So, let's take a look at a couple of lists, and identify what the differences are:
1 -
Njal Stormcaller - 245
6 x Wolf Guard w/ Combi-Melta, Power Fist - 258
5 x Wolf Scouts w/ Meltagun - 85
5 x Wolf Scouts w/ Meltagun - 85
8 x Grey Hunters w/ Meltagun, Wolf Standard, Rhino - 170
8 x Grey Hunters w/ Meltagun, Wolf Standard, Rhino - 170
8 x Grey Hunters w/ Meltagun, Wolf Standard, Rhino - 170
8 x Grey Hunters w/ Meltagun, Wolf Standard, Rhino - 170
5 x Grey Hunters w/ Flamer, Plasmaback - 150
5 x Grey Hunters w/ Flamer, Plasmaback - 150
5 x Long Fangs w/ 4 Missiles - 115
5 x Long Fangs w/ 4 Missiles - 115
5 x Long Fangs w/ 4 Missiles - 115
2 -
Rune Priest w/ Lightning, Jaws, Chooser - 110
6 x Wolf Guard w/ Combi-Melta, Heavy Bolter Razorback - 178
5 x Wolf Scouts w/ Meltagun - 85
5 x Wolf Scouts w/ Meltagun - 85
5 x Grey Hunters w/ Meltagun, Rhino - 115
5 x Grey Hunters w/ Meltagun, Rhino - 115
5 x Grey Hunters w/ Meltagun, Rhino - 115
5 x Grey Hunters w/ Meltagun, Rhino - 115
5 x Grey Hunters w/ Flamer, Plasmaback - 150
5 x Grey Hunters w/ Flamer, Plasmaback - 150
Land Speeder w/ MM, HF - 70
Land Speeder w/ MM, HF - 70
Land Speeder w/ MM, HF - 70
5 x Long Fangs w/ 4 Missiles, Plasmaback - 190
5 x Long Fangs w/ 4 Missiles, Plasmaback - 190
5 x Long Fangs w/ 4 Missiles, Plasmaback - 190
Now, which of these lists is better?
One list has a character with saga of majesty and some whacky powers, plus the full toolkit if psychic abilities; it also has large more combat-ready grey hunter squads (though they have no higher firepower really).
One list has 3 more plasmabacks, 3 more speeders w/ mm/hf, an extra razorback, just as much firepower in every single scout and hunter squad, and still has psy defense and a chooser.
Having been through and organized / watched through several serious, competitive GT's now ... here's my thought: Contrary to internetism, the first list is MUCH better for a high caliber GT player. The 2nd list is much better for convincing yourself Min-Max is the way to go, beating people at your store (even if they are good) regularly, and playing above your skill level in a tournament.
Note - I'm not saying one is better, period, but for someone who is good enough to beat his opponents skill-wise, the first list outperforms.
Why?
Well, it's more reliable. It can be boiled down argument-wise into that - his squads of grey hunters hit harder if they have to, take a hit harder, and are less vulnerable to unlucky allocation sniping out their LD9 or melta weaponry. He has the ability to re-roll failed morale with Majesty off the edges of Njal's Rhino, which actually makes the 6" aura fairly decent (especially combined w/ the flexible disembarkation of friendly rhinos). He still has reliable double melta to pop transports and vehicles when the situation demands. He will win games by a smaller margin as a general rule.
For the 2nd list, in a perfect world where the odds are rolled it can be much better. The problem is, if a couple of squads fail unlikely LD tests, there's no protection. If a squad takes a handful of armor saves, it can rapidly lose its melta weapons instead of its bobos. If a few lascannons miss in a row, you've rapidly got wasted points down on the field. If you get knocked out of position or de-meched at the wrong time, or ganked outside the odds ... your squads can't take nearly as much of a beating, nor can they react as well to having to fight against easy odds.
