Blood Angels: ITC Tournament list - 1850ptc

[Guest]

Unfortunately, the draft FAQ says it both ways- in one location, it says that it is d3 autohits per shot the weapon fires, in another it says that it is d3 autohits per weapon that fires.

Sounds much more like a GW faq now. That's the GW we know. lol

[WestRider]

Unfortunately, the draft FAQ says it both ways- in one location, it says that it is d3 autohits per shot the weapon fires, in another it says that it is d3 autohits per weapon that fires.

Never fails. I guess I only remembered the one :P

[Tamwulf]

It is a draft FAQ, and maybe, someday, they will actually clean it up and release it. It's only bee what, six months since they asked for feedback on the draft?

[spagunk]

Okay, so last call on this.

 

Current dilemna: Swap out the 3x grav-bikes and MM attack bike for one of the following:

• 5man "meltacide" squad (2 meltaguns, Inferno pistol) with drop pod (+extra armor on land raider).
• Another Predator of some sort
• Second DC Dread with power fists, heavy flamer.
• Vindicare assassin 
• 3x Multi-Melta Attack bike squadron
• 2x Multi-melta land speeders (1 w/ assault cannon???)

These units are all items that I have on hand. The only things on here not painted is the predator the vindicare and one attack bike. Having them painted is the important bit since I want to make sure I get the points for having painted figures. My land raider, though getting close to fully painted, took up all my extra time so I don't believe I can get the grav bikes painted in.

Kind of leaning towards the drop "meltacide" squad as that should give me instant Anti-tank where I need them. Grav should be good for knocking wounds off things with somewhat okay Anti-tank. That means I would increase anti-tank but lose out on my ability to strip wounds.

[Tamwulf]

Can you do a Sternguard squad with combi-melta's in a drop pod instead?

 

I also like the Vindicare Assassin.

 

The MM Land Speeders would be a good choice too.

[spagunk]

No sternguard I am afraid. It would require that I add a whole CAD or allied formation to fit them in.

[AbusePuppy]

I think either the Grav bikes or 3x Attack Bikes are your best options. I'm not a huge fan of Land Speeders- they die too easily to a lot of the S5-7 firepower out there and even Deep Striking is not guarantee of getting to shoot first. Vindicares hit pretty hard but are really fragile, and I don't see any reason you would specifically need one. The Predator could be decent- AutoLas is my preferred setup, but TriLas is a lot better priced these days. The DC Dread I'm skeptical of, since AV12 is sorta tough but not that tough- he does give you a good option against Genestealer Cults, though.

[spagunk]

Painting one attack bike vs. 3 bikers + attack bike is a bit easier to swallow.

[spagunk]

Completely failed. Two games ran 0-11 and one I got 9 but only because the guy was already drunk when we started.

[pretre]

Hey, don't be knocking drunkenness!

 

I will give my standard losing speech. I do lose and have lost an awful lot. Only by beating my head against the wall repeatedly and using cheesy lists have I improved that average. When I play my 'fun' lists I usually just take it in the teeth.

[spagunk]

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.

[WestRider]

Yeah, that's not ITC, that's Tournament play in general. There is some vicious stuff in 40K these days, and it all comes out at Tournaments, regardless of which variety of Tournament it is. Once you've got your expectations calibrated properly, it can be a lot of fun, but that does involve getting beat down quite a few times, and even when you are used to it, it's very different from a more negotiated environment.

 

Good on ya for giving it a try, tho.

[pretre]

I mean, play what makes you happy. I like tournaments even though I spent years getting my teeth kicked in at them. It's easier for me to get to a monthly event than a weekly though.

[Lord Hanaur]

Tournaments helped me SEE the game more clearly. What to buy and how to plan my strategy was helped by seeing more difficult lists. I know that at our Elvensword Ambassadorial Tournament, we took comments like this into account when deciding how to do it. Other tournaments have also made additional changes. I value tournaments because I like to compete. But before I ever got to the point of competing I liked that I could get three guaranteed games and better perspective on how to build my list and strategy.

