First with the all data. It is really surprising that Eldar since Nov have a higher win-rate than space marines. They were the 4rd most played (Just behind IK with 113) army as well with 111 lists with a 56.99% WR. Ad mech is also pretty impressive with 55.9% WR with 88 lists. Adept Astartes 56.47% with 324 lists. So I do find that REALLY interesting. Ofc there are lots of non quality space marine lists out there bringing down that average - so we take a look at the top 10 data.
For Adept Astartes we have 101 quality top 10 lists for 31.2% of all marine lists. 81.9% WR For Eldar we have 34 quality lists with 30.6% of all eldar lists. 80.2% WR For Ad mech its pretty disappointing with only 21 quality lists - 23% of all ad mech lists. with a 75% win rate. A player but maybe not really a top player.
Since chapter approved it also seems that space marines are roughly 22% of lists and 28% of the top of the feild with the 4th best win rate. To be fair though they have the most quality WR lists.
All this data includes all space marine factions. Including ironhands which have roughly a 10% higher winrate than all other space marine factions. Looking at the sub-faction results. I wish the system gave me the option to compare sub-factions against the whole feild but it ether doesn't or I am too dumb to figure it out.
From this limited data though. What conclusions can we draw? Obviously they are the most popular choice and they get a lot of top placing but in terms of win rate they are near the top in every category. However from Blood of kittens we can surmise that the majority of these top space marine lists are Ironhands. We also see the sub-faction winrate hovering around 10% higher than other space marine factions. Still it seems even with the Ironhand faction being so dominant other top armies are able to compete and win events. The reality is that space marines are by far the most popular army in the game and when they are strong people will place them excessively.
If you were GW...how would you handle this problem? These is a massive distaste for the state of competitive play right now due to the prevalence of marines.I would say from looking at the data that most of this distastes is not entirely grounded in fact but a fair amount is personal bias against marines - they are certainly top tier but they aren't invaliding the rest of the field. Plus with the spicy peice of data that Ironhands are a clear outlier in power I think the solution is easy. Nerf Iron-hands with an instant hotfix and watch the data for the next few months.
I'd probably just remove the ignore hit penalties bonus from the ironahnds super doctrine. The can do something more reasonable like...reroll 1's with heavy weapons in the dev doctrine...
I would appreciate everyone constructive thoughts here. Thanks
Crimson wrote: Well, first there would need to be data that is not corrupted by ITC houserules.
You can exclude ITC from the results but most of this data is ITC. I'd rather look at the larger data set. From the quick data I looked at - marines actually perform better in ITC environment anyways so the data is still useful even if you don't like ITC rules.
I live on the north pole so ITC or any competitive format for that matter is never gonna happen for me, but I'm not concerned about Marines, my mobile Tau which has 0 Riptides do well against all those copypasta lists right now.
Eldar are much closer and I'm going like 50/50 give or take a few % against them.
Dark Eldar are actually stronger against me than CWE. But I can live with that, given my army is so different it's bound to have an off-the-grid weakness
AlmightyWalrus wrote: There is. 40kstats collects data from a bunch of different rulesets, not just ITC.
Correct. They have 2198 total lists collected since nov 2. Of that 1658 are ITC. 75% of all lists are ITC. So the most meaningful data is going to be ITC data.
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LoftyS wrote: I live on the north pole so ITC or any competitive format for that matter is never gonna happen for me, but I'm not concerned about Marines, my mobile Tau which has 0 Riptides do well against all those copypasta lists right now.
Eldar are much closer and I'm going like 50/50 give or take a few % against them.
Dark Eldar are actually stronger against me than CWE.
There are a few DE players doing really ATM. They are great vs marines. ESP with flayed skull. I dabble in DE. I've never actually lost a game with them this edition but the sample size is small.
The Eldar being OP is due basically one thing that GW refuses to fix, the Alaitoc trait. Hit penalty traits should just not exist, they feth up the maths so badly that balancing them is pretty impossible. If removing this makes Eldar too weak, they can receive other buffs that benefit all of their subfactions.
And yeah, IH are still best marine faction. Big surprise. With them the fix is less obvious, as their power is due combination of a ton of different rules. One moderate fix would change the Calculated Fury so that you don't get both boni at once. So ignore move penalties or roll ones if you remained stationary.
TangoTwoBravo wrote: Perhaps remove the Iron Hands Calculated Fury ability from models with the Fly keyword?
That would fix some issues but not all. I just think ignore hit penalties on turn 1 is far too strong when you can stack around the -1 AP bonus from dev doctrine.
40kstats has no data concerning CA format, at least it didn't the last time i checked it.
In any case you can join this result with the GT results and what you get is that:
1) Iron hands are dominating ITC
2) Imperial fists are dominating CA 3) Other marines are good but we suffered worse times in the castellan/ynnary era.
What is going to happen is that those 2 chapters will see some kind of adjustment. Imperial fists in particular since they had a too good showing in the GT and GW needs to show a reaction to the community.
Other chapters will be mostly untouched for a while and then the next FAQ round or CA2020 will increase the cost on the TFC.
Crimson wrote: The Eldar being OP is due basically one thing that GW refuses to fix, the Alaitoc trait. Hit penalty traits should just not exist, they feth up the maths so badly that balancing them is pretty impossible. If removing this makes Eldar too weak, they can receive other buffs that benefit all of their subfactions.
And yeah, IH are still best marine faction. Big surprise. With them the fix is less obvious, as their power is due combination of a ton of different rules. One moderate fix would change the Calculated Fury so that you don't get both boni at once. So ignore move penalties or roll ones if you remained stationary.
Marines have made aliotoc useless though that was true a while back but not anymore. The majority of eldar armies that place well are using custom traits. With expert crafters/ignore cover/-1 AP on shurikens/always counts in cover being the popular choices.
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Spoletta wrote: 40kstats has no data concerning CA format, at least it didn't the last time i checked it.
In any case you can join this result with the GT results and what you get is that:
1) Iron hands are dominating ITC
2) Imperial fists are dominating CA 3) Other marines are good but we suffered worse times in the castellan/ynnary era.
What is going to happen is that those 2 chapters will see some kind of adjustment. Imperial fists in particular since they had a too good showing in the GT and GW needs to show a reaction to the community.
Other chapters will be mostly untouched for a while and then the next FAQ round or CA2020 will increase the cost on the TFC.
It is clear to me that IF are also too strong but from the data I am looking at Custom trait eldar actually have a higher win rate - it probably is true though that a lot of Ironhands players would just play IF and do nearly as well but I have no data to support nerfing them from ITC data. Just from experience though it is clear whoever wrote their rules had no idea how powerful the combination of offensive free upgrades would be for a marine army for IF.
LoftyS wrote: I live on the north pole so ITC or any competitive format for that matter is never gonna happen for me, but I'm not concerned about Marines, my mobile Tau which has 0 Riptides do well against all those copypasta lists right now.
It wasn't clear from looking at the site, but does this data control for mirror matches? If SM are the most popular they will face each other more often and the result of any mirror match will always be a 50% win rate. If you don't control for that variable (or at least publish the data with it taken out of the equation) you won't get a fully accurate view of the power level of the armies. For example, SM could be hugely more powerful than everyone else but if they rarely play against anything but other SM their win % numbers aren't that meaningful.
Xenomancers wrote: https://www.40kstats.com/faction-breakdown-report
When you compare the All and Top lists it gets very interesting.
ITC DATA ONLY
First with the all data. It is really surprising that Eldar since Nov have a higher win-rate than space marines. They were the 4rd most played (Just behind IK with 113) army as well with 111 lists with a 56.99% WR. Ad mech is also pretty impressive with 55.9% WR with 88 lists. Adept Astartes 56.47% with 324 lists. So I do find that REALLY interesting. Ofc there are lots of non quality space marine lists out there bringing down that average - so we take a look at the top 10 data.
For Adept Astartes we have 101 quality top 10 lists for 31.2% of all marine lists. 81.9% WR For Eldar we have 34 quality lists with 30.6% of all eldar lists. 80.2% WR For Ad mech its pretty disappointing with only 21 quality lists - 23% of all ad mech lists. with a 75% win rate. A player but maybe not really a top player.
Since chapter approved it also seems that space marines are roughly 22% of lists and 28% of the top of the feild with the 4th best win rate. To be fair though they have the most quality WR lists.
All this data includes all space marine factions. Including ironhands which have roughly a 10% higher winrate than all other space marine factions. Looking at the sub-faction results. I wish the system gave me the option to compare sub-factions against the whole feild but it ether doesn't or I am too dumb to figure it out.
From this limited data though. What conclusions can we draw? Obviously they are the most popular choice and they get a lot of top placing but in terms of win rate they are near the top in every category. However from Blood of kittens we can surmise that the majority of these top space marine lists are Ironhands. We also see the sub-faction winrate hovering around 10% higher than other space marine factions. Still it seems even with the Ironhand faction being so dominant other top armies are able to compete and win events. The reality is that space marines are by far the most popular army in the game and when they are strong people will place them excessively.
If you were GW...how would you handle this problem? These is a massive distaste for the state of competitive play right now due to the prevalence of marines.I would say from looking at the data that most of this distastes is not entirely grounded in fact but a fair amount is personal bias against marines - they are certainly top tier but they aren't invaliding the rest of the field. Plus with the spicy peice of data that Ironhands are a clear outlier in power I think the solution is easy. Nerf Iron-hands with an instant hotfix and watch the data for the next few months.
I'd probably just remove the ignore hit penalties bonus from the ironahnds super doctrine. The can do something more reasonable like...reroll 1's with heavy weapons in the dev doctrine...
I would appreciate everyone constructive thoughts here. Thanks
The Ignore Penalties to Hit portion of the IH doctrine is not the problem, though removing it WOULD make them lose ground against Drukhari and Asuryani lists that spam those. However, most factions don't actually have a way to spam penalties to hit, only really the three eldar factions, and honestly, only really Asuryani with Alaitoc and Flyers.
Custom Craftworld Traits and Aspect Shrines definitely gave craftworlds a big competitive boost, and the tau countermeta list with riptides is doing quite well.
What we're seeing here is a meta defined by mono-marines using doctrines, and a field where every other army that is successful is successful because they have a good winrate against marines.
The solution is the same solution that existed when some 30-40% of lists were following the Castellan+soup formula: Nerf super-doctrines like House Raven Castellans were nerfed.
Brave thread Xeno, this will probably get drowned in anti-marine vitriol but you're making sound points about relevant topics. Ofc a larger sample would be nice as you say but it'll be interesting to see how much of the anti-marine attitude is justified over the next 2 months while CA settles in.
Like all things that get too popular in the competative scene, things will shift through.
1) Non marine players making counter marine lists.
2) New rules and units being particularly good at taking down marines. (More high AP 2 dmg weapons or more invul saves).
3) FAQ and CA marine nerfs.
Like others have said there's been periods of difficult times to play competitive 40k, like the era of the castellan or guard gunlines. In one way it's annoying that things shift so vastly but also keeps things fresh.
Xenomancers wrote: https://www.40kstats.com/faction-breakdown-report
When you compare the All and Top lists it gets very interesting.
ITC DATA ONLY
First with the all data. It is really surprising that Eldar since Nov have a higher win-rate than space marines. They were the 4rd most played (Just behind IK with 113) army as well with 111 lists with a 56.99% WR. Ad mech is also pretty impressive with 55.9% WR with 88 lists. Adept Astartes 56.47% with 324 lists. So I do find that REALLY interesting. Ofc there are lots of non quality space marine lists out there bringing down that average - so we take a look at the top 10 data.
For Adept Astartes we have 101 quality top 10 lists for 31.2% of all marine lists. 81.9% WR For Eldar we have 34 quality lists with 30.6% of all eldar lists. 80.2% WR For Ad mech its pretty disappointing with only 21 quality lists - 23% of all ad mech lists. with a 75% win rate. A player but maybe not really a top player.
Since chapter approved it also seems that space marines are roughly 22% of lists and 28% of the top of the feild with the 4th best win rate. To be fair though they have the most quality WR lists.
All this data includes all space marine factions. Including ironhands which have roughly a 10% higher winrate than all other space marine factions. Looking at the sub-faction results. I wish the system gave me the option to compare sub-factions against the whole feild but it ether doesn't or I am too dumb to figure it out.
From this limited data though. What conclusions can we draw? Obviously they are the most popular choice and they get a lot of top placing but in terms of win rate they are near the top in every category. However from Blood of kittens we can surmise that the majority of these top space marine lists are Ironhands. We also see the sub-faction winrate hovering around 10% higher than other space marine factions. Still it seems even with the Ironhand faction being so dominant other top armies are able to compete and win events. The reality is that space marines are by far the most popular army in the game and when they are strong people will place them excessively.
If you were GW...how would you handle this problem? These is a massive distaste for the state of competitive play right now due to the prevalence of marines.I would say from looking at the data that most of this distastes is not entirely grounded in fact but a fair amount is personal bias against marines - they are certainly top tier but they aren't invaliding the rest of the field. Plus with the spicy peice of data that Ironhands are a clear outlier in power I think the solution is easy. Nerf Iron-hands with an instant hotfix and watch the data for the next few months.
I'd probably just remove the ignore hit penalties bonus from the ironahnds super doctrine. The can do something more reasonable like...reroll 1's with heavy weapons in the dev doctrine...
I would appreciate everyone constructive thoughts here. Thanks
The Ignore Penalties to Hit portion of the IH doctrine is not the problem, though removing it WOULD make them lose ground against Drukhari and Asuryani lists that spam those. However, most factions don't actually have a way to spam penalties to hit, only really the three eldar factions, and honestly, only really Asuryani with Alaitoc and Flyers.
Custom Craftworld Traits and Aspect Shrines definitely gave craftworlds a big competitive boost, and the tau countermeta list with riptides is doing quite well.
What we're seeing here is a meta defined by mono-marines using doctrines, and a field where every other army that is successful is successful because they have a good winrate against marines.
The solution is the same solution that existed when some 30-40% of lists were following the Castellan+soup formula: Nerf super-doctrines like House Raven Castellans were nerfed.
My personal opinion is that the 100 point nerf of the Castellan had a much bigger effect than the raven stratagem. Tyranis Castellans were even better IMO or at least in my experience. Tau riptide build has always done well too because drones are just silly. Tau should actually be doing worse with TFC and eliminators being as strong as they are hiding drones doesn't really work. The reason tau are doing better is because they aren't running into -3 to hit flyers that they have no chance to destroy AND because they can go toe to toe with marines because they have so much ignore cover and flat 2 damage. It takes time for the meta to adjust but I'd say we are getting there.
In regards to iron-hands I would disagree entirely that their ignore hit penalties isn't the problem. It is absolutely the problem. Also there is a strong chance that they faith and fury supplement will make marines results even better in the next month. tech marines and apoths are stupid good now and arent represented in most of this data yet. +1 to hit techmarine aura combined with IF is going to be stupid good.
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Slipspace wrote: It wasn't clear from looking at the site, but does this data control for mirror matches? If SM are the most popular they will face each other more often and the result of any mirror match will always be a 50% win rate. If you don't control for that variable (or at least publish the data with it taken out of the equation) you won't get a fully accurate view of the power level of the armies. For example, SM could be hugely more powerful than everyone else but if they rarely play against anything but other SM their win % numbers aren't that meaningful.
As far as I know - there is no way to control for that. However. With the given data approximately 20% of your games will be against marines. I don't think that is a very big deal as most of the list are different. It is really only the mirrors of the exact same list that skew the data. Which that is likely pretty rare.
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small_gods wrote: Like all things that get too popular in the competative scene, things will shift through.
1) Non marine players making counter marine lists.
2) New rules and units being particularly good at taking down marines. (More high AP 2 dmg weapons or more invul saves).
3) FAQ and CA marine nerfs.
Like others have said there's been periods of difficult times to play competitive 40k, like the era of the castellan or guard gunlines. In one way it's annoying that things shift so vastly but also keeps things fresh.
Realistically this is what everyone was doing already. A lot of the best weapons are flat 2 and were already being spammed. Invune saves have always been a top desired stat (that most marine units actually lack). Plus still...marines are only 1/5 of the feild so you can expect to face them approximately 1 time in a tournament. You aren't wrong but you are basically saying that the meta will adapt by doing exactly what it always does. Spam invunes to make AP useless. Spam multi damage weapons because they are good against everything.
I don't think the data really supports a nerf for anything but ironhands. In fact Eldar outperform marines right now realistically though they are the same power level. Somewhere in-between ironhands and the rest of the marine factions. Plus several other faction do well with only about 28% of all top list being marines.
Crimson wrote: The Eldar being OP is due basically one thing that GW refuses to fix, the Alaitoc trait.
This is incorrect. Eldar players adapted to the marine meta and have been rolling Nightspinners and Expert Crafters / Children of Prophecy / Hail of Doom.
Crimson wrote: The Eldar being OP is due basically one thing that GW refuses to fix, the Alaitoc trait.
This is incorrect. Eldar players adapted to the marine meta and have been rolling Nightspinners and Expert Crafters / Children of Prophecy / Hail of Doom.
I agree that the reason IH are dominating in the current competitive meta is the ignore to-hit penalties rule. If you are just looking to reduce the number of competitive lists with this subfaction nerfing that rule is a good way to do it.
Where I think that's myopic is because the only reason that rule is so impactful in the first place is because of the massive overrepresentation of the few factions that can really spam those - to hits stacked up. Drukhari with flyers and venoms, asuryani with flyers and Alaitoc, Admech with Sygies VII, and to a lesser extent some Alpha Legion with Discolords. There are huge swathes of factions and units that don't have that -to hit spam mechanic that are already shut out of the meta because of those mechanics in the first place.
Gw has been mixing up the competitive meta by sending spiders to swallow flies for so long that at this point Iron Hands with their -to hit ignore are like, the horse sent in to swallow the dog. And maybe Valorous Heart with their "ignore -2AP basically army-wide" are the elephant sent to swallow the Doctrines horse.
First we had character spam. then characters got nerfed 60 times so we had BS4+ gunline spam. We countered that with -to hit spam making those basically useless. Now we've introduced "Ignore -to hit" with a bunch of free AP so the MEQs can table the huge hordes of GEQs. And then we have sisters introduced who ignore all the free AP.
But each time one of these counters is added in instead of just fixing the problem thing, all the other factions in the game not currently being updated get shat on. Tons of free AP getting ignored by sisters doesn't help Necrons whose gak now feels like paper.
1. Kill master artisans and stealthy. Either make them take up 2 custom chapter slots (only get master artisans or stealthy) or chapter lock them to Salies/RG.
2. Super doc or regular docs. You either get the -1 to AP or you get your super doc.
3. Kill TFCs. Another number cruncher totaled all of the TFCs in marine lists and it is among the top 5 units in the marine meta. Up the cost on the reduce moving strat and raise the cost of the thing and that should help. Could also only apply the reduce movement strat to LOS targets (cannot be used on targets outside of LOS), would at least give some counter play.
4. Kill IH. Agree with the sentiment to either ignore movement penalties or re-roll 1's with heavies. I'd rather have them re-roll 1's as it seems more thematic (but less powerful). Could do a hybrid where they ignore movement penalties on vehicles and re-roll 1's with infantry?
5. Kill raven guard cents. Remove infantry key word from these guys and things get much more reasonable.
6. Kill siege breaker cohort. All those mortal wounds are just too much. Combined with the either/or super doctrine I'm hoping this brings IF/CF back down to reasonable levels.
Wouldn't take much to do these changes. The only data sheets that would need to be touched would be the the Cents and small price adjustment to the TFC. FAQ on the strats and doctrines and we should be in a more reasonable place. I'm pretty sure elims need a second look but I'm not quite sure what to do about them outside of a points hike (cost them at 100ish points?).
I feel like these are changes that should have been erratta'd onto the CA2019. Waiting for CA2020 or april is just too long.
Anecdotally I used to play in tournaments at least once a month. Since the marine supplements came out I haven't been to one because my armies (SW, DA, DW, BA) fell sooooo far behind the power curve it was painful to see other marines being twice as good as my guys for the same cost.
I also agree that the super libby/chap/tech traits are a whole 'nuther can of worms that haven't had a chance to play out in the meta and were a mistake by GW but maybe the high CP cost of those strats will keep them in check.
Crimson wrote: Well, first there would need to be data that is not corrupted by ITC houserules.
People need to stop pretending ITC skews results that much. Broken units and armies are obvious regardless of format. Balance isn't all the sudden better for Dark Angels just because you're not playing ITC.
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bananathug wrote: 1. Kill master artisans and stealthy. Either make them take up 2 custom chapter slots (only get master artisans or stealthy) or chapter lock them to Salies/RG.
2. Super doc or regular docs. You either get the -1 to AP or you get your super doc.
3. Kill TFCs. Another number cruncher totaled all of the TFCs in marine lists and it is among the top 5 units in the marine meta. Up the cost on the reduce moving strat and raise the cost of the thing and that should help. Could also only apply the reduce movement strat to LOS targets (cannot be used on targets outside of LOS), would at least give some counter play.
4. Kill IH. Agree with the sentiment to either ignore movement penalties or re-roll 1's with heavies. I'd rather have them re-roll 1's as it seems more thematic (but less powerful). Could do a hybrid where they ignore movement penalties on vehicles and re-roll 1's with infantry?
5. Kill raven guard cents. Remove infantry key word from these guys and things get much more reasonable.
6. Kill siege breaker cohort. All those mortal wounds are just too much. Combined with the either/or super doctrine I'm hoping this brings IF/CF back down to reasonable levels.
Wouldn't take much to do these changes. The only data sheets that would need to be touched would be the the Cents and small price adjustment to the TFC. FAQ on the strats and doctrines and we should be in a more reasonable place. I'm pretty sure elims need a second look but I'm not quite sure what to do about them outside of a points hike (cost them at 100ish points?).
I feel like these are changes that should have been erratta'd onto the CA2019. Waiting for CA2020 or april is just too long.
Anecdotally I used to play in tournaments at least once a month. Since the marine supplements came out I haven't been to one because my armies (SW, DA, DW, BA) fell sooooo far behind the power curve it was painful to see other marines being twice as good as my guys for the same cost.
I also agree that the super libby/chap/tech traits are a whole 'nuther can of worms that haven't had a chance to play out in the meta and were a mistake by GW but maybe the high CP cost of those strats will keep them in check.
Honestly I stopped reading because you said to kill Master Artisans. It's a bad trait and didn't make Salamanders good for Codex 1.0 and it isn't breaking them in Codex 2.0. No I don't care you don't like seeing it a lot either. It ain't broken, period.
Crimson wrote: Well, first there would need to be data that is not corrupted by ITC houserules.
People need to stop pretending ITC skews results that much. Broken units and armies are obvious regardless of format. Balance isn't all the sudden better for Dark Angels just because you're not playing ITC.
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bananathug wrote: 1. Kill master artisans and stealthy. Either make them take up 2 custom chapter slots (only get master artisans or stealthy) or chapter lock them to Salies/RG.
2. Super doc or regular docs. You either get the -1 to AP or you get your super doc.
3. Kill TFCs. Another number cruncher totaled all of the TFCs in marine lists and it is among the top 5 units in the marine meta. Up the cost on the reduce moving strat and raise the cost of the thing and that should help. Could also only apply the reduce movement strat to LOS targets (cannot be used on targets outside of LOS), would at least give some counter play.
4. Kill IH. Agree with the sentiment to either ignore movement penalties or re-roll 1's with heavies. I'd rather have them re-roll 1's as it seems more thematic (but less powerful). Could do a hybrid where they ignore movement penalties on vehicles and re-roll 1's with infantry?
5. Kill raven guard cents. Remove infantry key word from these guys and things get much more reasonable.
6. Kill siege breaker cohort. All those mortal wounds are just too much. Combined with the either/or super doctrine I'm hoping this brings IF/CF back down to reasonable levels.
Wouldn't take much to do these changes. The only data sheets that would need to be touched would be the the Cents and small price adjustment to the TFC. FAQ on the strats and doctrines and we should be in a more reasonable place. I'm pretty sure elims need a second look but I'm not quite sure what to do about them outside of a points hike (cost them at 100ish points?).
I feel like these are changes that should have been erratta'd onto the CA2019. Waiting for CA2020 or april is just too long.
Anecdotally I used to play in tournaments at least once a month. Since the marine supplements came out I haven't been to one because my armies (SW, DA, DW, BA) fell sooooo far behind the power curve it was painful to see other marines being twice as good as my guys for the same cost.
I also agree that the super libby/chap/tech traits are a whole 'nuther can of worms that haven't had a chance to play out in the meta and were a mistake by GW but maybe the high CP cost of those strats will keep them in check.
Honestly I stopped reading because you said to kill Master Artisans. It's a bad trait and didn't make Salamanders good for Codex 1.0 and it isn't breaking them in Codex 2.0. No I don't care you don't like seeing it a lot either. It ain't broken, period.
Well eldar and marines spam it with some frequency. IT is super good on marines because LT exist. You are basically getting a gman buff for free if you take units with low numbers of quality shots like dreads. Salamanders realistically was one of the better tactics in 1.0 but the whole codex was dumpsterfire so it's not a great argument. Look at the amount of free rules and buffs marines have gotten and they still have a lower WR than eldar. LOL. Ironhands are too much and that is clear but I think I have to disagree with you about MOA. It is probably too good if the 2 best armies are using the trait. FFS ironhands give up a tripple bonus trait to get it. I agree though - ITC format is not really skewing results to a great degree.
For gaks and giggles I added Ta'u and Orks and gave a side by side of ITC to Non-ITC. It looks to me that people who say ITC is bad for the game are both correct and incorrect. Ta'u suffer greatly outside of ITC, but Orks see a boost. Despite this Eldar and Codex Marines maintain a stranglehold. Whether the new missions will upset this dynamic will remain to be seen over coming months.
Data is whatever was available for Nov and Dec tournaments at the time I grabbed it (a few days ago).
Sterling191 wrote: “We still can’t beat Eldar but have two builds that should be banned because they’re too good”.
Classic.
Custom trait eldar is the top winning army right now with 69% WR in december. (this is like...higher than ynnari was in its prime)
Ironhands right behind with 66%
They both should honestly be nerfed. MOA/expert crafters is likely a big part of these factions success. It's no all of it ofc but it is a big part of it. OFC eldar being able to mix detachments at will also plays into it as well.
not sure how to fix eldar...probably should not allow them to mix detachments with custom traits and or nerf Expert crafters.
For Ironhands (and also IF) fix the super doctrine and nerf MOA.
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Daedalus81 wrote: For gaks and giggles I added Ta'u and Orks and gave a side by side of ITC to Non-ITC. It looks to me that people who say ITC is bad for the game are both correct and incorrect. Ta'u suffer greatly outside of ITC, but Orks see a boost. Despite this Eldar and Codex Marines maintain a stranglehold. Whether the new missions will upset this dynamic will remain to be seen over coming months.
Data is whatever was available for Nov and Dec tournaments at the time I grabbed it (a few days ago).
Only include December data and see what that changes.
Also what is condiered a mirror match here? Astartes vs Astartes? Or Just Ironhands vs Ironhands for example?
Don't put kill points into every mission. Simple. Done.
Sure they are still really annoying and a player can bring them along to club some baby seals but they will get bored of not winning tournaments with their smash-face Iron Hands. Then when they water it down enough to compete properly in objective missions they lose enough of the IH crazy nonsense that they drop down to normal Astartes power levels.
I played a classic smash-face IH list in a local pre-Xmas tournament. Being the tournament before Christmas I had only taken a semi-competitive list but it had *loads* of units good for scoring. He tabled his first-round opponent in 2 turns. He tabled me in 6 turns by which time I had an unassailable VP lead so I won the game. He went on to table his 3rd round opponent in 3 turns too, while I quietly went on to win the event.
If we had played that same pair of lists with ITC or similar missions with a bunch of kill points added on I would have had no possible route to victory. If people are playing kill point missions all the time of course Iron Hands are OP - its the missions which make them so. What you want are progressive scoring and at most one mission with a kill point element - almost exactly like the ones in CA19 which you might even imagine the game designers are trying to balance against. Funny that.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Wow almost as though...ITC does nothing in reality and the top codices still do their thing!
It is interesting to see what happens to factions outside top books though.
GSC do really bad outside ITC (44% vs 30% WR), but Nids to a ton better : 32% to 46%
DE go from 48% to 55% outside.
CSM 40% to 45%.
AM go up a couple percent on the outside, but still pretty poor.
Don't put kill points into every mission. Simple. Done.
Sure they are still really annoying and a player can bring them along to club some baby seals but they will get bored of not winning tournaments with their smash-face Iron Hands. Then when they water it down enough to compete properly in objective missions they lose enough of the IH crazy nonsense that they drop down to normal Astartes power levels.
I played a classic smash-face IH list in a local pre-Xmas tournament. Being the tournament before Christmas I had only taken a semi-competitive list but it had *loads* of units good for scoring. He tabled his first-round opponent in 2 turns. He tabled me in 6 turns by which time I had an unassailable VP lead so I won the game. He went on to table his 3rd round opponent in 3 turns too, while I quietly went on to win the event.
If we had played that same pair of lists with ITC or similar missions with a bunch of kill points added on I would have had no possible route to victory. If people are playing kill point missions all the time of course Iron Hands are OP - its the missions which make them so. What you want are progressive scoring and at most one mission with a kill point element - almost exactly like the ones in CA19 which you might even imagine the game designers are trying to balance against. Funny that.
You pretty much can't lose a game with a 3 turn table. Even if you score 0 points going into turn 3. I assure you you are going to loss more often than not playing cat and mouse objectives and you can not face your opponent pound for pound in killing. Killing wins you games...the game is about killing. I don't understand your argument.
Custom trait eldar is the top winning army right now with 69% WR in december. (this is like...higher than ynnari was in its prime)
Ironhands right behind with 66%
You heard it here first folks. Craftworlds are now worse than pre-nerf Ynnari.
They both should honestly be nerfed. MOA/expert crafters is likely a big part of these factions success. It's no all of it ofc but it is a big part of it. OFC eldar being able to mix detachments at will also plays into it as well.
not sure how to fix eldar...probably should not allow them to mix detachments with custom traits and or nerf Expert crafters.
You do realize that every army is capable of mixing detachments right? Hell, Admech has been doing that for practically the entire goddamn edition to pull stratagem and keyword shenanigans.
Custom trait eldar is the top winning army right now with 69% WR in december. (this is like...higher than ynnari was in its prime)
Ironhands right behind with 66%
You heard it here first folks. Craftworlds are now worse than pre-nerf Ynnari.
A lot of stuff is/was worse than pre-nerf Ynnari. Castellan. Caladius. Nu-Marines obviously. Chaos Daemons over the summer. Hell, Ynnari was down to basically being a fairly balanced, mid-tier army in the months pre-WD nerf and post-Assassins, etc..
White Dwarf rules was a classic "6+ months" delayed nerf that probably wasn't even necessary by the time it arrived (similar to the GSC nerf and perhaps the Plaguebearer increase with CA in a way, I suppose).
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Wow almost as though...ITC does nothing in reality and the top codices still do their thing!
It is interesting to see what happens to factions outside top books though.
GSC do really bad outside ITC (44% vs 30% WR), but Nids to a ton better : 32% to 46%
DE go from 48% to 55% outside.
CSM 40% to 45%.
AM go up a couple percent on the outside, but still pretty poor.
But IMO the most important thing is, many (at least Xenos) can play with a completely different set of units and still do fine. Take Tau, i have a friend that plays a large amount of Piranhas, in CA maelstrom they are very good, drop Drones off to go harass crap and rush the vehicle to objectives, body block, etc.. for 56pts each they are a steal in that playstyle. You take them into ITC and they'll make you auto lose b.c of how ITC scoring works.
