Warhammer 40K Tabletop Thread XXXVI: If it Ain't Broke, Nerf It

[DaedalusMkV]

It's not that hard.
The emphasis is theirs, not mine.

Any question that starts with "What if my opponent wants to..." is almost always answered by "Punch the clock. It's your time, not theirs. Make it their time."

Congratulations. Both players are now aggressively paying attention to the clock instead of the game. You've added a 'clock phase' fifty times a turn where both players need to stop what they're doing, reach over and hit a button. If I want to mess with my opponent, I am making him hit that button as many times as humanly possible during his turn because every time he takes his mind off the game he might miss something. Even if nobody's gaming the system, both players need to spend five seconds or so every time either needs to make a decision reaching over (or walking over, 6' wide tables are longer than the average arm, and the clock is often not going to be within the reach of both players) and hitting that button. Two players who would have finished a game with no time to spare now get 5 turns, and in any given time frame you've probably shaved a turn off of about a quarter of all the games happening if time was a concern for you in the first place.

If running out of time is a problem, forcing people to spend a bunch of time keeping track of how much time they've spent isn't the solution. Especially if nobody's actually intentionally slow-playing in the first place.

Look, I'm not sure what the community's like outside of my own. We had some problems with slow-players here for a while, people who would never, ever get past turn 4. We started putting a "how many turns did you get" section on the score sheets. If a player didn't finish any games before the last round, the TO went to talk to them before pairings. "Look, you're playing Guard and that's fine, but your games are going to time early every single time. That's not cool. Play faster." Then you hand over a list of the problem-causers to the next TO, and he does the same thing, only at the start of day two. Six months later, we were down to a list of about 3 people still not finishing games consistently (everybody runs out of time occasionally, it's how things work). They get emails. "Your style of play is becoming a problem. You don't finish games, and that's not fair to your opponents. Find a way to play a game of Warhammer in less than three hours or we're going to have to ask you to stop coming to events." One of the three gets huffy and quits. The second has a reality check, turns half of his Guardsmen into a couple of tanks and starts finishing games. The third keeps doing his thing, while also racking up accusations of shady play and cheating. He gets banned. While I haven't been a part of the competitive 40k scene here in a while, we went at least a year after that with only one or two games a round going to time. If you mostly get the same 40 or 50 people going to every event in different combinations, it only takes three or four events to find every single person who doesn't finish games and figure out a personalized solution. No clock necessary.

Of course, my experience with 8th is a little more limited, what with the whole 'not going to 40k tourneys any more' thing. If hordes are messing up the game and games consistently aren't being finished even by good players who aren't playing slow, you need to go have a chat with the horde players. "Dude, I know the internet told you that 120 Gants is how you win the game, but if you don't start finishing games you aren't going to be welcome at tournaments. Play faster or change your list, but I'd better not see 'turn 4' on your score sheet again. We both know you can finish games if you want to." Or you drop the points or up the time, if you want people playing giant piles of models. Either way, clocks are not going to help unless you're able to find a third person to operate the clock while the actual players play the game.

[Requizen]

Congratulations. Both players are now aggressively paying attention to the clock instead of the game.

They'll pay attention to it as much as two people currently pay attention to the game time. That is - look over, and if there's less time than they think there should be, panic. Otherwise, don't think about it.

You've added a 'clock phase' fifty times a turn where both players need to stop what they're doing, reach over and hit a button. If I want to mess with my opponent, I am making him hit that button as many times as humanly possible during his turn because every time he takes his mind off the game he might miss something. Even if nobody's gaming the system, both players need to spend five seconds or so every time either needs to make a decision reaching over (or walking over, 6' wide tables are longer than the average arm, and the clock is often not going to be within the reach of both players) and hitting that button. Two players who would have finished a game with no time to spare now get 5 turns, and in any given time frame you've probably shaved a turn off of about a quarter of all the games happening if time was a concern for you in the first place.

Bull. It takes less time to lean over or take one step and hit a button than it does to look around for a tape measure or other implement, which people do all the time. Should we require people to strap it to their person to cut out the "gathering materials phase"? Complaining about the time it takes to reach over and touch something slightly out of reach is pretty asinine.

