Having Fun, and winning 50% without Cheese

[beefythepug]

I'm a newer player to the game, so some of my observations may seem old news. I get that we all play the game for different reasons, and yeah its more fun to win than lose. What I'm hoping to find is a way to achieve 50% W/L so both me and my friends have a good time the majority of the games we play.

I started this hobby with Nids because I wanted to build/paint them with no knowledge other than they were a horde type army, with big cool looking MCs and had a special synapse rule that could make moving more of a challenge. Fast forward 1 year, and I love my nids, enjoyed the maybe 20 games I've managed to play. But am starting to notice patterns:

1) Games in general seem almost predetermined by the end of T2, is this normal? regardless of army?
2) Without bringing core units (Tervigon), and cheesy ones (Doom), it can be very difficult to win. Any suggestions on non Cheesy units that would fit "decent most of the time, but not overpowered"?

I guess the real issue for me is, my usual opponent is my brother, and while he loves blasting the heck out of my Nids with his Tau, he doesn't have any fun when I blast his troops with Biovores, Eat them with Doom, and pretty much enjoy gathering the tasty Tau biomass. But then if I don't bring my good stuff, its essentially as though I'm fielding a bunch of targets at a military firing range. How do you find that balance between competetive/fun with our current codex? Do we just have to wait and hope Nids 6.1 brings us multiple viable ways to play?

[gigasnail]

no one else can tell you what is fun for you. if fielding a stripped down competitive list isn't fun, then put units in you think are fun. nothing's stopping you.

tyranids are the absolute last army you should feel is overpowered or cheesey in any way. we have a handful of good units and there are several viable builds based on them, that's really about it.

it kind of sounds like your brother doesn't like to loose?

[coredump]

Wait a minute.... the problem is not with the Nid codex; the problem seems to be with your brother not likely to lose.

Is he willing to not bring his 'good stuff'?? (Actually kinda hard with Tau, they have a really strong codex right now.)

Tell him you will skip Doom if he never uses the 'cheesy' Supporting Fire rule for Overwatch.

Tau is currently the toughest codex in the game.... keep that in mind while he is complaining.


As repeatedly demonstrated in other threads.... Doom is very likely to do very little most of the time. (And occasionally, will really wreck face.) Where it shines is when opponents will keep a lot of units really close together. (for example, to take advantage of rules like Supporting Fire). If he spreads out his units, it won't be as much of a problem.
Or heck, he can pick up Interceptor and take shots at the Doom before it can do anything. (One S8 wound and 'bye bye' Doom)

[swarmy]

1. I know I build most of my lists to pretty much spell out how the game is going to play out for me by the end of turn 3. That is just my playstyle though because I go reserves heavy and I like ambushing people. I notice the speedier more dynamic armies like dark eldar have a similar bend to their playstyle because it is "T2 or broke" due to the glass-cannon units they are full of. It's possible to drown people in bodies with tyranids and win through attrition but honestly no one I know would stand for that garbage. Some of the more static gunline armies I've seen can just turtle the entire game and wear people down and in those cases it can still be up in the air by turn 5.

2. I limit myself to a split between a modest number of the "core" units and season my lists with the "subpar" units lately e.g. I'm running the swarmlord with a single guard, a lone fairly naked tervigon, and doom in a spore at 1250 but I also have 300 points tied up in 2 lictors and a mawloc. I play for the long shot strategy of plowing things with the mawloc which almost always results in interesting outcomes; It allows for plenty of back and forth exchanges throughout the game. I don't think it's possible to avoid some units in the codex; We all know which ones I'm talking about. They are just a necessary evil to keep us at a baseline of functionality to not be walked across like so many ants.

It's possible to make some fun, fairly balanced, lists that pack a decent punch if you build lists in that way, but it all comes down to working things out with your opponents. I play in a fairly friendly league where there's more emphasis on playing a player for the first time. Playing more games against more new people nets more points than bludgeoning the same players over and over with WAAC lists. There are some people who bring forgeworld stuff but they at least ask first before they put it on the table. For the most part all the league players are on the same page with their list building in the sense that they aren't out to senselessly bludgeon you with your own detached limbs and outright table you with the most broken lists available.

Finding a group of gamers who play it as a casual game for mutual fun has been the hardest aspect to the entire hobby for me. I'm glad I did finally (Tournament time is the exception though when prizes are on the line they go for the jugular ). If you primarily play your brother just cut your lists with other oddball units from the codex till you find a balance. If you are trying to find like-minded gamers at a gaming store or a comic book shop I'd keep looking till you find a group that fits what you want to get out of the game.

