NOVA Open Results

[Elrahir]

Well everything has a good and a bad side, at least, this way it makes sure that none of the codices are cast aside, and it can't mean that you will have to throw away all of your current list's models. Anyway, thanks for listening. Back to work..

[daveNYC]

 

Elrahir, on 03 Sept 2013 - 09:45, said:

Zhukov, perefect imbalance would be in 5th or in an edition that is not allowing different codices to ally. Each codex has strengths and weaknesses, combining the 2 most recent and most imbalanced codices, erase their weaknesses or at least diminishes them. Do you say that this cannot be fixed at all? OH OKAY, fine. We'll talk about sm/eldar in a few months in an another big tourney.

And by casual, i mean not filthy rich. Bad wording again, sorry.

So are you frustrated by how the game (GW) works, or frustrated that you don't have enough money? In which case you basicly say "If I had a lot of money I would have had no issues with the game". But so, you are a competitive player then? Then why don't you play warhammer 40k for fun and play something else, something cheaper and less broken as a competitive game? And no, Games Workshop does not owe you anything apart from the models being good quality. That's what you pay for, you do not pay for good rules I'm afraid.

 

Woah.  I don't know how you got your hands on the CSM codex, BRB, and any other codeci you have, but the place I went to made me hand them cash money before they let me walk out the store with them.  We might be unreasonable in expecting good rules from GW, since their main rules don't improve so much as lurch around to being imbalanced in different ways and their Codex quality is dependent on the mood (or how well his breakfast tasted) of the book's author, but freaking nearly EVERYONE playing right now has dropped $130+ bucks on rules.  And for that much scratch, I don't think expecting a little quality is too far out of line.

 

On a somewhat side note, I also dislike the somewhat artificial distinction between casual and competitive.  Even if you're playing the most casual, laid back game, with the fluffiest list possible that doesn't involve actual bunnies on the table, and house rules that include doing a shot everytime you roll a '6'; you're still playing a game, against someone, in a competition.  Beer and pretzels don't taste as good if your 1k Sons army keeps getting its face eaten.

 

Back, somewhat, on topic:  It'd be nice to see army lists.  I'd be interested in seeing what the CSM as primary guys played, and what the Daemon players brought as allies.  I'm assuming sorc, cultists, drake on the allies, but hoping that's not the case.

[totgeboren]

Now if we would have an option to make our 20 CSM squads Relentless than up from the sudden we have a superb core troop that can be spammed with bolters and extra weapon for cheap. If we would get an option to assault from vehicles it would be good to, but what is the GW's answer...well if rumors stand true, and usually they do, we will be force to rely on daemons, so I ask where is the point of playing CSM anymore if I have to take Daemons to play say Khorne. 

 

 

 

I just have to ask, because you have mentioned this in lots of threads. Why do you want Relentless of all things for normal CSM? First of all it makes little sense that normal CSM should be able to shoot rapid fire/heavy weapons and then assault when other marines cannot, and secondly, it would only help CSM squads tooled for long range shooting.

That is, it would make close combat marines even worse than they are now in comparison with shooty marines.

Personally I think CSM squads work ok for shooting. It's in close combat where we got hit with the double-nerf of no ATSKNF and also the stupid Champions of Chaos handicap where we need help to be useful. Giving marines a buff that makes shooty marines work as well as close combat marines in close combat would just make close combat marines pointless.

[Hellios]

 

 

 

On a somewhat side note, I also dislike the somewhat artificial distinction between casual and competitive.  Even if you're playing the most casual, laid back game, with the fluffiest list possible that doesn't involve actual bunnies on the table, and house rules that include doing a shot everytime you roll a '6'; you're still playing a game, against someone, in a competition.  Beer and pretzels don't taste as good if your 1k Sons army keeps getting its face eaten.

 

Disagree. I've played games where the outcome was already decided (outside of the dice gods getting involved). I wasn't playing against another person; instead I chose to forge a narrative with the other player.

