Why you shouldn't read The Art of War

[thecactusman17]

So, according to darklink and Bean, the Art of War is a poor thing to base your gaming decisions on when you don't understand how and when to apply what it teaches? And even less when you don't actually read it in its totality and whole context?

This is good to know. And covered repeatedly in...

Well, you know.

[Blaznak]

There is a legend among the Orks of a military genius known only as da Evil Sunz Toof! This military genius came up with a grand battle strategy:
"Shoot fighty and fight shooty." Then he changed his mind. "Nah, just fight everfing til its dead."

Hopefully this is of help to the discussion.

[Bean]

There is a legend among the Orks of a military genius known only as da Evil Sunz Toof! This military genius came up with a grand battle strategy:
"Shoot fighty and fight shooty." Then he changed his mind. "Nah, just fight everfing til its dead."

Hopefully this is of help to the discussion.

Lol. It certainly is. Thanks. =)

So, according to darklink and Bean, the Art of War is a poor thing to base your gaming decisions on when you don't understand how and when to apply what it teaches? And even less when you don't actually read it in its totality and whole context?

This is good to know. And covered repeatedly in...

Well, you know.

No, that doesn't even really resemble anything I've been saying.

But, then, I know you know that.

Honestly, if your participation isn't going to rise above the level of just making stuff up, don't bother to participate at all. It's just a waste of space.

Unless it's funny, like Blaznak's post. But yours isn't and haven't been. They've just been worthless.

[thecactusman17]

That's what I gathered in the previous statements.

"I did this because (insert random quote)"

"I did that because that's what I heard in passing from some military story"

Neither of these are encouraged in The Art of War. In fact, that's the mindset Sun Tzu was trying to get his most important audience (hereditary generals with little military background) away from. Those exact scenarios are what the US military spends billions each year trying to de-teach its soldiers. That's why Darklink was able to quote you a set of military guidelines, because somebody recognized that the advice was valuable to begin with and started teaching it to the people who needed to make command decisions.

[DarkLink]

No, I actually do think it's useful. I was just saying that it's the study of strategy as a whole that's important, whether or not you use The Art of War as your guide.

[Bergermeister84]

So what you have to do in order to become a better 40k player using classic military thinking is sit down and read a bunch of books (or one book repeatedly). Then, find something that you might consider relevant in a game of 40k. Stop. Think about it for a while and how you can apply it into your typical game. Finally, execute your grand strategy in a real game.

Now, one of two things will happen. Either, you have carefully thought through your strategy and it worked. Or, it didn't meet your expectations. In either case, should you blame or praise the book you read a line from or you own mind that put it into context in a game of 40k? That is to say, if you must spend hours of time deciphering military strategy and its applications in 40k, it's not really the book that deserves the credit (or fault) but you for taking an idea and applying it in context.

I would argue the source of information does not matter. You could get inspired by many things. Perhaps it was a critical detail in your last game. Maybe it was a careful examination of the rules. It could be reading ancient anachronistic military strategy. Or you could be equally inspired by the works of William Shakespeare. It does not matter. Only the thought process of putting an idea into successful practice is what should count.

If you become a good 40k player by reading The Art of War, what you've really done is spent a lot of time thinking about 40k. If you become a good 40k player by reading rules and practicing logic, it also must mean that you spent a deal of time thinking about 40k. Its clear that to become a good 40k player you must spend a lot of time thinking about 40k.

Bean, in your two examples, the players practicing advice from AoW were clearly not top caliber players. They either lacked the foresight of what could potentially happen, or they didn't think about their actions and how it would impact on the game. A proponent of the AoW might say that they misapplied its teachings and your statement is that they were dumb for trying. In either case they made a dumb decision. They will learn from their mistakes and become better players by thinking about why things didn't work as well as they thought, or they will continue to make mistakes by blindly following what they feel like they should do. In either case, you shouldn't blame the source of their idea, you should blame the player that thought it was a good idea.

[Bean]

Bean, in your two examples, the players practicing advice from AoW were clearly not top caliber players. They either lacked the foresight of what could potentially happen, or they didn't think about their actions and how it would impact on the game. A proponent of the AoW might say that they misapplied its teachings and your statement is that they were dumb for trying. In either case they made a dumb decision. They will learn from their mistakes and become better players by thinking about why things didn't work as well as they thought, or they will continue to make mistakes by blindly following what they feel like they should do. In either case, you shouldn't blame the source of their idea, you should blame the player that thought it was a good idea.

