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Apologies if this thread has been done before, but i haven't played a game for about 6 months and was considering jumping back in by buying 7th.

But i'm just curious, how well do you think the game is balanced after 7th?
Can it be used for proper tactical planning?
Is the majority of cheese from editions past gone?

Thanks fellas!

Reasonably unbalanced.


Unless you're the kind of guy whose philosophy says "more imbalance = better overall balance"


Currently the meta is all over the place with the only exception being Daemons and Grey Knight psychic pilot lists.

Deathstars have also had a major reshuffle, most notably having invisibility as the current mutt's nuts.

In 7th edition, more than ever, dice dictate win or loss. Also there are so many shenanigans you can do with the FoC that I have lost all sense of orientation.

Unplayable for pickup games.

Somewhere between reasonable and somewhat. The real problem I see is the continuation of 40K taking a dump on assault with the whole "roll to see if your melee units actually do something" mechanic, coupled with new stuff like daemonology.

I'd say it's reasonable with games with friends and campaigns, but still horrid for pickup games with randoms.

Better balance for most armies. Shift away from death stars is good for balance, strategy, and fun.

Eldar are more broken than ever.

7th edition is perfectly playable with 6th edition psyker rules in games of 10,000 or more points. Apocalypse seems to be the closest level of "balance" that you are going to get as demons cant just overrun you at that point especially when you are playing times turns and 6th edition psyker rules (to include 6th only powers). My FLGS runs apoc games using the old psyker rules because GW messed up pretty badly in that section. I don't think they play tested demon summoning AT ALL when they released that non-sense. Giving demons that kind of power creates a massive unbalance in the game. If they really wanted to add it that badly they should have let space marines and guard call for reinforcements off the warship that id no doubt orbiting the planet and eldar should be able to call forth their reserves from the webways and such. Each race should have something like that so as not to give demons such a huge advantage. At least this way the other races could try and stem the flow of summoning (although all the demons being summoned are also psykers which would definitely cause a ramping up problem). Being able to bring more points to the board then your opponent is sketchy at best, which is why i don't use summoning nor do i play with any opponent who using summoning abilities. The balance of the game was horrible as it is but throwing the ability to conjure up free points out of thin air just further imbalances demons while the other races really have no effective counter to it.

 MWHistorian wrote:
Unplayable for pickup games.

I agree. The momen twhen a game needs 3+ random tables rolled pre game to make it so so , and even then a single random roll can decide the game before it even starts makes it not good for new players. Vets can house rule . Play without invisibility .Rewrite or change how missions are drawn or add muligans etc. I have no problems with wining , even against new people. But when I had to explain to a new guy that I won , because my 3 objectives were in my deployment and his required him to do stuff his army couldn't, it made me feel bad for him.


7th has a lot of good ideas, but how the stuff is done is horrible. But the same was 6th and 5th and both ended bad.

What is it that makes 7th unplayable in a PUG game?
that your opponent can bring big bad toys along?
the daemons psyker lists that well... no just not good at all really.

still havent got a game in myself, but please id love a detailed example of why its unplayable as a pug game just using the books rules (and if i get a "cos you need to draw LOS from "eyes" " type of comment... insert table flip haha. though id love to know why seriously you cant just pick up the book write an army list and play.
clearly i think you can.

Because, much like 6th, people have to readjust and most people would rather cry about changes than adapt to them.

Most of the people saying "I wont play 7th" probably said the same thing about 6th and yet they're all still here.

7th is definitely playable for pick up, it just requires you to actually talk to your opponent, and for you both to understand the game is about both people having fun, and not just yourself.

They finally put in a rule that was implicit all along - if you dont like whats in your opponents army, you dont have to play it. Of course you never had to anyway, even in a tournament, but some seemed to be unable to have this conversation.

Maybe this is a difference to my gaming experience - we have a large pool of players here from GT winners to pure by-the-background players, yet we can all speak about what we want to play, including changing thihngs we dont like. All very grown up and adult...

As a CSM player...Unbalanced heavily.

Without any fixes:

There is no balance. Unbound, Lords of War, Maelstrom etc., GW purposefully removed every last trace of balance there was in the game.

7th is the edition of house-ruling.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Without any fixes:

There is no balance. Unbound, Lords of War, Maelstrom etc., GW purposefully removed every last trace of balance there was in the game.

7th is the edition of house-ruling.

i fail to see how the bolded is a problem?

unbound means Nothing... you can do just as bad with the base FOC, LOW? who cares there is very few that are that bad. maelstrom... well that ones trickier it leaves less to how you play and manouver and more on luck. so on reconsideratrion that one is a bit tedious. the others... meh not the problem people are making it out to be.

Maelstrom lacks balance because it is mostly based on luck / the luck of the draw and then, on top, you seriously roll for VP.

