Cognitive and List Building/Unit Rating

[Hantheman]

So I've been thinking a lot about this recently. I think (semi-)competitive warhammer has a funny tendency to essentially just copy each other. The 40k zeitgeist identifies strong units at top tables and decides that these units are great or overpowered and then other units are bad. And generally it's not until someone particularly smart or creative does well with an out of favour unit and then everyone goes, ohh I'll try that. I definitely suffer from this, but I see it everywhere.

 

The reason I say this is at my game last night after I crushed some knights (god damn I love the Lion and the Wolf strat on smash captains), I caught up with a friend who was playing space wolves vs Ulthwé, an ITC mission. And his star unit was the humble whirlwind. A unit I hadn't seen on the table for a while and had been written off by me. The whirlwind was causing havoc, just clearing out all the the objective holders his opponent was putting out and for 90 points. It forced his opponent to either spent resources to shut down this cheap vehicle and ignore his more dangerous units or continue to lose troops and board control. 

 

Now obviously this wasn't top table at a GT. But I think we could all benefit from taking a step back and seeing some lesser units as potentially viable in certain situations. Not everything is about the lists you see on spikeybits after a GT

[Interrogator Stobz]

I played two last game, nids don't like them, especially when the lowest number of shots I rolled all game was 8. Redonkulous luck, still happy.

[Karhedron]

Group-think can sometimes be self-reinforcing. I regularly run a pair of Wraithlords in my craftworld army. The Internet has decided that these are not competitive as they have a degrading profile and so are worse than SM Dreadnoughts.

However I have found that they work very well. They are tougher than most Dreads (T8 vs T7) which makes a big difference against massed S4 attacks as well as against S7/8 heavy weapons. They are faster too which makes getting into melee easier if that is where you want them. They can take 2 heavy weapons and still take an upgraded melee weapon. To top it all off, they got a price cut in CA2018.

In almost every game, they put in very solid work for their points and can sometimes be downright stellar. In my last game against IG (armoured company) I ran a pair of them up the flank with a Jetbike Autarch. Their firing was respectable and they took little damage as my opponent was focusing on my Fire Prisms as these were laying down more hurt. On turn 3 they reached his lines having suffered only a couple of wounds and proceeded to tear a tank apart each. Not bad for a unit that weighed in at just 135 points for the most expensive one.

Yet the Net continues to consider them a trash-tier unit. I sometimes wonder if too much theory-crafting in a vacuum leads to people not challenging assumptions.

[BlackTriton]

The "internet wisdom" is often wrong, it tends to categorise stuff into "good" or "bad" and pay little mind to context.

For instance, whirlwind's have very average output, but ignore line of sight and very long range is still valuable.

Guard just happens to have similar artillery pieces that are better in every way, so nobody will ever take whirlwind in high-level play. 

Does it mean whirlwind’s are bad in all possible context? No, absolutely not.

 

Most of the "bad" units in the game actually are "not the best in its cathegory" and get branded "bad" for it.

[MARK0SIAN]

Yeah, I think BlackTriton summed it up quite well. The ‘bad’ units in the game could really be split into two categories:

 

1) Genuinely bad - bad in any list or against any opponent because of terrible rules, bad points cost or just perform a role that isn’t required in 8th edition.

 

2) Bad because an allied unit or even one in the same codex does it better.

 

A lot of units are in the second category and get left on the shelf for that reason, it doesn’t mean they’re objectively bad. Now if they’re in the same codex they should be looked at as a matter of urgency but if it’s from an allied force then that’s a bigger issue with the overall game.

 

Either way, tournament players and net lists will always look purely for the best. Anything that isn’t the best will fit into one of those two categories and be deemed bad, even though it may be a decent unit.

 

NB it’s worth saying though that the community does often have a pretty good track record of identifying truly garbage units, the worst ones around so people should bear that in mind :)

[Hantheman]

Yeah fantastic points. We compare armies similar units and tier list them. But actually your army might need line of sight shooting, and whilst it's not as good as army Y, it could still win you games

[Exilyth]

There are multiple factors at work here imho:

• 40k is not a balanced game. While we do see a lot of list diversity in 8th, there's still a certain imbalance inherent in the rules & unit stats.
• Competitive players have a tendency to label units with higher points efficiency as good and units with lower points efficiency as bad - even if the actual difference between the units is really small.
• At the end of the day, random is random - a conscript can kill a knight if the dice are right. Highly unlikely but can happen. Thus competetive lists tend to aim to minimize the influence the dice rolls have on the army.
• Competetive play requires using units with high points efficiency against a multitude of enemies. Thus, units which are only conditionally good and/or have unreliable (or gimmicky) rules tend to get overlooked. A Whirlwind f.e. may not be the most points efficient (especially compared to AM artillery), but it still provides a rhino chassis and indirect firepower (something space marines only get via 3 units: whirlwind, eliminators and thunder fire cannon).
• There are at least three metas (ITC, ETC, GW GT). In each meta, different units are good and different units are bad. Talking about units without specifying meta is pretty pointless, but people talking about a unit being strong/weak without specifying in which meta does happen. People playing only one meta tend to be biased towards using units which they perceive as or learned to be good in their meta.
• Players tend to have different playstyles. E.g. someone preferring shooting may struggle with having to get a smash captain into meelee, or someone preferring meelee may push their shooting units too far/hard. What works for one player may not work for another. This is often neglected when talking about competetive play - it's often just assumed that players are good in all aspects of the game.
• Faction specific unit interactions: "X is good if you take Y" tends to be harder to analyse. Often, such a synergy makes the unit a better choice, but it can also lead to a mis-evaluation of a units strength. This is most commonly seen with space marines and Gulliman, where "everything is good - if buffed by Gulliman".
• Newer players getting into competetive play usually do not know the above points yet (or only know a subset of them). They usually do not know enough about the game to properly judge on their own whether a unit is good or bad. Thus, they tend to look at what reliable information is available to them: the winning lists and what the winning players say about units and unit performance. Ofc, many just use that info as a starting point to building their own lists and after mathhammer-/statshammer-/playtest-ing, arrive at something completely different that is truly their own invention. Others just copy the winning lists, change one or two units according to what is good and call it a day list.
• People love talking about their hobby. People love talking about their favorite units. If that unit is perceived as good, even more so. Thus, good units tend to get more positive publicity.

 

TL;DR: netlisting is easier than coming up with a good list on your own and many prefer to take the path of least resistance. For others, the challenge of coming up with a list that goes against the grain is enticing.

 

 

Ofc the above is grossly simplified (e.g. mostly ignoring soup). IRL, additional factors like mind games tend to skew whether a unit is perceived as good or bad. E.g. if unit X is strong against a list, spreading that unit X is bad can be beneficial for people piloting that list (especially if X is only conditionally good). Taken to the extreme, one could propose that "since costly large killy units (e.g. knights) are bad against a mass of 'meh' targets, a few people push the 'hordes are bad' agenda for reasons other than time/turn limits". Whether that's true or not is anyones guess.

 

Likewise, one could go and build a list which beats the netlists. But that list will most likely get beaten by lists build to beat lists which beat netlists. And so on. So, take a gamble and build a list which beats lists or just netlist what's good currently? Thus the paranoia gets real (and the computer is your friend).

 

 

In the imperial guard astra militarum subsection, we had (resp. are having) a thread/discussion about veteran squads - a unit which had some popularity in 7th edition but got mostly shelved for 8th edition: Veterans are less points efficient that infantry squads (you can get 30 infantry for the same points as 20 veterans) but have similar stats. The unit can still shine when making use of their better ballistic skill, but as that only really comes into play when using heavy/special weapons (and in the latter case a transport vehicle), the unit is only conditionally good and tends to get overlooked for other options from the elite slot. Veterans can still pull their weight throwing some plasma into someones face or melting a tank with a lascannon. They're just not the #1 choice for the job.

[MegaVolt87]

 

(SNIP)

 

Competetive play requires using units with high points efficiency against a multitude of enemies. Thus, units which are only conditionally good and/or have unreliable (or gimmicky) rules tend to get overlooked. A Whirlwind f.e. may not be the most points efficient (especially compared to AM artillery), but it still provides a rhino chassis and indirect firepower (something space marines only get via 3 units: whirlwind, eliminators and thunder fire cannon).

 

Players tend to have different playstyles. E.g. someone preferring shooting may struggle with having to get a smash captain into meelee, or someone preferring meelee may push their shooting units too far/hard. What works for one player may not work for another. This is often neglected when talking about competetive play - it's often just assumed that players are good in all aspects of the game.

 

(SNIP)

 

These points stand out to me in particular. Personal style and experience, taking a good mix as well in a list can see a higher level of play from person to person. How many times have we seen net lists at the local + tourny's flounder to less than "optimal" choices/lists simply because the other player knows their faction + list in and out, how they know its limits and can get the most out of it etc. Faction mirror matches as well, skill alone can often trump a net list when the opposing list is not too far behind the power curve. 

