Space Marine List Evolution

As you last read I have embraced the concept of running Ultramarines simply because its the only way to run the sort of list I want to run in a way that doesn’t feel like I’m hemorrhaging value or making gross concessions.  Without reiterating it, Guilleman is a role compressor: for 360 points you get the best force multiplier a shooty army could want along with being one of the nastiest close combat units in the game and he is virtually immune to shooting.  You all know all that already.

I want lot’s of Razorbacks simply because they are efficient, and the best unit to unlock them, 5 man heavy/combi Tactical squads are also rather efficient.  Many people view Troops as the “tax” for unlocking the Battalion Detachment, and in some armies that is possibly true.  But for Marines, the troops are decent, if not good.  Oddly enough, if you are bringing Guilleman, the HQ becomes the tax.  Without Guilleman, one of the Chapter Masters or even min/maxed Captain with Combi Plasma give you very efficient force multiplier choices.  But with Guilleman you dont get a great deal from those.  Marneus Calgar is not great in a list with Guilleman, for example.  The aforementioned hyper efficient combiplas captain isn’t much better.  Assuming you don’t need re-rolls from your HQ, where do you find value?  You have to bring two of these to get a battalion and they need to have value.

Why bring a battalion?  Well we are already paying the “troop tax” voluntarily.  And no matter what formation we bring we need an HQ.  So really the “HQ tax” is only like 100 points for 2 extra command points, plus whatever value we get from that HQ.  With that right HQ, that is worthwhile.

Alright, so what HQ do we want to maximize our value?  In a list with Razorbacks and Dreadnaughts, especially one looking to economize on points the best option in the book is Techmarine.  For a dirt cheap 75 points you are likely to repair a half dozen wounds to your vehicles over the course of the game.  That is ridiculously powerful in a mechanized list.  The enemy cannot leave a wounded vehicle alive, he HAS to kill them if he is going to bother shooting at them at all.  This means spending his firepower inefficiently, which is a huge defensive bonus for you.  Basic Techmarine with Power Axe is where its at.  So much so, that I am tempted to bring 2 of them.

Except Librarians are also great.  A basic Librarian with Force Sword is price efficient, provides some psychic defense and thanks to power of his own is, if nothing else, a heavy firepower shooting unit from our HQ.  Not to mention that against some armies, Null Zone saves the day.  I’m not 100% convinced that the Libby is better than a second Techmarine would be, but the point of making initial lists is being a tad generalist and refine it after playtesting.  If the Libby is mediocre and the TM over preforms, make the swap.

Without further delay, here is the core of the list I’m working on now.

Lord of War Detachment

Roboute Guilleman 360 (warlord)

Battalion Detachment

Librarian w/ Force Sword 105

Techmarine w/ Power Axe 75

5 Tac Squad with Lascannon and combi Plasma 105

5 Tac Squad with Lascannon and combi Plasma 105

5 Tac Squad with Lascannon and combi Plasma 105

Ven Dread w/ 2x Twin Autocannon 156

Ven Dread w/ 2x Twin Autocannon 156

Predator w/ Pred AC, 2x Lascannons 201

Predator w/ Pred AC, 2x Lascannons 201

Razorback w/ Twin Assault Cannon 100

Razorback w/ Twin Assault Cannon 100

Razorback w/ Twin Lascannon 115

Razorback w/ Twin Lascannon 115

Total: 1,999 points

Command Points: 9

The predators are a bit of an experiment.  You could easily cut them, buy a third Ven Dread, and have points left over to spam more razorbacks.  It’s hard to say which option is more efficient.  It seems possible to me that two Assbacks is more powerful than a single Predator, but I’m not sure how it will play out.  Either way, I think this is a pretty mean list and I wouldn’t be excited to play against it.  Any thoughts?  Am I missing something?

