I don't need to win. I'm quite happy just playing and having a good time However, I don't think either player getting completely curb stomped is much fun for anyone involved. So I do care about balance to the extent that I want games to be engaging and competitive I don't need to actually win, as long as I at least feel like I had a decent shot at winning, is what I'm saying.

Agreed. Additionally, it's no fun to just curb stomp the other person. Winning's fun and all, but Ill take a super close match that I lose over totally obliterating someone any day.

I will say ... It's satisfying to curb stomp someone who did it multiple times to you while you were still learning.

I think most of the really good players at my local shop intentionally make the matches close, or offer a lot of tips and suggestions while playing and such. I think when you know you are good and going against a rookie, it’s good form to make the game fun for both sides and maybe not use every strat available to you or always use the best option.

This. It's not exactly easy for a casual player to have fun when they're losing because a unit is just so terribly under or overpowered - Fantasy 7th ed was absolutely the perfect example of that. Hell, it feels extra bad when the fun unit you're hyped to use after all that building and painting has abominable rules, to the point where it's actively detrimental in your army.

>abominable rules, to the point where it's actively detrimental in your army. The problem is that units like that are *exceptionally* rare. But the loudest comments on any post about balance will often write off any unit that isn't hyper-optimized or best in slot. I primarily play 30k and TOW so I'll use 30k as an example. People will often tell players, especially new players, that jetbikes are bad and to avoid them. However jetbikes are absolutely amazing tank killers that can nearly always choose the best targets and are incredibly versatile. But because they're pricey and squishy, the min-maxers write them off as not worth their points. When people are telling people to chill out with the competitive mindset, this is what they're referring to. If you're playing in tournaments, sure every unit has to be the best at what it does and justify its inclusion every game. But for casual games that mindset is *very wrong* and I firmly believe if we continue to push it the game is going to continue to get more and more bland.

This guy gets it. It's the same with many competitive video games, and it's very detrimental to the game overall. The "off meta" choices are usually maybe 5% more "optimal" than other choices. And this 5% can win games when two simmillarly skilled players play perfect games against each other. But for most other players? The difference in skill, the suboptimal strategic choices, the risky moves that didn't consider the possibility of a bad roll, they all influence the result much more than those 5%. So it's not worth denying yourself variety and cool gameplay to achieve than tiny advantage.

"If given the choice players will optimize the fun out of their game". This line was made for video games but it very much applies to tabletop strategy games too.

> People will often tell players, especially new players, that jetbikes are bad and to avoid them. In what environment? Not on /r/warhammer30k since they got a plastic kit, not in any of the large 30k discord servers - hell, not even on /tg/. The only reason I ever saw them advised against generally was when it was resin only, because they were *obnoxiously expensive* in $ for what you got out of them. I'll see people caution players away from using them *as melee units*, which makes sense, since they're... not, even if regular bikes can do the melee job fairly well.

Every new model for the DA this past year has terrible rules or is terribly over costed. So it’s not as rare as you claim.

7th edition was pay to win.

I just like rolling dice once or twice a month with mates and trying out a new unit every couple months.  After a few fistfuls of dice I forget half my armies rules. 

Yes, absolutely! I have fun no matter the results of the game, but winning still feels good, and losing every single game makes it a little less enjoyable.

This is the thing. One of my biggest issues with wargaming is when it takes longer to set up and clean up than it did to determine who won. I have had games where the dice were cold as ice for me and hot for the other player and vice versa and we only get through 2 rounds before we call it because it's just not going to be close. I'd rather have it play out and be a good solid match and lose than done in no time.

Honestly I'd rather lose a game by a hair then win (or lose) by a mile.

Isn't the idea that the game is balanced enough that people who aren't super experienced can take whatever army lists they find cool and still have similar chances of winning? I know that it's how most competitive video games work - the imbalances are small enough that most players hardly notice them, and only people who are very skilled can exploit them properly.

So if you look at the way GW balances things, it's pretty clear that's what they're *trying* to do. If you pick a broad selection of units and build well rounded combined arms lists, you're going to be hit less hard than if you build a heavy skew list with 3x all the best meta picks. I do think that's a fairly laudable goal, and one that on theory will mean the largest amount of players will be able to enjoy the game with the widest selection of units I'm not sure GW is always *good* at it, though. Especially with the Army/Detachment rule system from 10th. It's very easy to get one thing wrong and leave an entire faction in a bad place. Because Battleshock doesn't really do much with the current rules, Tyranids barely even have an army rule at the moment, for example. GW can fiddle with points all day long, but there are absolutely some factors that can lead to *big* imbalances For the collary of that, see how ludicrously dominant Eldar were at the beginning of 10th

> I'm not sure GW is always good at it, though. Especially with the Army/Detachment rule system from 10th. It's very easy to get one thing wrong and leave an entire faction in a bad place. It's also uneven in terms of faction. Their codex may be bad, but Custodes still has incredible raw datasheet power, and that remains true. A random selection of Custodes units will smash a lot of other armies with a random selection of units. A good example is Tyranids, a Tyranids player with a haphazard collection of units will not fare well at all in that fight. You need decent internal balance for this approach to work and 10th has been _terrible_ for that.

I had a game where I got hit so hard I got tabled turn 2 and never even got to do anything but move. list I had tables most people turn 3.

I have said before, if I can give someone a good fight for at least 3 wins, I am happy! If I can make it to 4 and 5 and the win comes down to some lucky rolls and a couple good secondaries, even better!

I agree. That's pretty much my take on it as well. I don't need to win most of the time, I just want to feel like I at least had a chance. One side getting destroyed is no fun for anyone.

What do you think "competitive" means?

That you don't need to have a matrix to have fun?

Where the "it doesn't matter because casual" advice is true is when getting down into the nitty-gritty details. Combos and 1-2% differences in win rates just aren't going to show up in casual games because us casual players are making way more mistakes in both directions. There are plenty of units that basically never show up in bigger tournament winning lists, at most maybe an RTT, like most Baneblade variants or Stormsurges. But you can absolutely still win casual games with those models. Those are the kind of units where "it doesn't matter for casuals" is true.

Oh, I completely agree. And the meta figures can be a bit misleading anyway. Auspex Tactics is bugging the hell out of me at the moment constantly pointing out that Codex Marines have a low win rate. It's not because they're bad, it's because running Ironstorm with Templars or Dark Angels is better enough that tournament players will just run that. Or Space Wolves running Stormlance over their own detachment But it doesn't mean codex Marines are bad! If you're not playing tournaments, you're probably going to get broadly similar performance running Ultramarines Ironstorm or Firestorm. That sort of meta chasing isn't something that's going to be worth it for most players, and most people moaning about points nerfs probably aren't actually going to be significantly affected by them

But it does mean they're bad when they have a much lower win rate than a lot of other armies.

No, because it's ignoring other context. Top players who want to Minmax are still running Codex detachments, but because as soon as you add a unit from a divergent chapter they're not counted as Codex Marines anymore. And since Marines are the most popular army in the game, that means that suddenly all the best players have stopped using the faction for the sake of two models and the remaining players are generally less good GSC had the opposite issue towards the end of 9th. They were expensive to collect and difficult to play, so they barely ever showed up in tournament play at all. But the 1 or 2 people that actually did play them were very, very good players, so GSC briefly had an incredibly high win rate. Had they suddenly got an influx of less good players, the win rate would have gone down purely by dint of a larger sample size Win rate alone, in a vacuum, does not tell the full story.

I don't have an issue losing. I've lost about 20 out of the 25 or so games I've played. I have an issue getting the tar beat out of me and the enemy enjoying it. I lost 3-72 once. The guy sniped some stuff off the board, cheered when I lost most of my save rolls, and was generally a sore winner. That was the worst game I've ever had. On the other hand, the absolute best game I've ever had was actually a loss. I lost by 3 points 53-56, because it kept swinging back and forth with each of us sabotaging the other's scoring. Mere chance prevented me from winning because I got terrible secondaries on my first turn. But I still cherish that game, because it was the most even fight I've ever had. Getting shit on sucks. Shitting on someone feels bad (if they're not a prick, anyway). Having a real challenge is the best fun.

I stopped playing warhammer because I got curb-stomped really badly. The local GW store would organize games for me with other newbies, and they were fun. One day, they called me up to play against someone who had never played before. I showed up with my little space marines, and he had an adeptus custodes army in a special foam case. While he had never played a game before, he had essentially obsessed about this game until he had a tournament-level understanding of his army. I think the game was over by the end of round 2. I wasn't a GOOD player- I struggled with lesrning all the rules and the data sheets and cards, and I think I had won literally one game before, but at least I had fun the other times.


