Martel732 wrote: ITC evidently feels the same. 150 guardsmen still autowin vs BA in CA 2019.
Then YOU are a bad Blood Angel player. That's all there is to it. That doesn't mean BA needs buffs, or the missions must be changed to accommodate you. Improve your own play. There's literally no reason that should be an unwinnable match-up, in fact, if I had to place bets it would be on BA having the advantage in this match up.
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Ishagu wrote: Not massive changes, just a few tweaks
Are you ever going to share where you got the statistics for Ultramarines losing vs Tau? where do I find these? Or did you just make that up?
Martel seems to have a grudge against hordes, since his go-to argument is "ITC doesn't let hordes autowin!" but I don't recall seeing that sort of thing dominate non-ITC events.
Most BA lists do not include eliminators. Building against the field, especially IH dominated fields, the tools to handle cheap dum dums usually get sacrificed.
Martel732 wrote: ITC evidently feels the same. 150 guardsmen still autowin vs BA in CA 2019.
Then YOU are a bad Blood Angel player. That's all there is to it. That doesn't mean BA needs buffs, or the missions must be changed to accommodate you. Improve your own play. There's literally no reason that should be an unwinnable match-up, in fact, if I had to place bets it would be on BA having the advantage in this match up.
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Ishagu wrote: Not massive changes, just a few tweaks
Are you ever going to share where you got the statistics for Ultramarines losing vs Tau? where do I find these? Or did you just make that up?
It's not just me. I haven't seen a BA player beat a horde in CA missions in a while. BA are power armor melee, which is still pretty bad in 8th ed. There is no scenario outside ITC where BA have any kind of advantage over IG. Turns out there's lots of reasons BA still can't handle that style of play. Adding more attacks just makes before overkill before the gunline murders the melee marines.
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Wayniac wrote: Martel seems to have a grudge against hordes, since his go-to argument is "ITC doesn't let hordes autowin!" but I don't recall seeing that sort of thing dominate non-ITC events.
It's not even autowin. It's that it takes huge resources to remove 80-100 cheap schmoes and in CA, there is no reward for this effort. They sacrifice 20% of their list to kill 60% of a BA list. Plaguebearers present a similar issue. BA lose on deployment phase. They probably don't dominate non-ITC because other gunlines don't give a gak, they just shoot whatever they want in spite of infinite expendable hordes.
Its undoubtedly true that units which are good in ITC tend to be good in the base game, because they are mathematically superior at doing damage or taking damage (or often both) to other options, but that doesn't remove the above fact. You shouldn't (IMO anyway) look at a list and go "hmm, not sure I should take X or Y, because its an easy gangbusters (etc) for my opponent". That unit may have problems anyway - but they are different problems. This exacerbates faction imbalance.
This never stopped bullgryns, or large amounts of IS, or many other "vulnerable scoring" units even after they introduced fixes for the "9 man" and so on. The idea that people create these lists that are so impossible to score secondaries against as well as strong as top lists is a bit of a canard.
Now, TJ Lannigan runs Magnus, DPs, PBCs, and PBs. When he faces marines he puts all his troops into deepstrike, because how do you easily score kills against a bunch of T8 5+++ models with S7 or worse shooting? Is that not the sort of intelligent play we would want out of game?
You could make the case that IS are in decline, because marine snipers can remove CCs with ease, but AM have Ogryn Bodyguards, so that's not the whole story there (more that AM players are possibly fleeing to Marines).
That's not really enough in my experience. ITC evidently feels the same. 150 guardsmen still autowin vs BA in CA 2019.
Do BA not have Eliminators? I literally cannot conceive how BA can't surmount IS spam or how even such a list can survive the very strong horde removal of centurions from other lists.
IS spam takes away all BA options, really. Yes, they are not so great vs other marines. After 2+ years.
It's not just me. I haven't seen a BA player beat a horde in CA missions in a while. BA are power armor melee, which is still pretty bad in 8th ed. There is no scenario outside ITC where BA have any kind of advantage over IG.
CA missions haven't even been OUT a while, its not even been a month and a half yet, and most people are still on ITC. Assuming you have been playing CA missions from the absolute jump, how many times could you have possibly seen this exact match-up of hordes vs BA play out, and you've still seen BA win at least one of those times?
I'm sorry but I have to say this is a factor of you not playing enough or playing poorly.
Just so you know, the term "lost in the deployment phase" is a term that sees use almost exclusively to suggest that someone deployed awfully, not that the armies were unbalanced. You might want to be aware of the terminology because while I do believe that is likely what happened, I'm guessing you probably meant to say that the BA player lost before the game began.
No, BA players are losing because the expendable dum dums get deployed in such a manner to deny meaningful charges till turn 3 or 4, after the BA list is hamburger.
In ITC, BA have a chance b/c they might be able to get points off butcher's bill or kiling more units before they are pounded to dust.
I'm taking 2018 as well. They aren't that different in practice to CA 2019.
Crimson wrote: Sorry Martel, the BA have been brought to supplement marine level, if you still can't beat the IG it's on you.
Hardly. Gunline marines are far superior to BA. BA might be even with codex marines now, but most of their psychic awakening benefits are useless in practice. They are certainly complete gak compared to IH or IF.
And once again, it's NOT JUST ME. I actually have one of the better records vs IS spam, but outside ITC, its much worse.
No matter how many swings they give BA, power armor melee is still bad in 8th ed.
Hardly. Gunline marines are far superior to BA. BA might be even with codex marines now, but most of their psychic awakening benefits are useless in practice. They are certainly complete gak compared to IH or IF.
Yes, most things are worse than IH or IF. That was not the point.
Well, that's MY point. The "buffs" they gave BA don't really address the fundamental problems that come with 8th for power armor melee. The +1 to charge is nice, but I'm finding it encourages poor play.
The BA player pool doesn't seem real deep, though. So maybe the greatest minds aren't working on it. I'm building some autobolter dudes, and the BA community is laughing at me.
Martel732 wrote: Well, that's MY point. The "buffs" they gave BA don't really address the fundamental problems that come with 8th for power armor melee. The +1 to charge is nice, but I'm finding it encourages poor play.
Have you ever considered that you just don't like the BA play style? Play them as 'Blood Fists' or something, you'll be happier.
Martel732 wrote: Well, that's MY point. The "buffs" they gave BA don't really address the fundamental problems that come with 8th for power armor melee. The +1 to charge is nice, but I'm finding it encourages poor play.
Have you ever considered that you just don't like the BA play style? Play them as 'Blood Fists' or something, you'll be happier.
I used to love it. But GW has made the style worse and worse and worse. They are almost unrecognizable now that morale and sweeping advance are gone. People can easily neuter BA power units and strats with their deployment.
Martel732 wrote: BA are power armor melee, which is still pretty bad in 8th ed.
It’s stronger than you think. People have been using Vet Intercessors against hordes -- that’s something like 45 attacks in a 10-man squad. That’s not something any unit wants to get hit with. Weight of dice will hurt bad saves, the Sarge can take a TH for anything tougher.
Because those vet intercessors crush a 40 pt squad and then get erased. BA on paper look scary, until you realize you must charge what your opponent lets you charge.
Those players aren’t suiciding them into 40pt squads, they have 36” range D2 rifles that can target more dangerous units. You also have TFCs for cleaning up small fry.
I think you need to go back to the drawing board man. You’re taking good units and only seeing ways to make them perform badly. SM have never been stronger or more flexible.
Argive wrote: Yaay martel is back to moaning about how poor his marines are!
All is right in the universe once more.
I was just thinking the same thing as I was reading through, who says you can't come home again ? I'm glad the Guard are back to being the boogeymen once more.
I don't do that. Other BA players do that. But I have to plan against Aeldari flyers and IHbs in addition to this horde gak. ITC format helps a TAC list have success vs said hordes. My plan is autobolters, which has nothing to do with any BA advantage.
I would just claim it's victory to crush IS units. Complete domination in fact. Kill enough, and they will accept their shame and offer terms for surrender. Huzzah ! Gotta think outside the box, big brain plans.
AngryAngel80 wrote: I would just claim it's victory to crush IS units. Complete domination in fact. Kill enough, and they will accept their shame and offer terms for surrender. Huzzah ! Gotta think outside the box, big brain plans.
That kinda works in ITC. CA 2018/2019 not so much.
Argive wrote: Yaay martel is back to moaning about how poor his marines are!
All is right in the universe once more.
I was just thinking the same thing as I was reading through, who says you can't come home again ? I'm glad the Guard are back to being the boogeymen once more.
Only against elite melee armies. I can't imagine trying to fight IH with the IG.
Martel732 wrote: I'm taking 2018 as well. They aren't that different in practice to CA 2019.
You are literally the only person I've seen who has said that. Regardless, if you want to participate in this conversation, you cannot use missions from before CA 2019 as your data, as it's what everyone here is talking about being better, same with the new rules for BA and SM. Nobody is disagreeing that 2018 GW missions, any 2018 power armor mono-army let alone BA, would struggle vs Guard. The statements we are making, that BA beats Guard in 2020 by the current set of new GW missions, are not at all disproved by pointing towards data from 2018, it's literally irrelevant to the topic.
You are blinded by your shortcomings as a player. That's all this is.
Martel732 wrote: I don't do that. Other BA players do that. But I have to plan against Aeldari flyers and IHbs in addition to this horde gak. ITC format helps a TAC list have success vs said hordes. My plan is autobolters, which has nothing to do with any BA advantage.
Your army is probably the best Power Armor faction vs Aeldari flyers, you are not a shooty army, they cannot screen out flyers, and you have the best jump melee units for dealing with them.
AngryAngel80 wrote: I'm glad the Guard are back to being the boogeymen once more.
Guard aren't back to being the boogeyman, it's really just this one guy whining. And by all accounts, he's not a great indicator of what is actually good or isn't.
So you think that CA 2019 is magically going to fix this issue?
"you are not a shooty army" You sure about that?
Aeldari don't screen well in general, to be fair. But they are still a VERY different thing than IS to prepare for.
I don't see how the BA vs IG matchup has changed at all, really. Plz elaborate. Yes,the matchup vs other marines is completely different, but BA are still built do the same failing crap as before. We get these expensive guys and then pray we can get even more expensive stuff into melee.
- Invictors
- Impulsors and ABRs.
- The SI Grenade on an AGL in a squad of SBRs would be a beast at shredding Intercessors and give you backup sniping ability.
- DCI are no joke and an ABR/power sword squad comes in under 200
- Tons of charge buffs, a 6" pile-in -- can FF be used on DCI? Seems possible. gak even regular DC are only 15 points now.
I don't play them so i'll shut up, but I feel like there are adequate tools to deal with IS and other marines even if you're not going 4-1.
Again, it's not just me. But typically what happens is a combination of too many targets, said targets dictating movement, even with fly, and just facing withering fire. And, getting nothing in return for killing dozens of models.
Fair. Point is, not all marines are a problem. And ITC absolutely helps with some very annoying mechanics GW refuses to address. Like endless dum dums for which there is no penalty for losing.
Martel732 wrote: So you think that CA 2019 is magically going to fix this issue?
Honestly, I don't think the missions were the problem for you to begin with, I think the problem is your skill as a player. I think the new rules you guys got more than fixed that. You've been brought in line with the strongest armies in the game, you as a player are just incapable of leveraging your strengths, and you being unable to defeat Guard with these new rules under the CA19 missions which are more competitive in nature, just serves to highlight this.
Martel732 wrote: "you are not a shooty army" You sure about that?
Yes, I'm sure about that as my statemtent was literally made in direct comparison to other Space Marine chapters. Isn't your entire complaint that your army is the 'melee' Chapter of the new Space Marines?
Let's just drop this. My reasons for favoring ITC aren't changing any minds. GW needs to write better missions, still. There should be some reward for killing 100 models. In GW missions, there isn't.
"Isn't your entire complaint that your army is the 'melee' Chapter of the new Space Marines?"
My point was that BA might be better off just shooting and not trying to use melee, which makes gakky vanilla marines.
its difficult to understand because you havent explained why not.
Why not?
JFC, should be pretty self evident!. They're not gonna balance it based my houserules either. ITC creates their own missions and houserules, GW doesn't control what ITC does, GW cannot be held responsible for rules that they did not write themselves. It would be utterly absurd situation if GW had to change the game based on issues caused by someone's houserules. And at any model that third party could issue new houserules and GW had to change the game again. Utter lunacy! GW writes the rules, missions and points. And they're not perfect and that's on GW. But if you alter the game by houserules, then you have no grounds for complaining if there are issues. Like if you buy a new car and it breaks down, you have a valid complaint against the manufacturer. But if the car breaks down after you have first taken it apart and jury rigged and modified with all sorts of parts from dubious sources, then it hardly is the manufacturer's fault if there are problems.
GW sends reps to almost every major ITC event, asking players about their armies and what works well and what doesn't, speaking to top players, and hired half of their ITC staff for their playtest team.
But you just keep telling yourself whatever you need to. It's "pretty self evident" after all.
It is though, asking itc players for balance is like asking a german for directions in china.
Pointless endeavour .
I guess that'd depend upon the German you asked....
Martel732 wrote: There should be some reward for killing 100 models.
Maybe you should deal with the withering firepower first. Not the chaff. It exists to get killed so the rest of the army can do its job. Which means you’re doing exactly what your opponent wants, and even more when you deploy your expensive assaulters into the enemy’s guns. That’s not an ITC problem. Yes you score secondaries. But it’s always a poor approach when you bring the game plan the enemy prefers.
Martel732 wrote: There should be some reward for killing 100 models.
Maybe you should deal with the withering firepower first. Not the chaff. It exists to get killed so the rest of the army can do its job. Which means you’re doing exactly what your opponent wants, and even more when you deploy your expensive assaulters into the enemy’s guns. That’s not an ITC problem. Yes you score secondaries. But it’s always a poor approach when you bring the game plan the enemy prefers.
My point is that other marines are MUCH better at that task. Melee literally can't stop the guns while the chaff is there. That's a fundamental reason shooting is so much better in 8th.
Yoyoyo wrote: CP generation should be looked at too. Taking min troops to overcharge killy units is part of the problem.
I feel like it isn't the issue it used to be. Marines lists are very low CP these days. Its the strats that got stronger and need to be tied to the strength of the model they'e used on (e.g. Duty Eternal should cost 2 on a Levi).
It is a great stratagem. but why should half damage stratagem for 1 unit cost 2 cp when there are strats for +1str and +1 damage for ryza plasma and emperors children noise marines? These stratagems cause more than double damage. Plus - you can always elect not to shoot things that have the duty eternal buff. IMO defensive stratagems should cost less than offensive ones. Or at the very least should cancel each other out for total damage. Also since it rounds up it often only reduces by 1/3.
Though there really shouldn't be a lot of situations where you can stack defensive stratagems. Like eldar with -1 to hits up to -3 is just silly. It can literally start to mean you can't take damage...that is OP. Really it would be nice if there was a cap on how many abilties could be applied to a unit. Perhaps 1 defensive and 1 offensive MAX that wasn't on your data sheet.
So you don't believe that the utility of a defensive strategem scales up based on the inherent durability of the unit. Do you actually believe that duty eternal is as effective when used on a basic box dread ad when used on something already as incredibly tough as a leviathan? Does the same apply to offensive strategems? If endless cacophony were made available to all csm units instead of just infantry would you believe it equally effective if I played it on my fellblade instead of a squad of basic csm? Strategems are more effective when used on bigger units and their price should scale up accordingly.
Yoyoyo wrote: CP generation should be looked at too. Taking min troops to overcharge killy units is part of the problem.
I feel like it isn't the issue it used to be. Marines lists are very low CP these days. Its the strats that got stronger and need to be tied to the strength of the model they'e used on (e.g. Duty Eternal should cost 2 on a Levi).
It is a great stratagem. but why should half damage stratagem for 1 unit cost 2 cp when there are strats for +1str and +1 damage for ryza plasma and emperors children noise marines? These stratagems cause more than double damage. Plus - you can always elect not to shoot things that have the duty eternal buff. IMO defensive stratagems should cost less than offensive ones. Or at the very least should cancel each other out for total damage. Also since it rounds up it often only reduces by 1/3.
Though there really shouldn't be a lot of situations where you can stack defensive stratagems. Like eldar with -1 to hits up to -3 is just silly. It can literally start to mean you can't take damage...that is OP. Really it would be nice if there was a cap on how many abilties could be applied to a unit. Perhaps 1 defensive and 1 offensive MAX that wasn't on your data sheet.
So you don't believe that the utility of a defensive strategem scales up based on the inherent durability of the unit. Do you actually believe that duty eternal is as effective when used on a basic box dread ad when used on something already as incredibly tough as a leviathan? Does the same apply to offensive strategems? If endless cacophony were made available to all csm units instead of just infantry would you believe it equally effective if I played it on my fellblade instead of a squad of basic csm? Strategems are more effective when used on bigger units and their price should scale up accordingly.
So, the issue is hordes do what hordes do and that sucks ? If they were easily beaten, that would suck and if elite forces easily fold up that sucks. The issue isn't really Guard it's GW basic game play which makes horde so good but really they went down a whole lot. At this point if someone can't handle Guard, they should look inward for answers and not outward for blame.
No, I think the issue is that I should get something for slogging through 100 models that amounts to more than removing 20% of the opponents' list value-wise.
Martel732 wrote: There should be some reward for killing 100 models.
Maybe you should deal with the withering firepower first. Not the chaff. It exists to get killed so the rest of the army can do its job. Which means you’re doing exactly what your opponent wants, and even more when you deploy your expensive assaulters into the enemy’s guns. That’s not an ITC problem. Yes you score secondaries. But it’s always a poor approach when you bring the game plan the enemy prefers.
My point is that other marines are MUCH better at that task. Melee literally can't stop the guns while the chaff is there. That's a fundamental reason shooting is so much better in 8th.
Yes other marines are better at shooting tham ba. Ba still have pretty good shooting. That means you use your shooting to remove the chaff and then charge your cc monsters into the meat of your opponent's army. Csm players do this all the time.
And no you shouldn't get anything for killing 100 guardsman. The guard has trillions of troops. It doesn't care if you kill 100. That's the point of the guard and armies like it.
I guess we can agree to disagree. I'll continue to favor ITC. Removing 100 models is soul crushing.
" That means you use your shooting to remove the chaff and then charge your cc monsters into the meat of your opponent's army. Csm players do this all the time."
Yeah, I know. It just doesn't work out that well with BA, imo. It hasn't all edition, and these changes don't really seem to help that much.
My question in regards to the 100 Guardsmen thing is "If you get something for eating through 100 Guardsmen, shouldn't you also get an equal amount of something for eating through an equivalently priced single model unit?" Lets say you get 1 kill point per Guardsmen unit, and they're all 10 man units, that's 10 kill points. Does that mean I should get 10 kill points for taking out a 400 pt Titan? Hell, the Titan is probably harder to take out than the Guardsmen are anyway, so it should probably award MORE points.
flandarz wrote: My question in regards to the 100 Guardsmen thing is "If you get something for eating through 100 Guardsmen, shouldn't you also get an equal amount of something for eating through an equivalently priced single model unit?" Lets say you get 1 kill point per Guardsmen unit, and they're all 10 man units, that's 10 kill points. Does that mean I should get 10 kill points for taking out a 400 pt Titan? Hell, the Titan is probably harder to take out than the Guardsmen are anyway, so it should probably award MORE points.
True. And if killing 100 highly expendable guardsmen is worth something shouldn't killing a squad of ultra rare space marines? Or even rarer Custodes?
Nah, quite sure both sides of this argument about SM being OP or not are in agreement that the issue lays with you as a player, so maybe you should take this elsewhere.
BA have Scouts and Intercessors that are some of the best units for dealing with GEQ in the game, and you have Eliminators to take out their orders and casters.
Do you mind sharing the list you're running? I'm pretty sure I can guess what you're mistake is as I see a lot of BA players do it, but show me first hand.
flandarz wrote: My question in regards to the 100 Guardsmen thing is "If you get something for eating through 100 Guardsmen, shouldn't you also get an equal amount of something for eating through an equivalently priced single model unit?" Lets say you get 1 kill point per Guardsmen unit, and they're all 10 man units, that's 10 kill points. Does that mean I should get 10 kill points for taking out a 400 pt Titan? Hell, the Titan is probably harder to take out than the Guardsmen are anyway, so it should probably award MORE points.
True. And if killing 100 highly expendable guardsmen is worth something shouldn't killing a squad of ultra rare space marines? Or even rarer Custodes?
The crux of this is that Martel basically wants the cards stacked in favor of his Blood Angels and doesn't want to have to improve his play to get those W's. I think we all recognise it at this point, and it's completely derailed this thread.
Martel732 wrote: So now ITC is stacking things in BA favor? The results sure don't bear that out.
With the 1 month of grace that most places enforce, the new BA literally became tournament legal in most places a matter of days ago. On top of that, it's holiday season and there has been screw all in the way of tournaments.
The results don't "bear out" anything, because there is none, yet. My point was that you aren't arguing from a sake of what is better for the game, you're arguing from a perspective of what is best for BA, and even then, the issues you recount are far from impossible to deal with in the hands of a capable player.
I usually think Martel is a bit hyperbolic but not in this case. If he didnt mention marines vs guardsmen people wouldnt be so biased against his idea.
Sure BA have tools to handle lots of guardsmen, they are marines after all. But, if using most of those good tools, and they lack the best of them the TFC, then they are just worse marines in all the other matchups and will lose hard against other lists.
Eliminators and whirlwinds for example are good units but what really makes them good is when you have chapter tactics , doctrines, super doctrines and support characters buffing them. BA have devastator doctrine turn 1 and thats it. Those good supporting units are about half as good in BA as in the better marine chapters and even though they are good enough against guardsmen and their supporting characters they arent against other marines. If I bring 1000pts of firepower against other marines 1750pts of range fire its more like 500pts against 1750 and I just lost that shooting battle by a landslide.
If I build a good BA list against guardsmen I mostly just stand there and shoot with some smash captains in my list and some extra scouts etc and it will work well in that matchup but I cant really build it like that without hamstringing myself compared to just playing it as RG successor.
I dont fear the tank heavy guard lists unless I face them on a bad table which is open and they go first. What I fear is a good guard player with lots of guardsmen that have been spaced correctly since I cant really do anything unless he rolls total crap on his tanks I cant get to.
BA got buffed and are slightly better in all scenarios compared to before but they dont have new tools to overcome their greatest weakness. Cost effectively handle cheap chaff so their expensive CC units can kill the opponents valuable stuff before the tank commanders and the like in the back kill everything. Its just a bad matchup for BA. Only good thing with marines being good is that they melt those units so less of them in the meta but on the other hand I dont see how BA win against IH/IF either if they use their troops to screen well. They have even better shooting than guard and require even less los and their screens are sturdy enough that 5 scouts or 10 intercessors cant kill them easily since they are also marines.
Some armies will have struggles with a TAC list against certain list types like all hordes or all T8 etc. GW missions/cards dont do much to punish that as long as they get the objectives. ITC at least rewards you for not going all in on one aspect since that opens up a lot of secondaries for your opponent to choose from and either kill more or hold more depending on what you go all in on. I think the idea behind ITC is great in that regards but there is one thing that breaks it. In my opinion that thing is strong artillery with no downside. Units like tfcs, whirlwinds and eliminators in good chapters make engineers useless and makes it impossible to avoid giving up kills/secondaries.
Guard artillery and some no los shooting is ok but new marines can just bring it in spades and its so effective and unfun to play against. Its good enough on its own that mission set doesnt matter too much but its very obvious whats wrong with it in ITC. Without that artillery marines have to play the missions like everyone else and they will still be very strong in ITC just due to the power of their rules. But it isnt really ITC that is bad initself but parts of marines that are just extra powerful under their rules but that part should be nerfed anyway to make the game more fun to play since it isnt balanced outside of ITC either. Cant really blame ITC for GW releasing something broken that messes up their missions completely and break certain matchups.
Why are people discussing BA specifically in this thread? Go to a tactica discussion if you want ideas on how to beat hordes with BA. Let's also not disregard the fact that Bloody Baals has released relatively recently and has had no chance to impact the competitive meta.
I'm also confused why I've just read pages and pages of ITC vs GW mission set discussion too. The reason GW absolutely should and do balance around the ITC mission set is quite simple - it is by far the most popular way to play 40k competitively. Whether you think it's the best way to play is irrelevant.
It's like people forget that some of the largest events around the globe have their own, specific rule set too. Many massive events don't use pure ITC or pure GW rules, they use a mix and match approach.
And just so we're all on the same page here, regardless of what mission set you play, certain factions are still way over/under performing. Generally the data of which factions perform well and which perform poorly correlate across all mission sets with a few outliers - Tyranids the most common.
Finally - do bear in mind that almost all the detailed statistical analysis we have in this thread relates to one month. The quietest competitive 40k month with the least games played where the stakes are at their lowest. I'd suggest the data sample in and of itself isn't the most useful for any balance discussion.
For as long as I've played the game, some lists just have bad match ups. On the whole Guard aren't tearing up the high level scenes on their own merits and the best lists have been other armies at this point, Marines being one of them. While I know not all Marines are created equal, still they are good enough to handle guard at this point. I've seen it happen. If the issue is BA aren't as good as the top Marine lists, I agree that has nothing to do with Guard though.
I highly doubt factions will ever be externally or internally balanced, but the point remains BA can handle Guard just fine, by everything I'm reading anyways. As well most divergent Marine factions don't have access to TFC, can they do nothing to guard as well ?
Martel732 wrote: So now ITC is stacking things in BA favor? The results sure don't bear that out.
What I'm seeing is that you're overly fixated on killing models, which for most of the CA missions isn't a winning condition, or even a condition at all.
So maybe that's the issue? You've forgone the point of the CA missions in favour of blind killing.
For the people arguing that ITC staff are on the playtest team, I'd like to hear why they think the missions in GW books that the ITC team have a hand in balancing and sign off, aren't then good enough.
AngryAngel80 wrote: For as long as I've played the game, some lists just have bad match ups. On the whole Guard aren't tearing up the high level scenes on their own merits and the best lists have been other armies at this point, Marines being one of them. While I know not all Marines are created equal, still they are good enough to handle guard at this point. I've seen it happen. If the issue is BA aren't as good as the top Marine lists, I agree that has nothing to do with Guard though.
I highly doubt factions will ever be externally or internally balanced, but the point remains BA can handle Guard just fine, by everything I'm reading anyways. As well most divergent Marine factions don't have access to TFC, can they do nothing to guard as well ?
It is just that well placed infantry hordes and not guard in itself that counter typical BA pretty well and really isnt a problem if some matchups are like that. But its in the way it stops melee from getting to the juicy targets that its a problem for BA, not that it counters marines, and most other marines arent so much melee oriented that its as much of a problem for them.
8th edition are quite loopsided in how chapter bonuses are given out so you dont want a bit of everything in your list but mostly stuff that benefit from your chapter tactics and stratagems which in BAs case is almost purely melee. If I get a 100% bonus to melee and 0% for ranged and IH/IF gets the reverse then as soon as my shooting starts to be more of my list than melee its no point staying BA as the other chapters do that much better. If factions at competitive level are balanced around taking max advantage of their inherent bonuses BA will suffer against a guard horde no matter what since it isnt wortg it to counter that matchup.
But as been said above this shouldnt be a discussion about BA vs horde guard. But it does show a pro or con depending on view that ITC have over GW missions. Horde is punished a bit in ITC but instead their artillery is favored so it isnt that guard as a whole but just some builds are effected in negative direction.
AngryAngel80 wrote: For as long as I've played the game, some lists just have bad match ups. On the whole Guard aren't tearing up the high level scenes on their own merits and the best lists have been other armies at this point, Marines being one of them. While I know not all Marines are created equal, still they are good enough to handle guard at this point. I've seen it happen. If the issue is BA aren't as good as the top Marine lists, I agree that has nothing to do with Guard though.
I highly doubt factions will ever be externally or internally balanced, but the point remains BA can handle Guard just fine, by everything I'm reading anyways. As well most divergent Marine factions don't have access to TFC, can they do nothing to guard as well ?
It is just that well placed infantry hordes and not guard in itself that counter typical BA pretty well and really isnt a problem if some matchups are like that. But its in the way it stops melee from getting to the juicy targets and most other marines arent so much melee oriented that its as much of a problem for them.
8th edition are quite loopsided in how chapter bonuses are given out so you dont want a bit of everything in your list but mostly stuff that benefit from your chapter tactics and stratagems which in BAs case is almost purely melee. If I get a 100% bonus to melee and 0% for ranged and IH/IF gets the reverse then as soon as my shooting starts to be more of my list than melee its no point staying BA as the other chapters do that much better. If factions at competitive level are balanced around taking max advantage of their inherent bonuses BA will suffer against a guard horde no matter what since it isnt wortg it to counter that matchup.
But as been said above this shouldnt be a discussion about BA vs horde guard. But it does show a pro or con depending on view that ITC have over GW missions. Horde is punished a bit in ITC but instead their artillery is favored so it isnt that guard as a whole but just some builds are effected in negative direction.
I get what you're saying but thats been a tale as old as time with this game as the hammer swings from melee to shooting back and forth. Like I play space wolves and I'm a little concerned they will end up very melee focused with their supplement treatment as well so I fear I'll feel a similar pain in that regard. I just commented it wasn't exactly an impossible task as it was being made out to be so often. A rough match up to be sure, just not the hill too far.
GW seems to like to make rules based on " this sounds cool " while at the same time having no real idea how to play the very game they write rules for or the meta in which these new rules will roll out into. Leaving some groups over the top good, and some while still solid much further down the scale because of reliance on CC when the gun is king.
So much focus is on performance and win ratio I think we have lost sight of the point of the game, what GW created was never supposed to be this.
When I build any list I try to make it as well rounded as possible to fight just about any type of 40K enemy with equal parts shooty and melee. not with a focus on ITC sub objectives, stratagem popping or drawing objective cards that can still give you a win when you have been completely tabled.
I'm more interested in a fun match where the win probability isn't assured. some of the best games I have had have been losses for me but they were nail biters to the end. my opponents just used better tactics on the table with the dice acting as the element of chance.
But if the game is unbalanced its harder to have fun and math helps us prove it. Really hard to sit back and have fun when my opponents vehicles are twice as good as mine when we play the same army. I think all of us, at least most of us, want to be able to take a bit of everything in a TAC list and have a fun and interesting game and sometimes face a guard steel legion or a. DA wing list etc and still have a good shot at winning. GW is marketing their game like that and acts like their product plays like that but in truth it isnt. There are obvious imbalances that should have never been made and ITC rules is one way to combat some of that. Totally free list building, except a few hqs, is quite insane and does not promote TAC lists at all. At least ITC secondaries promotes lower character count, less vehicles, sub 100 models etc. Takes a bit more at the start to learn but isnt too bad. Its kind of soft restrictions for you since GW cant bother with hard anymore. They act like everyone plays with the old force org chart and probably balance their books that way despite the way detachments work in 8th.
An Actual Englishman wrote: Why are people discussing BA specifically in this thread? Go to a tactica discussion if you want ideas on how to beat hordes with BA. Let's also not disregard the fact that Bloody Baals has released relatively recently and has had no chance to impact the competitive meta.
