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 Yarium wrote:
I believe that the reason it feels like two different games for some, and less so for others, has to do with where you fit in the player spectrum.

Casual-Only Player: (COP)

Casual-And-Tourney: (CAT)
- Tries to keep current with rules, but doesn't know them inside-out.
- Plays multiple armies.
- Uses Forgeworld as necessary.
- Likes using alternate rules to experience new things.

Tourney-Only Player (TOP)

COPs and TOPs aren't overly affected by the new codex.

But CATs... they care, a lot!

Which is unfortunate, because I think myself and most other players are CATs, with COPs and TOPs being far less common.

Now, it's not enough to say it's a different game, but you can definitely say that 7th has moved into a new "Decurion" era.

The vastly overwhelming majority of 40k players do not play tournaments. You can compare GW sales with Tournament events and see that there is very minimal overlap. GW knows this, which is why they flat out do NOT care about tournament play. They are, however, very aware of those players who obsess over tournaments and balance, particularly the tournament crowd that used to cry for No Comp!! GW took them at their word, and decided that casual players should have Forgeworld, Flyers, Apocalypse, Superheavies, Gargantuans, Unbound and Formations as part of the base game. GW has been pretty successful at allowing COPs play with everything that they purchased, and it's been a great decision.

CATs have multiple armies, so they should have no problem adapting.

GW was smart and dropped ALL support for tournament play, and tournaments now take care of themselves. Another win-win for GW and casuals alike.

The handful who believe in "balanced" competitive games outside of a tournament? Eh, not something to worry about. Either play tournament style or simply have fun. If you can't have fun, quit. But expecting others to cater to you? Nope.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
The vastly overwhelming majority of 40k players do not play tournaments.

And why is this? Why are 40k tournaments such a minority when other games manage to do better? Could it possibly be that GW sucks at writing good rules, so only the most stubbornly competitive players would even consider having a tournament? I think this seems likely.

GW knows this, which is why they flat out do NOT care about tournament play.

No, GW doesn't care about tournament play because making a good tournament game is hard. And investing the time and money to make a good game directly conflicts with their current approach of treating the rules like one of those games you get on the back of a cereal box. Making a good tournament game would improve the game for everyone else at the same time, but current GW management is not capable of doing it.

GW has been pretty successful at allowing COPs play with everything that they purchased, and it's been a great decision.

Only if you define "allowing" as "it is legal to put it on the table according to the rules" rather than "you can use this and have a game that is fun for both people." If you define it in a more sensible way then this has been an utter failure.

The handful who believe in "balanced" competitive games outside of a tournament? Eh, not something to worry about. Either play tournament style or simply have fun. If you can't have fun, quit. But expecting others to cater to you? Nope.

Yeah, how dare people expect a game that works properly. The minority with higher standards should just STFU and get out of the game. Have your Citadel™ FineFun™ and buy more Games™ Workshop™ Products™.

the_scotsman wrote:Yes, every game is imbalanced but 40k doesn't have to be that way. Through space wolves, guard, CSM, grey knights, dark Eldar, orks, we had balance. Everyone was relatively happy because every army could be played against everyone else.

And then we got frickin' Decurion and busted ass wraiths, and then we got Eldar. Overnight, that one guy whose army had two wraithknights because he thought they were cool suddenly has the option of A) not playing one or both of his 100+$ purchases, or never having a fun game because that 600 points of his army can table whole 2000 point lists of other peoples stuff

This is power creep beyond the previous "tiers". Before, you might play bottom tier orks against top tier SM and go "damn, Smashbane is annoying." Now, every single unit of the Necron army fielded against you gets enormous blanket buffs to become this uncrackable juggernaut, and you're lucky if you can down 10 warriors in a 2k game.

So yeah. I guess we just sit here, twiddle our thumbs and wait our turn to hand 66$ so our armies can be playable again. If they decide to make them playable again. I half expect the ork decurion to be similar to many of the ork "benefits". Maybe if we take 500 boyz we can get "you can waaaagh every turn!!!!!1!!! Twice! And Ghazgkull gets a 6++!"

