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 AdeptSister wrote:
The fact that 40k uses a point system shows that balance was attempted for the game. What is the purpose of a point system if it is wildly inaccurate?

You need something to make the customers feel like they aren't just little kids going "pew pew pew" with their toy dollies.

The alternative is to turn it in to a genuine narrative game, but that would take effort and stuff and GW aren't really good at that.

I like how 40k has been described as tabletop RPG.
I think that is why scenarios seem to be more successful for a fun game (at least in my experience).
I remember being a "Dungeon Master" and going through the agony of trying to balance hostile NPC's against the gaming group.
The balance of the points system springs to mind a quote from Pirates of the Caribbean: " the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules."

Before I drive Peregrine completely insane (yes, I do care), this is the mindset I have to make 40k work in it's present state, not to accept it as a good and proper competitive game system with balanced rules and units. I have given up on that a long time ago and play other games to scratch that itch. It has mechanics on how things work, units with various capabilities, all kinds of stories and fluff to set up a "historical" engagement and then try to "balance" the opposing armies with tailored victory/terrain conditions. I find scenarios are like a thinly veiled "house rule" in the hopes to get an even scrap. I should be happy to play either army in a properly balanced scenario.

After all that blah, blah, blah... my internal measure of balance is how hard I have to work for my win or loss for that matter: if it is easy either way, it is not balanced.

 Talizvar wrote:
I like how 40k has been described as tabletop RPG.
I think that is why scenarios seem to be more successful for a fun game (at least in my experience).
I remember being a "Dungeon Master" and going through the agony of trying to balance hostile NPC's against the gaming group.
The balance of the points system springs to mind a quote from Pirates of the Caribbean: " the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules."

Before I drive Peregrine completely insane (yes, I do care), this is the mindset I have to make 40k work in it's present state, not to accept it as a good and proper competitive game system with balanced rules and units. I have given up on that a long time ago and play other games to scratch that itch. It has mechanics on how things work, units with various capabilities, all kinds of stories and fluff to set up a "historical" engagement and then try to "balance" the opposing armies with tailored victory/terrain conditions. I find scenarios are like a thinly veiled "house rule" in the hopes to get an even scrap. I should be happy to play either army in a properly balanced scenario.

After all that blah, blah, blah... my internal measure of balance is how hard I have to work for my win or loss for that matter: if it is easy either way, it is not balanced.

But it has no rules to make it a narrative game like an RPG. If you're making up your own narrative way, you could do that with any game so why not use a game with better rules and less ridiculous pricing?

For people that think relative balance is too difficult, I point to many other games that manage it quite well. If you want a less balanced game, use less points. But a player shouldn't be punished for liking a certain army/model/theme.

 MWHistorian wrote:
For people that think relative balance is too difficult, I point to many other games that manage it quite well.

Understood, but it is mainly the "competitive" games that have good balance which you should use if that is of primary importance.
The background or models may be the primary draw which would allow few options.
If you "point to many games" please feel free to list!

If you want a less balanced game, use less points.

Not sure where you are going with this.
Less points tends to equal less models, some people do not want that.
From my own experience I found less points equals more balance.

But a player shouldn't be punished for liking a certain army/model/theme.

Shouldn't be punished but are.
Due to game mechanics, flavor of the month or the publishing company strategy: punishment comes in many forms.
Never mind dropping a line of models like Squats, my friend has never been the same after that...

 Talizvar wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
For people that think relative balance is too difficult, I point to many other games that manage it quite well.

Understood, but it is mainly the "competitive" games that have good balance which you should use if that is of primary importance.
The background or models may be the primary draw which would allow few options.
If you "point to many games" please feel free to list!

If you want a less balanced game, use less points.

Not sure where you are going with this.
Less points tends to equal less models, some people do not want that.
From my own experience I found less points equals more balance.

But a player shouldn't be punished for liking a certain army/model/theme.

Shouldn't be punished but are.
Due to game mechanics, flavor of the month or the publishing company strategy: punishment comes in many forms.
Never mind dropping a line of models like Squats, my friend has never been the same after that...

What I meant was, that some people say they like a challenge or they like one army being stronger than the other. in that case, I'd rather have a balanced game and someone use less points for an asymmetrical match up.
List games with better balance? Just look around.

 Crimson Devil wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
Not even chess has balance, so I don't know how to answer this.