[daveNYC]

 

Disagree. I've played games where the outcome was already decided (outside of the dice gods getting involved). I wasn't playing against another person; instead I chose to forge a narrative with the other player.

 

You mean something like turn 1 all his plasma guns blew up but instead of restarting you played out some scenario or something?  Or do you mean that he showed up with an army that you were playing a hard counter to?

[Smurfalypse]

 

Elrahir, on 03 Sept 2013 - 09:45, said:

Zhukov, perefect imbalance would be in 5th or in an edition that is not allowing different codices to ally. Each codex has strengths and weaknesses, combining the 2 most recent and most imbalanced codices, erase their weaknesses or at least diminishes them. Do you say that this cannot be fixed at all? OH OKAY, fine. We'll talk about sm/eldar in a few months in an another big tourney.

And by casual, i mean not filthy rich. Bad wording again, sorry.

So are you frustrated by how the game (GW) works, or frustrated that you don't have enough money? In which case you basicly say "If I had a lot of money I would have had no issues with the game". But so, you are a competitive player then? Then why don't you play warhammer 40k for fun and play something else, something cheaper and less broken as a competitive game? And no, Games Workshop does not owe you anything apart from the models being good quality. That's what you pay for, you do not pay for good rules I'm afraid.

 

You also realise that Tau + Tau placed really well right? That doesn't hold up with your ally theory. Tau + Tau makes their strenghts bigger, not diminishing their weaknesses.

You also realise that weaker codices benefit more relatively than strong codices from allying right? Strong codices have to give up relatively more valuable points compared to weak codices. (More valuable because their units are better)

 

I think it's too early to speak about armies being broken, when some major 6th edition releases have not yet found place. It's not fair to comment on the game it's balance, when it's simply to soon to comment on that. The release this saturday, Space Marines, is incredibly important. So are IG and to a lesser extent Orks and Tyranids (who perform mostly an important role as wildcard usually).

 

If it turns out that next year summer, Tau and Eldar still dominate, or some other army, above all others, then I'd say it's time to speak about the game being broken. But not at this point, the game is basicly in an alpha state. Yes, you can find this annoying, that it takes half an edition to have a somewhat judgeable game. Well, what's stops you from quitting it? It wont change, I'll tell you that. The only way it might change if everybody quitted it, so I'd seriously suggest it if I were you. Set an example?

 

I believe we pay for a rule book and codexes that are at least half rules, so we really do pay for rules :P

However, I agree with what you are saying (other than the not paying for rules thing, which is am absurd statement).

 

I would also like to point out that this game is hardly broken, we cannot compare codexs written in a different edition to a codex written in this edition, their rules were written for their edition and they do not always match up well in a new one. The fact that three of the five codexes in 6th (Daemons, Tau and Eldar) showed up fairly well (DA played 7th, but had the worst win% of any army there overall) kinda shows that the game is far from broken, the CSM codex may be broken but the game is not. 

[Sception]

3/5 is not exactly a great score.

[Zhukov]

daveNYC, on 03 Sept 2013 - 11:41, said:

daveNYC, on 03 Sept 2013 - 11:41, said:

daveNYC, on 03 Sept 2013 - 11:41, said:

Woah. I don't know how you got your hands on the CSM codex, BRB, and any other codeci you have, but the place I went to made me hand them cash money before they let me walk out the store with them. We might be unreasonable in expecting good rules from GW, since their main rules don't improve so much as lurch around to being imbalanced in different ways and their Codex quality is dependent on the mood (or how well his breakfast tasted) of the book's author, but freaking nearly EVERYONE playing right now has dropped $130+ bucks on rules. And for that much scratch, I don't think expecting a little quality is too far out of line.

Is my english that bad or is there, as I assume and meant, a difference between "you don't pay for rules" and "you don't pay for good rules". I used the latter, not the former.

 

I think it's reasonable to expect a little bit of quality yes, you think they don't contain that? The rules are of a decent quality I'd say. And I think the fact that most tournaments I'm aware of still use the rules of GW, this backs up my opinion on this.

