Alright, as a competitive player, I'll try to answer your questions! I apologize in advance for the potential poor English, I'm French but will do my best to convey my points. For starters, 40k is by no means the only game I play competitively, and I even competed in fencing for the best part of a decade before I started competing in board and videogames (ex: MtG, Smash Bros, Star Wars Squadrons...). I love many games, but more than anything I just adore competing in itself! My main takeaway from your video is that the main reason you can't find a reasonable/relatable answer to your questions... comes from the hypothesis behind the questions themselves. I wholeheartdely believe you are mistaken in your qualitative evaluation of what competitive players do and why they do these things, and the best example for that is the way your describe chess. Chess is not about memorising for the sake of it: it's about being on the same level of information as your opponent in order to be able to outplay them. There's surprisingly little "formalized" and memorisable situations in chess, which is why usually actual copy/pasting memorised moves stops a few moves in (that's what people call "openings") but unlike what you seem to think, it's not optimisation for the sake of it: it's to have an actual start on a board state that will favour each player's favourite or planned strategies as well as hinders his opponents. Chess is a game of infinite possibilities, and instead of outplaying your opponent's next turn, the highest levels play usually while trying to outplay your opponent in the next 5-6 turns if not a lot more when you aim for certain boardstates to enable your endgame strategies. 40k is not so different when it comes to list building: unlike what most people seem to think on the internet, net listing is usually a ticket to an 0-3 finish at a RTT. The reason is simple: if you copy without understanding, you cannot possibly use the list, its intricacities, its gimmicks, or even properly plan your strategy even during your deployment. But the reason why a lot of lists tend to become uniform is that through understanding and experience, people will converge on solutions that are more efficient than the others. That's why AdMech doesn't even run damage dealing units anymore in its best lists for example... but let's hope the slate makes thing more fun for us ahah, the lack of fun is the reason we're the least played non-space marine chapter faction in the game right now. Because yes, what competitive player look for the most is in the end, the same as narrative and casual players: fun! But the fun we seek is different (when playing competitive, most of us definitely enjoy casual games with flavourful lists too): we want to bring our best because our opponents will do the same, and we actively seek this situation where this one chain of back-and-forth outplays will turn the tide of the game. I don't think I've ever met a competitive player who was happier doing what we call "baby seal clubing" (sorry for the very graphic comparison, but basically 100-0'ing a newcomer on a casual list for his homebrew chapter/forgeworld/etc) than winning a nail bitting turn 5 game decided by the last minute achievement of a single secondary This thrill is what competing is all about: you want to be your army's strategist, and be better than your opponent! That's also why people usually feel bad when their armies are too strong (ex: Eldar players were feeling really bad about the way they were stomping other factions early 10th ed), but also why a few others will actively seek to be the underdog and to look for that one thing no one has ever thought before (another example: the admech community has found rule interactions in the necron codex than necron players have yet top abuse and oh boy are they incredible ahahah) To finish on net-listing as it was a particular topic for you, I have a few other points: the main one is that it's mostly inexperienced players who tend to do this, and it can be a good teaching tool for them to start understanding what works and what doesn't. But honestly, Warhammer's variance is so great there's very rarely going to be a monolithic "optimized build" for a single faction, and there's always a way to make a list yours: you may start from a competitive archetype, but only iterating upon it will let you unlock the door of your own list that you in particular will be able to pilot properly with the tools you and only you need I can go on and on rambling about that kind of stuff for hours, I'm pretty bloody passionated about this question and competition in general ahahahah so I'll answer any other questions if you have some :D
Yeah I told some guys at the flgs discord that I have the models and could bring the lists that pro players have, but that I can’t run them like they do because I’m still getting to grips with every unit having an ability. I never thought I’d use those card things, but damn if they don’t keep it all straight and I only have the ones I’m using in my army so I don’t have to keep flipping back and forth in my codex.
In power lifting, my progression comes from nothing other than the decisions I make, discipline, and work ethic. Watching my numbers go up makes this as a competition versus myself. I didn't invent periodization or volume research. But making a plan and executing it is still hard. Executing an online meta or list still feels good. The decision alone to seek powerful strategies, and practice it, allows for us to gain the experience to modify or craft it ourselves. Warhammer is so, so, so freaking complicated, and with GAMES RULES BEHIND ADDITIONAL PAY WALLS, that it takes practice. Sure, its memorization to apply a meta strat, but it takes dozens and dozens of games to get the right feel to change things up. If netlists are so tired to you, its really not hard to look up counters to metas. My chess playing friends would take offense, as they work their ASSES off to learn the tactics it takes to "make their own calls". Like most things in life, its all about communicating expectations. Furthermore, this hobby takes so much investment of time and money. You can't blame people for wanting to at least avoid building shitty armies. The consequences can be enough to kill the hobby.
I think a lot of players want to win, and they don’t want to spend money on something that will suck in the long term. They don’t see the value in trying things to find what works for you because the games are expensive, and money sometimes makes taking the risk scary. For vey seriously competitive players, I suspect they would start with the strong list, but analyze as they go, what works for them, what to tweak, etc. instead of playing on auto pilot.
Not a bad explanation, with the cost of the game, I guess people would just want to cut to the Chase and have the best options for loadouts. But of course that changes with every addition and every codex, different units become better or worse. I still feel like they should be able to read the book and choose for their self instead of metagaming. But your answer is probably true for a lot of people.
Sorry my text might read aggressive and angry - that is not the case. I am german and I don't want to write ages trying to type more polite. You have many misunderstandings here: 1. The goal of a competitive player is not to win. It is to play a fair game to see who does better. Because only a fair game is a fun game. In the end I don't really care if I win a game or not, and all competitive players I know think alike. I want to have fair fun. 2. Because you missunderstand the first point, you don't understand the "Meta" thing either. See it like this: Only in the case of both players playing the best version of their armies and rules, the game becomes fair. It is no fun to win against a player that wasn't trying the hardest to win. Winning is not about lists. I expect my opponent to bring the best possible list. If that is a copy+paste list - so be it. Lists are the most basic part of the game and if you reach a certain skill level you know what the best lists are. A good player doesn't become a great player only because of a list. It's about what you do on the table. At a high level, everyone is expected to play the best possible list. List building in that case means nothing, it's just the most basic foundation. 3. You seem to missunderstand the concept of learning to get better in the case of your chess example. It is not only a memorization game, it is learning the basics. The creativity is in changing things up. Take "painting" for example. Learning how to paint means learning how to use the brush and learning how light, anatomy and many other things work. You build a foundation of knowledge. To become a master means you learn how to work with this foundation. 4. Somehow you seem to think that competitive players follow a "meta" like slaves. That is not the case. We use the meta to see what we might encounter as enemy units. We think about solutions and how to use the meta to our advantage. The meta is just an expectation based on what is most likely to win games at this moment in time. 5. Yes, sometimes an army is solved and there is no way to make a list better than an already existing list. In that case, all lists are the same and in that case, the problem is GW or the current meta that will soon change anyway. 6. It is not cheating if you make use of the knowledge of others. Civilization is litterally build on the concept of building on the knowlegde of those that came before. In warhammer it is the same. There are many great minds thinking about the armies, and they have good and valuable thoughts. Not to use this knowledge for some self-imposed reason makes no sense. Again: It's all about having a fair game, and a fair game is only possible in a world where everyone tries to do the very best. I myself don't understand why you would even play a game of warhammer when you know the other player is just doing random stuff. Neither of us would learn anything from a game like that, neither of us would have a chance to improve. Even in a game only about story (and I play a ton of story based board games) it is very important that the game is balanced and fair. Without fairness there is no fun. And fairness only works if all players have at least somewhat equal starting positions. Another 2 cents from father to father. Let your son learn the strategies in chess. It teaches him the value of the knowledge of others. And it allows him to gain a mindset that is open to build upon the things others have done in the past. There is no shame in learning from others to get better. If you tell your son that for some reason, it is bad to build a foundation by remembering knowledge others have provided, that would be the real shame.
Building lists is a big part of the game. Building, customizing, theming and painting your army is a commitment! While strictly "netlisting", on one hand, is an extreme, I think that the process of studying what's effective, not just from first principles in the codex (which evolves constantly with dataslates and point costs), but from what works in people's experience in tournaments and even abstract number-crunching, can be fascinating in itself. Like reading sports recaps or military history, it's a meaningful part of participating in the *gesticulates* whole thing of 40k. So I do see the fun in that! Less so in rubber-stamp duplicating a winning list, I'll agree.
It's like science. When you study science you are learning something about the world, and it is not diminished because you learned it from someone from the eighteenth century. Warhammer is the same. If you are using a net-list, and learning how to play it, and figuring out what the meta is, you are learning about the game, and it doesn't really metter if it was from someone from the Internet. It is fun to figure it out by yourself, but it is also fun to learn from other people. There is satisfaction in that.
Sure…but science actually has a bearing on reality and an application. It gives you understanding that allows you to draw further conclusions. Competitive 40k actually drives the game further away from any sort of verisimilitude. You have all these stories and characters and miniatures that excite us about the 40k universe, and then the competitive players come along and reduce it down to “I roll more dice than you, I win. Don’t use that model, it’s crap in the meta, wait till they FAQ it.” If you’re learning anything, it’s just statistics. Fair enough if math gets you excited, but for the majority of people they’re not sitting around reading The Horus Heresy going “Man, Horus should have just spammed more rhinos to block LOS so he could get the charge in!”
@@grisch4329 I also think that. The game does not match the fantasy. It is a sterile game where there are rules for rules sake, and it is not trying to simulate sci-fi battles. Rules like Strands of Fate of the Aeldari are an example of that. Managing a resource of a dice pool is not what I was expecting to worry about when playing a space general. It takes you out of the experience.
I take what I have ready to go, filter it through the net list and take potential parts that work and tinker them into my own lists. I'd say get a core 40% of a net list, then experiment and bring what you have, what you really want to bring and figure it out with your own games. It also helps me progress through my models when I can configure them in different ways. During 8th, 9th, and now tenth I've taken on several second hand projects of used older armies, then revamping them more effective for the edition. It takes a lot of my hobby time because I don't get to play a lot, but I do get to work on different projects in between games and it's fun.
I feel this a lot with ttrpgs too. I knew a guy who was always talking about “builds” and “optimal spell choices” and I always wondered where the fun was in basically playing the game from a wiki. Obviously some options in any game will simply not work as intended and won’t help, but it’s far more satisfying to figure that out for myself and learn **why** people like or dislike certain options through experience
I am afraid of heights. I do not understand the joy people have when base jumping. But I trust that they do. I don't understand why we can't extend that same grace to people playing a board game. I don't need to interrogate why the other player is playing or having fun beyond ensuring my behavior isn't interfering with their fun because I have trust the other player is having fun their own way. Let's turn it around: why is it fun for your to inquiry about why other people have fun? Is curiosity as to others' motivation fun for you? Great! My BA is in social sciences; I can dig it. But i also know that interest is not universal and I do not expect it to be. I don't need to worry about why that's not fun for others, I just need to know what's fun for me and to respect others enough not to yuck their yum. I think many chess players would take umbrage at the description of studying chess as well.
If you check the comment section, there have been many people that gave me an answer that actually made sense to me. I have no problem with people asking questions, it doesn't bother me at all. Why did I think it was fun to question what other people enjoy? Well, I didn't exactly think it was fun. I had a question because I didn't see their point of view. That's the answer to your question.
