 turn game is 5, which makes complete sense. A unit with 200 meltaguns will still only be able to kill a max of 5 vehicles per game.

After I finished it, I went back and made it user friendly so you can literally put any shooting weapon in the game into it and custom make your unit with whatever loadout you want and run the analysis. Download the .zip file here. On the bottom right is your weapon pool. Feel free to add every weapon in your codex in there. It has slots for Weapon Strength, roll needed to hit, how many dice to add to strength for armor penetration, and what bonus you get rolling on the Penetration Chart. Once you have the weapon pool filled, you go to the unit load out section on the left and add the weapons for the unit. If you put Krak missiles as #1 in your pool and your Long Fangs have 5 of them, put “1” in the first 5 entries.

Once you’re done with the unit load out, hit “run analysis” and it will give you the results. You’ll note that it changes slightly every time you run it. This is because instead of just running the straight average of rolls, it simulates 10,000 actual games. This is a large enough sample size, I think, that the results can be accepted. But you can change that variable at the top too, if you feel like the results of 50,000 games is more reliable.

All in all, I’m very stoked about this and I hope you guys enjoy it. Since 6^th Edition vehicle damage is so much more difficult than previous editions, I would assume most people are going to get some value from it.

Last note, I couldn’t figure out a simple way to do twin linked weapons, so for my personal assumption I just raised the BS of the unit firing by 1. Not perfectly accurate but good enough for me to draw conclusions from.

I’ll do a follow up article next week detailing some of the interesting results this program uncovers, and hopefully various people around the web will find some unconventional conclusions as well to add to the discussion.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions?

My Current Lists: 6th Edition Space Marines 2k

2012-07-17T11:00:00.000-04:00

Hey all. After playing my 6th Edition Templar list a bit to get a handle on 6th, I realized I didn't want to be in Templars after the FAQ. Simply put, having to bring an Emperor's Champ and another obligatory HQ is pretty points prohibitive. It basically eliminates me bringing allies to make up for the shortcomings of the Templars. What I basically found was that while Templars are shooty enough to compete in 6th, the added price of the 2nd obligatory HQ is one burden too many when it comes to list building. Additionally, the lack of mobility is a problem, only the Terminators and Typhoons can really move and shoot effectively and I just felt outclassed by highly mobile armies. Lastly, despite a lot of firepower, I ran into the problem of dealing with deathstars effectively without a ton of AP1 or 2 to put shots into them.

At that point I decided to give vanilla Space Marines a chance. Their firepower is only slightly less than the Templars can bring, but they are much more flexible in that there is are more good units at each FOC slot to bring greater variety, plus they can add in allies a lot more flexibly. One of the things I wanted most was a 10x strong Terminator Assault Squad. Compared to other deathstars in various lists, they come in the cheapest, and they are a decent trump card against them. And if your opponent isn't bringing a deathstar, they are a threat to assault both infantry and vehicles. Just an all around great unit. The only other things I figured to be mandatory was bringing two Riflemen, and Predators in heavy support.

After a few games with my initial rough list, I came to the following conclusions:

1. Codex Space Marines are generally not going to curb stomp your opponent. You're neither cheaper, nor stronger, nor tougher than your opponent. But the strength is versatility; your tactics have to change against each opponent. Some games you have to play aggressive and others highly defensive. Other armies are a bit more linear from a tactical perspective. They have their game plan, and they try to execute it. If they succeed they win, if the opponent can counter it, they lose. When making a C:SM list you have to acknowledge the fact that you aren't going to just steamroll someone off the board, and that every game against a good opponent is going to be relatively close. This means you build into your list the tools to attack or defend.

2. Predators are good, especially with lascannon sponsons. Very few other heavy support units can interact profitably with them. They have enough firepower to just outshoot opposing heavy support choices, though AV14 is a problem. That said, they struggle against infantry. There are a lot more foot or hybrid lists out there it seems, plus a lot more deathstars. For the same reason Predators got good (AV13, resistance to being Shaken/Stunned) Vindicators did too. The "one gun" tank problem is largely gone now, and Vindis are pretty great. They just smoke infantry, even deathstars, and being Str 10 AP2 Ordinance means they can drop anything short of a Land Raider with ease. And with the new blast rules, they will smash a parking lot to smithereens. If you tally up the things a Predator is better against than a Vindicator, the Vindi seems to come out on top in 6th Edition, at this point.

3. I prefer the age old Gate/Null Zone Libby powers over taking Divination. While some of the Divination powers are potentially stronger, I don't want to get worthless stuff, and honestly the Primaris power for Divination doesn't impress me a great deal. I would rather take a 7/10 guaranteed than the gamble of a 10/10 or 4/10.

4. I'm not opposed to allies, but I haven't found an ally component that goes with this list in a way that doesn't seem flawed to me.

So here is where I'm at today...

I painted this, which explains its startling mediocrity

HQ

Librarian
-Force Maul
-Null Zone
-Gate
-Terminator Armor and Storm Shield
=140

[Fairly typical. I was going to just go Power Armor and keep him el cheapo, but there are situations where you can't avoid him being in challenges, and that's a problem, so I bought him some protection.]

Elites

10x Terminator Assault Squad
=400

Rifleman
=125

Rifleman
=125

[I explained the Termies above, and I think most people know the merits of Rifledreads, especially as this is really my only protection from flyerwings.]

Troops

10x Tactical Squad
-Rhino
-Melta
-Multimelta
-Combimelta
=220

10x Tactical Squad
-Rhino
-Melta
-Multimelta
-Combimelta
=220

10x Tactical Squad [break into combat squads]
-Melta
-Combimelta
-Plasma Cannon
-Las/plas Razorback
=265

10x Tactical Squad [break into combat squads]
-Melta
-Combimelta
-Plasma Cannon
-Las/plas Razorback
=265

[After playing with four of the melta Rhinos, I felt it just wasn't necessary to have that much. melta, and that the benefits of the Plasma Cannon was pretty great now. Also, I had a Typhoon in the early incarnations of this list, and I found it to be fairly meh as a one of. The Las/Plas Razorback is a serious threat to most opponents, but with all the other threats in the list it ranks pretty low on target priority. Part of the philosophy I outlined above for Marines to be versatile means spreading out your threats so you don't have a single point of failure, and I think these help a lot in that department.]