Thinking Out Loud: Space Marine Codex

Space Marine Codex is interesting.  I was hoping for something in the Strategem/Relic/Warlord trait section would make my Templars more competitive, but alas, while the toys Templars got are very fluffy you don't win competitive games by having the best fluff.  Simply put, the Templars in 8th are an assault army and assault armies don't generally win tournaments.  

Actually, its not that Templars are bad at shooting, its just that there are better options for a gunline/firebase army in the book that picking Templars to play a shooty army is just squandering an advantage.  Ravenguard got an incredibly powerful ability that will allow them to outshoot opposing shooty armies.  Salamanders got an incredibly powerful ability that will allow them to dismantle enemy mechanized armies with high strength low weight of fire weapons.  

As my longtime readers may remember my preferance is MSU gunlines with strong counter charge assault units to defend them or to silence enemy shooting as the situation merits.  Salamanders lends more to that playstyle than RG.  The RG ability is so strong that it definitely lends itself to a more mobile shooty playstyle where you can ensure you'll always be more than 12 away.  

Salamanders were my initial choice, simply because with melta and las weapons (my preference) you are so disruptive.  The benefits to flame weapons allows you to deal with hordes that would otherwise trouble a las-heavy force.  What I didn't like about Salamanders was that Vulkan doesn't actually do much.  Yes, with warlord traits and relics etc you can turn him into an assault monster but he serves no actual purpose in the army as he isn't terribly good as force multiplier.  What this means is, Salamanders are generally best off with vanilla HQ choices instead of Vulkan.  Some might argue that their chapter tactic is enough of a force multiplier, they can take fighty HQ choices my response is: you can't multiply your forces enough.  

So I was kinda at a loss.  The initial Salamanders lists I put together all felt decent but they were missing a bit of punch.  There just wasn't much finishing power.  The more assaulty units I added to get some of that counter-charge punch I wanted just came at the expense of watering down my firepower.  I had a bit of an epiphany at this point.

A good marine list needs:

1.  Firepower.

2.  Counter charge capabilities

3.  Significant force multipliers

"Tell us something we don't know."

OK.

You'll never have enough points to do all three unless their roles overlap.  Unless your force-multiplier also is a countercharge unit, or is a pillar of your shooting capabilities you'll never be able to have enough points to beat a more focuses enemy shooting army or defeat a well played assault army.  So you need role compression.  Look at it like a basketball team.  You need good 3 point shooters and you need guys who can really play defense well against opposing 3 point shooters.  You can only have 5 guys on the court at once.  You cannot have 3 really good 3 point shooters and 3 really good defenders.  On the best teams, most of your best defenders are also your best shooters etc.  You get it.

So how to do all that?  Easy: play Ultramarines.  Guilleman is the best force multiplier in the Imperium AND the best assault character.  When I came back to 40k with 8E I really did not want to use Guilleman because I felt using a character like that was no different than being the guy who shows up to a 1,000 point game with broken forgeworld units.  

The more I tinkered with lists and the more I experienced 8th, the more I realized that its silly and noncompetitive to put those kinds of restrictions on my lists.  I want to have fun and I want to win and I'll do it by bringing the best lists I can.  

"So why don't you bring fliers?"

Good question.  The most honest answer is that I don't own any since I quit the game before they came out.  The secondary answer is that fliers being in the game, as opposed to reserved for Apocalypse games, are one of the reasons I quit the game in the first place.  Simply put, call me a hypocrite for going against what I just wrote about not limiting my list building, but the bottom line is I don't need the game.  It's not my only creative or competitive outlet.  I'd just assume walk away from the game again than to play a Stormtalon spam list.

In the days to come I'll post my thoughts on 8th Edition Marine list building and how my evolution is going.

Life on Death Row: Black Templar Allies in 6th

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thoughts?  Comments?  Questions?

40k Theory: Power vs. Synergy

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

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

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

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

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

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

Better Playtesting: Cross Training

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?

A Brief Note on Comparative Analysis

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

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

This is wrong.  