As someone that plays both narratively and competitively, I can say that net lists help as a template. E.g. I normally start with a net list that performs reasonably well (i.e. at least 4-1) and then I will deconstruct it and add my own flavour. I might take some units out and experiment with something else that I think might be more optimal, or might lean to a strategy I want to try. I think it also helps new players. It can be disheartening to spend lots of money on models and paints, spending months then painting and basing, and then getting steam rolled consistently in your first few games. Also copying a net list doesn't guarantee auto wins imo. Player skill matters a lot.
For me, it depends on what the environment is. I used to heavily netdeck and had a deck designer on a team when I played competitive type 1 magic in the early 2000s. I have also brought net lists to mini tournaments when they are competitive. I will tweak both slightly depending on local meta. The reason for this is because I enjoy playing at the top levels of play in these environments. My strength is not building the list. To me, it's no different than a race car driver's role. We don't expect them to build and tune their own cars. They have a team of professionals for that. Their job is to take what should be the best vehicle available to them and pilot it flawlessly to a win. You also wouldn't expect the mechanic to race the car. The enjoyment comes from traversing complicated decision trees and calculating risk during play. It comes from knowing my list/deck well and what I can use within it to give me the best chance of winning in a match. It also comes from playing an opponent and outsmarting and/or outplaying them. And in longer tournaments, it's about the mental endurance required to last the whole day and make as few mistakes as possible through a mentally taxing challenge. I do play casual events, and that is where I usually just mess around with something. Sometimes it's fun to play a limited list just to see if you can push the junk across the line, or you want to play with something that is normally considered a subpar unit. In the end, it's really about reading the room. I'm not going to bring a tier 1 list to a casual night and pub stomp, but I'm also not going to feel bad for crushing a casual list at a tournament with a finely tuned competitive one.
My perspective, as a kind've "in between" player between casual and comp: You don't win in list building. No matter the list you take, you always win with tactics, strategy, being able to react, and a bit of luck. List building doesn't need to be a skill you have to be a good player. Even if you just take a net list, you still need to actually be good at the game to win, which is where the pride comes from. I feel like you're honestly over estimating how important list building is to winning games, versus actually being good at the game. I've never played 40k, and I guarantee I'll lose horribly with the most meta net list to even a somewhat decent player on a mediocre/bad list.
This is completely unrelated to the topic of the video, but I just want to say your presentation and delivery is super pleasing and relaxing to listen to. I'm glad I found your channel!
I've played one or two games of 40k where I started to win by a huge margin, and I didn't like the feeling at all. Granted, losing also doesn't feel good, but you can lose a game of 40k and still have fun. Losing against a competitive player is not fun, however. The most fun I've ever had playing 40k is when my opponent and I both have lists that seem fun to play and/or have units that we think look cool, and then play a game where we both try to engage in an actual battle. Competitive games are literally all about points on the board; nothing else matters.
It depends on the game. In Magic: The Gathering, you can use a netlist and still lose badly because piloting the deck requires a lot of skill and understanding of the nuances. Your assumption seems to be that games are won solely during the list-building stage, but this isn't true for all games (it may be true for 40k, I don't know. I don't play it). For example, historical gamers often copy lists to recreate scenarios, but their focus isn't on competitiveness in the same way. Yet their emphasis is precisely on copying rather than making their own lists. Would you say there is no fun in doing that either?
Thanks for the response! If they're trying to recreate a battle from history, obviously it's not intended to be balanced because warfare almost never raised in real life. So in that case they are trying to see if they could make different choices than the real historical figures did to turn the tides. So that would be fun if you are into that sort of thing. 40K isn't quite that situation though.
It’s a game. I like winning more than losing, but not at the expense of the opponent having fun. I play wacky stuff and do well most of the time. When it comes to meta chasers the thrill for them is the correct execution of a game plan, it’s about a long game arriving at the win through whatever obstacles are presented. When folks of that mindset play each other they’re ideally enjoying a different conversation than most folks get when they’re on the beer and pretzels and laugh about a wizard dying to a miscast. Some folks are built different; some like to hyper analyze and buy all the things and pay all the premiums which is good for the health of the hobby, but they should stay in their lane with the spicy lists coming out for big events. It’s also not a more pure form of the game to just have fun; it’s a different way to engage with the setting and rules and game. Don’t let folks tell you that your preferred way to have fun is wrong, but be open to folks telling you that you’re a bit to serious for the local environment.
People enjoy what they enjoy… I like building meme list just as much as I like net listing. To answer your question people are going to do what they find enjoyable. If winning and being competitive are what’s enjoyable about the game to them that’s what they will try and do.
That sounds terrible, honestly. Maybe you can find some casual players to have fun with. Or maybe there are some borderline competitives that would tone it down and play a fun game.
man I'd love to play some 40k with you sometime. I know a guy in my area (done play with him anymore) that will take the newest meta list, BUY the thousands of dollars worth of models to build that list, hand the boxes to another field of ours who he pays to build the models to fit the list then that guy paints them for the tournament system... and that guy has gotten awards for the paintjob on "his" armies... thats the "gamers" that GW wants now...
Hey thanks! That's high praise. Yeah that guy sounds terrible. Lol. I still don't understand how he could call that fun. Put in no time or effort into it and then taking all the credit. Seems like a total poser.
I like to build off meta lists, but for that reason I'm happy when people do take meta lists. Then I get a chance to test my list against the Internet consensus. That said, the game isn't just list building. There's still room for skill expression in your ability to correctly pilot the list. This might be less pronounced in a shooting game like 40k, but taking a net list in Age of Sigmar, Infinity or Warmachine is no guarantee of a certain result, even into statistically favorable matchups. For all your talk of trying to not hate on these types of people, it seems like you do... Which is why you have to try not to. Why is someone else's victory and sense of accomplishment so bothersome to you, just because they don't have your philosophy toward gaming? Anyway, interesting topic and thanks for sharing your thoughts. I think this hobby has so many vectors for enjoyment and expression. A long time ago I heard a statement about gaming that has been my north star ever since: the objective is to win; the point is to have fun. If someone is taking a net list but they're a good sport and have clean gameplay, they have my total respect. If someone is bitter and unpleasant, I don't care how beautifully painted or themed their army is, I just want the game to be done.
Well. As a highly competetive player i can answer. Lets first define a couple of things. "A guy that wants to win at all costs fudging rolls and all that" = A cheater. We all hate cheaters. "A competetive player" = Someone who plays the game to match skill against the other guy. --------------------------------------- Second. About chess. No book in the world, no theory CAN describe a full chess game. If you watch chess at the top level you will hear "And it is from move xx" we have a new game". So Magnus Carlsen and those players are VERY skilled in their craft. And what is that? Answer: It is seeing what moves that are likely in the future, They calculate many turns ahead and try to use tactics to win the game. The "Fun" lies in that very action. To calculate and outwit your opponent. Now we get to Warhammer. And that is just like chess. You try to outwit your oponent by a combination of smart CP-usage, sacrificing units and setting up traps to get the objectives. And to us "The narrative" is that strategy. Just like old historical battles were people used ruses and deception to win. (Like the papertanks in WW2, Like Hanibal taking elephants through the alps.) In warhammer that can be charging the knight with Gretchin so the knight cant get to the objective in time. Or baiting out an overwatch so your unsuspected deepstrike can go unharmed. Using angles of cover to survive in a position you shouldnt survive. The fun and the narrative is in the craft. The tactics.. ----------------------------- About copied lists In my opinion netlists are pretty worthless. The reason "Netlists" win is often that they used a "move" that noone expected and had a hard time countering. (Like the Orc buggylist when it came. Or the 1k sons MWbomb) ANY skilled tournament player sees a list like that, then plans for it in their next list. The guy that made it gets a pat on the back "Good thinking there son!" and thats it. Copying a list of the internet seldom work at the highend tables. Winning isnt important. Its crafting the WAY to victory that matters. You can give me an army of T2, 1W, Hit on 6s infantry (In casual) and ill do my best to win. And i can assure you that people at the top tables can pull of a victory with worthless units, at least once or twice, because they have the SKILL it takes. I dont care if i lose as long as i feel i did my best.
I play to win and do netlist but usually dumb it down to make it feel more blood angels. Has to be jump pack heavy or its not fun. Lists don't win things entirely though. Otherwise meta lists from the best armies would win every tournament. Net listing =/= Net strategy memorizing. A lot of the fun is in strategizing on the table top. When we want a break from meta competitive we set up some boarding actions and have fun with it.
I would like to say that my most memorable game is against a net list and I beat it with my own home brew list. So satisfying. I generally agree with your point, that what is the point in copying lists? That is a big part of the hobby for me is to build and tinker with lists. You can gain in understanding by doing so. However, if someone is truly struggling with the game, they might want to look at what others are doing in order to get some help. I do check net lists from time to time in order to answer the question, could I possibly beat that?
Throwing my 2 cents in here especially regarding the chess examples. IMO I think you are correct and incorrect at the same time. As some context I am a casual player and a beginner in war games, also I am more skirmish games oriented. Tho I played a lot of chess. For me, I started having very good games in chess when I started to study different strategies that other people pulled and tried to adapt them to my current match, while also coming up with my own strategies to counter my opponent. Chess is not only a game of coming up with your own stuff, everything that you “invent” was already played by someone in some match. In chess there are correct moves and blunders, you don’t have a lot of room for meta and non-meta approaches - is a game of logic and thinking ahead and also is a game that requires study (even as a casual). To be good at chess you need to have a good grasp of the existing strategies while also coming up with your own. Learning openings give you some advantage, but represent a small part of the game, mid game and late game memorizing some other guy’s moves won’t help you because it’s impossible to be able to study every possible move in chess. Basically for chess you need a hybrid approach - you need to learn existing openings and strategies while also coming up with up with your own. For Warhammer or wargames it is a bit different. It’s not enough to learn some army lists, you need to properly understand what you are playing and what your opponent is playing. To outplay someone you need to understand what the armies can do, and also come up with your own strategies - abusing game mechanics is not enough and also you have the randomness of bad dice rolls. However I do understand that people who are looking to compete in tournaments they are more oriented for meta play because they want to win the tournaments and that’s the best way to do so. Is this a correct and fun approach? I don’t know, because I personally paint model as a relaxation method, and meet up to play with friends just to get off some steam after a long week of work and responsibilities. So my motivation is very different from someone who dedicates most of their time to come up with a meta army and win tournaments. Do I think it is wrong to be competitive? As long as you’re not toxic while doing so I think it is perfectly alright. I wouldn’t say that being competitive and studying strategies is a bad approach to the game or is not fun - at the end of the day is up to you how you want to approach these games. However, I don’t think is fun when a competitive player is playing competitively in a casual game. Casual game are for having fun and trying weird and interesting plays, keep your competitiveness for tournaments.