But I think a good measure might be be how far above 50% does the average player who has the first turn win? (if such a statistic were ever to be discoverable)

How is chess not balanced? The only thing more balanced than that is checkers.

If both players are of equal skill and make no mistakes during play than white will win every time because they have the first turn. Chess is balanced because the scenario described is almost impossible set up if humans are involved. I suppose two computers could manage it.

IIRC, in Tournament Chess, the player who goes first wins about 55% of the time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This Wikipedia article claims that White winning percentage is between 52-56%: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess

 jasper76 wrote:

 Crimson Devil wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
Not even chess has balance, so I don't know how to answer this.

But I think a good measure might be be how far above 50% does the average player who has the first turn win? (if such a statistic were ever to be discoverable)

How is chess not balanced? The only thing more balanced than that is checkers.

If both players are of equal skill and make no mistakes during play than white will win every time because they have the first turn. Chess is balanced because the scenario described is almost impossible set up if humans are involved. I suppose two computers could manage it.

IIRC, in Tournament Chess, the player who goes first wins about 55% of the time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This Wikipedia article claims that White winning percentage is between 52-56%: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess

I was a nationally ranked junior player. I can attest to the fact that playing white offers a slight advantage.

 Talizvar wrote:

If you "point to many games" please feel free to list!

Erm, okay. Malifaux, Firestorm Armada, Infinity, X-Wing, Warmachine and Kings of War.

 Random Dude wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:

 Crimson Devil wrote:

 jreilly89 wrote:

 jasper76 wrote:
Not even chess has balance, so I don't know how to answer this.

But I think a good measure might be be how far above 50% does the average player who has the first turn win? (if such a statistic were ever to be discoverable)

How is chess not balanced? The only thing more balanced than that is checkers.

If both players are of equal skill and make no mistakes during play than white will win every time because they have the first turn. Chess is balanced because the scenario described is almost impossible set up if humans are involved. I suppose two computers could manage it.

IIRC, in Tournament Chess, the player who goes first wins about 55% of the time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This Wikipedia article claims that White winning percentage is between 52-56%: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-move_advantage_in_chess

I was a nationally ranked junior player. I can attest to the fact that playing white offers a slight advantage.

Yes but the percentage for the eldar player or the guy with a deathstar has way more of an advantage than 5%. Chess and checkers are about as balanced as you can get. Perfect balance will never exist in a traditional game due to turns.

Hungry Hungry Hippos has perfect game balance if played on a level surface

 Elemental wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:

If you "point to many games" please feel free to list!

Erm, okay. Malifaux, Firestorm Armada, Infinity, X-Wing, Warmachine and Kings of War.

To be fair, there isn't really any game that has the same scale (in terms of size of battles) and scale (in terms of amount of armies and units) and scale (in terms of big things and small things in a single game) as 40k, at least none that I know about.

Warpath, I will admit I don't know a lot about it, it seems to have similar sized battles, but no where near as many factions, possible units and it lacks the big monsters/vehicles that 40k has.

How is the balance in Warpath?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Elemental wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:

If you "point to many games" please feel free to list!

Erm, okay. Malifaux, Firestorm Armada, Infinity, X-Wing, Warmachine and Kings of War.

To be fair, there isn't really any game that has the same scale (in terms of size of battles) and scale (in terms of amount of armies and units) and scale (in terms of big things and small things in a single game) as 40k, at least none that I know about.

Which is part of the problem with 40k.

Being a 10mm game with 28mm models and rules is not a good thing.

If 40k had the rules of a 10mm game with the current models, it'd be workable. If it had the rules of a 28mm skirmish game with the model count reduced, it'd be workable. Trying to do both (large armies with skirmish ruleset) is counter intuitive and clunky.

I get the feeling part of why a lot of people look back at 5th with some fondness is because the rules were distinctly in the direction of a smaller scale rule set; unit by unit resolution instead of model by model, better abstraction, and less micro managing. Indeed, there were flaws to that ruleset as well, but at least it made an attempt at being a set a rules that were vaguely aligned with the scale of the game.

Now, not so much. In an era of Unbound, multiple detachments, and super heavies, the game needs to get rid of silly model by model rules. Less is more in the case of writing rules.

If the core rules were cleaned up, the job of balancing is greatly lessened. It'd simpler and more intuitive to create a basic balance framework with baselines and rough guessing before hitting the table to play test. Not to mention the simplicity in actually play testing.