I'm also confused why I've just read pages and pages of ITC vs GW mission set discussion too. The reason GW absolutely should and do balance around the ITC mission set is quite simple - it is by far the most popular way to play 40k competitively. Whether you think it's the best way to play is irrelevant.
It's like people forget that some of the largest events around the globe have their own, specific rule set too. Many massive events don't use pure ITC or pure GW rules, they use a mix and match approach.
And just so we're all on the same page here, regardless of what mission set you play, certain factions are still way over/under performing. Generally the data of which factions perform well and which perform poorly correlate across all mission sets with a few outliers - Tyranids the most common.
Finally - do bear in mind that almost all the detailed statistical analysis we have in this thread relates to one month. The quietest competitive 40k month with the least games played where the stakes are at their lowest. I'd suggest the data sample in and of itself isn't the most useful for any balance discussion.
ITC doesn't exist in my country and in pretty much all Europe.
Last time I heard, the US were not the center of the world.
Itc and variants on itc missions are popular in Sweden at least so some parts of Europe use them quite a lot. Wouldnt surprise me if many non english speaking countries in europe have different metas and rule sets then what we mostly see on english speaking sites since they probably have forums and social media groups in their own languages that outsiders really arent seeing much off. Could be more or maybe even less ITC being played outside of the US than we think we know.
AngryAngel80 784055 10682862 wrote:
I highly doubt factions will ever be externally or internally balanced, but the point remains BA can handle Guard just fine, by everything I'm reading anyways. As well most divergent Marine factions don't have access to TFC, can they do nothing to guard as well ?
Like Grey Knight? with the win ratio they have I think they prove that they don't deal with any army. And they are like BA in some way, lots of small weapon shoting and melee, just without the eliminators, tank support, thunder canons , leviathans etc.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
aphyon wrote: Wow this turned into a math hammer fest.
So much focus is on performance and win ratio I think we have lost sight of the point of the game, what GW created was never supposed to be this.
When I build any list I try to make it as well rounded as possible to fight just about any type of 40K enemy with equal parts shooty and melee. not with a focus on ITC sub objectives, stratagem popping or drawing objective cards that can still give you a win when you have been completely tabled.
I'm more interested in a fun match where the win probability isn't assured. some of the best games I have had have been losses for me but they were nail biters to the end. my opponents just used better tactics on the table with the dice acting as the element of chance.
okey, on one side of the table sits a player with an army of marines, casual picked stuff he likes, on the other side sits a Grey Knight player who also picked the models he liked. How much fun do you think the GK player is going to have when they play game 10? Imbalanced in rules always exists, but it is horrible when the differences aren't that big. Now I know that for eldar players not being the best army and worse in win ratio around 1-2% to marines is the end of the world, and something that should never ever happen, but they kind of a forget that when their army sits on those weak 50+ % win ratio, a DA player has something in low 30%. Which means they are practicaly playing a different kind of game.
I'm also confused why I've just read pages and pages of ITC vs GW mission set discussion too. The reason GW absolutely should and do balance around the ITC mission set is quite simple - it is by far the most popular way to play 40k competitively. Whether you think it's the best way to play is irrelevant.
That is not true, ITC is not particularly popular outside USA and 40K is more popular in Europe than in the States.
And in any case, if the game is balanced for ITC, then GW need to put those missions in CA. If I pay GW to get new missions and new points, then I certainly expect that those points are balanced for those missions, not for some third party house rules I may have not even heard of!
I'm also confused why I've just read pages and pages of ITC vs GW mission set discussion too. The reason GW absolutely should and do balance around the ITC mission set is quite simple - it is by far the most popular way to play 40k competitively.
This thread is about stats and balance between factions. One of the problems with the data we have is that it all comes from different versions of the game, so that's why ITC vs GW mission set is being discussed.
I would hope we can all agree that, in an ideal world, there would be one version of the game that everyone played (for competitive events at least). It would give more reliable data which could be used to balance the game better- imagine the amount of feedback GW could get to improve CA missions if all ITC events used them.
GW's missions are the only ones that have any chance of being the default set that everyone uses.
If ,when more data is available, we can see that ITC events have win rates significantly closer to 50% for the various factions than in other formats, then there is a reason for it to exist.
If ,when more data is available, we see that win rates are roughly the same across different formats, then things like ITC need to die, because they are harming the game for no benefit.
An Actual Englishman wrote: Why are people discussing BA specifically in this thread? Go to a tactica discussion if you want ideas on how to beat hordes with BA. Let's also not disregard the fact that Bloody Baals has released relatively recently and has had no chance to impact the competitive meta.
I'm also confused why I've just read pages and pages of ITC vs GW mission set discussion too. The reason GW absolutely should and do balance around the ITC mission set is quite simple - it is by far the most popular way to play 40k competitively. Whether you think it's the best way to play is irrelevant.
It's like people forget that some of the largest events around the globe have their own, specific rule set too. Many massive events don't use pure ITC or pure GW rules, they use a mix and match approach.
And just so we're all on the same page here, regardless of what mission set you play, certain factions are still way over/under performing. Generally the data of which factions perform well and which perform poorly correlate across all mission sets with a few outliers - Tyranids the most common.
Finally - do bear in mind that almost all the detailed statistical analysis we have in this thread relates to one month. The quietest competitive 40k month with the least games played where the stakes are at their lowest. I'd suggest the data sample in and of itself isn't the most useful for any balance discussion.
ITC doesn't exist in my country and in pretty much all Europe.
Last time I heard, the US were not the center of the world.
Thanks, but no thanks.
while ITC is barely a thing in Australia too... I'm still inclined to agree with Englishman. Whats the point in attempting to balance around the RNG of rulebook missions? You cannot really. May as well balance around the working missions. Hopefully now that they have a set of their own, thats what they do. But really GW's balance is so wack I kinda doubt they approach any of it from the perspective of "what missions are we playing".
Dreaming Shadow was Sean Nayden who went 7-1 at Atlanta Open.
Reborn Drukhari was Nathan Billings; 4-1 at Merry Slaaneshmas
Mortan was Adam Houser; 4-1 at Hooded Goblin 2
Ryza (Servitor Maniple) was Gabriel Rocheleau; 4-1 at Atlanta Open
This was the "Dreaming Shadow" list:
Biel-Tan
Autarch SR
Farseer SR
Seer
20x Guardians
2x5 Rangers
7 Spears
2 Spinners
Dreaming Shadow
Shadowseer
Yncarne
Yvraine
Silent Shroud
6 Skyweavers
I find it absolutely hilarious that it's labeled Dreaming Shadow. These people picking their primary should not be allowed. These people need to get someone who understands data.
I'll stand by my initial skepticism of 40kstats as anything but a directional tool.
Yea, i also have noticed that BCP data is wrong in to many cases, so the data in the end is not really correct.
Maybe the only the last LVO have the right data, since the Falcon checked every list by himself(what a hero).
Sean Nayden list was also labaled as Biel-Tan and it was soup with DE.
Aeldar have 5-6 very good players that manage to pump the numbers alot, performing good on 2-40 persons events.
You could expect that with the extra rules CWE and DE have advantage, but in Socal not single one manage to get into top 10. It reminds me of the last year Toa, tha put impressive WR durring during tthe mounts after CA, but underperformed on the LVO.
It`s to early to do something, because the most faction did not have their PA yet.
RNG is part of the balancing. Ideally in a tournament you should randomise the missions from CA, without people knowing beforehand what they get. That way winning in the army building phase is less of a factor as you cannot tailor your list for the mission.
I understand that a lot people want to win before any dice are rolled, and ITC takes that on next level by not only allowing to tailor the list to the mission but the mission to the list as well. But frankly, that is just a stupid way to play.
Crimson wrote: RNG is part of the balancing. Ideally in a tournament you should randomise the missions from CA, without people knowing beforehand what they get. That way winning in the army building phase is less of a factor as you cannot tailor your list for the mission.
I understand that a lot people want to win before any dice are rolled, and ITC takes that on next level by not only allowing to tailor the list to the mission but the mission to the list as well. But frankly, that is just a stupid way to play.
if thats to me, im not talking about the current CA missions. I'm talking about their pre-that garbo
Martel's entire argument is that, his skill aside, he can pick the ITC secondary that's about killing hordes of dudes (I think it's 1 point for killing 10+? It might have been changed) and get extra VP while slogging through hordes, while in a non-ITC mission VP doesn't come from that (there might be a Maelstrom card for it? No idea) so he's at 0 until he can slog through 100 guys, if he can at all. ITC missions let him be at let's say 3 (3 turns of trying to get through) instead of 0 so he feels like he's doing something other than killing guys without any benefit for doing it.
That's it. And honestly, I wouldn't mind if the GW missions had something like that as a bonus in some missions. My issue with ITC secondaries is entirely that they are able to be tailored to your oppponent. So if you play someone with 100 dudes, you will pick the "kill hordes" secondary. If they have all elites, you will pick that. All knights, you pick the superheavy one. Etc. etc. it puts even more emphasis on what you bring versus how you use it, since you get to pick what extra bonuses you get based on your opponent's army, rather than not being certain of what you might face and having that push you more towards covering all your bases. It encourages the sort of gamey specific netlists that we see because there's no drawback to bringing a skew list since you'll always have SOME secondary objective that gives you a bonus against any sort of list.
While it's my viewpoint that being able to do that is part of the problem. If you didn't' know what mission you would get or, in the case of Maelstrom what card you might draw (I love the new version of this, however) it means you are less incentivized to bring a heavy skew list since you might get a mission that doesn't favor your skew and be at a disadvantage. On the contrary, you are incentivized to bring a more well-balanced list that can handle any of the missions you might get. Knowing the mission(s) beforehand on top of being able to tailor your secondaries removes any reason whatsoever to bring something more balanced.
Sorry, I'm confused. I look at the ITC mission packet, I see this:
-Identical deployment rules, i.e. identically random. You roll off to determine who sets up first, and then you roll to see if you seize initiative on a 6. So, rulebook missions not more random there.
-Objectives are then either dictated by the mission, or placed by players, or more commonly a bit of both. This is not random, unless I have a different definition of random than other people.
-Then you choose secondaries.
Then I look at the CA2019 mission set.
Same deployment.
Players either place objectives, or objectives are placed by default.
Fixed secondaries.
How...how are these missions "More random?" Are they random because in a couple of scenarios if you achieve bonus objectives you can score D3 victory points? RNG is only meaningfully involved in one mission setup, and it's HIGHLY mitigated. You roll randomly for which objectives are numbers 2-5 and then that is known information to both players throughout the game.
Disregarding the ITC secondary system for the moment, the biggest difference between ITC and CA2019 is that CA2019 varies a little bit when scoring takes place, and ITC goes for the (Much inferior IMO) "End of the Turn" Scoring in all their missions.
Wayniac wrote: Martel's entire argument is that, his skill aside, he can pick the ITC secondary that's about killing hordes of dudes (I think it's 1 point for killing 10+? It might have been changed) and get extra VP while slogging through hordes, while in a non-ITC mission VP doesn't come from that (there might be a Maelstrom card for it? No idea) so he's at 0 until he can slog through 100 guys, if he can at all. ITC missions let him be at let's say 3 (3 turns of trying to get through) instead of 0 so he feels like he's doing something other than killing guys without any benefit for doing it.
That's it. And honestly, I wouldn't mind if the GW missions had something like that as a bonus in some missions. My issue with ITC secondaries is entirely that they are able to be tailored to your oppponent. So if you play someone with 100 dudes, you will pick the "kill hordes" secondary. If they have all elites, you will pick that. All knights, you pick the superheavy one. Etc. etc. it puts even more emphasis on what you bring versus how you use it, since you get to pick what extra bonuses you get based on your opponent's army, rather than not being certain of what you might face and having that push you more towards covering all your bases. It encourages the sort of gamey specific netlists that we see because there's no drawback to bringing a skew list since you'll always have SOME secondary objective that gives you a bonus against any sort of list.
While it's my viewpoint that being able to do that is part of the problem. If you didn't' know what mission you would get or, in the case of Maelstrom what card you might draw (I love the new version of this, however) it means you are less incentivized to bring a heavy skew list since you might get a mission that doesn't favor your skew and be at a disadvantage. On the contrary, you are incentivized to bring a more well-balanced list that can handle any of the missions you might get. Knowing the mission(s) beforehand on top of being able to tailor your secondaries removes any reason whatsoever to bring something more balanced.
The problem with Martel's view is he's fixating on killing those 150 dudes. Can't say for sure, but this may be a result of him playing nothing but ITC, where you can get rewarded for that and not appreciating that in many of the CA missions it doesn't really matter if you kill 100 Guardsmen or not. It's often much more important that you kill a specific 20-30 Guardsmen so you can control objectives. In the new Maelstrom missions you can tailor your deck to the opponent somewhat. So if you don't think you'll have much board control, take out a bunch of the objective-based cards and vice-versa. I agree adding in the odd secondary to the CA missions along those lines might be interesting.
Wayniac wrote: Martel's entire argument is that, his skill aside, he can pick the ITC secondary that's about killing hordes of dudes (I think it's 1 point for killing 10+? It might have been changed) and get extra VP while slogging through hordes, while in a non-ITC mission VP doesn't come from that (there might be a Maelstrom card for it? No idea) so he's at 0 until he can slog through 100 guys, if he can at all. ITC missions let him be at let's say 3 (3 turns of trying to get through) instead of 0 so he feels like he's doing something other than killing guys without any benefit for doing it.
That's it. And honestly, I wouldn't mind if the GW missions had something like that as a bonus in some missions. My issue with ITC secondaries is entirely that they are able to be tailored to your oppponent. So if you play someone with 100 dudes, you will pick the "kill hordes" secondary. If they have all elites, you will pick that. All knights, you pick the superheavy one. Etc. etc. it puts even more emphasis on what you bring versus how you use it, since you get to pick what extra bonuses you get based on your opponent's army, rather than not being certain of what you might face and having that push you more towards covering all your bases. It encourages the sort of gamey specific netlists that we see because there's no drawback to bringing a skew list since you'll always have SOME secondary objective that gives you a bonus against any sort of list.
While it's my viewpoint that being able to do that is part of the problem. If you didn't' know what mission you would get or, in the case of Maelstrom what card you might draw (I love the new version of this, however) it means you are less incentivized to bring a heavy skew list since you might get a mission that doesn't favor your skew and be at a disadvantage. On the contrary, you are incentivized to bring a more well-balanced list that can handle any of the missions you might get. Knowing the mission(s) beforehand on top of being able to tailor your secondaries removes any reason whatsoever to bring something more balanced.
The thing that frustrates me with Martel's argument here is that it basically hinges around the idea that blood angels are ONLY allowed to be power armored dudes that engage in melee.
You know what another army might call the following two rules?
"Rapid fire weapons can fire twice the shots out to their full range if the firing model didn't move in the movement phase. Additionally, on turn 1, all Heavy weapons gain an additional -1AP. On turn 2, all Rapid Fire weapons gain an additional -1AP."
They might call that a shooting-focused chapter tactic. Blood angels get that AND have an enormous roster of efficient shooting-focused units they can take to clear out hordes, on top of a really good melee-focused trait. Accounting for morale casualties, a squad of ABR or bolt rifle intercessors deletes 80% of an infantry squad per turn. Heck, a 5-man squad of BA knife scouts for 55 points kills 10.9 guardsmen on average rolls with no auras no doctrines no nothing.
Martel's position that because every shooting unit in the BA codex would be slightly more efficient if you ran them with a non-BA chapter so they don't count as things BA can use is the only thing causing 150 guardsmen to cause an auto-loss for him.
An Actual Englishman wrote: Why are people discussing BA specifically in this thread? Go to a tactica discussion if you want ideas on how to beat hordes with BA. Let's also not disregard the fact that Bloody Baals has released relatively recently and has had no chance to impact the competitive meta.
I'm also confused why I've just read pages and pages of ITC vs GW mission set discussion too. The reason GW absolutely should and do balance around the ITC mission set is quite simple - it is by far the most popular way to play 40k competitively. Whether you think it's the best way to play is irrelevant.
It's like people forget that some of the largest events around the globe have their own, specific rule set too. Many massive events don't use pure ITC or pure GW rules, they use a mix and match approach.
And just so we're all on the same page here, regardless of what mission set you play, certain factions are still way over/under performing. Generally the data of which factions perform well and which perform poorly correlate across all mission sets with a few outliers - Tyranids the most common.
Finally - do bear in mind that almost all the detailed statistical analysis we have in this thread relates to one month. The quietest competitive 40k month with the least games played where the stakes are at their lowest. I'd suggest the data sample in and of itself isn't the most useful for any balance discussion.
ITC doesn't exist in my country and in pretty much all Europe.
Last time I heard, the US were not the center of the world.
Thanks, but no thanks.
while ITC is barely a thing in Australia too... I'm still inclined to agree with Englishman. Whats the point in attempting to balance around the RNG of rulebook missions?[u] You cannot really. May as well balance around the working missions. Hopefully now that they have a set of their own, thats what they do. But really GW's balance is so wack I kinda doubt they approach any of it from the perspective of "what missions are we playing".
No one said the game should be balanced around the rulebook missions.
In my country, no competitive tournament uses rulebook missions. They all use CA missions.
Marin wrote: Aeldar have 5-6 very good players that manage to pump the numbers alot, performing good on 2-40 persons events.
You could expect that with the extra rules CWE and DE have advantage, but in Socal not single one manage to get into top 10. It reminds me of the last year Toa, tha put impressive WR durring during tthe mounts after CA, but underperformed on the LVO.
It`s to early to do something, because the most faction did not have their PA yet.
I'd say a bit more than 5-6 - but I think its a good point that player skill can skew faction win rates.
Really the pool of players in 40k full stop is quite small - and the pool who are "good" among that is smaller still. Metas take a bit of time to shift, as if you have an Aeldari army, and you've been playing it for 6-18 months, you can't necessarily just drop it and have another entirely different army, which you know just as well, immediately - there might be a bit of a learning curve.
Really these stats are about confirming a sort of sequence of knowledge.
Get a codex - apply mathhammer. Theorise on what is efficient, what is not.
Test this yourself - both playing with and against that army. Get some results - "this seems strong", "this seems weak".
Then look at tournaments around the world. Are your results seemingly normal - or is there maybe some skill imbalance/faction imbalance in your specific local pool?
I mean one of the interesting things on the stats is how good Cult Mechanicus have been doing. Which from a mathhammer perspective isn't a huge surprise - they have lots of seemingly points efficient stuff (and even more so with the new points decreases). But in terms of "40k culture" it doesn't seem a recognised thing. Instead its Marines Marines Marines, Tau (if you can win Socal, it must be meta defining right?), Eldar, Chaos soup. With a sort of ghostly voice going "Orks are good too" and the stats/evidence going "uh...."
But there are also limits of stats. So mono Chaos Daemons seem to "work" and get a good win percentage. But its just 11 lists. So this could be a few good players skewing the system rather than indicating very much. After all if it is good, why are not other people copying/emulating them? Whereas the 8 mono Harlequins lists do badly - which doesn't surprise based on theory and playing - but I wouldn't take these statistics as great evidence of them being underpowered in isolation. The conclusion would be "very few people are playing mono-Harlequins" - although this is probably because they think they are bad, because they are bad."
Whereas the theory is Marines are top tier, the experience of most people as individuals is that marines are top tier, and lo, considered tournaments around the world, they disproportionately seem to win. In fact there are so many people playing marines, the "its a few good players" is likely diluted down to nothing. (Which wouldn't necessarily be the case if we considered only getting top 3 in reasonably sized tournaments).
Yea, i also have noticed that BCP data is wrong in to many cases, so the data in the end is not really correct.
Maybe the only the last LVO have the right data, since the Falcon checked every list by himself(what a hero).
Sean Nayden list was also labaled as Biel-Tan and it was soup with DE.
Aeldar have 5-6 very good players that manage to pump the numbers alot, performing good on 2-40 persons events.
You could expect that with the extra rules CWE and DE have advantage, but in Socal not single one manage to get into top 10. It reminds me of the last year Toa, tha put impressive WR durring during tthe mounts after CA, but underperformed on the LVO.
It`s to early to do something, because the most faction did not have their PA yet.
It's weird data to handle. We're missing a lot of pieces.
Last time I checked the ITC Champion missions (2018?), objectives were in set locations on the table, you didn't place them. Which added to the whole "You can know everything before sitting down to play" which I dislike. You would know that an objective is going to be 12" in from the short edge and 24" up from the long edge, no matter the deployment, for example. Maybe that changed.
I think the ITC missions are just too bland. It's the same thing (kill units/capture objectives) no matter the "mission", and with secondaries, as I said above you can just tailor everything. You know during list construction what secondaries your opponent will probably take against you based on what you're bringing (if you're bringing 100 dudes, you can reasonably guess that Blood Angels player is going to take the anti-horde secondary), and what secondaries you will probably choose against any army you face (which due to ITC being ITC is probably also roughly known what people would bring). I think they removed it but a while ago this made it possible to "game" the secondaries. Before they changed it, the anti-horde was something like 1 point for 10+, 2 points for 20+ so you would just take a unit of 19 and deny your opponent 1 point. They did change this eventually but it led to essentially gaming list building even more than before.
I haven't played the CA19 missions yet but the CA18 ones were great. The new Maelstrom ones with the preconstructed deck sound like the best of everything: Enough random to discourage skew armies, but not so random that you have no idea what might happen, and not zero random like ITC missions.
The primary complaint still seems to be the lack of secondaries/being able to tailor what gives you VP depending on your opponent rather than the mission/chance, and to a much lesser extent non-fixed objectives (but that might have changed too in the latest ITC Champions missions, I don't know).
I think the biggest point though for them abandoning their own missions is simply that they DON'T do this for AOS. So there's no real need to for 40k either. Let them focus on the logistics of tournaments, not trying to balance them. Because otherwise they might as well go even further to balance them and have their own FAQs/errata again like they did in 7th edition. It's pretty clear what they REALLY want is to have the one and only set of competitive 40k rules above and beyond regular Matched Play. So why stop with missions?
Wayniac wrote: Last time I checked the ITC Champion missions (2018?), objectives were in set locations on the table, you didn't place them. Which added to the whole "You can know everything before sitting down to play" which I dislike. You would know that an objective is going to be 12" in from the short edge and 24" up from the long edge, no matter the deployment, for example. Maybe that changed.
I think the ITC missions are just too bland. It's the same thing (kill units/capture objectives) no matter the "mission", and with secondaries, as I said above you can just tailor everything. You know during list construction what secondaries your opponent will probably take against you based on what you're bringing (if you're bringing 100 dudes, you can reasonably guess that Blood Angels player is going to take the anti-horde secondary), and what secondaries you will probably choose against any army you face (which due to ITC being ITC is probably also roughly known what people would bring). I think they removed it but a while ago this made it possible to "game" the secondaries. Before they changed it, the anti-horde was something like 1 point for 10+, 2 points for 20+ so you would just take a unit of 19 and deny your opponent 1 point. They did change this eventually but it led to essentially gaming list building even more than before.
I haven't played the CA19 missions yet but the CA18 ones were great. The new Maelstrom ones with the preconstructed deck sound like the best of everything: Enough random to discourage skew armies, but not so random that you have no idea what might happen, and not zero random like ITC missions.
The primary complaint still seems to be the lack of secondaries/being able to tailor what gives you VP depending on your opponent rather than the mission/chance, and to a much lesser extent non-fixed objectives (but that might have changed too in the latest ITC Champions missions, I don't know).
I think the biggest point though for them abandoning their own missions is simply that they DON'T do this for AOS. So there's no real need to for 40k either. Let them focus on the logistics of tournaments, not trying to balance them. Because otherwise they might as well go even further to balance them and have their own FAQs/errata again like they did in 7th edition. It's pretty clear what they REALLY want is to have the one and only set of competitive 40k rules above and beyond regular Matched Play. So why stop with missions?
I'm going to bang on this drum again, but to add to this, it's the same people writing these ITC missions that are testing the CA approved missions and signing them off as fit for purpose. Either they're intentionally misleading GW with the mission feedback (possibly to keep ITC being a thing), GW aren't playtesting them or people are blindly stuck in their ways and unwilling to try change.
Dudeface wrote: I'm going to bang on this drum again, but to add to this, it's the same people writing these ITC missions that are testing the CA approved missions and signing them off as fit for purpose. Either they're intentionally misleading GW with the mission feedback (possibly to keep ITC being a thing), GW aren't playtesting them or people are blindly stuck in their ways and unwilling to try change.
Right. But then again we have no insight into what specifically they are testing. Presumably, they are testing the new missions but we can't be 100% certain since the entire testing process is kept hidden and under an NDA so we can't see where it's flawed. But I agree if they are testing the CA missions and saying these are good, then there's something funky going on if they are keeping their own set of missions too. Especially since, despite what they may think, they have to know ITC is mostly a USA thing and sees much smaller use outside the states so most people outside that are going to use the CA missions for tournaments too.
Dudeface wrote: I'm going to bang on this drum again, but to add to this, it's the same people writing these ITC missions that are testing the CA approved missions and signing them off as fit for purpose. Either they're intentionally misleading GW with the mission feedback (possibly to keep ITC being a thing), GW aren't playtesting them or people are blindly stuck in their ways and unwilling to try change.
Right. But then again we have no insight into what specifically they are testing. Presumably, they are testing the new missions but we can't be 100% certain since the entire testing process is kept hidden and under an NDA so we can't see where it's flawed. But I agree if they are testing the CA missions and saying these are good, then there's something funky going on if they are keeping their own set of missions too. Especially since, despite what they may think, they have to know ITC is mostly a USA thing and sees much smaller use outside the states so most people outside that are going to use the CA missions for tournaments too.
I once tried asking about this from some of the ITC guys on these forums (I think Reece was one of them, he has a Dakka account right?) but I really didn't get a sensible answer.
Wayniac wrote: Martel's entire argument is that, his skill aside, he can pick the ITC secondary that's about killing hordes of dudes (I think it's 1 point for killing 10+? It might have been changed) and get extra VP while slogging through hordes, while in a non-ITC mission VP doesn't come from that (there might be a Maelstrom card for it? No idea) so he's at 0 until he can slog through 100 guys, if he can at all. ITC missions let him be at let's say 3 (3 turns of trying to get through) instead of 0 so he feels like he's doing something other than killing guys without any benefit for doing it.
That's it. And honestly, I wouldn't mind if the GW missions had something like that as a bonus in some missions. My issue with ITC secondaries is entirely that they are able to be tailored to your oppponent. So if you play someone with 100 dudes, you will pick the "kill hordes" secondary. If they have all elites, you will pick that. All knights, you pick the superheavy one. Etc. etc. it puts even more emphasis on what you bring versus how you use it, since you get to pick what extra bonuses you get based on your opponent's army, rather than not being certain of what you might face and having that push you more towards covering all your bases. It encourages the sort of gamey specific netlists that we see because there's no drawback to bringing a skew list since you'll always have SOME secondary objective that gives you a bonus against any sort of list.
While it's my viewpoint that being able to do that is part of the problem. If you didn't' know what mission you would get or, in the case of Maelstrom what card you might draw (I love the new version of this, however) it means you are less incentivized to bring a heavy skew list since you might get a mission that doesn't favor your skew and be at a disadvantage. On the contrary, you are incentivized to bring a more well-balanced list that can handle any of the missions you might get. Knowing the mission(s) beforehand on top of being able to tailor your secondaries removes any reason whatsoever to bring something more balanced.
The problem with Martel's view is he's fixating on killing those 150 dudes. Can't say for sure, but this may be a result of him playing nothing but ITC, where you can get rewarded for that and not appreciating that in many of the CA missions it doesn't really matter if you kill 100 Guardsmen or not. It's often much more important that you kill a specific 20-30 Guardsmen so you can control objectives. In the new Maelstrom missions you can tailor your deck to the opponent somewhat. So if you don't think you'll have much board control, take out a bunch of the objective-based cards and vice-versa. I agree adding in the odd secondary to the CA missions along those lines might be interesting.
I'm fixated on it because they physically prevent my army from functioning.
Someone please explain this idea that having more psychic powers/warlord traits/relics than someone else is inherently broken from a game-balance perspective.
An extreme example:
You have 48 different stratagems, 24 warlord traits, and 12 relics.
I have 6 stratagems, 3 warlord traits, and 1 relic.
My relic says that "When a model in your army destroys an enemy model, you win the game". How much influence is the fact that you have eight times as many stratagems as I going to have?
Wayniac wrote: Martel's entire argument is that, his skill aside, he can pick the ITC secondary that's about killing hordes of dudes (I think it's 1 point for killing 10+? It might have been changed) and get extra VP while slogging through hordes, while in a non-ITC mission VP doesn't come from that (there might be a Maelstrom card for it? No idea) so he's at 0 until he can slog through 100 guys, if he can at all. ITC missions let him be at let's say 3 (3 turns of trying to get through) instead of 0 so he feels like he's doing something other than killing guys without any benefit for doing it.
That's it. And honestly, I wouldn't mind if the GW missions had something like that as a bonus in some missions. My issue with ITC secondaries is entirely that they are able to be tailored to your oppponent. So if you play someone with 100 dudes, you will pick the "kill hordes" secondary. If they have all elites, you will pick that. All knights, you pick the superheavy one. Etc. etc. it puts even more emphasis on what you bring versus how you use it, since you get to pick what extra bonuses you get based on your opponent's army, rather than not being certain of what you might face and having that push you more towards covering all your bases. It encourages the sort of gamey specific netlists that we see because there's no drawback to bringing a skew list since you'll always have SOME secondary objective that gives you a bonus against any sort of list.
While it's my viewpoint that being able to do that is part of the problem. If you didn't' know what mission you would get or, in the case of Maelstrom what card you might draw (I love the new version of this, however) it means you are less incentivized to bring a heavy skew list since you might get a mission that doesn't favor your skew and be at a disadvantage. On the contrary, you are incentivized to bring a more well-balanced list that can handle any of the missions you might get. Knowing the mission(s) beforehand on top of being able to tailor your secondaries removes any reason whatsoever to bring something more balanced.
The problem with Martel's view is he's fixating on killing those 150 dudes. Can't say for sure, but this may be a result of him playing nothing but ITC, where you can get rewarded for that and not appreciating that in many of the CA missions it doesn't really matter if you kill 100 Guardsmen or not. It's often much more important that you kill a specific 20-30 Guardsmen so you can control objectives. In the new Maelstrom missions you can tailor your deck to the opponent somewhat. So if you don't think you'll have much board control, take out a bunch of the objective-based cards and vice-versa. I agree adding in the odd secondary to the CA missions along those lines might be interesting.
I'm fixated on it because they physically prevent my army from functioning.
Define function please, it's not preventing you from capping/contesting objectives in your half/midfield, you have some shenanigans to get to the backfield if needed. What does it prevent you from doing that stops you competing within a game?
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Someone please explain this idea that having more psychic powers/warlord traits/relics than someone else is inherently broken from a game-balance perspective.
An extreme example:
You have 48 different stratagems, 24 warlord traits, and 12 relics.