 

Even if you're playing the most casual, laid back game, with the fluffiest list possible that doesn't involve actual bunnies on the table, and house rules that include doing a shot everytime you roll a '6'; you're still playing a game, against someone, in a competition. Beer and pretzels don't taste as good if your 1k Sons army keeps getting its face eaten.

I think there is quite a bit wrong with what you say here. Even though you're technicly right, they are competing against eachother, they do this in a special kind of way. Actually, are you even technicly right? I'm not sure... Do they strive to win in the sense of actually trying to win because they want to win? Or are they merely following the rules of game, which automaticly has as result that somebody turns out as a winner and thus technicly they play to win? I say the latter, because they don't try to actually increase their chances of winning as much as possible. No, they're not competing I'd say, they are merely playing a game. Just because playing a game involves having a winner and a loser 99/100 times, doesn't mean you are actually competing.

 

I just used definitions of a free dictionary online, maybe I should have used a more reliable source, so correct me if I'm wrong:

-Competion is basicly 2 or more people competing against eachother.

-Competing is to strive to win pretty much.

-Striving for something involves basicly a lot of effort at it seems.

 

Are you striving to win when taking a fluffy army? I'd be heavily inclined to say no. Maybe on the actual table, yes, but that's not the whole game. Bringing the army is a huge part of the game, I'd say 50% at least.

 

More: They both take a list as fluffy as possible right? Then why would the 1k sons list be bad? That entirely depends on what he faces. Maybe the other player took some kind of standard marine company, you know, some Assault Marines, Tactical Marines and Devastators. Would a fluffy 1k sons list do bad against this kind of fluffy marine list?

[Rutzah]

The way i see it, the point here that people are trying to make, is that everyone is waiting for the new codices, FAQS w/e to find its exploits and go to the next tournament, win it big time and "force" the meta. You cant really believe that all these tau, eldar, daemons players that got in top 30, got there just because they were the best players.

 

Dont get me wrong, i dont blame them, anyone can play w/e he likes its not my place to judge other people's choices. But as someone said above we pay for the rulebook and the codices and all the supplements soon to come, as much as we pay for the models. So why do we have to wait 1-2 years for the new codices that will supposedly balance the game? Why cant GW, FAQ some small things and be done with it? Because it wont earn her money, ye?

 

In the meantime i wont go to any competitive tournaments, cuz i dont own tau and eldar is that the way of it? I am a casual player, balance is different in casual gaming. i shouldnt attedn big tournaments. Ok the players that pay less money for one army and they cant own all the armies are doomed to play casually. Seems fair to me.

[the jeske]

 

You cant really believe that all these tau, eldar, daemons players that

got in top 30, got there just because they were the best players.

there were 203 people. unless there was some sort of team play involved , the top 8-16 tables is always the best people. Worse for them in round 3-4 they are playing the top people from last two rounds. the chance that someone went through all those good players with good lists is slim.

[Smurfalypse]

223 people :P

 

The Jeske is correct, you don't get there for being a bad player with a "strong" list. A DA player placed 7th not because his list was strong but because he was a strong player, even though overall that book had by far the lowest win % of any other, dude absolutely had to play them perfectly to stand a chance against any of the other codexes being run.

 

I played a guy who finished in the top 5 and lost by 1vp and I played two others who finished in top 20, tabled one guy and got tabled by the other. I can tell you for a fact that as you start playing the higher ups the quality of play goes up very very quickly. Not to disrespect to the person I played but there was a worlds of difference between my second and third game in quality of play (one finished in top 5 and other in top 50).

[the jeske]

I am not counting those with sub par csm and sm list. Unworthy to be counted .

[Rutzah]

I didnt say they were bad players and they got there just because their lists carried them, lol. Obviously they are good players with certain strong lists though, no? Is it just by chance that 25/30 of the top 30 play 3 codices? 