Heavy Support

Vindicator
-Dozer Blade
=120

Vindicator
-Dozer Blade
=120

[I explained these earlier, but they do work.]

Total: 2,000

What do you guys think?

Better Playtesting: Playtest Like a Pro

2012-07-13T17:06:00.002-04:00

Just thought I would share this article on professional playtesting, written by a master. The Magic stuff is irrelevant, the lessons are applicable to 40k.

Enjoy!

Have a good weekend folks. Go play 40k, I will be.

A Brief Note on Comparative Analysis

2012-07-10T12:01:00.000-04:00

Nothing long today, but I did want to point out a fallacy that I'm seeing everywhere. First, I'm 100% guilty of doing this too, so allow this to serve as my formal mea culpa.

A lot of people are saying "Unit A is more effective in 6th than it was in 5th, so you'll see it in more armies." Feel free to change Unit A for a weapon or type of unit or tactic etc.

This is wrong.

Units are not to be evaluated in an isolated vacuum, they exist in relation to every other unit in the game and just because they became more useful in general does not mean necessarily that they will be played more.

Example: Plasma guns are more useful in 6th. This is a fact. Their anti-light mech capability greatly increase, and being AP2 they are useful at doing damage to some of the more powerful infantry in the game. So in isolation, they got a huge buff and the general internet consensus is that we will see more Plasma in 6th.

Possibly. Or not. Let's say we rated Plasma 3/10 in 5th edition. Meltagun being 8/10. In 6th, we rate Plasma 6/10. Meltagun slightly less useful 7/10. Guess what: if these ratings are accurate, melta is still better despite plasma being better. I just made up these ratings and I don't claim they are true, it's just an example.

So take this away, 'better' means 'better.' It does not necessarily mean 'optimal' or 'competitive' or 'good.' It could turn out to be those things too, but don't read too much into 'better.'

40k Theory: Finding the Edge

2012-07-09T17:28:00.000-04:00

This is a rather basic list building theory article, but I think with the launch of 6^th Edition it’s a good time for it since everyone is back to square one with list building ideas.

The beginning of every good project is an Excel spreadsheet

My initial thought rests on the following premise: in a tournament setting the only safe assumption you can make is that your opponents will be better players than you. By operating on this assumption, you avoid making plans that will only payoff if your opponent makes a mistake. Assuming the opposite, that your opponent is going to make a mistake, is a great way to lose the game.

So if we are starting from the premise that our opponents are at least as skilled as we are, we have to look for places to gain advantage wherever possible. If we were using identical lists, this would be a very difficult challenge. However, we have the luxury of stacking the deck so to speak: we can bring whatever list we want.

Warhammer 40,000, despite the occasional potential alpha strike first turn blow out, is an attrition game when played by skilled, experienced players. Killing a unit here, losing a unit there, trying to gain incremental advantage until by the end game you have an insurmountable lead.

But that’s a 50/50 split, at best. You need to build into your list a way to get advantage that will compensate for your potential play mistakes or a few turns of sub-average rolls. Where do you start?

Like most wargames, 40k is a game of threats and responses. Your units are both threats and responses to your opponent’s threats. This is important to remember. To gain an edge, you have to answer your opponent’s threats, while having your threats go unanswered. There are a few common methods of doing achieving this in list building…

1. Points efficiency. If your units are identical to your opponent’s, but yours are 5% cheaper across the board you have a decided edge. Since our units are not identical (despite the cries of Xenos players!) we have to make sure the units we do select are as points efficient as possible. Always compare the potential damage output from a unit vs. the points it costs against units of a similar role within your book. Yes, Black Templars get cheaper Land Speeder Typhoons than Ultramarines, but that doesn’t mean that Typhoons are an inefficient unit for Ultramarines. We cannot control external balance except by playing a different codex, so you should keep your comparisons internal.

2. Multi-purpose units. Auto-cannons and missiles are good at killing vehicles and infantry. Lascannons are only really good at killing vehicles. Heavy bolters are only really good at killing infantry. Therefore, your best bet is brining significantly more auto-cannons and missiles than either lascannons or heavy bolters. Multi-purpose units allow you to answer a greater range of your opponent’s threats. It prevents your list from having a single point of failure. If all your anti-infantry is a set of Devastators with 4x Heavy Bolters, all your opponent need do is kill them, and his infantry go unanswered. The important lesson is spread your answers and threats out over multiple units, and bring units that can threaten multiple types. When 6^th launched lots of people proclaimed lascannons as “back.” I wouldn’t be so sure about that.

3. Difficult to answer threats. Like the others, this is self-explanatory. If your opponent has no answers to your threats, you will probably end up winning. Let’s look at Nob Bikerz again. By the end of 5^th they were hardly a threat, because they stopped being difficult to answer. When every army had 20+ missiles per turn, these lost their mojo. Now with 6^th, that particular answer is not an answer at all, and the Nob Bikerz are now a difficult to answer threat. Land Raiders are also difficult to answer for people without melta. There is a fine line between brining difficult to answer threats and bringing an imbalanced list. If you sacrifice too much of your list in bringing rocks/deathstars etc then you run the risk of not having enough multi-purpose units.

