You can't go 2 seconds on Dakka without seeing this word. It's thrown around like feces in the monkey enclosure at the zoo. This is balanced, that is balanced, this isn't balanced, that isn't balanced... Is this balanced? Is that balanced? GW wouldn't know balance if it slapped them across the face and threw them off balance! Balance here, balance there, balance everywhere! But what does 'balance' actually mean? How is it defined? and is it (as I suspect) entirely subjective terminology, which means very different things, to very different people.
To me, when someone asks the question; "Is 40k a balanced game?" My answer is generally "Yes" because what does a balanced 40k mean to me? It means that each FACTION can generally compete with each other FACTION and has a range of options to do so. It does not mean, that every LIST/UNIT/MODEL can compete with every other LIST/UNIT/MODEL... that is an impossibility. It is also something that I find undesirable because it would require losing so much of the character that separates and defines the various factions within the game.
One of my favourite computer games is the amazing and timeless Age Of Empires. I have been playing this game online for years and years and one of the main reasons for it's longevity is because it's 'generally balanced'. All the civilisations have a decent chance against the other civilisations, there is no doubt that there are better civs than others at specific things and against specific opponents, There are certain units that counter others, but when it comes down to 1v1, a good player will always be able to overcome any civ advantage the other might have.
When it comes to tournaments, having looked at the results from the GT, Adepticon etc I would say that there is a fairly mixed bag regarding results.. I would also argue that tournament bandwagons and copy-cats tend to skew the results as certain FACTIONS are over-represented. It sure would be interesting to see tournaments run with allocated spaces for each of the factions.Like a total of 180 spaces with only 10 spaces per faction. That would show (I would bet) that 40k is in fact a balanced game in regards to faction v faction.
Thoughts? What does balance mean to you? Is everything in 40k either OP or "hot trash" as so many of the cry-babies on Dakka like to describe it? Or is it something else?
I am not really up with the current state of Age of Empires but I was under the impression it had massive faction imbalance. I played a lot of Age of Empires 3 over ten years ago and there you basically had Spain+the top faction of the patch. It was very obvious.
Anyway to me balance is about having the average outcome sufficiently close that luck and tactics (i.e. unit placement and targeting) matter more than which units you select.
I am a pretty boring, possibly simplistic mathhammerer.
My method with a unit is:
(Attacks)*(Chance to hit)*(Chance to wound)*(Chance to Armour Save)*(Target's Points)/(Unit's Points).
Do this on 2-3 types of unit to see the effectiveness (typically I'd use a marine and a razorback).
This gives you damage ratios - say 20%, 30%, 40%. You can throw in things like stratagems and aura buffs as well.
Now to my mind every unit should be around 20-25%. Some units should b more specialised - say 10-15% on certain targets, but 30-35% on others.
This would result in a slower game where in game choices would hopefully be more decisive.
You do need to take into account fragility - but being incredibly fragile doesn't matter if you always get to shoot first (say via deep strike or something like that).
In 40k as it stands however there are certain units which are scoring 40% on almost everything (and this goes up rapidly with stratagems if they are shooting/assaulting a blinged out target). These units are typically good/OP and are seen in tournaments.
There are also units which only do about 15% on almost everything. These are pretty much universally hot trash and are never seen.
Now if those units which only do 15% provide a major buff they might be justified - but odds are they are just a waste. A good example is an Ork Trakk/buggy/skorcha. Right now (not sure if Chapter Approved will change this) these are terrible units. They are statistically likely to do no damage to anything.
Now maybe there is some edge case usefulness - they can for instance get into combat with a non-flying shooting squad and force them to fall back. But leaving aside the issues of the Ork Index - why not spend your points on something which could do the same job, but also chop up that shooty squad if it makes combat?
Getting back on point - we are seeing Codex creep. When the indexes were launched there were obvious imbalances, and perhaps its because people had not learned all the lists, but ratios of 20-30% were normal. The 30% units were recognisably good, but not insanely good compared to other options. (Things like RG, which dramatically went beyond this fairly obviously stood out.)
We are now seeing combos which can push well above 50% if not 100%. This is why so many games are decided by the end of turn 2. As a result those units which were previously okay with their 25% ratios now look (and are) a bit rubbish.
Right now 40k is not balanced across the factions. Necrons for instance have no viable tournament list. With good luck they can win games - but if you mathed it out they do so against the odds (often quite dramatically so). Theoretically they could get sufficiently lucky to win a tournament, but it hasn't happened yet because its so unlikely.
@hollow- Even by your definition the answer would be no, not all factions can compete with others and some of those that can really don't have multiple ways to do so.
That said balance to me is that all factions are equally viable, and ideally every unit is viable (some might be slightly better, but it should be close) in its role. That means if a unit is supposed to be anti-infantry it should be good for its points at doing that job. This does not mean all lists will be balanced, instead that it is possible to make a list using any specific unit and have that list be competitive.
I think there's multiple types of balance, it's not one overarching term.
There's intra-faction balance, which means that there's never a situation where X is simply better than Y such that there's zero logical reason to ever take Y because X outperforms it. IMHOGW fails at this, as there is often "Must take" and "never take" options within a codex, and sometimes even units that share the same role but one is just simply better in every regard than the other.
There's inter-faction balance, which is where all the factions are relatively able to compete with each other and while there will always be "tiers", the gap between them should be relatively small such that X can always have a chance in a good player's hands to beat Y. IMHOGW fails at this, as there is often a large gap between factions for no discernible reason and reasons that tend to switch around seemingly at a whim.
Then there is in-game balance, which people often use to mean "equal points" but really seems to mean "symmetry", both in army construction (e.g. we both build as close to 2000 points as possible without going over) and in the game (e.g. we both have the same mission objectives to achieve), which is the most subjective because there's nothing inherently wrong with imbalanced forces (e.g. 1500 points versus 2000 points) and/or scenarios where each player has their own objective (e.g. traditional Attacker/Defender scenarios). This, I feel, is the hardest to quantify as this is on the player, not hte company. It's perfectly possible to have a group that only plays asymmetrical forces, and one that never uses it, and there isn't really a way to say one is better than the other.
Except, heres the problem: if you actually had a tournament as you described with 180 people and 10 slots for each faction, there would be multiple factions that would never win a game. Dark Eldar and Gray Knights cannot "generally compete" with Guard and Chaos, they'd get pretty much slaughtered.
As above, 40k by OP's definition would not be balanced.
Balance to me has always been that every unit has a role they fill, and priced accordingly based on ability. This means that every unit is theoretically viable, it then boils down to the player to pick the role and how they want that role to be accomplished.
For all the issues Spartan Games had, the Firestorm V2 factions were pretty reasonably balanced. My faction was the close range, shotgun style faction, but nevertheless had two long range options. One was cheap, not overly powerful, but brought utility to the whole fleet in the form of a deployment bonus. The other option was more expensive, hit like a brick, was more durable (and consequently less maneuverable/slower), and also brought no other bonus to the fleet. Both were balanced in that if I wanted a long range punch, either one would fit the role, and it simply boiled down to how much of an investment I wanted to make, and how they would fit in my fleet.
Battlefleet Gothic was similar (fixed by the FAQ and even more so by fan fixes, like the XR project) in that you picked a role, and then decided how you wanted to play with that role.
Every faction should be internally balanced, and the factions balanced externally to eachother.
As always in this discussion, it must be pointed out that no one expects or reasonably believes any game to be perfectly balanced. The idea is that you strive to make the game balanced enough that your individual unit choices aren't the primary reasons for your win or loss.
Balance in the context of 40k, hmmmmmm. OK, I will go out on a limb.
"All armies within the 40k game comprised of multiple unit types, factoring in use of command points, traits, etc., having a statistically equal chance of beating or being beaten by any other army, irrespective of compisition"?
I.e. the outcome of any game is purely determined by player ability.
IMHO a balanced game means that the result of the game is open until the end of turn 4 at least. Unless one player made some horrible mistakes or rolled extremely lucky/unlucky.
40kTAC games have never been balanced and never will. A game played by friends tailoring the lists may be, and it's actually a lot of fun.
A balanced game doesn't mean that both players have exactly 50/50 chance to win, a 60/40 or even 70/30 is still quite balanced IMHO. I don't mind playing against lists that are certainly superior, but I must have some possibility of winning the game. That's the goal of a balanced game.
Blacksails wrote: Balance to me has always been that every unit has a role they fill, and priced accordingly based on ability. This means that every unit is theoretically viable, it then boils down to the player to pick the role and how they want that role to be accomplished.
This.
Based on this definition, I think some armies / units in 40k have good internal balance right now, like CSM long-range "Heavy Support". Obliterators, Predators, Helbrutes, Havocs and Forgefiends all have their pros and cons, some being very strong offense-wise but quite fragile, while others are sturdier but deal less damage. Unfortunately, some other armies have terrible balance (*cough* Orks).
Units that fill a similar role should be balanced around damage dealt / toughness / utility, and priced accordingly across ALL armies.
Balance to me does not mean every unit match up against equal points of other unit. 100pts machine guns should never win against 100pts tanks for example.
That said I think balance is when every unit in the factions can fill a potential role and not be totally outmatched in that field by other factions. for example tau, orks and space marine anti tank units should all be comparatively useful.
Some battlefield roles:
light infantry
heavy infantry/light vehicles
tanks/(monsters)
combined with any of these traits:
anti light infantry
anti heavy infantry
anti tank
mobility
durability
reliability
range
quantity (or points cost if you prefer)
These roles together with the traits should be able to form any unit I can think of in the game. For example a rhino would be a tank that in itself has decent durability and high mobility (in open terrain), but barely has any offensive capacity. It does however increase the durability and mobility of any transported infantry squad and there lies it's main value. That would mean the transport should really be mostly costed based on what units it can transport.
