You Got Owned...Because You Got Sloppy

This will be my final article in the You Got Owned series.  I hope you liked it.  If you missed any of the articles, the full index can be found here on the series overview page.

Ahh! One of my favorite things to harp on.  Especially for myself.  I don't know how many times I have played a game of Fantasy or 40k and thought I had the game in hand, so I started throwing models around with reckless abandon.  A wide margin of victory quickly became narrower and narrower until it became of a margin of loss.  I got sloppy.

Sloppiness in 40k occurs for a few reasons, none of which are good.  Sloppiness also takes on multiple guises, usually operational sloppiness and mental sloppiness.  So, let's talk about sloppy gameplay and how it can get you owned.

Let's take look first at why a player might get sloppy. There are a couple main reasons players get sloppy, namely being careless and being cocky or arrogant.  I see this all the time and a canny opponent will too. And they will pounce on it like a fat guy on a Big Mac.

Carelessness is  probably the most often occurring way I see players get sloppy.  Either due to them playing loose due to it being a social game or just because they aren't used to tight play, many players fall into this trap at one time or another.  The list of ways of being careless is long and numerous,  but I will get to a few when we talk about operation and mental sloppiness.

Playing carelessly will yield big problems for any player.  Just in trying to organize and tighten up your play, you can make a huge difference in the outcomes of your games. 

Being cocky is the worst.  First, no one likes an arrogant player.  They are so annoying to play against, unless you beat the pants off of them and put them in their place. That is slightly fun, I will admit.  Being a cocky player is inexcusable.  Just don't do it.  Be humble.  Don't think that you rule the world. 

So, how does being cocky lose you games?  Because cockiness leads directly to careless play.  How many times, as mentioned in my introduction, have you thought you had the game in hand and so took unnecessary risks to get a complete table wipe or something similar? When your head swells, your gameplay generally gets worse.  It's like a law of nature. 

Now, that you know what leads to sloppy play, let's talk about what it looks like.  The first way is operational sloppiness, i.e. playing sloppy.  It happens in many ways.  Here are a few.

1) Poor movement. This is a huge one. When you move your models in a way that makes it easy for your opponent to capitalized on things like multi-assaults or tanks shocks on multiple units, etc. Getting lazy with movement can lose you games. It can also lead to you being called a cheater if you move things more towards the over-measuring side.


2) Not thinking ahead. 40k really is like chess in the fact that if you aren't thinking at least far enough in advance to see how your opponent will react to you in the next turn, you will be punished. Optimally, you should be thinking about what will happen 2-3 turns down the road.

3) Trading units.  Playing in a way in which you take one of your opponent's units, but allow them to take one of your's in return.  Again, alluding to chess, swapping pawns may not seem like a big deal, but eventually an opponent will find a way to swap a pawn for a bishop or a queen.  In 40k allowing unit trading to happen will lead to you eventually losing something of importance when you don't want to.  It also places the initiative and flow of battle firmly in your opponents' hands.

Mental sloppiness is more interesting.  This is where your thinking and/or tactics are sloppy.  This generally bears itself out in operational sloppiness.

1) Forgetting. Ugh. How many times have you remembered after you have moved to a new phase and started shooting, assaulting, etc. that you should have done something in the previous phase. Like shoot a meltagun from the wolf scouts into that tank on the far side of the board. Forgetting is the worst.

2) Poor strategy/rigid strategy.  In some of my earlier articles I talked about not having a strategy or having a rigid strategy.  These both lend themselves towards sloppy play.  If you aren't taking the time to think through a decent strategy, you are just being lazy.  After all, this is a strategy game.  It is also a fluid game.  There is no locking in of initial strategies and watching them bear themselves out.  You will have to change plans from time to time.  You have to put in some brain work before the game and you have to keep mentally alert in-game.  It's just that simple.

This thing is getting long, so I am going to wrap up with a few ways to guard against sloppiness.

1) Look before you leap.  Basically put, think through your actions before you commit to doing them.  Think about overall army strategy and deployment before the game.  In-game, plan for contingencies.  Don't blindly push models forward and hope for the best. 

2) TAKE YOUR TIME!  I love to rush.  When I get excited, I move fast.  This isn't a good thing. Take your time.  Consider how your movements will cause your opponent to react.  Consider the board.  Consider your opponents' possible strategies. Take your time.  In a game that takes roughly 2- 2 1/2 hours to play, there isn't any harm in taking an extra minute or two per turn to think about your actions. 