[Zhukov]

Are you fishing for the Obvious? Nobody argues that those codices which placed high aren't stronger. Nobody argues either that certain people didn't take those armies to have a better chance.

[Rutzah]

Nope, just answering to Smurfalypse and the jeske.

[Zhukov]

Yes, but that comes from this sentence which you posted earlier:

" You cant really believe that all these tau, eldar, daemons players that got in top 30, got there just because they were the best players."

 

Actually, I'm not responsible for making sure you guys understand eachother, I'm out lol.

[daveNYC]

For length:

 

 

daveNYC, on 03 Sept 2013 - 11:41, said:
daveNYC, on 03 Sept 2013 - 11:41, said:
daveNYC, on 03 Sept 2013 - 11:41, said:
Woah. I don't know how you got your hands on the CSM codex, BRB, and any other codeci you have, but the place I went to made me hand them cash money before they let me walk out the store with them. We might be unreasonable in expecting good rules from GW, since their main rules don't improve so much as lurch around to being imbalanced in different ways and their Codex quality is dependent on the mood (or how well his breakfast tasted) of the book's author, but freaking nearly EVERYONE playing right now has dropped $130+ bucks on rules. And for that much scratch, I don't think expecting a little quality is too far out of line.

Is my english that bad or is there, as I assume and meant, a difference between "you don't pay for rules" and "you don't pay for good rules". I used the latter, not the former.

I think it's reasonable to expect a little bit of quality yes, you think they don't contain that? The rules are of a decent quality I'd say. And I think the fact that most tournaments I'm aware of still use the rules of GW, this backs up my opinion on this.

>Even if you're playing the most casual, laid back game, with the fluffiest list possible that doesn't involve actual bunnies on the table, and house rules that include doing a shot everytime you roll a '6'; you're still playing a game, against someone, in a competition. Beer and pretzels don't taste as good if your 1k Sons army keeps getting its face eaten.

I think there is quite a bit wrong with what you say here. Even though you're technicly right, they are competing against eachother, they do this in a special kind of way. Actually, are you even technicly right? I'm not sure... Do they strive to win in the sense of actually trying to win because they want to win? Or are they merely following the rules of game, which automaticly has as result that somebody turns out as a winner and thus technicly they play to win? I say the latter, because they don't try to actually increase their chances of winning as much as possible. No, they're not competing I'd say, they are merely playing a game. Just because playing a game involves having a winner and a loser 99/100 times, doesn't mean you are actually competing.

I just used definitions of a free dictionary online, maybe I should have used a more reliable source, so correct me if I'm wrong:
-Competion is basicly 2 or more people competing against eachother.
-Competing is to strive to win pretty much.
-Striving for something involves basicly a lot of effort at it seems.

Are you striving to win when taking a fluffy army? I'd be heavily inclined to say no. Maybe on the actual table, yes, but that's not the whole game. Bringing the army is a huge part of the game, I'd say 50% at least.

More: They both take a list as fluffy as possible right? Then why would the 1k sons list be bad? That entirely depends on what he faces. Maybe the other player took some kind of standard marine company, you know, some Assault Marines, Tactical Marines and Devastators. Would a fluffy 1k sons list do bad against this kind of fluffy marine list?

 

 

 

 

A 1k Sons list will have problems against most things that aren't rocking a 3+ and standing in the open.  Mostly because they pay through the nose for their AP3 and invul save, so that anything that doesn't key into those strengths means their lesser numbers bite hard.  More generally though, my point was that making distinctions between casual and competitive play is pretty artificial since not many people enjoy losing, and nobody is going to enjoy losing constantly, no matter how fluffy their list is.  Which is where the 1k Sons kind of come in, in as much as you can come up with a solid representation of the Sons with this codex, stupid invul save fixation.

 

Sorry about missing the sarcasm about GW's good rules.  Though I wouldn't exactly say that the fact that 40k tournaments use them is a sign that they're good(ish).  I think it's more that they're the default rules that everyone has, and that cover all the models in the game.  A tournament that said that they're running 40k models, using fandex and massively house-ruled BRB would be... interesting.

