Thoughts on a game I had yesterday.

[InquisitorLordPaul]

Well after a game I had yesterday I dont think I will be fielding my Grey Knights against that opponent again (well atleast not as the primary army). I played against my friends Daemon army and well by turn 6 he couldnt win my list was

Brother Captain Force Sword psybolt ammo and his sword was master crafted

5 termies with incinirator and psybolt (4 halberds 1 daemon hammer)

10x Strikes with 2 psycannons psybolt and 1 daemon hammer

10x Strikes with 2x psycannons psybolt and 1 daemon hammer

Rhino

Dreadnought with TL Lascannon and Psybolted Storm Bolter x2

Dread Nought with assault cannon and psybolt

 

At the end of the game all he had left was

GUO

Slaanesh herald in with seekers

3 seekers

10 horrors

14 plague bearers

skullcannon

3 Daemonettes

2 flesh hounds

3 plague drones

 

I killed

4 seekers 27 nettes 13 flesh hounds.

We was playing the crusade misson and we had 2 objectives eacvh and 1 was in the tower

I had both my objectives and the one in the tower at the end of the game. all I lost was 1 strike combat squad 1 dread nougth and the rhino.

[War Father]

Maybe instead of not playing your army agian, give the other guy advice to improve his army. Whenever I lost or tied a game I wrote down what went wrong and thought of ways to improve my tatics. In any game/skill/ect...the best way to get better is to face opponents who are better than you. Bring your friend to your level. 

 

Also, was thier bad dice rolls? Would a different mission effect either army better/worse? Maybe he just had a bad game. Don't give up on him just yet.

[Justicar Enethys]

Your list is hardly optimised. It's a collection of random models, some transported, some not, with sub par wargear options. It's your army and you run it however you want - I'm not arguing that More power to ya for shaking things up a bit What I AM saying is that this list is not uber, cheesy, beardy, OP or anything similar. If your opponent only killed what they did - with what they had - then they need to learn to play - not have you dropping your army, or diluting it from an already weak set up, because they can't touch you. Yes, GK are designed to take on Daemons, but I can only assume your opponent rolled ABYSMALLY for everything. Furthermore, they had a lot left. You say they, "Only" had those units left, but there's still plenty left. You seem to have a very, very different post game stance to myself on this.

My Daemon playing friends, both of them, will be very interested to hear how the game ended up the way it did, as would I - as a GK player. Perhaps you could give us a run down of how the game played out - as something isn't right here if all they could kill was 5 Strikes, a Rhino and a Dreadnought.

[Aethernitas]

It may be the same problem a daemon player in our group has. He simply has too much damn respect for my Grey Knights and therefore struggles with any hard decisions. Therefore he plays overly careful which often results in exposing his daemons to unnecessary rounds of stormbolter/incinerators/psibolters -fire cuz he is afraid to charge. That results in similar inbalanced kill stats after our games though I have to say that was a while ago and he improved himself greatly in the last few month.

 

No doubt - Daemons are at a disadvantage against GK mainly due to the armywide 'Preferred Enemy' but a massacre like yours against a (like Enethys said) unoptimized army seems highly inprobable.

 

The facts that to me it seems like a pretty low killcount for a extremely onesided 6 round game also implicates that he played very passive. Thats something you should address. Daemons are a specialized assault army. I think they are mostly meant to charge in no matter the cost (cheap bodiey anyway) and rip things to shreds in cc. That may sound a little chaotic with not much strategy involved but imo it requires just as much foresight and strategy (if not more) to pit the right units against their preferred victims :)

[Justicar Enethys]

It may be the same problem a daemon player in our group has. He simply has too much damn respect for my Grey Knights and therefore struggles with any hard decisions. Therefore he plays overly careful which often results in exposing his daemons to unnecessary rounds of stormbolter/incinerators/psibolters -fire cuz he is afraid to charge. That results in similar inbalanced kill stats after our games though I have to say that was a while ago and he improved himself greatly in the last few month.