3) Play tight.  Measure carefully.  Move carefully.  Clearly convey your intentions when things might be called into question.  Know your rules!  Use tactics.  In the end, if you play carefully, you will see yourself playing much more solidly than you normally would. 

Don't get sloppy.  You will thank yourself for it when instead of getting owned, you do the owning.  In honor of being sloppy, I would like to share a video with you.  Enjoy!



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You Got Owned...Because You Weren't Flexible

Not so much like this guy.

So far we have talked about the fact that people can lose a game due to their lack of correct rules knowledge and an overall plan. But what happens when you know the rules and have a plan, but the game doesn't go the way you planned? You get owned....unless you are flexible.

I'm talking about strategic flexibility. Strategic flexibility is best defined at being able to effectively shift from one strategy to another on a need-to-need basis. Practically speaking, it's the ability to shift gears when your original gameplan goes up in smoke.

So, the culprit in this is a lack of flexibility. There is nothing sadder to see than when a player goes into battle with a rigid strategy and gets shut down. They have no recourse than to plunge further into failure. Games like this generally turn into a baby seal clubbing. They aren't fun for either side.

Notice that in describing the above situation, I spoke of a "rigid strategy". In my last "You Got Owned" article, I spoke of having deployment schemes and overall strategies, but I mention that they should be flexible. What this means is that you need to be able to change them when the need arises. Having a rigid strategy will eventually yield to defeat. For instance, if a boy playing chess always moves the same pieces in the same order, a canny opponent will eventually find a way to counter those maneuvers. How much more true is this in Warhammer 40k? Throw in chance events like dice rolls and having a rigid strategy is a recipe for disaster.

So, if being rigid is bad, how does a person become flexible?

There are a few ways. Generally I find that becoming flexible requires looking at your army and strategy from multiple angles.

- Doing a little math can help with this. Mathammer is a good mental activity that helps you to consider your chances of success or failure. Based on it, you can devise plans for how to handle various situations. For instance, I know that it takes on average three penning results with melta weaponry to reliably destroy a tank. Does that mean it will every time? Nope. But it helps me know how to apply my firepower when I need to destroy things. Mathammer is great for planning. Just remember that maths and reality don't always align.

- Considering the metagame of your area helps as well. Are you a competitive gamer? What is the tournament standard in armies that you face? Currently, I think you will see lots of IG, Space Wolves, Blood Angels, and Grey Knights. How can you handle them?

Are you a casual gamer? What armies do your opponents regularly take? How can you exploit weaknesses in those armies with your's?

Knowing your metagame is great.

- Finally, what happens when your plan falls apart. If you rely on Gateway TH/SS terminators, what happens when they mishap and die? Or better yet, what happens when they get into position only to be mowed down by large quantities of fire? What happens when a bad turn sees most of your tanks' guns silenced due to vehicle damage results? What do you do with a tank that has lost its guns but retained its ability to move?

We can go on and on, but I think the point is clear. It isn't smart to go in with no plan, but it is also hurtful to go in with a rigid plan that can't cope with a fluid battlefield. Building armies around this concept (rock armies) often yields wins, but will ultimately be defeated by armies that can cancel out the one big strategy it is built on. It isn't good to build armies around a rigid strategy.

Balance and flexibility are the key. In some cases, it just takes time and experience. In others you can make decisions pre-game that pay dividends when it comes down to it. In the end, being flexible could mean the difference between winning and getting owned.

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You Got Owned...Because You Didn't Have a Plan

So blogger is being completely stupid and not allowing me to add pictures, but whatever.  Blogger ain't the boss of me.  I am continuing my "You Got Owned" series of articles today.  In the last article, I talked about how not knowing the rules can lead you to lose a game.  Check it out here.

In this article, I am going to talk about how not having a plan of action pre-determined for your army can cause you to lose. Simply put, if you don't have an overall idea, or strategy, for your army, you are walking into a situation where the terms of the game will be dictated for you with little to no recourse on your part. It is important to have some idea of how your army works and what it can do on the table. This starts when you build the list and ends when you come out winner or loser in a game. You have to have a plan. It is that simple.