Also i would like to see the Mirror matches taken out if possible too.
But IMO the most important thing is, many (at least Xenos) can play with a completely different set of units and still do fine. Take Tau, i have a friend that plays a large amount of Piranhas, in CA maelstrom they are very good, drop Drones off to go harass crap and rush the vehicle to objectives, body block, etc.. for 56pts each they are a steal in that playstyle. You take them into ITC and they'll make you auto lose b.c of how ITC scoring works.
Also i would like to see the Mirror matches taken out if possible too.
A plausible premise, but I'm not sure it always pans out. I am quite interested how the new CA does though.
Custom trait eldar is the top winning army right now with 69% WR in december. (this is like...higher than ynnari was in its prime)
Ironhands right behind with 66%
You heard it here first folks. Craftworlds are now worse than pre-nerf Ynnari.
They both should honestly be nerfed. MOA/expert crafters is likely a big part of these factions success. It's no all of it ofc but it is a big part of it. OFC eldar being able to mix detachments at will also plays into it as well.
not sure how to fix eldar...probably should not allow them to mix detachments with custom traits and or nerf Expert crafters.
You do realize that every army is capable of mixing detachments right? Hell, Admech has been doing that for practically the entire goddamn edition to pull stratagem and keyword shenanigans.
Data kind of speaks for itself doesn't it? Ynnari were around 57% WR in their prime from what I remember. Custom trait eldar is now 69% in december.
And no. Space marines can not mix detachments or they lose super doctrine. Can't include different non marine factions or they turn into 1.0 marines lol. This is what I was referring to. It is particularly egregious with cumstom traits to mix detachments because you can custom build a force every trait benefiting every unit to the max.
To add, i still play a mix Harlequin detachment, 2 DJ's Deaming Shadows, 1 SS as Silent Shroud, and 1 Solitaire as Midnight Shadow, just for the relics/stratagems.
It absolutely does not. The reasons behind data matter just as much, if not more, than the top sheet number. But you've consistently proven incapable of understanding that fact.
And no. Space marines can not mix detachments or they lose super doctrine. Can't include different non marine factions or they turn into 1.0 marines lol. This is what I was referring to. It is particularly egregious with cumstom traits to mix detachments because you can custom build a force every trait benefiting every unit to the max.
And once again you're demonstrating you have zero capacity to comprehend the functional components of the system you're hysterically groaning about. Multiple competitive builds utilize mixed Marine forces (most notably those comprised of RG and WS players), or even allies because the functionality provided by overlapping stratagems, relics and WLTs is superior to what they would get with their associated super-doctrine.
Which brings us right back to how mixed forces have functioned for the entirety of the fething edition.
But keep on ranting about how Eldar being able to mix <CRAFTWORLD> detachments is somehow ban worthy.
What's going on with Iyanden? Comparable VP tally as Custom, with a much lower VPL but also a Win rate worse than the major players?
Likely has to do with how it is used as soup, but i'll poke at it and see. The data sets are a little funny (not how I would manage the data for sure). Here's the full sweep by chapter in Dec; ITC only:
Custom trait eldar is the top winning army right now with 69% WR in december. (this is like...higher than ynnari was in its prime)
Ironhands right behind with 66%
You heard it here first folks. Craftworlds are now worse than pre-nerf Ynnari.
A lot of stuff is/was worse than pre-nerf Ynnari. Castellan. Caladius. Nu-Marines obviously. Chaos Daemons over the summer. Hell, Ynnari was down to basically being a fairly balanced, mid-tier army in the months pre-WD nerf and post-Assassins, etc..
White Dwarf rules was a classic "6+ months" delayed nerf that probably wasn't even necessary by the time it arrived (similar to the GSC nerf and perhaps the Plaguebearer increase with CA in a way, I suppose).
I disagree with this premise. Ynnari with still a meta contender at the time of the castellan it just wasn't play as much. People actually get bored playing the same list all the time it seems. Ynnari was never balanced before it was nerfed. Ynnari and Castellan were nerfed simultaneously too.
For example at the time of LVO last year (pre nerf for both armies) Ynnari was 59% in ITC and IK was 55% (search by the first week in feb if you want to run the results yourself) Astra Militarium was 53%.
For top 10 there was pretty good representation for AM/IK/CWE and Ynnari around 75%-80% that doesn't mean much though because castellan and ynnari were both hugely busted. Whichever is more busted doesn't really matter.
You pretty much can't lose a game with a 3 turn table. Even if you score 0 points going into turn 3. I assure you you are going to loss more often than not playing cat and mouse objectives and you can not face your opponent pound for pound in killing. Killing wins you games...the game is about killing. I don't understand your argument.
The game is not about killing. It is about winning more VP than your opponent. Killing only wins games if it is rewarded by the mission.
I played a full objective game so I just played the objectives that he simply could not compete in because indestructible super-killy vehicles don't have a very high model count[1]. I just killed the stuff in his army that could score or out-maneuver my screens and played a screening-the-character game long enough to win. Basic stuff, play the mission.
If he had been getting a free "Kill More" VP every turn I would have been beaten (I killed nothing of his on turns 5 or 6 so the VP swing would have been brutal). Even the 6 kill points for ETC missions would have left me at the mercy of lucky maelstrom cards, too many of which are kill-oriented for me to have really had a good chance. In CA19 missions I always had the win so long as I kept my self-control and played the mission - in that mission set your typical super-brutal Iron Hands list is really not that good.
Iron Hands are not balanced for games with a significant kill point element beyond First Strike and Slay the Warlord. I agree that they are imbalanced if you play missions with a lot more kill point elements than that, my point is that you should not be doing so.
[1] Also he grumbled about the TO having put the objectives very widely spaced out. That is deliberate, the TO does it to discourage armies that just camp the center of the table and shoot everyone to death, he thinks that is really boring. Table design and objective placement are more subtle elements of mission design.
Honestly, tournament data is...fine, but ultimately doesn't affect me or my games that much. I play in a fairly casual club with tons of people, we have about 50 active members, around half of which show up on any given week.
Very few people were playing soup. Very few people were playing highly optimized lists. Since the release of the supplements, our playerbase has dropped by about a third, and the last month there have never been more than 5 players not using the marine supplements.
Playing a game where you get tabled by turn 3-4 but you manage to win by VPs is functionally as enjoyable as getting tabled by turn 3-4 and losing. I understand that some optimized Tau and Eldar lists are able to compete with marines in some ITC grand tournament somewhere, but the only one of those two factions represented where I play is my eldar, and I'm not certain what those tournament lists are taking but I'm betting it's not my Storm Guardians+Avatar melee footslogger build.
Even after they stopped dominating the competitive scene in 7th, Necrons with the Decurion detachment structure were one of the most widely complained about builds because they simply were not fun to play against. Same with leafblower guard lists in 5th, and Tau in...always. There are gameplay patterns that are just fundamentally not fun to deal with, and marines with their aura bubbles, beta boltguns and doctrines have just become that. They just sit back, roll and reroll tons of dice, and table you in 3 turns.
Competitive, optimized Tau or Eldar for sure would be just as obnoxious, maybe even more so, I don't know. But I do know there aren't 35 people with identical cookie-cutter competitive Tau and Eldar lists, because the super discounted starter boxes for the game don't contain 3 riptides and 30 shield drones.
I disagree with this premise. Ynnari with still a meta contender at the time of the castellan it just wasn't play as much. People actually get bored playing the same list all the time it seems. Ynnari was never balanced before it was nerfed. Ynnari and Castellan were nerfed simultaneously too.
For example at the time of LVO last year (pre nerf for both armies) Ynnari was 59% in ITC and IK was 55% (search by the first week in feb if you want to run the results yourself) Astra Militarium was 53%.
For top 10 there was pretty good representation for AM/IK/CWE and Ynnari around 75%-80% that doesn't mean much though because castellan and ynnari were both hugely busted. Whichever is more busted doesn't really matter.
IK majority was 55%, but the "classic" Astra list with a Raven Castellan (which isn't an IK list according to the old ITC classification) was at around 70%. And yeah, Ynnari was still a bit too good somewhere between 55% to 59%, but never at Castellan levels. Not even remotely. And as said, many lists and builds beat that 59% win-percentage where Ynnari capped out, including the Castellan, Caladius, even current Expert Crafters Eldar are almost there.
And Top 10 representation can be fickle. Blood Angels outperformed Ynnari by 150% in Top 10 representation in the 2017 season when Ynnari won the ITC. Tyranids also outperformed Ynnari on that measure during that year (including winning Adepticon, etc..). And both Blood Angels and Nids remained largely unchanged (outside of the Smash-Captain fly nerf and even some point drops) since 2017 up to now Blood of Baal, and few people would considered them top tier armies in 2017/2018 despite outperforming Ynnari on the Top 10 metric.
What's going on with Iyanden? Comparable VP tally as Custom, with a much lower VPL but also a Win rate worse than the major players?
Ok, so there was only 1 Iyanden player. He won 2 and lost 2. There is only one line item for the data by Chapter and it shows 27 VP avg for him and 17 avg for his opponents, so he probably lost two and crushed the next two.
Unfortunately the tournament doesn't tie back to the other data set.
I would really question the integrity of the 40kstats data sets.
It absolutely does not. The reasons behind data matter just as much, if not more, than the top sheet number. But you've consistently proven incapable of understanding that fact.
And no. Space marines can not mix detachments or they lose super doctrine. Can't include different non marine factions or they turn into 1.0 marines lol. This is what I was referring to. It is particularly egregious with cumstom traits to mix detachments because you can custom build a force every trait benefiting every unit to the max.
And once again you're demonstrating you have zero capacity to comprehend the functional components of the system you're hysterically groaning about. Multiple competitive builds utilize mixed Marine forces (most notably those comprised of RG and WS players), or even allies because the functionality provided by overlapping stratagems, relics and WLTs is superior to what they would get with their associated super-doctrine.
Which brings us right back to how mixed forces have functioned for the entirety of the fething edition.
But keep on ranting about how Eldar being able to mix <CRAFTWORLD> detachments is somehow ban worthy.
Do you know how silly you look when you defend the balance of a 69% WR faction? Suggesting a fix to an army winning over 60% of their game on average is what people who understand the game do. Yes I know a few marine factions WS/and RG mix detachments of marines to take advantage of WL and stratagems and due to the fact they have a turn 2/3 super doctrine....but they aren't 65% WR ironhands. They are 54-55% Whitescars and RG which aren't even relevant compared to ironhands. All you manage to do every time you speak is deomntrate how rude and insulting you are.
I disagree with this premise. Ynnari with still a meta contender at the time of the castellan it just wasn't play as much. People actually get bored playing the same list all the time it seems. Ynnari was never balanced before it was nerfed. Ynnari and Castellan were nerfed simultaneously too.
For example at the time of LVO last year (pre nerf for both armies) Ynnari was 59% in ITC and IK was 55% (search by the first week in feb if you want to run the results yourself) Astra Militarium was 53%.
For top 10 there was pretty good representation for AM/IK/CWE and Ynnari around 75%-80% that doesn't mean much though because castellan and ynnari were both hugely busted. Whichever is more busted doesn't really matter.
IK majority was 55%, but the "classic" Astra list with a Raven Castellan (which isn't an IK list according to the old ITC classification) was at around 70%. And yeah, Ynnari was still a bit too good somewhere between 55% to 59%, but never at Castellan levels. Not even remotely. And as said, many lists and builds beat that 59% win-percentage where Ynnari capped out, including the Castellan, Caladius, even current Expert Crafters Eldar are almost there.
And Top 10 representation can be fickle. Blood Angels outperformed Ynnari by 150% in Top 10 representation in the 2017 season when Ynnari won the ITC. Tyranids also outperformed Ynnari on that measure during that year (including winning Adepticon, etc..). And both Blood Angels and Nids remained largely unchanged (outside of the Smash-Captain fly nerf and even some point drops) since 2017 up to now Blood of Baal, and few people would considered them top tier armies in 2017/2018 despite outperforming Ynnari on the Top 10 metric.
I agree that top 10 can be fickle. It's too bad we don't have access to the data for optimum build performances.
You pretty much can't lose a game with a 3 turn table. Even if you score 0 points going into turn 3. I assure you you are going to loss more often than not playing cat and mouse objectives and you can not face your opponent pound for pound in killing. Killing wins you games...the game is about killing. I don't understand your argument.
The game is not about killing. It is about winning more VP than your opponent. Killing only wins games if it is rewarded by the mission.
I played a full objective game so I just played the objectives that he simply could not compete in because indestructible super-killy vehicles don't have a very high model count[1]. I just killed the stuff in his army that could score or out-maneuver my screens and played a screening-the-character game long enough to win. Basic stuff, play the mission.
If he had been getting a free "Kill More" VP every turn I would have been beaten (I killed nothing of his on turns 5 or 6 so the VP swing would have been brutal). Even the 6 kill points for ETC missions would have left me at the mercy of lucky maelstrom cards, too many of which are kill-oriented for me to have really had a good chance. In CA19 missions I always had the win so long as I kept my self-control and played the mission - in that mission set your typical super-brutal Iron Hands list is really not that good.
Iron Hands are not balanced for games with a significant kill point element beyond First Strike and Slay the Warlord. I agree that they are imbalanced if you play missions with a lot more kill point elements than that, my point is that you should not be doing so.
[1] Also he grumbled about the TO having put the objectives very widely spaced out. That is deliberate, the TO does it to discourage armies that just camp the center of the table and shoot everyone to death, he thinks that is really boring. Table design and objective placement are more subtle elements of mission design.
The point is you can't score objectives when you are dead. The game is and always be about killing. This is the most deadly edition of the game too it has never been more killy.
Xenomancers wrote: [
Do you know how silly you look when you defend the balance of a 69% WR faction?
Oh look, jumping right to putting words in my mouth. What a shock.
Please quote for me where I have stated that a 69% win rate is a good thing. I'll wait.
Xenomancers wrote: Suggesting a fix to an army winning over 60% of their game on average is what people who understand the game do.
Not when those fixes dont address the root cause of the disparity, nor address the collateral consequences that those changes would impart downstream. But thanks for, once again, admitting that you dont understand the current edition.
Yes I know a few marine factions WS/and RG mix detachments of marines to take advantage of WL and stratagems and due to the fact they have a turn 2/3 super doctrine....but they aren't 65% WR ironhands. They are 54-55% Whitescars and RG which aren't even relevant compared to ironhands.
Congratulations, youve proved my point that highly competitve armies dont need super doctrines to function. You may now pass go and collect 200 dakkabucks.
Xenomancers wrote: All you manage to do every time you speak is deomntrate how rude and insulting you are.
Stop showing you're fundamentally ignorant of what is happening and what people are saying to you, and I'll stop treating you like someone who wallows in their ignorance. It's a simple equation.
What's going on with Iyanden? Comparable VP tally as Custom, with a much lower VPL but also a Win rate worse than the major players?
Ok, so there was only 1 Iyanden player. He won 2 and lost 2. There is only one line item for the data by Chapter and it shows 27 VP avg for him and 17 avg for his opponents, so he probably lost two and crushed the next two.
Unfortunately the tournament doesn't tie back to the other data set.
I would really question the integrity of the 40kstats data sets.
If sample sizes are this small and swingy...yeah its not a source to pin an argument on.
If sample sizes are this small and swingy...yeah its not a source to pin an argument on.
Depends on the faction. This is the list with games included so you can parse the results a bit better: The data is still organized in a very odd manner so there's bound to be some other quirks in there.
If sample sizes are this small and swingy...yeah its not a source to pin an argument on.
Depends on the faction. This is the list with games included so you can parse the results a bit better: The data is still organized in a very odd manner so there's bound to be some other quirks in there.
If sample sizes are this small and swingy...yeah its not a source to pin an argument on.
Depends on the faction. This is the list with games included so you can parse the results a bit better: The data is still organized in a very odd manner so there's bound to be some other quirks in there.
I mean, yes, but at the same time one person doing quite well in one event is enough to make those numbers happen.... If I go to a 5-game event with a weird subfaction and win 4/5 games, I've come nowhere near winning the event but I've created a more..overpowered subfaction than IH?
Dreaming Shadow was Sean Nayden who went 7-1 at Atlanta Open.
Reborn Drukhari was Nathan Billings; 4-1 at Merry Slaaneshmas
Mortan was Adam Houser; 4-1 at Hooded Goblin 2
Ryza (Servitor Maniple) was Gabriel Rocheleau; 4-1 at Atlanta Open
I mean, yes, but at the same time one person doing quite well in one event is enough to make those numbers happen.... If I go to a 5-game event with a weird subfaction and win 4/5 games, I've come nowhere near winning the event but I've created a more..overpowered subfaction than IH?
This is precisely my point. Topline numbers are *meaningless*, especially when you're using a single, highly limited dataset. Getting into the variables beyond winrate, and the accurately interpreting those variables in the context of individual rulesets is where the meat and potatoes are.
Also I'm slain by SoS with a 60% winrate. That takes serious chutzpa.
Dreaming Shadow was Sean Nayden who went 7-1 at Atlanta Open.
Reborn Drukhari was Nathan Billings; 4-1 at Merry Slaaneshmas
Mortan was Adam Houser; 4-1 at Hooded Goblin 2
Ryza (Servitor Maniple) was Gabriel Rocheleau; 4-1 at Atlanta Open
This was the "Dreaming Shadow" list:
Biel-Tan
Autarch SR
Farseer SR
Seer
20x Guardians
2x5 Rangers
7 Spears
2 Spinners
Dreaming Shadow
Shadowseer
Yncarne
Yvraine
Silent Shroud
6 Skyweavers
I find it absolutely hilarious that it's labeled Dreaming Shadow. These people picking their primary should not be allowed. These people need to get someone who understands data.
I'll stand by my initial skepticism of 40kstats as anything but a directional tool.
Dreaming Shadow was Sean Nayden who went 7-1 at Atlanta Open.
Reborn Drukhari was Nathan Billings; 4-1 at Merry Slaaneshmas
Mortan was Adam Houser; 4-1 at Hooded Goblin 2
Ryza (Servitor Maniple) was Gabriel Rocheleau; 4-1 at Atlanta Open
Gabe is my Buddy. I have played against that list many times. I defeated it with ironhands going second losing an executioner and a redemptor turn 1. The list has a few gimicks. One of which is a 1 CP stratagem that tripples a unit of 12 destroyers damage and giving the destroyers a 4++ save by chaining between objectives. It is a dam strong list though and he is a good player. 1CP to get +1 damage and str for plasma is outragious....I pay 2 CP to get double shots with bolt rifles.
The point is you can't score objectives when you are dead. The game is and always be about killing. This is the most deadly edition of the game too it has never been more killy.
Killing is just one possible approach to denying your opponent the chance to score. It has clear value as part of your overall strategy to outscore your opponent but if you try to simplify the game down to "the game is and always will be about killing" then you don't understand the game.
IMO giving killing both a role in denying your opponent the opportunity to score and a direct VP reward is terrible mission design and missions which do this are at the heart of the current balance problems.
Xenomancers wrote: [
Do you know how silly you look when you defend the balance of a 69% WR faction?
Oh look, jumping right to putting words in my mouth. What a shock.
Please quote for me where I have stated that a 69% win rate is a good thing. I'll wait.
Xenomancers wrote: Suggesting a fix to an army winning over 60% of their game on average is what people who understand the game do.
Not when those fixes dont address the root cause of the disparity, nor address the collateral consequences that those changes would impart downstream. But thanks for, once again, admitting that you dont understand the current edition.
Yes I know a few marine factions WS/and RG mix detachments of marines to take advantage of WL and stratagems and due to the fact they have a turn 2/3 super doctrine....but they aren't 65% WR ironhands. They are 54-55% Whitescars and RG which aren't even relevant compared to ironhands.
Congratulations, youve proved my point that highly competitve armies dont need super doctrines to function. You may now pass go and collect 200 dakkabucks.
Xenomancers wrote: All you manage to do every time you speak is deomntrate how rude and insulting you are.
Stop showing you're fundamentally ignorant of what is happening and what people are saying to you, and I'll stop treating you like someone who wallows in their ignorance. It's a simple equation.
What's going on with Iyanden? Comparable VP tally as Custom, with a much lower VPL but also a Win rate worse than the major players?
Ok, so there was only 1 Iyanden player. He won 2 and lost 2. There is only one line item for the data by Chapter and it shows 27 VP avg for him and 17 avg for his opponents, so he probably lost two and crushed the next two.
Unfortunately the tournament doesn't tie back to the other data set.
I would really question the integrity of the 40kstats data sets.
If sample sizes are this small and swingy...yeah its not a source to pin an argument on.
How am I putting words in your mouth? I made a comparison between space marines and eldar...I pretty much assumed that everyone in here understands that mixing space marine detachments is not good as it actively punishes you by taking away really powerful abilities (super doctrines and in the case of adding allies you lose doctrines). Ofc eldar don't get any of those benefits anyways but Eldar are clearly superior to marines not getting those benefits AKA - look at the rest of the edition where marines did not get those benefits. Eldar lose nothing for mixing detachments - it would be a good way to go about fixing them IMO giving them some kind of negative for taking mixed detachments. Somehow me suggesting this in your words
"And once again you're demonstrating you have zero capacity to comprehend the functional components of the system you're hysterically groaning about. Multiple competitive builds utilize mixed Marine forces (most notably those comprised of RG and WS players), or even allies because the functionality provided by overlapping stratagems, relics and WLTs is superior to what they would get with their associated super-doctrine."
Somehow suggesting a fix to make eldar have a downside for mixing detachments I have "zero functional capacity to comprehend" the game system? That is outrageous man. It was actually kind of encouraging that they made these mono bonus rules for space marines in 2.0. I'm open to other fixes to CWE but something certainly needs to be done.
As a SW/DW/DA player those numbers make sense to me. Every single unit I have SM had something better, for cheaper with better strats. I imagine other xeno armies are feeling that way too.
At this point I feel that GW is holding my factions hostage behind a pay wall (that I can't even access because they are trying to wring as much $$ from the player base as they can).
With the slow release of the PA supplements I think we are stuck here for the foreseeable future. I don't know how much GW can do to knock down the offending factions if all of the PA stuff was meant to get to this power level. If they knock down IH but buff the hell out of DA it doesn't help anything and just makes the game bad but with a different oppressor.
I'd hope that GW is aware of these numbers but I'm finally starting to believe what a lot of posters have been screaming at me for a while now, that GW just doesn't care about competitive balance. That has to be the only answer that fits because numbers like these would be cause for alarm if you actually gave a feth. Which is a shame because competitive balance to me equates to casual balance.
Like The Scotsman said, playing against nu-marines without a fully optimized cut-throat list is enough to make most people step away from the game for a while and with all of the momentum that 8th had up until that point I really hope that GW realizes they are shooting themselves in the wallet (because, we all know that's what the people in charge care about) before too much more damage is done.
I haven't bought anything since the supplements released, I hope other people are voting with their wallets as well.
Xenomancers wrote: However. With the given data approximately 20% of your games will be against marines. I don't think that is a very big deal as most of the list are different. It is really only the mirrors of the exact same list that skew the data. Which that is likely pretty rare.
That's not entirely accurate. It compounds each round based on wins. I ran the numbers assuming a 100 man tournament, 20 marines players at a 66% win ratio for marines.
Round 1: 20% Chance to play against a marine player.
Round 2: 26%
Round 3: 40%
Round 4: 71%
Round 5 will have 8 players undefeated. 3 marine and 5 non marine. All 5 non marine players will have played a marine player by this point.
Grain of salt, statistically speaking, yadda, yadda.
By attributing a statement to me that I did not make. Again, quote for me where I stated that a 69% win rate is acceptable. I will *continue* to wait, as this is now the second time you've been asked to produce evidence of your statement. A statement which is a lie, and you know it.
Somehow suggesting a fix to make eldar have a downside for mixing detachments I have "zero functional capacity to comprehend" the game system?
You're not suggesting fixes. You're throwing up your hands and wailing that a new toy is better than the one you have, and demanding to be allowed to smash it.
I don't know. Honestly, I do get that marines needed a serious buff, it was just impossibly frustrating to see that buff applied not just to offense in an already super-deadly edition, but to ultra static gunline offense.
Marine firepower now doubles if you stand still. Their strongest stratagem combo is with a static artillery piece. Their assault bonus applies equally if they move forward and charge, or if they stand there and wait for the enemy to come to them, which, why would they not with beta boltguns? All the marine armies that relied on moving forward and attacking the enemy have to wait until turn 3 for that to happen, and the ones who sit there and squat in their deployment zone all game get their bonus from turn 1.
The problem with marines was never that they didn't kill enough, or that getting into rapid fire range was this impossibility, it was that they felt like paper that as soon as they hit the table they could be crumpled up and thrown away. And at the competitive level they STILL can have that problem, when people beat them they're still schlooping up whole squads of primaris dudes at a time with their riptides.
But the buffs give them the ability to two-turn table you right back, which I guess feels fine in tournaments but in settings where people weren't taking those optimised lists originally you now have marines removing 120+ hours of your painting efforts in a single shooting phase.
Xenomancers wrote: However. With the given data approximately 20% of your games will be against marines. I don't think that is a very big deal as most of the list are different. It is really only the mirrors of the exact same list that skew the data. Which that is likely pretty rare.
That's not entirely accurate. It compounds each round based on wins. I ran the numbers assuming a 100 man tournament, 20 marines players at a 66% win ratio for marines.
Round 1: 20% Chance to play against a marine player.
Round 2: 26%
Round 3: 40%
Round 4: 71%
Round 5 will have 8 players undefeated. 3 marine and 5 non marine. All 5 non marine players will have played a marine player by this point.
Grain of salt, statistically speaking, yadda, yadda.
That is a good point but from the general sense you should only be using the average marine winrate for 56ish to calculate that and not the ironhands winrate you are also assuming you are winning every game as well. That why I said approximately. Each round if you are winning your chances go up to face stronger lists but every loss you take decreases your chances. Marines are only 28% of the top 10 lists. So on a game per game basis your first game you have a 20% chance of playing against marines. On your last game you have a 28% chance. Every tournament will be different to with numbers of marines in there. I think it's safe to say you will play marines at least once in a GT but most of your games will not be against marines.
Xenomancers wrote: However. With the given data approximately 20% of your games will be against marines. I don't think that is a very big deal as most of the list are different. It is really only the mirrors of the exact same list that skew the data. Which that is likely pretty rare.
That's not entirely accurate. It compounds each round based on wins. I ran the numbers assuming a 100 man tournament, 20 marines players at a 66% win ratio for marines.
Round 1: 20% Chance to play against a marine player.
Round 2: 26%
Round 3: 40%
Round 4: 71%
Round 5 will have 8 players undefeated. 3 marine and 5 non marine. All 5 non marine players will have played a marine player by this point.
Grain of salt, statistically speaking, yadda, yadda.
That is a good point but from the general sense you should only be using the average marine winrate for 56ish to calculate that and not the ironhands winrate you are also assuming you are winning every game as well. That why I said approximately. Each round if you are winning your chances go up to face stronger lists but every loss you take decreases your chances. Marines are only 28% of the top 10 lists. So on a game per game basis your first game you have a 20% chance of playing against marines. On your last game you have a 28% chance. Every tournament will be different to with numbers of marines in there. I think it's safe to say you will play marines at least once in a GT but most of your games will not be against marines.
This was also without marines playing other marines. It was geared toward a worst case scenario. It was also based on winning. The moral of the story is if you go to a tournament you can't win it without facing marines at least once.
the_scotsman wrote: I don't know. Honestly, I do get that marines needed a serious buff, it was just impossibly frustrating to see that buff applied not just to offense in an already super-deadly edition, but to ultra static gunline offense.
Marine firepower now doubles if you stand still. Their strongest stratagem combo is with a static artillery piece. Their assault bonus applies equally if they move forward and charge, or if they stand there and wait for the enemy to come to them, which, why would they not with beta boltguns? All the marine armies that relied on moving forward and attacking the enemy have to wait until turn 3 for that to happen, and the ones who sit there and squat in their deployment zone all game get their bonus from turn 1.
The problem with marines was never that they didn't kill enough, or that getting into rapid fire range was this impossibility, it was that they felt like paper that as soon as they hit the table they could be crumpled up and thrown away. And at the competitive level they STILL can have that problem, when people beat them they're still schlooping up whole squads of primaris dudes at a time with their riptides.
But the buffs give them the ability to two-turn table you right back, which I guess feels fine in tournaments but in settings where people weren't taking those optimised lists originally you now have marines removing 120+ hours of your painting efforts in a single shooting phase.
If you were GW...how would you handle this problem? These is a massive distaste for the state of competitive play right now due to the prevalence of marines.I would say from looking at the data that most of this distastes is not entirely grounded in fact but a fair amount is personal bias against marines - they are certainly top tier but they aren't invaliding the rest of the field. Plus with the spicy peice of data that Ironhands are a clear outlier in power I think the solution is easy. Nerf Iron-hands with an instant hotfix and watch the data for the next few months.
I wouldn't do anything about it.
I'd look at my sales data to see if there's something not meeting sales projections. If there was, then I'd look to fix that.
As for what goes on in a tourney? Well, the game I make isn't designed for that. I'd tell you this upfront & warn you that it may/may not work well if you use it for such & that it's not my problem. I'd also tell you that I'm going to continue making it without concern for the tournament scene.
By attributing a statement to me that I did not make. Again, quote for me where I stated that a 69% win rate is acceptable. I will *continue* to wait, as this is now the second time you've been asked to produce evidence of your statement. A statement which is a lie, and you know it.
Somehow suggesting a fix to make eldar have a downside for mixing detachments I have "zero functional capacity to comprehend" the game system?
You're not suggesting fixes. You're throwing up your hands and wailing that a new toy is better than the one you have, and demanding to be allowed to smash it.
No I am suggesting fixes. To the armies that are winning the most. You just don't like the tone or something. Most likely you just don't want your eldar nerfed.
Serious question...do you know what inference is? Intelligent people make conclusions based on reason. I have inferred by your constant objection to my suggested fixes without offering a counter solution that you are okay with the 69% WR...
No I am suggesting fixes. To the armies that are winning the most. You just don't like the tone or something. Most likely you just don't want your eldar nerfed.
Considering my prime army is Deathwatch that's an exceptionally hilarious statement.
Serious question...do you know what inference is? Intelligent people make conclusions based on reason. I have inferred by your constant objection to my suggested fixes without offering a counter solution that you are okay with the 69% WR...
You would be painfully incorrect.
For the third time. Quote for me where I stated that a 69% win rate is acceptable.
You cannot, because the assertion is a lie. A lie you continue to propagate.
No I am suggesting fixes. To the armies that are winning the most. You just don't like the tone or something. Most likely you just don't want your eldar nerfed.
Considering my prime army is Deathwatch that's an exceptionally hilarious statement.
Serious question...do you know what inference is? Intelligent people make conclusions based on reason. I have inferred by your constant objection to my suggested fixes without offering a counter solution that you are okay with the 69% WR...
You would be painfully incorrect.
For the third time. Quote for me where I stated that a 69% win rate is acceptable.
You cannot, because the assertion is a lie. A lie you continue to propagate.
I just told you I have inferred through reason that you are okay with a 69% WR for custom eldar because you attack all my ideas without offering a solution. Yet you again ask for evidence of a quote I never said you made - only that I have deducted through common sense reasoning that you must be okay with 69% WR eldar. Still yet to give any ideas of your own. While you derail the thread with insults to my intelligence. Thank you so much for the constructive discussion you've provided.
I have a particular skill for identifying eldar players BTW. At this I am an expert. Over the years of people defending WK and scatter bikes and wave serpents...there are particular speech patterns and vitriol that all eldar fanbois share. (That was a joke BTW)
If sample sizes are this small and swingy...yeah its not a source to pin an argument on.