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

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

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

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

Editorial: The Awesomeness of Being Totally Wrong

I love, and I mean I absolutely love, when I am proven wrong about something in a competitive game.  Most people would think the opposite; that I would always want to be right, and get the validation of everyone telling me how right I am.  Maybe some folks do prefer that.  Personally, I love when I’m wrong about a conclusion. 

Why?  Simple really.  Let’s say I think a Unit A is great and Unit B sucks.  I play with A, and I win a lot simply because I’m a pretty good player.  Then one day I try using Unit B on a lark.  And I find out that not only does Unit B not suck, it is infinitely better than Unit A!  That’s the best feeling ever.  It’s akin to being one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL, then having a coach ask you to change one small thing and after you do, you become an even better quarterback. 

It’s a total free-roll.  Playing with the house’s money at that point.  And I love it.

I bet by now that you are wondering what miraculous discovery I made that led me to make some sick brags about how I am so smart that on the rare times I’m wrong I impress myself.

So here it is, and it relates to Warhammer Fantasy Battles and Dark Elves.

I painted this, hence why it looks terrible.

The Cauldron of Blood is really good.  Especially in my chariot list.  The end.

…

Actually you deserve a bit more explanation for having put up with that lengthy preamble.

I was judging the CoB based on 7^th Edition ideas, quite honestly.  In 7^th Edition, Deathstars were godly for Dark Elves.  And the CoB made them even godlier.   So essentially, I was judging the CoB by the usefulness of the buffs it gives out.  And this was the correct evaluation, at the time.

However when 8^th Edition hit and the DE deathstars died, I was quick to notice that the buffs weren’t nearly as useful unless you’re running big hordes.   Unfortunately, big hordes of ranked infantry are only useful if your units are dirt cheap, which DE aren’t.  So I didn’t give it much thought anymore.

Once I started down the road of developing my chariot list, my initial goal was to pack as many chariots in as possible.  And that necessitated having my BSB ride a chariot.  Under normal circumstances, I would never put a BSB on a chariot, because it would be a fire magnet.  Generally a BSB has to sit in a unit to keep the heat off of him.

In the chariot list though, he is safer because there are 4 other chariots in front of him and two hydras nearby that are probably higher priority targets for the same types of things you’d shoot at the BSB with.  And it was fine.  I played many games with the list, and won many of them.  The BSB on a chariot was rarely a liability.

But I started to ask myself questions like, “since I rarely commit the BSB’s chariot to combat where he could be killed much easier, why am I spending 90 points on a chariot that is essentially an offensive upgrade weapon?”  As a quick aside, it is important, even when you’re ‘sure’ you have a finely tuned and optimal list to ask yourself critical questions about it.  You may have a great answer for those questions which is fine.  Or maybe you won’t have a good answer and you’ll find out some great new information.

The answer to my question was unsatisfactory.  The chariot was by and large a waste of points since I rarely risked putting him into close combat.  But what was the alternative?  A walking BSB needs a big unit, and the strength of the list is not having big dumb blocks.  A BSB on a Dark Steed was a thought, but I ruled it out because while the Sorceresses on Steeds can play line of sight cute tricks to not get killed, the BSB kinda has to be in the right place at the right time.

So I considered, “why not use a CoB as a BSB?”  My initial reply was, “because the buffs aren’t worth it.”  And I was right, the CoB buffs alone are not worth it.  But maybe it’s strengths as a BSB are worth it.  It’s a Toughness 10, 4++ ward, 13 attacks plus Hatred behemoth.  It really is exceptionally hard to kill, which is a huge asset in a game system where the guy who loses his BSB first is at a tremendous disadvantage.

If you evaluate it as a tough as hell to kill BSB first, and look at the unit buffing ability as a nice bonus, the value of the unit really jumps out at you.  If my unit buffs end up not doing much, I’m OK with that because I’m getting such great value out of a T10 4W battle standard bearer.  If the buffs do end up doing something valuable, that’s icing on the cake.