4. Isolate a short-coming in answers. Spamming vehicles, or running hordes of infantry isn’t in and of itself a great strategy. They are the brute force way of isolating a shortage of answers, and not the sort of thing us creative types want to do. Take a look at BA Jumpers. People realized that jumpers with priests took advantage of a lack of efficient answers. Nobody was bringing plasmaguns in large numbers, and nobody was bringing Vindicators. So nobody had enough guns to shoot the FNP 3+ armor jumpers off the board with ease. They took advantage of a ‘hole in the metagame.’ Nobody is bringing Plasma weapons? Bring an army that can only be stopped by lot’s of plasma. This seems obvious, like saying, “if nobody plays scissors, play paper.” But it really isn’t because 40k is infinitely more complex than RPS. Most people gear their lists to beat Marines, Rhinos, hordes of cheap infantry, and Land Raiders. Attack them in a way that differs from all of those things (like BA Jumpers) and you can gain huge advantage. Fliers and allies allow these types of out of the box threats to see a lot more play, and I think Timmah does a good job of breaking down the concept for 6^th in his post here.

Again, this stuff sounds like pretty basic stuff, but we are all in uncharted territory and a back to basics approach is a productive way to go.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions?

Hobby: My Workbench

2012-07-08T13:00:00.000-04:00

Just a brief aside from all the captivating theory posts, I thought I'd share what's on my workbench. I've been working on a vanilla marines list (to be posted soon!) and I've had to paint. My goal is to paint my vanillas and BT's to have the same color scheme as my Grey Knights so they can all use the same Dreads/Vehicles etc. The plus side is the scheme is very easy for me to paint, and at least from a few feet away looks like a good paint job. So here is a shot from my current workbench, 10 TH/SS termies and a few random tactical marines that I need to get done to fill out my squads.

About 90% done, and then will need to be based. But I predict I'll be done by the end of this weekend.

Things That Were Awesome In 5th And Suck In 6th

2012-07-06T17:25:00.000-04:00

When we last met, I made a list of things I’ve observed that were not as valuable in 5^th Edition, but are going to be much more important in 6^th Edition. This time I would like to touch on some things that dominated 5^th Edition, but are not nearly as overwhelming in 6^th. The title is misleading, most of these things don't suck now, they just aren't as awesome as they used to be.

Shaking like an epileptic

1. Fortitude. In a world where vehicles were suppressed by shake stunning, Fortitude was the king. Most armies loaded themselves up with Strength 6-8 weapons in order to suppress as many vehicles per turn as they could, which allowed them to “deal” with the vehicles with minimum firepower. This in turn allowed them to focus overwhelming resources on immediate threats. Grey Knights trumped this. If you wanted to suppress the Psyfleman dread, or the Rhino full of Purifiers, you had to kill them. This was a force multiplier for the outnumbered GK, which allowed them to avoid being defeated by simple torrent of fire.

Unfortunately (or fortunately?) this paradigm is over. Vehicles will only rarely be shaken or stunned. Vehicles are more likely to be destroyed before they are shaken. Therefore, anything that mitigates shake stun effects are vastly reduced in value. The very torrent of fire that they were designed to be immune from is now deadly. Additionally, the downside of Perils on a Fortitude test used to be negliable. A glancing hit, no big deal. Most likely it would be another shaken result, which was what they were hit with anyway so it was no drawback at all. Now suffering a glancing hit is downright deadly. You have a Psyfleman with 1 hull point left. You gonna take the risk of rolling Fortitude? It used to be a no-brainer. Now, you really have to weigh your options.

2. Missile Spam. Missiles are still good, make no mistake. But as we came to find out, they dominated 5^th Edition. Not only were they great at playing the light mech game, but they had another function few give them credit for: they made Nob Bikerz go away. The solution to the menace of Nob Bikerz was putting instant death wounds on them which ignored their Feel No Pain and removed whole models, which meant Strength 8, 9, or 10 wounds. Missiles were the cheapest option of these, and most armies could take them. Once most armies began loading up on missiles, Nob Bikerz stopped winning. In 6^th Edition, Missiles neither ignore Feel No Pain, nor remove whole models of Nob Bikerz. Uh oh!

Since missiles are no longer a win button against deathstars, their role is primarily anti-vehicle with some modular usage against infantry. But as a primarily anti-vehicle weapon, they are outclassed by Auto-cannons (rate of fire) and Lascannons (quality of fire and all important AP2). They are increasingly beginning to look like a jack of all trades in an environment where specialization is the key to success. I don’t know yet if krak missiles will be totally sidelines in 6^th, but they certainly aren’t going to be the kings of the battlefield anymore.

3. Fire Dragons. These took a big hit. In 5^th, melta was so vital that their existence was the only thing that kept Eldar on the map after the novelty of Bike Seer Councils wore off. In 6^th, melta is so much less vital. Except against Land Raiders, melta isn’t required to stop vehicles reliably. Now, any high strength weapon with decent rate of fire can do it reliably. Melta appears to have gone from a generalist weapon, to a specialist weapon. Since Eldar do not get cheap Lance weapons, they still need their melta to stop certain threats, so Fire Dragons are still obligatory. So while they are still obligatory, they go from being a 5 star unit to a 3.5 star unit. Also, you Eldar players are probably going to find that in a world where AP1 and AP2 is very valuable, you have a codex with no Plasma guns on infantry, and Fusion Guns will serve as a bad version of a Plasma Gun. I predict Fire Dragons will be shooting a lot of shots at Paladins and Nobz in the coming months until you get a new codex with cheap lances, and Star Rifles (or something like that to fill the Plasma role).

4. Fateweaver. Say what you will about Fatecrusher being a noob slayer: it’s powerful. Fateweaver was previous stopped by focus firing and running him off the table or just killing him. But, as many armies were composed of single shot missiles, there was a decent mathematical chance of him surviving the turn. In 6^th, I predict that the average rates of fire will tick upwards across most armies. If this is so, Fateweave may be in serious trouble. A world of 12 missile shots per turn at his head was scary. A world with 24 autocannon shots per turn coming his way is a death sentence. Oddly enough, if Autocannons come to replace missiles where possible, Fateweaver will get worse. But the Bloodcrushers will get better. Curious!

