Warhammer 40K Tabletop Thread XLII: The Dice Make Fools of Us All

[Cheesegear]

There was no world where you took all just bog standard Ork Boyz and one Nob with Shoota.

Yes there was. In fact it was quite good.

It was a choice, but why? You would never do it

Because in Kill Team one of the most important factors for several Mission types is the number of models you have on the board at the start of the Mission.
Did you play Kill Team? With the 20-model Roster and the tailoring to Mission and opponent?

Maybe this is the Underworlds player in me, where there is absolutely 0 model choice for a given faction

And that's lame.

but there's no reason in my mind as to why two identical sets of models should be considered the "same dudes", when you can make them

Underworlds Warbands are ETB/Snap-fit, and are significantly more difficult to convert than other miniatures.

Variety of choice is an excellent thing to strive to include, but as I said above, there wasn't much choice in the last edition.

Core List Marines:
1-6. Scouts (x6)
7. Scout Gunner; Heavy Bolter
8. Scout Gunner; Heavy Bolter
9. Scout Gunner; Missile Launcher
10. Scout Gunner; Missile Launcher
11. Scout Sergeant; Sniper Rifle and Camo Cloak

12. Tactical Marine Gunner; Meltagun
13. Tactical Marine Gunner; Heavy Bolter
14. Tactical Marine Sergeant; Combi-Melta
15. Tactical Marine Sergeant; Power Fist

16. Reiver Sergeant

17-19. Intercessors (x3); Stalker Bolt Rifles
20. Intercessor; Bolt Rifle, AGL

Weird. I feel like I have several choices to make every single game, even with a fixed list.

"How many Gunners can I bring?

What Faction are you playing against? What Mission are you playing?

How many Sergeants?

What Faction are you playing against? What Mission are you playing? Are you making them a Leader or Veteran? What wargear do they have?

List building was just cherry picking the best things and then seeing how that did.

Roster building was trying to make a Roster that accounted for almost all possibilities in the game. Some Missions you want 15 models on the board. Some Missions you want a small team of 3 models to give up the least Kill Points.

Team building was about reading the Mission, and reading your opponent's Roster, and then trying to bluff and double-bluff your opponent into making the wrong choices. Some people are extremely bad at this.

I for one think it's going to be interesting seeing a game where you're "forced" to take semi-standardized builds, because it's going to be a very different game.

It's going to be like Underworlds. You pick your Team, then from that Team you have a very limited amount of choices to make. Those choices you make have already decided whether you've won or lost.

Don't get me wrong. I liked Underworlds. But when my Fyreslayers went up against another Fyreslayers Warband, and 3/4 of our decks were identical...The 1/4 of our decks that weren't identical made no difference because the whole thing came down to dice rolls.

In my experience, less focus on min-maxed list building means more focus on how people play on the tabletop

But each Fire Team plays the same way. Good players, will make the same good choices as other good players. That's why playing identical lists is awful. That's why Faction-switching and the ability to change Rosters on a whim is so important. Because over time, your play-style becomes as optimised as anyone else's playstyle, and that makes you both the same.

A side note, no one seems to have mentioned how much better this is for new players.

I did. I even postulated that that was the reason for the change.

[Requizen]

Because in Kill Team one of the most important factors for several Mission types is the number of models you have on the board at the start of the Mission.
Did you play Kill Team? With the 20-model Roster and the tailoring to Mission and opponent?

I did, for a while after Elites until it died here, and then occasionally popped in the big TTS tournaments frequented by top players. And every top-level player wiped the floor with jack-of-all-trades rosters, because the best Rosters were almost always just two or three (depending on faction) Lists that they picked between, which were min-maxed out the wazoo. The dream of "oh, I'll bring these 20 different models and whip out my calculator at game time (lol bookkeeping by the way) to make the perfectly tailored list" existed for a few months until people decide what the best setups were and never changed them. And when they did change, it wasn't like, suddenly spamming Grenade Launchers was the meta, it was more "oh, I guess I should add in some Flamers because swarms rejoined the meta". Like I said, illusion of choice.

It's going to be like Underworlds. You pick your Team, then from that Team you have a very limited amount of choices to make. Those choices you make have already decided whether you've won or lost.

Eeesh, that's kind of a bad look my man. Tactics and decision making are obviously going to have a huge amount of impact on how the game turns out, if you think a game is "decided" based on pre-game decisions, I dunno what to tell you. Must just be a difference of opinion, I think it's much better when there's less pre-game min-maxing, because it means the actual game matters more than who showed up with the best list.

Don't get me wrong. I liked Underworlds. But when my Fyreslayers went up against another Fyreslayers Warband, and 3/4 of our decks were identical...The 1/4 of our decks that weren't identical made no difference because the whole thing came down to dice rolls.

Much like the Assault Intercessor thing from the video, pointing at the least flexible team (and in the case of Fyreslayers, one of the weakest overall) and using it to judge the entire game is a bit reductive. Yeah, there's basically one way to play Fyreslayers. But I've played at least 4 different Nurgle decks in this last online league alone, and I've currently got at least 3 variants of Kharadron in the deckbuilding stage (I think they're gonna make a comeback, personally).

As an aside, insinuating that Underworlds mirror matches only comes down to dice rolls means you either are not playing Best of 3s (which is one of the best parts of Underworlds by a long shot imo, and the only "real" way to play), or you've just got horrible/amazing luck. Dice matter way less in Underworlds than a lot of other games. Though, I guess if you're playing Chosen Axes it might be more relevant.

But each Fire Team plays the same way. Good players, will make the same good choices as other good players. That's why playing identical lists is awful. That's why Faction-switching and the ability to change Rosters on a whim is so important. Because over time, your play-style becomes as optimised as anyone else's playstyle, and that makes you both the same.

Yeah, which is why Chess has never changed in the hundreds of years it's been played. As much as I hate playing the comparison, as Chess and Wargaming have a bevy of differences, sometimes the comparison is apt. If you think there's only one way to play a game just because the pieces don't change, I have to pretty firmly disagree.

Brood War hasn't seen a single notable game change for 20 years. Units are the same now as they have been almost since release. The way people play professionally or even casually now is lightyears different from how they played in the mid '00s.