I have 6 stratagems, 3 warlord traits, and 1 relic.
My relic says that "When a model in your army destroys an enemy model, you win the game". How much influence is the fact that you have eight times as many stratagems as I going to have?
surely even if you achive the moment where you could activate the relic turn one and end the game before your opponent had a turn, you would not do it as you would be forging the narrative of the game, just like GW tells everyone to do. So all we have to do for good armies to not be good is for their players to not use the rules on their good units. If 3 exorcists can blow up the most important part of my army turn one, and I can't do nothing about it, then my opponent should wait with doing so till turn 3-4, so I get at least 2 turns of playing.
Crimson wrote: Sorry Martel, the BA have been brought to supplement marine level, if you still can't beat the IG it's on you.
LOL supplement level is an area that is producing nearly a 20% difference in win rate right now. BA are more of in the Ultramarines 45%-50% WR area - they aren't at Ironhands 68% WR area. Clear and drastic difference in power. Keep in mind. A 50% WR is what GW should be shooting for.
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AlmightyWalrus wrote: Someone please explain this idea that having more psychic powers/warlord traits/relics than someone else is inherently broken from a game-balance perspective.
An extreme example:
You have 48 different stratagems, 24 warlord traits, and 12 relics.
I have 6 stratagems, 3 warlord traits, and 1 relic.
My relic says that "When a model in your army destroys an enemy model, you win the game". How much influence is the fact that you have eight times as many stratagems as I going to have?
Lets be clear that all non Ironhands and IF have access to about as many stratagems and WL traits as Ultras and Salamanders....Yet they produce near a 20% difference in win rate. Having options is a cool thing to have and I have sympathy for armies that don't have options but that is a claim about an army not being fun to play - not about it's ability to win battles.
I haven't played the CA19 missions yet but the CA18 ones were great. The new Maelstrom ones with the preconstructed deck sound like the best of everything: Enough random to discourage skew armies, but not so random that you have no idea what might happen, and not zero random like ITC missions.
The primary complaint still seems to be the lack of secondaries/being able to tailor what gives you VP depending on your opponent rather than the mission/chance, and to a much lesser extent non-fixed objectives (but that might have changed too in the latest ITC Champions missions, I don't know).
Just to pick up on this small section, the new Maelstrom rules are basically like choosing your own objectives as they do for the ITC secondaries with the trade-off that you have more total objectives to complete but less control over when you can attempt them. It works really well. You no longer get screwed over by drawing specific cards and if you end up with a hand full of useless objectives it's pretty much always due to a mistake from the player, either in constructing the deck or playing the objective cards.
I think the whole "everything always known" factor of ITC missions came to its ridiculous head with the recent Pro-Tabletop tournament in Atlanta where the terrain set-ups, including terrain heights, and objective set-ups were known beforehand. Because war is nothing if not utterly predictable.
Crimson wrote: Sorry Martel, the BA have been brought to supplement marine level, if you still can't beat the IG it's on you.
LOL supplement level is an area that is producing nearly a 20% difference in win rate right now. BA are more of in the Ultramarines 45%-50% WR area - they aren't at Ironhands 68% WR area. Clear and drastic difference in power. Keep in mind. A 50% WR is what GW should be shooting for.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Someone please explain this idea that having more psychic powers/warlord traits/relics than someone else is inherently broken from a game-balance perspective.
An extreme example:
You have 48 different stratagems, 24 warlord traits, and 12 relics.
I have 6 stratagems, 3 warlord traits, and 1 relic.
My relic says that "When a model in your army destroys an enemy model, you win the game". How much influence is the fact that you have eight times as many stratagems as I going to have?
Lets be clear that all non Ironhands and IF have access to about as many stratagems and WL traits as Ultras and Salamanders....Yet they produce near a 20% difference in win rate. Having options is a cool thing to have and I have sympathy for armies that don't have options but that is a claim about an army not being fun to play - not about it's ability to win battles.
Does your data actually show BA at those numbers post-Blood of Baal? Also, I don't remember exactly, but Martel is complaining about guard here and guard numbers from what I remember weren't super great.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Someone please explain this idea that having more psychic powers/warlord traits/relics than someone else is inherently broken from a game-balance perspective.
An extreme example:
You have 48 different stratagems, 24 warlord traits, and 12 relics.
I have 6 stratagems, 3 warlord traits, and 1 relic.
My relic says that "When a model in your army destroys an enemy model, you win the game". How much influence is the fact that you have eight times as many stratagems as I going to have?
An army having access to twice as many stratagems, relics, and warlord traits from another army provides them with twice the options and many more times the potential combinations of options. The odds that you're going to be able to find something broken are dramatically increased.
If this wasn't the case, then Soup would provide nobody any benefit, and we all know that soup has been perfectly balanced all edition and has caused no problems nor complaints!
Space marine fanboys have never complained about soup lists!
Crimson wrote: Sorry Martel, the BA have been brought to supplement marine level, if you still can't beat the IG it's on you.
LOL supplement level is an area that is producing nearly a 20% difference in win rate right now. BA are more of in the Ultramarines 45%-50% WR area - they aren't at Ironhands 68% WR area. Clear and drastic difference in power. Keep in mind. A 50% WR is what GW should be shooting for.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Someone please explain this idea that having more psychic powers/warlord traits/relics than someone else is inherently broken from a game-balance perspective.
An extreme example:
You have 48 different stratagems, 24 warlord traits, and 12 relics.
I have 6 stratagems, 3 warlord traits, and 1 relic.
My relic says that "When a model in your army destroys an enemy model, you win the game". How much influence is the fact that you have eight times as many stratagems as I going to have?
Lets be clear that all non Ironhands and IF have access to about as many stratagems and WL traits as Ultras and Salamanders....Yet they produce near a 20% difference in win rate. Having options is a cool thing to have and I have sympathy for armies that don't have options but that is a claim about an army not being fun to play - not about it's ability to win battles.
Does your data actually show BA at those numbers post-Blood of Baal? Also, I don't remember exactly, but Martel is complaining about guard here and guard numbers from what I remember weren't super great.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Someone please explain this idea that having more psychic powers/warlord traits/relics than someone else is inherently broken from a game-balance perspective.
An extreme example:
You have 48 different stratagems, 24 warlord traits, and 12 relics.
I have 6 stratagems, 3 warlord traits, and 1 relic.
My relic says that "When a model in your army destroys an enemy model, you win the game". How much influence is the fact that you have eight times as many stratagems as I going to have?
An army having access to twice as many stratagems, relics, and warlord traits from another army provides them with twice the options and many more times the potential combinations of options. The odds that you're going to be able to find something broken are dramatically increased.
If this wasn't the case, then Soup would provide nobody any benefit, and we all know that soup has been perfectly balanced all edition and has caused no problems nor complaints!
Space marine fanboys have never complained about soup lists!
In the december data gaurd did reasonably well (BA data was not in there yet from the new update). Gaurd is still pretty strong and often gaurd means gaurd and knights or gaurd and custodes or something but that is what martel is talking about anyways I think. Martles complaint is mainly a matchup issue. Hordes beat elite melle armies...that is just the way it is. He'd be better of spamming shooty intercessors to clear those guardsmen than bringing a bunch of iconic BA stuff like SG and Libby dreads/mephiston.
It's just my personal opinion that BA likely fall under the IF/IH power level. They are in the lower tier of marines. They don't even have the chapter master upgrade (a big loss) they are great in melle. They don't have ven dreads (one of marines best units) but they can just take contemptors mortis. I would put them somewhere around ultramarine power level which realistically is like...mid tier game wide.
Martel is mostly saying that the weakness of BA isnt fixed and it is still countered the same way and there is no downside to counter it with hordes of chaff in GW missions. In ITC you at least get points for killing. Not that guard is broken and BA cant win at all. Not even seeing him say BA shouldnt have bad weaknesses/matchups but using it mainly to illustrate an example.
BA is obviously buffed but not nearly to the same level as the better supplements since BA lack some of the strongest units and lack good all around traits, relics(more strat related to them), powers and stratagems that the true supplements got. You cant really build very well against IH since they can play about anything except perhaps Assault Marine spam very well and can easily change lists according to the meta since its the overall power of their and IF/RG rules that make them so good. For BA its a few JP units, a trait, a relic and a handfull of stratagems that all do one thing and its relative easy to counter since they cant do anything else really.
Dont think ITC or GW mission really affects BA. Killing gets rewarded more in ITC but also artillery units that can threaten t4 3+ behind screens are also better in ITC, and they are really strong since they force BA to engage even with loads of terrain, so I think it doesnt matter too much overall for BA which set of rules is played. Some matchups might change though since other armies will change certain things depending on mission type and that will also affect us.
Soup will always provide the benefit of Cheap CP generation and objective holding for elite armies. Which IMO is the main reason it is used - the other is to fill rolls your army doesn't have (IE guard don't have great Mobil melee so shield captains work great for them). It typically not combos that they are looking for. In the case of eldar bringing doom for DE stuff - that got shut down really quick because it was broken.
Marines can take a lot of WL traits and relics. They aren't free though - they cost pregame CP. That is CP they can't use on stratagems later. So it is a give and take. For example my ultramarines are typically spending 7 CP pregame - giving me like 6 strating CP. I get a lot out of that. 6+ FNP aura from an apoth - a chapter master - typically an additional relic. However - That means I'm not shooting twice with an intercessors squad every turn. It also means I wont have CP to fight again with my chaplain dread...these are big considerations. Plus marines lose their main source of power if they go for cheap CP regen from IG and cheap marine CP batteries are utter garbage - scouts and tech marines are pretty damn bad. IMO you are always better off taking quality detachments with marines which pretty much maxes you out at 14 CP (if you decide to take 5 hq's) 13 if you take 4.
Having had a few matches against Eldar (playing Blood Angels myself), I can definitely see they're pretty handy.
I actually think, from my limited experience admittedly, that the game isn't anywhere near as imbalanced as it's often made out to be.
Club I play at also isn't filled with Marines either - in fact, I'm the only regular player (there was a IH player I saw once and a Grey Knights player, again only saw once), but other than that there are Eldar, Tyranids, Thousand Sons, Astra Militarum, Genestealer Cults.
I used guardsmen, but I could insert any cheap throwaway model. I could also replace BA with BT. Or even WS. Klickor has the right of it: people are clinging to my exact examples too much.
Also, GW terrain rules suck for assault armies. Being shot through windows is awful.
I actually disagree somewhat Martel, BT have two ways of getting 6" consolidates (stratagem and litany) and the no-fallback stratagem that makes screens significantly less effective. Having to spread your screens out with a 7" gap is much worse than a 4" radius, and if you can charge one guardsman squad and tag a second you can hide in combat. It's still going to suck, but dropping some stuff in turn 1 and combining it with a barrage of TFCs and Intercessors plonking away gives you a decent shot to be able to capitalize on the disorganization in the enemy ranks in turn 2 in a way that I don't think Blood Angels can.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: I actually disagree somewhat Martel, BT have two ways of getting 6" consolidates (stratagem and litany) and the no-fallback stratagem that makes screens significantly less effective. Having to spread your screens out with a 7" gap is much worse than a 4" radius, and if you can charge one guardsman squad and tag a second you can hide in combat. It's still going to suck, but dropping some stuff in turn 1 and combining it with a barrage of TFCs and Intercessors plonking away gives you a decent shot to be able to capitalize on the disorganization in the enemy ranks in turn 2 in a way that I don't think Blood Angels can.
From a tournament perspective the fact that BA can be combined with other codex marine armies without breaking doctrines basically makes mono-BA lists a conceptual thing that won't happen if you're looking to get the maximum power out of marines.
You'll combine a BA detachment to get an elite melee unit, and use an IF/IH detachment for everything else.
I'm going to bang on this drum again, but to add to this, it's the same people writing these ITC missions that are testing the CA approved missions and signing them off as fit for purpose. Either they're intentionally misleading GW with the mission feedback (possibly to keep ITC being a thing), GW aren't playtesting them or people are blindly stuck in their ways and unwilling to try change.
While they are subject to NDA regarding the play-testing I am pretty sure several of them have dropped very heavy hints that they use GW missions for the play-testing. Which is pretty much exactly what you would expect GW to mandate.
Wayniac wrote: Martel's entire argument is that, his skill aside, he can pick the ITC secondary that's about killing hordes of dudes (I think it's 1 point for killing 10+? It might have been changed) and get extra VP while slogging through hordes, while in a non-ITC mission VP doesn't come from that (there might be a Maelstrom card for it? No idea) so he's at 0 until he can slog through 100 guys, if he can at all. ITC missions let him be at let's say 3 (3 turns of trying to get through) instead of 0 so he feels like he's doing something other than killing guys without any benefit for doing it.
That's it. And honestly, I wouldn't mind if the GW missions had something like that as a bonus in some missions. My issue with ITC secondaries is entirely that they are able to be tailored to your oppponent. So if you play someone with 100 dudes, you will pick the "kill hordes" secondary. If they have all elites, you will pick that. All knights, you pick the superheavy one. Etc. etc. it puts even more emphasis on what you bring versus how you use it, since you get to pick what extra bonuses you get based on your opponent's army, rather than not being certain of what you might face and having that push you more towards covering all your bases. It encourages the sort of gamey specific netlists that we see because there's no drawback to bringing a skew list since you'll always have SOME secondary objective that gives you a bonus against any sort of list.
While it's my viewpoint that being able to do that is part of the problem. If you didn't' know what mission you would get or, in the case of Maelstrom what card you might draw (I love the new version of this, however) it means you are less incentivized to bring a heavy skew list since you might get a mission that doesn't favor your skew and be at a disadvantage. On the contrary, you are incentivized to bring a more well-balanced list that can handle any of the missions you might get. Knowing the mission(s) beforehand on top of being able to tailor your secondaries removes any reason whatsoever to bring something more balanced.
The problem with Martel's view is he's fixating on killing those 150 dudes. Can't say for sure, but this may be a result of him playing nothing but ITC, where you can get rewarded for that and not appreciating that in many of the CA missions it doesn't really matter if you kill 100 Guardsmen or not. It's often much more important that you kill a specific 20-30 Guardsmen so you can control objectives. In the new Maelstrom missions you can tailor your deck to the opponent somewhat. So if you don't think you'll have much board control, take out a bunch of the objective-based cards and vice-versa. I agree adding in the odd secondary to the CA missions along those lines might be interesting.
I'm fixated on it because they physically prevent my army from functioning.
Define function please, it's not preventing you from capping/contesting objectives in your half/midfield, you have some shenanigans to get to the backfield if needed. What does it prevent you from doing that stops you competing within a game?
No good horde player lets me in their backfield. BA still obey all rules of deep strike. I can't cap or contest if my models are dead which happens very quickly vs Imperial gunline.
I'm going to bang on this drum again, but to add to this, it's the same people writing these ITC missions that are testing the CA approved missions and signing them off as fit for purpose. Either they're intentionally misleading GW with the mission feedback (possibly to keep ITC being a thing), GW aren't playtesting them or people are blindly stuck in their ways and unwilling to try change.
While they are subject to NDA regarding the play-testing I am pretty sure several of them have dropped very heavy hints that they use GW missions for the play-testing. Which is pretty much exactly what you would expect GW to mandate.
This just complicates things as it suggests that either they're intentionally skewing for ITC balance in some places or that they're intentionally moving and balancing away from their own mission packs.
zerosignal wrote: GW terrain rules suck full stop. I use an absolute boatload of terrain when I play; planet bowling ball is not a fun game at all.
A board can be full of GW terrain, and I can still be shot like it IS planet bowling ball. ITC ruins are sadly pretty critical and it still hard to survive.
Wayniac wrote: Martel's entire argument is that, his skill aside, he can pick the ITC secondary that's about killing hordes of dudes (I think it's 1 point for killing 10+? It might have been changed) and get extra VP while slogging through hordes, while in a non-ITC mission VP doesn't come from that (there might be a Maelstrom card for it? No idea) so he's at 0 until he can slog through 100 guys, if he can at all. ITC missions let him be at let's say 3 (3 turns of trying to get through) instead of 0 so he feels like he's doing something other than killing guys without any benefit for doing it.
That's it. And honestly, I wouldn't mind if the GW missions had something like that as a bonus in some missions. My issue with ITC secondaries is entirely that they are able to be tailored to your oppponent. So if you play someone with 100 dudes, you will pick the "kill hordes" secondary. If they have all elites, you will pick that. All knights, you pick the superheavy one. Etc. etc. it puts even more emphasis on what you bring versus how you use it, since you get to pick what extra bonuses you get based on your opponent's army, rather than not being certain of what you might face and having that push you more towards covering all your bases. It encourages the sort of gamey specific netlists that we see because there's no drawback to bringing a skew list since you'll always have SOME secondary objective that gives you a bonus against any sort of list.
While it's my viewpoint that being able to do that is part of the problem. If you didn't' know what mission you would get or, in the case of Maelstrom what card you might draw (I love the new version of this, however) it means you are less incentivized to bring a heavy skew list since you might get a mission that doesn't favor your skew and be at a disadvantage. On the contrary, you are incentivized to bring a more well-balanced list that can handle any of the missions you might get. Knowing the mission(s) beforehand on top of being able to tailor your secondaries removes any reason whatsoever to bring something more balanced.
The problem with Martel's view is he's fixating on killing those 150 dudes. Can't say for sure, but this may be a result of him playing nothing but ITC, where you can get rewarded for that and not appreciating that in many of the CA missions it doesn't really matter if you kill 100 Guardsmen or not. It's often much more important that you kill a specific 20-30 Guardsmen so you can control objectives. In the new Maelstrom missions you can tailor your deck to the opponent somewhat. So if you don't think you'll have much board control, take out a bunch of the objective-based cards and vice-versa. I agree adding in the odd secondary to the CA missions along those lines might be interesting.
I'm fixated on it because they physically prevent my army from functioning.
Define function please, it's not preventing you from capping/contesting objectives in your half/midfield, you have some shenanigans to get to the backfield if needed. What does it prevent you from doing that stops you competing within a game?
No good horde player lets me in their backfield. BA still obey all rules of deep strike. I can't cap or contest if my models are dead which happens very quickly vs Imperial gunline.
I'm still confused, so they're managing to block out 60%+ of the board with a tiny proportion of their army if they have that much quality shooting. But at the same time you lack the firepower to shift guardsmen who are stuck in their back field blocking you out of deep strike?
They get 100 models for 400 pts. That's how. That's tremendous board control for 20% of their points. Guardsmen are still pretty hard to kill for cost, even if marine gunlines got cranked to 11.
What a real marine list would do is just zorf the problem units with an executioner or something like that. GW funnels the BA, BT, and WS into punching which is far inferior.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Someone please explain this idea that having more psychic powers/warlord traits/relics than someone else is inherently broken from a game-balance perspective.
An extreme example:
You have 48 different stratagems, 24 warlord traits, and 12 relics.
I have 6 stratagems, 3 warlord traits, and 1 relic.
My relic says that "When a model in your army destroys an enemy model, you win the game". How much influence is the fact that you have eight times as many stratagems as I going to have?
Obviously in your extreme example the suggestion does not work. Your extreme example is not realistic, however.
In reality having more options, more competitive play styles, more successful lists is obviously a benefit for a faction because it means that players of other factions are less able to predict what they are going to need to do to win the game against such an opponent. Not to mention that the more options a faction has, the more likely they have a competitive/OP option available to them. In addition it is exponentially more likely the faction has OP interactions and combos when they have more WL traits, stratagems etc to mix together.
If I go to a tournament and play against Codex Marines I could be against a huge range of different competitive builds. This is harder to counter and plan for.
If I go to a tournament and play against Tau I am against one of two very similar competitive builds or I am against an unoptimised list. The builds are well known, as are the way they play to win the game. This is much easier to counter and plan for.
You actually need a very tiny amount of points to screen much of the board. A 30 guardsmen list isnt a problem but when it goes above twice that it gets difficult. If BA had TFCs and some shooting buffs like the other marines it wouldnt be much of a problem clearing screens when its needed. But if you as a BA player need to move in to line of sight of tank commanders with your intercessors and other shooty units they soon gets wiped out but you most go out and clear and hope you remove enough of them that when your JP units get there there are no pesky guardsmen in the way. A BA list is most likely facing full firepower the first 2 turns since our efficient anti tank are all melee options so unlike against other marines they dont start loosing tanks turn 1 and maybe even not on turn 2. So if it goes until turn 3 before you can get through the screens then its very likely most of your things not in deepstrike are dead or you have given up a lot of the board/VPs and need to turn it around quick or you lose. Which will be hard when they most likely will have most of their tanks, bullgryns and knights left and if you dont kill them and get stuck in the open up close to those you die.
Another marine army against BA need very few scouts/incursors/infiltrators to stop any shenanigans at all and often you can use the artillery to screen 10" behind. This is more of the reality now and even harder to deal with than guard but the same principles apply.
BA in astartes soup is probably gonna be amazing but mono BA isnt gonna make drastic changes from where they were before.
Terrain rules do suck, I will say ITC's bottom floor rule is good there. Honestly, I think the cities of death version of terrain rules should have become baseline and adopted, those are pretty good.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: I actually disagree somewhat Martel, BT have two ways of getting 6" consolidates (stratagem and litany) and the no-fallback stratagem that makes screens significantly less effective. Having to spread your screens out with a 7" gap is much worse than a 4" radius, and if you can charge one guardsman squad and tag a second you can hide in combat. It's still going to suck, but dropping some stuff in turn 1 and combining it with a barrage of TFCs and Intercessors plonking away gives you a decent shot to be able to capitalize on the disorganization in the enemy ranks in turn 2 in a way that I don't think Blood Angels can.
From a tournament perspective the fact that BA can be combined with other codex marine armies without breaking doctrines basically makes mono-BA lists a conceptual thing that won't happen if you're looking to get the maximum power out of marines.
You'll combine a BA detachment to get an elite melee unit, and use an IF/IH detachment for everything else.
Both IH and CF lose their super doctrines and your BA as well. So you gain some traits for the shooty detachment but give up turn 3 melle bonus (lets be honest that turn 3 is a big melle round.) It's not as if regular marines don't have decent enough melle without BA. My ultras pretty much woop everything in CC that comes at me. Chaplain dreads +1 attack banner and 37 intercessors usually wins in CC vs both hordes and elite units. The issue is dedicated melle is just not good unless it's turn 1 charging vs unscreened units.
Another issue with the horde vs elite is the way objective caping is done. 10 guardsmen beat 9 marines when w/in 3" of the objective.
If objective control was done based on the PL of the units contesting or points value vs the sheer number of models some of the sting of looking out at 100 gaunts would be reduced because they can't just swamp the objective and make you kill them.
The ITC vs GW missions is a weird thing because GWs missions, until CA2019, removed a lot of the player agency and led to situations where regardless of your play the game state could be in a situation where, due to the RNG of the maelstrom cards, you practically couldn't win. Maybe fun for a beer and pretzels game but when the point of the game is to win, having the goal taken away without anything you can do about it doesn't lead to a great experience.
CA2019 does a much better job of addressing those feels bad moments and hopefully some of it is incorporated into tournament formats in the future.
Martel does illustrate a problem with the way GW "balances" the game. BA got the short end of the stick with the PA release (although longer than some of the xeno factions) with missing out on a lot of the basic buffs from the space marine 2.0 upgrade (proper chapter master re-rolls and some really good units). The "unique" chapters should have been based off the 2.0 books with unit restrictions (no TFC/Cents...) and additions (sang guard) in a proper codex supplement rather than 4 pages in a campaign book.
Now SW players are suffering from this doubly because having to wait 6-8 months to be playable has left me feeling quite bitter and salty about 40k in general (already had an uphill battle, now it's not even worth putting my models on the table without a significant pre-game discussion, forget about playing a competitive game). If all the 2.0 stuff was released at once (and it's all been done for a while now) GW could go forward with balancing what they've broken but until this release cycle is complete new meta-breaking things are going to keep popping up because it's clear that GW has no idea how to balance units/abilities/strats without a beta release to the community at large.
The fact that a lot of you don't understand how strong guard shooting/board presence is just means you have never played against someone like Brandon Grant who leverages the footprint and speed of guard units to dictate where you can land, what you can fight while controlling the initiative of the first turn or two to put you on the back foot and make your decisions that much harder for you. Shield drones do a very similar thing for Richard Siegler with the added problem that you can't wrap them and the make his shooting pretty much invincible until turn 3 (I've played both, they are way better than I am and could probably beat me with grey knights but whatever).
The issue is that marines, now, can just brute force their way through superior play leaving a lot of armies without any way to contest/control objectives after t2 because of the oppressive fire-power of marines 2.0 which is an issue across all formats.
Regardless of the format I'm pretty sure I ID'd the issues that GW could address with the SM 2.0 release that would take the game back to a playable state for a lot of players (outside of the "pros" who will adapt because they understand the game better, have more time and greater 40k resources and the other end of the scale because they don't care about balance and just want to push the narrative).
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Someone please explain this idea that having more psychic powers/warlord traits/relics than someone else is inherently broken from a game-balance perspective.
An extreme example:
You have 48 different stratagems, 24 warlord traits, and 12 relics.
I have 6 stratagems, 3 warlord traits, and 1 relic.
My relic says that "When a model in your army destroys an enemy model, you win the game". How much influence is the fact that you have eight times as many stratagems as I going to have?
Obviously in your extreme example the suggestion does not work. Your extreme example is not realistic, however.
In reality having more options, more competitive play styles, more successful lists is obviously a benefit for a faction because it means that players of other factions are less able to predict what they are going to need to do to win the game against such an opponent. Not to mention that the more options a faction has, the more likely they have a competitive/OP option available to them. In addition it is exponentially more likely the faction has OP interactions and combos when they have more WL traits, stratagems etc to mix together.
If I go to a tournament and play against Codex Marines I could be against a huge range of different competitive builds. This is harder to counter and plan for.
If I go to a tournament and play against Tau I am against one of two very similar competitive builds or I am against an unoptimised list. The builds are well known, as are the way they play to win the game. This is much easier to counter and plan for.
I'd nitpick and say that the likelihood of having some strong strats doesn't make having more OP, but overall your explanation is rather reasonable. There's also an argument to be made that the variety of stratagems only applies on a listbuilding level, in that once you see what you're facing you'd be able to know what to do to fight that particular variation. Still, having an advantage in the list-building stage is obviously good.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Someone please explain this idea that having more psychic powers/warlord traits/relics than someone else is inherently broken from a game-balance perspective.
An extreme example:
You have 48 different stratagems, 24 warlord traits, and 12 relics.
I have 6 stratagems, 3 warlord traits, and 1 relic.
My relic says that "When a model in your army destroys an enemy model, you win the game". How much influence is the fact that you have eight times as many stratagems as I going to have?
Obviously in your extreme example the suggestion does not work. Your extreme example is not realistic, however.
In reality having more options, more competitive play styles, more successful lists is obviously a benefit for a faction because it means that players of other factions are less able to predict what they are going to need to do to win the game against such an opponent. Not to mention that the more options a faction has, the more likely they have a competitive/OP option available to them. In addition it is exponentially more likely the faction has OP interactions and combos when they have more WL traits, stratagems etc to mix together.
If I go to a tournament and play against Codex Marines I could be against a huge range of different competitive builds. This is harder to counter and plan for.
If I go to a tournament and play against Tau I am against one of two very similar competitive builds or I am against an unoptimised list. The builds are well known, as are the way they play to win the game. This is much easier to counter and plan for.
Whilst I can see where you are coming from with more options = higher performance. This doesn't automatically make it the case, just look at TV, lots and lots and lots of channels, mostly filled with nothing worth watching.
Isn't being able to provide a variety of lists a sign of something that is (internally) balanced? That there isn't a single optimium solution?
Also as far as not knowing what kind of list you are going to face and thus not knowing how to counter them, how does having different flavours of marines differ from there being entirely different armys... Afterall there are Daemons, Guard, Knights, Nids, Eldar, Ad-Mec, Orks.....
Wayniac wrote:Terrain rules do suck, I will say ITC's bottom floor rule is good there. Honestly, I think the cities of death version of terrain rules should have become baseline and adopted, those are pretty good.
Martel732 wrote:Why GW likes those "mesh" walls, I have no idea. Yeah, I'll shoot this executioner laser through a cathedral window.
Would agree that the terrian rules are exceedingly weak. Being able to shoot at 100% efficiency a target that is 99% obscured by terrain, but not in any terrain is a huge huge weakness.
As for the ITC ruin rules have you checked out GWs take on the issue? The principle difference being that if those bottom floor ruins are blocking LOS irrespective of opennings then they are classed as impassable terrtain (i.e. Infantry can't pass through them)?
Yeah, the poor terrain rules is one of the biggest weaknesses of the current edition. But the official rules are still much better than ITC's invincible magic boxes. It worries me that people who came up with that are involved in the playtesting... (Certainly explains how so many obviously abusable things slip through the playtesting...)
I feel like to solve the magic box conundrum heavy weapons should be able to attack the buildings/ruins. Maybe just give any building/ruin 10 wounds with a 4+ save and automatically explode for d3 mortal wounds to any units inside (they emergency disembark) if the building is destroyed. After that they are just considered to be area terrain.
Probably to advanced but would solve the problem. It really is dumb...being in a shanty ruin is basically the worst place you could possible be if you are taking fire from .50. A tank can pop an HE into any building and kill everything inside a lot easier than if they were in the open. Even today they make handheld grenade launchers specifically designed for ruining people in enclosed buildings. These aren't fortified bunkers for crying out loud.
Another Idea I had for ILOS weapons would be that they obviously can't be fired when inside a building/ruin with a roof and have to be 3 inches away from any ruin/building in order to be fired (have to be able to shoot over the wall). These would be specifically ITC house rule fixes to the issues with their house rules.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Someone please explain this idea that having more psychic powers/warlord traits/relics than someone else is inherently broken from a game-balance perspective.
An extreme example:
You have 48 different stratagems, 24 warlord traits, and 12 relics.
I have 6 stratagems, 3 warlord traits, and 1 relic.
My relic says that "When a model in your army destroys an enemy model, you win the game". How much influence is the fact that you have eight times as many stratagems as I going to have?
Realistically most armies only use a handful of the strategems, WL traits, and relic choices available to them since a significant chunk will be bad or not relevant so let's assume 25% of each are actually usable. They have 12 strategems, 6 warlord traits and 3 relics to choose from and build a list around. You have 2 strategems, 1 warlord trait and maybe a useful relic to build with. Your opponent is more likely to be able to assemble a strong synergistic list than you are. If you want to test this, try playing an army that didn't have a codex yet using only the strategems, WL traits, and relic available in CA 2017 against armies with access to their full codex. Its possible, but it will be a lot harder and you will notice that your opponent will more frequently have something to use CP on than you do.