Simply put, 40k is having an identity crisis. It needs to figure out what it wants to be. Personally, I'd rather 40k be moved to a smaller body count, by about half what the average 2000pts army is fielding, then let a proper 6/10mm Epic game cover the mass battles with super heavies. I understand some people enjoy the giant models of a titan at 28mm scale, but its the most elegant solution for building a proper set of games in a shared universe. Right tools for the right job and all that.

Once you figure that out, balance comes a lot easier.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Elemental wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:

If you "point to many games" please feel free to list!

Erm, okay. Malifaux, Firestorm Armada, Infinity, X-Wing, Warmachine and Kings of War.

To be fair, there isn't really any game that has the same scale (in terms of size of battles) and scale (in terms of amount of armies and units) and scale (in terms of big things and small things in a single game) as 40k, at least none that I know about.

Warpath, I will admit I don't know a lot about it, it seems to have similar sized battles, but no where near as many factions, possible units and it lacks the big monsters/vehicles that 40k has.

How is the balance in Warpath?

But there are games that have just as many unique units moving around, if not more so. Take a squad as a unit. In 40k, let's take my old SOB army. 3 SOB squads, 2 dominions with 2 immolators, 3 Excorcists, 1 HQ squad, 1 St. Celestine. 1 Seraphim. 1 Aegis. So, 14 unique units running around. My Convergence army. 1 Caster, 1 corollary, 1 Conservator, 1 Modulator, 1 Cipher, 1 Monitor, 2 servitors, 1 Infuser, 1 Clockwork angels, 1 unit of Reciprocators, 1 Enigma foundry, and 1 Optifex Directive. That's 13. Only there are no redundent units and each one feels far more unique with their own part to play. And the interplay of synergy and special rules makes it far more complex without being confusing.
My Infinity force has 15 unique units, each with their own varied special rules and complexity.

Maybe you disagree with my method of counting things, but that's how I look at it.

 Blacksails wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Elemental wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:

If you "point to many games" please feel free to list!

Erm, okay. Malifaux, Firestorm Armada, Infinity, X-Wing, Warmachine and Kings of War.

To be fair, there isn't really any game that has the same scale (in terms of size of battles) and scale (in terms of amount of armies and units) and scale (in terms of big things and small things in a single game) as 40k, at least none that I know about.

Which is part of the problem with 40k.

Being a 10mm game with 28mm models and rules is not a good thing.

If 40k had the rules of a 10mm game with the current models, it'd be workable. If it had the rules of a 28mm skirmish game with the model count reduced, it'd be workable. Trying to do both (large armies with skirmish ruleset) is counter intuitive and clunky.

I get the feeling part of why a lot of people look back at 5th with some fondness is because the rules were distinctly in the direction of a smaller scale rule set; unit by unit resolution instead of model by model, better abstraction, and less micro managing. Indeed, there were flaws to that ruleset as well, but at least it made an attempt at being a set a rules that were vaguely aligned with the scale of the game.

Now, not so much. In an era of Unbound, multiple detachments, and super heavies, the game needs to get rid of silly model by model rules. Less is more in the case of writing rules.

If the core rules were cleaned up, the job of balancing is greatly lessened. It'd simpler and more intuitive to create a basic balance framework with baselines and rough guessing before hitting the table to play test. Not to mention the simplicity in actually play testing.

Simply put, 40k is having an identity crisis. It needs to figure out what it wants to be. Personally, I'd rather 40k be moved to a smaller body count, by about half what the average 2000pts army is fielding, then let a proper 6/10mm Epic game cover the mass battles with super heavies. I understand some people enjoy the giant models of a titan at 28mm scale, but its the most elegant solution for building a proper set of games in a shared universe. Right tools for the right job and all that.

Once you figure that out, balance comes a lot easier.

Yeah I agree. It's not great mystery why my favourite 40k editions are the ones with either the most abstraction, allowing for larger armies to be played with less model by model rules... and the edition which simply accepted that it was a skirmish game and had skirmish game type rules (2nd edition, which granted didn't have great balance either, but at least it knew what it was).

