Chapter Tactics is a 40k podcast which focuses on promoting better tactical play and situational awareness across all variations of the game. Today Peteypab brings on two experienced TOs in a special bonus episode geared towards helping TOs take their tournaments to the next level, as well as helping new TOs with advice on how to get started with their own 40k events.
Show Notes:
- Our Sponsor the Iron Halo put out a promo video! Check it out!
- Don’t forget to check out our new sponsor! Broken Egg Games, and Rum Runner Wargame Painting and Conversions.
- Click here for a link for information on downloading best coast pairings app where you can find lists for most of the events I mention.
- Check out the last episode of Chapter Tactics here. Or, click here for a link to a full archive of all of my episodes.
- Commercial music by Music by: www.bensound.com
- Intro by: Justin Mahar
Need help with a list idea? Got a rules question? Want to talk tactics? Then email me at…
frontlinegamingpeteypab@gmail.com
Please do not send an army list in a format such as Army Builder, send them in an easy to read, typed format. Thanks!
As an aside, if you ever make that allies/soup episode – please invite someone with strong argumentative opinions against allies so it’s not just a circlejerk of guys who like allies and sometimes playing devil’s advocate.
not gonna lie, generally i see your comments and just skip them. I must have missed the name before reading the comment but i agree on allies and having a dissenting voice on a podcast for once.. I just know they will never go away though because it makes GW money.
rvd1ofakind makes the best comments, I always read them, print them out and then stick on random cars outside
I get them tattooed on my back, in alphabetical order. This has meant a lot of surgery to have the earlier ones moved as he makes new ones, but it’s definitely worth it.
“Oh cool a comment on one of our episodes! Oh, it’s rvd talking to himself angrily again about fuck all.”
Every.
Damn.
Time…
It’s what I do best.
I can’t wait for CA to be released to make the salty “points drop analysis for admech/daemons/necrons/orks”. Here’s a preview:
“Bloodcrushers were more fragile than bloodletters against any weapon statline in the game. Even those that countered letters the most (bolters) were still more efficient at killing crushers.
Crushers also did less damage against any target in the game than the equivalent number of letters. They also took up less space on the board, weren’t troops(cp, objective secured), had bigger bases so they had trouble fitting through gaps and weren’t infantry so they couldn’t interact with top floors of ruins and bloodletters also hit on 2s
So to make them comparable they have to go from 47 to 20 points. However in CA they are…” TO BE CONTINUED.
We had to remove his access to our competitive discord channel because he absolutely cannot comprehend opposing arguments, then i was directed here and see we wernt the only ones suffering
Off topic, but in reply to RVD.
The game’s state, since 8th, changes often. Balances are addressed, powerful and weak abilities are nerfed or elevated. Nothing is entrenched in a position of dominance or weakness forever.
Allies are very thematic. The problem right now is that a Guard Battalion, as an example, is more efficient than the same detachment of Marines, again as an example. Guard generate CP with a lower point investment, have access to amazing abilities like being able to move twice, provide effective board control and, to be frank, 3 Guardsmen are far superior to a single Tactical Marine.
What if the unit balance is addressed? What if a Battalion of Marines becomes as attractive as one of Guard, and generated CP as efficiently?
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with armies comprising allied forces, but that’s not to say that a mono codex build (which to me looks nicer on the tabletop) shouldn’t be as capable, and can be if the game balance is addressed.
Just FYI, here’s my order of preference:
1. Allies and pure armies are equaly as viable.
2. Only pure armies are viable
3. Only allied armies are viable
Right now we’re stuck in 3, obviously. #1 is kind of a pipe dream because I feel it is impossible to balance 11 intermixing factions vs solo factions. The Imperium will always adapt faster to the changing meta because they have all the tools at their disposal. The easy fix is “give Necrons/Tau/Orks all the tools imperium has” and that’s fine however then every Pure faction list goes from the trash can into the fire pit.
I’m fine with GW slowrolling this, however a year has passed and nothing has changed. IG is still in every Imperium list as the loyal 32 and GW are only changing things that accidently make them better:
GW: “Hey we’ll add more CP to battalions so people don’t feel the need to always ally in cheap battalions”
Players: “Wait, my cheap battalion is even better? SICK!”
GW: “Uh… ok we fk’d up. How about we’ll remove the CP generator”
Player: “Oh damn, that sucks for IG only right?”
GW: “No. For everyone. It’ll make cheap battalions more valuable oh and BTW, screens are better too because FLY can’t fly over them outside movement phase, OH and they also get cover, which was not easy to get before for big horde units.”
Player: *loyal 32 salute*
You are flat out not correct in this one, buddy. #5 in the ITC overall rankings is a pure army. Pure armies can and do perform well.
So no, not at all, are only allied armies viable. Not even close.
