Competitive Orks, Paradox?

Orks are not competitive.

Let's let that sink in for a bit. Really, they aren't.

I love my Orks, they're my favorite army. When Dawn of War came out I was hooked on those crazy guys. New book dropped and I was in whole hog, buying upwards of 2000 points of them before I knew what was going on. They stomped face in 4th edition, with its lean towards static gunlines and weaksauce vehicles. With every enemy I faced, the horde ran right over them.
Then 5th was released, and the floor dropped out from under us. Now my Orks are a "for fun" army like my Deathwing.

Orks aren't competitive in 5th edition the way Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Eldar, Dark Eldar, and Tau are. Let's examine this before people start flying off the handle.

What makes an army competitive?
A competitive army is one that can win against other competitive armies in a competitive setting, typically tournies. Simple, right? You have to be able to effectively take on anything without sacrificing your own ability to win. That goes from destroying vehicles to handling the infantry inside said vehicles or hordes or anything else you might see thrown at you. You must have redundancy, so losing 1 unit to bad rolling doesn't hamstring your army. You must have flexibility, so you don't end up relying on a handful of units to perform important tasks and see them made into priority targets against some foes and worthless against others. You must be able to win the game, duh.

Orks really don't do all of that.

Orks have difficulty taking out vehicles. Their only weapons to knock out light armor (10-12) at range are Deffguns, Kannons and Rokkits. Zzap Guns and the Shokk Attack Gun are too unreliable. Boomguns, Kill Kannons, Grotzookas, Big Shootas, and Wyrdboy psyker powers can work as well, but not nearly as reliably or require you to significantly alter your army composition. I didn't mention PKs because, let's be serious, they suck at it (walkers being the obvious exception). Chasing after a moving vehicle isn't going to net you good results. Even a charging Biker Boss, so 5 S10 attacks, will get roughly .28 Destroy results on a Rhino moving 12", .83 on one moving 6". Puh-leeze. If you're army can't reliably take out vehicles, you will struggle against any mech army, and considering all the mech coming out of the woodwork with 5th edition buffing them so.

Orks turn out pretty well for redundancy. You can field multiple units of Lootaz, Kanz, Buggies, and Boyz. However, all the good units compete for the same FOC slots. You can't have it all though, so something ends up lacking. If you want to have redundant units of Lootas, you won't have Tankbustas or Nobs, so you end up centering your army on the Lootas, or at least making them a critically important units. If you want those Nobs, you have to take a Warboss to make them Troops, giving you an obvious lynchpin unit. If you bring Kanz, you'll need more than 1 unit to have a reasonable chance of survival, so you don't get Battlewagons and can't field Nobs, Boyz or Tankbustas. Having all the good stuff in direct competition means your redundancy shapes your army around these units. While Guard can take tank busters and infantry killers everywhere and Marines get lots of reliable armor and heavy weapons across the board, Orky goodness is concentrated into Elites and Heavy Support. That sure sounds like reliance on a handful of units to do the job (destroying armor).

Orks only have a handful of really good units. Lootas, Nobs, Boyz, Buggies, Koptaz, Big Gunz, Kanz, and Battlewagons. Everything else is situational, expensive, or just plain bad. The problem with building an army around these is the aforementioned competition, you've got everything competing for the same slots.

Orks are one of the "noobcrusher" armies; they excel at stomping all over poor lists and players. They have a very shallow learning curve and can bring a lot of power to bear, but once you get familiar with how the game works, they plateau early and quickly. Vehicles in any appreciable amounts give them fits, Land Raiders in particular. Orks fold to dedicated assault troops getting the drop on them thanks to their low initiative, reliance on furious charge and No Retreat! Their uber units like Nobs have obvious and plentiful counters (S8+ weaponry, particularly ordnance, vehicles) and are damn expensive.

Orks are currently considered competitive because of this. They look good on paper and perform well early on, much like any new release. They are extremely punishing against armies not optimized for 5th edition. Sad to say, people still haven't caught on to the changes and keep running the same armies, so they keep on winning, feeding the illusion that they're hot shit. Despite its many flaws, the latest 'Ard Boyz shows this fairly well. The winning IG list was far from the best, but it was built with 5th in mind and unceremoniously crushed the typical Ork "powerbuild" of 180 boyz plus bitz. Once people figure out how 5th edition works (which I intend to facilitate as best I can), Orks will drop off the map like they should have a year ago.

