successful lists

[hornywingythingy]

Have a look on blue table paintings adepticon coverage for this year, in amongst all the other awesomes, there were helldrakes with streams of warpflame from the back end. Seriously awesome.

 

I must admit I'm not feeling too negative hobby wise atm, I just pulled my dark eldar out to do some work on them, for like the first time in a year, and partway through converting island of blood rat ogres into grotesques, I realised they'd also make pretty decent spawn, so that's 50 quid saved....

[Prot]

Prot you just insulted everyone who plays tournament and posts on any forum about w40k. You realy think that people that actualy play this game just for the game take their knowladge from what they read on the net ?

 

Don't put words in my mouth. That's not what I said. You insult me by making such ridiculous assumptions.

[Brother Lorien]

Prot you just insulted everyone who plays tournament and posts on any forum about w40k. You realy think that people that actualy play this game just for the game take their knowladge from what they read on the net ?

 

From my experience : Yes

 

Just look at the amount of identical power armies there are at tournaments, where a lot also look virtually the same except for the coloring of thier armour.

Also take a look at army list fora and mathhammer threads , where allmost all threads come down to the same army or list, which also prevails most at tournaments.

[the jeske]

Am sorry so you an Prot claim , that most of the tournament armies are taken from the net and that people dont know how to build their armies and just copy . realy ? people have to copy using scyths or wrights or vendettas+vets or to be more general flyers +cheap shoting units+stuff that gives up firstblood hard ?a 10 years old could know that it is good to spam cheap tesla flyers with the rules and FAQ , it doesnt have to be a tournament player.  armies look the same not because people copy/steal stuff from net,but because the armies are mostly premade.

 

People dont even have to know a community to know how stuff will look like . example ?

lets say FW is fully accepted at tournaments . what will happen ? the number of flyer based armies will be much lower [sabers and the new necron AA] , there is going to be more SW or SW mixed armies[sW have problems with flyers , specialy helldrake based armies].

 

 

 

Don't put words in my mouth. That's not what I said. You insult me by making such ridiculous assumptions.

claiming that people commenting your list do it only based on their knowladge of seen net lists , seems kind of a insulting . It points out at tournament players inability to judge lists at all.

[Xenith]

 

You realy think that people that actualy play this game just for the game take their knowladge from what they read on the net ?

 

From my experience : Yes

 

armies there are at tournaments... look virtually the same except for the coloring of thier armour.

 

Indeed. The internet tells the best units. People use these in great numbers at the tournaments. They do well. The internet tells people they do well. They get used at tournaments, ad infinitum.

 

What would be truly telling is the number of GK/Necron allied armies that did poorly. That would imply netlisting.

 

No one can deny that some units/combinations are statistically more reliable than others, and that if anyone wanted to take every advantage into a game that they could in order to win, they would take those units.

 

No one is arguing that the winners were bad players with point and click armies. It's more that the internet oozes 'collective wisdom' about the performances of army choices. What would used to have taken someone months of playtesting can now be realised by looking online. 

 

Someone has a good idea, everyone copies it. What you really want to do is game the meta in order to win.

 

EDIT

 

Am sorry so you an Prot claim , that most of the tournament armies are taken from the net and that people dont know how to build their armies and just copy . 

Prot never claimed that, he just remarked that many and more people follow advice on the internet regarding unit efficiency and army building. Not outright copying. We all know how vocal some people are about efficient army list choices around here.

 

Maybe something was lost in translation?

 

 

[the jeske]

months ? it takes around a weekend to test a build . 3 games per 5-6 main gold fish lists [sW, GK ,IG , nids or demons , rest should be based on local knowladge] . And that is if you never played the game at all. If you play for a few years it goes faster , because most game play styles are reused offten . The necron+GK play a lot like 2ed eldar . pop o falcons being the flyers [hard to counter shoting platforms] , power field fast shot brighlance armed exarchs being the hvy support and harlis being the deathstar. only thing that changes is that you play with 3 scyths and not 1 falcon and your support is not 1-2 units but 2-3.

[Nehekhare]

Just look at the amount of identical power armies there are at tournaments, where a lot also look virtually the same except for the coloring of thier armour.

Also take a look at army list fora and mathhammer threads , where allmost all threads come down to the same army or list, which also prevails most at tournaments.

this is a simple fact that does not in any way relate to your argument about the reason for this fact being netlisting.

counterargument: there are tons of army lists in the forums that are not identical, yet still only certain few lists do well consistently.

those are not identical because they get copied, but they get copied because they do well and the game allows only for so many optimal builds.

if anything, blame the game designers, not tournament players who can only work with what they are given. 