 

Couldn't agree with this more. It is a very likely situation when I picture what must have happened to produce the result you talk of. When one of my friends was updating his army when the new C:Daemons came out - he was very undecided as to how to best approach my army. I played a good 7/8 games with him in one month so that he could try out his lists and adapt. It didn't go well for him at first, but with trial and error he vastly improved his game in a matter of weeks. He started off fairly cautious and made tentative charges into my lines, but in our last game he was rushing my lines with great target selection and really caused me a few moments of panic! Despite my Grey Knights being the supposed bane of Daemons - he now gives me a good run for my money. My last game against him was a win for me - but we were both under no illusion that had the game gone another turn he would have tabled me. I was considerate of the fact he was learning - but I didn't go too easy on him as he would only have learned to deal with an inferior opponent that way. Hard lessons, but necessary - and now he is better for it and our games are more fun and challenging :)

 

Let your friend get his practice in, but don't alternate your list too much - other than to improve it for yourself. Going too easy on him won't provide him the experience he needs  :)

[kalbik]

Daemons are a lot like Nids now, it’s all about buffs and synergy.

Forewarning and the book can give seekers 2++ save while prescience works in cc. Hit a unit in cover with the skull cannon and watch them wipe them out by seekers.

 

The portal can be used to reinforce back field scoring, letting the bulk of the army move forward.

 

Turning bad warpstorm table rolls, into good ones, while instruments rerolling for those much need 6’s to strike the enemy can
change a game.

 

[Gentlemanloser]

I feel it's more to do with sheer 'dex design.

 

The entire Daemon army, regardless of what build either side uses, is at a disadvantage facing the Grey Knights.

 

We are great at countering/stopping every facet of the new Daemon army.

 

MCs?  Force Weapons

Psychic Powers? 5+ Deny

Prefered Enemy.  Warp Quake.  An actual Shooting Phase.  The list goes on.

 

Before the Daemon dex came out, the loudest complaint the GK dex received was that you could randomly thrown darts at the dex to chose your army, and you will still trouble your opponent.

 

This is doubly true when facing the new Daemons.

 

No matter what you pick or choose to run, they will struggle.  It's just bad design on GW part.

[Justicar Enethys]

That's true GML, but for sure - the OP's account of the battle suggest there was something else going wrong there. The Daemon player killed next to nothing against a GK force that wasn't exactly the most efficient list out there. Daemons do struggle against us for sure. However, my Daemon playing friends aren't THAT hard pressed against me.

OP I'd be interested if you could give us more of an example of how the game actually went? We don't expect Chapter & Verse, but a brief breakdown of what happened and when might give us a better idea if your friend was just screwed over by inherent balancing issues or if, as I suspect, lists involved and experience/playstyle made it more of an uphill struggle than it needed to be :)

[Aethernitas]

Actually it is great design on GWs part (for once) as they managed to bring all the 6th edition codizes to pretty much the same level. They balanced them. The strongest contenders from the last edition (Necrons and GKs) are still around in their previous manifestation. Right now I'm full of hope that with the current release schedule and the focus on balance instead of powercreep WH40K will become a very balanced and competitive environment for our hobby. In about 2 years - when all the codizes are brought up to date with the 6th edition - we can talk about bad design and if there are still codizes hardcountering others.

 

Right now we indeed do harcounter Daemons as in: if we bring an ACL and they bring an ACL the chances are significantly in favour of the GKs. Thats not to say Daemons can't give GKs a run for their money. If I would field the OPs GK army the Daemon players of our group will pretty much roflstomp me and complain afterwards if I think so lowly of Daemons that I nowadays field sissy-lists to make them feel better ;)

[Gentlemanloser]

'Crons weren't really strong in 5th.  That was still the SW/IG game.

 

Thier strength came form Scythes beocming Fliers in 6th.  Plus allies.

 

I doubt all dexes will get an update during the lifespan of 6th edition.  We'll still be at the point where those released at the end of one edition/the start of another have 'balance' issues.

 

Edit: The only way to get a 'balanced' edition, is if all races are playtested and released at the start of a new edition, for that edition.

 

And that, will never happen with the current GW.