The current crop of "competitive" builds for Orks really aren't all that hot.
1) Nob Bikers. Great a couple months ago, until people figured out how to beat them. Apparently sinking all your points into 1-2 uber units that can be killed off by battle cannons and can't destroy vehicles is a bad idea. Who knew?
2) Battlewagon Brigade. Tons of AV14 vehicles full of big fun guys. At first massed AV14 sounds good, but then you have the awesome Battlewagon model with huge side arc, open-topped AV12, and the same problem of handling vehicles. Also sinking points into big scary units of T4 dudes.
3) Green Tide. Because a ton of infantry with no chance of harming vehicles running screaming across the board is such a good idea, right?
4) Speed Freeks. Loads of Bikes, Trukks, and fast stuff. Pro Tip: don't put your faith in open-topped AV10 vehicles and 12 boyz that get killed or run off way too easily.
5) Clusterfuck. A little bit of everything, a whole lot of nothing. You know the type, 60 boyz, 1 Battlewagon, a handful of Trukks, Snikrot and Zaggstrukk. No redundancy, poor unit and weapon choices, and far too easy to pick apart.
6) Kanwall. A variant of the Green Tide featuring 9 Kanz screening your horde. Kanz are great, but putting everything into 9 squadron'd AV11 vehicles will end badly, especially since your army is so slow.
7) Lotsa Dakka. You don't see this often, but shooty Orks can be quite nasty. Lootas, Big Gunz, Shoota Boyz, and Buggies/Koptaz with SAGs and Grots for good measure. They still have no answer to heavy armor and are quite easy to beat in combat or rout.

That's not to say that Orks are completely inept in competitive play, they just have a much harder time than truly competitive armies. I've used my Battlewagon Brigade and Lotsa Dakka armies to a good deal of success in the past and they're still a blast to pull out for local tournies or casual play. But when the chips are down, I don't put my money on the Orks. The usual caveats apply as always, player skill > list, scenarios can screw up balancing by favoring some armies and nerfing others and luck always trumps all.

Foot Fuzzwing

This one is pure Terminator loving, power armor is for pansies!

HQ
Logan Grimnar
Rune Priest-Living Lightning, Tempest thingy, Terminator Armor, Chooser of the Slain

Elites
Lone Wolf-Terminator Armor, Chainfist, Storm Shield, 2 Fenrisian Wolves
Lone Wolf-Terminator Armor, Chainfist, Storm Shield, 2 Fenrisian Wolves
Lone Wolf-Terminator Armor, Chainfist, Storm Shield, 2 Fenrisian Wolves

Troops
Wolf Guard-10 terminators, 2 cyclones, 2 chainfists
Wolf Guard-5 terminators, cyclone, chainfist, 2 wolf claws
Wolf Guard-5 terminators, cyclone, chainfist, 2 wolf claws
Wolf Guard-5 terminators, cyclone, chainfist, 2 wolf claws

Total-1850

It's 30 Terminators bearing down on you, simple as that. 6 krak missiles, 4 S9 krak missiles, S8 Lightning, and 3 super heroes running out front looking for death and providing cover. Stelek put up a good article on using Lone Wolves here.

This is probably what I'll be subbing in for Deathwing for a while to see if I'll enjoy playing them more. Getting up to 2000 would entail shifting points around for more Terminators or some wolves if you want a cheap bullet screen.

Mech Fuzzwing

Hey ho, here we go!

HQ
Logan Grimnar

Rune Priest-Living Lightning, Chooser of the Slain
Troops
Wolf Guard-6 terminators, heavy flamer + chainfist, chainfist + storm shield, 2x wolf claws, Land Raider Crusader w/ multi-melta, extra armor

Wolf Guard-6 terminators, heavy flamer + chainfist, chainfist + storm shield, 2x wolf claws

Grey Hunters-5, meltagun, Rhino

Grey Hunters-5, meltagun, Rhino
Fast Attack
Land Speeder-multi-melta, heavy flamer
Land Speeder-multi-melta, heavy flamer
Heavy Support
Land Raider Crusader-extra armor, multi-melta
Predator-autocannon, heavy bolters
Predator-autocannon, heavy bolters

Total-1991

This is your mech Fuzzwing, hardly definitive, but a good idea of where it is headed. 2 LRCs full of angry Termies ram down your throat while Preds and Speeders give supporting fire and Grey Hunters capture objectives. If you want to go for a more traditional or "pure" Deathwing feel, swap the Preds for Dreadnoughts with dual autocannons. Speeders and Grey Hunters can be dropped for another unit of Terminators.