Literally the whole thing is just this: Did your turn end? Tap it to the opponent. Are they taking a non-zero action in your turn like deciding how to Deny, whether to use a CP, or counting Save Rolls? Tap it to the opponent. Is the other player taking a non-game action that's stopping you from playing the game, like going to get a TO or asking you to take your book out to show them a rule? Tap it to the opponent, or pause it (there's usually such a function) until you start playing again.

If it's something that takes less than a second, or you start having a conversation about rulings/mission/etc, you can pause or just keep playing and multitask. It's not that complicated, less so than knowing how the game itself is actually played.

If running out of time is a problem, forcing people to spend a bunch of time keeping track of how much time they've spent isn't the solution. Especially if nobody's actually intentionally slow-playing in the first place.

People are. It's not made up. It happens all the time at mid tables and up at big events. I've seen it as both a TO and a player.

Look, I'm not sure what the community's like outside of my own. We had some problems with slow-players here for a while, people who would never, ever get past turn 4. We started putting a "how many turns did you get" section on the score sheets. If a player didn't finish any games before the last round, the TO went to talk to them before pairings. "Look, you're playing Guard and that's fine, but your games are going to time early every single time. That's not cool. Play faster." Then you hand over a list of the problem-causers to the next TO, and he does the same thing, only at the start of day two. Six months later, we were down to a list of about 3 people still not finishing games consistently (everybody runs out of time occasionally, it's how things work). They get emails. "Your style of play is becoming a problem. You don't finish games, and that's not fair to your opponents. Find a way to play a game of Warhammer in less than three hours or we're going to have to ask you to stop coming to events." One of the three gets huffy and quits. The second has a reality check, turns half of his Guardsmen into a couple of tanks and starts finishing games. The third keeps doing his thing, while also racking up accusations of shady play and cheating. He gets banned. While I haven't been a part of the competitive 40k scene here in a while, we went at least a year after that with only one or two games a round going to time. If you mostly get the same 40 or 50 people going to every event in different combinations, it only takes three or four events to find every single person who doesn't finish games and figure out a personalized solution. No clock necessary.

This is also a feasible solution, but it's not all that straightforward. Not all TOs work together in some sort of network, especially when it comes to local events in a semi-wide area (midwest Warhammer covers 5-6 states at the minimum). And while it would be great for events to come together and ban people wholesale, many TOs are afraid to do it since it can easily turn into a situation where people will boycott your events and badmouth you if you ban them or their friends. And while that's not an issue for some people (obviously no one is skipping Adepticon, LVO, Nova, WHW Heats, etc if they were already planning on going), for smaller stores it can be a deathknell. I've seen a store's crowd die because one person got salty over how an event was being run and started haranguing everyone he knew online not to go to that store anymore. It happens and it sucks.

Additionally, those games might finish because the other player is rushing to make them finish, trying to be the polite person and accommodate the slow player. I've seen people rush through turns trying to make up for lost time or get in that last turn, knowing full well its their opponent's fault that they're short on time in the first place. And that's basically impossible to prove... without a chess clock.

Opinions, hearsay, and vague statements of "well I think I was taking the right amount of time..." don't mean anything in the face of objective mechanics like a clock.

Of course, my experience with 8th is a little more limited, what with the whole 'not going to 40k tourneys any more' thing. If hordes are messing up the game and games consistently aren't being finished even by good players who aren't playing slow, you need to go have a chat with the horde players. "Dude, I know the internet told you that 120 Gants is how you win the game, but if you don't start finishing games you aren't going to be welcome at tournaments. Play faster or change your list, but I'd better not see 'turn 4' on your score sheet again. We both know you can finish games if you want to." Or you drop the points or up the time, if you want people playing giant piles of models. Either way, clocks are not going to help unless you're able to find a third person to operate the clock while the actual players play the game.

Those things could help. Sometimes the person just needs talking to. Sometimes you need more time/smaller points. There's no one answer to the problem, and if the TO feels that they can and will seriously ban people, then that would help. But it's not been the case at both smaller, more local events, as well as bigger events. It's always a slap on the wrist and an unspoken vow from the player to just not get caught next time.

