So I get these emails asking my opinion on this weeks stuff over at Bols. Everyone thinks I should critique.
I think you should visit for non-tactic related stuff, with the sole exception of Goatboy. He writes so far above the rest there it's not funny.
So starting with this one, about Drop Pods. I'm curious, was this 'darkwynn' posting stuff before his miracle win at soft boyz gave him some kind of 'street cred', or what?
It states the obvious, which is nice for noobs--and does nothing for vets.
Things I wonder:
Why no mention of Black Templar drop pod armies, currently one of the best?
You didn't really just mention Tigerius, did you? 0_0
Drop pods with locator beacons...wonder where you got that from. I wonder, do locator beacons work for Librarians deep striking on the turn they arrive? No mention of the need for terminator armor.
Scout Bikers? What a waste of a FA slot. Drop Pods are indestructible, so can go anywhere. It is stupid to bring them, they are accurate enough. If you drop them an inch away from the enemy, the odds are very much that you'll be in 6" of an enemy vehicle to melta it. Most players who have used a drop pod once (just once) know this basic fact.
Tactical Marines are all arounders? Amazing insight.
Never bring Ironclad dreadnoughts. Pay extra for a soon-to-be melta'd / dead vehicle? No thanks.
No mention of deploying the drop pods empty.
Sigh. How difficult is it to get people with good tactical and good writing skills to write for Bols. Surely there must be someone out there willing to help out.
Regarding this apparent series...is anyone reading this stuff?
Someone with no combat experience, no officer training, and probably taking a history (or worse yet, motivational!) class wrote this.
What's with taking the obvious and pointing it out to everyone? Just reading through one of those made my literary education crawl out of my soul and jump out the window.
Trying to make yourself sound intelligent while you read off the police blotter in a snooty way doesn't fool anyone you know what you are talking about, well, anyone but the...foolish.
I learned how to fall asleep twice reading the 3rd article, I couldn't be bothered to try the others.
And this was also brought to my attention:
Raptor wrote this on Sept 18th.
Bols wrote this on Oct 8th.
Seriously?
Stealing Ideas = Bad.
What makes it worse, is it's wrong. =(
Goatboy, make the other people stop posting "tactical" advice, for the love of G-d. Making my job harder by posting tripe isn't helping. There's gotta be some kind of news or something to talk about...haven't the Nids been leaked Bols way yet? lol
Home My Views » Around the 'Net: Sigh...
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Around the 'Net: Sigh...
By
Stelek
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25 comments:
I am an Army Officer.
I started reading the first installment of the Principles of War series and stopped halfway. Although good for laughs, in general people should not read the name of a principle and then go on to make up what it actually refers to...
They should go back to just being a news/rumor ticker.
If you noticed the comments in that BolS Speeder vs Bike article, I pointed out that Raptor had just done it.
Reading comments there gives me headaches. =|
In defense of the speeder biker article, it was written by a guest poster, who might not read as many blogs. Still though, you are right, a lot of the tactical info there is pretty lame. In a recent video batrep, a Space Wolf drop pod army (played by none other than our friend BRP) chose to go first. Ugh.
I got an email about it, but couldn't be bothered to rant about it...sometimes, the cesspool cannot be cleaned. lol
I too am an army officer currently in Iraq and I must say nothing irks me more than civilians who, for all intents and purposes, probably never served acting and proselytizing to the masses as if they have.
It's bad enough to have actuall officers in the Army try to wax prophetic about tactics, but to have arm chair generals do it, and to do it for a GAME, is just plain ridiculous.
The only reason I enjored the article was to get a refresher of what the 9 principles were. Most of what the articles described is common sense, things that most vets should already know, albeit most likely without the official military title.
The great irony here is that out of all the guys in the Army I play with, none of us EVER talked about or related real worl military theory with 40K. It's...illogical
PS been a quiet fan for a while, but recently have begun being a more vocal supporter on other forums, especially when people on those foums begin touting BoLS as the be-all-end-all. Granted you can be an ass at times, but I think everyone needs a slap of the dick-stick now and again. Keep up the good work
I usually kinda chuckle when people try to apply principles of war into 40k. Stelek, you have had the best reference to books with that article on game theory.
40K is a game, people need to learn that its about how to play the game rather than treating this as a war simulator. If you want a war simulator, I suggest the close combat series, real war, or supreme commander.
