New/Returning players: Important Video on Close Combat

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Ish said:

Paxsmiles
 

I know it's a typo, but I kinda like that. I might become Pax Smiles....😄

[Brother Glacius]

17 hours ago, paxmiles said:

This video is about how to be a more unpleasant player. Yes, it's technically correct, but it's playing in a way that won't make friends and will likely make people upset with the 40k rules for being poorly written.

Reminds of a tactic that @peter.cosgrove was doing, where he'd use the CSM backpacks to "hook" models in place, as you can't fallback through enemy models (so if you are "hooked" in place, you can't fallback no matter how much space you have to fallback). He's right, that is the rules, but it's the kinda thing that should be reserved for a time of desperation, not something you do in every fight phase.

Sorry Pax, first off, this is your opinion and says more about you than it does about the video. I watched the video as well. It was clearly designed and presented to say "these are the rules" not "here are some tricks to surprise your opponent with". You clearly read the latter into the video. As you pointed out, GW has a long history of presenting a context, but then leaving barn doors open for interpretation due to poor wording.

That being said, it is great to see people spending the time and effort to clarify the rules as best as possible so that we are all on the same page.

I'll give a very specific example. Heroic Intervention. I would never have thought about using it away from a charge. GW presented it in the rules as, your unit gets charged, you have a character nearby, so he can jump into the mix. However, what GW failed to do with the rule was actually state that it could only be used near a charge. Was that on purpose? Or did they just not provide enough examples around the rule to show all of the possibilities?

I think you are automatically labeling these unexpected options as "shady". If someone tried to pull that in a game on me, I might feel the same way. However Lyraeus did not do that. He shared info. He shared educational info, not "how to cheese out a win" info. You might not see it, but the above post does come off like you are trying to shame him. You are implying "if you do this, you are an unpleasant player". Probably not your intention, but that is how it comes off.

[Brother Glacius]

 

Dang it, double post.

[Lyraeus]

@Brother Glacius we are not sure if the heroic intervention was on purpose but when Blood Angel smash captains were more common people used them to counter flyers by placing them near where they expected a flyer to end up and on their opponents turn heroic in. GW is fully aware it exists because it examined the smash Captain issue with big faq 2 and didn't change that part. So likely, it was unexpected but ok by them.

 

[Tamwulf]

Lyraeus, I think you give GW far too much credit for rules writing and play testing. I've heard the argument before about "Tournament level players play testing" and I've always asked "Oh yeah? Who?" To my knowledge, GW has never published a list or said who "they" were. No one has ever stepped forward to say "Yeah, I play tested for GW". I do know that some GW guys from the rules studio showed up at Adepticon last year, and they were keenly interested in the non-ITC 40K and AoS tournaments. Talking to the guys that ran the event, the GW guys requested a copy of all the army lists and results (and were given them). They chatted with a lot of the players, and even talked about how certain armies are fun to play, and others not so fun. Couple months later, FAQ comes out, and Deepstrike/Reserves are changed, Bugs get the Nerf bat, and Command Points change. I 100% believe all those changes came from what the GW staff saw at Adepticon, and had nothing to do with "external playtesters". We are starting to see the GW guys show up at more and more events, which is awesome and I'm glad GW is reengaging the gaming community. 

 

[Brother Glacius]

55 minutes ago, Lyraeus said:

@Brother Glacius we are not sure if the heroic intervention was on purpose but when Blood Angel smash captains were more common people used them to counter flyers by placing them near where they expected a flyer to end up and on their opponents turn heroic in. GW is fully aware it exists because it examined the smash Captain issue with big faq 2 and didn't change that part. So likely, it was unexpected but ok by them.

 

I was talking about the HI explanation in the video.

[Lyraeus]

32 minutes ago, Brother Glacius said:

I was talking about the HI explanation in the video.

I understand. That was made when 8tg was brand new. So long long ago

[Lyraeus]

21 hours ago, pretre said:

I'm pretty sure I know what it'll be talking about, but not curious enough to watch a video. 😉

The Battle Host did 2 podcasts on the "Assault Phase" so all about charging. It's a good deep dive. 