And yes, before this is pointed out as hypocritical based on my "solved choices" discussion before, I mean to note that how people play and player skill has a much larger impact on games than the pregame choices surrounding it. I'm positive if KT'18 was untouched for 10 years it would also grow and evolve. But it would never make bad units suddenly playable, or change the core tenants and make Plasma Spam weak, or suddenly make people not save CP for Death Denied in every single situation because it's absolutely busted. Those bottom 70% of choices would remain irrelevant, and it would still be cherry picking.

[Cheesegear]

Eeesh, that's kind of a bad look my man. Tactics and decision making are obviously going to have a huge amount of impact on how the game turns out...

Player A makes good choices, because they are a good player.
Player B makes good choices, because they are a good player.

At the same level of skill, and spreadsheet-remembering-ability, their army lists decide the game. If they both have identical lists, they will each choose to do the same thing. There is no difference. Welcome to dice rolls. Tactics and decision making don't count for much in a solved meta. Because the tactics and decision making have been decided for you. That's what's so wrong with the simplified system. That was why Maelstrom worked, and Secondary Objectives, don't.

There needs to be a random element to your decision making. Otherwise the decision you make is already fixed, and so you horseshoe around into not actually making a 'choice' because there's only one viable tactical choice.

Remember the start of 9th? ...9th Ed. will be good because people wont have the best armies on Day 1, everyone will have to relearn what's good.
...Solving 9th Ed. took a few days to about two weeks. Depending on who you ask.

The only thing surprising in all of 9th Ed. was the Drukharii book. That took the meta by storm somehow...But that book has been solved, too, by now.

if you think a game is "decided" based on pre-game decisions, I dunno what to tell you.

I think if my opponent and I have relatively equal armies, with a relatively equal knowledge-base of the game, then the game will come down to minor list-building details and dice rolls.

Must just be a difference of opinion, I think it's much better when there's less pre-game min-maxing

I agree. Unfortunately, that's impossible, and by giving players less freedom to be creative (e.g; Can I still win games with a sub-optimal list?), you force them to choose from a shallower pool of options, because they only have a set amount of options to choose from.

Compare to a Fyreslayer WarCry Warband; What should you choose? Okay. That's cool. What should you not choose? Is there a viable list between those two choices? Can I remove some guys to personalise my own list because in my meta somebody runs [X] which is a pain in the arse to deal with?

Compared to an Underworlds Warband; You get these four models. If they don't work you're SooL.

because it means the actual game matters more than who showed up with the best list.

Unfortunately, the game is fixed. What matters is peoples' hobby and their creativity which opens up different methods of gameplay. How people play, is determined by the models they bring. The models they bring determine the choices that they can make. If you limit what models a player can take, you're limiting their options during the game, before the game even starts.

You can choose to run the best list of all time. That's fine.
But you can also choose not to. Be creative. Make smart - even if sub-optimal - choices and you'll do fine. And if you're in a meta where you feel you can't take anything but the most optimised list ever, then I feel bad for you.

Yeah, which is why Chess has never changed in the hundreds of years it's been played.

Chess doesn't advertise itself as a consumer-friendly game about making your own special dudes with their own 'bespoke' (I hate that word, but it's the word GW uses) rules.

And yes, before this is pointed out as hypocritical based on my "solved choices" discussion before, I mean to note that how people play and player skill has a much larger impact on games than the pregame choices surrounding it.

And my point is that 'player skill' only really matters when the gulf between players is vast enough. When choices become obvious (and they do, regularly), it isn't a choice. You aren't playing 'skillfully' because there's no question of what you should do.

There's a whole bunch of people, at a whole bunch of top tables around the world who have all read the same things, have all played with and against the same things. We all know the same stuff, and we're all going to make the same choices in most circumstances. That's - usually - why high-level games usually have pretty close scoring. It's not because either player is bad and can't score points. It's because both players are equally good, and trying to squirt the most out of their number of re-rolls per turn.

[LeSwordfish]

I care very much about the way my models look. Which is why I like those Praetors. Because they look cool. I don't give a tiny flying crap what make of armour warcom says they're using. Get some fresh air.

[Cheesegear]

Get some fresh air.

The government said I can't.

[LansXero]

The thing is, different people want different things from the game.

I want a game thats 'easy to learn, hard to master'. I WANT trap choices, so system mastery feels rewarding. I want irrelevant customization options to take because I feel like it. I want there to be things to avoid and the tools for me to figure them out and react to others doing so. I dont want everything to fit neatly with a high floor and low ceiling. I want the overcomplicated minutia and obsessing over every point.

But I can see some people not wanting that. Yet, many times I've seen those people to also be the fluttering casual sort who move from game to game until the new shine wears off then go for the next high.

For our part, we'll probably ignore KT/9 for the most part. We'll focus on low-points 40k for our skirmish game needs, or fall back on KT/8 with a custom banlist for things. Now that world is opening up, we'll need to gather people on tables again, and learning a gimmicky subsystem that bears no resemblance to the main game is a low, low priority.

[Cheesegear]

I want a game thats 'easy to learn, hard to master'. I WANT trap choices, so system mastery feels rewarding.

I guess for me - and this ties into 'player skill' - is that at this point, I don't even know what 'systems mastery' means anymore. I don't know what 'player skill' is, and what people mean by that. The internet has destroyed whatever learning experience there was in the game for me. After doing a few spreadsheets, you start to figure out what works using colours and text formats. Anyone could do that. Hell, I know for a fact that you can, right now, look up a few WH40K spreadsheets about damage calculations. The only difference between mine and theres, is that mine is formatted in such a way that I can read it.

But that's just maths. Anyone can remember stats. Anyone can know that multiple shot, S5, AP-2 weapons, are good.
Did you know that S5, AP-2, D2, is better than S4, AP-, D1? Is that systems mastery?

Is it systems mastery to know that killing things - and having your own things, not be killed - is one of the easiest ways to victory? Not necessarily because you are killing things. But that removing your opponent's models from the board means removing your opponent's choices from the board. The less choices your opponent can make, the easier it is to win, until eventually you're forcing your opponent to make only bad choices 'cause there are no good choices left. ...Isn't that just...Regular gaming?

