Better Playtesting: Cross Training

Hello, Nikephoros here.  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.

40k Metrics: Building a Better Devastator in 6th Edition

Hi, Nikephoros again.  In 5^th Edition, if someone said they were bringing Long Fangs, Devastators or Havoks you could safely assume that they were going to be armed with missiles.  It was a no brainer for the most part because they were simply the most points efficient weapon available.  Does this hold true in 6^th?  The way we go about killing vehicles, and to a lesser extent Monstrous Creatures, has changed quite a bit.  The old paradigm might not hold true at all anymore.

It's all about the numbers

40k Metrics: 6th Edition Vehicle Mathhammer MEQ Results

Hi all, Nikephoros here.  I've pushed the commonly seen MEQ heavy support choices through the my vehicle kill calculator and some things jumped out that may or may not interest you, but I thought I would share.

First up are Long Fangs with four Krak Missile Launchers.  Blood Angels often take 4x missile Devastators and you sometimes see vanilla marines bring them too, but much more rare since they cost significantly more.  These guys were in almost every 5th Edition SW list, so lets see how they stack up in 6th.

40k Metrics: 6th Edition Vehicle Mathhammer

Hey gang, Nikephoros here.  It’s rather obvious to everyone that I enjoy mathhammer.  I feel that there is an edge to be gained by being aware of the average potential of your units, and the ability to know which of the units in your book are most points efficient. 

6^th Edition threw the old mathhammer for a loop in regards to killing vehicles.  It used to be rather straight forward to calculate the amount of shots it would take to shoot down a Rhino, but in 6^th Edition it is very, very difficult.  I doubt most players have bothered trying to do it, so they may not be aware how tough it is to hammer out.  What makes it so hard?

It's still all about the numbers

Self-imposed Restrictions - The Competitive Player

Hello, Nikephoros checking in.  Most people who consider themselves to be competitive gamers, whether cards, wargames, or video games and so forth have heard of and read the articles by Sirlin.  They are justifiably classic and well worth the time to read.

One of his topics was the difference between competitive gamers and “scrubs.”  Most people associate the term “scrub” with bad players or newbies or some other pejorative concept.  However, Sirlin defines it differently, in a way that I think is very illustrative, especially in regards to our hobby.

Back-to-Basics: Dealing with Deathstars

Centives

Hello, Nikephoros checking in.  Remember in my older article about how to playtest for 6^th Edition in order to better figure out what is and isn’t competitive?  My advice was to start out playing your 5^th Edition lists and slowly make minor tweaks from there based on in game results.  I, for one, am thankful that everyone listened to that advice, and reacted to the new ruleset rationally!  Oh wait.

I admit I am guilty of bloviating on theory based opinions rather than empirical playtesting, thus feeding the noise machine that the 40k blogosphere has been for the past two weeks.  So sorry.

Things That Sucked in 5th but Awesome Now, and Vice Versa

Hey gang, Nikephoros here.  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!

Better Playtesting: How To Learn a New Format

Hello, Nikephoros here.  Most of us are not super geniuses who can look at the 6^th Edition rulebook and “solve” the 6^th Edition competitive scene immediately.  It took many months, and a lot of new codices, before the virtues of mech and MSU were accepted by a majority of the competitive 5^th Edition players.  I expect it to only take slightly less time before 6^th Edition is similarly solved.

Army Comparison: Warriors of Chaos vs. Daemons of Chaos

Battlereporter

This Fantasy Battles Army Comparison pits the forces of the Chaos Gods against each other in a battle royale.  Each of these armies fared rather well in 7^th Edition, where Daemons were widely considered one of the top tier armies.  In 8^th the Daemons have fallen from the top of the pedestal but are still considered quite strong.  The Warriors have had a rougher transition to 8^th Edition, as the units that were considered powerful or weak respectively are almost completely reversed.  This change took a while for players to understand, but it appears that Warriors of Chaos are also quite competitive.