And I was right, the CoB is a most excellent upgrade in my Dark Elves chariot list.  My list is now much better (post on the updated list someday soon) and wins more games more easily. 

The conclusion here really isn’t specific to Dark Elves or even Fantasy; it’s broadly applicable to anything you’re competitive about or even life in general.  Don’t be afraid to ask yourself tough questions about closely held ideas and challenge your faith in everything you have faith in.  Socrates was fond of saying that the unexamined life isn’t worth living, and he was right.  Be introspective about everything, and your life will improve in meaningful ways.  Be introspective about your wargaming lists and strategies and your game play will improve in meaningful ways.

Thoughts?  Comments?  Questions?

40k Theory: Picking a Line Part II

In part one I discussed how to evaluate the midgame game-state to determine game play line to take in order to get to the desired end game.  As an aside, that is a lot of uses of the word ‘game’ in one sentence.  As some commentators pointed out, the end game should ALWAYS be on your mind, but it was also astutely observed that you can’t change your plan every turn as the result of a couple of bad rolls that will inevitably occur. 

Essentially, when you write your list and play your first few turns you should have an end game in mind.  When I created a hypothetical game to explain, I used Turn 3 as the ‘strategic moment’ but really the turn when you should pick your final line to the end game could come at any point in the game; Turn 3 was just an example not any kind of rule.  The optimal end game path could become obvious on Turn 2 or perhaps not even until Turn 5.  This does require evaluation throughout the game.  Enough said about that.

Taking the concept to the next level involves interaction with your opponent, because you’re not playing solitaire, but a living person who has his own plans to win the game with.

Identify Your Opponent’s Best Line

As easy (or difficult) as it may be to determine your optimal gameplay line, it should be very similar to do the same for your opponent.  If you can figure out how he is going to try to win the game before he does, you can shut the door before he even knows which door he is going to take.    But assuming your opponent is of equal or better skill to you, you ought to assume that he already knows everything you know.

So determine his best line of victory, and do your best to stop it.  Sounds simple enough.  But the key is doing that while advancing your own agenda.  A laser focus on, say, destroying all his Troops might not be the best move for YOUR best line which is playing for a Kill Point win.  It requires a careful balance, and knowledge of how the two goals interact.  At the end, it requires determining what the minimum of resources you need to dedicate to those two things is so you don’t over do it in one area and under serve the other.

Identify You Opponent’s Most Likely Line

This is so key.  Just because you know what the best line he should take doesn’t mean he actually will.  An Eldar player, for example, might be so used to the late game Objective grab that he ignores the fact that his best line is Kill Points in this particular game.  The more linear someone’s list, or the less experienced they are, the most likely they are going to take the obvious line, even if it is to their detriment.  So knowing their best line is good, but knowing the line they are actually going to take is better.  The only way to really know what they are going to do is from gameplay cues.  Is he prioritizing killing your Troops?  Why?  Is he focusing fire on your fast vehicles and ignoring the slow ones?  Why?  Is his shooty army pushing forward towards you backlines?  Why?  What units did he keep in reserve, and why?  These are all cues that can indicate what line he is trying to take.  The cues are constant and usually not subtle.  Which leads me to the next point…

Hide Your Line

This is the Jedi Mind Trick of Warhammer 40k.  In 40k you can’t bluff the way you can in Poker or Magic since you don’t have a hand with information unknown to the opponent.  The only thing your opponent doesn’t know is what’s in your mind, and that’s where you can bluff him.  Let’s say you know that your best line is Kill Points.  If your opponent also knows, and he knows that you know (this is very next level thinking) he is going to play Kill Point denial.  Anything else would be stupid.  This is when you can bluff/mind trick him.  So you are going to try to win by Kill Points, why not for a turn or two play as if you are going to try an objective grab?  If he feels that you abandoned the KP line, he will stop defending it.  That’s when he opens himself up for surrendering Kill Points.

