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I have a 50% win ratio with my CSM against Tau, Necrons and Space Wolves. However, in my gaming group we are talking about the game before playing, not comparing lists but restricting things. Decurion against pre-Traitor Legions CSM? Bad idea. Against Tau? No problem. And I'm pretty sure we would do the same afterwards. Would de cool if it wasn't necessary though, Lotr works without it. Shows that GW CAN balance a game.

I think the issue comes from 'blind gaming' - when you're either off to a new venue, or going to an organised event where there's no organiser's restrictions. That's when you risk coming up against 'no-fun' armies.

Which is fair enough really - we all have finite spare time, and of that only some can really be spent playing games (adulting is usually lots of dull). Few fancy games where it's clear they stand no chance (TFG, combined with a Wraithknight/Imperial Knight Allied Army Of Cheese for instance).

But I do as always encourage people to find or found clubs. Then you can get collaborative gaming going on - where games can be pre-arranged and restrictions/challenges agreed in advance to everyone's mutual enjoyment.

I had a fun game yesterday but realized balance is affected in my opinion for TWO reasons alone

Hands down the most important is AP VALUE of weapons

In my opinion Strength and Toughness values Work - but AP values do not !!! (or are inadequately balanced)

I will explain what happened in our game, between my friend who plays Dark Angels (I am playing KDK)

We both generally field fairly 'fluff' casual lists. But I am not a stranger to the concept of power gaming and meta, it just isn't what I go for and what models I have in my collection right now. I will talk a bit about super lists at the end of the post.

I understand that 'dice rolls' can throw games completely one way or another, and in part that is what happened - but a few of these points Do Not Require dice rolls and that is exactly how AP is affecting game balance.

Three incidents in the game stand out. One, he drop pods a squad of 10 marines behind my berserker squad. His special weapons all miss (fair) but he does get tons of rapid fire bolter hits. However, almost all of them were saved (3+ is pretty tough, it is hard for marines to kill marines, and these were lucky save rolls). I think the only berserker to fall was the champion with a power axe, maybe 1 more. Next turn my guys turn and fire their pistols and charge. Bolt pistols killed I think 3 marines to low saves (fair and good, bad luck with dice, seems accurate for power of the weapon). One of my plasma pistols killed itself. Rolling a ridiculous number of dice, I get somewhere near 20 hits, and with furious charge, about 15 wounds. However, he rolls great saves as well and only 1 or 2 marines die. So after this round of combat where his marines rapid fired into mine with little to no casualties, and my berserkers charged into his, there are almost no losses on both sides in the first round. After 3 more rounds of combat my squad has still failed to entirely wipe his, and with ATSKNF, they cannot be sweeping advanced. While this is a result of save rolls, over the course of many games I've found it to be a consistent pattern. The only time I wiped a squad with them was when they sweeping advanced necrons.


Second instance. He deep strikes a squad of terminators behind my CSM and cultist squad. Rapid fire with storm bolters and an assault cannon. Out of something like 20 hits, his wounds don't roll great and I think I have about 5 wounds (fair, I guess, but not compared to other armies elites). However, I save all but 2 of them, My squad turns and a flamer kills 2 terminators on rolled ones, charge and after 1 turn (2 rounds) manages to kill on a mix of massed numbers and powerfist/support from helbrute.

Point three. I fielded Bloodcrushers for the first time in this game. Of course, their AP3 is great against marines. 2 crushers got a charge on a squad of 4 bikes and an attack bike. Their Strength 6 (had furious charge boon, and base 5 str) AP3 WS5 attacks managed to wipe the entire squad. Return attacks and some extra gunfire killed this squad, but my other squad of 3 charged a separate squads of marines, including a psyker. It wiped the marines in One single turn and suffered something like a total of 1 wound.

Some of these were combinations of good and bad rolls but to me, AP values stood out as needing rebalance, and I've sort of noticed this facing super strong armies like decurion. They are able to field super tough units that are hard to kill without massed AP and have a lot of great strength, low AP weapons themselves.

