Is it the list, or the general?

[Joeker]

Don't see a poll function, so I thought I'd just ask it here - in your opinion, what matters more in terms of success - the list played or the player playing the list? ie - does a better player make a poor list more likely to win, or does the poor list hinder even the best generals?

[BrotherAtrox]

I would say the "trinity" of factors that decide a 40K game are chance, the list, and the general. It's hard to decide which is more effective really. Some would say you need two of those three factors on yours side to win a game. A lot of cynics will probably post here about how 40K is one-dimensional and is glorified rock-paper-scissors: but take their words with a bit of salt. A good general can make due with a crappy list, but there comes a point of no return methinks. For instance, an armored company against a Dark Eldar force with 15+ Dark Lances. That being said a list that is designed to crush anything it faces can only go so far in the hands of it's leader.

[Reinholt]

Answer: It depends.

 

As stated above, sometimes the list issues are insurmountable. There are definitely games where I can eyeball the starting board (or, even eyeball the forces before deployment) and easily pick who is going to win barring major idiot moves.

 

However, most lists don't suffer from this. As long as you are either relatively balanced or properly focused on a viable strategy against most forces, you have a chance. The issue then comes down to skill and luck.

 

Skill is almost always relevant (barring the major mismatches above), and luck varies by what people choose to play with; there are some lists that are more luck dependent than others, and there are some situations where bad rolls or good rolls matter a lot more. One can always be undone or benefit greatly from luck, but skill is needed to take advantage of (or overcome) those situations.

 

So I would say this about WH40k:

 

- Games can be lost in the construction of a list that is highly vulnerable to certain counter-tactics, but rarely can they be won with a list alone unless your opponent was kind enough to walk into your trap.

 

- Games are almost always won by skill, and often the kind of skill that most players are unaware of. Things like positioning, psychological warfare, and understanding victory conditions matter quite a bit. Fallacies like "getting my points back for units" or other common nonsense like not knowing when to sacrifice units to prevent other players from achieving goals even at a net point loss. Failing to know what order to shoot in, or how to position properly for assault hurts. The little things matter, and so do the big things. Players who consistently get the strategic big picture and the tactical small picture are going to win a lot of games.

 

- Luck matters, and can cut both ways. Luck can cause you to win, and luck can cause you to lose. However, mostly luck gets blamed for things skill should have taken care of. I'm notorious among the people I play with for always preferring things with low variance; I don't like weapons I can't rely on. Thus, I'll shun things that have wildly unpredictable outcomes in favor of certainty, and I will often have a pretty good handle on what my units are likely to do, as well as multiply redundant setups to make sure it gets done. You can fight against luck, and use it to your advantage; it does matter, but not as much as people say. Rare events are just that - rare.

 

Bottom Line:

 

It's the general, mostly. You should always blame yourself when you lose and give credit to your opponent (though I suggest doing this in your head, not saying it to them, if they weren't a good sport); doing this will challenge you to improve and figure out better ways to play - if you blame luck and list when, in reality, you sucked, you won't learn.

 

The other factors matter, but not so much. I went on a tear where I ran off a 70 game streak without a single loss at one point. I can't realistically attribute that to luck given the large sample, and since I did not play the same list throughout, it wasn't the list. Hell, that was with two different armies! What I would attribute it to is a combination of minimizing the role of luck to prevent catastrophic losses, and knowing when I was not in a position to win so I could play to make sure my opponent did not win (resulting in over twenty draws in that streak along with over forty wins).

[Captain Malachi]

The general makes the list, so it's the general. :devil:

[Mal]

Well I know a member of this board will disagree with me, but thats to be expected at this point, and im sure once he realises im actually ignoring him now hopefully he'll stop.

 

But the vast majority of army lists are not actually significantly different in terms of overall power and stragety potential, so luck fo the dice aside, I think being a good general can make a huge difference to the game.

