I love reading different 40k blogs about many things. One blog in particular that is pretty popular with the cool kids, known as Yes the Truth Hurts, has caught my perverse fancy for many reasons. Besides the developing cult of personality of its creator Stelek and his Nurglings, it is humorous to watch their minority opinion of our hobby be perpetuated as the majority. Before I turn on the Rantatron 2000, I just want to state that I do rob army building ideas from the site and consider a portion of their advice as good. With that said it still does not change the fact the site can be at times; a Chinese massage parlor of self-gratifying, salad tossing, douchebagery. One post a few days ago caught my eye, because it easily displayed the negative impact a site like YTTH can have.
Since I am piss poor about expressing myself I am going to use some visual aids to help me.
The post in question is titled Gamer Re-Education, it tells the story of average gamer taking the advice of the site and carving a path of destruction in his local gaming group.
The title reminds me of some Asian country that likes to oppress it minority populations through indoctrination….
As for the post itself lets take a look…
Email:
I have been a follower (better said … fan!) of your blog since the beginning even though i am not very active in the discussions in the blog.I have changed my lists to follow up something close to your “doctrines” and i currently have a Eldar list and a Best Of Space Marines list that i have played with considerable success against my gaming group.
He is fan alright, I wonder where this could be leading…
They have, i’m afraid, list very much like what was used in 4th edition (and apparently still nowadays in some places?) mostly horde, foot or mixed lists so it has been fairly easy to impose my armies.
Your gaming group is playing with the armies they have had for a while it seems. I am sorry, but last time I have checked not everyone can drop a ton of cash to update their army to the new Mech Fascism. Perhaps your gaming group also might like to see their favorite models on the board and not too concerned with winning combos?
Despite beating face repeatedly i don’t seem to “convert” players to my (yours) style of play. People still avoid Mech with a passion and i’m kind of outta of arguments other than winning a lot…i mean, what better argument could there be??? :))))
“Convert” in quotes eh? I think we can drop the quotes. Speaking of converting have you tried…
Not sure if i have a question, but i would like to know what kind of arguments can you give this kind of players? (I guess starting a blog would be your answer….).
Yeah your really did not have a question you mostly wanted to get on your knees and show YTTH a happy ending. Yes, that is exactly what we need a mirror blog.
Also, because it’s part of an ongoing discussion regarding Mech vs Non-Mech, what Foot/Horde armies you rate as competitive in 40k?
Thanks for the good job. It’s very appreciated by at least some true believers!
Here is the part when the emailer stands up and wipes his mouth and proceeds to ask a question, just so he does not seem like a total fan boy. He has also moved from convert to a true believer. Well if they are the true believers I guess I am the…
Now the reply from one of the lesser priests of Stelek.
Reply:
Thanks for the email and the love!As to the gamers in your area… you can only lead a horse to water, you can’t make him drink.
That said, instead of talking up your newfound prowess with all your new new mad skills (not saying that you’re bragging), go with the gentler conversion method. Allow people to start to come to you when they’re struggling with a new build. Talk about a great article that you read on YTTH or BoLS or really anywhere… even Warseer 😉 Just talk about it in the context of you thinking it was a great tactica/army arche-type/etc, not in the context of “Hey, you should be doing this with your army!”
Honestly, this is a major pitfall for many better gamers – whether you’re the teacher or the prospective student. Stelek was not liked very well at the FLGS for a while because he initially came in with a “Your army is crap, here’s how to fix it” attitude.
So to that end, there are no arguments that can be made. Sure, there’s a ton of tactical analysis and mathhammer and the like, but when winning the argument means losing respect, who cares?
Thinking more and more, I might want to lead stjohn70 to the glue factory. Good idea, convert the non-believers by leading them right to the source of sensible discourse, the Internet. I have a better idea, ask your fellow gamers why they like their current army and why they like the units they are using. Then maybe you would find out they are not your type of people. The answer does not have to be convert the heathen, the answer might be go play with your own kind, retard. Also Stelek was not well liked, really? hard to believe.
On to your other question: are there any viable foot/horde armies out there?
Well, your classic horde armies are not viable anymore. Tyranids and Orks just can’t cut it against all the armor and firepower arrayed against them.
Sisters of Battle, Imperial Guard, Chaos, Daemons (only option), and Eldar can all make viable foot armies. The problem is that they’re not really optimal as the mech or partial-mech varities are. I have seen several armies run quite well with foot elements, but you need something in your army with speed and/or protection.
If you mean that I out spend you in miniature buying; I can increase my chances of making a tooled army that can beat you senseless, then yes I can see certain Hordes not being viable.
Then their is the comments, which is I could go into, but it makes me feel like I am watching a round of high fives, when the football team completes a gang rape a cheerleader. The more I read YTTH the more I think its followers could be easily manipulated by images like this…