Now let's test this with an extreme example that actually involves playing out the game since an instant "I win, the game is over" doesn't actually test anything. Using only the CA 2017 options or a non-marine codex, play against a marine list that is allowed to use every single supplement/PA strategem, WL trait, and relic available as if they were every chapter at the same time, but still only using units from 1 chapter. Iron Hands smash captains, overwatch that hits on 5+ and can use the ultramarine bootleg FTGG, self sacrifice iron hand intercessors protecting your choice of aggressors/centurions of any flavor that were infiltrated into position via raven guard strats. Even if its only 1 or 2 extra strategems total from each supplement being used, you can see how broken combos start to really pile on.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Someone please explain this idea that having more psychic powers/warlord traits/relics than someone else is inherently broken from a game-balance perspective.
An extreme example:
You have 48 different stratagems, 24 warlord traits, and 12 relics.
I have 6 stratagems, 3 warlord traits, and 1 relic.
My relic says that "When a model in your army destroys an enemy model, you win the game". How much influence is the fact that you have eight times as many stratagems as I going to have?
Realistically most armies only use a handful of the strategems, WL traits, and relic choices available to them since a significant chunk will be bad or not relevant so let's assume 25% of each are actually usable. They have 12 strategems, 6 warlord traits and 3 relics to choose from and build a list around. You have 2 strategems, 1 warlord trait and maybe a useful relic to build with. Your opponent is more likely to be able to assemble a strong synergistic list than you are. If you want to test this, try playing an army that didn't have a codex yet using only the strategems, WL traits, and relic available in CA 2017 against armies with access to their full codex. Its possible, but it will be a lot harder and you will notice that your opponent will more frequently have something to use CP on than you do.
Now let's test this with an extreme example that actually involves playing out the game since an instant "I win, the game is over" doesn't actually test anything. Using only the CA 2017 options or a non-marine codex, play against a marine list that is allowed to use every single supplement/PA strategem, WL trait, and relic available as if they were every chapter at the same time, but still only using units from 1 chapter. Iron Hands smash captains, overwatch that hits on 5+ and can use the ultramarine bootleg FTGG, self sacrifice iron hand intercessors protecting your choice of aggressors/centurions of any flavor that were infiltrated into position via raven guard strats. Even if its only 1 or 2 extra strategems total from each supplement being used, you can see how broken combos start to really pile on.
But, again, that is due to the quality of the stratagems, not the quantity. The CA2017 options were pretty poor, whereas some of the stratagems in Codex: Space Marines are really good. Take Imperial Guard pre-Vigilus as an example. They have a bunch of stratagems that aren't all that great. A single powerful stratagem on its own can warp the game much harder than a billion useless ones.
The argument with options is that you get the edge case stratagems. Don't plan to use this every game, but if circumstance X turns up, use stratagem Y for high value. It beats not having the option at all because you are not paying anything but the potential.
But yeah, normally having lots of obviously inferior options that have to be used instead of better ones (relics, warlord traits, chapter tactics) doesn't help.
Martel732 wrote: No, they're not better. 1st floor LoS blockers are critical.
That is actually a nice rule, a lot of people I have talked to who don’t play ITC like that one, same for the rule about objectives counting as on the ground floor even if they are not. We generally don’t play the ITC missions as we don’t find them as fun in the super casual flgs I primarily play at.
bananathug wrote: The fact that a lot of you don't understand how strong guard shooting/board presence is just means you have never played against someone like Brandon Grant who leverages the footprint and speed of guard units to dictate where you can land, what you can fight while controlling the initiative of the first turn or two to put you on the back foot and make your decisions that much harder for you. Shield drones do a very similar thing for Richard Siegler with the added problem that you can't wrap them and the make his shooting pretty much invincible until turn 3 (I've played both, they are way better than I am and could probably beat me with grey knights but whatever).
These are good points but where do we put skill in this equation? People who have a better understanding of the game will be at an advantage no matter what army they play.
A pure codex astartes list can,only counting supplements and not vigilus or PA, have 80 or so stratagems, choose between 30 warlord traits, 36 psychic powers and more relics than i care to count and use up to 7 chapter tactics across their 3 detachments each gaining what is most suitable for the units inside it. Sure they lose the super doctrine but its not like every option available is bad. Even if most of the options arent that good its hard for even GW to make all of them bad and even though quite a few are situational with so many available you will propably have something good for each situation.
And quite a few relics, traits and stratagems have already been nerfed. IH, RG and Salamanders have all had some nerfs to these options but they still have many powerful left.
One of the real strength of all these options are that you dont have to commit many of them until you actually see your opponents list and what mission you are playing. Might not matter if you only have 2 relevant warlord traits but for marines who can get a warlord trait extra on a non warlord mdoel and 2, from a host of good ones, on the warlord it can definetly change things. Same with the librarians and the chaplains.
Lets say you have a RG detachment and have an infantry squad (that isnt centurions since if it were you would do it anyway) you usally put in reserve but against certain lists you might want to deploy them forward, then you can use honor the chappter on a hq and Master of Ambush that unit instead. But against close combat armies you keep it in reserve instead and use the stratagem.
You can do lots of things like that with astartes soup and its hard for other players to know what can be done or not since the options for marines are so insanely many that you can surprise people and get an advantage just because of that.
bananathug wrote: The fact that a lot of you don't understand how strong guard shooting/board presence is just means you have never played against someone like Brandon Grant who leverages the footprint and speed of guard units to dictate where you can land, what you can fight while controlling the initiative of the first turn or two to put you on the back foot and make your decisions that much harder for you. Shield drones do a very similar thing for Richard Siegler with the added problem that you can't wrap them and the make his shooting pretty much invincible until turn 3 (I've played both, they are way better than I am and could probably beat me with grey knights but whatever).
These are good points but where do we put skill in this equation? People who have a better understanding of the game will be at an advantage no matter what army they play.
My point is that marines 2.0 are so OP that they take skill out of the game. Maybe not totally but to the point where only a very large skill gap has any impact on the outcome of the game (like those guys vs me ). And that's when two armies are designed to be as cutthroat as possible, if both sides are not squeezing the most efficiencies out of their lists the imbalances are such that skill (or call it in game decisions) hardly impacts the outcome at all (a problem a lot of people have with a lot of IH lists).
When armies are so imbalanced AND you have such bad internal balance, you have a situation where a reasonably constructed army (not 100 assault marines) can have a nearly impossible matchup vs a different reasonably constructed army (IF vs GSC). This is more of a problem for pick-up games (not cutthroat tourny list or narrative lists between friends) but I think it turns a lot of people off to the game and creates a lot of feels bad moments. Feeling like you were going to lose regardless of your decisions is one of the most frustrating experiences I've had on the table top (my space wolves vs nu-marines) and is an issue that GW should balance around. The extreme ends will figure themselves out but the middle is kind of at the mercy of GW.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: I'd nitpick and say that the likelihood of having some strong strats doesn't make having more OP, but overall your explanation is rather reasonable. There's also an argument to be made that the variety of stratagems only applies on a listbuilding level, in that once you see what you're facing you'd be able to know what to do to fight that particular variation. Still, having an advantage in the list-building stage is obviously good.
It's not guaranteed that a faction with more stuff gets the better stuff for sure, just much more likely. Exponentially so when we imagine different combinations that can be combined to create uber combos. The more combos you can make, the more chance some of them are busted.
Whilst I can see where you are coming from with more options = higher performance. This doesn't automatically make it the case, just look at TV, lots and lots and lots of channels, mostly filled with nothing worth watching.
Isn't being able to provide a variety of lists a sign of something that is (internally) balanced? That there isn't a single optimium solution?
Also as far as not knowing what kind of list you are going to face and thus not knowing how to counter them, how does having different flavours of marines differ from there being entirely different armys... Afterall there are Daemons, Guard, Knights, Nids, Eldar, Ad-Mec, Orks.....
Indeed, it's not an automatic thing. That said the TV comparison isn't that useful. If we imagine a game, say chess for ease of discussion, where one player can use only 2 moves and the other player has 20 different moves to choose from, it is obvious that the player with more options is at a huge advantage. Assuming all stratagems, relics, WL traits etc are equal in their worth - the more options the better.
List variety does indeed mean great internal balance. It's just a shame when that internal balance comes at the cost of every other codex in the game.
Your not comparing apples and apples in your last sentence. Yes there are Orks, Ad Mech, GSC, Nids, Eldar etc. The "problem" we are discussing here is that one faction (Codex Marines) has 3-5 times the number of options than any other faction. This is one of the reasons (not the only one) Codex Marines are so strong competitively. For parity my Evil Sunz Orks (that is to say, my 'Chapter' of Orks) would have the same number of options as Raven Guard, IH etc. I have one unique relic, one unique WL trait and one unique Stratagem. How many do RG, IH, UM have? It's a huge discrepancy. For some reason some people seem to think this is OK too. My sub faction is less important and therefore less worthy of the number of rules interactions as the Codex Marines sub factions. This is bogus.
If I go to a tournament and play against Tau I am against one of two very similar competitive builds or I am against an unoptimised list. The builds are well known, as are the way they play to win the game. This is much easier to counter and plan for.
T'au already have lots of options - outside of ITC that is.
I am pretty sure my ridiculous Kroot/Vespid/Ghostkeel list would beat a typical Riptide/Shield Drone list 7/10 games in CA19 missions. So long as I do not bleed kill points for my Kroot dying I am going to win on objectives (plus the fact that kroot kill shield drones a lot faster than shield drones kill kroot).
I do agree that in general having more options such as stratagems does open up more possible builds - but sometimes a top tier competitive army is not about how many options it has so much as just having one really stupidly good combo. Honstly you could take 3/4 of the strats/relics/traits away from Iron Hands and nobody would even notice.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Someone please explain this idea that having more psychic powers/warlord traits/relics than someone else is inherently broken from a game-balance perspective.
An extreme example:
You have 48 different stratagems, 24 warlord traits, and 12 relics.
I have 6 stratagems, 3 warlord traits, and 1 relic.
My relic says that "When a model in your army destroys an enemy model, you win the game". How much influence is the fact that you have eight times as many stratagems as I going to have?
Realistically most armies only use a handful of the strategems, WL traits, and relic choices available to them since a significant chunk will be bad or not relevant so let's assume 25% of each are actually usable. They have 12 strategems, 6 warlord traits and 3 relics to choose from and build a list around. You have 2 strategems, 1 warlord trait and maybe a useful relic to build with. Your opponent is more likely to be able to assemble a strong synergistic list than you are. If you want to test this, try playing an army that didn't have a codex yet using only the strategems, WL traits, and relic available in CA 2017 against armies with access to their full codex. Its possible, but it will be a lot harder and you will notice that your opponent will more frequently have something to use CP on than you do.
Now let's test this with an extreme example that actually involves playing out the game since an instant "I win, the game is over" doesn't actually test anything. Using only the CA 2017 options or a non-marine codex, play against a marine list that is allowed to use every single supplement/PA strategem, WL trait, and relic available as if they were every chapter at the same time, but still only using units from 1 chapter. Iron Hands smash captains, overwatch that hits on 5+ and can use the ultramarine bootleg FTGG, self sacrifice iron hand intercessors protecting your choice of aggressors/centurions of any flavor that were infiltrated into position via raven guard strats. Even if its only 1 or 2 extra strategems total from each supplement being used, you can see how broken combos start to really pile on.
But, again, that is due to the quality of the stratagems, not the quantity. The CA2017 options were pretty poor, whereas some of the stratagems in Codex: Space Marines are really good. Take Imperial Guard pre-Vigilus as an example. They have a bunch of stratagems that aren't all that great. A single powerful stratagem on its own can warp the game much harder than a billion useless ones.
When I play choas 100% of my stratagem points are paid into units shooting twice with +1 to wound and command rerolls on failed spells and damage. I honestly don't even need to know what the other stratagems do (sometimes ill do +1 attack for a black legion unit). Nothing comes close to how effective these stratagems are. For marines too. You ether take a special unit like grav devs/cents and utilize the "use this stratagem for grav cannons stratagem" or you don't use grav cannons or the stratagem. 1/2 damage for dreads is literally the only straagem outside of warlord trait and relic ones that I use with any regularity. Out of 48 stratems lol. Most stratagems are cookie cutter for a particular unit. Number of stratagems also has nothing to do with quality. For example the AD mech servitor maniple (or whatever the one that buffs destroyers is) Literally all those stratagems are better than anything in the admech codex if you build your army around it.
In all truthfulness - space marine stratagems are middle of the ground. Choas and imperial knights have the best stratagems IMO. Reasoning - IK stratagems give you the most powerful relic weapons in the game...do stuff like buff 500 point models/ bring 500-600 point modles back to life. (also look at all the knight lists running tyranis these days....uh OFC resurrecting knights and fighting at full power next urn is OPAF) Plus the Slannesh (OMG it might as well have 0 requirements) shoot twice with any infantry unit and +1 to wound for 3 CP...(clearly the best stratagem combo in the whole game (also can fight twice with +1 to wound for the the same CP). For some reason it costs me 2 CP to shoot twice with a 10 man intercessor squad with no ability to get +1 to wound...Can't use it on dev cents or dev squads...has to be intercessors. I would trade all my stragems for the ability to shoot twice at +1 to wound with a unit for marines in a heartbeat.
bananathug wrote: The fact that a lot of you don't understand how strong guard shooting/board presence is just means you have never played against someone like Brandon Grant who leverages the footprint and speed of guard units to dictate where you can land, what you can fight while controlling the initiative of the first turn or two to put you on the back foot and make your decisions that much harder for you. Shield drones do a very similar thing for Richard Siegler with the added problem that you can't wrap them and the make his shooting pretty much invincible until turn 3 (I've played both, they are way better than I am and could probably beat me with grey knights but whatever).
These are good points but where do we put skill in this equation? People who have a better understanding of the game will be at an advantage no matter what army they play.
My point is that marines 2.0 are so OP that they take skill out of the game. Maybe not totally but to the point where only a very large skill gap has any impact on the outcome of the game (like those guys vs me ). And that's when two armies are designed to be as cutthroat as possible, if both sides are not squeezing the most efficiencies out of their lists the imbalances are such that skill (or call it in game decisions) hardly impacts the outcome at all (a problem a lot of people have with a lot of IH lists).
When armies are so imbalanced AND you have such bad internal balance, you have a situation where a reasonably constructed army (not 100 assault marines) can have a nearly impossible matchup vs a different reasonably constructed army (IF vs GSC). This is more of a problem for pick-up games (not cutthroat tourny list or narrative lists between friends) but I think it turns a lot of people off to the game and creates a lot of feels bad moments. Feeling like you were going to lose regardless of your decisions is one of the most frustrating experiences I've had on the table top (my space wolves vs nu-marines) and is an issue that GW should balance around. The extreme ends will figure themselves out but the middle is kind of at the mercy of GW.
I think it is time you realize the skill in this game is mostly list building and rolling the dice to go first. There are skills like maximizing tie up for assault and just knowing how all the rules work and not making mistakes but the skill ceiling is very low with a reasonably high skill floor.
Build army correctly
Deploy army correctly
Minimize damage from enemy assaults
Don't forget to shoot your units at the right targets
You are now a pro player. It also REALLY helps when you roll way above average.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Someone please explain this idea that having more psychic powers/warlord traits/relics than someone else is inherently broken from a game-balance perspective.
An extreme example:
You have 48 different stratagems, 24 warlord traits, and 12 relics.
I have 6 stratagems, 3 warlord traits, and 1 relic.
My relic says that "When a model in your army destroys an enemy model, you win the game". How much influence is the fact that you have eight times as many stratagems as I going to have?
Realistically most armies only use a handful of the strategems, WL traits, and relic choices available to them since a significant chunk will be bad or not relevant so let's assume 25% of each are actually usable. They have 12 strategems, 6 warlord traits and 3 relics to choose from and build a list around. You have 2 strategems, 1 warlord trait and maybe a useful relic to build with. Your opponent is more likely to be able to assemble a strong synergistic list than you are. If you want to test this, try playing an army that didn't have a codex yet using only the strategems, WL traits, and relic available in CA 2017 against armies with access to their full codex. Its possible, but it will be a lot harder and you will notice that your opponent will more frequently have something to use CP on than you do.
Now let's test this with an extreme example that actually involves playing out the game since an instant "I win, the game is over" doesn't actually test anything. Using only the CA 2017 options or a non-marine codex, play against a marine list that is allowed to use every single supplement/PA strategem, WL trait, and relic available as if they were every chapter at the same time, but still only using units from 1 chapter. Iron Hands smash captains, overwatch that hits on 5+ and can use the ultramarine bootleg FTGG, self sacrifice iron hand intercessors protecting your choice of aggressors/centurions of any flavor that were infiltrated into position via raven guard strats. Even if its only 1 or 2 extra strategems total from each supplement being used, you can see how broken combos start to really pile on.
But, again, that is due to the quality of the stratagems, not the quantity. The CA2017 options were pretty poor, whereas some of the stratagems in Codex: Space Marines are really good. Take Imperial Guard pre-Vigilus as an example. They have a bunch of stratagems that aren't all that great. A single powerful stratagem on its own can warp the game much harder than a billion useless ones.
Quantity is what leads to quality. Notice how I said the vast majority were useless and MAYBE 25% will get used. The more options available the more likely there are going to be good ones. The more good ones available the better the combinations get. Pre-Vigilus guard are actually a fantastic way of proving this. They had a bunch of garbage strategems, but none of that matters because they had Kurov's Aquila and Grand Strategist. You take the loyal 32 for your cp farm and then proceed to fill the rest of the list with your choice of soup while never having to touch a single guard strategem. Every time a different piece was nerfed the list would simply swap out the pieces for the most efficient one. Didn't matter if it was a crucial strategem nerfed, point costs adjusted, or anything else. As long as there was a huge pile of options then it was simply a matter of time before the new netlist was found. Notice marines had to have their special snowflake doctrines to keep them from souping. They would absolutely take loyal 32 if they could keep doctrines.
Klickor wrote: A pure codex astartes list can,only counting supplements and not vigilus or PA, have 80 or so stratagems, choose between 30 warlord traits, 36 psychic powers and more relics than i care to count and use up to 7 chapter tactics across their 3 detachments each gaining what is most suitable for the units inside it. Sure they lose the super doctrine but its not like every option available is bad. Even if most of the options arent that good its hard for even GW to make all of them bad and even though quite a few are situational with so many available you will propably have something good for each situation.
And quite a few relics, traits and stratagems have already been nerfed. IH, RG and Salamanders have all had some nerfs to these options but they still have many powerful left.
One of the real strength of all these options are that you dont have to commit many of them until you actually see your opponents list and what mission you are playing. Might not matter if you only have 2 relevant warlord traits but for marines who can get a warlord trait extra on a non warlord mdoel and 2, from a host of good ones, on the warlord it can definetly change things. Same with the librarians and the chaplains.
Lets say you have a RG detachment and have an infantry squad (that isnt centurions since if it were you would do it anyway) you usally put in reserve but against certain lists you might want to deploy them forward, then you can use honor the chappter on a hq and Master of Ambush that unit instead. But against close combat armies you keep it in reserve instead and use the stratagem.
You can do lots of things like that with astartes soup and its hard for other players to know what can be done or not since the options for marines are so insanely many that you can surprise people and get an advantage just because of that.
Maybe. You don't get access to nearly that much stuff. Marine players are not souping much. CP is an upper limit as well, but look at this list...
These are the top 25 most common detachment configs Sep though Dec (all types) with win rate and frequency of appearance. Pick out the souped marines and their performance. There are clearly factions that don't care about super docs and push through in other areas and are apparently very successful - more than Iron Hands.
Klickor wrote: A pure codex astartes list can,only counting supplements and not vigilus or PA, have 80 or so stratagems, choose between 30 warlord traits, 36 psychic powers and more relics than i care to count and use up to 7 chapter tactics across their 3 detachments each gaining what is most suitable for the units inside it. Sure they lose the super doctrine but its not like every option available is bad. Even if most of the options arent that good its hard for even GW to make all of them bad and even though quite a few are situational with so many available you will propably have something good for each situation.
And quite a few relics, traits and stratagems have already been nerfed. IH, RG and Salamanders have all had some nerfs to these options but they still have many powerful left.
One of the real strength of all these options are that you dont have to commit many of them until you actually see your opponents list and what mission you are playing. Might not matter if you only have 2 relevant warlord traits but for marines who can get a warlord trait extra on a non warlord mdoel and 2, from a host of good ones, on the warlord it can definetly change things. Same with the librarians and the chaplains.
Lets say you have a RG detachment and have an infantry squad (that isnt centurions since if it were you would do it anyway) you usally put in reserve but against certain lists you might want to deploy them forward, then you can use honor the chappter on a hq and Master of Ambush that unit instead. But against close combat armies you keep it in reserve instead and use the stratagem.
You can do lots of things like that with astartes soup and its hard for other players to know what can be done or not since the options for marines are so insanely many that you can surprise people and get an advantage just because of that.
Maybe. You don't get access to nearly that much stuff. Marine players are not souping much. CP is an upper limit as well, but look at this list...
These are the top 25 most common detachment configs Sep though Dec (all types) with win rate and frequency of appearance. Pick out the souped marines and their performance. There are clearly factions that don't care about super docs and push through in other areas and are apparently very successful - more than Iron Hands.
Are they flukes? Or hitting the meta hard?
I was mostly trying to say quantity is a quality on its own and would propably be used more if it werent the case that IH and IF super doctrines are both busted. But even if they were nerfed you wouldnt lose way too much since instead of going strong on mono IH/IF you could now soup in other chapters and exchange pure power for more flexibility and still stay very strong but not just as strong.
Like centurions in RG dont care about doctrines and artillery in IF mostly care about the -1ap and no cover bonuses and dont lose much by souping together. Same with white scars or blood angels mostly since their doctrines are too slow to really build around. These would probably see more play if the super doctrines got nerfed. I wish our IF player at the club who dont play in tournaments would paint up some TFCs so I could borrow them for the events and play mostly BA with an IF spearhead and a RG/UM successor for my 3 detachments. Way stronger than pure BA I think.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: I'd nitpick and say that the likelihood of having some strong strats doesn't make having more OP, but overall your explanation is rather reasonable. There's also an argument to be made that the variety of stratagems only applies on a listbuilding level, in that once you see what you're facing you'd be able to know what to do to fight that particular variation. Still, having an advantage in the list-building stage is obviously good.
It's not guaranteed that a faction with more stuff gets the better stuff for sure, just much more likely. Exponentially so when we imagine different combinations that can be combined to create uber combos. The more combos you can make, the more chance some of them are busted.
Whilst I can see where you are coming from with more options = higher performance. This doesn't automatically make it the case, just look at TV, lots and lots and lots of channels, mostly filled with nothing worth watching.
Isn't being able to provide a variety of lists a sign of something that is (internally) balanced? That there isn't a single optimium solution?
Also as far as not knowing what kind of list you are going to face and thus not knowing how to counter them, how does having different flavours of marines differ from there being entirely different armys... Afterall there are Daemons, Guard, Knights, Nids, Eldar, Ad-Mec, Orks.....
Indeed, it's not an automatic thing. That said the TV comparison isn't that useful. If we imagine a game, say chess for ease of discussion, where one player can use only 2 moves and the other player has 20 different moves to choose from, it is obvious that the player with more options is at a huge advantage. Assuming all stratagems, relics, WL traits etc are equal in their worth - the more options the better.
List variety does indeed mean great internal balance. It's just a shame when that internal balance comes at the cost of every other codex in the game.
Your not comparing apples and apples in your last sentence. Yes there are Orks, Ad Mech, GSC, Nids, Eldar etc. The "problem" we are discussing here is that one faction (Codex Marines) has 3-5 times the number of options than any other faction. This is one of the reasons (not the only one) Codex Marines are so strong competitively. For parity my Evil Sunz Orks (that is to say, my 'Chapter' of Orks) would have the same number of options as Raven Guard, IH etc. I have one unique relic, one unique WL trait and one unique Stratagem. How many do RG, IH, UM have? It's a huge discrepancy. For some reason some people seem to think this is OK too. My sub faction is less important and therefore less worthy of the number of rules interactions as the Codex Marines sub factions. This is bogus
.
But Astartes 'As a Faction' doesn't seem to be doing that well. I don't seem Black Templars nor Salamanders particularily winning events (or even in the Top 10). Sure some Chapters (and custom successors) are, but not all. Thus the issue would seem to be with particular sub-faction rather than with everything and anything out of C:SM.
Would agree that from the greater hobby perspective a single faction getting such love does strike rather bad favouritism. However greater choice of WL Trait, powers and Strategems are soo powerful does this mean following PA: Faith and Fury C:CSM will be zooming up the ratings? After all each of the legions was a choice of WL Trait and a page Strategems. If breadth of options is so valueable then no codex somes close to C:SM in terms of units, the V2 codex didn't change this, yet V1 C:SM wasn't exactly all conquering....
Martel732 wrote: No, they're not better. 1st floor LoS blockers are critical.
Not the 'base' rules, as in the rules for GWGT which can be found Here
Never played a GWGT, but these rules look okay. But the scoring is still very meh if they are just using CA missions.
Ah, scoring.... What scoring do you prefer? Given the the scoring is an integral to game balance as the 'core rulebook', the 'codex' and the (amount, variety and layout of) terrain then this produces a really tricky position if things are to be as balanced as possible in both GW set missions and the ITC set missions.
Currently there is something like 24 different codexes, giving ~276 non-mirror match mono-codex combinations. If you include 'set' subfactions then theres around 100 different options so giving >5,000 different mono-subfaction combinations of subfaction vs subfaction match up.
I think most can see how trying to balance this competitively (i.e. produce a complete rules set that will offer a 50% win ratio) is going to be a near impossible task, let alone trying to do this balancing with 2 different sets of missions (i.e CA 20xx and ITC), especially when part of the things that differentiate the subfactions is a bit of 'Rock, Paper, Scissor'.
I would agree that the balance in many cases should be better but 40k isn't designed to be perfectly balanced in a competitive environment. It's designed to have fun and offer variety - just look at the kind of list that typically appears in White Dwarf, or are 'suggested'.
Xenomancers wrote: It also REALLY helps when you roll way above average.
You are now a pro player.
That's your argument?
Nobody in any kind of probability-based activity is going to count on "rolling well".
Winning a tournament in a dice game is going to require a little luck is what I am saying. If your opponent rolls insane numbers on 6+ FNP. and you fail to wound a lot more than you should you will lose the game. No amount of tactics is going to save you there. Anything can happen and sure you should plan for that. Having a good sense of probability is essential for this game...but that is not skill...it is basically something anyone which a high-school education should have because statistics and algebra are required.
An Actual Englishman wrote: Why are people discussing BA specifically in this thread? Go to a tactica discussion if you want ideas on how to beat hordes with BA. Let's also not disregard the fact that Bloody Baals has released relatively recently and has had no chance to impact the competitive meta.
I'm also confused why I've just read pages and pages of ITC vs GW mission set discussion too. The reason GW absolutely should and do balance around the ITC mission set is quite simple - it is by far the most popular way to play 40k competitively. Whether you think it's the best way to play is irrelevant.
It's like people forget that some of the largest events around the globe have their own, specific rule set too. Many massive events don't use pure ITC or pure GW rules, they use a mix and match approach.
And just so we're all on the same page here, regardless of what mission set you play, certain factions are still way over/under performing. Generally the data of which factions perform well and which perform poorly correlate across all mission sets with a few outliers - Tyranids the most common.
Finally - do bear in mind that almost all the detailed statistical analysis we have in this thread relates to one month. The quietest competitive 40k month with the least games played where the stakes are at their lowest. I'd suggest the data sample in and of itself isn't the most useful for any balance discussion.
ITC doesn't exist in my country and in pretty much all Europe.
Last time I heard, the US were not the center of the world.
Thanks, but no thanks.
while ITC is barely a thing in Australia too... I'm still inclined to agree with Englishman. Whats the point in attempting to balance around the RNG of rulebook missions?[u] You cannot really. May as well balance around the working missions. Hopefully now that they have a set of their own, thats what they do. But really GW's balance is so wack I kinda doubt they approach any of it from the perspective of "what missions are we playing".
No one said the game should be balanced around the rulebook missions.
In my country, no competitive tournament uses rulebook missions. They all use CA missions.
CA is a rulebook my friend. I'm referring to GW official missions pre-CA19, not exclusively Big RuleBook missions
Klickor wrote: A pure codex astartes list can,only counting supplements and not vigilus or PA, have 80 or so stratagems, choose between 30 warlord traits, 36 psychic powers and more relics than i care to count and use up to 7 chapter tactics across their 3 detachments each gaining what is most suitable for the units inside it. Sure they lose the super doctrine but its not like every option available is bad. Even if most of the options arent that good its hard for even GW to make all of them bad and even though quite a few are situational with so many available you will propably have something good for each situation.
And quite a few relics, traits and stratagems have already been nerfed. IH, RG and Salamanders have all had some nerfs to these options but they still have many powerful left.
One of the real strength of all these options are that you dont have to commit many of them until you actually see your opponents list and what mission you are playing. Might not matter if you only have 2 relevant warlord traits but for marines who can get a warlord trait extra on a non warlord mdoel and 2, from a host of good ones, on the warlord it can definetly change things. Same with the librarians and the chaplains.
Lets say you have a RG detachment and have an infantry squad (that isnt centurions since if it were you would do it anyway) you usally put in reserve but against certain lists you might want to deploy them forward, then you can use honor the chappter on a hq and Master of Ambush that unit instead. But against close combat armies you keep it in reserve instead and use the stratagem.
You can do lots of things like that with astartes soup and its hard for other players to know what can be done or not since the options for marines are so insanely many that you can surprise people and get an advantage just because of that.
Maybe. You don't get access to nearly that much stuff. Marine players are not souping much. CP is an upper limit as well, but look at this list...
These are the top 25 most common detachment configs Sep though Dec (all types) with win rate and frequency of appearance. Pick out the souped marines and their performance. There are clearly factions that don't care about super docs and push through in other areas and are apparently very successful - more than Iron Hands.
Are they flukes? Or hitting the meta hard?
I was mostly trying to say quantity is a quality on its own and would propably be used more if it werent the case that IH and IF super doctrines are both busted. But even if they were nerfed you wouldnt lose way too much since instead of going strong on mono IH/IF you could now soup in other chapters and exchange pure power for more flexibility and still stay very strong but not just as strong.
Like centurions in RG dont care about doctrines and artillery in IF mostly care about the -1ap and no cover bonuses and dont lose much by souping together. Same with white scars or blood angels mostly since their doctrines are too slow to really build around. These would probably see more play if the super doctrines got nerfed. I wish our IF player at the club who dont play in tournaments would paint up some TFCs so I could borrow them for the events and play mostly BA with an IF spearhead and a RG/UM successor for my 3 detachments. Way stronger than pure BA I think.
Nah...Cents really like having tactical doctrine. Cents dont care though because being in possition automatic turn 1 for the cost of a warlord trait instead of a 300 point POS LR or storm raven is straight up broken. The WL trait needs to be nerfed shoving 6 assault cents with +3 inch range and +2 to charge into peoples armies is not balanced. It probably should just be changed to a pregame scout move or just deep strike the warlord turn 1. Honestly I'd be happy with every method of turn 1 deep strike being entirely removed. Then maybe a 70 point drop pod might have some value (still probably not - but it would be worth considering).
