What REALLY Wins Games?

[Malorian]

I guess that's my concern. 16,000 doesn't break down into 3,000 point chunks.

The skaven are so cocky they are going to leave 7000 points off the table

[Lord Dan]

The skaven are so cocky they are going to leave 7000 points off the table

Almost a fair fight!

[Mirbeau]

I'll vote for the tactics - with a bit of strategy, more specifically, deployment. Especially in an enviroment where infantry are so prevailent (so a tactical redeploy can take awhile). I've seen more games lost to mistakes made during that phase then any other.

After that, movement. But then, I'm (largely) a wood elves player, so that may not apply to all armies, I think the answer may be somewhat subjective.

[russellmoo]

Where does Lore of Shadow fit in? It seems to me that this lore is the one that wins games- Of course I like the skaven's odds in any large fight imagine what the boosted plague spell could potentially due, especially if it bounces through all 16,000 pts

In this situation tactics will win the game, no amount of power will be able to chop down the sheer number of skaven slaves on the table.

In general I would say that power wins games, however, this is also why most players find the skaven so frustrating to play against as due to the cheap cost of slaves and the amount of unbreakable units skaven can take it really blunts even the most powerful of units- (it doesn't matter how many kills your chosen or gut star can dish out if they are stuck in killing slaves) So, against Skaven it comes down to tactics, but in other situations- say O&G vs OK it tends to be about which side brought the bigger stick-

[Sexiest_hero]

If you let slaves, get into your usefull units you are either playing a deathstar or youost n the deployment/movement phase.

[RanaldLoec]

6's to charge hit and wound.

1's on your opponents armour and ward saves.

We can try to reduce the odds but it is all decided by the dice

[Oogie boogie boss]

Okay, just to settle the 'how is this 16,000pt game going to be split up' debate, each Skaven player will have 2x 2,650pt lists, with one person having one of his lists at 2,750pts. We found that in the last game, that was the easiest way to control an army that large, breaking it into manageable chunks. However, within each 'mini list', the choices percentages rule won't be used, so one person may have a list with a lot of Rare units or the like, simply because we may want to concentrate various elements at particular points, and it won't work if we have to break up elements of people's lists. Also, we've got 50 Rat Ogres to play around with, and given that there's a distinct possibility of there being units of 100 Bestigor, 100 WoC and 50 Ogres, we're probably going to want to use them all in one unit.
OT, it's interesting that a lot of people are admitting that power seems to have more influence on the outcome of the game in 8th than tactics. Do we think this is a good thing? It seems to me, and this is just my opinion, that this takes the game closer to 40k where the biggger stick wins.

[Chicago Slim]

So, there's a way of thinking about war-fighting, which has been described by a variety of Romans, and summarized pretty well by Clausewitz, in which the command decisions and war-fighting techniques are "layered", such as:

Grand Strategy: Choosing what wars to fight, and a doctrine for war-fighting
Strategy: Choosing what battles to fight, and how deeply to commit to each
Grand Tactics: Planning for winning a particular battle
Tactics: Execution to win an individual engagement

In our game, Grand Strategy is trimmed down, basically, to army build (because we decide to fight ALL the wars!!) Arguably, Strategy and Grand Strategy should be mostly outside the scope of this game, but it can be useful to think of a single game at a Strategy level-- in which case, Strategy mostly plays out in deployment, though it is possible to alter your strategy (that is, decided where you'll win fights and what it'll cost to do so) during the game. Grand Tactics has to do with maneuvering, and supporting your fighters with shooting, magic and leadership. Most of the in-game decisions we make are Grand Tactical decisions, though a few are Tactical: whether or not to challenge, when to use a one-use-only item, and even the finer points of maneuver. A lot of Tactical execution, though, comes from the dice...

The point of this model of thinking of war-fighting is that victory (or even just good decision-making) at higher levels makes victory (or just good decisions) easier at the lower levels. If you bring a good army, and deploy it well, you can make some pretty serious mistakes in terms of movement and choosing targets for shooting and magic, and still come out okay. If you bring a good army, and deploy it well, and make good decisions about movement and targeting your shooting, you can suffer a lot of bad dice and still do well.

Of course, this all assumes that your Tactics and Grand Tactics are integrated with your Strategy and Grand Strategy: that is, the specific decisions that count as "good" depend on what your build and deployment are...

So, maintaining a consistent Strategy and Grand Tactic with different armies presents, perhaps, a greater challenge if you have a mixed army-- but it also opens up more possibilities for synergies that don't exist within any single army. A team that works well together, and can focus on supporting a singular Strategic vision, ought to have an edge over a team that is all drawing from the same set of options... But a team that doesn't integrate and focus together will suffer more from divergent visions than a similarly dysfunctional team that all came from a single source...