This is very much a hammer build and sacrifices flexibility and redundancy for 2 pretty nasty assault units.

Fuzzwing

Another e-mail coming our way!

Hey,

I haven't yet had a chance to look at the new SW Codex, how viable do you think a "Loganwing" army is going to be.

An all terminator army doesn't sound like it is going to be too competitive... fun maybe... I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts

-- Kind Regards
Jason

I've been having the same problem. Ever since I heard that Logan Grimnar makes Wolf Guard Troops and all the fun options they get (including Terminator armor), I was all a flutter with happy emotions. As a Deathwing player, the opportunity to have another list with scoring Terminators is always useful if I want a change of pace.

Stelek put up a great article on making a "Loganwing" army here:
http://www.yesthetruthhurts.com/2009/09/analysis-master-crafting-loganwing-army.html

Pretty neat stuff. Unfortunately, his list isn't as Terminator heavy as I'd like. Going for an army of nothing but Termies isn't going to be the competitive choice, but fuck it, Terminators are cool! Now to reduce confusion, this all Termie list is going to need a different moniker. Fuzzwing sounds good, run with it. If it catches on, you heard it here first.

So, let's go down the basics of Wolf Guard Terminators, since they'll be the core of our army.

Your basic WGT has normal Terminator stats, a power weapon, storm bolter, ATSKNF, Acute Senses, and Counter Attack. This runs you 7 points less per model than Codex: SM Terminators. Not bad eh?
The best part is, you can mix and match every model in the squad to have different upgrades. Adding a Wolf Claw or combi-weapon is as painless as adding a melta bomb, Powerfists and Frost Blades will run double that, while Chainfists, Thunder Hammers, Storm Shields and a complete pair of Wolf Claws will set you back triple. Every 5 models in the unit can pick up a heavy weapon: Heavy Flamer, Assault Cannon, and Cyclone Missile Launcher, for the same price as Codex: SM Termies.

And that's just for the Terminator variants! Wow, that one unit has more options than the entire Dark Angels Codex! Whoops, made myself sad again :(

Every Fuzzwing army needs Logan Grimnar, and he doesn't come cheap. He's more than twice the cost of Belial, but this guy is one bad mofo. Hits like a freight train, Eternal Warrior, can give all his buddies within 18" +1 attack for 1 turn, and gives his unit a choice of Vet Skills (Fearless, Relentless, Preferred Enemy, or Tank Hunters). Win.

A Rune Priest is also nigh mandatory. Wolves have a lot of sweet psychic powers and cancelling enemy powers on a straight 4+ is pretty sweet for the same cost as a normal Librarian.

There's 3 main ways you can run a Fuzzwing, all based on WG transport options:
-Mechanized
-Drop Pods
-Footslogging

A Mechanized list features, what else, angry furry Termies running around in angry furry Land Raiders.

A Drop Pod list is like Deathwing Assault, only not reliant on overpriced Bikes surviving a turn, plus deployable cover. Yayz.

Footslogging is probably my pick, mostly because I don't feel like buying a bunch of Raiders or DPs. Flooding the board with 2+ save doods is always fun.

I'll go into each variant in more detail in later articles as I get time to playtest them. I don't think a Fuzzwing is going to be very competitive, like Deathwing, but it's nice to have an alternative to a fun variant list. I'll endeavor to play as "pure" as possible, but mixing in other units to offset the weaknesses of your Terminators would be a good idea. Who knows, with the right mix you could make a solid Terminator based army.

Now I don't think Fuzzwing is going to end up better than Deathwing, just different. If Fuzzwing lacks anything, it's scouting multi-meltas with built in teleport homers and AV14 skimmers, while Deathwing really don't have the punch in assault or access to such useful units as Thunderwolves and Fenrisian Wolves.

I hope that answers your questions and I hope to have some preliminary lists up shortly.

Later gators

Space Wolves

I finally got a peek at the new book today at the FLGS, yayz! I won't be playing SW, that's for Genestealer, but I think him and Wuffy players will be enjoying themselves for the forseeable future.