As a corollary, even if your optimal line is Kill Points, and Table Quarters is a distant second, it might be wisest to play for the Table Quarters.  An opponent could easily analyze the game-state and determine that you’re going for Kill Points since it’s the “optimal” play… only to lose to you on a Table Quarters win that he didn’t see coming.  These next level meta-strategies require you to feed him misinformation, from relatively subtle gameplay clues to a little disingenuous table talk.  Make him KNOW you’re going for kill points, and he will act accordingly, even if he is wrong.  Maybe you think its not sporting to ask “how many kill points are your Elites worth in this scenario?” when you don’t intend to pursue Kill Points.  Is that sporting to purposely ask leading question with the intent to misinform?  Maybe, but you can bet that in a tournament where sharks are trying to gain incremental advantage over their opponents, someone will try it.  Either use it, or prepare to defend against it.  I’d suggest both, to be perfectly frank.

If you feel your opponent is trying to mind trick you, how do you know what line to actually defend against?  If you’re a mentalist, you could try to guess based on your perfect understand of human nature and ability to detect deception.  If you’re a normal person, you have to use a gamblers’ instinct.  There is a reason why calling a bluff in Poker is tough: if it was easy no one could successfully bluff.  In 40k, the simplest solution is to always defend against the highest percentage play.  Defend against his optimal line until it becomes patently obvious he isn’t pursuing it anymore.  If his best line is Objectives, and you kill all his Troops you can imagine he now has other plans and you should adjust to the next most optimal line. 

It takes balls of steel to defend against the 2^nd most optimal line –while ignoring his best line- because you think he is trying to mind trick you.  That is a very risky move to call, and I can honestly say that you have to be pretty bold to make that call because the downside for being wrong is enormous.  This should also demonstrate how effective disguising your line will be: your opponent will be very hesitant to call your bluff so bluffs in 40k work pretty well.  It’s a tight rope to walk on both sides of the game, but the rewards are plentiful.

Thoughts?  Comments?  Questions?

40k Theory: Picking a Line Part I

In every game where skill usually (but not always!) beats luck, there comes a point in close matches where each player has to begin thinking about the end game.  In Warhammer 40k, and to an even greater extent Warhammer Fantasy, your opening moves are fairly rote; your deployment and opening turn or two tend to follow a fairly regular script.  At some point, however, the chaos of a closely fought battle will throw whatever your initial plans were into vapor.

It is at this point when the thoughts about how you’re actually going to win should start bouncing around your head.  In normal games there are two ways to win, mission objectives or tabling.  In tournaments, there mission goals are often complex enough that you can work towards drawing on the primary and winning on the secondary or tertiary goals if they are to your advantage. 

In a hypothetical game, it is your turn 3 and you’re evenly matched with your opponent in terms of resources remaining, as well as playskill.  You realize that you need to start crafting the game-state to support your end game strategy.  For instance, if your plan is to win by controlling table quarters you need to start positioning yourself to do that prior to the last turn.  The later you wait to begin crafting the desired game-state, the more easily disrupted by your opponent you will be, and the more likely luck will play a factor in whether or not it works.

But this is getting ahead. 

Pick a line, and then hold it

Picking a Line

This is the trademark skill of a veteran player piloting a list he is familiar with, and also the downfall of a new player, or someone with a list they have no experience with.  In our hypothetical game, on turn 3, you have several options in front of you.  You can go for the tabling.  You can try to win on Objectives.  Perhaps you realize that because you lost a lot of your Troops but not much else that you cannot win on Objectives.  So you can try to contest your opponents, tie on Objectives and win by Victory Points, or whatever the secondary mission goal is.

How do you know which line of play to pick?  Clearly, each line of play has a different probability of success.  Unlike Poker, there is no way to come up with a relatively accurate mathematical assessment of success with each line.  Here is where experience comes in handiest.  A veteran player has played enough games to see similarities between the current game-state and previous ones he has played.  His experiences in how those matches played out will inform him of his reasonable expectations of success in this one.  Obviously, the fewer games you’ve played, the smaller your sample size and the less reliable your experience is.