[AbusePuppy]

Blood Angels aren't a top-tier competitive army, and there's not really anything you can do to change that. At the same time, they aren't completely hopeless and do have some options for playing a reasonable game- but those options involve going down specific paths to specific builds. If you're set on using particular units that you like (Land Raider, Death Company, etc) then it's going to be a lot harder to manage things.

[pretre]

You can always do what I do and hop chapters. As long as you are wysiwyg, you'll be fine.

[AgentP]

The next tournament will be Annihilation style, which is more friendly.  I'm also thinking of adding some rules comp to it as well, to tone down some of the more brutal combos.  So when you see that one advertised, you might want to give it a try.

[pretre]

No more brutal combos? Way to comp me out!

 

;)

[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.

Local leagues are best. A tournament, once in a while, can be a fun change of pace, especially if you've been out of the hobby for a long while and just want to soak in the "fantatism" by going to a full day event, rather than a more casual league. 

 

ITC tournaments are just as bad as any other tournament. ITC casual play, is a good half way point between actual casual play and a tournament. ITC players just can't seem to get out of compeditive mode, though it could be a GG thing - I've been told our leagues have always been more compeditive than other game nights at other stores. The best 40k is, and has always been, playing at a friends house, or playing with your friends at your house. 

 

Anyway, point isn't to attack ITC, in case people are thinking I meant it that way. I'm just not a fan of compeditive 40k and the ITC is designed specifically for compeditive 40k players, so while I'm personally at odds with the concept, there's nothing wrong with ITC it you want that sort of gameplay. 

[Chappy]

No more brutal combos? Way to comp me out!

 

;)

Good. Get out! Cheesemonger!

;)

[Tamwulf]

There is a huge disconnect between casual and competitive play in 40K. Casual lists bear little resemblance to what you see at a competitive tournament. Personally, I hate playing against tournament lists, because they have little to no resemblance to fluff. You can argue about fluff all day long, but an army of Space Marines should be Space Marines, not "Super Friends", not all the elites and heavy support with 100 points of troops (in an 1850 game). It shouldn't be this arcane, and incredibly complicated formation using multiple CADS and bonuses stacked on bonuses, that you have to accept the word of your opponent on, because there is no way you could spend an hour during a tournament to check it. Even the Judges don't question it.

 

The game should be about the models and fluff, not the statistics of the army. My opinion is that Rule of Cool should rule the table, not the fact that if I spam 30 of Model X, they will have a 66.7% chance of hitting, wounding, and the enemy failing armor saves. If I field model X, Y, Z, and take this wargear, they will have a re-rollable 2+ invulnerable with a 4+ FNP. Then I'm going to take three of these tanks that when they fire at the same unit, they become a large template D-weapon AP1. Finally, I really need this psychic power, and this formation gives me a bunch of Psykers, so I'll take that. Oh, and all I need is one more unit of W, then I can get this formation bonus! OK, that's the core of my army. How many points do I have left over for what I have to take? The so called "army tax" that shouldn't be a tax at all. Must take choices shouldn't be a burden, or feel like a tax, or be the last consideration of list building. GW has tried to minimize that with formations, but I think it's backfired and made it even worse.

 

This is where finger pointing starts: "If GW didn't want us to play that way, they wouldn't have made the game like this." Well, they kind of did. They stopped supporting tournaments. Remember GT's and Games Days? Only recently have they returned to them, but they are a shadow of what they used to be. They have the #1 Most Important Rule: Have fun. It's not fun getting kicked in the balls repeatedly. It might be fun for the kicker, but not for the receiver. GW has tried to stress again and again it's about playing the game, not winning and losing. GW's stubborn refusal to even comment on competitive play should tell you exactly how they want you to play the game. It's the players demand for competitive play that has driven the ITC Rules, and other house rules for tournaments. This might blow some of you away, but not too long ago, GW actually had an Official Tournament Rules Pack. Say what you will about GW and "poor game design" but they saw where the competitive play was leading, and tried to stop it. 

