My main takeaway of all this LVO bruhaha has been that ITC may be more balanced than RAW, but is still extremely, and predictably, unbalanced.

CWE still trounce.

What can (and should) ITC do about this?

Reigning CWE in to "normal" levels ("7.5" with Tau/Necrons/SMs, or "7.0" with Orks/DE/etc) would take quite a bit of changes. Perhaps more than is reasonable for ITC.

ITC seems to be mostly an FAQ, plus a lightest-touch-possible targeted nerf of the most rediculous things (2+ rerollable, Invis, etc). The scale of the changes needed to bring more balance seems to be out of scope for them (Warp Spiders, SL Bikes, and Gladius each need fairly significant direct changes).

This isn't to say ITC is bad. From what I've read, I'd much rather play ITC than RAW, even non competitively.

I'm not offering a solution, just wondering if others are seeing the same limitation I am.

Reece recently came out and said marine Gladius dose not do nearly as well across the pond. Why? Because they use TRUE maelstrom rules. Those PUNISH msu lists with all its easily destroyed vehicles and sergents everywhere.

The ITC is made by them to play the style they enjoy. Does it suck to lose maelstrom due to random cards after dominating the rest of the match? Yes. But their style of game has already been formulated. It's better to go second. MSU is king. It's too predictable and lends itself to a narrow scope of potential good armies. If they ever did straight kill point missions in their tournaments marines and eldar wouldn't dominate like they do.

Personally, my thoughts on this...people need to acknowledge and be honest about the fact that this game is fundamentally broken and unsuited to organized, much less competitive, play. The balance and functionality issues are both blatant and huge.

The ITC does fine at what it professes to do, which is to curb a couple of the absolute worst issues and clear up some things so that its possible to at least run an event that wont be a complete shitshow with an otherwise minimal number of changes.

However, if people really want good organized, competitive play, then they really need to stop pussyfooting around and go in and make *drastic* actual changes and Errata along with more restrictions on detachments and allies and whatnot, rather than trying to preserve the integrity of a ruleset that has no functionality to preserve. Be it Maelstrom in any guise, D weapons, formation bonuses & free stuff, etc.

Otherwise all thats going to happen is that we're going to continue the trend of the same few intensely abusable things dominate, cycling only as even more powerful things are added, which is really a terrible way to do things with this type of game.

@OP

The problem isn't with Eldar. It's due to the release of the new Forgeworld expansion, the Mymeara. That book now gives Eldar a lot more tools to work with. They are still very beatable, but when you put them in the hands of a truly great general, they become very, very good.

The problem isn't the army itself. Rather, it is the players behind the armies. If you want to nerf anything, nerf the players. Make them play with 1 arm tied behind their backs and with 1 eye shut.

 Orock wrote:
Reece recently came out and said marine Gladius dose not do nearly as well across the pond. Why? Because they use TRUE maelstrom rules. Those PUNISH msu lists with all its easily destroyed vehicles and sergents everywhere.

The ITC is made by them to play the style they enjoy. Does it suck to lose maelstrom due to random cards after dominating the rest of the match? Yes. But their style of game has already been formulated. It's better to go second. MSU is king. It's too predictable and lends itself to a narrow scope of potential good armies. If they ever did straight kill point missions in their tournaments marines and eldar wouldn't dominate like they do.

The Eldar players "across the pond" run MSU lists as well so how come they are doing well? Maelstrom objectives do not punish MSU. Rather, the best armies at Maelstrom are MSU. To be more specific, the best armies at pure Maelstrom is Fast MSU. It's actually universal, no matter if it is Maelstrom, ITC, Nova or whatever mission. As long as you are playing with objectives, Fast MSU will always have an inherent advantage.




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 Vaktathi wrote:
Personally, my thoughts on this...people need to acknowledge and be honest about the fact that this game is fundamentally broken and unsuited to organized, much less competitive, play. The balance and functionality issues are both blatant and huge.

The ITC does fine at what it professes to do, which is to curb a couple of the absolute worst issues and clear up some things so that its possible to at least run an event that wont be a complete shitshow with an otherwise minimal number or changes.

However, if people really want good organized, competitive play, then they really need to stop pussyfooting around and go in and make *drastic* actual changes and Errata along with more restrictions on detachments and allies and whatnot, rather than trying to preserve the integrity of a ruleset that has no functionality to preserve. Be it Maelstrom in any guise, D weapons, formation bonusrs & free stuff, etc.

Otherwise all thats going to happen is that we're going to continue the trend of the same few intensely abusable things dominate, cycling only as even more powerful things are added, which is really a terrible way to do things with this type of game.

Agreed.

The game needs to either be drastically overhauled for competitive play, or it needs a lot of facelifting along the way.

Kudos to the ITC for making an attempt to make this game more playable on the competitive level. They're the only ones who have taken the time, effort, energy and criticism in order to do so, especially on a more universal level. No one else would even attempt to do this thankless job (and for free!).

IA11 certainly gave some good options, but the CWE book is the root of the crazy.

Scatter bikes. Warp Spiders. Basic WK.

 Orock wrote:
Reece recently came out and said marine Gladius dose not do nearly as well across the pond. Why? Because they use TRUE maelstrom rules. Those PUNISH msu lists with all its easily destroyed vehicles and sergents everywhere.

Gladius doesn't do nearly as well in ETC format play, not Maelstrom specifically, because every ETC mission accounts for kill points in determining overall score. High durability MSU (I'm looking at you, Warp Spiders) has a distinct advantage in the format when compared to low durability MSU (e.g. rhinos, tac marines) in that they won't bleed 8 points in every mission.

 jy2 wrote:

 Orock wrote:
Reece recently came out and said marine Gladius dose not do nearly as well across the pond. Why? Because they use TRUE maelstrom rules. Those PUNISH msu lists with all its easily destroyed vehicles and sergents everywhere.

The ITC is made by them to play the style they enjoy. Does it suck to lose maelstrom due to random cards after dominating the rest of the match? Yes. But their style of game has already been formulated. It's better to go second. MSU is king. It's too predictable and lends itself to a narrow scope of potential good armies. If they ever did straight kill point missions in their tournaments marines and eldar wouldn't dominate like they do.

The Eldar players "across the pond" run MSU lists as well so how come they are doing well? Maelstrom objectives do not punish MSU. Rather, the best armies at Maelstrom are MSU. To be more specific, the best armies at pure Maelstrom is Fast MSU. It's actually universal, no matter if it is Maelstrom, ITC, Nova or whatever mission. As long as you are playing with objectives, Fast MSU will always have an inherent advantage.

I believe that in the old world the ETC missions are the preferred method of playing tournaments. From my understanding those involve kill points in every mission. So when you take 10 free transports there's a downside to that in every mission, not just 1/3 chance to get those maelstrom objectives or mission 3 primary only. The Eldar MSU avoid this a bit by taking warp spiders that are very hard to kill if there's enough terrain on the table. Especially since I think ETC does not limit warp spiders to one jump.

ITC has shown it's limits since people have first started pointing out how good MSU is under its ruleset. ranging from simply encouraging it, to activley punishing larger units vs. MSU with certain mission rules.

bogalubov wrote:

 jy2 wrote:

 Orock wrote:
Reece recently came out and said marine Gladius dose not do nearly as well across the pond. Why? Because they use TRUE maelstrom rules. Those PUNISH msu lists with all its easily destroyed vehicles and sergents everywhere.

The ITC is made by them to play the style they enjoy. Does it suck to lose maelstrom due to random cards after dominating the rest of the match? Yes. But their style of game has already been formulated. It's better to go second. MSU is king. It's too predictable and lends itself to a narrow scope of potential good armies. If they ever did straight kill point missions in their tournaments marines and eldar wouldn't dominate like they do.

The Eldar players "across the pond" run MSU lists as well so how come they are doing well? Maelstrom objectives do not punish MSU. Rather, the best armies at Maelstrom are MSU. To be more specific, the best armies at pure Maelstrom is Fast MSU. It's actually universal, no matter if it is Maelstrom, ITC, Nova or whatever mission. As long as you are playing with objectives, Fast MSU will always have an inherent advantage.

I believe that in the old world the ETC missions are the preferred method of playing tournaments. From my understanding those involve kill points in every mission. So when you take 10 free transports there's a downside to that in every mission, not just 1/3 chance to get those maelstrom objectives or mission 3 primary only. The Eldar MSU avoid this a bit by taking warp spiders that are very hard to kill if there's enough terrain on the table. Especially since I think ETC does not limit warp spiders to one jump.

Yes, hence why Fast MSU has an inherent advantage. They can play KP-denial better than normal MSU.

Part of the issue is that the FLG team doesn't actually want to turn the game into a whole new game. They've historically tried to skirt by changing the game as little as practically possible while still having a game that can actually be played by two people that don't know each other pre-game. Basically restricting themselves to band-aid-ing a game that has internal bleeding issues.

Over the last year the crazy GW releases have thrown out plenty of forks in the road for them to muddle through, so voting quickly went from a "tournament exit survey" to "holy crap we need another vote AGAIN!" in a small timeframe.

I personally think if they would just cut 'er open and do the open guts surgery on the game instead of placing band-aids, we'd have ourselves a game more suited to a competitive event, with improved balance and rules mechanics that work as intended.

Yknow, kind of like what would happen if any competent game company got the license away from GW.

While the missions are popular and have been good start I feel pretty strongly they need an overhaul. The basic 4/4/1/1/1 split is fine but I think the progresive/maelstrom should be less dependent on random rolls and heavily situational dependent objectives (eg take a nod from NoVa and 2016 Adpeticon missions). I also think Kill Points should be the secondary/progressive in more missions - especially heavy end game objective ones, sort of like how ETC does it. I mean Kill Points is essentially a progressive and during game mission.