 Sigvatr wrote:
Maelstrom lacks balance because it is mostly based on luck / the luck of the draw and then, on top, you seriously roll for VP.

yeah as i was typing that hit me... its the odd one, the others arent nearly as bad...so i totally concede that point.

a LOW well the sensible ones. are big versions of the small stuff and points are accordingly done, there is a few i dont think really belong, reaver, revenant etc etc. and i think some of the weapons on the bigger ones, warhounds etc could do with costing rather than free.. but aside from them LOW are fine. and yeah, as i said unbound is as bad as the new FOC system anyway....

 Sigvatr wrote:
Without any fixes:

There is no balance. Unbound, Lords of War, Maelstrom etc., GW purposefully removed every last trace of balance there was in the game.

7th is the edition of house-ruling.

Pretty much. The change to Unbound is bad, but even just the multiple FOCs in smaller games destroys a lot of the balance, throwing out some of the benefits some armies had along with some of the restrictions other armies had.

You could argue there wasn't good balance within the old system anyway, but throwing away all semblance of structure does NOT improve things.

Ok I have played some games of 7th mainly as CSM and for me the 7th Edition is a good Edition. It has its flaws but overall I like it. The problem with the edition is, in order to have fun, and that includes your opponent, you have to talk, a lot.

That doesn´t sound like a bad thing at first, but when you think about it, it will make games against random enemies much slower. In 7th Edition you can basically do anything you want. You could do that in 6th too, but not without house rules. So in 7th you can take Lords of War, you can play Unbound which means you can pick everything you want an take a big dump on the FOC. That can kill balance, but it can also allow you to play some real cool fluff lists. It all depends on your opponent.

So if you have a gaming group where everyone decided on the same house rules 7th is a lot of fun, especially the Maelstrom missions. But if you mainly play with random dudes get prepared to face ultimate cheese lists or to talk a lot before you even started to play.

The balance in the armies, if you don´t play unbound, hasn´t changed that much. They changed Chaos Daemons and Grey Knights with the psychic phase, but overall the balance, at least in my opinion, hasn´t changed that much. Tau is still strong, Eldar too and Daemons with their new gained factory power can bring some real problems.

If you really want to have fun in 7th edition, and if you don´t want to play on tournaments, then I think this edition is a great way to get back into the game. Maelstrom basically kills every Gunline Army and forces the players to do some actually strategy, most of the times.

The same as ever, as balanced as two people are willing to make it.

To me the biggest balance issue is still the existence of completely worthless units that have their point costs simply wrong, as that's hard to fix between two players.

Reasonable, but with a few issues. Its eons better than 6th when certain armies/list types may as well not even show up. Eldar is so broken I sold my.mechdar after 3 games, but that aside I think the balance is nuch, much better. Did I mention I think that the balance is better? Now that the game is very objective oriented, castles and gunline armies that ruled 6th and sucked much of the fun away are very much discouraged. Vehicles were a joke last edition and are rightfully more durable now. The fact that deathstars are harder to effectively run is great to.

The only thing I don't particularly care for is the implementation of the psychic phase. Armies with little or no psychic casters are largely at the mercy of warp charge spammer armies. 2 of my last 3 games have been against grey knights and they're averaging between 10-13 tokens a turn. Add to that even their most potent book powers are WC one and... yea it gets pretty silly. Basically some armies get a whole new phase to generate buffs, damage or even units, while others just clinch their cheeks and hope to either throw sixes for days or that the phase isn't too bad.


Like I said, mostly balanced and a huge improvement over 6th, but there are definitely some noticable prroblems.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
7th is definitely playable for pick up, it just requires you to actually talk to your opponent, and for you both to understand the game is about both people having fun, and not just yourself.

.

Talk for hours you have to go over a ton of rules and tt is not just army builds.

Did I mention I think that the balance is better?

It can't be balanced when it is won by random rolls. You get better objective on your starting hand and you win. The discarding of missions is wack. Armies that can't do fast moving objective caping are at a huge disadventage.

nosferatu1001 wrote:
7th is definitely playable for pick up, it just requires you to actually talk to your opponent, and for you both to understand the game is about both people having fun, and not just yourself.

Funny, I like to talk about other things before and during a game rather than it being a diplomatic discussion about what rules we are going to use and change.

We have been playing just fine at our FLGS in pickup games.


Maelstrom missions can be pretty bad depending on the draws, but they also make games pretty fun. They force you to move stuff in ways you normally wouldnt in order to get points, which means you arent always in optimal firing positions. This is a good thing.

LOW's can also be bad, but i had my first game againgst an Eldar Lynx tank today and won anyway. Double str D pieplates is quite nasty but if you focus it down and play to the missions you can win.

 Rautakanki wrote:
The same as ever, as balanced as two people are willing to make it.

To me the biggest balance issue is still the existence of completely worthless units that have their point costs simply wrong, as that's hard to fix between two players.

I agree with this.

I don't know how much any rule changes have shifted the entire meta. For example, assaulting became less easy in 6th edition thanks to random charge distance and opportunity fire. This shifted the entire game away from assault. I don't know enough about 7th to judge how much it has changed that overall aspect.

However balance is also about the strength of units and codexes, which I don't think has changed much. The codexes have always been unbalanced in every edition. Sometimes a new codex jumps to the top of the heap, like Tau in 6th edition.