But if slow play itself is a systematic problem (which it seems like it is), then vague talkings to aren't going to do anything. Systematic issues require changing the system, and if you want to keep a similar time frame and point limit, that means having a consistent, objective tool that "outs" slow play.

[Avaris]

Y'know, all of this talk of clocks and running out of time really highlights why I'm interested to see how well Kill Team and Warhammer Underworlds develop as a competitive scene. They solve the problem of running a tournament in a reasonable amount of time by being smaller and quicker games which are more suited to the day or weekend long tournament model.

Now, people will always want to play large games competitively as well. I wonder if there is space for some out of the box thinking on how such tournaments can run? I don't know how many games tournaments try to fit into a day, but I assume it's more than 3? But lets say you're running a one day tournament where you know each player will get three games: morning, afternoon and evening. That's not enough time for a proper bracket unless you have less than 8 people, so are there other ways to identify a winner with less games being allowed more time? Perhaps keeping track of objective points scored across all games? Or something else?

[Requizen]

Y'know, all of this talk of clocks and running out of time really highlights why I'm interested to see how well Kill Team and Warhammer Underworlds develop as a competitive scene. They solve the problem of running a tournament in a reasonable amount of time by being smaller and quicker games which are more suited to the day or weekend long tournament model.

Both Arena and Underworlds are very well designed to be tournament games. Underworlds is designed to be played each round a Best of 3 (which is much better for competition in the long run) and Arena runs fast enough that you could do that quite easily as well.

It'll depend on how GW markets and supports it. Underworlds is already slowing down in my area, much to my dismay, since it's one of my favorite GW games from a design and gameplay standpoint. Arena is going to have a rough time of it - Kill Team didn't keep the hype it had at the beginning, and this expansion has it's own share of issues (price, way too long after the KT hype has settled, etc), but it's a great game for tournaments in general, so maybe that's enough? Only time will tell.

Now, people will always want to play large games competitively as well. I wonder if there is space for some out of the box thinking on how such tournaments can run? I don't know how many games tournaments try to fit into a day, but I assume it's more than 3? But lets say you're running a one day tournament where you know each player will get three games: morning, afternoon and evening. That's not enough time for a proper bracket unless you have less than 8 people, so are there other ways to identify a winner with less games being allowed more time? Perhaps keeping track of objective points scored across all games? Or something else?

3 rounds is enough for 8 people only. However, there's plenty of ways to keep track of overall score other than win/loss. Battle Points, Secondary Objectives, Secret Objectives, Kill Points, etc. I generally use W/L with battle points as a tie breaker, followed by Sports/Painting as a final tiebreaker.

[Blackhawk748]

Congratulations. Both players are now aggressively paying attention to the clock instead of the game. You've added a 'clock phase' fifty times a turn where both players need to stop what they're doing, reach over and hit a button. If I want to mess with my opponent, I am making him hit that button as many times as humanly possible during his turn because every time he takes his mind off the game he might miss something. Even if nobody's gaming the system, both players need to spend five seconds or so every time either needs to make a decision reaching over (or walking over, 6' wide tables are longer than the average arm, and the clock is often not going to be within the reach of both players) and hitting that button. Two players who would have finished a game with no time to spare now get 5 turns, and in any given time frame you've probably shaved a turn off of about a quarter of all the games happening if time was a concern for you in the first place.

Kings of War tournaments use Chess Clocks and I've never heard of a problem. And they are using armies that are around 3k points in the old WHFB system as standard, so they arent small.

[Brookshw]

Kings of War tournaments use Chess Clocks and I've never heard of a problem. And they are using armies that are around 3k points in the old WHFB system as standard, so they arent small.

I hope they're paying you a commission or something for all these plugs

[Cheesegear]

Congratulations. Both players are now aggressively paying attention to the clock instead of the game.

Then you're doing it wrong.

You've added a 'clock phase' fifty times a turn where both players need to stop what they're doing, reach over and hit a button.

Then you're doing it wrong.

If I want to mess with my opponent, I am making him hit that button as many times as humanly possible during his turn because every time he takes his mind off the game he might miss something.

If I was your opponent, I'd call a TO. That's deliberate abuse of the system.