If you look close - Ultrmarines are ether the first or second highest played marine faction with a sub 50% WR....they have access to lots of WL traits and relics. Ultras can actually take 3 WL trait because ultras have an additional warlord trait stratagem that must be used on Ultramarines. It is pretty clear...though it might be an option you envy. Having all these WL traits is not auto win. It is literally just a few issue that make marines so opressive.
Ironhands super doctrine
IF loaded CT and superdoctrine
RG deepstrike warlord trait
WS do pretty well with near a 55% WR but I am not really sure what is going on there - kind of ignorant to how people build a WS list to be honest.
Xenomancers wrote: Having a good sense of probability is essential for this game...but that is not skill...
So high-level poker doesn't take skill either? Come on. It's not chess perhaps, but understanding and managing probability is a skill in itself and it's absolutely respected by most people.
Yeah that's just Xenomancers further revealing his lack of competitive understanding. Understanding probability is one thing, this game is knowing about when to take which risks and when not to, positioning, comprehensive list-building (which doesn't mean "copying what someone else better than you is running"), and adapting it all to the mission and the flow of the game. Becoming a top player by "taking a good list, following simple steps and rolling well" is just such a tertiary understanding of the game that if you feel this way, you just do not understand competitive 40k enough to speak on it.
Xenomancers wrote: Having a good sense of probability is essential for this game...but that is not skill...
So high-level poker doesn't take skill either? Come on. It's not chess perhaps, but understanding and managing probability is a skill in itself and it's absolutely respected by most people.
High level poker certainly requires skill. It's not about statistics at that point though. At that point you are talking about mind reading and controlling your own tells. Reading betting patterns. Nothing in 40k comes even remotely close to anything like that. There is some value in being unpredictable but objectives kind of dictate your actions. 40k armies almost drive themselves.
I was mostly trying to say quantity is a quality on its own and would propably be used more if it werent the case that IH and IF super doctrines are both busted. But even if they were nerfed you wouldnt lose way too much since instead of going strong on mono IH/IF you could now soup in other chapters and exchange pure power for more flexibility and still stay very strong but not just as strong.
Like centurions in RG dont care about doctrines and artillery in IF mostly care about the -1ap and no cover bonuses and dont lose much by souping together. Same with white scars or blood angels mostly since their doctrines are too slow to really build around. These would probably see more play if the super doctrines got nerfed. I wish our IF player at the club who dont play in tournaments would paint up some TFCs so I could borrow them for the events and play mostly BA with an IF spearhead and a RG/UM successor for my 3 detachments. Way stronger than pure BA I think.
There is that WS/WS/IH detachment type that is 78%. That's really strong especially when they're sacrificing IH docs already.
It was used in these tournaments:
Atlanta Open,Crucible 8,Socal Open,Coastal Assault,Merry Slaaneshmas,Geekfest,Glasshammer Open,Socal Open,Element Games Grand Slam
By these people:
John Lennon,John Lennon,John Lennon,Lee Harris,Matthew Riley,Nathan Chow,Patrick Fearis,Ruben Fernandez,Tim Smith
I looked up John Lennon at Atlanta Open and got this:
Nitro Zeus wrote: Yeah that's just Xenomancers further revealing his lack of competitive understanding. Understanding probability is one thing, this game is knowing about when to take which risks and when not to, positioning, comprehensive list-building (which doesn't mean "copying what someone else better than you is running"), and adapting it all to the mission and the flow of the game. Becoming a top player by "taking a good list, following simple steps and rolling well" is just such a tertiary understanding of the game that if you feel this way, you just do not understand competitive 40k enough to speak on it.
At no point did I suggest you shouldn't practice with your list. Not making mistakes and remember to use all your abilities is a crucial part of the game too. Using your blinker is a huge part of driving your car safely too...forgive me for not bowing down to all the car driving professionals out there.
If you are playing enough 40k to desire to go to a cutthroat ITC tournament. You know how to play the game. ITC adds another element of pregame skill which is part of the list-building process basically - selecting your objectives against an opponents army that becomes trivial after practicing it 3-4 times. It is just baffling how inflated some of you guys egos are. It is not an admission of your own lack of skill to admit that this game doesn't require a lot of skill.
Xenomancers wrote: It is not an admission of your own lack of skill to admit that this game doesn't require a lot of skill.
40k is made to be accessible. In fact, most things are.
It's probably a different thing to try and win at top tables against curveballs from the top players in the world though, right? Half the point of going off-meta is to surprise players who think they know it all.
I was mostly trying to say quantity is a quality on its own and would propably be used more if it werent the case that IH and IF super doctrines are both busted. But even if they were nerfed you wouldnt lose way too much since instead of going strong on mono IH/IF you could now soup in other chapters and exchange pure power for more flexibility and still stay very strong but not just as strong.
Like centurions in RG dont care about doctrines and artillery in IF mostly care about the -1ap and no cover bonuses and dont lose much by souping together. Same with white scars or blood angels mostly since their doctrines are too slow to really build around. These would probably see more play if the super doctrines got nerfed. I wish our IF player at the club who dont play in tournaments would paint up some TFCs so I could borrow them for the events and play mostly BA with an IF spearhead and a RG/UM successor for my 3 detachments. Way stronger than pure BA I think.
There is that WS/WS/IH detachment type that is 78%. That's really strong especially when they're sacrificing IH docs already.
It was used in these tournaments:
Atlanta Open,Crucible 8,Socal Open,Coastal Assault,Merry Slaaneshmas,Geekfest,Glasshammer Open,Socal Open,Element Games Grand Slam
By these people:
John Lennon,John Lennon,John Lennon,Lee Harris,Matthew Riley,Nathan Chow,Patrick Fearis,Ruben Fernandez,Tim Smith
I looked up John Lennon at Atlanta Open and got this:
WS do pretty well with near a 55% WR but I am not really sure what is going on there - kind of ignorant to how people build a WS list to be honest.
See above.
Okay I had just looked at a few WS lists as well. They typically bring 8-12 cents. I don't have the WS list of stratagems but I assume this is the main reason right here.
Hunter’s Fusillade – 1CP: After a unit advances, Rapid Fire and Heavy Weapons become Assault. Inferior to Born in the Saddle on bikes, but lets everything else get in on the advance and shoot action, albeit at a -1 to hit.
White scars ignore the -1 to hit (nice battle focus on marines). So this allows you to move up cents and still put out reasonable firepower. and WS can advance and charge.
Realistically all this army does is hide from you and shoot you with ILOS weapons and 2 character dreads....I can see how this army does pretty well as it can easily kill 2 units a turn and take 0 damage. Nothing wants to get close to those cents without wiping them out which they can't do because they are inside magic boxes. I tihnk this list doing well demonstrates how important it is to make centurions vehicals. I do believe that would fix any issue with this list. In fact the list is absolutely garbage if you can't hide your cents in magic boxes.
Realistically this list demonstrates pretty well actually how ITC missions are a seriously different type of game...This list gets tabled in 2-3 turns if you can see it...
Xenomancers wrote: It is not an admission of your own lack of skill to admit that this game doesn't require a lot of skill.
40k is made to be accessible. In fact, most things are.
It's probably a different thing to try and win at top tables against curveballs from the top players in the world though, right? Half the point of going off-meta is to surprise players who think they know it all.
Yes but wouldn't you admit that is done primarily at the list building phase?
Automatically Appended Next Post: This weekend I am going to make a thread discussing ITC and it's pros and cons. Lets move this thread back to discussing the statistics of 40k stats and such.
Realistically this list demonstrates pretty well actually how ITC missions are a seriously different type of game...This list gets tabled in 2-3 turns if you can see it...
Cents aren't THAT easy to kill. The magical IH Stalker 10 man can kill one a turn. That's 180 points to kill 52.
Xenomancers wrote: It is just baffling how inflated some of you guys egos are. It is not an admission of your own lack of skill to admit that this game doesn't require a lot of skill.
Then why is it the same players consistently topping tables? Shouldn't any semi-competent player be able to copy a top players list, as so many people do now, and all have an equal shot of winning? Yet they don't all seem to be able to match that level of success... so is literally everyone bar the very top players, just completely awful at the game? Oh and except for yourself of course (not that you have the results of a top player, but the game is so simple that you just know you could get them if you were to just play as *insert flavor of the month army*?
The fact is that there is clearly something separating these players from a player such as yourself when you pick up their list, practice with it for a while, and enter a tournament. I know what you think, I used to think the same way. That this game is about maths, statistics, and unit efficiency in list building and that's how its won. In hindsight, I was an awful player at that point, who only understood the simplest facet of the game - list building. It's only once I moved past this way of thinking that I was able to start properly competing, and, as a result, it actually also heightened my ability to build a list, as I realised not everything was so black and white as I once thought back when I was as blinkered as you are.
The only thing baffling is how someone so utterly disconnected from how this game is played, can speak with such blind confidence from a position of complete emptiness and tell people at the top of the ladder they are wrong. The first part to improving your skill at this game is recognising that there is skill to be improved, and you're not there yet. I've won large tournaments and I still recognise that I have so many weaknesses as a player - there's nothing egotistical about it, in the grand scheme of things, I'm bad at this game - we all are, it's nowhere near as simple as you think, and even the absolute best players in the game make massive, game deciding play mistakes all the time that dictate the outcome of tournaments.
You are not a competitor. Nothing about your attitude is competitive. You're a low level player who has moved past the point of casual play, but struggles with the mentality so commonly found in low level players. All your wins are list building wins, by your own admission, and luckily for you you play one of the strongest armies in the game right now, but that's simply not enough vs a competent player even with a middle tier army, and thus it leads to you making threads like this, and dictating out stuff you barely, or flat out do not, understand. I think it's time you stopped projecting outwards and took a look inwards.
Xenomancers wrote: It is just baffling how inflated some of you guys egos are. It is not an admission of your own lack of skill to admit that this game doesn't require a lot of skill.
Then why is it the same players consistently topping tables? Shouldn't any semi-competent player be able to copy a top players list, as so many people do now, and all have an equal shot of winning? Yet they don't all seem to be able to match that level of success... so is literally everyone bar the very top players, just completely awful at the game? Oh and except for yourself of course (not that you have the results of a top player, but the game is so simple that you just know you could get them if you were to just play as *insert flavor of the month army*?
The fact is that there is clearly something separating these players from a player such as yourself when you pick up their list, practice with it for a while, and enter a tournament. I know what you think, I used to think the same way. That this game is about maths, statistics, and unit efficiency in list building and that's how its won. In hindsight, I was an awful player at that point, who only understood the simplest facet of the game - list building. It's only once I moved past this way of thinking that I was able to start properly competing, and, as a result, it actually also heightened my ability to build a list, as I realised not everything was so black and white as I once thought back when I was as blinkered as you are.
The only thing baffling is how someone so utterly disconnected from how this game is played, can speak with such blind confidence from a position of complete emptiness and tell people at the top of the ladder they are wrong. The first part to improving your skill at this game is recognising that there is skill to be improved, and you're not there yet. I've won large tournaments and I still recognise that I have so many weaknesses as a player - there's nothing egotistical about it, in the grand scheme of things, I'm bad at this game - we all are, it's nowhere near as simple as you think, and even the absolute best players in the game make massive, game deciding play mistakes all the time that dictate the outcome of tournaments.
You are not a competitor. Nothing about your attitude is competitive. You're a low level player who has moved past the point of casual play, but struggles with the mentality so commonly found in low level players. All your wins are list building wins, by your own admission, and luckily for you you play one of the strongest armies in the game right now, but that's simply not enough vs a competent player even with a middle tier army, and thus it leads to you making threads like this, and dictating out stuff you barely, or flat out do not, understand. I think it's time you stopped projecting outwards and took a look inwards.
LOL hilarious. You have 0 grounds to say anything about my play because you've never seen me play. With the arrogance to say I don't understand what I am talking about when it's obvious to everyone in here that I know what I am talking about.
Why do the same players consistently top events? The answer is simple. They are always playing the best army. IH(or some marine variant) or Eldar at this time...which is completely backed up by statistics AND they are the most serious players that travel around the country playing in the events because they are going for top player. Plenty of good players don't have the means to travel the country for events every weekend. Lots of good players have no desire to do that ether. Not to say that the consistent top players aren't the best - it's just the difference between them and a random ITC player with the same list is very small. It seems I have struck a chord with you. You must think you are a pretty amazing player and need to be recognized for it. I'll concede to you. Your 40k skills are so far ahead of mine I couldn't possibly beat you in a game with an Ironhands list. LOL. Get out of here dude.
You ever seen a poll about what % skill plays in this game?
Realistically this list demonstrates pretty well actually how ITC missions are a seriously different type of game...This list gets tabled in 2-3 turns if you can see it...
Cents aren't THAT easy to kill. The magical IH Stalker 10 man can kill one a turn. That's 180 points to kill 52.
Heavy weapons drop cents pretty fast. Mass lascannons murders them. Mass plasma murders them.
Xenomancers wrote: LOL hilarious. You have 0 grounds to say anything about my play because you've never seen me play. With the arrogance to say I don't understand what I am talking about when it's obvious to everyone in here that I know what I am talking about.
It's beyond obvious that you don't, and many people have called that for exactly what it is. At best, you'll find people on this forum with a similar level of expertise who may agree with you, like Peregrine, Wayniac, and other dedicated neg-heads. This isn't a popularity contest in the first place, but even if it was, you wouldn't be winning it, so please stop trying to act like you're the people's champ or something. People are mocking this thread on multiple different sites including reddit and both of the 40k discords. That's actually how I found this thread in the first place, it was linked in open discussion about how 'dakka has truly outdone itself again'. Please call me on this, because I'd love an excuse to screenshot even some of the stuff that was said about this thread. You made it into being a meme even further than this site, which is impressive.
Xenomancers wrote: Why do the same players consistently top events? The answer is simple. They are always playing the best army. IH(or some marine variant) or Eldar at this time...which is completely backed up by statistics AND they are the most serious players that travel around the country playing in the events because they are going for top player. Plenty of good players don't have the means to travel the country for events every weekend. Lots of good players have no desire to do that ether. Not to say that the consistent top players aren't the best - it's just the difference between them and a random ITC player with the same list is very small.
So let's use this for an example, a large tournament that wasn't widely publicised, so thus isn't one of the events that made these people recognisable names. Battle for Salvation, one of the first large tournaments after the Iron Hands supplement released. 100 or so players, a feth TON of Aeldari, Iron Hands, and Raven Guard. Very similar lists within many of them. By your reasoning, that's a lot of people all with an equal shot at the throne, nothing is holding them back, they are at the event, they have the top armies, and they are competent players.
Yet, look at the top 4.
Nicholas Rose, Mark Hertel, Andrew Gonyo, and Sean Nayden.
Why was it these very familiar names who were able to place again, and not any of the other 100 players ALL present? It wasn't a travel issue, they were all there. It wasn't a playtime issue, the dex was brand new.
How did Richard Sieglar go undefeated with Tau for literally months, travelling to different GT's weekly, and eventually winning NOVA, while other Tau players couldn't even get close to a 50% win rate? How did Don Hooson win BAO with Death Guard, an army seen as uncompetitive? How come none of the copycats of his Purge builds were ever able to see the success he was able to see with it? How is Sean Nayden consistently able to win at the highest level while using gak like Avatar of Khaine and other stuff? I could rattle off examples for ages.
Just because you aren't at a level where you understand where the skill is, doesn't mean that people who do understand it are "egotistical" and "inventing it". If you had half the competitive understanding you think you do, this thread wouldn't exist.
Xenomancers wrote: It seems I have struck a chord with you. You must think you are a pretty amazing player and need to be recognized for it. I'll concede to you. Your 40k skills are so far ahead of mine I couldn't possibly beat you in a game with an Ironhands list. LOL. Get out of here dude.
I literally (not figuratively, not interpretatively, not metaphorically) called myself a bad player at two points in the post you just quoted. I recognise that I have so much room to improve, and that's what I strive to do as a player. Now while I also recognise that it's true you likely are at your peak, that's because your capacity for improvement capped at an extremely low altitude due to your lack of willingness to broaden your understanding of this game, and work out how exactly people are winning consistently. This isn't about "me being good", nothing in my post even implies that, it's about you having the least competitive attitude possible.
Xenomancers wrote: You ever seen a poll about what % skill plays in this game?
Why would I... give a gak? You ever collected people who actually understand the game at the highest level rather than the lowest, and polled them? Chess grandmasters say the game requires skill, but you took a poll of the playground and your whole class believes otherwise. Good for you.
Please stop using these 'majority rules' argument, it's so stereotypically obtuse that it hurts to read.
If you have dice rolling as a skill, the only reason to be in Warhammer is because the casinos won't let you in, aside from the hobby aspects, anyway.
And yes, many of the factors in poker can be used in wargames as well. One of the key aspects of high level poker is that you don't play cards, because you have little control over them, you play the players.
A person needs to control themselves to not let their emotions control their decisions, but also be flexible enough that being grounded limits their options. Also, they need to be careful not to let their emotions tell their opponent when they are getting in to advantageous position (either against or for them).
While I agree with that, in part, I'd also say such is much harder in Warhammer. As any reasonably skilled player will see when you're getting into an advantageous position. If you can't understand that, you hardly need to be playing mind games against them.
Sim-Life wrote: Why compete in tournaments that require no skill then?
Prizes, points for yearly over all league, beating people up who are weaker then you and not being at home when you would have to technicly have to help with stuff.
This is the stuff for me, although not for w40k tournaments. There is also obligatory events you have to do as being part of a sports class in a sports school, but I don't now how this could translate. Maybe team tournaments and not wanting to let your buddies down?
40k isn't that complicated expressed theoretically but the idea there isn't skill involved is wrong. I'm suspect that it "isn't" about probability - as a dice game the outcome inevitably largely is. The point is that by taking the right list, deploying correctly, moving and positioning correctly, targeting correctly etc you stack the odds in your favour. So yes, sometimes the dice may abandon you - but they will do so less often than someone who isn't doing all these things and you will win more games.
The challenge is doing the things discussed consistently - always being "on". It requires a huge amount of knowledge, game sense/probability and discipline.
Just deploying correctly/optimally on a range of differently set up tables against a range of different opponents and missions requires a lot of knowledge. You can say target priority is simple, "just shoot your lascannons at tanks, and anti-infantry guns at infantry" but the point is to conduct the game (factoring in your movement, expected losses from your opponent etc), such that about 80%~ of the time based on dice rolled, you will be able to do so turn after turn (while grabbing the other relevant objectives). Meanwhile you have a plan of what to do in that 20% of games where the dice skew against you for a turn or two. You can't just say "oh its obvious". Its not straightforward - you learn by experience, and its why people take time to "learn" new armies, beyond "oh yeah, this unit can reroll 1s". Doing this is a skill.
This is why a relatively small pool of players manage to place consistently - they are doing this every tournament. By contrast many people, even those who are tournament regulars, are just not that serious about it (or are strangely oblivious that they should be doing it.)
But this is for big events only. Sure at youth championship level of wrestling, the top of the world in my age bracked would choke me out. Specialy those crazy Caucasians, those are beasts on the mat. But on a district level, if your bigger and stronger you just win.
So yeah someone with a just as good army, and better skill will traunce someone with a good list and little tournament expiriance. Hey they can win through a disqualification, no take backs or specific tournament rule, that isn't used outside of tournaments an unskilled guy just forgets about. But in a store tournament, a tooled up IH army works over everyone.
AngryAngel80 wrote: While I agree with that, in part, I'd also say such is much harder in Warhammer. As any reasonably skilled player will see when you're getting into an advantageous position. If you can't understand that, you hardly need to be playing mind games against them.
What may be an obvious advantageous position ignores the play that gets you a better position for the later turns when you're eeking out with scraps.
AngryAngel80 wrote: While I agree with that, in part, I'd also say such is much harder in Warhammer. As any reasonably skilled player will see when you're getting into an advantageous position. If you can't understand that, you hardly need to be playing mind games against them.
Well, there's what is known as a gambit in chess. Which is where you offer to sacrifice material for a more advantageous position. If you've ever been in the position of 'should I or shouldn't I' you will understand that psychology definitely plays a major part of this. Because usually the gambit is offered for a reason.
Same thing in 40k -- the equivalent is the "distraction carnifex", or bottling up an army with a sacrificial unit to destroy their chance to score. Good players will understand the value of bait and positioning much better than lesser ones, beause they'll have a better sense of the tempo needed to outscore their opponent vis-a-vis force preservation.
I think there's definitely a skill floor to certain armies; that's something that's almost never accounted for in these online discussions. No doubt IH is strong but it's also very simple and resilient, and thus generally more forgiving. Tau might also be very strong but what's the skill floor to play the army effectively at the top 4? I personally don't think every army should be equally easy to pilot and that's probably required if you're looking for perfect stats across every faction.
AngryAngel80 wrote: While I agree with that, in part, I'd also say such is much harder in Warhammer. As any reasonably skilled player will see when you're getting into an advantageous position. If you can't understand that, you hardly need to be playing mind games against them.
Well, there's what is known as a gambit in chess. Which is where you offer to sacrifice material for a more advantageous position. If you've ever been in the position of 'should I or shouldn't I' you will understand that psychology definitely plays a major part of this. Because usually the gambit is offered for a reason.
Same thing in 40k -- the equivalent is the "distraction carnifex", or bottling up an army with a sacrificial unit to destroy their chance to score. Good players will understand the value of bait and positioning much better than lesser ones, beause they'll have a better sense of the tempo needed to outscore their opponent vis-a-vis force preservation.
I think there's definitely a skill floor to certain armies; that's something that's almost never accounted for in these online discussions. No doubt IH is strong but it's also very simple and resilient, and thus generally more forgiving. Tau might also be very strong but what's the skill floor to play the army effectively at the top 4? I personally don't think every army should be equally easy to pilot and that's probably required if you're looking for perfect stats across every faction.
AngryAngel80 wrote: While I agree with that, in part, I'd also say such is much harder in Warhammer. As any reasonably skilled player will see when you're getting into an advantageous position. If you can't understand that, you hardly need to be playing mind games against them.
Well, there's what is known as a gambit in chess. Which is where you offer to sacrifice material for a more advantageous position. If you've ever been in the position of 'should I or shouldn't I' you will understand that psychology definitely plays a major part of this. Because usually the gambit is offered for a reason.
Same thing in 40k -- the equivalent is the "distraction carnifex", or bottling up an army with a sacrificial unit to destroy their chance to score. Good players will understand the value of bait and positioning much better than lesser ones, beause they'll have a better sense of the tempo needed to outscore their opponent vis-a-vis force preservation.
I think there's definitely a skill floor to certain armies; that's something that's almost never accounted for in these online discussions. No doubt IH is strong but it's also very simple and resilient, and thus generally more forgiving. Tau might also be very strong but what's the skill floor to play the army effectively at the top 4? I personally don't think every army should be equally easy to pilot and that's probably required if you're looking for perfect stats across every faction.
Xenomancers wrote: LOL hilarious. You have 0 grounds to say anything about my play because you've never seen me play. With the arrogance to say I don't understand what I am talking about when it's obvious to everyone in here that I know what I am talking about.
It's beyond obvious that you don't, and many people have called that for exactly what it is. At best, you'll find people on this forum with a similar level of expertise who may agree with you, like Peregrine, Wayniac, and other dedicated neg-heads. This isn't a popularity contest in the first place, but even if it was, you wouldn't be winning it, so please stop trying to act like you're the people's champ or something. People are mocking this thread on multiple different sites including reddit and both of the 40k discords. That's actually how I found this thread in the first place, it was linked in open discussion about how 'dakka has truly outdone itself again'. Please call me on this, because I'd love an excuse to screenshot even some of the stuff that was said about this thread. You made it into being a meme even further than this site, which is impressive.
Xenomancers wrote: Why do the same players consistently top events? The answer is simple. They are always playing the best army. IH(or some marine variant) or Eldar at this time...which is completely backed up by statistics AND they are the most serious players that travel around the country playing in the events because they are going for top player. Plenty of good players don't have the means to travel the country for events every weekend. Lots of good players have no desire to do that ether. Not to say that the consistent top players aren't the best - it's just the difference between them and a random ITC player with the same list is very small.
So let's use this for an example, a large tournament that wasn't widely publicised, so thus isn't one of the events that made these people recognisable names. Battle for Salvation, one of the first large tournaments after the Iron Hands supplement released. 100 or so players, a feth TON of Aeldari, Iron Hands, and Raven Guard. Very similar lists within many of them. By your reasoning, that's a lot of people all with an equal shot at the throne, nothing is holding them back, they are at the event, they have the top armies, and they are competent players.
Yet, look at the top 4.
Nicholas Rose, Mark Hertel, Andrew Gonyo, and Sean Nayden.
Why was it these very familiar names who were able to place again, and not any of the other 100 players ALL present? It wasn't a travel issue, they were all there. It wasn't a playtime issue, the dex was brand new.
How did Richard Sieglar go undefeated with Tau for literally months, travelling to different GT's weekly, and eventually winning NOVA, while other Tau players couldn't even get close to a 50% win rate? How did Don Hooson win BAO with Death Guard, an army seen as uncompetitive? How come none of the copycats of his Purge builds were ever able to see the success he was able to see with it? How is Sean Nayden consistently able to win at the highest level while using gak like Avatar of Khaine and other stuff? I could rattle off examples for ages.
Just because you aren't at a level where you understand where the skill is, doesn't mean that people who do understand it are "egotistical" and "inventing it". If you had half the competitive understanding you think you do, this thread wouldn't exist.
Xenomancers wrote: It seems I have struck a chord with you. You must think you are a pretty amazing player and need to be recognized for it. I'll concede to you. Your 40k skills are so far ahead of mine I couldn't possibly beat you in a game with an Ironhands list. LOL. Get out of here dude.
I literally (not figuratively, not interpretatively, not metaphorically) called myself a bad player at two points in the post you just quoted. I recognise that I have so much room to improve, and that's what I strive to do as a player. Now while I also recognise that it's true you likely are at your peak, that's because your capacity for improvement capped at an extremely low altitude due to your lack of willingness to broaden your understanding of this game, and work out how exactly people are winning consistently. This isn't about "me being good", nothing in my post even implies that, it's about you having the least competitive attitude possible.
Xenomancers wrote: You ever seen a poll about what % skill plays in this game?
Why would I... give a gak? You ever collected people who actually understand the game at the highest level rather than the lowest, and polled them? Chess grandmasters say the game requires skill, but you took a poll of the playground and your whole class believes otherwise. Good for you.
Please stop using these 'majority rules' argument, it's so stereotypically obtuse that it hurts to read.
Wanna know an interesting fact of statistics? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_the_crowd A poll on dakka is comprised of many of the most knowledgeable people on the subject too. Also - I am pretty sure a lot of those really top players are using loaded dice...because they don't control for it. Last year I think Nayden won 46 consecutive games. The only way to do that in a dice game is to cheat. Even at local tournaments I have caught cheaters. It is usually the ones traveling to attend tournaments. To never lose a game of 40k all you need is 1 dice that always rolls the number you want. Hate to be "that guy" but until they control for dice in tournaments it is going to happen. Id say the overwhelming majority of people would never consider so it doesn't sway statistics much but money is on the line for a lot of these players. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to find out that a lot of the top players use loaded dice...Heck...This happens in basically every competitive sport...why would this one be any different? For 40k the best skill might actually be hiding the fact you lose your loaded dice...when to use it and such. If playing Ironhands for example...you might never even need to use it - as you are basically never behind in the game.
I as a good player that plays 10 or more games a month...I know about every 10-15 games or so you are going to have a game where you roll so poorly you automatically lose. Sometimes you will have a streak of going last in 4-5 consecutive games...You aren't winning all those games ether - no mater how good your list is.
Crimson wrote: Oh boy, so now Xeno is accusing top players of cheating! This is a new low.
Xeno, newsflash; you are not a good player, and those other people do not do well because they cheat, they do well because they know how to play.
It's really not a new low. Do you really think people wouldn't cheat to bring home price money? Or gain subscribers to their podcast? Get off your high horse. Anyways - I am not suggesting they are all cheating just that it is possible that they are. It might not even be intentional. Some dice just roll better than others. It is widely known that dice are not perfect. Play with enough dice you just get attached to certain sets. I for example have 3 sets of cheesex dice which I love. Legally purchased and they roll incredible without alteration. Is that cheating? No...I bought dice and I roll them without alteration. Is it fair? Not really because it is an advantage. All ITC tournaments should probably require you use house dice. Then their would be no question. Just keep thinking there are no cheaters in the world though and see how that works for you.
Please find me a competitive sport where cheating doesn't occur?
Many, many top players use that iPhone warhammer dice app for their games (I can't remember the name because I couldn't get it on my android device). I doubt they have a rigged version in their possession.
I have to be honest - I think this thread was very dubiously created in the first place and has only devolved into off topic ramble at this point.
December statistics, as interesting as they are, represent a tiny snapshot of the meta in a very odd place (because there are fewer large games, the stakes are lower and most players don't have time to play). Perhaps for a better read on the meta we should continue to follow 40k stats centre and see what the next few months brings?
Xenomancers wrote: I for example have 3 sets of cheesex dice which I love. Legally purchased and they roll incredible without alteration. Is that cheating?
An Actual Englishman wrote: Many, many top players use that iPhone warhammer dice app for their games (I can't remember the name because I couldn't get it on my android device). I doubt they have a rigged version in their possession.
I have to be honest - I think this thread was very dubiously created in the first place and has only devolved into off topic ramble at this point.
December statistics, as interesting as they are, represent a tiny snapshot of the meta in a very odd place (because there are fewer large games, the stakes are lower and most players don't have time to play). Perhaps for a better read on the meta we should continue to follow 40k stats centre and see what the next few months brings?
Uhh - I've literally never played against a player using a dice ap. Literally never and I would probably ask them not to. Probably over 500 games at this time. Heck I watch a lot of these players games on twitch....they are using real dice. LOL. I am not even sure if dice ap is legal in ITC play.
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An Actual Englishman wrote: Many, many top players use that iPhone warhammer dice app for their games (I can't remember the name because I couldn't get it on my android device). I doubt they have a rigged version in their possession.
I have to be honest - I think this thread was very dubiously created in the first place and has only devolved into off topic ramble at this point.
December statistics, as interesting as they are, represent a tiny snapshot of the meta in a very odd place (because there are fewer large games, the stakes are lower and most players don't have time to play). Perhaps for a better read on the meta we should continue to follow 40k stats centre and see what the next few months brings?
Xenomancers wrote: I for example have 3 sets of cheesex dice which I love. Legally purchased and they roll incredible without alteration. Is that cheating?
Yes. This kinda sounds like cheating.
How is that cheating? I did not alter the dice in any way. Is there any requirement to put your dice through statistical tests?
An Actual Englishman wrote: Many, many top players use that iPhone warhammer dice app for their games (I can't remember the name because I couldn't get it on my android device). I doubt they have a rigged version in their possession.
I have to be honest - I think this thread was very dubiously created in the first place and has only devolved into off topic ramble at this point.
December statistics, as interesting as they are, represent a tiny snapshot of the meta in a very odd place (because there are fewer large games, the stakes are lower and most players don't have time to play). Perhaps for a better read on the meta we should continue to follow 40k stats centre and see what the next few months brings?
