How do the little guys win?

[Sexiest_hero]

Ogres get hacked down by beastmen core, and lore of metal.That makes them not broken right there. Armies don't have tiers IMHO they have things that work wonky (chosen-star) or things good against the meta. For instance, if you shut down DE mindrazor, they can become easy push overs. I've found, getting a monster in a flank means the end of most units as nobody takes fighy lords anymore. Each of my Lords and heroes can time a unit, as well as my specials and rares. The average army has a death star and a steadfast horde, a bsb and a wizard lord. After you take a combat character Potion of STR or speed and Obsidian blade a few times mourn fangs end up being free points.

[Lord Dan]

Ogres get hacked down by beastmen core, and lore of metal.That makes them not broken right there.

I'm sorry, what?

[Sexiest_hero]

Beastmen core own Ogres. As in gor with a beast banner in XHW. Roll Ogres. Before any kind of magic. Lore of metal beats Mourn-fangs Transmutation of Lead works well and Final transmutation can wreck havoc on their low leadership. I honestly think Ogres are a little under VC and on par with OnG and the new Empire. Just my opinion. Back on topic, good play wins, average luck providing.

[unknown_lifeform]

I'm amused the OP completely failed to acknowledge that player skill might have some impact on a game of warhammer...

8th has massively improved balance between armies and the 8th ed army books continue to improve it further. Better balance means that player skill (and yes, luck) will increase in importance as a factor in deciding games.

If your opponent does have a unit you feel you simply can't deal with (e.g. chosenstar) then all you can do is minimise the damage it does (often by good use of flack units to stall/redirect said deathstar). Whilst their massive points sink isn't making a valuable contribution to the battle grab your vps up elsewhere.

[panic_puppet]

Luck is definitely a factor. Last game of a 3.5k tournament last week my tomb kings squared off against dark elves, by the end of turn 1 thanks to a very jammy magic phase I took down over 1000 points (purple sunned a hydra, casket dropped a unit of shades, 5 out of 10 cold ones, and a cauldron of blood, and my catapult scored a direct hit and rolled a 5 for multiple wounds to remove hydra number 2). I played the same opponent today at 1k with my fledgling bretonnia, he turned up with a hydra, black guard, shades and crossbowmen squaring off against my peasant block and 2 units of men at arms, and I won largely due to my knights making every single charge, even the improbable ones. There are very few lists out there now that have no weak spots, so canny generalship is much more of a factor now. The 8th edition books, by and large, seem very well balanced with each other, and I think there's enough of them out now to be able to make that claim. Only one of the uber armies from 7th has been redone (VC), and I've heard no complaints about it - Tomb Kings and Ogres are getting a lot of press primarily because they're a lot better than they used to be, but that doesn't necessarily make them broken (I play my TK very magic heavy, which has lead to some comments about TK magic being insane, but nobody's come right out to the point of 'its broken').
All armies have their strengths, and someone that knows their army inside out, even one of the "little guys", will stand a good chance against someone that's just picked up a 'strong' list off the internet and decided to play it. Essentially there are 3 ways for the underdogs to win: 1) Experience, 2) Generalship, and 3) a healthy dose of luck

[Montegue]

No idea how Empire could achieve that. Graft perhaps?

The others probably win due to a combination of factors:
http://www.warseer.com/forums/showth...LLY-Wins-Games

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showth...e-of-Warhammer

Empire list with the massive Halberd blocks won overall at the tournament today. Empire can win just fine.

[IcedCrow]

There is very little skill in any GW game. There are a handful of tricks you learn to master. Once that's done, it's pretty much up to the dice. If you are up against an opponent who is new and doesn't know all of the tricks then it will seem like your skill won the day (I guess technically it did) but really it comes down to learning the handful of tricks and then having fun.

It is true that most people now skip fighty lords and go for the full on magic in the hope of #6 spelling you off the table along with their blob death star of steadfast. That's fine too.