 

But there are those army lists that are well and truely over the top for freindly matches, the real tourny lists. Things like nidzilla, flying circus, etc etc, where a basic army list will be hard pressed to hold its own, but once again the god of dice play a large role in these games too.

 

After all you can be the greatest general with the best tactics and most powerful army out there, but if you cant roll well, your going to loose.

 

So I'll agree with the above posts, there are 3 deciding factors, Luck being the biggest, this can make or break any army.

Then I'd say it was the general, a poor general will loose with a powerful army, but a great general will put up a serious fight with a poor army. Lastly I'd say the army itself.

[greatcrusade08]

Bottom Line:

 

It's the general, mostly. You should always blame yourself when you lose and give credit to your opponent (though I suggest doing this in your head, not saying it to them, if they weren't a good sport); doing this will challenge you to improve and figure out better ways to play - if you blame luck and list when, in reality, you sucked, you won't learn.

 

Reinholt has pretty muched nailed the argument there, but on the flip side (devils advocate if you will). I could imagine its possible to play 'cheesy' (yes its subjective, dont bounce on me) armies against noobs or in 'friendly' games and then make out they are great generals. Again they are not really learning anything from either side.

(example flying circus against nilla marine noob player).

 

ID agree with the 'holy trinity' thing

LUCK

TACTICS

ARMY

 

without one you could fail!

[Cale]

I would third this 'trinity' idea. List construction is certainly important--its easy to make a list with almost no reasonable chance of winning--regardless of how lousy your opponent is our how good your luck is.

 

Similarly, though most of the time armies pretty much run themselves on the table and decisions are pretty straightforward, avoiding serious error is a very important part of winning the game--because there certainly are errors that will lose it for you.

 

Finally, luck is the most potent though the least important (because there's no way to manipulate it) of the three. No matter how good or bad a player you are, nor how good or bad your list is, nor how good or bad your opponent and his list are, there is some disparity of luck that will practically guarantee you a win (all ones vs. all sixes, for instance.) No matter how good you are, luck can beat you.

 

So, it's important to construct good lists--or at least avoid constructing bad ones.

 

It's important to make good moves--or at least avoiding game-losing mistakes.

 

And neither will matter if you're sufficiently lucky or unlucky.

[Reinholt]

I want to take a quick moment here to argue against the idea that luck is out of a player's hands. Obviously, barring major cheating, the actual result of dice rolls is out of your hands, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you can't have already taken care of things before you roll the dice.

 

A few quick thoughts on that:

 

1 - A sound understanding of basic statistics will really help you in Warhammer 40k. I'm not talking about funky stuff like fat-tailed distributions or monte carlo simulation, either, but just things like knowing what the mean outcome is of any given dice roll and how much variability there is.

 

I've won (or failed to lose) a lot of games as a result of this; knowing when to do something or when not to do something because the numbers really favor you, and knowing what bad moves your opponents are prone to making because they don't get the numbers is very, very valuable.

 

A lot of what is perceived as "luck" is actually "I don't understand how statistics works". Yes, sometimes truly wacky madcap things do happen (especially if Skaven are involved, which thankfully is not a concern in 40k), but often things that are considered "really lucky" are actually pretty well within the realm of probability and should have been planned for.

 

2 - When building an army list, and when making moves on a battlefield, there is always a tension between optimality and multiple-redundancy. What I mean is this:

 

I could, for my marines, take a landspeeder with a heavy flamer, and another with a multi-melta. Then, I have one weapon that is optimal for slaughtering infantry, and another that is optimal for waxing vehicles. However, if either one of those gets shot down before doing its job, the other one can't really cover effectively.

 

Conversely, I could take two heavy flamer landspeeders or two multi-melta landspeeders. There, I've ignored one side of the coin and can't cover it, but on the other hand, shooting down one landspeeder won't stop me from railing you with the other one. Or, if you don't tag either, I'm almost assured to do serious damage because I'm not relying on a single shot to take something out, but rather multiples (where the variance declines rapidly thanks to the law of large numbers; this is especially valuable for volume-fire armies, such as sisters shelling someone from short range with three units at once).