Also or alternatively if they keep the maelstrom chart as is they should switch to having scoring start at the top of each player turn (starting turn 2). Like what Adepticon is doing. I think that address both concerns about 2nd turn weighting and Reece's concerns about book maelstrom removing player interaction.

I'm also still baffled that drawing Primary and Secondary awards no points. Its meaningless as far as W/L/D but its a big factor for RenMan and Best in Faction as well as tie breakers. I understood it when the primary was 3 points but now that both are divisible by 2 it should be updated.

 Orock wrote:
Reece recently came out and said marine Gladius dose not do nearly as well across the pond. Why? Because they use TRUE maelstrom rules.

I am pretty sure it has nothing to do with maelstrom. ETC missions have a killpoint differential in every game. UK and many of the European events use the ETC missions hence why they gravitate towards more survivable MSU like warp spiders. Granted the max points from that KP differential is 8 points, so its still possible to win matches with MSU spam, its just less likely to max points. But maxing points is an ETC not as much of an ITC thing (unless going for renman or best in faction). So if ITC mixed in killpoints into the progressive/secondary scoring abit more they could easily balance things I think. Its the direction I may go in my own ITC tournament coming up if the 2016 missions don't address things.

Also to add, the modfied book maelstrom like what ETC does is still a bad mission design. Even putting aside the random nature of it the fact that they score it bottom of every player turn eliminates any tactical skill. You win that style almost purely off of luck and list. Tweak it to work like Adepticon progressive and it functions much better in my opinion.

 Brennonjw wrote:
ITC has shown it's limits since people have first started pointing out how good MSU is under its ruleset. ranging from simply encouraging it, to activley punishing larger units vs. MSU with certain mission rules.

I think that's what I take away from it - as others have pointed out here, of course.

Not necessarily saying it's a bad thing, just that it does seem to tip the scales even more in MSU's favor than the stock rules.

Betteridge's Law applies here

As others have said, the ITC is not in the business of making the game balanced. 40k is an unbalanced mess of a game. What the ITC do is try to curb the most egregious examples of broken/unbalanced units and rules and create something resembling a clear and concise ruleset for play that's fun and enjoyable for all involved. I would argue that 40k needs a ground-up rewrite, but getting the community to agree on one format would be nearly impossible.

Maelstrom Elements in the ITC missions were IMO one of the best ides the ITC has had. It gets rid of the most obnoxious elements of the format while preserving its emphasis on mobility and board control.

The reason the ITC favors MSU army builds so much is simple: Reece believes they deathstars are bad for the game, and so designed a format where deathstars are at a disadvantage. Not that certain deathstars can't do well in ITC *cough*ThunderCav*cough*.

Betteridges Law applies to news article headlines, not the thesises of arguments. To try to apply it so is basically just saying "No".

I said showing its limitations. I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't worth using, only that it can only do so much.

Should just do killpoints based on point cost of models slain irregardless of weather a full unit was destroyed or not.

The whole 'your army is worth 10 points if I kill it but mine is only worth 3' doesn't make much sense.

To instantly balance Maelstrom just draw the same cards for both players - no more complaining about bad draws and people can focus on just building lists that are good at achieving all the cards (and make the d3 ones just auto count as 2 points)

First blood - I tried to think of a way to balance it but I think it is too imbalanced for some armies to pull off (especially assault based ones) and depends on who goes first.

This is why I prefer the good ol days of "Blow up crap and count the point costs in the end". However even that has it's inherent balance problems without even counting the codex power creep.

MSU is going to have an advantage in any game with progressive objectives, but from my experience, progressive objectives make the game more enjoyable; however, MSU lists also bring up issues of slow play, intentional or not. Having 20+ units to manage in a game is difficult, especially when movement is critical.

I remember 6th ed where everyone sat on objectives and camped until the 5th turn turbo-boost to contest. That was not fun. I also remember the usual deathstars that have popped up at different times in different editions, and those are certainly not fun either.

When you also have victory points at all times, then deathstars become even more common as they are the best at not giving victory points just as MSU are best at scoring progression objectives.

There is surely a middle-ground that helps foster army and list diversity. Perhaps having another mission other than purge in rotation that promises at least 2 KP missions in a 6 round GT would help as well as more varied progressive objectives like ETC (I think I heard they use 18 cards/options ).

Perhaps ETC and ITC can hash out some middle-ground.

I rather like that the ITC is more msu focused. I think it leads to more interesting varied games when there are a lot of units on the table.

While Eldar made a big showing at the LVO if you look at the other tournament results they havn't been rocking tournaments everywhere in the ITC.

You can check out ITC tournament results here.https://www.frontlinegaming.org/community/frontline-gamings-independent-tournament-circuit/2015-itc-event-results/

I didn't look at all of them, but from what I did see it looked like it was space marines that where winning most of them.

I think the recent doom of mymeria really has brought eldar up a notch. The pale court and the skathach wraithknight are both amazing. Combined with the allowance of two aspect shrines makes the fast killy eldar even faster and even killier.

I watched the semi finals between Alan(The ITC champion), and Alex (the winning eldar player) player. It really seemed like Alex won entirely on luck. Before the match started Alex seemed to think he was doomed. Alan failed cursed earth on 5 dice, and got the -1 invuln save winds of chaos even with the fate weaver reroll. So instead of having a 2+rerollable invulnerable save he had a 4+ invulnerable save. Because of this his entire screamer star was wiped off the board turn 2. To top it off the wraithknight got a six on the stomp to kill be'Lakor. Even with all that Alan almost won the game. I really think with just a little less obscenely bad luck it would have been a daemon vs eldar final.

 Orock wrote:
Reece recently came out and said marine Gladius dose not do nearly as well across the pond. Why? Because they use TRUE maelstrom rules. Those PUNISH msu lists with all its easily destroyed vehicles and sergents everywhere.

The ITC is made by them to play the style they enjoy. Does it suck to lose maelstrom due to random cards after dominating the rest of the match? Yes. But their style of game has already been formulated. It's better to go second. MSU is king. It's too predictable and lends itself to a narrow scope of potential good armies. If they ever did straight kill point missions in their tournaments marines and eldar wouldn't dominate like they do.

I disagree so strongly, that I almost want to declare what you said as objectively wrong.

A) Marines hardly dominated.

B) Include KP in all your missions and I GUARANTEE the game becomes more HOMOGENOUS in list-building. KPs being overly represented in missions (I am not against kill point missions, but they shouldn't be part of every mission) favors certain army types and codices. The real question is, would you rather play against extreme MSU armies, or would you rather play against deathstars? If you move towards KPs being a major part of every mission, all you will see on top tables is deathstars. At least MSU armies can be interacted with in a meaningful way. If you switch to a KP heavy format, yes, you will most likely kill off Gladius, but that would be about it. Spiders are every bit as good in the ETC format, despite KPs being heavily used in their missions, because of how absurdly mobile they are. In fact, all the Eldar units I see people spam or run MSU style (Scatbikes, Aspect warriors) have the ability to play extremely defensively and deny KP.

Do we really want to return to the 6th ed, early 7th ed Deathstar domination? Was that fun? I'd rather play against a 45 spider Eldar list than an Eldar Seer Council any day of the week. One army I can actually interact with, even if it is annoying as hell, the other consists, almost entirely, of one unit that is essentially invincible and will likely be one of very few units you can engage with.

Yes, NOVA/ITC missions, to an extent, favor MSU, but that isn't entirely true. Look at the top lists and I would hardly call most of them true MSU armies (20+ units). ITC and NOVA both do a good job hurting these armies (NOVA may have gone too far last year, as evidenced by how many Deathstars made top tables). Also, keep in mind, 2 very-non MSU Cron armies made top tables, a Daemon list that is DEFINITELY not MSU made top 8,TWC star made top 8 and a list featuring the Corpsethief formation (which is a very pricey unit that could easily qualify as a deathstar). So by my count, Pajama pants ran a deathstar-styled list, Aaron Aleong did, Alex Fennel did and so did Sean Nayden. If the missions favored MSU as heavily as you make it out to be I highly doubt that the results would have been what they are

IMO, anything that encourages people NOT TO USE giant, completely invulnerable units, is a good thing. Sorry if you don't like MSU, but I (and I think many others) find it far more enjoyable than playing deathstar 40k.

Just one more note, for about a year I used a SW/DA TWC army and I won 7-8 ITC events with it, beating very many MSU lists. I would say that ITC is about as well balanced between being pro-MSU and anti-MSU as you can get.

KP's are, and always were, a bad mechanism.

They were never intended to be a balance mechanism, but rather just simplified victory tabulation that didnt require a calculator. People just adopted them as some sort of balance mechanism post-facto because it sounded like a better explanation and thats stuck ever since 2008.

Theyre also really bad as a balance mechanism. They are an artificiality in every sense, poorly reflecting the actual results of the battle by any other means. With regards to MSU, they dont hurt the top tier MSU armies much, but will crush the mid and lower tier armies, particularly, those that are inherently designed around unit attrition.

The old VP system, calculating actual points values of units lost, was a fsr better mechanism and reflection of tabletop performance. MSU armies bled points faster, smaller hardier armies made you work more but rewarded greater effort.

 Vaktathi wrote:
KP's are, and always were, a bad mechanism.

They were never intended to be a balance mechanism, but rather just simplified victory tabulation that didnt require a calculator. People just adopted them as some sort of balance mechanism post-facto because it sounded like a better explanation and thats stuck ever since 2008.

Theyre also really bad as a balance mechanism. They are an artificiality in every sense, poorly reflecting the actual results of the battle by any other means. With regards to MSU, they dont hurt the top tier MSU armies much, but will crush the mid and lower tier armies, particularly, those that are inherently designed around unit attrition.

The old VP system, calculating actual points values of units lost, was a fsr better mechanism and reflection of tabletop performance. MSU armies bled points faster, smaller hardier armies made you work more but rewarded greater effort.