[Kwodd]

Jun 17, 2013 23:03:09 GMT beefythepug said:

I'm a newer player to the game, so some of my observations may seem old news. I get that we all play the game for different reasons, and yeah its more fun to win than lose. What I'm hoping to find is a way to achieve 50% W/L so both me and my friends have a good time the majority of the games we play.

I started this hobby with Nids because I wanted to build/paint them with no knowledge other than they were a horde type army, with big cool looking MCs and had a special synapse rule that could make moving more of a challenge. Fast forward 1 year, and I love my nids, enjoyed the maybe 20 games I've managed to play. But am starting to notice patterns:

1) Games in general seem almost predetermined by the end of T2, is this normal? regardless of army?
2) Without bringing core units (Tervigon), and cheesy ones (Doom), it can be very difficult to win. Any suggestions on non Cheesy units that would fit "decent most of the time, but not overpowered"?

I guess the real issue for me is, my usual opponent is my brother, and while he loves blasting the heck out of my Nids with his Tau, he doesn't have any fun when I blast his troops with Biovores, Eat them with Doom, and pretty much enjoy gathering the tasty Tau biomass. But then if I don't bring my good stuff, its essentially as though I'm fielding a bunch of targets at a military firing range. How do you find that balance between competetive/fun with our current codex? Do we just have to wait and hope Nids 6.1 brings us multiple viable ways to play?

I know exactly where you're coming from, my main opponent is my brother as well and I get at least twice as many games in against him than I do anyone else in the club. It gives me a chance to field more of what I like and experiment with different builds, tyranids have a number of units that can be both fun and effective when played right but unfortunately they can also be very unforgiving if mistakes are made, PoM, Deathleaper, raveners to name a few. It sounds like you might not be playing with adequate terrain if you end up feeling like you're sitting at the target end of a shooting range. I had this problem when my bro and I first started to play, it was more of who has the better armor save ultramarines or nids. LoS blocks and area terrain are very important to any foot slogging Xenos that doesnt excel in the shooting dept, and without these you are really fighting an uphill battle especially if your opponent can depend on their 4+ armor save.

[jocke01]

1) No but I see why you think that because by turn 2 one of the sides (usually) have the advantage either by having more units on the board or have killed more units. A game can turn fast to one side and be decided at the end when you need to take objectives etc,etc. I get the feeling of thinking the game is over after turn 2 but the games if often far from over, trust me.

2)In many of the codexes many units are way stronger than other units in the same codex and this is due to the fact that GW either don't play test or don't care. Yes of course it's hard to win when you don't pick strong core units and effective units but why would it be otherwise?

You can still win with diffirent tactics but handicapping yourself but not picking "cheesy units" then you shouldn't be sad about losing. Doom isn't really cheesy if your opponent have either psykers,high LD or vehicles or area terrain but I can see him being very strong vs tau infantry with low ld outside of cover but what isn't?

A new codex isn't going to solve the problem you are presenting.
It seems that your brother enjoys the game when his gunline army shoots down your horde army but he dosen't like it when your horde army kills his gunline army?

That's called enjoying winning and not enjoying losing and belive me that's a problem in any kind of game. Your idea of breaking even with wins and loses so that everyones is happy is very hard to to without losing on purpose and in my opinion why would you even play a game at that point. Some players will win more some will win less, that's life.

Anyway here are my tips that may or may not help you.

1) If you are constantly winning against your brother with your current army list try experiment with some other units, just because some people don't think they are great dosen't mean they are useless on the board.

2) Try swapping armies and help eachother with new list/tactics etc etc. (also check forums for army lists and other stuff)

3) Play more games and with diffirent people and armies, that's the best way to get a diffirent experience and learn diffirent tactics, playstyle and all that good stuff that will improve your skills.

4) Find a playsyle that you both think is fun. One of my friends play very competitive and we build the best army lists we can when we face each other and we both enjoy the game win or lose, the same when I play tournaments or local games.

Then my other 2 close friends I usually play with aren't as serious and the don't play as often I don't build the hardest list I can since I used to win about 90% of the games and they lost interest in playing, so I started to play a bit more perhaps less effective lists and didn't maximize effectiveness and that's more about just having some laughs and rolling some dice and not just win at all cost.


So don't give up on this game yet and try to find a good playstyle for you and your brother may it be super competitive, story driven, laid back or whatever. It's your game so make best out of it



Btw if he is having problem with his firewarrior dying tell him they can go to ground in area terrain and get a 3+ cover save and still be able to fire snap-shots and overwatch^^

[brianb9999]

I play more games with my brother than anyone (he is primarily DE and chaos). While we have had a lopsided game here and there, most of our games are neck and neck, often coming down to whether the game ends on turn 5, 6, or 7. We don't have any unit restrictions...just use the rules as they were meant to be. I learn something every game and actually feel somewhat competent with my nids now.