Uhh - I've literally never played against a player using a dice ap. Literally never. Probably over 500 games at this time. Heck I watch a lot of these players games on twitch....they are using real dice. LOL.
Well you bring up an even greater counter point to your own argument - many events provide players with dice when they reach the top tables at large events - see LVO.
As to you never playing someone using a dice app - I find that...odd...when you claim to play competitively.
An Actual Englishman wrote: Many, many top players use that iPhone warhammer dice app for their games (I can't remember the name because I couldn't get it on my android device). I doubt they have a rigged version in their possession.
I have to be honest - I think this thread was very dubiously created in the first place and has only devolved into off topic ramble at this point.
December statistics, as interesting as they are, represent a tiny snapshot of the meta in a very odd place (because there are fewer large games, the stakes are lower and most players don't have time to play). Perhaps for a better read on the meta we should continue to follow 40k stats centre and see what the next few months brings?
Uhh - I've literally never played against a player using a dice ap. Literally never. Probably over 500 games at this time. Heck I watch a lot of these players games on twitch....they are using real dice. LOL.
Well you bring up an even greater counter point to your own argument - many events provide players with dice when they reach the top tables at large events - see LVO.
As to you never playing someone using a dice app - I find that...odd...when you claim to play competitively.
Dice app is not the least bit popular. I went to LVO last year and didn't see one player using one. I probably glanced at over 100 games while I was there. Dice on all of them.
Holy hell. That's hands down the most low level crap I've ever seen on here. No, they aren't top players because they cheat. Top tables at large events are streamed nowadays anyway and even the tiniest mistakes are blown into massive 'cheating' dramas by lower level drama queens.
You are not a good player Xenomancer, don't ever refer to yourself as one because in absolutely no way are you one. You are every stereotype for bad at once. Blaming the game for your losses yet playing a top tier faction, not understanding the skills needed to win let alone having the capacity to improve them, being sure that if you played the most broken faction in the game you'd dominate every event, still never once ever testing that theory even though it's literally free since you already play the faction, not having any results to your name, accusing everyone who does have great results of being a cheater, and using the farcical 'everyone knows' as your calling card of authority for everyone point that you make, having a bunch of anecdotes blatantly written to serve whatever story you need to tell at that moment. Just... stop. This is embarrassing to read. You went to LVO and didn't even enter, that's the best summary of this there is. You're not a competitor, you're someone watching from the sidelines providing ridiculously inaccurate commentary.
Xeno has stated that he plays solely to table his opponent into oblivion and that "standing around objectives a.k.a playing the mission is lame and boring" - Paraphrasing as I'm too lazy to look for the actual posts he has said this. Also SM were trash tier despite new book because repulsor went up 15pts and Guiliman no longer rerolled ALL the wounds.. Basically unless his army can delete whole armies and table everyone its trash tier compared to whatever new hotnes sis at the time.
But flat out accusing top players of playing with loaded die/ cheating just because they won all of their games is reaching new heights for sure..
Those ITC missions really were the problem the whole time!! /s
Also, looks like GW is going to 2k as default army size as well for their tourneys as well. Stupid ITC always behind the curve...
My favorite part was the game they streamed that barely got through turn 2.
To Martel's point there was a 150ish gaunt nid army there that was doing well. Something about just sitting on the objectives and knowing you can't kill that many fearless obsec bodies before time ran out. Yep, just the kind of game play I love to see encouraged by my mission design...
Those ITC missions really were the problem the whole time!! /s
Also, looks like GW is going to 2k as default army size as well for their tourneys as well. Stupid ITC always behind the curve...
My favorite part was the game they streamed that barely got through turn 2.
To Martel's point there was a 150ish gaunt nid army there that was doing well. Something about just sitting on the objectives and knowing you can't kill that many fearless obsec bodies before time ran out. Yep, just the kind of game play I love to see encouraged by my mission design...
It's an invite only "GT", they have their own house rules, and they award points for artistic efforts and crap like that, typical GW "tournament".
Those ITC missions really were the problem the whole time!! /s
Also, looks like GW is going to 2k as default army size as well for their tourneys as well. Stupid ITC always behind the curve...
My favorite part was the game they streamed that barely got through turn 2.
To Martel's point there was a 150ish gaunt nid army there that was doing well. Something about just sitting on the objectives and knowing you can't kill that many fearless obsec bodies before time ran out. Yep, just the kind of game play I love to see encouraged by my mission design...
It's an invite only "GT", they have their own house rules, and they award points for artistic efforts and crap like that, typical GW "tournament".
So the way a tournament for a HOBBY involving collecting miniatures should be. This is a fething hobby, not a sport. No matter how certain people try to turn it into one.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I want to add that yes, that is a pure BA list and yes with Sang Guard, yes that is GK but it was with some custodes captains and loyal 32 (still mostly GK), and Tau was low of shields and Piranhas (something i keep saying that Piranhas suck in ITC but are awesome in GW missions)
I copy and paste and tried to format it a bit easier to read. Here are 3 lists that stood out to me. There are others but you guys can look through them
Joe | | | Blood Angels || | Blood Angels Battalion | Primaris Captain (WARLORD, Power Fist, Plasma Pistol, Selfless Valour)
Captain with Jump Pack (Storm Shield, Thunder Hammer, Bolt Pistol)
3 x 5 Intercessors (Bolt Rifles, Power Sword), Primaris Ancient (Power Sword, Standard of Sacrifice)
9 Sanguinary Guard (Angelus Boltguns, 8 Encarmine Swords, 1 Power Fist)
| Blood Angels Battalion | Captain with Jump Pack (Storm Shield, Thunder Hammer, Bolt Pistol)
Sanguinary Priest
2 x 5 Intercessors (Bolt Rifles, Power Sword)
5 Infiltrators (Marksman Bolt Carbine)
6-0: Tau
5-0-1: Iron Hands
5-1: Grey Knights, Iron Hands, Imperial Fists, Blood Angels, Drukhari
4-1-1: Mixed Chaos
And then lots of diversity in the 4-2 finishers.
The "points removed" column is a good metric. You can instantly see the difference between a kill denial list (~2500pts) and a leafblower one (~10K pts).
Those ITC missions really were the problem the whole time!! /s
Also, looks like GW is going to 2k as default army size as well for their tourneys as well. Stupid ITC always behind the curve...
My favorite part was the game they streamed that barely got through turn 2.
To Martel's point there was a 150ish gaunt nid army there that was doing well. Something about just sitting on the objectives and knowing you can't kill that many fearless obsec bodies before time ran out. Yep, just the kind of game play I love to see encouraged by my mission design...
Hmm, well, it seems your representation may not be totally accurate. The game went to turn 4, but I suppose you meant it was "decided" on turn 2? It doesn't look like the IH player scored considerably more, but I don't have working headphones at the moment so does anyone have more on that?
Technically the T'au player won "best general" with what looks to be a very non-standard list among lots of other weird lists.
Can someone tell me if the first level of terrain blocked LOS at this tournament?
Are these results from a propensity for these sorts of attendees to lean more fluffy?
Those ITC missions really were the problem the whole time!! /s
Also, looks like GW is going to 2k as default army size as well for their tourneys as well. Stupid ITC always behind the curve...
My favorite part was the game they streamed that barely got through turn 2.
To Martel's point there was a 150ish gaunt nid army there that was doing well. Something about just sitting on the objectives and knowing you can't kill that many fearless obsec bodies before time ran out. Yep, just the kind of game play I love to see encouraged by my mission design...
Agreed, the ITC are clearly superior as here we see the top 10 was only 40% marines but that includes those pesky "lose all the time" blood angels of Martels.
Plus you'd think the 40k rulebook suggests a 2k limit or something, I know prior gw events have been lower but ITC obviously set the precedent for 2k games.
But you're right, missions that weren't designed by a khorne berserker aren't any good.
Those ITC missions really were the problem the whole time!! /s
Also, looks like GW is going to 2k as default army size as well for their tourneys as well. Stupid ITC always behind the curve...
My favorite part was the game they streamed that barely got through turn 2.
To Martel's point there was a 150ish gaunt nid army there that was doing well. Something about just sitting on the objectives and knowing you can't kill that many fearless obsec bodies before time ran out. Yep, just the kind of game play I love to see encouraged by my mission design...
Cough the end of the Tao player game vs IH. In 2 instances the Tao argued about the ranges, the opponent did not get line breaker that was going to tie the game.
But what is obvious that the scary CWE new traits, did not overperform like they did in ITC. Who knows having bad table control and don`t get points when killing is not optimal.
Those ITC missions really were the problem the whole time!! /s
Also, looks like GW is going to 2k as default army size as well for their tourneys as well. Stupid ITC always behind the curve...
My favorite part was the game they streamed that barely got through turn 2.
To Martel's point there was a 150ish gaunt nid army there that was doing well. Something about just sitting on the objectives and knowing you can't kill that many fearless obsec bodies before time ran out. Yep, just the kind of game play I love to see encouraged by my mission design...
Cough the end of the Tao player game vs IH. In 2 instances the Tao argued about the ranges, the opponent did not get line breaker that was going to tie the game.
But what is obvious that the scary CWE new traits, did not overperform like they did in ITC. Who knows having bad table control and don`t get points when killing is not optimal.
Xeno go make topic "How to nerf power armor"
You do realise grey knights wear power armour right?
So of the 37 results we can see there are exactly 1 Ork, 1 Tyranid and 1 Necron list. Excellent.
I hope something is done to those factions that either can't soup or have very limited soup capabilities soon. The buffs given to factions that can soup if they go mono is not enough to discourage souping in the vast majority of cases and it is not an appropriate fix because no doubt GW will not offer similar buffs to those factions that can't soup (citing, simply, there is no need).
An Actual Englishman wrote: So of the 37 results we can see there are exactly 1 Ork, 1 Tyranid and 1 Necron list. Excellent.
I hope something is done to those factions that either can't soup or have very limited soup capabilities soon. The buffs given to factions that can soup if they go mono is not enough to discourage souping in the vast majority of cases and it is not an appropriate fix because no doubt GW will not offer similar buffs to those factions that can't soup (citing, simply, there is no need).
Atleast those factions still have a result unlike others
An Actual Englishman wrote: So of the 37 results we can see there are exactly 1 Ork, 1 Tyranid and 1 Necron list. Excellent.
I hope something is done to those factions that either can't soup or have very limited soup capabilities soon. The buffs given to factions that can soup if they go mono is not enough to discourage souping in the vast majority of cases and it is not an appropriate fix because no doubt GW will not offer similar buffs to those factions that can't soup (citing, simply, there is no need).
Mixed imperium could be anything, so you can't say with certainty the factions with mono dex bonus are still souping, odds are those are they didn't.
Giving people a faction to ally with for soup shouldn't be an answer, fix the issues with the codex so they don't need an external crutch. Chaos seems to be an exception due to possible intentional overlap on rules between books.
Orks made the top 10 and the other 2 factions you mentioned were middle of the field. Power wouldn't be an issue based on that data.
An Actual Englishman wrote: So of the 37 results we can see there are exactly 1 Ork, 1 Tyranid and 1 Necron list. Excellent.
I hope something is done to those factions that either can't soup or have very limited soup capabilities soon. The buffs given to factions that can soup if they go mono is not enough to discourage souping in the vast majority of cases and it is not an appropriate fix because no doubt GW will not offer similar buffs to those factions that can't soup (citing, simply, there is no need).
That does not include the 10 or so players who dropped after the first day.
Interestingly given how many marines of all flavours there were they look to be doing just average at getting into the top 10. Loyalist PA is roughly half the armies present and half the top 10.
I see Imperium, Chaos, Aeldari? GSC the only potential missing faction?
Dudeface wrote: Mixed imperium could be anything, so you can't say with certainty the factions with mono dex bonus are still souping, odds are those are they didn't.
Giving people a faction to ally with for soup shouldn't be an answer, fix the issues with the codex so they don't need an external crutch. Chaos seems to be an exception due to possible intentional overlap on rules between books.
Orks made the top 10 and the other 2 factions you mentioned were middle of the field. Power wouldn't be an issue based on that data.
Well the "GK" list was still soup so who knows what the lists were.
The Ork list made the top 10 due to hobby and player score (+8). Also one Ork list made the top 37. Doesn't sound as good does it? Particularly when compared to the 18 Imperium lists. The 6 Chaos lists. The 9 Aeldari lists.
Where do you get these numbers from? I count only 1 Ork list, 1 Tau list etc and you seem to have a lot more than 37 lists?
Either way - I don't really trust these breakdowns as the GK list was not pure and souped (though the main component of the list was GK) which is not identified from above.
I see Imperium, Chaos, Aeldari? GSC the only potential missing faction?
Dudeface wrote: Mixed imperium could be anything, so you can't say with certainty the factions with mono dex bonus are still souping, odds are those are they didn't.
Giving people a faction to ally with for soup shouldn't be an answer, fix the issues with the codex so they don't need an external crutch. Chaos seems to be an exception due to possible intentional overlap on rules between books.
Orks made the top 10 and the other 2 factions you mentioned were middle of the field. Power wouldn't be an issue based on that data.
Well the "GK" list was still soup so who knows what the lists were.
The Ork list made the top 10 due to hobby and player score (+8). Also one Ork list made the top 37. Doesn't sound as good does it? Particularly when compared to the 18 Imperium lists. The 6 Chaos lists. The 9 Aeldari lists.
There were only 8 lists higher than Orks on battle score, they were tied for the top 10 and certainly upper half of the field.
Dudeface wrote: There were only 8 lists higher than Orks on battle score, they were tied for the top 10 and certainly upper half of the field.
And there were 15 lists tied with Orks on battle score.
As I have said, a single list reaching the top 37 of an event is not an encouraging number. Or are you trying to suggest that Orks are competitive in the marine meta?
Dudeface wrote: There were only 8 lists higher than Orks on battle score, they were tied for the top 10 and certainly upper half of the field.
And there were 15 lists tied with Orks on battle score.
As I have said, a single list reaching the top 37 of an event is not an encouraging number. Or are you trying to suggest that Orks are competitive in the marine meta?
I'm trying to highlight that you can't blanket rule a faction as sucking or struggling when they can still manage a decent placement. I'd not brand them as competitive, but it does show a fair spread of armies still place highly.
Where do you get these numbers from? I count only 1 Ork list, 1 Tau list etc and you seem to have a lot more than 37 lists?
Either way - I don't really trust these breakdowns as the GK list was not pure and souped (though the main component of the list was GK) which is not identified from above.
.
Posted by the GW staffer on the chat during the stream.
It will follow whatever their rules were for faction on the day. I do not think they have faction awards for the GT events so perhaps they did not care that much anyway. It may just be self-reported as it has no impact on anything.
Dudeface wrote: There were only 8 lists higher than Orks on battle score, they were tied for the top 10 and certainly upper half of the field.
And there were 15 lists tied with Orks on battle score.
As I have said, a single list reaching the top 37 of an event is not an encouraging number. Or are you trying to suggest that Orks are competitive in the marine meta?
I'm trying to highlight that you can't blanket rule a faction as sucking or struggling when they can still manage a decent placement. I'd not brand them as competitive, but it does show a fair spread of armies still place highly.
I believe it shows a fair spread of factions that are able to soup, yea. I forgot to add that there's only one Tau list also. 1/37 is not a good ratio for any faction, not Necrons, Orks, Tyranids or Tau.
Any faction can manage a decent placement given favourable conditions - note the primary GK result. We already have the data to show how Crons, Orks and Nids can't compete in the current meta. If you remove the 2 top performing players (whose stats are outliers, really) Tau also nosedive. This event placings just highlights the facts we already know, in my opinion.
It will follow whatever their rules were for faction on the day. I do not think they have faction awards for the GT events so perhaps they did not care that much anyway. It may just be self-reported as it has no impact on anything.
Thanks and I agree on why the factions seem incorrect.
Those ITC missions really were the problem the whole time!! /s
Also, looks like GW is going to 2k as default army size as well for their tourneys as well. Stupid ITC always behind the curve...
My favorite part was the game they streamed that barely got through turn 2.
To Martel's point there was a 150ish gaunt nid army there that was doing well. Something about just sitting on the objectives and knowing you can't kill that many fearless obsec bodies before time ran out. Yep, just the kind of game play I love to see encouraged by my mission design...
Cough the end of the Tao player game vs IH. In 2 instances the Tao argued about the ranges, the opponent did not get line breaker that was going to tie the game.
But what is obvious that the scary CWE new traits, did not overperform like they did in ITC. Who knows having bad table control and don`t get points when killing is not optimal.
Xeno go make topic "How to nerf power armor"
The board was also basically planet bowling ball. And stream hosts being proud of it. No place to hide! Their words...
Can someone tell me if the first level of terrain blocked LOS at this tournament?
Are these results from a propensity for these sorts of attendees to lean more fluffy?
From the discussion over on compe40k/r - yes, GW used ground floor LoS blocking for the first time. Could be an indicator of things to come...
And the results may lean more fluffy, but at the same time, it was an invitational - you had to finish in the top 30 of one of the previous 4 GT heats to be invited. That's actually quite a significant control on low quality players.
I have to be honest - I think this thread was very dubiously created in the first place and has only devolved into off topic ramble at this point.
These boards make a lot more sense once you realize that this argument you've been dragged into is the *precise reason* this thread was created. Some posters just want to prove their superiority by "winning" these types of arguments. They believe they are right, and that people recognize that they're right. Regardless of evidence to the contrary. And they enjoy "proving" it via these threads.
The fact that you - and others - are right, that very few people believe them, or that they do nothing to further the hobby are all irrelevant to the purpose of these threads.
An Actual Englishman wrote: Many, many top players use that iPhone warhammer dice app for their games (I can't remember the name because I couldn't get it on my android device). I doubt they have a rigged version in their possession.
I have to be honest - I think this thread was very dubiously created in the first place and has only devolved into off topic ramble at this point.
December statistics, as interesting as they are, represent a tiny snapshot of the meta in a very odd place (because there are fewer large games, the stakes are lower and most players don't have time to play). Perhaps for a better read on the meta we should continue to follow 40k stats centre and see what the next few months brings?
Uhh - I've literally never played against a player using a dice ap. Literally never and I would probably ask them not to. Probably over 500 games at this time. Heck I watch a lot of these players games on twitch....they are using real dice. LOL. I am not even sure if dice ap is legal in ITC play.
That is very strong evidence for lack of experience.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
An Actual Englishman wrote: Many, many top players use that iPhone warhammer dice app for their games (I can't remember the name because I couldn't get it on my android device). I doubt they have a rigged version in their possession.
I have to be honest - I think this thread was very dubiously created in the first place and has only devolved into off topic ramble at this point.
December statistics, as interesting as they are, represent a tiny snapshot of the meta in a very odd place (because there are fewer large games, the stakes are lower and most players don't have time to play). Perhaps for a better read on the meta we should continue to follow 40k stats centre and see what the next few months brings?
Xenomancers wrote: I for example have 3 sets of cheesex dice which I love. Legally purchased and they roll incredible without alteration. Is that cheating?
Yes. This kinda sounds like cheating.
How is that cheating? I did not alter the dice in any way. Is there any requirement to put your dice through statistical tests?
Loading the dice isn't cheating. I could, in theory, create hundreds of loaded dice. That isn't cheating. It's using the loaded dice that's cheating. Regardless of how they became loaded.
If you became prescient in a way where you always knew the output of a single particular die, but the die was not loaded, and you did nothing to change the output of the die, it's still cheating if you use it because of it's result. The cheating isn't in the act of manipulating things used in the game. The cheating is in manipulating the game. Consider MFA, and the kneeling Wraithlord. If someone modelled a kneeling, Brightlance-sniping Wraithlord with exsquisite detail and love, playing that Wraithlord is not MFA (although might still not be allowed for fairness). Someone else creates a wraithlord in a kneeling position so it's harder to hit, that's MFA. Even if the second player did a better job/made a nicer model, the first player did not violate MFA or cheat but the second player did.
There's no requirement to put dice through a statistical test. There is a requirement to not intentionally skew the game. So if you happen to have loaded dice truly unknowningly, that wouldn't be cheating (but would be just as likely loaded towards 1s or 4s as they would to 6s). But the moment you realize they're not fair dice, using them becomes cheating.
In this hypothetical, if you haven't realized they're unfair, you haven't cheated. But once you have noticed, the onus is on you to immediately stop using them. Once you suspect, the onus on you is to validate/invalidate them.
Loading the dice isn't cheating. I could, in theory, create hundreds of loaded dice. That isn't cheating. It's using the loaded dice that's cheating. Regardless of how they became loaded.
I like the way your thinking. It is like sports, nothing is illegal besides being caught doing something illegal.
Any faction can manage a decent placement given favourable conditions - note the primary GK result. We already have the data to show how Crons, Orks and Nids can't compete in the current meta. If you remove the 2 top performing players (whose stats are outliers, really) Tau also nosedive. This event placings just highlights the facts we already know, in my opinion.
the list consisted of 3 NDKs and 3x5 of strikes. That is like saying an army of 2 smash captin, mefiston and 3 units of scouts, and other armies is a Blood Angle one.
Loading the dice isn't cheating. I could, in theory, create hundreds of loaded dice. That isn't cheating. It's using the loaded dice that's cheating. Regardless of how they became loaded.
Cheating also requires intent though, just like lying. Saying something that is not true in good faith is not lying, just as using a loaded die in good faith is not cheating.
Loading the dice isn't cheating. I could, in theory, create hundreds of loaded dice. That isn't cheating. It's using the loaded dice that's cheating. Regardless of how they became loaded.
I like the way your thinking. It is like sports, nothing is illegal besides being caught doing something illegal.
You greatly misunderstood me. It's cheating if you cheat. If you cheat and don't get caught, it's still wrong, you still cheated.
The point was the act of creating things that can be used to cheat - such as loaded dice - is not relevant to cheating. Cheating is *using* the dice you know to be loaded. So it doesn't matter whether you loaded the dice or someone else did; if you knowingly skewed the game, you cheated.
Loading the dice isn't cheating. I could, in theory, create hundreds of loaded dice. That isn't cheating. It's using the loaded dice that's cheating. Regardless of how they became loaded.
I like the way your thinking. It is like sports, nothing is illegal besides being caught doing something illegal.
No...just no. If that's what you took from that quote you really need to read it again. The quote is pointing out that it's the use of unfair dice, not creating them in the first place, that is illegal, regardless of how those unfair dice came about. It was in no way endorsing any form of cheating.
Loading the dice isn't cheating. I could, in theory, create hundreds of loaded dice. That isn't cheating. It's using the loaded dice that's cheating. Regardless of how they became loaded.
Cheating also requires intent though, just like lying. Saying something that is not true in good faith is not lying, just as using a loaded die in good faith is not cheating.
Yes, it requires intent.
There as 6 dice in front of me. Lets say one of them is going to roll a 6, the others aren't, and I need a 6. If I pick the one that will roll a 6 without knowing it'll roll a 6, it's fair. If I pick it believing it has more than a 1/6th chance of rolling a 6, it's cheating.
It doesn't actually matter if the die is loaded. Or if I'm prescient. It only matters if I believe it is not a 1/6th chance of rolling a 6 and use it.
MiguelFelstone wrote: they fixed the tournament, it was invite only. Hence why half the players wern't flavor_of_the_month SM.
Invitational, as in 'you had to finish in the top 30 of a previous qualitfying heat GT to be invited'. It's actually the opposite of what you're saying. You had to place in the final third of a GT to even play.
Yoyoyo wrote: And then lots of diversity in the 4-2 finishers.
Because they fixed the tournament, it was invite only. Hence why half the players wern't flavor_of_the_month SM.
Incorrect. The tournament required qualification through placing at previous heats. It was not some sort of curated invite list to maintain a balance of factions on GW's part. The qualification criteria were clearly defined before the heats and strictly adhered to.
I have to be honest - I think this thread was very dubiously created in the first place and has only devolved into off topic ramble at this point.
These boards make a lot more sense once you realize that this argument you've been dragged into is the *precise reason* this thread was created. Some posters just want to prove their superiority by "winning" these types of arguments. They believe they are right, and that people recognize that they're right. Regardless of evidence to the contrary. And they enjoy "proving" it via these threads.
The fact that you - and others - are right, that very few people believe them, or that they do nothing to further the hobby are all irrelevant to the purpose of these threads.
An Actual Englishman wrote: Many, many top players use that iPhone warhammer dice app for their games (I can't remember the name because I couldn't get it on my android device). I doubt they have a rigged version in their possession.
I have to be honest - I think this thread was very dubiously created in the first place and has only devolved into off topic ramble at this point.
December statistics, as interesting as they are, represent a tiny snapshot of the meta in a very odd place (because there are fewer large games, the stakes are lower and most players don't have time to play). Perhaps for a better read on the meta we should continue to follow 40k stats centre and see what the next few months brings?
Uhh - I've literally never played against a player using a dice ap. Literally never and I would probably ask them not to. Probably over 500 games at this time. Heck I watch a lot of these players games on twitch....they are using real dice. LOL. I am not even sure if dice ap is legal in ITC play.
That is very strong evidence for lack of experience.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
An Actual Englishman wrote: Many, many top players use that iPhone warhammer dice app for their games (I can't remember the name because I couldn't get it on my android device). I doubt they have a rigged version in their possession.
I have to be honest - I think this thread was very dubiously created in the first place and has only devolved into off topic ramble at this point.
December statistics, as interesting as they are, represent a tiny snapshot of the meta in a very odd place (because there are fewer large games, the stakes are lower and most players don't have time to play). Perhaps for a better read on the meta we should continue to follow 40k stats centre and see what the next few months brings?
Xenomancers wrote: I for example have 3 sets of cheesex dice which I love. Legally purchased and they roll incredible without alteration. Is that cheating?
Yes. This kinda sounds like cheating.
How is that cheating? I did not alter the dice in any way. Is there any requirement to put your dice through statistical tests?
Loading the dice isn't cheating. I could, in theory, create hundreds of loaded dice. That isn't cheating. It's using the loaded dice that's cheating. Regardless of how they became loaded.
If you became prescient in a way where you always knew the output of a single particular die, but the die was not loaded, and you did nothing to change the output of the die, it's still cheating if you use it because of it's result. The cheating isn't in the act of manipulating things used in the game. The cheating is in manipulating the game. Consider MFA, and the kneeling Wraithlord. If someone modelled a kneeling, Brightlance-sniping Wraithlord with exsquisite detail and love, playing that Wraithlord is not MFA (although might still not be allowed for fairness). Someone else creates a wraithlord in a kneeling position so it's harder to hit, that's MFA. Even if the second player did a better job/made a nicer model, the first player did not violate MFA or cheat but the second player did.
There's no requirement to put dice through a statistical test. There is a requirement to not intentionally skew the game. So if you happen to have loaded dice truly unknowningly, that wouldn't be cheating (but would be just as likely loaded towards 1s or 4s as they would to 6s). But the moment you realize they're not fair dice, using them becomes cheating.
In this hypothetical, if you haven't realized they're unfair, you haven't cheated. But once you have noticed, the onus is on you to immediately stop using them. Once you suspect, the onus on you is to validate/invalidate them.
Literally no one in my area or on 100s of tables I looked at at LVO uses dice app. LOL. It basically proves you think its a gotcha moment but in fact dice apps must be exceptionally rare if I've never seen someone use one in game. Do you think I am lying about my gaming experience? There is a huge community where I live. 3 active game stores. No one uses dice app. Plus if someone asked to use one I'd say no. Use dice or if a dice roll is excessively large just take the average result.
Are you effing kidding me? Are you seriously telling me that using sets of chessex dice I purchased from game store and never altered is cheating? LOL laughable. It's not cheating to use factory dice you bought. No test is required to use dice. It's not even possible to tell if they are really off or are just an excessively improbable set of dice in a universe of infinite possibilities without rolling each one 100 times. Like I said...this is going on in tournaments. It goes on in FLGS. People throw away dice that roll like crap until they find a set they like. There is nothing wrong with that ether - people are allowed to buy and use whatever dice they want as long as they aren't physically altering them or buying them in an unfair state. Plus to go further - it's unlikely that tournament house dice would ensure everyone has balanced dice. At least people wouldn't be picking their dice - so it takes fate out of players hands.
I keep saying that sometimes low terrain happens. You can't make assumptions about terrain. There is no standard, and plenty of historical battles were in pretty open areas.
I don't need validation on here to like what i like. If people dont like itc, dont play it. Just like i prefer to not play gw missions. Killing is always powerful if the player doing the killing understands how to exploit it, regardless of format.
Loading the dice isn't cheating. I could, in theory, create hundreds of loaded dice. That isn't cheating. It's using the loaded dice that's cheating. Regardless of how they became loaded.
I like the way your thinking. It is like sports, nothing is illegal besides being caught doing something illegal.
No...just no. If that's what you took from that quote you really need to read it again. The quote is pointing out that it's the use of unfair dice, not creating them in the first place, that is illegal, regardless of how those unfair dice came about. It was in no way endorsing any form of cheating.
I kind of disagree with this. If I saw someone making loaded dice. I'd pretty much suspect they would be intent on using them.
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Martel732 wrote: I keep saying that sometimes low terrain happens. You can't make assumptions about terrain. There is no standard, and plenty of historical battles were in pretty open areas.
Xeno has stated that he plays solely to table his opponent into oblivion and that "standing around objectives a.k.a playing the mission is lame and boring" - Paraphrasing as I'm too lazy to look for the actual posts he has said this.
Also SM were trash tier despite new book because repulsor went up 15pts and Guiliman no longer rerolled ALL the wounds..
Basically unless his army can delete whole armies and table everyone its trash tier compared to whatever new hotnes sis at the time.
But flat out accusing top players of playing with loaded die/ cheating just because they won all of their games is reaching new heights for sure..
Uh yeah - duh that is boring. If I wanted to play a game where killing didn't mater I'd play shadespire. First floor LOS blocking makes infantry invulnerable. That is really dumb. I play the mode plenty though. It is far less enjoyable than just fighting it out. Obviously in order to win I can't ignore the objectives but the tabling approach takes away scoring from your opponent.
I have to be honest - I think this thread was very dubiously created in the first place and has only devolved into off topic ramble at this point.
These boards make a lot more sense once you realize that this argument you've been dragged into is the *precise reason* this thread was created. Some posters just want to prove their superiority by "winning" these types of arguments. They believe they are right, and that people recognize that they're right. Regardless of evidence to the contrary. And they enjoy "proving" it via these threads.
The fact that you - and others - are right, that very few people believe them, or that they do nothing to further the hobby are all irrelevant to the purpose of these threads.
An Actual Englishman wrote: Many, many top players use that iPhone warhammer dice app for their games (I can't remember the name because I couldn't get it on my android device). I doubt they have a rigged version in their possession.
I have to be honest - I think this thread was very dubiously created in the first place and has only devolved into off topic ramble at this point.
December statistics, as interesting as they are, represent a tiny snapshot of the meta in a very odd place (because there are fewer large games, the stakes are lower and most players don't have time to play). Perhaps for a better read on the meta we should continue to follow 40k stats centre and see what the next few months brings?
