Occasionally, I like to dabble in other types of games. In 2021, for the first time, I learned how to play a fighting game at an competitive level, and I think the theory that many fighting games apply can be paralleled in order to re-think the way we play competitive Warhammer 40k.
I love Warhammer 40k. I attend tournaments regularly, play in leagues, and typically try and play at a gaming club for a weekly game. Typically, I play it at a pretty competitive level. When I’m playing, I’m playing to win, and with a list and plan that’s going to enable me to do just that. The last few seasons of Warhammer, I have been averaging about 35-40 games a season, and I’ve managed to place fairly high in tournaments. I don’t think that’s particular high for someone that’s playing competitive, and might even lean on the low side, but given that the average game of Warhammer takes three hours (plus painting, list building and setup), it ends up being rather difficult to get more games in. This, I think, from a competitive point of view, might be a small problem. As a player, 35 games in a season doesn’t seem like enough practice to have a deep enough understanding of a game to be able to consistently put up results and make, and respond to, game plans throughout a game in order to create a win path. How then, can I, (or anyone) expect to be able to pick up a game like Warhammer 40k, and pilot it to a win, even early and midseason, when we have even less games of experience to inform our decisions?
Other than Warhammer 40k, I dabble in a few other games. I play Magic at a fairly casual level, I’ll pick up the odd game that interests me (don’t shame me for my time played in Baldur’s Gate III), or I’ll get on Heroes of the Storm with some friends. Generally speaking, most games I play I haven’t been too concerned with ELO, ladders, rankings or placement (lets not talk about that gladiator push in World of Warcraft arena either). That is, until I picked up Guilty Gear Strive.
Guilty Gear Strive is a 2.5D fighting game. If you have played Mortal Kombat, or Street Fighter – you’ve pretty much played Guilty Gear, outside of system specific mechanics, setting and characters. It’s a classic fighting game where you have one side of the screen, and an opponent has the other, and you each have your own character that has a range of normal and unique special moves, where the ultimate goal is to get your opponents health to zero (and look cool doing it!) Strive is the seventh mainline installment of Guilty Gear and the 25th game in this setting. To this day – I am unsure why in particular I picked it up. Its not a genre of game I have typically played, nor is it a publisher I was aware of – and even the streamers I regularly watch didn’t play it. Nevertheless, I tried it, and fell in love. I played through a classic arcade mode, watched the story and in my ADHD fashion, quickly became obsessed with it. Then I went to the online mode…and I got wrecked. Then I got wrecked some more. And then more. And I kept losing. I lost so fucking much it hurt.
I think, as part of starting any new endeavor that puts you against someone else with a clear winner and loser, that anyone should expect to lose a few games. After playing both Warhammer and World of Warcraft Arena’s at a fairly high level, I expected to lose, but I didn’t expect to lose as many games as I did. Eventually, I got better, and then okay, and then good, but it took playing lots of games, and doing some research. The games played was just experience. I actually love Strive for a bunch of reasons, but one of the reasons that I still play it to this day, I think – is that games are 1-2 minutes long, and you can play a ranked best of 3 in 5 minutes or less. In a season of Warhammer, I would be lucky to play 50 games, but in a good night of Guilty Gear, I can get 50 games in easy. After a while you get the practice and experience to understand what some of your best options are, and how to play into other characters.
Overall, doing research was much more valuable. As it turns out, there is a larger community of players who play a series of fighting games that call themselves the “FGC”, or “Fighting Game Community”, and additionally as it turns out, while all of these games have their unique differences, like Sub Zero in Mortal Kombat freezing you, or getting hit with a Hadoken from Ryu, they have so much in common that universal theory can be applied to all of these games, and the skills are generally transferable. I think, as well, that some of these ideas can be applied to Warhammer 40k. Today, I’d like to talk about RPS, BnB’s and Okizames! (or Rock Paper Scissors, Bread and Butters, and Wake up Attacks).
RPS – “Rock Paper Scissors”
The traditional game of RPS should need no introduction – rock beats scissors, scissors beats paper, and paper beats rock. It is often applied to the position of Round Start in fighting games, where players are considering their unique options to their characters in order to start the game from an position of advantage. You want to use your “rock” – the move that has the most impact on the game, that is faster and better than the other players move, however, you are also fearful of your opponent using a move that is quicker than your rock, and therefore ‘papering’ your rock, and you being on the back foot.
In the images above, I have a example of a typical terrain layout suggested by Games Workshop on the left, and a round start position for Guilty Gear on the right. If you to consider any deployment, such as Dawn of War for the Warhammer 40k photo, the analysis can be applied. In Guilty Gear, Ky, on the left, wants to win round start and have an advantageous position, but has to be careful, as he knows many of his attacks are worse at this distance than Nago’s (pictured right). In this circumstance, Ky can choose to gamble, and hope his rock will beat the scissors of Nago, or he can back off, concede the Round Position Start, and look for a counter attack. In Warhammer 40k, as both the active (player with the first turn), and re-active player, you need to consider these options as well for the first turn. What movement can you utilize during your turn, that will have the greatest impact on the game (your rock), and put you in the most advantageous position from which to launch an assault. However, you also need to consider your opponents abilities and their ability that they can counter you (paper), in both units and stratagems.