And then there's just...The internet. How do I do [X]? How do I beat [Y]? Well, someone on the internet has already figured it out. I'll just read or watch what they have to say. Yep. That's it. Using my knowledge of how to read good, what you said, combined with what I already know, makes sense. But...It's the internet. I'm not special. Literally anyone could read the same blog or vlog that I did. It's not hidden. I don't have internet tunnels to secret websites. It's just...There. I know it. You could know it, if you applied yourself...Oh, you have? I guess we know the same things then. And since you know that I know that you know that I know what you're going to do...I guess it's down to dice rolls?

Is that systems mastery? Is that player skill? I don't even know what those phrases mean anymore.

I want irrelevant customization options to take because I feel like it.

I don't want irrelevant customisation. I want customisation, full stop. Even if I don't use it, I have the choice to use it one day, if I choose to. If one day something changes in the meta that makes me need that choice...Then I'll be glad it's there. Remember when Flamers were hot garbage for almost an entire edition? What's the point in having Flamers if no-one's ever going to use them? Oh wait, Ghazgkull is one of the best models in the game and Orks and Tyranids are running ~150-model armies. Sure wish we had high RoF weapons that didn't need to roll to hit...

Everything goes in cycles. Unless support for the game ends abruptly, and then you just hit a restore point on the last configuration that worked and then play that forever.

I want there to be things to avoid and the tools for me to figure them out and react to others doing so.

I don't think there should be anything you want to avoid. You should want to buy everything. You should want to use everything in your Codex, because everything in your Codex should have a role and a place on the battlefield.
Unfortunately, because of the way that the Core Rules are designed, not every unit in every Codex has a useful place on the battlefield. And I think that actually sucks.

I want the overcomplicated minutia and obsessing over every point.

I want things that are good, to be worth more. I want things that are bad, to be worth less.
Unfortunately, the way the game is, a lot of things are good, because they are worth less, because GW doesn't even understand what is good in their game.
('Sup Skitarii)

We'll focus on low-points 40k for our skirmish game needs...

I don't know why GW didn't just go HAM on new rules for Combat Patrol. Well, then they couldn't sell a whole new rules barrage that you'd have to buy.
Okay. I know why GW didn't just introduce more rules for Combat Patrol.

learning a gimmicky subsystem that bears no resemblance to the main game is a low, low priority.

Our meta lost Underworlds; Our meta lost WarCry; Our meta will lose Kill Team.

[LansXero]

I guess for me - and this ties into 'player skill' - is that at this point, I don't even know what 'systems mastery' means anymore.

See, anybody could, but not everybody does. Like googling, it sounds like a non-skill, yet you'd be surprised how often its absent on people. So I guess its just caring enough to go and find the parsed out data?

Take MTG for example. I'm almost to mythic spamming my Selesnya Magecraft jank ass deck. I keep finding 'top 5' and 'best in format' decks copied straight from YouTube, and stomping them. The information is out there, there is SO MUCH Arena content, hell there are even apps to tell you how to rank up better. And yet people either can't be arsed to watch, dont remember or cant process it all. Im not a great player either, so its not like Im boasting, people are just that bad, even with proper netlists. And this is a free game, one would think you'd care more about things you pay a ton of money to play.

Is that systems mastery? Is that player skill? I don't even know what those phrases mean anymore.

Data analysis on the fly is a skill. But I do think its a factor thats being eroded in favor of more ready-made, easy to copy paste solutions. This is sold as 'accessable', 'intuitive' or 'welcoming' but its not my preferred way to make a system.

I don't want irrelevant customisation. I want customisation, full stop.

Maybe irrelevant was the wrong choice of words. I want customisation I dont have to engage with if I dont want to, even if not doing so has a negative effect. I want there to exist default whatevers to just use and play, but ALSO a ton of fiddly levers and boxes and buttons to pull and fill and push so if I want I can pour time and interest into getting things to click exactly right. Like playing CIV on easiest vs Sid. You CAN just durdle around and plop things and do stuff. Or you can agonize over every hammer produced on every grid point of the map.

I don't think there should be anything you want to avoid. You should want to buy everything. You should want to use everything in your Codex, because everything in your Codex should have a role and a place on the battlefield.

Not quite. Because there is no imaginary 'everything is possible' meta. On every meta read of the people you actually do play with and show up to stuff, there should be stuff that works and stuff that doesn't so clear obvious winners dont get repeated adnauseam. Of course, this is probably hellishly hard to actually get right , but thats my ideal. That metas will keep circling around situational choices / counterpicks, instead of a binary solved state.

I don't know why GW didn't just go HAM on new rules for Combat Patrol. Well, then they couldn't sell a whole new rules barrage that you'd have to buy.

If it doesnt sell it actually loses them money though, so as always its the market who'll decide.

[Cheesegear]

So I guess [player skill is] just caring enough to go and find the parsed out data?

You can find it or do it yourself. The data will be the same for everyone.

I'm trying to figure out like a key difference between 40K players.

Like, what's the equivalent to Actions per Minute? It's not enough to know the systems mechanics. It's not enough to recognise a bad match-up when you see it and how do you react to that. StarCraft players have honed their muscle/motor skills to play in a way that I can't even fathom. Not because I don't understand the systems mechanics. Not because I can't recognise a bad match-up. I literally can't play the way a 'pro' plays StarCraft, because they have a functional skill that I wont have. Possibly wont ever have.

When it comes to 40K, the more I see the word 'skill' used, the more I really need to think it needs to be replaced with 'knowledge', or 'learned'. Like I said, at a certain point I can't tell what the difference between players is. And when I watch tabletop streams and I see someone roll three 1s on 2+ saves for their Warlord at the bottom of Turn 2...That's unlucky. The other player wasn't better. **** happens, and that's game. No there is an argument to be made 'Well why was their Warlord in danger at all, instead of just not being in danger?' because 40K involves dice, and dice are random. Sometimes, when you gamble, even on a good thing, you just lose, and it doesn't matter what you do, because RNGesus loves everyone, except you. It had nothing at all to do with 'skill'.