Uhh - I've literally never played against a player using a dice ap. Literally never and I would probably ask them not to. Probably over 500 games at this time. Heck I watch a lot of these players games on twitch....they are using real dice. LOL. I am not even sure if dice ap is legal in ITC play.
That is very strong evidence for lack of experience.
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An Actual Englishman wrote: Many, many top players use that iPhone warhammer dice app for their games (I can't remember the name because I couldn't get it on my android device). I doubt they have a rigged version in their possession.
I have to be honest - I think this thread was very dubiously created in the first place and has only devolved into off topic ramble at this point.
December statistics, as interesting as they are, represent a tiny snapshot of the meta in a very odd place (because there are fewer large games, the stakes are lower and most players don't have time to play). Perhaps for a better read on the meta we should continue to follow 40k stats centre and see what the next few months brings?
Xenomancers wrote: I for example have 3 sets of cheesex dice which I love. Legally purchased and they roll incredible without alteration. Is that cheating?
Yes. This kinda sounds like cheating.
How is that cheating? I did not alter the dice in any way. Is there any requirement to put your dice through statistical tests?
Loading the dice isn't cheating. I could, in theory, create hundreds of loaded dice. That isn't cheating. It's using the loaded dice that's cheating. Regardless of how they became loaded.
If you became prescient in a way where you always knew the output of a single particular die, but the die was not loaded, and you did nothing to change the output of the die, it's still cheating if you use it because of it's result. The cheating isn't in the act of manipulating things used in the game. The cheating is in manipulating the game. Consider MFA, and the kneeling Wraithlord. If someone modelled a kneeling, Brightlance-sniping Wraithlord with exsquisite detail and love, playing that Wraithlord is not MFA (although might still not be allowed for fairness). Someone else creates a wraithlord in a kneeling position so it's harder to hit, that's MFA. Even if the second player did a better job/made a nicer model, the first player did not violate MFA or cheat but the second player did.
There's no requirement to put dice through a statistical test. There is a requirement to not intentionally skew the game. So if you happen to have loaded dice truly unknowningly, that wouldn't be cheating (but would be just as likely loaded towards 1s or 4s as they would to 6s). But the moment you realize they're not fair dice, using them becomes cheating.
In this hypothetical, if you haven't realized they're unfair, you haven't cheated. But once you have noticed, the onus is on you to immediately stop using them. Once you suspect, the onus on you is to validate/invalidate them.
Literally no one in my area or on 100s of tables I looked at at LVO uses dice app. LOL. It basically proves you think its a gotcha moment but in fact dice apps must be exceptionally rare if I've never seen someone use one in game. Do you think I am lying about my gaming experience? There is a huge community where I live. 3 active game stores. No one uses dice app. Plus if someone asked to use one I'd say no. Use dice or if a dice roll is excessively large just take the average result.
Funny how stats are the gold standard proof positive of anything you say, but the minute statistical likelihoods go against your narrative it's made up BS drummed up purely to make you look bad. Roughly 5-10% of the people I've played have used dice apps. Others on the forums also suggest dice apps aren't never seen in their experience. It's possible you're as extensively-played as you claim, but the odds of your experience being representative of every experience is *painfully low* if you've never seen a single instance of something many of us see not-that-infrequently.
Are you effing kidding me? Are you seriously telling me that using sets of chessex dice I purchased from game store and never altered is cheating? LOL laughable.
So it's not cheating if you pay someone else to load your dice for you?
It's not cheating to use factory dice you bought. No test is required to use dice. It's not even possible to tell if they are really off or are just an excessively improbable set of dice in a universe of infinite possibilities without rolling each one 100 times.
You don't need to prove. Only believe. If you believe they're loaded, no test is required; using them is cheating. If you don't believe they're loaded, no test is required; using them is not cheated. Whether they actually are loaded is actually academic - if you used fair dice beleiving them loaded, you cheated, but failed at it.
If you have reason to believe dice are loaded, you are free to test them. Testing them may give you reason to believe they are not loaded (or more reason to beleive they are). In either case, we're back to the initial state, where you believe them loaded or not. And cheating remains dependent on whether you believe them loaded and use them.
Like I said...this is going on in tournaments. It goes on in FLGS. People throw away dice that roll like crap until they find a set they like. There is nothing wrong with that ether - people are allowed to buy and use whatever dice they want as long as they aren't physically altering them or buying them in an unfair state.
Only because it's enjoyable to be superstitious. I know a lot of players who have "favorite dice" that always do well by them. Or who throw away dice because they suck. Even when playing, I'll often keep using the dice that rolled 6s and stop using those that rolled 1s. But only for entertainment value. None of us actually think our "favorite dice" are actually loaded in our favor. I've actually gone so far as to test the "well performing" and "poor performing" dice of mine after a game (a couple times the odds seemed insane), and saw no variance. These are things people do for fun. Like having someone blow on your dice at the craps table, or wearing your lucky shirt when bowling.
If there were actual reason to believe that the die that just rolled a 6 is more likely to roll a 6 the next time you used it, reusing it intentionally would be cheating. But nobody is silly enough to think that these superstitious acts actually impact the result.
Plus to go further - it's unlikely that tournament house dice would ensure everyone has balanced dice. At least people wouldn't be picking their dice - so it takes fate out of players hands.
That's because we can generally trust that nobody (or almost nobody) is intentionally using loaded dice. So the distribution of unfair dice, if they're present, is unbiased. In situations where you can't trust that, the house does provide appropriate materials. Poker, for instance, is almost always played with house cards.
But the presence of asshats is small enough in 40k that we don't worry about it that much. Almost everyone knows what cheating is, and almost everyone doesn't do it.
Loading the dice isn't cheating. I could, in theory, create hundreds of loaded dice. That isn't cheating. It's using the loaded dice that's cheating. Regardless of how they became loaded.
I like the way your thinking. It is like sports, nothing is illegal besides being caught doing something illegal.
No...just no. If that's what you took from that quote you really need to read it again. The quote is pointing out that it's the use of unfair dice, not creating them in the first place, that is illegal, regardless of how those unfair dice came about. It was in no way endorsing any form of cheating.
I kind of disagree with this. If I saw someone making loaded dice. I'd pretty much suspect they would be intent on using them.
Of course you should suspect they are intent on the dice getting used. Making loaded dice is substantial evidence that the person intends to cheat (or enable cheating). But it is not, itself, cheating.
Xenomancers wrote:
Martel732 wrote: I keep saying that sometimes low terrain happens. You can't make assumptions about terrain. There is no standard, and plenty of historical battles were in pretty open areas.
LOL almost all of them.
Citation? Because, while many battles fought in ages of heavy infantry/cavalry may have been, many battles in those ages were not. And most in other ages were not.
Spot checking the "20 most important battles of WW2":
Battle of Crete: Nope
Iwa Jima: Nope
Anzo: Nope
Monte Cassino: Nope:
Bulge: Nope
Sedan: Nope
Battle of Brittan: Debateable (one side was only aircraft), but I'd say no
Brody: I don't actually know offhand. Not familiar with this battle offhand. Might be a yes?
Leyte Gulf: Nope
"Battle of the Atlantic": Not sure I'd call this a single battle, but I'd call this a yes
Coral Sea: Yes
Second Battle of Kharkov: No
Luzon: No
Philippine Sea: Yes
Berlin: No
Kursk: No
Moscow: No
D-Day: HELL NO
Midway: Yes
Stalingrad: No
So of the top 20 battles from the first source I came across, we see 3 battles in open areas, 16 clearly not open areas, and one I can't categorize.
Most influential battles is not the same as most battles. They could be the most influential because one side was forced to take out an enemy stronghold (or fail doing so). In a sense, they could be counted as the most important for the very reason that they were uncommon pushes through defenses (Stalingrad, D-day, Guadalcanal). I agree with you entirely, but the supporting argument has some holes.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Most influential battles is not the same as most battles. I agree with you entirely, but the supporting argument doesn't hold.
I didn't have the resources to expend on "20 random battles" and substituted "20 most influential" as a proxy, because it was the most reasonable I came up with off the top of my head.
Of all the battles I can think of, though, only a minority were on a mostly-open field. Not an insignificant minority; in ages of heavy infantry/cavalry, both forces in an even-ish engagement (where both sides thought they had the upper hand) tended to pursue open fields. But even in those eras, terrain was used as much as possible when it would benefit them (castles, river crossings, forests, etc).
That is a strangle US centric list. No mameluks beating the mongols. Nothing from Asian or east europe history unless it is WWII, not even Poltava and without that there would be no Russia. Mighty strange.
But to not be off topic, the only battles that won't be using terrain are those from the future fought in the void of space outside of a star system.
The game that went to turn 2 was earlier in the stream, not the final table.
I think the CA 2019 missions DID add to the diversity of top lists but without more tournies to see it's hard to draw conclusions.
Does anyone know if you had to bring the same list you qualified with to the finals?
1750 vs 2k points does make for different metas in my experience.
Space marines continuing to perform so well with players knowing the will face a disproportionate amount of marines and specifically list tailoring to beat marines is a fact that should stand out. It's like the dark castillian times where the first thing you did when designing a list was ask yourself if you could beat it and it still had a +50% WR.
Not to be harsh but some of the players at this event were not practiced competitive players from what I observed on the stream. This does need to be factored in when we are discussing army strength based on placing and why we really need more than a months data (or one tournament) to draw any real conclusions.
Some of the power imbalance issues are pretty clear from just looking at the stats of the units (compare a TFC to a quad-mortar launcher).
I wish we had more data points. I wish we had more data points from different tournament formats. I wish space wolves, dark angels and DW were not completely invalidated by the new marine codex launch (I'll just throw this one in here in case wishes come true).
Drawing conclusions based off of this one tournament is only slightly more reckless than drawing off the limited December data set. Lucky for us the largest 40k individual tournament is right around the corner so let's see where we end up.
Karol wrote: That is a strangle US centric list. No mameluks beating the mongols. Nothing from Asian or east europe history unless it is WWII, not even Poltava and without that there would be no Russia. Mighty strange.
20 most important battles of WWII only including battles from WWII? What's strange about that? It wasn't a list of the 20 most important battles, or 20 random battles.
But to not be off topic, the only battles that won't be using terrain are those from the future fought in the void of space outside of a star system.
That's kinda in line with the list. The only battles on that list that weren't heavily influenced by terrain were naval battles. Almost as if the only cases where a battle is unlikely to be influenced substantially by terrain is when you can't reasonably expect there to be any...
I count 12/16 top 4 as marines (IH/RG/IF/WS). Don't know what was going on at the Caldeonian Uprising but if we drop that outlier we get 11/12 marines in the top 4 (and that one was Skarii with DE who is a world class player).
Bad news for you Wayniac is I think I heard them say on the stream that GW is moving to 2k for their tournies. Looks like 1.75k is dead, long live 2k...
Martel732 wrote: Thats why i said plenty. The game needs to function inpedendent of terrain.
"Plenty" would be accurate, but "Almost all" would not.
The game should work, but you shouldn't be safe in assuming terrain won't "hold you back".
Before WW1 armies would literally line up in front of each other in an open area intentionally. Honestly the game plays a lot more Napoleonic than post WW1 anyways. Modern armies do not line up with each other or engage in small areas. The battlefield has next to unlimited size and things as a result are MUCH more spread out. Almost all the battles fought in history were fought on open battlefield.
Also if you want to look at realism. If a forest is giving you trouble you just blow it up. If troops are inside of a building shooting at you - you just drop a 155mm shell into the roof and everyone inside is dead. Realism is not fun. Pitched battles are actually a lot of fun. We just need the next version of the game to adopt alternating activation OR casualties removed at end of turn like in apoc.
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Wayniac wrote: One thing though I wish they standardized on 1750. 2000 seems a bit too much, and dropping it to 1750 reduces some of the filth.
The points of the game is fine. Lowering points just punishes elite armies because their HQ's and troops are more expensive.
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Martel732 wrote: Thats why i said plenty. The game needs to function independent of terrain.
OFC it does. They should probably just do away with ILOS weapons too. Just change ILOS to naturally ignore cover and call it a day. Bring back the ordinance/barrage rule too where open topped tanks take bonus damage against them. Shooting threw wall is REALLY dumb in a game this small.
Martel732 wrote: Thats why i said plenty. The game needs to function inpedendent of terrain.
"Plenty" would be accurate, but "Almost all" would not.
The game should work, but you shouldn't be safe in assuming terrain won't "hold you back".
Before WW1 armies would literally line up in front of each other in an open area intentionally. Honestly the game plays a lot more Napoleonic than post WW1 anyways. Modern armies do not line up with each other or engage in small areas. The battlefield has next to unlimited size and things as a result are MUCH more spread out. Almost all the battles fought in history were fought on open battlefield.
Sounds like someone hasn't read about Napolean's Spanish campaign.
In the early modern era, there was a heavy dependence on heavy infantry. Armies based on heavy infantry that thought they had the upper hand wanted an open field. So we saw more open field engagements than eras not dominated by heavy infantry. But even then, it was a preference not a rule. There were plenty of non-open-field engagements in that era, too. Washington crossing the Delaware. Nathan Bedford Forrest's battles. Bull Run (either). Gettysburg. Bunker Hill. Yorktown. Open fields might have been the preference, but they were not the norm. Historically, terrain features were a critical piece of campaigning, as you needed to maximize your use of them.
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Before WW1 armies would literally line up in front of each other in an open area intentionally.
40k has a pretty sizeable proportion of competitive gamers though, and that's quite different in attitude to a more historical approach.
Tailoring your equipment and your force to terrain and your opponent is historically accurate. Tanks exist because charging infantry against WWI trenchlines was suicide.
Yoyoyo wrote: 40k has a pretty sizeable proportion of competitive gamers though, and that's quite different in attitude to a more historical approach.
Tailoring your equipment and your force to terrain and your opponent is historically accurate. Tanks exist because charging infantry against WWI trenchlines was suicide.
But having perfect intelligence before the battle about what the terrain is, what your opponent's got, and having perfect access to every possible thing in your own armoury isn't historically accurate.
I like Infinity's approach where you get to know what the scenario is and what faction your opponent's playing before you build your list but nothing about what's actually in their list or what the table looks like.
Yoyoyo wrote: 40k has a pretty sizeable proportion of competitive gamers though, and that's quite different in attitude to a more historical approach.
Tailoring your equipment and your force to terrain and your opponent is historically accurate. Tanks exist because charging infantry against WWI trenchlines was suicide.
But having perfect intelligence before the battle about what the terrain is, what your opponent's got, and having perfect access to every possible thing in your own armoury isn't historically accurate.
I like Infinity's approach where you get to know what the scenario is and what faction your opponent's playing before you build your list but nothing about what's actually in their list or what the table looks like.
Which is why you bring forces that can adapt to likely terrain. You don't bring a list that only performs well on Planet Bowlingball or Planet Claustrophobia. You bring a mix.
"In real life" you can have battles where the sides have practiced and drilled for months or years either in-place or in facimilies of the exact terrain they wind up fighting on. So I can't really say "it's not realisitic" when complaining about people knowing tournament terrain layout before the game itself. That said, I still don't like it.
Developments like Field Artillery and the machine gun made open field fighting something to avoid unless you're a tank. Airpower has reduced a tank's desire to be in an open field, too. Navy's only "territory" is when you get close in to land, and like the Pacific campaigns demonstrate, archipelagos.
However, the armor of space marine and alien alike have promoted the ability to run through the open more easily then we can consider these days.
Charistoph wrote: Developments like Field Artillery and the machine gun made open field fighting something to avoid unless you're a tank. Airpower has reduced a tank's desire to be in an open field, too. Navy's only "territory" is when you get close in to land, and like the Pacific campaigns demonstrate, archipelagos.
The bolt-action firearms, rifling, and the success of guerrilla engagements in Spain against Napolean and in the US against Britain started shifting combat away from heavy infantry to more light infantry before the Machine Gun was popular (although field guns predate the end of heavy infantry warfare). The Machine Gun makes it suicide, but heavy infantry was losing out before it became popular.
However, the armor of space marine and alien alike have promoted the ability to run through the open more easily then we can consider these days.
This is what is often meant by "Space Marines are walking tanks". In theory, that's their battlefield role.
Charistoph wrote: Developments like Field Artillery and the machine gun made open field fighting something to avoid unless you're a tank. Airpower has reduced a tank's desire to be in an open field, too. Navy's only "territory" is when you get close in to land, and like the Pacific campaigns demonstrate, archipelagos.
The bolt-action firearms, rifling, and the success of guerrilla engagements in Spain against Napolean and in the US against Britain started shifting combat away from heavy infantry to more light infantry before the Machine Gun was popular (although field guns predate the end of heavy infantry warfare). The Machine Gun makes it suicide, but heavy infantry was losing out before it became popular.
Bolt Action rifles weren't very much in use till well after Napoleon. Both sides in the American Civil War largely used muzzle loaders like many of the skirmishers of the American Revolution, as the bolt action rifles were considered "too complicated" for a base soldier, and the Henry repeating rifle was still relatively new (though loved by those who got their hands on them). Pikes weren't even involved in the American Civil War, though, I can't say much about the English wars with the French at the time.
The biggest problems with muskets versus pikes was the slow-loading, and the lack of spiky reach to counter cavalry. The advent of the bayonet in such a way as to be able to have it mounted and fire changed that, making the pike non-existant in the Colonies, along with the general lack of cavalry to counter.
why are people looking at the results of one single WHW tier list with like no big names in attendance, as though its some indisputable tier list? Are we really at this level of stupid today?
Charistoph wrote: Developments like Field Artillery and the machine gun made open field fighting something to avoid unless you're a tank. Airpower has reduced a tank's desire to be in an open field, too. Navy's only "territory" is when you get close in to land, and like the Pacific campaigns demonstrate, archipelagos.
The bolt-action firearms, rifling, and the success of guerrilla engagements in Spain against Napolean and in the US against Britain started shifting combat away from heavy infantry to more light infantry before the Machine Gun was popular (although field guns predate the end of heavy infantry warfare). The Machine Gun makes it suicide, but heavy infantry was losing out before it became popular.
Bolt Action rifles weren't very much in use till well after Napoleon. Both sides in the American Civil War largely used muzzle loaders like many of the skirmishers of the American Revolution, as the bolt action rifles were considered "too complicated" for a base soldier, and the Henry repeating rifle was still relatively new (though loved by those who got their hands on them).
The American Civil War was still fought primarily with heavy infantry, not light. Because, in part, bolt action rifles weren't really there yet, as you say. Muzzle-loaders favored heavy infantry over light.
Pikes weren't even involved in the American Civil War, though, I can't say much about the English wars with the French at the time.
Certainly. I don't think I implied otherwise?
The biggest problems with muskets versus pikes was the slow-loading, and the lack of spiky reach to counter cavalry. The advent of the bayonet in such a way as to be able to have it mounted and fire changed that, making the pike non-existant in the Colonies, along with the general lack of cavalry to counter.
Cavalry in the Civil War tended to be various types of light cavalry, not the heavy cavalry most think of. A pike doesn't do much to most light cavalry. Whether we're talking dragoons or carbines or whatnot, they don't care about pikes.
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Nitro Zeus wrote: why are people looking at the results of one single WHW tier list with like no big names in attendance, as though its some indisputable tier list? Are we really at this level of stupid today?
Because it confirms our biases. If it opposed them, it'd just be an outlier.
Nitro Zeus wrote: why are people looking at the results of one single WHW tier list with like no big names in attendance, as though its some indisputable tier list? Are we really at this level of stupid today?
Because it confirms our biases. If it opposed them, it'd just be an outlier.
Charistoph wrote: Developments like Field Artillery and the machine gun made open field fighting something to avoid unless you're a tank. Airpower has reduced a tank's desire to be in an open field, too. Navy's only "territory" is when you get close in to land, and like the Pacific campaigns demonstrate, archipelagos.
The bolt-action firearms, rifling, and the success of guerrilla engagements in Spain against Napolean and in the US against Britain started shifting combat away from heavy infantry to more light infantry before the Machine Gun was popular (although field guns predate the end of heavy infantry warfare). The Machine Gun makes it suicide, but heavy infantry was losing out before it became popular.
Bolt Action rifles weren't very much in use till well after Napoleon. Both sides in the American Civil War largely used muzzle loaders like many of the skirmishers of the American Revolution, as the bolt action rifles were considered "too complicated" for a base soldier, and the Henry repeating rifle was still relatively new (though loved by those who got their hands on them).
The American Civil War was still fought primarily with heavy infantry, not light. Because, in part, bolt action rifles weren't really there yet, as you say. Muzzle-loaders favored heavy infantry over light.
I think we're using different definitions of heavy infantry. One of the key aspects of heavy infantry is armor, and armor has only recently seen a use in the American military. American troops have been less armored than the Imperial Guard for most of their existence, even going back to the Colonial period. Even before that, it was more a mark of the Spanish conquistadors which were still in the Pike & Shot era to wear any armor with their firearms.
With the advent of kevlar and "dragon" armor, there is consideration in bringing back such a role, though, to say nothing of the development of exo-frames for powered armor.
Charistoph wrote: Developments like Field Artillery and the machine gun made open field fighting something to avoid unless you're a tank. Airpower has reduced a tank's desire to be in an open field, too. Navy's only "territory" is when you get close in to land, and like the Pacific campaigns demonstrate, archipelagos.
The bolt-action firearms, rifling, and the success of guerrilla engagements in Spain against Napolean and in the US against Britain started shifting combat away from heavy infantry to more light infantry before the Machine Gun was popular (although field guns predate the end of heavy infantry warfare). The Machine Gun makes it suicide, but heavy infantry was losing out before it became popular.
Bolt Action rifles weren't very much in use till well after Napoleon. Both sides in the American Civil War largely used muzzle loaders like many of the skirmishers of the American Revolution, as the bolt action rifles were considered "too complicated" for a base soldier, and the Henry repeating rifle was still relatively new (though loved by those who got their hands on them).
The American Civil War was still fought primarily with heavy infantry, not light. Because, in part, bolt action rifles weren't really there yet, as you say. Muzzle-loaders favored heavy infantry over light.
I think we're using different definitions of heavy infantry. One of the key aspects of heavy infantry is armor, and armor has only recently seen a use in the American military.
Heavy Infantry was infantry that fought in formation. Light infantry was infantry that didn't. Light infantry tends to have lighter kit, but that's not actually part of the definition. So some schlub with a spear in a battleline would be heavy infantry, whereas a Seal in body armor toting full combat kit would be light infantry - despite which one is carrying heavier kit.
That said, with modern warfare being so anti-heavy-formation, the old "Light Infantry" vs "Heavy Infantry" dichotomy isn't useful. So terms change.
American troops have been less armored than the Imperial Guard for most of their existence, even going back to the Colonial period. Even before that, it was more a mark of the Spanish conquistadors which were still in the Pike & Shot era to wear any armor with their firearms.
With the advent of kevlar and "dragon" armor, there is consideration in bringing back such a role, though, to say nothing of the development of exo-frames for powered armor.
Agreed with each point. Our difference in views seems to be entirely about terms.
My argument was that "heavy infantry" - meaning infantry that fought in tight/heavy formations en masse - often wanted to fight in open fields. So the time periods you'd see the most open-field engagements would be the time periods where heavy infantry (or cavalry) was the norm. That said, even in those periods much of the fighting was done in places where terrain had an impact.
AnomanderRake wrote: But having perfect intelligence before the battle about what the terrain is, what your opponent's got, and having perfect access to every possible thing in your own armoury isn't historically accurate.
Dude, there's a big delta from "perfect intelligence" to not knowing how to read a map.
Do you not think there was a difference in what units and tactics were used in WW2 North Africa versus trying to clear out a heavily fortified urban area?
Nitro Zeus wrote: why are people looking at the results of one single WHW tier list with like no big names in attendance, as though its some indisputable tier list? Are we really at this level of stupid today?
And there we have it "no big names". As if that mattered.
It is a different tournament circuit, not surprisingly it has some different players.
Not all players are different but playing the GW tournaments does take away from playing ITC tournaments. The Tau player in 2nd place there is the 5th ranked Tau player in the ITC. He is the top ranked UK Tau player even though he does not focus on ITC events - e.g. he was playing in the GT final rather than trying to grab more ITC points at Caledonian Uprising.
There is a tendency for only players on certain tournament and podcast circuits to be considered "big names" - I am not convinced this precludes other players from being just as good.
I think the point of comparison was between the different balance we see in ITC and the GW mission packs. So the culmination of a whole year of tournaments with only good capable players permitted to enter may not be the single biggest tournament but it is certainly interesting data worthy of discussion. Comparing that with the ITC results of the same weekend shows a very different balance of top armies.
Nitro Zeus wrote: why are people looking at the results of one single WHW tier list with like no big names in attendance, as though its some indisputable tier list? Are we really at this level of stupid today?
Because it confirms our biases. If it opposed them, it'd just be an outlier.
Yeah, this feels extremely transparent.
Sigh.
To my knowledge 2 large events last weekend did not use the ITC missions. The GWGT final and the Caledonian Uprising (which used a blend of Maelstrom/Eternal War from CA19)
The top lists at those two events were pretty balanced.
By contrast, the top lists at the other 3 events were 11/12 marines across the top 4 in each.
But you just carry on dismissing anything you don't like as "outlier" if you really like.
To my knowledge 2 large events last weekend did not use the ITC missions. The GWGT final and the Caledonian Uprising (which used a blend of Maelstrom/Eternal War from CA19)
The top lists at those two events were pretty balanced.
By contrast, the top lists at the other 3 events were 11/12 marines across the top 4 in each.
But you just carry on dismissing anything you don't like as "outlier" if you really like.
That part is pretty important to note. The lists were pretty balanced, but "strong". Not like the ITC lists that are just skewed and spam whatever is the best points.
"To my knowledge 2 large events last weekend did not use the ITC missions. The GWGT final and the Caledonian Uprising (which used a blend of Maelstrom/Eternal War from CA19)
The top lists at those two events were pretty balanced.
By contrast, the top lists at the other 3 events were 11/12 marines across the top 4 in each."
If this trend continues, I'll concede that ITC is too biased towards marines. Probably the shooty kind. Which is surprising, given GW's crap terrain rules.
Bharring wrote: Heavy Infantry was infantry that fought in formation. Light infantry was infantry that didn't. Light infantry tends to have lighter kit, but that's not actually part of the definition. So some schlub with a spear in a battleline would be heavy infantry, whereas a Seal in body armor toting full combat kit would be light infantry - despite which one is carrying heavier kit.
That said, with modern warfare being so anti-heavy-formation, the old "Light Infantry" vs "Heavy Infantry" dichotomy isn't useful. So terms change.
Even with modern standards, the line infantry is more appropriately termed as "medium infantry" today. Even in the American Civil War they tended to fight more as skirmishers than formations. It is simply too easy to get a lot of people killed if you maintained a serious formation that didn't include skirmishing. But one of the reasons it had stopped in the Americas by the Civil War. It became far more effective with the bolt action rifle (to say nothing of the repeating rifles coming in WWII) which didn't require people to fire in volleys to be as effective.
American troops have been less armored than the Imperial Guard for most of their existence, even going back to the Colonial period. Even before that, it was more a mark of the Spanish conquistadors which were still in the Pike & Shot era to wear any armor with their firearms.
With the advent of kevlar and "dragon" armor, there is consideration in bringing back such a role, though, to say nothing of the development of exo-frames for powered armor.
Agreed with each point. Our difference in views seems to be entirely about terms.
My argument was that "heavy infantry" - meaning infantry that fought in tight/heavy formations en masse - often wanted to fight in open fields. So the time periods you'd see the most open-field engagements would be the time periods where heavy infantry (or cavalry) was the norm. That said, even in those periods much of the fighting was done in places where terrain had an impact.
Formation fighting required terrain to be open enough to maneuver, but tight enough to minimize/hide flanking. The two reasons for formation fighting was so to keep your men from being pushed out of the way or to provide sufficient depth to discourage cavalry. It became more and more foolish the better ranges, accuracy, and deadliness of weaponry went up.
Formations don't work against field artillery very well. They also don't work well when one can shoot fast enough with a weight of fire that even cavalry will fall apart on the arrival. This is really noticeable when look at how such things worked in Warhammer Fantasy. Skirmishing also worked a lot better in 40K when the templates were in effect as opposed to the random number of shots.
I've been a devout ITC defender but looking at the variate of lists at the Caldeonian Uprising and the WHGT (only 2 events so huge grain of salt) makes me want to push for more tournies to use the CA 2019 missions.
Especially compared to 11/12 SM lists at the ITC over the weekend.
I've always felt the pressure to build to minimize the number of secondaries your list gives up squashes list variety in the ITC but I'm not sure how to punish armies with fearless obsec troops which do really well at GW events...
Just when I'm trying to be more open-minded... GW's missions are not any more "real".
They literally are. They're the official missions by the publisher of the game instead of someone's houserules. I really don't get how this completely obvious concept can be so bloody difficult to understand.
Their terrain and treatment of fearless hordes are real issues.
But I don't care about the publisher of the game. They have 25 years of ineptitude to dig out of with me. Their opinion and officialness long since quit mattering to me. I'm looking for best game experience. To me, GW is just another set of houserules. They said it themselves, they are a model company, not a game company. And it shows.
Martel732 wrote: But I don't care about the publisher of the game. They have 25 years of ineptitude to dig out of with me. Their opinion and officialness long since quit mattering to me. I'm looking for best game experience.
I don't care that you don't care. And I was merely asking which were which.
And so, an empasse. But if the ITC skews too heavy, I'll end up in your camp on the merits. Not the "officialness". Because GW is a bunch of know nothings.
Nitro Zeus wrote: why are people looking at the results of one single WHW tier list with like no big names in attendance, as though its some indisputable tier list? Are we really at this level of stupid today?
And there we have it "no big names". As if that mattered.
It is a different tournament circuit, not surprisingly it has some different players.
Not all players are different but playing the GW tournaments does take away from playing ITC tournaments. The Tau player in 2nd place there is the 5th ranked Tau player in the ITC. He is the top ranked UK Tau player even though he does not focus on ITC events - e.g. he was playing in the GT final rather than trying to grab more ITC points at Caledonian Uprising.
There is a tendency for only players on certain tournament and podcast circuits to be considered "big names" - I am not convinced this precludes other players from being just as good.
I think the point of comparison was between the different balance we see in ITC and the GW mission packs. So the culmination of a whole year of tournaments with only good capable players permitted to enter may not be the single biggest tournament but it is certainly interesting data worthy of discussion. Comparing that with the ITC results of the same weekend shows a very different balance of top armies.