[Panzer]

As always, on the internet you see mostly competetive units discussed. When a unit isn't competetive it doesn't mean it's bad. Far from it. Some of them are really good and can carry you through many casual and semi-competetive games just fine. Units not being competetive just means they aren't good enough in the current meta.

 

Best example I can give is in 7th edition Tyranids without Flyrant spam were absolutely trashtier in competetive. However in our semi-competetive minded group our Tyranid player is the one with the most consistent winrate by far and he never played any Flyrant spam list. Always only one Flyrant max, often none.

 

That doesn't mean there aren't more than enough units that are actually bad though. Those definitely exist as well and you'll struggle with those in less competetive matches too.

[Vermintide]

This is why I'm bringing Terminators back ;)

 

Go big or go home baby- Everyone else is just using them wrong.

[Daimyo-Phaeron Lenoch]

This is why I'm bringing Terminators back ;)

 

Go big or go home baby- Everyone else is just using them wrong.

Agreed! It’s why my current list is 2 land raiders (redeemer and excelsior), the command rhino, and a stormtalon on top some infantry and a dread—everyone thinks they are bad, but then they don’t prep for it/aren’t expecting it.

The look on my opponents’ faces when the Excelsior gets 7 lascannon hits a turn always makes it worth it.

[toaae]

There certainly is merit in using units that people don't regularly expect. Personally, I've been having fun with Nob Bikers. I've joked about them being my signature unit, but I do take pride whenever they perform well (which is more often than not).

[Claws and Effect]

Something that bugs me a little is when people declare a unit to be good or bad without ever having used it themselves. They just take the internet's word for it and never bother with trying it out.

[Panzer]

Something that bugs me a little is when people declare a unit to be good or bad without ever having used it themselves. They just take the internet's word for it and never bother with trying it out.

 

Not necessarily. There's lots you can figure out by pure theorycrafting without having ever used the unit even once. Not everything but enough to get a general feel whether a unit is good or not. It's really not that hard and not everyone just repeats what the internet says.

[Claws and Effect]

 

 

Something that bugs me a little is when people declare a unit to be good or bad without ever having used it themselves. They just take the internet's word for it and never bother with trying it out.

Not necessarily. There's lots you can figure out by pure theorycrafting without having ever used the unit even once. Not everything but enough to get a general feel whether a unit is good or not. It's really not that hard and not everyone just repeats what the internet says.

I never said everyone did.

 

But it's pretty obvious when someone didn't research it themselves, because they tend to parrot things almost verbatim.

[WarriorFish]

The commissariat executed General Consensus for incompetence - his replacement General Experience fares much better

 

The Internet is a microcosm of the hobby, which can and does skew perspectives sometimes, but as Panzer says with enough experience of your own you can easily "add on" a new addition relative to that for a good idea of what's what. Objectively good things do exist (e.g. anything that reduces a need for a roll) but nothing exists in a vacuum.

 

As above, there aren't many units that are outright bad. Most are simply not as good or easy to use as another - or probably most common of all aren't bad per se, just badly priced. Almost anything can be good if the price is right! It all depends on what you need, the game has many variables after all (even ignoring the dice gods...).

 

I would say that playing your meta (not "the") is one of the best skills a player can have. Here the less popular choices can shine, or various other decisions that might not pass apparent muster elsewhere. Rock, paper, scissors and all that. The most fun I've had is in active meta wrangling as players constantly adapt to each other and changes, keeps things fresh and interesting - one of the many perks of having regular gaming buddies.

 

This isn't to say that certain units aren't just plain bad because there are some out there (what if they cost less..?), but there's a World of difference between saying "this is bad" and "I think this is a bad choice for your list because X, Y and Z" for example. If you can't back up your statement you have no business saying it, so always be the latter

 

 

At the end of the metaphorical day we may know what gets us most bang for our points but the majority of us aren't here for that. That's why we're here on the B&C and other forums, so we can discuss these things and find out what can work and how. That's also why I put Dreadnoughts and Terminators down on the table edition after edition, even after GW has clearly demonstrated their apparent hatred for them Rule of Cool has no definable rating value

[BitsHammer]

To toss in my own two thrones on the topic:

 

Netlisting sometimes isn't just the way the internet likes to play, it's also in a lot of ways the thing it likes to reinforce onto players. Back when I started Sisters in 5th the common sense at the time was that Immolator Spam was the only effective way to play, and I'd often find recommendations to change to that despite finding success with different builds of the army (I also managed to make Repentia suprisingly effective at the time despite being told to basically never play them).