We seem to be remembering the rose-colored salad days of 5 months ago differently. Back then, Eldar was Codex: Wave Serpents and could summon fething Daemonettes. Necrons had mindshenanigan scarabs and Tesla proc on snapshots. Tyranids could now fit 5 FMCs in their lists. Centstar and TWC dominated the popular deathstar builds.

In short, we didn't have balance. Warhammer 40,000 is not and has never been a balanced game. The only "balance" that was achieved was via house rules and gentleman's/woman's agreements not to bring lists of a certain power level. GW has made it clear that "balanced rules" are somewhere below "reducing prices" on their list of priorities. It's up the the players to balance the game, and banning certain armies/factions/formations is not the way to do it.

Peregrine wrote:What does FW use have to do with casual vs. tournament? If anything the opposite should be true, since a lot of tournaments still have their "no FW" rules (for a variety of stupid reasons). And TBH "uses FW extensively" is going to be a drawback most of the time if you want a competitive list.

COPs and TOPs aren't overly affected by the new codex. COPs don't care, because codex changes are just things that happen, and they're playing for the love of their fluff anyways. So what if Siam Hann have the best bikes in the game? They're playing Alaitioc, and by golly, they're going to use those Pathfinders!

Until the "COP" player plays a game against someone who happens to have a more powerful army, gets wiped off the table in 1-2 turns, and wonders why they play 40k at all. Even if it's entirely a "COP" group and nobody tries to abuse the broken rules there's still the opportunity for someone to bring their fluffy Eldar jetbike army and massacre everyone.

Exalted for truth.

Having massive imbalances in the game is equally bad for players at all levels of competition. It's up to the players themselves to balance the game. Also, restrictions on Forge World products (other than Titans/ranged D) is just stupid. Why should I not be able to play with my massive hunk of overpriced resin just because "it isn't in the codex"?

@ TheNewBlood. Your examples are all from 6th edition codexes.(And Leviathan which came out just before the Necrons)

The first 5 books of 7th made it seem they had learned their lesson from the missteps of 6th until the drastic shift in design philosophy. Not completely surprising but really disappointing for those with those armies (Though they don't have long to wait for the chance at a power book I suppose.)

 Eldarain wrote:
@ TheNewBlood. Your examples are all from 6th edition codexes.(And Leviathan which came out just before the Necrons)

The first 5 books of 7th made it seem they had learned their lesson from the missteps of 6th until the drastic shift in design philosophy. Not completely surprising but really disappointing for those with those armies (Though they don't have long to wait for the chance at a power book I suppose.)

Conspiracy theory time: everything has been leading up to this.

GW was testing the waters when 7th edition released, expanded it slowly form Orks through Blood Angels, and went all the way with Necrons (and turned it up to 11 with Eldar).

Am I disappointed that certain armies aren't competitive in the current playing environment and some were used as the design team's guinea pigs? Of course. Ideally, the game should be balanced externally between the factions. The problem is that GW could care less about balance.

Formations are now a fundamental part of Warhammer 40,000. As players, all we can really do is to try to tone down the most egregious offenders in the balance department: Eldar, and to a lesser extent Necrons. Getting rid of a faction's formations, on the other hand, is going a step too far.

I think you are giving them far too much credit. It's crazy to watch them over this last year. They have no clear idea what to do.

The first three books get a simultaneous supplemental book released full of formations (Blood Angels also get one in the sense that Exterminatus fits with the same paradigm). This seems like a winning formula as they get every player to buy two books now.

Yet suddenly this is abandoned with the Necron release and a new Detachment type created from multiple formations. With the lead time required with printing Codexes it is not feasible that backlash or a change of heart based on seeing the books in action on the table had any part to play in the shift.

It is frustrating that they seemingly have no vision for how they want the game to function and the way they approach the way armies are conceived and presented. We are on what should be the 7th attempt to refine something here.