I agree with this. I'm new to Warhammer. But I play Yu-Gi-Oh and a couple of other games for quite some time and it's reached the point where 50% of the participants are using the exact same Deck list. Where's the creativity? Nothing new will ever be learned as long as people continue to mimic the success of others. An now for the most part the game in a whole becomes less diverse
It seems like you fundamentally don't understand the difference between casual and competitive gaming. Your chess analogy was spot on, in order to be good at chess and compete competitively, it is mandatory to study from those who have come before you and learn the best strategies. The player agency is piloting that strategy correctly, which is a skill in and of itself, as it's impossible to calculate all possibilities in any game this complicated. Saying that player didn't "win" cause they used someone else's strategy/theory of gameplay is hilarious. Imagine if all chess players were required to design their own chess openings that no one in history had ever used before, it's basically an impossible ask and would also result in sub-par play, which is the opposite of the goal for competitive players. When the best strategy is identified and you choose not to use it when playing competitively, you are giving yourself an arbitrary handycap that will most likely result in game losses, which there is simply no reason to do. I would love to watch you play chess against a competitive player and complain about them using better strategies than you because they took the time to learn from other players and you somehow think that's cheating. Not liking to play competitive games is perfectly valid, but complaining about how could anyone enjoy competitive games is absurd and would be equally absurd for competitive players claiming "how could anyone enjoy a casual game?". You simply have different goals and desires, one is not better than the other and neither should be shamed.
That's kind of a good point, I guess that could be a scenario where asking the consensus would be helpful. Although even as a new player, I didn't care to ask what everyone thought was the best option, I just looked at the rules and chose for myself.
@LetsTalkTabletop I'm looking at getting an army together, and it seems like an expensive and time-consuming endeavor to build an army and find that it's just terrible because I didn't know what I was doing... hard to find a middle ground though I guess. Is 90% of the game the list? How much do your strategies matter?
its the same mentality of the curb stompers, they get a high off it, they cant have fun unless they win i had a guy with custodes, he would cheat a ton and i found out later, he couldnt do what he did because he couldnt bear to loose i was beating him in combat with grey knights untill he started to cheat.
I play 40k semi competitively. I however agree that net listing is boring and lazy. I love building lists based off of how the actual dice are going to play out. I like to run the in game statistics through my own formula. (I’m autistic for dice math and optimization) I have played against people who do just copy paste their lists from top tournament players, and a majority of the time they crumble against someone who built their own list and put in the work. I also ask my opponents in non-tournament settings if they wana play a casual game first, or just goof around. I think that’s a good thing to do so you don’t end up putting togeather a list you would play in tournament against something that was built for fluf and fun. Overall I agree, I liked the chess analogy too!
To answer your question at 5:20 You just spent the last minute saying that learning the nuances of a game is a bad thing. If you took this same argument and applied it to any sport or martial art, I feel you would immediately see how it falls flat. I would argue that you described the most fun part of the hobby for me; learning the minutia of how interactions and plays can be performed to push the limits of that gaming environment. I think you're looking at the way competitive players approach the game and looking for negative intent. You don't have to enjoy competitive play, but you also don't have to be demeaning towards those that do. To answer your general question Competitive gaming is fun because it's when you can really see the "machine" that is a game going top speed. Sometimes there are abusive lists that show up, of course, but in my 15 years of tournament wargaming; those people are not common. Most people at a tournament are not playing copy/paste net lists. Those that are, are typically breaking the meta with something that hasn't been FAQ'd, or newer people, in my experience. Tournaments are where I've had some of my most memorable and enjoyable moments of wargaming. Winning model kits from prize support is also something that feel great. Seeing all the well painted armies get their paintjobs judged and looking at conversions that people bring to the events, etc...
Some people just like winning more than others, it literally can be addictive, there are people happy and proud to win a game of dice or something that is 100% luck based and has no real agency, a loc comes IMO from personal insecurities - you can see that some people get physically disturbed when they loose as if that undermines them somehow also like others have mentioned : they spend a lot of money and time to prepare their army - they would feel cheated when they dont win
WOW. You just said the thing that many people secretly believe. I tend to agree with you but only in the more extreme competitive situations. Some people just like a challenge I suppose.
Let me ask you a question: How is tactical netlisting any different than say a sports team learning the plays of their opponents? Or different military formations evolving throughout the years? I totally agree that building your own list from scratch is a lot of fun; I do it all the time. But for the competitive scene, being an effective army means bringing an effective list; and one of the most time/cost-effective ways to do so is to pool from the experience of the countless people on the internet. Like you said, there is indeed skill in planning for the dice rolls and properly utilizing your list; a number of my friends have ran net lists and gotten dominated because they didn't understand it or play it well. I think there's fun to be had in effectively running certain lists and tactics; it might not be as fulfilling as winning with a double-blind homemade list; but how many tactics in sports or war lost out because they didn't evolve with the times?
I agree with you 90%. I agree netlists are nonsense, but not understanding the meta and attempting to win is folly. All of the enjoyment of this hobby comes from the hobby portion (for me anyway) and the fellowship made with your club or friends. I've had more fun playing cutthroat meta lists against a great opponent than fuzzy games with carebears. That's just me, though. Fun is being with my friends and shooting the breeze and rolling some dice.
This harcons back to a discussion I had with a few friends at a con. We came to the drunken conclusion there are 3 types of competitive players. Makers Tuners Pilots Each with a slightly diffrent strategy for this list approach. As each name implies their fundamental approach. We had two pilots, a tuner and a maker at this discussion. Me being a maker will pilot an army and see what it is doing under he hood. The divisive a counter list. My motivation is just trashing your list and shattering your dreams of table top glory. So please run the net list I already have the answer. My best buddy is a tuner, he loves taking lists and adjusting them to his play style or the meta. He is the kind of guy that will sit there for hours comparing two profiles for which is the better fit for "his" updated "net" list. My other two friends get dozens of reps in with a list until they can pilot the thing in their sleep. There motivation is mastery of a faction or list. How do they justify using someone else's list and strategy is simply they know everyrhing so thoroughly their opponents failed at list/faction mastery. I hope this helps.
My personal suspicion is they were never picked for the Football team and now think they are good at toy soldiers so they will turn that into a sport! 😁 Creating cheese lists ... is cringe!
It's not so bad when cheese list faces off against cheese list. Like in a tournament setting I don't think it's that big of a deal. It's really only an issue when player styles don't match up. Such as a hyper competitive versus a casual.
@@LetsTalkTabletop That's true, but I still find competitive 40k silly... On day one they thought I want a balanced game that's all about strategy and tactics to play ultra hardcore competitive sports mode, I know what game to take really serious..... Space Aliens VS Super Soldiers ( *?~# )
The noble art of toy soldiery, to be defiled by the concept of a 'net list'. Horrid! Just the other day I was stepping over a homeless man at my LGS looking to play some Warhammer. Imagine my shock when my regular opponent showed up with not one squadron of mega-nobility, but two! I sat my friend down and gave him a stern look and my most disparaging glower. The shame he felt as I placed my monoliths onto the table must have been immense.
@@LetsTalkTabletop The point is narrative players tend to have a 'if its good its not fluffy' mentality and you shouldn't shame people for taking certain units because you have no real idea why they put them in their army.
My opinion is that it's not really about fun for such players. They just want to win. I also feel that this is more of a common thing in the US than it is over in the UK with Warhammer. I mean look at the various UA-cam channels. You can find a ton of narrative channels in the UK, but here in the US, you find very competitively focused channels. In my local area, I find it tough to actually find people that are narrative, into the hobby and painting side of things and not just playing/winning. I love the models and paint everything, but 90% of the people I play around here have half painted models rolling around in a box that are playing net lists.
@@LetsTalkTabletop This is one of the primary reasons I moved to Horus Heresy about a year ago. HH players make fluffy lists with rights of war in mind and will police themselves to not run lists or too many things that are over powered. The games are just more fun in general as well.
I find the question about netlist something that only a naive person from outside the scene could ask like this. The assumption is that ppl just coppy lists and have 0 input and then the list just run themselves. Niether of those points are true. 1) Net lists tend to get created by group effort. Ppl discus these lists whit each other try them out tweak them and then come to a conlusion on what works and how it should be played. And then there is the skill involged in actaully playing the list on the table. Sure when you play against someone who is not competing and just brings the models that look goot to them then the net list will likely give a edge and lead to a victory. But when you are playing against a other person who is competing you can not expect the list to do the work cause the other person will also have a working list. And lastly i find the idea that you should build your own list for competition just absurd to begin whit. We do not call out ppl on a racetrack for netcarring because they use thechnolige that someone else came up whit in the teams car. No they are there to race and they will bring the best car to the race so they can compete. If you bring your honda civic to a race you are going to get disapointed. The goal of competion is to compete and that is also the fun of it. The push and pull against a other human that is also doing their best enabeling you to be at your best aswell. Where things go wrong is when comonucation about the game goes by the wayside. If one person is comming to compete and the other is comming to just have a story happen by the luck of the dice. Then things will go verry wrong verry quickly.
Also the chess analogy is a great misunderstanding of what is going on. Ppl learing chess moves are not in a race to have the best memory. They are in a race to have the best most optimum staregy. When you and your son are playing you are only competing during the game only trying to outthink each other while your playing. Ppl who study chess are always playing they are creating strategies and learning counter strategies even before the are at the board. They are just always playing chess against each other. Board or no.
A well thought out response! I see what you are saying. If you are trying to win in a competitive setting you will bring the best assets you possibly can, even if you rely on other people to determine what is the best asset. I get that. Although I do disagree with lists not running their selves, if there is an optimal build, the synergies are inherent in it. Which means that choices are limited because they are dictated by the synergies in the list. There have been many lists I have experienced in life that were basically point and click. I have this unit that does this thing and I have this other unit that does this other thing. There is no creativity in that, just following the instructions from everyone online to use the list properly. Although I suppose if both players are doing that thing, then there becomes a metagame where both players are playing with the very most efficient lists they can, and then trying to out think each other and trying to overcome the other person's highly optimized list. So it's kind of a game on top of a game at that point. But I see what you're saying. Also, I am certainly not new to war gaming, but I've never been a competitive player. So if I am naive on that topic, I probably am. I never understood it. I play games to have a positive shared experience that tells a story on the table top. I suppose that's just a completely different world than trying to simply best your opponent. I'm not saying competitive is wrong, it's just so opposite of how I see things.
I have NO idea. I suck. I never win. I have not won post pandemic.I LOVE narrative games. I want it to be fun. If winning was an issue, I would never play. I come from a LOT LOT LOT of DMing and Role-playing and that means to me surviving the game session or running a terrific game.
I agree with you! I think that's a good attitude to have. I'm way more concerned with my opponents fun then winning. I throw games all the time so that the scores are closer. Then I try to make up for the hole I dug myself. Now that's fun! Meanwhile my opponent doesn't know I'm doing this.
@LetsTalkTabletop I want my opponent and myself to have fun. I just lose consistently. I will not throw a game. I do not need a hole to crawl out of I just keep digging the hole. Don't get why I lose so much. Been a Nid player since the earliest 3rd edition. Guard player since 3rd edition. A little Marines since 8th. A little Sisters since 9th. Drukhari since 9th-10th. I left WH40K permentantly over the Custodes issue and they so nerfed the Emperor in "The End and the Death" volumn three. Eighth was the best edition. Had been slowly pull away with the end of 8th. However these two heretical decisions made me leave for good. By the way not a bratty child here. I am a 58 year old gamer, with one child, a Daughter, and I think the Custodes decision was awful. Just like saying the Sisters of Battle and Silence are not good enough so here are some female Custodes. I will never accept that of females in the faction. I must admit I would not play against an army that had them. My hill to die on. Thanks for reading
@LetsTalkTabletop Also I watch multiple battle reports usually almost every week. I study units, ideas, strategies, tactics, not Meta, and I still only lose. No idea why! I would NEVER play in a tournament ever. Not cause I lose just NO interest. I just enjoy eating everyone else's armies for biomass with my bugs. You all look like biomass to us.