Agree completely, KP is an awful mechanic and really steers players into building lists that are far less fun to compete against.

There were two Marine armies and two Necron armies in the final top eight - that is domination .

 Dozer Blades wrote:
There were two Marine armies and two Necron armies in the final top eight - that is domination .

He talked about Eldar, not Necrons, I did not contest that point.

There was one true marine army in the finals. If you consider Aaron Aleongs list a marine army by theme, I dunno what to say, because it clearly is a TWC deathstar list whose faction simply happens to be "marine" Also, OP mentions gladius specifically.

Furthermore, his post is concerning the impact of MSU in a decidedly KP light mission format. Aarons list was certainly not MSU and I would argue, STRONGLY, that Fennels Orikanstar list nor the Living Tomb list qualify as MSU (considering one list pays nearly 1/3 of its points for 2 models and the other pays over 1/3 of its points for one unit).

Actually, this thread kinda got away from what I was posting about.

CWE doing so well was an example. The point was that, even with ITC doing its thing, the lower Dexes have no real chance against the upper Dexes. Currently, that's Orks/SoB/Harlies etc versus Eldar trailed by the rest of the 7.5 crowd.

I actually like MSU more than Titanhammer or death stars. But MSU vs fewer better units is a worthwhile conversation worth watch.

I think the ITC vs ETC kinda suggests that it is within ITCs scope to balance that factor a bit, which takes the topic out of scope of my original post. But that is what the thread has become, and it is a useful conversation.

 jy2 wrote:
The game needs to either be drastically overhauled for competitive play, or it needs a lot of facelifting along the way.

40k's rules are for the most part pretty good if you are playing in a narrative manner and construct scenarios and lists cooperatively. But army construction and BRB missions are not truly dynamic, and tournaments push standardization. No wonder things get stale.

Drafting limited choices from your army on-the-fly while responding to diverse mission formats and radically different terrain and board sizes could be interesting.

Basically:
- Explain the mission and win conditions
- Examine the terrain
- Explain any environmental rules or 3rd party actors
- Explain points limits and conditions for reserves
- Select the active force from your wider army
- Deploy the active force according to mission parameters
- Play the match
- Score the match according to the win conditions

Needing to fight on open ground, ground that blocks all long-range weapons, difficult terrain, etc -- different armies and different units have an edge. Chimeras are amphibious, when is the last time that rule mattered? How about a raid that revolves around infiltrators, DS and extraction on offense, reserves and pursuit for the defender?

Maybe you can't adapt these to a large tournament environment well but I imagine it would shake up armies that are constructed to a consistent format and meta.

 coblen wrote:
I rather like that the ITC is more msu focused. I think it leads to more interesting varied games when there are a lot of units on the table.

While Eldar made a big showing at the LVO if you look at the other tournament results they havn't been rocking tournaments everywhere in the ITC.

You can check out ITC tournament results here.https://www.frontlinegaming.org/community/frontline-gamings-independent-tournament-circuit/2015-itc-event-results/

I didn't look at all of them, but from what I did see it looked like it was space marines that where winning most of them.

I don't think tournament wins are a good gauge of a codex's power level. Eldar didn't have a ton of big wins this year, but I don't think anyone will say that codex is under powered. I calculated the average scores of Top 10 faction finishers in the ITC for 2015 and then compared how each faction did compared to the average. Eldar players had scores 40% above the total average. Oddly, Orks came in second by that metric, which goes to show you that one good trick (Zardsnark) can also keep an army competitive.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-G4ftYsnn4RSFVxdF9LZm1aazA/view?usp=sharing

I think the other thing to remember is that the ITC isn't trying to make things more even for the top finishers. To keep driving people to events, they want to make things more balanced for the middle tables.

It's hard to lose big with Eldar, they are an army where not much can go disastrously wrong.

I think that's part of the frustration of the wider 40k playerbase, there is no obvious single point of failure to target.

Yoyoyo wrote:
It's hard to lose big with Eldar, they are an army where not much can go disastrously wrong.

thats a big part of the problem, Eldar are an army that, ostensibly, should go disastrously wrong if not well thought out and played well. Theyve had so many buffs and have so much multirole weaponry and support elements that they really cant fall apart.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:
It's hard to lose big with Eldar, they are an army where not much can go disastrously wrong.

thats a big part of the problem, Eldar are an army that, ostensibly, should go disastrously wrong if not well thought out and played well. Theyve had so many buffs and have so much multirole weaponry and support elements that they really cant fall apart.

Wraithknights (and other Wraith units) and Scatbikers sure, but the rest of the Eldar codex is universally T3. Massed Bolter fire is a serious threat to most Eldar infantry.

The reason Eldar units can seem multirole is because of the game prioritizing medium-strenght high-ROF weapons, which I why Warp Spiders are so powerful. Fire Dragons can kill a vehicle dead, but unless they have some cover they're dead next turn. Eldar have great psychic powers, but if you have a similar amount of psychic power or know how to deny well you can mitigate their power.

 TheNewBlood wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:
It's hard to lose big with Eldar, they are an army where not much can go disastrously wrong.

thats a big part of the problem, Eldar are an army that, ostensibly, should go disastrously wrong if not well thought out and played well. Theyve had so many buffs and have so much multirole weaponry and support elements that they really cant fall apart.

Wraithknights (and other Wraith units) and Scatbikers sure, but the rest of the Eldar codex is universally T3. Massed Bolter fire is a serious threat to most Eldar infantry.

The reason Eldar units can seem multirole is because of the game prioritizing medium-strenght high-ROF weapons, which I why Warp Spiders are so powerful. Fire Dragons can kill a vehicle dead, but unless they have some cover they're dead next turn. Eldar have great psychic powers, but if you have a similar amount of psychic power or know how to deny well you can mitigate their power.

Eldar have infantry? Where is this infantry you speak of? Bolters and serious threat in the same sentence seems very inappropriate.

In my view the focus of anyone house-ruling for tournaments (or anything else) should not be on nerfing or limiting the ruleset or the units in any way. An FAQ exemplifying things a bit for those that need might be fine but no more than that. Trying to find a middle ground where every army can fit in and play equally is not possible due to the simple fact of GW's release cycle and the inherent power creep that naturally is due to that GW is a business that needs to make money. We the players and especially those who want to play competitively needs to reconcile with the fact that all tools aren't equal and in many cases, some tools just get the job done better, for awhile, then you might need to switch to another tool.

Instead the focus should solely be on designing the missions and the way points are awarded. It could be a predetermined but randomly selected mix of elements from Eternal War and Maelstrom etc, valuing flexible lists where each army is given a chance at its own unique way of winning. This is where all efforts should be focused, finding a mission-system that awards players to create lists made of a variety of units. Believing that e.g. only static fixed missions are the solution to sorting out the best General in 40k is folly. If that is the case we will be better of playing with chess rules where each army is no more than a cosmetic layer.

Of course 4 Wraithknights and 80 scatterbikes will surely still dominate no? I think the Eternal War and Maelstrom mission goals already present can be expanded upon in different ways to even things out, either by the way you choose or select them or some other way. Say you earn additional points if e.g. 2+ units containing at least 8 models each hold an objective for 3+ rounds. Or you need 3 different unit types to to cap this objective, Or only flyers can score certain objectives etc. Or you win if you control 5 objectives simultaneously with troops for a round or two. In my view stuff like that would be way more productive and interesting to see explored a bit more than nerfing stuff.

Currently, my solution to the ITC problem is simple. I modify it in the following way (which is just one of a dozen ways to skin the cat so i am sure some will not like it):

Three Detachments allowed, and if you take three, the third must be a CAD. The "Super Detachments" do not count for or against the limit. 0-1 Super heavy/Gargantuans.

Solves a ton.

The LVO had a top table player using SIX detachments... justified by the fact that they were "in" the Super Detachment! I'm just saying. The ITC not counting them as separate detachments is a problem.

If a format or group wants to balance 40k for tournament play, they'll have to get down in the weeds and actually fix the game.

Banning a handful of formations, tweaking some ambiguous rules, and limiting army construction only shifts the balance. The game needs a dramatic overhaul, down to how the basic rules work together and the point costs of quite literally everything.

Anything less will always run into the same wall. The core is rotten. Band-aids only cover so much.

 TheNewBlood wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Yoyoyo wrote:
It's hard to lose big with Eldar, they are an army where not much can go disastrously wrong.

thats a big part of the problem, Eldar are an army that, ostensibly, should go disastrously wrong if not well thought out and played well. Theyve had so many buffs and have so much multirole weaponry and support elements that they really cant fall apart.

Wraithknights (and other Wraith units) and Scatbikers sure, but the rest of the Eldar codex is universally T3. Massed Bolter fire is a serious threat to most Eldar infantry.

To some, but with many having 3+ saves, and lots of psychic support to reroll failed saves or generate/enhance cover saves, and particularly that T3 eldar infantry are usually the smallest component of most armies, its not teally a factor.

The reason Eldar units can seem multirole is because of the game prioritizing medium-strenght high-ROF weapons, which I why Warp Spiders are so powerful.

right, and Eldar have tons of this sort of firepower and its been significsntly enhanced in the last two years.

Fire Dragons can kill a vehicle dead, but unless they have some cover they're dead next turn.

sporting 3+ saves now, often with psychic support to reroll saves or get cover, and the almost complete lack of ability to fail to lill their targets when sporting BS5 and "AP0", theyrr much hardier than most equivalents and vastly moreso than they were in previous editions.

Eldar have great psychic powers, but if you have a similar amount of psychic power or know how to deny well you can mitigate their power.

not every army has such psychic abilities, most cant match Eldar, and those that can cant do so as cheaply.

 Blacksails wrote:
If a format or group wants to balance 40k for tournament play, they'll have to get down in the weeds and actually fix the game.

