Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I constantly see a(n) X player at my local FLGS/GW/club who keeps beating anyone who plays him/her. Ever since the 5th edition codex for X came out it's been way OP. Has anyone else noticed this happening? I mean, there are so many posts of this format written in this way it's getting out of hand. I think it's due to the amount of players not playing X army and being jealous they're not getting new toys.

But in all seriousness, I've not played a game of Warhammer yet, so maybe I'm full of it, but from what I've seen there are some OP things in most armies, that used well, make the whole army seem OP, but that's the difference: used well. Besides, there's always the will of the cursed dice gods, the same ones that always make me dodge properties to buy in Monopoly. >_<

These boards are built for competitiveness, mostly for competitions where real prizes are on the line. While I havent been to 40k competitive scenes, I have been to yugioh and beyblade ones, and by god these people are insane in their ruthlessness. They will give you no quarter and scrutinze rules to the fullest. They also work their decks/blades with the highest possible mathematical calulations so that the only element of luck in the game is the coin toss (in yugioh at least. I never got how you could manipulate a top to being stronger in one particular aspect other than endurance) and even then, they try to manipulate it so that you had a winning chance even if you didnt win the coin toss.

On the note of YuGiOh I've seen someone from my Probability & Stats class use what we were learning about permutations and combinations to design a perfect drawing deck.

As for Beyblades, it's pure physics power man, I had 4 Beyblades and without any math I made a ridiculous one from what I knew about torque.

I just used an all-metal beyblade (that literally spins with so much force behind it, it can chip and break plastic ones. I have a special ripcord just for it). However reading up on some of the advice on deckbuilding, it's insane in that they're taking almost every single precaution, even the most miniscule amount. The same thing seems prevailant here, although GW migates it a little bit between releases (whereas I remember DAD decks dominating the Yugioh scene for quite a while, and just before I left, it was the Lightsworns).

Any game that isn't purely luck (Poker/Yahtzee) or purely skill (Chess) will have it's imbalances, and by virtue will always have certain strategy/builds that are more powerful than others.

As Killrazy once said, the weak look for strong lists, the strong make lists strong.

There is always a lot of chatter about what's new, and there are some people who are convinced that codex creep is real and omnipresent. They are like schools of fish, looking for the next shiny toys in the next shiny codex that will finally allow them to "abuse the meta".

This behavior pattern does not, however, represent all 40k players. I even wonder if this kind of thinking is even in the majority, as their loudness may well disguise their smaller numbers.

I mostly did this because of the "Is IG over-powered?" thread. Dunno, I didn't consider OP-ness when getting sidetracked to the IG, I just thought the blobs of regular dudes fighting off the xenos sounded awesome. It's why I want to make an infantry blob army now. Though I do know it'll take forever at my salary. Though for about $200 I can make a 500pt army to try. Though this is completely side-tracked from my topic.

It's all just bitching and whining. While some things in the game are a bit unbalanced (Vendetta should be more expensive, Grey Hunters should cost more than Tactical Marines as they're better, etc.) nothing is really that glaring in the grand scheme of things. Enough lasguns will still kill just about anything, enough Ork boyz will kill just about anything, and the right Eldar in the right place can do the same.

I'm honestly thinking that most of these threads happen after somebody gets thwomped by a better player a handful of times and decides to whine to the Internet about it. I used to get my ass handed to me by a Chaos Marine player for a while, and while I still think Lash is gamey, I never thought his army was flat out overpowered.

There is a difference in how competitive a list is, and that could play into it. If I'm new to an army and the other guy shows up with a tournament ready list, of course he's gonna thrash me 9 times out of 10. In short, ignore most of what these people are saying.

Ailaros wrote:As Killrazy once said, the weak look for strong lists, the strong make lists strong.

There is always a lot of chatter about what's new, and there are some people who are convinced that codex creep is real and omnipresent. They are like schools of fish, looking for the next shiny toys in the next shiny codex that will finally allow them to "abuse the meta".

This behavior pattern does not, however, represent all 40k players. I even wonder if this kind of thinking is even in the majority, as their loudness may well disguise their smaller numbers.

Did I say that? That was very clever of me.

Anyway, my opinion is that if the strongest codex is on 100, the weakest is on 80, and the rest are spread around in between. The margin is close enough that a good dose of luck or tactical skill can overcome the difference.

The other factor involved is that when a new codex is launched, it often has one or two clearly cheesy builds (twin lash Chaos prince, meltavet IG, SW missile spam). Because these are strong they are easy to spot, and they get used quickly and successfully. The internet allows knowledge of them to be spread quickly so they pop up everywhere. It takes longer for people to develop counters. By the time a counter is developed, a new sooper-dooper codex has been launched, so a new hot build becomes available.

There is another issue around building "all comers" lists and spam lists.

Kilkrazy wrote:Did I say that? That was very clever of me.

Well, what you actually said was...

Kilkrazy wrote:A challenging army will spur a clever player to learn and adapt, while a weak player will drop them in favour of something "stronger".

In any case, there are certainly codecies that are stronger and that are weaker, but I agree that the difference between most of them is very shallow.

I think many of said people are really looking for the best single unit in the game, and if they found it, they have THE codex. Once a new codex comes out with a better unit, or can in some other combination of ways beat "the" codex, suddenly all of the person's efforts in research, painting and modelling are now all scuttled and they have to start over.

To handle this angst, they call whatever disrupted their precious balancing act on the pinnacle "overpowered".

That or they're regular players that are getting whomped over and over again and can't adapt. Or they're playing against blood angels