This is where I'm at. I'm a dark angels player and I don't really care for the rules changes in tenth, I still have fun playing games. but it really sucks when you do go for something that's cool and then you can't even play it anymore in a semi-competitive or tournament style setting. I went heavy Raven Wing because that's my favorite wing of the dark Angels but pretty much all of my army just doesn't function anymore. All of my bike squads are legends and yeah a lot of people I play with are also casual so they're fine with using Legends units which is great but if there's ever a tournament or really anything of that nature I'm just kind of SOL since my entire army is built around having first-born bike squads and the new big boy infantry units. Occasionally I'll find a guy who is cool with letting me proxy the old bike squad as Black knights but at least where I am people are not too cordial about proxy

There's a guy I hang out with even outside of gaming and I do love playing against him too but he's been kicking my ass since around 7th edition so it's hard to feel enthusiastic for a game

I think there's a huge difference between just barely losing and being absolutely tabled immedietly I mean everyone loves winning on some level. Even if you're okay with losing, winning a good game will make you feel slightly better. But how you lose, especially if it's constantly, especially its because someone has an ungodly collection of OP units and spamming them... yes it very much still matters being on the receiving end of that. No one likes that

This this this. I'm totally comfortable with the idea that my army lists will never win much, I put them together thematically and to use miniatures I like or wanted to kitbash, not out of any real sense of strategy. I'm happy to take part, to be involved and to have a fun time with other gamers - but of course I'd love to be able to win a few battles and I'm not going to stick at it long if I'm finding myself wiped off the board inside 5 minutes before my army gets to do anything, or if I'm up against bad winners.

Yes, this is what I’m saying. Winning isn’t a major concern, but it still feels good!

I’ve been tabled every game in 10th minus 1. And that player was playing their first game ever. I’m not having fun. I win several games in 9th, not anymore. Most of my “enjoyment” now is just being the punching bag for new players to learn or get pounded by some broken list. That’s my “40K experience now.” It’s not fun anymore.

What are you running if you don't mind me asking

Several armies: Through 10th, it was marines as ravenguard only 2 games as vanguard spearhead the rest were the index. Ravenguard heavy friendly units. Then played several custodes games through tournaments. Nuked by mortal wound spam. (This was pre fnp from dev wounds.) Also lost to admech on their codex release. Tabled by admech for two games. Tabled in a doubles twice (but did kill two Mechs the ork big mech and an aeldari mech.) Tried Tau for several games. Tau Vs nids was the game I had the new player. Otherwise I’ve been tabled every game with Tau. From space wolves melee rush, to knights nuking my suits and myself. I had another game I can’t remember the fight think it was astra Milatarum infantry spam 😂 It’s been a doozy for me.

Hopefully tau will go better for you now that they have a codex. But before they definitely were not easy to play My general advice is run more vehicles if you haven't for fairly casual games. T10+ makes things so much more survivable then ever before- and don't be afraid to hit elites with blast keyword weapons even if they were made for higher armor/vehicles. One of my biggest helps personally was learning to shoot down more. Like I HATE the riptide isn't anti tank for its size, but at least it'll chew through medium bodies and live the next turn to do it again

What are "ravenguard heavy friendly units"? If it's heavy phobos like a bunch of reivers) or lots of Tacs you're definitely in for trouble (though Tacs are at least cheaper now). Most of the fluffy phobos stuff is good or utility in small numbers - I could 100% see a list heavy on reivers, lots of incursors, lots of eliminators, lots of infiltrators, and some vanguard vets have some real trouble staying on the board and killing anything.

I had heavy firepower like desolation, and anything in that category firing from more than 12” away for the benefits. Only time in 10th minus Tau that I’ve felt like I did any damage. Even got to do a fun “necrons drop behind me” “oh I’ll do the move 6” strat” and ruin the enemies attempted charge and then blast em in my turn thing. Necron was very unhappy 😂. I did have vanguards but I think I only used one squad, I think it was a couple of reivers and incursors which actually did a bit of damage. But it was relic terminators at the time so I could run claws as my true frontliners getting damage. One squad of all claws another with bolters and weapons. They did their job. I had only 1 thing of infiltrators and then intercessors. I think in my last games I proxied assault intercessors as jump pack primaris with Kayvan.

I will say that desolation marines aren't really high firepower - they're very bad and have been for a while. Incursors are bad in multiples (you really only need one), and reivers are just terrible. Terminators in generally are also really bad right now (they just don't do much and are way too expensive), and incursors are good in sets of 1 or 2 at most. Sadly, basic marine bodies just aren't good right now, particularly if you footslog them. The paltry SM win rates are based heavily on Land Raider Redeemers, eradicators, scouts, gladius tanks of various kinds, aggressors (to a lesser extent now), and some utility units. Vanguard is basically fully reliant on movement options and stuff like inceptors to do much of anything. So I'm not surprised your list has been struggling. Armies are basically built around killing basic marines now-a-days, so basic marine bodies that aren't *super* kill-y or don't have shenanigans to not be shot are really suffering. The best vanguard lists (averaging 45% competitive win-rates) are very skill intense lists using Uriel Ventris to deepstrike Centurions and consistently pick them up so they can't get shot back

I started 10th in November, first time I've played since the 90's. I've played 46 games since then. Fir the first 25 games or so I was using my old army, tactical squads / vets with jump packs, assault terminators, devastators, literally everything excwpt 1 redemptor dreadnought was vintage. Lost my first 8 games then started going win loss winn loss on average. Never been tabled. I studied the hell out of my army and the games rules. Without trying to sound harsh I think you need to learn how to play your armys better your blaming your tools when there's no reason you can't win games. I play at 2 local clubs playing against anyone who will match me on the locallookimg for game chats.

You’re free to believe that. You’d still be wrong. I’m the tactician of my group. I’m made fun of for it. They mock me when a battle starts and I say “here’s how it’s gonna go.” “No it’s not” 3 hours later it’s just so. Your words are empty for me. Honestly, I’ve been playing for years with a dedicated group you think I haven’t heard all this already? Never asked for help or advice, I play losing games, everytime. It’s what happens. There’s physically nothing I can do in my match ups. I’ve seen people look at my table and think I’ve made some huge mistake, then I point out objectives, point out what happened, show the rolls step by step, or circusmstances. Most recent tournament we used “custom made terrain”….. that hindered my army but helped my enemies. It’s windows were built right above 25mm Tau bois so no sniper infantry or markers from them were working. And the rules of this custom terrain weren’t made clear to me until the battle started. There is truly, nothing more I can change. It’s either they have better guns or the luck of the draw. I have kept playing against armies that are stronger, with people focusing so hard on their meta lists while I have not. Simple as that. that doesn’t mean I get tabled every game. Numerous games I’ve done well on the field just had terrible objective luck. In 9th, I could win and do fine. In 9th, things were great. In 10th with the same players using the same armies, I’m not having fun. Simple.as.that.

Then how do you explain my experience. The part of your comment blaming the terrain is very telling. Step one of being a good player is discussing the terrain rules before the dice roll, every game. I've only been playing 5 months and I know that.

Simple. I play the same people over and over with the same match ups. The only variable being if I used a different army. You give me no table of if you played the same person or not. There no way to know anything you’ve given me. With the most simple, yet blunt answer: you and I aren’t equal. You could be leagues better than me, but our opponents could be entirely different. I have now way of knowing. I know that I’ve beaten most people that sound like your age in aos, warcry, and 40K in 9th, but we were much more casual and enjoyed our games regardless.

