Lessons Learned at the LVO - A Call for Common Sense Within Our Community

[Popsical]

My best mate got exactly the kind of "richard" you refer to MM. Whilst playing in a tournie he was beaten by an orc horde player who realizing he was going to lose, decided to measure every figures movement in every squad and cadged a draw because my buddy didnt get his turn half.
Worst part was, the orc guy was so friggin pungent that neither my mate nor I (i was observing as id finished my game quick) could speak to him much for fear of getting a mouthful of BO!

[Mr Mystery]

And it's a shame when that happens.

Obnoxious players can of course be met in store - but at least there it's pretty easy to avoid them (you just decline their offer to ply), and when it's really unavoidable (perhaps just the two of you), you can bring a little peer pressure to bear, explaining the issue. And if all else fails, it's just an evening or afternoon squandered on a hopeless task.

I have enjoyed the majority of tournament type games I've taken part in. Us players tend to be a pretty pleasant bunch on the whole, so I'd love to do more. But those bad apples really have ruined the barrel for me.

Even if I organised my own tournament, and discouraged powergaming type stuff, there'd still be someone out to ruin it.

[Auticus]

You can't avoid running into that kind of player in an event where you don't have any say who your opponent is.

A big reason I stopped playing in tournaments.

Cheese ball spam lists don't bother me at tournaments because thats what i expect to face. But having to face just one "that guy" will ruin the entire weekend for me.

[Popsical]

Im not sure anyone has tried to run a "no questionable social skills or poor personal hygiene" tournament yet.
My mate now flat out refuses to attend anymore tournaments, as he feels outsiders might think that because he hangs out with these kind of people they might think hes like that too.
My final tournament experience included getting evil looks from a guy in brown corduroy trousers (which were 3 inches too short at least) because i'd tabled his mate in 4 turns (it was his dice rolling which was appalling that did for him). It was hilarious, like being threatened by Dwayne Dibbly lol. You could see him lurking in the corner spitting venom to his friend. Very funny but kind of sad.

[shiwan8]

ah, so there's one aspect of the game you don't like and you want to get rid of. You think deathstars are an unbalanced aspect of the game that makes the game uneven and shouldn't be present.

The game is very mutli-dimensional, and meant to appeal to a wide array of tastes. It will never appeal completely in all aspects to any one person most likely. But to muddy things and make everything exactly equal and get rid of the unique things like deathstars, strong units, weak units, everything in between, is to make a bland mush no one likes.

You missed my point. Things do not need to be equally powerful, only equally cost effective. The problem relly is not the deathstar nor is it the ever popular spamming. The problem is that considering their cost, there are many useless units and many op units.

[Mr Mystery]

Much of OP or 'garbage' claims are entirely too subjective.

Lets take Player A.

Player A has read on the interwebs that a Deathstar made up of Unit X, Character Y and Character Z is unbeatable. Player A takes this to a Tournament.

Player B has taken a Knight in his list. Player B's Knight promptly tapdances all over Player A's unbeatable Deathstar, causing him to take a pretty severe loss on his score sheet.

Player A declares Knights OP.

Player B next comes up against Player C. Player C has rounded out his army, with a mix of different specialist units. He capitalises on poor positioning on Player B's behalf, and drops the Knight (that big, expensive Knight) in a single turn with the judicious application of two melta guns on bikes, and an Assault Marine Sarge with a Meltabomb blowing it's girly little legs off. Player B can't understand it. Everyone knows Assault Marines are crap. Clearly there can be but a single answer. Knights are underpowered and nerfed and zomg'd and that.

And so the cycle continues.

When you lose a game, you should be looking not at what you took, or what your opponent took, but how each of you used what you had.

[Charon]

Things do not need to be equally powerful, only equally cost effective.

Not really possible. Just look at the flamer and the plasma gun.
If my opponent happens to play Deathwing Terminators, the flamer is next to useless while the plasma gun is an overpowered weapon.
Next round is against Imperial conscripts and the plasma gun does not much better than your bolter... but boy the flamer.... amazing weapon.

Instead of this, you need to give your units/equipment a niche where they can shine and where they are not bullied out by an obviously superior choice.
Also points for weapon upgrades should reflect their use to the bearer. That an imperial guard Sergeant has to pay the same points for a power weapon as an space marine chapter master is just lazy design.

[lantzkev]

Not really possible. Just look at the flamer and the plasma gun.
If my opponent happens to play Deathwing Terminators, the flamer is next to useless while the plasma gun is an overpowered weapon.
Next round is against Imperial conscripts and the plasma gun does not much better than your bolter... but boy the flamer.... amazing weapon.