 

Making these decisions early can minimize or maximize the impact of luck. I have one friend who plays Tyranids and plays a highly optimized list. When he wins, he tends to win big, and when he loses, he tends to lose big. The question is breaking his strategy somewhere by eliminating a key cog, because if everything breaks his way, he's going to demolish you, but if it doesn't, he doesn't have a backup.

 

 

So are most things luck? In my eyes, no. It's usually a skill choice that a general has made, though many are unaware they are making the choice and blind to the actual probabilities thereof. I know a lot of players who rely on strategies with remote chances of actual occurrence, which is great. They'll win big once, then I'll win thirty-five games in a row while they are waiting to get lucky again.

 

Basically, my advice is this - if you don't like relying on luck to win, build an army with backup options if something doesn't go your way (tactical marines are great for the "glue" part of a marine army), and don't ever rely on any single event that could go wrong as the cornerstone of your strategy unless you have no other options.

[Cale]

Sure. Knowing statistics and probabilities is critical when it comes to making good decisions. In some games, luck can actually be entirely obviated by good play.

 

This game is not one of them. No matter how well you prepare, if you roll nothing but ones you fail. Period. That's what I meant when I said that luck is out of the player's hands. Making good decisions based on a knowledge of probability and expectation falls under the catagory of playing well--it doesn't actually manipulate 'luck' and no amount of such knowledge can eliminate the ability for luck to prevent you from winning.

[Reinholt]

Yes, but again, all ones is a truly extreme example, especially as the number of dice you roll gets larger.

 

If I clip off 40 bolter rounds at something, what are the chances I roll all ones? That would be (1/6)^40, which is a number so small that you're more likely to get killed by a meteorite falling out of the sky during your game than roll 40 1's at once.

 

This is my point; I see people complain about luck, but nobody should be surprised when they roll a single one (that's not bad luck, it's totally expected that this should happen pretty frequently - about one in six times, in fact). You should be VERY surprised if you roll 40 simultaneously, however. On the off chance it happens, yeah, you just got historically, wildly, fantastically, painfully unlucky (and so much so I'd start asking if you ran over a nun and a baby on the way to the game or something and this was payback), but when you play it right, failing due to luck is truly improbable.

 

Luck always has an element, but you definitely can minimize it to the point that it should, on average, be something you can plan for, and you should know where you are prone to "bad" luck due to small sample sizes; always have a backup plan.

 

Bottom line is this: If someone is losing consistently due to "luck", it's not "luck", it's someone either making foolish tactical moves, not understanding statistics, or having someone cheating them. Generally when I hear players complain chronically about their bad luck and then play them myself, they suck; I don't say this to be rude or arrogant, but usually they are busy blaming luck for what is actually a skill issue. If you lose once in a blue moon due to bad luck, it does happen, but it should be a truly rare event if you know how to hedge your bets and make sure you don't over-expose yourself to random chance. If you lose more than once in a blue moon due to bad luck, it's not luck.

 

So yes, be hard on yourself with regard to improving, don't expect things to go your way and have a backup plan (hope for the best, plan for the worst), and know the odds... you will find luck becomes less and less of an issue with each passing game.

[Cale]

Certainly, your point is correct. On the other hand, I have played with people who have routinely had bad luck. I mean, it's one thing to miss a lascannon shot. It's another to miss two of three lascannon shots over the course of a dozen games. That's bad luck--it's sufficiently bad luck to significantly alter the course of a game--and there's nothing you can do about it.

 

The side effect of knowing probabilities is knowing when you are, in fact, getting unlucky. Perhaps it's not as often as some people would like to think, but it does happen--and the effect it can have on your success is very real.

