Dec 12, 2011
Over the course of time Blood of Kittens has been around I have railed against many different groups. I though have had particular zeal (some reason) against the “competitive” crowd. Not because they were competitive or WAAC, but because they never seem to have hard evidence to support their mastery of Warhammer 40k. They could always talk a good game, but really ever win anything worthwhile to prove their points. The problem is, the majority of players that win major events and actually have a record worth a damn don’t write blogs or even comment for them. So what we are left with is loud mouth braggarts or erudite trolls that at most have mastered the art of skinning seals for sport in their local areas.
Worse still many of these same folks who own blogs focus on list building or fighting the hot button issues of the day. Why? part lazy and part easy to do perhaps. It is quite an easy lift to post an email and ask comments. It is only marginally harder to pick-up words like “redundancy” “cost efficiency” and portray yourself as Schliemann of the 40k world when in reality you are scratching just below the level of the obvious. If that isn’t good enough throw up some math equations in the hopes that a simple algorithm can account for all the permutations that go into a single game of 40k. Still no matter how you dress it up the content is just about list building nothing more.
The real purpose of this post: why is it so hard to talk about tactics?
From deployment to the final dice roll. Like real tactics– like play-by-play analysis. You know using that aspect of the game people seem to avoid: movement. Even “what if” scenarios with advice would provide more stimulating content then telling me take three of some unit. I am not talking about gimmicks either I want to read about how to get the best out of a unit or army, I am well beyond being told if it is good or bad.
It is just something to time consuming to discuss in less than 1000 words?
It could have something to do with the sheer amount of armies that 40k has to offer, but if tactical choices were so plentiful wouldn’t we see that mirrored in the different army lists we see across the Internet? Instead, the fulcrum of discussion under the guise of tactics is all about the list and is it better than yours or mine. Maybe the myths of list building obscure people away from discussions regarding tactics.
Or is Warhammer 40k just not that kind of game?
As it is Blood of Kittens is and will never be a tactical emporium site (spitting in-depth tactical game) for the world bask in. Without mentioning the big sites (which actually don’t do the job) I am curious if there are some hidden gems, sites or forums that do? What undiscovered sites have come close; I am curious to know and if they don’t exist what roadblocks prevent a site from having it?
pathtyphon
TastyTaste
Frank Austin
fluger
Brent
Dethtron
newsun
AbusePuppy
nyhil
That Teri Girl
reecerobbins
badtaste
I really don’t think that 40k is a game where tactics are all that effective. In the end, all of the movement tactics can be summarized as any of the following:
A) Trying to trick your opponent into assaulting the wrong target
B) Putting up a “screen” or “bubble-wrap” of cheap models to shield more expensive ones from being shot/charged
C) Taking advantage of badly written rules or rules that make no tactical sense (conga-line assaults, assaulting to move your opponent off of an objective, wound allocation, etc.)
Aside from that, it really comes down to hoping that your opponent has bad luck or makes poor choices with their target priority. Or hoping that you’re able to find cover. 40k is not a tactical game, I don’t care what anyone says. It has some shadows of tactics, but realistically it’s very shallow when it comes to tactical decision-making.
some people don’t understand that when you play 40k you have to decide to win. winning the game involves the constant pursuit of advantages. these advantages involve 1) keeping your units alive so that they can continue to remove opposing units, 2) removing opposing units, 3) making sure you have models placed in the correct spots to satisfy alternate victory conditions. if you make choices in the game that don’t accomplish these goals, then you aren’t actually trying to win… instead you’re trying to creatively reinact some scenario that you deem to be cool.
…in other words, winning is the overall strategy, and every tactical decision should bring you closer to winning.
most gamers are just ‘people who participate in games’ and not tactical or strategic thinkers that are attempting to improve/perfect their tactical acumen – usually those people occupy their time with doing constructive things.
if you really want to know why 40k doesn’t have an overabundance of amazing gamers fueling a flourishing metagame, go to Wizards of the Coast’ website and search for Mark Rosewaters articles about Timmy Johnny and Spike. They’ll tell you pretty much everything you need to know about the types of people that play hobby games (mostly Timmy and Johnny types).
…but really, you think you’re right, and you’re not going to go read that article. you just want to vent about people that enjoy gaming for different reasons than you.
GW should read MaRos Articles. They could learn a lot.