Banning a handful of formations, tweaking some ambiguous rules, and limiting army construction only shifts the balance. The game needs a dramatic overhaul, down to how the basic rules work together and the point costs of quite literally everything.

Anything less will always run into the same wall. The core is rotten. Band-aids only cover so much.

aye, the whole ruleset needs a fundamental reboot, everything else is largely just a bandaid on a gunshot wound

 Jancoran wrote:
Currently, my solution to the ITC problem is simple. I modify it in the following way (which is just one of a dozen ways to skin the cat so i am sure some will not like it):

Three Detachments allowed, and if you take three, the third must be a CAD. The "Super Detachments" do not count for or against the limit. 0-1 Super heavy/Gargantuans.

Solves a ton.

The LVO had a top table player using SIX detachments... justified by the fact that they were "in" the Super Detachment! I'm just saying. The ITC not counting them as separate detachments is a problem.

The top player didn't have six detachments. ITC limits you to 3. They include the super-detachments, which was specifically voted in by the community, but just because you houserule things differently doesn't sub-formations suddenly become their own detachmentsfor everyone else.

It's also not "the ITC problem". It's the 40k problem. The ITC is just one possible set of tweaks that have proven to be more successful at building a tournament scene than anything else out there. It's not perfect by any means, but it's far better than default 40k, and pretty much all of the issues stem from the flaws of core 40k itself.

Letting the mega formations count as one is a joke in and of itself. I love that allies are an official thing but I hate the abuse it has allowed people to bring to the table.

Having space marines backed up by some guard is cool, fluffy and thematic. Or chaos being able to have demons march with marines.

Thunder Wolves backed by grav cents, grey knight librarians and other super friend nonsense is one of the reasons I've thought about giving up. Those armies would never happen in universe and that bothers me.

Aye, the allies sillyness is awful. I'm having extreme trouble trying to recall any army I've actually encountered on a table that was used allies for fluff purposes, it's pretty much always just to grab someone else's cool toys, and almost always in ways that really just do not fit the background and that reek of "gaminess".

There can be a middle ground. For example The two most frequent allies I take with my marines are the Dominus Maniple and some sort of inquisitor usually my counts as solomon lok for who I have a custom model for and his merry band of misfits. Both give me something for the win but doesn't feel like I only took these to smash face.

 DarkLink wrote:

 Jancoran wrote:
Currently, my solution to the ITC problem is simple. I modify it in the following way (which is just one of a dozen ways to skin the cat so i am sure some will not like it):

Three Detachments allowed, and if you take three, the third must be a CAD. The "Super Detachments" do not count for or against the limit. 0-1 Super heavy/Gargantuans.

Solves a ton.

The LVO had a top table player using SIX detachments... justified by the fact that they were "in" the Super Detachment! I'm just saying. The ITC not counting them as separate detachments is a problem.

The top player didn't have six detachments. ITC limits you to 3. They include the super-detachments, which was specifically voted in by the community, but just because you houserule things differently doesn't sub-formations suddenly become their own detachmentsfor everyone else.

It's also not "the ITC problem". It's the 40k problem. The ITC is just one possible set of tweaks that have proven to be more successful at building a tournament scene than anything else out there. It's not perfect by any means, but it's far better than default 40k, and pretty much all of the issues stem from the flaws of core 40k itself.

Its the ITC problem. They could choose to count them as the SIX detachments they are. And they are. or they can count them as NOT six. They choose to see it as NOT six. That is their problem.

Banning allies puts you into mono builds and boring play. The armies I played this past weekend were diverse and ran the gambit:

Corpse thief claw + Venom Spam detachment
CSM with Necron allies
Baronial Detachment
Pinion BC + Skyhammer detachment
Mono Nurgle Drone deathstar
Space wolves + IG artillery detachment

That was quite a different array for 6 games.

I would say as a suggestion to help players and create a tactical sense, instead of re-rolling a double that it allows the player to choose the other maelstrom objective from the list of six. At least it puts luck in your hands 18% of the time.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
Letting the mega formations count as one is a joke in and of itself. I love that allies are an official thing but I hate the abuse it has allowed people to bring to the table.

Having space marines backed up by some guard is cool, fluffy and thematic. Or chaos being able to have demons march with marines.

Thunder Wolves backed by grav cents, grey knight librarians and other super friend nonsense is one of the reasons I've thought about giving up. Those armies would never happen in universe and that bothers me.

 Blacksails wrote:
If a format or group wants to balance 40k for tournament play, they'll have to get down in the weeds and actually fix the game.

Banning a handful of formations, tweaking some ambiguous rules, and limiting army construction only shifts the balance. The game needs a dramatic overhaul, down to how the basic rules work together and the point costs of quite literally everything.

Anything less will always run into the same wall. The core is rotten. Band-aids only cover so much.

100% agree.

The problems can't be solved by limiting formations, or limiting SH or allies, or using more KP missions or Maelstrom at the top/bottom of turn or whatever. They can go part way to addressing the problems, but when you see that an Eldar Scatterbike CAD gets through 99.99% of restrictions people want to use...

The problems are in the points levels of units; whether they be individual models or the designers not accounting for force multipliers.

PERSONALLY (After playing a few ITC, ETC and Australian events) I find the Australian comp system (www.communitycomp.org) to be the best way I've encountered. Not perfect, but it gets down to the level of targeting each problem unit/combo.

So, I'm slowly working on compiling a list data base, currently for the LVO. You can find it in my signature, it's a great source for seeing what the frequency of certain things in the game is. Also, any help would be highly appreciated as it's rather hard to track down all the lists on my own D:

 Blacksails wrote:
If a format or group wants to balance 40k for tournament play, they'll have to get down in the weeds and actually fix the game.

Banning a handful of formations, tweaking some ambiguous rules, and limiting army construction only shifts the balance. The game needs a dramatic overhaul, down to how the basic rules work together and the point costs of quite literally everything.

Anything less will always run into the same wall. The core is rotten. Band-aids only cover so much.

While true, this isn't something the ITC can really do at this time, but maybe in the future they can. They've clearly been testing the waters more with their changes, both in buffs and nerfs, but even that gets so much hate I can understand them being hesitant.

 Tinkrr wrote:

While true, this isn't something the ITC can really do at this time, but maybe in the future they can. They've clearly been testing the waters more with their changes, both in buffs and nerfs, but even that gets so much hate I can understand them being hesitant.

Anybody changing anything with any sort of 'authority' or pull is going to get flak, its the nature of game design for the masses. Everyone has a vision and while many of those visions can be excellent, ultimately only one can be used. All it takes is a strong group committed to making a decision and having thick enough skin to wade through the gak and find the actual useful feedback.

I think they already have the ability to do an overhaul as they have more weight than most groups or individual posters here. They have a solid grasp on the game to make a good go at it too. There are some dakkanaughts I'd trust more to make the right changes that I'd play, but that's another story .

 thejughead wrote:
Banning allies puts you into mono builds and boring play. The armies I played this past weekend were diverse and ran the gambit:

Corpse thief claw + Venom Spam detachment
CSM with Necron allies
Baronial Detachment
Pinion BC + Skyhammer detachment
Mono Nurgle Drone deathstar
Space wolves + IG artillery detachment

That was quite a different array for 6 games.

I would say as a suggestion to help players and create a tactical sense, instead of re-rolling a double that it allows the player to choose the other maelstrom objective from the list of six. At least it puts luck in your hands 18% of the time.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
Letting the mega formations count as one is a joke in and of itself. I love that allies are an official thing but I hate the abuse it has allowed people to bring to the table.

Having space marines backed up by some guard is cool, fluffy and thematic. Or chaos being able to have demons march with marines.

Thunder Wolves backed by grav cents, grey knight librarians and other super friend nonsense is one of the reasons I've thought about giving up. Those armies would never happen in universe and that bothers me.

I love the ally system don't get me wrong, where I put my blame is people abusing what should be an awesome option

Just ban all formations. Straight CAD only single source, no allies....wont solve everything, yeah eldar are stronger than Orks codex...guess what, everyone DOESN"T get a trophy, but it's a big step in the right direction.

 quickfuze wrote:
Just ban all formations. Straight CAD only single source, no allies....wont solve everything, yeah eldar are stronger than Orks codex...guess what, everyone DOESN"T get a trophy, but it's a big step in the right direction.

I would dearly love to go back to this as the standard.

I was ok with the alternate FoC's that the early 7E books had, they still largely held to the same confines as the original FoC and had some real drawbacks (e.g. GK's only have 2 HS slots instead of 3), but the formations and mega-detachments, and allowance of multiple detachments and allies sillyness just took a dump on everything.

Well I don't know, it's made by a bunch of competitive pancakes to encourage competitive pancake behaviour written by a contemporary group of people for a game that can decide if it's an old traditionally functioning slow table game, or a lightning fast modern one because it can't let go of old game mechanics or stick with older ones that worked.

ITC is bad because 40k's rules are bad and the people that write don't want to rock the boat and do anything radical because that would upset their play base which is everyone that wants to go to NOVA or the LVO or any of a number of other tournaments this year by doing something crazy like make CC work or nerfin shooting or monsters into the pavement.

I think that if ITC wants to live up the being this saviour of 40k that people try and make it out to be or as fair as they claim it to be, they would probably want to get on levelling that playing field out much more as a fair game doesn't need excuses to hide its unfair nature, a balanced saviour of the game doesn't need "well it's better then the alternative even if it's still bad" to justify being used

I don't want to see allies go away fully because several books become useless.

Inquisition, Harlequins, Scions, Knights, both Ad mech, and Legion of the Dammed stop working with out allies. Formations as a concept arn't terrible its a limited number of them that need re-balance.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
I don't want to see allies go away fully because several books become useless.

Inquisition, Harlequins, Scions, Knights, both Ad mech, and Legion of the Dammed stop working with out allies.