 

armies look the same not because people copy/steal stuff from net,but because the armies are mostly premade.

exactly. premade by the parametres of the game itself.

change the parametres (i.e. FW anti-Air prevalence), change the lists (see: BOA)

 

What would be truly telling is the number of GK/Necron allied armies that did poorly. That would imply netlisting.

only 8/31 Necron lists did not make top 50% at adepticon.

in my book, this makes it a good codex.

[Brother Lorien]

The fact that people are trying to defend that "there isn't much netlisting" here on an internet based forum basicly shoots all and everything that is beeing said out of the water.

 

I wish i had some very old tournament lists from say 10 or 12 years back and compare them to now.

 

 

counterargument: there are tons of army lists in the forums that are
not identical, yet still only certain few lists do well consistently.

those are not identical because they get copied, but they get copied
because they do well and the game allows only for so many optimal
builds.

 

Eh sorry? did you just contradict your counterargument within 1 sentence?

 

 

if anything, blame the game designers, not tournament players who can only work with what they are given.

You are given a codex , from which you can create an army, be creative, dont blame it on the game devs.

 

 

 

You realy think that people that actualy play this game just for the game take their knowladge from what they read on the net ?

 

From my experience : Yes

 

armies there are at tournaments... look virtually the same except for the coloring of thier armour.

 

Indeed. The internet tells the best units. People use these in great numbers at the tournaments. They do well. The internet tells people they do well. They get used at tournaments, ad infinitum.

 

What would be truly telling is the number of GK/Necron allied armies that did poorly. That would imply netlisting.

 

No one can deny that some units/combinations are statistically more reliable than others, and that if anyone wanted to take every advantage into a game that they could in order to win, they would take those units.

 

No one is arguing that the winners were bad players with point and click armies. It's more that the internet oozes 'collective wisdom' about the performances of army choices. What would used to have taken someone months of playtesting can now be realised by looking online. 

 

Someone has a good idea, everyone copies it. What you really want to do is game the meta in order to win.

 

 

Precisely

 

CJ

[Nehekhare]

Eh sorry? did you just contradict your counterargument within 1 sentence?

nope. did you perhaps miss a "not" where i refuted your interpretation?

the point was not that netlisting doesn't exist, but that the reason you gave for it isn't supported or implied by that fact alone.

blaming monolists on the internet is like complaining about the fact that all the tools made to hammer in nails look like hammers.

 

You are given a codex , from which you can create an army, be creative, dont blame it on the game devs.

oh come on...eat what's on the table and if it tastes like c**p it's you and not the cook?

No thank you, I prefer basic logic to blame: good lists win more often than not. who wins is defined by the rules of the game, not the other way round. So if good lists look alike, it's propably the rules and not that the players are uncreative (which frankly is quite insulting).

 

I'd be thankful that there are tournament players who catch up on the playtesting that GW refuses to do. then again, encouraging creative play isn't why they write rules, is it? model company first...

[Iron Father Ferrum]

The idea that ALL tournament players EVERYWHERE recycle the same army concept over and over is so much crap.  Do some people do it?  Of course.  But not everyone.  A friend and I took a mixed C:SM and Eldar to a team tournament and took second place; one armor save another way, and we'd have had first (that army being the Azrael w/ IG blob netlisting concept).  No one would say that those two dexes are anything near the top-tier of tournament lists and there were plenty of Crons hanging about that day, too.  Another case in point: Tony Kopach took an army with the Khan, a couple of blob squads, and three Storm Talons to Adepticon and did well with it.  Blobs are common in netlisting, sure, but C:SM has been out since 2008 and in all that time I have never once actually seen an army led by the Khan.  Even most White Scars players don't use him!  I've played 40K games in four states since the Storm Talon came out, and aside from my two, I've never seen one hit the table.  So, praytell, how is it against that ALL tournament players EVERYWHERE lack imagination and only use netlists?

[Brother Lorien]

 

Eh sorry? did you just contradict your counterargument within 1 sentence?

nope. did you perhaps miss a "not" where i refuted your interpretation?

 

the point was not that netlisting doesn't exist, but that the reason you

gave for it isn't supported or implied by that fact alone.

blaming monolists on the internet is like complaining about the fact

that all the tools made to hammer in nails look like hammers.

 

 

Sorry , let me elaborate:

We are talking about lists beeing copied from the internet

 

By the way could you please elaborate the comparison between Hammers and monolists , as i dont see the connection there.