Even if nobody's gaming the system, both players need to spend five seconds or so every time either needs to make a decision reaching over

No they don't. You're being obtuse.

If a player didn't finish any games before the last round, the TO went to talk to them before pairings. "Look, you're playing Guard and that's fine, but your games are going to time early every single time. That's not cool. Play faster." Then you hand over a list of the problem-causers to the next TO, and he does the same thing, only at the start of day two. Six months later, we were down to a list of about 3 people still not finishing games consistently (everybody runs out of time occasionally, it's how things work). They get emails. "Your style of play is becoming a problem. You don't finish games, and that's not fair to your opponents. Find a way to play a game of Warhammer in less than three hours or we're going to have to ask you to stop coming to events."

E-mails?
Pfft.
Our TO tells people to quit slow-playing, at the tournament itself, in front of people. There's no 'hidden list'. Everyone is told on the day that the that the guy sucks.

If you mostly get the same 40 or 50 people going to every event in different combinations, it only takes three or four events

Please. It takes one event, and usually one game.
Quote, "Hurry the **** up or you're going to start losing points." unquote. Game 1. No drawing aside. No "Hey man, some people are..." Just straight up. Looks like you're slow-playing. It's not acceptable. The end.
Somehow, his Game 2 went to the natural end of Turn 5.

Either way, clocks are not going to help unless you're able to find a third person to operate the clock while the actual players play the game.

I find it so weird that you don't trust people to know how to use a clock, or that you think it distracts from the game.
If you put a chess clock on the top tables of a tournament - and some of the mid-ones - these players are not bad. And a couple of the better players in any meta, when they read a Player's Pack a month in advance, they're probably going to practice.

It's like people with the new Sororitas Index.
"How am I supposed to keep track of my Command Points and my Faith Points!?"
...Really? Really?

[Blackhawk748]

I hope they're paying you a commission or something for all these plugs

If I played more Bolt Action Id probably plug them too Being serious, KoW is my primary tabletop wargame and the one I participate in the most tournaments for and everything I've seen is that Chess Clocks are totally fine.

[Drasius]

The real solution is smaller points, but IIRC, there was a survey a while back (probably 2 or so years ago) asking about this exact same thing and, again, IIRC, the results were split between having a chess clock, having smaller games or just rushing through the remainder of the turns same as always.

I don't quite get the reluctance to play a smaller points value (like 1500/1650/1750) instead of increasing the points from 1850 to 2k while the general cost of the minis are as cheap or cheaper than they were back when 1500 and 1750 were the standard tournament values.

[PraetorDragoon]

The real solution is smaller points, but IIRC, there was a survey a while back (probably 2 or so years ago) asking about this exact same thing and, again, IIRC, the results were split between having a chess clock, having smaller games or just rushing through the remainder of the turns same as always.

I don't quite get the reluctance to play a smaller points value (like 1500/1650/1750) instead of increasing the points from 1850 to 2k while the general cost of the minis are as cheap or cheaper than they were back when 1500 and 1750 were the standard tournament values.

Wargamers are extremely averse to change of any kind. Its weird.

[Avaris]

It's like people with the new Sororitas Index.
"How am I supposed to keep track of my Command Points and my Faith Points!?"
...Really? Really?

Simple, you do what I do and forget you have them (seriously, having now played Sisters under the new rules, AoF are so marginsl I mostly forget about them).

Thing I’ve come across: tournament rule of only one of each type of detachment allowed (brigades etc). Is this used elsewhere? It seems like a potentially sensible rule to stop some excesses and make detachment choice mean something, does it work?

[Cheesegear]

Thing I’ve come across: tournament rule of only one of each type of detachment allowed (brigades etc). Is this used elsewhere?

• One Detachment only.
• Battalion only (remember 5th Ed.?).
• Battalion and Patrol only (remember 6th Ed.?).
• Detachment types are unique per list.
• One Codex only.
• One <Sub-Faction> only (When people inevitably abuse the 'One Codex' policy).
• No Brigades.
• No Uniques.
• Your army may not include more than 150 models total (that's a new one).

Those are the ones I've seen and/or heard.