Depends on the faction. This is the list with games included so you can parse the results a bit better: The data is still organized in a very odd manner so there's bound to be some other quirks in there.
Spoiler:
It's even worse for ultras that I though. Does this include successors? I am assuming it does. Anyway to seperate the parent chapters from their successors?
It's even worse for ultras that I though. Does this include successors? I am assuming it does. Anyway to seperate the parent chapters from their successors?
Ultramarines are curiously low. There is no separation from Successors in the data.
Sort of makes you think that GW got it right except for some silly combinations with the easiest such ones available to IH. Then the mediocre update to Eldar who clearly have strong rules already.
Ah...ok...I think I understand this weird format a little better. Hang on.
It's even worse for ultras that I though. Does this include successors? I am assuming it does. Anyway to seperate the parent chapters from their successors?
Ultramarines are curiously low. There is no separation from Successors in the data.
Sort of makes you think that GW got it right except for some silly combinations with the easiest such ones available to IH. Then the mediocre update to Eldar who clearly have strong rules already.
Ah...ok...I think I understand this weird format a little better. Hang on.
It's hard to avoid the confirmation bias here for me but It really isn't surprising to see Ultras that far down. Actual Ultramarine are actually a nerf from their previous form which was about a 45% WR with Gman build...remember...the OP build? Successors are a whole other story. I would expect to see the Ultra successors higher as I do pretty well with them. They are more of a TAC choice.
I just told you I have inferred through reason that you are okay with a 69% WR for custom eldar because you attack all my ideas without offering a solution. Yet you again ask for evidence of a quote I never said you made - only that I have deducted through common sense reasoning that you must be okay with 69% WR eldar. Still yet to give any ideas of your own.
You are quite possibly the most self-contradictory hypocrite I've seen in a long time. In the same sentence that you deny claiming a thing, you again repeat the claim!
Since you are plainly incapable of understanding all but the simplest of sentences, lets fix that:
I take no position on whether or not a 69% win rate in a limited data set has any meaning on the overall health of the present edition of Warhammer 40k.
While you derail the thread with insults to my intelligence. Thank you so much for the constructive discussion you've provided.
Stop posting hystrionic bs and I'll stop calling you on it. Everything from you since the advent of 8.5e has been bald-faced spleen venting overreaction and instance after instance of ignorance. Remember when 20 noise marines were as powerful as 10 Repulsor Executioners? How about when Squig Buggies were the absolute god tier unit?
Your inability to read beyond the top line of a limited data set, and your conclusion from that that a single specific trait is the root cause of all evils in the present balance environment is the latest example of that trend of unparalleled incompetence.
I just told you I have inferred through reason that you are okay with a 69% WR for custom eldar because you attack all my ideas without offering a solution. Yet you again ask for evidence of a quote I never said you made - only that I have deducted through common sense reasoning that you must be okay with 69% WR eldar. Still yet to give any ideas of your own.
You are quite possibly the most self-contradictory hypocrite I've seen in a long time. In the same sentence that you deny claiming a thing, you again repeat the claim!
Since you are plainly incapable of understanding all but the simplest of sentences, lets fix that:
I take no position on whether or not a 69% win rate in a limited data set has any meaning on the overall health of the present edition of Warhammer 40k.
While you derail the thread with insults to my intelligence. Thank you so much for the constructive discussion you've provided.
Stop posting hystrionic bs and I'll stop calling you on it. Everything from you since the advent of 8.5e has been bald-faced spleen venting overreaction and instance after instance of ignorance. Remember when 20 noise marines were as powerful as 10 Repulsor Executioners? How about when Squig Buggies were the absolute god tier unit?
Your inability to read beyond the top line of a limited data set, and your conclusion from that that a single specific trait is the root cause of all evils in the present balance environment is the latest example of that trend of unparalleled incompetence.
You just lack reading comprehension here I think. I said that I inferred your meaning...Not that you said you were okay with 69% WR. Maybe we could just move on from this and you could start giving constructive ideas because...I am assuming here that...you aren't okay with 69% WR Eldar?
Xenomancers wrote: It's hard to avoid the confirmation bias here for me but It really isn't surprising to see Ultras that far down. Actual Ultramarine are actually a nerf from their previous form which was about a 45% WR with Gman build...remember...the OP build? Successors are a whole other story. I would expect to see the Ultra successors higher as I do pretty well with them. They are more of a TAC choice.
I can give you this -- each list and the detachments along with specialists. There were a number of UM that opted not to go mono in Nov/Dec. Almost 50%. They're doing moderately well considering the meta they're fighting in so I'd still place them as "strong".
You just lack reading comprehension here I think. I said that I inferred your meaning...Not that you said you were okay with 69% WR. Maybe we could just move on from this and you could start giving constructive ideas because...I am assuming here that...you aren't okay with 69% WR Eldar?
I take no position on whether or not a 69% win rate in a limited data set has any meaning on the overall health of the present edition of Warhammer 40k.
Emphasis fething mine. For the love of god actually read what people write.
Xenomancers wrote: It's hard to avoid the confirmation bias here for me but It really isn't surprising to see Ultras that far down. Actual Ultramarine are actually a nerf from their previous form which was about a 45% WR with Gman build...remember...the OP build? Successors are a whole other story. I would expect to see the Ultra successors higher as I do pretty well with them. They are more of a TAC choice.
I can give you this -- each list and the detachments along with specialists. There were a number of UM that opted not to go mono in Nov/Dec. Almost 50%. They're doing moderately well considering the meta they're fighting in so I'd still place them as "strong".
Spoiler:
The Ultras and knight lists are likely Gman with knights. It's not doing too well. lol.
You just lack reading comprehension here I think. I said that I inferred your meaning...Not that you said you were okay with 69% WR. Maybe we could just move on from this and you could start giving constructive ideas because...I am assuming here that...you aren't okay with 69% WR Eldar?
I take no position on whether or not a 69% win rate in a limited data set has any meaning on the overall health of the present edition of Warhammer 40k.
Emphasis fething mine. For the love of god actually read what people write.
Did you just prove me right by providing a quote (which I didn't see obviously) that you actually don't care that eldar are at 69% WR in december because you don't think the 69% has any meaning. LOL. Brilliant man. This is the best data source we have access to. Eldar already had pretty high WR and they got buffed. You'd expect the WR to go up. It did.
It's even worse for ultras that I though. Does this include successors? I am assuming it does. Anyway to seperate the parent chapters from their successors?
Ultramarines are curiously low. There is no separation from Successors in the data.
Sort of makes you think that GW got it right except for some silly combinations with the easiest such ones available to IH. Then the mediocre update to Eldar who clearly have strong rules already.
Ah...ok...I think I understand this weird format a little better. Hang on.
It's hard to avoid the confirmation bias here for me but It really isn't surprising to see Ultras that far down. Actual Ultramarine are actually a nerf from their previous form which was about a 45% WR with Gman build...remember...the OP build?
Do you really think the ideal Codex-1.0 UM list would outperform the ideal Codex-2.0 UM list? All the points drops, new rules, etc were somehow a step down?
It's even worse for ultras that I though. Does this include successors? I am assuming it does. Anyway to seperate the parent chapters from their successors?
Ultramarines are curiously low. There is no separation from Successors in the data.
Sort of makes you think that GW got it right except for some silly combinations with the easiest such ones available to IH. Then the mediocre update to Eldar who clearly have strong rules already.
Ah...ok...I think I understand this weird format a little better. Hang on.
It's hard to avoid the confirmation bias here for me but It really isn't surprising to see Ultras that far down. Actual Ultramarine are actually a nerf from their previous form which was about a 45% WR with Gman build...remember...the OP build?
Do you really think the ideal Codex-1.0 UM list would outperform the ideal Codex-2.0 UM list? All the points drops, new rules, etc were somehow a step down?
There were practically no points drops. Aggressors are now 3 wounds and cents now 4 wounds. Repulsors executioner actually increased in cost. Hard to say...It's certainly close. RR all wounds is significantly better than -1 AP. Would have to really test it out to be sure. Certainly more versatile for 2.0 codex but not a significant buff except against -1 to hits spam.
I still maintain that the biggest problem with 40k is trying to play it competitively. It simply cannot be balanced and keep the fluff nature of the game. The game is most interesting when playing to a fun/cool mission with the eventual winner a nonissue or bragging right. I'm coming from a tournament judging standpoint as well. Judging 40k tournaments really shows how unfun the game can actually be.
Brotherjanus wrote: I still maintain that the biggest problem with 40k is trying to play it competitively. It simply cannot be balanced and keep the fluff nature of the game. The game is most interesting when playing to a fun/cool mission with the eventual winner a nonissue or bragging right. I'm coming from a tournament judging standpoint as well. Judging 40k tournaments really shows how unfun the game can actually be.
Even at a casual level the game is so grossly unbalanced, even if both are taking semi strong armies, the power difference between basic IH list and a basic Ork list is insane.
Xenomancers wrote: However. With the given data approximately 20% of your games will be against marines. I don't think that is a very big deal as most of the list are different. It is really only the mirrors of the exact same list that skew the data. Which that is likely pretty rare.
That's not entirely accurate. It compounds each round based on wins. I ran the numbers assuming a 100 man tournament, 20 marines players at a 66% win ratio for marines.
Round 1: 20% Chance to play against a marine player.
Round 2: 26%
Round 3: 40%
Round 4: 71%
Round 5 will have 8 players undefeated. 3 marine and 5 non marine. All 5 non marine players will have played a marine player by this point.
Grain of salt, statistically speaking, yadda, yadda.
That is a good point but from the general sense you should only be using the average marine winrate for 56ish to calculate that and not the ironhands winrate you are also assuming you are winning every game as well. That why I said approximately. Each round if you are winning your chances go up to face stronger lists but every loss you take decreases your chances. Marines are only 28% of the top 10 lists. So on a game per game basis your first game you have a 20% chance of playing against marines. On your last game you have a 28% chance. Every tournament will be different to with numbers of marines in there. I think it's safe to say you will play marines at least once in a GT but most of your games will not be against marines.
This was also without marines playing other marines. It was geared toward a worst case scenario. It was also based on winning. The moral of the story is if you go to a tournament you can't win it without facing marines at least once.
Which was fine for most people when marines were a free win now theres much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Xenomancers wrote: However. With the given data approximately 20% of your games will be against marines. I don't think that is a very big deal as most of the list are different. It is really only the mirrors of the exact same list that skew the data. Which that is likely pretty rare.
That's not entirely accurate. It compounds each round based on wins. I ran the numbers assuming a 100 man tournament, 20 marines players at a 66% win ratio for marines.
Round 1: 20% Chance to play against a marine player.
Round 2: 26%
Round 3: 40%
Round 4: 71%
Round 5 will have 8 players undefeated. 3 marine and 5 non marine. All 5 non marine players will have played a marine player by this point.
Grain of salt, statistically speaking, yadda, yadda.
That is a good point but from the general sense you should only be using the average marine winrate for 56ish to calculate that and not the ironhands winrate you are also assuming you are winning every game as well. That why I said approximately. Each round if you are winning your chances go up to face stronger lists but every loss you take decreases your chances. Marines are only 28% of the top 10 lists. So on a game per game basis your first game you have a 20% chance of playing against marines. On your last game you have a 28% chance. Every tournament will be different to with numbers of marines in there. I think it's safe to say you will play marines at least once in a GT but most of your games will not be against marines.
This was also without marines playing other marines. It was geared toward a worst case scenario. It was also based on winning. The moral of the story is if you go to a tournament you can't win it without facing marines at least once.
Which was fine for most people when marines were a free win now theres much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
The moral of the story right now is that Optimized marines (ironhands) is roughly as powerful as optimized eldar (cumstom eldar) yet...No one is bitching about eldar lol. Anti marine bias is extreme in this game. Extremely extreme. Ofc Ironhands is too strong - that much is clear just by looking at the other marine armies minus imperial fists which are also drastically OP compared to other marines.
Crimson wrote: The Eldar being OP is due basically one thing that GW refuses to fix, the Alaitoc trait. Hit penalty traits should just not exist, they feth up the maths so badly that balancing them is pretty impossible. If removing this makes Eldar too weak, they can receive other buffs that benefit all of their subfactions.
They CAN exist, but as an army wide bonus its pretty impossible to balance in a faction as broad as Eldar.
Xenomancers wrote: The moral of the story right now is that Optimized marines (ironhands) is roughly as powerful as optimized eldar (cumstom eldar) yet...No one is bitching about eldar lol.
Even if this were true, I find a game against optimized Eldar to infinitely more interesting than a game against Iron Hands. Optimized Eldar are mobile and allow for some counterplay, and there's more opportunity for the Eldar player to screw up. Iron Hands sit in a corner, gunline, and win through attrition.
In a more casual context, Eldar remain mobile, while Space Marines are overwhelmingly static (or at least slow) killblobs that huddle around their auras and shoot things to death. They don't have much in the way of weaknesses or counterplay, they're generically good at everything, they're just boring to play against.
So yeah, even if it were true that optimized Eldar are just as powerful as Iron Hands (which they aren't), I'd still complain about Iron Hands more, because balance is not the sole thing that makes the game fun. Right now Iron Hands aren't just hideously imbalanced, they represent an un-fun playstyle too, and the two combine to make for bad games.
Xenomancers wrote: The moral of the story right now is that Optimized marines (ironhands) is roughly as powerful as optimized eldar (cumstom eldar) yet...No one is bitching about eldar lol.
Even if this were true, I find a game against optimized Eldar to infinitely more interesting than a game against Iron Hands. Optimized Eldar are mobile and allow for some counterplay, and there's more opportunity for the Eldar player to screw up. Iron Hands sit in a corner, gunline, and win through attrition.
In a more casual context, Eldar remain mobile, while Space Marines are overwhelmingly static (or at least slow) killblobs that huddle around their auras and shoot things to death. They don't have much in the way of weaknesses or counterplay, they're generically good at everything, they're just boring to play against.
So yeah, even if it were true that optimized Eldar are just as powerful as Iron Hands (which they aren't), I'd still complain about Iron Hands more, because balance is not the sole thing that makes the game fun. Right now Iron Hands aren't just hideously imbalanced, they represent an un-fun playstyle too, and the two combine to make for bad games.
Iron Hands may be static gunlines but other armies aren't. I mean if an ultramarines player isn't running and gunning he might as well not HAVE a super doctrine
Brotherjanus wrote: I still maintain that the biggest problem with 40k is trying to play it competitively. It simply cannot be balanced and keep the fluff nature of the game. The game is most interesting when playing to a fun/cool mission with the eventual winner a nonissue or bragging right. I'm coming from a tournament judging standpoint as well. Judging 40k tournaments really shows how unfun the game can actually be.
People keep saying this, but is there a real reason beyond "GW sucks at balance" for why 40k can't be balanced? Seriously, every single time this comes up there is an entire legion of white knights ready to defend GW that could put Bretonnia to shame, and yet not a single one can give a reason why its impossible. It's this awful cycle of "GW sucks at balance so we don't expect 40k to be balanced" followed by "We don't expect 40k to be balanced, so GW has no incentive to get better."
DominayTrix wrote: ...is there a real reason beyond "GW sucks at balance" for why 40k can't be balanced?...
Codex release cycle. Armies get overhauled entirely in an uneven manner, the emphasis on physical books means the lead time on actually fixing anything is years long, and the independent design teams mean there's no central communication or strategy with regards to balance.
Better-balanced games tend to have a smaller number of armies, release things in 'waves' of one thing each for a bunch of forces, and have a rules distribution model that doesn't involve a central repository of all units for one force, which means they have a more centralized plan for how the game's going to work, a better idea of how armies are supposed to compare to each other, no armies get "left behind" with no releases, and they have much more delicate/finer control over updating a few things at a time frequently rather than everything all at once infrequently.
Brotherjanus wrote: I still maintain that the biggest problem with 40k is trying to play it competitively. It simply cannot be balanced and keep the fluff nature of the game. The game is most interesting when playing to a fun/cool mission with the eventual winner a nonissue or bragging right. I'm coming from a tournament judging standpoint as well. Judging 40k tournaments really shows how unfun the game can actually be.
People keep saying this, but is there a real reason beyond "GW sucks at balance" for why 40k can't be balanced? Seriously, every single time this comes up there is an entire legion of white knights ready to defend GW that could put Bretonnia to shame, and yet not a single one can give a reason why its impossible. It's this awful cycle of "GW sucks at balance so we don't expect 40k to be balanced" followed by "We don't expect 40k to be balanced, so GW has no incentive to get better."
It also generally ignores when GWdoes manage to do a good job or improve balance over time. Summer of 2019 was, by most accounts, actually fairly balanced. You saw a lot more variety in lists and armies than ever before.
Then Space marines came in like a sledge hammer and ruined it...
Brotherjanus wrote: I still maintain that the biggest problem with 40k is trying to play it competitively. It simply cannot be balanced and keep the fluff nature of the game. The game is most interesting when playing to a fun/cool mission with the eventual winner a nonissue or bragging right. I'm coming from a tournament judging standpoint as well. Judging 40k tournaments really shows how unfun the game can actually be.
People keep saying this, but is there a real reason beyond "GW sucks at balance" for why 40k can't be balanced? Seriously, every single time this comes up there is an entire legion of white knights ready to defend GW that could put Bretonnia to shame, and yet not a single one can give a reason why its impossible. It's this awful cycle of "GW sucks at balance so we don't expect 40k to be balanced" followed by "We don't expect 40k to be balanced, so GW has no incentive to get better."
It also generally ignores when GWdoes manage to do a good job or improve balance over time. Summer of 2019 was, by most accounts, actually fairly balanced. You saw a lot more variety in lists and armies than ever before.
Then Space marines came in like a sledge hammer and ruined it...
Possibly because the model of independent Codex-writing teams means that they gets things right it's by accident rather than by design.
Xenomancers wrote: The moral of the story right now is that Optimized marines (ironhands) is roughly as powerful as optimized eldar (cumstom eldar) yet...No one is bitching about eldar lol.
Even if this were true, I find a game against optimized Eldar to infinitely more interesting than a game against Iron Hands. Optimized Eldar are mobile and allow for some counterplay, and there's more opportunity for the Eldar player to screw up. Iron Hands sit in a corner, gunline, and win through attrition.
In a more casual context, Eldar remain mobile, while Space Marines are overwhelmingly static (or at least slow) killblobs that huddle around their auras and shoot things to death. They don't have much in the way of weaknesses or counterplay, they're generically good at everything, they're just boring to play against.
So yeah, even if it were true that optimized Eldar are just as powerful as Iron Hands (which they aren't), I'd still complain about Iron Hands more, because balance is not the sole thing that makes the game fun. Right now Iron Hands aren't just hideously imbalanced, they represent an un-fun playstyle too, and the two combine to make for bad games.
In general. Ironhands do not need to or prefer to group up around auras. They don't need to. They get RR 1's with heavies and can move and shoot without penalty. Heck Ironhands can do literally any play-style they want. The statement I made that Ironahds and custom eldar is based in statistical fact. They are winning at about the same rate of 68-69%. So you can argue whatever you want about that. You can't argue with the statistics. Me personally - when I play marines I advance at the opponent every turn. People do complain about the stacking of auras....but what army isn't stacking auras? Or stacking stratagems? or something similar. Marines participate in every phase of the game - if your opponents aren't utilizing their abilities they are just bad generals of you are playing a game mode where they can win just by exploiting their ranged firepower advantage and win (I'm not sure what game mode that is actually because there are objectives in the middle of the table in basically every game mode).
Brotherjanus wrote: I still maintain that the biggest problem with 40k is trying to play it competitively. It simply cannot be balanced and keep the fluff nature of the game. The game is most interesting when playing to a fun/cool mission with the eventual winner a nonissue or bragging right. I'm coming from a tournament judging standpoint as well. Judging 40k tournaments really shows how unfun the game can actually be.
People keep saying this, but is there a real reason beyond "GW sucks at balance" for why 40k can't be balanced? Seriously, every single time this comes up there is an entire legion of white knights ready to defend GW that could put Bretonnia to shame, and yet not a single one can give a reason why its impossible. It's this awful cycle of "GW sucks at balance so we don't expect 40k to be balanced" followed by "We don't expect 40k to be balanced, so GW has no incentive to get better."
No one says it is impossible. It just isn't very easy. Lots of people will say it is easy and I'll claim that it is not when you're rolling almost one codex per month. You can't test all of that. They could listen to the play testers better, so, here's hoping they felt the slap on their wrist for marines.
Here's win rates for any army with at least one detachment mentioned over the past year or so.
(includes mirror matches and all mission types)
Asuryani v AA You can see how AA and Asuryani are coming to parity. AA has far less flux than it did before and Eldar began to adapt after their PA. This also doesn't mean AA are pleasant to play with or against. The IGOUGO system exacerbates that issue.
Spoiler:
Asuryani v Orks
Orks are suffering a bit. Not sure what CA will do to them and their PA seems pretty far out.
Spoiler:
Asuryani v CSM CSM are in a bad way, but notice the uptick near the end there - fluke or not? I'll have to review the data.
Spoiler:
Asuryani v Nids
Nids are also in a bad way. Can CA and PA bring them up?
Spoiler:
Asuryani v T'au
T'au continues to hold its own, mostly. Does any of this mean anyone using T'au can take any list they want? No. They're really one dimensional and they need work.
Spoiler:
How will these trends continue into the future? I'll continue to facilitate views like this as I get more data and provide more granularity where possible. I'll get 2018 loaded as well and give the longest view of the state of the game as I can.
DominayTrix wrote: ...is there a real reason beyond "GW sucks at balance" for why 40k can't be balanced?...
Codex release cycle. Armies get overhauled entirely in an uneven manner, the emphasis on physical books means the lead time on actually fixing anything is years long, and the independent design teams mean there's no central communication or strategy with regards to balance.
Better-balanced games tend to have a smaller number of armies, release things in 'waves' of one thing each for a bunch of forces, and have a rules distribution model that doesn't involve a central repository of all units for one force, which means they have a more centralized plan for how the game's going to work, a better idea of how armies are supposed to compare to each other, no armies get "left behind" with no releases, and they have much more delicate/finer control over updating a few things at a time frequently rather than everything all at once infrequently.
This. The uneven release schedule just kills any hope of maintaining balance. The other thing that kills it for competitive play is that without a checkmate condition it's very hard to recover once you start losing the attrition fight, and that sort of thing needs to be baked into the core rules. It's really hard to bolt such a thing on onto a system after the fact.
BrianDavion wrote: the chaos uptick looks like it might confirm to Faith and Fury, a few of the decent legions got even better with that didn't they?
From the data we reviewed earlier a lot of alpha legion armies were doing really well (not a ton mind you) Alpha legion got a big buff.
This is the data from that period. Note that an army just has to have one of these detachments in it to be that army, so AL;IW;NL army with a 60% win rate would boost all three of those sub factions (and it could have other soup, too).
Alpha Legion 6 8 66.11%
Iron Warriors 1 1 60.00%
Night Lords 1 1 60.00%
Red Corsairs 1 1 60.00%
Renegade Chapters 1 1 60.00%
We have very few games post PA and none post CA. The coming months should be interesting.
Gosh I wonder why every other post is whining and crying that marines are underpowered when theyre underpowered, and every other post is whining and crying that theyre overpowered when theyre overpowered?
It cant be that every other player plays them, nearly all the games focus is on them and they are basically the protagonists of the game. It must be "anti marine bias."
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also ir definitely cant be that when gw decided to feth with balance mid edition the first army that gets a huge boost catches a large amount of flack. I know in 7th nobody complained about decurions even after other factions got brought up to the necrons level.
It is a well established fact that if you play marines now your job is to pretend everything is fine and if anything is not fine everyone else is definitely gonna get their turn and the balance will come back so pretty please dont avoid playing marine players. Its basically a tradition at this point! Cmon, just let me play with my decurion, im sure orks will get one too! No formations, but thats not fair!
Marines encounter the mirror match extremely commonly which is going to inevitably pull towards a 50% win rate.
They are also the entry level army, and also the most popular, so they also have by far, the largest amount of bad players dragging down that average.
But again.
Stats mean sweet F.A.
If your only understanding of competitive play is the the statistical results of other players, YOU SHOULD NOT BE DISCUSSING COMPETITIVE PLAY. If you can't tell why Marines are the best army of the game you just don't understand the game on a competitive level, it's that flat out simple.
the_scotsman wrote: Gosh I wonder why every other post is whining and crying that marines are underpowered when theyre underpowered, and every other post is whining and crying that theyre overpowered when theyre overpowered?
It cant be that every other player plays them, nearly all the games focus is on them and they are basically the protagonists of the game. It must be "anti marine bias."
What he said..
But really both are gross. The main difference is that Eldar OPness can clearly be laid at the foot of one thing: CHE.
Post PR , the eldar planes are an even bigger crutch propping up the faction grossly skewing performance.. Eldar planes need to be reigned in.
Bs2+ with exarch power with traits on top? Its gross... Almost as gross as reroll everything and additional damage and AP all the time for free...
CHE should stop exiting and there should only be CH and Hemlocks. Gw really really loves selling those planes so watcha gunna do..?
Marines encounter the mirror match extremely commonly which is going to inevitably pull towards a 50% win rate.
They are also the entry level army, and also the most popular, so they also have by far, the largest amount of bad players dragging down that average.
But again.
Stats mean sweet F.A.
If your only understanding of competitive play is the the statistical results of other players, YOU SHOULD NOT BE DISCUSSING COMPETITIVE PLAY. If you can't tell why Marines are the best army of the game you just don't understand the game on a competitive level, it's that flat out simple.
We are looking at adjusted data with mirror matches removed. Stats don't mean FA. Stats is pretty much everything. No one is saying marines aren't the best army in the game ether. They clearly are - they just have some company.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
the_scotsman wrote: Gosh I wonder why every other post is whining and crying that marines are underpowered when theyre underpowered, and every other post is whining and crying that theyre overpowered when theyre overpowered?
It cant be that every other player plays them, nearly all the games focus is on them and they are basically the protagonists of the game. It must be "anti marine bias."
What he said..
But really both are gross. The main difference is that Eldar OPness can clearly be laid at the foot of one thing: CHE.
Post PR , the eldar planes are an even bigger crutch propping up the faction grossly skewing performance.. Eldar planes need to be reigned in.
Bs2+ with exarch power with traits on top? Its gross... Almost as gross as reroll everything and additional damage and AP all the time for free...
CHE should stop exiting and there should only be CH and Hemlocks. Gw really really loves selling those planes so watcha gunna do..?
Yeah...pretty much no. Eldar have a huge number of units to abuse the extremely busted expert crafters custom trait. Which is basically the same trait that almost every marine list abuses too - MOA.
Eldar flyers are really good but they got leveled down with the CHE going up in price and the flacon going down. Support weapons are just silly with EC.
The main difference between eldar OPness and space marine OPness is that they are different armies and play a lot differently.
Marines encounter the mirror match extremely commonly which is going to inevitably pull towards a 50% win rate.
They are also the entry level army, and also the most popular, so they also have by far, the largest amount of bad players dragging down that average.
But again.
Stats mean sweet F.A.
If your only understanding of competitive play is the the statistical results of other players, YOU SHOULD NOT BE DISCUSSING COMPETITIVE PLAY. If you can't tell why Marines are the best army of the game you just don't understand the game on a competitive level, it's that flat out simple.
We are looking at adjusted data with mirror matches removed. Stats don't mean FA. Stats is pretty much everything. No one is saying marines aren't the best army in the game ether. They clearly are - they just have some company.
Stats mean actually nothing, but if you insist, for your sake heres an interesting stat. 27% of lists are marines, and (yet) 52% of the top 5 will be marines. Insane numbers. There is nobody accompanying that.
Oh look, a thread supposedly about balance from Xeno. The poster who brought us such gems as "the Stompa is overpowered" and "the Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy is probably the best shooting unit in the game, point for point".
I'll be taking the opinions within this thread and their objectivity with a hefty mountain of salt methinks.
Daedalus81 wrote: The whole support weapons dynamic is basically because they split after deploying granting them all a reroll hit and wound.
'Extremely busted' might be taking it too far though.
Plenty of units can be taken in singles with 2 quality shots. It practically doubles damage on an army straight up when you max it out. In practice it's pretty close to a reroll all hits and wounds buff for your whole army...and it only costs you 1 of 2 traits...LOL.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
An Actual Englishman wrote: Oh look, a thread supposedly about balance from Xeno. The poster who brought us such gems as "the Stompa is overpowered" and "the Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy is probably the best shooting unit in the game, point for point".
I'll be taking the opinions within this thread and their objectivity with a hefty mountain of salt methinks.
Never said stompa was overpowered so that is a straight lie. It is pretty clear that the stompa is actually very bad. Squig buggy on the other hand is an insane value at this time. There has not been nearly enough time to see the results from chapter approved I'm not even sure if CA tournaments have been recorded at this time. Plus you gotta give all the ork players time to build and paint all their buggies. Give it a month. If it turns out I am wrong I'll be the first to admit it. Orks are one of the few armies I don't play so I have to wait for others to exploit it.
Marines encounter the mirror match extremely commonly which is going to inevitably pull towards a 50% win rate.
They are also the entry level army, and also the most popular, so they also have by far, the largest amount of bad players dragging down that average.
But again.
Stats mean sweet F.A.
If your only understanding of competitive play is the the statistical results of other players, YOU SHOULD NOT BE DISCUSSING COMPETITIVE PLAY. If you can't tell why Marines are the best army of the game you just don't understand the game on a competitive level, it's that flat out simple.
We are looking at adjusted data with mirror matches removed. Stats don't mean FA. Stats is pretty much everything. No one is saying marines aren't the best army in the game ether. They clearly are - they just have some company.
Stats mean actually nothing, but if you insist, for your sake heres an interesting stat. 27% of lists are marines, and (yet) 52% of the top 5 will be marines. Insane numbers. There is nobody accompanying that.
Where are you getting that stat from exactly? 40k stats doesn't have a top 5 feature I can see. Only top 10. I broke that down in my OP. 22% of total lists and 28% of top lists since november. OFC stats can only give you an idea of what is happening and this tool isn't perfect. Deadalus has provided some excellent additional data though. Like the data that shows Custom eldar is performing at about the same rate as Ironhands.
An Actual Englishman wrote: Oh look, a thread supposedly about balance from Xeno. The poster who brought us such gems as "the Stompa is overpowered" and "the Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy is probably the best shooting unit in the game, point for point".
I'll be taking the opinions within this thread and their objectivity with a hefty mountain of salt methinks.
wasn't the "Stompa is OP" thread a tongue in cheek thread about how now that it lost a whole 50 points (it's generally agreed to be a few HUNDRED over pointed) it's now "totally OP"? or was this another post I missed?
Marines encounter the mirror match extremely commonly which is going to inevitably pull towards a 50% win rate.
They are also the entry level army, and also the most popular, so they also have by far, the largest amount of bad players dragging down that average.
But again.
Stats mean sweet F.A.
If your only understanding of competitive play is the the statistical results of other players, YOU SHOULD NOT BE DISCUSSING COMPETITIVE PLAY. If you can't tell why Marines are the best army of the game you just don't understand the game on a competitive level, it's that flat out simple.
We are looking at adjusted data with mirror matches removed. Stats don't mean FA. Stats is pretty much everything. No one is saying marines aren't the best army in the game ether. They clearly are - they just have some company. Automatically Appended Next Post:
the_scotsman wrote: Gosh I wonder why every other post is whining and crying that marines are underpowered when theyre underpowered, and every other post is whining and crying that theyre overpowered when theyre overpowered?
It cant be that every other player plays them, nearly all the games focus is on them and they are basically the protagonists of the game. It must be "anti marine bias."