Most of these really have no business being armies of their own,and really should just be inherent supplemental options for certain books that fit into their normal lineup. e.g. an Inquisitor should just be an HQ choice for an IG army for example, a Knight a straight LoW choice for Imperial armies, while both AdMech books should really just be a single unified book. while Harlies should be sub-elements of Eldar/DE armies. That would allow people to take them in a far more balanced and background adherent way without opening up as much sillyness for abuse. Scions would be *real* easy, just allow a Scion command squad as an HQ choice that unlocks stormtroopers as Troops as opposed to just Elites, voila.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Tinkrr wrote:

While true, this isn't something the ITC can really do at this time, but maybe in the future they can. They've clearly been testing the waters more with their changes, both in buffs and nerfs, but even that gets so much hate I can understand them being hesitant.

Anybody changing anything with any sort of 'authority' or pull is going to get flak, its the nature of game design for the masses. Everyone has a vision and while many of those visions can be excellent, ultimately only one can be used. All it takes is a strong group committed to making a decision and having thick enough skin to wade through the gak and find the actual useful feedback.

I think they already have the ability to do an overhaul as they have more weight than most groups or individual posters here. They have a solid grasp on the game to make a good go at it too. There are some dakkanaughts I'd trust more to make the right changes that I'd play, but that's another story .

The problem isn't so much the hate itself, it's that if you change too much, too quickly, no one will follow you. You need to introduce things slowly and acclimate people to the change, until they're used to you making those changes.

Eldar are fine in the ITC. Wraithknights are limited to 1 model, warp spiders are nerfed to 1 jump a turn.

Str d is slightly reduced in effectiveness
Invisibility is nerfed
Both of the above also hurt eldar

The problem is nothing to do with eldar needing more nerfs
White scars and ultramarine are good
Dark angels and space wolves are good (space wolves are getting even better)
Demons are good and getting slightly better
Tau are good and just need a few ITC rule changes
Ad mech is good and getting much better soon both from gw and fw.
Necrons are good
Dark eldar are like the most used ally competitively and they are getting an update soon.

Everyone else just need updated codex's which has nothing to do with ITC.
Astra Militarum, orks, tyranids, chaos marines and blood angels are the oldest codexs.

 quickfuze wrote:
Just ban all formations. Straight CAD only single source, no allies....

I'd also add back that only Troops (but not their Dedicated Transports) can score again.

gungo wrote:
Eldar are fine in the ITC.

Statistically speaking, this isn't true:

There were 22 Tau players total, meaning 7% of the field. There were 5 Tau players in the top 50, or 6 if you count the multiple top 50s players making it 6 out of 53, meaning the top 50 was either 10% or 11% Tau, based on which you choose.

There were 44 Marine players, with only 5 or 6 in the top 50/53, meaning they had 10% or 11% of the top 50. Despite having a showing twice as high as Tau, they had less than half as many placing players in the top 50. (Derp: CSM)

There were 42 Eldar players in the event, with 10 or 13 in the top 50, meaning they had 20-26% of the top 50. More than double the Tau representation, with slightly less players than double that of Tau. (Correction: Accidentally counted a DE as Eldar)

Other armies in the top 50 (using the 53 figures):

Necrons (5): 9.4%
Dark Angels (5 out of 11 players): 9.4%
Renegades (5 out of 7 players!): 9.4%
Cult Mech (3): 5.6%
Daemons (3): 5.6%
Tyranids (2): 3.7%
Grey Knights (1): 1.8%
CSM (1): 1.8%
Inquisition (1): 1.8%
SoBs (1): 1.8%
Dark Eldar (1): 1.8%
(Source: http://www.bestcoastpairings.com/r/lvo2016 )

That's not to say Eldar are face roll OP, but they are a bit too good and the numbers represent that. They need to go from something like 60% win rate to 55% win rate like the other top armies. It's only a 5% difference, but it's an important one.

Edit: Also, RiTides did this same thing for the top 20, Marines and Tau stay constant at percent of top 20, but Eldar go up to 30%.

 Vaktathi wrote:

HoundsofDemos wrote:
I don't want to see allies go away fully because several books become useless.

Inquisition, Harlequins, Scions, Knights, both Ad mech, and Legion of the Dammed stop working with out allies.

Most of these really have no business being armies of their own,and really should just be inherent supplemental options for certain books that fit into their normal lineup. e.g. an Inquisitor should just be an HQ choice for an IG army for example, a Knight a straight LoW choice for Imperial armies, while both AdMech books should really just be a single unified book. while Harlies should be sub-elements of Eldar/DE armies. That would allow people to take them in a far more balanced and background adherent way without opening up as much sillyness for abuse. Scions would be *real* easy, just allow a Scion command squad as an HQ choice that unlocks stormtroopers as Troops as opposed to just Elites, voila.

So your essentially suggesting allies with out calling it that. There is no way to represent key pieces of 40k fluff without either allies or duplicate unit entries. Both have problems.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Aye, the allies sillyness is awful. I'm having extreme trouble trying to recall any army I've actually encountered on a table that was used allies for fluff purposes, it's pretty much always just to grab someone else's cool toys, and almost always in ways that really just do not fit the background and that reek of "gaminess".

eh, if we limit rules by the fact that competative players will break them, then the game becomes super boring overall.

Change the allies rules then?

Remove battle brothers - change them all to allies of convenience.

Stops the super friends death stars, stops deep striking wraithguard... still allows the theme lists to run guard with marines - just not allowing the 50 man blob to gain marine rules

 Massaen wrote:
Change the allies rules then?

Remove battle brothers - change them all to allies of convenience.

Stops the super friends death stars, stops deep striking wraithguard... still allows the theme lists to run guard with marines - just not allowing the 50 man blob to gain marine rules

This creates issue for the ad mech armies as well as inquisition. For instance under the above rules my Several admech formations stop working well and loan inquisitors are not a real option.

Why are we still debating Imperium when it's on par we the Tau despite the changes made to the Tau?

The only list that needs any toning down is Eldar, and even then not all that much, just enough to put it in line with Tau and Marines really.

 Vaktathi wrote:

HoundsofDemos wrote:
I don't want to see allies go away fully because several books become useless.

Inquisition, Harlequins, Scions, Knights, both Ad mech, and Legion of the Dammed stop working with out allies.

Most of these really have no business being armies of their own,and really should just be inherent supplemental options for certain books that fit into their normal lineup. e.g. an Inquisitor should just be an HQ choice for an IG army for example, a Knight a straight LoW choice for Imperial armies, while both AdMech books should really just be a single unified book. while Harlies should be sub-elements of Eldar/DE armies. That would allow people to take them in a far more balanced and background adherent way without opening up as much sillyness for abuse. Scions would be *real* easy, just allow a Scion command squad as an HQ choice that unlocks stormtroopers as Troops as opposed to just Elites, voila.

The Inquisition, Grey Knights, Sisters of Battle, Militarum Tempestus and Imperial Knights should all be rolled into one codex (which I always preach) since they're basically different elements of the same army. The option to make "pure" armies should still be there (and this is where the whole FoC shenanigans would shine; by granting bonuses to using them for a pure army to compensate for the lack of certain elements, like Psybolts for free on all units in an all GK army that otherwise lack decent Anti-armor) but all of them really have no business being separate on their own (ok maybe Imperial Knights, but not the others). Then from there just do what they use to do with the "-hunter" dexes and let you take them in other Imperial army's FoCs without using a compulsory choice. That was a system that worked.

Harlies suffer from the fact that there's just not that many models right now, and GW's refusal to make rules for nonexistant models compounds that. However they sort of step on the toes of the Dark Eldar, who are also fragile glass cannons, and the DE has a far larger range to work with.

As for AdMech, they're one army in all but name. GW just needs to actually update the book to make them one army (and possibly give them an exclusive Knight) and give them some vehicles and they'll be up to par with any other imperial army.

 quickfuze wrote:
Just ban all formations. Straight CAD only single source, no allies....wont solve everything, yeah eldar are stronger than Orks codex...guess what, everyone DOESN"T get a trophy, but it's a big step in the right direction.

Haha, this is so silly. Take away allies and formations and Eldar will be the only competitive army to play. They are the only codex that is good without the use of formations. No army can match scatbikes as troops. No army has a better LOW. Arguably the best psyker and thus the best HQ. Necrons become crippled, SM become mono-build (centurion deathstars), bye bye BA/SW/Skitarii/Cult Mechanicus/Inquisition. The books arent written with CADs in mind. The codexes are now written with formations in mind, not a traditional FOC.

 Tinkrr wrote:

gungo wrote:
Eldar are fine in the ITC.

Statistically speaking, this isn't true:

There were 22 Tau players total, meaning 7% of the field. There were 5 Tau players in the top 50, or 6 if you count the multiple top 50s players making it 6 out of 53, meaning the top 50 was either 10% or 11% Tau, based on which you choose.

There were 44 Marine players, with only 5 or 6 in the top 50/53, meaning they had 10% or 11% of the top 50. Despite having a showing twice as high as Tau, they had less than half as many placing players in the top 50. (Derp: CSM)

There were 42 Eldar players in the event, with 10 or 13 in the top 50, meaning they had 20-26% of the top 50. More than double the Tau representation, with slightly less players than double that of Tau. (Correction: Accidentally counted a DE as Eldar)

Other armies in the top 50 (using the 53 figures):

Necrons (5): 9.4%
Dark Angels (5 out of 11 players): 9.4%
Renegades (5 out of 7 players!): 9.4%
Cult Mech (3): 5.6%
Daemons (3): 5.6%
Tyranids (2): 3.7%
Grey Knights (1): 1.8%
CSM (1): 1.8%
Inquisition (1): 1.8%
SoBs (1): 1.8%
Dark Eldar (1): 1.8%
(Source: http://www.bestcoastpairings.com/r/lvo2016 )

That's not to say Eldar are face roll OP, but they are a bit too good and the numbers represent that. They need to go from something like 60% win rate to 55% win rate like the other top armies. It's only a 5% difference, but it's an important one.