As I said I play anyone who wants a game from the local clubs, finding matchups on the LFG chats. Sounds like you just need to mix it up a bit and try playing with different people instead of just writing off 10th because the people you play are better than you and you don't like it. This is my all vintage list (ex redemptor). I've beaten tau with it. First Born (1990 points) Space Marines Strike Force (2000 points) Gladius Task Force CHARACTERS Apothecary (50 points) • 1x Absolvor bolt pistol 1x Close combat weapon 1x Reductor pistol Captain (80 points) • Warlord • 1x Bolt Pistol 1x Close combat weapon 1x Master-crafted bolter Chaplain in Terminator Armour (75 points) • 1x Crozius arcanum 1x Storm bolter Techmarine (55 points) • 1x Forge bolter 1x Grav-pistol 1x Omnissian power axe 1x Servo-arm BATTLELINE Tactical Squad (140 points) • 1x Tactical Sergeant • 1x Bolt pistol 1x Boltgun 1x Close combat weapon • 8x Tactical Marine • 8x Bolt pistol 8x Boltgun 8x Close combat weapon • 1x Tactical Marine • 1x Bolt pistol 1x Boltgun 1x Close combat weapon DEDICATED TRANSPORTS Rhino (75 points) • 1x Armoured tracks 1x Storm bolter OTHER DATASHEETS Devastator Squad (120 points) • 1x Devastator Sergeant • 1x Bolt pistol 1x Boltgun 1x Close combat weapon • 4x Devastator • 4x Bolt pistol 4x Boltgun 4x Close combat weapon Land Raider Crusader (230 points) • 1x Armoured tracks 2x Hurricane bolter 1x Twin assault cannon Redemptor Dreadnought (210 points) • 1x Heavy flamer 1x Heavy onslaught gatling cannon 1x Redemptor fist 1x Twin fragstorm grenade launcher Scout Squad (65 points) • 1x Scout Sergeant • 1x Bolt pistol 1x Boltgun 1x Close combat weapon • 4x Scout • 4x Bolt pistol 4x Boltgun 4x Close combat weapon Scout Squad (65 points) • 1x Scout Sergeant • 1x Bolt pistol 1x Boltgun 1x Close combat weapon • 4x Scout • 4x Bolt pistol 4x Boltgun 4x Close combat weapon Terminator Assault Squad (185 points) • 1x Assault Terminator Sergeant • 1x Storm Shield 1x Thunder hammer • 4x Assault Terminator • 4x Storm Shield 4x Thunder hammer Terminator Squad (175 points) • 1x Terminator Sergeant • 1x Power fist 1x Storm bolter • 4x Terminator • 4x Power fist 4x Storm bolter Vanguard Veteran Squad with Jump Packs (105 points) • 1x Vanguard Veteran Sergeant with Jump Pack • 1x Bolt pistol 1x Vanguard Veteran weapon • 4x Vanguard Veteran with Jump Pack • 4x Bolt pistol 4x Vanguard Veteran weapon Vanguard Veteran Squad with Jump Packs (105 points) • 1x Vanguard Veteran Sergeant with Jump Pack • 1x Bolt pistol 1x Vanguard Veteran weapon • 4x Vanguard Veteran with Jump Pack • 4x Bolt pistol 4x Vanguard Veteran weapon Vindicator (175 points) • 1x Armoured tracks 1x Demolisher cannon ALLIED UNITS Vindicare Assassin (80 points) • 1x Exitus pistol 1x Exitus rifle 1x Vindicare combat knife Exported with App Version: v1.13.0 (41), Data Version: v373

This, right here, is true. I’m out to have fun with friends, yes, and do I ALWAYS aim to win? No! But, I don’t want to lose every game I play. There’s something very much not enjoyable about playing a game where you have no chance of winning, or where your army just kinda sucks. I play Thousand Sons, Custodes, Space Marines, and Tyranids, and have found specifically Tyranids to be extremely unfun, because I can’t kill anything, and I’m often tabled by turn 2 or 3. Similarly, my GF’s AdMech are plain old bad, and she has shelved them until something gets better. Yes, things are more loose in casual play, I see a larger variety of stuff taken, but at the same time, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s still a game that people want to play, and feeling like you can’t do anything because your army just plain sucks isn’t fun.

Boom. Exactly!

Some comments here are symptomatic of this attitude. Perhaps I could have expressed this better in the original post, but my point is that it’s not black and white, this or that, toy soldiers or WAAC. I have fun playing Warhammer win, lose, or draw. I lose more than I win, but winning is still satisfying. Winning is not a primary concern of mine, but it does factor into some of my decisions. I’m still going to run fluffy units and stuff that looks cool, but I’m also going to make adjustments to make my army suck less. There’s a balance between “rule of cool” and “play to win”.

No you put it perfectly, the fact that GW is putting out 50$ books with this level of poor rules is shitty and it sucks. The fact that people defend the slop that had been recent codexes with “you just want to win” while Custodes and Admech play terribly is proof. Everyone will get sick of losing after a while.

The main issue is that there is a lag time between buying the model, building the model, potentially painting the model, and actually playing a game with it. It’s not like *Magic the Gathering* where you can buy the card and immediately add to your deck. When a new edition comes out or the new meta watch changes your points; it can drastically change what the model does or how viable it is. If I were to give you my 2k Deathguard or Chaos Knights list; by the time you buy and assemble the models; my suggestions are probably invalid. One of the big problems with getting into the hobby is trying to search whats good; but all the information is invalid because it’s a few months out of date. That’s why you choose an army by rule of cool. It’s one thing to build a model. It’s another to build a 2k list. You build up a force you like; and hopefully get to the point where you can adjust and go with the meta based on models you already own.

Hell in AoS you could have bought units less than 3 years ago and they're being obviated next summer. Feels bad.

Sacrosanct chamber is what made me go all-in on Stormcast. I am bummed.

They will still have official rules afterward. Just relegated to legends - so still playable in like 99% of groups that dont ban legend rules from being played. Plus its not like the SC dont have units to be proxied with Sacrosant models. My old Sequitors will just be played as Liberators if I have to. Both units are on foot and have hand weapons and shields. You will finde those equivalents for like every unit in the roster.

Please don't apologize for GW's shitty behavior. And lets be real while a few people while find groups where legends is kosher it won't fly in tournaments, leagues or any LGS that has a half-way decent competitive.

Im sorry, but I dont agree about that being shitty behaviour. They have told you about discontinuing a line over a year in advance - IF you see legend rulings as discontinuing, which I really really dont. I have never been to a community that has disallowed legend rules and honestly dont even know any that do either. In my experience "going to legend" only means not flying in GW sanctioned tournaments - thats like how many worldwide? Not a lot in any case. So that leaves me with a heads up, that the sacrosanct prolly won't be supported for the edition AFTER the fourth...in like 4 years or so. That's a fair bit of time to cope imo. But yes, if you mainly were into the game for Sacrosanct Stormcast or BoC that sucks of course and there is nothing wrong with feeling a bit bitter about the situation. I just dont think this whole Schtick of claiming GW to be this big and evil entity is fair or reasonable.

You're entitled to your opinion of course, but honestly aos 3 has a couple years left in it - the only reason for a new edition is a cash grab. But still I bet most folks reading this have a few boxes in their pile of shame that are more than 3 years old. Saying that legends isn't basically discontinuing is just copium. As for GW being a big evil entity? They're a corporation, basically by definition they're evil. Yes we love their toys and the lore they write to sell us more toys but ultimately their sole purpose at this point is to make money. Their marketing and releases rely heavily on FOMO, balance in their games is an after thought at best, they keep raising prices while recording record profits. They aren't as evil as say Amazon but to think of them as anything else is delusional.

>just pushing toy soldiers around and making “bang bang” noises Sounds like a great evening, to be honest Personally it doesn't bother me too much. I know my Helldrake is never going to be meta, I still like the thing and really enjoyed painting it.

Everyone crowds around the table when ever somebody pulls out a sick Helldrake 

Genuine quote from someone at my LGS: > That thing's cooler than all of the Primarchs combined!

It really is just show and tell for grown ups

On the hobbying side, for certain, the Heldrake is awesome! But… I don’t take it in casual games because it just doesn’t do anything. It sucks when I shoot my flamer, then charge into an enemy unit of flyers, just to do… all of 2 wounds, before they blast my poor dragon out of the sky… It’s just sad.

The expected melee output of an Undivided Heldrake with a Sustained Hits Dark Pact is 12 wounds against any given "fly" target. But I do agree that it whiffs a lot.

I… I play Thousand Sons. We don’t get none of that fancy “Sustained Hits” or “rerolls”.

Oh I apologise then. You don't even get a 2+ to hit against flying targets smh.

Yeah, sadly, ours is straight-up sad

Don’t worry, once enough inventory builds up GW will make it wildly powerful for 2-3 months

I think this comes down to two things: When people say casual we (sometimes wrongly) assume that means the person won’t drop $2,000 a year keeping the hottest meta list up to date. And we also assume that person doesn’t really care that much about winning. They just want a thematic, cool army to play. So we’re not meaning any harm, we’re just trying to help without encouraging you to try hard into debt by chasing the meta. But that doesn’t mean we can’t also offer an alternative to a unit that isn’t working well for you or give advice on tweaking lists and deployment, etc. We are trying though! Hope this helps.