What he said.. But really both are gross. The main difference is that Eldar OPness can clearly be laid at the foot of one thing: CHE.
Post PR , the eldar planes are an even bigger crutch propping up the faction grossly skewing performance.. Eldar planes need to be reigned in. Bs2+ with exarch power with traits on top? Its gross... Almost as gross as reroll everything and additional damage and AP all the time for free...
CHE should stop exiting and there should only be CH and Hemlocks. Gw really really loves selling those planes so watcha gunna do..?
Yeah...pretty much no. Eldar have a huge number of units to abuse the extremely busted expert crafters custom trait. Which is basically the same trait that almost every marine list abuses too - MOA. Eldar flyers are really good but they got leveled down with the CHE going up in price and the flacon going down. Support weapons are just silly with EC.
The main difference between eldar OPness and space marine OPness is that they are different armies and play a lot differently.
15 pts increase where everything else went down whilst receiving a massive offencive boost is levelling in your eyes ? Jeezus… Abuse a trait that's a copy and paste of Slamanders Hand-me-down trait? Clearly only OP if eldar have it. SM have the same trait and SM suck...
Are you're actually complaining that all units benefit from a trait? hats kind of the point... The custom traits mean that you lists that don't use planes have a chance of going toe to toe.. But as soon as you optimise with fliers it gets obnoxious. I mean if you cant see that I don't know what to tell you. I've been banging on this drum for god knows how long but whatever.
This is a post outlining the top lists from CWE forum - The ONLY top 5 list that did not contain fliers was a soup list.
Spoiler:
wuestenfux wrote: The Aeldari meta has shifted slightly (better significantly if complared with 7th ed). Have a look into the recent winner (places 1-4) armies at 40kstats.com. Here are the lists: [spoiler] Alex Ramsay – Maelstrom Massacre (4th place)
Marines encounter the mirror match extremely commonly which is going to inevitably pull towards a 50% win rate.
They are also the entry level army, and also the most popular, so they also have by far, the largest amount of bad players dragging down that average.
But again.
Stats mean sweet F.A.
If your only understanding of competitive play is the the statistical results of other players, YOU SHOULD NOT BE DISCUSSING COMPETITIVE PLAY. If you can't tell why Marines are the best army of the game you just don't understand the game on a competitive level, it's that flat out simple.
We are looking at adjusted data with mirror matches removed. Stats don't mean FA. Stats is pretty much everything. No one is saying marines aren't the best army in the game ether. They clearly are - they just have some company.
Stats mean actually nothing, but if you insist, for your sake heres an interesting stat. 27% of lists are marines, and (yet) 52% of the top 5 will be marines. Insane numbers. There is nobody accompanying that.
Where are you getting that stat from exactly? 40k stats doesn't have a top 5 feature I can see. Only top 10. I broke that down in my OP. 22% of total lists and 28% of top lists since november. OFC stats can only give you an idea of what is happening and this tool isn't perfect. Deadalus has provided some excellent additional data though. Like the data that shows Custom eldar is performing at about the same rate as Ironhands.
you can also total up the GT placings manually for the last few months without too much trouble if you feel so strongly that stats are better than using your brain
Xenomancers wrote: Plenty of units can be taken in singles with 2 quality shots. It practically doubles damage on an army straight up when you max it out. In practice it's pretty close to a reroll all hits and wounds buff for your whole army...and it only costs you 1 of 2 traits...LOL.
Come now. Don't fall victim to hyperbole. People are running vibro cannons, which is 35 points for an autocannon+ that negates part of the reroll to wound if they're shooting the same unit.
An Actual Englishman wrote: Oh look, a thread supposedly about balance from Xeno. The poster who brought us such gems as "the Stompa is overpowered" and "the Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy is probably the best shooting unit in the game, point for point".
I'll be taking the opinions within this thread and their objectivity with a hefty mountain of salt methinks.
wasn't the "Stompa is OP" thread a tongue in cheek thread about how now that it lost a whole 50 points (it's generally agreed to be a few HUNDRED over pointed) it's now "totally OP"? or was this another post I missed?
Yes it was tongue in cheek. But at one point Xeno was arguing that the squigoth was competitive level good and squidbuggies were op. Unironically.
An Actual Englishman wrote: Oh look, a thread supposedly about balance from Xeno. The poster who brought us such gems as "the Stompa is overpowered" and "the Rukkatrukk Squigbuggy is probably the best shooting unit in the game, point for point".
I'll be taking the opinions within this thread and their objectivity with a hefty mountain of salt methinks.
wasn't the "Stompa is OP" thread a tongue in cheek thread about how now that it lost a whole 50 points (it's generally agreed to be a few HUNDRED over pointed) it's now "totally OP"? or was this another post I missed?
This was posted before the whopping 50 pt CA drop.
Xenomancers wrote: It probably 100 points to expensive. It scales so hard with stratagems like moore dakka and freebootas that it's just the kind of unit that they couldn't fix if they tried...
at 650 it would be extremely OP.
(It can’t make use of More Dakka strat)
Xeno makes statements without knowledge all the time. He also defends all things Marine to the death. I’d take his posts as tongue in cheek, to be honest.
Ishagu wrote: If you exclude Iron Hands and Centurions in RG/WS detachments, does anyone actually think Astartes a problem?
.... lol is this for real, you didn't even name the best thing in the dex
Ishagu listed the things I see people complain about the most.
The combination of doctrines and super doctrines is the biggest problem as they get them on everything for free. And plenty of people complain about just that.
This. The uneven release schedule just kills any hope of maintaining balance. The other thing that kills it for competitive play is that without a checkmate condition it's very hard to recover once you start losing the attrition fight, and that sort of thing needs to be baked into the core rules. It's really hard to bolt such a thing on onto a system after the fact.
As for the win condition - that is in the missions. The CA19 missions are now really good and give a route to victory for some very diverse army builds. This is now the polar opposite of the ITC missions which are really showing their age and clearly narrow the meta to a dramatic degree. It is the easiest thing in the world to bolt onto a system after the fact, GW changes this every year as part of what balances the game. The problem is that large parts of the competitive scene totally ignore these changes.
Ishagu wrote: If you exclude Iron Hands and Centurions in RG/WS detachments, does anyone actually think Astartes a problem?
Yes. Definitely. This is what happens when layered rule after layered rule are added to units en masse and without proper consideration. SM don't really have a bad unit when compared to other codexes.
How many games have you guys actually played? I really want to know if your evidence is first hand, second hand or merely anecdotal.
I ask because I have been unable to beat the most optimised Tau lists using my Ultras in both ITC and CA mission formats after multiple attempts. The shiny new codex and supplement can't top an old book.
I also see competitive players move back to Chaos with lists that can stack rules to create -4 to hit modifiers, as an example. Mr Cheema is back to Chaos for the Cadelonian Open.
Ishagu wrote: If you exclude Iron Hands and Centurions in RG/WS detachments, does anyone actually think Astartes a problem?
.... lol is this for real, you didn't even name the best thing in the dex
Ishagu listed the things I see people complain about the most.
The combination of doctrines and super doctrines is the biggest problem as they get them on everything for free. And plenty of people complain about just that.
A lot of ignorant and inexperienced people complain. The "Super Doctrines" are not all created equal, and don't all increase the power level to the same extent. In the case of Raven Guard and Salamanders, for example, the Super Doctrine is situational and may or may not come into play. For Ultras it's useful for making the army more mobile but again, is not on the level of Iron Hands.
The Super Doctrines are just rules, plain and simple. Some rules are too good, other are perfectly fine. If you actually look at the win/loss breakdown of chapters like Ultramarines, it's a FACT and not an opinion that the rules and army is not over-powered, despite having "Super Doctrines." In fact it loses significantly more than it wins.
Generalising and complaining about everything in a blanketed way is not helpful to anyone. Recognise what the specific issues are, don't label an entire faction in a certain way because of a specific supplement or a few units that benefit too much from some Chapter Tactics. To do so labels you as ignorant, uninformed and inexperienced.
Ishagu wrote: How many games have you guys actually played? I really want to know if your evidence is first hand, second hand or merely anecdotal.
I ask because I have been unable to beat the most optimised Tau lists using my Ultras in both ITC and CA mission formats after multiple attempts. The shiny new codex and supplement can't top an old book.
I also see competitive players move back to Chaos with lists that can stack rules to create -4 to hit modifiers, as an example. Mr Cheema is back to Chaos for the Cadelonian Open.
Ishagu wrote: If you exclude Iron Hands and Centurions in RG/WS detachments, does anyone actually think Astartes a problem?
.... lol is this for real, you didn't even name the best thing in the dex
Ishagu listed the things I see people complain about the most.
The combination of doctrines and super doctrines is the biggest problem as they get them on everything for free. And plenty of people complain about just that.
A lot of ignorant and inexperienced people complain. The "Super Doctrines" are not all created equal, and don't all increase the power level to the same extent. In the case of Raven Guard and Salamanders, for example, the Super Doctrine is situational and may or may not come into play. For Ultras it's useful for making the army more mobile but again, is not on the level of Iron Hands.
The Super Doctrines are just rules, plain and simple. Some rules are too good, other are perfectly fine. If you actually look at the win/loss breakdown of chapters like Ultramarines, it's a FACT and not an opinion that the rules and army is not over-powered, despite having "Super Doctrines." In fact it loses significantly more than it wins.
Generalising and complaining about everything in a blanketed way is not helpful to anyone. Recognise what the specific issues are, don't label an entire faction in a certain way because of a specific supplement or a few units that benefit too much from some Chapter Tactics. To do so labels you as ignorant, uninformed and inexperienced.
Ah yes, the old "you don't have enough experience" argument. How quaint. The big problem with arguments about specific chapters is that most SM armies can be easily converted from one chapter to another, so most of the best players gravitate towards the best chapters or custom traits, which can skew the data for the chapters that aren't quite so good. So from a practical point of view SM are broken regardless of whether specific chapters are individually weak because it's trivially easy to change from a weak to a strong chapter just by changing a keyword on your army list.
As for the Tau comparison, I fail to see what you're getting at. I don't think anyone's suggesting SM are the only extremely powerful or broken faction in the game right now and it's generally accepted that Eldar and Tau are also very powerful. I think people's problem with SM is their power comes from a huge number of overlapping rules and benefits and their popularity is huge, which creates a bit more of a feel-bad situation because you're pretty much guaranteed to run into SM at every single tournament of any size while your local meta may mean Tau and Eldar aren't as common.
Ishagu wrote: How many games have you guys actually played? I really want to know if your evidence is first hand, second hand or merely anecdotal.
I ask because I have been unable to beat the most optimised Tau lists using my Ultras in both ITC and CA mission formats after multiple attempts. The shiny new codex and supplement can't top an old book.
I also see competitive players move back to Chaos with lists that can stack rules to create -4 to hit modifiers, as an example. Mr Cheema is back to Chaos for the Cadelonian Open.
Ishagu wrote: If you exclude Iron Hands and Centurions in RG/WS detachments, does anyone actually think Astartes a problem?
.... lol is this for real, you didn't even name the best thing in the dex
Ishagu listed the things I see people complain about the most.
The combination of doctrines and super doctrines is the biggest problem as they get them on everything for free. And plenty of people complain about just that.
A lot of ignorant and inexperienced people complain. The "Super Doctrines" are not all created equal, and don't all increase the power level to the same extent. In the case of Raven Guard and Salamanders, for example, the Super Doctrine is situational and may or may not come into play. For Ultras it's useful for making the army more mobile but again, is not on the level of Iron Hands.
The Super Doctrines are just rules, plain and simple. Some rules are too good, other are perfectly fine. If you actually look at the win/loss breakdown of chapters like Ultramarines, it's a FACT and not an opinion that the rules and army is not over-powered, despite having "Super Doctrines." In fact it loses significantly more than it wins.
Generalising and complaining about everything in a blanketed way is not helpful to anyone. Recognise what the specific issues are, don't label an entire faction in a certain way because of a specific supplement or a few units that benefit too much from some Chapter Tactics. To do so labels you as ignorant, uninformed and inexperienced.
Did I accidentally hit a nerve?
The big problem with sm is all the rules they stack on top of each other. Notably doctrines, super doctrines, and chapter tactics. That's what makes ih and if, who you didn't mention, so strong.
Ultra marines probably have more trouble against tau because their chapter tactic is pretty useless against an opponent who has no interest in trapping them in cc much less getting close enough for that to happen in the first place.
Or you just need to get more informed and experienced.
And the Tau rules don't come from overlapping rules? lol
Sept rules, over-lapped with Marker Lights, over-lapped with character auras, over-lapped with Kauyon bonuses, over-lapped with faction core rules.
Just because some meta chasers in tournaments are spamming Iron Hands and Raven Guard Centurions that is no reason to paint the entire faction as over-powered or broken.
Are you playing against Iron Hands every day? Most people that complain tend to play very few games, hence they focus on problems and not positives. I do expect to face Iron Hands at tournaments, but can easily avoid them in pick up games if I so desired.
Unfortunately the cycle repeats with every new codex. A vocal minority that watches more than it actually plays becomes a loud element of complaints that can be found on forums like this. If only they hobbied as hard as they hated.
Ishagu wrote: And the Tau rules don't come from overlapping rules? lol
Sept rules, over-lapped with Marker Lights, over-lapped with character auras, over-lapped with Kauyon bonuses, over-lapped with faction core rules.
Just because some meta chasers in tournaments are spamming Iron Hands and Raven Guard Centurions that is no reason to paint the entire faction as over-powered or broken.
Are you playing against Iron Hands every day? Most people that complain tend to play very few games, hence they focus on problems and not positives. I do expect to face Iron Hands at tournaments, but can easily avoid them in pick up games if I so desired.
Unfortunately the cycle repeats with every new codex. A vocal minority that watches more than it actually plays becomes a loud element of complaints that can be found on forums like this. If only they hobbied as hard as they hated.
No do you play tau every day? All I did was point out that many people's problem with sm is all the special rules they get for free. I have no problem with centurions as they at least cost resources.
And I never avoid certain armies in games. Never back down from a challenge.
Did I say anything about backing down? I'm saying that a vocal minority like many of the posters in this topic focus on the bad as though it's the only thing they'll encounter.
And no, the over-lapping rules are not a problem. Specific rules in specific situations cause issues, and they can and should be addressed on a case by case basis.
Saying the whole codex is bad does not offer any solutions, and hence it is an ignorant statement.
Daedalus81 wrote: For gaks and giggles I added Ta'u and Orks and gave a side by side of ITC to Non-ITC. It looks to me that people who say ITC is bad for the game are both correct and incorrect. Ta'u suffer greatly outside of ITC, but Orks see a boost. Despite this Eldar and Codex Marines maintain a stranglehold. Whether the new missions will upset this dynamic will remain to be seen over coming months.
Data is whatever was available for Nov and Dec tournaments at the time I grabbed it (a few days ago).
Thank you for your excellent work on the stats!
I find this quite interesting. I wonder what it looks like across all factions.
Having different rulesets comes at a cost; it makes the statistics less reliable and the game harder to balance for GW.
In order to justify their existence, the ITC rules should be able to show that they are a much more balanced rule set than the base game. This means that factions should have win rates closer to 50% in ITC than they do otherwise. If the results are similar, then there really isn't any justification for ITC being used for tournaments. Unless people just find it more fun, of course.
In the above sample 3/4 armies are less balanced in ITC.
Just because some meta chasers in tournaments are spamming Iron Hands and Raven Guard Centurions that is no reason to paint the entire faction as over-powered or broken.
Indeed. I mean it might be, but we can't really know that. Better start nerfing the things we know to be a problem and then see how well the marines do without them, Nerfing marines as a whole without touching the problem builds would be the worst thing they could do, as that would just make those builds mandatory even lower tiers of play. A bit like when marines were bad previously and everyone who wanted to have chance had to field Guilliman as that build was more powerful than the rest.
Ishagu wrote: Did I say anything about backing down? I'm saying that a vocal minority like many of the posters in this topic focus on the bad as though it's the only thing they'll encounter.
And no, the over-lapping rules are not a problem. Specific rules in specific situations cause issues, and they can and should be addressed on a case by case basis.
Saying the whole codex is bad does not offer any solutions, and hence it is an ignorant statement.
I have multiple tournament 1st places in 8th alone. I play plenty, I play competitively, and I have done for years, to a level of success that I'm quite comfortable with.
I agree it's often the same people whining about something they don't understand. I too see those very people in this thread. In the past it was 4pt Guardsmen are too OP, before that it was Shield Captains, Flyrants, GSC ambushes, Disintegrator Cannons, whatever was slightly hot at the time got the same treatment. But that doesn't mean anything they say is automatically incorrect, I don't think the argument that Marines aren't OP really holds any weight, they are incredibly powerful. Aeldari and Chaos soup is great too, it's just not at that level.
Not to be rude (or at least, not any ruder than you were), perhaps you just need more experience. The very stats that you are cosigning in here to support your claims about Marines, also say Marines have a 62% win rate vs Tau at higher levels, compared to your 0% win rate. Maybe you just need to play more?
Iron Hands and Raven Guard have a high win rate against Tau. The Ultras don't.
That's the key point.
Marines are a faction that encompasses multiple Chapters. They are not all equal.
If anyone wants to say that Iron Hands and Centurions with the right chapter combination are too strong that would be perfectly reasonable. Blanket claims against the entire faction are not.
Ishagu wrote: Did I say anything about backing down? I'm saying that a vocal minority like many of the posters in this topic focus on the bad as though it's the only thing they'll encounter.
And no, the over-lapping rules are not a problem. Specific rules in specific situations cause issues, and they can and should be addressed on a case by case basis.
Saying the whole codex is bad does not offer any solutions, and hence it is an ignorant statement.
You're statement implied that you would avoid ih in a casual setting.
And few people are complaining about the codex. It's the codex in combination with the supplements which seems to cause most of the complaints.
Ishagu wrote: Do you think the Black Templars are over-powered? Are they a problem for the game?
No melee only army or heavy melee archetypical army seems to perform atm though.
Also maybee not all chapters are equal, does that mean that i should stop paying 95pts / obliterator since i play WE?
My point with this is the following, some factions seem to need to pay for their best possible combinations, others get a free pass.
That ain't equal long pikes for everyone, and that is the issue i have.
( the second main issue beyond the fact that GW thought that endemic issues of an army can just be fixed by slapping bandaid's over it until the bandaids fill in the enemys sword to the point where he might aswell use a foam sword.)
Ishagu wrote: So you admit that a new codex chapter along with the relevant supplement is not a problem?
Now please direct your complaints more accurately from now on without making blanket statements about the whole faction.
Did i ever make a blanket statement in this thread.
You should seriously start to look who is talking to you.
Secondly: Yes more codex chapters means ultimately more marine release slog.
GW had their chance at fixing CSM and SM, they fethed up, end of story, other factions deserve sunlight just as much.
Ishagu wrote: If you exclude Iron Hands and Centurions in RG/WS detachments, does anyone actually think Astartes a problem?
Yeah I do. For starters, they have about six times as many psychic powers, relics, warlord traits, and stratagems to choose from than anybody else has at this point, and all the downsides that are baked in to other factions are waived for marines for no reason.
Look at everyone else's custom traits: You give up ALL subfaction-specific bonuses from the codex subfactions if you take them in Eldar, Drukhari, and Tyranids. What happens if you're space marines?
You get the super-doctrine, psychic list, half dozen WL traits/Relics/Strats of any of the codex subfactions of your choice. You give up named characters and that's it.
Take out the "Ravenguard+Assault Cents" combo, and someone will find something else. Take out the "IH flyers moving and shooting" combo, and someone will find something else. There are more possible power-gameable combinations in the massive mountain of rules available to the Space Marines faction than any other three factions combined, and all GW has been doing since their release is giving them YET MORE gak in faith and fury and YET MORE OPTIONS in Blood of Baal, since now it's clear that the non-codex compliant chapters are going to be soupable with marines without losing doctrines.
Even if other armies are universally given a non-soup bonus (Which, given the Sisters release and the rumors that Admech are getting reworked Canticles as a bonus, seems to be a carrot reserved only for Imperium factions) marine armies will still have the benefit of being able to maintain their bonus while souping with more other codexes than anyone else can.
What's the point of putting a "non-soup bonus" in the game if you can still freely mix codex: Space Marines, Codex: Grey Knights, Codex: Blood Angels, Codex: Dark Angels, Codex: Deathwatch and Codex: Space Wolves? That's more soup than anyone outside the imperium umbrella has access to. You can still take whoever's got the best marine troops paired with whoever's got the best assault alpha strike and do exactly what everyone was doing with soup before the "fix". And if you give every army that could bring soup a bonus while leaving out the ones who could never benefit from allies, how are you not just making the gulf wider between the preferred factions and the neglected ones?
Ishagu wrote: So you admit that a new codex chapter along with the relevant supplement is not a problem?
Now please direct your complaints more accurately from now on without making blanket statements about the whole faction.
Did i ever make a blanket statement in this thread.
You should seriously start to look who is talking to you.
Secondly: Yes more codex chapters means ultimately more marine release slog.
GW had their chance at fixing CSM and SM, they fethed up, end of story, other factions deserve sunlight just as much.
Fixing marines has nothing to do with a release cycle however, but it'd be better for all factions if marines are brought down a notch.
Rather than just leaving them as they are so they can release a less powerful xenos unit, take the time to even the playing field first.
Ishagu wrote: You give up allies. And even though there is a big variety of powers and traits you are locked into a very specific list tied to your chapter.
You also lose your Doctrine bonus if you mix chapters. Those are pretty significant things you fail to mention.
I really don't though. My point was that Blood of Baal indicates that you actually WONT give up doctrines if you mix chapters, as long as you're mixing a codex chapter with a non-codex chapter.
If doctrines were a bonus for giving up allies, that might be one thing, but turn around and say that you don't lose doctrines if you mix with these specific six codexes, then you're not really giving up a whole lot.
And sure, you have to choose a specific set of Powers, Strats, Super Doctrines, Relics and WL traits based on one of the codex compliant chapters. Guess what no other faction has? That.
Everyone else gets ONE stratagem, ONE relic, ONE warlord trait, AND you don't get them at all if you want to take one of the custom subfaction traits.
That is something that is structurally broken. It doesn't matter if lesser used chapter X or Y isn't as good as the best subfaction from some other book, just like it didn't matter when RAW Genestealer Cult units could use the stratagems from the Tyranids codex that GSC weren't particularly OP. A faction getting access to another faction's stratagems was broken, and the rule needed to be fixed.
If you pick any codex-compliant space marine chapter, you get access to twice as much stuff as any other faction in the game. This isn't "Anti-marine bias" because that INCLUDES all other loyalist marine factions, who DONT get the codex 2.0 stuff on top of all their new supplement bonuses.
Until such point as everyone else gets supplements where they get to double dip (Unlikely) and custom chapter traits where they get to keep the base codex subfaction bonuses (Seems the opposite is happening) then Codex: Space Marines, not all marine factions, just Codex: Space Marines is fundamentally unfair with respect to the other factions in the game.
You should have to choose between most of the contents of codex 2.0 and the the contents of your choice of codex supplement, and Successor Chapter traits should remove base chapter bonuses, full stop. Customizable chapter traits are obviously powergameable enough as it is when they have that trade off, just look at how many competitive eldar lists are willingly giving up the most consistently broken subfaction trait since the beginning of 8th for them.
Ishagu wrote: So you admit that a new codex chapter along with the relevant supplement is not a problem?
Now please direct your complaints more accurately from now on without making blanket statements about the whole faction.
Did i ever make a blanket statement in this thread.
You should seriously start to look who is talking to you.
Secondly: Yes more codex chapters means ultimately more marine release slog.
GW had their chance at fixing CSM and SM, they fethed up, end of story, other factions deserve sunlight just as much.
Fixing marines has nothing to do with a release cycle however, but it'd be better for all factions if marines are brought down a notch.
Rather than just leaving them as they are so they can release a less powerful xenos unit, take the time to even the playing field first.
Oh i agree, fully, as in kick the heavy outliers down help the underperformers up.
However gw has not shown any Intention at all so far to do so.
Neither ca nor faq have helped in that regard, on the contrary,we now have 55pts acolythes, aeldari planes and 33 and 5 pts cultists respectively left in as typos in ca.
Excuse me if my outlook is pesimitic in the ability of gw to do so.
Ishagu wrote: Nice factual evidence that ITC is worse for game balance than Chapter Approved missions!
I think you've drawn the wrong conclusion on a mixed bag of results there. I'm curious to see what CA missions can do, but there is not historical evidence that CA was better outside the top books.
Xenomancers wrote: It probably 100 points to expensive. It scales so hard with stratagems like moore dakka and freebootas that it's just the kind of unit that they couldn't fix if they tried...
at 650 it would be extremely OP.
(It can’t make use of More Dakka strat)
Xeno makes statements without knowledge all the time. He also defends all things Marine to the death. I’d take his posts as tongue in cheek, to be honest.
100 points is a big deal. You know the Castellan going from 600 to 700 made a huge difference. ITT I am arguing for a nerf to marines top factions...
It absolutely can use the strat. The only requirement is being an ORK unit. With Free boota up (which is super easy to trigger with another unit) you are hitting on 4's with 5's generating extra hits. It's really strong when you get the combo off. I've seen a stompa kill its points in a single turn actually. Which is why I find it hilarious it gets complained about so much. Yeah it's not amazing...kind of like how a space marine falchion is not amazing ether 1050 points and doesn't even have an invune. Super heavies that can tripple their damage output for 2 CP are REALLY hard to balance. It really is a factor of like 100-150 which determines useless to OP in this situation.
Perhaps we just need to wait for the meta to settle a little before worrying?
Granted not all factions will be able to adjust for the prevalence of our transhuman saviours
Personally I have no problem with Marines currently being strong as they have historically been weak (as mono).
Expert Crafters seems only to be an issue with the units that can split at the start of the game. Perhaps they should just stop that i.e. things have to remain in unit coherence.
the_scotsman wrote: Gosh I wonder why every other post is whining and crying that marines are underpowered when theyre underpowered, and every other post is whining and crying that theyre overpowered when theyre overpowered?
It cant be that every other player plays them, nearly all the games focus is on them and they are basically the protagonists of the game. It must be "anti marine bias."
What he said..
But really both are gross. The main difference is that Eldar OPness can clearly be laid at the foot of one thing: CHE.
Post PR , the eldar planes are an even bigger crutch propping up the faction grossly skewing performance.. Eldar planes need to be reigned in.
Bs2+ with exarch power with traits on top? Its gross... Almost as gross as reroll everything and additional damage and AP all the time for free...
CHE should stop exiting and there should only be CH and Hemlocks. Gw really really loves selling those planes so watcha gunna do..?
Yeah...pretty much no. Eldar have a huge number of units to abuse the extremely busted expert crafters custom trait. Which is basically the same trait that almost every marine list abuses too - MOA.
So Eldar are a bigger problem than Marines because Eldar have a huge number of units? Have you seen even just the vanilla Marine codex?
zerosignal wrote: Perhaps we just need to wait for the meta to settle a little before worrying?
Granted not all factions will be able to adjust for the prevalence of our transhuman saviours
Personally I have no problem with Marines currently being strong as they have historically been weak (as mono).
Expert Crafters seems only to be an issue with the units that can split at the start of the game. Perhaps they should just stop that i.e. things have to remain in unit coherence.
Uhhh...why is it only a problem with units that can split? It's a problem on any single unit.
Warwalkers can take 2x brightlance or missle launcher...effectively full rerolls for each model if taken in singles.
CH and CHE and flacons get near full rerolls on their pulselasers
Heck even on waveserpants a twin-bight lance is super effective.
It's clear the trait is too good. Both marines and Eldar are spamming it. It needs removed.
Ishagu wrote: You give up allies. And even though there is a big variety of powers and traits you are locked into a very specific list tied to your chapter.
You also lose your Doctrine bonus if you mix chapters. Those are pretty significant things you fail to mention.
I really don't though. My point was that Blood of Baal indicates that you actually WONT give up doctrines if you mix chapters, as long as you're mixing a codex chapter with a non-codex chapter.
If doctrines were a bonus for giving up allies, that might be one thing, but turn around and say that you don't lose doctrines if you mix with these specific six codexes, then you're not really giving up a whole lot.
And sure, you have to choose a specific set of Powers, Strats, Super Doctrines, Relics and WL traits based on one of the codex compliant chapters. Guess what no other faction has? That.
Everyone else gets ONE stratagem, ONE relic, ONE warlord trait, AND you don't get them at all if you want to take one of the custom subfaction traits.
That is something that is structurally broken. It doesn't matter if lesser used chapter X or Y isn't as good as the best subfaction from some other book, just like it didn't matter when RAW Genestealer Cult units could use the stratagems from the Tyranids codex that GSC weren't particularly OP. A faction getting access to another faction's stratagems was broken, and the rule needed to be fixed.
If you pick any codex-compliant space marine chapter, you get access to twice as much stuff as any other faction in the game. This isn't "Anti-marine bias" because that INCLUDES all other loyalist marine factions, who DONT get the codex 2.0 stuff on top of all their new supplement bonuses.
Until such point as everyone else gets supplements where they get to double dip (Unlikely) and custom chapter traits where they get to keep the base codex subfaction bonuses (Seems the opposite is happening) then Codex: Space Marines, not all marine factions, just Codex: Space Marines is fundamentally unfair with respect to the other factions in the game.
You should have to choose between most of the contents of codex 2.0 and the the contents of your choice of codex supplement, and Successor Chapter traits should remove base chapter bonuses, full stop. Customizable chapter traits are obviously powergameable enough as it is when they have that trade off, just look at how many competitive eldar lists are willingly giving up the most consistently broken subfaction trait since the beginning of 8th for them.
Personally I don't like the mixing of chapters keeping the doctrine bonus but at least they lose superdoctrine for doing so. I like the idea of armies getting a strong bonus for not including allies. It is a great way to keep things externally balanced as it allows factions to have weaknesses. My original idea was to make taking allies cost you the 3 CP for being battleforged or paying for additional detachments with CP...but giving a bonus rule to mono players than don't take allies also works as a measure.
the_scotsman wrote: Gosh I wonder why every other post is whining and crying that marines are underpowered when theyre underpowered, and every other post is whining and crying that theyre overpowered when theyre overpowered?
It cant be that every other player plays them, nearly all the games focus is on them and they are basically the protagonists of the game. It must be "anti marine bias."
So I saw this post that I missed and it got my wheels turning.
These are two different things. Marines that are losing and marines that are dominating. When Marines were losing IG were the whipping boy, right?
So I figured I'd pull up win rates for the primary chapters over time. Here's what that looks like. Iron Hands? Didn't exist. White Scars? Didn't exist. CF / IF / BT? Barely there.
The results are also a mixed bag.
Spoiler:
And this is a % of games played by primary detachments for a higher level grouping of factions.
Spoiler:
So, who suffered on the upswing of Codex Astartes? Chaos, Imperium, and potentially Knights. The players trading sides stayed mostly with their "realm".
Orks, Necrons, Nids, Eldar? All pretty consistent. You might object to the Eldar grouping, but it seems the soup is still strong with that faction like Chaos.
Before the supplements? Codex Astartes only beat Necrons for rate of play. Is it any wonder that GW made them?
the_scotsman wrote: Gosh I wonder why every other post is whining and crying that marines are underpowered when theyre underpowered, and every other post is whining and crying that theyre overpowered when theyre overpowered?
It cant be that every other player plays them, nearly all the games focus is on them and they are basically the protagonists of the game. It must be "anti marine bias."
What he said..
But really both are gross. The main difference is that Eldar OPness can clearly be laid at the foot of one thing: CHE.
Post PR , the eldar planes are an even bigger crutch propping up the faction grossly skewing performance.. Eldar planes need to be reigned in.