Great article, thanks
“…but really, you think you’re right, and you’re not going to go read that article. you just want to vent about people that enjoy gaming for different reasons than you.”
I think someone needs a nap!
I do agree with a lot of the points that Tasty made in the article. However, as 40K is a hobby game, you have to accept that List Building is a large part of the game and thus of the tactics. True, far too many people place far too much emphasis on the “Holy Grail” pursuit of the ultimate list that can win regardless of tactics; but to try to divorce list building entirely from the tactical discussion is just as fallacious.
A good general focuses on both the tactical reality on the ground AND the material preparation of the battlespace. Sun Tzu devotes a good 40% of the Art of War to the concept… and it’s even a huge part of modern warfare. Even Vegetius talks at length about the training and mustering of troops, and HE was the 4th-century equivalent of a WAAC forum troll.
I think it’s the nature of a certain personality to be uncomfortable with the uncertainties of strategy and the open-ended grey areas of debate. For a lot of “Type-A” personalities, if it isn’t quantifiable and eaily repeatable, it causes frustration or even anger. And, truth be told, gaming attracts a LOT of people of this personality type. You know the ones I mean… the dice-throwing, nerdraging types.
Unfortunately, this same personality are drawn to the siren song of instant demagoguery that the intarwebz offers. Gone are the days when these people lurked, cabal-like, in the gloomy dungeons of their parents’ basements. Now we are forced to face them in the full bloom of their horrific electronic glory.
The best you can do is laugh at them. No, really. Laugh, smile, and be happy that you’re not that person.
Ok…I’ll self promote. Read my blog at B&C….I go into tactics, etc. I am looking to start defining the player’s overall tactics in battle reports into more classic terms than just two blobs crashing into each other.
What about the BOLS tactics articles by SpaceCurves? Those are tactics. Read those.
Write more if you are so inclined.
Those aren’t real tactics. Those are tricks taking advantage of the way the rules are written.
but then again.. what are tactics but using things to your advantage to win?
Its not worth it tastytaste. You write articles for the common man around tactics and either people don’t understand them or they think your wrong. After awhile your fighting nad trying to prove it and they seem to forget you have won quite a bit of events…
At the end of the day where is the reward for writing it up? All you get is shit on and people upset and yelling. If I knew it was helping people or people said they were learning I would do it in a heart beat.
That being said I tihnk blogs and forums are not the best medium to discuss or try and teach tactics because of the above. When I do 11th company pocast and tlak about tactics it seems to be a lot smoother and creates some great discussion afterwards.
Tasty,
I’m sure we have had this conversation before, but I 100% agree with darkwyn. I have come to this conclusion after talking with good players and just the reactions I get from posting.
It is not that tactics are hard to write about, nor is it the fact that 40k is a game without tactics (I actually is, despite what the internet wants you to believe) it is the fact that the good players do not have the time, energy, resources to post regularly on a blog and talk about their ideas. Or in other words, they actually have lives outside of 40k and are normal people, not cave dwelling trolls. In addition to this, even if they wanted to, they often get lambasted, made fun of, yelled at, and disregarded. So I can’t blame them for not wanting to do it.
This is the same reason why I hardly ever go on major forums because 95% of the material is shit and the 5% which is solid advice is mitigated by stupidity and phrases like “Need Moar Terminators”
As with anything, the person with the biggest mouth gets the most attention. So blogs written by players who have no lives and constantly post really shitty advice are viewed as gods on the internet world and people look up to them. People who actually know what they are talking about but and are quiet on the internet are disregarded as being noobs and accused of being terrible players for using non net lists (such as footdar).
When I was first starting out, I found this to be useful reading. Closest thing I’ve seen to what you’re talking about.
http://www.irondogstudios.com/tactics.html
These are great tactics articles, I must admit. However, they seem like they belong in 4th edition or, at best, the beginning of 5th edition. The way the game has evolved has really made many of these tactics irrelevant as the survivability of vehicles has made things like a phalanx, flanking units, or even the swarm formation irrelevant to success in the game.
Maybe I’m just an old fogey, but I felt like tactics were at their best in 4th edition. It was a bit more boring than the “exciting” codeces of 5th edition, but you saw lots more combined-arms forces so actual tactics and formations were more important with the amount of infantry on the board and cover saves being less common. Throw in rules like Target Priority and the fact that you could consolidate into new targets from close combat, and decisions about unit positions were more significant.