 Eldarain wrote:
It is frustrating that they seemingly have no vision for how they want the game to function and the way they approach the way armies are conceived and presented. We are on what should be the 7th attempt to refine something here.

Actually, GW has a very clear idea of what they want - they want everyone to buy whatever they find interesting, and to play with it without any restrictions. From 5E to 7E, GW has done an exceptional job at permitting players to craft forces according to their own whims and desires.

The "problem" is not with GW, but with the players. Given the history of GW and the very clear patterns that they have shown and consistently demonstrated, it is laughable that anyone would expect otherwise.

Blame yourself, not GW. Stop blaming GW for your misuse of their product in unsupported ways (i.e. competitive tournament play).

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Actually, GW has a very clear idea of what they want - they want everyone to buy whatever they find interesting, and to play with it without any restrictions.

That's not what GW wants. GW wants everyone to buy. Playing the game is optional, just like playing the game on the back of a cereal box is optional as long as you buy the cereal. GW treats the rules like this annoying obligation they have left from a previous version of the company and maybe a little free advertising, but their primary goal is to sell plastic toys to people who will probably never play the game attached to them.

Stop blaming GW for your misuse of their product in unsupported ways (i.e. competitive tournament play).

Casual/narrative games are just as unsupported as competitive tournament play.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Blame yourself, not GW. Stop blaming GW for your misuse of their product in unsupported ways (i.e. competitive tournament play).

Sure, I'll do this once GW stops blaming "bad exchange rates" and "the failure of understaffed 1-man stores" for their declining sales numbers.

 TheNewBlood wrote:

... (1 in 3 can take a cannon, Distort weapons use 6th ed. rules, ban the Wraithknight) so that Eldar have something resembling balance against other armies.

Honestly, I really like the new "Decurion-style" force org chart. It makes list building that much more interesting compared to the bland old CAD.

As an eldar player myself, I do exactly what you describe. 1 in 3 bikes with a heavy. D-weapon using previous chart. And I don't even own (and have no plans yet to buy) a WK. To me... stuff THAT f'n big just doesn't belong on a normal 40K table. Those things on up... just ridiculous, in my opinion.

Regardless, I agree that the new 'Dec style' force org does make building more interesting, that's for sure. I find myself looking (as required) at units I normally wouldn't.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:
It is frustrating that they seemingly have no vision for how they want the game to function and the way they approach the way armies are conceived and presented. We are on what should be the 7th attempt to refine something here.

Actually, GW has a very clear idea of what they want - they want everyone to buy whatever they find interesting, and to play with it without any restrictions. From 5E to 7E, GW has done an exceptional job at permitting players to craft forces according to their own whims and desires.

The "problem" is not with GW, but with the players. Given the history of GW and the very clear patterns that they have shown and consistently demonstrated, it is laughable that anyone would expect otherwise.

Blame yourself, not GW. Stop blaming GW for your misuse of their product in unsupported ways (i.e. competitive tournament play).

Ah so we're back to blaming the players for poorly written rules? The rules are just as bad, if not worse, when you're playing casually. Competitive players will just play what's strong, it's casual players that get randomly punished (or rewarded) just for happening to like a certain theme for their army.

The RULES are bad, because they are too fiddly.

The BALANCE is fine for casual play. In pure casual play, players adapt the game to suit themselves, and that may mean a deliberately asymmetrical game.

Indeed, in certain ways, the balance suits the Fluff. Orks should always be a Tier 2 power, simply because their numbers are unbounded, but they don't really represent a threat to the galaxy. Ergo, they're inefficient at what they do, so un-compeititive Tier 2 play level.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
The RULES are bad, because they are too fiddly.

The BALANCE is fine for casual play. In pure casual play, players adapt the game to suit themselves, and that may mean a deliberately asymmetrical game.