Factions could be of different quality in all of these traits. For example orks might lack long range on their weapons but they have access to high mobility on many units. Their units are less reliable but come in great quantity.
I would say balance becomes broken when one unit from one faction has no counter from all unit choices of an other faction. For example the orks again, if their short range units had no mobility options and only low durability when facing a long range durable and mobile faction then it would not be fair game. The game would also be imbalanced if one faction simply get more of everything as they build their lists, like Robot Girlyman who possesses almost all of these traits, buffs all surrounding units in their offensive reliability and comes at a comparably low cost.
Balance means that no unit in any codex is an auto-take and none are an auto-skip. You can still build bad lists and good lists. But there are no units that 5 jobs well and none that do zero jobs well.
Outside of the obvious that others have mentioned. (Points, abilities, etc)
The biggest issue with 40k at the moment is the missions. Hopefully that changes with Chapter Approved, but we sorely need deployment mechanisms that allow armies that are not alpha strike heavy to compete.
I shouldn't need luck to cross no mans land because someone has a frak load of plasma in cover with scions backed up by 8 taurox primes. Every mission atm is "set up all my models perfectly and look how awesome my guns are".
sfshilo wrote: Outside of the obvious that others have mentioned. (Points, abilities, etc)
The biggest issue with 40k at the moment is the missions. Hopefully that changes with Chapter Approved, but we sorely need deployment mechanisms that allow armies that are not alpha strike heavy to compete.
I shouldn't need luck to cross no mans land because someone has a frak load of plasma in cover with scions backed up by 8 taurox primes. Every mission atm is "set up all my models perfectly and look how awesome my guns are".
Rather than rely on that, shooty units just need to cost more.
sfshilo wrote: Outside of the obvious that others have mentioned. (Points, abilities, etc)
The biggest issue with 40k at the moment is the missions. Hopefully that changes with Chapter Approved, but we sorely need deployment mechanisms that allow armies that are not alpha strike heavy to compete.
I shouldn't need luck to cross no mans land because someone has a frak load of plasma in cover with scions backed up by 8 taurox primes. Every mission atm is "set up all my models perfectly and look how awesome my guns are".
This is a wider issue with 40k's constant scale creep. I started in 5th where people remarked on the sheer number of vehicle Guard could park in a 1500-2000pts list. That number has only grown as prices continue to drop across the board. A 4x6 is cluttered enough for a 28mm company level game (also an issue, 28mm should really be a platoon sized game on a 4x6), but the company+ sizes we're looking at with flyers and superheavies just makes all maneuvering irrelevant. Basic infantry weapons already reach fully halfway across the board with no penalty, and given some deployments, can already start far enough up the board to cover most of it.
People are quick to point out that everyone needs more terrain (they're not wrong), but putting more terrain only slows the inevitable if you and your opponent can comfortably fill most of eachother's deployment zones. The game needs to scale back down dramatically if maneuvering and ranges are going to matter (or play on a bigger table) otherwise we're left with gakky missions where your tactics are 'shoot the choppy ones, and also outshoot the other shooty ones' or 'pray you can pull off an assault via deepstrike by rolling high enough for your charge'.
Balance to me has always been that every unit has a role they fill, and priced accordingly based on ability. This means that every unit is theoretically viable, it then boils down to the player to pick the role and how they want that role to be accomplished.
For all the issues Spartan Games had, the Firestorm V2 factions were pretty reasonably balanced. My faction was the close range, shotgun style faction, but nevertheless had two long range options. One was cheap, not overly powerful, but brought utility to the whole fleet in the form of a deployment bonus. The other option was more expensive, hit like a brick, was more durable (and consequently less maneuverable/slower), and also brought no other bonus to the fleet. Both were balanced in that if I wanted a long range punch, either one would fit the role, and it simply boiled down to how much of an investment I wanted to make, and how they would fit in my fleet.
Battlefleet Gothic was similar (fixed by the FAQ and even more so by fan fixes, like the XR project) in that you picked a role, and then decided how you wanted to play with that role.
Every faction should be internally balanced, and the factions balanced externally to eachother.
As always in this discussion, it must be pointed out that no one expects or reasonably believes any game to be perfectly balanced. The idea is that you strive to make the game balanced enough that your individual unit choices aren't the primary reasons for your win or loss.
Balance is my stuff is generally as good as your stuff.
Balance is NOT I took whatever I wanted to a game and expect a totally even match when either I:
1) Did not correctly utilize my units
2) I took too many units of a type and my opponent had a hard counter.
Balance would be in regards to competitive gameplay. Casual gameplay is already fairly balanced, by the "don't be a dick" rule.
If a faction comprises X% of the players then in a perfectly balanced game I would expect that faction to win X% of the tournaments. Obviously nothing shakes out in a truly intellectual exercise, and perfection isn't a binary thing. I don't expect that level of balance, but we have some factions sitting at 0%, while guard is sitting much, much higher. Problem.
Marmatag wrote: Casual gameplay is already fairly balanced, by the "don't be a dick" rule.
This nonsense always gets brought up too.
Casual gameplay is affected the same as tournament gameplay, if not more so, by poor balance.
Having a nicely balanced game encourages more diverse lists that can be as fluffy or themed as anyone likes, while letting tournament players strive to eek that last small advantage from a perfectly optimized list.
Its all well and good to hope the people you play with have the exact same idea of what is fluffy, competitive, and 'dickisheness' as you, but when it doesn't, its better to have a good balanced ruleset to fall back on.
I've played in pick up stores, tournaments, and tight groups. I've been fortunate to have had a great tight group that we all understood eachother, but the pick up games and tournaments had wildly different interpretations of 'don't be a dick' in regards to list construction.
A balanced game benefits everyone. Poor balance hurts everyone.
Simple stuff.
*Edit* I should also add that stating casual gameplay is balanced by virtue of 'not being a dick', which of course translates to 'don't play what I don't like', is itself an admission that the game is not balanced for casual play, and therefore, not balanced at all.
Balance, to me, means that you should be able to build a list you like (not necessarily just throwing down models willy-nilly, mind you. I mean with a theme you enjoy, but still with an eye towards power) and, assuming equal player skill, have about a 50/50 chance of winning.
Someone who likes pure Nurgle Daemons should be able to build that and have the same chance of winning as someone who loves Primarchs.
Balance to me means there is no obvious superior choice. Whether it is picking your army, a unit within your army, gear (powers, etc..) for said unit, etc.. If one or two choices are clearly superior and others less effective/fefficient and the choice is "an easy one", there's no balance.
I use the ideas of intra-codex and inter-codex balances.
Intra-codex is the internal balance of a codex. Armies with good internal balance give more options for their players, as they can use different units and get at least average results. When a option for the same battlefield role or list role (AA, AT, anti-horde, etc) is way better than the others in the book, there is a problem - the reverse as well.
Inter-codex is much harder, as it implies the ability of a codex to get at least average results against the other codexes. If Starcraft (a game with only 3 factions) is already hard to balance, imagine 40k. But this is, in my view, even more important than the intra-codex balance - for not adressing it can make people give up playing the game or funneling them to the 'always-winning' armies (worsening the flavor-of-the-month effect).
There's also the point of base rules. 6th and 7th base rules severely benfitted ranged combat, while 8th does this to MSU. A balanced core rules set would leave equal opportunity to melee and ranged, msu and big units, psykers and 'nulls', etc to shine.
In conclusion, 'balance', for me, is making the game fun to both sides, where tactics and strategy count more than just luck or list building
Vector Strike wrote: A balanced core rules set would leave equal opportunity to melee and ranged, msu and big units, psykers and 'nulls', etc to shine.
Not necessarily. In a game like 40k shooting should dominate, because this is not WHFB in space and guns tend to beat swords. The whole concept of a "melee army" shouldn't exist at all. But you can still have balance between the various shooting-focused armies, even if melee is only present as something you do to finish off the last survivors of your shooting and melee specialists are a tiny part of the game.
Warhammer40k is farialy bad balanced. From the perspective of that... many, many units are pretty bad, and others are very, very good.
In others game where skill is much more important, that mathematical disbalance is much less important.
A Moba, or a FPS like Counter Strike, for example. If your opponent is playing a character or weapons that are mathematically better than the one you are using, is on an advantage, but if he doesn't hit you with any shot or skillshot, because you have better skill, you can win.
That possibility doesn't exist in Warhammer. From the grand scheme of things, yeah, skill is important talking about how you move your units in the table, what you attack and when. But when the player agency stops very early. When the dices began to roll, and everything starts to death, theres nothing you can do. When one unit charges another, literally you have no more control about what they do. The mathematics and dice will decide who wins.
Thats why the mathematical disbalance in warhammer40k is much more important for having a fun game where in other games where player skill has more weight in deciding the outcome of a match.
Now, I'll said that theres many min/maxers out there, that think that if one unit is mathematically 5% less effective than other, that means the one that is 5% less effective is ***ing useless and nobody should use it, and everybody should spam the other one. Of course I can respect that, just like I respect people that go to Smash Bros Meele tournaments where 70% of the players play Fox. But I think that small amount of disbalance is respectable. The problem is that warhammer doesn't have a 5-10% disbalance in most of his units.
Vector Strike wrote: A balanced core rules set would leave equal opportunity to melee and ranged, msu and big units, psykers and 'nulls', etc to shine.