Edit: Also, RiTides did this same thing for the top 20, Marines and Tau stay constant at percent of top 20, but Eldar go up to 30%.

A single tournament is hardly accurate results especially when you rank them based on what the top players use. And yes your rankings are based on what a handful of players use. For better results use a larger source of numbers and use the itc complete numbers from the entire season and you will notice elder doing significantly worse.

Furthermore I never stated elder aren't strong they are but even you stated its at best a 5% and that's not the point of the itc to nerf armies and perfectly balance the game.

gungo wrote:
A single tournament is hardly accurate results especially when you rank them based on what the top players use. And yes your rankings are based on what a handful of players use. For better results use a larger source of numbers and use the itc complete numbers from the entire season and you will notice elder doing significantly worse.

Furthermore I never stated elder aren't strong they are but even you stated its at best a 5% and that's not the point of the itc to nerf armies and perfectly balance the game.

I'll just re-post this from the first page since it addresses the points you brought up:


I don't think tournament wins are a good gauge of a codex's power level. Eldar didn't have a ton of big wins this year, but I don't think anyone will say that codex is under powered. I calculated the average scores of Top 10 faction finishers in the ITC for all factions in 2015 and then compared how each faction did compared to the average. Eldar players had scores 40% above the total average. Oddly, Orks came in second by that metric, which goes to show you that one good trick (Zardsnark) can also keep an army competitive.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-G4ftYsnn4RSFVxdF9LZm1aazA/view?usp=sharing

 LValx wrote:

 quickfuze wrote:
Just ban all formations. Straight CAD only single source, no allies....wont solve everything, yeah eldar are stronger than Orks codex...guess what, everyone DOESN"T get a trophy, but it's a big step in the right direction.

Haha, this is so silly. Take away allies and formations and Eldar will be the only competitive army to play. They are the only codex that is good without the use of formations. No army can match scatbikes as troops. No army has a better LOW. Arguably the best psyker and thus the best HQ. Necrons become crippled, SM become mono-build (centurion deathstars), bye bye BA/SW/Skitarii/Cult Mechanicus/Inquisition. The books arent written with CADs in mind. The codexes are now written with formations in mind, not a traditional FOC.

BA aren't written with ANYTHING in mind. There is no reason to have them as allies except for drop pod cheese. All BA formations are basically garbage as well. BA run as well with CAD as anything else, That is to say, they don't run at all.

Martel732 wrote:
BA aren't written with ANYTHING in mind. There is no reason to have them as allies except for drop pod cheese. All BA formations are basically garbage as well. BA run as well with CAD as anything else, That is to say, they don't run at all.

Have to disagree - the death punch can be very effective in the right players hand. Yes it has issues and yes it has counters but its hardly garbage

Vaktathi wrote:To some, but with many having 3+ saves, and lots of psychic support to reroll failed saves or generate/enhance cover saves, and particularly that T3 eldar infantry are usually the smallest component of most armies, its not teally a factor

As a guard player, you should know both how limiting T3 is and how often a 3+ save can be made to regularly fail through weight of dice.

The re-rolling saves comes from one psychic power. Psychic powers are randomly generated and can fail/be made to fail. Eldar can have reliable casters, but unless you have multiple psykers all using the same table (or Eldrad) you are not guaranteed to get that power. Furthermore, that power can only affect one unit, and can only be cast by that Independant character joined to the unit. Thanks to casting requirements, you are unlikely to get it off more than once per turn, and usually only on one Farseer. Unless in a Seer council, no Eldar player will dare to have their Farseer moving aggressively with a unit of Aspect Warriors; it's a great way to had over victory points fast.

Only the truly nasty Eldar armies are composed solely of Jetbikes and D-weapons. There's usually plenty of Eldar infantry running around otherwise, and I can tell you all kinds of stories about how vulnerable those are.

Vaktathi wrote:
right, and Eldar have tons of this sort of firepower and its been significsntly enhanced in the last two years.

This is mostly due to changes in the core rulebook affecting how vehicles are wounded and units are allocated wounds.

Vaktathi wrote:sporting 3+ saves now, often with psychic support to reroll saves or get cover, and the almost complete lack of ability to fail to lill their targets when sporting BS5 and "AP0", theyrr much hardier than most equivalents and vastly moreso than they were in previous editions.

They're killing efficiency has increased, especially against armoured targets. Sternguard or Command Squads are still significantly more durable than Fire Dragons, and those are considered suicide units now. Furthermore, Eldar do not have assess to a delivery mechanism as cheap as a Drop Pod. Even wiht DE allies, nothing gets as cheap as 35 points.

Vaktathi wrote:not every army has such psychic abilities, most cant match Eldar, and those that can cant do so as cheaply.

Psychic Phases is an all-or-nothing aspect of the game; you either match your opponent or you do not. Last I chacked, IG could take plenty of their own psykers for cheap as well.

In any case, Eldar psykers are not on durable platforms. They cap out a T4. They may have great defensive spells, but you have to balance your self-preservation with handing out the necessary buff to your army. Unless you have sunken most of your points into a gigantic Seer Council, you can't do both.

 Blacksails wrote:
If a format or group wants to balance 40k for tournament play, they'll have to get down in the weeds and actually fix the game.

Banning a handful of formations, tweaking some ambiguous rules, and limiting army construction only shifts the balance. The game needs a dramatic overhaul, down to how the basic rules work together and the point costs of quite literally everything.

Anything less will always run into the same wall. The core is rotten. Band-aids only cover so much.

aye, the whole ruleset needs a fundamental reboot, everything else is largely just a bandaid on a gunshot wound

 Massaen wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
BA aren't written with ANYTHING in mind. There is no reason to have them as allies except for drop pod cheese. All BA formations are basically garbage as well. BA run as well with CAD as anything else, That is to say, they don't run at all.

Have to disagree - the death punch can be very effective in the right players hand. Yes it has issues and yes it has counters but its hardly garbage

Death punch? TWC makes the entire codex pointless by just existing. That particularly sucks for me, because I hate SW so much.

Death punch is the triple raven formation with multiple assault units that deploy via pods turn 1 and charge. normally death company or vanguard.

It delivers a massive alpha strike to most forces and kills high value targets early.

TWC are good but not the be all and end of everything.

 Massaen wrote:
Death punch is the triple raven formation with multiple assault units that deploy via pods turn 1 and charge. normally death company or vanguard.

It delivers a massive alpha strike to most forces and kills high value targets early.

TWC are good but not the be all and end of everything.

That formation has 3 full tac squads in it. And three storm ravens. (Useless) It sucks. "Massive" alpha strike my ass. And you look like a fool against null deploy lists.

 TheNewBlood wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:To some, but with many having 3+ saves, and lots of psychic support to reroll failed saves or generate/enhance cover saves, and particularly that T3 eldar infantry are usually the smallest component of most armies, its not teally a factor

As a guard player, you should know both how limiting T3 is and how often a 3+ save can be made to regularly fail through weight of dice.

I do play Eldar as well, just not very often these days (and the army's been only partially painted for years), however, in general, yes, T3 can be felt, but it is increasingly meaningless in an environment where everything is wounded on 2's, particularly when we're talking about Eldar.

The re-rolling saves comes from one psychic power. Psychic powers are randomly generated and can fail/be made to fail.

Yes, but that doesn't mean they aren't commonly there and don't commonly go off.

Furthermore, that power can only affect one unit, and can only be cast by that Independant character joined to the unit. Thanks to casting requirements, you are unlikely to get it off more than once per turn, and usually only on one Farseer. Unless in a Seer council, no Eldar player will dare to have their Farseer moving aggressively with a unit of Aspect Warriors; it's a great way to had over victory points fast.

Yes, I didn't say it was automatically there, but it's not uncommon. Meanwhile there's also things like Conceal that can be employed by many units.

Only the truly nasty Eldar armies are composed solely of Jetbikes and D-weapons. There's usually plenty of Eldar infantry running around otherwise, and I can tell you all kinds of stories about how vulnerable those are.

Some are, but many have 3+ saves, some are T6 and Fearless or have abilities that allow them to jump away when shot at, etc.

Ultimately, we're generally not tallking Guardsmen here.

This is mostly due to changes in the core rulebook affecting how vehicles are wounded and units are allocated wounds.

Well, the army wide boosting of everything to BS4, and formations allowing BS5 Aspect Warriors and last edition's Laser Lock and this edition's proliferation of scatterlasers to every jetbike, the serpent shield, and the like.

They're killing efficiency has increased, especially against armoured targets. Sternguard or Command Squads are still significantly more durable than Fire Dragons, and those are considered suicide units now.

They're only more durable against S3/4/5 hits (an increasingly small array of threat values) and don't have the same efficacy in dispatching their targets, and cost 9ppm more, and can't use their meltaguns more than once per game if they survive their first turn.

Furthermore, Eldar do not have assess to a delivery mechanism as cheap as a Drop Pod. Even wiht DE allies, nothing gets as cheap as 35 points.

True, but a Falcon or Wave Serpent isn't far behind, those are excellent delivery systems able to get a unit of fire dragons within Melta range of a target on turn 2 that was potentially 48" away turn 1 on top of being solid medium tanks.

Psychic Phases is an all-or-nothing aspect of the game; you either match your opponent or you do not.

Right, but even going all in, relatively few armies are going to be able to match the Eldar, and especially on a points-investment basis.

Last I chacked, IG could take plenty of their own psykers for cheap as well.

Yes IG can, but a mess of Lvl1 psykers isn't usually going to mean much, and they don't have access to powers of the same utility that Eldar do, and can't make as effective use of most of their powers as other armies can (as most IG psykers are pointless to self-buff in many instances or simply don't have the appropriate types of units available to the army for other powers to properly work with).

