Blood Angels: ITC Tournament list - 1850ptc

[Guest]

So this was my first ITC and was seriously unprepared for anything. Everything had rerolls to everything, everything had at least 4+ INV save against everything. I seriously had no idea how many units are just sickeningly overpowered compared to my units.

 

I also forgot that my crozius had ap3 which would have helped thin squads out. I was able to charge with my chaplain every game so it would have been great to remember that.

 

The most humiliating is my last game where the guy shot a single melta gun and managed to not only blow up my raider in one shot (reroll to hit and reroll penetration) but also wiped 10 DC guys due to the explosion. Bad rolls on my part I guess and feel no pain just didn't help.

 

I learned my lesson and will avoid any tournament. I will stick to local leagues from now on.

So, just curious, could you give a unit by unit rundown on which worked and which didn't? I find these helpful, often more so than an evaluation of the army as a whole. 

[galahad911]

 

 

Competitive 40K players don't want a fair system, they want a system they can exploit to win. You want the ultimate competitive game? Backgammon, Checkers, Chess, Go. All games where both players have the exact same armies and rules, and it's the players skill, not the army they take, that determines the winner*. A competitive 40K player doesn't like those games because he can't take more Knights than Bishops, or because he takes a couple red markers, he gets a +1 on his dice rolling. In short, the competitive 40K player can't exploit the rules to give him an advantage in the game. It's not GW's rules that force a competitive player to exploit the game to win, it's the self imposed "rules" the players have made on themselves to win that causes these lists. In other words, blame the player, not the game.

 

 

 

I won't speak for anyone else, but I for one self identify as a competitive player and find this statement incredibly insulting. It is a gross over generalization and comes off as incredibly holier than thou. Get off of your high horse buddy!

[Lord Hanaur]

I consider myself a competitive player, but i tend to err towards his side of the argument when he says that it has gotten a bit out of hand.  Even a competitive player should be able to admit that to themselves.

 

i went to the Bay Area Open and felt a little dirty because I brought 34 points in the form of an Inquisitor and 3 Servo Skulls as allies to my otherwise pure Tau Empire list.  i tend to like playing with a more purist list.  

 

Then i saw the lists at the tournament.  Well... 200 heinous lists, all in one place.  Lol.  34 points suddenly seemed like a small crime.  The reality of nerfing some of the key abilities I am susceptible to suddenly seemed very prudent policy indeed.

 

I think that most codex's will function well with just their own faction involved.  For example i could have gotten a more limited Servoskull effect from a kroot unit for a few points more and infiltrated them in order to cut off some of the scouting movement by enemies. it wouldn't have been as cost effective nor QUITE as effective but it would make a difference and would be purer.

 

My advice is always to plan your purchases around tournament play and that gives you the most options that make sense in and out of tournament play.  Also, the ITC has nerf'd many more things than it buff's so playing using their rules, while odious in a few places for sure, overall balances things a bit.  I'm not a fan of how they do things all the time but i cannot argue that a nerf'd Invisibility, less super Heavies and some nerfing of other psyker powers has done a lot to improve my feelings about competitions.

 

I think getting lots of games in all at once and getting to play with ones toys is pretty freaking cool.  I Iament that competitive 40K got so far afield thanks to allies.  I truly think it made the game less "believable" and that matters to people like me who spent many more years playing Dungeons and Dragons than we will ever play at this.  To the role playing crowd I'm in, the need for verisimilitude has been well established and ingrained.  Cheese monsters have long been villified and rejected in the role playing community for the most part.  So when I played an Inquisitor with my Tau, It doesn't make it more fun than the alternative, but it made 'sense" to do in the context of the event.

 

What can ya' do?  But if you're going to go to a tournament with the sole purpose of winning it all (and only one person ever does) it might not be the most realistic goal to shoot for even for competitive players.  You kind of miss out on the having fun aspect of it if that's all you are there for.  if you're going to learn, see what people are doing and treat it like a laboratory like i kind of do, then you might have all kinds of fun with the information you have gleaned from each event.  I brought Miliatrum Tempestus last time I played at the Guardian Cup (well...the actual one) and while that was probably the least powerful thing i could have brought, I still got a ton of good information on how to play them better.  Worth doing, because it's an army that's on hard mode most of the time.

 

Anywho, i sympathize completely with the Verisimilitude crowd and also the crowd of people who suffer shell shock after some tournaments.  it's understandable.

[pretre]

I go to tournaments with the goal of getting three games in and any wins are a pleasant surprise.

