40K Lessons Learned: To Thine Own Self Be True
A Warhammer 40,000 veteran talks about the REAL LESSONS learned at a recent major tournament (Las Vegas Open).
A guest editorial by BoLS Lounge member: gory_v
First off, let me introduce myself as humbly as I can, since I need to somehow convey my background while also not coming off as delusional or pretentious whatsoever. I have no intentions or aspirations other than to share my experiences and realizations after analyzing those experiences. I played 40k from the age of 12 to about 15 which consisted of playing games with my cousins to pass the time. I found the game again in the spring of 2013, went to my first big event at the Feast of Blades open later that year, have gone to the local GTs in my city (Genghis Con and Tacticon in Denver) and participated in the most recent Feast of Blades invitational and this weekend’s LVO where my performance was not much to speak of. In my past I’ve been competitive at very high levels of hockey and golf, kickball (to a much lesser and serious extent), and did a brief stint as a competitive Guild Wars player in its inaugural year. It is my opinion that these experiences, along with the people that have tutored me along the way, have given me a very strict definition of what ‘competitive’ means and have recently been comparing it to my experiences with the 40k community as a whole. While the greater plan is to write a series of editorials and commentary regarding these topics, I thought I’d keep it simple to begin with in this first attempt.
Let me preface this by saying that I have a stubborn belief that no core rule should be changed within the game and Reece can attest to how much hell I gave him when the invisibility nerf was approved. I play daemons and while I already knew that running a list based on invis with Belakor was foolish, it didn’t sway me in the belief that watering it down was the wrong way to go because it removes a tool from the possibilities of this game.
In a jaded attempt to bring my own big toy to the party, I painted up the dreamforge knight that had been collecting dust on the shelf as a counts as Castigator, and painted it to the theme of Dorothy (thanks for posting her on the site, Larry!) from the Wizard of Oz in an attempt at cleverness as a commentary on the state of 40k in comparison to the same exact time one year previous. What I then discovered this weekend was that Dorothy was actually more of a handicap than tool, since she ended up giving my opponent’s first blood in 4 out of 6 games, I only ever got to stomp once, and I found myself on more than one occasion, playing her very conservatively against players who didn’t bring a super heavy, for fear that they would feel blighted or cheated from her inclusion in my list. In the end, I would’ve been better off competitively if I had left Dorothy behind, but she was definitely an ice breaker with my opponents and brought a smile to many players over the weekend, for which I have no regrets.
“there’s no place like home”
At the end of the qualification rounds, while looking over the lists that performed well within the event and hashing it out with my friends, I went through the motions of analyzing what I could’ve done better at the event. I was sick with a cold this entire weekend and found myself blaming that for my first day performance (1-2) and while it may have played some part in keeping my concentration, I was brutally honest with myself and made my colleagues laugh when I looked at them and said, “I just need to stop being a bad 40k player.”
While many people have reacted to the top lists with surprise and shock, I used to run very similar MSU type lists in 6th ed (aka death star 40k ed) and while I didn’t blow anyone away, I always made my opponent have to grind and work for the win, something I still do today, a trait that I picked up from when I was competitive in other arenas outside of 40k. The truth of the matter is that those two players deserved to be at the top table because they outplayed everyone, period. They played incredibly tight, left as little to chance as possible (a feat in and of itself in a dice game), and brought lists that could out maneuver, out play, and out wit their opponent’s throughout the entire weekend.
On the final day, after the final table had been decided, I was surprised to hear a few others sarcastically say that super heavies and forgeworld are SO OP, and while I did agree with some of their sentiment, I was turned off by how judgmental they were of their peers and still feel like super heavies and forgeworld have some serious cons when included in the competitive meta, but we’ll leave that for another post. Anyways, if anything, we can all learn a lot from the top performers at LVO this weekend and it isn’t anything new. KNOW YOUR ARMY.