[Kahadras]

List building is pretty much the deciding factor to begin with. If your opponant has taken a list that is going to kick you in the teeth there isn't much you can do about it. OK he might deploy poorly, make bad decisions during the game or just not roll very well but the likelyhood is that his list will carry him through the game. If the lists are reletivly equal then it comes down to planning and luck. The person who has the better plan gives themselves the best chance of winning as long as luck doesn't interfer too much.

Kahadras

[Sh4d0w]

Yup, in dice we trust, I had many games in which everything was on my side and I was losing just because of good roll on one uber spell or my bad roll...
Also I think that in 8-th editions tactic doesn't mean much, the 8-th is nearly an absolute random, roll for charge, uber spell...but sometimes it has one more factor - deathstars, like chaos chosens, and personally I don't like games that were won by deathstars, even more than games which were won by one good roll.

Whilst I do agree with you that luck can be a big factor in a game, I am also of the opinion that you create your own luck. For example, Unit A wants to charge Unit B but if Unit A fails then it leaves itself open to a flank charge from Unit C that is waiting on the side.

IMHO it is about weighing up the positives and the negatives, if you are going to run the whole game risking it for little reward you are going to screw yourself in the end, way too many people blame their losing on "luck", when in all honesty if they just look at the best players you will see they rarely risk anything big and that's why luck appears to be on their side.

[Vipoid]

There's a third factor: luck.

This would be my pick.

With random charge ranges, random terrain, random magic, dice rolls have become a major factor. Also, unlike most other rolls, you're rarely able to alter these by just throwing lots of dice at them.

[bad dice]

This would be my pick.

With random charge ranges, random terrain, random magic, dice rolls have become a major factor. Also, unlike most other rolls, you're rarely able to alter these by just throwing lots of dice at them.

You know I am so sick of this

The game is not about Luck.
Ok its suck a lot when you build your armie on magic and you get a crappie magic fase. But its your own fault for building the armie like that .
Also all this ranting on random charge ranges is pissing me off. IT has almost zero influence on the game.

The two things you get from charges are 1) +1 combat res totally not imported 2) More movement .
If you just use redirectors right and set up the right fights charging does absolutely noting.

Also thank god that now tactics are more imported that your ability to gues ranges and your skill at Pythagoras theory.

Sure luck comes in to play in this game cause there are dice, its not like chess.
But saying luck is the biggest factor just shows that you probably are not looking critically at your tactics.

For me I lost like 20 times as many games to ****** play than bad luck.
And on the flip side
I won way more games on good tactics then good luck

[Vipoid]

You know I am so sick of this

I didn't, but I do now.

I'll let you know when I start caring.

The game is not about Luck.

Yes it is.

Ok its suck a lot when you build your armie on magic and you get a crappie magic fase. But its your own fault for building the armie like that .

The word is "phase".

And some armies *need* magic, you can't just go the Khorne route and choose to ignore it.

Also all this ranting on random charge ranges is pissing me off. IT has almost zero influence on the game.

Firstly, if you believe that, then you honestly know nothing about the game or about random chance in general.

Second, it wasn't a rant, it was an observation.

Although, I'd be happy to provide a rant on randomness in fantasy, if you'd like one for the purposes of comparison.

The two things you get from charges are 1) +1 combat res totally not imported 2) More movement .
If you just use redirectors right and set up the right fights charging does absolutely noting.

I've no idea what you're trying to say here.

Are you saying that charging anything is pointless, because that's honestly all I can decipher from the above.

Also thank god that now tactics are more imported that your ability to gues ranges and your skill at Pythagoras theory.

Well yes, we wouldn't want actual skill to clutter our game, would we? Let's just replace all that with randomness, which is more tactical because...?

Sure luck comes in to play in this game cause there are dice, its not like chess.

The game is not about Luck.

I'm impressed that you managed to contradict yourself in the same post.

For me I lost like 20 times as many games to ****** play than bad luck.

Go you, I guess.

[Awilla the Hun]

Both. I'm prone to dismissing players who whine about the enemy being "unbeatable" or "overpowered" as simply not trying hard enough, but a well built army can help even things out.

I'd argue that luck is important because it encourages you to have a back up plan and to think flexibly. (Then again, as I use horde armies, I perhaps have more freedom to "SEND IN THE NEXT WAVE" than most when it comes to combo charges and suchlike. If one unit of Red Guardsmen breaks due to embarassing dice rolls, or fails to charge, I typically have another one to step into line. If a unit of Chaos Chosen was to roll double sixes on panic, however...)

EDIT: Amazingly, real warfare isn't an affair of total certainty either. Units sometimes hold for longer than they have any right to, orders get lost, fog clouds the battlefield, and offences fall to pieces due to factors far beyond the control of the general in his bunker. This was especially the case in the middle ages when every order had to be sent by gallopers, noblemen sometimes chose to disobey the general, and illness probably caused more losses than actual combat. Yes, dice luck can sometimes wreck a game, but it's down to you to minimise fickle fate with sound tactics. Or, at least, not rely on just one dice roll for your battle plan to go perfectly.

