Winning 40K – What if it's just not that complicated?

Winning 40K – What if it's just not that complicated?

Today's article is all about dispelling a popular myth about 40K, and hopefully getting a vital principle of army design and game planning across. This came out of a forum conversation started by Stelek (author of 'Yes The Truth Hurts' 40K blog) yesterday, and since my reply was subsequently quoted by several other people I thought I’d drag it back here to 3++ where I have more space to expand on it.


Many people act like winning at 40K is extremely complicated, and that can cloud their approach to army building and playing the game itself. The truth is 40K is really a simple game, with a huge amount of window-dressing and obfuscation around it.

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.

Making Cassius Work

Greetings Ladies and Gentlemen of 3++!  I know you are all so fascinated by 6th edition right now (and I was too, initially) but the Steam-Powered Gamer is here to distract you with a belated Warmachine/Hordes article.  Today's topic?  Cassius the Oathkeeper.  This guy is probably one of the most maligned of Circle's warlocks and with the recent releases that came from Hordes: Domination, Cassius actually had a little bit of a boost to his effectiveness.  Before we begin, I do have to say that Cassius is not a very popular warlock because he has some glaring weaknesses and is the "rock" in a meta full of "paper", and that doesn't help his popularity much.  The fact that he also has a bit of "Skornergy" (see my Warmachine/Hordes Glossary for the definition) with one of his spells and one of his most popular abilities doesn't help either.  That said, let's try and find a way to make this guy work by first taking a look at his special rules, since they'll inform the rest of your list and decisions.

Turn Zero: the Most Important Turn

A lot of people in the game have, at various points, complained about some turns being super-important. For example, complaints about turn one alpha strikes are pretty common now with Razorspam and have also gotten hate in the past over Leafblower, etc. There is also a recurring theme of the game being all about the final turn rush to contest objectives with tank shocks, etc, with all the maneuvering, etc, of earlier turns being nothing but a setup for that last one. However, I don't think either of those are the most important turn, even my thoughts on the validity of those complaints aside, because there is a much more critical point of decisions.

That point is turn zero, the choices you make before the game starts. Whether or not to take first turn and where to deploy are of critical importance and a poor or even merely mediocre choice there can spell the end of a what would otherwise have been a fairly even matchup before it begins.

Discussion: Fixing one gun tanks (again)

We've done this a few times and the fact of the matter is the point is moot (or was always moot since Games Workshop doesn't listen) as 6th edition is printed and ready but it's a fun intellectual and design exercise (and if 6th ed is just that bad...). Anyway, how to fix one gun tanks without completely changing them? For the most part, the majority of tanks have a major gun just some of them have one really big gun and little to nothing else (Exorcist, Vindicator, Fire Prism, etc.). This is an issue because that tank can become relatively worthless more so compared to their multi-gun compatriots (i.e. a single weapon destroyed result).

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.

Breaking Doubles

So having seen some doubles tournaments around my area, the subject has been raised in my mind and gotten me thinking about how best to abuse (in an enjoyable way, of course) such a system. Such a tournament offers a lot of possibilities for unique stuff, but also will depend a lot on what sort of rules are used.

The real overall issue with doubles is one of filling roles and covering weaknesses. Each codex has its own ups and downs, so if you want to maximize the strength of your doubles team, you need to find two books that suit each other well and can fill holes that the other codex has.

Beating the Army: Grey Knights

Stop saying Grey Knights are overpowered. All of you! Right now! Stop it, stop it, stop it! Arrrrgghhhh!! I don't care if you play Grey Knights or if you play against them. I don't care if you're a tournament player or a casual player. Just stop it, right this instant. Grey Knights are not unbeatable. They are not meaningfully better against the field as a whole than any of the other well-written 5E codices. They have certain advantages and necessitate a different playstyle in many ways, but they are not some sort of magical win button that you can just press and never lose a game again. They're just an army, like any other.

This article will probably be even longer than my previous Beating the Army, god forbid. I intend to go over the weaknesses in GK units and overall strategy and explain, in general and in detail, how to beat them. I also intend to post a follow-up discussing strategies for different armies to fight them, since some armies will naturally struggle more than others at the task. However, being that I still don't want to make this infinity words long, I will only be talking about MEQ-focused GK armies and will be excluding Coteaz lists; they have issues of their own, which I will discuss in another article. Someday.

Manus sez: SWOT, my bitches.

Manus is a debased alcoholic, who's also a heavy user of internet forums and chatboxes. Some would say his need to troll is unhealthy, but I believe any addiction can be turned towards productive, positive contribution - with the proper mentoring.

Don't Trade Power for Perception

One of the things that I see done all the time that really bugs me is people making a really, really weird trade-off. Now, I am no stranger to making trade-offs in lists; in fact, that's basically the entire point of optimizing a list, because you are always trading one thing for something else. Maybe you give up anti-tank for mobility, or resilience for scoring presence, or whatever. In every case you have to weigh the benefits and drawbacks of each choice and what your list already possesses and try to determine if it's really a good idea or if you'd be better served with something else.

But what I don't understand is people trading something real for something imaginary, as in the case of "Sure I lose a bunch of attacks and can't move as far, but my opponents won't find the unit as threatening." Guess what? They're right; the unit is less threatening. It's a worse unit. Making your army worse is not a good thing.