Bs2+ with exarch power with traits on top? Its gross... Almost as gross as reroll everything and additional damage and AP all the time for free...
CHE should stop exiting and there should only be CH and Hemlocks. Gw really really loves selling those planes so watcha gunna do..?
Yeah...pretty much no. Eldar have a huge number of units to abuse the extremely busted expert crafters custom trait. Which is basically the same trait that almost every marine list abuses too - MOA.
So Eldar are a bigger problem than Marines because Eldar have a huge number of units? Have you seen even just the vanilla Marine codex?
I am not suggesting eldar is a bigger problem with EC and MOA. I want it removed for both factions.
Very much an over-correction for sure. IG falls under Imperium. I imagine if I broke it out that IG and AC would be the ones suffering most). Soup makes analysis really muddy. I'm going to try and make charts for the combos (e.g. BA & IG, CW & DE, etc).
If you think Eldar are OP because twenty some lists with "Custom Traits" did well - pushing up to nearly 70% win rate, you should be absolutely terrified of Cult Mechanicus. Lists with Cybernetica Cohort had an *80%* winrate. Clearly Cult Mechanicus needs a nerf and Eldar need a buff.
Bharring wrote: If you think Eldar are OP because twenty some lists with "Custom Traits" did well - pushing up to nearly 70% win rate, you should be absolutely terrified of Cult Mechanicus. Lists with Cybernetica Cohort had an *80%* winrate. Clearly Cult Mechanicus needs a nerf and Eldar need a buff.
You're misusing that data. Custom Craftworlds played 208 games in Dec. Cybernetica Cohort was involved in 5 games - so one player went 4-1 with them.
Bharring wrote: If you think Eldar are OP because twenty some lists with "Custom Traits" did well - pushing up to nearly 70% win rate, you should be absolutely terrified of Cult Mechanicus. Lists with Cybernetica Cohort had an *80%* winrate. Clearly Cult Mechanicus needs a nerf and Eldar need a buff.
In statistics we call those outliers...we ignore the outliers and look at trends. Some people have actually won tournaments with Ultramarines who are sitting at around 45% WR as a faction in the same time period. It doesn't mean ultramarines are OP.
SM present a lot of problems to the game now. They are a problem in semi-casual circles because they are just better per point than a lot of other armies out there and to have a fun game against them you need to take an optimized list to compete against a casual list. At the highest levels of comp they have combos that are just bonkers good (IH grav devs wounding anything nearly 15 times on 20 shots after a few strats is dumb).
I'm looking forward to the laugh fest that this years LVO is going to be. If GW thought it looked bad when yanarri and knights were at the top it's going to be hilarious when 50-60% of the top tables are marines (not to mention 30%+ of the field). Judging by how hard those armies were hit by the nerf bat, it's not looking good for the poster boys.
The crazy thing is GW has had several chances to fix this debacle and they haven't. They tried with the week 2 IH fix but didn't go far enough. I'm sure they have to know marines are a problem but I'm hoping the egg on their face from LVO will be enough for them to actually listen.
The nerf bat will come after that, GW will over correct the other way since they've sold the back stock of primaris they have laying around (because they don't know how to design rules at all) and marines will be back to an under-performing joke and our eldar overlords will have their "rightful" position back on top.
My poor DA/SW/DW will be victims of the over correction (since GW doesn't know how to balance their way out of a wet paper sack) and I will continue whining on Dakka about how much my marines suck.
It's telling that a lot of players are switching to marines even though they know the meta is going to be built to beat marines. The Frontline guys have some interesting data about the factions people pre-reged with for LVO vs the ones they are actually submitting lists for and that will be another interesting data point.
IMHO (probably as a player of several SM factions that "deserve" their own identities, please don't tangent on this, there's a whole nuther 20 page topic on it) GW went too far giving all of the chapters their own identity. Marines should be far more monolithic in their design. The difference between white scars and salamanders shouldn't be as extreme as it is. Giving such varied design builds to armies which pay the same points for the same units is just bonkers and makes it extremely hard to balance (how do you balance seige breaker cents vs salie cents?).
But GW is chasing that bag. They know marines are popular and making the sub-factions into pretty much stand alone armies is an easy way to sell more models/paints/books. They basically took the space marine army and turned it into a Raven Guard army or a White Scar army and that greed is coming back to bite them because they didn't put in the time/$$ to balance the changes the bean counters wanted.
I hope LVO shines a spot light on the problems marines are causing in the game. I haven't been to a tourney since the supplements dropped and I realized my armies just cannot compete until my marines go super saiyan too (which is taking entirely too long and is only a problem because GW wants to milk all the $$ out of the player base that they can, because the books are done they just don't want to release them all at the same time because of $$ reasons).
Short of GW going back in time and removing all the marine supplements there is not much they can do. It's beyond simple nerfs to adjust SN balance down due to the layers of abilities they can get between codex/supplement/PA expansion.
They basically need to time travel or give every other faction the same extra free later of modifiers/wargear/traits/strats. And not just quantity but quality for low/free cost that SM received.
Or make 9th edition with webupload armylists that invalidate all the current books ala AOS
blaktoof wrote: Short of GW going back in time and removing all the marine supplements there is not much they can do. It's beyond simple nerfs to adjust SN balance down due to the layers of abilities they can get between codex/supplement/PA expansion.
They basically need to time travel or give every other faction the same extra free later of modifiers/wargear/traits/strats. And not just quantity but quality for low/free cost that SM received.
It's almost like you aren't paying attention. Only Ironhands are too strong. The data is in this thread if you care to look. All they need to do is nerf the IF and IH superdoctrines. Ultramarines for example lose more than they win...but the only way to fix marines is to go back in time and remove all supplements? LOL.
blaktoof wrote: Short of GW going back in time and removing all the marine supplements there is not much they can do. It's beyond simple nerfs to adjust SN balance down due to the layers of abilities they can get between codex/supplement/PA expansion.
They basically need to time travel or give every other faction the same extra free later of modifiers/wargear/traits/strats. And not just quantity but quality for low/free cost that SM received.
Or make 9th edition with webupload armylists that invalidate all the current books ala AOS
Which wouldn't be a problem if they didn't plan everything around printing a book that they then commit themselves to not changing for years. If Warmachine needs to scrub or dramatically rewrite a unit or ability they print a new card and move on. If Infinity needs to scrub or dramatically rewrite a unit or ability they push an update to the Army app. If Warhammer needs to scrub or dramatically rewrite a unit or ability they throw their arms up and say "No, we can't do that, it'd make people question the value of buying our books, we must instead buff everything else in the next cycle of books to compensate/release a new edition so we can justify reprinting all the books!"
I'm looking forward to the laugh fest that this years LVO is going to be. If GW thought it looked bad when yanarri and knights were at the top it's going to be hilarious when 50-60% of the top tables are marines (not to mention 30%+ of the field). Judging by how hard those armies were hit by the nerf bat, it's not looking good for the poster boys.
On the contrary - I think this LVO will be incredibly interesting to see. Eldar and T'au are obviously capable (even if T'au is one dimensional). There is still yet a LOT of changes that have yet to play out. Craftworlds clearly have their PA under control. CSM are just beginning to. GK & TS may have enough time to incorporate theirs. The CA changes are wholly under-represented in the data.
These next 3 months will probably be the litmus test for how GW will deal with issues into the future. If they fail (and you need to give it time to see if they fail) then we're in trouble.
The crazy thing is GW has had several chances to fix this debacle and they haven't. They tried with the week 2 IH fix but didn't go far enough. I'm sure they have to know marines are a problem but I'm hoping the egg on their face from LVO will be enough for them to actually listen.
IH needs tweaks. Possibly other facets, too, but as Eldar start to capably pound them what works for Marines may start to change. They're still going to have a boat load of awesome abilities. Doing something like changing docs to be once per game still doesn't stop IH from alpha striking.
The nerf bat will come after that, GW will over correct the other way since they've sold the back stock of primaris they have laying around (because they don't know how to design rules at all) and marines will be back to an under-performing joke and our eldar overlords will have their "rightful" position back on top.
Eldar are currently at the top. Not all marines are over-performing.
I hope LVO shines a spot light on the problems marines are causing in the game.
Martel732 wrote: It's amusing that after all the buffs to marines, BA essentially have identical problems on the table. Shows how terrible they were before.
All Marines have problems because of a bunch of math errors around the introduction of the "damage" stat in the Indexes, and because of a design team that's overly-generous at handing out AP. The BA are basically where they were before because the supplements have been handing other Legions stratagems that would be ludicrously broken if they could be applied to better units in an effort to compensate for the units not being very good.
Martel732 wrote: It's amusing that after all the buffs to marines, BA essentially have identical problems on the table. Shows how terrible they were before.
Just fool around all with the data from earlier in the edition. All the marine factions hover around 42% WR. Blood angels were typically the worst. Drastic changes were needed. More or less the fixes but marines into the mix. Blood angels seem competent - perhaps somewhere around ultramarine with this new update. Yet most marine haters will likely suggest all doctrines need a nerf. Even though your faction is perfectly balanced except for ironhands.
blaktoof wrote: Short of GW going back in time and removing all the marine supplements there is not much they can do. It's beyond simple nerfs to adjust SN balance down due to the layers of abilities they can get between codex/supplement/PA expansion.
They basically need to time travel or give every other faction the same extra free later of modifiers/wargear/traits/strats. And not just quantity but quality for low/free cost that SM received.
It's almost like you aren't paying attention. Only Ironhands are too strong.
*if you define too strong solely as "winning top-level competitive tournaments."
Playing vs supplement marines who get twice as many psychic powers, relics, wl traits, strats, better CTs than you, doctrines and super-doctrines you don't get is the closest thing I've felt to trying to play the game as a faction that does not get a Decurion super-formation against armies that did have one in 7th ed.
Whacking the current top mole of Iron Hands and MOA will just lead someone to find the next super-combo. It's like when we had unrestricted soup detachments in early 8th with no subfaction bonuses, every army was like celestine leading guardsmen with Culexus Assassins or Malefic lords standing behind walls of brimstone horrors with a couple daemon princes floating around. Nerfing the ability to create crazy combos is better than nerfing individual offenders at creating diversity.
Don't just nerf MOA, remove the ability to use custom chapter tactics with chapter bonuses, make Codex Space Marines follow the same rules everyone else does.
Don't just nerf Iron Hands, make it so the contents of the supplements don't stack with the contents of codex 2.0. Marines having a diversity of tools in their toolbox is fine, especially if those tools offer a benefit over bringing soup. Choosing those tools giving you twice as many options on the game table than any other faction gets is just creating a have/have not situation that hurts balance.
Martel732 wrote: It's amusing that after all the buffs to marines, BA essentially have identical problems on the table. Shows how terrible they were before.
All Marines have problems because of a bunch of math errors around the introduction of the "damage" stat in the Indexes, and because of a design team that's overly-generous at handing out AP. The BA are basically where they were before because the supplements have been handing other Legions stratagems that would be ludicrously broken if they could be applied to better units in an effort to compensate for the units not being very good.
No, they're better. But still suffer identical matchup problems. Can't get past guardsmen, tendency to overkill then die, etc.
blaktoof wrote: Short of GW going back in time and removing all the marine supplements there is not much they can do. It's beyond simple nerfs to adjust SN balance down due to the layers of abilities they can get between codex/supplement/PA expansion.
They basically need to time travel or give every other faction the same extra free later of modifiers/wargear/traits/strats. And not just quantity but quality for low/free cost that SM received.
It's almost like you aren't paying attention. Only Ironhands are too strong.
*if you define too strong solely as "winning top-level competitive tournaments."
Playing vs supplement marines who get twice as many psychic powers, relics, wl traits, strats, better CTs than you, doctrines and super-doctrines you don't get is the closest thing I've felt to trying to play the game as a faction that does not get a Decurion super-formation against armies that did have one in 7th ed.
Whacking the current top mole of Iron Hands and MOA will just lead someone to find the next super-combo. It's like when we had unrestricted soup detachments in early 8th with no subfaction bonuses, every army was like celestine leading guardsmen with Culexus Assassins or Malefic lords standing behind walls of brimstone horrors with a couple daemon princes floating around. Nerfing the ability to create crazy combos is better than nerfing individual offenders at creating diversity.
Don't just nerf MOA, remove the ability to use custom chapter tactics with chapter bonuses, make Codex Space Marines follow the same rules everyone else does.
Don't just nerf Iron Hands, make it so the contents of the supplements don't stack with the contents of codex 2.0. Marines having a diversity of tools in their toolbox is fine, especially if those tools offer a benefit over bringing soup. Choosing those tools giving you twice as many options on the game table than any other faction gets is just creating a have/have not situation that hurts balance.
Ishagu wrote: Iron Hands and Raven Guard have a high win rate against Tau. The Ultras don't.
That's the key point.
Marines are a faction that encompasses multiple Chapters. They are not all equal. If anyone wants to say that Iron Hands and Centurions with the right chapter combination are too strong that would be perfectly reasonable. Blanket claims against the entire faction are not.
Off the bat, when a set of models has one hyper powerful way of playing, and one very strong but not as insane way of playing it that also has less flavor, you'll find that the best players with those models are just going to go towards the best option, dragging down the alternative throughout quality of playerbase. Ultramarines are still well and truly OP, just one of the least OP options in that dex so that is what it is.
Secondly, RG has a lower winrate than both Scars and Fists.
Thirdly, Thunderfire Cannon alone is better than anything you've mentioned yet, and is universal, and is the most played unit in competitive play at the moment.
Fourthly, where's these stats that show Ultramarines having a poor win rate vs Tau? is that sweeping claim based off anything other than you being unable to beat them?
Fifthly, and just to reinforce, arguing what's good in this game like it's a basketball point sheet and looking at nothing but win-rate statistics is so incredibly dense and I'm only doing it hopefully show you guys the folly of this and point out the holes in the claims you are making, because this is silly.
blaktoof wrote: Short of GW going back in time and removing all the marine supplements there is not much they can do. It's beyond simple nerfs to adjust SN balance down due to the layers of abilities they can get between codex/supplement/PA expansion.
They basically need to time travel or give every other faction the same extra free later of modifiers/wargear/traits/strats. And not just quantity but quality for low/free cost that SM received.
It's almost like you aren't paying attention. Only Ironhands are too strong.
*if you define too strong solely as "winning top-level competitive tournaments."
His statement falls apart under that definition too. In the very latest weekend of competitive play, John Lennon, a very recognizable name in the tournament scene, got first place at a GT using pure Imperial Fists, beating out both Raven Guard, and Iron Hands. The weekend before that saw Fists winning two GT level events, as well as two for Raven Guard.
Marines are busted in every single supplement. The more competitive players just play the more competitive chapters more.
IH isn't the only marine faction that is over-performing. RG/WS soup and IF are outliers as well.
A lot of the OP marine/eldar lists are abusing the successor chapter rules. MA and the eldar equivalent have to go. Getting that many re-rolls for free and not being chapter locked to an otherwise terrible army (sorry salamanders but you guys were bad) has been proven to be game breaking.
"These next 3 months will probably be the litmus test for how GW will deal with issues into the future. If they fail (and you need to give it time to see if they fail) then we're in trouble."
The marine supplements have already been out for months and GW has failed to deal with that issue.
The swallowing the spider to catch the fly method of balance that GW has been using doesn't leave me with a lot of faith that things are going to get better. I'd love to be proven wrong but I don't see how this latest round of buffs can be seen as anything other than a monumental example of just how bad GW is at writing rules to balance their game (really good at writing rules to sell models though...)
I'd posit that the marine codex+supplements 2.0 was GWs attempt at balancing the game and we can all see how that turned out.
I don't see how GW buffs other factions their way out of this. Balancing to the level of IH/IF just leaves the other marine factions in the dust (like the gulliman days) and with the glacial release schedule leaves other armies (SW/DW) unplayable for the greater part of a year (SW don't get the PA treatment for 2 more books and have barely been playable all edition, putting them roughly 3/4 year out from the marine supplement release). GWs next balancing pass won't be until the end of April probably around the time the SWPA is released.
Agree that Eldar and Tau have the tools to play with the most optimized marine lists but instead of GW giving sensible buffs to struggling marine factions to bring 8th into as close to balanced as I've seen 40k they went buff crazy (to sell more books/models) and now 40k is back to an unbalanced mess that caused the implosion at the end of 7th.
Again, I'm probably looking at this through a lens of someone playing (or who used to play) in a competitive meta with under-performing factions but I though 8th was bad but bearable before. Since this new rounds of buffs 40k has become unplayable to me.
So half as much Aeldari as Space Marines? color me surprised!
I don't think anyone is saying Aeldari are fine right now, but the idea that SM are just another Aeldari is so far off base. They are so much much more.
Ishagu wrote: Iron Hands and Raven Guard have a high win rate against Tau. The Ultras don't.
That's the key point.
Marines are a faction that encompasses multiple Chapters. They are not all equal.
If anyone wants to say that Iron Hands and Centurions with the right chapter combination are too strong that would be perfectly reasonable. Blanket claims against the entire faction are not.
Off the bat, when a set of models has one hyper powerful way of playing, and one very strong but not as insane way of playing it that also has less flavor, you'll find that the best players with those models are just going to go towards the best option, dragging down the alternative throughout quality of playerbase. Ultramarines are still well and truly OP, just one of the least OP options in that dex so that is what it is.
Secondly, RG has a lower winrate than both Scars and Fists.
Thirdly, Thunderfire Cannon alone is better than anything you've mentioned yet, and is universal, and is the most played unit in competitive play at the moment.
Fourthly, where's these stats that show Ultramarines having a poor win rate vs Tau? is that sweeping claim based off anything other than you being unable to beat them?
Fifthly, and just to reinforce, arguing what's good in this game like it's a basketball point sheet and looking at nothing but win-rate statistics is so incredibly dense and I'm only doing it hopefully show you guys the folly of this and point out the holes in the claims you are making, because this is silly.
blaktoof wrote: Short of GW going back in time and removing all the marine supplements there is not much they can do. It's beyond simple nerfs to adjust SN balance down due to the layers of abilities they can get between codex/supplement/PA expansion.
They basically need to time travel or give every other faction the same extra free later of modifiers/wargear/traits/strats. And not just quantity but quality for low/free cost that SM received.
It's almost like you aren't paying attention. Only Ironhands are too strong.
*if you define too strong solely as "winning top-level competitive tournaments."
His statement falls apart under that definition too. In the very latest weekend of competitive play, John Lennon, a very recognizable name in the tournament scene, got first place at a GT using pure Imperial Fists, beating out both Raven Guard, and Iron Hands. The weekend before that saw Fists winning two GT level events, as well as two for Raven Guard.
Marines are busted in every single supplement. The more competitive players just play the more competitive chapters more.
I'm pretty sure I have been calling for nerf to IF super doctrine the entire thread. Also a few lists winning events does not make a point stronger. 1 event is not a trend. WR = trend.
You straight up ignore statstics showing non ironhands/IF marines being totally unremarkable compared to other codex even before the CA update which buffed basically every army and did nothing for supplement marines...I just don't know what to say. All marine supplements are OP because you say so I suppose. Seems reasonable.
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Nitro Zeus wrote: So half as much Aeldari as Space Marines? color me surprised!
I don't think anyone is saying Aeldari are fine right now, but the idea that SM are just another Aeldari is so far off base. They are so much much more.
They have between 3-4 times the play rate. Ofc they have more top lists if they are at a similar power level.
Daedalus81 wrote: These are the people and tournaments in December who were top 10 win rates and all their associated detachments.
All of these are ITC.
Spoiler:
The event with 0 marines and 2 eldar in the top 10 shouldnt count at all. From what I have heard several of the top players decided before the event to not run Adeptus Astartes to have a more fun event since it wouldnt affect their ratings anyway. It skews the result to look like eldar are better than they are and marines worse than they are.
Bharring wrote: If you think Eldar are OP because twenty some lists with "Custom Traits" did well - pushing up to nearly 70% win rate, you should be absolutely terrified of Cult Mechanicus. Lists with Cybernetica Cohort had an *80%* winrate. Clearly Cult Mechanicus needs a nerf and Eldar need a buff.
In statistics we call those outliers...
An outlier is something very different - a datapoint that seems to fall well outside the ranges data usually fall.
This case is "Not statistically significant". In this case, Cybernetica Cohort has exactly 5 datapoints. And each case has a 50/50 chance of being a 1 or 0. With only 5 data points, you can't make a meaningful conclusion. As such, an 80% winrate isn't exceptional; we'd expect to see it roughly 16% of the time (and we have far more than 6 individual lists, so not seeing it would be unlikely). While it does *suggest* that the subfaction *may* be stronger than average, the power of that suggestion is marginal. *That* is what people in statistics say about things like this.
we ignore the outliers and look at trends.
There are times when culling outliers before looking at trends is a good idea. When your measurement has a chance to provide a nonsensical value on rare occasions, outliers are unlikely to be useful. Or when there are irrelevant cases with heavily skewed results. But most of the time, you don't want to preemptively cull outliers. Doing so introduces bias to your numbers, and helps overfit the model to the data. Outliers might not be explained by the model, and your model might be fitted to "best fit for most data", but you don't just drop outliers whos results you don't like.
Besides, if we have a couple cases of 60-70% wins, a single case of 80% wins isn't much of an outlier.
Some people have actually won tournaments with Ultramarines who are sitting at around 45% WR as a faction in the same time period. It doesn't mean ultramarines are OP.
Of course. The volume of data is critical. That was the point of my post, a reducto ad absurdum. Obviously there's not enough data to dissect the dataset down to a single list that did well and then conclude that that faction is OP. The point was to question if dissecting the data down to just December reported results with ~20 CWE custom-faction lists that outperformed the dominant SM faction by ~4% is very significant. By demonstrating how being a little more specific yields junk results.
Looking at that list I see that Custom Craftworld eldar (great balancing work from GW...) and IH/IF/RG/WS (in that order) are pretty busted.
I also believe that the Fight Before Christmas had a gentleman's no space marine agreement but don't quote me on that.
Side note - Daedalus you're my hero for throwing together all of these numbers. Lies and statistics and all that but you are really bringing some meat for the discussion. Thanks!
Daedalus81 wrote: These are the people and tournaments in December who were top 10 win rates and all their associated detachments.
All of these are ITC.
Spoiler:
The event with 0 marines and 2 eldar in the top 10 shouldnt count at all. From what I have heard several of the top players decided before the event to not run Adeptus Astartes to have a more fun event since it wouldnt affect their ratings anyway. It skews the result to look like eldar are better than they are and marines worse than they are.
They had 1 event where they agreed not to run space marines between all the top players. Tau won with tripple surge...LOL.
Xenomancers wrote: It probably 100 points to expensive. It scales so hard with stratagems like moore dakka and freebootas that it's just the kind of unit that they couldn't fix if they tried...
at 650 it would be extremely OP.
(It can’t make use of More Dakka strat)
Xeno makes statements without knowledge all the time. He also defends all things Marine to the death. I’d take his posts as tongue in cheek, to be honest.
100 points is a big deal. You know the Castellan going from 600 to 700 made a huge difference. ITT I am arguing for a nerf to marines top factions...
It absolutely can use the strat. The only requirement is being an ORK unit. With Free boota up (which is super easy to trigger with another unit) you are hitting on 4's with 5's generating extra hits. It's really strong when you get the combo off. I've seen a stompa kill its points in a single turn actually. Which is why I find it hilarious it gets complained about so much. Yeah it's not amazing...kind of like how a space marine falchion is not amazing ether 1050 points and doesn't even have an invune. Super heavies that can tripple their damage output for 2 CP are REALLY hard to balance. It really is a factor of like 100-150 which determines useless to OP in this situation.
Listen I'm not going to dance this dance with you. You thought Boys were still 6ppm. You have said that the Squigbuggy of all things is the most OP shooting unit in the game. Simply put you don't really know what you're talking about because you're either a) so clouded by bias or b) don't understand what the facts/stats actually represent. The Stompa is not a good unit. Not with More Dakka. Not in Freebootas. Not with another 50 pt drop.
On topic, the stats show that Marines are OP. I have presented these before but there are critical numbers you are missing/ignoring.
Their first loss is way out of line with what is normal.
Their average points for and denied is strong.
Finally (and most obviously) - the percentage of Marine lists going 4-0 is way out of line with their number of players.
The strength of Eldar and question as to whether they are OP or not has absolutely no bearing on whether Marines are.
Hopefully GW correct this mistake (and it is a mistake) in the April FAQ.
Apart from that my sentiments echo Scotman's exactly. I can't state my points any better than he already has so I won't bother trying.
You straight up ignore statstics showing non ironhands/IF marines being totally unremarkable compared to other codex even before the CA update which buffed basically every army and did nothing for supplement marines...
Funny, when I use your chosen method of statistical truthiness - https://www.40kstats.com/faction-breakdown-report - Marines are tied with CWE (56.61%) just behind Cult Mechanicus (56.93%) at the top of the heap, for the time period you're talking about.
"Tied for second out of 30" is hard to call pass off as "unremarkable".
bananathug wrote: Looking at that list I see that Custom Craftworld eldar (great balancing work from GW...) and IH/IF/RG/WS (in that order) are pretty busted.
I also believe that the Fight Before Christmas had a gentleman's no space marine agreement but don't quote me on that.
Side note - Daedalus you're my hero for throwing together all of these numbers. Lies and statistics and all that but you are really bringing some meat for the discussion. Thanks!
The thing that makes RG good is literally a WL trait.
Master of Ambush: At the start of the start of the battle if this character is on the battlefield you can choose a Raven Guard Infantry unit, remove them both from the battlefield and place them at least 9″ away from any enemy models. Like holy FCK. How dumb is this?
You straight up ignore statstics showing non ironhands/IF marines being totally unremarkable compared to other codex even before the CA update which buffed basically every army and did nothing for supplement marines...
Funny, when I use your chosen method of statistical truthiness - https://www.40kstats.com/faction-breakdown-report - Marines are tied with CWE (56.61%) just behind Cult Mechanicus (56.93%) at the top of the heap, for the time period you're talking about.
"Tied for second out of 30" is hard to call pass off as "unremarkable".
Those stats include ironhands. Deadalus collected the data by chapter which is where the unremarkable data comes from.
Ishagu wrote: Iron Hands and Raven Guard have a high win rate against Tau. The Ultras don't.
That's the key point.
Marines are a faction that encompasses multiple Chapters. They are not all equal.
If anyone wants to say that Iron Hands and Centurions with the right chapter combination are too strong that would be perfectly reasonable. Blanket claims against the entire faction are not.
Off the bat, when a set of models has one hyper powerful way of playing, and one very strong but not as insane way of playing it that also has less flavor, you'll find that the best players with those models are just going to go towards the best option, dragging down the alternative throughout quality of playerbase. Ultramarines are still well and truly OP, just one of the least OP options in that dex so that is what it is.
Secondly, RG has a lower winrate than both Scars and Fists.
Thirdly, Thunderfire Cannon alone is better than anything you've mentioned yet, and is universal, and is the most played unit in competitive play at the moment.
Fourthly, where's these stats that show Ultramarines having a poor win rate vs Tau? is that sweeping claim based off anything other than you being unable to beat them?
Fifthly, and just to reinforce, arguing what's good in this game like it's a basketball point sheet and looking at nothing but win-rate statistics is so incredibly dense and I'm only doing it hopefully show you guys the folly of this and point out the holes in the claims you are making, because this is silly.
blaktoof wrote: Short of GW going back in time and removing all the marine supplements there is not much they can do. It's beyond simple nerfs to adjust SN balance down due to the layers of abilities they can get between codex/supplement/PA expansion.
They basically need to time travel or give every other faction the same extra free later of modifiers/wargear/traits/strats. And not just quantity but quality for low/free cost that SM received.
It's almost like you aren't paying attention. Only Ironhands are too strong.
*if you define too strong solely as "winning top-level competitive tournaments."
His statement falls apart under that definition too. In the very latest weekend of competitive play, John Lennon, a very recognizable name in the tournament scene, got first place at a GT using pure Imperial Fists, beating out both Raven Guard, and Iron Hands. The weekend before that saw Fists winning two GT level events, as well as two for Raven Guard.
Marines are busted in every single supplement. The more competitive players just play the more competitive chapters more.
I'm pretty sure I have been calling for nerf to IF super doctrine the entire thread. Also a few lists winning events does not make a point stronger. 1 event is not a trend. WR = trend.
You straight up ignore statstics showing non ironhands/IF marines being totally unremarkable compared to other codex even before the CA update which buffed basically every army and did nothing for supplement marines...I just don't know what to say. All marine supplements are OP because you say so I suppose. Seems reasonable.
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Nitro Zeus wrote: So half as much Aeldari as Space Marines? color me surprised!
I don't think anyone is saying Aeldari are fine right now, but the idea that SM are just another Aeldari is so far off base. They are so much much more.
They have between 3-4 times the play rate. Ofc they have more top lists if they are at a similar power level.
Hate to point it out again but that is the logic by which you make almost every declarative statement about game balance RE: other factions you don't play/like.
Kind of "pot calling the kettle black" to be complaining about people saying that supplement marines feel like gak to play against when you so commonly make declarative statements about other armies.
Why should any Eldar unit be nerfed, for example? Where are the OP competitive Biel-Tan, Ulthwe and Saim-Hann armies? If you can't prove every subfaction is OP, then you're not allowed to make any balance change that affects every subfaction.
Remove Master Crafters and suddenly 100% of competitive eldar lists will be Alaitoc, with a very slightly lower winrate.
Remove/nerf Alaitoc, and suddenly 100% of all competitive eldar lists will be Ulthwe (or something) with a slightly lower winrate.
Nerf Ulthwe, and it'll be Iyanden, Nerf Iyanden, it'll be Biel-Tan. Because the best players, who will actually meaningfully shift the army's winrate, will obviously be playing the best possible subfaction.
This is the assumption made for every single faction in the game exceeeeeeept for Codex Space Marines. There, it's "No, you can't nerf my double-firing movement-halving thunderfire cannons, I play Blood Ravens and we have a 0% playrate, WE aren't OP!"
Ishagu wrote: Iron Hands and Raven Guard have a high win rate against Tau. The Ultras don't.
That's the key point.
Marines are a faction that encompasses multiple Chapters. They are not all equal.
If anyone wants to say that Iron Hands and Centurions with the right chapter combination are too strong that would be perfectly reasonable. Blanket claims against the entire faction are not.
Off the bat, when a set of models has one hyper powerful way of playing, and one very strong but not as insane way of playing it that also has less flavor, you'll find that the best players with those models are just going to go towards the best option, dragging down the alternative throughout quality of playerbase. Ultramarines are still well and truly OP, just one of the least OP options in that dex so that is what it is.
Secondly, RG has a lower winrate than both Scars and Fists.
Thirdly, Thunderfire Cannon alone is better than anything you've mentioned yet, and is universal, and is the most played unit in competitive play at the moment.
Fourthly, where's these stats that show Ultramarines having a poor win rate vs Tau? is that sweeping claim based off anything other than you being unable to beat them?
Fifthly, and just to reinforce, arguing what's good in this game like it's a basketball point sheet and looking at nothing but win-rate statistics is so incredibly dense and I'm only doing it hopefully show you guys the folly of this and point out the holes in the claims you are making, because this is silly.
blaktoof wrote: Short of GW going back in time and removing all the marine supplements there is not much they can do. It's beyond simple nerfs to adjust SN balance down due to the layers of abilities they can get between codex/supplement/PA expansion.
They basically need to time travel or give every other faction the same extra free later of modifiers/wargear/traits/strats. And not just quantity but quality for low/free cost that SM received.
It's almost like you aren't paying attention. Only Ironhands are too strong.