Where I'm going with this is the age old excuse you hear of someone's dice just failing him in a key tournament game. You see this happen a lot - where someone has this min-max awesome list, and it's not his list that failed him, or his skills, but he failed a disproportionate number of LD rolls, or he kept losing only the key weapons to allocation, or blah blah blah blah blah. Knock it off. While bad luck can and will happen to the best of us, min-maxing a list can be the quickest way to win MOST of your games anywhere, but lose on occasion to that bad luck, instead of having the list insulation to give yourself resilience to it. This is where you get into internetism - you play all the time with your min-maxed list, winning big most games, and you can readily and easily blame the losses on ... luck.
Look at the recent performance of people who play with lists more like the former ... while luck certainly will always play a factor in a game where dice determine the results of most actions, and I'm not at all suggesting you can completely remove it, wolf lists patterned off the first one are in position if PLAYED WELL to win nearly every game they participate in, even if by the squeakiest of margins.
As more and more tournaments take the lead of the NOVA, and shift over to W/L or W/L/D, and as winning becomes the priority over massacring baby seals, you're going to see more and more success of lists that don't succumb to bad luck. This is even more the case now that less and less tournaments allow for a near loss due to said bad luck, if you can capitalize on it by using your min/max list to massacre your other opponents for higher BP.
Food for thought, but food that has served people well ... it's a theory of list building that helped me run 3-0 at AdeptiCon 2010, and 7-0 at the Battle for Salvation 2010. It's a theory that helped Tony K run 7-0 at the NOVA Open 2010 and 8-0 at AdeptiCon 2011. Might just be something to it ... especially when some of our higher profile wins came against players who would thereafter point out the streaky failrates of their units ... due to ... bad luck ...
Very excellent analysis sir. I came to similar conclusions recently when I looked at Adepticon results, but you put it into excellent wording. Spot on.
ReplyDeleteVery good read, good point. Solid list building over flashy min/maxed stuff ftw...I shall take this message away with me and let it lead me...see where we go!
ReplyDeleteYou already know I agree with you Mike :)
ReplyDeleteBasically armies need depth to consistantly perform. The standard min/max MEQ lists we keep seeing won't stand up over a long series of games.
I'm a huge fan of the shift to straight w/l since I generally just win, not massacre.
Well done sir.
It seems like you are implying people think that mitigating random is not a part of min/max'ng? Honestly, I have never in all my gaming experience (any format) heard anyone ever suggest such a thing. While it's true people are not always mindful of that aspect, that is very different then suggesting that the later list is good for "... convincing yourself Min-Max is the way to go ...". The second list is just a failed attempt at min/max'ng, whereas the first list is a superior one because it factors in an aspect the later list did not. One sees this all the time in thoughtful chaos daemon players, they build and split the army so as to not be hampered by a Daemonic Assault roll, the placement of any unit in any army that deep strikes, or the avoidance of magical terrain in whfb to name just a few.
ReplyDeleteThe first list still follows the tried and true core values behind min/max'ng and it will still "... convincing yourself Min-Max is the way to go ..."
Dropping Njal to a Priest and 2 fists, then giving the las/plas melta and taking 2 las/plas backs on the fangs = option 3...the best option ;) lol
ReplyDeleteAgree with all the above though, good post. Ive been preaching this for years, at last people are getting the idea xD
I just wrote a lengthy response, and it didn't post for some reason. I'll try to sum up.
ReplyDeleteI think you're right that the first list is better. I think your analysis of why is completely wrong.
You're saying it's reliable. That it suffers bad luck better. I think that's wrong. Bad luck hitting a 10-man squad hurts more than hitting a 5-man squad. Bad luck when you have 3 guns to fire hurts more than when you have nine shots.
The first list is better because it is more flexible, not because it is more reliable. When the terrain, or the deployment, or the opponent do not favour it in a shooting battle, it can deliver 40 men with 160 attacks (for a round) into the fray. The second list is just a shooty list, and it's not even the most shooty list in the game, so something else will outshoot it one day. When that day happens, it will lose. It doesn't have the tools to win a game if assault is called for.