Instead of this, you need to give your units/equipment a niche where they can shine and where they are not bullied out by an obviously superior choice.
Also points for weapon upgrades should reflect their use to the bearer. That an imperial guard Sergeant has to pay the same points for a power weapon as an space marine chapter master is just lazy design.

This more than anything.

I won an immense number of games with my grey knights, not running "draigo star" (I'm talking prior version of grey knights) but with three hundred point dreadknights (I thought they were over costed, and it seems the teleporter was brought to a reasonable point price finally)... But I won with a unit everyone said was equiped like garbage and ran with too many points in it. IE psilencer and teleport, and h. incinerator and sword...

Iin 5th edition when I played tau, I ran with 120+ troops and won hard... but back then if you didn't run alot of crisis suits with specific configurations you were "terrible" because kroot and firewarriors weren't op...

you can't put an exact label on units and say they are utter garbage and others are utterly op. All the op drek at the time didn't do anything to my list because I ran zero vehicles. The only unit I would and still consider "garbage" is the vespids, and they aren't garbage so much as just over costed, I could use them and still be effective with them if I wanted to, there are enough specific targets they are perfect for removing.

[clively]

Much of OP or 'garbage' claims are entirely too subjective.

When you lose a game, you should be looking not at what you took, or what your opponent took, but how each of you used what you had.

A thousand times Yes. The "generals" count for far more than any of the models they put on the table.

If people would just sit down and try to understand the various missions then build their armies towards accomplishing those goals then they'd be way ahead of the majority of players out there. Throw in a bit of time learning how other armies function and you might just have a winner.

I used to lose a LOT and I complained: "Oh poor me. My army is crap. I hope the next codex fixes it. blah blah blah." Even after playing a hundred games or so I still couldn't tell you the order to set up a game without looking through the BRB. I barely knew what the max number of Troops I could take without using a list building program - heck, I couldn't have even told you if something was *wrong* with said list building program. Worst part: most players I've met are like this.

Then one day I decided that I was going to take control and actually learn how to play. I sat down and read (*gasp*) the book. I walked through the various missions and spent time *thinking* about what tools I needed to accomplish them. Even things like when going first or second was in my best interest and why... Then I play tested. I ran different units in actual games and took notes - what were they good against, what should they run from, what did my opponent focus on and why. What did I focus on (and why). How did each turn go. What part of the game was I still having a problem with and why. Eventually I figured out how my army actually worked and I've been a FAR better player. Heck, the number of times that questions about formations comes up in various forums just irritates the crap out of me because it's actually spelled out pretty damn well in the BRB and just shows those players were like me: reading failures.

So maybe the real issue is just that people don't read and the details and nuances are lost on them. For those there really is very little hope - unfortunately there are a LOT of them and it's far easier to complain than it is to do what's necessary.

you can't put an exact label on units and say they are utter garbage and others are utterly op.

Very true. This is what bugs me about a lot of the "codex" reviews. Units are evaluated (and I use that term lightly) with no thought to actual utility or how they should be used in an army. Instead it's boiled down to "You can take this character with a powerfirst for only 45 points!! It's fantastic!" Rather than, "this HQ works in armies that take X or Y." I think the fundamental problem is that doing a proper analysis is complicated and takes time. Usually far more time than bloggers and podcasts are willing to put into it in their rush to get their "perspective" out there. Oh, that and people wouldn't read it anyway.

After all, what's easier - having some random internet stranger tell you to use Captain X 'cause he's awesome sauce or reading that Captain X's strength lies in going second, hides near objectives and tanks hits for Super Buddies then deciding if that fits in with your army idea.

With the formations I think GW has an opportunity to produce actual plug and play army components. They just need to provide a bit more detail like saying, formation X is great for controlling the center of a board; or formation Y is a great for putting pressure on a side objectives mid game; or even formation Z is perfect to hold in reserve and swoop in on T5 to contest/claim. The formations are a way to give a set of prepackaged tools to the players - if done right. Of course, when they do formations that are all about selling a particular model (tomb blades) with no real cohesion then there is a problem.

Either way, that's how I think codex reviews ought to be done. Put a few units together that support each other and show how effective they are at certain tasks. After all I wouldn't try to have a Talos try and take an objective deep in my opponents DZ when a couple units of Reavers are purpose built for that. At the same time I wouldn't have Reavers sit in the middle soaking up enemy fire when this is exactly what a Talos is for. Different tools, different purposes and there is zero way to compare them.

[lantzkev]

People try to hard to declare absolutes on the internets...

then we watch the LVO confirm what most of us knew already, which was alot fo "crap units" are useful for various reason.