In any case, Eldar psykers are not on durable platforms. They cap out a T4. They may have great defensive spells, but you have to balance your self-preservation with handing out the necessary buff to your army. Unless you have sunken most of your points into a gigantic Seer Council, you can't do both.

They have all sorts of options to keep them around, it's not just a choice between being on their lonesome or being in a gigantic mega-seer-council, though the latter isn't uncommon. Farseers can join units of jetbikes or rangers to give them resiliency. Their individual Toughness is a relatively minor factor as typically, if it matters, something has probably gone wrong and it probably won't make a difference.

Except not all of the examples you lists wold be better served crammed into someone else's book. I don't think Sisters of Battle players would take kindly to being crammed in an IG book along with the new Admech and Skitarii units.

I didn't say sisters and AdMech should be combined with IG. IG should be IG, Admech should just be one book and not two, while the Sisters could be their own book or part of a combined Inquisition book.

Harlequins are a special problem on their own: which book do they join? If they can be used in both, they would need unit entries in both. What happens if the different entries contradict each other, or when one book is not updated and the other is? (In case you're wondering, this is exactly why Harlequins were given their own book in the first place)

They aren't really an army inherently, they're a jetbike unit, a single infantry unit with a couple transport options and some characters. If having them in two different books is an issue, then keep them a distinct book and make it clear that it applies to both armies but is not an army on its own. There's just not enough there to support an army as a distinct complete army.

Martel732 wrote:

 Massaen wrote:
Death punch is the triple raven formation with multiple assault units that deploy via pods turn 1 and charge. normally death company or vanguard.

It delivers a massive alpha strike to most forces and kills high value targets early.

TWC are good but not the be all and end of everything.

That formation has 3 full tac squads in it. And three storm ravens. (Useless) It sucks. "Massive" alpha strike my ass. And you look like a fool against null deploy lists.

Then we can agree to disagree - Any evidence I provide is going to be anecdotal and based on my own experiences of which you will write it off anyway.

HoundsofDemos wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
...

HoundsofDemos wrote:
I don't want to see allies go away fully because several books become useless.
... ...

... ... There is no way to represent key pieces of 40k fluff without either allies or duplicate unit entries. Both have problems.

What do people want from a tournament? Do people want a flavoursome, fluffy game, or a fair competitive game?

If these two aims are mutually exclusive because of the way the rules work, which way should a TO jump?

My view is that tournaments should be a series of balanced fights, and fluffy games would be better served by a campaign game weekend with a much more structured scenario.

Neither of these aims necessarily is compatible with allowing players free choice of what forces they can take to the tabletop. The fundamental problem is that 40K has never been well balanced, and it has just got worse with Allies and Formations and Apocalypse units and so on. Yet for many players, the idea of army list building is central to the way they want to play the game.

Perhaps this is a circle that cannot be squared by anyone.

What about balancing off a different mechanic?

Min value/Max value

- 300/600pts of Infantry
- 120/400pts of Dedicated Transport
- 120/200pts of Bikes/Jetbikes/Cavalry/Beasts
- 120/200pts of Jump Or Jetpack Infantry
- 120/300pts of Walkers
- 120/300pts of Vehicles
- 300pts max of Flyers/FMCs
- 400pts max of LOW

At this point the CAD is broken, but unit types are still a thing. Points values aren't well-considered but you get the idea.

Yoyoyo wrote:
What about balancing off a different mechanic?

Min value/Max value

- 300/600pts of Infantry
- 120/400pts of Dedicated Transport
- 120/200pts of Bikes/Jetbikes/Cavalry/Beasts
- 120/200pts of Jump Or Jetpack Infantry
- 120/300pts of Walkers
- 120/300pts of Vehicles
- 300pts max of Flyers/FMCs
- 400pts max of LOW

At this point the CAD is broken, but unit types are still a thing. Points values aren't well-considered but you get the idea.

I'm afraid that would not work either since armies have different strenghts, some might need more troops, others might need flyers etc. also the different units costs themselves will quickly unbalance this.
Short of rewriting 40k i believe the only way to get different house-rules to work is to focus on the missions and how they award points and forget about changing/nerfing rules\units.

See my other post:

X078 wrote:
I'm afraid that would not work either since armies have different strenghts, some might need more troops, others might need flyers etc. also the different units costs themselves will quickly unbalance this.

A lot of top-tier armies are there because they're quite effective at dodging tax units, while lower-tier armies can't sidestep the requirement.

The effect of this is effectively raising an obstacle to min-maxing a handful of key units. It's so players can't run 4x Heldrakes or 45x Warp Spiders or 9x Riptides. Playing with/against diverse and varied armies is desirable, right?

In terms of balance I'm not sure how it actually would work, but I cannot imagine CSM being punished by Eldar paying for Wave Serpents (even on Dragons or D-Guard), or Tau paying for Strike Teams and Devilfish.

In terms of list restrictions you can look at the Know No Mercy GT for some lessons. In a word -- yikes!

https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2015/10/08/dispatches-from-the-front-know-no-mercy-tournament-report/

 Massaen wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Massaen wrote:
Death punch is the triple raven formation with multiple assault units that deploy via pods turn 1 and charge. normally death company or vanguard.

It delivers a massive alpha strike to most forces and kills high value targets early.

TWC are good but not the be all and end of everything.

That formation has 3 full tac squads in it. And three storm ravens. (Useless) It sucks. "Massive" alpha strike my ass. And you look like a fool against null deploy lists.

Then we can agree to disagree - Any evidence I provide is going to be anecdotal and based on my own experiences of which you will write it off anyway.

The main problem I had with your post is that you called the Angel's Fury Spearhead formation the "Death Punch" and expected everyone here to know what you were talking about. Apart from that, it does come with some issues (not enough oomph at 1850, for starters), but I like it in theory.

To add something to the original spirit of the thread, I wish an organizer like FLG would experiment with adjusting points costs of units rather than altering game rules. A given units points cost is SUPPOSED to help balance the game out, but GW does such a horrid job with certain units that they either become auto-include because of their extreme efficiency or totally extinct because of how detrimental the unit would be in a given list.

I have zero time to continue this post before work...but you get the idea. Yeah...it'll never happen...

Yoyoyo wrote:

X078 wrote:
I'm afraid that would not work either since armies have different strenghts, some might need more troops, others might need flyers etc. also the different units costs themselves will quickly unbalance this.

A lot of top-tier armies are there because they're quite effective at dodging tax units, while lower-tier armies can't sidestep the requirement.

The effect of this is effectively raising an obstacle to min-maxing a handful of key units. It's so players can't run 4x Heldrakes or 45x Warp Spiders or 9x Riptides. Playing with/against diverse and varied armies is desirable, right?

In terms of balance I'm not sure how it actually would work, but I cannot imagine CSM being punished by Eldar paying for Wave Serpents (even on Dragons or D-Guard), or Tau paying for Strike Teams and Devilfish.

In terms of list restrictions you can look at the Know No Mercy GT for some lessons. In a word -- yikes!

https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2015/10/08/dispatches-from-the-front-know-no-mercy-tournament-report/

That tournament looks fun as **** actually. Pretty close to how we play it

Martel732 wrote:

 LValx wrote:

 quickfuze wrote:
Just ban all formations. Straight CAD only single source, no allies....wont solve everything, yeah eldar are stronger than Orks codex...guess what, everyone DOESN"T get a trophy, but it's a big step in the right direction.

Haha, this is so silly. Take away allies and formations and Eldar will be the only competitive army to play. They are the only codex that is good without the use of formations. No army can match scatbikes as troops. No army has a better LOW. Arguably the best psyker and thus the best HQ. Necrons become crippled, SM become mono-build (centurion deathstars), bye bye BA/SW/Skitarii/Cult Mechanicus/Inquisition. The books arent written with CADs in mind. The codexes are now written with formations in mind, not a traditional FOC.

BA aren't written with ANYTHING in mind. There is no reason to have them as allies except for drop pod cheese. All BA formations are basically garbage as well. BA run as well with CAD as anything else, That is to say, they don't run at all.

I disagree. I like 3x melta ASM, I like Sanguinary Priests, I like Dante, I used about 900 pts worth of BA for a while with my IG and they worked very well. I wont disagree that BA are underpowered, but unfortunately that goes for half the codexes in the game. The other half are actually pretty well balanced against one another.

We use the ITC FAQ for our events, but we score maelstrom at the end of each player turn. Scoring both Maelstrom and final objectives at the bottom of the turn is plain bonkers. The FAQ is a really useful tool however.

Maelstrom's random nature greatly increases the requirement for player activity in every game turn, and is a massive improvement to the game experience. We use the ETC deck, which is a bit more limited in that it largely makes you do things you would be doing anyway, albeit with a different priority - personally I'd prefer a few more capture objective X cards in - but it still works well. I wouldn't go to an event anymore that didn't include maelstrom in some form or another.

Certain units can really spoil that game experience (I'm looking at you Warp Spiders), but that's not really an organiser's fault. It's up to the players how they wish to participate. I'm sure giving out significant cash prizes incentivises that behaviour, but I guess that is needed to get a large turn-out.

 torgoch wrote:
We use the ITC FAQ for our events, but we score maelstrom at the end of each player turn. Scoring both Maelstrom and final objectives at the bottom of the turn is plain bonkers. The FAQ is a really useful tool however.

Maelstrom's random nature greatly increases the requirement for player activity in every game turn, and is a massive improvement to the game experience. We use the ETC deck, which is a bit more limited in that it largely makes you do things you would be doing anyway, albeit with a different priority - personally I'd prefer a few more capture objective X cards in - but it still works well. I wouldn't go to an event anymore that didn't include maelstrom in some form or another.

Certain units can really spoil that game experience (I'm looking at you Warp Spiders), but that's not really an organiser's fault. It's up to the players how they wish to participate. I'm sure giving out significant cash prizes incentivises that behaviour, but I guess that is needed to get a large turn-out.