Indeed, in certain ways, the balance suits the Fluff. Orks should always be a Tier 2 power, simply because their numbers are unbounded, but they don't really represent a threat to the galaxy. Ergo, they're inefficient at what they do, so un-compeititive Tier 2 play level.

Gee I guess the Imperium must have imagined the Beast's WAAAGH destroying the golden age of the Imperium forever and ending the era of progress under the Emperor and Guilliman, leaving the organization we all know and love today in its wake, and that Gazghkull is set on surpassing even the Beast's WAAAGH!

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
The RULES are bad, because they are too fiddly.

The BALANCE is fine for casual play. In pure casual play, players adapt the game to suit themselves, and that may mean a deliberately asymmetrical game.

Indeed, in certain ways, the balance suits the Fluff. Orks should always be a Tier 2 power, simply because their numbers are unbounded, but they don't really represent a threat to the galaxy. Ergo, they're inefficient at what they do, so un-compeititive Tier 2 play level.

I think plenty of Ork players would disagree with you on that point. Besides, the lore does not have a literal effect on the rules. Otherwise we would have movie marines and Tyranids and Eldar never winning any games. The lore and rules are separate while sharing indirect influences, and in an ideal game the rules would balance out all armies.

As Peregrine pointed out, casual players are just as hurt by poor rules, If not more. I know plenty of people for whom assembling the most competitive force possible is simply something they're not interested in. They would much rather try to emulate the lore on the tabletop, even if it means taking sub-optimal units. These are also the kind of people most likely to be put off by the recent changes in power level, as their army can suddenly no longer compete with those of other factions.

I think at least one solution would be to allow those codexes that don't have a formation-of-formations to go double CAD. That and put a limit of two detachments or formations per army. I feel that this might at least force some balance and equality on the various factions.

 TheNewBlood wrote:

I think at least one solution would be to allow those codexes that don't have a formation-of-formations to go double CAD.

This is already allowed. Per the main rulebook, you can take 50 CADs if you have enough points available to pay for an HQ and 2 Troops for each of them.

If you're referring to tournament rules, tournaments will catch up. Eventually, the cap on number of formations/detachments is just going to have to be discarded as the bad idea that it was when tournaments first started it. I knew right away what direction the game was going when it implemented the detachment system. Massive customization of battle-forged armies via multiple detachments that each make you pay a little tax. That's it. But all the TOs out there thought they'd try to keep the game from changing, trying to limit that. The game isn't designed to be limited #s of formations and detachments. It's designed to allow you to pick and run the formations and detachments you want.

I'm hoping tournies wise up and eventually ban formations, including decurion/warhost/gladius types. Yes I realize eldar still have a foot in the winner circle from round 1 even running a cad, but I think that's a better situation than what we have now.

It's just silly that we have "your entire army gets better" and "your entire army gets free stuff and turn by turn abilities" next to "take 3 units of overcosted BA terminators and they can RUN AND SHOOT after a deep strike!"

Of course, I'm one of the unfortunate souls to be playing blood angels, who were the last "balanced and blanded" 7e book right before they decided to nix that plan and go nuts on necrons. Many dark days ahead.

 BetrayTheWorld wrote:

 TheNewBlood wrote:

I think at least one solution would be to allow those codexes that don't have a formation-of-formations to go double CAD.

This is already allowed. Per the main rulebook, you can take 50 CADs if you have enough points available to pay for an HQ and 2 Troops for each of them.

If you're referring to tournament rules, tournaments will catch up. Eventually, the cap on number of formations/detachments is just going to have to be discarded as the bad idea that it was when tournaments first started it. I knew right away what direction the game was going when it implemented the detachment system. Massive customization of battle-forged armies via multiple detachments that each make you pay a little tax. That's it. But all the TOs out there thought they'd try to keep the game from changing, trying to limit that. The game isn't designed to be limited #s of formations and detachments. It's designed to allow you to pick and run the formations and detachments you want.