Since there is random number probability into play, where even the strongest unit could lose against the weakest, I find the over competiveness on warhammer ridiculous. Enphasis on the"over" as being competitive is fun.
Unfortunately though, the strongest units can't lose against the weakest for the most part. The game is not that balanced. But I see what you're saying.
Well, for starters critical Hits only count if you have an ability that deals with critical hits. But you've got the entire wounding mechanic to worry about. A Grot at strength 2 is going to have a really hard time against an imperial knight. In a perfectly balanced game, one point that you spend for your list would be an arbitrary amount of lethality and durability in the game. So you know that a model that is 100 points is 100 times as powerful and durable as a one-point model would be. But that's not the way the game works. A point is not always a point across all armies. Sometimes a point is actually two points. LOL. I'm just being hyperbolic now but it's the truth.
When you don't love the game yet or understand how it works, but know enough that there are 'bad' units, you'll be tempted to just copy the list another guy made and put that together, instead of wasting hundreds to thousands of dollars on something that just doesn't work on the table, especially because these people can't conceive that they're bad at the game when they're good at League of Legends. Besides that, you're applying your own morality and level of intelligence to people who don't share either, but at the end of the day if they won and you didn't, that's all that matters, because they got the dopamine hit, you didn't and you're surly about it, which makes it even more fun for them. However, I share your viewpoint and I am extremely discontent with 40k for a lot of reasons, one of which being that GW does not encourage players to play for fun, rather than play to win.
It's kinda like out-sourcing one part of the game. List building may be something that a player really has no interest in. Similar to people that outsource the hobby part of the game. There's lots of 40k players that just do not like painting and building models. I also find a lot of joy in discovering unit synergies and strengths and weaknesses. But maybe some people just wanna roll dice and pilot a decent force.
Knowing is half the battle. It comes down to execution. If you pick meta knight in smash it may be the OP choice, but if you can't do anything yourself then you will lose. Does everyone have the time you do? Does everyone have the ability to think on this kind of level? Do you know how football and other games work? It's the same thing. According to you all football and basketball plays are cheating. If you picked up a tournament list, and played it for the first time against me. I could probably beat you with my non-competetive one. I was on your side until you called it cheating. Imagine calling it cheating to do something perfectly in the games rules. Find me the rule that says "your army list must be one that you made with no outside help or influence" and i'll agree with you again
Can't say I disagree with anything you said. I think people copy and paste lists because it's easy mode to an effective army, rather than put in the work and adapt.
I would ask almost the inverse question. If list building is the only part of the game that matters, why do you put models on the table and roll dice? More than likely at least part of your answer is "because it's fun." So then why do you insist on gatekeeping that fun behind listbuilding from scratch? In the same way that memorizing basic openings in chess allows you ro skip the more boring opening turns of chess and still arrive at a fun and interesting midgames, netlisting allows you to be sure that you arrive to your game with a list that can give you a competitive game on the table no matter how good your opponents list is.
I want to unpack a couple separate things that you brought up. Seeking out net lists: I don't think there is anything inherently wrong or bad with going online and looking for list-building advice. It's a shortcut. It will get you there, but you are skipping important steps that make the difference between good players with good lists and bad players with good lists. Actual rules literacy and player experience. Very few lists can serve auto-wins to middling player. And lists that are that overpowered quickly get Nerfed by GW. People who netlist without learning how to play the game will always be stuck at the middle tables. This good take 3 Bois: I truly dislike when someone is trying to forge their own list only to be bullied for not taking the current meta choices. This is what happens when mid-tier net-listers lurk in hobby stores and forums waiting to shit all over your neat lists. Hate it. Hate it. Hate it. It's okay to be a good player. There are competitive players who sleep with their codex under their pillows and are very intentional with their lists and strategy. These players will absolutely eat our lunches and that doesn't make them waac or beardy. People who work hard to be good at the game deserve credit for the effort they put in to get there.
So I'm just oversimplifying it? That's probably a fair assessment. LOL . But if there are a million predetermined deployments encounter deployments, it's essentially just looking through your catalog in your head on how to answer any given situation. I've already come up with a solution to it. Randomized the deployment of the pieces on the chess board, with each player having the same setup as their opponent, but a deployment that they don't know ahead of time. Then the real chessing would take place. Lol. Making moves and counter moves on the fly versus just knowing all of the preset situations and their counters. I would say players each take turns placing one piece in their starting lines and their opponent has to place the same piece in opposite formation to it. Boom. Highlander for chess lol.
@@LetsTalkTabletop I think learning all of the different move-sets and being able to predict, recognize and counter them is exactly what makes competitive chess impressive. The same goes for any competitive game. With study and practice you have laid the foundation of victory. "Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win." Sun Tzu
As much crap as I give competitives, I agree with you. There is a certain level of respect they earn if they actually learn the game and actually learn their army and don't rely on everyone else to tell them how to play.
@@LetsTalkTabletopI play Adepta Sororitas or Sisters of Battle as they're also called. I've tried net listing and making my own. It's not easy to win as it's a hard faction to learn and it's not easy to understand the intent behind every inclusion in a list. There are many small and big decisions that matter a lot. The same list can win a grand tournament or get absolutely trashed depending on the player. As for chess, I play a lot of that too, and the higher you get the more it's about memorizing opening moves, but it usually doesn't take that many moves until it's a unique game and making your own decisions comes into play. I respect your questions, but I do think both games go a lot deeper than you give them credit for. Then again, Bobby Fisher did say towards the end of his life that he grew to hate chess due to how much it became about memorizing all the best openings and patterns so maybe you're onto something, idk 😛
I will read the comments as well because I don’t understand either. My opinion, from the point of view of a former teacher, is similar to yours. Yes, you may have written the answer on the paper, but you copied the other person’s test. I want to see what you can create yourself, not how well you can look up information.
One thing I've learned is people generally are competitive and and will want to do what they can to win. On the chess analogy vs real life there certainly is a disconnect. I'm of the mind with you, a game is fun to just throw something together to see if it works. In real life there is certainly value to tactics and strategies you didn't come up with.
Im with you 100% my friend. Whenever i read or hear about this or that, or which is better Or discussion of "gamey" aspects of a particular ruleset my eyes glaze over. Hahah. I guess thats part of the reason I lean mostly historical/real world gaming. There seems to be less of that type of thing, with some notable exceptions of course.
the real answer is because the vast majority of players is not able to make a strong list with only the rulebook, and they go for the easy way. 100% the top players in any game made the list from themself, like your frend... and by the way the anti\counter meta is the way to win turnaments
Thanks for commenting! What do you mean with the statement that it's not possible to make strong lists with only the rule book? What else do you need besides your army rules to make a good list?
@@LetsTalkTabletop i mean they not have the mental skill to make a strong list from themself, they have no experience and no commitment because evry time they play online top result list.
As someone who plays several games competitively(but not 40k) it seems like you're just coming at it from the wrong angle. What you describe in a video is just a bad player. An online list is a starting line. You have to learn how to use a good list. Also asking for help and testing with friends is just an effective way of preparing for a tournament and is just generally useful in life. Its often less about how I can get better and more about how we can get better as a community. At the end of the day, its not about winning for me as a competitor its about giving it my all and doing the best I can. That includes preparing my list to be as effective as possible. Its also why i can get frustrated at silly mistakes i may make over the course of a game.
6 місяців тому+1
I think you attribute too much influence over the win chance on the list design. 🤔
I'm not really discussing winning or losing, I just don't see how people can take pride in winning when all of their strategies, which are dictated by your list, you can't do things that your list doesn't allow, we're created by other people and copy and pasted. But there have been multiple good responses about this that show the other side of it in this comment section. I don't have as dim of a view as I once did about it.
I never really get me vs them elitism....like your better than them for "earning your wins" like putting a space marine chapter master with a unit of company hero's takes some sort of mega brain thinking.......I understand you have stated this as a question but it came across to me as someone viewing the content like you are judging this group of people from a handful of your personal bad experiences. (the competitive players often in my experience hard working slightly older hobbyists no different from yourself) I don't think I've ever met the arca typical meta chaser just people who have most of those units already and in order to make sure they have the best list possible buy the missing units for their army like in order to play in my most recent event I brought another 4 legions imperials kratos as they are quite good right now. I really enjoy your content though keep up the good work.
I feel like your issue has more to do with playing with assholes than net listing. I think the competitive scene is pretty well split between those that love healthy and fair competition and those that get their jollies from winning at all costs. Your focus and dislike for losing to people who didn’t come up with their lists from scratch makes me think you have more of the latter in you than you represent. Personally I don’t really care where my list or my opponents list came from I care about having a game where my opponent and I are open about the interactions in our list, jovial, respectful, and trying our asses off to outmaneuver each other for the win. That, to me, is the crux of healthy competition
I don't think you understand the word meta. Meta is an optimised style of lists, based on the current rules and points, that have a bit of competitive advantage over most other lists. Also, no one with any skill should lose against a player who is playing a netlist for the first time, as they don't have the practice and reps to optimise that list
It is because they HAVE to "win." And no. That's not how people actually play chess. What you are talking about only gets players into the mid-game. To really understand "meta" as a concept you need to study Starcraft or Pokémon TCG.
@@LetsTalkTabletop Those are the two I'm most familiar with for how I assume the Meta might work in Warhammer. Although I'm not that familiar with Meta-chasing in Warhammer. Part of the problem in Warhammer appears to me to be poor rules/points/playtesting. In Pokémon it is not that a list wins the game for you. You still have to play out of your mind to win, but a better deck makes it easier. They have only ever banned 1 or 2 cards outright for being overpowered. The real power is in the synergies and that is what the pros figure out and get copied by the Meta-chasers. But you still have to know how to take advantage of them. In Starcraft the Meta changes (slightly) every year even though the game hasn't had any changes or balance updates in 20 years. Someone will figure out a wrinkle in the game and that will ripple thru the community as people learn how to exploit it and how to counter it. The people who figure these things out are unbelievable players and the people who can copy them are also unbelievable. The people who can't use them get left behind because they aren't as good. But the "new Meta" definitely doesn't win the game for you. It is more like slightly changing the position of the guard rails on a race track.
People tend to research things before buying or doing something. For example you could have watched any number of sound tutorials on youtube before starting to release videos and got yourself a better mic.
Alright, as a competitive player, I'll try to answer your questions! I apologize in advance for the potential poor English, I'm French but will do my best to convey my points.
For starters, 40k is by no means the only game I play competitively, and I even competed in fencing for the best part of a decade before I started competing in board and videogames (ex: MtG, Smash Bros, Star Wars Squadrons...). I love many games, but more than anything I just adore competing in itself!
My main takeaway from your video is that the main reason you can't find a reasonable/relatable answer to your questions... comes from the hypothesis behind the questions themselves. I wholeheartdely believe you are mistaken in your qualitative evaluation of what competitive players do and why they do these things, and the best example for that is the way your describe chess. Chess is not about memorising for the sake of it: it's about being on the same level of information as your opponent in order to be able to outplay them. There's surprisingly little "formalized" and memorisable situations in chess, which is why usually actual copy/pasting memorised moves stops a few moves in (that's what people call "openings") but unlike what you seem to think, it's not optimisation for the sake of it: it's to have an actual start on a board state that will favour each player's favourite or planned strategies as well as hinders his opponents. Chess is a game of infinite possibilities, and instead of outplaying your opponent's next turn, the highest levels play usually while trying to outplay your opponent in the next 5-6 turns if not a lot more when you aim for certain boardstates to enable your endgame strategies.