Not necessarily. In a game like 40k shooting should dominate, because this is not WHFB in space and guns tend to beat swords. The whole concept of a "melee army" shouldn't exist at all. But you can still have balance between the various shooting-focused armies, even if melee is only present as something you do to finish off the last survivors of your shooting and melee specialists are a tiny part of the game.
This is a totall subjetive opinion based in your personal tastes. And it isn't wrong, but is obviously that no, in Warhammer40k meele should be a viable tactic for a whole army to use. Warhammer is Fantasy in Space for a reason. Theres other universes where things are as you said, like Halo or Starcraft, with meele as a specialist thing. This "Oh, Meele doesn't mankes any sense in Warhammer, it should suck, and of course I play a gunline army! Its how this universe should work!" isn't any healthy for the game.
I like to view balance in the light of can i craft a list or two. That can reasonable give me a game that is no worse than a 40/60. Leaving the remainder to skill and terrain to make up for the mess my dice will visit upon me.
Things like auto include or auto spam need to be kept on a short leash. The horrible strickly better or unplayable trash need to be curbed, tone the one down or add utility that is unique to the army for the later.
If the rule of perfect imbalance is being applied ensure every army gets a set of over the top tools, but again make sure they are limited. Jank is fun, but breaking the game is annoying.
Marmatag wrote: Casual gameplay is already fairly balanced, by the "don't be a dick" rule.
This nonsense always gets brought up too.
Casual gameplay is affected the same as tournament gameplay, if not more so, by poor balance.
Having a nicely balanced game encourages more diverse lists that can be as fluffy or themed as anyone likes, while letting tournament players strive to eek that last small advantage from a perfectly optimized list.
Its all well and good to hope the people you play with have the exact same idea of what is fluffy, competitive, and 'dickisheness' as you, but when it doesn't, its better to have a good balanced ruleset to fall back on.
I've played in pick up stores, tournaments, and tight groups. I've been fortunate to have had a great tight group that we all understood eachother, but the pick up games and tournaments had wildly different interpretations of 'don't be a dick' in regards to list construction.
A balanced game benefits everyone. Poor balance hurts everyone.
Simple stuff.
*Edit* I should also add that stating casual gameplay is balanced by virtue of 'not being a dick', which of course translates to 'don't play what I don't like', is itself an admission that the game is not balanced for casual play, and therefore, not balanced at all.
You're just being pedantic.
I'm saying the game should be balanced around tournament level play.
It obviously will filter down.
The point is you should not balance with the struggles of the casual Joe in mind. Just because casual Pete struggles with Necrons in his local meta doesn't mean the complaint is well founded, or that nerfing Necrons would be good for the game.
With ITC and other tournament circuits collecting and formalizing data, you can look at aggregate competitive data, which is useful for balancing purposes.
Casual play can be balanced by saying "i can't deal with that unit, so please don't play it." In casual games, units that are NOT overpowered or even considered good in the meta can wreak havoc if people aren't prepared to deal with them. I saw a guy complaining about a Tyranid list that had a Swarmlord in it. That model is not a meta choice, and there is no reason to consider that complaint thread for the purposes of a balance discussion.
Casual games benefit from "Don't be a dick", but are still hurt badly by imbalance.
I remade my CWE army in 6th from what I originally wanted to "not be a dick". Then that became OP in 7th. Fortunately, the Index fixed that, and I could just play whatever I wanted. Unfortunately, the Codex brought CWE back up (although not to 6E or 7E levels).
If I want a fun casual game, I have to be very careful about what I take. My opponent can usually take whatever he wants. The average list I throw together will typically smash the average list most other books throw together. So now, when building lists even for casual play, a lot of thought has to be put into listbuilding to make that happen.
And any time anything CWE does well, it brings up the spectre of my book being OP. Even in casual games, it's a notable negative.
So Casual can work around imbalance, but is certainly harmed by it.
Automatically Appended Next Post: In the 6E meta, there was no need to consider the state of Harlequins. They never showed up. But I would still consider that unbalaned.
On the other hand, Dire Avengers were in most top-tier 6E lists for nearly half the edition - but it had nothing to do with *them* being OP (DAVU was stupid).
You can't just look at the top meta. You should be concerned with everything in the game.
This is why we have discussions about SM being the worst faction in the game. They compare Tacs to Infiltrating Berzerkers or Conscripts, and Tacs come up wanting. But it's also imbalance when Kroot or Wyches or other troops get destroyed by Tacs.
It'd be healtheir for the game if everything were balanced. But if you only care about top tables and "the meta", you only care about ~5% of the options in the game.
Balance is a fairly qualitative metric that measures the relative correlation of an army's chance of victory with pre-game inputs such as army selection, and whether a player goes first.
The stronger the correlation between odds of victory and said external inputs, the weaker the balance. The weaker the correlation, the stronger the balance; a balanced game is one where generalship should matter more, relative to what units your army has.
MagicJuggler wrote: Balance is a fairly qualitative metric that measures the relative correlation of an army's chance of victory with pre-game inputs such as army selection, and whether a player goes first.
No.
You're still thinking in regards to balance with a scalpel when you should be looking at it in an aggregate. It's impossible to ensure that every army has an equal chance of victory against every other army. That will never happen.
Armies should be represented in tournaments at the relative scale they're represented in the playerbase.
If Dark Eldar players are 10% of the population you should expect 10% of the tournaments have Dark Eldar as the top or close to the top list.
No, not really. Explaining a commonly used fallacious argument about the difference in casual and competitive balance is hardly pedantry.
I'm saying the game should be balanced around tournament level play.
It obviously will filter down.
Which is exactly what I was saying when I said the game should just be balanced, period, not with any distinction to who plays and how.
The point is you should not balance with the struggles of the casual Joe in mind. Just because casual Pete struggles with Necrons in his local meta doesn't mean the complaint is well founded, or that nerfing Necrons would be good for the game.
With ITC and other tournament circuits collecting and formalizing data, you can look at aggregate competitive data, which is useful for balancing purposes.
Of course. On this we agree.
Casual play can be balanced by saying "i can't deal with that unit, so please don't play it." In casual games, units that are NOT overpowered or even considered good in the meta can wreak havoc if people aren't prepared to deal with them. I saw a guy complaining about a Tyranid list that had a Swarmlord in it. That model is not a meta choice, and there is no reason to consider that complaint thread for the purposes of a balance discussion.
Simple stuff.
Here's where you can accuse me of pedantry if you will.
I don't think that asking someone to not play X is balance. Its a compromise between two people who hopefully have a solid knowledge of the power disparity with their lists, but definitely not an ideal situation. Asking someone to not play something can be a non-event for some people, and a big deal for others depending on their attachment to the model or how it fits with the theme of their army. At that point, you're asking for players to self-regulate precisely because the game is poorly balanced that players must resort to asking people to not play with X or Y.
That to me isn't balance, casual or not.
Regardless, we seem to agree that balance should focus on making everything as evenly matched as possible, which benefits everyone. Being competitive or casual has no bearing on it, just make everything on as equal a footing as can be reasonably managed.
Marmatag wrote: Casual games are hurt by imbalance. This is true.
But there is no data collected en mass for casual games.
What do you propose, other than balancing the tournament meta, and letting casual sort itself out?
Collect the data. Or use the tournaments info in playtesting (i.e. take tournament winning armies and play/adjust them against the worst conceivable army you can think of until both win roughly 50/50 in, dunno, 30 games.
Balancing only for tournaments is useless and at worst harmful, a) because most tournaments play heavily houseruled variants of 40K, often tinkering with the most fundamental things like victory conditions that directly change how you win the game and b) represent a highly skewed, self-selective sample of 40K armiies out there, that is not representative of 40K more broadly.
Just having the data doesnt mean its useful data. E.g. medicine used to be frequently tested on (medical) students (readily available) in voluntary (self-selectice) groups, often leading to disastrous results once stuff hits the market and is used by older/younger/different population groups.
I do think the definition of balance does shift slightly from competitive to casual though.
If i had to boil down the two underlying motivations in each game mode to one word, they would be: "WIN" for competitive, and "FUN" for casual. But that is also wholly subjective on my part.
MagicJuggler wrote: Balance is a fairly qualitative metric that measures the relative correlation of an army's chance of victory with pre-game inputs such as army selection, and whether a player goes first.
No.
You're still thinking in regards to balance with a scalpel when you should be looking at it in an aggregate. It's impossible to ensure that every army has an equal chance of victory against every other army. That will never happen.
Armies should be represented in tournaments at the relative scale they're represented in the playerbase.
If Dark Eldar players are 10% of the population you should expect 10% of the tournaments have Dark Eldar as the top or close to the top list.
I believe you are splitting hairs here. I want to win or lose games primarily due to generalship, rather than my list being the primary driver. I want tactics discussions to be about board openings and multi-turn attack sequences, rather than comparative merits of unit A's damage-per-point vs unit B's durability-per-point. Mathhammer is important to a point, but if I wanted the remainder of the game to be a comparative exercise in statistics, I would have played fantasy football (and I don't mean Blood Bowl).
Being a self-admitted competitive person, I nevertheless do everything primarily for fun, but my objective within the game is to win. Casual or not, I'm still going to try and win, the difference mostly being in how drunk I am during the match. Even during campaigns, to be fluffy I'd have to try and win, otherwise it wouldn't make sense for the Mordian Iron Guard to not bleed for every inch of ground given.
Balance ultimately focuses on competitive aspects more, but that's mostly from the people who play competitively tend to have a sharper eye for balance issues and find them and use them more often and to a greater extent. Self-proclaimed casual players don't care for that and tend to be more concerned with playing what they want, and get burned when the balance is out of whack. I lay in the middle, wanting to optimize a fair bit within a fairly strict theme and model selection (feth Tauroxes).