[Guest]

I go to tournaments with the goal of getting three games in and any wins are a pleasant surprise.

When I go to a tournament, and it's rare, the goal is to get out of the house and interact with people. The game is just a pretense. 

 

That said, my mood is often lacking at these events because after struggling to get the army ready, I often forget to bring adequate food and drink, so my mood spirals during the event.

[pretre]

I try to eat a lot prior to the event and always drink a lot of liquids. ;)

[AbusePuppy]

The #1 rule of 40K is to have fun. If you are not having fun, then why play? This is the crux of tournament play. If you have fun losing to competitive lists, then have a nut! If you like building incredibly complicated lists that fully take advantage and exploit the rules system, then have a nut! However, don't expect everyone else to see the game the same way. This is why I don't like to play in tournaments. They are not fun to me. And I bet they are not fun to a lot of people either, but if it's the only game in town and you want to play, then you are kind of forced into it, aren't you?

 

See, that's a fair point- saying that you don't enjoy tournaments is fine, and no one is gonna object to that. But that wasn't what you said the first time- you said that people in general shouldn't enjoy tournaments, because that was "playing the game wrong." And it's what you have continued to say throughout the remainder of your post, which sorta undermines any kind of point you're trying to make. You can't dictate to other people how they should play the game any more than they can dictate the same to you.

 

 

About your final point- GW purposefully, and explicitly has avoided making tournament rules or supporting tournaments in general. The base rules of the game don't cover it, provide for it, or balance the game in any way around tournaments. It's the players that demanded it, and when GW didn't produce the rules for it, we (the players again) made our own tournament rules. Warhammer 40K Seventh Edition is NOT a tournament system and is not meant to be played in a tournament. I don't know why you can say it's GW's fault for not making the game for tournaments when GW has made it pretty clear that the game is not for tournaments. We, the players once again, have taken a casual game meant to be played with beer and pretzels with our mates, and forced it to be played in a competitive, tournament environment. It's like trying to force a square peg into a round hole. It doesn't work. With that being said, yeah, I can see how someone would think it's GW's fault for designing the rules to not support tournament play.

 

Obviously you and I are not going to see eye-to-eye on the viability of tournament play, but it's worth pointing out that almost no game is designed for tournament play. Soccer and football aren't designed for tournament play; chess isn't designed for tournament play; none of the games of the Olympics are designed for tournament play; Magic: the gathering wasn't designed for tournament play; poker wasn't designed for tournament play. All of these games are still played in tournaments, however, and quite extensively so. What a game was "designed" for is pretty irrelevant to how the customer base ends up playing it, and a smart company realizes that and adapts to that reality.

 

So yes, it is GW's fault for designing a game with poorly-balanced rules. Good rules balance isn't just about tournaments- in fact, it benefits casual players as much or more. Nothing ruins a friendly game faster than a blatant power imbalance, and in the absence of good rules design that is very likely to happen. Good rules design is about putting both players on an equitable footing and giving them an equal chance to win the game, not about some mythical "only works in a tournament" rules system.

 

 

Competitive 40K players don't want a fair system, they want a system they can exploit to win.

 

For someone who claims not to be a competitive player you sure seem to know an awful lot about how we think. Well heck, son, two can play at that game- lemme make some broad generalizations about casual players!

 

Casual players don't want fun rules, they just want to kick all other players out of the game so they can get their Participation Trophy for first place no matter what crappy army they bring to the table. Most casual players can't even read, so it doesn't matter what rules GW puts out- they'll buy literally anything. And the ones that can read are just going to cheat and build their army wrong anyways, since all that time inhaling paint fumes has completely scrambled what little brains they might have had.

 

See, sweeping generalizations about other people really are both fun and productive!

[Guest]

For someone who claims not to be a competitive player you sure seem to know an awful lot about how we think. Well heck, son, two can play at that game- lemme make some broad generalizations about casual players!

 

Casual players don't want fun rules, they just want to kick all other players out of the game so they can get their Participation Trophy for first place no matter what crappy army they bring to the table. Most casual players can't even read, so it doesn't matter what rules GW puts out- they'll buy literally anything. And the ones that can read are just going to cheat and build their army wrong anyways, since all that time inhaling paint fumes has completely scrambled what little brains they might have had.

 

See, sweeping generalizations about other people really are both fun and productive!

Don't really agree with tamwulf, but don't agree here either. I do think you are mostly joking...