Dark Eldar are definitely pretty solid.
Reece, quit playing dumb.
The druhkhari Codex is widely excepted as the best solo codex in the game. If that codex is played by a great player and he gets some good match-ups and he rolls well and the codex is new – yes it can win.
However, he would always do better by including a tiny eldar detachment for doom,jinx. And that’s the problem. There are no penalties for doing so. There are no benefits for not doing it.
BTW: for me, winning with a pure list is actually not as impressive as winning with a soup list. A great general should recognise that a soup list is always better under the current circumstances. If he’s making it harder upon himself – I do not see the point. You already can get screwed over by dice, terrain, match-ups and even some opponents.
Dude, lol, you and Don Tomato…you make a definitive statement, then it is shown to be wrong and you act like you didn’t make a definitive statement when it no longer suits you.
You said, and I quote:
“3. Only allied armies are viable
Right now we’re stuck in 3”
So yeah, lol, no one is playing dumb, you just made an inaccurate statement. So what if Drukhari are good or not? That’s not the point. The point is that you can’t make a sweeping generality and then act like you didn’t, lol.
Anyway, whatever. I think if you just toned down the vitriol in your choice of words a bit you wouldn’t come across as so abrasive.
I think it is playing dumb, because you lach on to one thing and ignore everything else. This is, once again, a text based communication system without an edit function. I don’t have anything to gain by “backpedaling” or “moving golf posts”.
Let’s try again:
If you add optimal allies to your pure army list, you will always be more efficient. There are no penalties for doing so. There are no benefits for staying pure. There is no choice in this matter if you want to build the best list you can – you have to get allies. That is BAD game design, especially so when you consider that some armies have no allies.
>If you add optimal allies to your pure army list, you will always be more efficient
Only if the allies improve the army, which is not a given.
>There are no benefits for staying pure
Only insomuch as there are also no benefits for allying- army composition itself gives you no specific benefits or penalties, only what the units and detachments you include give you. Allies are very often, but not always, beneficial to include in an army, though the degree to which that is true varies.
You really, really, really, really want allies to be penalized; we get it. It makes your dick rock-hard every day and you are literally incapable of not posting about it in every thread no matter how tangential to the topic. But maybe give it a rest for a bit? Because no one here has the power to change how allies work- not me, not you, not Reece, not any of us. Write to GW if you want and plead with them to have things changed. (They won’t, because GW _likes_ allies; they’re good for their profits and they’re good for their narrative.) But arguing with us over thing that boils down to “I don’t like this fundamental axiom of the game and I am going to lecture you all about it ENDLESSLY” isn’t winning you any friends, it just gets you a reputation about a guy who is borderline-obsessive about an issue that most other people are ambivalent on.
>However, he would always do better by including a tiny eldar detachment for doom,jinx.
You know, he doesn’t see it that way? And I’m pretty sure that you aren’t a better Drukhari player than him, so maybe you ought to consider the possibility that you’re just straight wrong here.
Also, I’ve been doing pretty well with Tau in the absence of allies, which seems to fundamentally undermine your point. And Craftworlds/Ynnari armies are arguably in the same position, where you _can_ take allies but might not even want to. Oh and Tyranids, also Tyranids.
So out of the ~18 factions in the game, a bare minimum of five of them can play completely pure armies and compete at the top-tier levels of the game and win major tournaments. What, exactly, was your complaint again?
“>If you add optimal allies to your pure army list, you will always be more efficient
Only if the allies improve the army, which is not a given.”
Did you miss the word “optimal”. That indicates they improve the army. I never said you should ally in Grey Knights because “All allies make your army better”. The problem I have is that there are factions that do something extremelly well (screening and CP for guard for example) so you see it in every single imperium list. Why use your faction stuff (hi every non-scout non-IG troop) when you can just take better stuff from another faction.
The reason I talk about allies is because either the podcast episode calls them “fine as is” or there’s a positive comment about them. I will respond to that, because it’s the #1 thing I dislike about the game, and I’m definitelly not alone. There’s a thread by a different person every few days here, on dakka or on competitive 40k facebook about how they hate allies.
About the #5 ITC player – honestly I didn’t know that. Is there an online interview about it? T’AU are doing fine, but they won’t ever win a major event like BAO/SoCal/LVO/NOVA if allies stay as they are without very lucky match-ups(which you yourself said on the podcast since you faced 0 eldar). Tyranids take allies constantly. They take maguses to shut off overwatch and MC, they take solo company commanders to get better relics.
However, you have a point about Eldar and Tyranids. If all factions were like that – I’d dislike allies way less than I do currently. In those factions it might actually be a GOOD choice not to ally sometimes. The reason I hate allies is Chaos, Imperium and solo factions. In chaos and imperium it is always a bad choice for efficiency if you go pure, you agree with that right? Should that be the case?