Planning in the List Building "Phase"

I often joke that there is no list building phase to Warhammer 40k or even Warhammer Fantasy. I say this because some people erroneously believe that if they build a list hard enough, they can win any game by sheer virtue of having a super hard list. This simply isn't true. However, this doesn't mean that you can leave strategy and planning out of list building. As a matter of fact it is hugely important. If you check out Yes The Truth Hurts, 3++ is the New Black or a plethora of other sites, you will see that list building is an important part of Warhammer 40k. That said, it won't win you the game, but it is where we will start when making a plan.

There are many reasons people get owned due to not starting their planning at list building. Here are a few quick reasons:

1) Lack of focus. Your list is built trying to include too many elements which ultimately waters down the whole army.
2) Too much focus. Your list is so focused on a single aspect of the game, usually shooting or assault, that if you don't perform well in that phase you lose. This is your typical rock army.
3) Lack of redundancy. Redundancy here simply means having a backup plan should you lose some portion of your army. Stelek's YTTH best-of lists spam units to provide redundancy. Thus, if one Space Marine squad with a meltagun in a razorback is destroyed, you have two more to fill it's place.

So, it is important, and in my opinion, best to strive for balance. You want an army that can compete in all portions of the game, whether it is movement/board control, shooting, or assault. Create a list that can answer questions such as the following.

Do I have the tools to take out armor of all kinds (AV10-AV14)?
Do I have the tools to shoot up infantry?
Do I have units that can provide a combat threat?
Do I have units that can claim objectives?
Do I have the speed to close with my opponent's army before I get shot up too much?

The list can go on, but we will stop with those questions. The bottom line is that you are thinking about upcoming games while building your lists.

Strategic Planning

Now that you have a list, what do you do with it? One of the biggest flaws I see in newer players is that they get a list, possibly a good one, but when the game starts they don't know what to do with it. From deployment to execution, they have no focus on what their army should be doing. They respond to target saturation poorly, dividing up their army. They react on the backfoot. They make few gains, if any.

Another way that planning can cause you to lose is to not have an understanding of how your army works before getting involved in a game. This is huge. Again, I subscribe to a fairly basic structure for planning my armies out. After building a list I do the following:

1) I look up relevant special case rules (codex specific rules or BRB unit specific rules or USRs). I also write down important rules that have to occur during a specific portion of the game so that I don't forget. For instance, in my current Blood Angel Sanguinary Guard army, I usually have to write down a reminder that Dante's death mask needs to be used at the beginning of the game to curse an HQ choice of my opponent. I also write down a note to remind to roll for red thirst for my army. In my first few games, I noticed that I was forgetting these rules and they could definitely help me in-game. Don't be afraid to write things down.

2) Have a preset, yet flexible, deployment scheme. Basically, you should have an idea of how to deploy your army before you even see a tabletop. I mention flexible because you also have to have a plan should your optimal terrain setup not be available. Having a good deployment scheme in place pre-game allows you to think about things like:

How will your protect the low AV sides of your tanks?
How will your utilize terrain and cover for infantry units?
How will you deploy/counter infiltrators, scouts, and outflankers?
How will you provide yourself with optimal cover while maintaining good fire lanes?
How will your deploy to prevent first turn alpha striking?

Again the list can go on. Having a general idea of how you want to deploy can make the opening turns of your games run much more smoothly.

3) Have contingency plans. Unexpected things happen in game. In Warhammer 40k, every unit is always one good phase away from being destroyed. What happens when a key unit is obliterated? I will actually be devoting an entire article in this series to this idea, so I won't go into detail here, but this is something you have to have in mind. What if moneymaker unit A dies?

Like any strategy wargame, Warhammer 40k requires you to have a plan. It's best not to develop your plan on the fly as doing so under stress from fighting a losing battle or some such can cause you to make poor choices. Going in with a pre-determined, yet flexible plan can make all of the difference between winning and getting owned.

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You Got Owned...Because You Didn't Know the Rules Part 2

In my last post, I began talking about how knowing or rather not knowing the rules of the game can cause you to lose.  In that article, I gave some basic descriptions of gamers at varying levels of rules acquisition and how likely they might be to make a rules mistake.

But, how does rules knowledge affect winning and losing?

I think of it as being the cause of winning and losing in 3 different categories.