 

As a side note, I'll note that I am very familiar with probability and statistics. Working numbers occupies more of my time than painting and modeling put together--it's a big part of the hobby to me. I say this because I recognize that there are a lot of people who do not know enough math to really know how lucky or unlucky they are getting--and routinely think that they are getting less lucky than they should as a results. I am not one of those people. I know enough math to know how much luck impacts the outcomes of my games--and to know that that impact can be and routinely is significant--regardless of how well or poorly one might be playing.

[King Tiger]

in my opinion it depends, a well thought out list in the hands of a good player, can lose just as easily against a power gamers no though no effort list.

 

and of course there is luck (something which I know allot of players, particularly around here, don't believe is a factor in th slightest)

[greatcrusade08]

Im well known amongst my friends as being the unluckiest dice roller ever. The only times i roll 6's is for leadership tests.

Its very annoying, i think im going to burn a dice and make all the others watch!

 

GC08

[Deathwing]

The general is most definately the key to winning. The list is secondary and as someone mentioned previously luck can go both ways.

 

In my most recent tournament I managed 3 decisive victories, 1 draw and two crushing defeats. After discussing it with some people it came to my attention that the two games I lost horribly were to people who played more than I did and hence had more experience with their respective armies (prior to this tournament the last time I played was some 3 years ago) and the people I totally slaughtered weren't as focused or tactically sound as my other opponents (one of them had a hang over if I recall correctly).

One opponent had a list that I would consider power gamer-ish (two units of fully kitted out Nobz) and one opponent had a strategy I had never faced before so was unsure how to act (an all bike army held in reserve). But I was able to identify where I made my mistake in both games and what I would do differently if I were to face similar armies in the future. I told one of my opponents that if you play with the same army long enough, you'll develop tactics that will help you deal with any army you face.

 

Being a physics/math student I made careful not to observe the dice over the course of each game and no one had particularly bad or good luck for the entire game though each of us had at points in the game strokes of brilliant/terrible luck (i.e. vaporising half a 5 man squad of sternguard on overheat rolls followed up by a string of hits with three plasma cannons). I try my best to minimize my dependancy on luck by using multiples of things or things that don't require me to roll as much (i've become a big fan of flamers, combi-flamers and blast weapons cause I may still hit something even if it misses) or putting myself in a position that I'm throwing so much dice that it is statistically unlikely to achieve a result other than one that I want. As soon as I find myself in a situation where I need the dice to go one way, I know I've made a big mistake.

 

That being said, I do believe that painted models perform better than unpainted models, the dice favour you if they are the same colour as your army and it's a good idea to give dice a rest between rolling 6s to ensure they are always ready to roll 6s B) ;)

[Brother Tual]

General is 90%

Army 15%

Luck 20%

Mathammer - 15%

 

wait...

 

Serious - Generalmanship is the most important element - Experienced players always have an easier time - This is twofold though - they tend to have established armies - which are killer in themselves - but more importantly - they KNOW how to apply it to achieve best results - Luck only helps with how easy these results are achieved -

 

It may seem strange - but I have played people - destroyed them - swapped armies - and destroyed my own (original) army using their same list with same terrain and same mission - two variables - Luck and generalmanship - I am not a lucky person..

[Mal]

I agree with that, being a good general is a big hurdle to being a good (or should I say effective) player.

 

Of course there will be some who will declare those 'killer' lists to be cheesy, but this I disagree on, yes there are some powerbuilds out there, but an effective list doesn't automatically make it a cheesy list. Take my Dark Angels for example, I have lost one game with them and that was against a flying circus in the hands of someone who is more than passingly familiar with it, and guite a good player to boot. Still put up a serious fight and even had him worried at a couple of points.