I might put something more coherent down as I process all the info, watch this space.

(your ad here)

Genestealer's Tyranids

Since chum got to show off his army, I thought I'd do mine.

If my name wasn't a dead giveaway I play Tyranids, they are my favorite army in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. However the status of the Tyranid army is lack-luster at best, and if the rumors about the spacewolf codex are true then their may be no reason to play Tyranids at all competitavely. All that aside, I use a Godzilla list when I'm playing competitively. You know the typical 2 walking tyrants, 3 elite fexes, 3 Zoanthropes, 2 big fexes, and some genestealers.



Most people use ripper swarms to take up the required slots that a carnifex cannot fill, but I go for genestealers. Genestealers are my favoire Tyranid unit (once again as my name would imply), but thats not the only reason I use them. What I like to do is hide a small unit of genestealers behind my carnifexs, blocking them from line of sight. So if any nasty powerfists wanna get to close to my Carnifexs they'll be dealt with; genestealer style.



The walking hive Tyrant is a staple of any competitive Tyranid army, it has the potential for best BS, and lots of good weapons to go with it, my favorites are probably the devours, cause the venom cannon doesn't have enough shots to properly kill stuff. Also you really can't go wrong with tyrant Guard, give them some lashwhips and the tyrant is covered from shooting and combat.



Ahh the Carnifex the crowned Jewel of the Tyranid army list, it's big, bad and relatively cheap. For an elite fex I usually use the barbed strangler, it's a big ordnance weapon, and thanks to fifth it'll always go off, it may scatter but that's better than having both your venom cannon shots miss. For my big Scary carnifexes I always use extened carapace, which I rarely ever see in other Tyranid army lists; IT'S 15 POINTS FOR AN EXTRA WOUND!!! come on guys. I really don't bother with Carapace their aren't many AP3 guns anyway. Other than that Senses and Barbed strangler & Venom Cannon combo, just cause it might hurt tanks, though probably not.



Zoanthropes, are not necessary to my army, but they do have a strength 10 blast that isn't crap like the venom cannon. So I like to keep them on the off chance that they'll blow up a landraider. Also for 55 points each it really isn't that big a deal, besides you always have the small blast to clean up and heavy troops.



So through thick and thin I've played Tyranids, and I hope to in the future. But that doesn't mean I can't play other armies as well.

Da Boyz GT

We've got a GT coming up in about a month, so it's time to get cracking with some playtesting. Here are the rules if anybody cares to check them out http://www.daboyzgt.com/40k_Daboyzgt09.HTM

Not too happy about the comp scoring, but a lot of people I game with regularly are going as are some people I've talked to on BoLS and hopefully more. Should be a fun little weekend.

So, I've only got 2 armies ready to go for this GT, but I'm not entirely sure which I want to bring. It's down to Orks or Dark Angels/Marines.

This is the Deathwing list I've been playtesting, thanks to Stelek for helping me with it.

Belial
Sammael
Plasma Dread
2x Multi-Melta Dread
3x DW squads (1 Apothecary + AC, 1 AC+chainfist, 1 cyclone)
2x RW squadrons (3 bikes, 2 meltas, MM AB)

I'll post up some battle reports from yesterday later as well as the Ork and other marine lists I was considering.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be most welcome.

Composition score

Yeah...Comp Score. For those of you who do not know what Comp score is, it's a way scoring a tournament that involves how many wins the player has, how well their army is painted, the overall theme of their army, and if they were a good sport or not based upon their opponents review. Before, I tear this system a new one, let's review; What is a Tournament? A Tournament is a competition to see who is the most skilled in a certain field, they have them for all sorts of things like sports, tabletop games, video games, writings, and even painting. In tournaments victory is the goal of all those that participate in it, so each contender would bring their very best stuff. keeping that in mind lets look at composition scores.

Player Skill: This is what a warhammer 40,000 tournament should be all about; two players, two armies, one board, and dozens of dice. Each player tries their hardest with the armies that they have spent years perfecting, and now are at the peak power, and only he who is a truly better player will come out on top. Lots of people believe that the winner would depend on the army, this is true in some respect, some armies are better than others; but if a veteran Tyranid player who has optimised his list, and knows his army in and out will beat a new player with a optimised Guard list. Chum and I have come to a conclusion that a winning army is 60% player skill, 30% army, and 10% dice. So if your a skilled player with a competitive army the only thing that can mess you up is dice. The player's skill should be all that is taken in to a tournament. Luckily though a player's skill still counts for the majority, or at least half of one's comp score. This include mission objective the player has achieved, and how many hims he's gotten.