5. Vulkan. So the stuff I said about melta for Fire Dragons? It is a knock against Vulkan too. In 5^th, marine armies having enough melta was absolutely crucial to success, and Vulkan made that game plan even better. The fact that he also buffed Thunderhammers (which were super good) and Flamers (also good) was a bonus. As melta goes, so goes Vulkan. And in 6^th it does not appear to be the game changer it was. Oh but Thunderhammers. They are good, but since they don’t do anything to vehicles anymore, they are Powerfists for all intents and purposes. Which is fine, except outside of terminators you pay a points premium for them over fists, so bump that now. Lastly, Flamers took a hit. They were never mandatory in marine lists, but Heavy Flamers on a Speeder or combi-flamer on a sergeant were always strong in Vulkan lists.

Those things are still decent, but with cover going from 4++ to 5++, the value of cover ignoring weapons is correspondingly less valuable. In summary, all three things that Vulkan buffs are either directly nerfed, or paradigm shifted out of favor. Vulkan, naturally then, went from being one of the best units in the game to being more marginal. Still good, but not dominating.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions?

Things That Sucked in 5th But Are Awesome In 6th

2012-07-04T12:38:00.000-04:00

Hey gang. After having a few games under my belt I'm going to refrain from claiming to have solved the game or know what's the end all, be all of 6th Edition. That said, I have made some observations that I think stand up pretty well.

Fortunately for the world, everyone and their brother have been talking about their views on 6th Edition. Rather than rehash everyone else's topics, I thought I would discuss units that were either bad or mediocre in 5th edition which have become strong in 6th. This can be either rules that directly improve them, or more commonly, rules encourage a style of play that indirectly benefit them. So without further adieu...

Oh wait, I was good in 5th too!

1. Deathstars. But only certain ones. Multi-wound models are ideal, but what's most important is the models count as upgrade characters: Sergeants, Warlocks, Nobz, etc. The key to manipulating wound allocation now is being able to bounce wounds as needed regardless of positioning. Farseer with Fortune leading a unit of Warlocks with an attacked 2+ armor save Phoenix Lord are cute, because on a 2+ you can't move any AP2 shots directed at the PL to a Warlock who gets a 4++ re-rollable save. Conversely, if you get lit up by a Battle Cannon, on a 4+ you can move wounds to the PL who gets a re-rollable 2+ armor save. This will ensure that an already tough to kill unit is even tougher to kill. Multi-wound units like Mega-Nobz are even crazier to get rid of, and if they are on bikes the old plan of Power Fists/Thunder Hammers instant killing them doesn't work so well.

2. Powerfists. As a corollary, IC's armed with Fists/Hammers are insane. They have a 2+ LOS to keep clean of wounds. What this means is, any Fearless/ATSKNF unit with an IC with a fist is going to inevitably grind you to nothing. The Fist will do a couple of wounds every turn and will never be killed, and will never break. This is very scary. A lowly Ork Warboss with a Claw in a unit of 30 Boyz can easily wipe units several times their points value if you can't kill the IC. A possible solution is gearing your IC's to beat up other IC's in challenges, in order to mitigate the damage they can do.

3. Attack Bikes. Multi-melta attack bikes were outclassed by MM Speeders in 5th. In 6th, however, Attack Bikers are survivable whereas MM Speeders are not. Attack bikes are mostly immune to Instant Death now, whereas before one Krak Missile ended their day. Attack bikes can still be torrented down by small arms fire, but they stand up better to lascannons/missiles than Speeders. Typhoon Speeders are still good, but bringing an MM Speeder into a range where it can be effective is suicide. As Attack Bikers are slightly more survivable, and cost fewer points, I see them replacing MM Speeders by and large.

4. Predators. Oh yes. These are all stars now. Doubt me at your own expense. Predators are now the choice de jour of Vanilla/BT/DA/Chaos Space Marine Heavy Support. BA and SW get insanely cheap Devastators that you can't pass on, but everyone else should be taking Predators outside of special builds. Here why: fire suppression is dead. The entire concept of Shake Stunning a Predator the whole game until you randomly Wreck it is over. AV13 at 36-48" is going to shoot at you every turn and you won't stop it until it's dead. Sure, you can focus fire on one, but it's going to take 5 or 6 Missile Shots from an MEQ to remove one Hull Point. So essentially, to Catch a Predator is a significant firepower investment. You might get lucky and Explode it, or Shake along the way, but for the most part, the overall firepower a Predator brings to the table over the course of the game is vastly improved from 5th. And from a cost effective standpoint, they compare favorably to Devastators for the books I cited above. This is similar to the next entry...

5. Vindicators/Demolishers. I said it. They sucked in 5th, but they have game in 6th. For starters, the drawback of "one gun syndrome" is significantly lessened. You're just as likely to Explode it as you are to Weapon Destroyed it. And you are significantly more likely to simply Wreck it long before either of those results. So guess what: it will shoot it's Cannons every turn until it dies. And unlike 5th, they smash vehicles to smithereens. And they kill Nob bikers to smithereens. Don't get me wrong, they are not the end all be all, but they are vastly, vastly improved. For Templars and Blood Angels, they should be strongly, strongly considered as they will get to shoot before midfield weapons like Psycannons/Multi-meltas can even think about stopping them. Going back to the Nob Bikerz, if T5+ deathstars (which several codices can do now) become a force on the tournament scene, the value of Vindis will only increase.

6. Chaos Havoks with Autocannons. In my opinion, if you gave me the option of a gun that fired one shot that could easily penetrate a vehicle, or a gun that fired multiple shots that easily glance a vehicle, I'll take the latter. Glances are how you reliably kill anything short of AV14. That being the case, Havoks with Auto-Cannons are kings of the battlefield. A single unit of AC havoks will do about 2.66 glances to a Rhino per turn. A unit with Krak missiles will do 1.75 glances. Yes, the Kraks are more likely to penetrate, but you are going to kill the Rhino with glances before you kill it by exploding. That being the case, Havoks with AC are the superior choice for Light Mech control. Additionally, the AC Havoks have more game against Monstrous Creatures, Flyers and random Infantry than Missiles. Unfortunately for most loyalist Marines, their Devs don't get AC, so that leaves Chaos Marines smiling. Do you bring Predators or Havoks? Either choice is good, but Predators are clearly more cost effective with AC/LC than as Dakka Preds. If you want anti-heavy mech, Predators. Anti-Light Mech or MC, Havoks. It comes down to how good the remainder of your list is at killing the other stuff.