 

In the end I feel like people forget that netlists start somewhere. Someone sits down with their army, sets some guidelines for themselves on what's going into the list to win missions they expect to play, and then picks things to try and match those things up the best they can to the units available.

 

It's not an easy process and most players don't like the idea of needing to lose a lot of games to refine their army to win more games in the long run. A lot of us are hungry to win games now so we adopt the current hotness for our favorite faction and roflstomp our way through our local metas. It's not about being "that guy" (though some that guys are definitely worse about this), but about wanting to win. Which is a fair way to approach the game.

 

Personally I like to tailor my lists to some kind of idea in my head. Like running Sisters with Repentia, or the madness of running a Mono-Slaanesh daemons army I'm doing for an escalation league for my local FLGS (I know I'm hamstringing myself worse than I'm usually prone to doing with this one), and then building from there so I can tailor the list to work best for how I play. We all have our own quirks when we play (how aggressive our army is, if we like melee, ect), and taking netlists verbatim neglects that difference, something that I feel hampers most players.

[Claws and Effect]

Anecdotal evidence from my local meta: Smash Captains no longer work that well for anyone but Blood Angels players.

 

I adapted and made a biker Captain with Teeth of Terra instead and he was the MVP of the game. The Internet will tell you that the Smash Captain is objectively better in pretty much every scenario, but players in my local meta have adapted to them and they almost never live past the first turn anymore.

[Panzer]

Anecdotal evidence from my local meta: Smash Captains no longer work that well for anyone but Blood Angels players.

 

I adapted and made a biker Captain with Teeth of Terra instead and he was the MVP of the game. The Internet will tell you that the Smash Captain is objectively better in pretty much every scenario, but players in my local meta have adapted to them and they almost never live past the first turn anymore.

That begs the question, WHY are Smash Captains not working anymore but your Bike Captain does? Smash Captain can do literally everything the Bike Captain can do and more (except for the 6" turbo boosting but you can't charge after that anyway). Sounds to me it's more a problem of how people in your meta are using their Jump Pack Captains and not about the Biker Captain being the better build.

[FlamingDeth]

There's a mental effect of people knowing they should prioritize smash captains but not having that sort of automatic response when he's on a bike instead, that probably helps.

[Morticon]

There are multiple factors at work here imho:

• 40k is not a balanced game. While we do see a lot of list diversity in 8th, there's still a certain imbalance inherent in the rules & unit stats.
• Competitive players have a tendency to label units with higher points efficiency as good and units with lower points efficiency as bad - even if the actual difference between the units is really small.
• At the end of the day, random is random - a conscript can kill a knight if the dice are right. Highly unlikely but can happen. Thus competetive lists tend to aim to minimize the influence the dice rolls have on the army.
• Competetive play requires using units with high points efficiency against a multitude of enemies. Thus, units which are only conditionally good and/or have unreliable (or gimmicky) rules tend to get overlooked. A Whirlwind f.e. may not be the most points efficient (especially compared to AM artillery), but it still provides a rhino chassis and indirect firepower (something space marines only get via 3 units: whirlwind, eliminators and thunder fire cannon).
• There are at least three metas (ITC, ETC, GW GT). In each meta, different units are good and different units are bad. Talking about units without specifying meta is pretty pointless, but people talking about a unit being strong/weak without specifying in which meta does happen. People playing only one meta tend to be biased towards using units which they perceive as or learned to be good in their meta.
• Players tend to have different playstyles. E.g. someone preferring shooting may struggle with having to get a smash captain into meelee, or someone preferring meelee may push their shooting units too far/hard. What works for one player may not work for another. This is often neglected when talking about competetive play - it's often just assumed that players are good in all aspects of the game.
• Faction specific unit interactions: "X is good if you take Y" tends to be harder to analyse. Often, such a synergy makes the unit a better choice, but it can also lead to a mis-evaluation of a units strength. This is most commonly seen with space marines and Gulliman, where "everything is good - if buffed by Gulliman".
• Newer players getting into competetive play usually do not know the above points yet (or only know a subset of them). They usually do not know enough about the game to properly judge on their own whether a unit is good or bad. Thus, they tend to look at what reliable information is available to them: the winning lists and what the winning players say about units and unit performance. Ofc, many just use that info as a starting point to building their own lists and after mathhammer-/statshammer-/playtest-ing, arrive at something completely different that is truly their own invention. Others just copy the winning lists, change one or two units according to what is good and call it a day list.
• People love talking about their hobby. People love talking about their favorite units. If that unit is perceived as good, even more so. Thus, good units tend to get more positive publicity.