So play more is my advice.

But that is bad advice, and a bit of a let down, eh?  OK, well how do you pick a line in the abstract if you’re not an experienced player?  In my above example, I hinted at it.  If your Troops are decimated but everything else is intact, you can see that winning by controlling the most Objectives is likely to be difficult.  Let’s say it’s Turn 3 and neither player has had effective shooting and not much is dead.  Tabling could be rather difficult.  A player could say, “there are only two 3 turns left, and he still has 90% of his army intact, I probably won’t be able to table him.”  Perhaps it is the opposite, and it’s been very bloody and you realize that you each only have 25% of your armies left, at that point tabling becomes a much more probable result.

Additionally, your choice of army matters.  A defensive, tough to kill army is going to have a better chance on winning Objectives or Table Quarters than a softer army.  You have to take the unique characteristics of your Codex and list into account when you pick your line of play, as they can and should influence your ability to win with a particular line.  For an obvious example, Eldar are going to be pretty good at the late game objective grab, whereas Orks are going to be better able to win by kill points or tabling.

To continue our hypothetical game, it’s Turn 3, and you have a line of play in mind that you think will carry the game for you.  How do you make it actually happen?

Crafting a Game-State

In any good strategy game, you sow the seeds of your victory early.  Obviously, winning the game by Objectives requires you to play in a very different style than by trying to table your opponent.  Once you’ve chosen your line, it is highly important to craft the game-state in such a way as to make your line as successful a choice as possible.  This often means you need to do a complete re-evaluation of both your units, and your opponent’s.

In a game you plan by winning through Objectives, a particular unit of yours might be more valuable to you than normally.  As a corollary, a unit might be forced to take a different role than normal.  In the first example, a defensive tar pit unit with Feel No Pain rises from mediocrity to become one of your best assets.  In the second, it means an aggressive close combat oriented unit has to stay back and hold an objective.  In either example, you have to identify these things when you choose your line and make your subsequent moves with this knowledge in mind.  If you’re going to need that CC unit to hold a rear objective, moving them forward and into close combat is probably counter productive towards your goal, even if that was what the unit was ‘supposed to do’ in the objective sense.

As I said, you also have to evaluate your opponent’s forces.  You have your plan, what stuff does he have that can stop you?  Perhaps in a “normal” game, Unit A of his is the highest priority for you to kill.  It is entirely possible that once you embark on a line of Objective control that a different unit of his becomes more dangerous and becomes a higher priority.  If you figure this out on Turn 3, when you pick the line of play, you can start trying to neutralize his threats then, rather than sweating out the last turns.  This is the entire point of crafting a game-state: arranging your units (and his) to enact a specific goal so that on the last turn of the game you already have the win so firmly established that your opponent can’t disrupt it any longer.  Create inevitability.  There is nothing quite like the moment when your opponent realizes that the game-state you have carefully crafted is inevitable and he can’t win even before the game is officially over.

That’s a wrap for Part I.  In Part II, I will discuss how to take the concept to the next level, which is how to beat a capable opponent who also knows how to craft a game-state and pick a line.

Thoughts?  Comments?  Questions?

40k Theory: Going For the Throat

I’ve written before about one of the most important things you can do in 40k is finishing off an opponent while you have momentum.  Often you will have a great first two turns where your shooting is red hot and you kill half the opponent’s army without taking casualties in return, only to have the opponent hang around and eventually the game ends up very close at the end.  The goal in a competitive situation should be to turn those strong starts into tablings, and not have them end in games that are down to a single die roll on turn 7.

This is common advice.  I’ve written about, and so has everyone else.  But how do you actually make it happen?  Not too many people discuss that part, which is, incidentally, the hard part.