*if you define too strong solely as "winning top-level competitive tournaments."
His statement falls apart under that definition too. In the very latest weekend of competitive play, John Lennon, a very recognizable name in the tournament scene, got first place at a GT using pure Imperial Fists, beating out both Raven Guard, and Iron Hands. The weekend before that saw Fists winning two GT level events, as well as two for Raven Guard.
Marines are busted in every single supplement. The more competitive players just play the more competitive chapters more.
I'm pretty sure I have been calling for nerf to IF super doctrine the entire thread. Also a few lists winning events does not make a point stronger. 1 event is not a trend. WR = trend.
You straight up ignore statstics showing non ironhands/IF marines being totally unremarkable compared to other codex even before the CA update which buffed basically every army and did nothing for supplement marines...I just don't know what to say. All marine supplements are OP because you say so I suppose. Seems reasonable.
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Nitro Zeus wrote: So half as much Aeldari as Space Marines? color me surprised!
I don't think anyone is saying Aeldari are fine right now, but the idea that SM are just another Aeldari is so far off base. They are so much much more.
They have between 3-4 times the play rate. Ofc they have more top lists if they are at a similar power level.
Hate to point it out again but that is the logic by which you make almost every declarative statement about game balance RE: other factions you don't play/like.
Kind of "pot calling the kettle black" to be complaining about people saying that supplement marines feel like gak to play against when you so commonly make declarative statements about other armies.
Why should any Eldar unit be nerfed, for example? Where are the OP competitive Biel-Tan, Ulthwe and Saim-Hann armies? If you can't prove every subfaction is OP, then you're not allowed to make any balance change that affects every subfaction.
Remove Master Crafters and suddenly 100% of competitive eldar lists will be Alaitoc, with a very slightly lower winrate.
Remove/nerf Alaitoc, and suddenly 100% of all competitive eldar lists will be Ulthwe (or something) with a slightly lower winrate.
Nerf Ulthwe, and it'll be Iyanden, Nerf Iyanden, it'll be Biel-Tan. Because the best players, who will actually meaningfully shift the army's winrate, will obviously be playing the best possible subfaction.
This is the assumption made for every single faction in the game exceeeeeeept for Codex Space Marines. There, it's "No, you can't nerf my double-firing movement-halving thunderfire cannons, I play Blood Ravens and we have a 0% playrate, WE aren't OP!"
No...remove expert crafters and alitoc WR would stay roughly the same. Which has a significantly lower WR. What would you do to fix eldar? Would you just let them maintain the highest WR in the game?
Ishagu wrote: Iron Hands and Raven Guard have a high win rate against Tau. The Ultras don't.
That's the key point.
Marines are a faction that encompasses multiple Chapters. They are not all equal.
If anyone wants to say that Iron Hands and Centurions with the right chapter combination are too strong that would be perfectly reasonable. Blanket claims against the entire faction are not.
Off the bat, when a set of models has one hyper powerful way of playing, and one very strong but not as insane way of playing it that also has less flavor, you'll find that the best players with those models are just going to go towards the best option, dragging down the alternative throughout quality of playerbase. Ultramarines are still well and truly OP, just one of the least OP options in that dex so that is what it is.
Secondly, RG has a lower winrate than both Scars and Fists.
Thirdly, Thunderfire Cannon alone is better than anything you've mentioned yet, and is universal, and is the most played unit in competitive play at the moment.
Fourthly, where's these stats that show Ultramarines having a poor win rate vs Tau? is that sweeping claim based off anything other than you being unable to beat them?
Fifthly, and just to reinforce, arguing what's good in this game like it's a basketball point sheet and looking at nothing but win-rate statistics is so incredibly dense and I'm only doing it hopefully show you guys the folly of this and point out the holes in the claims you are making, because this is silly.
blaktoof wrote: Short of GW going back in time and removing all the marine supplements there is not much they can do. It's beyond simple nerfs to adjust SN balance down due to the layers of abilities they can get between codex/supplement/PA expansion.
They basically need to time travel or give every other faction the same extra free later of modifiers/wargear/traits/strats. And not just quantity but quality for low/free cost that SM received.
It's almost like you aren't paying attention. Only Ironhands are too strong.
*if you define too strong solely as "winning top-level competitive tournaments."
His statement falls apart under that definition too. In the very latest weekend of competitive play, John Lennon, a very recognizable name in the tournament scene, got first place at a GT using pure Imperial Fists, beating out both Raven Guard, and Iron Hands. The weekend before that saw Fists winning two GT level events, as well as two for Raven Guard.
Marines are busted in every single supplement. The more competitive players just play the more competitive chapters more.
I'm pretty sure I have been calling for nerf to IF super doctrine the entire thread. Also a few lists winning events does not make a point stronger. 1 event is not a trend. WR = trend.
You straight up ignore statstics showing non ironhands/IF marines being totally unremarkable compared to other codex even before the CA update which buffed basically every army and did nothing for supplement marines...I just don't know what to say. All marine supplements are OP because you say so I suppose. Seems reasonable.
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Nitro Zeus wrote: So half as much Aeldari as Space Marines? color me surprised!
I don't think anyone is saying Aeldari are fine right now, but the idea that SM are just another Aeldari is so far off base. They are so much much more.
They have between 3-4 times the play rate. Ofc they have more top lists if they are at a similar power level.
Hate to point it out again but that is the logic by which you make almost every declarative statement about game balance RE: other factions you don't play/like.
Kind of "pot calling the kettle black" to be complaining about people saying that supplement marines feel like gak to play against when you so commonly make declarative statements about other armies.
Why should any Eldar unit be nerfed, for example? Where are the OP competitive Biel-Tan, Ulthwe and Saim-Hann armies? If you can't prove every subfaction is OP, then you're not allowed to make any balance change that affects every subfaction.
Remove Master Crafters and suddenly 100% of competitive eldar lists will be Alaitoc, with a very slightly lower winrate.
Remove/nerf Alaitoc, and suddenly 100% of all competitive eldar lists will be Ulthwe (or something) with a slightly lower winrate.
Nerf Ulthwe, and it'll be Iyanden, Nerf Iyanden, it'll be Biel-Tan. Because the best players, who will actually meaningfully shift the army's winrate, will obviously be playing the best possible subfaction.
This is the assumption made for every single faction in the game exceeeeeeept for Codex Space Marines. There, it's "No, you can't nerf my double-firing movement-halving thunderfire cannons, I play Blood Ravens and we have a 0% playrate, WE aren't OP!"
No...remove expert crafters and alitoc WR would stay roughly the same. Which has a significantly lower WR. What would you do to fix eldar? Would you just let them maintain the highest WR in the game?
Push the stronger FOTM Eldar players from Custom Chapter to Alaitoc, and Alaitoc's winrate goes up to somewhere between current-Alaitoc and current-Custom.
Unless you're arguing that the player exerts no bias on the winrate, which seems silly - even if you pretend there's no skill at actually playing the game, they'd still crowd out the "See my twenty-year old Alaitoc pathfinder army!" subset.
Scotsman can correct me if I'm wrong, but he's not saying "Don't nerf Expert Crafters". He's calling out the double standard where "Eldar" must be nerfed because "Expert Crafters" are OP - screwing over Uthwe, but "Marines" shouldn't be nerfed because of "Iron Hands" - because that would screw over Ultramarines.
In other words, if Expert Crafters and Iron Hands are OP, but Uthwe and Ultramarines are not, then whether to nerf Eldar and Marines, or nerf Expert Crafters and Iron Hands specifically, should be consistent.
Demanding that all CWE be nerfed because Expert Crafters hurt your feelings, but demanding your Blue&Gold Iron Hands not be nerfed because other peoples' UltraMarines would be hurt is a double standard.
[...] What would you do to fix eldar? Would you just let them maintain the highest WR in the game?
Do you *really* think the *0*.77% difference between CWE and SM is statistically significant?
Ishagu wrote: Iron Hands and Raven Guard have a high win rate against Tau. The Ultras don't.
That's the key point.
Marines are a faction that encompasses multiple Chapters. They are not all equal.
If anyone wants to say that Iron Hands and Centurions with the right chapter combination are too strong that would be perfectly reasonable. Blanket claims against the entire faction are not.
Off the bat, when a set of models has one hyper powerful way of playing, and one very strong but not as insane way of playing it that also has less flavor, you'll find that the best players with those models are just going to go towards the best option, dragging down the alternative throughout quality of playerbase. Ultramarines are still well and truly OP, just one of the least OP options in that dex so that is what it is.
Secondly, RG has a lower winrate than both Scars and Fists.
Thirdly, Thunderfire Cannon alone is better than anything you've mentioned yet, and is universal, and is the most played unit in competitive play at the moment.
Fourthly, where's these stats that show Ultramarines having a poor win rate vs Tau? is that sweeping claim based off anything other than you being unable to beat them?
Fifthly, and just to reinforce, arguing what's good in this game like it's a basketball point sheet and looking at nothing but win-rate statistics is so incredibly dense and I'm only doing it hopefully show you guys the folly of this and point out the holes in the claims you are making, because this is silly.
blaktoof wrote: Short of GW going back in time and removing all the marine supplements there is not much they can do. It's beyond simple nerfs to adjust SN balance down due to the layers of abilities they can get between codex/supplement/PA expansion.
They basically need to time travel or give every other faction the same extra free later of modifiers/wargear/traits/strats. And not just quantity but quality for low/free cost that SM received.
It's almost like you aren't paying attention. Only Ironhands are too strong.
*if you define too strong solely as "winning top-level competitive tournaments."
His statement falls apart under that definition too. In the very latest weekend of competitive play, John Lennon, a very recognizable name in the tournament scene, got first place at a GT using pure Imperial Fists, beating out both Raven Guard, and Iron Hands. The weekend before that saw Fists winning two GT level events, as well as two for Raven Guard.
Marines are busted in every single supplement. The more competitive players just play the more competitive chapters more.
I'm pretty sure I have been calling for nerf to IF super doctrine the entire thread. Also a few lists winning events does not make a point stronger. 1 event is not a trend. WR = trend.
You straight up ignore statstics showing non ironhands/IF marines being totally unremarkable compared to other codex even before the CA update which buffed basically every army and did nothing for supplement marines...I just don't know what to say. All marine supplements are OP because you say so I suppose. Seems reasonable.
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Nitro Zeus wrote: So half as much Aeldari as Space Marines? color me surprised!
I don't think anyone is saying Aeldari are fine right now, but the idea that SM are just another Aeldari is so far off base. They are so much much more.
They have between 3-4 times the play rate. Ofc they have more top lists if they are at a similar power level.
Hate to point it out again but that is the logic by which you make almost every declarative statement about game balance RE: other factions you don't play/like.
Kind of "pot calling the kettle black" to be complaining about people saying that supplement marines feel like gak to play against when you so commonly make declarative statements about other armies.
Why should any Eldar unit be nerfed, for example? Where are the OP competitive Biel-Tan, Ulthwe and Saim-Hann armies? If you can't prove every subfaction is OP, then you're not allowed to make any balance change that affects every subfaction.
Remove Master Crafters and suddenly 100% of competitive eldar lists will be Alaitoc, with a very slightly lower winrate.
Remove/nerf Alaitoc, and suddenly 100% of all competitive eldar lists will be Ulthwe (or something) with a slightly lower winrate.
Nerf Ulthwe, and it'll be Iyanden, Nerf Iyanden, it'll be Biel-Tan. Because the best players, who will actually meaningfully shift the army's winrate, will obviously be playing the best possible subfaction.
This is the assumption made for every single faction in the game exceeeeeeept for Codex Space Marines. There, it's "No, you can't nerf my double-firing movement-halving thunderfire cannons, I play Blood Ravens and we have a 0% playrate, WE aren't OP!"
No...remove expert crafters and alitoc WR would stay roughly the same. Which has a significantly lower WR. What would you do to fix eldar? Would you just let them maintain the highest WR in the game?
Push the stronger FOTM Eldar players from Custom Chapter to Alaitoc, and Alaitoc's winrate goes up to somewhere between current-Alaitoc and current-Custom.
Unless you're arguing that the player exerts no bias on the winrate, which seems silly - even if you pretend there's no skill at actually playing the game, they'd still crowd out the "See my twenty-year old Alaitoc pathfinder army!" subset.
Scotsman can correct me if I'm wrong, but he's not saying "Don't nerf Expert Crafters". He's calling out the double standard where "Eldar" must be nerfed because "Expert Crafters" are OP - screwing over Uthwe, but "Marines" shouldn't be nerfed because of "Iron Hands" - because that would screw over Ultramarines.
In other words, if Expert Crafters and Iron Hands are OP, but Uthwe and Ultramarines are not, then whether to nerf Eldar and Marines, or nerf Expert Crafters and Iron Hands specifically, should be consistent.
Demanding that all CWE be nerfed because Expert Crafters hurt your feelings, but demanding your Blue&Gold Iron Hands not be nerfed because other peoples' UltraMarines would be hurt is a double standard.
I've only suggested nerfing expert crafters. What double standard are we talking about exactly? Eldar have been a top army the entire edition. Where space marines of all types have been rock bottom. It actually looks like a double standard when marines get actually competitive rules and everyone calls for nerfs when eldar are at the very least as powerful as space marines. Don't see a lot of people calling for nerfs of eldar...
The fact that eldar and space marines are that close in win rate means they are at a similar power level. Honestly if you nerfed Ironhands that space marine avg WR would drop probably around the 53-52% WR area.
There is also a somewhat linear response of the % of the field to the number of players in the top 10. I don't doubt that if Asuryani was 30%+ of the field they would take 5 of the top 10 easily.
Spoiler:
Of course these are just VERY SMALL snippets of data focusing on an even narrower subset so don't go run away with them.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Here's both combined for % of field.
Xenomancers wrote: Don't see a lot of people calling for nerfs of eldar...
Xeno, that's because Eldar are nowhere near the same level of problem as Codex Marines right now.
Marines are not only the strongest faction in the game, they are also the most popular. It's why we see Marines are a quarter of all tournament lists. The peak of Ynarri popularity was 7 or 8% of tournament lists for comparison (if memory serves). Add to this gak mix that Codex Marines arrived literally at the point where the game was probably the most balanced it has ever been. The variety of factions able to compete and win events (though they perhaps had very few variable builds) was unprecedented. Finally, as Scotsman has already said, Marines simply have more options than every other faction as of right now. They are able to take a huge variety of units, employ a huge variety of tactics and suit a massive range of playstyles at the competitive level. This is unheard of for a single faction.
This is why you see such a push back to Codex Marines in particular. They are the most OP faction with the most players that arrived at the time where the game WAS the most balanced. Many people right now associate Marines with a drop in balance for the game and, as we can surely all agree, that is bad for the game overall. I still remember the dark times of 7th and earlier when the game was a complete mess. What I see now reminds me of those times, times I thought were dead and buried with this edition.
Ishagu wrote: Iron Hands and Raven Guard have a high win rate against Tau. The Ultras don't.
That's the key point.
Marines are a faction that encompasses multiple Chapters. They are not all equal.
If anyone wants to say that Iron Hands and Centurions with the right chapter combination are too strong that would be perfectly reasonable. Blanket claims against the entire faction are not.
Off the bat, when a set of models has one hyper powerful way of playing, and one very strong but not as insane way of playing it that also has less flavor, you'll find that the best players with those models are just going to go towards the best option, dragging down the alternative throughout quality of playerbase. Ultramarines are still well and truly OP, just one of the least OP options in that dex so that is what it is.
Secondly, RG has a lower winrate than both Scars and Fists.
Thirdly, Thunderfire Cannon alone is better than anything you've mentioned yet, and is universal, and is the most played unit in competitive play at the moment.
Fourthly, where's these stats that show Ultramarines having a poor win rate vs Tau? is that sweeping claim based off anything other than you being unable to beat them?
Fifthly, and just to reinforce, arguing what's good in this game like it's a basketball point sheet and looking at nothing but win-rate statistics is so incredibly dense and I'm only doing it hopefully show you guys the folly of this and point out the holes in the claims you are making, because this is silly.
blaktoof wrote: Short of GW going back in time and removing all the marine supplements there is not much they can do. It's beyond simple nerfs to adjust SN balance down due to the layers of abilities they can get between codex/supplement/PA expansion.
They basically need to time travel or give every other faction the same extra free later of modifiers/wargear/traits/strats. And not just quantity but quality for low/free cost that SM received.
It's almost like you aren't paying attention. Only Ironhands are too strong.
*if you define too strong solely as "winning top-level competitive tournaments."
His statement falls apart under that definition too. In the very latest weekend of competitive play, John Lennon, a very recognizable name in the tournament scene, got first place at a GT using pure Imperial Fists, beating out both Raven Guard, and Iron Hands. The weekend before that saw Fists winning two GT level events, as well as two for Raven Guard.
Marines are busted in every single supplement. The more competitive players just play the more competitive chapters more.
I'm pretty sure I have been calling for nerf to IF super doctrine the entire thread. Also a few lists winning events does not make a point stronger. 1 event is not a trend. WR = trend.
You straight up ignore statstics showing non ironhands/IF marines being totally unremarkable compared to other codex even before the CA update which buffed basically every army and did nothing for supplement marines...I just don't know what to say. All marine supplements are OP because you say so I suppose. Seems reasonable.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Nitro Zeus wrote: So half as much Aeldari as Space Marines? color me surprised!
I don't think anyone is saying Aeldari are fine right now, but the idea that SM are just another Aeldari is so far off base. They are so much much more.
They have between 3-4 times the play rate. Ofc they have more top lists if they are at a similar power level.
Hate to point it out again but that is the logic by which you make almost every declarative statement about game balance RE: other factions you don't play/like.
Kind of "pot calling the kettle black" to be complaining about people saying that supplement marines feel like gak to play against when you so commonly make declarative statements about other armies.
Why should any Eldar unit be nerfed, for example? Where are the OP competitive Biel-Tan, Ulthwe and Saim-Hann armies? If you can't prove every subfaction is OP, then you're not allowed to make any balance change that affects every subfaction.
Remove Master Crafters and suddenly 100% of competitive eldar lists will be Alaitoc, with a very slightly lower winrate.
Remove/nerf Alaitoc, and suddenly 100% of all competitive eldar lists will be Ulthwe (or something) with a slightly lower winrate.
Nerf Ulthwe, and it'll be Iyanden, Nerf Iyanden, it'll be Biel-Tan. Because the best players, who will actually meaningfully shift the army's winrate, will obviously be playing the best possible subfaction.
This is the assumption made for every single faction in the game exceeeeeeept for Codex Space Marines. There, it's "No, you can't nerf my double-firing movement-halving thunderfire cannons, I play Blood Ravens and we have a 0% playrate, WE aren't OP!"
No...remove expert crafters and alitoc WR would stay roughly the same. Which has a significantly lower WR. What would you do to fix eldar? Would you just let them maintain the highest WR in the game?
Push the stronger FOTM Eldar players from Custom Chapter to Alaitoc, and Alaitoc's winrate goes up to somewhere between current-Alaitoc and current-Custom.
Unless you're arguing that the player exerts no bias on the winrate, which seems silly - even if you pretend there's no skill at actually playing the game, they'd still crowd out the "See my twenty-year old Alaitoc pathfinder army!" subset.
Scotsman can correct me if I'm wrong, but he's not saying "Don't nerf Expert Crafters". He's calling out the double standard where "Eldar" must be nerfed because "Expert Crafters" are OP - screwing over Uthwe, but "Marines" shouldn't be nerfed because of "Iron Hands" - because that would screw over Ultramarines.
In other words, if Expert Crafters and Iron Hands are OP, but Uthwe and Ultramarines are not, then whether to nerf Eldar and Marines, or nerf Expert Crafters and Iron Hands specifically, should be consistent.
Demanding that all CWE be nerfed because Expert Crafters hurt your feelings, but demanding your Blue&Gold Iron Hands not be nerfed because other peoples' UltraMarines would be hurt is a double standard.
I've only suggested nerfing expert crafters. What double standard are we talking about exactly? Eldar have been a top army the entire edition. Where space marines of all types have been rock bottom. It actually looks like a double standard when marines get actually competitive rules and everyone calls for nerfs when eldar are at the very least as powerful as space marines. Don't see a lot of people calling for nerfs of eldar...
The fact that eldar and space marines are that close in win rate means they are at a similar power level. Honestly if you nerfed Ironhands that space marine avg WR would drop probably around the 53-52% WR area.
Expert crafters being an exclusive trait would be fine with me. I remain sincerely unconvinced that doing that would not make the winrate of Alaitoc "Mysteriously" jump.
I think the best nerf to Eldar would be a nerf to CHE, a nerf to Nightspinners, and possibly a nerf to both EC and Alaitoc because they do seem to be head and shoulders above the competition.
I absolutely think Shield Drones need a nerf. I'm not entirely convinced that Riptides do given a shield drone nerf, I suspect they may be as crazy as they are right now because they're playing into a primaris meta.
Xenomancers wrote: Don't see a lot of people calling for nerfs of eldar...
Xeno, that's because Eldar are nowhere near the same level of problem as Codex Marines right now.
Marines are not only the strongest faction in the game, they are also the most popular. It's why we see Marines are a quarter of all tournament lists. The peak of Ynarri popularity was 7 or 8% of tournament lists for comparison (if memory serves). Add to this gak mix that Codex Marines arrived literally at the point where the game was probably the most balanced it has ever been. The variety of factions able to compete and win events (though they perhaps had very few variable builds) was unprecedented. Finally, as Scotsman has already said, Marines simply have more options than every other faction as of right now. They are able to take a huge variety of units, employ a huge variety of tactics and suit a massive range of playstyles at the competitive level. This is unheard of for a single faction.
This is why you see such a push back to Codex Marines in particular. They are the most OP faction with the most players that arrived at the time where the game WAS the most balanced. Many people right now associate Marines with a drop in balance for the game and, as we can surely all agree, that is bad for the game overall. I still remember the dark times of 7th and earlier when the game was a complete mess. What I see now reminds me of those times, times I thought were dead and buried with this edition.
I think there's more to it. The player base didn't shift from from Eldar aside from perhaps the handful of top players that move around a lot. It was Imperium, CSM, and Knights (mostly) who took a hit in their rates of attendance. It seems like the vast majority of players stick to their lane or spray their existing marines grey.
December win rate for all Codex Astartes : 55%
December win rate for all Codex Astartes without IH : 50%
December win rate for IH only: 65%
December win rate for Asuryani : 57%
Nerf IH and things look a lot more rational on the marine end. That doesn't mean it is fun to play them or that they're implicitly balanced.
Ishagu wrote: Iron Hands and Raven Guard have a high win rate against Tau. The Ultras don't.
That's the key point.
Marines are a faction that encompasses multiple Chapters. They are not all equal.
If anyone wants to say that Iron Hands and Centurions with the right chapter combination are too strong that would be perfectly reasonable. Blanket claims against the entire faction are not.
Off the bat, when a set of models has one hyper powerful way of playing, and one very strong but not as insane way of playing it that also has less flavor, you'll find that the best players with those models are just going to go towards the best option, dragging down the alternative throughout quality of playerbase. Ultramarines are still well and truly OP, just one of the least OP options in that dex so that is what it is.
Secondly, RG has a lower winrate than both Scars and Fists.
Thirdly, Thunderfire Cannon alone is better than anything you've mentioned yet, and is universal, and is the most played unit in competitive play at the moment.
Fourthly, where's these stats that show Ultramarines having a poor win rate vs Tau? is that sweeping claim based off anything other than you being unable to beat them?
Fifthly, and just to reinforce, arguing what's good in this game like it's a basketball point sheet and looking at nothing but win-rate statistics is so incredibly dense and I'm only doing it hopefully show you guys the folly of this and point out the holes in the claims you are making, because this is silly.
blaktoof wrote: Short of GW going back in time and removing all the marine supplements there is not much they can do. It's beyond simple nerfs to adjust SN balance down due to the layers of abilities they can get between codex/supplement/PA expansion.
They basically need to time travel or give every other faction the same extra free later of modifiers/wargear/traits/strats. And not just quantity but quality for low/free cost that SM received.
It's almost like you aren't paying attention. Only Ironhands are too strong.
*if you define too strong solely as "winning top-level competitive tournaments."
His statement falls apart under that definition too. In the very latest weekend of competitive play, John Lennon, a very recognizable name in the tournament scene, got first place at a GT using pure Imperial Fists, beating out both Raven Guard, and Iron Hands. The weekend before that saw Fists winning two GT level events, as well as two for Raven Guard.
Marines are busted in every single supplement. The more competitive players just play the more competitive chapters more.
I'm pretty sure I have been calling for nerf to IF super doctrine the entire thread. Also a few lists winning events does not make a point stronger. 1 event is not a trend. WR = trend.
You straight up ignore statstics showing non ironhands/IF marines being totally unremarkable compared to other codex even before the CA update which buffed basically every army and did nothing for supplement marines...I just don't know what to say. All marine supplements are OP because you say so I suppose. Seems reasonable.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Nitro Zeus wrote: So half as much Aeldari as Space Marines? color me surprised!
I don't think anyone is saying Aeldari are fine right now, but the idea that SM are just another Aeldari is so far off base. They are so much much more.
They have between 3-4 times the play rate. Ofc they have more top lists if they are at a similar power level.
Hate to point it out again but that is the logic by which you make almost every declarative statement about game balance RE: other factions you don't play/like.
Kind of "pot calling the kettle black" to be complaining about people saying that supplement marines feel like gak to play against when you so commonly make declarative statements about other armies.
Why should any Eldar unit be nerfed, for example? Where are the OP competitive Biel-Tan, Ulthwe and Saim-Hann armies? If you can't prove every subfaction is OP, then you're not allowed to make any balance change that affects every subfaction.
Remove Master Crafters and suddenly 100% of competitive eldar lists will be Alaitoc, with a very slightly lower winrate.
Remove/nerf Alaitoc, and suddenly 100% of all competitive eldar lists will be Ulthwe (or something) with a slightly lower winrate.
Nerf Ulthwe, and it'll be Iyanden, Nerf Iyanden, it'll be Biel-Tan. Because the best players, who will actually meaningfully shift the army's winrate, will obviously be playing the best possible subfaction.
This is the assumption made for every single faction in the game exceeeeeeept for Codex Space Marines. There, it's "No, you can't nerf my double-firing movement-halving thunderfire cannons, I play Blood Ravens and we have a 0% playrate, WE aren't OP!"
No...remove expert crafters and alitoc WR would stay roughly the same. Which has a significantly lower WR. What would you do to fix eldar? Would you just let them maintain the highest WR in the game?
Push the stronger FOTM Eldar players from Custom Chapter to Alaitoc, and Alaitoc's winrate goes up to somewhere between current-Alaitoc and current-Custom.
Unless you're arguing that the player exerts no bias on the winrate, which seems silly - even if you pretend there's no skill at actually playing the game, they'd still crowd out the "See my twenty-year old Alaitoc pathfinder army!" subset.
Scotsman can correct me if I'm wrong, but he's not saying "Don't nerf Expert Crafters". He's calling out the double standard where "Eldar" must be nerfed because "Expert Crafters" are OP - screwing over Uthwe, but "Marines" shouldn't be nerfed because of "Iron Hands" - because that would screw over Ultramarines.
In other words, if Expert Crafters and Iron Hands are OP, but Uthwe and Ultramarines are not, then whether to nerf Eldar and Marines, or nerf Expert Crafters and Iron Hands specifically, should be consistent.
Demanding that all CWE be nerfed because Expert Crafters hurt your feelings, but demanding your Blue&Gold Iron Hands not be nerfed because other peoples' UltraMarines would be hurt is a double standard.
I've only suggested nerfing expert crafters. What double standard are we talking about exactly?
When you argue that Marines are bad, because only a couple subfactions are good while the rest are bad, while also arguing that CWE are OP because a couple subfactions are good while the rest are bad - it certainly sounds like a double standard.
Eldar have been a top army the entire edition. Where space marines of all types have been rock bottom.
GK would like to have a word with you about what "rock bottom" really means. Marines have been really bad for much of the edition, but nowhere near the worst book, and they've had times at the top.
It actually looks like a double standard when marines get actually competitive rules and everyone calls for nerfs when eldar are at the very least as powerful as space marines. Don't see a lot of people calling for nerfs of eldar...
I think you and I read very different DakkaDakkas. People have been screaming "Nerf Eldar" all edition. They still are. There's more of interest to discuss about nerfing Marines than Eldar right now, but because Marines have changed a lot more. Things that change tend to spark more contemporary discussion. There's still tons of desire on these boards to nerf Eldar, though.
The fact that eldar and space marines are that close in win rate means they are at a similar power level. Honestly if you nerfed Ironhands that space marine avg WR would drop probably around the 53-52% WR area.
This. The uneven release schedule just kills any hope of maintaining balance. The other thing that kills it for competitive play is that without a checkmate condition it's very hard to recover once you start losing the attrition fight, and that sort of thing needs to be baked into the core rules. It's really hard to bolt such a thing on onto a system after the fact.
As for the win condition - that is in the missions. The CA19 missions are now really good and give a route to victory for some very diverse army builds. This is now the polar opposite of the ITC missions which are really showing their age and clearly narrow the meta to a dramatic degree. It is the easiest thing in the world to bolt onto a system after the fact, GW changes this every year as part of what balances the game. The problem is that large parts of the competitive scene totally ignore these changes.
First off, that article is a good read. So is the one on Game Stewardship that is linked within it. Nothing I didn't know, but well put none the less. The points it's making apply just as much to the "new hotness" problem within the context of all but the most cut-throat environments.
I'll admit I haven't read through the CA 19 missions, but I'd be very surprised if they added actual "achieve this game state -> victory, game over" checkmate conditions. All the CA missions up to this point have just been adding a layer to the calculation of whether you've lost too much material to have a path to victory. However, however, if I'm being intellectually honest that's what a proper checkmate condition is doing in the first place. The difference between deciding whether you can achieve a checkmate in Chess and a caster-kill in Warmahordes is how complicated the calculation is, not the fundamental nature of that calculation.
Mark it down in your calendars people, somebody just said "I've listened to your argument and you've changed my mind" on the internet.
So what is bringing 40k down at the competitive level? We've ruled out the lack of a checkmate condition, and Warmachine had a lot of the other issues we're complaining about but it still held up to a cut-throat tournament focus. (Specifically I'm thinking of inter- and intra-faction balance issues, rock-paper-scissors elements in list design, and lethality.) The thing that really stands out as different is threat range. The standard deployment zones were 30" apart and the average gun range was about 12". Very few things could get into shooting range turn 1, almost nothing could manage a turn 1 charge, and a majority of units didn't have ranged weapons at all. Maneuvering into position was critical, and I think that's my biggest complaint about 40k; the feeling that the really important decisions were made when we put our lists together instead of after those lists are on the table.
Ishagu wrote: Iron Hands and Raven Guard have a high win rate against Tau. The Ultras don't.
That's the key point.
Marines are a faction that encompasses multiple Chapters. They are not all equal.
If anyone wants to say that Iron Hands and Centurions with the right chapter combination are too strong that would be perfectly reasonable. Blanket claims against the entire faction are not.
Off the bat, when a set of models has one hyper powerful way of playing, and one very strong but not as insane way of playing it that also has less flavor, you'll find that the best players with those models are just going to go towards the best option, dragging down the alternative throughout quality of playerbase. Ultramarines are still well and truly OP, just one of the least OP options in that dex so that is what it is.
Secondly, RG has a lower winrate than both Scars and Fists.
Thirdly, Thunderfire Cannon alone is better than anything you've mentioned yet, and is universal, and is the most played unit in competitive play at the moment.
Fourthly, where's these stats that show Ultramarines having a poor win rate vs Tau? is that sweeping claim based off anything other than you being unable to beat them?