40k is not so different when it comes to list building: unlike what most people seem to think on the internet, net listing is usually a ticket to an 0-3 finish at a RTT. The reason is simple: if you copy without understanding, you cannot possibly use the list, its intricacities, its gimmicks, or even properly plan your strategy even during your deployment. But the reason why a lot of lists tend to become uniform is that through understanding and experience, people will converge on solutions that are more efficient than the others. That's why AdMech doesn't even run damage dealing units anymore in its best lists for example... but let's hope the slate makes thing more fun for us ahah, the lack of fun is the reason we're the least played non-space marine chapter faction in the game right now.
Because yes, what competitive player look for the most is in the end, the same as narrative and casual players: fun! But the fun we seek is different (when playing competitive, most of us definitely enjoy casual games with flavourful lists too): we want to bring our best because our opponents will do the same, and we actively seek this situation where this one chain of back-and-forth outplays will turn the tide of the game. I don't think I've ever met a competitive player who was happier doing what we call "baby seal clubing" (sorry for the very graphic comparison, but basically 100-0'ing a newcomer on a casual list for his homebrew chapter/forgeworld/etc) than winning a nail bitting turn 5 game decided by the last minute achievement of a single secondary
This thrill is what competing is all about: you want to be your army's strategist, and be better than your opponent! That's also why people usually feel bad when their armies are too strong (ex: Eldar players were feeling really bad about the way they were stomping other factions early 10th ed), but also why a few others will actively seek to be the underdog and to look for that one thing no one has ever thought before (another example: the admech community has found rule interactions in the necron codex than necron players have yet top abuse and oh boy are they incredible ahahah)
To finish on net-listing as it was a particular topic for you, I have a few other points: the main one is that it's mostly inexperienced players who tend to do this, and it can be a good teaching tool for them to start understanding what works and what doesn't. But honestly, Warhammer's variance is so great there's very rarely going to be a monolithic "optimized build" for a single faction, and there's always a way to make a list yours: you may start from a competitive archetype, but only iterating upon it will let you unlock the door of your own list that you in particular will be able to pilot properly with the tools you and only you need
I can go on and on rambling about that kind of stuff for hours, I'm pretty bloody passionated about this question and competition in general ahahahah so I'll answer any other questions if you have some :D
Yeah I told some guys at the flgs discord that I have the models and could bring the lists that pro players have, but that I can’t run them like they do because I’m still getting to grips with every unit having an ability.
I never thought I’d use those card things, but damn if they don’t keep it all straight and I only have the ones I’m using in my army so I don’t have to keep flipping back and forth in my codex.
In power lifting, my progression comes from nothing other than the decisions I make, discipline, and work ethic. Watching my numbers go up makes this as a competition versus myself. I didn't invent periodization or volume research. But making a plan and executing it is still hard.
Executing an online meta or list still feels good. The decision alone to seek powerful strategies, and practice it, allows for us to gain the experience to modify or craft it ourselves.
Warhammer is so, so, so freaking complicated, and with GAMES RULES BEHIND ADDITIONAL PAY WALLS, that it takes practice. Sure, its memorization to apply a meta strat, but it takes dozens and dozens of games to get the right feel to change things up.
If netlists are so tired to you, its really not hard to look up counters to metas.
My chess playing friends would take offense, as they work their ASSES off to learn the tactics it takes to "make their own calls".
Like most things in life, its all about communicating expectations.
Furthermore, this hobby takes so much investment of time and money. You can't blame people for wanting to at least avoid building shitty armies. The consequences can be enough to kill the hobby.
I think a lot of players want to win, and they don’t want to spend money on something that will suck in the long term. They don’t see the value in trying things to find what works for you because the games are expensive, and money sometimes makes taking the risk scary.
For vey seriously competitive players, I suspect they would start with the strong list, but analyze as they go, what works for them, what to tweak, etc. instead of playing on auto pilot.
Not a bad explanation, with the cost of the game, I guess people would just want to cut to the Chase and have the best options for loadouts. But of course that changes with every addition and every codex, different units become better or worse. I still feel like they should be able to read the book and choose for their self instead of metagaming. But your answer is probably true for a lot of people.
You watched a painting tutorial so the paintjob isnt yours ahh argument
Sorry my text might read aggressive and angry - that is not the case. I am german and I don't want to write ages trying to type more polite.
You have many misunderstandings here:
1. The goal of a competitive player is not to win. It is to play a fair game to see who does better. Because only a fair game is a fun game. In the end I don't really care if I win a game or not, and all competitive players I know think alike. I want to have fair fun.
2. Because you missunderstand the first point, you don't understand the "Meta" thing either. See it like this: Only in the case of both players playing the best version of their armies and rules, the game becomes fair.
It is no fun to win against a player that wasn't trying the hardest to win. Winning is not about lists. I expect my opponent to bring the best possible list. If that is a copy+paste list - so be it. Lists are the most basic part of the game and if you reach a certain skill level you know what the best lists are. A good player doesn't become a great player only because of a list. It's about what you do on the table. At a high level, everyone is expected to play the best possible list. List building in that case means nothing, it's just the most basic foundation.
3. You seem to missunderstand the concept of learning to get better in the case of your chess example. It is not only a memorization game, it is learning the basics. The creativity is in changing things up. Take "painting" for example. Learning how to paint means learning how to use the brush and learning how light, anatomy and many other things work. You build a foundation of knowledge. To become a master means you learn how to work with this foundation.
4. Somehow you seem to think that competitive players follow a "meta" like slaves. That is not the case. We use the meta to see what we might encounter as enemy units. We think about solutions and how to use the meta to our advantage. The meta is just an expectation based on what is most likely to win games at this moment in time.
5. Yes, sometimes an army is solved and there is no way to make a list better than an already existing list. In that case, all lists are the same and in that case, the problem is GW or the current meta that will soon change anyway.
6. It is not cheating if you make use of the knowledge of others. Civilization is litterally build on the concept of building on the knowlegde of those that came before. In warhammer it is the same. There are many great minds thinking about the armies, and they have good and valuable thoughts. Not to use this knowledge for some self-imposed reason makes no sense.
Again: It's all about having a fair game, and a fair game is only possible in a world where everyone tries to do the very best.
I myself don't understand why you would even play a game of warhammer when you know the other player is just doing random stuff. Neither of us would learn anything from a game like that, neither of us would have a chance to improve. Even in a game only about story (and I play a ton of story based board games) it is very important that the game is balanced and fair.
Without fairness there is no fun. And fairness only works if all players have at least somewhat equal starting positions.
Another 2 cents from father to father. Let your son learn the strategies in chess. It teaches him the value of the knowledge of others. And it allows him to gain a mindset that is open to build upon the things others have done in the past. There is no shame in learning from others to get better.
If you tell your son that for some reason, it is bad to build a foundation by remembering knowledge others have provided, that would be the real shame.
Perfect response.
Building lists is a big part of the game. Building, customizing, theming and painting your army is a commitment! While strictly "netlisting", on one hand, is an extreme, I think that the process of studying what's effective, not just from first principles in the codex (which evolves constantly with dataslates and point costs), but from what works in people's experience in tournaments and even abstract number-crunching, can be fascinating in itself. Like reading sports recaps or military history, it's a meaningful part of participating in the *gesticulates* whole thing of 40k.
So I do see the fun in that! Less so in rubber-stamp duplicating a winning list, I'll agree.
Thanks for commenting! That's a reasonable reply.
It's like science. When you study science you are learning something about the world, and it is not diminished because you learned it from someone from the eighteenth century. Warhammer is the same. If you are using a net-list, and learning how to play it, and figuring out what the meta is, you are learning about the game, and it doesn't really metter if it was from someone from the Internet. It is fun to figure it out by yourself, but it is also fun to learn from other people. There is satisfaction in that.
Your analogy actually makes some sense. Thanks for charming in!
Sure…but science actually has a bearing on reality and an application. It gives you understanding that allows you to draw further conclusions. Competitive 40k actually drives the game further away from any sort of verisimilitude. You have all these stories and characters and miniatures that excite us about the 40k universe, and then the competitive players come along and reduce it down to “I roll more dice than you, I win. Don’t use that model, it’s crap in the meta, wait till they FAQ it.”
If you’re learning anything, it’s just statistics. Fair enough if math gets you excited, but for the majority of people they’re not sitting around reading The Horus Heresy going “Man, Horus should have just spammed more rhinos to block LOS so he could get the charge in!”
@@grisch4329 I also think that. The game does not match the fantasy. It is a sterile game where there are rules for rules sake, and it is not trying to simulate sci-fi battles. Rules like Strands of Fate of the Aeldari are an example of that. Managing a resource of a dice pool is not what I was expecting to worry about when playing a space general. It takes you out of the experience.
I take what I have ready to go, filter it through the net list and take potential parts that work and tinker them into my own lists. I'd say get a core 40% of a net list, then experiment and bring what you have, what you really want to bring and figure it out with your own games. It also helps me progress through my models when I can configure them in different ways. During 8th, 9th, and now tenth I've taken on several second hand projects of used older armies, then revamping them more effective for the edition. It takes a lot of my hobby time because I don't get to play a lot, but I do get to work on different projects in between games and it's fun.
Yeah I could see that, taking a netlist and then cannibalizing it to fit your units that you own or your style of play.
I feel this a lot with ttrpgs too. I knew a guy who was always talking about “builds” and “optimal spell choices” and I always wondered where the fun was in basically playing the game from a wiki. Obviously some options in any game will simply not work as intended and won’t help, but it’s far more satisfying to figure that out for myself and learn **why** people like or dislike certain options through experience
I am afraid of heights. I do not understand the joy people have when base jumping. But I trust that they do.
I don't understand why we can't extend that same grace to people playing a board game. I don't need to interrogate why the other player is playing or having fun beyond ensuring my behavior isn't interfering with their fun because I have trust the other player is having fun their own way.
Let's turn it around: why is it fun for your to inquiry about why other people have fun? Is curiosity as to others' motivation fun for you? Great! My BA is in social sciences; I can dig it. But i also know that interest is not universal and I do not expect it to be. I don't need to worry about why that's not fun for others, I just need to know what's fun for me and to respect others enough not to yuck their yum.
I think many chess players would take umbrage at the description of studying chess as well.
If you check the comment section, there have been many people that gave me an answer that actually made sense to me. I have no problem with people asking questions, it doesn't bother me at all. Why did I think it was fun to question what other people enjoy? Well, I didn't exactly think it was fun. I had a question because I didn't see their point of view. That's the answer to your question.
As someone that plays both narratively and competitively, I can say that net lists help as a template. E.g. I normally start with a net list that performs reasonably well (i.e. at least 4-1) and then I will deconstruct it and add my own flavour. I might take some units out and experiment with something else that I think might be more optimal, or might lean to a strategy I want to try.
I think it also helps new players. It can be disheartening to spend lots of money on models and paints, spending months then painting and basing, and then getting steam rolled consistently in your first few games.
Also copying a net list doesn't guarantee auto wins imo. Player skill matters a lot.