To that end, balance is important to me because I don't like feeling that I'm intentionally bringing a sub par list because I prefer Chimeras to Tauroxes, but my competitive side knows I can just find a suitable counts as for the Taurox that looks better (like Secret Weapons 6x6).
Point is, balance should be aimed for everyone because it ultimately impacts everyone the same, and casual players, if anything, are hurt more by balance issues as they tend to play only what they like, rather than competitive players who are more than happy to bounce around and use what is good.
*Edit* And for the record, I also dislike the implied exclusivity of casual and competitive. One can comfortably be both, or sit on a spectrum that changes on a whim. Though for this, I acknowledge its generally seen as dedicated tournament players vs garage/club groups of friends.
I would have done without the crybaby comment because the irony is you make yourself seem like a crybaby on dakka too.
I love Dakka as a place where people can come and have reasoned discussion as well as unreasonable rants. Its what makes this site great man! Back to the main discussion though. I think 40k is balanced for the many not for the few. I say this because of a conversation I had with three of the rules writers / design team at GW's warhammer world event last sunday. I wondered into the pod room after having an awesome burger in Bugman's and saw Jervis Johnson sitting there. I went straight to his table preparing my smite psychic power but forgot i'd just used it on the douchebag downstairs so I thought I'd try polite conversation instead. The following is a paraphrasing of the conversation that took place between me and my 3 buddies and Jervis Johnson, Simon Grant and Phil Kelly on a rainy sunday afternoon at warhammer world.
Spoiler:
Me: So i've heard that you do a lot more internal playtesting now for 8th. What do you think is the right points level to play the game at to achieve the best balance?
Jervis: You will get the most enjoyment out of this game by balancing it yourselves. Points are intended as a method for two gamers without pre-planning a narrative to meet up and get a game of relatively even sides. The way I play 40k is in my 'Perry twins' games(referencing the style of play that the twins use) where we agree in advance what models to bring and have fun using the rules without counting points. We have the most fun without counting points. You should do the same.
Me: Fair enough but I play Orks and have done for over a decade and we ork players suffer in matchups with EVERYONE. While I'm really impressed with 8th edition so far and I can't cast judgement about orks yet with no codex, why have we suffered so far in the past man, when are you gonna show orks some love?
Jervis: When we design a rules system like this with so many factions in it each with their own styles certain factions sit on the edge of those rules systems because they bend (not break) the limitiations of the rules system like Orks with hordelike numbers of models or Grey knights as a very small efficient elite army. These armies are always the hardest to balance because they sit as outliers in the catch all rules system. In the past Orks have suffered from this. The beauty of 8th edition and the upcoming chapter approved is that we can balance them not by changing the rules but by changing the points.
This is a brief snapshot of our conversation which actulayy lasted abuout 40 minutes and varied from balance to design to Phil Kelly's awesome next door neighbour. My takeaways from this conversation are that the game is definitely imbalanced and they STRAIGHT UP know it but its more impacting for the fringe armies. They're trying to fix it and for the first time in the game's history they've built a system that is designed from the ground up to be fixable. BUT they also definitely knew previously that things weren't balanced and they kind of treated it like collateral damage of a complex system which is a massive game design FAIL.
Personally I think what Jervis said to me is partially nonsense and it was my mates that stopped me from ranting. But anecdotally I have 6k of Orks about 3k in grey knights and about 3k in White scars and my scars (even in their bad state in 8th) give me the best play experience so I am aclearly getting screwed by their game system flaws.
So to people who say 40k isn't balanced I would ask you whether you have played a balanced spread of the game before making that statement.
Martel732 wrote: The effectiveness of your generalship is heavily modified by mathammer, however.
This.
Let me illustrate with an example.
When i lose in tournaments, i spend time reflecting on why i lost. Not blaming dice, but what did i personally do to harm my chances to win. Bad dice happen to everyone. Blaming your dice means you won't get better. So, I reflect on my screw ups. What did i miss, what did i do wrong. Why did i cause myself to lose.
There are a few times where no matter what I could have done different, I won't win the game. That's losing in list building. And it's super frustrating.
Pre-nerf guard was the epitome of this. Can't run from them, they outrange you. Can't hide from them, they can always see you. Can't attack close range, they've got screens. Can't attack long range, they're better at this than you. For some armies it is flatly impossible to deal with that.
Not necessarily. In a game like 40k shooting should dominate, because this is not WHFB in space and guns tend to beat swords. The whole concept of a "melee army" shouldn't exist at all. But you can still have balance between the various shooting-focused armies, even if melee is only present as something you do to finish off the last survivors of your shooting and melee specialists are a tiny part of the game.
Yes it should, because psycho berserker cultists of the god of war in skull-encrusted armour are awesome and metal. 40K as a setting and rules system is set up to facilitate that coolness, so melee is viable. No other argument can be made, because no other argument really needs to be made.
In a more "realistic" sci-fi game, shooting should indeed be king. Infinity does that quite well, you should give it a try if you haven't already done so.
Not necessarily. In a game like 40k shooting should dominate, because this is not WHFB in space and guns tend to beat swords. The whole concept of a "melee army" shouldn't exist at all. But you can still have balance between the various shooting-focused armies, even if melee is only present as something you do to finish off the last survivors of your shooting and melee specialists are a tiny part of the game.
Yes it should, because psycho berserker cultists of the god of war in skull-encrusted armour are awesome and metal. 40K as a setting and rules system is set up to facilitate that coolness, so melee is viable. No other argument can be made, because no other argument really needs to be made.
In a more "realistic" sci-fi game, shooting should indeed be king. Infinity does that quite well, you should give it a try if you haven't already done so.
Yeah, 40k is not Sci-Fi. It's Fantasy with a Sci-Fi skin.
All the "Melee shouldn't be relevant in warhammer, all should be done by shooting" guys I have seen, play Imperial Guard. I'll leave you to come to your own conclusions
A balanced game would give each faction with an equal point army played by an expert a 50/50 chance of winning assuming the terrain setup and win conditions were equally favourable to each
although by the same token if the terrain setup isn't favourable the win chance could be a lot lower
or if the win conditions favoured one rather than the other
Now i'm not saying GW games are well balanced, but a significant part of the issues with the are people regularly playing with terrain that favours one faction over another (eg gunelines on empty tables or cc armies on very dense ones)
or favouring one mission type over another (while it;'s satisfying to kill all of the other players units and table them your army might just not be well suited to that no matter how much you want it to be)
Galas wrote: All the "Melee shouldn't be relevant in warhammer, all should be done by shooting" guys I have seen, play Imperial Guard. I'll leave you to come to your own conclusions
Martel732 wrote: The effectiveness of your generalship is heavily modified by mathammer, however.
Hence "to a point." Certain things like "average points killed" matter, but when the majority of "synergy" and stratagems boil down to flat rerolls and bonuses/maluses over positional or techplay...
We will never see balance until the whole ally mechanic is thrown out and a battle-forged army is one that is drawn entirely from one codex. The only way you will see anything resembling balance with the current system is if they make all of the units so bland and similar that it makes little difference what you take. You simply cannot create balance when one army has the ability to shore up a book's weaknesses and another does not.
Me: So i've heard that you do a lot more internal playtesting now for 8th. What do you think is the right points level to play the game at to achieve the best balance?
Jervis: You will get the most enjoyment out of this game by balancing it yourselves. Points are intended as a method for two gamers without pre-planning a narrative to meet up and get a game of relatively even sides. The way I play 40k is in my 'Perry twins' games(referencing the style of play that the twins use) where we agree in advance what models to bring and have fun using the rules without counting points. We have the most fun without counting points. You should do the same.
Me: Fair enough but I play Orks and have done for over a decade and we ork players suffer in matchups with EVERYONE. While I'm really impressed with 8th edition so far and I can't cast judgement about orks yet with no codex, why have we suffered so far in the past man, when are you gonna show orks some love? Jervis: When we design a rules system like this with so many factions in it each with their own styles certain factions sit on the edge of those rules systems because they bend (not break) the limitiations of the rules system like Orks with hordelike numbers of models or Grey knights as a very small efficient elite army. These armies are always the hardest to balance because they sit as outliers in the catch all rules system. In the past Orks have suffered from this. The beauty of 8th edition and the upcoming chapter approved is that we can balance them not by changing the rules but by changing the points.
Boy this sounds.. really unprofessional. And insincere to boot, because they are fast to patch armies they consider highly and in need. See Eldar vulnerability to alpha strikes. Also the last part "CA will fix it; now things are wonderful" sounds like marketing speech. Yuck.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Maelstrom808 wrote: We will never see balance until the whole ally mechanic is thrown out and a battle-forged army is one that is drawn entirely from one codex. The only way you will see anything resembling balance with the current system is if they make all of the units so bland and similar that it makes little difference what you take. You simply cannot create balance when one army has the ability to shore up a book's weaknesses and another does not.
I preferred the way things were in 3rd. Only the inquisition could "invade" another codex IIRC.
If they had ideas for new combinations, they just made new lists made of different units from different armies, but limited within themselves.
They could still sell more books in this way.
About as far as I like to compare balance is when I can do so with established points values.
For example - a deff dread with 2x big shootas is 131 points. It has 4x str 10 attacks in melee, and 6x str 5 ap 0 shots at 24" that hits on 5s.
A marine dreadnought with an assault cannon is 133 points. It has 4x str 12 attacks in melee, and 6x str 6 ap1 shots at 36" that will usually hit on 4s, 3s if it didn't move.
A marine dreadnought is objectively better than a deff dread - same attacks, same WS, better strength, better BS, better str and AP on its ranged attacks. And it costs just 2 points more.