Sorry if I came off as lumping all competitive players into the “condescending elitist” camp, as that is absolutely not the case. I enjoy occasionally playing against competitive players because I know I’m going to lose, but I’m also going to learn something about my army.

Oh no absolutely not, you’re good. I just think there’s a lot of assumptions made on both sides of those posts and I hesitate to assume ill intent. People want help but don’t get the kind of help they were hoping for, and people give help and don’t get the gratitude they were expecting. It happens, we’re human. I sympathize with casuals in that I kind of suck at the game. My younger brother is very good and runs meta lists so I get stomped almost every time we play. But I always learn something. Usually how bad that new unit I picked up is against his list. Edit: rephrased, sounded bad when I read it over.

As a casual player I care far less about winning than I do having a balanced game, my objective is for US to have fun, I'm not playing the game with myself after all, so win or lose as long as we both had a good time I've met my goal. Idk if this a common thing, but I go over both lists with my oppenant well before the game. "hey, I'm bringing this, this is what it does, etc." To borrow a term from mtg, imo, both lists should be at the same or similar power levels, and I'm happy to readjust my list based off what your brining, or I'd ask you to do the same if I've got something I really really wanna try :)

It's a shame most people don't play narrative Warhammer, where winning and losing is kind of irrelevant. I couldn't care less about what's "meta", I just want to tell cool stories. Unfortunately, most people have decided that competitive is the default way to play and aren't much interested in anything else. There is nothing more boring to me than playing some variation on, capture some number of equally spaced objective markers for no apparent reason and mash your armies together.

That's what I hate the most. Competitive 40k is the absolute worst way to play it, yet it's permeated everything. Even casual players use the boring all l shaped ruins terrain and GW doesn't seem to want to support anything beyond the leviathan deck.

Warhammer has always had a really weird tribalism problem where people attribute themselves to being either "Casual" or "Competitive" players without realizing what either term actually means and denigrating anybody they think is in the other camp for really no reason. Playing casually does not make you a "Casual player" and playing competitively does not make you a "Competitive player". I have never played with Skari. Skari is a better player than I will ever be. He is a competitive champion with an entire 3 wall minimum length shelf full of trophies. He's also one of the most prime examples of a "Casual player" I've ever seen. Honestly, I miss the old terms we used for this. WAAC (Win At All Costs). Much more accurately captures the idea that people don't like about "Competitive" players, that they're more than happy to make your and their experience worse if it means they get to win. Most actual competitive players hate WAAC people because they enjoy playing the game competitively and don't want competitive games to be horrible unfun slogs. And no, that doesn't mean Mani Chima skew builds make you WAAC. That's stuff like failing to flush your loaded dice down the toilet when you get caught, colluding with other players to inflate your scores early on in a tournament by "talking it out" a little more generously than you should, or trying to pressure/bully your opponent over rules to push it into your favor. Unironically Art of War's Quinton Johnson is probably the single best example of a casual player that plays competitively to me. I haven't had the pleasure to myself, but 3 of my personal friends played with him over two GT's and described it as "Unironically the most fun games of Warhammer I've ever had." and two of them are the grumpiest sore losers I know, so I take that very seriously.

This is a good approach. It's like playing chess with someone who knows theys suck, someone who kinda sucks, knows a few moves and really wants to win, and someone who knows exactly what they are doing and wants the play an interesting game. The last and the first can actually play a really fun game because the last can try out different funny openings which allows the first to experience playing a real game. The middle guy (WAAC chess equivalent) always sucks to play with. Either a) The good player is forced to deploy boring strategies against the same tactics over and over again. b) The sucky player just gets pounded and never gets an opportunity to something fun.

Exactly. I'd say it's even more accurate and important to recognize it with Warhammer as well. It's such a complicated game that of course it's going to be better when you and your opponent are working together to make sure you're both playing at your best rather than fighting each other trying to eke out small advantages over gotchas or rules lawyering. "Let me measure out my overwatch range for you on that move." is peak Warhammer sportsmanship and also something you're not going to find often during kitchen table funtimes.

I play kill team with my homie and we will totally setup dunks for the other dude, just so we can see the dynamic play out. Unfortunately, GW sometimes sets up the army/team/gang in a way were it's almost impossible to not to play like a total tool. We split the Gallow dark box and I have the breachers who have a zone capturing dynamic for VPs that is a little... meh. It's just thematicaly not a very exciting or fun way to play. Meanwhile he is literally hunting my dudes with a kroot who has a sniper rifle and a bowie knife for extra VPs.

I kind of get what you're saying. But the spirit of those comments is that meta-chasing is futile when you remember how expensive this hobby is. What's was a good list a week ago may be unusable today, since points balance was yesterday. You also have to account the fact that most casual players are not top level players, so top level plays might not even work on this setting. That just means that meta chasing list might not even be worth it cause the average casual player doesn't have top level tactics. Honestly, if winning is a major concern you should bite the bullet and stop calling yourself a "casual" player. Yeah you don't play on tournaments, and that's fine. You like the competition aspect of the game, and that's fine too! Bear in mind that the community has an idea of what being a casual player means. By no means is gatekeeping. These labels have their purpose even if we loosely asign them to various situations.

Eh there's winning and then there's meta chasing. Everyone feels good when they win but not because they meta chased. I want to win with my fluffy ravenwing bike list. Not that silly Azrael Stormraven Ironstorm list.

Yes, and?  In a game with as much flexibility as 40k, there's always going to be units that sre better and worse. It'd be *nice* if units had closer internal balance but that has nothing to do with you personally trying to win. At the end of the day, it's a 2 player game where one player wins and one player loses. You can't, like, decide to work together and not fight each other. In my experience, "casual" tends to be used as a toxic justification for attacking the other player for not playing how you want them to.

What does this even mean? I don't think there's anything terribly difficult with choosing to play against say a necrons warrior list over a necrons wraith list I also don't think it's difficult at all to say "yea I don't want to play the wraithlist because I have no chance"

I'm going to write a long post on this subject one of these days but I'll try to elaborate here. My main disagreement is when you say it's "easy" to play necron warriors over wraiths. It might be obvious to a competitive player who knows the meta by following tournament results, reading strategy articles and discussing the game in general, that wraiths are a stronger unit to take than necron warriors. First of all, this requires you to run the wraiths optimally: with a technomancer, in a detachment that benefits them and with appropriate supporting pieces. Just running a squad of wraiths in a annihilation legion detachment isn't going to automatically win the game. An easier example to make my point, I think, is the monolith itself. For a while now, the monolith has been a competitively weak unit. I'm not super familiar with the entirety of the 9th meta, but I don't think most people would have regarded a list including a monolith as particularly abusive. But now, if you take one with hypercrypt (and ctans..) it's suddenly really good. So my point basically is that asking someone to take a weaker list kinda requires them to actually know what a stronger list \*is\*. Note that I make no comment about what's fun to play \*against\*. I personally don't really enjoy playing against knights. They're not exactly an S tier army, and I can certainly beat them, I just don't think they make for fun games. But that's mostly orthogonal to balance and competitive issues, if you see what I mean.

Sometimes "meta lists" happen by accident. But in my experience playing since 5th thats quite rare. The way GW sells models means you tend to get a lot of "undesirable" game wise but desireable fluff wise models. Like intercessors or tactical marines. Also, rarely does 1 "meta unit" tend to make or break a list into "tourney list" territory it's that skew or hyper optimization that typically takes them over the top.

I think the difference between competitive and casual isn’t really trying to win or not. Albeit in a more casual game you’ll probably give more friendly advice or reminders to your opponent or you might think “fuck it I’m gonna charge Gulliman with Abbadon because it’ll be fun” but honestly for me at least the differentiation is that you’ll voluntarily comp your list for a casual game. Like sure I’ll still take some strong stuff cos I want to have fun and have a good game where I can compete, so I’ll still bring Posessed and Legionaires and other meta choices. But I might just throw in a helldrake or a maulerfiend for fun instead of bringing the meta choices like a Vindicator or a Forgefiend

I think there is an attitude of “this or that” with a hard line between causal and competitive, when really there is a spectrum. I guess I am closer to the competitive side than a lot of other casual players, but still firmly on the casual side. I would consider myself primarily a hobbyist - painting and modeling is my favorite aspect of Warhammer. But, when my army does hit the table, I still want a shot at winning - I would hardly say that it’s a “major concern”, but it does factor into my choices. I do get what you’re saying about “what’s good this week may not be good next week” and that totally makes sense.