Fifthly, and just to reinforce, arguing what's good in this game like it's a basketball point sheet and looking at nothing but win-rate statistics is so incredibly dense and I'm only doing it hopefully show you guys the folly of this and point out the holes in the claims you are making, because this is silly.
blaktoof wrote: Short of GW going back in time and removing all the marine supplements there is not much they can do. It's beyond simple nerfs to adjust SN balance down due to the layers of abilities they can get between codex/supplement/PA expansion.
They basically need to time travel or give every other faction the same extra free later of modifiers/wargear/traits/strats. And not just quantity but quality for low/free cost that SM received.
It's almost like you aren't paying attention. Only Ironhands are too strong.
*if you define too strong solely as "winning top-level competitive tournaments."
His statement falls apart under that definition too. In the very latest weekend of competitive play, John Lennon, a very recognizable name in the tournament scene, got first place at a GT using pure Imperial Fists, beating out both Raven Guard, and Iron Hands. The weekend before that saw Fists winning two GT level events, as well as two for Raven Guard.
Marines are busted in every single supplement. The more competitive players just play the more competitive chapters more.
I'm pretty sure I have been calling for nerf to IF super doctrine the entire thread. Also a few lists winning events does not make a point stronger. 1 event is not a trend. WR = trend.
You straight up ignore statstics showing non ironhands/IF marines being totally unremarkable compared to other codex even before the CA update which buffed basically every army and did nothing for supplement marines...I just don't know what to say. All marine supplements are OP because you say so I suppose. Seems reasonable.
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Nitro Zeus wrote: So half as much Aeldari as Space Marines? color me surprised!
I don't think anyone is saying Aeldari are fine right now, but the idea that SM are just another Aeldari is so far off base. They are so much much more.
They have between 3-4 times the play rate. Ofc they have more top lists if they are at a similar power level.
Hate to point it out again but that is the logic by which you make almost every declarative statement about game balance RE: other factions you don't play/like.
Kind of "pot calling the kettle black" to be complaining about people saying that supplement marines feel like gak to play against when you so commonly make declarative statements about other armies.
Why should any Eldar unit be nerfed, for example? Where are the OP competitive Biel-Tan, Ulthwe and Saim-Hann armies? If you can't prove every subfaction is OP, then you're not allowed to make any balance change that affects every subfaction.
Remove Master Crafters and suddenly 100% of competitive eldar lists will be Alaitoc, with a very slightly lower winrate.
Remove/nerf Alaitoc, and suddenly 100% of all competitive eldar lists will be Ulthwe (or something) with a slightly lower winrate.
Nerf Ulthwe, and it'll be Iyanden, Nerf Iyanden, it'll be Biel-Tan. Because the best players, who will actually meaningfully shift the army's winrate, will obviously be playing the best possible subfaction.
This is the assumption made for every single faction in the game exceeeeeeept for Codex Space Marines. There, it's "No, you can't nerf my double-firing movement-halving thunderfire cannons, I play Blood Ravens and we have a 0% playrate, WE aren't OP!"
No...remove expert crafters and alitoc WR would stay roughly the same. Which has a significantly lower WR. What would you do to fix eldar? Would you just let them maintain the highest WR in the game?
Push the stronger FOTM Eldar players from Custom Chapter to Alaitoc, and Alaitoc's winrate goes up to somewhere between current-Alaitoc and current-Custom.
Unless you're arguing that the player exerts no bias on the winrate, which seems silly - even if you pretend there's no skill at actually playing the game, they'd still crowd out the "See my twenty-year old Alaitoc pathfinder army!" subset.
Scotsman can correct me if I'm wrong, but he's not saying "Don't nerf Expert Crafters". He's calling out the double standard where "Eldar" must be nerfed because "Expert Crafters" are OP - screwing over Uthwe, but "Marines" shouldn't be nerfed because of "Iron Hands" - because that would screw over Ultramarines.
In other words, if Expert Crafters and Iron Hands are OP, but Uthwe and Ultramarines are not, then whether to nerf Eldar and Marines, or nerf Expert Crafters and Iron Hands specifically, should be consistent.
Demanding that all CWE be nerfed because Expert Crafters hurt your feelings, but demanding your Blue&Gold Iron Hands not be nerfed because other peoples' UltraMarines would be hurt is a double standard.
I've only suggested nerfing expert crafters. What double standard are we talking about exactly? Eldar have been a top army the entire edition. Where space marines of all types have been rock bottom. It actually looks like a double standard when marines get actually competitive rules and everyone calls for nerfs when eldar are at the very least as powerful as space marines. Don't see a lot of people calling for nerfs of eldar...
The fact that eldar and space marines are that close in win rate means they are at a similar power level. Honestly if you nerfed Ironhands that space marine avg WR would drop probably around the 53-52% WR area.
Expert crafters being an exclusive trait would be fine with me. I remain sincerely unconvinced that doing that would not make the winrate of Alaitoc "Mysteriously" jump.
I think the best nerf to Eldar would be a nerf to CHE, a nerf to Nightspinners, and possibly a nerf to both EC and Alaitoc because they do seem to be head and shoulders above the competition.
I absolutely think Shield Drones need a nerf. I'm not entirely convinced that Riptides do given a shield drone nerf, I suspect they may be as crazy as they are right now because they're playing into a primaris meta.
Seriously? Nerf nightspinners? They get dropped in CA basically every time. No one used them till now. You basically can't beat tau without them/Custom traits are likely the culprit. They did just nerf the CHE too.
Sheild drones should just be required to be in LOS in order to block shots.
Xenomancers wrote: Don't see a lot of people calling for nerfs of eldar...
Xeno, that's because Eldar are nowhere near the same level of problem as Codex Marines right now.
Marines are not only the strongest faction in the game, they are also the most popular. It's why we see Marines are a quarter of all tournament lists. The peak of Ynarri popularity was 7 or 8% of tournament lists for comparison (if memory serves). Add to this gak mix that Codex Marines arrived literally at the point where the game was probably the most balanced it has ever been. The variety of factions able to compete and win events (though they perhaps had very few variable builds) was unprecedented. Finally, as Scotsman has already said, Marines simply have more options than every other faction as of right now. They are able to take a huge variety of units, employ a huge variety of tactics and suit a massive range of playstyles at the competitive level. This is unheard of for a single faction.
This is why you see such a push back to Codex Marines in particular. They are the most OP faction with the most players that arrived at the time where the game WAS the most balanced. Many people right now associate Marines with a drop in balance for the game and, as we can surely all agree, that is bad for the game overall. I still remember the dark times of 7th and earlier when the game was a complete mess. What I see now reminds me of those times, times I thought were dead and buried with this edition.
I think there's more to it. The player base didn't shift from from Eldar aside from perhaps the handful of top players that move around a lot. It was Imperium, CSM, and Knights (mostly) who took a hit in their rates of attendance. It seems like the vast majority of players stick to their lane or spray their existing marines grey.
December win rate for all Codex Astartes : 55%
December win rate for all Codex Astartes without IH : 50%
December win rate for IH only: 65%
December win rate for Asuryani : 57%
Nerf IH and things look a lot more rational on the marine end. That doesn't mean it is fun to play them or that they're implicitly balanced.
An odd thought:
In some ways, you can expect most FOTM players to currently play Craftsmen or Iron Hands.
The numbers, as we have them, make it really easy to run the numbers without Crafstemen/Iron Hands.
We now have an interesting dataset that minimizes the skew caused by FOTM players in regards to all subfactions except those 2.
Now, that's a very limited dataset, but it's still interesting.
Ultras don't have a higher win rate because they are not being played regularly at tournaments by any significant competitive players. At competitive events fluff lists from factions with powerful rules played by non competitive people tend to lose to less powerful factions with optimized unit selections played by competitive people.
The data has factors not accounted for, like player skill, unit composition, etc. More competitive players will have more competitive unit choices overall and play better- they will often go towards a few factions that have the most optimized rules for their play style. This skews data.
It would be similar to arguing CSM is grossly underpowered because of Brazen Beast performance which is a ridiculous stance.
Marine supplements for all marine factions added very efficient and powerful free rules that are direct upgrades to detachments and units, not side grade alternative take options. As no other faction received anything similar all Marines will be imbalanced compared to all non Marines.
Marines get Codex/Supplements/PA for rules
Everyone else gets Codex/PA
The worst part is that ontop of the supplements marine PA stuff are still direct upgrades adding more rule layers to units detachments whereas many of the non marine rules are not, requiring you to forgoe rules to get side grades aka pick your own cradtworld/Kabal/cult/coven
Xenomancers wrote: Don't see a lot of people calling for nerfs of eldar...
Xeno, that's because Eldar are nowhere near the same level of problem as Codex Marines right now.
Marines are not only the strongest faction in the game, they are also the most popular. It's why we see Marines are a quarter of all tournament lists. The peak of Ynarri popularity was 7 or 8% of tournament lists for comparison (if memory serves). Add to this gak mix that Codex Marines arrived literally at the point where the game was probably the most balanced it has ever been. The variety of factions able to compete and win events (though they perhaps had very few variable builds) was unprecedented. Finally, as Scotsman has already said, Marines simply have more options than every other faction as of right now. They are able to take a huge variety of units, employ a huge variety of tactics and suit a massive range of playstyles at the competitive level. This is unheard of for a single faction.
This is why you see such a push back to Codex Marines in particular. They are the most OP faction with the most players that arrived at the time where the game WAS the most balanced. Many people right now associate Marines with a drop in balance for the game and, as we can surely all agree, that is bad for the game overall. I still remember the dark times of 7th and earlier when the game was a complete mess. What I see now reminds me of those times, times I thought were dead and buried with this edition.
I think there's more to it. The player base didn't shift from from Eldar aside from perhaps the handful of top players that move around a lot. It was Imperium, CSM, and Knights (mostly) who took a hit in their rates of attendance. It seems like the vast majority of players stick to their lane or spray their existing marines grey.
December win rate for all Codex Astartes : 55%
December win rate for all Codex Astartes without IH : 50%
December win rate for IH only: 65%
December win rate for Asuryani : 57%
Nerf IH and things look a lot more rational on the marine end. That doesn't mean it is fun to play them or that they're implicitly balanced.
An odd thought:
In some ways, you can expect most FOTM players to currently play Craftsmen or Iron Hands.
The numbers, as we have them, make it really easy to run the numbers without Crafstemen/Iron Hands.
We now have an interesting dataset that minimizes the skew caused by FOTM players in regards to all subfactions except those 2.
Now, that's a very limited dataset, but it's still interesting.
(Also, nothing wrong with being a FOTM player.)
Are you seriously suggesting that everyone playing Ultramarines armies and traveling to go to ITC events isn't trying their best to win/isn't a good player because they didn't choose to bring the obviously more powerful army? That might be true for some players but there are probably plenty of Ironhand players that are bad players too looking for free wins. It is a garbage argument IMO.
Maybe we should have a tournament where it's just IH/Custom eldar/Tau/ and choas soup. How do you think that would go?
blaktoof wrote: Ultras don't have a higher win rate because they are not being played regularly at tournaments by any significant competitive players. At competitive events fluff lists from factions with powerful rules played by non competitive people tend to lose to less powerful factions with optimized unit selections played by competitive people.
The data has factors not accounted for, like player skill, unit composition, etc. More competitive players will have more competitive unit choices overall and play better- they will often go towards a few factions that have the most optimized rules for their play style. This skews data.
It would be similar to arguing CSM is grossly underpowered because of Brazen Beast performance which is a ridiculous stance.
Marine supplements for all marine factions added very efficient and powerful free rules that are direct upgrades to detachments and units, not side grade alternative take options. As no other faction received anything similar all Marines will be imbalanced compared to all non Marines.
Marines get Codex/Supplements/PA for rules
Everyone else gets Codex/PA
The worst part is that ontop of the supplements marine PA stuff are still direct upgrades adding more rule layers to units detachments whereas many of the non marine rules are not, requiring you to forgoe rules to get side grades aka pick your own cradtworld/Kabal/cult/coven
Chicken and egg, right? If UM were stronger then better players would use them more often. As they don't then potentially they're not as strong.
Personally I would love to control the app that stores this data, because I'd be pulling for all those variables. There is, as you say, a lot more to it.
Daedalus81 wrote: I think there's more to it. The player base didn't shift from from Eldar aside from perhaps the handful of top players that move around a lot. It was Imperium, CSM, and Knights (mostly) who took a hit in their rates of attendance. It seems like the vast majority of players stick to their lane or spray their existing marines grey.
December win rate for all Codex Astartes : 55%
December win rate for all Codex Astartes without IH : 50%
December win rate for IH only: 65%
December win rate for Asuryani : 57%
Nerf IH and things look a lot more rational on the marine end. That doesn't mean it is fun to play them or that they're implicitly balanced.
I think there were more shifts than you make out, but I don't have the data on that at the moment. Either way my points were to illustrate why there is a negative sentiment around Marines particularly, not explain any strength and/or weakness of the faction on a subfaction level.
Regarding the stats above, why are we only looking at December which is probably the quietest month insofar as 40k tournaments go? Not to mention the fact that many "top" players use the period to practice for the end of the season LVO. It's probably the worst month to focus on in terms of balance discussions?
Post some well built competitive UM lists that went to a major event if you think otherwise.
There were two top three UM lists at the northwest open GT in November. Most of the UM lists I see at events aren't like that. There are lots of less competitive players playing In hanging around the mid tables with maybe not so optimized unit selections.
Honestly the main reason marines get so much flak is because of how stupid the decisions were when giving them rules. And on top of that the balance isnt good as many others stated. Even if marines get nerfed where they get a perfect 50% winrate, the fact that they circumvent so many rules that other armies have to adhere to makes it meserable to play against them.
1. Why do marines get to keep their parent Warlord traits, Psychic powers, relics and stratagems when elves dont?
2. Why do marines get to be better at everything compared to other armies? (better deepstrike than GSC, better melee than chaos demons, better shooting than tau, better repairing than the mechanicus itself).
3. Why do marines get rules that ignore the core ruels of 8th edition that were put in to balance the game? Deepstrike on turn 1, disembark from a transport after moving it.
4. Why do marines' turns take so goddamn long because of all the cheap rerolling that they get.
Marines are just not fun, spending 2-3 hours looking at my opponent masturbate with dice sucks.
VladimirHerzog wrote: Honestly the main reason marines get so much flak is because of how stupid the decisions were when giving them rules. And on top of that the balance isnt good as many others stated. Even if marines get nerfed where they get a perfect 50% winrate, the fact that they circumvent so many rules that other armies have to adhere to makes it meserable to play against them.
1. Why do marines get to keep their parent Warlord traits, Psychic powers, relics and stratagems when elves dont?
2. Why do marines get to be better at everything compared to other armies? (better deepstrike than GSC, better melee than chaos demons, better shooting than tau, better repairing than the mechanicus itself).
3. Why do marines get rules that ignore the core ruels of 8th edition that were put in to balance the game? Deepstrike on turn 1, disembark from a transport after moving it.
4. Why do marines' turns take so goddamn long because of all the cheap rerolling that they get.
Marines are just not fun, spending 2-3 hours looking at my opponent masturbate with dice sucks.
Marines lose in game bonus for taking allies of any kind which limits them in the total number of books they can draw stratagems from. Knights can take additional warlords too. Most armies can take additional warlords from the vigilis books. Marines shoot really good ill give you that. Why though do very few marine units have the ability to move twice...or shoot twice...or have have invunerale saves. The impulsor is probably the best transport in the game but hardly sees use...you can't get out and charge...can't put aggressors in it. There is lots of give and take. I agree marines can be competitive in a lot of ways but that shouldn't be a reason to not like an army - that should be a reason to want to play an army. Marine turns are typically fast too. Units are small...rerolling 1's to wound is hardly adding any additional time to a game. Moving 20/30 man units that takes forever.
Xenomancers wrote: Don't see a lot of people calling for nerfs of eldar...
Xeno, that's because Eldar are nowhere near the same level of problem as Codex Marines right now.
Marines are not only the strongest faction in the game, they are also the most popular. It's why we see Marines are a quarter of all tournament lists. The peak of Ynarri popularity was 7 or 8% of tournament lists for comparison (if memory serves). Add to this gak mix that Codex Marines arrived literally at the point where the game was probably the most balanced it has ever been. The variety of factions able to compete and win events (though they perhaps had very few variable builds) was unprecedented. Finally, as Scotsman has already said, Marines simply have more options than every other faction as of right now. They are able to take a huge variety of units, employ a huge variety of tactics and suit a massive range of playstyles at the competitive level. This is unheard of for a single faction.
This is why you see such a push back to Codex Marines in particular. They are the most OP faction with the most players that arrived at the time where the game WAS the most balanced. Many people right now associate Marines with a drop in balance for the game and, as we can surely all agree, that is bad for the game overall. I still remember the dark times of 7th and earlier when the game was a complete mess. What I see now reminds me of those times, times I thought were dead and buried with this edition.
I think there's more to it. The player base didn't shift from from Eldar aside from perhaps the handful of top players that move around a lot. It was Imperium, CSM, and Knights (mostly) who took a hit in their rates of attendance. It seems like the vast majority of players stick to their lane or spray their existing marines grey.
December win rate for all Codex Astartes : 55%
December win rate for all Codex Astartes without IH : 50%
December win rate for IH only: 65%
December win rate for Asuryani : 57%
Nerf IH and things look a lot more rational on the marine end. That doesn't mean it is fun to play them or that they're implicitly balanced.
An odd thought:
In some ways, you can expect most FOTM players to currently play Craftsmen or Iron Hands.
The numbers, as we have them, make it really easy to run the numbers without Crafstemen/Iron Hands.
We now have an interesting dataset that minimizes the skew caused by FOTM players in regards to all subfactions except those 2.
Now, that's a very limited dataset, but it's still interesting.
(Also, nothing wrong with being a FOTM player.)
Are you seriously suggesting that everyone playing Ultramarines armies and traveling to go to ITC events isn't trying their best to win/isn't a good player because they didn't choose to bring the obviously more powerful army?
Umm wut? The point was about 50 miles in the other direction....
First, the claim was about the trend of the numbers, and limiting the skew. When I said "minimize" or "most", I didn't mean "everyone". If you're reading "minimize" or "most" as absolutist qualifiers, I'd suggest rethinking your understanding of such topics.
Second, I would say many skilled UM players aren't "trying their best to win" by not picking IH in the same way (but to a less serious degree) that not using loaded dice "aren't trying their best to win". Many are likely "trying their best to win" within the boundaries of the hobby they enjoy. Those boundaries vary from person to person. Some want to play to win with their OldMarine demi-company UltraMarines. Others want to play to win with Marines of whatever subfaction is best. Others want to play to win fairly with any faction. Each of those is reasonable.
That might be true for some players but there are probably plenty of Ironhand players that are bad players too looking for free wins. It is a garbage argument IMO.
There are likely many players playing Iron Hands that aren't "Iron Hands" players - meaning players who wouldn't be IH if they weren't top dog. Look no further than your own infamous Blue&Gold Iron Hands, for example. That in itself doesn't make the player bad. Plenty of top players subfaction- (and even faction-) swap as appropriate. Daedalus even posted a graph suggesting widespread faction swaps to Marines from other IoM armies lately.
As for how many Iron Hands lists were "Iron Hands" players versus FOTM players, that's hard to say. But it's fairly easy to believe there aren't more "Iron Hands Players" than "Ultramarine Players". Considering that the stats show three times as many IH lists as UM lists, that strongly suggests the majority of Iron Hands lists were not "Iron Hands players".
Maybe we should have a tournament where it's just IH/Custom eldar/Tau/ and choas soup. How do you think that would go?
Why ask just about the only question the stats truly can answer with significant certainty?
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VladimirHerzog wrote: Honestly the main reason marines get so much flak is because of how stupid the decisions were when giving them rules. And on top of that the balance isnt good as many others stated. Even if marines get nerfed where they get a perfect 50% winrate, the fact that they circumvent so many rules that other armies have to adhere to makes it meserable to play against them.
1. Why do marines get to keep their parent Warlord traits, Psychic powers, relics and stratagems when elves dont?
2. Why do marines get to be better at everything compared to other armies? (better deepstrike than GSC, better melee than chaos demons, better shooting than tau, better repairing than the mechanicus itself).
3. Why do marines get rules that ignore the core ruels of 8th edition that were put in to balance the game? Deepstrike on turn 1, disembark from a transport after moving it.
4. Why do marines' turns take so goddamn long because of all the cheap rerolling that they get.
Marines are just not fun, spending 2-3 hours looking at my opponent masturbate with dice sucks.
A couple other reasons why Marines get more flak:
1. The "Its stupid design" has nothing to do with balance. Some of us hate the Bloat for the Bloat God. It's not a "We Hate Marines" thing. It's not a "They're too strong/too weak" thing. its a "That's dumb. It's unfun. It just makes the game worse" thing.
2. Marines have always been GW's favorite. While second to CWE for most-often-OP-faction, they are second to none in terms of support. Rules, models, fluff, you name it. Nobody else comes close to getting the love Marines get.
3. It's new. We've already talked about what needs to change about CWE. It's not new events. It's not a new topic. Most of us don't want to post the same thing 30 times a day every day for a year.
Marines should be getting more flak than anyone else right now. For many good reasons.
VladimirHerzog wrote: Honestly the main reason marines get so much flak is because of how stupid the decisions were when giving them rules. And on top of that the balance isnt good as many others stated. Even if marines get nerfed where they get a perfect 50% winrate, the fact that they circumvent so many rules that other armies have to adhere to makes it meserable to play against them.
1. Why do marines get to keep their parent Warlord traits, Psychic powers, relics and stratagems when elves dont?
2. Why do marines get to be better at everything compared to other armies? (better deepstrike than GSC, better melee than chaos demons, better shooting than tau, better repairing than the mechanicus itself).
3. Why do marines get rules that ignore the core ruels of 8th edition that were put in to balance the game? Deepstrike on turn 1, disembark from a transport after moving it.
4. Why do marines' turns take so goddamn long because of all the cheap rerolling that they get.
Marines are just not fun, spending 2-3 hours looking at my opponent masturbate with dice sucks.
Marines lose in game bonus for taking allies of any kind which limits them in the total number of books they can draw stratagems from. Knights can take additional warlords too. Most armies can take additional warlords from the vigilis books. Marines shoot really good ill give you that. Why though do very few marine units have the ability to move twice...or shoot twice...or have have invunerale saves. The impulsor is probably the best transport in the game but hardly sees use...you can't get out and charge...can't put aggressors in it. There is lots of give and take. I agree marines can be competitive in a lot of ways but that shouldn't be a reason to not like an army - that should be a reason to want to play an army. Marine turns are typically fast too. Units are small...rerolling 1's to wound is hardly adding any additional time to a game. Moving 20/30 man units that takes forever.
No what i meant with warlord traits is why can your ultramarine sucessor take an ultramarine warlord trait + relic ans psychic while my custom kabal cant take an existing kabal's WT, relics or strats? Its the same core concept of build your own army but marines get more options. And a squad of centurion or aggressors firing is a snoozefest because it happens in every phase. An intercessor squad has 16 attacks on the charge, with rerolls if theyre staying castled up. Rolls are already all over the game just to artificially extend the duration.
Marines dont need the act twice stratagems because they already puch hard enough in a single activation. the +1 attack on the charge is almost a fight twice, bolter discipline is almost a shoot twice (this one is a stretch, im aware) and the mobility you get comes from either teleporting in my face with RG or having POTMS on all your tanks with IH (yes other armies get this, i know).
Most armies that depend from invulnerable saves are armies with otherwise fragile models, Elves without their invuln (the infantry, i mean), Orks or sisters of battle all have weaker stat lines when compared to Space marines and their invuln doesnt make them immune to what they would be weak to if you removed it (rate of fire).
Again i just want to make it clear, my personnal opinion is that even if marines received perfect balance, it would still suck to play against them just because of all the things they can do that are similar to what your army does but better.
Oh, and i forgot something in my original list, why can marines now have a better method of deploying in their opponents face that a whole army whose thing it is (gsc)? incursors, eliminators, the RG strat, the flamer dread that im blanking on the name. Most of the equivalent deployment were "patched" out of the game at the beginning of the edition because they made for unfun alpha strikes (clandestine infiltration & co.), but now marines are allowed to do it.
Daedalus81 wrote: I think there's more to it. The player base didn't shift from from Eldar aside from perhaps the handful of top players that move around a lot. It was Imperium, CSM, and Knights (mostly) who took a hit in their rates of attendance. It seems like the vast majority of players stick to their lane or spray their existing marines grey.
December win rate for all Codex Astartes : 55%
December win rate for all Codex Astartes without IH : 50%
December win rate for IH only: 65%
December win rate for Asuryani : 57%
Nerf IH and things look a lot more rational on the marine end. That doesn't mean it is fun to play them or that they're implicitly balanced.
I think there were more shifts than you make out, but I don't have the data on that at the moment. Either way my points were to illustrate why there is a negative sentiment around Marines particularly, not explain any strength and/or weakness of the faction on a subfaction level.
Regarding the stats above, why are we only looking at December which is probably the quietest month insofar as 40k tournaments go? Not to mention the fact that many "top" players use the period to practice for the end of the season LVO. It's probably the worst month to focus on in terms of balance discussions?
But it does show that IH have an out-sized impact and other marine factions may be worse (but they may also be getting smothered by IH). Asuryani otherwise seems robust.
It's the only set of data where the most recent changes converge enough (relatively). It certainly isn't perfect or absolute in what it covers. As mentioned before - nothing in CA will have applied to any of these games.
I did a quick spreadsheet to view transience between lists for players. They seem to be relatively static for those who show up often, but you can see the ones who jumped ship for Marines.
Daedalus81 wrote: I think there's more to it. The player base didn't shift from from Eldar aside from perhaps the handful of top players that move around a lot. It was Imperium, CSM, and Knights (mostly) who took a hit in their rates of attendance. It seems like the vast majority of players stick to their lane or spray their existing marines grey.
December win rate for all Codex Astartes : 55%
December win rate for all Codex Astartes without IH : 50%
December win rate for IH only: 65%
December win rate for Asuryani : 57%
Nerf IH and things look a lot more rational on the marine end. That doesn't mean it is fun to play them or that they're implicitly balanced.
I think there were more shifts than you make out, but I don't have the data on that at the moment. Either way my points were to illustrate why there is a negative sentiment around Marines particularly, not explain any strength and/or weakness of the faction on a subfaction level.
Regarding the stats above, why are we only looking at December which is probably the quietest month insofar as 40k tournaments go? Not to mention the fact that many "top" players use the period to practice for the end of the season LVO. It's probably the worst month to focus on in terms of balance discussions?
But it does show that IH have an out-sized impact and other marine factions may be worse (but they may also be getting smothered by IH). Asuryani otherwise seems robust.
It's the only set of data where the most recent changes converge enough (relatively). It certainly isn't perfect or absolute in what it covers. As mentioned before - nothing in CA will have applied to any of these games.
I did a quick spreadsheet to view transience between lists for players. They seem to be relatively static for those who show up often, but you can see the ones who jumped ship for Marines.
What winrate did you get for December Non-Custom Asuryani? The numbers seem to suggest Custom has similar impact on Asuryani as Iron Hands has on Marines (if anything, I think it's more pronounced with Asuryani - the only other subfaction with notably higher than 50% win rate has only 3 lists).
Regarding eldar I think it's a combo effect of expert crafters, which is great with min units, weak with hordes, the other buffs from phoenix rises and the points drops from chapter approved.
Things like falcons were good units but overcosted compared to other choices from the codex from a competitive standpoint. They got dropped to the point of being pretty efficient and effective with the psychic powers and expert crafters. Being able to give the army a +1 save over 12" away helps sweeten the blow of losing alaitoc too.
People mocked phoenix rises upon release but it's proven to shake up the eldar meta, give an alternative to alaitoc which wasn't fun for the game without throwing the faction under the bus like ynarri and the points drops have pushed the army to greater efficiency.
The traits have allowed eldar not to rely on death blobs of doom+guide and made opponents deathblobs less efficient as they overkill MSU or risk not making the kills. The game has literally been: "if I get 1st turn my super blob combo wombo will kill your super blob of death"
This means that the standard point and click tactic of "ima delete this and this during my shooting phase with unit X" no longer works.
Shooting at 3 MSU war walkers is a lot different at shooting a squadron of 3 walkers... Players haven't adjusted well to this new paradigm it seems, where you have to gamble on dice. Simply re-rolling buckets of dice to guarantee meaningful kills just doesn't work against custom Eldar and we make opponents wasting a lot of dice. Not sure why thy'd not rather spread fire and gamble. But I suppose if your tank has 20 guns its hard to judge things in that manner lol.. The planes skew this even further due to their power levels but ive banged that drum enough...
It seems players cant adjust to the new playstyle. But they will.
Wana fix the game? Get rid/severly limit re-rolls/modifers auras/modifiers for everyone.
Argive wrote: The traits have allowed eldar not to rely on death blobs of doom+guide and made opponents deathblobs less efficient as they overkill MSU or risk not making the kills.
The game has literally been: "if I get 1st turn my super blob combo wombo" will kill your super blob..
This means that the standard point and click tactic of "ima delete this and this during my shooting phase with unit X" no longer works. Shooting at 3 MSU war walkers is a lot different at shooting a squadron of 3 walkers... Players haven't adjusted well to this ne paradigm where you have to gamble on dice. Simply rerolling buckets of dice to guarantee kill 2 blobs a turn no longer works or is viable against eldar.
The planes skew this even further due to their power levels.
Wana fix the game? Get rid/severly limit re-rolls/modifers auras/modifiers for everyone.
I agree that would be better overall for the game...however - that would be a complete rework of the edition. I am pretty sure every eldar list is still including doom also.
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kingheff wrote: Regarding eldar I think it's a combo effect of expert crafters, which is great with min units, weak with hordes, the other buffs from phoenix rises and the points drops from chapter approved.
Things like falcons were good units but overcosted compared to other choices from the codex from a competitive standpoint. They got dropped to the point of being pretty efficient and effective with the psychic powers and expert crafters. Being able to give the army a +1 save over 12" away helps sweeten the blow of losing alaitoc too.
People mocked phoenix rises upon release but it's proven to shake up the eldar meta, give an alternative to alaitoc which wasn't fun for the game without throwing the faction under the bus like ynarri and the points drops have pushed the army to greater efficiency.
It was mostly DE and ynnari players that mocked it. I think CWE players knew instantly that it was a significant buff. Like...blanket ignore cover + 1 armor and MC and -1 AP on shuriken's are pretty much better than any of the eldar faction traits we have previously (aliotoc -1 is not great anymore with all the reroll all hits auras) and they get to pick 2 of them...it is pretty close to the effective power increase of space marine custom traits.
Yes but it no longer makes or breaks your turn/game. I prefer to just MW output. Its nice to have in your back pocket for sure..
And its never a gurantee. If I had a £1 for every time doom failed I could afford a new scorpion tank!
Its not like Farseers get a perma +1 to cats just for existing or spending a CP.... We have to take a biel tan craftworld for that privilege or ulthwe special characters for a situational +1.
What winrate did you get for December Non-Custom Asuryani? The numbers seem to suggest Custom has similar impact on Asuryani as Iron Hands has on Marines (if anything, I think it's more pronounced with Asuryani - the only other subfaction with notably higher than 50% win rate has only 3 lists).
Good question. A little more difficult to pull correctly, but I think I got it...
Is it because only bad players are using non-Custom Craftworlds? Or do non-Custom lists struggle too much?
I'm inclined to think it is the former.
Average tournaments for the year (using any list) for those using Custom - 4.5 - and those who did not - 3.2.