[Avaris]

• One Detachment only.
• Battalion only (remember 5th Ed.?).
• Battalion and Patrol only (remember 6th Ed.?).
• Detachment types are unique per list.
• One Codex only.
• One <Sub-Faction> only (When people inevitably abuse the 'One Codex' policy).
• No Brigades.
• No Uniques.
• Your army may not include more than 150 models total (that's a new one).

Those are the ones I've seen and/or heard.

Do you or others have any opinions on which do or do not contribute to a ‘healthy’ meta?

[LeSwordfish]

After remember 5th ed and 6th ed, you would think that "no uniques" would be "remember 4th ed".

[Cheesegear]

Do you or others have any opinions on which do or do not contribute to a ‘healthy’ meta?

A healthy meta will never be determined by rules. Changing the meta doesn't fix the meta. It only creates a new one.
A healthy meta is determined by how well the players get along with each other and how willing/able* said players are able to compromise.

* Some players might be perfectly willing to tone up or down their lists, or play the game a new way, but they don't have the models to do so.

After remember 5th ed and 6th ed, you would think that "no uniques" would be "remember 4th ed".

I remember there was an edition - maybe 3rd? - where you explicitly needed your opponent's permission to field Uniques.

[Wraith]

Do you or others have any opinions on which do or do not contribute to a ‘healthy’ meta?

A "healthy" meta is one with multiple viable options. Instead of there being one or two Top Tier lists that sit unchallenged for the span of the entire edition, there's a couple per codex that can reliably compete with each other in a round-a-bout Rock/Paper/Scissors fashion.
That way everyone can play a codex of their choice and be reasonably sure of getting a competitive 'But Not Too Competitive' game, with as much chance of being hard-countered by another list as they themselves have of being a hard-counter to someone else, while still offering incentive to change your list every so often without worry of becoming woefully underoptimised.

This meta has never yet existed in 40k.

None of the rules suggested above try to approach that; they feel to me like a laundry list of things that someone doesn't like playing against and so they have banned them rather than change their own army or perception.

"No more than 150 models" sounds like "I've read on the internet that hordes are too powerful". Stopping hordes doesn't make the game inherently more fun for everyone, it just means that there's less of counter to Mortal Wound-spam and THAT becomes the unfun list to play against.

"No Uniques". Smash-Captain isn't a Unique model, but he's better than most special characters in his price-range. Does anyone really want more of that?

"Only one Codex". So now there's ~20 Codices in the game and you've at a stroke made ~16 of them obsolete. Because unfortunately that's how wargamers think - not "I will keep playing with my single bad codex", but rather "I'll just change to the one awesome one" which happens to be the same one that everyone else changes to because it's objectively 'better'.

Far be it for me to only criticise without offering a solution, but the best solution to make a healthy meta would be to rewrite and re-release all of the codices at once, so that they can be compared side-by-side using exactly the same ruleset and heavily tweaked to make sure that each one has strengths and weaknesses of comparable importance. Which ain't gonna happen.

The next best way is nothing to do with the players but the TO; have them design a tournament that encourages varied armies by playing varied scenarios, each requiring a flexible list in order to succeed.
If every game is Meat Grinder/Annihilation, only specific builds of army will triumph. If the objectives and setup varied, then although some lists will still do better than others on average it still encourages variety and gives lists traditionally thought of as lower tier a chance to shine under the right circumstances. It'd be a far, far healthier meta if the winner of a tournament was the guy who squeaked a record of 6-2 over the event, instead of several people going 8-0 and making it to the playoffs by way of tallying individual VPs scored along the way
A healthy meta then arises not by telling people what they can't do and forcing them to just settle for the second best choice, but by asking for them to try more things and not bring the same top-heavy lists all the time.

[Cheesegear]

None of the rules suggested above try to approach that; they feel to me like a laundry list of things that someone doesn't like playing against and so they have banned them rather than change their own army or perception.

That's exactly what's happened. People have found that 'the way to win' in 8th Ed. isn't exactly fun. So they keep trying to revert the game back when - in their opinion - it was fun. Most people coming into their 30s now, might say that 5th Ed. is the best edition, because that's when Matt Ward was churning out Codecies and everything was broken so no-one was.