Oh and I did send an email to GW about this. Here’s the core difference between me and most other people posting about this. Allies do not affect me directly at all. I do not go to big tournaments and the tournaments I play in do not have allies. This is not a selfish “wah, I want my army to be better”. I truly think this would be good for the game.
I’m fine with allies being unpunished if pure factions are given benefits to staying pure. Isn’t that what you guys said too? It’s the same thing at the end of the day. If you give something benefits, you automatically punish everything else by not giving them said benefits.
>Did you miss the word “optimal”
Okay, let me restate that for you with the full text: “If you add optimal allies (i.e. allies that improve the army) to your pure army list, you will always be more efficient.”
Wow, adding models that improve an army will make an army better. Some real cutting-edge insight there! Did you know that removing suboptimal allies from a list will _also_ make it better? And that adding optimal pure detachment to a list will make it better? Etc.
Your definition of “optimal” is circular, is what I’m saying.
>because it’s the #1 thing I dislike about the game
Dude, we know. We can’t HELP but know. You literally will not stop posting about it, everywhere, for every reason.
>About the #5 ITC player – honestly I didn’t know that. Is there an online interview about it?
He has an entire podcast about it (Splintermind), has been on Chapter Tactics and half a dozen other podcasts, and more. It’s… not exactly a big secret.
>If all factions were like that – I’d dislike allies way less than I do currently.
Okay, but here’s the thing: I think that they ARE, to a significant degree, you just don’t want to see it. Some factions can’t realistically play alone, it’s true- IG and IK, for example, just don’t have the tools to go the distance without some help, as they lack the proper tools. And some armies aren’t really very good period, like GK and AdMech. But all of those other factions out there that are inevitably seen as part of ally armies? Most of them can be played competitively on their own, and win. So if you think the thing holding you back from playing a “pure” army is that it’s impossible to be competitive, you’re dead wrong- people can, and do.
Now, does it take more care in list-building to do so? Yeah, for sure. Are allies generally a better plan? Yep, because having access to more options is typically good. (It is also a better plan to, say, allow yourself access to multiple Marine chapters when building a list, or to use both vehicles and infantry, or avoid any other arbitrary restriction you care to name- not removing options from your pool is always superior.)
>Allies do not affect me directly at all
Then why do you even care? The idea that someone, somewhere is having THE WRONG KIND OF FUN bothers you so much that you have to dedicate a significant portion of your waking hours to arguing about a thing that isn’t even a part of your experience?
@Reece
I hope you intentionally said Don Tomato instead of Tomaso because I found that super funny
😉
Wasn’t expecting a second one! Can’t wait to listen to it all!
Keep it up, boys.
havent listened yet, just want something clarified for me – if I care nothing about being a T.O. or what it takes to do the job, should I bother listening to this episode? Please be honest.
Nobody? Everyone too busy arguing to answer?
Hey man, sorry for the very late reply here. I had to deal with a family emergency and found myself in the unfortunate position of having to rush home halfway across the country.
I would say this episode is more geared towards TOs however if you if have a local TO who’s attendance isnt growing, or maybe you disagree with some of their policies this could be a good episode to listen to to form your own opinions on the subject.
I’d be interested to see the analytics on the flg comments. I’d wager a lot of money that they have fallen off a cliff since rvd started posting. It really is the most tedious repetitive nonsense
No, they’re as active as always. Even more active actually since quite a few threads exploded in the past week.
Also I love how you have nothing to add to the discussion except “waaah rvd is disagreeing with ppl”. That’s like the 3rd time you’ve posted this. Please stay on topic.
I ask a genuine question about the content of this episode to gauge whether it’s worth a listen for myself, and get no response. Ask again, still none. Two members of FLG have commented since, on an almost empty comment section, but no answer. Though they took the time out to argue with an obvious troll. Not a good look FLG. I’m a long time listener but gotta say this is pretty crappy way to keep listeners.
Hey buddy, you make some good points, sorry. However, the cast of the show are not around at present. Pablo’s off shout casting the iron halo. I’m sure he’ll reply when he can.
Reece, this obvious troll has a question for you: would you let me post a daemon unit review (don’t worry, there wouldn’t be any flame or GW shaming, just a look through the units with math, tournament results and a tiny bit of personal experience). I have access to a lot of data so maybe this would be valuable and you can screen it before posting it ofc.
Yeah, I’m happy to give it a look. We’re just not interested in massively negative bitch-fests. If it’s well written and relatively objective I’m happy to publish good content.
No worries, thanks for the response. Im keen to listen to more content just wondering if this episode is mostly stuff I’m not going to be interested in, as a player who has no interest in the T.O. side of things.
Well, I haven’t listened to it yet, myself, haha, so couldn’t say 🙂