 

I linked the first of them

[Ish]

1 hour ago, Tamwulf said:

To my knowledge, GW has never published a list or said who "they" were. No one has ever stepped forward to say "Yeah, I play tested for GW".

With respect, that’s not entirely accurate. Mike Brandt, Reece Robbins, and others have all come forward to say “Yeah, I play tested for GW.”

I don’t know how much (or how little) influence their play testing had on the design team. Doubt we ever will know... 

OTOH, we all know there’s no “beta test” that is ever a substitute for a “wide release.” Having a dozen guys play the game for several months just wasn’t ever going to match having tens of thousands of nerds playing thousands of games ever week.

I’m happy with the balance, on the whole, of the current edition and very happy to see GW taking a more active interest in tweaking the game for the better.

 

[Lyraeus]

4 minutes ago, Ish said:

I’m happy with the balance, on the whole, of the current edition and very happy to see GW taking a more active interest in tweaking the game for the better.

 

This is my stance. The game is far better now in creativity and balance than it has for a long time. To. The point where there are top players working to combat about 4 different factions 

[Guest]

19 hours ago, paxmiles said:

I don't know. I was only using his use of "shame" because he said it. I don't really think telling people to play nice is shaming them. Anyway, I guess I didn't explain my point well, given that multiple people are getting to a different conclusions about what I meant. Sorry.

 

You keep talking about 40k as a tight ruleset. It isn't. It never has been. GW has a long history of vague rules with even more vague support. It's getting better, but it's not to the stage of a tight ruleset. That video is one player's interpretation of the rules. He is probably right, but expecting players to adhere to one player's interpretation is unreasonable and will result in unpleasantness in-game. I'm trying to share wisdom. You don't have to believe me, but I've gotten in a lot of such debates where I was very much following the RAW to the letter and players just don't always want to use it. And they don't have to.

40k, in practice, uses a democratic ruleset due to a lack of support from GW in actually defining their rules in a clear manner. Sure, the book says one thing, and players kinda follow the book. But then someone asks in the store what it means, and the local consensus of players defines the rule you actually play with based on what they conclude it "means," which is often not the RAW.

New players often report that the rules seem to change from game to game, and they often do. It's not always intentional, each player interprets things a bit differently. And in fairness, there is a lot to keep track of, especially for new players.

So my point is to play nice. Don't assume that that everyone interprets the rules same way, or that there is a "one correct way" to interpret the rules.

@Lyraeus I noticed that you've not quoted this post at all, but have responded to posts both before and after. Is it possible you missed my long explaination explaining what I meant?

 

[andy]

19 minutes ago, Ish said:

With respect, that’s not entirely accurate. Mike Brandt, Reece Robbins, and others have all come forward to say “Yeah, I play tested for GW.”

I don’t know how much (or how little) influence their play testing had on the design team. Doubt we ever will know... 

OTOH, we all know there’s no “beta test” that is ever a substitute for a “wide release.” Having a dozen guys play the game for several months just wasn’t ever going to match having tens of thousands of nerds playing thousands of games ever week.

I’m happy with the balance, on the whole, of the current edition and very happy to see GW taking a more active interest in tweaking the game for the better.

 

In the most recent Independent Characters podcast, Carl Tuttle mentioned that there are two playtest groups that he's aware of. One is codenamed The Mournival, and does rules/competitive playtest -- I believe that's the one that the Nova and FLG guys are a part of. The other is called The Infinity Circuit, and comes at playtest from a more casual, narrative point of view and includes people like his group (Carl, Adan, Justin), Loopy (from the Masters of the Forge podcast, and other stuff) and a few others I don't recall.

I think it is smart for GW to come at playtest from both sides. Parsing the two streams of feedback can't always be easy, as 40k has a pretty complex history (in-game backstory, playstyle and edition wars) but I'm glad they're at least trying to address all the styles of play.