 

The casual and competitive players are very similar. They both play 40k , and when playing the game, they adhere to the goal of the game, which is to win (or at least to try to win). And, being a casual or competitive player doesn't mean you can't play in competitive or casual events. There is a lot of cross over. Not all the ITC fans are competitive players, and not all the fans of casual play are actually casual players.

 

My issue is with players that don't care if their enjoyment of the game happens at the expense of the enjoyment of others. This isn't exclusive to competitive players, and isn't too common in Ordo, but it does exist and seems to be more common within competitive events. This sort of player gravitates towards events with prizes and clear winners. So while it's not exclusive to the ITC, I do encounter them much more often in ITC regulated events. They are bad for the hobby.

[galahad911]

Don't really agree with tamwulf, but don't agree here either. I do think you are mostly joking...

 

The casual and competitive players are very similar. They both play 40k , and when playing the game, they adhere to the goal of the game, which is to win (or at least to try to win). And, being a casual or competitive player doesn't mean you can't play in competitive or casual events. There is a lot of cross over. Not all the ITC fans are competitive players, and not all the fans of casual play are actually casual players.

 

My issue is with players that don't care if their enjoyment of the game happens at the expense of the enjoyment of others. This isn't exclusive to competitive players, and isn't too common in Ordo, but it does exist and seems to be more common within competitive events. This sort of player gravitates towards events with prizes and clear winners. So while it's not exclusive to the ITC, I do encounter them much more often in ITC regulated events. They are bad for the hobby.

 

See, I don't think there are very many players out there that truly don't care about the enjoyment of their opponent. I've been to more tournaments than I can remember and can count on 1 hand the amount of times I've played with someone who was stomping me and not sharing in my bad time. Just because the other guy's army is pounding your to dust doesn't mean he doesn't care about your enjoyment. Now if he's stone faced and not interacting with you, or even worse, rubbing it in then you have a reason to complain. But again, that simply isn't an issue in the VAST majority of the time.

 

In fact, I've run in to more bad attitudes from "casual" players than from tournament players. No one made you bring your *insert weak list here* army. You knew you weren't going to be able to hang and you brought it anyway. You had a bad time? The reason you had a bad time is in the damn mirror.

[Lord Hanaur]

For someone who claims not to be a competitive player you sure seem to know an awful lot about how we think. Well heck, son, two can play at that game- lemme make some broad generalizations about casual players!

 

Casual players don't want fun rules, they just want to kick all other players out of the game so they can get their Participation Trophy for first place no matter what crappy army they bring to the table. Most casual players can't even read, so it doesn't matter what rules GW puts out- they'll buy literally anything. And the ones that can read are just going to cheat and build their army wrong anyways, since all that time inhaling paint fumes has completely scrambled what little brains they might have had.

 

See, sweeping generalizations about other people really are both fun and productive!

That...might...have been a little too far.  sheesh.

[WestRider]

And AP demonstrates that Poe's Law is still entirely valid ;)

 

Speaking for myself, my experiences have more or less been in line with Galahad911's. Competitive players, in general, want to compete, not to stomp. They want a challenge, not just an easy win. I have played a couple of guys who were genuinely newb-stompers, and a couple more who were more or less suffering from being in a bigger pond, where they were no longer the biggest fish, and had some bad attitude because of that, but I can't actually think of any of those examples from within the past decade.

 

I dislike when I run across someone in a Tournament who's mostly a casual player, and who's basically brought a knife to a gunfight without realizing it, because there's no challenge there for me, and because I feel bad about what's about to happen to their Army. I'll try to help them learn from it as best I can, and try to make the social interaction as pleasant as I can, but that mismatch just makes the Game itself not much fun on both sides.

[Guest]

See, I don't think there are very many players out there that truly don't care about the enjoyment of their opponent. I've been to more tournaments than I can remember and can count on 1 hand the amount of times I've played with someone who was stomping me and not sharing in my bad time. Just because the other guy's army is pounding your to dust doesn't mean he doesn't care about your enjoyment. Now if he's stone faced and not interacting with you, or even worse, rubbing it in then you have a reason to complain. But again, that simply isn't an issue in the VAST majority of the time.

 

In fact, I've run in to more bad attitudes from "casual" players than from tournament players. No one made you bring your *insert weak list here* army. You knew you weren't going to be able to hang and you brought it anyway. You had a bad time? The reason you had a bad time is in the damn mirror.

So the first paragraph says one thing, then second paragraph seems to say the opposite. What is your point?