[Justicar Enethys]

That is true - but I do think GW are making more progress than they did during 5th. 6th Edition hasn't been out a full year yet - but we have new Chaos, Dark Angels, Daemons and Tau Codexes. With the Eldar one ready to drop if all accounts heard are anything to go by. 5 in a year isn't bad and is a step up. Additionally, only 1of those 5 will have been an Imperial Codex! As an Imperial player, I love it! Some new opponents other than my constant marine vs marine encounters of yesteryear! They have been MUCH more balanced in general than Codex releases a couple of years ago. I doubt they'll all be done in the lifespan of 6th Edition, but GW do seem to be on a better track in that regard. While their will always be a balance issue of some kind, it's much improved these days. Someone will always complain of course - but the key is to shut their childish whining out ;)

[Aethernitas]

I'm confident that in 2 1/2 years all codizes will be updated to 6th edition. You can quote me on that.

 

I really don't think that GW will do the next edition jump within the next 3-4 years seeing how positive the 6th edition was received compared to some of it's predecessors.

 

Such a gigantic playtest in advance as you are proposing would itself take ages as you would have to many variables to keep in mind. When balancing codizes (and generally) it's easier to test 2-4 against each other and then agree on some level of power using the underlying pricing (points) and balancing method you yourselve mentioned. Thats your foundation. From there on it's easier to balance new codizes against the already established standard. Overall the balancing take a lot less time in contrast to the method proposed by you.

[thade]

I really don't think that GW will do the next edition jump within the next 3-4 years seeing how positive the 6th edition was received compared to some of it's predecessors.

This isn't the only factor and I'd bet it's not even the one they consider most important, insofar as whether or not to make a new edition. How well received this edition was (assuming for the moment that it was in fact well received) just tells them that they did a good job and they should try to do as good a job or better for the next release.

 

Releasing big pretty rule books makes them money, and that is their goal. They might wait more than four years (they certainly used to and they might find they make good enough money pushing codex updates, both hardcover and digital) but it's not something I'd bet on.

[Aethernitas]

 

I really don't think that GW will do the next edition jump within the next 3-4 years seeing how positive the 6th edition was received compared to some of it's predecessors.

This isn't the only factor and I'd bet it's not even the one they consider most important, insofar as whether or not to make a new edition. How well received this edition was (assuming for the moment that it was in fact well received) just tells them that they did a good job and they should try to do as good a job or better for the next release.

 

Releasing big pretty rule books makes them money, and that is their goal. They might wait more than four years (they certainly used to and they might find they make good enough money pushing codex updates, both hardcover and digital) but it's not something I'd bet on.

 

You are of course right about that. I have no deeper understanding of the multitude of factors that influence GW buisness policy (besides making money) and I don't pretend to - I just looked up the release of the different editions and figured that it's safe to say that there will be at least 4 years from the release of 6th till 7th edition. I still can't help the feeling that this will be the most balanced and fastest updated edition that I can think of and I'm into 40K since the last days of second edition.

[Justicar Enethys]

Aye. I'm certainly impressed by GW's release schedule of Codexes at the moment. That they aren't just going crazy with Imperial armies as well is a particularly pleasing aspect. Whether they meet everyone's targets and hopes (An impossible task!), they are certainly improving. Amongst all the negative discussion there has been about GW of late - this is a bright spark to be pulled from the grimdark!

[Gentlemanloser]

I'd disagree that 6th has been received well.  I know players that have stopped due to it, and players that prefer 5th over it.

 

The release rate is impressive, the cynic in me see's this as a grab due to 6th's unpopularity, and how badly the Hobbit is/will do.  But I guess time will tell. ;)

[InquisitorLordPaul]

It was mainly things he did wrong himself however it felt that my Grey Knights just had the game on easy mode. For example he kept keeping that damn GUO out of my charge range and in cover along with the seekers and herald.  heck I realised last night that I never even made him take a LD check cause of daemonbane. I actually felt bad for him because he was getting frustrated (mainly due to prefere enemy + lots of shooting)

[Aethernitas]

There you have it - sounds like exactly the scenario I was talking about

I guess this was one of the first games you two played against each other with the mentioned lists? I think most of his fear to manhandle GKs stems from unknowingness (like most fears do). In my group we always sit down after our games and kinda 'switch roles' to talk about what we would have done different. You could also sit down with you friend and just go through the whole codex (or especially the units he has the most problems with) and explain how you as daemon player would handle those threats.

