I always like to explore how one activity relates to another. For example, Basketball and Football seem to be very different games. Round ball, hardwood, vs not round ball, and grass. When you play the game, one key statistic comes to mind. Don’t turn the ball over. In American Football, turnovers indicate how a team performs over a season. A similar stat also shows in basketball.

Magic the Gathering and Warhammer are very different games with very different rules. Their only similarity is knowing and understanding your army’s various phases, strengths, and objectives precisely the same as in a Magic deck.

Magic the Gathering Background
There are two key ways to be a better magic player for newer players attempting to be competitive. 25 years ago, Mike Flores published the following article. https://articles.starcitygames.com/articles/whos-the-beatdown/. I recommend all wargames read the article. The gist of the article is understanding in Magic, two decks are trying to win by doing 20 damage to the opponent. One deck will be more aggressive and attack with creatures and spells than the other deck, no matter what.

This distinction is usually apparent; sometimes, it is less obvious. One key to Magic is that players can use a sideboard after the first game. Think of it as if you can swap out your cavalry for archers if you are facing an army of pikemen. A typical competitive Magic deck has 60 cards and a 15-card sideboard. Understanding what cards to sideboard and your role in the matchup is crucial to giving yourself the best opportunity to win.

The second way of improving at Magic is understanding the archetypes of each Magic deck and how they interact. We will explore this later.

Warhammer Who’s the Beatdown
Many Warhammer players who struggle to win consistently need to understand this concept. When to charge, when to hold back, when to go all in, and when to focus fire are crucial to winning. This relates to the role in the matchup. Word Bearers will most likely always be the beatdown or the aggressor. Their role is to kill the opponent. Could that change in round 4? If you already have objective superiority, it might be better to make the Tau break their gunline and come to you. Understanding each turn in a shell is basic and then applying that shell to the master scheme.

The beatdown role is also list-dependent. Necrons with lots of immortals and doomsday arks operate differently than a Necron list featuring flayers and wraiths. Space Marines would be the classic example of a force that can do either possibly but neither well. It is essential to know when it is your time to attack as a space marine player. A Ravenguard force filled with Assault Marines is most likely the beatdown in most cases vs an Iron Hands player.

A neat trick in magic if you are unsure about who the beatdown is, look who gets the first turn. If you are first turn it is most likely you, if it is your opponent it is not you.

A similar article I found while researching this article was posted in 2018 regarding Age of Sigmar. https://www.tga.community/blogs/entry/1731-4-whos-the-beatdown/

Why does the beatdown matter in Warhammer to winning
There are legit 60 armies in Warhammer between AOS and 40k. The newer gamer can’t understand the intricacies of each. Especially if you don’t play in every army all the time. Understanding what your primary path to victory comes easier when you know if your job is to attack or hold back. This brings us to the next phase.

What is your archetype
Magic decks tend to fall into four categories. Aggro, Mid-Range, Control, and Combo. The archetypes play well together in a rock-paper-scissors style to determine the Magic Metagame. Aggro decks usually beat control decks, mid-range decks usually beat control decks, control decks beat mid-range decks, and combo decks work as a wildcard.

Aggro deck’s job is to do as much damage as quickly as possible with small, fast creatures and damage-dealing spells. Mid-range decks tend to try and deal with the small creatures by killing them, making the opponent discard those cards, or putting a creature that is too big for the aggro decks to kill with their small creatures after the aggro deck runs out of resources, the mid-range deck takes over and goes for the kill. Control decks like to control all facets of the game using counterspells and spells that kill all creatures, but it generally takes until turn four for them to stabilize enough to have control, Aggro decks want to kill the opponent by turn four so it often becomes a race. Combo-decks attempt to win on the spot by assembling a series of two or three cards, casting those cards to create a combo of damage or creature creation that is unbeatable by the opponent.

It is a simplified version of Magic strategy, but it works for our purposes. Part of being the beatdown is understanding what type of deck you are running. This works very similar in Warhammer.

Warhammer Archtypes

Warhammer, as most of us know, also has a series of archetypes. Assault, Counter-Assault, Gunline, Combined Arms, MSU Spread, Glass Cannon, Parking Lot, Bulwark, Horde, Castle. Many of these archtypes can be confusing or overlap. For example to me a Gunline and a Castle function exactly the same with the same goals.

https://www.tacwargaming.com/newplayers/playstyles

Most armies fit nicely into the MTG archetypes, but it depends on the list. Necrons can easily be a horde army with 150 warriors on the board, they can be an elite army with the C’tans, or they can work as an all-purpose.

Armies like Genestealer cults or Leagues of Votaan have a smaller unit roster and aren’t as flexible in the various archetypes. Votaan will almost always be a gunline. Custoedes will always function as an elite army.

Combining Archtypes

I propose that in Warhammer, we consider our archetypes in the same Rock Paper Scissors format as Magic. Many competitive Warhammer players build their list with objectives and army roles in mind. This is the same as Magic when building. A Tau list with three riptides wants to defend said riptides by building a castle, letting them deal out damage while not taking any. I would consider this Tau list to be a control-type list. A control list would also be a different Tau list with crisis suits that want to move quickly around the board working on objectives.

Another example, Drukhari would be classified as a combo army, they want to put multiple buffs and auras on their units to make them more potent than their points suggest. In Magic, you would either counter said spells or discard their cards. In Warhammer, you eliminate the units, boost them or make them commit units elsewhere.

A new Warhammer player would better serve by understanding the archtypes in the game. If you think of your army as aggressive, you know your role is to kill as much of the enemy as possible. While mathematically, you would be best served to charge your orc boyz into a smaller unit of Termagants. If a Hive Tyrant is also within charge range and is buffing several units around it, the Tyrant is a better target, even if you don’t get the kill. To come to this decision, you, A, must understand that the Ork player is the beatdown, and B, the Tyranid player, is a combo player, and you must eliminate the combo pieces. The rest of the army crumbles once the Combo enabler is removed from play.

Facing the Same archetype

What happens when two forces have similar builds or archtypes? This is where, in Magic, you make your money as a pro. When two control decks face-off, one must be the beatdown.

In Warhammer, how do you decide? If two gun lines are facing off, unless the two armies are identical, one will be better at shooting than the other. Know if that’s you or not. You don’t want to be the player sitting back and shooting at your opponent when they are better at it than you are.