Some things did go well, his commander and SM unit shredded a squad of cultists and possessed and his predator destroyed another helbrute, wiping out my left flank attack. Both of these interactions seemed to play about how they should.


To me, and I am still fairly new to the current rules, it seems some units are extremely powerful or hard counters to certain units and these units should be fielded en masse and other units are generally situational or left behind. What is the point in taking berserkers if they are so weak they struggle to kill marines and they move slowly. Please dont reply 'yes they can counter this and this especially when the enemy isn't fearless' I do know, but still they are vastly under performing.


The answer I think is that 40k needs to switch to AOS rules. Bring back the Original khornate chainaxe, but spread it around. A combination of Rend and Special rules like Gauss would fix AP. Plain and simple. Bolters dont have gauss so they get -1 rend whereas necron guns dont. This can also help tame some of the super OP, unbalanced units. I think some of the 'standard' units like bolters and storm bolters, standard cqc, need to kill things more quickly, and some high end things need to kill a bit less quickly.

Finally deployment. We were supposed to field one army, then another, but we both decided to field 'AoS' rules style where we do one unit at a time.

This is Extremely more enjoyable and makes the game Much better in my opinion. My opponent had a defeat that day because of dice rolls including some reserves who didn't make it in time (and blood crushers being a bit OP perhaps against his units), but our deployments were balanced. It was extremely tactical for us to put out one unit at a time, trying to think ahead about what friendlys we will group together and what threats we could face across the board. Fielding one army then another may be fair with who gets the first turn but in my opinion leaves it too open to simply hard countering deployment, and with movement ranges fairly low on most units, when it's time to play the game there is hardly any tactical relocation possible. Deploying one at a time allows tactics. I don't even want to get into the ethical debate of death stars if an opponent doesn't bring sufficient pie plate counter or heldrakes and things.

Firstly I'll say I voted roughly the same number of wins if the game was "balanced".

That being said I would add that it is actually quite hard to say as my list tends to change every week (and I play at least twice a week) based on what I've painted up in the previous week and also on what I feel would be fun.

From reading down the comments it seems that there's some disagreement about OP Codex's and how that impacts upon people win loss ratio.

Yes I play marines but saying that my codex includes very obviously OP formations doesn't mean that I use them. On the contrary, I own zero grav weapons, zero Centurions (because finding ancient suits more powerfull than TDA doesn't make sense in the lore), play assault marines instead of bikes (as I prefer their aesthetic), and don't really spam anything. One of the things I really love are Land Raiders and being one of the major overcosted and under powered units in the codex doesn't stop me playing them,

With what I aim to make being fluffy lists I still win probably 75% of my games and I'm currently on a 9 game win streak. All this in a meta where my opponents range from Chaos cultist spam to Deamons to Tau Riptide wing to multiple Eldar Aspect Host to Ork Walker lists to infantry heavy and armour heavy guard.

The way I look at it my games often come down to making the best tactical decisions with the units I have. I look at my opponents army and try and anticipate their strategy throughout the game and limit their options mainly through positioning with mutually supportive units laying traps and threatening heavy counter punches if the enemy tries to eliminate a threat I have created.

If Codex's became balanced (a notion that can mean drasically different things to different people) I would probably stand a better chance against scatbike spam and Skyhammer lists and so win more of those games and make closer contests of those against lower tier armies. Even so I have come to a position where I feel like i know all the units at my disposal and most importantly their abilities very intimately where as my meta is full of players building 3 or 4 armies at once and never really getting a long enough run with one to get any consistency and this, IMO, gives me huge advantage.

In the last 3/4 games I have played against what would be referred to as "cheese" lists I have actually won. I may not have had a lot left after being near wiped out by turn 5. If the codex balance was changed to create more of a level playing field though my marines would still struggle against the lists they currently can't handle (ie. the Kill Kan/Deff Dread swarm our resident Ork player is running).