Thanks for commenting! That is a pretty reasonable answer.
For me, it depends on what the environment is. I used to heavily netdeck and had a deck designer on a team when I played competitive type 1 magic in the early 2000s. I have also brought net lists to mini tournaments when they are competitive. I will tweak both slightly depending on local meta. The reason for this is because I enjoy playing at the top levels of play in these environments. My strength is not building the list. To me, it's no different than a race car driver's role. We don't expect them to build and tune their own cars. They have a team of professionals for that. Their job is to take what should be the best vehicle available to them and pilot it flawlessly to a win. You also wouldn't expect the mechanic to race the car.
The enjoyment comes from traversing complicated decision trees and calculating risk during play. It comes from knowing my list/deck well and what I can use within it to give me the best chance of winning in a match. It also comes from playing an opponent and outsmarting and/or outplaying them. And in longer tournaments, it's about the mental endurance required to last the whole day and make as few mistakes as possible through a mentally taxing challenge.
I do play casual events, and that is where I usually just mess around with something. Sometimes it's fun to play a limited list just to see if you can push the junk across the line, or you want to play with something that is normally considered a subpar unit.
In the end, it's really about reading the room. I'm not going to bring a tier 1 list to a casual night and pub stomp, but I'm also not going to feel bad for crushing a casual list at a tournament with a finely tuned competitive one.
My perspective, as a kind've "in between" player between casual and comp: You don't win in list building. No matter the list you take, you always win with tactics, strategy, being able to react, and a bit of luck. List building doesn't need to be a skill you have to be a good player. Even if you just take a net list, you still need to actually be good at the game to win, which is where the pride comes from. I feel like you're honestly over estimating how important list building is to winning games, versus actually being good at the game.
I've never played 40k, and I guarantee I'll lose horribly with the most meta net list to even a somewhat decent player on a mediocre/bad list.
This is completely unrelated to the topic of the video, but I just want to say your presentation and delivery is super pleasing and relaxing to listen to. I'm glad I found your channel!
Oh, wow thanks for saying that! 😁
I can’t win either way, either a net list or a list I made. I’m just trying to learn how to play where I have a chance to win.
I've played one or two games of 40k where I started to win by a huge margin, and I didn't like the feeling at all. Granted, losing also doesn't feel good, but you can lose a game of 40k and still have fun. Losing against a competitive player is not fun, however.
The most fun I've ever had playing 40k is when my opponent and I both have lists that seem fun to play and/or have units that we think look cool, and then play a game where we both try to engage in an actual battle. Competitive games are literally all about points on the board; nothing else matters.
It depends on the game. In Magic: The Gathering, you can use a netlist and still lose badly because piloting the deck requires a lot of skill and understanding of the nuances. Your assumption seems to be that games are won solely during the list-building stage, but this isn't true for all games (it may be true for 40k, I don't know. I don't play it). For example, historical gamers often copy lists to recreate scenarios, but their focus isn't on competitiveness in the same way. Yet their emphasis is precisely on copying rather than making their own lists. Would you say there is no fun in doing that either?
Thanks for the response! If they're trying to recreate a battle from history, obviously it's not intended to be balanced because warfare almost never raised in real life. So in that case they are trying to see if they could make different choices than the real historical figures did to turn the tides. So that would be fun if you are into that sort of thing. 40K isn't quite that situation though.
It’s a game. I like winning more than losing, but not at the expense of the opponent having fun. I play wacky stuff and do well most of the time.
When it comes to meta chasers the thrill for them is the correct execution of a game plan, it’s about a long game arriving at the win through whatever obstacles are presented. When folks of that mindset play each other they’re ideally enjoying a different conversation than most folks get when they’re on the beer and pretzels and laugh about a wizard dying to a miscast.
Some folks are built different; some like to hyper analyze and buy all the things and pay all the premiums which is good for the health of the hobby, but they should stay in their lane with the spicy lists coming out for big events.
It’s also not a more pure form of the game to just have fun; it’s a different way to engage with the setting and rules and game.
Don’t let folks tell you that your preferred way to have fun is wrong, but be open to folks telling you that you’re a bit to serious for the local environment.
People enjoy what they enjoy… I like building meme list just as much as I like net listing. To answer your question people are going to do what they find enjoyable. If winning and being competitive are what’s enjoyable about the game to them that’s what they will try and do.
My only option is to play competitive. It honestly sucks because all our events are comp, meaning any games outside of the tournaments are meta tests.
That sounds terrible, honestly. Maybe you can find some casual players to have fun with. Or maybe there are some borderline competitives that would tone it down and play a fun game.
man I'd love to play some 40k with you sometime. I know a guy in my area (done play with him anymore) that will take the newest meta list, BUY the thousands of dollars worth of models to build that list, hand the boxes to another field of ours who he pays to build the models to fit the list then that guy paints them for the tournament system... and that guy has gotten awards for the paintjob on "his" armies... thats the "gamers" that GW wants now...
Hey thanks! That's high praise. Yeah that guy sounds terrible. Lol. I still don't understand how he could call that fun. Put in no time or effort into it and then taking all the credit. Seems like a total poser.
I like to build off meta lists, but for that reason I'm happy when people do take meta lists. Then I get a chance to test my list against the Internet consensus.
That said, the game isn't just list building. There's still room for skill expression in your ability to correctly pilot the list. This might be less pronounced in a shooting game like 40k, but taking a net list in Age of Sigmar, Infinity or Warmachine is no guarantee of a certain result, even into statistically favorable matchups.
For all your talk of trying to not hate on these types of people, it seems like you do... Which is why you have to try not to. Why is someone else's victory and sense of accomplishment so bothersome to you, just because they don't have your philosophy toward gaming?
Anyway, interesting topic and thanks for sharing your thoughts. I think this hobby has so many vectors for enjoyment and expression. A long time ago I heard a statement about gaming that has been my north star ever since: the objective is to win; the point is to have fun.
If someone is taking a net list but they're a good sport and have clean gameplay, they have my total respect. If someone is bitter and unpleasant, I don't care how beautifully painted or themed their army is, I just want the game to be done.
Well. As a highly competetive player i can answer. Lets first define a couple of things.
"A guy that wants to win at all costs fudging rolls and all that" = A cheater. We all hate cheaters.
"A competetive player" = Someone who plays the game to match skill against the other guy.
---------------------------------------
Second. About chess. No book in the world, no theory CAN describe a full chess game. If you watch chess at the top level you will hear "And it is from move xx" we have a new game". So Magnus Carlsen and those players are VERY skilled in their craft. And what is that?
Answer:
It is seeing what moves that are likely in the future, They calculate many turns ahead and try to use tactics to win the game. The "Fun" lies in that very action. To calculate and outwit your opponent.
Now we get to Warhammer. And that is just like chess. You try to outwit your oponent by a combination of smart CP-usage, sacrificing units and setting up traps to get the objectives.
And to us "The narrative" is that strategy. Just like old historical battles were people used ruses and deception to win. (Like the papertanks in WW2, Like Hanibal taking elephants through the alps.)
In warhammer that can be charging the knight with Gretchin so the knight cant get to the objective in time. Or baiting out an overwatch so your unsuspected deepstrike can go unharmed. Using angles of cover to survive in a position you shouldnt survive.
The fun and the narrative is in the craft. The tactics..
-----------------------------
About copied lists
In my opinion netlists are pretty worthless. The reason "Netlists" win is often that they used a "move" that noone expected and had a hard time countering. (Like the Orc buggylist when it came. Or the 1k sons MWbomb)
ANY skilled tournament player sees a list like that, then plans for it in their next list. The guy that made it gets a pat on the back "Good thinking there son!" and thats it.
Copying a list of the internet seldom work at the highend tables.
Winning isnt important. Its crafting the WAY to victory that matters. You can give me an army of T2, 1W, Hit on 6s infantry (In casual) and ill do my best to win. And i can assure you that people at the top tables can pull of a victory with worthless units, at least once or twice, because they have the SKILL it takes. I dont care if i lose as long as i feel i did my best.
I play to win and do netlist but usually dumb it down to make it feel more blood angels. Has to be jump pack heavy or its not fun. Lists don't win things entirely though. Otherwise meta lists from the best armies would win every tournament. Net listing =/= Net strategy memorizing. A lot of the fun is in strategizing on the table top. When we want a break from meta competitive we set up some boarding actions and have fun with it.
I would like to say that my most memorable game is against a net list and I beat it with my own home brew list. So satisfying. I generally agree with your point, that what is the point in copying lists? That is a big part of the hobby for me is to build and tinker with lists. You can gain in understanding by doing so. However, if someone is truly struggling with the game, they might want to look at what others are doing in order to get some help. I do check net lists from time to time in order to answer the question, could I possibly beat that?
Throwing my 2 cents in here especially regarding the chess examples. IMO I think you are correct and incorrect at the same time.
As some context I am a casual player and a beginner in war games, also I am more skirmish games oriented. Tho I played a lot of chess.
For me, I started having very good games in chess when I started to study different strategies that other people pulled and tried to adapt them to my current match, while also coming up with my own strategies to counter my opponent. Chess is not only a game of coming up with your own stuff, everything that you “invent” was already played by someone in some match. In chess there are correct moves and blunders, you don’t have a lot of room for meta and non-meta approaches - is a game of logic and thinking ahead and also is a game that requires study (even as a casual). To be good at chess you need to have a good grasp of the existing strategies while also coming up with your own. Learning openings give you some advantage, but represent a small part of the game, mid game and late game memorizing some other guy’s moves won’t help you because it’s impossible to be able to study every possible move in chess. Basically for chess you need a hybrid approach - you need to learn existing openings and strategies while also coming up with up with your own.
For Warhammer or wargames it is a bit different. It’s not enough to learn some army lists, you need to properly understand what you are playing and what your opponent is playing. To outplay someone you need to understand what the armies can do, and also come up with your own strategies - abusing game mechanics is not enough and also you have the randomness of bad dice rolls.
However I do understand that people who are looking to compete in tournaments they are more oriented for meta play because they want to win the tournaments and that’s the best way to do so. Is this a correct and fun approach? I don’t know, because I personally paint model as a relaxation method, and meet up to play with friends just to get off some steam after a long week of work and responsibilities. So my motivation is very different from someone who dedicates most of their time to come up with a meta army and win tournaments. Do I think it is wrong to be competitive? As long as you’re not toxic while doing so I think it is perfectly alright.
I wouldn’t say that being competitive and studying strategies is a bad approach to the game or is not fun - at the end of the day is up to you how you want to approach these games. However, I don’t think is fun when a competitive player is playing competitively in a casual game. Casual game are for having fun and trying weird and interesting plays, keep your competitiveness for tournaments.
I agree with this. I'm new to Warhammer. But I play Yu-Gi-Oh and a couple of other games for quite some time and it's reached the point where 50% of the participants are using the exact same Deck list. Where's the creativity? Nothing new will ever be learned as long as people continue to mimic the success of others. An now for the most part the game in a whole becomes less diverse
It seems like you fundamentally don't understand the difference between casual and competitive gaming. Your chess analogy was spot on, in order to be good at chess and compete competitively, it is mandatory to study from those who have come before you and learn the best strategies. The player agency is piloting that strategy correctly, which is a skill in and of itself, as it's impossible to calculate all possibilities in any game this complicated. Saying that player didn't "win" cause they used someone else's strategy/theory of gameplay is hilarious. Imagine if all chess players were required to design their own chess openings that no one in history had ever used before, it's basically an impossible ask and would also result in sub-par play, which is the opposite of the goal for competitive players. When the best strategy is identified and you choose not to use it when playing competitively, you are giving yourself an arbitrary handycap that will most likely result in game losses, which there is simply no reason to do. I would love to watch you play chess against a competitive player and complain about them using better strategies than you because they took the time to learn from other players and you somehow think that's cheating. Not liking to play competitive games is perfectly valid, but complaining about how could anyone enjoy competitive games is absurd and would be equally absurd for competitive players claiming "how could anyone enjoy a casual game?". You simply have different goals and desires, one is not better than the other and neither should be shamed.