I think GW have kind of screwed themselves though. If they try and reign it back in to create a better *game* (purely talking about the nuts and bolts of a game not the fluffy stuff), then they are going to screw over a lot of people who have expanded their armies with things that aren't suited to creating good balance.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MWHistorian wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 Elemental wrote:

 Talizvar wrote:

If you "point to many games" please feel free to list!

Erm, okay. Malifaux, Firestorm Armada, Infinity, X-Wing, Warmachine and Kings of War.

To be fair, there isn't really any game that has the same scale (in terms of size of battles) and scale (in terms of amount of armies and units) and scale (in terms of big things and small things in a single game) as 40k, at least none that I know about.

Warpath, I will admit I don't know a lot about it, it seems to have similar sized battles, but no where near as many factions, possible units and it lacks the big monsters/vehicles that 40k has.

How is the balance in Warpath?

But there are games that have just as many unique units moving around, if not more so. Take a squad as a unit. In 40k, let's take my old SOB army. 3 SOB squads, 2 dominions with 2 immolators, 3 Excorcists, 1 HQ squad, 1 St. Celestine. 1 Seraphim. 1 Aegis. So, 14 unique units running around. My Convergence army. 1 Caster, 1 corollary, 1 Conservator, 1 Modulator, 1 Cipher, 1 Monitor, 2 servitors, 1 Infuser, 1 Clockwork angels, 1 unit of Reciprocators, 1 Enigma foundry, and 1 Optifex Directive. That's 13. Only there are no redundent units and each one feels far more unique with their own part to play. And the interplay of synergy and special rules makes it far more complex without being confusing.
My Infinity force has 15 unique units, each with their own varied special rules and complexity.

Maybe you disagree with my method of counting things, but that's how I look at it.

Yes, but note I said scale in 3 different senses, number of units/factions (number of unique units), the size of the battle taking place (number of models taking part) and the scope of the battle taking place (the difference between the least significant model/unit and the most significant model/unit).

Those 3 aspects of scale all complicate the balancing process, and I'm not aware of any other game that tries to tackle such a giant scope as 40k.

Even there you mentioned the unique units you use in a game, but does it actually have as many unique units when you consider all factions and all the things you can possibly take? (genuine question, not rhetorical, I've never tried comparing).

Though even if it is similar, it still doesn't have the other scale issues I mentioned about 40k.

Well, Warmachine has colossals which are pretty big. I think that's what you were asking about. No fliers, but I consider that a good thing. Both games are too small scale for fighter planes to be rushing around.
Infinity has TAGS, dread sized units, but nothing bigger. Again, a good thing for that game.

Also mentioned, 40k's size can work against it and many people think it's grown too bloated, especially with titans now running around. Some of what I said is subjective and some objective. Take it with a grain of salt.

 MWHistorian wrote:
Well, Warmachine has colossals which are pretty big. I think that's what you were asking about.

What I meant on that point is that 40k is a game where you have 3pt conscripts and 170pt Manticores in the same army. If you include LoW, you have the Baneblade and it's variants weighing it at up to 650pts, that's over 200 times difference in point value. It's quite a large difference in scales without even getting in to Titans and such.

You can think it in terms of the unit cost rather than the model cost (depends on the rules though I guess), but I still feel 40k has an epic difference in scales that it is trying to capture that other games don't attempt (and 40k didn't attempt up until a couple of editions ago).

 MWHistorian wrote:
Well, Warmachine has colossals which are pretty big. I think that's what you were asking about. No fliers, but I consider that a good thing. Both games are too small scale for fighter planes to be rushing around.
Infinity has TAGS, dread sized units, but nothing bigger. Again, a good thing for that game.

Also mentioned, 40k's size can work against it and many people think it's grown too bloated, especially with titans now running around. Some of what I said is subjective and some objective. Take it with a grain of salt.

I don't disagree 40k is bloated. Absolutely. But I don't know what GW can do to unbloat it short of pissing off a large slab of their customers.

My point was simply that other games often get brought up as balanced vs 40k which is not, but realistically none of those games have the ambition of 40k and so while it's simple to say "well X is balanced", it doesn't mean it's practical to balance 40k the same way as X is balanced.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:
Well, Warmachine has colossals which are pretty big. I think that's what you were asking about.

What I meant on that point is that 40k is a game where you have 3pt conscripts and 170pt Manticores in the same army. If you include LoW, you have the Baneblade and it's variants weighing it at up to 650pts, that's over 200 times difference in point value. It's quite a large difference in scales without even getting in to Titans and such.