1) Outright lack of rules knowledge. This occurs when a player doesn't know a rule or set of rules that could have an impact on the game. For instance, if a player is told that Thunderwolf Cav counts as cavalry, but they don't know that this gives the model fleet and a 12" assault range, they could erroneously place an easy kill point too close to the model. Lack of rules knowledge can consist of not knowing core rules, codex specific rules (especially those of your opponents' codexes), or both. I am of the opinion that it is of the utmost importance to learn and really grasp the core game mechanics, especially those of the models you use in your army. From there, you need to know your codex specific rules. There is no excuse for a marine player to not know about ATSKNF or combat squadding. Past that, as much information as you get gain about other codexes is good, but not mandatory. A good opponent should be willing to divulge any relevant rules or details as they unfold, especially in friendly games. In competitive settings (like Indy GTs), the burden of knowing ALL rules is more squarely placed upon each player.

This is a simple to avoid mistake, but it can definitely cost a player a game. Not knowing core rules and the specific rules of the codex you play can be considered a cardinal sin. It is also the easiest to avoid. Simply read the rule book. To beginners I would say, read, read, read. Don't assume you know the rules. If something comes up in a game, look it up. That is why the BRB has a glossary.

2) Misinterpretting rules. This is super ambiguous territory. GW is infamous for writing rules that have complete different RAI and RAW meanings. This can cause quite a few arguments. It also means that rules can be misinterpretted. For instance, deffrollas and the new FAQ make things interesting. Misinterpretting rules can lead to allegations of cheating among other things as well. This is probably the leading cause of the phrase WAAC as well. A misinterpretted rule can cause all kinds of problems.

Misinterpretting rules can also lead you to have issues in competitive setting where you can't go back and fix mistakes. If you make a move based on an erroneous or malicious misinterpretation of a rule and you are in a competitive environment, you are stuck and in events like the NOVA Open, you will get eaten alive.

In friendly games there is more leniency, but players with more experience should dissuade newer players from utilizing misuses of the rules and should themselves not try to use these on others.

3) Poor understanding of how rules interact with each other. The final issue I see with rules that can cost you the game is not knowing how rules interact to build synergy or to cancel each other out. There is a single rule for every situation in 40K. In some instances multiple rules overlap. For instance, how does a unit that gets to reroll hits interact with a model that forces successful to-hit rolls to be rerolled? How do defensive grenades affect furious charge? Having a poor understanding of the interplay between rules can greatly affect a game.

The most important lesson about rules is to know them. Read the BRB. Read your codex. Read other codexes. Learn as much as you can. When you think you know them well enough, go back and read them again. With such a complicated rules structure, the average player needs to refresh their rules knowledge on a regular basis. The best way to familiarize yourself with the rules is to play games, though. I would recommend getting in plenty of games with your local gaming group before you step into competitive games. In the end, the best thing to do is be an understanding yet firm player. Know your rules and make sure you can politely and respectfully support your position to opponents.

You Got Owned...Because You Didn't Know the Rules Part 1

So, I've been trying to come up with a cool intro for this article but I just haven't managed to figure one out. However, I have thought about those times, we've all had them, when things are progressing smoothly when all of a sudden your opponent pulls a weird move. You quickly wrack your brain to try to connect the rules that would allow this to happen, but you come up empty. Thus, an inquiry occurs. You ask your opponent how he managed such a maneuver. Generally, a quotation of some BRB or codex specific rule occurs. Ultimately, your opponent backs down because he misconstrued or misused a rule or you get spanked because you didn't see the usage coming. You got owned.


Rules are what makes 40k the game it is. Without the rules that provide the game structure, we simply have collections of pretty plastic soldiers. The rules make this game the dynamic, and sometimes frustrating, game that it is.

As I mentioned in my intro post, there are lots of ways you can lose a game. You can have poor dice rolls. You can play like a bonehead tactically. You can also have a lacking or faulty understanding of the rules of the game. This is what I would like to talk about in today's article, but then I realized how large the article would be so I am cutting it in half. Today's article will talk primarily about the type of gamers you see and their grasp of rules knowledge. It is important to first categorize the types of players and their perceived possibility of misinterpretting or not knowing a rule. This gives you a vague idea of what you might be getting yourself into when playing said gamer. It is also important to understand that this isn't definite as rules knowledge of this scope falls on a spectrum and there are great ranges of rules knowledge. A "beginner" can have absolutely no rules knowledge or they can have a dozen games under their belt with a shaky rules knowledge. So use labels with caution.

1) Beginner/Novice- This is a person who has little to no grasp of the entirety of the main rules of 40k. These are players who need walkthroughs, phase by phase, action by action in small controlled games in order to gain an understanding of the rules. These players have the highest possibility of misinterpretting or simply not knowing a rule. Beginners have such a small grasp of the rules that they can't be expected to know the codex specific rules of their opponents and thus need to be prepped by their opponent about race/codex specific rules that can have a strong bearing on the game.