When unit A is objectively better than unit B that has a similar battlefield role for a similar cost, that's when I consider something unbalanced.
Before the CA points adjustment, I could have made the same comparison between meganobz and custodoes.
Kap'n Krump wrote: About as far as I like to compare balance is when I can do so with established points values.
For example - a deff dread with 2x big shootas is 131 points. It has 4x str 10 attacks in melee, and 6x str 5 ap 0 shots at 24" that hits on 5s.
A marine dreadnought with an assault cannon is 133 points. It has 4x str 12 attacks in melee, and 6x str 6 ap1 shots at 36" that will usually hit on 4s, 3s if it didn't move.
A marine dreadnought is objectively better than a deff dread - same attacks, same WS, better strength, better BS, better str and AP on its ranged attacks. And it costs just 2 points more.
When unit A is objectively better than unit B that has a similar battlefield role for a similar cost, that's when I consider something unbalanced.
Before the CA points adjustment, I could have made the same comparison between meganobz and custodoes.
But then do you start adding in standard interactions like mekboys, stratagems, chapter tactics, non standard interactions like bubble wraping. too many variables to make 40k balanced as its not really that simple of a game. its one of those types of games that require a literal endless amount of play testing with different builds units and models and thousands of those for dice variables then they need to tweak and do thousands more on top of that. basicly never going to realistically happen inhouse and in the amounts needed to get "balanced"
So, is the OP going to descend from his pedestal he's put himself upon to tell us all why we're wrong with the same tone of utter condescension or is he just happy with the equivalent of lobbing a grenade in a room and shutting the door?
Peregrine wrote:
Not necessarily. In a game like 40k shooting should dominate, because this is not WHFB in space and guns tend to beat swords. The whole concept of a "melee army" shouldn't exist at all. But you can still have balance between the various shooting-focused armies, even if melee is only present as something you do to finish off the last survivors of your shooting and melee specialists are a tiny part of the game.
Kinda. As said, 40k is more sci-fantasy. That said, I would expect gunnery to be more important in most situations than melee. All things considered, I do want melee to actually feel like something whenever it does happen. One of my other gaming projects is a military-action roleplay game that takes place around the very end of the 20th century, and I put as much effort and attention to detail into my hand-to-hand systems as I do the tanks, assault rifles, and hand-grenades.
Galas wrote:All the "Melee shouldn't be relevant in warhammer, all should be done by shooting" guys I have seen, play Imperial Guard. I'll leave you to come to your own conclusions
I might be an outlier - one, I want Assaulty Guard to be A Thing that can be done, but also if my opponent brings a melee army and makes it to my forces in good order, he should absolutely do well while he's there.
Vector Strike wrote: A balanced core rules set would leave equal opportunity to melee and ranged, msu and big units, psykers and 'nulls', etc to shine.
Not necessarily. In a game like 40k shooting should dominate, because this is not WHFB in space and guns tend to beat swords. The whole concept of a "melee army" shouldn't exist at all. But you can still have balance between the various shooting-focused armies, even if melee is only present as something you do to finish off the last survivors of your shooting and melee specialists are a tiny part of the game.
Completely untrue.
If you look to the sci-fi operas (cinema, videogame, litterature, etc...) you'll certainly notice that there are a lot of factions/races that are melee oriented if not melee only.
After all the most iconic weapon of the most iconic sci-fi saga is actually a melee weapon:
Desubot wrote: A balanced game should be a game where two people of equal "skill" should have equal chances of winning with any list.
realistically 40k is not a balanced game as its full on rock paper shotgun.
It should never be any list, as was pointed out it should be any well built list. All units should be viable, but not all combinations of units.
For instance a pyrovore should be a good choice for an anti-infantry unit, and should be able to be used as such. An army of all pyrovores on the other hand should not necessarily be able to win any game at the same rate as a balanced army.
As for all those saying "shooting should be better than melee" this is untrue in a game where there are units and even armies that are designed to be melee centric. The idea that shooting > melee means that such units/armies can never be good. The fluff of the 40k universe supports melee as a common occurrence in combat, as such the table should represent this as an option.
Now "no shooting at all" may not be a super viable option in the game, but armies should be able to be balanced and melee centric.
Quite the contrary. Warhammer40k has been a "Sci-fi" setting that has pride himsellf in having meele as a substantial part of their universe. You know, knights in space killing giant orks that have axes with their power swords and thunder hammers.
Most of others Sci-Fi settings have meele as a small thing. Star Wars is 95% shooting, with the sith and jedi being the meele special snowflakes. Mass Effect is 99% shooting with meele just as a small thing you do when you are desesperate.
Halo is full shooting, with meele as more of a honour/traditional style for some alien races like Elites and those hairy pseudo-gorillas.
What Peregrine said was that, as others Sci-Fi settings give much more relevance to Shooting, Warhammer40k should too. Thats, of course, an error, because theres a ton of universes for shooting-focused action. Isn't good to try to change a universe when theres many other universes that focus on what you want.
Is like saying that Warhammer should have much more romantic sub-plots because those are much more popular in other settings.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: If 80% of the game decision is based on list making, it ain't balanced.
List making SHOULD have impact, but it shouldn't be as large as it is.
Right, for balance list making needs 2 things
1.) Restrictions/built in factors that prevent super skew lists in the most competitive settings, allowance for such lists ensure that the game can never be truly balanced because a TAC list with a bit of anti-tank, a bit of anti-horde etc. Cannot really compete when faced with a list comprised of say only hordes. This could either be by building in restrictions where taking such lists is impossible, or building in factors where certain types of units have a hard time defeating a wide variety of units. I think the restrictions on list building provides a wider variety of unit types to be available.
2.) Good in faction balance between options to fill certain roles - if one choice is the obvious choice for anti-tank in every army build it leads to list building being a large factor.
I'm a Tau player and my favourite lists are mechanized squads of Firewarriors with Carbines or Breachers and a ton of short-range shooting with a little support from Hammerheads
On the topic of "realism" I have thoughts. The short version is I think that 40k's technology makes forces like space marines with a focus on close range/melee ability far more realistic than the long range shooting gallery guard. The rest is spoilered because kinda off topic.
Spoiler:
In 40k it does make sense that melee combat would come back into vogue to a degree though. First, personal mobility is much higher. Jet packs, drop pods, and personal/squad teleportation are both somewhat common. Defensive technology has also leap frogged offensive technology as well, for context even cutting edge body armor struggles somewhat against basic infantry weapons, it certainly can't tank such shots but might stop a few lucky rounds from killing you, while power armor and personal can do exactly that, often even able to shrug off heavier weaponry, without bringing into the durability improvements of the various super soldiers/non humans.
If you combine improved mobility and deployment with defensive technology that outstrips or matches offensive technology, you have more drawn out conflicts and less time before enemies close with one another. It's actually going to have more in common with a medieval Europe where longbows/crossbows are rare or unheard of than it would modern warfare. At least in a hypothetical ground armies clashing situation which in an of itself doesn't make that much sense.
Some of this is a bit of artistic license of course. You can justify having to roll to wound with a boltgun vs a marine or orc with the whole stronger than a normal human thing, but reasonably speaking getting hit by even a heavy stubber should be an auto wound for a normal human, and for all we joke about guardsmen wearing tshirts the fact they get a an armor save vs a heavy stubbers means flak must be better than almost anything we have today.
As a last point, I'd argue that the idea of our modern military in 40 k is actually kinda silly. Look at the way modern combat is shifting already, with ground troops mainly regulated to urban combat and acting as a security force. Their simply isn't a pressing need for a traditional army with tanks and the like at this point, and trends seem to be pushing that even further. If we take it to the logical extent in 40k, what exactly is the role of the IG?
If all you need to do is indiscriminately slaughter a large army in an open conflict, you have orbital bombardments or even titans. Ground troops are going to be used more surgically, like marines for boarding actions or assaults on fortified enemy headquarters, places where close range engagements are likely, particularly given the improved mobility/durability discussed above. For dealing with insurgents and cultists you have militarized police, which I guess usually falls to guard even if it by rights should probably fall to the arbites/pdf/inquisition doing that. Logically the only place an actual guard style military would make sense is in permant base sitting duty, which again would encourage a style of training and formation somewhat different than the IG, we know. More focus on close range and even melee engagements over things like long range shooting and tanks, given how unlikely they are to be able to dispose of the enemy at a distance.
In short, not only do I think that melee focused armies and units make sense, I think they make far more sense than long range focused ground troops and tanks, who by rights don't really have that much of a usage. Maybe you can justify some artillery regiments with troops to defend them, but even those are more due to technological shortfalls than being an actual ideal solution.
As far as balance goes, I'm not even sure why people treat this as such a hard topic. Most armies should have viable builds, most units should have some legitimate use, most reasonable play styles should be represented in at least one army.
I watch a a fair bit of wushu, so the lightsaber fighting is extremely weak (awful and terrible, really, except for Darth Maul, who actually moves like he knows how to fight).
The various Death Stars are what drive the movie plots, and a lot of what the subsequent movies attempt to rebuild upon. Kind of like how so many Star Trek movies try to remake TWOK.
JohnHwangDD wrote: I watch a a fair bit of wushu, so the lightsaber fighting is extremely weak (awful and terrible, really, except for Darth Maul, who actually moves like he knows how to fight).
I fence, so pretty much all movie swordplay is cringe to me
JohnHwangDD wrote: I watch a a fair bit of wushu, so the lightsaber fighting is extremely weak (awful and terrible, really, except for Darth Maul, who actually moves like he knows how to fight).