You can think it in terms of the unit cost rather than the model cost (depends on the rules though I guess), but I still feel 40k has an epic difference in scales that it is trying to capture that other games don't attempt (and 40k didn't attempt up until a couple of editions ago).

 MWHistorian wrote:
Well, Warmachine has colossals which are pretty big. I think that's what you were asking about. No fliers, but I consider that a good thing. Both games are too small scale for fighter planes to be rushing around.
Infinity has TAGS, dread sized units, but nothing bigger. Again, a good thing for that game.

Also mentioned, 40k's size can work against it and many people think it's grown too bloated, especially with titans now running around. Some of what I said is subjective and some objective. Take it with a grain of salt.

I don't disagree 40k is bloated. Absolutely. But I don't know what GW can do to unbloat it short of pissing off a large slab of their customers.

My point was simply that other games often get brought up as balanced vs 40k which is not, but realistically none of those games have the ambition of 40k and so while it's simple to say "well X is balanced", it doesn't mean it's practical to balance 40k the same way as X is balanced.

And my point was that the other games are just as complex if not more so and they manage it.

By what definition of complex? I guess I wasn't really talking about complexity so much as scale/scope though.

I don't disagree 40k is bloated. Absolutely. But I don't know what GW can do to unbloat it short of pissing off a large slab of their customers.

My point was simply that other games often get brought up as balanced vs 40k which is not, but realistically none of those games have the ambition of 40k and so while it's simple to say "well X is balanced", it doesn't mean it's practical to balance 40k the same way as X is balanced.

When has GW not pissed off most of their customers within living memory?

The scope of their game is poorly matched to the intent of their rules. We're playing an armies game (100+ models on the table) with rules designed for skirmish-level play (~50 models on the table).

Their "forge the narrative!" chant only applies to a very, very small subset of their players and, also, provides no real guidelines in how to do so. When I hear "forge the narrative!" that tells me that a battle need to be run by a neutral GM (or one of the players as the GM, who has no interest in winning the battle, simply in telling a story... which is rare) who assigns a difficulty to the encounter and adjusts points for each side.

So if it's a Space Marine vs Tau campaign, then the GM says that the SM (if they are the PCs of the narrative) get 1500 points in a battle vs half that number of points of Tau, because very few RPGs work well if you wipe out your PCs in every battle they get involved with.

40K isn't designed around this playstyle, however, and very, very few people want to play that way.

I agree that the skirmish rules have made it extremely clunky with the higher model count.

A big YES to the less "model by model" rules the better, having to specially position specific models so they are not "closest" to a squad that may fire on them is irritating. My IG army is my first hoard army and am trying to figure out how to move quick.

I had always hoped they would streamline Apocalypse to use some subset of the "Epic" rules, something different to make the games take a few hours not the potential days of gaming.

 Talizvar wrote:
I agree that the skirmish rules have made it extremely clunky with the higher model count.

A big YES to the less "model by model" rules the better, having to specially position specific models so they are not "closest" to a squad that may fire on them is irritating. My IG army is my first hoard army and am trying to figure out how to move quick.

The trick is not so much in moving the models faster (though the use of two hands always helps), but it is to memorize the relevant rules for the army, and while you move do all your thinking for the turn, and plan how the shooting phase / assaulting phase is going to pan out.

Getting those two phases done in under 10 mins combined is much easier than speeding up the movement phase.

 jasper76 wrote:
Hungry Hungry Hippos has perfect game balance if played on a level surface

Nope, gotta account for friction in the levers

Sometimes I think GW wants us not to play a table top game. But some sort of historical pre made games, that few guys some people play with hundreds of models per side and tables the size of gyms.

I don't think they care if we ever open the box after purchase.

As 40K was designed as a skirmish game, it would work best as one, and thus the optimal solution would be to scale back the game. Increases the points costs of the units, remove most of the "by-unit" measurements or replace them with "by-model" measurements, and give units more options and abilities to use in combat, such as making overwatch an actual thing you can set your guys to rather than having it be a reactionary ability, etc. Make it less Dawn of War 1 and more Dawn of War 2.