I run a tomb king list with a tomb king, a tomb prince, and a level 2 hierophant this year. I have a block of 40 spearmen and a block of 30 tomb guard and a block of 20 archers and then I mix up the rest every game. I can give anyone a run for their money despite the rolling eyes and smirks at the stores and the internetz wizdomz being defied (what a fighty lord lulz... no level 4? lulz... tomb kings without a ton of magic? lulz no unit of 50 tomb guard? lulz)

I may not always win but I can give you a run for your money and that's really all that I care about is a good game.

So in summary

* learn the handful of tricks like target prioritization, roles of units, etc

* learn offensive formations, defensive formations and when to use them

* make sure you understand what an anvil unit is and what a hammer unit is and how they play in the roles above

* use terrain as it is supposed to be in the rule book and not this two hills two forest crap and a wide open middle

* use the random scenarios to enforce army comp

You will find your games vastly improve. Hell you may even change some of your own meta.

[GodlessM]

Empire list with the massive Halberd blocks won overall at the tournament today. Empire can win just fine.

Do you have a link to these results? Not that I don't believe you, as I think my confidence in the Empire is pretty well known at this point, but I'm curious to see what parameters these results are against.

[MooseOnTheLoose]

Its a very simple answer. Not all the "sky is falling" and "tiers to army strength" actually have merit. Or better put are vastly over exaggerated, especially on the internet. Add in a dash of todays society where the vocal minority have about 90% of the attention.

[Glenn87]

Do you have a link to these results? Not that I don't believe you, as I think my confidence in the Empire is pretty well known at this point, but I'm curious to see what parameters these results are against.

yeah, I'd like to know the results as well as the guys army list (a friend of mine just started Empire and we have NO idea what to include).

[Jezbot]

As people have said, player skill and luck plays a large part in any game. Getting the spell off at IF at the right time, and getting lucky with the roll on the miscast table, can mean more than all the advantage the toughest lists might offer. And so can good play, while I agree with IcedCrow that there isn't that much to being a fully skilled player, there are still players who don't make that grade (because they haven't played that many games, and some because they just aren't that bright), so that even if they have a more powerful build you can expect to win.

The other variable is tournament format. There might be 50 or more players in an open tournament, but you don't play each of them. You only play 4, 5 or 6 games typically, and lots of people in that tournament will have fluffy non-competitive lists. You might get a random opponent in the first round, to meet some guy who's just starting out in the game, who's army basically consists of a starter box and another troop box, with magic items splashed out across his characters to get up to the points limit. So you table him and shoot to the top of the table. Second round you face up against a guy who scored a big win in the first round, but only because he faced a guy with a list as fluffy as his own, and his opponent had terrible dice. Third and final round for the day you go up against a guy who was up all night painting his guys for the tournament, and adrenaline got him through the first two rounds, but now it's hit him and he starts making all kinds of mistakes.

Next day you come back and by now you can expect the top of the table to have more or less worked itself out into the better players with the stronger lists, and you can now expect to face some tough games. However, there's only a couple of games left, and on the day anything can happen. So you face up to your opponent and the luck goes your way, and you manage to eke out a win. Last round you have play offs, 1st v 2nd for gold and silver, that stuff, and maybe now your luck catches up with you, and you can't beat the stronger list against a very good player, but you still finish second, and walk away with a very nice prize.

That's basically what happened to me in a tournament some years back. I'm not saying something like that has to happen, but there is a lot of random luck in the tournament format, just by virtue of the fact that you only play a small number of people in the tournament.

[Lord Inquisitor]

To win a tournament with a low tier army you need
- luck. As others have said, you need a bit of luck. I challenge anyone who's won a GT to say with hand on heart there wasn't at least one moment where everything hinged on a vital roll. Mostly you need the luck to happen when it counts, or at least not kick you in the nuts, especially the later games. More than that and especially with a low tier army good matchups help.
- skill. Playing well will usually carry you through the first couple of rounds. After a while you play the good players and by this stage it is mostly a game of who makes the least mistakes. Really knowing your army and not forgetting anything are useful as well.
- enemy unfamiliarity. You can't count on this but the hidden metagame advantage of any less taken list or unit is that there's more chance your opponents won't be familiar with them and may be wrong-footed and make mistakes. This is matchup dependent to a degree. Even good players can be put at a disadvantage if they simply haven't had an opportunity to play much against a given army.
- soft scores/comp. Comp scores are obviously a help but competitive types who play a low tier army often put a lot of love into it and do well from painting scores and so on. It can even help a little with sports, people irrationally associate top builds with poor sports.