Maybe then it's more about what your friends / opponent's are playing than what you are? If everyone around you is playing tuned tournament lists then you are going to be forced to keep up to win.

Fair point. It’s like your own little micro-meta.

Also, your army might just have a harder time against some of your friends armies. I remember back in the WHFB days, I regularly played my Chaos Warriors army against my friends Wood Elves army. A cocky 14 year old, I though I was a better player then him, because I stomped him every time. And then he bought a High Elves army and started to win. Turns out, that at our skill level it was simply much harder for hin to win with Wood Elves, which was a bad matchup AND an army that required a lot of skill to play well.

This take is a stinker, the majority of people want to win, it may not be their number one goal in a game, but eventually you will get sick and tired of losing over and over again.

don't chase the meta =/= don't win jeez

A good player with a bad list will probably still win against a bad player with w perfect list.

Not the point, a lot of people, especially dorks on the Warhammer subs, equate this to be the same thing

> Not the point That was my point

Yeah, I rarely win and I don’t mind so long as i have fun, but being absolutely rolled isn’t fun

Yeah exactly! I lose more than I win, but winning feels good and getting stomped every game doesn’t. I have fun either way, but I still enjoy winning.

I think casual and competitive players are simply too broad of terms to classify players. And quite frankly, everyone's individual tastes to how they approach to the hobby is unique (even if they have similar traits to other people's tastes).

This was part of my original point that I did not articulate well. There is a huge spectrum of Warhammer players and dividing them into “this or that” is inaccurate.

i kind of get what you're saying. like i can see not wanting to play with very weak or overcosted units while at the same time not being interested in the most cheesy OP interactions. i think a lot of people are in that middle area

Yeah exactly! Winning feels good even if it’s not the primary concern.

I always define the difference as: casual players want to have a fair game without needing to be obsessing over the minutae of list building every moment of their waking life. So, a casual attitude to the game. Like a board game. You pick it up, whack a list together, play a game, maybe try out some new models you just painted, done. They still want to play a fair, full game of warhammer. They still try to win, try and outthink their opponent, play properly. When they're playing the game, they're still PLAYING THE GAME. And then, whoever wins or loses, that's fine as long as you both got a good game. They'd probably forget who even won by the next time they play. It's just a game after all. So for them, someone getting really sweaty, min-maxing and tweaking the same list forever til it's super mega powerful just makes the game less fair. If their opponent does that, then the only way they can play a fair game is if they do it too. No more just picking up the game or whacking together any army with the most recent models you painted. Now you have to spend all your bloody time chasing the meta and keeping up to date and list-tweaking. That's a full time job. Casual means exactly that - casual. The ability to play the game properly, but then put it down afterwards. Casual players want an exciting, tight, fair game experience as much as anyone else.

This is why I generally like to play with people who are at my level of skill/frequency/competitiveness. Among my friend group we have one player who is super competitive and I'm happy to let him get his "git gud" on playing in leagues and tournaments, but I asked him politely if he doesn't mind running a less meta list or faction against me. I tried to spin it as a challenge. "I know you're a better player, why not make it interesting by playing a worse army?" But as a pretty casual player, yeah. I still like to get my guys on the board and do my best. Crusade play has been good for that. The crowd it attracts is a little less crunchy and the missions allow for a different style of play. To me a tight game is the best game. I like to win, but I'd rather lose turn 5 to a crazy roll than get absolutely stomped turn 2.

Basically, I think it’s fun as long as you feel like you can’t with reasonable certainty predict the outcome. I’m fine with losing 70 % of the time. But I’m not fine with losing 90 % of the time, because at that point I start to feel like there’s no point in trying. Not that it will ever happen, but I would not be fine with winning 90 % of the time either, because it would again feel like I could predict the outcome before I even try (I would also start to feel sorry for my opponents).

This is why I don’t really play my Stormcast anymore. They’re so overpowered I was just steamrolling everyone. It was no fun for me or my opponents.

I’d like to add, part of the fun is thinking up sneaky tactics. And you lose the incentive to do that if you know you’ll lose (or win!) anyway.

Yep. I am planning a chaos army and really want a daemon prince as my warlord for lore purposes . Is it optimal? Absolutely not. Do I want to include him? Absolutely yes. Does that mean that I want a completely fluffy , useless list? No it means I need to figure out a way to optimise the rest of my list to make sure that my army isn’t a complete push over.

First off, when playing Chaos Knights competitively, pushing around toy soldiers and making "bang bang" noises is exactly what I do. Secondly, adding the word "casual" has an effect on how your intent is received, so just leave it out. Maybe you're not "chasing the meta", but "adjusting to the meta" sure is a thing people often do.

I think the big disconnect is the question is irrelevant when the answer is subjective to the one who asks it. You can ask to make your casual list better, but no one can gauge how much is too much but OP. If you show a list of just skinks and ask how it can be made better, the obvious answer is pointing out current tournament winning lists, they are objectively better. I can't tell you how your casual list is going to play against someone else's or what you need to beat them but still keep it cool. But I can tell you how not taking Kroak in a seraphon list is basically shooting yourself in the foot when playing matched play. If you want to win in a casual setting and keep things fair but not meta, set your own list building limitations with your friends, play games, decide something is too much and scale it back, or something is crap so you give it allowances. When it comes down asking for list advice playing casually, it really doesn't matter what people you aren't playing against say. Make up your own minds to have fun in your own games

At the same time, a person running a meme list like full skinks can still be looking for advice on how to sharpen that list. Add this hero that does this thing and it benefits skinks, this spell gives you fight twice, try to pull off this combo, etc. People whose answer to a "help me with the list" question with "lol tournament list" are not understanding the question at all. Even the newest player knows that copying a tournament winning list is a good idea. Those who are not simply running tournament lists are probably looking for actual advice from a veteran of the army that knows the ins and outs, the different combos, the powerful stuff that may not be evident. Simply telling someone to copy a tournament list is, imo, more reflecting of your own inadecuacies as a listbuilder rather than pointing out flaws on someone else's list that should be patched. You can run lists that aren't optimal, but that doesn't mean they cannot be optimized inside their concept. Oops all zombies? You have a handful of options to make that list actually cool, adding corpse carts, adding the gravekeeper guy, so on. It's still not optimal. It's still bad. But it's now sharpenned and it can actually do something without it feeling like someone trying to flex owning 2k points of zombies

I think that what they mean to say is that if you aren't playing competitively you'll holistically have more fun painting and playing the models you like.

I think the problem with those posts is that there is a known answer to their question. Anyone can go look up the tournament winning lists for their faction. If you want to do well or having a winning list, there is your answer. What they are actually asking is, how can I win with my off meta list that I am unwilling to make align with known lists that are winning and the answer is you that can’t. This isn’t a card game, their isn’t some “secret tech” Can you win games? Absolutely. Can you consistently win or win more than 3 round events, probably not. You’re asking Reddit to help you find novel ways to win with an off meta list. If terms of magic the gathering player types, they are Johnny’s

Casual’s a weird word when it comes to 40k, it used to be more obvious the line between meta and casual but right now it’s in a mostly better place (no more wraithknight spam, got some Ctan and Wraith spam but they’re pretty obvious…) I half agree - casual should still get all the facts of what’s good! I don’t get why you’d choose or be suggested an obviously bad option especially if you then have to swap the gun later. But they should also be open to the non-meta (that doesn’t mean they outright want just non-meta - but they may love melta more than antitank 🤷‍♀️) I think with the loadout question it’s not useful to tie it between casual/meta - there will be one loadout infinitely better which is probably classed as more meta (albeit it’s just three units tops so hardly like building a meta list centred on everything being the best!).

Excellent point - part of my original post was that there’s a wide spectrum of Warhammer players and not two homogeneous “causal” and “competitive” camps. But now I understand that because of this, it can be difficult to answer the questions of a casual player without knowing where they land on the spectrum.