I think too much emphasis is put on Codex power rather than list building in this context. Just because there is an obvious choice in what units to take based on power that doesn't mean that I will take that unit. I often don't. I prefer to build a TAC list to suit my meta to try and challenge myself without being auto win but givng myself the tools to do the job.

If it all came down to Codex/Formation power I wouldn't be unbeaten with my Sisters...

 Traditio wrote:

SemperMortis wrote:

 cranect wrote:
I play an odd ork walker list that resists most firepower since its all AV 13/13/12 and to get to the rear arc they are normally close enough to assault. It fairs well now and would do better if things were more balanced. Of course I never would have dreamed it up if that were the case. It was made to mess with some eldar players heads since all the S6 shooting in the world wont down 3 gorkanauts, 2 morkanauts, and buzzgobs stompa.

LMAO, that is such a terrible list against any other faction

I love it though, it completely removes most of your opponents army from the game

Yes, because a list that removes most of your army from the game is totally fun to play against.

#Sarcasm

Taking units that are noted as being bad in a codex that is weak, but against an opponent who tries to list tailor, EG Bringing tons of scatter lasers against horde/light armor orks is hilarious.

IM sorry you don't see the joy in bringing an Ork list that utterly negates half if not more of an Eldar cheese list

To be clear, I don't believe there is a way to perfectly balance the game. Something in the ballpark, like horseshoes, accounting for qualitative easing is what I think we are talking about.

I play CSMs. My local meta mostly consists of people buying armies based on lists from NOVA, and with old-school nerds with math degrees who make most decisions based on probability.

That said, I win more games than I lose. Most of my lists are tailored to specific armies / opponents, and I know how to make even the worst overmatch a challenge.

Were the game balanced, I could probably get by with one or two army lists, instead of the 30+ I currently carry in a binder. I could probably leave a box or two of models at home instead of dragging them into the FLGS on a cart. I would certainly stop having to think about tactics a week in advance and maybe not be focused on schedules for my hobby time so much.

But I would definitely win more.

OTOH, near-perfect balance would reduce most models to nearly the same points costs, and most mechanics to simple probability. I doubt there would be a statistically relevant odds difference between playing a complete game and flipping a coin.

So other people would win more too. It might lead me to simply flipping coins.

I would win more, but probably just because I play tyranids... why are tyranids so bad ;-;

And as I said before, my issue with winning games has nothing to do with my lists. The people I play with already all take fairly casual lists, and so do I, so what it comes down to is my skill as a general and luck. If the game were perfectly balanced it would change very little for me one way or another

Pretty nebulous stuff - if the game were rebalanced and your skill and tactics on the board were a far better determinor than your list-building skills - I suspect I'd still lose a lot.

However, rebalacing armies would affect the armies I play as follows:

Tyranids - better off (I don't play with Flyrants, only recently bought one)
Tau - not much of a change (one Riptide owner)
Space Marine - not much of a change (no models with Grav)
CSM - my son would actually use his Beserkers
Necrons - not much of a change
Eldar - might as well squat them; can I get plastic aspects before they're retired, though?

I suspect I’d do a bit better.

I like to think I’m a fairly average player. My lists tend to be on the fluffly, jack-of-all-trades TAC side. Not entirely useless, I do things like drop pod sternguard, and fill some tac squads with grav. But I try to cover my bases with something from every slot in the old FOC, and form my lists around a core of tactical squads. I don’t rely on any “gimmick” builds, like getting free transports. While I do enjoy the extra doctrines the battle demi-co gets me, my list is not reliant on them to function. And I have a bad habit of forgetting the rules the 1st co TF gives me.

So in a more balanced environment, with the top end skew lists nerfed, I suspect I’d end up doing slightly better while playing the same lists I do now.