[Raven]

There's a bit of a difference between "cheesy" and "effective against Tau" if you're winning roughly half the time against your brother I don't see much of a problem here unless he's a really sore loser, in which case the problem's with him, not your army. I suggest explaining to him why it isn't all that fun to you when you don't take our few good units, and remind him that while Tyranids have some units effective against Tau, Tau have a very strong codex right now full of units effective against Tyranids.

[afewveiws]

you could try making a conquer the system scenario. there's 5 planets and each has 3 sections. each player starts with 2 planets and 1 section of the middle planet. then your first battle can be over the 3section of the middle planet. each battle beyond this point will reward the victor with a 3rd of a planet while the loser will lose that section. The reason i think this will work is because until one person controls all 5 planets no one has lost or won the scenario. it might help keep your brothers pride from getting hurt while allowing both of you to play however you want.

[beefythepug]

Thanks for the comments and suggestions guys. I would have to agree that my younger brother has never been the best sport. Not sure he ever fully grew out of the "I Win" mentality. But seeing how he is the most available person for me to play 40k with, I'm doing my best not to dishearten him so I can at least play the game. I have a serious internal struggle because I used to competitively play MTG, and so I approach most hobbies like this with the idea of, lets both bring our best and see who wins.

Jun 18, 2013 1:26:02 GMT jocke01 said:

Anyway here are my tips that may or may not help you.

1) If you are constantly winning against your brother with your current army list try experiment with some other units, just because some people don't think they are great dosen't mean they are useless on the board.

2) Try swapping armies and help eachother with new list/tactics etc etc. (also check forums for army lists and other stuff)

3) Play more games and with diffirent people and armies, that's the best way to get a diffirent experience and learn diffirent tactics, playstyle and all that good stuff that will improve your skills.

4) Find a playsyle that you both think is fun. One of my friends play very competitive and we build the best army lists we can when we face each other and we both enjoy the game win or lose, the same when I play tournaments or local games.

Then my other 2 close friends I usually play with aren't as serious and the don't play as often I don't build the hardest list I can since I used to win about 90% of the games and they lost interest in playing, so I started to play a bit more perhaps less effective lists and didn't maximize effectiveness and that's more about just having some laughs and rolling some dice and not just win at all cost.

So don't give up on this game yet and try to find a good playstyle for you and your brother may it be super competitive, story driven, laid back or whatever. It's your game so make best out of it

Btw if he is having problem with his firewarrior dying tell him they can go to ground in area terrain and get a 3+ cover save and still be able to fire snap-shots and overwatch^^

re: 1) Aside from my first 5 games, I've mixed and matched my lists in almost every game. 2 Tervigons has been almost constant in every game 1500+ though. This was mostly just to see how things actually performed on the table, but recently has been turning into, how can I handicap myself so I only have a longshot at winning, and yeah thats less fun for me, but I like the hobby/game enough to do it... for the short term, but am starting to tire of hearing "Tyranids swapping for Bio is BS, its overpowered cheesey etc". For me though a MC with iron arm feels as tough as they look, with standard toughness they get ripped up pretty quick especially against Tau 6.1.

re: 2) I actually offered that to him after he forefeited T2 last game. I'd like to gain the perspective of playing against Nids, and I do intimately know the strengths/weaknesses of my own army. He was open to this which looks positive for me. It'll be some good perspective for him to see just how annoying the Riptide, Missilesides and Farsight Bomb are from my side of the board.

re: 3) I do need to play more at the local GW, problem tends to be I work late and they close early, and while Saturdays have lots of people going to the store, I usually have other things I need to be doing.

re: 4) That would be a dream come true, I would much rather bring my absolute best Army against another player doing the same. So what if I only win 20% of the time over the next year. When Nids 6.1 comes out, it'll be a different game against Tau 6.1 assuming we actually get the updates we need.

Jun 18, 2013 2:22:02 GMT Raven said:

There's a bit of a difference between "cheesy" and "effective against Tau" if you're winning roughly half the time against your brother I don't see much of a problem here unless he's a really sore loser, in which case the problem's with him, not your army. I suggest explaining to him why it isn't all that fun to you when you don't take our few good units, and remind him that while Tyranids have some units effective against Tau, Tau have a very strong codex right now full of units effective against Tyranids.

Thats true, I warned him that my Biovores would really hurt his infantry, but he didn't priortize them and suffered because of it.

[PumpkinHead]

If he wines about Biomancy, take Telepathy. Go at him with Puppet Master and Terrify and see the look on his face when his troops run off the table and his riptides are shooting his own people. Tau are really good, but we have ways to deal with them.