[Guest]

Speaking for myself, my experiences have more or less been in line with Galahad911's. Competitive players, in general, want to compete, not to stomp. They want a challenge, not just an easy win. I have played a couple of guys who were genuinely newb-stompers, and a couple more who were more or less suffering from being in a bigger pond, where they were no longer the biggest fish, and had some bad attitude because of that, but I can't actually think of any of those examples from within the past decade.

 

I dislike when I run across someone in a Tournament who's mostly a casual player, and who's basically brought a knife to a gunfight without realizing it, because there's no challenge there for me, and because I feel bad about what's about to happen to their Army. I'll try to help them learn from it as best I can, and try to make the social interaction as pleasant as I can, but that mismatch just makes the Game itself not much fun on both sides.

Historically, you'd just tie one hand behind your back, to make the duel more interesting. I suppose you could blame the other person for bringing inadequate weaponry or lacking skills, but you don't gain anything out of that. Seems like, in that case, you should look into events that filter out casual players/lists, since they clearly aren't welcome in your eyes.

 

And as a casual player, I'd really perfer to know, up front, that my style of list/play isn't welcome at your event before I waste a saturday with players that don't really want to play with me. As is, this is rarely, if ever, an advertised feature of ITC events. 

[Tamwulf]

I won't speak for anyone else, but I for one self identify as a competitive player and find this statement incredibly insulting. It is a gross over generalization and comes off as incredibly holier than thou. Get off of your high horse buddy!

Type in "Competitive Player" in Google and see what comes up. Here was the very first result of my search:

 

 

1. cut-throat, aggressive, fierce, ruthless, relentless, antagonistic, carnivorous (informal), dog-eat-dog Modelling is a tough, competitive world. 2. ambitious, pushing, opposing, aggressive, vying, contentious, combative, carnivorous (informal) He has always been a fiercely competitive player.

https://www.google.com/search?q=competitive+player&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

 

Is that really what you self identify as? And do you really have fun playing 40K that way? I think it's pretty spot on for the "Competitive Players" I've faced.

[pretre]

Maybe we can take this 'discussion'to anew thread?

[WestRider]

Historically, you'd just tie one hand behind your back, to make the duel more interesting. I suppose you could blame the other person for bringing inadequate weaponry or lacking skills, but you don't gain anything out of that. Seems like, in that case, you should look into events that filter out casual players/lists, since they clearly aren't welcome in your eyes.

 

And as a casual player, I'd really perfer to know, up front, that my style of list/play isn't welcome at your event before I waste a saturday with players that don't really want to play with me. As is, this is rarely, if ever, an advertised feature of ITC events. 

The events are called Tournaments. They're competitive by definition. Events that filter more than that are extremely rare, and I'm not aware of any around here.

 

I don't dislike those Games because I find the Players unwelcome, it's just that the spread of power levels in the Game is so wide that there's no way that Game can be fun. It's going to be frustrating for my Opponent and boring for me. I don't want to be part of something that my Opponent isn't going to enjoy. I do my best to compensate for that, but there is only so much I can do.

 

I will happily play more casual Games when I can prepare for that, and bring an appropriate list (e.g. OFCC), but the nature of a Tournament is that, for better or worse, you play with what you've got. I would rather those Players get matched up with someone who they can have a more even Game with, but the brackets don't always work out like that.

[Lord Hanaur]

I have said it a lot: I love winning but I don't HATE losing. I think what makes tournaments a poor fit is when someone hates the losing part. No one ENJOYS losing but some hate it. I'd say that if you got blown out and hated that feeling, it would be better to keep with the casual games, work on the list and get acclimated to it and then try again.

[Guest]

The events are called Tournaments. They're competitive by definition. Events that filter more than that are extremely rare, and I'm not aware of any around here.

 

I don't dislike those Games because I find the Players unwelcome, it's just that the spread of power levels in the Game is so wide that there's no way that Game can be fun. It's going to be frustrating for my Opponent and boring for me. I don't want to be part of something that my Opponent isn't going to enjoy. I do my best to compensate for that, but there is only so much I can do.

 

I will happily play more casual Games when I can prepare for that, and bring an appropriate list (e.g. OFCC), but the nature of a Tournament is that, for better or worse, you play with what you've got. I would rather those Players get matched up with someone who they can have a more even Game with, but the brackets don't always work out like that.

 

I could totally start poker tournament where we bet m&ms instead of cash or poker chips, with the winner being a rather meanless title and a bunch of chocolate. It would not get that compeditive. Yet, I don't think I could do this with 40k. The concept of a tournament seems to have it's own meaning with regards to 40k.