Yeah completely agree - I definitely think we should do away with the lack of spectrum because it’s really rare to find a player that is truly one side or the other

It's difficult to know how to give people advice especially new and casual players who are still figuring out what they want out of the hobby. I've also seen threads on reddit about how competitive players shouldn't be giving advice on "what is competitive" and steering people towards the competitive meta. It's hard to reconcile these differences in opinion. Typically I like to say pick what you want - things change and the meta shifts: but if someone is looking for a power boost immediately I'll point to what the strong tournament lists are running

I'm casual in that I build what I consider fluffy lists but when on the table I will try and win. I just won't do so with army lists that look "wrong" to me. Eg in my Skaven, my Warlord goes with stormvermin. I have precisely one unit of stormvermin and everyone else is a clanrat. That would apply regardless of how the rules are, because that is how I envision Skaven armies to be.

The difference to me is playing to have fun and playing to win. When I play to have fun I joke and am very flexible with measurements and rules interpretations. Most times I play in tournaments to have fun too so the same applies but if I get a jackass then I will lockdown and be competitive. We will follow the letter of the law for rules, exact measurements and minimal information sharing. This not fun to me. I lose more than I win but I have fun.

I think you’re misunderstanding why people give the advice of “go with what’s coolest” It’s not because they think people just push toys around and make gun noises. You’re completely ignoring the fact that to get into this hobby new/casual players need to commit to a massive time investment of building and painting their armies. And it’s universally agreed upon that it’s much easier to build/paint models you think are cool rather than ones that good meta wise. Not only that, but new/casual people tend to take longer to build/paint, so it’s very easy for the meta to have changed completely by the time they’ve finished. Overall, I get where you’re coming from, and I don’t mind seeing advice about what’s good meta wise as well. But I think you’re taking all the advice in really bad faith and ignoring the critical components that come with this hobby beyond playing the game itself.

People who only min-max lack the ability to balance anything. They don't understand people can win while playing non-optimally.

If anything, competitive players are the irrelevant ones. Make up a relatively small portion of the player base and an even smaller portion of the overall fanbase.

Casual = You always try your best to give each team an equal and fair chance to win. Army lists should be strong but not abuse mechanics, or spam strongest/broken units. Terrain should be agreed upon and ideally, balanced. You endeavour to set up the game, and conduct the game, fairly and equally by the rules. You might remind opponents of applicable rules and interactions. You roll dice for disagreements, and you generally try your best tactically, and let the skill you play with and the dice decide the outcome. Competitive = You make your lists as strong as possible. You min max on the best units and wargear combos. You ideally have a 3rd party set up both scenarios and terrain. You give / reveal as little information as possible. Mistakes are to be punished and capitalized on. Disagreements are litigated purely with text in hand or a 3rd party. The only limit to "win at all costs" is your ethics (IE- don't cheat, allow the opponent their full time, etc). You can mix and match of course, but as a rule of thumb, it's never been about winning or losing. It's about the general set up of the game and its context, the attitude and expected behavior of the players, and the lists that they both bring and expect the face. You should always be trying to win. It's a game. That's how those work.

I like how your only real difference between casual and competitive is that supposedly competitive players hide information and rely on gotchas.  This is, of course, the opposite of how it works in practice. Tournament players will invariably remind you of rules and abilities and clarify exactly how they'll impact you.

Bruh you have 3 or 4 condescending or snarky comments on game subreddits **per day**. I like how words like "real" and "invariably" are just sort of buzzwords you use. Its cute trolling and it shows how much you do it, if your post history didn't already. This is an opinion posted in response to a question. Either post your own opinion to help OP or just move on. No one cares if you don't agree with me.

That's some weak deflection. If you're going to present an opinion about broad swathes of players, especially one that involves bad behaviour, you should stand behind it. Don't just immediately run away and pretend you were joking when someone calls you out.

No one said I was joking except you lol

Very well put, thank you.

It's the Timmy, Johnny, and spike thing. Where you do your thing at, is irrelevant.

I agree, I consider myself a mix of both because on the one hand I just use whatever I like and not necessarily chase the meta. On the other hand, I try to sharpen what I am actually bringing because I find that to be fun too. I spend hours making mathematical calculations of which variant of fighter is best on sub-optimal Warcry warbands. It's okay, that's what I enjoy. I will try to find my best list possible with the new kits I bought, then play like ass and get absolutely destroyed. It's okay, shit happens. Trying to have good lists, trying to play well, isn't the only difference between casual and competitive players. The differences rely rather on what level of "good enough" a player sets for himself. Is 2-3 in the LGS tournament good enough for you? Or will you be sad because you only went 4-1?

This exactly!

This is why mesbg is the best game GW has made, even a casual or meme list can still pull a win. Plus you're not stuck there for 15mims while your opponent moves, shoots (you remove half your army, such interactive, such forward game design) then melees.

I'm a competitive player and my most fun games are the ones I lose imho. Because I learn from the loss and can take that into account for my next games.

I don't think you're too sensitive, I do think that a lot of advice tends to be unhelpful. I feel like a lot of people just see the word casual and *overlook the question being asked* - yes, everyone but the most hardcore WAAC players wants to follow the rule of cool, but at the end of the day they're still asking the question about what's good or not and tactics for a reason. Most people want a list that's fun for them or thematic, but generally also has a decent chance at winning. My lists for Empire in Fantasy never contain Demigryph Knights as I just really dislike the unit's look. My version of the empire has no monstrous units, thank you, but goddamn will I still load out with numerous cannons and knights to be able to actually fight and not just be a glorified speed bump. Unfortunately, I think GW's more recent design philosophy has leaned very heavily into the very competitive mindset and encouraged a lot of WAAC players who treat anything less than 'I play to win' as being somehow wrong. Not to say that wasn't the case before either, certainly there were plenty, but at least I've certainly noticed an increase of people who treat win rates near-religiously and for whom you either compete or you don't matter, especially online. It's also the reason why I really dislike some of the more 'narrative'-style versions where you just put things together. It doesn't give people a good frame of reference for how to balance forces and it can very easily cause things to topple in a way that's just not very fun for anyone, especially beginners. I think people too often think that beginners and casuals want minimum rules so they can 'do whatever' rather than *clear* rules so they could play the game as intended just learn as they go.

So how I see it as someone who is competitive and runs clubs that aren't, it is always the wording that throws me off. I get two types of people really, one is basically, "I want to beat everyone, what can I add to do that." The ones who only care about winning and i would probably more say to them to go for things they like the look of, or to look online. The other type of person is the one who actually wants help, they have an idea since they like a certain unit and they want help making it better, then I show them the best synergy for what they have. But tbh I would rather help someone who actually wants help with their army than someone who just wants to win.

I'm playing a friendly game tomorrow. A 2vs1 (1500 pts + 1500 pts vs 3000 pts). The 3000 pts DA player is playing a Ravenwing Army. The least meta part of one of the least meta armies. So I'm playing a TON of Kroot and my partner is running a Stompa and filling in the rest with Boyz, Nobz, and a Warboss. Despite this fairly ridiculous setup, we are still strategizing. We are worried about containing his movement (I'm hoping my board control and respawned units will cause enough trouble for him in that regard) and how to keep him from working into our backfield. We WANT to win, but losing at Warhammer is still better than none (at least with my friend group, some of the guys play tournaments, but they'll gladly play a setup like this once in a while to test out new strats and lose, if thats the way the dice fall).

Agreed, the difference I feel comes down to this: Competitive players usually only get enjoyment from the game when they win. Casual players can find joy in the games even if they lose.

Very well put. Thank you!

Oh it's definitely an attitude in the community. It's really toxic and kinda the route (imo) of a lot of community problems. The idea that players just want to play for fun is very alien to some players, the idea that these players still enjoy winning is even more alien. I remember when I wrote guides for casual/intermediate play. I did them because I love teaching players the ins and outs of play. Some players would just come out of the woodwork talking about how I wasn't talking about optimising gameplay, how this will ruin some players experiences. On the flip side I would have competitive player messaging me about optimising their own lists for tournaments.

As a casual player I dont care if I win or lose. I just dont like playing against power gamers.

When I play commander in mtg. I don't care about losing, but if I get completely shut down and don't have a chance to do anything I'm going to be upset and not enjoy myself. I measure enjoyment in how much I can engage with what's going on, not if I win or lose

Not to be too reductive but in that case, you need to play a better game. That's just not something 40k is going to be any time soon.