The various Death Stars are what drive the movie plots, and a lot of what the subsequent movies attempt to rebuild upon. Kind of like how so many Star Trek movies try to remake TWOK.
Yet the build your own lightsaber setup is such a huge hit at disney world that when they open star wars land they will have a more advanced setup. No more chunks of plastic. The death star is... xmas ornaments. The death star was a plot device, the lightsaber is the iconic weapon, and sound, of star wars.
As for the original post, balanced is only achieved when both sides are identical. Checkers, chess, rock scissors paper. As soon as my opponent can bring something different than I have, I've opened my the game to perceived imbalance. War is not balanced, war is not fair. I don't expect warhammer to be balanced, because balanced is boring.
MagicJuggler wrote: Balance is a fairly qualitative metric that measures the relative correlation of an army's chance of victory with pre-game inputs such as army selection, and whether a player goes first.
The stronger the correlation between odds of victory and said external inputs, the weaker the balance. The weaker the correlation, the stronger the balance; a balanced game is one where generalship should matter more, relative to what units your army has.
I'm going to disagree at when balance has to be achieved, 40K is an army and list building game therefore it is part of the balance: every faction should have in their codex all the tools needed to deal with any other tools anoher list can have. The random chance of dice and/or other external factors have to prevent/lessen the difference between lists in specialisation. What tools to bring to what kind of scenario is a part of the game. in your scenario every unit has to be equal to any task in equal measure across both armies.
Note that while this does translate to better balance , it does not alone make for a better playing experience. No one wants to play rock paper sciccors so perfect balance does not exist.
It has been shown that Chess is not balanced. White has the advantage.
Ponder that.
If Chess isn't balanced, how is WH40K going to be.
Lack of question mark is intentional.
Nothing is perfectly balanced, but that doesn't mean you should throw balance out the window. It's an unachievable goal but striving for it anyways makes for a better game.
It has been shown that Chess is not balanced. White has the advantage.
Ponder that.
If Chess isn't balanced, how is WH40K going to be.
Lack of question mark is intentional.
Nothing is perfectly balanced, but that doesn't mean you should throw balance out the window. It's an unachievable goal but striving for it anyways makes for a better game.
I dunno, pistol dueling is pretty balanced. at least if played by the rules.
MagicJuggler wrote: Balance is a fairly qualitative metric that measures the relative correlation of an army's chance of victory with pre-game inputs such as army selection, and whether a player goes first.
The stronger the correlation between odds of victory and said external inputs, the weaker the balance. The weaker the correlation, the stronger the balance; a balanced game is one where generalship should matter more, relative to what units your army has.
I'm going to disagree at when balance has to be achieved, 40K is an army and list building game therefore it is part of the balance: every faction should have in their codex all the tools needed to deal with any other tools anoher list can have. The random chance of dice and/or other external factors have to prevent/lessen the difference between lists in specialisation. What tools to bring to what kind of scenario is a part of the game. in your scenario every unit has to be equal to any task in equal measure across both armies.
Note that while this does translate to better balance , it does not alone make for a better playing experience. No one wants to play rock paper sciccors so perfect balance does not exist.
Different avenues to power. Truly balanced games don't exist and even if they did it's not like players would ever agree that it is. Even if every army in the game won 50% of their games 100% of the time players wpuld still THINK their army was trash and everyone else's were busted and needed nerfs. It's not worth the 2 decades of simulations and playtesting you'd need to fail adequately.
Give each army different avenues to power and that's enough. A handful of wildly different builds that can all be competitive. Like 7th ed craftworld Eldar. You coulda wrote a list throwing darts at that book and won GTs. Tone it down so it doesn't break the rest of the game and voila, not balance, but as close as it will ever matter.
Come on, that's only part of the first movie, and there's something similar only in the spin off. It cannot be the most iconic weapon of the saga. Think about all the duels among the heroes and villains, are they fought with that thing? Or with the swords?
The thing that most of these "balance" arguments are actually about is the degree to which your buying choices should determine how the game goes. The ideal is for a customer to be able to walk into a GW, buy some models just because they look cool, and be able to then take them to the table and not get utterly disassembled.
AnomanderRake wrote: The thing that most of these "balance" arguments are actually about is the degree to which your buying choices should determine how the game goes. The ideal is for a customer to be able to walk into a GW, buy some models just because they look cool, and be able to then take them to the table and not get utterly disassembled.
Absolutely this. Why do armies like orks even exist? They are probably the most expensive in a $/£ per game point ratio of any army yet (without including Forgeworld) are consistently the weakest army in almost every edition. If they can't balance a faction they should remove them from sale until they can. They are forming a social contract with their customers as well as a financial one and they are failing both.
AnomanderRake wrote: The thing that most of these "balance" arguments are actually about is the degree to which your buying choices should determine how the game goes. The ideal is for a customer to be able to walk into a GW, buy some models just because they look cool, and be able to then take them to the table and not get utterly disassembled.
Absolutely this. Why do armies like orks even exist? They are probably the most expensive in a $/£ per game point ratio of any army yet (without including Forgeworld) are consistently the weakest army in almost every edition. If they can't balance a faction they should remove them from sale until they can. They are forming a social contract with their customers as well as a financial one and they are failing both.
I'd suggest they exist because thousands of people enjoy collecting, painting, converting and reading about them. Never mind gaming with them.
AnomanderRake wrote: The thing that most of these "balance" arguments are actually about is the degree to which your buying choices should determine how the game goes. The ideal is for a customer to be able to walk into a GW, buy some models just because they look cool, and be able to then take them to the table and not get utterly disassembled.
Absolutely this. Why do armies like orks even exist? They are probably the most expensive in a $/£ per game point ratio of any army yet (without including Forgeworld) are consistently the weakest army in almost every edition. If they can't balance a faction they should remove them from sale until they can. They are forming a social contract with their customers as well as a financial one and they are failing both.
This is a pretty stupid thing to say no? There's a HUGE part of the market that are just want to hobby. Build, Paint it, make dioramas, make display boards, enter competitions etc. Need models to do that
AnomanderRake wrote: The thing that most of these "balance" arguments are actually about is the degree to which your buying choices should determine how the game goes. The ideal is for a customer to be able to walk into a GW, buy some models just because they look cool, and be able to then take them to the table and not get utterly disassembled.
Absolutely this. Why do armies like orks even exist? They are probably the most expensive in a $/£ per game point ratio of any army yet (without including Forgeworld) are consistently the weakest army in almost every edition. If they can't balance a faction they should remove them from sale until they can. They are forming a social contract with their customers as well as a financial one and they are failing both.
Orks in previous editions were not top tiers but in any casual semi-competitive meta they can do great. Now they're struggling for not having a codex. And yet they have a built that actually won some tournaments.
IMHO the real question should be: why does super competitive gaming even exists? GW games should be around putting on the table the models players had built and painted, and with those toys just have fun with some friends.
Even though orks are not competitive overall, except for one list, they are actually selling or at least GW sold tons of their miniatures in the previous editions. If you have a look on the poll about users' armies, orks are among the most common ones. Armies that sell only because they are good in the game should be removed
IMHO the real question should be: why does super competitive gaming even exists?
Because people want to play like that.
GW games should be around putting on the table the models players had built and painted, and with those toys just have fun with some friends.
GW games should be around doing whatever you and your friends want to do. That could be a hero arena smash fest, a grand campaign, weekly skirmishes, or attending tournaments.
There is an argument that 40k is entirely balanced since every player has the same options from the outset.
Once a player limits their choices through preference of a faction or unit background or aesthetics, with the many rules and options that make each unique, there inevitably comes some degree of balance issue.
It's kind of a part of what makes every game so interesting.
Chess is balance, ludo is balance, checkers is balance, backgammon is balance.
Mirror miniatyr armys symmetricaly deployed on a 100% symmetrical table is balance.
as sutch 30k is far more balanced then what 40k ever will be.
FrozenDwarf wrote: Chess is balance, ludo is balance, checkers is balance, backgammon is balance.
Mirror miniatyr armys symmetricaly deployed on a 100% symmetrical table is balance.
as sutch 30k is far more balanced then what 40k ever will be.
Yes!
Whereas 40k is more like a queen and bishop vs four knights (which in theory should be balanced but probably isn't).
What I'm looking for, in a balanced wargame, is a situation in which a well constructed list has at least a 40% chance to defeat another. That's a 60/40 split, in the opponent's favour. If I were competing for a prize, I'd want each faction to have a list they could bring, with a minimum 40% chance of success in any given game.
So, if there are 18 primary factions, then a list built from any one faction should have all the tools to deal with skew from any other faction. That's a tall order.
Since I don't think that the scope of 40k allows that, I'd want to allow competitive games [with prizes] to allow for multiple lists to be taken, allowing the players to at the very least have "list chicken" as a factor. To me, this would allow players to bring a list skewed to deal with a variety of targets, and / or present a list with skew that challenges the opponent.
I say this, as a player that would prefer to be able to play TAC lists ALL THE TIME because that's how I like to play. Honestly, I think competitive 40k would require 3 lists. One for 'ard stuff, one for 'ordes, and a balanced / unique skew list that the player could keep for a TAC-type list. That would dramatically improve balance, as each game you have the potential for a decent match, depending on lists chosen.
Rather than a guaranteed-screwed matchup.
PS: To the Guard haters. Hate on the codex, not the players. We didn't choose our codex any more than Eldar did last edition. The codex is to blame, not the player. I've been collecting Guard since 2003. They have never, previously, been the flavor of the month. Further, most Guard players DONT play gunline, in my experience. I play a full mixture of Back, Mid, and Forward units. I think most long term players do as well, to get a mix of models on the board.