Things like Unbound, Allies, Maelstrom and Apocalypse units, that really upset the game, can be ruled out quite easily by two players, or tournament organisers.

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:
7th is definitely playable for pick up, it just requires you to actually talk to your opponent, and for you both to understand the game is about both people having fun, and not just yourself.

Funny, I like to talk about other things before and during a game rather than it being a diplomatic discussion about what rules we are going to use and change.

Funny, I manage to do all that in a minute, if that. I quiote enjoy talking about the game, what we're both looking to do, general ideas behind armies etc. Makes it much more involving that just rolling some dice. Can understand if thats all you want from the game though, that doesnt mean PUG are unplayable - just how YOU want to run the PUG makes it unplayable.

Makumba - no, not hours. Dont exaggerate. A minute or two, and sort everything else out on the fly if you end up needing to. It really isnt difficult, or lengthy, as long as both players are reasonable. Given I dislike playing unreasonable people, and would usually rather not play at all in those instances, that isnt a huge issue for me.

House-ruling can always be done quickly, as long as both parties are reasonable and if it's clear that they don't want to house-rule purely in their favour.
At the moment I'm in a little "discussion" because some people want to use the old Destroyer-table for our next Apocalypse, claiming it's not OP for Apocalypse. Three guesses to who owns the most Destroyer-weapons
Stuff like that can be a pain in the ass.. But most house-rules are settled very quickly when the RAW is unclear.

Unbound: It's terrible for PUGs since you never know what the opponent expects from a game.
It's not nice to come with a semi-casual list and suddenly you are facing a Riptide-only army.

I'm actually kind of okay with LoW's and Maelstrom, even though I prefer it if most games are LoW-free.

I think unbound is where players need to have a lot of savvy, and a lot more emotional intelligence, than perhaps most are credited with.

In other words: just because youre having fun doesnt mean your opponent is. Too many players, especially those who treat a game as hilariously unsuited to the task as 40k "seriously", tend not to be able to understand this. To some extent mission design can aggravate this (margin of victory systems do this, penalising concession, etc) or help it, but really the player base could do with a swift kick at times. So if you want to play unbound - go for it! Just realise your idea of fun isnt necessarily the same as someone elses, and learn to adapt. A remarkably small amount of tweaking of concepts can go a long way

I say this as someone who has refused games at tournaments before, as I knew it would be an unfun experience for me, and shake my head at (6th ed AB, 8th edition) Dwarf players who seem to derive enjoyment from 30 minute, we each hide in a corner, games.

 ausYenLoWang wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
Without any fixes:

There is no balance. Unbound, Lords of War, Maelstrom etc., GW purposefully removed every last trace of balance there was in the game.

7th is the edition of house-ruling.

i fail to see how the bolded is a problem?

unbound means Nothing... you can do just as bad with the base FOC, LOW? who cares there is very few that are that bad. maelstrom... well that ones trickier it leaves less to how you play and manouver and more on luck. so on reconsideratrion that one is a bit tedious. the others... meh not the problem people are making it out to be.

People don't usually like LoW because they don't have one and don't want to shell out for one (this has been my common observation from where I play at. People who have one will play with it but those that don't have one won't let you play with it). The lords of war are out there and available for every race. There is no reason not to have one. I feel its the same as unbound. People just don't want to pay for 9 of the best units in their codex. Maelstrom i would have to agree with though. It is very random and adds even more chance on top of the general dice rolling odds.

If you are playing with people aiming to make the most powerful army and make it fun for themselves alone it's not balanced that well.

If you are playing with reasonable people who realize there's another human being on the other side of the table to them and that any game is a contract between two people trying to both have fun then you are golden.

I do the latter so 7th is great.

nosferatu1001 wrote:

AllSeeingSkink wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:
7th is definitely playable for pick up, it just requires you to actually talk to your opponent, and for you both to understand the game is about both people having fun, and not just yourself.

Funny, I like to talk about other things before and during a game rather than it being a diplomatic discussion about what rules we are going to use and change.

Funny, I manage to do all that in a minute, if that. I quiote enjoy talking about the game, what we're both looking to do, general ideas behind armies etc. Makes it much more involving that just rolling some dice. Can understand if thats all you want from the game though, that doesnt mean PUG are unplayable - just how YOU want to run the PUG makes it unplayable.

Makumba - no, not hours. Dont exaggerate. A minute or two, and sort everything else out on the fly if you end up needing to. It really isnt difficult, or lengthy, as long as both players are reasonable. Given I dislike playing unreasonable people, and would usually rather not play at all in those instances, that isnt a huge issue for me.

It depends who you play against and what you and they brought. Most people I know tend to not bring their entire army, only what they intend to play with, which can make the pregame discussion awkward if someone doesn't want to play against what you brought with you.

I have fun playing 40k. All griping and complaining about the rules takes a distant second. Still one of the most fun hobbies I have. Glad the game is around personally.

I love all you guys but I swear these forums are poison sometimes. How can you all play a game you clearly hate so much?