Now, should a Warlord kill on Turn 2 win the game? Well, a good player can recover. The rest of their army list is kitted to be able to recover.
Just kidding. The dice hate you. You can't recover, that's game.

You didn't make any wrong choices. In fact you made every possible right choice, with the information you had available to you. Either:
a) The game was rigged from the start, and your opponent's list was Just Better, or
b) Dice rolls.

When everyone is equally skilled, no-one is. I guess?

Take MTG for example. I'm almost to mythic spamming my Selesnya Magecraft jank ass deck. I keep finding 'top 5' and 'best in format' decks copied straight from YouTube, and stomping them.

Well, that happens in 40K. You know it does.
It's not enough to have a netlist.
What you need is the knowledge of what to do when your opponent knows you have a netlist.

Data analysis on the fly is a skill.

Seems like a function of IQ, which has so many factors.

But I do think its a factor thats being eroded in favor of more ready-made, easy to copy paste solutions. This is sold as 'accessable', 'intuitive' or 'welcoming'...

If GW wants their games to be accessible, they should try lowering their model prices in a post-pandemic world. Not design throwaway systems designed to be played with for maybe six months before the player quits. That way the player can buy more things with the available cash they have in order to try more things in the limited design space.

I want customisation I dont have to engage with if I dont want to

The problem is that anything that GW writes, that you don't use, is either:
a) Wasted money for them, or
b) Wasted page space for us, which could've been used to print something else in its slot.

That's what I mean when I say that you should want to use everything in the book. There shouldn't be dead pages because that's bad for everyone.

One...Issue...Surrounding Warlord Traits and Relics, for example, is that they don't have a cost. The best Warlord Trait/Relic and the worst Warlord Trait/Relic both cost the same; Your Warlord Trait or Relic slot. So there is no reason not to ever use the better thing. This causes all other Warlord Traits and Relics to be compared to the best one...And then not get used. You can see the same thing regarding customisable Sub-Factions. There are three or four - five, maybe - good Traits, and the rest are worthless.

This is not the same as units.

Good model A costs 20 points. Fair enough.
Mediocre model B costs 14 points. Also fair. For every 5 Good Models, you can have 7 Mediocre Models. This is a choice.
Bad model C costs 5 points. For each Good Model, you can have 4 Bad Models. This is a choice.

You, the player, have to make a personal decision on whether or not you like A, B, or C, because the choice is actually meaningful.

This is why Power Levels are inherently bad for any non-new player. If every choice doesn't have a cost - or, rather, everything costs the same - just choose the best one every time.

[Requizen]

Player A makes good choices, because they are a good player.
Player B makes good choices, because they are a good player.

At the same level of skill, and spreadsheet-remembering-ability, their army lists decide the game. If they both have identical lists, they will each choose to do the same thing. There is no difference. Welcome to dice rolls. Tactics and decision making don't count for much in a solved meta. Because the tactics and decision making have been decided for you. That's what's so wrong with the simplified system. That was why Maelstrom worked, and Secondary Objectives, don't.

Cheese, I've got a lot of respect for you as a bastion of meta and lore knowledge, but "players of equal skill will mechanically play like identical robots" is not a particularly good take. People have styles. People view value choices differently. Some play aggressively, some take slow approaches. People take risk assessment differently and hedge their bets in different ways, or go for broke when others won't. Especially, as you say, when dice are involved. Players do feints and present their opponents with hard choices, which leads to variation in response.

Nobody sits down at a table, looks at the lists, and just decide to shake hands to go get a beer.

Well, that last one does happen, but only in insane list mismatches, which shouldn't happen in Kill Team thanks to Rosters. (And I'm seeing more 40k and AoS tournaments go towards dual-list setups where you can at least bring a second list that plays well into whatever counters your first list.)

Unfortunately, the game is fixed. What matters is peoples' hobby and their creativity which opens up different methods of gameplay. How people play, is determined by the models they bring. The models they bring determine the choices that they can make. If you limit what models a player can take, you're limiting their options during the game, before the game even starts.

You can choose to run the best list of all time. That's fine.
But you can also choose not to. Be creative. Make smart - even if sub-optimal - choices and you'll do fine. And if you're in a meta where you feel you can't take anything but the most optimised list ever, then I feel bad for you.

Ok, so bring a roster that has 15 Intercessors (5 of each Bolt Rifle type) and 5 Incursors. Play a different Fire Team setup in each game that day. I bet you probably will be the only one with that list.
Or run 11 Scouts with a semi-fixed setup (Maybe 2 Missile Launchers and one Heavy Bolters Heavy Gunner Scouts, to taste), 5 Reivers, and 4 Heavy Intercessors.
Or 8 Reivers (5 Knives and 3 Carbines in case you want to set some up camping), and 12 Tacticals (one of each Gunner and Heavy Gunner, a Power Fist Sergant, a Power Weapon Sergeant, and a shooty Sergeant).
Or how about 9 Intercessors (5 Bolt Rifles, 2 Stalkers, 2 Autos), 5 Knife Reivers, and a set 6 man Tactical squad?
Or what about full Deathwatch? Given how wildly different the Sergeant melee options are, you could easily run 3-4 different DW Sergeants on a list, 6 Warriors (2 Shotgun, 2 Stalkers, 2 DW Bolters), 4 different Gunners, 4 different Heavy Gunners, 2 different Fighters. Or at least, that's the mix I would take off the top of my head, you might prefer 3 different fighters and drop one of the Heavy Gunners.
Maybe you wanna go 15 Deathwatch to have those 5 Reiver pocket picks when you want Grav Chute Insertion available.

There's actually a pretty wide breadth of options available in Roster Building, even if you can't cherry pick single models at List time as hard as you could before. I have at least 4-5 Necron Rosters I want to try, and they have basically no special weapon options to speak of. My Marines are a bit more set since I only built my Intercessors with standard Bolt Rifles 2 years ago, but with one Tactical Marine box purchase I can bring a different Roster to every event for the next year. I really don't feel like "there's no room to be creative in roster building" is a reasonable excuse to call the game bad.