 

 

counterargument: there are tons of army lists in the forums that are

 

not identical, yet still only certain few lists do well consistently.

 

those are not identical because they get copied, but they get copied

 

because they do well and the game allows only for so many optimal

 

builds.

 

 

I.e. netlisting

 

Back in the day you would see a certain type of army list flow around to other tournaments, but it would take quiete some time.

Nowadays people see that an army list works from forums and copy it.

 

CJ

[Hellios]

Want to wonder why tournaments 10-12 years ago might have looked different? How about more army lists... Some codices such as the 3.5 codex had multiple top tier builds and plenty of decent builds as well. You also had more army lists... Such as the Ork Klan lists, Craftworld codex lists, Index Astartes and so on.

 

It is also easier for ideas to be spread and for anyone to read ideas, but top players often come up with the same ideas anyway. So yeah you might find net lists at tournaments, but the best players are probably not net listing.

 

Then you have a change in focus. Maybe the players attending tournaments in your area are more competitive than they used to be.

[Pavement Artist]

There is something to be said for a tournament player who succeeds because they understand the army inside out and therefore are able to win down to their knowledge of the force.

 

I wouldn't get too precious about it. Many of the tournament lists you see (fantasy and 40k) spam units and very often have cookie cutter compositions. It isn't enough to defend it by saying "Oh person A pioneered this, vendettas are too good not to take..yadda yadda.." The tournament lists i have seen are rife with people spamming cheap effective units as a crutch. It doesn't make them a particularly good player just because they know which way the wind is blowing regarding powerful units.

 

I understand that alot of the lists placing high in tournaments aren't necessarily spamfests but you have to admit, creativity seems to be at a premium in the scene.

[Sception]

No, just taking a net list doesn't make you a good player, but the ones who aren't good players don't make it to the final rounds.  And you know what?  The good player who takes a bad list doesn't get there either.  It's not enough to 'know your army inside and out', because everyone knows their army inside and out, and most everyone else's too.  When you're at the higher end, it's not enough to just play well, or just run a strong army.  The larger and more competitive the venue, the more you need to have both to do well, and you'll need to be favored by the dice gods on top of that.  Yes, sometimes someone will out-think the metagame and win a big event with something unorthodox, but even then such unconventional are still tournament lists, not casual fluff lists.

 

In a well balanced, well designed game, the rules themselves give rise to a diverse pool of opponents in competitive environments.  Look at, say, MtG during a good block.  You can really see how all the design & development work - the underlying math, the heavy playtesting, the careful planning - pays off.  Compare to Magic in a block where something 'too strong' slips through the cracks and starts dominating the field.  The original Ravnica block vs. the original Mirrodin Block, for instance, where in the former a wealth of competitive decks surfaced naturally, while the latter was a game of whack-a-mole where every time one dominant deck was beaten down, another took its place (skullclamp, affinity, tooth&nail).

 

Sadly, 40k's a lot closer to the latter than the former right now, and thanks to the allies system and the 5th ed legacy books, that's probably not going to be changing any time soon.

[Pavement Artist]

I'd argue that Mal. When i say "Knowing your army inside out" i'm talking about playing with a force for a number of years so that you are extremely comfortable with it and understand the upper limits of what each unit can achieve.

 

I'd wager that most tournament armies feature a particular force because they are the competitive flavour of the now. That doesn't equate to an understanding of the army.

[hornywingythingy]

You would be wrong then, check out the 11th company podcast or the 40kuk podcast, these people are amongst the top tiers of the tournie community, with years if not decades of gaming experience, and encyclopedic knowledge not just of their army but all the other armies, these are the people who win tournies and they know what they are doing.

[Seahawk]

I use successful lists all the time, and my win rate is quite high to show for it. The award plaques I take home from Adepticon have a nice place on the wall now.

 

According to the internet though, all my lists suck because they don't use Unit A, B, and C from Army 1, 2, or 3. 

 

Gee, perhaps creativity does have its merits in competitive play...

[Zhorzh]

The most successful tournament players in my area don't copy lists from the internet. They actually do the opposite, they read their books (actually they read all legal books) and make lists based on strenghts of their armies. I don't think they visit internet forums at all.

[the jeske]

 

Back in the day you would see a certain type of army list flow around to other tournaments, but it would take quiete some time.

back in the days you opened a codex and saw stuff like 3ed BA DC rules and everyone playing or not playing BAs knew that most armies will be made out of las/plas miniamx with naked vet sgts. Or when the Kelly did any of the eldar codex and everyone saw starcannons[3ed] alaitoc[craftworld eldar] flyinc circus and harli minimax[4th ed] , people realy didnt need to wait 2-4 weeks[as a lot of tournaments dont accapt dex that come out a week before an event] to know what will be played.