Well I have one good thing to point out-- they didnt steal material. The article about the land speeders and attack bikes was because of me. I had an argument with Jawaballs on his site about which was better, land speeders or attack bikes. I was obviously for the speeders, him for the bikes. It went on and on, neither of us convincing the other. But he said that he would post a list of pro-cons on BOLS because of it, I guess to make others more aware of it? Idk. lol.
if you want an account of the silly argument over man-barbies..here ya go
nvm... is there a reason that i cant copy and paste into here..?
I don't know about the stealing, but I had to try to post and disagree with 'im. I don't know if it got through, because Disqus...yeah. If I post a reply on BoLS (...if I can get it to LOAD ON MY COMPUTER in under 5 minutes...) it's to the thing directly, not anyone actually in the comments.
Sure, the bike's cheap and easy to hide, but the bike is actually LESS durable by a hell of a margin. I was fighting for the Speeder when I used to frequent Bolter & Chainsword in the BA forum even back in 4th, just for the ability to hide them (arguably hide them BETTER, with the non-true-LOS in that ruleset) and their duality. Fewer shots, but so much more utility it's not funny.
On my end, I'm no military officer, but part of me always is a little "eh" when trying to interpret military tactics/manuals/etc. Frankly, without having actual training and experience, I don't have any kind of frame of reference for what I'm looking at. The best I could try to do is try to understand it via metaphor. It's sometimes interesting reading, but frankly there's only so much I can get from it as a civilian.
Thing is with 40k, though, (and any other game) you really just have to read the rules to figure out what the game wants you to do. Kill stuff, take objectives, say the scenarios. Then, the rules tell us what'll work well and what won't, and we go accordingly.
So, Raptors article from weeks before entitled the same, talking the same...just happened? Come on.
You need to be logged in then you can copy and paste just fine.
I was trained by the military, and went through officer training. I've seen combat, it wasn't fun by any stretch of the imagination. In no way shape or form does any of that apply to 40k--not really, anyway. Who brings their tanks with 5 mile ranges to within 50 feet? Morons, that's who. Or perhaps the French.
I just tried CC5 yesterday, finally got around to it lol--doesn't seem much different from the rest of the series, so it's showing it's age. Certainly not anything you'd see in 40k. 40k is it's own beast, if you could actually apply the real force of reason behind the principles of war to 40k, I'd not laugh at armchair generals who suck and combat vets who also suck at 40k.
Anyway my criticism is about what's being delivered--if you are going to deliver the patently obvious, don't call it 'tactics'. Call it 'noob 101'.
I'm waiting for the article on breathing, who's gonna post that? Bols? Dakka? Warseer? lol jk. ;)
I had to point this out to a buddy of mine. We are both vets (me in the Marines, him in the Army) and this guy has by far the greater amount of military experience than I do. I was a tanker reservist who deployed as an MP, he is a fucking Green Beret. That being said, I had to show him some stuff in 40k, he was obviously applying his real world tactics (probably subconsciously) to the game. He had set up basically his rhinos in a coil and had a nice little perimeter going, and was shooting each unit straight out at targets in front. He was losing... to Orks.
So I told him, "hey bud, tank shock this rhino here. Now tank shock this rhino to HERE. Now walk Vulkan forward and drop that Heavy Flamer here."
Well, needless to say, he Poofed 2 Boyz units right there and the game was basically a slaughter from that point.
Tactics are defined by the system within which you are operating. If you are in combat, the system is vastly different than little toy soldiers, thus the tactics are completely different.
My 2 cents.
Yeah the ranges in 40k make absolutely no sense. Maybe we can assume all those marines with bolters and their vehicles have been slaughtering thousands and are running out of ammo or having malfunctions. Maybe we can assume the game has a tenous connection at best to real battles.
The best I've heard about 40k and ranges is that it's an abstraction with orders of magnitude. I mean, the range bands are at what, 12-24-36-48, with 12 being pistol, 24 being small arms, and 36-48 being long rnage, while anything past that is artillery or a fire prism?
It's best just not to think about how these are like 1/72 scale guys. Then the Death STrike's range gets laughable. ICBM with...how long a range? 960 inches on the board, or 5,760 feet, for...a nuke. I'm pretty sure if it's a nuke, even if it's not a high-yield one, that's kind of short-ranged for me. Maybe it's the IG just not caring about the average footslogger?