 Grimgold wrote:
I love honesty test, and I see I'm the only one who selected I might win less. Really? No one plays eldar, marines, tau or summoning demon hordes? I'm on a 20 game win streak, that would be much harder to accomplish with a codex that was simply middling (like say straight dark angels or orks). I'd like to think I'm a decent player, but having a codex north of the balance point is also very helpful. If all codices were equal I should have lost some on bad rolls alone, or had an opponent better able to capitalize on a mistake I made and pull a win out. This entire threads theme is "My codex is fine, you guys are the problem".

I don't play any of the above. I play Sisters, and previously before I sold my minis off to pay for college books, Orks and Guard as well. Guard are the most powerful of the three, and they're most certainly not considered top-tier.

A better question would be, if Eldar was the only playable race, would you win 50% of your games?

That's a perfect balance scenario. Everyone has access to the same exact things. It would be totally boring and stupid, but it'd be balanced.

I get the impression that most of you feel like you're at the top of the competitive heap. That's not a judgment or anything, just, that you feel very strongly about your own strategic ability. Since Eldar and Tau win most of the tournaments, why don't you guys build an army (it's not that expensive) from a net-list and go win every tournament? On that note, how many of you are tournament winners?

I don't usually play tournaments to begin with. Is this one of those "internet tough guy" things?

I selected the same amount because I typically try to match my army to my opponents. I'm probably wrong, but eh. It's how I feel.

 Melissia wrote:
I don't usually play tournaments to begin with. Is this one of those "internet tough guy" things?

Are you asking me? I'm one of two people who voted I'd win less. I just find it interesting a lot of people think they'd immediately improve in what they consider a balanced scenario. In other words, they believe they're losing because of balance, not because they're doing anything wrong.

And, people are talking about tournament meta, yet how many of us actually play in tournaments and experience that level? I can guarantee you if you took the winner of the las vegas tourny, copied his list and gave it to me, he'd easily handle me. Give him Tyranids and me his tournament winning list, and he'd beat me there, too.

 Traditio wrote:

Flyrant spam shouldn't be a good strategy. Grav spam shouldn't be a good strategy.

Flamer and missile launcher spam shouldn't be a good strategy.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Traditio wrote:

Flyrant spam shouldn't be a good strategy. Grav spam shouldn't be a good strategy.

Flamer and missile launcher spam shouldn't be a good strategy.

Why shouldn't it?

I mean, say what you want, but flamer and missile launcher spam wouldn't actually BE flamer and missile launcher spam. It would actually be:

Flamers, missile launchers and whatever standard arm you are using (whether lasguns, bolters, etc.). So we're talking at least three different weapons with three different tactical uses.

That's way more internally balanced than simply spamming the same thing over and over again.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Marmatag wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
I don't usually play tournaments to begin with. Is this one of those "internet tough guy" things?

Are you asking me? I'm one of two people who voted I'd win less. I just find it interesting a lot of people think they'd immediately improve in what they consider a balanced scenario. In other words, they believe they're losing because of balance, not because they're doing anything wrong.

And, people are talking about tournament meta, yet how many of us actually play in tournaments and experience that level? I can guarantee you if you took the winner of the las vegas tourny, copied his list and gave it to me, he'd easily handle me. Give him Tyranids and me his tournament winning list, and he'd beat me there, too.

One of my opponents has poor target priority and regularly loses focus under pressure. Having one or more flyrants on the field is one of the few things that prevents me from stomping him every single game.

Another of my opponents just goes with whatever gimmick it is that's most effective in his codex.

And one of my opponents, that I don't play anymore, plays Eldar.

Yeah. I'd win more games.

Because missile launchers have been bad since 2nd ed. That part of the meta has never changed.

 Traditio wrote:
Why shouldn't it?

Because it's a spam strategy. Why should taking flamers and missile launchers instead of a mix of all weapon types be a viable option? It's very clear here that your issue isn't spam, it's spam of units/options that you personally don't like to see spammed.

That's way more internally balanced than simply spamming the same thing over and over again.