Some might say 6th Edition is the best, 'cause that was the time of CAD/ADs. So whilst you were still limited - mostly - to a single Codex. You could pick up an AD which was only a few units from another Codex to fill your holes...Searching for double meanings...Nah I think we're good.

Some people say that 7th Edition was the best, because with a Formation for pretty much anything and everything. Hobby-based armies could almost always be competitive. A lot of people will say 7th was broken. However a lot of those same people will say that if you simply took out the Space Marine Battle Company (not neccessarily 'The Gladius'), the AdMech War Convocation, and you just...Fixed Eldar Jetbikes and Wraithknights...The edition was mostly fine. Even then, running a whole Battle Company seems really fluff-centric to me. So does the War Convocation. What's wrong with painting Jetbikes red and using them as Troops anyway? Seems legit to me.

Some people will go all the way back to 4th Ed., before Drop Pods, but when you could Charge out of Transports. IMO. Age of Sigmar/2 is what 40K/4, was.

But the fact is, army construction in 8th Ed. isn't broken. 8th Ed. is fundamentally broken, at its core.
- Most models holds Objectives.
- No Blast/Template Weapons.
- Horde type models almost always get their save because the basic weapons of each Faction has also changed.
- Good Armour Saves don't actually mean anything.

Even if you played at 1000 Points, 750, 400. Whatever. The player with the most models on the board, is still more likely to win.
That's the issue. Even if you change how army construction works; Cheaper. Still. Equals. Better.
The counter-meta says More Shots = More Better.

"No more than 150 models" sounds like "I've read on the internet that hordes are too powerful". Stopping hordes doesn't make the game inherently more fun for everyone, it just means that there's less of counter to Mortal Wound-spam and THAT becomes the unfun list to play against.

Actually, what it means is that if 150 models is the maximum you can have...150 models becomes the minimum you should bring.

"No Uniques". Smash-Captain isn't a Unique model, but he's better than most special characters in his price-range. Does anyone really want more of that?

It filters out a whole bunch of problem units; Specifically Guilliman and his Brothers.
But it also means no Abaddon, no Changeling, no Eldrad, no Ynnari at all - banned!

On some level, it also gives the illusion of Forging a Narrative, and the TO gets to pretend that because of his 'No Uniques' rule, the tournament will become more 'hobby-orientated'

Far be it for me to only criticise without offering a solution

But everything you said is correct. The problem is that changing the ways that armies are constructed, isn't a solution in the first place.

[Wraith]

Most people coming into their 30s now, might say that 5th Ed. is the best edition...

We could probably pick apart each edition and come to a conclusion on the merits and flaws of each, but looking back with the benefit of hindsight I think that most of us might agree: 5th Edition introduced to 40k the phrases 'Parking Lot', 'Alpha-Strike' and 'Leaf-blower'. People who say that it was the most enjoyable are maniacs whose concept of 'fun' is a strange and alien thing in which I want no part.

It filters out a whole bunch of problem units; Specifically Guilliman and his Brothers.
But it also means no Abaddon, no Changeling, no Eldrad, no Ynnari at all - banned!

Right. By banning all the *most* problematic units, you also wipe out what few equivalents there are that even come close to levelling the playing field. Welcome back to square one; my "second best" unit is still WAY better than your "second best" unit, so nothing really changes.

On some level, it also gives the illusion of Forging a Narrative, and the TO gets to pretend that because of his 'No Uniques' rule, the tournament will become more 'hobby-orientated'

I completely agree that's what would happen, but I don't understand how only using nameless stat-blocks picked only for their math-hammer points-to-kill ratio efficiency is more narrative than using named characters with their own well know histories and back-stories upon which any given game is expanding.

[hamishspence]

Some people will go all the way back to 4th Ed., before Drop Pods, but when you could Charge out of Transports. IMO. Age of Sigmar/2 is what 40K/4, was.

I thought it was only early 3rd ed in which you could Charge out of a regular Transport that had moved - hence the "Rhino Rush" nickname.

[Cheesegear]

Wbut I don't understand how only using nameless stat-blocks picked only for their math-hammer points-to-kill ratio efficiency is more narrative than using named characters with their own well know histories and back-stories upon which any given game is expanding.