Clearly, neither were very good players, and clearly both should be blamed for their mistakes.

But, while I would generally agree with your assertion that the source doesn't matter, I think the source can share in the blame.

If I tell you, "do X" and you go and do X and X sucks and you lose, you should certainly blame yourself for not realizing that X sucks. But, are you gonna give me a free pass? No--you're going to come back and say, "hey! Why'd you tell me to do X? X sucks!"

If some classic military text says, "seek to outflank your opponent" and you outflank your opponent and it doesn't actually help, you certainly should come out of it thinking, "man, I should have realized that outflanking my opponent wasn't actually going to help." But, at the same time, it's not at all unreasonable to say, "man, that was some bad advice--you shouldn't necessarily seek to outflank your opponent, and that really needed to come with a pile of qualifiers."

The Art of War, in particular, really doesn't come with qualifiers. For the most part, its lines are along the lines of "do this--it's good!" But, of course, "this" is not necessarily good--even in actual war--and "this" is far from necessarily good once you've twisted it around to 40k.

For the most part, I agree with your point. You can get worthwhile inspiration from anywhere, and it doesn't really matter where you get it. The important thing to remember is that any good approach to 40k requires you to spend time thinking about 40k--not just reading strategy books or anything else.

But, at the same time, I think you can point to things which are not good sources of advice. Inspiration? Perhaps. Advice? No. You wouldn't go to a book on gardening for advice on how to play 40k, or a cookbook, or a Jane Austin novel. You could be inspired to some profound understanding of 40k through any of these things, but none of them are good sources of advice.

The Art of War--in fact, every book of classic military strategy I've ever read--is the same. Sure, you can derive inspiration from it, just like you can derive inspiration from just about anything, but it's not a good source of advice--because what it's talking about is not 40k.

Actually, that article I linked earlier put it well.

"But what it won't do is generate new knowledge out of nothing. If you've never been in the army, run a business, or played a wargame before, then you have no trees in your forest to step back from. Without knowing the details of a particular system like 40K, you can't properly interpret what you're reading in that context. Because the examples and commentaries used in Sun Tsu's book to illustrate the concepts are all about ANCIENT CHINESE WARFARE; not modern warfare, business, or 40K."


The author follows up with this even more telling observation:

"...the relatively few philosophical points that might carry some weight to a 40K player are so obvious as to be worthless to anyone with twenty games under their belt."

But that's really another point altogether.

[Bergermeister84]

I did enjoy that Sandwyrm article. Thanks for posting that.

[DarkLink]

If some classic military text says, "seek to outflank your opponent" and you outflank your opponent and it doesn't actually help

Thing is, while they recommend flanking your opponent (because it is generally good advice, though moreso in real life when crossfire actually matters), they don't claim it's a free win. If you send a weak unit with limited capabilities out to do something that it cannot accomplish, you cannot expect for it to accomplish anything significant. So while it, on the surface, seems to follow the advice of the text, it really doesn't.


Outflanking confers an advantage, not total superiority. If you fail to properly take advantage of said advantage, the advantage you've taken advantage of won't matter, because your opponent has superior advantage in terms of firepower, so his advantages negate your advantages.

I only worded the last sentence like that because I thought it was funny.

[Bean]

Thing is, while they recommend flanking your opponent (because it is generally good advice, though moreso in real life when crossfire actually matters), they don't claim it's a free win. If you send a weak unit with limited capabilities out to do something that it cannot accomplish, you cannot expect for it to accomplish anything significant. So while it, on the surface, seems to follow the advice of the text, it really doesn't.


Outflanking confers an advantage, not total superiority. If you fail to properly take advantage of said advantage, the advantage you've taken advantage of won't matter, because your opponent has superior advantage in terms of firepower, so his advantages negate your advantages.

I only worded the last sentence like that because I thought it was funny.

This is really a straw-man argument. I never addressed the assertion that outflanking is a free win. I never suggested otherwise. I didn't phrase my argument in overly-strong terms, as you suggest, and offering a position in milder terms doesn't constitute an effective rebuttal.

The fact is that outflanking doesn't necessarily confer an advantage. Any advantage. At all.

It might, but it might not, and taking it as a general rule that it does (as you do here) is exactly the sort of error that comes from relying too much on classic military strategy.

This is not a good argument, Darklink. It really says nothing relevant to the issue at all.