Judge Score: This is where it gets stupid.In a Composition score tournament a judge will look at your army and give you a number of points based on a set of Guidelines. Lets say that I brought a optimised Tyranid list to a tournament that used composition. So I got two walking Tyrants with tyrant guard, 3 elite Carnifexs, some genestealers, 2 big carnifexes and some 3 zoanthropes with warpbalsts. So I show the judges my army, and the first thing they'll notice is that my army is painted very poorly, and because of it they will give me a low score. So now I have a lower chance of winning a tournament because my army is ugly. If you don't think this is a bad thing lets look at the reverse setting. Some one enters a beautifully painted Tau fire warrior into a painting competition, but some one else brought a obviously not as well painted land raider to the competition. And under the new rules, these models will be half marked on their painting and another half on who wins in a fight between them. And so eve though the fire warrior was painted extremely well the landraider won cause its' a land raider.

After they took off points for my lack of painting skill they'd look over the list again and see if it matches the fluff of the 40k universe. They say that the Tyranids are an unrelenting tide of tooth and claw, which my army isn't. however I quickly counter with the information that Tyranids adapt to any situation, so I was okay their, but for other armies like Orks, in which they have to stray from their fluff to be any good this would be a problem. Then they'll judge me on if my army has any repetition of units, cause in comp tournaments the judges want to see a variety of units. So they look at my 4 different creatures and give me a bad score, and then the person behind me gets a perfect comp score because he has raveners and spore mines in their list, two of the most useless units in the Tyranid book. They also give u a good score if your using units that they don't see in your army. THEIR IS A REASON THAT SOME UNITS AREN'T USED, THEY SUCK!!! now for the final area of Judging and it's my personal favorite

"In the Judge's opinion was this army built to win at all costs."

WHHHHAAAT!!! It's a goddamn tournament the point of the event is to win at all costs. A tournament is to pit two players against each other and see who's better. The judging system is a way to make all the participants equal, like communism this sounds good in theory but isn't in practice. All this does is stick a big Middle finger in the faces of all competitive players, cause how dare they be more skilled than someone else.

Player Review: Sportsman ship is important in every competitive outlet, if some one is a really good sport they should get rewarded, like having a sportsmanship award that's separate from the tournament victory. Also if some one is a asshole they should be penalized, like no longer being able to participate. They key to determining sportsmanship is to have those running the tournament looking over the games and observing who's being naughty and who's being nice. This doesn't work however if your opponent is submitting your player review, because it's abuse able. For example lets say I completely destroyed some scrub, and I was perfectly polite about it, but he was angry that he lost and that I brought a "Spammy power-gamer list" so out of spite he would give me a horrible review, thus reducing my chances of victory despite being a good player. Also their are those who go to tournaments as a team, some times this isn't a bad thing just a bunch of friends going to a tournament together and giving their group so they can yell something when they win. However their are some groups that will give bad comp scores to anyone that isn't on their team and give their team mates perfect scores. And this is completely legal if a judge found out he couldn't do anything about it cause their are no rules against it. That would qualify as not cool. so the as you Can see the only way to take sportsmanship into a tournament is to have a third party do score them.

The composition system is an attempt to make all participants in a tournament equal, Like communism this is good in theory but not so much in practice. All it does is stick a big middle finger in the faces of all competitive players, cause how dare they be more skilled than some one else right?

Spamming

This topic has taken the internet (BoLS and the blogs that feed off of it) by storm in the past couple days, so I figured I'd hop on the bandwagon and bore you with a lengthy diatribe.

Spamming seems like such a negative word though, it fits very well in an article bashing it. If I'm going to promote it, I need to make a word that shows it in a more positive light.

Let's call it Awesoming.

Awesoming, as defined by me, is fielding multiple units with identical or very similar equipment. This is done primarily to make writing army lists easier as you can just copy+paste to save time or put 'x'x in front of something (or behind, in which case, you reverse them). The first x is a variable that represents a number while the second x represents the word "times" as in multiplication. I could use a different letter to avoid confusion, but fuck you I need to make sure you are paying attention.