Counterpoint: Non-spamming 40k lists

This is perhaps one of the hottest and must hate-fuelling debate with out little hobby. In simple terms you have the WAAC douchebags who are ruining the hobby (aka the hyper competitive players who may or may not actually be WAAC douchebags) running and promoting spam lists and on the other hand you have the every fluffy morons who believe repeating a single unit is a blasphemy and would never actually happen in real life (aka the casual players who may not actually be fluffy morons). Got to love it when people impose their restrictions upon you :P.

Anyway comical understanding of the two extreme sides of 40k aside, there are generally two distinct build categories - full on spam where nothing is a singular and everything is repeated and rainbow/battleforce armies where you've got a little bit of everything. These are very broad strokes so let's not nitpickle. Ironically a lot of people fall somewhere bang in the middle as a compromise between pure optimisation and personal feel. What this post is going to look at is the key concepts of both sides of the argument and then look at making a Rainbow army which is actually semi-decent on the tabletop by applying good list building skills.

Writing Lists: Don't Get Lost Inside Yourself!

More than anything else, the biggest problem I have with writing a list is focus. Not focus in the sense of "I'm not sure which direction this list is going," although sometimes that's an issue; rather, I mean my focus, as the writer of the list. As you spend more and more time working on something, you start to lose perspective on it; this is a problem for artists and engineers of all stripes, but also affects us as part of our hobby. Once you have gotten past the initial hurdles of understanding how to assess units and how they fit together, the biggest threat to you creating a good list is actually... you.

What Color is Your Skimmer? (Different Types of Wargamers)

Comparing, contrasting, and promoting different types of games and gamers is a common hobby here on the blogrolls and on the forums; in fact, if you want to get a ton of posts, there are few easier ways than to put up something about different styles of gaming, inflammatory or not, well-intentioned or not. But what are the different types of gamers? What do they care about? What brings them to the hobby? And how real are the distinctions? These are issues that aren't often discussed much but I think are well worth looking at.

Tyranid Design Philosophies: What Needs to Change

It's no secret that I'm a very 'Niddy guy. I've written a lot about them in the past, I've argued for their viability to various degrees, I've struggled with alternate builds. But I don't write a lot about them anymore. Sometimes, but not often.

Partly it's no fault of their own- I've been playing the army for several years and wanted to start on a new one. I had a lot of fun with them and gotten a lot of mileage out of the codex and enjoyed converting up a lot of their units. I am not raging furious over them getting an update relatively early in 5th Edition.

At the same time, it very much is- I've gotten fed up with the limitations of the book and the repeated slaps in the face GW has given the faction. Especially looking at the other 5E releases, it's hard not to be unhappy with the results; until the recent Sisters of Battle debacle, no other current update had gone so wrong in terms of making the army viable, flexible, and fun at all levels of competition. While it's certainly better off than those books that have not yet gotten an update, like Eldar, Chaos Marines, etc, there is really no excuse for the mess that Cruddace made of it. Add in the kicks in the teeth from Grey Knights (and to a lesser degree Dark Eldar) and you have a pretty unhappy combination of factors.

Breaking Flugdar: Because I'm Bored

I got nothin' against Fluger. He's a cool dude.

I'm not just saying that because he lets me crash at his place during TSHFT; I've argued with him plenty here on the internets and, while I may disagree with him all kindsa ways, he argues like a gentleman. It isn't just a bunch of name calling or snippy edits that ignore the main points- when we've walked, we've talked the hell out of things. We still don't agree, but we at least know WHY we don't agree with each other. That deserves some serious respect.

But, as I said, we don't always see eye-to-eye. Fluger's rewrite of the Eldar codex is one of those cases. We had talked it over before he had put it up on the web for general viewing and I gave him some of my thoughts (to put it charitably) then; some of the stuff I mentioned got changed, some other things did not. Fair enough. I realize Eldar are sorely in need of some help these days and fandexes are a popular thing, but I'm afraid I have to label this one, like many, broken as all hell. But because of my compulsive behaviors, I won't just do that, I'm gonna write some lists to back it up.

Flexibility Isn't Mobility

5th Edition has, as part of its design philosophy, encouraged and enabled mobility in armies. No more the stand 'n shoot gunlines of 4E; with cover being so relevant and most missions requiring you to deal with multiple objectives, you cannot afford to simply sit in one place for most of the game doing nothing. But more than that, the 5E codices have made it possible for armies to effectively mobilize themselves in a variety of ways, with each new codex having not only mechanized builds but also foot-mobile builds.

But over and over again I see the same mistake being made: people are mistaking deployment options- that is, flexibility of deployment- for mobility. These aren't the same thing at all, and confusing them can be fatal to your battle plan.

40k Theory: It's all about the Numbers

Nikephoros has allowed me to re-post this from his blog: Bringer of Victory. Basically it's an article taking mathammer to the next level and looks at an army's maximum firepower/combat potential against an MEQ army as a baseline. This is great to determine if your army is weak in a specific area and when you compare to 'lists that do well,' have some baselines which to achieve. Without further ado...

What is ballistic skill?

I mean, what does it really mean in terms of winning and losing on the table top?

Absolutely nothing. Quantity of fire in Warhammer 40k is usually far superior to quality. At very least it's equal. So what am I getting at? There is no correlation between winning and ballistic skill. The army with the superior average ballistic skill shouldn’t (assuming the game is properly balanced) have any advantage over one with a lower average ballistic skill.