Edited January 12, 2019 by andy
clarification

[Ish]

I think the nature of the way the Internet shapes “coverage” of the hobby can also distort our perspectives on the game. When I’m looking for WH40k stuff on the Internet, I’m pretty much looking for previews of new releases, terrain and modeling tutorials, cool conversions, and tourney results.

I am not looking for battlereports and let’s plays of some guys’ garagehammer casual weekly friendly game... I have my own casual friendly games. Reading someone else’s recap about a casual game is like listening to someone recap the entirety of a movie that I’ve already recently seen. I don’t think I’m alone in feeling this way... and I think the “Big Name” sites that cover the hobby known that.

So tourney games from the top tables at LVO, NOVA, AdeptiCon, and so forth get covered. Because they get clicks.

Its the same reason ESPN covers March Madness, but doesn’t cover the four dudes shooting hoops in your local city park. But I guarantee you there are a lot more people playing pick up games in parks than are playing in the NCAA finals.

Casual garagehammer doesn’t get covered, sure, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t get played.

[SPaceORK]

Well I was going to read all the replies but... yea.

Anywhoo! That video was great and pretty basic close combat stuff that I figured everyone already knew?

I though he was going to go into "trapping" units or even single models of units so they cant flee combat or using certain models (like wave serpents) to effectively stun lock units. But I guess that more tactical than explaining the rules.

But yea, close combat is the best and most tactically deep phase of the game because of the sheer number of options you have to affect the outcome of the game.

I'd you dont wanna read a rulebook, don't be mad cause someone else did.

[Lyraeus]

21 minutes ago, paxmiles said:

@Lyraeus I noticed that you've not quoted this post at all, but have responded to posts both before and after. Is it possible you missed my long explaination explaining what I meant?

 

Others covered your comment but I can take a crack. 

 

The history of 40k has no reflection on the game itself today. The video is a solid explanation of how rules work in the Assault phase while noting going into the examples @SPaceORK speaks of.

Ultimately this is the most basic of basic and the fact you consider this as mean sorts of play than games will be painful 

[peter.cosgrove]

On 1/11/2019 at 2:09 PM, paxmiles said:

This video is about how to be a more unpleasant player. Yes, it's technically correct, but it's playing in a way that won't make friends and will likely make people upset with the 40k rules for being poorly written.

Reminds of a tactic that @peter.cosgrove was doing, where he'd use the CSM backpacks to "hook" models in place, as you can't fallback through enemy models (so if you are "hooked" in place, you can't fallback no matter how much space you have to fallback). He's right, that is the rules, but it's the kinda thing that should be reserved for a time of desperation, not something you do in every fight phase.

Since this turned into a name & shame thread, what carl is referring to is the capability to use the model's modeling against a non based model, not only because the developer's statement about not being able to move when in base to base does not apply to non based models, to legally move the model against a portion of the opponent's model in such a fashion that should the opponent's model wish to move (i/e fall back)  it would have to move the model that was placed against it thus denying the fall back movement.

[pretre]

3 minutes ago, peter.cosgrove said:

Since this turned into a name & shame thread, what carl is referring to is the capability to use the model's modeling against a non based model, not only because the developer's statement about not being able to move when in base to base does not apply to non based models, to legally move the model against a portion of the opponent's model in such a fashion that should the opponent's model wish to move (i/e fall back)  it would have to move the model that was placed against it thus denying the fall back movement.

This sounds more like things not covered by the rules and really sketchy.

You're saying you lean your models against mine so that no matter what I do I can't move because that would move your model? I'm gonna say show me where you're allowed to do that.

[peter.cosgrove]

You assume that "lean" is part of the procedure.

[pretre]

3 minutes ago, peter.cosgrove said:

You assume that "lean" is part of the procedure.

Okay, whatever, touch, lean, etc. You're placing your model against mine and assuming that that changes the way that contact works? That's modeling all your models with their arms out like zombies to entangle enemy minis and prevent fallback that way.