 

So, no, I don't think tournaments are inherently compeditive. It's more of a method to organize a large batch of games in a structured environment. It's about turning a bunch of events into a single event. 

 

I do think that if players can't make the game fun for both players without balanced lists, then the list balance is an issue that does need to be addressed. The event should be fun.

 

Regarding the OP, I think the players on ORDO should have really said something if it was clear that this list, which has been up since the start of the month, was going to be equal to bringing a knife to a gun fight. Sounds like the event wasn't fun for the OP, and that really should be analyzed and fixed for future events (even if the answer is posting a cruel "no-weak lists" policy).

[pretre]

Anyone competent going second against the army is going to deploy well back from their line, and short of a horde army (which would welcome your charge) they should find it trivial to stay 6" past their own deployment line, thus denying you any possibility of a charge. Or, better yet, putting a bait unit 4" or 5" past, to give you a really difficult charge in case you decide to risk everything on a bad decision.

[pretre]

Yeah, it's something that's only likely to succeed against someone who doesn't know how it works, someone who really screws up, or someone who gets seized on. But on a purely mechanical level, it is possible.

 

I don't have the book on hand at the moment, so I can't look up the exact timing of it right now.

[pretre]

Yeah, I came into this knowing that I'd gimp myself by going BA only. However I genuinely feel that BA, though not top tier, aren't push overs and intend to give it a try.

 

Still trying to see what I want to do with 165 points. The lazy route is to just add a MM attack bike and drop an extra armor upgrade on the land raider or something.

[pretre]

Point being there were several pages talking about downsides. If you're looking for a definitive, 'don't bring this' post it probably isn't going to happen though unless somebody specifically asks for it.

[Lord Hanaur]

Ah but objectives make getting trapped too far in your own zone a mixed thing. If an enemy can simply blockade you and start scoring... the win counts no matter how inelegant.

This was a harbinger of things to come for me at the tournament.  How ironic!  Lol.

[WestRider]

I could totally start poker tournament where we bet m&ms instead of cash or poker chips, with the winner being a rather meanless title and a bunch of chocolate. It would not get that compeditive. Yet, I don't think I could do this with 40k. The concept of a tournament seems to have it's own meaning with regards to 40k.

 

So, no, I don't think tournaments are inherently compeditive. It's more of a method to organize a large batch of games in a structured environment. It's about turning a bunch of events into a single event.

 

tour·na·ment

ˈtərnəmənt,ˈto͝ornəmənt/

noun

noun: tournament; plural noun: tournaments

1.

(in a sport or game) a series of contests between a number of competitors, who compete for an overall prize.

synonyms:

competition,

Yes, a Tournament is competitive by definition. If it's not competitive, what you have is a Games Day or something, which is also totally cool, but it's a different thing. Or you may have a Tournament with extra restrictions, either implicit or explicit, to keep things from getting out of hand, which is still competitive, but loses many of the trappings of more extreme competition.

 

 

I do think that if players can't make the game fun for both players without balanced lists, then the list balance is an issue that does need to be addressed. The event should be fun.

That's not really something I can do anything about as an individual Player. That's an issue for TOs, or ideally, for GW. I would also note that people who go to Tournaments with a clear idea of what to expect do tend to find them fun. I can't think of one I've been to where I didn't have fun since like 2003 or so. And yes, that includes a number where I did pretty badly.

[spagunk]

So just want to chime in. I don't hate losing. Losing is natural. But I don't enjoy getting completely annihilated because I don't learn anything from it other than "Don't play". Even a heavy loss means I can analyze whether or not it was my strategy, my dice or my units that failed me here. Being full on rolled over signals to me that either I failed all three at the same time or that the other army is impervious to anything short of a tailored list against their exact army. So I don't learn to improve short of "Buy a new army, newb". Which is where I am at currently.

 

I did say I came into this knowing BA wasn't top tier. That is an admission that it was going to be hard but not impossible which is what I was prepared. What I wasn't prepared for was "It would be impossible given normal ITC lists" which is what I feel at this time.

 

Was it fun? Not for me because I feel like there was nothing I could have done short of having the same army as the other players. That's just my take on it. Knowing what I know now, I will avoid the tournament scene. My last tournament was back in 4/5th edition with my PDF codex where I got middle of the pack and actually accomplish things. Now it just doesn't seem as possible unless I get real clever somehow (which is to say, not going to happen).

 

Sorry if I pushed the convo to a territory that no one wanted. Wasn't my intention. Just wanted to point out that I really wasn't as prepared as I thought I was.