I believe the future of 40k lies with using 40k "untouched" with the addition of "custom" mission/points faqs/formats. Sounds like you are partly on your way to a good format, just don't ban or nerf anything.

The ITC FAQ does make some rule changes, for example Strength D and Stomp are altered and in doing so, some things are nerfed. However, the result is a better game experience for the event participants overall.

I think there is probably a role for event organisers to agree that certain things are simply not appropriate for a situation where you are asking people to pay a lot of money and and give up a significant portion of their time to travel to your event. However, I'm not sure where that boundary is as its been years since I was close to what is 'competitive' in 40k.

And fundamentally, I don't really care what people at the top few tables are doing, my main concern as an organiser is with making sure the middle and bottom of the fields have the best event experience possible.

 LValx wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 LValx wrote:

 quickfuze wrote:
Just ban all formations. Straight CAD only single source, no allies....wont solve everything, yeah eldar are stronger than Orks codex...guess what, everyone DOESN"T get a trophy, but it's a big step in the right direction.

Haha, this is so silly. Take away allies and formations and Eldar will be the only competitive army to play. They are the only codex that is good without the use of formations. No army can match scatbikes as troops. No army has a better LOW. Arguably the best psyker and thus the best HQ. Necrons become crippled, SM become mono-build (centurion deathstars), bye bye BA/SW/Skitarii/Cult Mechanicus/Inquisition. The books arent written with CADs in mind. The codexes are now written with formations in mind, not a traditional FOC.

BA aren't written with ANYTHING in mind. There is no reason to have them as allies except for drop pod cheese. All BA formations are basically garbage as well. BA run as well with CAD as anything else, That is to say, they don't run at all.

I disagree. I like 3x melta ASM, I like Sanguinary Priests, I like Dante, I used about 900 pts worth of BA for a while with my IG and they worked very well. I wont disagree that BA are underpowered, but unfortunately that goes for half the codexes in the game. The other half are actually pretty well balanced against one another.

Triple melta ASM are actually quite poor because a) BA can't afford to throw away any models b) melta got its balls cut off in 7th and c) they only have three of them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Massaen wrote:

Martel732 wrote:

 Massaen wrote:
Death punch is the triple raven formation with multiple assault units that deploy via pods turn 1 and charge. normally death company or vanguard.

It delivers a massive alpha strike to most forces and kills high value targets early.

TWC are good but not the be all and end of everything.

That formation has 3 full tac squads in it. And three storm ravens. (Useless) It sucks. "Massive" alpha strike my ass. And you look like a fool against null deploy lists.

Then we can agree to disagree - Any evidence I provide is going to be anecdotal and based on my own experiences of which you will write it off anyway.

Then make a general mathematical argument. I can show for sure that tac squads are bad, and Stormravens are overcosted junk with no place in 7th. Anything you would assault with have to pay a drop pod tax as well.

Nah, you can go BSF and get 4x MSU DC with a Power Fist.

A Damocles Rhino would give you a 35/36 chance of bringing in your Stormraven formation on T1.

Scatterlasers and WKs will be generally ineffective against your flyers, going for 2x Strat traits gives you a good chance at Night Fighting for a 3+ Jink if you go first and rerollable reserves for DC.

Here is the mathematical argument:

Stormraven + Tacs = 340pts.
340/27 = ~13 Scatterbikes, 4 shots = 52(1/6)(1/6)(1/2) = 0.72HP

Nothing you put onto the board in T1 can be targeted effectively except a single Damocles Rhino. You can hide one Rhino I hope?

If he goes first, you come on second,
If he goes second, move 24" to set up for a T2 charge with DC.

He can't deploy flyers on T1 and probably has poor AA.

Doable? Probably better than getting shot to bits on T1 at least.

Martel is only on dakka to complain, I have never seen constructive posts on his part. You can give him advice but it will always be answered with, "BA are unplayable"

 LValx wrote:
Martel is only on dakka to complain, I have never seen constructive posts on his part. You can give him advice but it will always be answered with, "BA are unplayable"

to be fair, 40% of dakka just seems to be here to complain

You know what? Despite that he typically stays away from personal attacks and getting snarky, which is a lot better than most of us,

Incidentally Martel, I'm still hoping you play koooaei's mutilator Mutant Divison.

Yoyoyo wrote:
You know what? Despite that he typically stays away from personal attacks and getting snarky, which is a lot better than most of us,

Incidentally Martel, I'm still hoping you play koooaei's mutilator Mutant Divison.

I want to. It should be interesting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LValx wrote:
Martel is only on dakka to complain, I have never seen constructive posts on his part. You can give him advice but it will always be answered with, "BA are unplayable"

What can I say? I hate Stormravens, I hate the model, hate the stats and hate Imperial heavy weapons that are mounted on it. Oh, and I hate the pricetag on them as well. That, and I've crushed this formation every time some upstart thinks that it's the saviour of the BA.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Yoyoyo wrote:
Nah, you can go BSF and get 4x MSU DC with a Power Fist.

A Damocles Rhino would give you a 35/36 chance of bringing in your Stormraven formation on T1.

Scatterlasers and WKs will be generally ineffective against your flyers, going for 2x Strat traits gives you a good chance at Night Fighting for a 3+ Jink if you go first and rerollable reserves for DC.

Here is the mathematical argument:

Stormraven + Tacs = 340pts.
340/27 = ~13 Scatterbikes, 4 shots = 52(1/6)(1/6)(1/2) = 0.72HP

Nothing you put onto the board in T1 can be targeted effectively except a single Damocles Rhino. You can hide one Rhino I hope?

If he goes first, you come on second,
If he goes second, move 24" to set up for a T2 charge with DC.

He can't deploy flyers on T1 and probably has poor AA.

Doable? Probably better than getting shot to bits on T1 at least.

But the WK is going to step on all the DC once the fighting starts. The WK is the ultimate trump card against BA. It out chops my choppy and out shoots my shooty.

You don't want to be distracted by the WK, it can kill at most 1x squad in melee and can't fight for objectives.

Drown it in combat squadded Tacs, leave DC to their revenge.

Yoyoyo wrote:
You don't want to be distracted by the WK, it can kill at most 1x squad in melee and can't fight for objectives.

Drown it in combat squadded Tacs, leave DC to their revenge.

You can't really tarpit GMCs, though. Stomp is a bitch.

This topic is dumb because there is no fixing eldar anymore then the ITC already has.

Eldar is unique in the fact thier codex and fw supplements are full of good core units and a very flexible decorian. There isn't many great or must take formations for eldar unlike other armies. This is why both lvo eldar top 2 lists were entirely different units.

Whereas every other codex has major duds and powerful units mixed together. This makes certain formations that maximizes those powerful units must take formations. Looking at you riptide Wing.

At best itc can go back too the no duplicate source rule however whole Alex spammed warp spiders that also really wasn't why eldar won and hurts other armies more. The ITC is at 3 source 1 duplicate right now and I think that's fine.

Personally I don't expect the ITC to balance the game completely. I don't think it's possible and the game constantly evolves. I would like to see changes to maelstrom kinda like ETC missions but with a few more claim objectives. I'd like to see tau unnerfed a bit.ghostkeel reversed, hunter contingent allowed to share but only on designated target. I'd like to see toe in cover for gmc only removed. Maybe remove the super heavy gargantuan victory points but that might need play testing.

Eldar codex is still relatively new and the fw update is new. We still have more sw, more chaos, a new fw book adding a lot of the fw ad mech models, a rumoured combined ad mech book, a rumoured dark eldar update. All due in the next 6 months and maybe a few more hidden releases. The status quo will change again. Unfortunately the eldar fw update hit at just the right time for lvo and the tau recieved some heavy handed rules clarifications. Things like that can sway an individual tournament result however eldar even though they are still good doesn't require anymore knee jerk reactions or nerfs. Which imho shouldn't happen to any army unless there is a major problem.

Martel732 wrote:
You can't really tarpit GMCs, though. Stomp is a bitch.

Mathematically, there's a good chance (~57%) he doesn't roll a 6. Imperial Knghts don't have a better stomp:

Even a 5 man SM TAC unit can hold an imperial knight for 2 rounds of combat with savvy casualty removal by marine player.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/623315.page#7356793

Considering you have 30 Tacs with no equipment except a free beacon, you are pretty much blessed with the perfect speed bump.

You might as well use it!

Sky is the limits. So no, ITC will push their limits even foward so the taus will be happy

Yes it's rubbish. It encourages cheesy spam lists that ally Eldar with chaos daemons and crap like that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here this would help:

- Make all formations cost points. Sorry you'll have to put in some work to balance these costs.

-Eldar jet bikes go up in points and can only take one heavy weapon per three.

-wraithknight costs at least 100 pts more.

 Dozer Blades wrote:
There were two Marine armies and two Necron armies in the final top eight - that is domination .

Get back under the bridge, you!

Yes it's rubbish. It encourages cheesy spam lists that ally Eldar with chaos daemons and crap like that.

Sounds like someone isn't very familiar with the ITC format and meta...

Winner had what...SIX Formations in his list? Sigh.

 DarkLink wrote:

Yes it's rubbish. It encourages cheesy spam lists that ally Eldar with chaos daemons and crap like that.

Sounds like someone isn't very familiar with the ITC format and meta...

I played in Australia's first ITC event. It was dominated by cheesy spam. No comp to speak of. I got paired up with a scatterbike/bike-council/wraithknight list. That's not fun for anyone. He wasn't having fun either (since all his opponents were scowling at him and he didn't have to think.)

The current Eldar codex is GW's fault. If you want to win any tournament you bring scatbikes and a wraithknight.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And BTW, Eldar with Daemons isn't legal so you local TO did that.

ITC: A Detachment may not be included in an army if it is Come the Apocalypse allies with another Detachment in the army.