Army Comparison: Brettonia vs. Wood Elves

Nikephoros here.  You wanted it, you got it: by popular request we have a comparison between two of the Warhammer Fantasy 8^th Edition whipping boys going toe to toe in the pillow fight of the year.  Do the heavily armored knights have what it takes, or do the Athel Loren All Stars crush them under the weight of their tree branches?  Let’s see.

Warhammer Fantasy Deployment Tactics Part 3

Hello again, Nikephoros here with more Fantasy deployment fun.  The final installment in this series is a deployment method that is used primarily with shooty armies with a large amount of war machines.  A tradition straight across the board deployment for a gunline/shooty is begging to be smashed by the Strong Flank deployment, so clearly there has to be a better way.  This deployment method, like the others I've detailed utilizes fast cavalry with vanguard moves to create the tactical situations it needs for success.  Guess what that means for Dwarves?  

The best army to use with this particular deployment is Empire, because they have the shooting, decent close combat counter charge units, and excellent Pistoliers to conduct the fast cavalry operation.  But it's practical with almost any shooty army besides Dwarves.

Warhammer Fantasy Deployment Tactics Part 2

Dakka

Hello, Nikephoros here.  In part one, I talked about a fairly basic deployment strategy, the Strong Center.  That deployment is fairly strong when you have powerful infantry units that can dominate in close combat and usually a magic bunker backing them up.

This article will be about a deployment near and dear to my heart, the Strong Flank.  As you might guess, this is a deployment where you stick your money combat units all crammed into one flank.  The goal is to quickly overwhelm one of your opponent's flanks with the full force of your army and destroy his army in detail.

Warhammer Fantasy Deployment Tactics Part 1

Dakka

Hey all, Nikephoros here.  I thought I would do a post about some basic Fantasy deployment tactics and strategies.  I originally posted these articles on my blog about two years ago, so I updated them a bit and thought they would be useful here.

Fantasy deployment is great, because of alternating unit deployment.  Each unit you deploy sends a message to your opponent about what your strategy will be.  The key, you'll see, is often times sending messages to your opponent that aren't correct, to trick them into making poor deployment choices.  It is a chance to game your opponent, and you ought to take advantage of it.

The Awesomeness of Being Totally Wrong

Hello, Nikephoros here with an editorial about critical thinking.  

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. 

40k Theory: Picking a Line Part II

Hello all, Nikephoros here to give you the long awaited (only long awaited because I was too lazy to write it quickly) second installment of this series.  

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. 

40k Theory: Picking a Line Part I

Hello all, Nikephoros back again.  The theorycraft will be heavy in this one, and it will be wordy, but hopefully you find it worthwhile.

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.

40k Theory: Going For the Throat

Hello again, Nikephoros here.  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.

Better Playtesting: The Fallacy of Bad Match-Ups

Hi all.  Nikephoros here.  On my blog I often discuss how to apply playtesting principles I learned while playing Magic: the Gathering competitively to help us better prepare for 40k events.  This is part 5 or 6 or something of my series.  If you dig it, it check out the others over on my blog.  If you don't, no sweat.


While playtesting we learn a lot about our lists.  We learn what strengths it has, what weaknesses it has, and most importantly, how it plays against opposing lists and codices.

Armies in 8th: Dark Elves Part Four: Lords and Heroes

CMON

Hello, Nikephoros here for the final installment of the Dark Elves in 8^th review.  This section will cover the Lords and Heroes for the DE, who have some pretty great options and builds.  Few army books have characters who are worth their points, so it’s definitely nice that the Dark Elf characters can pull their weight.   As always, I skip over the named characters because I don’t find them interesting and they are usually non-competitive.  There are occasionally some exceptions though, so be prepared…

Armies in 8th: Dark Elves Part Three: The Cavalry

Wizbangs

Despite the title, not every unit in this review will be cavalry.  I only titled it as such because the previous article was titled ‘The Infantry’ and this is everything else.  Titling it ‘The Not-Infantry’ might have been somewhat trite.  One of the things that make the Dark Elves unique is the oddball units that are scattered through the armybook.  It gives them a non-traditional aesthetic that is quite appealing.  Even better, many of the units are aggressively costed and help make the book quite competitive on the table top.