I personally take a 10% hit on points, to level the playing field with my friends. Guardsmen aren't power gamers, WAAC, or "unfun" players. We have a codex with that potential, but potential does not equal practice.
If you want purely fair. Tournaments would provide the armies. Players would use the provided lists. They would be identical and mirrored.
The best dice and best general would normally win everytime.
Since we DONT play that way.....40K has always been a rock paper scissors game. I bring something that beats you. You retool you list to beat that.....then I bring a completely different list knowing what your going to bring and made to counter yours....and so on. BALANCE IS THAT YOU HAVE AN OPTION TO DESIGN A LIST THAT CAN BEAT SOME OTHER LIST.
We lost a player for a year. He kept using more and more 2nd ed Dark Angels Land Speeders.(predictable) My buddy and I decided to take a lot of gargoyles for our side. The DA players loaded up heavy with like 4 Land Speeders. After Turn 2 no more land speeders and the veteran quite the game and left. His novice ally kept on fighting; and after I got knocked out it came down to the last 2 pieces to decide the game.....a ton of fun despite.
It has been shown that Chess is not balanced. White has the advantage.
Ponder that.
If Chess isn't balanced, how is WH40K going to be.
Lack of question mark is intentional.
But Chess is reasonably balanced.
Taking out draws - which are common and make up over a third of all games - white wins 52-55% and black wins 45-48%.
This is born out of hundreds of thousands of games.
We can therefore say the advantage is not overwhelming.
If I advance in a tournament, winning consistently as white and black, it would tend to indicate I am playing better than my opponents.
Leaving aside faction imbalance - I think the biggest issue in 40k is that the first player has a massive advantage. I'd be interested to see if that is borne out across grand tournaments.
I mean I think Guard are overpowered. But they are not breaking the meta in ways predicted because while their alpha strike is comically overpowered this is true for all the top factions. So you can be overpowered, perhaps even statistically the best, but if a third or something of your army is dead before you get to do anything you are probably going to struggle to catch back up.
Furthermore, chess doesn't use "unit A is FOTM" as the framework for definining a "meta." Rather, chess has evolved as the result of numerous schools and openings, with multi-turn maneuvers getting terms such as Alekhine's Defense, Windmilling, etc. There was even one chess match known as The Immortal Game where a player managed a checkmate despite trading his queen, rooks and a bishop for three pawns. Contrary to assumptions, a mostly static set of rules has not led to a "stale meta" but has created a game defined by maneuver and long-term planning. (IIRC, the only notable recent rule qualification by FIDE was in 1971 stating that when you promote a piece, it must be your color. A white player promoted his pawn into a Black Knight, opening up an attack route for his Bishop while being uncapturable, leading to checkmate).
Hollow wrote: You can't go 2 seconds on Dakka without seeing this word. It's thrown around like feces in the monkey enclosure at the zoo. This is balanced, that is balanced, this isn't balanced, that isn't balanced... Is this balanced? Is that balanced? GW wouldn't know balance if it slapped them across the face and threw them off balance! Balance here, balance there, balance everywhere! But what does 'balance' actually mean? How is it defined? and is it (as I suspect) entirely subjective terminology, which means very different things, to very different people.
To me, when someone asks the question; "Is 40k a balanced game?" My answer is generally "Yes" because what does a balanced 40k mean to me? It means that each FACTION can generally compete with each other FACTION and has a range of options to do so.
Full-stop you got it in a nutshell right there: "In a two-player game, saying it is “balanced” usually means that one player does not have an unfair advantage over the other.". I keep thinking of chess but some debate on advantage on who goes first.
I like this article that is worth quoting a few things:
https://gamedesignconcepts.wordpress.com/2009/08/20/level-16-game-balance/
It does not mean, that every LIST/UNIT/MODEL can compete with every other LIST/UNIT/MODEL... that is an impossibility. It is also something that I find undesirable because it would require losing so much of the character that separates and defines the various factions within the game.
"In multi-player games where there is asymmetry (that is, where players do not start with exactly equal positions and resources), we use “balance” to describe whether one starting position is easier to win with than another."
"Within a system that has several similar game objects (such as cards in a trading-card game, weapons in a role-playing game, and so on), we use “balance” to describe the objects themselves, specifically whether different objects have the same cost/benefit ratio."
There are levels of granularity from "army" to "unit" to "model" cost/benefit.
One of my favourite computer games is the amazing and timeless Age Of Empires. I have been playing this game online for years and years and one of the main reasons for it's longevity is because it's 'generally balanced'. All the civilisations have a decent chance against the other civilisations, there is no doubt that there are better civs than others at specific things and against specific opponents, There are certain units that counter others, but when it comes down to 1v1, a good player will always be able to overcome any civ advantage the other might have.
I played that game a long time ago a fair bit.
I would agree with that observation. Again it was a matter of fielding the right combo of units to counter your opponent's at that time.
Spam, mixed forces, it is a more dynamic form of game, you get to create your "army list" in waves.
When it comes to tournaments, having looked at the results from the GT, Adepticon etc I would say that there is a fairly mixed bag regarding results.. I would also argue that tournament bandwagons and copy-cats tend to skew the results as certain FACTIONS are over-represented. It sure would be interesting to see tournaments run with allocated spaces for each of the factions.Like a total of 180 spaces with only 10 spaces per faction. That would show (I would bet) that 40k is in fact a balanced game in regards to faction v faction.
The challenge is always how to enforce that?
A lottery? (Not a workable suggestion so being a bit disingenuous here).
Thoughts? What does balance mean to you? Is everything in 40k either OP or "hot trash" as so many of the cry-babies on Dakka like to describe it? Or is it something else?
I find my test for "balance" is you can easily see a unit being very useful in the right circumstance (plays much like Eldar aspect warriors) or reasonable "all-rounders" to hedge your bets (age old question of qty vs quality).
The question best asked is "When would you field this unit?" if the answer is "Well, that depends." it is good, if the answer is "(almost) Always" or "(almost) Never", well...
We will always feel our chosen army has been "ripped off" one way or another.
I think it is the human condition if you are not winning all the time or any given unit is not the best at all things: we have room to complain.
I think Dakka is not exclusively the land of cry-babies.
To me "balance" is making sure every unit can be used without disadvantaging yourself, this is very difficult given just how many units 40k has, you just need competent staff, proof readers and a playtesting team, something that GW appears not to have any of.
admironheart wrote: If you want purely fair. Tournaments would provide the armies. Players would use the provided lists. They would be identical and mirrored.
The best dice and best general would normally win everytime.
Since we DONT play that way.....40K has always been a rock paper scissors game. I bring something that beats you. You retool you list to beat that.....then I bring a completely different list knowing what your going to bring and made to counter yours....and so on. BALANCE IS THAT YOU HAVE AN OPTION TO DESIGN A LIST THAT CAN BEAT SOME OTHER LIST.
We lost a player for a year. He kept using more and more 2nd ed Dark Angels Land Speeders.(predictable) My buddy and I decided to take a lot of gargoyles for our side. The DA players loaded up heavy with like 4 Land Speeders. After Turn 2 no more land speeders and the veteran quite the game and left. His novice ally kept on fighting; and after I got knocked out it came down to the last 2 pieces to decide the game.....a ton of fun despite.
The Dark Angels player is back with us again btw.
Ah, I know the type. He needs to divorce himself from his army. Makes it a better experience overall.
Nithaniel wrote: Why do armies like orks even exist? They are probably the most expensive in a $/£ per game point ratio of any army yet (without including Forgeworld) are consistently the weakest army in almost every edition.
If they can't balance a faction they should remove them from sale until they can. They are forming a social contract with their customers as well as a financial one and they are failing both.
As an Imperial Guard / Sisters player, I'm pretty sure you're wrong about who is the most expensive in $/points.
As a Dogs of War player, I kind of hope that you get your wish, if only to know what it's like to have your primary army Squatted.
MagicJuggler wrote: Furthermore, chess doesn't use "unit A is FOTM" as the framework for definining a "meta." Rather, chess has evolved as the result of numerous schools and openings, with multi-turn maneuvers getting terms such as Alekhine's Defense, Windmilling, etc. There was even one chess match known as The Immortal Game where a player managed a checkmate despite trading his queen, rooks and a bishop for three pawns. Contrary to assumptions, a mostly static set of rules has not led to a "stale meta" but has created a game defined by maneuver and long-term planning. (IIRC, the only notable recent rule qualification by FIDE was in 1971 stating that when you promote a piece, it must be your color. A white player promoted his pawn into a Black Knight, opening up an attack route for his Bishop while being uncapturable, leading to checkmate).
The thing about 40k is that I am not sure there is enough time to really form and then evolve a meta.
Putting it bluntly - people don't play that many games.
I mean maybe someone will rush out to prove me wrong - but how many tournaments do even the keenest players attend? One every month? Less than that? So even once a meta is formed - which isn't immediate - you are not going to get to face it that many times before it probably shifts.
Maybe its because 40k isn't (yet?) open as a profession - but I don't think someone can sit down and practice dozens, possibly hundreds of different openings just to try and find the statistical best way of beating whatever is the current meta.
And right now the meta changes every month with a new codex release.
It has been shown that Chess is not balanced. White has the advantage.
Ponder that.
If Chess isn't balanced, how is WH40K going to be.
Lack of question mark is intentional.
Nothing is perfectly balanced, but that doesn't mean you should throw balance out the window. It's an unachievable goal but striving for it anyways makes for a better game.
I dunno, pistol dueling is pretty balanced. at least if played by the rules.
Rock scissors paper has great balance. It is also incredibly boring to play over and over.