40k is an interesting community from a sociological perspective to say the least with no help in part from GW itself. I’ve heard stories about the “good ol’ days” where the release schedule was gradual and so predictable that it allowed players to truly identify the strongest army and list out there, resulting in a tournament scene where a lot of people ended up having the exact same list. While this is surely beneficial from a financial point of view, it didn’t do a whole lot to grow the tournament attendance and actually had the problem of turning more people away who didn’t want to face the same thing over and over again.
Now that the release schedule has gone in the polar opposite direction, it’s amusing to still see complaints, possibly even more complaints than before. What the truly competitive players generally come to a consensus over, hasn’t seemed to trickle down to the community as hoped, but here it is spelled out in black and white, THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST EDITIONS AND TIMES TO BE A COMPETITIVE 40K PLAYER.
So far we have had 7 army updates in 7th ed, with Nids, Knights, and Guard possibly being considered as “7th ed compliant” with the proximity of their releases to the release of 7th ed. It can generally be agreed that while these codices are watered down in comparison to Eldar, Tau, Daemons, etc, when put up against each other, this game is incredibly balanced. The amount of choices we all have in army organization through supplements, detachments, and allies is truly unprecedented and the amount of variety in armies brought to LVO supports this train of thought. While you may have seen a lot of the same combinations of allies, the units, upgrades, and play styles truly set everyone apart from one another which was very apparent in all 6 of my opponents, though one could argue that my experiences don’t hold a lot of water since I finished 2-4 for the weekend, you can make your own judgment, I guess.
Which brings me to my next point. Don’t smoke crack. (Waterboy anyone?)
All joking aside, the point I want to discuss is that we should STOP NET LISTING and become better players for the betterment of ourselves and the hobby; because continually chasing the meta during this rapid release schedule of GW’s is a surefire way to lose money on models from playing the eBay shuffle, and inevitably losing interest in the game as a whole due to the ups and downs of the rat race. The top lists show that despite popular opinon, units are that are generally perceived as bad, have their uses when utilized creatively in the hands of someone who knows that they’re doing when put into a list with well thought out purpose, in preparation for a particular format with terrain that makes that format work. End of story.
Rather than listen to the talking heads and jaded opinions of what a good list should consist of, DO YOUR OWN THING, bring something counter to the meta, be practiced and methodical in its implementation, and prove those detractors wrong. This may not hold a lot of water for some of you, but to be perfectly honest, you’ll garner more respect by beating someone in your own way than a predictable method that you cut and pasted. It’ll lessen the stress on your patience and wallet every time you feel tempted to buy into the next new OP perceived model or army list.
My roommate this weekend went 2nd overall Nids using 3 Flyrants (standard but not SUPER spammy), 2 squads of 10 Hormagaunts, 3 squads of 3 rippers with DS, 2 squads of 3 zoanthropes with neurothrope upgrades, 1 malanthrope, 1 dimachaeron, 1 exocrine, and 1 squad of 3 biovores in a CAD and hive fleet detachment. He told me he was considering including some lictors in the next amalgamation of his list and I cut him off, told him that he’s a good player, and to play his own list. The top 2 nid primary lists at the LVO set a limit on 3 flyrants and neither had a barbed hierodule. Stop depriving yourself of learning to become better players by taking those perceived OP units because if we approach this game honestly, those units are crutches. I’m never going to judge someone across from me from bringing a super heavy or spamming in their army list (I’ve done it too, we all have), but I will say that in life, there IS such thing as too much of a good thing. Approach 40k like you approach other aspects in your life where balance is found through moderation and restraint.
That being said, let’s punch each other in the face with good sportsmanship and realistic, honest break downs on how things could have gone better if we made a different choice, two, or in my case 20 choices within a game.
P.S. I seem to have left out that I sent an email to Reece thanking him for putting on a fantastic event and apologizing to him for my lack of faith that he knew what he was doing when he nerfed invis. The format and terrain made it to where even my unbuffed units had a chance to survive and it just kept me honest when I had to space my models appropriately to diminish the effect of template, blast, and large blast weapons. I’ll always admit when I’ve been proven wrong. I would’ve edited this somewhere earlier in the post, but was at a loss as to where it should be inserted.