 

I'm hoping my other favorite game system, Privateer Press' Warmachine/Hordes starts to recognize the growing gulf between casual play and competitive play and does something about it.

[AbusePuppy]

I can understand the frustration, but "everyone who plays the game differently than I do is wrong and doesn't understand the true truth of the system" is an needlessly divisive and hollow thing to say. There are lots of reasons to play games, and no one person's way of enjoying it is better than anyone else's. Just because you don't particularly like a part of the game doesn't mean that other people can't, because that is an arrow that flies in both directions.

 

As far as "armies not representing the fluff" goes... well, which version of the fluff? One of the novels? Which one? They don't all portray the factions the same. The codices? Again, which one? Each new edition presents things with a different spin. Or maybe you meant as shown in more active media, like games or movies? There are dozens of drastically different iterations of any one given faction, which makes it virtually impossible to come up with any one, definitive version of the "true" fluff of an army. Moreover, GW actively opposes this kind of absolutist view of the 40K universe- they explicitly draw things in very broad strokes to allow players to craft their own fluff for the armies they love. And, it should be pointed out, arguably several of the best armies in 40K right now- the Battle Company and War Convocation- follow the strictures set down about "typical" builds for their faction almost to the letter.

 

 

Say what you will about GW and "poor game design" but they saw where the competitive play was leading, and tried to stop it.

 

You realize that the reason competitive play is where it is right now is because of GW's game design? The competitive players didn't write the codices, supplements, or rules that have placed it in this state- GW did. If you want to point the finger, point it at the people responsible not the people affected by it. Most competitive players would love to see better rules balance in the game, but GW has made it clear that they don't care about that.

[Tamwulf]

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? Surely you have totally recognized the point when your opponent has stopped having fun playing against you. Did you change the way you played? Or did you just forge on kicking them in the nuts because you were having fun and they weren't? Indeed, the arrow flies both ways. Do you ever feel guilty or wish the game could have been more fun for your opponent? In other words, did you have empathy for your opponent when they were losing or winning, or just ignored him in the name of "competitiveness" and justified it with "He should have brought a better list" or "L2P, noob!" because this is a tournament, and only competitive, tournament minded people should play in a tournament? When you are standing on the podium, hoisting that trophy high, do you look in the eyes of the last place player and wonder if he had fun?

 

Your argument about fluff proves my point. People cherry pick and use the fluff that best explains the army they build. Battle Company and War Convocation are formations placed in the game after the rules had already been written. I would buy the argument that they follow the fluff. Too bad the bonuses the armies receive for taking that fluffy formation are not balanced or equal to what other armies can take. Formations exasperate the problem.

 

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.

 

GW over the last five years hasn't listened to it's customers or players, and pretty much told us exactly how we are supposed to play 40K. The fact that a lot of players ignore that and try to play the game differently is what has caused the game to be the way it is now. It's not GW's fault that we are trying to play the game the way it was not intended to be played. Should GW have listened to only the competitive players, the casual players, or a mix of both? Form my viewpoint, they didn't really listen to the customers/players at all when they made 6th and 7th edition. Yet we still bought and try to play the game competitively!

 

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.

 

Queue more "It's GW fault" and "you don't know what you are talking about!"       

 

*Unless you buy into the theory that white has the advantage because they always get to go first. Lots of interesting theories and articles about that.

[pretre]

There is a huge disconnect between casual and competitive play in 40K. Casual lists bear little resemblance to what you see at a competitive tournament. Personally, I hate playing against tournament lists, because they have little to no resemblance to fluff. You can argue about fluff all day long, but an army of Space Marines should be Space Marines, not "Super Friends", not all the elites and heavy support with 100 points of troops (in an 1850 game).

My space marine army was tons of space marines and some other dudes. :)

[Chappy]

Oh! Yay. The "The game is meant to be played like X!" "No way dude it's meant to be played like Y!" argument has shown up on the forums.

 

Thanks. Needed a reminder to change out the batteries in the ol' smoke detectors.