Winning in 40k isn’t really about tactics as much as it is about being able to react accordingly to what is happening.
Take the Wonderlic test!
I think the real issue is not tactics. Anyone can list build or cut-and-paste something from the internet. Anyone can talk about ‘reacting to the moves and maneuvers of your opponent in dizzying brilliance’, but then you roll a cup full of dice and crap out, or your opponent rolls snake-eyes when making that moral test at -7 what can you really do? Or how about 6 lascannon hits on you opponents dreadnought and you only to roll 1s and 2s for armor penetration? Sure the averages and math-hammer can reduce your uncertainty (assure you what you want to happen will happen), but in the end it is a game of chess with the rolls of dice to see if you bishop can in fact kill the queen.
Many of the blogs that boast they ‘promote tactics’ are really teaching math-hammer; the art of minimizing the ends of the bell curve or why the newest codex (insert name) can kick everyone else’s ass!
When I was a kid, I raced small gas powered cars like many of you probably did also. When we all had similar cars, engines and controllers then it came down to mostly skill. Then little Timmy next door would have a birthday and get the next generation of bad-ass car, and most of the time he would win. To say what he did was tactics, was in fact more like ‘consumerism for the win!’ I am really starting to see much of 40K this way today.
Reading this reminded me that I haven’t done a Proper Tactics Article in a long time, or even an army list for that matter!
Nevertheless, back in the day when I was getting worked up about Dark Elves I found the time for a series of articles in which the tactics came first and the list last (starting here, continuing here and concluding here).
Shame I’ve lost the deployment diagrams somewhere. That might have been why I didn’t do another one, actually… I hate Battle Chronicler.
Tactical topics require a lot not just of the author but a huge amount of effort from reader.
When was the last time you (the person reading this) spent a good solid hour or two sitting quietly thinking? In a focused and sustained manner. Not many people can answer that with anything other than “never” I’d wager. Five minutes, ten minutes, here and there is of such low value as to almost be a waste of time. People that do not put in good and solid amounts of time thinking, analyzing, theorizing, and testing are people that are not vested in improving.
Which is okay, it’s your hobby, you (everyone) put only as much time in as available/desired and in any manner desired for your own personal level of enjoyment.
To continue the same trail of thought under a different name, “ease”.
I come from a chess background, I have a data base from ChessBase with over 5.1 million games. 5.1 million. I can search for any and every tactic and combination of tactics known in chess with little more then a few clicks of the mouse. This is an enormous resource for learning, i.e. spending time thinking, analyzing, and theorizing, using other peoples games. Not just anyones games either, I can filter to only see the worlds best, not just “scrubs that club seals”. I can know who belong in the upper echelons based on results, there is a functional and stable international ranking ladder.
People in all spheres of competitive endeavours are better because of two thing in addition to their own thinking. Data (searchable and filterable) and Professionals (other people, better then you and with more time thinking, analyzing, and theorizing for you then teaching you via some medium). This does not happen without a critical mass of people doing it, 40k does not have that, Chess does, MtG does, even Checkers does.
Warhammer (and other games) does not and will not until the very large very real technical issues around creating a viable battle report data system is solved. It is a huge advantage that games like chess have, they are stupid easy to record and store.
The 11th company’s forums is a great place to talk tactics.
Some discussions we have had… The “Crazy Ivan Deepstrike” and the almost impossibility of landing on your own models. The meta breaking aspect of 2×12 squads of Screamers and the odds of wrecking/exploding a Land Raider that moved 12″ which are surprisingly high. And if it can do that just think about multi assulting a parking lot.
A few of us really like to talk about the tactics of 40k. More the merrier!
Just one request if the post is about tactics, please put it in the tactics forum and not the individual army forum.
I think one of the reasons that it is hard to talk about tactics in the context of 40k is that many players are unfamiliar with military thinking. For example, many players claim that list building is ” tactics” or “strategy” when it is in fact logistics, or specifically, a table of organization and equipment. It only interacts with strategy and or tactics by determining the options the commander has for dealing with situations as they arise. If the audience is unable to correctly identify the subject of the discussion, and the subject is not clearly defined to the audience, there will be a significant barrier to communication. that having been said, maybe a good start is to put up an article that is a primer on the subject. It should have a list of common terms, their definitions, and maybe a short discussion of how they apply to the 40k experience.