 

TL;DR: netlisting is easier than coming up with a good list on your own and many prefer to take the path of least resistance. For others, the challenge of coming up with a list that goes against the grain is enticing.

 

 

Ofc the above is grossly simplified (e.g. mostly ignoring soup). IRL, additional factors like mind games tend to skew whether a unit is perceived as good or bad. E.g. if unit X is strong against a list, spreading that unit X is bad can be beneficial for people piloting that list (especially if X is only conditionally good). Taken to the extreme, one could propose that "since costly large killy units (e.g. knights) are bad against a mass of 'meh' targets, a few people push the 'hordes are bad' agenda for reasons other than time/turn limits". Whether that's true or not is anyones guess.

 

Likewise, one could go and build a list which beats the netlists. But that list will most likely get beaten by lists build to beat lists which beat netlists. And so on. So, take a gamble and build a list which beats lists or just netlist what's good currently? Thus the paranoia gets real (and the computer is your friend).

 

 

In the imperial guard astra militarum subsection, we had (resp. are having) a thread/discussion about veteran squads - a unit which had some popularity in 7th edition but got mostly shelved for 8th edition: Veterans are less points efficient that infantry squads (you can get 30 infantry for the same points as 20 veterans) but have similar stats. The unit can still shine when making use of their better ballistic skill, but as that only really comes into play when using heavy/special weapons (and in the latter case a transport vehicle), the unit is only conditionally good and tends to get overlooked for other options from the elite slot. Veterans can still pull their weight throwing some plasma into someones face or melting a tank with a lascannon. They're just not the #1 choice for the job.

 

Loved this analysis! Thanks for sharing. 

[RikuEru]

There's a mental effect of people knowing they should prioritize smash captains but not having that sort of automatic response when he's on a bike instead, that probably helps.

Yes, I would assume that's it. People are by now looking for the Slamguinius, Smash Captain, Smash Wolf Lord to prioritize him.

And I would also assume Claws and Effect didn't "advertise" his slam-biker as such and "just played him".

 

It's also a thing in HOW you present and talk about your units (works best with friends or opponents you know well)mä.

When the Wulfen were new for us SW in 7th, I played a game against a friend of mine who is a veteran 40k player. He had heard about the Wulfen already. And I obviously confirmed their deadlyness and was sooo overjoyed to try them against his army.

...in truth tho they were a barebones squad and my rral ace I wanted to use (and could pull of completely unharmed) was the Rune Priest Brotherhood and their devastating Lightning Storm, which was new back then, too.

 

Sometimes it's just a bit of strategic acting, that can throw an opponent off, or even just playing something far off from what you usually play with your army.

If your opponent expects you to go full-frontal Melee Jumppacks with your list and prepares for that, all it takes to throw them off a bit is for you to use a more mechanized, flyer-heavy or just mixed army.

But I would recommend it to anyone who thinks he could pull it off. It's very sstisfying and it makes you think differently about your codex and collection.

 

Depends on the circumstances of the game, obviously, and if you know your opponent well enough, etc.

[Slave to Darkness]

This is why I'm bringing Terminators back

 

Go big or go home baby- Everyone else is just using them wrong.

Ever since 2nd ed I have always used Terminators and Dreads in marine lists even when told not to bother... Never use Cultists either unless I have a few points left over and cant squeeze in more marines. 

[TrawlingCleaner]

I have a Vindicator that I run in my Chaos army and they make their points back so quickly, they're not very meta which is a shame as they're so cool.

For me personally, I've found that trial and error works best. I get units that I like the look of and I put them in every list until something clicks, sometimes that takes a long time (looking at you purestrain Genestealers). I have a friend that runs ratlings to great effect and is an auto include for him, it's the same with his sentinels, two of the units that are universally looked down on.

 

I think it's too easy to right off units based off their stats and it seems like it takes more skill to get a difficult unit to work well. I could just be chatting out of my   here.

[Midnight Brotherhood]

Defiler and Chaos Spawns for days. Defilers are so powerful in close combat it's unreal, they eat anything multi wound for breakfast yet I rarely hear about them or see them. I've had 2 Chaos Spawn absolutely wreck a 10 man squad of death company as well and they regularly munch enemy infantry. They're cheap, fast and have good spike damage. Again I barely see them about but they are one of my best performers and a personal favourite.