Mathhammer: Percentages Lie

The most infuriating thing I hear when people talk about list building and wargear options is something like, “option a is 33% more effective than option b and costs only 5 more points!”  I call this the fallacy of using percentages in a nominal system.

This isn’t just a 40k problem, I see it in every sort of RPG, MMO, card game, etc where players have to pick from differing options using limited resources.  But since this is a 40k blog, my examples are going to be from 40k for the sake of being understood universally.

So what is the problem?  The problem is, you don’t build lists based on percentages, you build them based on points.  In the crudest terms, how many MEQ a gun kills per turn is worthless information.  If gun A kills 1 MEQ per turn and gun b kills 1.33, if you don’t then divide by the points cost, you aren’t actually making any sort of rational choice.  Since we are limited in points, any choice comes at the expense of another choice, and making efficient choices is how you win in the list building phase.  In a balanced game, there would never be a single weapon that was good against every type of army for an affordable amount of points ::cough::grav cannon::cough::.  However, even figuring out killing power divided by points isn’t the whole story.

You could build a list using killing power divided by points to only pick the most efficient choices, but you’d probably lose.  There are some armies that simply don’t have great options across the whole killing spectrum.  They might shred vehicles.  They might kill MEQ.  But they have to pay through the nose to kill hordes.  If you’re trying to field a balanced army you may have to bring inefficient choices in order to actually have a well rounded force.  For example, let’s say an army has a hyper efficient lascannon platform.  You could bring an army bristling with these lascannon platforms.  You might has 25% more lascannons than any other army could bring to the table for the same points.  

Is that even good?  I’d argue that those extra lascannons are not helping.  What you SHOULD do is economise by using your cheap lascannons to fill out your anti-vehicle slots, and then use the points savings to bring killy but points inefficient units that shred infantry.  This is an oversimplified example, ofcourse but it demonstrates that idea that simplying making a list of nothing but points efficient units won’t check all the boxes.  Unless, ofcourse, your codex is broke and simply better at every role than everyone else.

Another thing to consider is the value of nominalizing these numbers.  “33% better at killing MEQ!” sounds great.  How many extra MEQ dead per game is that?  Oh well Gun A kills .65 MEQ per turn and Gun B kills .87 MEQ per turn.  Cool, gun B MIGHT kill one extra marine per game, if you get perfect conditions every turn.  Is that really worth paying ANY extra points for? If we value a Marine at 13 points, you might argue that so long as the gun costs less than 13 points it is worth paying for.  We know, ofcourse, this is a nonsense way to look at list building.

Yes, I just “proved” that big percentages of small numbers is still small numbers.  Please deliver my nobel prize for mathematics any time now.  But that is important to consider!  When people use percentages, they are trying to confuse you!  One of the writers at 3plusplus made an awesome series of charts demonstrating the killing power of all the weapons for each faction.  This was great.  It showed how many wounds per turn a weapon would do against a variety of targets ranging from GEQ to Land Raiders.  Fantastically useful information… which people proceeded to draw insanely bad conclusions from because they put too much value in comparing percentages of small numbers and not enough on looking at the nominal amounts.  

In conclusion, beware percentages.  Big sounding percentages differences are often used to exaggerate what are actually small nominal differences on the table top especially in regards to higher variance, single shot weapons.  Efficiency in list building is extremely important but don’t let the desire to be hyper efficient cause you to make mistakes.

Remember That Time Games Workshop Ruined Warhammer Fantasy?

I do!  

I miss my Dark Elf Lord.

Remember when 8th Edition came out and there was legit hype that we might finally get a ruleset on par with 40k 5th Edition?  I do!

Remember when they almost actually did it, except the Magic phase was grossly overpowered compared to the rest of the game and if they had only toned down the magic phase they would have had a game that had great rules, the same great minis, and the awesome variety of army that doesn't exist in Space Marine dominated 40k?  I do!

Remember when they took our feedback ("magic phase is too OP") and instead of tweaking it and perfecting their game, they doubled down on it with the expansion that BUFFED THE GODDAMN MAGIC PHASE and made magic even more gamebreaking?  I do!

Remember when that effectively killed the game and all of us threw our hands up and said "fuck this, I'm going back to 40k?"  I do!

Remember when they subsequently fucked up 40k?!  I do!

Remember when they desperately tried to cash in on the last bit of community goodwill for Fantasy with the End Times expansion which basically added more BS over the top units, merged all the armies into a play-whatever-you-want-yolo mess which destroyed the flavor of the individual armies which was the best goddamn part of Fantasy in the first place?  I do!

Remember when they scrapped Warhammer Fantasy and replaced it with a little kid miniatures game that would be most ideally played with pre-painted unit ala Clix and the game was designed solely to appeal to little kids who like 40k but doesn't actually interest little kids and ofcourse Fantasy vets aren't interested because the game is complete horse shit garbage?  I do!

______

What should you take away from this?  That GW has absolutely no understanding of who their Fantasy audience was, what they wanted from the game and essentially delivered the exact opposite of what was needed on multiple occasions.  Gamers have not abandoned Fantasy: we are still interested in WHFB.  We would still play warhammer fantasy battles if there were solid rules and support.  Pro tip: release WHFB 8th edition, but eliminate every magic spell above number 3 in every magic line and you instantly have a game that is fun, balanced and playable.

RIP WHFB.  It wasn't euthanasia, it was a murder.

Odds and Ends and Ramblings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thoughts?  Comments?  Questions?

Extended Absence: Guild Wars 2

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

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

Better Playtesting: Cross Training

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

Cycling: Ride a lot

40k: Play a lot

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

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

Cycling: Focused Training

40k: Focused Playtesting

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

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

Cycling: Don’t innovate on race-day

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

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

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

Cycling: There is always somebody faster

40k: Set realistic goals

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

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

Cycling: Ride with faster people

40k: Play against better players

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

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

Cycling: Train heavy, race light

40k: Playtest strictly, have fun at the tournament

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

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

Thoughts?  Comments?  Questions?

The 40k Community Has a Loser Mentality Part II

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thoughts?  Comments?  Questions?

The 40k Community Has a Loser Mentality

Reference: This article.

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

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

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

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

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

Thoughts?  Comments?  Questions?

40k Theory: Finding the Edge

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

The beginning of every good project is an Excel spreadsheet

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thoughts?  Comments?  Questions?

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

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

Shaking like an epileptic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thoughts?  Comments?  Questions?

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

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

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

Oh wait, I was good in 5th too!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thoughts?

Black Templars and 6th Edition Rumors Part 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

On a positive note…

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

Re-rolling ur misses, and sometimes ur wounds

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thoughts?  Comments?  Questions?

Games Workshop Webstore and the Tournament Scene

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thoughts?  Comments?  Questions?