I agree that this is true, but at the same time not all armies at the moment have equal access to either the number or kind of formations as GW's more recent codex releases. I would still argue for some sort of limit to be put in place, at least for organized play. Perhaps something like this:

Each player has access to three "Detachment Slots" per army. These slots may be used as follows:

Slot 1: The Primary Detachment. An army must have a detachment of this type in order to be a legal Battle-Forged army. Acceptable detachments in this slot include the standard CAD, modified faction-specific CADs, and formations labeled from their codex as "Core".

Slot 2: Secondary Formation. An army may bring a formation defined as belonging to their codex from any GW publication that is allowed for play under the general rules. Alternatively, an army can include a formation from their codex labeled as "Command".

Slot 3: Secondary Detachment. An army may bring an additional detachment or formation as an add-on to their Primary Detachment. Acceptable detachments in this slot include Allied Detachments and formations labeled from their codex as "Auxiliary"

Alternatively, if a player brought a standard CAD in Slot 1, they may forgo Slots 2 and 3 in order to bring a second standard CAD.

I feel this is at least a start toward balancing formations. It doesn't cover everything; certain armies will have to be FAQed in, and some specific formations should probably be prohibited. But I think that this is a step in the right direction. With any luck, I might just post this in Proposed Rules!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

niv-mizzet wrote:
I'm hoping tournies wise up and eventually ban formations, including decurion/warhost/gladius types. Yes I realize eldar still have a foot in the winner circle from round 1 even running a cad, but I think that's a better situation than what we have now.

It's just silly that we have "your entire army gets better" and "your entire army gets free stuff and turn by turn abilities" next to "take 3 units of overcosted BA terminators and they can RUN AND SHOOT after a deep strike!"

Of course, I'm one of the unfortunate souls to be playing blood angels, who were the last "balanced and blanded" 7e book right before they decided to nix that plan and go nuts on necrons. Many dark days ahead.

I would argue that this is not a good idea. As you pointed out, certain armies are more powerful in the CAD than in their formations, while some have the opposite problem. I think that my proposal might go some way toward at least solving some of the nonsense some armies can pull off with their formations.

As a side note, Terminators gaining what amounts to free Battle Focus does not strike me as completely useless from a tactical perspective...

The COP - CAT - TOP concept is a scale; few, if any, players will fit exactly in them, so debating the finer points of what's in each spot isn't worth the time. The point is, players of different outlooks will interact with these few Decurion-Detachments in different ways. Those who have always preferred fluffy battles won't find too much change. Sure one of them may come around with the uber-powered force (probably by accident), but the COPs will be able to self-regulate pretty easily. They'll just say "well, don't be that guy, communicate with your opponent, if something's not fun don't play it" etc. They'll "fix" it by doing what they've always done - just have fun. Again, it doesn't matter if this is the majority or minority, because of these self-correcting social mechanisms.

The TOPs likewise won't have a problem, because they also self-regulate through survival of the fittest. To a TOP, it doesn't matter too much if they play a bunch of mirror matches, because that just confirms for themselves that they're playing with a tournament-quality list if other TOPs are playing this way. Again, it doesn't matter if these TOPs play once a week or just twice a year - this is their mindset during these games that matter.

But CATs have a problem. CATs want to bring their casual lists to tournaments and bring their tournament lists to casual games. Even if they're not playing tournaments - if they have this mindset that they like to play both fluffy and competitively, then they may run into these issues.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
The BALANCE is fine for casual play. In pure casual play, players adapt the game to suit themselves, and that may mean a deliberately asymmetrical game.

No, balance is not fine for "casual" play. A game where both players have to carefully analyze the rules and read forums/blogs/etc as a full-time job so they can understand GW's balance issues well enough to negotiate a solution is not "fine". Nor does "the players can fix the balance issues themselves" mean that those balance issues don't exist.

Indeed, in certain ways, the balance suits the Fluff. Orks should always be a Tier 2 power, simply because their numbers are unbounded, but they don't really represent a threat to the galaxy. Ergo, they're inefficient at what they do, so un-compeititive Tier 2 play level.

