NagoyaHammer.com

This popped up in my Facebook today, courtesy of BoLS. As I happen to be on a rather long return bus journey, I gave it a read. It's worth a gander, if you can be bothered. I think he makes a good point about the nature of 40k and the people who play it. He coulda perhaps been a bit more pithy about it, but he manages to express a fairly nebulous concept pretty clearly.

http://ailarian.com/folera/articles/abs ... es-40k.pdf

45 pages? Yeah, I don't have that much free time to spend on someone's opinion.
...Skip to the end....
A good 40K player is one who has fun and who helps their opponents have fun.

Not exactly ground breaking, but I can agree with it.

was only 27 pages when I read it, but regardless, aye - it's long but his point is sound.

me_in_japan wrote:was only 27 pages when I read it, but regardless, aye - it's long but his point is sound.

Meh, I wasn't paying that much attention. It's still pretty dang long though.

Good old Ailaros! He is a very vocal part of Dakka.

M.

Was rather long, but as you guys have said the content is sound. Worth a read despite the length.

Well, I read through the 316 pages of waffle (maybe I exaggerate a little), and while he certainly makes a few good points, I'm not sure I agree with everything. Skill is largely the manipulation of chance to increase the odds of getting the desired result, but there is also an aspect of knowing when and where to apply those rolls.
E.g. At NagoyaHammer last year my opponent dropped their heaviest hitters way out on a flank to go and kill a tactical squad and a Rhino and left himself with no hope of reaching the objective on my side of the table. At the same time, I dropped my heavy hitters practically on top of his objective. The net result was that my team won. The odds of both units smashing anything in front of them were the same, but positioning was the key.
Deployment, movement, positioning and timing are highly influential on the outcome of a game and unrelated to the laws of chance.
I do agree though that between players of similar ability that luck plays a more important part. I've had lots of games that were won and lost on the single roll of a die. Games that go down to the wire are always the best though.

The writer makes a big point about players not denying their opponent the chance to play the game their own way, but I don't think that is actually possible. He gives the example of an assault squad being killed before it gets into combat. Ok, I could ignore that squad and let it charge me, but then my shooting unit is being denied the chance to fulfil it's own role in the game. I don't think it is possible to play the game without limiting your opponent's ability to use their units and the same is true for your opponent. Killing enemy minis is how you win the game and deliberately ignoring threats (like kitted out assault units) may make your opponent feel all warm and tingly on the inside, but it won't do much for you when they rampage through your lines and kill all of your stuff. The aim of the game is for both sides to have fun, so being a deliberate douche and taking hard counters to everything the other guy brings is going too far. Accepting that some of your stuff is going to get wiped out before it can do anything is important for your own enjoyment of the game.

The writer makes a point about people who see winning or losing as the only two possible options for the game. Well, ok, a draw is possible, but really this is a game with a defined winner and a loser. Playing the game as if winning is the only thing that matters isn't the right attitude, but likewise playing to lose is wrong to. Playing to enjoy playing is the best approach, but at some point you have to accept that one person is going to win. If you have trouble with this, why are you playing a game in the first place? Anyone who has played me knows that no matter the system I will always bring my 'A' game (unless I'm hungover). At the same time, if I lose, that's cool too.

The writer also touches on the idea of list tailoring. In my opinion (not necessarily everyone else's), you should build a list around what you want to use, not what you expect your opponent to bring. The list should be well rounded enough to deal with all comers. Maybe some armies will be tougher/easier than others, but what you put down should stand on it's own merits. Occasionally, I have strayed into the temptation of picking units with the express aim of taking out a particular unit, in recent memory I took a pair of Trygons against Pikey so I could deal with his Wraithknight. This was mainly due to reading too much about how awesome said Wraithknight is. As it transpired I killed it with Hormagaunts and not the Trygons. I would usually have had only 1 Trygon in my list, but all the doom mongering made me doubt my usual army building theories.
That aside, bringing lists specifically designed to kill a specific army is one way to win the game, but not one that holds any appeal for me. Variations in points values aside, anyone who has played my Crimson Fists or Ravenguard in the past 5 years or so (since the 5th ed. Marine dex) has played the same army as anyone else. It didn't matter if you had Eldar, Nids, Chaos or anything else. In 6th, I've added some AA to each army and that was pretty much it.

So in summary.
-The article in the first post makes a few good points, though I don't think they all hold true all the time.
-To be a good player, know the rules, try your best, be generous, be humble in victory and stoic in defeat and use the models you want to use, not just those you think will give you the best result.
-I am as guilty of waffling on as the writer of the article.

Agree with you Prim.

The point he/she made about trying to deny the opponent's units the chance to fulfill their role was nice in principle but how he/she expressed it did not make a lot of sense as you explained in your post. Doing this is simply a part of any good strategy.

When I was just beginning gaming and even now sometimes, I have to admit, I thought about specific units that I thought the opponent might bring and what I needed to bring to 'beat' it - well, not 'beat' but rather eliminate the threat. I try now, because I enjoy it more and find it more fulfilling both in play and for painting purposes, to build my lists thinking about what roles I need and what models I have that can fit the role and that I want to see on the table. Perhaps this is just 40k 101, and if it is, then I am glad to have graduated. The Trygons I asked Prim for, were for that very reason. (The Trygon's have a new Daddy, but I am sure they still keep a special place in their hearts for Prim ) The Trygon, I love the model and it fits a role I need in my list. Is it the best unit for that role, maybe not, but I will try to make it work.

I agree with you also, Prim, when you say that playing the game with the sole purpose of winning can reduce the fun element. And of course understanding that there will be a winner and a loser is important. Understanding and enjoying a unit's death if you can master it, is a useful approach to have, too. My Mawloc slammed its head into the underside of two Chimeras and killed itself - my partner, Badruck, and I had a good laugh at that. True, you will be sad faced at times when that uber unit/model dies round 1, and rightly so, but the sadness should not be directed at the opponent directly. This is the way the game is. I have found it helpful to make a story around a death and share it with my opponent. It has helped me to really reduce that initial disappointment and turn it into something a little positive.

I found it interesting to see the writer's interpretation/classification of the different kinds of players out there - and we all know that these difference can cause a little bit of tension between us every now and then. Understanding and awareness is the first step to reducing conflict, however, so perhaps it is good to be more aware of ourselves and those we play. We have introduced the idea of the reciprocal gaming exchange, and maybe an addition to that would be to also discuss the 'nature' of game you would like as well.

The article and whatever the reader may take from it, in my opinion, was nicely timed, with Nagoya Hammer coming up. Maybe that was one of MiJ's motivations for sharing the article with us. This year NagHammer is a campaign event. I wish everyone great success and encourage everyone to not only bring their A-game (Thanks to Prim and many others mine I think has moved from a Z-game to at least a N-game now ), but also bring the stuff you like and bring the fun. (Though if fun for you is the 'win' then I will try to respect that, too )