For example, if the mission is Dawn of War, one of the things you need to do is get onto the central objectives. During deployment, you need to deploy your forces so that regardless of whether or not you go first or second, you can be in position to take the three center objectives. Out of all of these, the most valuable objective is the center – where there are more mission scoring secondary’s that interact with it. Regardless of who wins first turn, you are left in a RPS situation. The key to winning these is considering your armies “BNBs” and your opponents “BNBs” so that you can make the most informed decision in order to take the most aggressive, and safe, board presence you can, in order to score the most points on primary and secondary missions.
BnB “Bread and Butter”
In Fighting games, BnB’s refer to the basic combinations and ability’s that a given character can work with. By understanding how other characters work, you can understand what they are weak to, and how you can break up their offense and defense in order to put yourself in a winning position. In Guilty Gear Strive, the character I play the most is one called “Jack-O”. Because I am very familiar with her, the mirror match is not hard – I have a deep understanding of the flaws of my character. However, I noticed that while I was playing against a character called Leo, I couldn’t break up their offence. Every time Leo would set up his Oki (wake up attack), I kept getting hit, and would get knocked down again, because I didn’t understand his BnB attacks. I needed to do research in order in order to overcome him.
For Warhammer 40k, I think that it is functionally impossible to have a deep understanding of each and every unique factions mechanics and datasheets – and as the new codices come out, each with new detachments with unique stratagems, its going to be even more difficult. However, I also don’t think you need to know everything – just the BnB’s. For Warhammer 40k, I think what you need to know and understand are the detachment rule, the stratagems that your opponent can use, and some of their most impactful datasheets of their army. Even if you are on a clock in a tournament game, its worth taking 5 minutes on your time to look at their strats, look at their units, and if you have never seen a “Changeling”, or another tech datasheet that can really screw with you, to have a basic understanding of what they can do. If nothing else, its worth asking for range of guns, movement tricks of assault units, and to ask an opponent their ‘gotcha’s prior to the game starting, so that you can have a game based on skill, not on misinformation. Once you come to an understanding of their BNB’s, you can make the most informed decision during RPS so to maximize your board presence, and then hold objectives, or sweep them and “Oki” the rest of your opponents army as they try and take them back.
For example, if you are playing against Eldar, its absolutely worth it to understand how Phantasm works, and how their many Lone Operatives can utilize it in order to be un-interactive. Additionally, if they have datasheets such as a Wraithknight, it might be worth understanding or being aware of the dev wounds it can put out. You could ask your opponent what they think the ‘basics of their army to be aware of is’ to start.
Oki “Okizame”, or wake up attack
In fighting games, often times players get swept to the ground. I think everyone remembers playing some Mortal Kombat as a kid, and someone trapping you in a corner and just leg sweeping you over and over again until they win (and this is also the reason I don’t play MK against my wife, Jenn). Luckily for all involved, fighting games have improved over the years to give a bit of invulnerability as you wake up. However, as a mechanic, many characters in many games have gameplans built into setting up advantageous situations as you wake up, limiting your defensive options. For example – take Millia Rage below:
In this example – each time Millia knocks Ky down, she often sets up a spinning attack, that an opponent has to block, while she then mounts a secondary offense, such as a grab, or another attack, that is hard to also block.
Functionally, tenth edition Warhammer is about central objective control. Any army that manages to find its way controlling center objectives more often than its opponent will find itself scoring more primary and more secondary points, and therefore winning games. Its obviously easier said than done, when you consider the many complicated facets of Warhammer, but the idea remains true. In order to have a successful game, you have to come to the table prepared, at deployment to win RPS, and then set a plan to ‘okizame’ the central objectives as your opponent will try to seize them, or seize them back. This may sound like basic information, considering how to set up an offense that holds an objective, while limiting your opponents defense options is key to winning games. How armies do that depends on the army. This is where actions like move blocking, or, abilities that reduce movement of other units are incredibly helpful. Additionally, if you are looking to clear an objective, but you know that they can clear your units the next turn, considering how you can stop the removal of your units, or set up a counter to it is paramount to finding success.
In short – to win games of Warhammer 40k – find a way to win the round position start RPS, know your opponents bread and butter abilities, and set up an offense that limits your opponents options! Try it out at the next Thursday Night 40k game. (And If I have convinced you to try out a fighting game, hit me up in the comments and I’ll set you up with a game).
Trident Wargaming 
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