Min/Max has always been a misnomer. It's not about getting the maximum firepower (or combat) out of the minimum amount of points. It's about finding that sweet spot between depth and breadth.
ReplyDeleteToo much breadth and even though you have lots of things to do none of them really will have much impact on the game. Things start wattering down too much and your army will lack focus and staying power to get it's job done. This is why you don't see IG armies built around infantry platoons and chimeras...it just doesn't work.
Too much depth and you get to a point where any statistical anomaly will completely hose your game. Also currently refereed to as rock armies one bad set of dice and a disproportional amount of your army will be either dead or at a sever disadvantage.
In the above example the second list is worse because it goes for such extreme breadth that it hits it's point of diminishing returns. By the time your adding land speeders and a couple extra razorbacks they aren't going to have a significant enough impact on the game to really add much more to the list than already exists. Where as a slight investment in depth add more to the list, which in this case means buying more dudes and a banner to remove some close combat statistical anomalies giving them new abilities rather than more of the same.
That being said, the second list does much better than it would if it were any other army all because of the inherent power of the space wolf codex. A solid base stat line, cheap support, correctly priced transports and ATSKNF mitigating leadership anomalies lets SW players do all the abilities they need as standard where as other armies have to work to achieve the same thing and often require point inefficiencies. The Space Wolf Codex really does let you get away with a lot of things that other armies really can't do, or have to work really hard to do.
You've touched on something that I've been doing with my own IG lists lately. Removing some of the randomness at the expense of sheer firepower. And increasing my reach at the expense of some short range punch. It's not a huge change, points-wise. But it's making quite a difference in how I play.
ReplyDeleteI see the difference when my opponents always seem to have bad luck, while my army gets what it needs to do done. Even when my rolls aren't stellar.
Take a look at Jay Woodcock's Tyranid list - it's one of the most vanilla nid lists I've ever seen: no gimmicks, just depth at doing what it does.
ReplyDeleteI think reducing randomness is the hallmark of a good listbuilder.
ReplyDeleteIt's tough to reduce randomness in a lot of forces, based on what your codex deals you. That said, it's part of why I value the Book of St. Lucius so much in my WH armies.
redundant, stable armies might be kind of boring to play, but they get the job done.
The first list is better, but I disagree why.
ReplyDeleteSW, specially using Wolf Scouts are designed to make the oponent move forward, and you need something to delay or recieve the CC smackdown when that happens. MSU Plasmabacks and Speeders don't cut it. The short version is that the second one is a SM list with less hulls, less dakka and too many sacrificial units (Wolf Scouts AND Speeders).
That out, I still have minor quibbles with the first list (rather get 1 more guy, a PW and a MotW on the large squads instead of Njal), but it obviously work for its user, so meh.
Great article I have been really looking at these concepts hard after my last two events I have gone to. So for me personally this is great timing and a awesome read. Thank you sir.
ReplyDeleteI've been running with the Competitive is Consistent line this last year because...
ReplyDelete...well, I guess because it's a soundbite. It's easy to remember and possibly a bit simplistic, but it encapsulates my theory on army lists and tournament strategy.
Basically, I'm not looking for one great round; I'm looking for 6/7 good ones. I'm not looking for a blowout game; I want to play 4 at the same level.
You've pointed out much the same here, Mike. An army should be flexible and consistent, so bad dice in one area don't allow your opponent to roll you.
I'm not a fan of points-sink HQ's normally, but some of them are consistent enough to pay for themselves in one way or another throughout a game. Njal is an example - he's a great synergistic addition.
Good post - reliability is all I really strive for. My dice rolling can be crap and if I can find a way to mitigate that via reliability or not having to roll a particular test I will do it. It just means less of a chance I can have to mess it up with my awesome dice haha.
ReplyDeleteBut good post for sure.
"Njal is an example - he's a great synergistic addition. "
ReplyDeleteWhose big extra rules don't work if you don't go first.