[Oogie boogie boss]

Some lists will always have an advantage, indeed, some races will always have an advantage over others, but I good player with a soft list is still favourite to beat a bad player with a hard list. Of course, luck can swing a game, but understanding how your army works, how it synergies, and how to mask it's weaknesses is a more sure way to victory than simply taking the hardest selection of stuff possible.
The real problems arise when you have a good player, who knows his army well, and who takes a competitive list...

[Lord Solar Plexus]

Empire list with the massive Halberd blocks won overall at the tournament today. Empire can win just fine.

Sure, I just saw a chance to use the word "graft"!

[Montegue]

yeah, I'd like to know the results as well as the guys army list (a friend of mine just started Empire and we have NO idea what to include).

He defeated a Skaven player, a very tough ogre list, and I do not recall his other opponent. Possibly the other dwarf list in the tournament. The guy's an excellent player. His list is basically two 59 man units of Halbs with 30 man halb detachments. He brings a captasus, a steam tank, and a Hellblaster with a master engineer. The ME has pigeon bombs. He brings a level 4 shadow mage, war priests and captains for his big units, and one of the units is stubborn with the CoC.

[Lord Dan]

I'm actually less convinced having seen his list. A Hellblaster is his only piece of artillery? Not a single buff spell?

[Valaraukar]

Well he has Shadow for good old Mindrazor and/or hex enemies with miasma

[Spiney Norman]

Simple question. How do the low and mid-tier armies actually fight and win against the top power-gamer lists?

Out of curiosity, I looked into a bunch of recent tournament results. It's true that armies like High Elves and Skaven place more often than others, but they don't always win. There is the occasional Orc and Goblin army or Empire or Vampire Counts that take 1st place, even without a heavily comped tournament.

I know that it's a dice game and there is some randomness involved, but is that all there is? Do certain armies just have to hope for good luck? It has to be more than that, but I just don't see how an Orc and Goblin army could possibly fight against a WoC chosenstar list. How could an Empire army stand up against High Elves with Teclis?

I'm not calling Empire or O&G or Vampire Counts weak. Just that their A-game is nothing compared to certain lists...so how do they manage to beat those lists?

The simple answer is that the gap in effectiveness between the games different armies, even at the competitive end where everyone tries to make the most abusive build possible from their list is hugely exagerated on warseer. I don't think the gap between the most powerful army and the weakest army is too great for simple luck to bridge it in the right circumstances, and when you factor in how some generals are better at the game than others the result of any given game becomes completely unpredictable.

At the end of the day claiming that an army is "broken" is most gamers' way of justifying why they lost a game.

Also specifically regarding tournements; the armies you draw against plays a pretty huge role in how well your army does, its difficult to make a universally strong force from any of the games factions that cannot be undone by the right build, if you happen to draw against a build that is especially well equipped against your army then you wont do as well. It starts to get complicated here, but most tournement players intentionally build their armies to combat known major threats like regenerating monsters (Hydras, Hell pits) etc, which means in turn those elements, although powerful, may not live up to their full potential because everyone has a flaming unit suitable for countering them.

[GodlessM]

He defeated a Skaven player, a very tough ogre list, and I do not recall his other opponent. Possibly the other dwarf list in the tournament. The guy's an excellent player. His list is basically two 59 man units of Halbs with 30 man halb detachments. He brings a captasus, a steam tank, and a Hellblaster with a master engineer. The ME has pigeon bombs. He brings a level 4 shadow mage, war priests and captains for his big units, and one of the units is stubborn with the CoC.

What I meant by results was the list of results at the tournament, i.e. what army came in each position. It makes a huge difference. His list is certainly good however.

[Kapeg90]

It requires skill, tactics and general luck.

Once you've mastered your army, and you know the in's and out's (i.e. all the special rules to your army, it's advantages). Then you've mastered your opponents weaknesses, and start to exploit those weaknesses with your advantages, and help from the dice, you will then master the board.

Pretty simple, really.