This is a joke, right? You can't seriously believe that ork players should just accept that they're going to lose most of their games because of some absurd "fluff" justification that doesn't even match the fluff.

Blood Angels came out after necrons... whats wrong with BA?

Poly Ranger wrote:
Blood Angels came out after necrons... whats wrong with BA?

I believe that you're mistaken. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Blood Angels were released in December 2014/January 2015. Necrons were released in January/February 2015.

One could make the argument, as many on this forum have, that Blood Angels are underpowered compared to the new Necrons, Eldar, and Space Marine codexes.
They lack a "Decurion" formation-of-formations, units the internet considers as OP as Necrons/Eldar, overpriced Terminators, Scouts with WS/BS 3, the list goes on.

Poly Ranger wrote:
Blood Angels came out after necrons... whats wrong with BA?

They came out before but there is nothing wrong with them.

I don't have a problem with Necrons/Eldar/other OP stuff. Even when I play my favourite armies, Orks and DE (holding off Tyranids until updated Dex because that thing is so horribly internally balanced I've renamed it Codex: Flyrants).

Remember this is a game that involves two players and communication between them. If you don't like something, either refuse to play or ask them to tone down a list (but that goes both ways).

I may be wrong. I have both BA and Necrons so I could have got mixed up.
Problem with our formations (aside from being in another book) is that they require significant investment for any gain. 3 ravens and 3 tacs if you want assault from deepstrike; 20 vanguard, 10 sternguard and a raven if you want free gear, etc.

 Frozocrone wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:
Blood Angels came out after necrons... whats wrong with BA?

They came out before but there is nothing wrong with them.

I don't have a problem with Necrons/Eldar/other OP stuff. Even when I play my favourite armies, Orks and DE (holding off Tyranids until updated Dex because that thing is so horribly internally balanced I've renamed it Codex: Flyrants).

Remember this is a game that involves two players and communication between them. If you don't like something, either refuse to play or ask them to tone down a list (but that goes both ways).

Exalted for truth. People act like communicating with you opponent over what kind of game you want (outside of a tournament setting) is this impossible task.

Very true with the two player comment. And it applies to the majority of situations. Its the ones it doesnt such as tourneys and PUGs thats annoyed people I think. Plus the fact it sucks the fun out of list building somewhat. Eldar definitely reduced my enthusiasm for list building.

 TheNewBlood wrote:

 Frozocrone wrote:

Poly Ranger wrote:
Blood Angels came out after necrons... whats wrong with BA?

They came out before but there is nothing wrong with them.

I don't have a problem with Necrons/Eldar/other OP stuff. Even when I play my favourite armies, Orks and DE (holding off Tyranids until updated Dex because that thing is so horribly internally balanced I've renamed it Codex: Flyrants).

Remember this is a game that involves two players and communication between them. If you don't like something, either refuse to play or ask them to tone down a list (but that goes both ways).

Exalted for truth. People act like communicating with you opponent over what kind of game you want (outside of a tournament setting) is this impossible task.

No people don't act like that. People act like the amount of communication required before a game of 40k is ridiculous, and doesn't exist in any other game. And that's fine, if you have a gaming group and know what you all want from the game, but if you rely on pick up games, it just goes to crap. It's nothing to do with 'communication is impossible' and everything to do with 'why should we need to communicate this much?'

It's an exercise in futility to try and understand the motivations behind the decisions made by GW and their game designers.

One minute you think you see a pattern emerging, some kind of logical explanation coming into focus - and then it's gone, right in front of your eyes.

An example: "cash grab" gets thrown around a lot, and yet many others have shown how often the supposed "cash grabs" simply aren't that good at making GW any money, in the short or the long run, or simply make no sense. Is it just incompetence? Some kind of long-term scheme? I reckon we'll never know.