[bad dice]

I didn't, but I do now.

I'll let you know when I start caring.

You might be shocked but I don't care if you don't care and there are probably a lot of ppl that don't care that I don't care that you don't care. But luckily I don't care that they don't care that I don't care about you don't caring. And i am pretty sure that you don't care that I don't care that they don't care that I don't care that you don't care.
If you know what I mean.

Yes it is.

No it ain't its a game that involves random chance. A slot machine is a game about luck you have no influence on the outcome. In warhammer you do.
Like I said being crap at the game will lose it a lot faster that having bad luck.

The word is "phase".

Tnx you

And some armies *need* magic, you can't just go the Khorne route and choose to ignore it.

Yea they "need" it thats why they get items to boost the magic phase. But still you don't need to be Khorne (altough being the god of skulls would be *********** awesome) to win the game even whit a bad magic phase or two.

Firstly, if you believe that, then you honestly know nothing about the game or about random chance in general.

Well thank you, But I believe ppl who say it's all luck don't know much about random chance. Or the game for that matter

Second, it wasn't a rant, it was an observation.

I wasn't talking about you. But hey observations make the world go round ain't it, if only they where all correct.

Although, I'd be happy to provide a rant on randomness in fantasy, if you'd like one for the purposes of comparison.

Go right ahead i'll be happy to read it. Might be interesting.

I've no idea what you're trying to say here.

I am trying to say that you don't need to charge to win fights if you just march up to his face he's not getting away.

Are you saying that charging anything is pointless, because that's honestly all I can decipher from the above.

See above.

Well yes, we wouldn't want actual skill to clutter our game, would we? Let's just replace all that with randomness, which is more tactical because...?

No its not actual tactical skill, it just made cavalry totally over powered, it also leaned itself to some games just being stand-offs cause you knew that if you moved forward the other player would get the charge on you.

I'm impressed that you managed to contradict yourself in the same post.

No I think its your lack of understanding the difference between involving luck and being about luck as the primary factor that is impressive.

Go you, I guess.

Thank You I like myself two.
But I know everybody on the internet won all their games even if they played for 15 years. So I gues me admitting to losing is shocking to the general forum reader.

[Liber]

This would be my pick.

With random charge ranges, random terrain, random magic, dice rolls have become a major factor. Also, unlike most other rolls, you're rarely able to alter these by just throwing lots of dice at them.

Randomness and luck are controllable. Its called odds. You have to learn to play them.

Should you charge? How likely are you to make it? If you don't, what will the consequences be, and are those consequences greater than the benefit?

As the factor of 'luck' (in my experience there's no such thing as luck ) or randomness increases, so does the skill which is required to play this game well.

Ever heard of poker? There are individuals who make their living playing that game, I'd love to see what they would say too all those who decry 8th edition as being so 'random' and 'luck based'. Just because you fail to understand how to work a system, does not mean there is no system.

[bad dice]

Randomness and luck are controllable. Its called odds. You have to learn to play them.

Should you charge? How likely are you to make it? If you don't, what will the consequences be, and are those consequences greater than the benefit?

As the factor of 'luck' (in my experience there's no such thing as luck ) or randomness increases, so does the skill which is required to play this game well.

Ever heard of poker? There are individuals who make their living playing that game, I'd love to see what they would say too all those who decry 8th edition as being so 'random' and 'luck based'. Just because you fail to understand how to work a system, does not mean there is no system.

There also those that make a living of the stock market, but monkeys, dart boards, and spinners have been proven to be just as effective as them. So skill and earnings don't make things not based on odds (luck).
But why am I giving counter arguments?

I agree odss are much more then just luck. And the game is still way more of a skill thing than en odds thing.

[Liber]

There also those that make a living of the stock market, but monkeys, dart boards, and spinners have been proven to be just as effective as them. So skill and earnings don't make things not based on odds (luck).

I was talking about poker.

But why am I giving counter arguments?

I have no idea. I wasn't quoting you.

I agree odss are much more then just luck. And the game is still way more of a skill thing than en odds thing.

Ok.

[Gop]

Knowledge: Know your own and opponents armies rules and units.
Experience: Good grasp of tactics and how rules impact on this.
Luck: At least getting an average deal from the dice.
Psych: Sometimes you can convince the opponent they are facing an uphill battle.

[bad dice]

I was talking about poker.

I know i just wanted to point out that it is possible to make money based on odds as long as you know the odds are in your favour.
Poker still involves a lot of "luck" but like warhammer you can improve you "luck" a lot by being smart
I could have explained that better tough.