Phew, testy about a result (not results) from unknowns not being considered at the same level of competitive representation as proven top end players, aren't we? I am Australian mate, I don't have sort of country or ITC preference here, the point isn't that all Euro's are bad or anything, you don't need to get this salty about pointing out the obvious fact that I don't think many people here recognise any of those names, meaning we have no real way of knowing if these were worth players to be basing any sort of balance statement around
There's worlds of difference between the best players in the game, and the average tournament competitor. Xenomancer graciously pointing out that Sean Nayden has 46 back to back tournament wins with units the meta considers 'junk' being a good example of this. Or are you one of those genius's who thinks 40k takes no skill and you're already at the top of your game lol? When I score 20 goals in a game at the local soccer circuit, they don't put that in the hall of fame, even though it's possible some of the players I play against go on to be world cup competitors. The reason people put more stake into a stacked event like NOVA with the biggest names in the world, and less into your 20 man RTT with names nobody has recognised, is because we know that one of those events has the very best players in the world and thus the best competition, while the unknown one could have absolutely anybody. And even if a bunch of the best players were there, unless the people they competed against were also the best, this would totally skew the results as well. Hence why "I don't think we should take any one tournament as an indisputable measure of balance right now, especially when we don't really know anything about any of the competitors involved" would seem like a pretty rational statement.
This all feels like common sense. But I guess common sense goes out the window when you perceive a non-existent threat to a very fragile ego.
Nitro Zeus wrote: why are people looking at the results of one single WHW tier list with like no big names in attendance, as though its some indisputable tier list? Are we really at this level of stupid today?
Because it confirms our biases. If it opposed them, it'd just be an outlier.
Yeah, this feels extremely transparent.
Sigh.
To my knowledge 2 large events last weekend did not use the ITC missions. The GWGT final and the Caledonian Uprising (which used a blend of Maelstrom/Eternal War from CA19)
The top lists at those two events were pretty balanced.
By contrast, the top lists at the other 3 events were 11/12 marines across the top 4 in each.
But you just carry on dismissing anything you don't like as "outlier" if you really like.
I... don't like? What part of this don't I like? The two main arguments I made so far, that I'd prefer we dropped ITC missions and swapped to CA missions, and that BA are strong in both mission sets, are BOTH 'supported' by that result.
Nope, if this was based off personal bias, I'd be all in on your absurdity. Quite certain that, unlike yourself, I'm able to step away from personal bias, and I just think it's donkey-levels of conscious stupidity to take one single event and over-analyse the results like you guys are doing, as though it's representative of literally anything other than just ONE EVENT. We see massive swings all the time event to event. It's silly enough to take a proper fleshed out statistic at face value of what is and isn't good (as this thread well demonstrates), let alone one single event lol. You guys are treating this 30 player tourney at Warhammer World of all places, as though it's a hard tier list for how every faction performs on the GW missions. It's just absurdity. When I made my post that you quoted, the results Caledonian uprising literally had not been mentioned in this thread or even released, so don't you dare mention that after the fact as though it has any bearing here, that's beyond disingenuous, its outright dishonest. I'm not saying that the results are wrong, or right, I'm saying put a seconds thought into how intelligent this thought process that GW WHW 2020 placings = GW mission tier list just is.
Sigh. Interacting with 40k players is like a case-study in cognitive dissonance sometimes. You want to be right because it supports your pre-existing beliefs, and thus you'll trumpet absolutely all the evidence that supports it no matter how flimsy, and completely ignore or rage against any information or any sort of rational thought that might disclude you that from treating that as concrete fact, even when it's coming from someone who agrees with the underlying premise that CA missions are the better design. HOW we form our opinions matters mate, and when we support it with nonsense conclusions, it's not a very convincing argument to anybody who would disagree.
AlmightyWalrus wrote: Most influential battles is not the same as most battles. They could be the most influential because one side was forced to take out an enemy stronghold (or fail doing so). In a sense, they could be counted as the most important for the very reason that they were uncommon pushes through defenses (Stalingrad, D-day, Guadalcanal). I agree with you entirely, but the supporting argument has some holes.
Pretty irrelevant though. Whether real battles are fought on planet bowling ball or not(and remember tree in real world is actually useful cover. Tree in 40k is just decor) is irrelevant. We are talking about game here which needs to be fun and balanced. If GW makes rules where playing on planet bowl results in 2 gunlines rolling who goes first to alpha strike to win that means you can't play on planet bowling ball for meaningful game.
Martel732 wrote: And so, an empasse. But if the ITC skews too heavy, I'll end up in your camp on the merits. Not the "officialness". Because GW is a bunch of know nothings.
They can be a top performing company world wide, but they'll cry themselves to sleep tonight because Martel believes they're "know nothings". Whilst buying and playing their game.
I count 12/16 top 4 as marines (IH/RG/IF/WS). Don't know what was going on at the Caldeonian Uprising but if we drop that outlier we get 11/12 marines in the top 4 (and that one was Skarii with DE who is a world class player).
Bad news for you Wayniac is I think I heard them say on the stream that GW is moving to 2k for their tournies. Looks like 1.75k is dead, long live 2k...
Chaos have some nasty stuff in PA and the point decreases in CA were huge for them. There is a reason so many of the top UK players suddenly started playing chaos.
Ofcourse aeldar and nids PA was ignored by them, because most of the rules are meh and CA points changes were to conservative when compared to other factions.
The heavy mechdar is countered heavily by IF and our infantry received NADA although it needed help. Avengers are the some price as chaos space marines, with less toughness and save, that is not good in the age of the criminally under coaster thunderfire cannons.
I'm just hopeful that going forward in 2020 ITC takes more of a backseat and more tournaments use CA missions.
Tournaments shouldn't exclude anything from being used, but ITC does, simply because the secondary missions are far too easy to game IMHO. Even with just 2 non ITC events, the top 4 lists were wildly more different than the rampant 100% marine top 4.
ITC needs to be gracious and step back. They are being stubborn and its effecting the meta of the game far more. While certain armies are powerful, their effectiveness is compounded with tournament rules that actively encourage them to just shoot without having to objective grab at all.
A game should not be decided on lists only. Random cards and objective bases missions mean you need to make a strong, balanced list - not some atrocious spam one.
Nitro Zeus wrote: Nope, if this was based off personal bias, I'd be all in on your absurdity. Quite certain that, unlike yourself, I'm able to step away from personal bias, and I just think it's donkey-levels of conscious stupidity to take one single event and over-analyse the results like you guys are doing, as though it's representative of literally anything other than just ONE EVENT. We see massive swings all the time event to event. It's silly enough to take a proper fleshed out statistic at face value of what is and isn't good (as this thread well demonstrates), let alone one single event lol. You guys are treating this 30 player tourney at Warhammer World of all places, as though it's a hard tier list for how every faction performs on the GW missions. It's just absurdity. When I made my post that you quoted, the results Caledonian uprising literally had not been mentioned in this thread or even released, so don't you dare mention that after the fact as though it has any bearing here, that's beyond disingenuous, its outright dishonest. I'm not saying that the results are wrong, or right, I'm saying put a seconds thought into how intelligent this thought process that GW WHW 2020 placings = GW mission tier list just is.
Sigh. Interacting with 40k players is like a case-study in cognitive dissonance sometimes. You want to be right because it supports your pre-existing beliefs, and thus you'll trumpet absolutely all the evidence that supports it no matter how flimsy, and completely ignore or rage against any information or any sort of rational thought that might disclude you that from treating that as concrete fact, even when it's coming from someone who agrees with the underlying premise that CA missions are the better design. HOW we form our opinions matters mate, and when we support it with nonsense conclusions, it's not a very convincing argument to anybody who would disagree.
It is not one single event though, is it? It never was one event, a lot of us have been seeing the same pattern of results not matching the ITC format stats for months now. As soon as the Caledonian Uprising results were available they got added to the conversation as additional relevant data. As were the other ITC results of the weekend which were ludicrously dominated by marine armies.
As for the GT finals. It was not a 30 player event, get your facts straight. It was an 88 player event in which only players who had previously come top 30 in a GT event were permitted to buy tickets.
It is data. In a thread about data. I am not sure why you seem to object to people wanting to add new data to a discussion about data.
grouchoben wrote: The holidays are over, normal service is resumed...
Goldensprue Cup GT Alexander Fennell – RG Jared Friedman – IH Tony Phillips – RG Patrick McAneeny – White Scars
Caldeonian Uprising Anthony Chew – TSons/Demons James Mackenzie – GSC/Nids Mani Cheema – CSM/Demons/DG Markus Hinson – IF
Critical Hit Gaming Lounge Devin Swann – BA/IF Ridvan ‘Skari’ Martinez – DE Derek Deraiche – RG Val Heffelfinger – RG
New Year’s Knockout GT Dan Sammons – IH Scott Thompson – IH Tim Royers – IF Nathan Martin – IH
And which ones of these are ITC and which ones are real 40K?
"Before you can wage war in a game of Warhammer 40,000, you must select a mission. The core rules include a single mission – Only War – which is ideal to get the action started quickly. Others can be found elsewhere in this book, in other books, or you could play a mission of your own creation." - Main rulebook.
There is no "real" mission format, you could have asked more nicely. ETC, ITC, ITC, ITC so none of them used basic CA19 missions.
Kippers' Melee had 0 top 4 Astartes, Autumn Hull had 1 in second place, those were both ITC GTs. If we look at only those two tournaments then ITC doesn't favour Astartes at all.
It's also funny how people are praising GW for creating a great CA19 set when what they've mostly done is walk back the craziness of their own design and adopt something closer to what tournament hosts have been doing, but they continue to hate other formats.
It literally was one single event that people were making balance declarations over. If past events were included in this analysis, why were none of them mentioned? This is such dishonest backpedalling, not even remotely true, and yet I'm completely unsurprised after your past efforts. Can I please see this data that you are talking about, or is it just all in your head and of course, everyone else who was doing the same thing that I referred to in my post, since obviously they were also working off the same knowledge, and silently incorporating it into their statements here?
My mistake on the size of the event. I only glanced at the top 30 or so and didn't dwell on it. That's a well sized event, for sure. But one event isn't a measure of balance. That shouldn't be a difficult concept to grasp but somehow I think you and I are on very different levels of competitive understanding.
Competitive 40k should allow any unit to take part.
ITC rules don't, because the secondary missions mean certain units are not taken. I mean, even Goonhammer states "Don't take too many Pentinent Engines as they give away gang busters too easily". The list goes on, but at the end of the day, GW are at least trying to make a competitive mission set with limiting randomness that is more tactics/decisions on the table than taking a heavily skewed list. The fact that you auto lose if tabled in ITC also irked me, as that rule completely deincentivises objective play further and its all just kill kill kill.
Until ITC drops Secondary missions, it will continue to see skew in data.
Loading the dice isn't cheating. I could, in theory, create hundreds of loaded dice. That isn't cheating. It's using the loaded dice that's cheating. Regardless of how they became loaded.
Cheating also requires intent though, just like lying. Saying something that is not true in good faith is not lying, just as using a loaded die in good faith is not cheating.
Yes, it requires intent.
There as 6 dice in front of me. Lets say one of them is going to roll a 6, the others aren't, and I need a 6. If I pick the one that will roll a 6 without knowing it'll roll a 6, it's fair. If I pick it believing it has more than a 1/6th chance of rolling a 6, it's cheating.
It doesn't actually matter if the die is loaded. Or if I'm prescient. It only matters if I believe it is not a 1/6th chance of rolling a 6 and use it.
Well crap. Your way of thinking means that I've been cheating at games my entire life.
See, when I pick up a die? I believe it's going to roll what I need. And it often does to my friends dismay/irritation. I can do this with my dice. Their dice. A new cube right out of the case....
Dr. Mills wrote: Competitive 40k should allow any unit to take part.
ITC rules don't, because the secondary missions mean certain units are not taken. I mean, even Goonhammer states "Don't take too many Pentinent Engines as they give away gang busters too easily". The list goes on, but at the end of the day, GW are at least trying to make a competitive mission set with limiting randomness that is more tactics/decisions on the table than taking a heavily skewed list. The fact that you auto lose if tabled in ITC also irked me, as that rule completely deincentivises objective play further and its all just kill kill kill.
Until ITC drops Secondary missions, it will continue to see skew in data.
Does choosing from a superior pool of Maelstrom missions not also skew the data in Maelstrom missions? Why should a faction's win% be determined by unique missions only that faction gets access to? It seems like you're only picking facts that support your narrative. Penitent Engines don't give away gang busters unless the unit contains more than one so I don't know why Goonhammer would state that, I don't consider 4 to be terribly few Penitent Engines. GW allows you to take a list constructed almost entirely of Penitent Engines, but I'm guessing you like to play with the house rule that you cannot take more than three copies of a unit? Or does it not count as a house rule because GW suggested tournaments use that house rule?
Dr. Mills wrote: Competitive 40k should allow any unit to take part.
ITC rules don't, because the secondary missions mean certain units are not taken. I mean, even Goonhammer states "Don't take too many Pentinent Engines as they give away gang busters too easily". The list goes on, but at the end of the day, GW are at least trying to make a competitive mission set with limiting randomness that is more tactics/decisions on the table than taking a heavily skewed list. The fact that you auto lose if tabled in ITC also irked me, as that rule completely deincentivises objective play further and its all just kill kill kill.
Until ITC drops Secondary missions, it will continue to see skew in data.
Does choosing from a superior pool of Maelstrom missions not also skew the data in Maelstrom missions? Why should a faction's win% be determined by unique missions only that faction gets access to? It seems like you're only picking facts that support your narrative. Penitent Engines don't give away gang busters unless the unit contains more than one so I don't know why Goonhammer would state that, I don't consider 4 to be terribly few Penitent Engines. GW allows you to take a list constructed almost entirely of Penitent Engines, but I'm guessing you like to play with the house rule that you cannot take more than three copies of a unit? Or does it not count as a house rule because GW suggested tournaments use that house rule?
I feel that arguing over a factions specific maelstrom missions is more than clutching at straws here. The rule of 3 is a GW recommended rule for matched play. The same one used by ITC, which as you note are house rules.
So that's weird. I thought CWE was as OP as IH/IF and only those two are OP...where they at? I see marine lists topping with all different chapters, and basically no non-marines...
Aren't Space Marines 1 out of like 20 different codex armies at this point? Isn't taking 75% of the top tournament wins something of a teensy cause for alarm?
the_scotsman wrote: So that's weird. I thought CWE was as OP as IH/IF and only those two are OP...where they at? I see marine lists topping with all different chapters, and basically no non-marines...
Aren't Space Marines 1 out of like 20 different codex armies at this point? Isn't taking 75% of the top tournament wins something of a teensy cause for alarm?
Depends if you consider all the other Marine chapters to be the same or different (presumably different). But the 75% thing well, that brings back the topic is this 75% win rate in ITC events, non-ITC events, or both? The latter two should make it cause for alarm, but if it's only 75% win rate in ITC events then the ITC format is the problem and not necessarily the codex itself (although I'm sure even not factoring in ITC the win rate would be above average)
Also obligatory if without the ITC secondaries hordes will dominate, where is the horde domination of the other events? The top lists posted didn't seem like they were very horde-y.
Wayniac wrote: Also obligatory if without the ITC secondaries hordes will dominate, where is the horde domination of the other events? The top lists posted didn't seem like they were very horde-y.
Why would hordes dominate?
I mean I think hordes would be more viable - but if they became meta dominant, most armies can re-equip to blow them away.
Wayniac wrote: Also obligatory if without the ITC secondaries hordes will dominate, where is the horde domination of the other events? The top lists posted didn't seem like they were very horde-y.
Why would hordes dominate?
I mean I think hordes would be more viable - but if they became meta dominant, most armies can re-equip to blow them away.
That's always Martel's reasoning why ITC is superior to the CA missions: Because without it "nothing can beat hordes". Yet none of the lists saw a lot of hordes.
Martel732 wrote: And so, an empasse. But if the ITC skews too heavy, I'll end up in your camp on the merits. Not the "officialness". Because GW is a bunch of know nothings.
They can be a top performing company world wide, but they'll cry themselves to sleep tonight because Martel believes they're "know nothings". Whilst buying and playing their game.
Wayniac wrote: Also obligatory if without the ITC secondaries hordes will dominate, where is the horde domination of the other events? The top lists posted didn't seem like they were very horde-y.
Why would hordes dominate?
I mean I think hordes would be more viable - but if they became meta dominant, most armies can re-equip to blow them away.
That's always Martel's reasoning why ITC is superior to the CA missions: Because without it "nothing can beat hordes". Yet none of the lists saw a lot of hordes.
Maybe I'm wrong then. But I still really enjoy picking secondaries. And I don't trust GW.
Martel732 wrote: Maybe I'm wrong then. But I still really enjoy picking secondaries. And I don't trust GW.
Well, the last part I think we all agree on, and I do admit I see the benefit for choosing secondaries. It's nice to be able to plan for that, but I feel it lessens the actual impact of gameplay because nearly everything except terrain can be figured out before the armies even hit the table. Of course you still have to USE it, but you remove a lot of "fog of war" type things which I think is intentional by GW to NOT emphasize what you bring over how you use it.
And I truly don't understand how cheap swarms don't do better in GW mission style. Swarm objectives. Make opponent waste time taking actions for which they get no benefit. Profit. Maybe this works better in the regional meta. I don't know; I've played about five CA missions recently and observed about five others.
Wayniac wrote: Also obligatory if without the ITC secondaries hordes will dominate, where is the horde domination of the other events? The top lists posted didn't seem like they were very horde-y.
Why would hordes dominate?
I mean I think hordes would be more viable - but if they became meta dominant, most armies can re-equip to blow them away.
That's always Martel's reasoning why ITC is superior to the CA missions: Because without it "nothing can beat hordes". Yet none of the lists saw a lot of hordes.
As someone that occaissonally runs 200-300 model hordes that are abosultely morale immune. Your average SM list will have a field day.
Wayniac wrote: Also obligatory if without the ITC secondaries hordes will dominate, where is the horde domination of the other events? The top lists posted didn't seem like they were very horde-y.
Why would hordes dominate?
I mean I think hordes would be more viable - but if they became meta dominant, most armies can re-equip to blow them away.
That's always Martel's reasoning why ITC is superior to the CA missions: Because without it "nothing can beat hordes". Yet none of the lists saw a lot of hordes.
As someone that occaissonally runs 200-300 model hordes that are abosultely morale immune. Your average SM list will have a field day.
Can you elaborate? Most of the marine changes didn't help much vs hordes.
Wayniac wrote: Also obligatory if without the ITC secondaries hordes will dominate, where is the horde domination of the other events? The top lists posted didn't seem like they were very horde-y.
Why would hordes dominate?
I mean I think hordes would be more viable - but if they became meta dominant, most armies can re-equip to blow them away.
That's always Martel's reasoning why ITC is superior to the CA missions: Because without it "nothing can beat hordes". Yet none of the lists saw a lot of hordes.
As someone that occaissonally runs 200-300 model hordes that are abosultely morale immune. Your average SM list will have a field day.
Can you elaborate? Most of the marine changes didn't help much vs hordes.
S4 Ap-1 2 shots, 24 inches. ( or more if primaris.)
nuff said
Wayniac wrote: Also obligatory if without the ITC secondaries hordes will dominate, where is the horde domination of the other events? The top lists posted didn't seem like they were very horde-y.
Why would hordes dominate?
I mean I think hordes would be more viable - but if they became meta dominant, most armies can re-equip to blow them away.
That's always Martel's reasoning why ITC is superior to the CA missions: Because without it "nothing can beat hordes". Yet none of the lists saw a lot of hordes.
Wayniac wrote: Also obligatory if without the ITC secondaries hordes will dominate, where is the horde domination of the other events? The top lists posted didn't seem like they were very horde-y.
Why would hordes dominate?
I mean I think hordes would be more viable - but if they became meta dominant, most armies can re-equip to blow them away.
That's always Martel's reasoning why ITC is superior to the CA missions: Because without it "nothing can beat hordes". Yet none of the lists saw a lot of hordes.
Chess clocks are a thing.
Chess clocks are another big problem, but yes they are.
Martel732 wrote: And I truly don't understand how cheap swarms don't do better in GW mission style. Swarm objectives. Make opponent waste time taking actions for which they get no benefit. Profit. Maybe this works better in the regional meta. I don't know; I've played about five CA missions recently and observed about five others.
Super basic breakdown/theory:
In reality half the objectives are likely to be within close reach of your half the table, the other objectives are likely to be split between midfield and your opponents half.
Your actions are to hold your available territory and remove your opponent or contest the others, either at their end or the mid field in essence.
Yes they may have 150 guardsmen or gaunts, but you can coordinate your efforts into killing that unit to dent your opponents points. It's not wasted effort that you aren't rewarded for it.
Again very basic black/white concept but contesting half the board isn't an impossible task.
Dr. Mills wrote: Competitive 40k should allow any unit to take part.
ITC rules don't, because the secondary missions mean certain units are not taken. I mean, even Goonhammer states "Don't take too many Pentinent Engines as they give away gang busters too easily". The list goes on, but at the end of the day, GW are at least trying to make a competitive mission set with limiting randomness that is more tactics/decisions on the table than taking a heavily skewed list. The fact that you auto lose if tabled in ITC also irked me, as that rule completely deincentivises objective play further and its all just kill kill kill.
Until ITC drops Secondary missions, it will continue to see skew in data.
Does choosing from a superior pool of Maelstrom missions not also skew the data in Maelstrom missions? Why should a faction's win% be determined by unique missions only that faction gets access to? It seems like you're only picking facts that support your narrative. Penitent Engines don't give away gang busters unless the unit contains more than one so I don't know why Goonhammer would state that, I don't consider 4 to be terribly few Penitent Engines. GW allows you to take a list constructed almost entirely of Penitent Engines, but I'm guessing you like to play with the house rule that you cannot take more than three copies of a unit? Or does it not count as a house rule because GW suggested tournaments use that house rule?
I feel that arguing over a factions specific maelstrom missions is more than clutching at straws here. The rule of 3 is a GW recommended rule for matched play. The same one used by ITC, which as you note are house rules.
How does faction unique maelstrom cards skew the data less than ITC secondaries? I have also posted a couple of ITC events that were not dominated by Marines, I would like something more than a couple tournaments to prove that Marines are bad in Maelstrom and not just sometimes lose to bad mission draws. At least ITC missions don't include special "Necrons suck objectives" into their rules, something I'd argue Maelstrom does and is why it's only useful for casual games IMO. Ro3 is for organized events, unless you call a pick-up game an organized event, then no. What makes the Ro3 house rule okay but ITC homebrew missions not ok?
I don't think it is that far of a stretch to remove the faction specific maelstrom cards to make CA 2019 much more balanced.
I'd like to see more CA 2019 tournaments to actually get a grasp on how ITC is warping the meta. Designing my lists accounting for ITC secondaries is pretty much reflexive at this point and maybe I'm just too conditioned to thinking about 40k as ITC.
The ITC guys do have a hand in creating/balancing the GW missions (at least they did in 2018) maybe the co-lab with GW has finally paid competitive dividends?
But at this point what are we even discussing. Anyone arguing that certain flavors of marines are not OP compared to the rest of the armies (eldar TBD?)? I'd say IH/IF/RG and WS need nerfs (TFC, cents no longer infantry, super docs or regular docs, no siege breaker, MA + stealthy are too powerful together, IH re-roll 1s or no move penalty).
Now maybe GW keeps buffing the rest of the field until they catch up (possessed bomb is stupid and terrible to play against but no doubt powerful) but it still looks like some flavors of marines are outside of the power band.
The GW vs ITC is an interesting topic but without more data I think it is hard to call CA2019 the savior to balance.
If all the other Chapters were nerfed to the level of average armies, all the good players would swap to Ultramarines and Salamanders and those armies win rates would skyrocket. They are not being held back by lack of power.
So, with the sisters' "Doctrine", the Gk's Tides and the Tsons cults rules being previewed, Doctrines are looking more like one of those "Oh shoot we fethed up with that first one we gotta tone the power back down" GW release waves, and not one of those "we'll be real cautious early on and then each successive release will creep the power" release waves.
So, more "Flyers 6E" and "Decurions 7E" than "Codexes and army traits 8E".
the_scotsman wrote: So, with the sisters' "Doctrine", the Gk's Tides and the Tsons cults rules being previewed, Doctrines are looking more like one of those "Oh shoot we fethed up with that first one we gotta tone the power back down" GW release waves, and not one of those "we'll be real cautious early on and then each successive release will creep the power" release waves.
So, more "Flyers 6E" and "Decurions 7E" than "Codexes and army traits 8E".
the_scotsman wrote: So, with the sisters' "Doctrine", the Gk's Tides and the Tsons cults rules being previewed, Doctrines are looking more like one of those "Oh shoot we fethed up with that first one we gotta tone the power back down" GW release waves, and not one of those "we'll be real cautious early on and then each successive release will creep the power" release waves.
So, more "Flyers 6E" and "Decurions 7E" than "Codexes and army traits 8E".
So the standard operating procedure for GW then. Mess up one army and make it crazy OP, then tone it down for everybody else without ever toning down the OP one, therefore resulting in the OP one dominating since now it's the only OP one and never gets toned down to the level they decided to put everyone else at.
Not being able to interact with the enemy army leads to a frustrating play experience.
Screening a unit with a -3/4 to hit lord disco (or making it -2/-3 to hit) so I can't interact with it until it hits my lines is about as fun as playing Tau drone spam or eldar planes (with an army that isn't marines 2.0).
The same way the salamanders strat was dumb and broken the possessed bomb is dumb and broken.
True LOS, bad terrain rules, mis-costed units and shooting >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>CqC have created a situation where this type of play is necessary for the unit to see the board but it doesn't make it good or fun game design (and that's what we're here for right, to have fun?).
Locking this type of unit into one army is swallowing a spider to catch a fly game design that is another one of GWs game design tenants that is pants on head stupid. If this type of unit was available to more than one army then maybe it wouldn't bother me so much but giving the ability to one army leads to got'cha feelz bad moments and shouldn't be a design goal.
I'm probably just salty that my cqc units can't do any of that (sw/dw/da can't t1 charge or ds assault with a > 50% chance of getting into combat) but untargetable units hidden behind unhittable units seems like bad game design to me and seems like a response to the dumb as hell TFC problem that GW created. I'd rather GW nerf that TFC tremor shell issue than create another problem unit/combo.
GW tried to nerf T1 charges and DS assaults and are now creating all types of work arounds. Either it's part of the game or it isn't. The design inconsistencies are also grating my nerves and seem dishonest or incompetent...
The GW vs ITC is an interesting topic but without more data I think it is hard to call CA2019 the savior to balance.
That's essentially the cyclical issue. It's hard to say how good CA2019 actually is without more data, but without more data no one is willing to trust CA2019 to use it for their events.
It terms of balance, its rather important that models are being designed toward the environment they're being played in. If CA2019 is the environment things are being designed to, its theoretically better, but realistically going to have problems that can only be fixed through playtesting and feedback. CA2019 needs to be played; both so players trust CA2019 and to improve CA2020.
ITC has earned the community's trust because they've done a fantastic job picking up the slack after GW let go of the reigns. I think we're better off in the long run though if its part of GWs design for the game. I'm not sure exactly how to accomplish this, but I'd definitely be happy to see a couple major tournaments use CA each year to see how it really shakes out. Alternatively, ITC could look to incorporate some of CA in the packet. Either way, I think its a bridge worth building.
Martel732 wrote: I dont understand why t1 charges are bad but t1 face melting shooting is aokay.
I guess historically melee was a lot more powerful than shooting and almost always resulted in a wiped squad. Not so much the case anymore, though. 40k is guns with a splash of melee, AoS is melee with a splash of guns. I'd like something in the middle.
Martel732 wrote: I dont understand why t1 charges are bad but t1 face melting shooting is aokay.
Personally, i feel like none are, a game of 40k should not be defined in the first turn. A lot of people enjoy mindlessly gunning down their opponent so when their opponent connects in melee with them and prevents them from shooting, they dont like it.
Theres a mental difference between "My unit cant shoot because its dead" and "My unit cant shoot because it fell back this turn"
Martel732 wrote: I dont understand why t1 charges are bad but t1 face melting shooting is aokay.
T1 somehow charge 5 Marines into a 20man squad. That 20 man squad is done. It's not dead, but it's stuck. It can fall back, but then it gets charged again.
T1 shoot 5 Marines at a 20man squad. That squad is now 19 angry men.
the_scotsman wrote: So, with the sisters' "Doctrine", the Gk's Tides and the Tsons cults rules being previewed, Doctrines are looking more like one of those "Oh shoot we fethed up with that first one we gotta tone the power back down" GW release waves, and not one of those "we'll be real cautious early on and then each successive release will creep the power" release waves.
So, more "Flyers 6E" and "Decurions 7E" than "Codexes and army traits 8E".
Humm...
MSU spam GK putting out 30+ mortals a turn and blasting away with 24+ psycannons with flat 2 damage and str 8....I'm pretty sure GK are actually more powerful than marines at this point. GK are my original army and I'm really excited about these rules. Even better than -1 AP across the board. The only draw back for the army is nothing cheaper than 17 points to screen with but when that unit is an offensive power house for 85 points...I really don't see that as a disadvantage.
bananathug wrote: Not being able to interact with the enemy army leads to a frustrating play experience.
Screening a unit with a -3/4 to hit lord disco (or making it -2/-3 to hit) so I can't interact with it until it hits my lines is about as fun as playing Tau drone spam or eldar planes (with an army that isn't marines 2.0).
Isn't the fact 'you can't interact with it' more of an indication you built a list around nothing but min-maxed conventional shooting?
The AL trait only applies outside 12", Benediction of Darkness is only applicable in the shooting phase, Miasma can be denied. You also have autohitting weapons, mortal wounds, your own rerolls and bonuses to hit, sniping or assaulting the support HQs, etc.
If your only tool is a hammer, do you complain vociferously to GW when you encounter a tactical challenge that isn't a nail?
Martel732 wrote: I dont understand why t1 charges are bad but t1 face melting shooting is aokay.
T1 somehow charge 5 Marines into a 20man squad. That 20 man squad is done. It's not dead, but it's stuck. It can fall back, but then it gets charged again.
T1 shoot 5 Marines at a 20man squad. That squad is now 19 angry men.
But it doesnt get charged again. The rest of the army that was physically protected by the 20 models wipes the marines. Shooting chooses what dies whereas the defender always chooses what is charged. Im still not sure if gw realizes how weak assault is in 8th.
Turn 1 charges were never winning in 8th. It was turn 1 deep strike shooting that got turn 1 assault nerfed.
Martel732 wrote: I dont understand why t1 charges are bad but t1 face melting shooting is aokay.
T1 somehow charge 5 Marines into a 20man squad. That 20 man squad is done. It's not dead, but it's stuck. It can fall back, but then it gets charged again.
T1 shoot 5 Marines at a 20man squad. That squad is now 19 angry men.
But it doesn't get charged again. The rest of the army that was physically protected by the 20 models wipes the marines. Shooting chooses what dies whereas the defender always chooses what is charged. Im still not sure if gw realizes how weak assault is in 8th.
Turn 1 charge wouldn't be a problem if ignore over-watch didn't exist. 1 Unit tying up a whole army automatically because it can't be over-watched is just straight up dumb. It is effectively unlimited ranged shooting attacks which also prevent every unit you touch from shooting back - you can melee back ofc...but plenty of units have little chance to kill owed up melee squads.
). And that's when two armies are designed to be as cutthroat as possible, if both sides are not squeezing the most efficiencies out of their lists the imbalances are such that skill (or call it in game decisions) hardly impacts the outcome at all (a problem a lot of people have with a lot of 
)