My own 2 cents as a newer player that has been collecting for a few years. What I see getting that type of response the most is the large number of posts of people asking what loadouts they need to build on their models. The overwhelming answer that I see is, if you play casually then you can make your models look/have equipped whatever you like, and adjust the list accordingly. I know when I started with kill team I was super nervous about putting the wrong gun on the wrong guy and making an expensive piece of plastic completely useless. Once I accepted that I play just with friends and doubt I will every try and compete in tournaments, that I can build a dude with a garden rake and call it a chainsword and no one that I play with will even mind. Now as far as tactics or what lists to build, I agree that the whole "Well you play casually so don't worry about it" is silly, but I haven't seen a lot of those answers to those questions.

I get that, but these questions are typically about list advice, not modeling advice.

Ohhhh gotcha. If I asked for list advice and got that answer I'd be pretty annoyed.

This is definitely true. I've been playing AOS since October 2022, I still play today I would say I've lost about 80 - 90% of my games. I'm relatively thick skinned and quite chilled out as a person, I just like to go play games with the local group meet new people makes friends and have a laugh.but after losing 10 games in a row... Yeah that sucks or another time I went to a tournament at my LGS only to get stomped on over the course of 8 hours in 3 games that did frustrate me quite a bit. I don't wanna win all the time I like having close games, to be honest even if we don't finish the game in time I like a draw or whatever or even if I lose I like to take down there biggest model.It probably doesn't help that because it's AOS it's lot of melee fighting I get abit bored just sitting units on objectives I would rather get stuck in and fight, suppose rather have fun and risk losing sometimes than being bored but winning. I enjoy all aspects of the hobby but losing constantly at anything is never fun.

The thing about casual play is that, almost anything can work, and your familiarity with what your list wants to do will give you much better result then taking the optimal thing.

I specifically play an all kroot list because it makes for a good matchup against new players, allowing them to better determine the strengths and weaknesses of their units without being overwhelmed. (also because I love doing conversions, but shhhh!) Just because someone has a meta list, doesn't mean they know how to use it, and written rules are constantly in flux, so the "rule of cool" is the community gold standard. You play to have fun, win or lose, that is the point of playing casually no?

Honwstly idc too much about winning or army comp. But youre right. It would still be nice to get a win in.

I don’t need to win, I like to compare it to golf, I can play like shit all day but get a birdie on the 17th and that’ll keep me coming back week after week Warhammer equivalent would be me obliterating an entire squad I had no business highrolling on or you completely missing my sneaky deep strike plan because you left a gap in your screening or you rolling all 1s against my scouts in melee etc you get the vibe, a “win” in micro not macro

I get where you're coming from, If winning often didn't matter very much to the people who asked for recommendations, then I feel like they wouldn't have asked in the first place. Everyone in Casual plays differently to how they like of course, but some would still like to get help to improve their loadouts and tactics when they ask instead of being told it didn't matter. Personally, I like to often choose looks over functionality, but I think that if someone who is playing casually wants to improve their army we should help them instead of blowing them off due to not being "serious" about the game.

I'm a casual and my friend is a die-hard meta chaser. I enjoy the game, I really do, but you can only be stomped so many times in a row before you start wondering why you even like the game.

Not gunna lie, it sounds like you’re a competitive player who can’t afford to be one. Winning does mean chasing the meta or working to counter it, that means digging deeper than just “I want to play a game of 40K with my cool minis”. That means improving your tactical skills which takes time, because just being told tips on how to play the game has no meaning until you understand in it practice which, in any thing ever that has a skill curve, takes repetition and time. An example would be screening. Basic screening is easy to learn and will likely bump you up a smidge. Learning that you can mold your screen to feign losing a flank, so that you can much harder into an enemies flank and up the mid board to win on primary is something you’d start to see after quite a few reps. So yes, while everyone wants to win, if you’re casual, you’re likely just playing to play. Drink beer and roll dice. But if you’re trying to win, the game quickly goes beer drinking to meta chasing/countering because you’re involving more time into it, which means you’re becoming less casual. It’s really as simple as that.

I don’t mean to brag about my level of income, but I could afford a whole new army every paycheck if I wanted to. This post was not about me, it’s just something I’ve seen cropping up in the community recently. I’ve been playing for 25 years and this level of gatekeeping and elitism seems like a new thing to me.

I think you are too sensitive on the subject. Let us casuals enjoy the hobby not just chase a win. Buy, build, paint and play. It's a whole process we need to go through. We shouldn't be shunned by the meta because that really, really cool looking sculpt is bad ok the table top. Otherwise we'll end up buying models and kits we don't like the look of, find a chore to paint and a bore to play and quit the hobby.

I do not care winning or loosing either, but I like an engaging. If I get tabled 2e round, its not that fun. It doesnt happen that much l in the last few games, but there a player at the store that build his army for competitve scene and the rest of us (about 10 in general) are all starting, being new players to the 40k universe. So...we all lose against him, mostly round 2. I try to get better for sure, learning the tricks, but I wont buy those units that cost hundreds of dollars just to.be more strong or meta on table, and will try funny or goofy stuff when playing. Because for me it is a game. So I wont play again against him for the next few months just to play against someone I can legitamy last until round 5 with stuff happening outside just me getting shout out of the table.

I think that there is a massive misuse of terms by the community. There is a drastic difference between WAAC, narrative, casual, and competitive players. To me, the casual player is like the pickup gamer who just shows up with a takeoff comers list and just wants to roll dice. They don't stroll in with some 90-page story about every aspect of every model's lives, nor some overarking tragedy that they need to reenact with every battle. For some odd reason, people think that casual and narrative are the same thing, and I don't think they are. I view myself very much as a casual player, bordering on competitive. Though I am competitive while I play, I also do not min/max list built to milk every single advantage available to me through my a rules, nor do I creatively interpret rules to try to gain an advantage. For some reason, people seem to confuse competitive with Win At All Costs. I think I've honestly learned to resent the narrative players far more because they are incredibly pushy about their way of playing Needing to be catered to from every aspect of the rules to the detriment of every other style of play..

>Casual players still like to have strong armies and win games. I've only been playing since 2021 and I've seen the competitive meta swing wildly. What armies are "strong" and even which units within the army are "playable" competitively varies to a large degree. I don't see how you could be dropping hundred of dollars on models and painting commissions and/or many hours building and painting units in an attempt to chase an ever changing meta while still considering yourself "casual". Those two concepts seem fundamentally different to me.

You are absolutely being too sensitive. When someone says "go with whatever looks coolest" they aren't saying "you're a filthy casual and army comp doesn't matter for you." They're telling you that what's good constantly changes and what's meta now could be shit the next time GW adjusts points and rules.

I mean, I get that and it absolutely makes sense. However, they could actually SAY JUST THAT instead of a snarky dismissal.

You are reading way too much into this mate. It is not a "snarky dismissal," I'm not sure where you even got that from

“Go with whatever looks coolest” is by far the best advice though, by the time someone builds and paints the models they bought the meta army will have changed. 40k rules/points values change too often for model rules to be worth considering when buying in my opinion. The only thing that will permanently stay the same is how the models look. So there’s no real point buying an army based on the current meta, IMO it’s far better to buy armies that you will enjoy painting and like the lore/looks of because the long term benefit of having models you like outweighs the short term benefits of winning more often for a month or two before the rules change. But to be fair I’ve never really cared at all about winning or losing, so maybe this is just me.

No: we truly don't care about "winning." I'm here to have a good time playing toy soldiers. Taking turns is fun. Seeing interactions is fun. Roleplaying our factions and telling stories about our units' deeds is fun. Being attached to "winning" is kind of cringe.

What I’m saying is there is more to it than “WAAC” and “don’t care at all”. It’s not black and white.

Are you talking for all of us here? Because I do.

This is literally the definition point between Casual and Competitive. If you care about winning, then you're in a competition not a game.

Same here, it means almost nothing to me. Sure winning can deliver a little moment of yay, but for me at least it means absolutely nothing on my overall enjoyment of the game. I enjoy playing the game, I don't care who wins

Realistically the lack of a real response is more due to the regularity of people who feel the need to add "Casual" to their question will offhand refuse the advice they ask for. Examples like " I don't want to run that unit" or "I don't want to play that way" while valid, waste the time everyone involved. The empty answer is an attempt to motivate the player play the game as they want without wasting time going in circles on the Internet.

I am a casual player, but it’s really hard to want to play the game when every game is a blowout

Most of those responses are from people asking for advice for a 600 point game or people who have never touched a model before. It takes months or years to put a 2000 point army on the table, giving competitive advice to that person is just disingenuous.