The problem is that that it isn't in Games Workshop's financial interests to downgrade the game into a skirmish-level system. Games Workshop makes most of their money off of models. They don't really care if you play the game, in fact they don't even care if you take the models out of the box, as mentioned above. While GW makes money off of the game by selling rules and codices, the real cash comes from selling the models- the game is just a means to that end. Thus it's in GW's financial interests to try to cram as many models into a single game as possible.

The average person may own one to two armies, and maybe like 500 points of a third army. So if you could play a 1500 point game using only like 40 models, what would be your incentive to buy more models? GW's reasoning is that if they lower the points cost of everything so that you could fit, say, 80 models in a 1500 point game, well now you suddenly have incentive to go out and buy 40 more models. That's not even counting the "new hotness" units- the RIptides, etc.

That's more or less the paradigm we're dealing with here. With that being the case, what GW should then do is model the system to be an army-level wargame. That'd piss people off, but, eh. Every change pisses people off. It'd really be for the best.

Maybe, but the way the make the rules or rather make us house rule everything points at historical gaming roots. Now here we don't play apocalyps at all, but there are some people who play historical at a military school. I seen those games and I noticed that when your moving around 500+models for 8 hours no one asks, if those rifles kill 8 or 9 dudes and if there was cover of some sorts. People just try to play as fast as the can, because any rules querry would mean they wouldn't be able to finish the game in a single day.

Also am sure they would rather have us own multiple 3k armies, then normal 1500 ones.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
As 40K was designed as a skirmish game, it would work best as one, and thus the optimal solution would be to scale back the game.

IMO this is the wrong direction. The game was designed as a hybrid skirmish game/WHFB-in-space, but 40k's awkward core rules are one of its biggest problems. GW needs to scrap the entire structure of the current game and start over from the beginning, and that means asking what 40k should be. And the answer is a large-scale game, not a skirmish game. The market is already full of skirmish games, and GW's biggest advantage (other than the fluff) is that they have a full range of models with tanks/aircraft/etc, not just infantry. A proper 40k game needs to take advantage of that, not scale everything back and abandon it.

So if you could play a 1500 point game using only like 40 models, what would be your incentive to buy more models?

Multiple armies.

 Psienesis wrote:

I don't disagree 40k is bloated. Absolutely. But I don't know what GW can do to unbloat it short of pissing off a large slab of their customers.

My point was simply that other games often get brought up as balanced vs 40k which is not, but realistically none of those games have the ambition of 40k and so while it's simple to say "well X is balanced", it doesn't mean it's practical to balance 40k the same way as X is balanced.

When has GW not pissed off most of their customers within living memory?

The scope of their game is poorly matched to the intent of their rules. We're playing an armies game (100+ models on the table) with rules designed for skirmish-level play (~50 models on the table).

Scaling down the game would piss people off on a level not seen since squats, but probably even on a larger scale and I don't think GW are prepared to do that. It's also pissing people off for the benefit of the game rather than the benefit of immediate sales, something I don't see them ever doing.

"Oh, you know all those things you bought over the past few years that we've been pushing so hard but are only suited to large scale games? Yeah, you can't use those in a standard game anymore. Have fun!"

I would agree in the fact I don’t want the game scaled into a skirmish, and In fact I don’t think the current rules cater to skirmish at all. There was a thread a short while ago, can’t remember if on General or Proposed rules someone suggested they modify/remove/add rules to attempt to create 40k base rules as both skirmish (lower points level uses slight different rules), and while the suggestions were reasonable a lot created immediate noticeable counter balance issues with specific armies, types or counter rules, what is noticeable at lower points level is some items seem very under priced for the utility, or some armies pay more for the counter measure as that’s not their thing. While this is less noticeable to nonexistent in higher points games, as the list making player pays the tax to add utility as does the opposing player to add what he is not good at, at lower points it’s quite easy for someone to run a AV13 vehicle against someone who didn’t think to bring anything heavy (or it was just not economical for them to do so).

I don’t mind economical imbalance at all, the *idea* is it evens out at some points, but armies will still come to the table with a higher chance depending on specialty, it’s hard to measure exactly how much is good, and how much it is at the moment really. It costs more for some armies to provide X utility than it does others. Space marines should be a baseline not particularly good or particularly bad, a slightly inflated baseline due to ATSKNF being a pretty powerful default rule. I personally don’t think it’s that bad for most units at the moment, normal problems or comparisons people present often lack including other rules which inflate the price or lack of, the ability and versatility of the unit type and the army its hailing from.