What about new players that have no idea where to start?
That's kind of a good point, I guess that could be a scenario where asking the consensus would be helpful. Although even as a new player, I didn't care to ask what everyone thought was the best option, I just looked at the rules and chose for myself.
@LetsTalkTabletop I'm looking at getting an army together, and it seems like an expensive and time-consuming endeavor to build an army and find that it's just terrible because I didn't know what I was doing... hard to find a middle ground though I guess. Is 90% of the game the list? How much do your strategies matter?
its the same mentality of the curb stompers, they get a high off it, they cant have fun unless they win i had a guy with custodes, he would cheat a ton and i found out later, he couldnt do what he did because he couldnt bear to loose i was beating him in combat with grey knights untill he started to cheat.
Sounds like a great person to be around. 🙄
I play 40k semi competitively. I however agree that net listing is boring and lazy. I love building lists based off of how the actual dice are going to play out. I like to run the in game statistics through my own formula. (I’m autistic for dice math and optimization) I have played against people who do just copy paste their lists from top tournament players, and a majority of the time they crumble against someone who built their own list and put in the work.
I also ask my opponents in non-tournament settings if they wana play a casual game first, or just goof around. I think that’s a good thing to do so you don’t end up putting togeather a list you would play in tournament against something that was built for fluf and fun.
Overall I agree, I liked the chess analogy too!
To answer your question at 5:20
You just spent the last minute saying that learning the nuances of a game is a bad thing. If you took this same argument and applied it to any sport or martial art, I feel you would immediately see how it falls flat. I would argue that you described the most fun part of the hobby for me; learning the minutia of how interactions and plays can be performed to push the limits of that gaming environment. I think you're looking at the way competitive players approach the game and looking for negative intent. You don't have to enjoy competitive play, but you also don't have to be demeaning towards those that do.
To answer your general question
Competitive gaming is fun because it's when you can really see the "machine" that is a game going top speed. Sometimes there are abusive lists that show up, of course, but in my 15 years of tournament wargaming; those people are not common. Most people at a tournament are not playing copy/paste net lists. Those that are, are typically breaking the meta with something that hasn't been FAQ'd, or newer people, in my experience. Tournaments are where I've had some of my most memorable and enjoyable moments of wargaming. Winning model kits from prize support is also something that feel great. Seeing all the well painted armies get their paintjobs judged and looking at conversions that people bring to the events, etc...
100% agree with you, I actually start to feel uncomfortable when I start to win a game, its not why i play at all
Some people just like winning more than others, it literally can be addictive, there are people happy and proud to win a game of dice or something that is 100% luck based and has no real agency, a loc comes IMO from personal insecurities - you can see that some people get physically disturbed when they loose as if that undermines them somehow also like others have mentioned : they spend a lot of money and time to prepare their army - they would feel cheated when they dont win
WOW. You just said the thing that many people secretly believe. I tend to agree with you but only in the more extreme competitive situations. Some people just like a challenge I suppose.
Well…my army lists are kinda “this is how I want to play my army” but they don’t really do what I want them to do
Let me ask you a question: How is tactical netlisting any different than say a sports team learning the plays of their opponents? Or different military formations evolving throughout the years? I totally agree that building your own list from scratch is a lot of fun; I do it all the time. But for the competitive scene, being an effective army means bringing an effective list; and one of the most time/cost-effective ways to do so is to pool from the experience of the countless people on the internet.
Like you said, there is indeed skill in planning for the dice rolls and properly utilizing your list; a number of my friends have ran net lists and gotten dominated because they didn't understand it or play it well. I think there's fun to be had in effectively running certain lists and tactics; it might not be as fulfilling as winning with a double-blind homemade list; but how many tactics in sports or war lost out because they didn't evolve with the times?
I agree with you 90%. I agree netlists are nonsense, but not understanding the meta and attempting to win is folly. All of the enjoyment of this hobby comes from the hobby portion (for me anyway) and the fellowship made with your club or friends. I've had more fun playing cutthroat meta lists against a great opponent than fuzzy games with carebears. That's just me, though. Fun is being with my friends and shooting the breeze and rolling some dice.
This harcons back to a discussion I had with a few friends at a con.
We came to the drunken conclusion there are 3 types of competitive players.
Makers
Tuners
Pilots
Each with a slightly diffrent strategy for this list approach. As each name implies their fundamental approach.
We had two pilots, a tuner and a maker at this discussion.
Me being a maker will pilot an army and see what it is doing under he hood. The divisive a counter list. My motivation is just trashing your list and shattering your dreams of table top glory. So please run the net list I already have the answer.
My best buddy is a tuner, he loves taking lists and adjusting them to his play style or the meta. He is the kind of guy that will sit there for hours comparing two profiles for which is the better fit for "his" updated "net" list.
My other two friends get dozens of reps in with a list until they can pilot the thing in their sleep. There motivation is mastery of a faction or list. How do they justify using someone else's list and strategy is simply they know everyrhing so thoroughly their opponents failed at list/faction mastery.
I hope this helps.
My personal suspicion is they were never picked for the Football team and now think they are good at toy soldiers so they will turn that into a sport! 😁 Creating cheese lists ... is cringe!
It's not so bad when cheese list faces off against cheese list. Like in a tournament setting I don't think it's that big of a deal. It's really only an issue when player styles don't match up. Such as a hyper competitive versus a casual.
@@LetsTalkTabletop That's true, but I still find competitive 40k silly... On day one they thought I want a balanced game that's all about strategy and tactics to play ultra hardcore competitive sports mode, I know what game to take really serious..... Space Aliens VS Super Soldiers ( *?~# )
The noble art of toy soldiery, to be defiled by the concept of a 'net list'. Horrid! Just the other day I was stepping over a homeless man at my LGS looking to play some Warhammer. Imagine my shock when my regular opponent showed up with not one squadron of mega-nobility, but two! I sat my friend down and gave him a stern look and my most disparaging glower. The shame he felt as I placed my monoliths onto the table must have been immense.
Haha. I don't know what the point of this comment is, but it's entertaining!
@@LetsTalkTabletop The point is narrative players tend to have a 'if its good its not fluffy' mentality and you shouldn't shame people for taking certain units because you have no real idea why they put them in their army.
My opinion is that it's not really about fun for such players. They just want to win. I also feel that this is more of a common thing in the US than it is over in the UK with Warhammer. I mean look at the various UA-cam channels. You can find a ton of narrative channels in the UK, but here in the US, you find very competitively focused channels.
In my local area, I find it tough to actually find people that are narrative, into the hobby and painting side of things and not just playing/winning. I love the models and paint everything, but 90% of the people I play around here have half painted models rolling around in a box that are playing net lists.
You'll just have to solo game or do what I've done and deal with the competitive until you cultivate a good group of casuals. They are out there!
@@LetsTalkTabletop This is one of the primary reasons I moved to Horus Heresy about a year ago. HH players make fluffy lists with rights of war in mind and will police themselves to not run lists or too many things that are over powered. The games are just more fun in general as well.
I find the question about netlist something that only a naive person from outside the scene could ask like this. The assumption is that ppl just coppy lists and have 0 input and then the list just run themselves. Niether of those points are true. 1) Net lists tend to get created by group effort. Ppl discus these lists whit each other try them out tweak them and then come to a conlusion on what works and how it should be played. And then there is the skill involged in actaully playing the list on the table. Sure when you play against someone who is not competing and just brings the models that look goot to them then the net list will likely give a edge and lead to a victory. But when you are playing against a other person who is competing you can not expect the list to do the work cause the other person will also have a working list. And lastly i find the idea that you should build your own list for competition just absurd to begin whit. We do not call out ppl on a racetrack for netcarring because they use thechnolige that someone else came up whit in the teams car. No they are there to race and they will bring the best car to the race so they can compete. If you bring your honda civic to a race you are going to get disapointed. The goal of competion is to compete and that is also the fun of it. The push and pull against a other human that is also doing their best enabeling you to be at your best aswell. Where things go wrong is when comonucation about the game goes by the wayside. If one person is comming to compete and the other is comming to just have a story happen by the luck of the dice. Then things will go verry wrong verry quickly.
Also the chess analogy is a great misunderstanding of what is going on. Ppl learing chess moves are not in a race to have the best memory. They are in a race to have the best most optimum staregy. When you and your son are playing you are only competing during the game only trying to outthink each other while your playing. Ppl who study chess are always playing they are creating strategies and learning counter strategies even before the are at the board. They are just always playing chess against each other. Board or no.
A well thought out response! I see what you are saying. If you are trying to win in a competitive setting you will bring the best assets you possibly can, even if you rely on other people to determine what is the best asset. I get that. Although I do disagree with lists not running their selves, if there is an optimal build, the synergies are inherent in it. Which means that choices are limited because they are dictated by the synergies in the list. There have been many lists I have experienced in life that were basically point and click. I have this unit that does this thing and I have this other unit that does this other thing. There is no creativity in that, just following the instructions from everyone online to use the list properly. Although I suppose if both players are doing that thing, then there becomes a metagame where both players are playing with the very most efficient lists they can, and then trying to out think each other and trying to overcome the other person's highly optimized list. So it's kind of a game on top of a game at that point. But I see what you're saying. Also, I am certainly not new to war gaming, but I've never been a competitive player. So if I am naive on that topic, I probably am. I never understood it. I play games to have a positive shared experience that tells a story on the table top. I suppose that's just a completely different world than trying to simply best your opponent. I'm not saying competitive is wrong, it's just so opposite of how I see things.
I have NO idea. I suck. I never win. I have not won post pandemic.I LOVE narrative games. I want it to be fun.
If winning was an issue, I would never play.
I come from a LOT LOT LOT of DMing and Role-playing and that means to me surviving the game session or running a terrific game.
I agree with you! I think that's a good attitude to have. I'm way more concerned with my opponents fun then winning. I throw games all the time so that the scores are closer. Then I try to make up for the hole I dug myself. Now that's fun! Meanwhile my opponent doesn't know I'm doing this.
@LetsTalkTabletop I want my opponent and myself to have fun. I just lose consistently. I will not throw a game. I do not need a hole to crawl out of I just keep digging the hole. Don't get why I lose so much. Been a Nid player since the earliest 3rd edition. Guard player since 3rd edition. A little Marines since 8th. A little Sisters since 9th.
Drukhari since 9th-10th.
I left WH40K permentantly over the Custodes issue and they so nerfed the Emperor in "The End and the Death" volumn three.
Eighth was the best edition. Had been slowly pull away with the end of 8th. However these two heretical decisions made me leave for good.
By the way not a bratty child here. I am a 58 year old gamer, with one child, a Daughter, and I think the Custodes decision was awful.