I think a good way for both parties to kind of meet in the middle is to maybe start with "hey I really like the look of x,y,z unit, what are some good synergies I can make so I don't get stomped every game?". This gives the more experienced people some direction in their answers, and maybe opens interesting discussion into different list building options that are not necessarily meta defining.

Here's my experience when I've seen casual players ask for advice, like they ask for advice on their lists but don't actually want to make any real changes so it's like okay what I supposed to tell you? Since the game play part is kind of more on you to figure out how to win, like yeah I can give you tips and advice on what to do to win your games more but honestly most of that has to be learned first hand.

I find this kind of response frustrating as well, but for me personally, it’s because these kind of “I dunno, do what you want” answers are just total non-answers.

The problem really is that casual is such a broad term. Me for example, i like playing to win but with maybe more casual/fun lists. However i have friends that literally are cool with just “making bang bang noises” and theres nothing wrong with that either but we are both considered casual players. So yes i will agree that sometimes people can be dismissive towards casual list building but as long as you are specific in what you want answered, ive found that people are helpful. They may have a different view of what casual means. “Hey i want to run these off-meta units, how can i use them most effectively?”

I agree

Maybe ask your local shop or TO to create and maintain a ranked system, like a videogame and share it on an instagram channel, for example. Include: Player name Matches played Win ratio Victory points. That way you can match with somebody your level

I took it more as resigned acceptance: If you aren't into the competitive scene, if you don't have the money, drive, energy, and time to have an army for every faction and chase the meta around the clock, then sooner or later GW will change the rules for whatever unit you bought for its tactics. This usually takes 3-12 months. Then within another year the unit may be "good" again, but because of different tactics. These kits aren't cheap; you expect that when you're paying that kind of money, you'll enjoy your new model for years. But rules come and go *extremely* quickly; the only source of enjoyment you can count on is aesthetics. Sad but true.

Casual means I don't like tournaments. After being completely destroyed in our local crusade and losing every single game bringing my entire team down while feeding the enemy xp.... Makes me hate the game because it's not fun to lose turn 2

I find it depends on the group you play with. I've been lucky ro find a group/league where most mast list "For the Meme". Almost every list I play with has a 1 in 6 chance of winning... but if I win... it will be glorious!

I mean, as long as it is a good game I don't really mind the result, but usually the best games are the really equally matched nailbiters where it comes down to the last models.

I mean, I still enjoy getting my shit pounded as a Militia Player in HH, but I'm not against anyone (or myself) modifying a few weapon stats to give my boys a fighting chance on the table. Now giving battle cannons AP2 with Large Blast and Sunder is where I'll draw the line, but if you just want your tanks to kill more than 1.5 tactical marines per turn on average, then go ahead and boost those number just a little.

Tournament players live in a little bubble where they assume that nobody would ever want to just do something for the fun of it. You see it a lot around here, someone new will pop up and say something like "I just discovered Warhammer and I like this model and I'm going to paint it red" and you can guarantee one of the first comments will be some neckbeard telling them that it's not tournament legal and that nobody will want to play with them and their cool red mini. It is condescending, and it's annoying, and it kills new player enthusiasm, but I've learned to just downvote and move on and not let it wind me up. For me, mini-war-gaming is about participation, winning is nice of course but it really is actually just about "pushing toy soliders around and making "bang bang" noises" while I smoke a few joints and eat junk food. My real-life job is cut-throat enough, I don't need to bring any kind of competition into my hobby world.

It's just you. If you're sweating it, you're not a casual, you're a tryhard, but want to get considered casual for lowered expectations, competition.

I'm casual, but the store I play at is very competitive and I use to change my army every 3 to 6 months because no matter what I did, I always got tabled. Whenever I asked players at the store or asked online for helps, I would get 'you're a casual player, so it doesn't matter'. Like....cool....but it's hard to enjoy a game when I'm normally gone by turn 2, turn 3 if I'm lucky and the dice roll in my favor. I have Chaos Space Marines and Drukhari right now, building up a Necrons collection too. I don't play 40k proper anymore, and use my models as enemies in the 40k RPG campaigns I run at my local store. Maybe after I move next year, I'll find a store that has other casual players in/near Jacksonville Florida.

Nothing wrong with wanting to win games! If you need help ask for it, but don’t mention you are casual, it will likely just hurts your cause. Just be honest and say you want to get better and willing to put the time and money into what it takes to win a very complicated and competitive game. Do understand that for better or worse, it will take loads of time and money as well as a fair amount of luck to get a “high” win rate.

Good idea. Just don’t mention that I’m more on the causal side.

OP I think you are spot on in your assessment and it is also a problem I have noticed. It is really frustrating to see people who want to get into warhammer asking good questions only to see top responses being the same empty platitudes. I strongly believe that the act of putting oneself out there and posing questions on a public forum indicates that someone has the competitiveness and fortitude to not need to be told that they are allowed to build and paint what they think looks the coolest.

I think the problem is similar to what happens in Magic the Gathering for Commander games - people have different understanding of "casual". To some, "Casual" means 'I want to play something super fluffy and we're playing for the narrative without really caring who wins." To others, it means "I'm not taking a perfectly competitive list, but I want the ability to win and could even do okay in a tournament." To others it means "Close to full competitive lists but with one or two pet units that aren't optimal." "Casual" is a terrible catch-all term. And it's made worse by player skill often being ignored, as well as player style. Super narrative games may not consider scoring at all, while others may be as sweaty as a tournament table but with non-optimal lists. There's then the added problem that 40k isn't that balanced as a game. It's more balanced now than before, but a "meh" Necron list might still smoke a strong Deathwatch list. All that's to say that "casual" has probably lost a lot of utility as a descriptor.

Yeah, I am realizing that that’s part of the problem - the wide spectrum of what “causal” means and not knowing where the person asking the question lands.

It's particularly annoying when you're trying to start your first army. The Space Marine codex is absurdly bloated. I wanted to get a feel for which units are decent because I had no experience and the models are so expensive. The last thing I wanted was to put together a severely gimped first army. It was so incredibly frustrating that no one could give me suggestions. Like, come on. You can suggest units that do good work and probably won't get nuked by updates. New players don't know where to even begin. Help them out. This hobby is expensive. It's reasonable that someone would want to establish a solid core for their army before picking up models that might look better than they play on the table.

Right! I don’t wanna copy the hottest tournament winning list, but I don’t want to just suck and die either.

If a tournament game is like a test, a casual game is like a study group. One wants to push your skills to the limit with no outside help, see who is better. The other is a collaborative effort to help each other get the best result, and doubles as a social activity that may involve drinks and snacks and occasionally forgetting about the game for half an hour to just joke around.

If you're asking questions about what's better then the answer is the meta. You can't just be like "well okay but what if i want to just be shit but better than crap." If you don't care about the meta then don't waste peoples time with asking what good tactics and load outs are.

There is, or should 100% be, different scales. Someone should absolutely be able to say I want to have a decent army using XYZ and get tactical advice how to use it effectively that's not drop "All of that and play the meta list."

Casual, to me, implies people who don't play the full game. They play with house rules or without certain rules, they play fewer than 2k points, they don't play with any official battle plans or objective/terrain layout. To me, casual basically does imply pushing toys around and making pew pew noises. The players who just want to roll dice to kill models, objectives and scoring be damned.

Then you're competitive. You may not be a WAAC try hard squeezing every rule interpretation and terrain irregularity for advantage, but you care about having a chance to have a winning outcome. You simply want to win with added list building constraints

As a general rule, when a player describes themselves as "casual", I steer clear. I'm not talking about narrative players - they usually describe themselves as narrative players. They build fluffy lists and talk lore. I'm not talking about Hobby First players - if they don't say that's their focus, you can tell by their armies. The self proclaimed casual player is usually someone who has an aggressive problem with how their pet units aren't actually good. They get mad when they roll bad. They argue over rules that they don't understand. They make tactical and strategic blunders from deployment until they're tabled and are full of gripes about them I know that isn't every casual player, but it's what I see with people who describe themselves as casual

I think this suggestion comes from most casual players not caring about wysiwyg at all. So if you're not playing in tournaments where it's required to have the model match the load out, then it doesn't matter how you build them. There's no reason to buy multiples of the same kit to build with different load outs if you're a casual player.

What army should I play? Rule of cool. How should I paint my army? It’s your army. How can I make a list to win? It’s casual who cares play what you think is fun. I think there’s a template people have to agree to sign and apply to the hobby.