Complexity with the rules and the scale is an issue in balance, other games are complex, I am not saying other games are dumb, but they do not reach the variation of rules and the masses of options available (Also known as bloat), with that I agree that balancing 40k is nothing like trying to balance a skirmish game.

Next issue is people don’t like adding options (Allies), and people don’t like taking things away (Removing the bloat (Unique special rules to the army)) both of which naturally ‘balance’ the game in some way, regardless of the intent of the additions / removals (which we would only be guessing at).

I felt recently about posting around the balance of 'army wide special rules' and how some (Tyranids, Orks) are much worse than others (Mahreeeeeeens), and don't even follow the same thought process or structure. But commenting on this alone is pointless without accounting for every unit, each rules on everything, points cost and then the same from all other codex's. Basically you don't balance on a individual bases, you balance against every unit and every mechanic, every possibility and every outcome, every type of save, every counter the number of counters the cost of the counters etc etc. In 40k, this is extensive, obvious loop holes aside - no, it is not easy to balance at all, new codex's could be so much worse, I'm pretty sure 'no play testing' is a myth because if they really don't they are amazing writers.



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A example of such,

A aegis defense line and possible options has varying usefulness in different armies, as such it's imbalanced at a fixed points cost when economically it's worth more to some than others, should we....
-Remove it
-Cost different points for different armies.
-There should be more defense lines, that cater to the armies at appropriate cost.

3 possible options, 2 of which cause more bloat, the first I can't see many people who use it to liking losing it.
Just choosing one of the 3 isn't so easy, each will counter balance and cause other issues with balance while trying to fix the issue..

I would say that there are three things which make the game balanced/unbalanced.
1) Internal balance of the army codex
2) External balance between codex
3) Balance relating to the core rules.



1) Every unit in the book must have it's role, and how effective this is depends on it's points costs and how many you can have. This means the troop type and FOC, and WHAT ELSE YOU HAVE TO CHOOSE FROM THE SAME SECTION has a big effect. Under 6th rules, no matter how much I liked them, there was never any reason for me to play with Nurglings. Yes they were cheaper than Plaguebearers, but not a tough, and the swarm rule meant they had NO battelfield use. Now that swarms can hold objectives, they have a use, as a cheap but weak objective holder, and there is now a reason to field them.

So, if there is any unit in a book which you would NEVER use, due to them either having no battlefield use, or having a better unit being avaliable for the same points, this means the book does not have internal balance.
Now the new Ork book, I can see a reason to take every model in the army (but not every upgrade) it may not be the 'best' but it can do it's job for the points.

You can also go the other way, and ask 'is there any point in NOT taking a wave serpernt'? as for their points, there is nothing better in the book, nor any reason to not have them.

So, Auto-includes and never includes make a Codex unbalanced.

2) Between codex. this is more tricky, as one army can do very well against another, but not another. My own nurgle army does very well against my friends Necrons, but I cannot beat anothers Eldar, but the Eldar struggle against the Necrons. This I don't mind, as it all depends in a points based game, how you spend them points compared to another and which match up wins, the problem is where some books have the ability to always win, no matter what the set-up.
I think this is about weakness, and as long as your army has one, it should be fair. Daemons are very weak at shooting, guard in combat and saves, Tau in Combat and psykic, orks in quality and saves, marines in bodies on the ground (maybe!), and eldar in...... (shoot well, move well, average armour, poor toughness..... but they can sit inside vehicles with good armour which are also cheap).

3) Basic rule interaction. Here is where things realy matter, in 2 above it shows that Daemons are not good shooters and Tau can't handle combat, so the rules should make it even between getting into combat to maybe win, or getting shot. Here is a major problem, as to get into combat you use either Deep strike to get close, cover to hide behind while advancing, being very fast or using vehicles to advance in. If the shooty armies can EASILY deal with these, it's not a balanced game. If it requires skill and a bit of luck to deal with them, it's a fair game.


Overall I see nothing wrong with a unit costing 200 points (anti tank troops) being able to take out one costing 400 (tank), but at the same time being able to be killed by a 100 point anti-troop unit.
The problem I see is when the 200 point anti tank unit, can take out the 400 points tank, and the 100 points of anti-troops, and another 100 points of anti-troop units and it performs like that in 9 out of 10 battles. 1 in 10 is lucky, 9 in 10 is unbalanced.