Let's skip all that. Please quote the rules that support your stance.

[Lyraeus]

22 minutes ago, peter.cosgrove said:

Since this turned into a name & shame thread, what carl is referring to is the capability to use the model's modeling against a non based model, not only because the developer's statement about not being able to move when in base to base does not apply to non based models, to legally move the model against a portion of the opponent's model in such a fashion that should the opponent's model wish to move (i/e fall back)  it would have to move the model that was placed against it thus denying the fall back movement.

Since you measure from the hull for movement from those types of Vehicles like soul grinders and Mek Gunz, Leman Russ's, Chimera's, Rhino's, hell even Repulsors you can't fall back from something if it means you will be left within an inch of the hull. Mind you weapons and bits can count as hull if you are using them at any point to measure from. So if your tank has a tire on the side and you use that tire to measure distance for an attack or move, that tire better count as hull for the rest of the game. 

For a model like a soul grinder, underneath counts. 

 

[peter.cosgrove]

It doesn't change anything. BRB states you cannot move through enemy models. If there are models surrounding a model, and in order to move the model the models surrounding the model have to be moved out of the way, then you can't fall back. While it is not as important with based models, because the base is the model, and as long as the base can move through, then the model can move through, a baseless model with sticky outy bits that when moved has to tip or knock over the models surrounding it in order to move makes placing the surrounding models a very careful endeavor. There have been enough times where I have thought I had a baseless model surrounded, preventing a fall back movement, when the baseless model could be moved. I have especially been faced with the rather odd contention that the baseless model, in order to move had to pass over the base of one of my models, but the baseless model, having no base, could do so because it doesn't have a base.

[peter.cosgrove]

3 minutes ago, Lyraeus said:

Since you measure from the hull for movement from those types of Vehicles like soul grinders and Mek Gunz, Leman Russ's, Chimera's, Rhino's, hell even Repulsors you can't fall back from something if it means you will be left within an inch of the hull. Mind you weapons and bits can count as hull if you are using them at any point to measure from. So if your tank has a tire on the side and you use that tire to measure distance for an attack or move, that tire better count as hull for the rest of the game. 

For a model like a soul grinder, underneath counts. 

 

however, given the case of the tire, for example, if the tire is not low enough to impact against the base of the model that is surrounding it, then moving the vehicle past the base of the model, even given that the tire has to pass over the base, is evidently technically legal, and not one that I even bother to contend. It just means I need to place the models surrounding the baseless model more carefully to prevent a fall back movement.

[Ish]

So, basically, you've decided to weaponize modeling for advantage and are getting salty that people are saying it's unsportsmanlike?

Edited January 13, 2019 by Ish
Punctuation.

[pretre]

Distances in Warhammer
40,000 are measured in
inches (") between the
closest points of the bases
of the models you’re
measuring to and from. If
a model does not have a
base, such is the case with
many vehicles, measure to
and from the closest point
of that model’s hull instead.
You can measure distances
whenever you wish.

Moving
A model can be moved in any direction,
to a distance, in inches, equal to or less
than the Move characteristic on its
datasheet. No part of the model’s base
(or hull) can move further than this. It
cannot be moved through other models
or through terrain features such as walls,
but can be moved vertically in order to
climb or traverse any scenery.

Enemy Models
All models in the same army are
friendly models. Models controlled
by an opposing player are enemy
models. When you move a model in the
Movement phase, it may not be moved
within 1" of any enemy models.

Falling Back
Units starting the Movement phase
within 1" of an enemy unit can either
remain stationary or Fall Back. If you
choose to Fall Back, the unit must end its
move more than 1" away from all enemy
units. If a unit Falls Back, it cannot
Advance (see below), or charge (pg 182)
later that turn. A unit that Falls Back
also cannot shoot later that turn unless it
can FLY.

 

 

 

[pretre]

So, since all distances for models with a base are measured by the base, a model with a hull can only move through a model with a base by moving through it's base.All the other stuff is ignored for measuring distances, which is what movement does.