I have some more of these, and I'll share them with you guys in future installments. So for now I'll warn you about this: if you dismiss AV13 long ranged firepower as non-competitive, you'll be making a huge mistake. Keep bringing Missile Devs and MM Speeders to your own detriment.

Thoughts?

Why I Am Not Blogging About 6th Today...

2012-06-30T17:07:00.000-04:00

...too busy painting. Going to try to get my 6th Edition Templars painted up to the (admittedly mediocre) standard of my Grey Knights. Since I intend for those two armies to share Rhinos/Dreads/Razorbacks I want them to have matching color schemes. Plus there are those times where I will feel like doing some Vulkan Vanilla lists and the uniform paint scheme will be an asset.

So I have applied the Boltgun Metal basecoat to my entire super secret 6th edition BT list and the next step is black wash, follow by mithral and skull white highlights, and then blue/red energy effects. I'm guessing the painting will be done by next weekend, and then hopefully basing shortly thereafter. Who knows, if they are ready you may see them at NOVA.

If you want to hear my initial thoughts head over to Laeroth's blog where a good discussion of Templar related fun is happening.

Not bad for 5 hours of work

Black Templars and 6th Edition Rumors Part 2

2012-06-25T17:25:00.001-04:00

I’ve kept an intentionally low profile on the 6^th Edition speculation, because previously I was awfully pessimistic. I would rate my current outlook on competitive 6^th Edition as “Very Cautiously Optimistic.”

Without going into a whole ordeal, I have a mere three gripes with everything I have heard. However, what my gripes lack in plurality they gain individual potential to ruin the game.

First, I think allies have the potential to totally break the game. If the rules are handled properly it could be done balanced; but it’s far more likely that allies will either be out of control, or never worth using. I don’t know yet exactly what the restrictions will be, but I can’t think of many ways that they would be GOOD for tournament play. While they may not harm it, they certainly can’t help it. Even if the rules for allies prevent all broken combos, except one, that one is enough to spoil the whole thing.

Second, I think buying fortifications are super dumb. Look at the all the drama around the blogosphere surrounding NOVA’s terrain and how it matches up with individuals’ conceptions of how 40k terrain should be. Terrain is, clearly, a very touchy issue and incredibly difficult to balance. So any rule that lets a player manipulate or place his own terrain is bound to create all kinds of balance issues. Again, fortifications might be balanced for 90% of the lists that would take them, but the 10% that are wildly imbalanced are enough to ruin a tournament.

Third, one of the deployments is short table edges. This is so scary, because it puts certain armies at an immediate disadvantage while greatly benefitting others. Of the three issues, I feel this is the easiest to mitigate, especially since most tournaments use long edge deployments for each scenario anyway regardless of the alternatives.

In summation, the things I listed have the potential to be OK if handled absolutely perfectly, but if handled wrong could be a disaster. I highly doubt the risk is worth the reward, but the allies and fortifications rules seem like something that the sales wing of the company forced the design portion of the company to include. Top down game design from non-designers is usually bad. And I’ll leave it at that with my fingers crossed.

On a positive note…

Many of the rumors I thought would make Templars awesome are confirmed. Er, as confirmed as they could be at this juncture.

Re-rolling ur misses, and sometimes ur wounds

Let’s list the things that are stronger in 6^th that Templars have the best of already…

1. Terminators. Ours are the same price as everyone else’s, shoot at vehicles better, and fight in close combat better than everyone else’s. Oh yeah, power weapons are “confirmed” to be AP3 last I heard. Game on.

2. Skimmers. Our Typhoon speeders are cheaper than everyone else. And now they can get a cover save. This isn’t a huge upgrade, but if I’m reading correctly they can go flat out, get a cover save, and shoot their weapons at BS1. Fine by me. Two frag missiles at BS1 can still do some decent damage to infantry. This is just a strike upgrade.

3. Preferred Enemy. The re-roll of 1’s to wound is great, since 1’s are the only thing Thunderhammers don’t wound on. Since vehicles have weapon skill now, I also assume this works on vehicles, though I wouldn’t be shocked if they word it to say “non-vehicle” units or something to that effect.

4. Land Raiders. 4 Hull Points and the new vehicle damage chart means that the only thing killing them quickly is a lot of melta. This means that a Crusader will likely get to deliver it’s payload, and a godhammer can shoot at range all day. What long range weapons will someone bring that can reliably pop a Land Raider now? It is pretty darn hard for a Lascannon to do it since glances don’t mean much to a Land Raider anymore. I don’t know if that will be enough to get people to bring Godhammers, but it might.

What are my initial thoughts? Tough to say. All the things, except the Typhoons, that I mentioned are not cheap. You could write a list with terminators and land raiders that is really bad. Too many shiny toys. But in a tournament like NOVA, we’ve seen kp/vp denial lists do rather well.

On the other hand, I could also envision a list with three troops sitting in dedicated transport Land Raiders just holding objectives all day with Terminators providing shooting and counter charge duties. It would probably not be the ideal way to do a BT list in 6^th, but we have seen that 2 or 3 nearly indestructible troop choices can be as good as 6 cheap ones.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions?

Games Workshop Webstore and the Tournament Scene

2012-06-15T12:29:00.001-04:00

Games Workshop doesn’t allow 3^rd party companies to sell their products on the web, and the end result of this is we have a national Grand Tournament scene that is patchwork at best. How are these concepts related? I’ll explain.