[the jeske]

1ksons=GK rules. Dakka=check. Psychic leader=check . Divination=check . Demon/Demon prince=check . Cultists/thrall wizards=check. Old school flyers .

[daveNYC]

I'm actually holding out for the HH IV Forgeworld book.

[Ming]

I don't usually even come to this part of B&C but when I do... C'mon you CSM players! As a smurf player, I'm kinda disappointed. Three short vignettes that might cheer you up: 1. Our local CSM "leader", Thor at Creative Twilight, has built and played awesome lists from CSM, and every game I play vs him (especially in tournaments) is a tough slog with me losing to CSM much more often than I can win. He focuses on creating fast moving, hard hitting, high toughness units supported typically by nurgle-marked, high toughness scoring units and such. Whenever he does poorly, it was usually due to a gaming tactical or strategic mistake, not due to a codex issue. He has shown me repeatedly how great CSM armies can be. 2. A while back there was another CSM player in our area; he lost nearly every game. As a favor, I painted his entire army (he had joined the army and went off to boot camp, so I did it as a thanks for his service). Ripped Dragon (my nemesis), without even having played Chaos before, used the fully painted army in a 1850 tournament and won first place with it. He used them like he played his orks, maybe better. Zoom forward, wreck you. I don't think he had any sorcerors in there either. Just tough-as-nails angry chaos marines and spawn. 3. NOVA is not a good cross section sampling of the 40K community. It is an awesome event that attracts players with the $$ ability to attend a multi-day event, and bring the latest/best/nastiest/web favorite armies you can buy. Undoubtedly there were some players who played their Tau or Eldar for the first time that day. I watched the round 8 game on livestream - it was kinda weird to watch, more so from seeing Ben Mohile play some other guy I did not know. Mohile played Necron/Orks (oberon, spiders, orks/nobz/trukk, nightscythes, etc.), the other guy used a max netlisted Tau 3-riptide/2 skyray/mini farsight bomb/outflanking kroot list, and played his 8th game of the day as if he had no confidence of his rules. Mohile played extremely cautious, was almost in position to be tabled turn 1, and ultimately lost 20-0 in points. It was painful! All for now, cheer up, but play harder!

[Tenebris]

Yeah it is sad how the GK can better represent the bitter, then thousand years old, veterans of the HH than our book. The power level for the individual model is there and so the many strange things and xenos mercenaries that should come stock with a varied and fluffy chaos warband.

 

Now lets observe the results of NOVA with a critical eye. The CSM that were played were mostly as allies and in the case they were played as the main army they required some sort of ally to perform up to those high standards of competitive play. 

 

Following, we see the recent Tau and Eldar books wipe the floor but that was expected, what was not expected is that a book barely a year old did not get in the first 30 as a main army. That is very troublesome since it implies that our codex is structured so loosely that you can hardly minmax with it. And the game level on events like NOVA and the likes of it is all about minmaxing an army. 

 

Than we see that staple allies are Necrons which implies two things, our troops are scarce and our mobility for the late turns rush is also scarce. I guess that the Necron are in there for a solid Scythe wing that has a good chance to mess many things up in the late turns of the game, in short it provides the CSM with the last ditch last rush units.

 

In continuation, what we see is that the Daemons, our battle buddies prefer to work as main army or as an ally that needs either cheap bodies or some ranged units to deal with the many threats, enter the Helldrake which is a great unit to combine with the assaulting daemons. All in all we are a good match for our daemonic buddies but in our case we are forced to take them to fill our many holes.

 

In the end if you observe well even the Sisters performed better than the CSM and I dare say that this, as well as the whole NOVA result, is due to our severely lacking troops. For us it is either cheap and useless troops or expensive and still subpar troops, there is no middle ground and this puts our codex at a severe disadvantage.