Are some factions fairly set in Roster? Sure, and that's a factor of some factions just being smaller than others. They were in KT18 as well (hello, Grey Knights), but apparently that wasn't an issue. You still get multiple Lists per roster and can pick and choose accordingly - the 1kSons Roster Squark posted still ends up with 4 different Lists to pick from and is one of the most limited in the game, so you could legit go to a tournament and play a different List in every round.



If you wanna go full grognard and hate the game for being different and not being KT18, or not being 40k-lite, just come out and say it with your chest. That's totally fine. It's different, and like I said specifically above, different is not always better, nor is it always worse, and it's totally cool to have subjective opinions about that. But I just can't follow the thread of complaints - it's bad because there's not enough customization, except there is quite a bit of customization for most factions, but no one is gonna take the options since they're bad, but the game would be better if we could take subpar options? I get there's less choice than the previous edition, but this is kinda going in circles, mate.

[Cheesegear]

People view value choices differently.

Players with a high enough knowledge base will know what works, optimally, in almost every situation.

Some play aggressively, some take slow approaches.

If two players have identical lists, and they both have the same knowledge base, they will make largely the same choices. I'm not saying that they wont make a different choice based on who goes first. I'm saying that whatever different choices they make, aren't really relevant when compared to dice rolls.

You can't play aggressively if you don't have an aggressive list.
You can't play slowly, if you don't have a slow list.

Being able to play aggressively in the first place, starts during list-building.

People take risk assessment differently and hedge their bets in different ways

Again, almost all high-level players will end up having the same take on a unit or Secondary Objective. You may have an outlier who believes that Slay the Tyrant is one of the best Secondaries.
Okay. Why do they think that? Oh. That's because they have an army list designed to go for Warlords on Turn 1 or 2.
If I played the exact same army list as that person, I would probably make that call, too. In fact I have made that call.

I chose Secondaries based on my army list, based on my knowledge base.

Someone who plays a different army than I do will make different choices.

Ok, so bring a roster that has 15 Intercessors (5 of each Bolt Rifle type) and 5 Incursors. Play a different Fire Team setup in each game that day. I bet you probably will be the only one with that list.

If I'm the only one with my Faction, there's no problem. I, as an individual, in my individual meta, will no problem.

The instant someone in my meta thinks I'm onto something, and attempts to copy my Roster, the instant I go to a tournament, and another good player has read the same thing that I have and come to the same conclusion that I did, and is running the same Roster as me, there's a problem.

If you wanna go full grognard and hate the game for being different

I don't like the game for having shallow choices. Please don't assume what I didn't write.

I know I'm Cheesegear; 'Words mean what I colloquially mean them to mean, not what they actually mean.'

But I'll state this pretty clearly, in words that I don't think can be 'colloquially Cheesegear':

If there is a potential for a mirror-match, or two players in the same meta having the same list, that's bad game design if the system is designed around personalised army lists and rosters.
The higher the potential for having the exact same list as someone else, is, the worse the game design is.
Yes. Sure. You might be in a small enough meta, and your players' knowledge base is skewed enough that no-one wants to bring the same thing. You might never face a mirror-match in your entire run.
If, however, you're in a large meta of 30-40 players, and roughly 4/5 of them are competitive enough to be on the ball, you will find many of those players running the exact same list, making the exact same choices...And the reason that they make the same choices, is because they have the same list.

Two players with identical lists, playing against two other, equally identical lists, will largely make the same choices.

[LansXero]

give or take, assimetrical mission design. Which is a whole other can of worms and how 'fair' it can be without being a mirror is a crapshoot. But it can be used as a mitigating factor.

[Cheesegear]

give or take, assimetrical mission design.

Which is largely what Secondary Objectives are supposed to be.
Until people figured out the four or five good ones, pick three. ...I'm not going to say that I'm amazing at maths (spreadsheets do all my work for me). But out of five choices, there is a decent chance that two players will pick the same three. Then as your meta size increases what are the likelihood that any two players will pick the same three out of the five?

The people then 'picked' three before the game would even start, and thus, build their entire army list around those three Secondaries, because that's the easiest way to win. At that point a lot of the choices during the game have already been made, because the correct choice to make is whatever gets to those Secondaries, fastest.

Anything with a fixed goal in mind, can be solved through any myriad of choices.
When you start having fixed choices, in addition to fixed goals, the game becomes...Stale.

[Hootman]

Then as your meta size increases what are the likelihood that any two players will pick the same three out of the five?

One in ten, if my math is right.


Unrelated to the above, I'm going to be playing my first game of Crusade today (and my...second...ever game of 9th). I was stoked enough to even paint a few models. They're...terrible, and only like 70% done, but whatever. It's more hobby than I've done in a year.

I wouldn't mind some other eyes on the list. Not really for anything, I guess, except policing my RP usage and other fiddly things. It seems functional, if a little bland due to the small list size and restrictions of needing a Batallion (for reasons I'll get into later). Hopefully the ladz can pull off something cool today. Looking forward to being able to eventually purchase the actual book that the internet has so kindly previewed for me. Physical books are more pleasant to read.

Spoiler

Show

KROOKKRACKA'S KROOSADE, Mk.II

Codex: Orks 2021 (9e)
Battalion: 1,000pts (6cp)
Clan Kultur: Deathskulls
5 RP: Trait, Trait, Relic, two RP remaining? I think?

HQ
Mekboss Krookkracka
Big Mek in Mega Armour
- Kustom Mega-Blasta, Tellyport Blasta
+ The Waaagh!boss (Ork Crusade Rule, the real fluff leader of the army)
+ TRAIT: Opportunist

Sneakboss Dakkasnagga, aka the Not!Snikrot substitute
Warboss
- Big Choppa, Kombi...skorcha, probably?
+ Warlord (for legal purposes, so I can declare Waaagh!s)
+ RELIC: Headwoppa's Killchoppa
+ TRAIT: Brutal but Kunnin

TROOPS
Choppa Boyz 10
- Nob (PK & Choppa)

Choppa Boyz 10
- Nob (PK & Choppa)

Shoota Boyz 20
- Nob (Power Stabba & Choppa)
- 2 Rokkit Boyz

ELITES
Kommandos 5
- Nob (PK)

Meganobz 5
- Fridge: PK & Kustom Shoota
- PK & Kustom Shoota
- PK & Kustom Shoota
- PK & Kombiskorcha
- Pair of Killsaws
+ SPECIALIST: Trukkboyz (Is this legal? Not sure how these work, need to go read more...)