Running a Grand Tournament now is a labor of love. I’m fairly sure Mike Brandt isn’t quitting his day job anytime soon, and he isn’t paying for Christmas with the tremendous NOVA profits. And while the prize support is admirably large, and the Invitational does have a cash prize, we are still far from a “Pro Tour” or anything resembling it. Kudos to the sponsors of the current Grand Tournaments, I’m sure their return on investment is not lighting the world on fire.

Let’s compare it to Magic. Magic does have a professional tournament series, but it also has several semi-professional cash tournament series. How does Magic support tournaments that give away $25,000 a weekend in cash prizes? They allow 3^rd parties to sell their products on the web, and they don’t sell theirs on the web. The major 3^rd party Magic sellers (starcitygames.com and tcgplayer.com) are able to generate tremendous market share by supporting their respective tournament series. While I’m sure they turn a tidy profit on their tournaments, I’m also sure that those profits pale in comparison to the profits they make from their webstores, which is fueled by the publicity of their tournaments.

If GW changed their policy, we could have a major US web-retailer, like thewarstore, sponsor a tournament series. It would make economic sense for them to organize the entire U.S. GT circuit, even if the tournaments themselves are a breakeven or slight loss. If there was a 128-256 open tournament every other weekend with significant cash prizes, and live webstreaming coverage, attendance would be exceptional. And you can imagine the sales they would make if, while watching someone destroy their opponent on the streaming coverage with Thunderwolf Cavalry, they were able to quickly add one to their checkout cart.

Why would GW go for this? Because in the long run, they would sell more product. Tournaments generate interest in the game. Tournament coverage sells more specific products as the streaming coverage shows the top players in the game winning with the best lists. Eventually a critical mass is reached where the tournament series becomes big enough that the 3^rd party web sales dwarf Games-Workshop’s current proprietary websales.

Why would we, as players, want these changes? Foremost, it will increase the level of competition. Having a tournament series were the top 32 players can reasonably expect to at least break even on their travel expenses every weekend means that there will be much less of a barrier to entry. As of today, Grand Tournaments attract locals, and die hards. About 3 Grand Tournaments per year attract a national audience. And of those, only the absolute die hards attend all 3. Being able to have a positive EV for the good players will encourage the best players nationally to show up to the events, which will increase the level of competition. All the current “best players” claim they want more competitive games; this would ensure it.

What about the normal, average players? They buy the dream. Maybe they play in a local GT and determine they can be competitive with the top players nationally, they will start traveling to an event or two. Maybe they are a top dog at their LGS but never considered ‘making the jump.’ Under this system, they have a huge incentive to up their game and make the jump to a national tournament circuit.

Lastly, the game system benefits. Right now we have 455748574 tournament organizers each playing a slightly modified version of the game based around their individual FAQ’s and errata. If there was a unified, national tournament circuit fostering an inevitable level of professionalism, you can imagine it would not take long for the rules to be unified to a level where people are “playing the same game” in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. This is a huge benefit to casual players that don’t even intend to play in tournaments, since unified tournament rules are essential to fostering a fair game that everyone understands even in their beer and pretzels games.

Do I expect any of this to happen? Probably not anytime soon. Games-Workshop’s unspoken policy is to discourage any sort of competitive gameplay, and to continue to exert draconian control over their websales. These two are not likely to change without a change of the CEO and board of directors; either of which will most likely only occur if the company is purchased by a major player like Hasbro. And even then, there is no telling that Hasbro would run the game the same way as they do Magic.

Nonetheless, the path has already been laid out by Magic’s independent tournament series, and all it would take to duplicate it would be a single corporate memo from the CEO. So hope is alive.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions?

Black Templars, 6th Edition, and Close Combat

2012-06-06T13:52:00.000-04:00

I've tried to stay away from everything coming out of the rumor mill in regards to 6th Edition, but I think some of the recent stuff is solid enough that it's worth speculating on. Two things I've read recently seemed to scream out "Black Templars" to me, and that's a good thing. Good Black Templar news has been pretty slim lately after the codex rumors were proven to be fake.

Fingers crossed, but we're coming back!

First, AP is a thing in close combat so we hear, and we also hear that power weapons are AP3. Terminators rejoice! This is a huge, huge deal. In most armies, the dedicated close combat units are armed with power weapons. These units are no longer scary to terminators. Thus, the tier system for close combat is much different.

Close Combat Tiers 5th Edition:

1. Storm Shield Terminators

2. Rending infantry units with lot's of attacks

3. Power weapon armed elite infantry of various sorts

4. Non-dedicated units that can still beat normal troops (shooty terminators)

Now it's safe to assuming that Rending is going to be AP3 which would give it parity with power weapons. I could be totally wrong, and it could be AP2, but it would seem odd to me for Rending attacks to be superior to power weapons. Time will tell.

Close combat tiers 6th Edition

1. Storm Shield Terminators

2. Power fist armed 2+ infantry (shooty terminators, mega-nobz)

3. Lightning Claw Terminators (these are usable again because while they still lose to SS terminators, they beat power weapon and rending infantry now, where they used to lose to.)

4. Shooty terminators

5. Renders

6. Power weapon armed infantry (these guys dropped way down the ladder. Sure they can take out basic troops with ease, but so can everything above them on the list. And they lose horribly to everything above them on the list. In a world full of Paladins (who become insanely powerful in close combat now to everything except SS terminators) these things are practically unusable.)

These changes put BT in a pretty good position, if true. While Preferred Enemy is likely catching a nerf, our SS terminators are likely superior to anybody else's except Vulkan. Our Lightning Claws terminators are also superior to most others' with the ability to get Furious Charge; so if they turn out to be a usable unit, they could see play. The problem is it would be hard to think of a situation where you'd want the LC guys when you have the choice, maybe against horde armies, but that's about it.

