Would you like some Cheese with your Whine?

Okay, I've heard people talking about Cheesy this and Beardy that and describing people as Cheesemongers. What are they talking about, and why? I've even written an article on the subject before, but as my viewpoint has changed a bit, I feel I've got a few more things to say.

First off, the definition. There isn't one, really. There are several things that are close, and people use them pretty interchangeably. First off 'Beardy' is a term ported over from the UK. It refers to the older gamers that know all the little tricks to the game (Longbeards, like some Dwarfs, eh?) and by inference, refers to the sorts of tricks they might use. Cheesy is a bit more of a stretch, but if I had to guess, I'd say it refers to the fact that good cheese (the expensive stuff) generally smells pretty bad, and, by the way, so does your army or your trick.

Okay, so that's where it comes from, but what does it really mean? Well, it can mean that you are attempting to exploit a loophole in the rules. Alternately, it can mean that you are using a unit or an army in a way that the designers did not intend it to be used. It can also refer to characters that are tooled up with all the possible wargear, or at least combinations that are allegedly worth more in the game than their point cost suggests. Cheesy can also refer to units or armies that are min-maxed. That is, you buy the bare minimum of certain things, because it allows you to spend the rest of the points on what you are really after. Finally, it can refer to an army that emphasizes one part almost to the exclusion of all else and that one-dimensionality is perceived to offer an unfair advantage. Ultimately, that, I think, is what it boils down to. Cheese (and the other references as well) is the perceived unfair advantage that someone else has.

Unfair Advantages

My Rules Lawyer will see you now...
Some players look for areas in the rules to exploit, using poor wording to suggest an ambiguity or to read more into the rules than others think is there. I used to play Magic: The Gathering, and I remember a certain card that apparently caused some problems. It read: Opponent loses next turn. Nothing too scary about that, right? Well, some yahoos apparently decided that it meant that the opponent would lose on their next turn, meaning that they would win, rather than the opponent simply being skipped during the next turn. The problem here is that there ARE a fair number of ambiguous areas in the rules, and when the designers write new rules without referencing old ones, or without realizing they will have an impact on older rules, you get new areas. (Then, to compound it, the FAQs start CHANGING, rather than clarifying the written rules, but that's another discussion.) It can be hard to tell when a player is really trying to pull a fast one or is simply confused. Generally, I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but sometimes, they really seem to be stretching it.

"...And that's the Kitchen sink in his backpack."
Tooled up characters are another source of cries of cheese. Not only do these expensive monstrosities look pretty neat, but they can often lay down a pretty good beating, too. Between killing lots of enemies and being hard to kill in return, they get a lot of focus. Most of us tend to think of the army general as being us. Mini-Me, as Commissar Woods refers to his character. We want to give ourselves every chance to survive, and every chance to be heroic on the battlefield, which can mean a lot of wargear. On the downside, this gets pretty expensive, and very little can save you when the Genestealers come out to play or that Battle Cannon shell has your name on it. However, the opponent is busier paying attention to all those Marines (or whatever) that you just went through. Truth be told, there are some bitz of wargear that are more effective than others, and there are some combinations that are far more effective together than separate. If such things exist, wouldn't it only be smart to take the ones that are most effective? Therein lies one of the big truths of cheesiness. Cheesiness is always something the other guy does. (Because if you do it, you aren't trying to be cheesy, you're just being smart, right?)

You've got to Accentuate the positive, Eliminate the Negative...
Min-Maxing. "Well, I want all those cool tanks and heavy weapons the Imperial Guard can have, but I don't want to (waste points on, paint, buy) all those guys." The Force Organization chart says you must have at least 1 HQ and 2 Troops choices, then you can get what you want. So, that Guard player could get A platoon of 25 guys and an Armored Fist squad (another 10 guys and a mini-tank) then pig out on 3 Battle Tanks or something. By the same token, I know a Marine player that used 2 squads of 5 Marines (1 Lascannon, 1 Plasmagun, of course) and a Tooled up HQ with a squad of Veterans in a Rhino for Assault, then had 3 Landspeeders, a Landraider Crusader, a Vindicator and a Whirlwind to back them up. (I think he had Terminators in the Crusader, as well.)

Personally, I'm confident that in 90% of missions, my balanced armies would take either of these down, because of their inherent weakness (lack of warm bodies) and their one-dimensionality. On the other hand, they do lay down a scary amount of fire, and they can cause serious problems for armies that are laid out differently. Of course, min-maxing also refers to individual units, such as the minimum marine squads that let you maximize the number of Lascannons and Plasma Rifles you get. Some of this is being smart, but overdoing it can lead to trouble. If you rely on something exclusively, and somebody has a way around it, you don't have any other options. In addition, the sort of min-maxing that gives you a maximum amount of stuff and a minimum amount of bodies can also get you killed if the opponent has a way around that stuff. (Go ahead, kill off my Monstrous Creatures, the Genestealers and Gaunts will still make it to your lines and eat everything for breakfast.)

Too much of a good thing...
...is not necessarily a great thing. One gamer I know puts it this way: One Whirlwind can be nasty under the right circumstances, two of them are FOUR times as nasty, not just twice. Three of them would be NINE times as nasty. If you really overload on one type of thing, it CAN give you an advantage, but it can also limit you. If you do manage to get that advantage over an opponent, and you have lots of that kind of advantage, it won't be a win, it'll be a beat-down. While that's the sort of battle that we like to have in real life, they aren't usually much fun to play even from the winning side, and the loser is really hating life. This is why some armies don't get played much. When they are winning they aren't that much fun, and when they lose, they are so limited that it'll probably be a wipeout the other way.

To paraphrase Neo, "There is no Cheese."