 

I remember when we were bashing the old gav dex[well its leak] and there is already talk of mono builds and you have to remember that back then stuff like termis or raptors were different , because it was still 4th and they could score . No one wanted to believe that 5th will make only troops scoring . I put over 3 weeks of testing in terminators [as back then I was still foolish enough to want to play different stuff from the chaos dex] , what a blast it was . Made me play EC till the GK codex came out .

 

 

 

 

When i say "Knowing your army inside out" i'm talking about playing with

a force for a number of years so that you are extremely comfortable

with it and understand the upper limits of what each unit can achieve.

 

there were quite a lot of people who just started or played w40k a year or so and were wining big events , some of them very young. the time played has little to do with someones effectivness  at tournaments.

[Hellios]

 

 

Back in the day you would see a certain type of army list flow around to other tournaments, but it would take quiete some time.

back in the days you opened a codex and saw stuff like 3ed BA DC rules and everyone playing or not playing BAs knew that most armies will be made out of las/plas miniamx with naked vet sgts. Or when the Kelly did any of the eldar codex and everyone saw starcannons[3ed] alaitoc[craftworld eldar] flyinc circus and harli minimax[4th ed] , people realy didnt need to wait 2-4 weeks[as a lot of tournaments dont accapt dex that come out a week before an event] to know what will be played.

 

I remember when we were bashing the old gav dex[well its leak] and there is already talk of mono builds and you have to remember that back then stuff like termis or raptors were different , because it was still 4th and they could score . No one wanted to believe that 5th will make only troops scoring . I put over 3 weeks of testing in terminators [as back then I was still foolish enough to want to play different stuff from the chaos dex] , what a blast it was . Made me play EC till the GK codex came out .

 

 

> 

 

When i say "Knowing your army inside out" i'm talking about playing with

a force for a number of years so that you are extremely comfortable

with it and understand the upper limits of what each unit can achieve.

 

there were quite a lot of people who just started or played w40k a year or so and were wining big events , some of them very young. the time played has little to do with someones effectivness  at tournaments.

 

 

I agree with what Jeske says. Also some people who ave been playing their list f month have more experience than others hav e playing for years.

 

If you can (for example) get in eight games a week with your new tourny army, tweaking it for a month before you go to an event (so 4-5 weeks for a total 32-40 games) against serious players who are are trying to to squeeze the most out of their list, you will probably have a more knowledge of your army than the guy who plays once or twice a month for years. Not to mention, if you keep changing armies you get to know what a of them can do.

[Nehekhare]

 

 

 

We are talking about lists beeing copied from the internet

 

I guess that is the reason we don't understand each other. I was talking about WHY netlisting happens.

 

 

 

By the way could you please elaborate the comparison between Hammers and monolists , as i dont see the connection there.

 

 

sure. a hammer is made for a certain task (hammering nails in), like a list for a certain set of rules/metagame. just like there is a certain form that is optimal for this task, there are monolists in 40k. it's no wonder that those get copied. what works gets copied and everything gets copied faster in the net. but that is only a symptoma. that there are so few optimal lists is the real problem - and it is a rules design problem, not a player creativity problem.

[Brother Amarel]

There's a number of binary statements being made on both sides. As ever, the truth is somewhere in the middle. Do an amount of people take a successful (or presumed to be successful) list from the internet? For sure. Do other people make their own lists and perhaps only use the online community to discuss or validate certain ideas? Again, yes.

 

And then you also have to ask yourself what the issue with that is? I prefer to learn for myself via list building and development, other people prefer to discover purely on the table, so a shortcut to that helps. 

 

Additionally, I'd suggest that netlisting is pretty different to netdecking, less absolute, and yet there is more snobbery towards it.

 

Finally all of those lists are different, albeit very similar in certain, uh, picks, so all that shows is that those certain picks are at the extreme end of the power curve at the moment.

[Kol Saresk]

Out of curiosity, what percentage of 40k players are actually tournament players?

[Iron Father Ferrum]

You need to be more specific, Kol.  Because there are tournament players like me and my friends who bring balanced and effective army builds to tourneys (and still win), and then there are the crazy-WAAC folks who bring the "perfect" min/max armies that everyone hates.

[Nehekhare]

categories - easier to understand, never accurate.