Yet the only thing in my DA list that people could even consider cheesy is my landraider... oh wait is a crusader so its only really effective once its within 12 inches... yep that puts it in a lot of danger of being easily destroyed. The rest of my list is just basic tac squads, a couple of rhinos, a scout squad and my command squad, ok the command squad is really nasty in combat, but then its rare to find a non guard/tau command squad that isn't. Yet I have played this list enough to know it inside and out, I am comfident against the vast majority of opponents out there, and even a few of those powerbuilds I would have no question about facing (winning will be tricky, but thats my idea of a perfect game, something I have to work for).

 

I do not wish to sound big headed here, but I would consider myself to be a pretty good general, and not just with my Dark Angels. I just find it disappointing that someone decide to declare me as a cheese player because I tend to win. Such is the price of victory.

 

On the flip side, I am far from a 'lucky' player, In the ancients group I play with there are 2 players who can be garunteed to roll badly with consisancy, myself and one of my friends, I just try to make sure that even wth bad rolls, the individual combat im facing I can still stand a chance of winning, or at the least holding.

[IvorTangrean]

Luck can seem to go bad but you have to remember that things tend to balance out in the end. On many occasions I have had a sickening number of bolter shots miss with my marines just to have every hit wound, balancing things out statistically.

 

The other thing is what seems like bad luck can really be just good luck for your opponent. I friend of mine made made about 12-18 3+ saves out of 12-18 and 3 4+ cover saves on his Raider in ONE turn. I lost that game hardcore, I was already on the back foot when he had this invulnerable turn the only things that died were hit by AP rounds. But in the same game (2v2) I exploded a Monolith with a single Lascannon shot on turn 2, turn one everything bounced off.

[Cale]

Serious - Generalmanship is the most important element - Experienced players always have an easier time - This is twofold though - they tend to have established armies - which are killer in themselves - but more importantly - they KNOW how to apply it to achieve best results - Luck only helps with how easy these results are achieved -

 

I dunno...I'm one of the less experienced players around here--I haven't been playing as long as most everyone else--but, at the risk of coming across as conceited I'll put forward that I am basically a better player than all but one or two of those who are more experienced than I am.

 

Experience is worth something, but it won't make you a good player in and of itself.

 

 

Luck can seem to go bad but you have to remember that things tend to balance out in the end. On many occasions I have had a sickening number of bolter shots miss with my marines just to have every hit wound, balancing things out statistically.

 

They tend to, but they don't always. It's not terribly difficult to calculate just how likely or unlikely a given string of events happened to be--and how likely or unlikely the alternatives would have been. Sometimes people do just get lucky or unlucky, and to dismiss the impact it has on the game would be foolish.

[Leonaides]

Maybe that should be experience and comprehension?

 

A guy I play against in little home tournaments (10-15 players usually) has been playing marines for 8 or 9 years, and yet still isnt very good. He gets upset when his big blinged up mega unit gets killed, or when he fails to wipe me out with shooting, he wont charge his heavy weapon squads or sniper scouts (even into a 5 man or Tau unit), but will charge his terminators into a Wulfen with a power weapon. He knows his army, stats wise, but doesnt actually think about what he's doing. The heavy weapons units are a good example - because he's given them shooty upgrades, he absolutely has to shoot with them, even if thats not a sensible option.

 

And yet, another guy I play friendly games against had a few 2nd ed games, then stoped playing for 6 years. Just got back into it at the tail end of 4th ed. Started a new army (BT's) and read up on his units, their stats, and actually thinks about the battlefield. Admittedly I can still whoop his ass when I want to, but he's much harder to deal with than the more experienced first guy and generally manages to surprise me at least every other game with something.

[Captain Malachi]

Experience is worth something, but it won't make you a good player in and of itself.

Of course, some people will simply never be good, but experience does help, a lot, but then again theres something to be said for theory, I don't play very often, but when I do, I almost always win, since I started reading tactricas and stuff on this forum and then implementing what I've learned in my battles.

[Mal]

Maybe that should be experience and comprehension?

 

I like that, it makes perfect sense., and your absolutly right, just because you've done something a hundred times doesn;t mean you can do it well, it just means you do not need to think on it as much, whihc in itself can be an advantage if used properly.