And again, no, it isn't. You're confusing balance with diversity and they are not the same. In fact, encouraging diversity and punishing spam requires the use of deliberate imbalance.

One of my opponents has poor target priority and regularly loses focus under pressure. Having one or more flyrants on the field is one of the few things that prevents me from stomping him every single game.

Another of my opponents just goes with whatever gimmick it is that's most effective in his codex.

And one of my opponents, that I don't play anymore, plays Eldar.

Yeah. I'd win more games.

And there it is, now you admit that you care just as much about winning as the people you accuse of being WAAC TFGs. You resent the fact that your opponent is able to bring a list that prevents you from stomping them every single game, and you want this to change.

So missile launcher and flamer spam should be a fine tactic but spamming flyrants shouldn't?

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Traditio wrote:

Flyrant spam shouldn't be a good strategy. Grav spam shouldn't be a good strategy.

Flamer and missile launcher spam shouldn't be a good strategy.

Trads bland spamming is self defeating. Against a balanced TAC marine list I can imagine him being beaten more often than not.

Peregrine wrote:Because it's a spam strategy.

Taking multiples of anything is a spam strategy. I don't think that there's anything intrinsically wrong with spam.

Why should taking flamers and missile launchers instead of a mix of all weapon types be a viable option?

By "weapon types" are you referring to the actual weapons, or to their battlefield roles, or what?

There's too many weapon types if you mean the former.

And there it is, now you admit that you care just as much about winning as the people you accuse of being WAAC TFGs. You resent the fact that your opponent is able to bring a list that prevents you from stomping them every single game, and you want this to change.

I dislike the fact that the wins or losses are independent of actual player skill. I'm talking about a dude who will, with his flyrant, ignore my devastator squad in ruins and use the twin-linked devourers to shoot the tactical squad a few inches away. I'm talking about a dude who will use his flyrant to shoot deatwatch marines with stalker pattern bolters (who, statistically speaking, won't do much damage to the flyrant), not the librarian, who knows psychic shriek, a foot away. I'm talking about a dude who will land a flyrant within rapidfire distance of a unit of sternguard.

Yes, in a balanced game, if I consistently make good in-game decisions, and my opponent consistently makes bad in-game decisions, then I should win way more often than I lose.

 Traditio wrote:
Yes, in a balanced game, if I consistently make good in-game decisions, and my opponent consistently makes bad in-game decisions, then I should win way more often than I lose.

It's more a problem of lack of manipulation than balance; although the latter is still a major issue, 40k for the most part has devolved into bland pitched battles with very little strategy needed to increase your effectiveness. Most of the time you only need to worry about being in cover, and keeping your distance from Close Range/Melee units and the dice rolls do the work for you.

I'll blab on about it till it changes; the biggest problem 40k has is no real player skill outside of list construction, not balance.

 Traditio wrote:
I don't think that there's anything intrinsically wrong with spam.

In your own words:

Flyrant spam shouldn't be a good strategy. Grav spam shouldn't be a good strategy.

and

What would happen if, suddenly, simply spamming the "best" things in your codex no longer gauranteed you an advantage, and actually HURT you in game because it means that your army is running with a severe internal imbalance?

and

If the game were balanced, then flyrant spam would have a determinate set of strengths and exploitable weaknesses, and, since that kind of spam list doesn't have complementary units to compensate for those exploitable weaknesses, then any internally balanced army (read, any army that actually uses several different FOC slots) should be able to stomp it into the ground.

By "weapon types" are you referring to the actual weapons, or to their battlefield roles, or what?

There's too many weapon types if you mean the former.

Either or both. Why shouldn't a list that takes a mix of lascannons, plasma cannons, multimeltas, heavy bolters, and missile launchers be superior to one that spams missile launchers and "stomp it into the ground"?