With time and knowledge he will become more and more confident about his Daemons capabilities and maybe sooner than later the day will come that he can score a win against you. I can talk from my own experience that those wins that have been achieved through month and month of loosing and learning are by far the best ones!

For a more in-depth analysis we would probably need a detailed list and a batrep.

[Justicar Enethys]

Yeah, a Daemon player who doesn't want to get stuck in, but hang back in cover for the game while picking off tiny chips of the opposing force - is not going to be a challenge - especially for Grey Knights.

Experience, as ever, will be the best thing he could get. He needs to learn that hanging back with Daemons isn't the way to go. There's plenty of strategy involved when playing a Daemon army and to play it well isn't just a mindless charge, but a calculated assault. Using the correct units to bloodily dismantle the opposition. OK - against Grey Knights they will always have it harder, but my friends who play Daemons manage. They don't always win but they have on occasion by waiting to exploit any mistake I may make. Show a crack in your lists and they will rip it apart and make you regret it. Your friend will learn - but in response to your OP, I don't think you should quit GK or even the list you had. Well - I'd perhaps make the list a little more well rounded - but certainly don't have the spirit of 'going easier on him to help him'. Help him to make it easier on him instead. And you do that by making him learn his mistakes the hard way at first.

I've won and lost many games of 40K over 20+ years of playing. I remember a lot of high points, but the things I remember the most - the lessons learned - are the colossal mistakes I made here and there. Playing against new opponents or armies, or even using new armies, rules, units etc. I'm a better player for those mistakes as they guide me in what not to do these days. I still mess up here and there - but the best lessons always come from your mistakes. Let your friend make his and give him encouragement as he does

[thade]

Silent Requiem said "You learn more from losing than from winning." While it's probably not an SR original, the sentiment rings clear and true. Go over your loss (or your opponent's loss) step by step. What could they/you have done differently? How might that have played out? Open chatter about it serves two purposes: you both learn more about the game and each other's play-styles, which serves to make you both better adversaries for one another; you also build camaraderie, which serves to make you both more fun opponents to play against. My best games always have the following traits:
 

• each player takes time to consider and line up every move they make;
• each player takes time to carefully consider every move their opponent makes;
• both players have good laughs at each other's mistakes and mishaps;
• we always have a post-game debrief, where we recount bad decisions we made and funny/awesome/tragic moments during the game.

Maybe it doesn't work like that for everybody, but I very much want it to.

[Inquisitor Fox]

How about this one as well:

 

"Wisdom comes from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions."

 

You have to make a mistake, see how badly it turned out for you, to learn to not do that again.  If everything you do comes up roses you'll never change and never improve.  Only by failing can we see a flaw and improve ourselves, our style, our approach.  If there is no struggle and conflict, there is no evolution.

 

When I first start an army or new game (I did when I started 40k after being just a Fantasy player) I keep a log with a rough map/sketch of the battle, a few things that worked, things that didn't... kind of a little battle report summary for myself.  I never looked at them again, but the act and process of writing them down helped me really analyze and look at the game from a different perspective.  It's always helped me.

[Castellan Alaric]

take all this advice to the bank man. i played templars all through 5th, and lost...A LOT...but it's made me a better player. not that i win every game i play now, but i know how to better equip my templars (and gk that i play) to counter different armies that i play. look at the game turn step-by-step with your friend and analyze what he could have done differently:

 

- deployment (always a big one, where you deploy can have MAJOR impact on the game)

- movement (obviously hanging back for him didn't work)

- shooting (demons don't have a lot of shooting but they do have some, talk about target priority)

- assault (def their biggest asset. getting charged by demons sucks! make sure he knows which units he fields are better in assault than others and against what types of units)

 

my 2 cents