Just saying.
2 or so of his big extra rules - not including the ones that punch people in the mouth all over the place near the end of the game - don't work going 2nd. Fortunately, these aren't the things that make him great; simply added bonus when you shut a GK army's BS down to 3, or put an ork horde in difficult terrain. Perspective is valuable.
ReplyDeleteI agree, removing randomness (or at least trying to) is a good idea. Especially for me, the super-small elite armies don't seem to work out too well for me. It's part of why I always do 10-man squads too. Obviously you'll never fully eliminate it (there's not much you can do when you just keep rolling 1's on your saves), but mitigation is nice.
ReplyDeleteShame, too, I was hoping to try pulling off an all-Terminator GK list, but it doesn't quite work for me.
the major thing that sticks out for me in list number one is the wolf standards. I think this is really the key. That one piece of wargear will make list number one have better "staying" power.
ReplyDeleteGreat article Mike. It really got me looking at my sm list.
One thing that always identified min/max lists to me was the repetition of units. It might just be me but I see spam as a big part of min/max. The reason for this is you identify what is the sweet spot for a unit on a role and maximise the number you have. Both of these list have a strong element of this just that the second one has gone MSU aswell. I get the point that this has taken min maxing into the unit design as well as the unit choice, but for me there is an element of min maxing alive and well in both lists (3*long fangs).
ReplyDeleteIn the 5th edition it appears there are a lot more variety of builds within codexes (taking Brent's lead on this spelling) which are proving viable, a terrific case in point being Dark Eldar. This means that repeated units don't (necessarily) mean you are playing the same old (insert build here) army. Possibly why this aspect is less of an issue.
In terms of the article's point of saying that building lists isn't as simple as taking the most effective offensive choices as often as you can, I agree, you must take into account playability, which generally comes with practice. However min maxing is still something which occurs within list building a lot. Though neither list is a perfect case in point (the second one being a better example), min/maxing of the spam variety is still there. This is a comment and not a criticism of anyone who repeats units (which I do too-when I have to). It's just we are not yet at the stage where redundancy + variety is seen to/does trump finding a unit's sweet spot and then cookie cut lots.
Okay, so I am a bit confused.
ReplyDeleteLets work with your premise, and correct me if I am wrong :)
You are trying to say that MSU has little 'resistance' due to small units being easy to break or destroy?
and that, if they roll badly [the bad luck bit] for shooting, they get rolled due to having such flimsy units?
Your preferred list, which has fewer but beefier units, has more resistance, and so is harder to break or destroy?
therefore. even if the few big units, FBU, have poxy shooting, they don't get rolled due to having stouter units?
Is that what you are saying?
If it is, and correct me if I am wrong, you are assuming that shooting bad luck is worse for MSU than it is for FBU.
Why?
MSU has, say, 18 big guns. Bad luck strikes and 1/3 hit - 6 hits. FBU has, say, 12 big guns, and 1/3 hit - 4 hits. Shouldn't that affect the FBU just as badly, as they fail to suppress the enemy at the same ratio as the MSU? Which means more enemy guns ARE firing into the FBU, thus hurting the bigger squads just as badly as what the MSU would suffer, given that they offer more suppression in the first place?
....?
@MVB
ReplyDeletePerhaps I'm missing something, but can't a regular Rune Priest do that? Or two? (Two Rune priests, 1 with Chooser and 1 with Chooser and a Wolf Tail Talisman is still 20 pts cheaper. Dunno why you would want two though.)
Besides the minimum for weapon unlocks and for not dying when your transport explodes, I don't see the point on more guys. More guns seem like a better buy.
And using a bad SW list (the second one) as an example seems like a strawman.
*high fives Gx1080*
ReplyDeleteWhat you are thinking is what I am thinking.
I also spotted list 2 as being.... meh. But hopefully MVB will show us the point behind that, rather than us getting hung up on technicalities. Right Mike.... Mike?
:P