Now you're getting it!
Almost like having 'No Uniques' doesn't make the game more hobby-orientated because competitive players don't care about fluff.
(EDIT: Well, actually, a lot of them like the fluff, of course. But it doesn't factor into building their list. Fluff only really matters when it comes to painting...And painting has no effect on gameplay. Therefore, fluff has no effect on gameplay.)

I thought it was only early 3rd ed in which you could Charge out of a regular Transport that had moved - hence the "Rhino Rush" nickname.

IIRC (I probably don't); 3rd Ed. was you could get out, but you couldn't Charge.
3.5 Ed introduced the Trial Assault Rules and Trial Vehicle Rules, which allowed people to Charge out of their Vehicles.
Which then just...Became the rules, for 4th Ed.

5th Ed. broke the Rhino/Falcon Rush.

[Meatgrinder]

I'm playing a 750 pt game against Space Wolves tomorrow, and could use some advice on my list:

Spoiler: The Usual

Show

Battalion detachment
(W)Lord of Contagion: Plaguereaper, Arch-contaminator
Sorcerer: Blades of Putrefaction, Plague Wind

Plague Marines x8: 7 bubotic axes
Poxwalkers x10
Poxwalkers x10
Poxwalkers x10

Noxious Blightbringer

Plagueburst Crawler: x2 entropy cannons

The plague marines will be doing the mortal wounds thing, while the poxwalkers screen and hold objectives. My opponent really likes their Predators, so I can expect to be facing a fairly armor-heavy list. Do I have enough anti-tank? Do I need to remake the entire thing?

[LansXero]

Fun being subjective and all, I think the main issue is managing expectations.

'Meta' is just shorthand for the game your community builds. By definition, while built based upon the parameters of the game, it goes beyond it and as such game-based solutions will be stopgaps at best and damaging at worse. It has to be adressed by every TO according to what kind of game they want to build, and the goals they are after.

For us, for example, most of our players come from competitive backgrounds. So they treat the game as it being what it is, and adapt their playstyle, lists and purchases around that. Take YGO for example, Links came out and shifted the entire game over its head. Top archetypes were suddenly useless and you needed the new things to play at all. So you sell off the useless junk, buy the new hotness, and move on. Before that, Pendulums did the same and XYZs did it too before them. Its not even like 40k where re-basing / converting can fix stuff, worthless cardboard is just worthless. So thats the attitude they came into 40k with: To play a game you learn its rules, and to win a game you master its rules. Much like soccer wont let you pass the ball with your hands because you feel using your feet is 'unfun', 40k wont let you win with things that have poor rules because thats the whole point of games: to solve them, to find what works, and use it to best those who havent found out.

Our guys are pretty chill and relaxed when playing, so dont think they are beardy tryhard grognards with endless pockets. We are a pretty poor country actually, so every purchase matters. And as such, every unit added to someone's collection is researched thoroughly and tested in-proxy before its ever ordered, bought or built. So maybe that also helps. Overall, I think there is a huge issue with people wanting to 'play as they want' because no game is going to give them that. Sure, the gap should be smaller, but it will never be competitive to just pick stuff, throw it together without analizing it and just having a go. Unless you play Eldar, of course :V

[Blackhawk748]

I'm playing a 750 pt game against Space Wolves tomorrow, and could use some advice on my list:

Spoiler: The Usual

Show

Battalion detachment
(W)Lord of Contagion: Plaguereaper, Arch-contaminator
Sorcerer: Blades of Putrefaction, Plague Wind

Plague Marines x8: 7 bubotic axes
Poxwalkers x10
Poxwalkers x10
Poxwalkers x10

Noxious Blightbringer

Plagueburst Crawler: x2 entropy cannons

The plague marines will be doing the mortal wounds thing, while the poxwalkers screen and hold objectives. My opponent really likes their Predators, so I can expect to be facing a fairly armor-heavy list. Do I have enough anti-tank? Do I need to remake the entire thing?

Well its 750, so how many Poredators can he bring without shooting his own leg off? 3, maybe 4? I think you should be ok as you should be durable enough to survive the barrage from them long enough for your Plaguebursts to finish them off. Even if he does kill the Crawlers quickly, chewing through your infantry will suck.