HEAVY SUPPORT
Mek Gun
- Kustom Mega Kannon

Mek Gun
- Kustom Mega Kannon

DEDICATED TRANSPORT
Trukk

[Forum Explorer]

Trukk Boys are currently, hilariously, broken. Per how the keywords interact, Trukk Boys cannot get in a Trukk.

[Blackhawk748]

Trukk Boys are currently, hilariously, broken. Per how the keywords interact, Trukk Boys cannot get in a Trukk.

Thats... how? How do you **** up something that basic??

[Avaris]

Thats... how? How do you **** up something that basic??

Probably quite easily to be fair: how many games have you been in when the subfaction rules on getting into transports have ever mattered? I’ll wager the answer for most people is 0, which means it’s the sort of thing you just assume works, it’s not on your radar. Same goes for the rules writers: it’s easy to miss something if you have nothing to prompt you to think about it!

It shouldn’t have happened of course. It’s bad quality control. But it’s a great example of how something can be obvious when you look at the whole thing fresh, as people reading the rules now do, and invisible when you’re looking in detail. It’s why it’s always important when writing something to give it to someone who hasn’t been working on it to read!

[Cheesegear]

It shouldn’t have happened of course. It’s bad quality control. But it’s a great example of how something can be obvious when you look at the whole thing fresh...

If GW was a poor starving artist company, I could forgive their mistakes. But, GW are currently making hundreds of millions of dollars, their massive profits actually making financial waves in the stockmarket as they begin to shill out their IP whilst also consolidating it at the same time. They don't get to slide on skipping QA&C anymore. They don't get to slide on calling the Death Guard 'the 7th Legion', and they don't get to slide on calling Tartorus Armour, Cataphractii.

You shouldn't defend a company that makes hundreds of millions of dollars when it comes to QA. They should just know better.

[LansXero]

Probably quite easily to be fair: how many games have you been in when the subfaction rules on getting into transports have ever mattered?

Give or take 50. Pretty normal when you soup within your own faction. Not every codex is marines where doing so breaks some benefit. There is no excuse to overlook something that gets hammered over and over whenever discussing transports. They even wrote specific allowances for it when they made Agents of the Imperium and similar.

Then again I'd prefer if subfaction didn't matter for transports, but thats not how the rules are.

[Avaris]

If GW was a poor starving artist company, I could forgive their mistakes. But, GW are currently making hundreds of millions of dollars, their massive profits actually making financial waves in the stockmarket as they begin to shill out their IP whilst also consolidating it at the same time. They don't get to slide on skipping QA&C anymore. They don't get to slide on calling the Death Guard 'the 7th Legion', and they don't get to slide on calling Tartorus Armour, Cataphractii.

You shouldn't defend a company that makes hundreds of millions of dollars when it comes to QA. They should just know better.

Not defending, explaining. The question was asked ‘how can this happen’, and I feel that, actually, it is much more easily than people think. Like any company, GW is not a monolithic machine churning out product, it is made up of fallible people.

This is something I do have sympathy for the people in GW for, hence why I think it is worth understanding how it can happen. I work in an organisation that writes high profile reports on topics of national importance. Every report we write goes through weeks of quality checks, with various different teams involved specifically for QA and proof reading, both experts in a topic and generalists. Through this process we catch many mistakes. But not all. There have been multiple times when I’ve opened a report and seen something that ‘should’ have been obvious, and yet we missed it. We are not infallible.

As I said, it shouldn’t have happened. It’s a failure of the quality control and ruleswriting process. But I always find it useful to understand and explain how this can happen!

[Cheesegear]

Like any company, GW is not a monolithic machine churning out product, it is made up of fallible people.

GW is both.
The reason that the people are fallible is because they are churning out product.

At one stage, GW said that because Codecies were written by individual people, they took longer, and had more mistakes and oversights.

Post 6th Ed., we know that's not true anymore. Codecies are written by teams of people, with - allegedly - around a dozen playtesters of...Questionable talent. There is a failure of magnitudes.

That's why when the Tartorus Armour happened; It's not a fault of the WarCom writer not knowing their own product. It's a failure down the entire line that that was allowed to ship to product...Get posted, if you will.

ItÂ’s a failure of the quality control and ruleswriting process.

Right. But why do people fail?

I work in a lab. Everything I do is monitored. If I have a hand cramp that day, I write it down. If I have shoulder or elbow pain that day, I write it down. If I think I have contaminated my work - even if I haven't - I write it down. If I see something odd in a sample I'm working on, I write it down. If I think I slipped whilst handling the sample, I write it down. If my work, with my name on it, with my accountability comes back wrong or contaminated...You can bet your ass, that my ass had better be covered. Any mistake that I made - or even think I made - is notated. The other person, and the other person working on the sample also notate what they do. Between the three of us, if something comes back contaminated, it had better be someone's fault. Or it's a failure of the entire line, and if it's a failure of the entire line, and between the three of us, none of us knew what we were doing? Heads roll.

And I don't even work for a company with million dollar profits. I just work for a company that expects professionalism. When mistakes with samples happen, find out why. No. It's not good enough to say 'humans are fallible', because at the end of the day the question is 'Why are humans fallible? Which one of us is faillible?', and 'How do we fix you? If we can't fix you, we fire you.'

[Avaris]

Right. But why do people fail?

I work in a lab. Everything I do is monitored. If I have a hand cramp that day, I write it down. If I have shoulder or elbow pain that day, I write it down. If I think I have contaminated my work - even if I haven't - I write it down. If I see something odd in a sample I'm working on, I write it down. If I think I slipped whilst handling the sample, I write it down. If my work, with my name on it, with my accountability comes back wrong or contaminated...You can bet your ass, that my ass had better be covered. Any mistake that I made - or even think I made - is notated. The other person, and the other person working on the sample also notate what they do. Between the three of us, if something comes back contaminated, it had better be someone's fault. Or it's a failure of the entire line, and if it's a failure of the entire line, and between the three of us, none of us knew what we were doing? Heads roll.

