There
is an age old cycling adage that says, “the riders make the race.” What this means is, the race organizers can
make the most brutal course they can imagine with cobble stone roads,
mountains, hairpin turns and so on; but if the racers don’t feel like pushing
it, or no one takes the initiative and attacks then the race won’t be that
eventful. On the other side of the coin,
a completely flat straight course could be an absolute bore, but if the racers
attack, counter-attack, and ride aggressively it could be quit exciting and
difficult. In essence, the riders make
the race, not the course.
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| Nikephoros dominating a bike race |
In
Warhammer, the opposite of this dictum is true.
Since fully painted and modeled armies are time and money consuming to
build and collect, there is really no metagame among players. If radically changing your army
composition-or even your entire army- was something we could do in a day or
two, you’d see a real metagame as players adapted to each other’s builds. But as it stands, people try to bring lists
that are generally good against a general field and hope that the things
outside their control go their way.
But
just because you can’t really modify your list in a big way in order to attack
a metagame doesn’t mean there are no worthwhile modifications to make. Remember, the biggest variable you face at
each tournament is the terrain and house rules.
It goes without saying that a lot of people underestimated the impact of
4++ area terrain and large LOS blocking terrain in the middle of the table at
NOVA this year. People who playtested
their lists on emptier, shooting gallery tables common in the U.S. were
obviously caught off guard when their long range shooting failed to replicate
the successes they were used to.
So
what can you do as a player to avoid this?
My hope would be that as time goes on, TO’s will do a better and better
job of letting people know what to expect the tables to look like before the
tournament. Mike does a great job on the
Whiskey blog of discussing this sort of thing, and I hope that level of
openness catches on.
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| Nikephoros dominating a 40k tournament. Well, at least this game. |
If
we know, for example, that a tournament will have the same terrain and cover
rules as NOVA, we can adjust our lists to take advantage; perhaps by bringing
more mid-range firepower instead of long range, or by bringing more dedicated
close combat units than you would normally.
And since most units will have some kind of 4++ it doesn’t pay much to
spend extra points for units with 4+ (or worse) armor. You can shave points from unnecessary armor
saves and spend them on things that become better under the tournament
conditions, like Dozer Blades.
Obviously,
the alternative is true. If you know
that the terrain will be sparse you would be stupid not to bring good long
range firepower, or at least ways to mitigate your opponents’.
All
of this is should be pretty obvious, but my thinking is that very few players
take these things into strong consideration.
The difference between a 4-0 day 1 result and a 3-1 result could easily
come down to a Dozer Blade or a close combat unit you could have brought to
take advantage of their increased survivability.
In
the end, in any type of gaming from Warhammer to Poker to video games comes
down to controlling what you can control and playing around what you
can’t. Any time that we have an avenue
to assert control over something (in this example, tournament terrain rules and
conditions) you should take advantage of it.
The more that you control for, the less luck becomes a factor and the
more successful you’ll be.