*waves to Roland* good to see your net is working in the Middle East. We misses you on the internets :(. Stay safe!
It's the same old from BoLS. You can pick an article at random and will generally find a massive fault in it somewhere.
Yes actually. It did "just happen." Has BOLs stole content before? Yes. Did they just happen not to this time, and honestly posted about the same topic after raptor did? Yes. I had an inpromptu argument with Jawaballs, he was suggesting on his site for a new player to take out his land speeders, and instead put in attack bikes, because he thinks they are way better. I then commented on it, asking his reasoning, which then started a little debate. It was not a "hey we need something to post about, lets look on other blogs and see what we can do."
Since I can now copy/paste.. here's even a link to the debate that Jawaballs and I had-
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=2376208744490382379&postID=9065459598764957595
Can't agree more with you on the "apply REAL MILLITARY TACTICS (tm) to WARHAMMER" BOLS does. I just can't help roll my eyes.
Also, it seems that every tactica is an embarrasingly feeble attempt to put their favorie models (with crappy stats) on the board, while trying to justify it.
One question, aren't ironclads somewhat decent in a dread-spam list? I don't really like them, but isn't that extra point of armour useful when they get stuck into combat?
Tyler: So, Raptor posts first then Jawa posts it a week later? I'm confused. Well, don't matter to me. If it was incidental, okiedokie. Just doesn't look it to me, that's all.
Whut: No, as Ironclads need to be drop podded given they don't have any long range weapons. That makes for 200 points. Spamming 6 + a basic Master and troop choices...and that's your army. They just cost too much. They also die like hooches to meltaguns. How they get into combat is my question. Great model, but the time for a CC Dread without some kind of protective forcefield to keep them alive (aka KFF) is just not gonna happen in 40k, not this way.
@WHUT
The question that the Ironclad has to face is "Is the extra point of armor woth trading off my shooting capability, and can I MAKE it to CC?"
You could drop-pod them to get around this, but I'd rather take a MM/HF dreadnought so I could engage anything I drop by, be it tank or infantry. Then, I can pray I don't stop Melta with my face, and try to keep on wreaking havoc.
If you were going footslogging Dread Spam, then they might have a place, but then you'd pretty much be taking 2-3 twin-autocannon dreads to give yourself covering fire on the way in, and then maybe 3 Ironclads, and some MM/HF speeders for your melta. Add tacticals to taste, I suppose.
I'd worry most, though, about the 5-6 Dread Drop-Pod list, just because dropping 4-6 Dreadnoughts in someone's face just miiiight overwhelm their ability to deal with them.
I want to like the Ironclad, but when it gets down to practice, the Ironclad doesn't always have a real advantage.
they write articles you don't like but you are friends with goatboy. you established all that long ago.
new challenge to you. go one month w/o bringing up bols. going for a walk might help with the shakes.
Jawaballs made a post about someone sending him a list, asking jawa for advice. Jawa told the kid to get rid of his speeders, and that the bikes were way better. But yep, it was surprisingly just incidental.
oh and bebibejita, Stelek only brings up bols because people email him, asking him to critique the things that they say. He doesn't do it for attention or anything, like you're implying. So quit trolling.
"<span>new challenge to you. go one month w/o bringing up bols. going for a walk might help with the shakes."</span>
<span></span>
<span>Try not being such a bols fanboi for two days.</span>
Tyler: Fair enough.
Every blogger is a narcissist in some way, but getting attention just by putting someone else down isn't my goal.
If I could convince Bols to write 'beginner' tacticas and direct people elsewhere for 'advanced' tactics, I think everything would be fine on that front--but they don't, and it irritates me because telling noobs shit is actually good is what GW does, and that marketing plan hasn't been exactly stellar. We could lose more gamers to prove who is right, but why? I don't think I'm driving newbies away--I want them to have a chance to win against the so-called 'Veterans'. Winning is ok, ya know?
Besides all that, Beb--it's my blog. I'll do whatever I want here (within reason). If people visit, great. If they don't, I'll be sad but I'm still going to say what I feel needs to be said.
You realize every barb against Bols isn't personal, and in the end--it's a barb against GW, not Bols. GW thinks the same way, and that needs to stop before we don't have a hobby.
What, no official GT's for the 2nd year in a row is a sign I'm wrong, is it? Explain that one to me. Anyone.
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