I dislike the fact that the wins or losses are independent of actual player skill. I'm talking about a dude who will, with his flyrant, ignore my devastator squad in ruins and use the twin-linked devourers to shoot the tactical squad a few inches away. I'm talking about a dude who will use his flyrant to shoot deatwatch marines with stalker pattern bolters (who, statistically speaking, won't do much damage to the flyrant), not the librarian, who knows psychic shriek, a foot away. I'm talking about a dude who will land a flyrant within rapidfire distance of a unit of sternguard.

Yes, in a balanced game, if I consistently make good in-game decisions, and my opponent consistently makes bad in-game decisions, then I should win way more often than I lose.

Like I said, you don't care about having an interesting and competitive game, you're just resentful that you aren't "stomping them into the ground" as much as you feel entitled to do.

 Marmatag wrote:
Are you asking me? I'm one of two people who voted I'd win less.

And then called out everyone else saying "you're a bunch of losers for voting differently".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Traditio wrote:
Why shouldn't it?

Because it's a spam strategy.

*looks at Orks and Guard*
What's wrong with that?

If the game was balanced, spam strategies would be very rock-paper-scissory. It'd become a binary "Did you bring enough to deal with the spam?" game.

Horde spam? Hope you brought enough flamers and templates, or you lose.

Tank spam? Hope you brought enough Anti-Vehicle, or you lose.

TEQ spam? AP2 or you lose.

With a TAC list having sufficient power to take on all those spam lists, probably by killing enough of them and then winning on objectives.

Now, that being said, I have a question-how would missile launcher and flamer spam handle a Land Raider? It seems to me that, in a decent TAC list, you'd have meltas.

 Melissia wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Traditio wrote:
Why shouldn't it?

Because it's a spam strategy.

*looks at Orks and Guard*
What's wrong with that?

That's Peregrine's point. Traditio start's going off about how spam shouldn't be a thing that's viable ever, and then singles out Flyrants and Grav to make a point because those are the 2 things that has his wrath at the moment, but then when pointed out that he plays Tactical Marine spam using only Flamers and Missile Launchers he turns around and says 'So What'.

He's pointing out Traditio's hypocrisy for - what I can only assume at this point - his own entertainment, given that after so many threads and a lot of criticism Traditio still doesn't realise he's being a hypocrite or just flat out doesn't care.



Why is it ok for Marines to spam Tacticals, Flamers and Missiles and be able to win 50/50, but Flyrants and Grav spam should never be viable and always lose... even though this is a thread about all strategies being equally viable? The correct answer is of course Traditio's double standards and him actually meaning "What if everything I hate was nerfed to the ground so that my list was the only viable way to play".

Oh goodie, I guess everyone's only talking about this from a marine-centric point of view. What's the best way for a Green Tide army to avoid spam? The only answer is "don't". Are Green Tide armies, because they are inherently spammy, something a balanced game should avoid or punish?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Matt.Kingsley wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Traditio wrote:
Why shouldn't it?

Because it's a spam strategy.

*looks at Orks and Guard*
What's wrong with that?

That's Peregrine's point.

I guess I can see that. It's just irritating watching people complain about "spam" when so many armies are basically built around multiple identical or near-identical units, both in lore and in game.

For that matter, the very IDEA of a "Troops" slot and it having six slots in the standard detachment as opposed to 2 for HQ or 3 for everything else basically is GW saying to its players, "these are the units that are fluffy to spam".

Yup, spam shouldn't be punished, provided that spam isn't also spamming one kind of weapon across the list, which is highly unlikely anyway.

It'd be nice if spam was only allowed when it's from a fluff perspective, but I cannot think of any way to implement that properly.

 Melissia wrote:

 Marmatag wrote:
Are you asking me? I'm one of two people who voted I'd win less.

And then called out everyone else saying "you're a bunch of losers for voting differently".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Peregrine wrote:

 Traditio wrote:
Why shouldn't it?

Because it's a spam strategy.

*looks at Orks and Guard*
What's wrong with that?

I didn't say anything like that. Cheers.