I thought I'd do something a little
different for the last post of 2012. Therefore I'm going to be doing
a response to something that was posted earlier in the year.
The post that I'm going to be replying
to is from a very famous 40k blog. 'Yes the truth hurts' run by
Stelek, and although it is extremely unlikely that he reads this poky
little blog, I'd like to make my point anyway. I disagree with Stelek
99% of the time, but I've picked this post in relation to the fact
that at its core it regards the big 40k news for the year. I could
have gone with the whole, 'Forge World in tournaments' debate, but as
it stands I haven't attended a single Forge World allowing
tournament, and so have a lack of experience, although I do have 3 of
them lined up in the next 2 months.
I'm not going to link to the post in
question here, but if you go to Yes the Truth Hurts and enter '2 FOC
is bad' you'll get the post. It came out a week after 6th
edition, and so was probably a bit hasty and a bit full of nerd rage
but that's no excuse for a poorly thought out argument, especially
from such a well known blog and especially when you're going to use
demeaning and offensive language to describe anyone that doesn't
agree with your proposition.
Onto the subject of this post, as you
may have probably guessed, the proposition made by Stelek is that
dual force org is bad for the game. By this, we mean the rule that
states that once a game reaches 2,000pts or more, you double the
number of force organisation slots available to you. You now have
access to 4 HQ choices, 6 Elites, and so on.
He begins the article with the
following introduction,
'Here are some broken lists.
Are the Unbeatable at 2k?
Well, you tell me.'
He then ends the
post with,
'Seriously, you thought 40k5e was
boring?
Play against any of these armies and
your brain will shut right off'
During the article,
he then proceeds to create lists for 4 different army books, all of
which he deems broken by telling the reader what they will think when
they face them across the table. Those who agree with him, also post
more of these 'broken' lists, often using different Codecies, in the
comments section of the post. Now here's the hypocrisy.
Let's say that the
dual force org Space Wolves army that he has built plays against the
dual force org Ork army from the same article. This is a perfectly
legitimate situation, as in a dual force org 2,000pt game both armies
have access to the dual force org. Now, if these 2 lists come against
each other are they both still unbeatable?
Now let's assume
that all Codecies have the potential to make what Stelek defines has,
'unbeatable' combinations using the double force org, and let's say
that you're at an extremely competitive 2,000pt tournament that
allows double force organisation, or you're in the top bracket of a
GT in the U.S which is allowing double force org, and everyone has
brought one of these lists. Are they all still unbeatable? Does this
mean that no-one will win any games, and no-one will lose any games?
Does every game result in a draw?
Of course it
doesn't. I am always very hasty before labelling a unit, a Codex, or
a list as broken. This is because if everything in a room is broken,
then nothing is. If you have 2 armies that are broken fighting
against each other, are they still both broken within the context of
that game? No they are not, they cancel each other out. Sure, the
game may be a better match up for one army than the other, but lists
don't have to be broken for this to apply. You can turn up to a
fluffy tournament with your fluffy list and play against another
fluffy list, with your list essentially able to cope with your
opponents better than your opponent's is able to cope with yours, but
does that make your list any more broken? No, it means it's a good
match up.
In the same way, in
a room full of 'broken' lists, because dual force org has been
enabled, is your list still broken? Broken can generally be defined
(in my opinion, feel free to disagree with me) as so powerful that it
ruins the game for your opponent. If you have 2 of these lists
pitched against each other then they are evenly matched, and so are
not ruining the game for your opponent and so are not broken or
unbeatable.
If you have a dual
force org list playing against a list that is only allowed 1 force
organisation chart, sure the dual force org list has a huge
advantage. But at the end of the day, this is never going to be the
case. In the same way, if you wanted to play a triple force
organisation game, and both armies are subjected to this, go for it,
you're both subjected to the same restrictions, or lack thereof.
I realise that I'm
probably repeating myself here so I'm going to wrap this up.
My favourite quote
from the article is a comment that is left by Stelek himself, and it
reads,
'No, 2 FOC is just bad. Period.
There are no ifs.'
Making an absolute
statement that dual force org is bad for the game with no evidence to
support this claim other than posting a number of army lists that
would be evenly matched against each other is not a strong argument.
If everyone's army
list is 'unbeatable', nobody's is.
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