2) Intermediate- This is a person who has a good grasp of the rules. They know the bulk of the BRB rules, but may occasionally forget some, especially if they are rules for models that they don't normally include in their armies. They have a decent understanding of their specific army list and may even have a soundly defined strategy for playing their own army list. These players generally have dozens to a few hundred games under their belt and can be expected to play a full game of 40k and be marginally to very competitive (i.e. they provide some challenge to play against). They stand a small to moderate chance possibility of misinterpretting or simply not knowing a main rule book rule. They, however, can't be expected to have a strong knowledge of their opponents' armies unless they are from the same codex as their own army or unless they are a more popular army that is played.

3) Advanced- This is a person who has the rules down well. They know the BRB and possibly mutliple codexes. They can quote rules and perhaps even page locations for rules. They also have a decent understanding of how rules interact with each other to gain them tactical advantage. They may even have some understanding of existing loopholes in the rules and exemptions that allow shady but legal play to occur. These gamers rarely make mistakes, but there is still a small possibility that they could make a mistake or not know about the rules of an army they aren't used to playing.

Now again, these aren't hard, fast descriptions. Advanced players have bad days and beginners can pick up on gaming dynamics quickly, but chances are if you play against someone who has been playing the game for 5+ years, they can be expected to know the rules well. Conversely, you can expect someone who has just started collecting to need some help throughout a game.

This spectrum of rules knowledge brings up a good point in my mind in regards to building community. That is the idea of tutelage and apprenticeship of sorts. If gamers are really in favor of building a strong gaming community (guess what, you should be), then it should be understood that beginners need to be actively sought out and tutored through their rough, initial period of learning the game. This is somewhat of a bummer from an advanced player's perspective as it means that you may be playing some games with little to no tactical excitement or fulfillment. However, if you can train up a solid gamer, you strengthen the overall community and ultimately create a better, more competitive environment. This is huge.


So, what does it take to help a beginner or intermediate player? Here are a few quick things.

1) Share army lists at the beginning of a game and explain your list to your opponent. Share any interesting or predominant rules (like FNP and FC on priest for Blood Angels) to your opponent.

2) Have a codex and BRB at hand at all times. This is not to prove you know it all. It is to show your apprentice gamer where they can find specific rules.

3) Take it slow. Answer questions as they come up and also be willing to stop your opponent to correct him (respectfully) if he is doing something wrong. Smaller points games (1,000-1,500) may be more conducive to this process.

4) Be persistent. If your opponent isn't show huge rules and tactical growth over a few games, don't give up. Sometimes it just takes a bit more time. Showing support by being consistent means that the player will be more likely to stick it out.

5) Help your apprentice build lists. Don't build them for them. Let them have input. If they want to include Legion of the Damned, let them, but help them to understand list building dynamics and how certain units affect the army's overall performance.

That's it for this post and man, was that a marathon. If you made it this far, hang on.  In Part 2, I will take a look at how rules affect whether you win or lose. Stay tuned.

You Got Owned: Series Overview

With my return to blogging post-birth, I thought I would write a series of tactical articles called You Got Owned.  Basically this comes from asking yourself, "How did I lose?"

When we look at it, there are a few places where losing a game originates, the winner and the loser.  Yeah, this is obvious, I know.  But basically a game ends because someone plays better or at the very least plays less badly. A game can be won and a game can be lost.  We will look at why these things happen and how to insure that we learn from our mistakes.  This is something I am learning a lot about right now as I learn the Sanguinary Guard list.

The important lesson in any case where we lose is that we learn from our mistakes and try our best not to repeat them.  Many a good player will tell you, the best lessons are learned from failure.  I totally agree.  Rarely do I sit down and think, man I learned so much, when I stomp an opponent into the ground.

These articles will take us through the very important process of analyzing a game in the aftermath and learning what can be gained from a loss.  I hope you will stick with me and add any comments or ideas along the way.

To centralize access to the articles, I will provide links here for easy perusal.

1) You Got Owned...Because You Didn't Know the Rules, Part 1
2) You Got Owned...Because You Didn't Know the Rules, Part 2
3) You Got Owned...Because You Didn't Have a Plan
4) You Got Owned...Because You Weren't Flexible
5) You Got Owned...Because Your Were Sloppy