[gigasnail]

or you could take smart units, play aggressively and well, and make him learn to deal with 1) learning how to play the game and 2) learning how to deal with other people in a fair and equitable manner.

[Hive Bahamut]

Oh man this reminds about an old topic in our group. Our Mozza Knight player is the WAAC one, and he was always complaining about Doom, (who is effectively useless with quake everywhere,) and the Tervigon birthing quote "too many gants.". We all had a talk with him to quit being an idiot and that Nids cheese is effectively countered by anything in that codex. Or most for that matter.

Then when Tau came out he started getting worked over because his auto win 2x Libby/Purgation +DK didn't just walk through everything. Now it was Broadsides and FW that were OP.. Some people just hate losing, it should be YOUR job to try to prevent them from winning. We're not playing a kiddie participation ribbon game.. Would you give someone their third property in Monopoly because they told you the dice weren't being fair and they should have landed on it?... I hope not. You did invest hundreds if not more into the game, and being told you effectively have to lose is dumb.

People that complain when they lose are stupid. I felt this way about him then, I feel that way when I go to LGS. We have a pretty cookie cutter army, it only handicaps us further with our limited choices and play styles. Tau has very little trouble with me. No Fly rant, Ymgarls etc blasted with interceptor, Riptide chewing through MC. It really isn't a good matchup in terms of trying to be fair. Effectively two ends of the spectrum.. (please do not swear) melee, great shooting vs. (please do not swear) shooting, great melee.

[jocke01]

Well it seems that you like to play very competitive while you brother doesn't or is to inexperienced with the game to play at that level yet.

So the best would be to play a little bit more softer lists with him and play more and more games and keep him interested, that's the only way to get him to the same level as you. Or he dosen't enjoy such a competitive playstyle in wich case you could just play a little softer lists with him but don't handicap yourself out of your fun at the same time.

Biomancy powers is cheese, hah that's a good one. The only power that's really good is iron arm and you only get that 1/6 times and even with three rolls for tervigons you can't rely on that even though it's very strong when you do get it. If iron arm was the primaris power then yes going 4 tervigons all with T 7-9 would be cheese.

We really don't need a uppdate to face the new tau the aren't to strong on their own (tau&eldar that's a problem ). The current codex is strong enough alltohugh I would love to have more way to build varied competitive lists and not have half the codex units being not worth taking or next to useless but sadly that's not the way GW writes their codex so don't hold your breath.

The main problem looks like your brother can't handle losing and it's up to him to learn from his defeats and keep improving nothing more to it.

[beefythepug]

You guys make good points, its why I need to go down to GW and play to find more like minded hobbyists and get my butt handed to me in the process. Only way to learn right? As the first step I do think my brother and I will be switching armies next game so he can see what it feels like to lose 2 extremely expensive MCs per turn plus losing plenty of other units. Perhaps that perspective will make him take less issue if I always bring my 'A' game.

Jun 18, 2013 21:32:57 GMT Hive Bahamut said:

We all had a talk with him to quit being an idiot and that Nids cheese is effectively countered by anything in that codex. Or most for that matter.

Then when Tau came out he started getting worked over because his auto win 2x Libby/Purgation +DK didn't just walk through everything. Now it was Broadsides and FW that were OP.. Some people just hate losing, it should be YOUR job to try to prevent them from winning. We're not playing a kiddie participation ribbon game.. Would you give someone their third property in Monopoly because they told you the dice weren't being fair and they should have landed on it?... I hope not. You did invest hundreds if not more into the game, and being told you effectively have to lose is dumb.

People that complain when they lose are stupid. I felt this way about him then, I feel that way when I go to LGS. We have a pretty cookie cutter army, it only handicaps us further with our limited choices and play styles. Tau has very little trouble with me. No Fly rant, Ymgarls etc blasted with interceptor, Riptide chewing through MC. It really isn't a good matchup in terms of trying to be fair. Effectively two ends of the spectrum.. (please do not swear) melee, great shooting vs. (please do not swear) shooting, great melee.

Yeah it irritates me when our Tyranid specific abilities get called out as cheap, just cause I'm not MEQ doesn't mean I'm cheating.

The new Tau are tough, and yeah it does suck when I get called out as cheap when I manage to engage them and take away all the shooty nastiness. re the investment, I've spent way more into this hobby than I ever thought I would. I think I'm around 5,000 points of Nids now because I wanted to try the majority of our units. And no it doesn't make me happy to feel like the models I've spent hours assembling/painting can't be played due to cheese factor.

I don't mind people complaining about losing as long as the complaints are towards the dice, mistakes they could improve upon, missed opportunities etc. I just don't like being called out as the one doing something wrong, when all I've done is bring my best units and followed the rules.

thanks for listening guys, I know this has turned into a semi rant/whine fest on my part.