Wine and Cheese

This is not an article on fine dining, rather a discussion on a local player problem. Mostly that I hear the word "cheese" all to much around the game table. I'm going to be very direct with the problem, and why it is heard at almost every league night. For the most part, there is a severe lack of understanding of the rules and game mechanics. Players that play this game, even much more than I, seem to somehow never read the rulebook, much less their own codex. Then when something comes up, someone uses a combination that works well in a game, its suddenly called cheese.

Here is an example. I've had my dark eldar out lately, for no other reason than they suck, and with a new codex, I wanted to get in some games with the current codex. So, I grabbed my 30 mandrakes, 2 webway portals and hit the table. Everything came on and hit the table round three. When it did, it was brutal, my timing was perfect. What I heard was how cheesy mandrakes are. How ridicules a talos is. All this whining about cheese units and combos really leads to only one thing. Lack of understanding and reading. While my timing was impeccable, and my use of my units went near perfect, there was a lack of understanding of even how his army should be working.

I could understand his frustration if I was being a prick, however, I was offering up everything on what each unit could do, long before they were even deployed. Instead, each webway was approached with his melta units, and troop choices. They were easy pickings for units that could assault right out of the webway. Definitely I must have fielded a cheesy army. OMG, you mean that archon has an initiative of 7?

I was asked to write this article by another player. Hearing that this and that are cheese, gets really old. You cant even discuss game tactics any more. Now I know its only a small group of players that are like this, but remember cheese spreads, and it has become sort of an epidemic. Even taking a crap list to the table, I still hear it, and other players that tend to win most of their games are hearing a lot. It's a severe lack of understanding, most often of 40k's game mechanics, and sometimes of special rules or combos that someone is fielding.

OK. Here is my positive spin. Read the rules. Re-read the rules. Your codex too, and others when you get the opportunity. Instead of saying cheese, which reeks of poor sportsmanship, say "Oh wow, that can be really powerful (or cool), how could of I have beaten it?." In these friendly games, look up the rules, and ask your opponent to show them to you when something you haven't read or seen comes up. Its all there in the rule book. Just read it. This is warhammer 40k 5th edition. It is a game with dice, and no army is unbeatable, and everything on the table has a counter to it.