[greatcrusade08]

I like that, it makes perfect sense., and your absolutly right, just because you've done something a hundred times doesn;t mean you can do it well, it just means you do not need to think on it as much, whihc in itself can be an advantage if used properly.

Much like spell-checking!!!! :unsure:

 

I think you guys have it right, although i still support the idea of 'luck' being a part of the trinity theres an old quote that says "chance favours the prepared mind", i guess if you know the averages (mathhammer) or have a rough idea, you can have back up plans to cope with unlucky dice rolls.

But even the worst player can win through luck, so i still say it remains a strong factor!

 

Trinity:

Army list

General

Luck

 

GC08

[Brother Tual]

you got me there Cale - I assumed that the person in question was not a dumb <DELETED BY THE INQUISITION> - :unsure:

 

I still stand by experience being an important factor in a good general - you may wish to compare experience with others - in which case I would say it matters little - different people gleam the same experience differently so understand and gain from it at different levels - but - in every game you play you measure against yourself - you cannot say that you are worse than when you first started - you have to have been getting better - it just takes others longer - or a lot longer than others - In the end though.. even the slow ones MUST be finding it EASIER to play and win...

 

 

Luck only makes things easier - deciding to shoot 3 of your 6 lascannons at a monolith which is important to destroy is ok - doing it on the first shot only makes it easier - taking all 6 only makes it harder - Either way it doesnt make you a better general or have a stronger army

[Cale]

Certainly, I am better than when I started. It's just important to remember that analysis and forethought can replace much of what experience teaches you--and often do a better job.

 

The problem is that some people take experience a little too literally, and without enough consideration. My wife is bad about that; she'll get unlucky with a unit a couple of times and decide that it's a bad unit. For example: she played a very small combat patrol game with some Thousand Sons and summoned lesser Daemons. Some bad luck and an error on her part saw her T-sons squad wiped off the board on turn one--leaving her daemons unable to summon in. She has been leery of daemons since.

 

Sometimes, experience is a bad teacher. Unusual events or instances of particularly extreme luck--which one would identify as obvious outliers were they just bothering to analyze things properly--tend to convince those who rely on experience that some unit is either significantly better or significantly worse than it really is.

 

Analysis, on the other hand, is almost never a bad teacher. The worst that can be said for it is that, sometimes, you end up analyzing things that aren't actually going to matter much in-game.

 

Anyway, I wouldn't go so far as to call anyone dumb. I just wanted to point out that experience isn't the be-all-end-all of being skilled at the game. It's helpful, but it's not alone in--or even at the top of--the catagory of helpful things.

 

 

 

Finally, luck doesn't make your army better, nor does it make you a better player--but it can help you win, or help you to lose.

 

I mean, sure: if you shoot one lascannon at the monolith and kill it you got lucky. Killing the monolith was easy. But, it wasn't just that killing the monolith was easy--it's that you still have the rest of your lascannons with which to take out destroyers, or whatever.

 

If you shoot 25 lascannons (which, combined, have about a 68% chance of killing that monolith) and they all fail to kill that monolith, then you've gotten unlucky--and you'll have killed a lot less than you probably would have if you'd just gotten lucky on that first shot.

 

I wasn't claiming that luck makes a player good. In fact, if anything, I was claiming that winning isn't necessarily indicative of being a good player. While making a good army can certainly help you win, and making good decisions in the game is certainly important, chance can always have a significant, unavoidable, and ultimately unmitigatable impact on the outcome of a game.

[Mal]

I wasn't claiming that luck makes a player good. In fact, if anything, I was claiming that winning isn't necessarily indicative of being a good player. While making a good army can certainly help you win, and making good decisions in the game is certainly important, chance can always have a significant, unavoidable, and ultimately unmitigatable impact on the outcome of a game.

 

There we go, bang on the head of the nail.