[Destro_Yersul]

IIRC (I probably don't); 3rd Ed. was you could get out, but you couldn't Charge.
3.5 Ed introduced the Trial Assault Rules and Trial Vehicle Rules, which allowed people to Charge out of their Vehicles.
Which then just...Became the rules, for 4th Ed.

5th Ed. broke the Rhino/Falcon Rush.

I've still got my 4th Ed. rulebook. You couldn't assault after disembarking unless the vehicle was open topped, or a land-raider, or hadn't moved.

4th is actually my favourite edition. I stopped playing in 5th, after 5th borked everything.

[Cheesegear]

I've still got my 4th Ed. rulebook. You couldn't assault after disembarking unless the vehicle was open topped, or a land-raider, or hadn't moved.

Ah. 'Kay. It was the other way 'round.
The Trial Assault Rules stopped Rhino Rush. But I remember in 4th...
Maybe I played 3rd Ed. for way too long?

Which was the rulebook where Kill Team was included as a way to play the game? Was that 4th?

4th is actually my favourite edition. I stopped playing in 5th, after 5th borked everything.

Does 4th Ed. use the bad Victory Points?
That is, are your Victory Points equal to the points cost of your opponent's models that you destroy? Because that cancerous way of thinking, of 'making points back' still permeates discussions to this day when the game hasn't worked that way for four editions.

[Destro_Yersul]

Ah. 'Kay. It was the other way 'round.
The Trial Assault Rules stopped Rhino Rush. But I remember in 4th...
Maybe I played 3rd Ed. for way too long?

Which was the rulebook where Kill Team was included as a way to play the game? Was that 4th?

Can confirm, that was 4th.

Does 4th Ed. use the bad Victory Points?
That is, are your Victory Points equal to the points cost of your opponent's models that you destroy? Because that cancerous way of thinking, of 'making points back' still permeates discussions to this day when the game hasn't worked that way for four editions.

Sort of. There was a table for whether or not you got full, half, or no VP for killing models. There was also a list of missions, and you got VPs for completing mission objectives.

[Blackhawk748]

I got in at 4th with the Battle of Macragge set. Loved the set, loved the edition. Including the Vehicle Damage table. Glance them to death!

[Wraith]

Which was the rulebook where Kill Team was included as a way to play the game? Was that 4th?

3rd Edition had Patrol Forces (Under-100 point games, basically identical to normal play but without squad coherency), so yes - I'm pretty sure Kill Team was formalised in 4th Edition.

Does 4th Ed. use the bad Victory Points?
That is, are your Victory Points equal to the points cost of your opponent's models that you destroy? Because that cancerous way of thinking, of 'making points back' still permeates discussions to this day when the game hasn't worked that way for four editions.

The "VP-100" system, I think it was called? I'm reasonably sure that an early form of it started in 3rd Edition and then came and went a couple of times before being completely abolished around 6th.

I even remember, at the time, people complaining that it was gone - now killing a squad of 10 Deathwing Terminators was worth as many VPs as killing a squad of 10 Grots and that was completely broken you guys!

[Cheesegear]

Oooooh....

I 'member that there was an Australian tournament system that went at least into 7th Ed. For the life of me I can't remember what it was called - maybe Drasius remembers?

But a bunch of TOs and competitive players in Australia made a document that assigned 'broken points' (TPs?) to almost every good unit in the entire game. It gained a semi-infamous reputation for requiring a ****-ton amount of work and play-testing to create, and also it made list-building a total pain in the arse due to how convoluted it was. However, due to the fact that it was almost constantly updated by some of the best players in the country, it actually was relatively balanced at the higher end of the game.

So, as long as you could get past the asinine list-building stage, I vaguely recall that it was okay? Unfortunately a lot of people couldn't get past the list-building stage...Hence its infamy.

I think you got 20 (?) TPs (?) in most tournaments that used the system? ...****. I wish I could remember the name.

[Requizen]

Cheese/Drasius, will we see you here some day?

https://www.warhammer-community.com/...ionship-store/

I like how "Ample gaming space" is apparently enough for 24 people... my FLGS has almost twice that and isn't even the biggest in the area haha.