Just like saying the Sisters of Battle and Silence are not good enough so here are some female Custodes.
I will never accept that of females in the faction. I must admit I would not play against an army that had them.
My hill to die on.
Thanks for reading
@LetsTalkTabletop Also I watch multiple battle reports usually almost every week. I study units, ideas, strategies, tactics, not Meta, and I still only lose. No idea why!
I would NEVER play in a tournament ever. Not cause I lose just NO interest. I just enjoy eating everyone else's armies for biomass with my bugs.
You all look like biomass to us.
Since there is random number probability into play, where even the strongest unit could lose against the weakest, I find the over competiveness on warhammer ridiculous. Enphasis on the"over" as being competitive is fun.
Unfortunately though, the strongest units can't lose against the weakest for the most part. The game is not that balanced. But I see what you're saying.
@@LetsTalkTabletop did not know that, I thought that as long as I'm landing crits and the oponent ones, he be losing regarless of what he has.
Well, for starters critical Hits only count if you have an ability that deals with critical hits. But you've got the entire wounding mechanic to worry about. A Grot at strength 2 is going to have a really hard time against an imperial knight. In a perfectly balanced game, one point that you spend for your list would be an arbitrary amount of lethality and durability in the game. So you know that a model that is 100 points is 100 times as powerful and durable as a one-point model would be. But that's not the way the game works. A point is not always a point across all armies. Sometimes a point is actually two points. LOL. I'm just being hyperbolic now but it's the truth.
List building is the main problem that prevents this kind of games from being proper wargames
When you don't love the game yet or understand how it works, but know enough that there are 'bad' units, you'll be tempted to just copy the list another guy made and put that together, instead of wasting hundreds to thousands of dollars on something that just doesn't work on the table, especially because these people can't conceive that they're bad at the game when they're good at League of Legends.
Besides that, you're applying your own morality and level of intelligence to people who don't share either, but at the end of the day if they won and you didn't, that's all that matters, because they got the dopamine hit, you didn't and you're surly about it, which makes it even more fun for them.
However, I share your viewpoint and I am extremely discontent with 40k for a lot of reasons, one of which being that GW does not encourage players to play for fun, rather than play to win.
It's kinda like out-sourcing one part of the game. List building may be something that a player really has no interest in. Similar to people that outsource the hobby part of the game. There's lots of 40k players that just do not like painting and building models.
I also find a lot of joy in discovering unit synergies and strengths and weaknesses. But maybe some people just wanna roll dice and pilot a decent force.
It's fun to feel good at something. Life is meaningless just like Warhammer. It's that simple
Knowing is half the battle. It comes down to execution.
If you pick meta knight in smash it may be the OP choice, but if you can't do anything yourself then you will lose.
Does everyone have the time you do? Does everyone have the ability to think on this kind of level?
Do you know how football and other games work? It's the same thing. According to you all football and basketball plays are cheating.
If you picked up a tournament list, and played it for the first time against me. I could probably beat you with my non-competetive one.
I was on your side until you called it cheating. Imagine calling it cheating to do something perfectly in the games rules. Find me the rule that says "your army list must be one that you made with no outside help or influence" and i'll agree with you again
Can't say I disagree with anything you said. I think people copy and paste lists because it's easy mode to an effective army, rather than put in the work and adapt.
I would ask almost the inverse question. If list building is the only part of the game that matters, why do you put models on the table and roll dice? More than likely at least part of your answer is "because it's fun." So then why do you insist on gatekeeping that fun behind listbuilding from scratch? In the same way that memorizing basic openings in chess allows you ro skip the more boring opening turns of chess and still arrive at a fun and interesting midgames, netlisting allows you to be sure that you arrive to your game with a list that can give you a competitive game on the table no matter how good your opponents list is.
I think the cognitive load and effort needed to be a top tier competitive chess player is WAY higher than just copying a net list.
I want to unpack a couple separate things that you brought up.
Seeking out net lists: I don't think there is anything inherently wrong or bad with going online and looking for list-building advice. It's a shortcut. It will get you there, but you are skipping important steps that make the difference between good players with good lists and bad players with good lists. Actual rules literacy and player experience. Very few lists can serve auto-wins to middling player. And lists that are that overpowered quickly get Nerfed by GW. People who netlist without learning how to play the game will always be stuck at the middle tables.
This good take 3 Bois: I truly dislike when someone is trying to forge their own list only to be bullied for not taking the current meta choices. This is what happens when mid-tier net-listers lurk in hobby stores and forums waiting to shit all over your neat lists. Hate it. Hate it. Hate it.
It's okay to be a good player. There are competitive players who sleep with their codex under their pillows and are very intentional with their lists and strategy. These players will absolutely eat our lunches and that doesn't make them waac or beardy. People who work hard to be good at the game deserve credit for the effort they put in to get there.
So I'm just oversimplifying it? That's probably a fair assessment. LOL . But if there are a million predetermined deployments encounter deployments, it's essentially just looking through your catalog in your head on how to answer any given situation. I've already come up with a solution to it. Randomized the deployment of the pieces on the chess board, with each player having the same setup as their opponent, but a deployment that they don't know ahead of time. Then the real chessing would take place. Lol. Making moves and counter moves on the fly versus just knowing all of the preset situations and their counters. I would say players each take turns placing one piece in their starting lines and their opponent has to place the same piece in opposite formation to it. Boom. Highlander for chess lol.
@@LetsTalkTabletop I think learning all of the different move-sets and being able to predict, recognize and counter them is exactly what makes competitive chess impressive. The same goes for any competitive game. With study and practice you have laid the foundation of victory.
"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win."
Sun Tzu
As much crap as I give competitives, I agree with you. There is a certain level of respect they earn if they actually learn the game and actually learn their army and don't rely on everyone else to tell them how to play.
@@LetsTalkTabletopI play Adepta Sororitas or Sisters of Battle as they're also called. I've tried net listing and making my own. It's not easy to win as it's a hard faction to learn and it's not easy to understand the intent behind every inclusion in a list. There are many small and big decisions that matter a lot. The same list can win a grand tournament or get absolutely trashed depending on the player.
As for chess, I play a lot of that too, and the higher you get the more it's about memorizing opening moves, but it usually doesn't take that many moves until it's a unique game and making your own decisions comes into play.
I respect your questions, but I do think both games go a lot deeper than you give them credit for. Then again, Bobby Fisher did say towards the end of his life that he grew to hate chess due to how much it became about memorizing all the best openings and patterns so maybe you're onto something, idk 😛
I will read the comments as well because I don’t understand either. My opinion, from the point of view of a former teacher, is similar to yours. Yes, you may have written the answer on the paper, but you copied the other person’s test. I want to see what you can create yourself, not how well you can look up information.
Exactly! The correct answer doesn't mean any work was done and no pride should be taken in it.
One thing I've learned is people generally are competitive and and will want to do what they can to win.
On the chess analogy vs real life there certainly is a disconnect. I'm of the mind with you, a game is fun to just throw something together to see if it works. In real life there is certainly value to tactics and strategies you didn't come up with.
Im with you 100% my friend. Whenever i read or hear about this or that, or which is better Or discussion of "gamey" aspects of a particular ruleset my eyes glaze over. Hahah. I guess thats part of the reason I lean mostly historical/real world gaming. There seems to be less of that type of thing, with some notable exceptions of course.
the real answer is because the vast majority of players is not able to make a strong list with only the rulebook, and they go for the easy way. 100% the top players in any game made the list from themself, like your frend... and by the way the anti\counter meta is the way to win turnaments
Thanks for commenting! What do you mean with the statement that it's not possible to make strong lists with only the rule book? What else do you need besides your army rules to make a good list?
@@LetsTalkTabletop i mean they not have the mental skill to make a strong list from themself, they have no experience and no commitment because evry time they play online top result list.
As someone who plays several games competitively(but not 40k) it seems like you're just coming at it from the wrong angle. What you describe in a video is just a bad player. An online list is a starting line. You have to learn how to use a good list. Also asking for help and testing with friends is just an effective way of preparing for a tournament and is just generally useful in life. Its often less about how I can get better and more about how we can get better as a community. At the end of the day, its not about winning for me as a competitor its about giving it my all and doing the best I can. That includes preparing my list to be as effective as possible. Its also why i can get frustrated at silly mistakes i may make over the course of a game.
I think you attribute too much influence over the win chance on the list design. 🤔
I'm not really discussing winning or losing, I just don't see how people can take pride in winning when all of their strategies, which are dictated by your list, you can't do things that your list doesn't allow, we're created by other people and copy and pasted. But there have been multiple good responses about this that show the other side of it in this comment section. I don't have as dim of a view as I once did about it.
I never really get me vs them elitism....like your better than them for "earning your wins" like putting a space marine chapter master with a unit of company hero's takes some sort of mega brain thinking.......I understand you have stated this as a question but it came across to me as someone viewing the content like you are judging this group of people from a handful of your personal bad experiences. (the competitive players often in my experience hard working slightly older hobbyists no different from yourself) I don't think I've ever met the arca typical meta chaser just people who have most of those units already and in order to make sure they have the best list possible buy the missing units for their army like in order to play in my most recent event I brought another 4 legions imperials kratos as they are quite good right now. I really enjoy your content though keep up the good work.
I feel like your issue has more to do with playing with assholes than net listing. I think the competitive scene is pretty well split between those that love healthy and fair competition and those that get their jollies from winning at all costs. Your focus and dislike for losing to people who didn’t come up with their lists from scratch makes me think you have more of the latter in you than you represent. Personally I don’t really care where my list or my opponents list came from I care about having a game where my opponent and I are open about the interactions in our list, jovial, respectful, and trying our asses off to outmaneuver each other for the win. That, to me, is the crux of healthy competition
I don't think you understand the word meta. Meta is an optimised style of lists, based on the current rules and points, that have a bit of competitive advantage over most other lists.
Also, no one with any skill should lose against a player who is playing a netlist for the first time, as they don't have the practice and reps to optimise that list
Refer to Magic the Gathering.
That's even worse!
It is because they HAVE to "win."
And no. That's not how people actually play chess. What you are talking about only gets players into the mid-game.
To really understand "meta" as a concept you need to study Starcraft or Pokémon TCG.
What do you mean about starcraft or pokémon? I'm not super familiar with either one of them so I'm interested to hear what you say.
@@LetsTalkTabletop Those are the two I'm most familiar with for how I assume the Meta might work in Warhammer. Although I'm not that familiar with Meta-chasing in Warhammer. Part of the problem in Warhammer appears to me to be poor rules/points/playtesting.
In Pokémon it is not that a list wins the game for you. You still have to play out of your mind to win, but a better deck makes it easier. They have only ever banned 1 or 2 cards outright for being overpowered. The real power is in the synergies and that is what the pros figure out and get copied by the Meta-chasers. But you still have to know how to take advantage of them.
In Starcraft the Meta changes (slightly) every year even though the game hasn't had any changes or balance updates in 20 years.
Someone will figure out a wrinkle in the game and that will ripple thru the community as people learn how to exploit it and how to counter it. The people who figure these things out are unbelievable players and the people who can copy them are also unbelievable. The people who can't use them get left behind because they aren't as good. But the "new Meta" definitely doesn't win the game for you. It is more like slightly changing the position of the guard rails on a race track.
People tend to research things before buying or doing something. For example you could have watched any number of sound tutorials on youtube before starting to release videos and got yourself a better mic.