Also, since our shooty terminators are the best in the business. Yes, hi we get 2 Cyclone Launchers, Tank Hunters (which will do something good in 6th we can assume) and we no longer have to fear getting assaulted by power weapon armed infantry. This puts BT in a very good place. Our shooty terminators literally only fear TH/SS terminators, which is something they already feared. Since fearing TH/SS terminators is nothing new, and BT players still usually took 2+ squads of the shooty terminators I don't see why you would take fewer now. In fact, an argument could be made to bring a 3rd squad over the usual heavy support choice of Predators/Vindicators that people bring. Really, the only thing that could slow it down is if Tank Hunters is useless. If it remains the same, it will be a no brainer to load up on these guys. If it comes lame, we will have to re-evaluate. But even without Tank Hunters, 2 units of these are still one of the best things a BT list could be doing.

Moving along.

The next 'rumor' is a bit more speculative. Stelek has been stating that Land Raiders will be competitive in 6th Edition. What will the change be? He hasn't said specifics, but the reason why they are unplayable now is that they die to cheap crap melta units. So we can assume that anything which makes them good again means that either melta gets some kind of a nerf, or AV14 gets some kind of a buff. No real need to speculate. But let's assume that Land Raiders are competitive again. While I take that with a grain of salt, Stelek has been known to be not talking about of his ass about upcoming releases.

So who has the best Land Raiders? That'd be Black Templars. Our Land Raiders don't die to Lances, and if AV14 is somehow melta-resistant, that means our Land Raiders don't die to very much at all. This is good for BT, obviously. Remember the new close combat tier list I made up there? Our dedicated CC units are better than almost everybody else's. And now our delivery mechanism is better than everybody else's. This could be very good. Since our Heavy Support section has, since our Typhoon Land Speeders got buffed, been the weak link in our FoC we have the points to spend on a Land Raider. The hard part will be deciding between CC terminators in a Land Raider or 3 units of Shooty Terminators.

The answer, I suspect, will come down to what they do with Tank Hunters and Preferred Enemy. I haven't heard anything about those abilities, so it's hard to speculate further. One thing I will say, if AV14 is hard to kill, and Kill Points stick around, that could be something to consider. BT can do a kill point denial list with 5 Land Raiders very easily. If the switch is made back to VP, there will be a lot to figure out.

For the first time in a long time, I'm excited to be a BT player.

Thoughts, comments, questions?

Culling the Weak: Fixing The Bad Dark Elf Units Part One

2012-06-01T15:36:00.001-04:00

This series might come off badly. The Dark Elves are undeniably one of the most competitive books in Fantasy and transitioned very well to 8^th Edition. So complaining about the bad units might seem to some folks like a 40k player complaining about the crappy Grey Knights units.

Fair enough.

That said, some of the Dark Elves bad units have exceptionally cool models or flavor. It is hard to describe how badly players want Executioners to be playable models. They are so cool that people jump through insane hoops just to turn them into a mediocre unit on the tabletop while gimping the rest of their army in the first place. People are willing to ignore reality in order to maintain a false hope. Don’t believe me? How do you think organized religion rakes in so much cash?

Note I am not a game designer, so I can’t argue that the proposed changes are perfectly balanced, but I’ll do my best. If something seems amiss, let me know in the comments.

First up, Executioners.

How can you not want to play models this cool?

Why they are bad

They are the worst imaginable version of High Elf Swordmasters. For 12 points a piece, they are strength 6 with killing blow and hatred. Sounds great! But they are toughness 3 with 5+ armor and Always Strike Last. Sounds fucking awful! The Swordmasters get uber strikers first, which by eliminates the strikes last, and also gives them Hatred. Killing Blow, unfortunately, is irrelevant when you are Strength 6. Nothing that can be killed with Killing Blow is going survive your hits anyway, so it’s a useless ability. Don’t yell at me, I know that mathhammer-wise, it combos well with Hatred to result in a lot of extra kills. Irrelevant.

The main reason why they are bad boils down to simply this: they are squishy elves who strike last. Very lame. The only way to make up for the fact that they die before they get to strike is to buy more of them. That is what my friends in finance call “throwing good money after bad.” When you have a bad hand, you don’t double down on it, especially when your opponent knows you have a bad hand and will call your bluff. Just dumb.

Design Philosophy

So how do you fix them without making them ridiculous like Swordmasters? Good question. Allowing them to take 35 point banners so they can take the ASF banner is the most frequent suggestion. But that’s dumb, because you shouldn’t have to buy a specific magic banner in order to make your unit do the basic task that it was designed to do. That would be pretty poor game design, and I’ll immediately dismiss it.

Another limit to set is that they can’t be better than Swordmasters. If our goal is to fix them, I’m not going to ‘fix’ them in a way that makes them better or equal to some other broken unit.

The last limit is that I can’t make them better than Blackguard. Blackguard are the best infantry unit in the army book on the table top and from a fluff perspective, they ought to be. So if I make a unit that immediately outclasses them, why would anyone bring Blackguard outside of some theme list?

Fixing Them

Har Ganeth Executioners 17 points per model

Unit Size

5-20

Equipment

Heavy Armor

Draich (counts as a great weapon)

Special Rules

Eternal Hatred

Khainite

Cold-blooded Killers

Cold-blooded Killers: Executioners don’t slowly torture their victims like most Dark Elves; they are trained to kill exerting the minimum necessary effort, ideally with a single blow. A unit of Executioners must decide at the beginning of each round of combat between the following two options: Always Strike Last but gain Killing Blow, or to strike at their normal initiative.

Rationale

I limited their unit size to prevent people from making hordes. Being able to attack with a third rank is a little too good when you are I5 and Str6. I wanted to limit the amount of potential casualties they could inflict in a single round of combat to a maximum of 20, assuming they rolled perfectly.

I upgraded their points cost, since they did receive a power boost in order to keep Blackguard competitive. The changes overall fully distinguish the roles for each unit. Executioners are designed to put out a small number of accurate high strength attacks. They are best at cutting down enemy heavy infantry. Blackguard are designed to output tons of medium strength accurate attacks to mow down medium and light infantry. Now their roles are more distinguished.
Additionally, I kept them much less powerful than Swordmasters. You might argue that they are now overpowered. Compare them with Chaos Warriors armed with Halberds and Mark of Khorne. They are probably a little worse overall than Khorne Warriors for about the same amount of points, which is fair since Chaos Warriors are supposed to be around the power level of other armies’ elite infantry.