The thing about 40k is that I am not sure there is enough time to really form and then evolve a meta.
Putting it bluntly - people don't play that many games.
I mean maybe someone will rush out to prove me wrong - but how many tournaments do even the keenest players attend? One every month? Less than that? So even once a meta is formed - which isn't immediate - you are not going to get to face it that many times before it probably shifts.
Maybe its because 40k isn't (yet?) open as a profession - but I don't think someone can sit down and practice dozens, possibly hundreds of different openings just to try and find the statistical best way of beating whatever is the current meta.
And right now the meta changes every month with a new codex release.
Locally the younger guys without responsibilities play weekly and do small tournaments (30ish) monthly with an occasional big tournament.
Meta will always be largely relative to your area. For a big tournament you need to pay attention to forums.
Balance is sometimes difficult and subjective, but sometimes not. For instance:
1) Eldar Fusion Gun is the same stats as the Marine Melta Gun, and they cost the same. That is balance. However, the Bright Lance which is basically the same as the Multi Melta, is 7 pts cheaper and has 50% more range. That is not balanced. For the record, the Marines need to spend 13pts for the Tac Marine or 16pts for the Sternguard to gear a melta, while the Eldar Fire Dragon costs 5pts, and also doesn't eat the -1 penalty to hit for firing assault after advancing, so this seeming parity in cost/ability is actually quite heavily skewed towards Eldar, resulting in it not being balanced.
2) Space Marine Chapter Tactics apply to only infantry, bikers, Dreadnoughts, while Eldar Craftworld traits apply to their entire Detachment. That is not balanced.
3) Eldar Wraithlords have higher T, more wounds, more speed, and a free but functional CCW with strong AP and wound values, while the Marine Dreadnought costs more, is slower, softer, and this would be another good example of not being balanced.
4) Eldar squad leaders have +1A like most squad leaders, but also +1W, along an random additional ability on what type of Exarch it is, which others don't get. Not balanced.
5) Space Marine scouts have to pay thru the nose to include "scout" gear. Putting them at 50% more expense than Eldar Rangers who get their sniper rifles for free and their cloaks included, who's cloaks not only add to cover save but come with an awesome -1 to Hit as well. Lovely. Also, not balanced.
6) For 2 more points than a Marine pays for a just a Missile Launcher, Dark Reapers get a better weapon AND the awesome unit that fires it, hitting on 3+ no matter what, with a solid 3+ armor save to boot. And all the units in the squad can take it. Want that 10 man squad to get the most from whatever guarantee-to-hit/wound buff your dirt cheap psykers are going to slap on it? No wasted space there.
There are many more examples I could make, but I'm sure you get the idea. I understand you need to make things different, but damn, when your modus operandi is to simply just take one group and make their similar stuff just cheaper and all around better, you are doing it wrong. Some of this stuff is subjective, but some is not. I honestly don't know how non Eldar armies compete with them. Eldar units and gear are simply better, cheaper, and more versatile.
The Brightlance doesn't have the roll-two-dice-at-half-range the Multi Melta has. It's always been the Lascannon's Eldar equivelent, not the MultiMelta.
The Dreadnaught has much better ranged weapons than the Wraithlord, and the Wraithlord degrades. A Wraithlord with 2 heavy weapons and sword is about equal to a Dread with a heavy weapon and a CCW in both shooting and CC.
Eldar Exarchs don't give squads +LD. They should have to pay, which is imbalanced. But are exemplars, not squad leaders.
Ranger Sniper Rifles and Cloaks are only free if you don't count the 4 points Rangers pay to get them. They are still Guardians with that equipment. With S/T of 3 and a 5+ vs a S/T of 4 and a 4+ (base). I should hope they cost less.
Reapers are unbalanced. That's true. But the guarentee-wound is on the target, not the unit for CWE - CWE doesn't get LT-equivelents, just basic-captain equivelents and psychic power. They can be denied. They behave very differently. It's not all upsides.
This is one of the problems with balance. Everything the other guy has has no downsides, but your stuff is trash.
Even in cases like CWE, where they actually are OP, people spout off about many "imbalances" with half-truths and incorrect rules.
AnomanderRake wrote: The thing that most of these "balance" arguments are actually about is the degree to which your buying choices should determine how the game goes. The ideal is for a customer to be able to walk into a GW, buy some models just because they look cool, and be able to then take them to the table and not get utterly disassembled.
Only because the average person's conception of balance begins and ends with their own interests. For instance, "Army X doesn't need a nerf, everyone else needs a buff!" That is incredibly short sighted. Strength is a competitive curve. In order for someone to be strong, everyone else must be relatively weak.
Balance should be in aggregate. If X% of the playerbase identifies with Dark Eldar as their faction of choice, then logically X% of top, or near top tournament players should be Dark Eldar.
That doesn't improve Casual Billy's chance of buying a "what looks cool" collection at his local GW and then beating someone who has a hard-counter army. Because it's a one-off scenario. Every single interaction between every codex cannot be balanced. What if i have an all dreadnought versus wraithguard battle? Should that be balanced? Is that level of balance fair to expect?
Gwarok wrote: Balance is sometimes difficult and subjective, but sometimes not. For instance:
There are many more examples I could make, but I'm sure you get the idea. I understand you need to make things different, but damn, when your modus operandi is to simply just take one group and make their similar stuff just cheaper and all around better, you are doing it wrong. Some of this stuff is subjective, but some is not. I honestly don't know how non Eldar armies compete with them. Eldar units and gear are simply better, cheaper, and more versatile.
In most of those instances you forgot the toughness and saves of the models carrying the gear. Those Assault troops charged those rangers....gone! The marines may still hang on. Is that balanced.
If marine missile launchers are 2 points less than the 22 point reaper launcher then why does the elder pay 25 points for an elder missile launcher? Is that balanced? (as far as I know they have similar stats)
I know fire dragons fall way faster to fire than marines holding some meltas from most small arms....is that fair?
You were extremely subjective in your 'instances' even after you noted that some things are very subjective.
Try playing a paper army like elder. They have great tools, sweet gimmicks and some of the best options out there.....but they do blow away to a strong wind....sometimes a breeze if you make tactical mistakes. Marines usually are much more forgiving. Marines are a great starter army as there is built in game padding to make up for their shortfall as a novice player. Other armies usually need a refined skill to master, moreso than marines. Is that fair..no its just different. Things in this game are not fair....but they need to be balanced.
If you take the ultimate list for X army, then every other Y Z Q T B army should have at least 1 build that can take it down. If they cannot then you have an UNFAIR and UNBALANCED game.
Vector Strike wrote: A balanced core rules set would leave equal opportunity to melee and ranged, msu and big units, psykers and 'nulls', etc to shine.
Not necessarily. In a game like 40k shooting should dominate, because this is not WHFB in space and guns tend to beat swords. The whole concept of a "melee army" shouldn't exist at all. But you can still have balance between the various shooting-focused armies, even if melee is only present as something you do to finish off the last survivors of your shooting and melee specialists are a tiny part of the game.
Boltpistols have less muzzle velocity than a .38 special at 220 m/s, Chainswords are chainsaws attached to swords swung by superhuman astartes warriors. guns do not beat swords in the WH40K universe.
I think the game was better when every faction had distinct advantages and disadvantages. Every army had a theme.
Allies changed things. Now it's Soup lists. Playing mono faction is a handicap in 8th, and if you're not Imperial, Chaos, or Eldar you're pretty much SOL.
Bharring wrote: My point about chess is that perfect balance is an unreasonable goal. Although better balance would be a reasonable goal.
All you have to do is flip a coin at the beginning and it's a balanced game. Is Warhammer anywhere in the same neighborhood as being as balanced as chess? Are there chess players who only own the black or the white pieces?
Boltpistols have less muzzle velocity than a .38 special at 220 m/s, Chainswords are chainsaws attached to swords swung by superhuman astartes warriors. guns do not beat swords in the WH40K universe.
Bolters shoot rockets that explode, right? How does muzzle velocity matter?
"Every army except for the one that I play with needs to be weaker"
If something is used against you, it's OP and needs to be toned down. If it's something they themselves use then it is trash and needs a buff.
Seems to be the jist of it
I was on the 40k Reddit before coming back over here. Seems to me the people selling 8e on "balance" were just happy to see former top-dogs get the hard nerf. It's easy to be happy about a "balanced" edition if you get to take the guy/faction you used to chronically lose against and rub their nose in the dirt.
"Every army except for the one that I play with needs to be weaker"
If something is used against you, it's OP and needs to be toned down. If it's something they themselves use then it is trash and needs a buff.
Seems to be the jist of it
I was on the 40k Reddit before coming back over here. Seems to me the people selling 8e on "balance" were just happy to see former top-dogs get the hard nerf. It's easy to be happy about a "balanced" edition if you get to take the guy/faction you used to chronically lose against and rub their nose in the dirt.
M.
Very much so. One of my long time gaming friends used to abuse Long Fang spam at the peak of the SW codex when it first came out, my CSM lost every game against them for a while - some were close but I could never overcome thunderwolf lords backed by missle spam, circle of the game and then Heldrakes with 360 degree flamers and suddenly roast puppies were on the menu. We laughed about it and he would say "well, yeah that was coming"
If you want true balance, play chess... oh but wait.. white always goes first? Needs a nerf! The nature of 40k, you always have some units that are better than others. You will always have one faction have a unit that does something better for cheaper in one particular area. That's what gives each faction their flavour, otherwise why even have codexes. Everyone should just play with the same stat line regardless of the models, but even then I am absolutely sure that some people on this forum will find something to complain about