Another advantage of awesoming is redundancy. Taking multiple similar units means that instead of having just one threat, you have many. Relying on just one unit to do a particular job is a bad idea because once that unit is dead, you have nothing to do said job. Everyone knows the dice can be pricks, so taking multiples of your important unit (or multiple units that do a similar job) will ensure that if one unit decides to spontaneously combust you have backups.

One important part of making a competitive list is being able to handle multiple threats, from Land Raider awesoming to hordes of dudes or anything in between. Having a single unit dedicated to busting up AV14 is all well and good until your opponent figures out you have nothing else to stop his AV14, picks it off and runs roughshod over your army. Having 2 units to handle AV14 means he has to kill 2 units, and so on. Making it harder for your opponent to remove your counters to his units is crucial in a successful competitive army.

Taking different units with varying effectiveness against certain targets in an attempt to confuse your opponent is just fucking stupid. I'm sorry. If you have a unit with meltaguns, a unit with a lascannon, and a unit with missile launchers stacked up against my Land Raider, I would have to be an idiot not to pick out the major threat first, the meltas. A Lascannon is very unlikely to pop AV14 and missile launchers won't do much beyond scratching the paint. If you had 3 units with meltas against my Land Raider, I would need to knock out all 3 units because each one is likely to destroy my tank.

And it's not enough just to awesome one unit. Loading up on meltas to the exclusion of all else, taking nothing but shoota boyz, or fielding Razorbacks out the ass is not a good idea. Sure I won't be able to stop your meltas, but if I'm running horde Orks I could give a shit about meltas, right?

You have to have flexibility. You need your units to be capable of performing multiple roles, so if you run across a one-trick pony list you don't have units that are useless. The best units to awesome are units that do just this. Not only do you have redundancy, they also perform multiple roles. Imperial Guard Veterans in Chimeras are a perfect example. For 155 points you get 3 meltaguns at BS4, an AV12/10/10 tank with multi-laser and heavy flamer, and a scoring unit. They can pop heavy armor, stick wounds on something from afar or kinda threaten light armor, BBQ hordes, do all the stuff tanks do (shock, block LoS, push units around), and they score. This is a flexible unit, not a Devastator Squad with 4 missile launchers. Can they move? No. Do they score? No. Do they scare heavy armor? No. They can do everything from kill off Rhinos to stick wounds on clumped up hordes. Capable, but not worth awesoming.

And then we run into the morality issue, which shouldn't be an issue at all. Why are only certain units awesomed? Because they're underpriced, overpowered, or abusive? Nope, because they fit this type of build well. Multiple units with multiple roles multiply the effectiveness of each unit being awesomed. Taking 1 unit of meltaVets is good, taking 4 is better because each unit can do a ton of different things and support one another. Is it wrong to have redundant units so you don't rely on 1 unit?

Is awesoming abusive? No, it's part of the game. That's just like saying taking AV14 is abusive. You can't awesome just any unit, it takes experience to determine which units are worth awesoming, how much to awesome, how to use them well, and what else to field in addition to your awesome. Crying cheese, abuse, overpowered, blah, blah, blah is the cry of the scrub. If you want to impose restrictions on yourself out of some deluded moral superiority, go right ahead, but if you want to go to a competitive setting without using all the tools available, you can't cry foul when somebody who doesn't feel like straigh-jacketing themself stomps you. In a friendly setting, it's fine to impose restrictions to make things interesting, so long as both players are cool with it life is good.

Some people think that awesoming is a shortcut for weak players or that it is indicative of the netlisting problem in 40k. Well, some people are idiots. It's not enough just to take good units, awesome them, and call it a day. You have to know how to use your awesomed units and how to build an army around them. Any chump can copy a list off of the great blogs he follows like Blackjack&Hookers (wink), but will that be enough to be successful. Maybe against shitty local lists or other inexperienced or bad players with worse armies, but not against an experienced player. This isn't some dumbass card game, playing 40k competitively requires skill and skill only comes from practice. Learn the rules, learn the armies, learn how the armies operate within the rules, and figure out just what you need to bring and how to use it to get the win. The best way to do this is practice, and read the great tactical articles shown on your favorite blogs like Blackjack&Hookers (wink).

So that's awesoming in a nutshell. It's a nice way to tighten up your list, causes problems for your opponent, and is a great way to help improve people's games.