And I don't even work for a company with million dollar profits. I just work for a company that expects professionalism. When mistakes with samples happen, find out why. No. It's not good enough to say 'humans are fallible', because at the end of the day the question is 'Why are humans fallible? Which one of us is faillible?', and 'How do we fix you? If we can't fix you, we fire you.'

You’re working in a situation with set processes and expected results though: even if you need to use your experience to alter a process to match the needs of a sample, it is still within controllable bounds. Each day, each sample, follows broadly the same process, and has the same sorts of things to watch out for. The quality control regime you have is directly applicable to systems like in the GW factory: the recent mishap with people getting the wrong model is a good example. But IMO, it is less applicable to ruleswriting (and my own field of report writing).

In ruleswriting, and report writing, there is no set process beyond the very highest level. It’s a mess of smaller actions all leading to the final product, and all interacting. You can break it down some, such as by datasheet, but it is still all dependent on a lot of different things interacting. And what happens is mistakes creep in in the gaps between those things: you aren’t aware of them, because you don’t know to look! You can’t see the wood for the trees! There is no level of quality control process that can 100% account for this, even if you spend millions on it. That’s why these mistakes happen; they shouldn’t, but they do. The role of quality control in this context is to ensure the impacts are minimal (which GW has… varying success at).

[LansXero]

Yeah... no, thats just conceited bs.

I might not have had a fancy job, but even in something as trivial as warehouse work 'people are fallible' is not an excuse. First few months I lost so many days of pay due to mislabeling or misplacing things, even when it wasn't my fault but still was my responsability to check. Loader guys would get tired and leave crates where they shouldn't or half-ass their report and when others came to unpack / ship things, if they weren't where they should that was a docked day of pay for me. It was stupid trivial to fix, just move a couple doors down and grab the thing, or use the label thats clearly visible (not ours which was wrong but the original one which was right). But tiny mistakes pile up and when something gets overlooked then people can start stealing or tampering with product. Its all about professionalism and accountability.

Now, we have no idea if whoever messed up caught flak for it internally. They might've been fired for all we know, but Im sure nothing happened. There seems to be a culture around game companies that because they produce games the whole thing is a joke. Sales reps, manufacturing, distribution, they tend to be on the low end of professionalism and try to get away with crap that no other supplier would attempt. I feel its because they expect hobby shop owners to not know any better or have experience with anything, so they act as if they could do no wrong.

[Cheesegear]

[QUOTE=LansXero;25174630]

There seems to be a culture around game companies that because they produce games the whole thing is a joke.

As I said, some accountability is so much better than no accountability at all.

11:17 - My glove finger has a hole in it. How long? All morning contaminated? Told others. Replaced gloves.

When my boss returns with half a dozen contaminated samples, and sees that? ...Oh, okay that's fine. You know the problem. You addressed the problem. It's pretty rare that you'll slice a glove open. Fair enough. It's annoying. But we all make mistakes. Continue the good work.

But if my boss comes back with half a dozen contaminated samples, and neither myself, nor the other two workers know what we did. The assumption made is that none of us know what we're doing and we're all terrible. No-one knows what the problem was, no-one knows how to fix the problem. I guess it was magic, there's nothing we can do. Oh, okay. That's acceptable.

I feel its because they expect hobby shop owners to not know any better or have experience with anything, so they act as if they could do no wrong.

Worse, is that when the consumer is negatively affected by the mistake (e.g; Rule [X] or Unit [Y] does not work), the consumer defends the corporation because reasons. GW loves this because it means there doesn't have to be an 'official statement' from the company. Just fans hating each other, not the people responsible (insert edgy political equivalent).

**** yeah. Haarkon Worldclaimer. Time to make Night Lords Raptors happen. Hell, maybe even World Eaters Raptors? Remember World Eaters? Holy crap. Make Khorne great again. Haarkon affecting all Raptors opens up so many options for non-Black Legion options. Especially those Melee ones that have been forgotten with all the demonic crap seeping through the Chaos codecies. Make Legions great again. 'Legions. Not Daemons.'

GW: Hmm...Yes. Well, you see, Haarkon only affects Black Legion now.

What...No...Don't ruin it. **** you GW.

GW: You know the drill. When we get negative feedback we go radio silent.

Consumer: ...Well y'see you dumb power-gamer. Haarkon is a Black Legion, so it makes sense that he only buffs Black Legion.

But Black Legion don't want Raptors. They want Terminators! This flawed ruling actually benefits a significant portion of the community. Don't ruin this for the rest of us.

Consumer: I will defend the decision of the million dollar corporation, even though I don't even play Chaos Marines and this change literally doesn't affect me.

wat

[Hootman]

This situation would be a lot less stupid if GW had, say, a large social media presence in a certain sphere and used that presence to whip out temporary corrections to rules where they made a mistake as a hot-fix to the problem until it could be properly reviewed by the Rules Team and made into official errata. They could call it...like...Emergency Astropathic Communiques, or something.

Spoiler: By way of example...

Show

Start Transmission
Thought For The Day: Oh s**t. Tyranids. *sounds of chewing*

Hello, oh beautiful and wonderous followers of our cool but occasionally deeply flawed product! Blah-blah-blah more platitudes. Anyways, here are the quick-fixes for the suuuuper whoops-y-doodle stuff we found this week. You can expect Official Errata for Codex Oops on the 12th of Orktober, as well as an update for something we've had on the back-burner for a while in Codex Sphess Mahrins. Based on what I'm hearing from the Rules Committe, any Crimson Fists players out there should be pleased.

Anyways, here are the things:

TRUKK BOYZ - Trukk Boyz can go in Trukks that are part of the same Detachment they were purchased in, ignoring the usual <Clan> keyword restrictions on Trukks.

HARLEQUINS - Continue to exist, and for that we are very sorry to the one imaginary poster who keeps complaining about them. At this time, we are not prepared to address this issue, and recommend playing around them if you don't like the taste.