"Points are points"
While most discussions about cheese say this, every single army list discussion ever written refutes this. There are some choices that are worth the points and some that aren't. Sometimes they will only be worth it in certain types of army, sometimes they just don't work. (Try taking a Tyranid army of Termagants and Raveners, let me know how you do.) In addition, some choices are simply more effective for the points. As an example, look at the Space Marine Chaplain. At 70pts, he is the best bang for your buck for a leader, unless you have something specific in mind for one of the others. Why? He comes with a power weapon and an invulnerable save, both things you'd probably want to buy for your leader, but they come standard on him. The only times you'd want to not take him would be times where you want a different kind of weapon (such as a Thunderhammer) or you don't need an invulnerable save, or you've already got one.

Very obviously, some points are better than other points. On the other hand, assuming that you've spent your points intelligently and use them intelligently, they should be pretty close. Plus, of course, there are prices other than points. A Talos is only 100pts and has 3W with T7 and a 3+ armor save. Pretty tough and messes up Space Marines in close combat pretty good. On the other hand, A couple of turns of firing with a "Baby Dev" squad (the Las and Plasma marines listed in previous paragraphs) will turn it into a pile of slag. Why? It's slow and not that hard to hurt with antitank weapons.

"If the developers thought it wasn't balanced, they wouldn't have allowed it in the game."
This sounds great, and it was one of my lines. That is, until I read an interview with one of the Game Developers. I believe that it was Jervis Johnson. At one point in the interview, he said something to the effect of, "It's not my job to make sure the game is balanced." I believe my response upon reading this was unprintable, but it boiled down to: Yes, yes it is your job. Frankly, if that's not his job, just what is? All in all, whether it's their job or not, I think they've done a pretty good job at actually balancing the game.

There are some issues however. Certain combinations of wargear or selections on the force org chart are more powerful than their points might suggest. I believe that they created the Force Org. Chart with a lot of flexibility, so people could play the armies they wanted to play. For example, people that wanted an Iyanden Eldar army could simply take 2-3 Wraithlords with the standard Eldar list, along with some Wraithguard and Bam, it would be Iyanden, not just any old Eldar. Now that there is an Iyanden list, however, limiting the Wraithlord to less than 3 in the regular list would seem reasonable. (I'm not really picking on the Wraithlord specifically, this applies to almost any army.) I think we've seen the beginning of them limiting things, such as the 0-1 limit on Obliterators in a Chaos army, but then Iron Warriors getting more (like Iyanden for the Wraithlords, dig?) Finally, there are certain rules that interact in funny ways that should have showed up in playtesting, but apparently didn't. I think this is a sign of failure on the part of the play-testing team. Either it's very limited which cuts down on the rules interactions, or none of the playtesters has a powergaming bone in their body. As an example, how many pages of FAQs did the Chaos codex require?

There oughta be a law...
Well, okay, there are some examples of cheesiness or unfair advantages, now what do we do about it. Well, we can give people bonuses or penalties based on their army selections. We can also look around to see how the people across the pond (you know, where Warhammer and 40k came from) do it. Finally, we can just try our best to help new players avoid it, and convince older players as well.

Well, some groups and tournaments use a Composition score. The basic concept is that you get some extra points for having more Troops than other categories and limiting the really powerful stuff. The basic concept is sound, but most of them are written with only a couple of armies in mind, and they tend to shaft other armies. As an example, a few years ago the GT comp rules included a limitation on the number of tanks you could have, and defined them as having front armor over 11. That lets Rhinos and the like in, but it totally screws the Imperial Guard player, since their Chimeras (their APC, the equivalent of a Rhino) have AV12 on Front, even though it's only 10 on the sides. There are other examples as well, but suffice to say that it's a difficult thing to do. Apparently GW has caught on to this and has replaced Composition, which could give a pretty good point bonus or drop to your score, with Selection, which leaves it totally up to the other player to score you on how balanced or "themed" your army is, but then again, you get so few points for it that it's almost not worth anything. (I got the maximum Selection score from every one of my opponents at the Seattle GT, which gave me 15 out of my 122pts. Wow.) I believe that the concept of Composition is a good idea, and I also believe there ought to be some guidelines to it, and I believe that it should be worth more than Selection is now, or it will just be ignored, like Selection is now.

How the Brits do it.
Well, the British don't have Composition scores at their tournaments, and there doesn't seem to be a great hue and cry about the beard factor in Britain, but part of that might be because I don't live there and talk to large numbers of them. The UK players that I have spoken to about it, make mention of it now and then. Ultimately, however, they don't seem to take it very seriously. They apparently call people beardy and give them a good ribbing (good natured crap) to shame them into playing nice. I don't know if it actually works, or if they just don't get as worked up over it as we do over here. (Or if they are just too polite to talk about it.)

Show them the way.
Note that in every codex, GW encourages people to go out and buy the minimum for the force org chart (HQ and 2 Troops) then get Elites, Fast Attack and Heavy Support, and this is more or less how the 'Eavy Metal team paints studio armies, so that's also what you see in the battle reports in White Dwarf. And we wonder where people with only 2 Troops Squads get the idea...Well, to combat this, we'll have to be diligent and persistent. If we show other people (by example and without berating them) that they can have a cool, fluffy army without loading up on non-troop selections and wargear and the like, and make sure that we play such armies ourselves, and praise other armies like that, we can persuade them that it's a better way to play. Then, if they complain about somebody's cheesy army, we can show them how to beat it with a balanced army, then convince the one that brought it how they can do better with less cheddar. Or something like that.

Ultimately, yes, there are possibilities in most army lists for advantages, and some of don't always seem fair. However, there doesn't seem to be nearly as much cheese as the whiners seem to make out. Hmm, a whine and cheese party, that doesn't exactly sound like fun, does it?

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