It's the same thing with rules. When you release FAQs for rules so infrequently, and often without even addressing major concerns voiced by customers... why do them at all? Sometimes units that get new models get improved rules and reduced costs to go with - sometimes they don't. It's a crapshoot as to whether or not a codex rewrite will be an improvement or not. And once again, the motivation behind any of it is unknowable: do they not understand their own game? Do they simply not care? In either case there's been evidence that they do, and that they don't. Nothing lines up perfectly to give us some insight.

GW is a boundless, unfeeling, unthinking entity that actively refuses any attempts to comprehend it. It's like an antidiluvian horror, existing at the fringes of space and time, it's occasional involuntary twitches sending ripples of raw energy and matter through our universe, confounding measurement and analysis, and forcing our naked minds to fold within themselves or become undone as truth and not-truth become inseperable.

There are some things man was not meant to know, and to save my sanity, I choose not to attempt to apply my vaunted "logic" to the practices of the company. Wallowing in blissful ignorance might not be the way most people enjoy their hobby, but it's worked out pretty well for the people I know that play 40k, and for me.

 Jambles wrote:
It's an exercise in futility to try and understand the motivations behind the decisions made by GW and their game designers.

One minute you think you see a pattern emerging, some kind of logical explanation coming into focus - and then it's gone, right in front of your eyes.

An example: "cash grab" gets thrown around a lot, and yet many others have shown how often the supposed "cash grabs" simply aren't that good at making GW any money, in the short or the long run, or simply make no sense. Is it just incompetence? Some kind of long-term scheme? I reckon we'll never know.

It's the same thing with rules. When you release FAQs for rules so infrequently, and often without even addressing major concerns voiced by customers... why do them at all? Sometimes units that get new models get improved rules and reduced costs to go with - sometimes they don't. It's a crapshoot as to whether or not a codex rewrite will be an improvement or not. And once again, the motivation behind any of it is unknowable: do they not understand their own game? Do they simply not care? In either case there's been evidence that they do, and that they don't. Nothing lines up perfectly to give us some insight.

GW is a boundless, unfeeling, unthinking entity that actively refuses any attempts to comprehend it. It's like an antidiluvian horror, existing at the fringes of space and time, it's occasional involuntary twitches sending ripples of raw energy and matter through our universe, confounding measurement and analysis, and forcing our naked minds to fold within themselves or become undone as truth and not-truth become inseperable.

There are some things man was not meant to know, and to save my sanity, I choose not to attempt to apply my vaunted "logic" to the practices of the company. Wallowing in blissful ignorance might not be the way most people enjoy their hobby, but it's worked out pretty well for the people I know that play 40k, and for me.

Ever seen the South Park episode where Manatees randomly write Family Guy episodes by selecting random balls... that's GW rule writing through and through.

 TheNewBlood wrote:
Exalted for truth. People act like communicating with you opponent over what kind of game you want (outside of a tournament setting) is this impossible task.

It isn't impossible, but it shouldn't be necessary. Other games don't require this pre-game negotiation between players, and the only reason 40k does is that GW is hopelessly incompetent at writing rules and doesn't care.

 Peregrine wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
The BALANCE is fine for casual play. In pure casual play, players adapt the game to suit themselves, and that may mean a deliberately asymmetrical game.

No, balance is not fine for "casual" play. A game where both players have to carefully analyze the rules and read forums/blogs/etc as a full-time job so they can understand GW's balance issues well enough to negotiate a solution is not "fine". Nor does "the players can fix the balance issues themselves" mean that those balance issues don't exist.

Indeed, in certain ways, the balance suits the Fluff. Orks should always be a Tier 2 power, simply because their numbers are unbounded, but they don't really represent a threat to the galaxy. Ergo, they're inefficient at what they do, so un-compeititive Tier 2 play level.

This is a joke, right? You can't seriously believe that ork players should just accept that they're going to lose most of their games because of some absurd "fluff" justification that doesn't even match the fluff.

*looks at sig
You realize that's an Eldar player, right? You really think you should take them seriously on this matter?