Thoughts? Comments? Questions?

Army Comparison: Daemons of Chaos vs. Warriors of Chaos

2012-05-28T12:44:00.000-04:00

Battlereporter

This Fantasy Battles Army Comparison pits the forces of the Chaos Gods against each other in a battle royale. Each of these armies fared rather well in 7^th Edition, where Daemons were widely considered one of the top tier armies. In 8^th the Daemons have fallen from the top of the pedestal but are still considered quite strong. The Warriors have had a rougher transition to 8^th Edition, as the units that were considered powerful or weak respectively are almost completely reversed. This change took a while for players to understand, but it appears that Warriors of Chaos are also quite competitive.

Warriors of Chaos’ Advantages

The Warriors chief strength in this edition are their infantry. The heavily armored warriors are as hard as any infantry in the game, while the Marauders may not be tough to kill, but on a point for point basis, few units in the game can match them for offensive potential. Add into the mix the possibility of a Chosen unit that can easily be configured to become a near unstoppable deathstar, and you have some of the strongest infantry contingents available. Unless you count throwing axes, the WoC don’t have any shooting to speak of. They will primarily close out games in bloody close combat.

Unfortunately, there is no much to support this infantry with. The Chaos Knights, in 7^th Edition on of the most powerful units on the battlefield, are relegated to nearly unplayable thanks to Steadfast. Being unable to break ranked infantry and costing a ton of points means that their practical applications are far and few between. Chaos chariots are fine items, but rather expensive, nothing to be especially excited about. Chosen are fine choices, but they basically do what the Core infantry already does, but slight better and for slightly more points. The most compelling reason to take Chosen is crafting a deathstar, but that isn’t everyone’s cup of tea.

In the Rares, the Warriors have two lines. The Hellcannon packs a huge punch and packs serious firepower. Hellcannons do enough damage that they are usually priority number one for the opposing army. Alternatively, you can bring Warshrines, which are essential for the Chosen, but not terribly bad with normal Warriors. Warshrines are definitely an “all in” infantry approach, and could lead to blowout games one way or the other.

Magic was such a huge part of Warriors in 7^th Edition. A Tzeentch sorcerer lord could generate more power dice than almost anybody, and Gateway was the most powerful spell in the edition. Now, Gateway is merely average among powerful spells in each Lore, and the Sorcerer Lord doesn’t generate enough extra dice to dominate the magic phase. A further knock, Sorcerer Lords are the fightiest wizard in the game, and you pay points for that. What that means is, you are forced to waste points on a trait you aren’t going to take a great advantage of. Lastly, if you want to take a rulebook Lore, you have to play unmarked, which means that you lose access to several of Tzeentch based buffs that give the Lord a chance during the magic phase. That said, Gateway might not be quite as powerful as Purple Sun, or Dwellers, but it is still quite a threat.

It kinda sounds like I listed the disadvantages of Warriors, and to an extent that is true. While their cavalry got the shaft, and their wizards are no longer the kings of the battlefield, their infantry are so much stronger than most opposition that it makes up for these disadvantages.

Daemonic Advantages

Foremost, the Daemons have a very strong magic phase that the Warriors have to be jealous of. Pink Horrors are a rock solid core unit that also doubles as a wizard. Tzeentch magic, thanks to Master of Sorcery, means that the Daemons don’t have to even bring a Level 4 to dominate the phase. Master of Sorcery grants Loremaster to the Herald of Tzeentch, so with two Heralds you can construct an array of spell choices that give you “must-dispel” threats against nearly any opponent. This also gives access to Lore of Life which…

…makes Bloodletters absolutely insane. A large unit of Bloodletters lead by a Herald for Hatred and buffed with Life spells, or with opponents debuffed from Shadow means they can beat nearly anyone in close combat. The Bloodletters high strength and high weapon skill plus Hatred mean that they should be able to beat down on Warriors in close combat. Only units of truly cheap hordes can really stand up to them in close combat.

Daemons don’t have terrific cavalry, as Juggernauts are insanely expensive and Fleshhounds suffer from the same nerf as Chaos Knights. However, Flamers of Tzeentch are golden. They are expensive, but they have absolutely withering firepower. That and a 4++ ward save means they can outshoot even the shootiest enemy units. Plus being Skirmishers, they are hard to pin down in close combat. They are probably the best flank protectors available. They chew up and spit out units like fast cavalry or war eagles.

The characters are extreme. The Tzeentch Heralds are super powerful casters who can dominate the magic phase from the Hero choice slot. Khorne Heralds are among the fighiest characters at the Hero level. Not too many Lord level fighy character can hand a Herald of Khorne, so on a point for point basis they are nearly unbeatable.

Results

This match clearly advantages the Daemons. Their choppy infantry is cheaper than the Warriors and has high enough strength to make the armor advantage rather inconsequential. Additionally, the Daemon magic phase has more potential to dominate the game than does the Warriors’. The Warrior’s main trump card is the ability of the Hellcannons to inflict enough casualties to the Bloodletters to make the inevitable infantry combat winnable. The Daemons lack of long range threats outside of Magic means that the Hellcannon should be able to do their thing, and could have a strong influence on the outcome.

Additionally, the Warriors can bring more close combat potential to the field than the Daemons. Multiple large warrior units, alongside multiple large Marauder units put the Daemons who will have at most two units of Bloodletters in a quandry: without significant magic support, the ‘Letters will lose through attrition eventually.

The bottom line is these armies facing each other will come down to how effective the Daemons magic is vs. the Hellcannon’s ability to wither the Bloodletters. Whichever side asserts their dominance in these respective areas should be able to parlay that into a win. That said, my conclusion is that Daemons have a far easier time enacting their gameplan than the Warriors will with theirs.

Comments, questions, thoughts?