 

Than we all know that the 6th is a shooting game, the armies that shoot better have an advantage, but so do the armies that do melee better (Daemons) while we are incapable to do both average let alone good. So what is the true problem of the CSM?

 

Actually two, mobility and versatility.

 

 

The basic marine stats afford for a generic trooper that is on average a bit good at everything but to actually perform both his shooting and his melee the space marine needs a rock solid discipline to stay in combat and the needed mobility to get in the 12'' range where he is deadly. We lack in those two cardinal values that define MEQ infantry and thus we cannot, at least in this edition, rely on our power armor infantry to do anything.

 

How to solve this problem? Well wait for the 7th is a good answer but I fear we will loose the already few jaded players that the CSM can claim among their ranks. As I say, we need a way to have high discipline and a way to move around that is not the tin can Rhino. Until we get those two the CSM will be on the wrong side of the tournament leaderboards.

[minionboy]

Sorry about my inaccuracy regarding the Chaos win rate, misread it on my phone.  In either case, CSM was the 5th most represented army with the 5th most wins, in general the total number of wins was very close to the representation of that army.

 

What I was saying about the Riptides, and other MC's, was that every mission that used table quarters, these counted, as MC's are always denial units.  To control a table quarter, you added up the points of your scoring AND denial units, which meant that Tau/Daemons/Eldar had a huge advantage right out the door because they can rely more on these MC's than vehicles.  Other armies that have to use vehicles to get that kind of fire power were left out to dry except in Big Guns and/or Scouring.

 

EDIT: that especially helps Tau because their Riptides wouldn't even be scoring in any mission otherwise!  Daemons/Eldar are already scoring on Big Guns, so it's less of an outright advantage.

[Ming]

I agree with minionboy above.  It was interesting to read the 8 NOVA battle missions and how they would be scored.  Especially their special wording on who would control a table quarter.  Those rules alone would make target priority to be troops-denial units-vehicles.

 

For grins yesterday I played vs a DA player using one of the NOVA missions, and we forgot to follow all the details (like mysterious objectives) and such.  Practise would have been important for the real event, and it makes you wonder how many of the different round special rules were ignored by the players.  Regardless, someone could have made a ton of $$ handing out pre-painted riptides....

[hornywingythingy]

^seriously? People have been practising for months for nova, between nova and adepticon, they are probably the biggest and most prestigious events in the us. I follow a lot of gamers blogs, those going to nova have been practising for ages.

 

That's another thing that makes the top tier top, they practice like mad, likely changing their list with tweaks weekly.

[minionboy]

^seriously? People have been practising for months for nova, between nova and adepticon, they are probably the biggest and most prestigious events in the us. I follow a lot of gamers blogs, those going to nova have been practising for ages.

 

That's another thing that makes the top tier top, they practice like mad, likely changing their list with tweaks weekly.

 

That definitely does help, and it will put you higher up in the ranking for sure, but I'm certainly not alone in my opinion.  When you write custom scenarios that favor specific units, and use a limited amount of terrain, you are obviously going to get different results than when you use normal scenarios and terrain.

 

As much as I don't prefer the book missions, they do at least attempt to balance Big Guns with Scouring, meaning that both unit type has an equal opportunity to be scoring (and nondiscriminatory between vehicles and non-vehicles).  When you write in that 1/2 the scenarios in an event allow any Denial unit to score one of the objective types, the army with the better denial units will prevail, and when that unit can also come out of Elites, that's even better.  Now in Big Guns, they've got their heavy support all helping with quarters, as well as Riptides, similar with Scouring, and in the scenarios where neither of those are scoring, they Riptide is still scoring in quarters since it is still a Denial unit.

 

The results last year were also similar if you recall, Daemons did incredibly well, and table quarters were scored nearly the same way.

 

TLDR: The army that can best take advantage of the custom scenarios and limited terrain obviously is going to do quite well compared to those which are more reliant on the games prescribed amount of terrain and scenario rules.