Final Note: Please remember that these are Quick-Fix-Rulings, designed to help our lovely players get past the mistakes that inevitably crop up in the production of a product so awesome and layered as ours. We always strive to be better, but we aren't, so...this is what you get. Keep an eye out for the Official Rulings coming out on the 12th, as they may be different from the rulings given above!

End Transmission.

Something like that.

But, obviously, this is totally impossible. Astropathic Rules Interns are notoriously prone to coming down with cases of exploding head, so it's a terrible idea to give them access to your Facebook account or other social media presence.



But hey, on the bright side, I won my Crusade battle that spawned this discussion! (I didn't end up using them as Trukk Boyz, because it was easier to just save the RP it would cost for later.) My Warboss was a total wimp who refused to footslog up with da Boyz and then got jumped on by TH/SS Vanguard when they dropped in--I've decided that he was NOT, in fact, the real Sneakboss Dakkasnagga, and was instead his predecessor (or perhaps a decoy) who has now died from their Battle Scar of having their whole chest crushed by Thunderhammers. The real Dakkasnagga will be showing up some other time.

The whole game was kind of grindy, as neither of us were actually able to score any points off The Relic, and it just turned into a murder-fest that ended with the Marines finally getting tabled on the top of Turn 5. Trying to get my head around keeping track of all the different ways to score different kinds of points was a little tough, but now that I've lived it, I'll be more prepared next time to do things right. And I'll have my own custom crusade cards for my units, which will make that part easier.

MVP was the Kustom Mega Kannon Mek Gun who made the first shot of the game on a barely visible Rhino holding some Plasmagunners, Command Squad guys, and the Warlord. It one-shotted the Rhino, 3 expensive Marines died, and they were so shaken that when they fired their plasmaguns the following turn, another 2 or 3 of them exploded. After rerolls.

Good times.

[Forum Explorer]

Yeah, put me with Cheesegear and the others. Sure, mistakes happen. Sure, sometimes quality control fails as well and it slips through the gap. I get that. No safeguard is perfect, and thus sometimes something slips through just through sheer probability.

This sort of stuff happens all the time with GW. And 9e has been really bad for it.

And that's one of my biggest complaints about 9e. In general it feels like they've put in so much less effort. FAQs are slower and more sparse, Codexs are more prone to having things that don't make sense or are brokenly OP, the Chapter Approved had no new rules or missions, and so on.

[Artanis]

Yeah, put me with Cheesegear and the others. Sure, mistakes happen. Sure, sometimes quality control fails as well and it slips through the gap. I get that. No safeguard is perfect, and thus sometimes something slips through just through sheer probability.

This sort of stuff happens all the time with GW. And 9e has been really bad for it.

And that's one of my biggest complaints about 9e. In general it feels like they've put in so much less effort. FAQs are slower and more sparse, Codexs are more prone to having things that don't make sense or are brokenly OP, the Chapter Approved had no new rules or missions, and so on.

This is pretty much how I feel. I don't much blame the writer or whatever QA guys let this through - humans make mistakes. But as a company, GW has more than enough resources to take this sort of human error almost entirely out of the equation, and to instantly fix anything that still gets through anyways.

The question of "how did this happen" isn't asking how the writer made the mistake, it's asking how a company as big and rich as GW let that mistake not just get all the way to production, but also STAY there without being immediately fixed by an errata.

[Avaris]

The speed of fixes (or attempted fixes) through FAQ is a definite issue atm. There are a lot of things which should be fairly obvious or straightforward to fix, but they wait a fair amount of time to put it out, and even when they do it doesn't cover everything. There are definitely some errata that needs time to think about, that's not an issue, but there is some stuff that should be day 1 (like the Paragon Warsuits).

[Blackhawk748]

Probably quite easily to be fair: how many games have you been in when the subfaction rules on getting into transports have ever mattered? I’ll wager the answer for most people is 0, which means it’s the sort of thing you just assume works, it’s not on your radar. Same goes for the rules writers: it’s easy to miss something if you have nothing to prompt you to think about it!

It shouldn’t have happened of course. It’s bad quality control. But it’s a great example of how something can be obvious when you look at the whole thing fresh, as people reading the rules now do, and invisible when you’re looking in detail. It’s why it’s always important when writing something to give it to someone who hasn’t been working on it to read!

As stated... anyone who does multi-sub-faction soup. So Chaos, Guard (I would imagine), Orks clearly, probably some Sisters list I don't know of.

Like, I would be annoyed at Mantic, I company I wholeheartedly like and support, for something like this and they're way smaller than GW. But you know what? I've never had this happen with their rules. The first Errata that came out for 2nd ed barely had anything in it, mostly just cleaning up a few sentences that were structured weird and a small handful of other things, it was mostly rules clarifications and there wasn't even all that many of those.

Mantic's usual mistake is either overpricing, or underpricing something, but even that isn't too bad. Gw though? They do this kinda stuff all the time and its just... tiring. You go and pay $40 for the book, of one army mind you, and they have something as important as the Keywords messed up so that, by RAW, Trukk Boyz can't get into Trukks.

Meanwhile Mantic will sell you the rules for every army they have for $50 in two books and they won't have this issue.

Like, this isn't some Stratagem having a weird interaction with a specific sub factions unit when its under a specific buff. I could get something like that slipping through. This is a keyword being wrong which should be one of the first things checked in editing considering how important they are.

[LansXero]

As stated... anyone who does multi-sub-faction soup. So Chaos, Guard (I would imagine), Orks clearly, probably some Sisters list I don't know of.

Eldar/8 got a lot from it. DE/8 too, but more so the fact that they weren't affected which is still a way in which its relevant, by virtue of having a written exception. I think AdMech also had something of the sort for a while, but Im not sure how common it was (must've been when the new boats came out).

As others mentioned, internal accountability aside, there is no external accountability. Day 1 Errata is mocked but is still preferable to silence then nothing. OFC its not a glaring error, its something you can acceptably houserule in casual and unlikely to matter in competitive (and if it does then it'll get houseruled by TOs anyhow) but the spirit of not caring enough to go through the copy they sent to print in the long months between final draft and release date is telling.