In my experience, there are two methods you can utilize to finish off a cripple opponent and maintain momentum: close combat and low AP and anti-cover shooting.  Let’s discuss each…

Close Combat

Waaaaaaay back in the day, I wrote about my rather average ‘Ard Boyz semi-finals results which stemmed from using a list that was all shooting and no close combat.  I remarked about how I would alpha strike, kill ½ of my opponent’s list and then watch as his second half slowly grinded back to even out the game.  I decided from that point forward, I wouldn’t play any lists that didn’t have at least marginal CC ability.  Even in my current 2k BT list I have two units of terminators, which are not good CC units in a vacuum, but they aren’t bad at finishing off crippled combat squads.

In any event, you can use close combat ability to finish off a crippled foe.  Close combat is weaker than shooting in 5^th Edition 40k, we all know that.  But it has some things going for it that make it very good for our purposes today.  First, we can assume that if you had a smashingly good first few turns your opponent is de-meched.  An all foot opponent makes close combat units far more effective.  Second, close combat ignores cover.  This is huge.

Cover is why shooty lists have difficulty beating crippled opponents.  Turn one, demech unit, and then kill 40% of them.  Second turn, they go to ground in cover and you only kill one of them, and realize it’s not profitable to continue shooting them.  Unfortunately, that unit isn’t dead.  That unit is alive, in cover and probably near an objective or at least worth a kill point.  If you ignore then, you’re just making the end game a lot more in doubt as the opponent still has a unit hanging around to trouble you on objectives or not contribute a kill point/VP.    So ignoring them is bad.  However, also bad is realizing how much firepower you have to pour into a unit of 5 IG vets with 3++ cover saves to finish them.  It’s an annoyingly high amount of dakka.  By using so much fire on a crappy 5 guardsmen, you might be ignoring more valuable intact opposing units.

A close combat unit or two advancing into the opponent’s backfield can solve this dilemma.  They can charge in, wipe the unit out, and move onto another one next turn.  Unlike shooting, they have a level of inevitability and reduce the variance of cover saves.  By having a few close combat units doing your clean up, your shooty units (most of your army) can continue to shoot at high priority, profitable targets.  This is an often overlooked synergy.  By not shooting at inefficient targets (because your CC units are savaging them) your shooty units get to shoot more optimally.  The end result is your entire army performs more optimally and you don’t lose the valuable momentum you’ve gained in the early turns.

Low AP/Anti-cover shooting

This is a lesson that seasoned Tau players can teach everyone.  Tau don’t have close combat units that can finish off opponents’ crippled units.  So what do Tau generals do?  Plasma, missile pods, and Marker Lights (to reduce cover).

Most non-Tau, non-IG players consider Plasma and Flamer units “bad.”  Mostly because they don’t shoot down vehicles.  But what good is a lascannon when you’re shooting at 5 Guardsmen in cover?  Not too much.  It’s not even so hot at shooting at 5 marines outside of cover.

I’m not advocating anything approaching a 50/50 split between anti-tank/anti-infantry firepower.  In fact, I’d argue that the role of anti-infantry firepower should be similar to close combat units in shooty lists, one or two units that are either dedicated to that task, or at least can be pressed into it when circumstances are favorable.  One or two dedicated plasma/flamer units per army isn’t too terrible of a sacrifice of points, and most importantly, anything you “lose” in points by buying them you could potentially gain back by allowing your anti-tank units to fire optimally.  If you have plasma units, you don’t have to waste a lascannon shot on 5 marines, the lascannon can continue to shoot at vehicles.  Optimal shooting maintains momentum.  Sub-optimal shooting is how you lose it. 

If there is a single lesson to take away from all this, it’s consider bringing one or two ‘finisher’ units so that your mainline units can continue their tasks optimally.  The mainline units will give you the momentum, and you don’t want to give your opponent a way back into the game by playing loose and wasting your shots on sub-optimal plays in the mid-game.

Thoughts?  Comments?  Questions?