Then again for those under 3 tournaments this year -- Custom : ~68% and Other Asuryani : ~40%. Meaning potentially weaker players benefiting more, but we don't know if this was their first major and have been playing all along under the radar.
Another problem with these tournaments is that some go past 5 games - sometimes even up to 9. That means anyone capable of getting those extra games provides a distinct edge to that faction numerically.
Data is ridiculously hard to understand well (lies, damn lies, and statistics) - especially in this format so no one should draw any ultimate conclusions.
Argive wrote: The game has literally been: "if I get 1st turn my super blob combo wombo will kill your super blob of death"
I think you should not ignore player agency when making this judgement. It’s not the fault of the edition when two players meet who choose nothing but glass cannon units and pitch their entire strategy towards T1/T2 unit deletion at the expense of resiliency.
It should also be noted that there are methods to debuff offence. Certain abilities kill re-rolls (Vox Scream, Forbidden Gem) and others debuff hit chances directly (Symphony of Pain). There’s also abilities than will severely punish castling for bonuses, like auto-explode on big vehicles. So there’s tons of potential there for players who would prefer to be more defensively focused.
Argive wrote: The game has literally been: "if I get 1st turn my super blob combo wombo will kill your super blob of death"
I think you should not ignore player agency when making this judgement. It’s not the fault of the edition when two players meet who choose nothing but glass cannon units and pitch their entire strategy towards T1/T2 unit deletion at the expense of resiliency.
It should also be noted that there are methods to debuff offence. Certain abilities kill re-rolls (Vox Scream, Forbidden Gem) and others debuff hit chances directly (Symphony of Pain). There’s also abilities than will severely punish castling for bonuses, like auto-explode on big vehicles. So there’s tons of potential there for players who would prefer to be more defensively focused.
And these are all fairly uncommon rare occurances and abiltiies usualy available to very sub par factions..
I get what you are trying to say but alpha strike tactic has become very very prevalent due to lethality, weight of dice available, and re-rolls available.
Obviously this is my opinion only. I could be wrong in this assessment..
Hehe. I remember the last time I tried to play defensively against marines. I took tons of cheap units, took the defensive subfaction trait, took the -1 to hit warlord trait, put my troops in transports, and then turn 2 happened and six aggressors removed like 40 models from the table in one shooting phase XD
This. The uneven release schedule just kills any hope of maintaining balance. The other thing that kills it for competitive play is that without a checkmate condition it's very hard to recover once you start losing the attrition fight, and that sort of thing needs to be baked into the core rules. It's really hard to bolt such a thing on onto a system after the fact.
As for the win condition - that is in the missions. The CA19 missions are now really good and give a route to victory for some very diverse army builds. This is now the polar opposite of the ITC missions which are really showing their age and clearly narrow the meta to a dramatic degree. It is the easiest thing in the world to bolt onto a system after the fact, GW changes this every year as part of what balances the game. The problem is that large parts of the competitive scene totally ignore these changes.
First off, that article is a good read. So is the one on Game Stewardship that is linked within it. Nothing I didn't know, but well put none the less. The points it's making apply just as much to the "new hotness" problem within the context of all but the most cut-throat environments.
I'll admit I haven't read through the CA 19 missions, but I'd be very surprised if they added actual "achieve this game state -> victory, game over" checkmate conditions. All the CA missions up to this point have just been adding a layer to the calculation of whether you've lost too much material to have a path to victory. However, however, if I'm being intellectually honest that's what a proper checkmate condition is doing in the first place. The difference between deciding whether you can achieve a checkmate in Chess and a caster-kill in Warmahordes is how complicated the calculation is, not the fundamental nature of that calculation.
Mark it down in your calendars people, somebody just said "I've listened to your argument and you've changed my mind" on the internet.
So what is bringing 40k down at the competitive level? We've ruled out the lack of a checkmate condition, and Warmachine had a lot of the other issues we're complaining about but it still held up to a cut-throat tournament focus. (Specifically I'm thinking of inter- and intra-faction balance issues, rock-paper-scissors elements in list design, and lethality.) The thing that really stands out as different is threat range. The standard deployment zones were 30" apart and the average gun range was about 12". Very few things could get into shooting range turn 1, almost nothing could manage a turn 1 charge, and a majority of units didn't have ranged weapons at all. Maneuvering into position was critical, and I think that's my biggest complaint about 40k; the feeling that the really important decisions were made when we put our lists together instead of after those lists are on the table.
Once a decade it happens, and you chuck it in barely outside the first week. Does this mean I have the whole rest of the decade in which nobody listens to what I am trying to say?
I have only played one CA19 missions tournament so far but I do recommend people give those missions a try - really play through several of them in a competitive mindset and see just how different they are to playing the ITC mission every game. There are some interesting and tricky decisions which come up as a result of the missions, generally there is a trade-off to be made between scoring VP now or trying to deny your opponent the chance to score VP in the future by killing their stuff. That then pushes through to a different form of list design - the sort of ultra-durable or ultra-killy lists we see at the top of the ITC are sometimes too one-dimensional across that set of CA19 missions. In reality, I do not think it is possible to list design so well that your list basically wins all those 6 missions for you, the variety of challenge is enough that whatever list you bring you are going to have to actually get the winning work done on the table in at least some of the missions.
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ccs wrote: So how is any of this affecting those of you who actually go to any of these tourneys? Any of you been swayed to change your army?
Personally I avoid any tournament which uses the ITC missions. I do not change my army, I change the competitive formats I am willing to spend my precious free time in.
Vote with your wallet.
If you hate the balance issues in the tournament scene but keep going to tournaments that are promoting that imbalance you only have yourself to blame.
Aside from a hiccup one ediition Eldar have been pretty broken my entire lifespan playing the game. I could go away for 10 years come back and say Eldar are OP and have a reasonable chance to be correct without knowing at all the current meta state.
That said, there really does need to be a better parity for armies in this game. If this edition can't do that and that was its whole designed purpose to clean up 7th and make things on a better keel and they can't, I'd say some design goals weren't met. As well, doesn't matter how much people love marines, a stale meta will slowly bleed players as people do tend to take it poorly if they feel their armies are the NPC faction to get smashed by the chosen ones forever.
From this limited data though. What conclusions can we draw?
#2-alot of elder players are better at farming CP, possibly have better stratagems to pop, or a list of better gear, abilities and so on, nothing new really elder have been strong like that since I got into the game in 3rd, that's why we call them "dirty elder".
but you would expect something for a race, although dying, that has been around for 100s of times longer than the imperium to have some edge.
If you were GW...how would you handle this problem?
#3 ignore it. GW didn't make the current game for tournaments or for fan systems like ITC. even though they created the problem back when they introduced the official tournament systems of rouge traders and grand tournaments back in the era of 3rd/4th edition. then they cancelled it all and moved away from that scene.
There is a massive distaste for the state of competitive play right now
I#4
I have had a massive distaste for the state of competitive play since 2011 when I played my last GT and saw the attitudes and types of gamers It brought in. cheaters, poor sports, people who got aggressively angry when they didn't win.
the best game I had at one GT event was 5th edition against a black legion player who brought summoned demons and a unit from each of the 4 chaos god aligned chapters (noise marines, thousand sons, plague marines and berserkers) all led by abaddon.
his list was very thematic and he was personally a lot of fun to play against. I don't even remember who won, but I do remember my GK attachment made abaddon smell his finger (sacred incense for the lols).
I even still have a pic of that army
On the flip side we had a guy win best painted, not that his finished stuff didn't look great with the layering and green stuff mods, but he only got a near perfect score because he hid an unfinished squad and replaced it with a unit not in his army list for the event during paint judging to get himself a better score. (he came back the next year with elder and cheated like a boss, or so he thought, fudging extra movement, getting units out of vehicles on the other side of the vehicle from the access point etc...)
Lol if that won best painted the standard must be terrible.
Yep, this is what happens when portions of the community focus on the gaming and meta ahead of everything else. Damages the experience for everyone.
The hobby can and should be used as a barrier to curb the types of people you don't want at events, and to promote a bigger investment into the faction and sub faction you play.
For those of you that DO play ITC and follow its nonsense, have the TOs ever explained why they're still sticking to the missions the way they are, even though it appears to be stagnating? Even the people that play ITC seem to be turning against it as of late.
Psst.............. might wanna re-read that again the pic I posted was the guy I fought with the black legion list the other guy who won best painted was not pictured I tried to find it but I seem to have misplaced it. I think it was a slaneesh/noise marine list
FOUND IT! had it in a different folder
this is the cheater
like I said he does good work but it wasn't finished it should have docked him like 75 points for an unfinished army.
Sim-Life wrote: For those of you that DO play ITC and follow its nonsense, have the TOs ever explained why they're still sticking to the missions the way they are, even though it appears to be stagnating? Even the people that play ITC seem to be turning against it as of late.
I'm glad that it is. The ITC missions are so, so boring at this point. Even ignoring balance or anything else it's the same thing game after game.
And they encourage static lists because you chose objectives like kill more/hold more.
Sim-Life wrote: For those of you that DO play ITC and follow its nonsense, have the TOs ever explained why they're still sticking to the missions the way they are, even though it appears to be stagnating? Even the people that play ITC seem to be turning against it as of late.
ITC missions update yearly. For all the bluster that data does not show non-ITC missions performing any more admirably yet. Maybe you'll get better results with CA19, but you guys should probably temper your words until then.
I run a lot of custom missions for events, and I have yet to write what I felt was a decent mission that didn't end at latest turn 5. It seems like any competitive game I play, regardless of whether we play CA or ITC, ends by tabling turn 3-4. I know that doesn't cause an automatic loss, but I've never seen a situation where the remaining 2-3 turns does not allow the player who still has models on the board to rack up a super easy win.
What are these missions people are playing out of Chapter Approved where the person routinely getting tabled is able to build such a lead that the person doing the tabling isn't able to easily win with 2-3 turns unopposed on the board?
Enough people like that the missions take a lot of chances out of it and let you tailor your list based on its own strengths rather than your opponent. It's missions designed by people who wanted to emulate Warmahordes' Steamrollers but missed the point.
That's why they keep it. It pushes listbuilding even harder as the main component in 40k which all the competitive players want apparently.
the_scotsman wrote: I run a lot of custom missions for events, and I have yet to write what I felt was a decent mission that didn't end at latest turn 5. It seems like any competitive game I play, regardless of whether we play CA or ITC, ends by tabling turn 3-4. I know that doesn't cause an automatic loss, but I've never seen a situation where the remaining 2-3 turns does not allow the player who still has models on the board to rack up a super easy win.
What are these missions people are playing out of Chapter Approved where the person routinely getting tabled is able to build such a lead that the person doing the tabling isn't able to easily win with 2-3 turns unopposed on the board?
People can literally watch the ITC games on Twitch and see that people aren't getting tabled all the time and games are much closer than they state on this forum.
In fact ITC has the lowest difference in scores for all mission sets this year.
This also true when we look at just August through November (Dec was all ITC).
And it even applies when I make the scoring VP a ratio:
Sim-Life wrote: For those of you that DO play ITC and follow its nonsense, have the TOs ever explained why they're still sticking to the missions the way they are, even though it appears to be stagnating? Even the people that play ITC seem to be turning against it as of late.
ITC missions update yearly. For all the bluster that data does not show non-ITC missions performing any more admirably yet. Maybe you'll get better results with CA19, but you guys should probably temper your words until then.
40KStats basically has no date on CA18 or CA19 missions. They don't even have a filter option for them.
Nor do I expect them to have any data on them in the near future. One of the curious things about the "meta" for Chapter Approved missions is that unless you are actually at one of the big events (typically at Warhammer World) you have almost no way to find out what it is. Yet there is a whole scene of mostly small local events which use those missions - along with those larger GW events of course. Indirectly I think this is one of the reasons why it remains so diverse, it's hard to net-list if nothing is on the net and net-listing is definitely one of the things which accelerates the narrowing of any meta.
Having followed I think that there is clear agreement that some specific subfactions are punching well above their weight.
This naturally leads onto the questions on ‘balance’ and nerfs/buffs to apply to the over/under performing armies.
However, a huge problem in identifying what is a ‘strong’ or ‘weak’ army is the often-substantial difference in performance (i.e. win %) that appears for many sub-factions between ITC and non-ITC environment.
So, what are the conditions under which we are trying to balance the different factions and subfactions? Granted I haven’t played ITC but a quick browse of the web shows how ITC missions are a quite a different beast to the Eternal War/ Maelstrom of War missions that GW have produced.
As such I don’t find it that surprising that some armies perform rather differently (for better or worse) in ITC conditions and the ‘Base’ GW missions which presumably GW use for most of their testing. To me it seems reasonable that some of the ITC under/over performing issues can be attributable to the ITC missions and rules themselves.
It is however equally clear that some sub-factions seem to overperform irrespective of the environment.
To me it doesn’t matter if a faction is fairly common (e.g. CWE) or exceeding common (e.g. marines) if any faction can regularly, repeatedly and consistently turn up and punch (well) above it’s weight is a problem (i.e. a high performance is not an outlier due to a {very} small sample size). IH (and successors) and the PA options for CWE seem to fall into the former. It doesn’t matter if a third or a tenth people can bring the overperforming army. Though I can see how this will affect people’s perception of this. However how big, or widespread the problem is does vary between ITC and Non-ITC... (e.g. using ony recent results custom CWE are over 60% win rate and 8% clear of the nearest CWE subfaction... whilst non-ITC CWE as a faction are averaging 60% with custom CWE being entirely representative of that).
40k has always been more of a ‘beer and pretzel’ game, then carefully designed to be perfectly balanced. The differences between the ‘Base’ GW missions (which presumably are the conditions underwhich armies are balanced) only serves to both exacerbate and create balance issues.
Given the documented misalignment of performance between ITC and Non-ITC then until the differences in the underlying performance drivers between these two environments are normalised, I see that there will always be ongoing issues with over and under performance in ITC as they are measuring the effectiveness of the armies under different conditions from those conditions the armies have been balanced in.
Given that the ITC missions are reviewed annually, surely to quickest and most effective way of correcting some of the over or underperformance of subfactions is to address the structure and scoring of ITC missions?
Should ITC missions be constructed to produce missions with similar performance drivers to GWs ‘base’ missions this would also greatly aid in being able making use of the available data. At present the largest data set (ITC missions) doesn’t match the ‘base’ GW environment, so is extremely compromised in terms of justifcation for basing nerfs/ buffs on.
Argive wrote: And these are all fairly uncommon rare occurances and abiltiies usualy available to very sub par factions.
Chaos for sure has the most defensively oriented approach in competition, but it's not like other factions ignore it. Shield Drones and Eldar Flyers rely on strong saves and negatives to hit respectively.
Without getting into points and balance discussions, you can't always rely on going first. So being able to take a punch well and then counter is ultimately more reliable across 5-6 games.
Mark it down in your calendars people, somebody just said "I've listened to your argument and you've changed my mind" on the internet.
Once a decade it happens, and you chuck it in barely outside the first week. Does this mean I have the whole rest of the decade in which nobody listens to what I am trying to say?
Yes. I'd appologize, but now you're free to completely ignore all social media for ten whole years. Think of how much stuff you can get done with all that free time! You're welcome.
In fact ITC has the lowest difference in scores for all mission sets this year.
This also true when we look at just August through November (Dec was all ITC).
And it even applies when I make the scoring VP a ratio:
More very interesting analysis thank you!
Closer victories do make for more interesting games, so that's a good showing for ITC.
I think balance between factions is going to be the most important factor for assessing a format though. The burden of proof is really on the ITC (and other formats) to show (statistically) that their alterations to the core rules are necessary, because otherwise we'd all be better off using one set of rules.
40KStats basically has no date on CA18 or CA19 missions. They don't even have a filter option for them.
Nor do I expect them to have any data on them in the near future. One of the curious things about the "meta" for Chapter Approved missions is that unless you are actually at one of the big events (typically at Warhammer World) you have almost no way to find out what it is. Yet there is a whole scene of mostly small local events which use those missions - along with those larger GW events of course. Indirectly I think this is one of the reasons why it remains so diverse, it's hard to net-list if nothing is on the net and net-listing is definitely one of the things which accelerates the narrowing of any meta.
There is a group of games in the data that are basically NULL for mission type. Those sit at 51% for the ratio. I couldn't tell you if they're CA or not though.
Unfortunately until there is a collection point for the data it remains anecdotal. The people at my club switched to ITC, because we felt the games represented a more fair change for all players.
Xenomancers wrote: What are the major differences in CA 19? I don't see it changing much based on what I have played.
Depends. Maelstrom is more interesting now. You build your deck now and the rules surrounding interactions with the deck are quite well written (much like secondaries). The deployment language for all missions is also much better. And there are special interactions with objectives.
My main gripe with ITC is just the knowledge gap it perpetuates. A person who regularly plays it, constructs their list with the secondaries in mind, and knows all the various houserules like ground floors being LOS blocking and the like, has a significant advantage over their pick-up opponent if they're unfamiliar with ITC. Chapter approved missions are much easier to understand at a glance.
I'm sure there could be some balance benefits if everyone knew and loved ITC in the venue, but that's not the reality where I am. About a half-dozen folks are die-hard only ITC types, and the vast majority show up to the game and ask "So what mission do you want to try? Well, I've got maelstrom cards, and open war cards, and CA2018"
When they play against the latter category, the ITC players always insist on ITC, and they always know the secondaries they're going to choose in advance and have constructed their list with those things in mind (two durable shooty units with the Engineers secondary in mind, for example)and then they present their opponent with this long list of potential secondaries they could go for and I see a LOT of people blindsided by the format.
I've never personally played or seen a particularly close ITC game except when the real hardcore tournament guys come to our game day and play against each other. They seem to have a decent time with it having long since gotten over the knowledge floor.
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Xenomancers wrote: What are the major differences in CA 19? I don't see it changing much based on what I have played.
Well, going thru the eternal war missions:
Acceptable Casualties and the new (old) Deployment vs going first system has been added throughout.
Crusade: A new mission, very basic in structure. 6 objectives, progressive scoring starting turn 2, dawn of war deployment, and both players score objectives at the start of their turn, rather than the end, meaning you actually have to survive a full enemy turn on an objective to score it.
Scorched Earth: Tweaked from CA2017. Basically, scoring starts turn 2, and at the start of the turn like in Crusade, and they exchanged First Blood for First Strike.
Ascension: Another 2017 reprint, keeps the end of turn scoring structure rather than switching over to start of turn. Progressive scoring objectives and if you score an objective with a character in subsequent turns it's worth more. Honestly, my least favorite of the bunch, because it encourages aura-bot characters.
Front Line Warfare: IMO the best mission of the bunch. 4 objectives on the board, with progressive scoring at the end of each battle round, giving the second player a significant enough advantage to offset the tempo loss. The objective in your deployment zone is worth 1, the objectives on the centerline of the board 2, and the one in your opponent's deployment 4. IIRC, this mission was seriously hindered by being an end of game scorer when it was first printed, and since so few games actually went ot the end an otherwise very good mission was rarely relevant.
Four Pillars: The closest mission to kill points, one objective in each quadrant of the board, I believe you score 2 points if you have more objectives than your opponent at end of battle round and 1 point if you killed more of their units. The player with the first turn tends to achieve the latter objective and the player with second turn has a better chance at the former.
Lockdown: place 6 objectives on the board. Player who takes the first turn picks the objective that will be #1, player who takes the second turn picks which one will be #6. The rest are randomly determined. At the end of each battle round, the objective corresponding to the battle round number disappears. Players score 1 point for each objective they have and 1 bonus point if they control more than their opponent.
the_scotsman wrote: My main gripe with ITC is just the knowledge gap it perpetuates. A person who regularly plays it, constructs their list with the secondaries in mind, and knows all the various houserules like ground floors being LOS blocking and the like, has a significant advantage over their pick-up opponent if they're unfamiliar with ITC. Chapter approved missions are much easier to understand at a glance.
I'm sure there could be some balance benefits if everyone knew and loved ITC in the venue, but that's not the reality where I am. About a half-dozen folks are die-hard only ITC types, and the vast majority show up to the game and ask "So what mission do you want to try? Well, I've got maelstrom cards, and open war cards, and CA2018"
When they play against the latter category, the ITC players always insist on ITC, and they always know the secondaries they're going to choose in advance and have constructed their list with those things in mind (two durable shooty units with the Engineers secondary in mind, for example)and then they present their opponent with this long list of potential secondaries they could go for and I see a LOT of people blindsided by the format.
I've never personally played or seen a particularly close ITC game except when the real hardcore tournament guys come to our game day and play against each other. They seem to have a decent time with it having long since gotten over the knowledge floor.
Yes, this is a reasonable criticism. Some lists are really hard to pick secondaries against, so I started building a list that could take more of the non-killing variety.
It certainly is daunting for someone who hasn't spent time thinking about it.
Didn't CF or IF just sweep a GW event using GW missions?
Not sure if they used CA 2019 missions but claiming that GW missions are more "balanced" than ITC missions without any evidence doesn't contribute to the conversation in a meaningful way.
The lack of knowledge of ITC missions is a barrier to entry and can definitely make those matches unfair. Going into it designing your list to deal with the secondaries vs being shown the secondaries at the table is not a way to establish a fair game and is a valid criticism. I don't think ITC are ideal for pick-up games but as imbalanced as the game is currently any pick-up game is going to need a boat load of pre-game conversation to be any where near "fair and balanced" (which is why I haven't played outside of my garage since the marine supplements dropped).
I've played the CA 2019 missions in my garage and they are the best written missions GW has put out in my experience. I don't see them resolving the power imbalance between a lot of factions as blasting your opponent off objectives is still one of the best way to score/deny points. Eldar flyers are not as good but that's one of the few army comps I've seen impacted by them (although I've only played a few games and it has been with rather casual lists vs my brother who last played 40k in 1998...)
No mission format is going to make for a fair game between my space wolves and Nick's iron hands. GW screwed the pooch with the marine release and are doubling down on their mistake by just trying to buff other armies up to marine levels of absurdity.
the_scotsman wrote: My main gripe with ITC is just the knowledge gap it perpetuates. A person who regularly plays it, constructs their list with the secondaries in mind, and knows all the various houserules like ground floors being LOS blocking and the like, has a significant advantage over their pick-up opponent if they're unfamiliar with ITC. Chapter approved missions are much easier to understand at a glance.
I'm sure there could be some balance benefits if everyone knew and loved ITC in the venue, but that's not the reality where I am. About a half-dozen folks are die-hard only ITC types, and the vast majority show up to the game and ask "So what mission do you want to try? Well, I've got maelstrom cards, and open war cards, and CA2018"
When they play against the latter category, the ITC players always insist on ITC, and they always know the secondaries they're going to choose in advance and have constructed their list with those things in mind (two durable shooty units with the Engineers secondary in mind, for example)and then they present their opponent with this long list of potential secondaries they could go for and I see a LOT of people blindsided by the format.
I've never personally played or seen a particularly close ITC game except when the real hardcore tournament guys come to our game day and play against each other. They seem to have a decent time with it having long since gotten over the knowledge floor.
Yes, this is a reasonable criticism. Some lists are really hard to pick secondaries against, so I started building a list that could take more of the non-killing variety.
It certainly is daunting for someone who hasn't spent time thinking about it.
Yes agreed with this cirtisim as well. You really must have copies of an ITC mission pack to really play the game. Not hard to have if you have a printer but only serious tournament players who only play ITC will have these. Plus the phase where you pick your objectives is exceptionally daunting and can actually lose you the game if you chose the wrong ones....
It does seem really dumb that in what 40k really is...an encounter battle. How the heck can you be choosing your victory conditions? These should randomly determined and the result should apply to both players. IMO also they should focus less on killing enemy units and a lot more on capturing key points and holding key points. I'd also like to see interesting objectives like (slay that warlord) have a much bigger impact on the game.
the_scotsman wrote: My main gripe with ITC is just the knowledge gap it perpetuates. A person who regularly plays it, constructs their list with the secondaries in mind, and knows all the various houserules like ground floors being LOS blocking and the like, has a significant advantage over their pick-up opponent if they're unfamiliar with ITC. Chapter approved missions are much easier to understand at a glance.
I'm sure there could be some balance benefits if everyone knew and loved ITC in the venue, but that's not the reality where I am. About a half-dozen folks are die-hard only ITC types, and the vast majority show up to the game and ask "So what mission do you want to try? Well, I've got maelstrom cards, and open war cards, and CA2018"
When they play against the latter category, the ITC players always insist on ITC, and they always know the secondaries they're going to choose in advance and have constructed their list with those things in mind (two durable shooty units with the Engineers secondary in mind, for example)and then they present their opponent with this long list of potential secondaries they could go for and I see a LOT of people blindsided by the format.
I've never personally played or seen a particularly close ITC game except when the real hardcore tournament guys come to our game day and play against each other. They seem to have a decent time with it having long since gotten over the knowledge floor.
Yes, this is a reasonable criticism. Some lists are really hard to pick secondaries against, so I started building a list that could take more of the non-killing variety.
It certainly is daunting for someone who hasn't spent time thinking about it.
Yes agreed with this cirtisim as well. You really must have copies of an ITC mission pack to really play the game. Not hard to have if you have a printer but only serious tournament players who only play ITC will have these. Plus the phase where you pick your objectives is exceptionally daunting and can actually lose you the game if you chose the wrong ones....
It does seem really dumb that in what 40k really is...an encounter battle. How the heck can you be choosing your victory conditions? These should randomly determined and the result should apply to both players. IMO also they should focus less on killing enemy units and a lot more on capturing key points and holding key points. I'd also like to see interesting objectives like (slay that warlord) have a much bigger impact on the game.
I think someone earlier was talking about "Checkmate conditions" i.e. sudden death objectives that you can try to kind of suicidally achieve if you find yourself at a disadvantage.
The Open War cards they put out earlier in the edition have some of those, and I've played a few games that tried them out and found them to be interesting, though not universally.
as a couple examples:
Drive them Out: Starting in battle round 3, if you end your turn with no enemy units within your deployment zone, you win
Vendetta: If the enemy warlord is slain by your warlord, you win
Endure: If you aren't tabled at the end of battle round 5, you win
They were designed for imbalanced game scenarios, where one side either started with more models or had a powerful mechanic like infinitely respawning units, etc.
Also, several of the Objectives where a "sudden death" condition was baked in. There was one with objectives in the player's deployment zone, and if you ever held all 3 the game ended.
I think a mission set where starting midway through the game, say turn 3, a sudden death objective kicks on, maybe one that can only be achieved by whoever has the lowest victory point total at the time could be interesting.
bananathug wrote: Didn't CF or IF just sweep a GW event using GW missions?
Not sure if they used CA 2019 missions but claiming that GW missions are more "balanced" than ITC missions without any evidence doesn't contribute to the conversation in a meaningful way.
The lack of knowledge of ITC missions is a barrier to entry and can definitely make those matches unfair. Going into it designing your list to deal with the secondaries vs being shown the secondaries at the table is not a way to establish a fair game and is a valid criticism. I don't think ITC are ideal for pick-up games but as imbalanced as the game is currently any pick-up game is going to need a boat load of pre-game conversation to be any where near "fair and balanced" (which is why I haven't played outside of my garage since the marine supplements dropped).
I've played the CA 2019 missions in my garage and they are the best written missions GW has put out in my experience. I don't see them resolving the power imbalance between a lot of factions as blasting your opponent off objectives is still one of the best way to score/deny points. Eldar flyers are not as good but that's one of the few army comps I've seen impacted by them (although I've only played a few games and it has been with rather casual lists vs my brother who last played 40k in 1998...)
No mission format is going to make for a fair game between my space wolves and Nick's iron hands. GW screwed the pooch with the marine release and are doubling down on their mistake by just trying to buff other armies up to marine levels of absurdity.
Strange thing about that GT heat was it was Imperial Fists bossing it (along with Crimson Fists). I think you had to be there to see what was going on (I was not) but IF/CF are krytponite for mech lists of any kind so maybe a handful of really good players decided to second-guess the meta and bring deliberately anti-meta lists that would kill IH and Eldar flyer lists.
They were not even Dev Centurion/siegebreaker lists - or at least neither of the lists I have seen was.
The top Iron Hands list was 12th.
That would have been CA18 missions but I do not think that is the big factor here. I think it was more that some players anticipated a vehicle-heavy meta and built lists to crush that. If the pattern continues then I would have to agree that the balance in CA missions is merely different rather than better, let's wait and see.
Yes, this is a reasonable criticism. Some lists are really hard to pick secondaries against, so I started building a list that could take more of the non-killing variety.
It certainly is daunting for someone who hasn't spent time thinking about it.
Yes agreed with this cirtisim as well. You really must have copies of an ITC mission pack to really play the game. Not hard to have if you have a printer but only serious tournament players who only play ITC will have these. Plus the phase where you pick your objectives is exceptionally daunting and can actually lose you the game if you chose the wrong ones....
It does seem really dumb that in what 40k really is...an encounter battle. How the heck can you be choosing your victory conditions? These should randomly determined and the result should apply to both players. IMO also they should focus less on killing enemy units and a lot more on capturing key points and holding key points. I'd also like to see interesting objectives like (slay that warlord) have a much bigger impact on the game.
Something I've wanted to test for a while is basically porting the missions over from Risk into 40K. It would work by having a deck of mission cards, each of which is a mission to hold some combination of 3 objective markers for a set number of turns (or the end of the game, whichever comes first).
Each player puts down 3 numbered objective markers, none of which can be in their deployment zone. Then they draw a mission card each. Players will not know which mission their opponent has. This would allow for feints, decoy manoeuvres etc. to keep your opponent guessing which objectives are actually your mission to hold.
Of course this would work much better with less lethality in the game to prevent tabling, and also possibly less units to make turns shorter allow for more turns in a game.
You could even use special markers for the objectives (communications array, guidance beacon etc.) which provide bonuses to the unit/army which holds it. This could serve to introduce real choices for the players. Player A needs objectives 1, 3 and 6 to complete their mission, but objective 2 will allow them to bring an extra unit in from reserves each turn. Does he commit forces to try and allow him to make use of more of his army more quickly but the casualties might weaken his forces in the short term? Or does he hold off assaulting objective 2 to keep his defence of 1 and 3 stronger and try to weather his opponents greater reinforcement numbers?
the_scotsman wrote: ...I think someone earlier was talking about "Checkmate conditions" i.e. sudden death objectives that you can try to kind of suicidally achieve if you find yourself at a disadvantage.
The Open War cards they put out earlier in the edition have some of those, and I've played a few games that tried them out and found them to be interesting, though not universally.
as a couple examples:
Drive them Out: Starting in battle round 3, if you end your turn with no enemy units within your deployment zone, you win
Vendetta: If the enemy warlord is slain by your warlord, you win
Endure: If you aren't tabled at the end of battle round 5, you win
They were designed for imbalanced game scenarios, where one side either started with more models or had a powerful mechanic like infinitely respawning units, etc.
Also, several of the Objectives where a "sudden death" condition was baked in. There was one with objectives in the player's deployment zone, and if you ever held all 3 the game ended.
I think a mission set where starting midway through the game, say turn 3, a sudden death objective kicks on, maybe one that can only be achieved by whoever has the lowest victory point total at the time could be interesting.
The Open War sudden death conditions feel sort of half-baked to me because differing army comp can make them vary from trivially easy to nigh-useless. Of the three you've listed 1 appears to be a big middle finger to Guard and Tau (who have no reason to move forward after they've got a few objectives other than the risk of you drawing that card), 2 is trivial if you've got a fast melee Warlord and your opponent's Warlord isn't a tank (how are you going to prevent a Dawneagle Shield-Captain from reaching your Guard Senior Officer?), and 3 is impossible for Eldar (in my experience they either table you faster than that or get crushed faster than that), and trivial for spammy lists or skew lists fighting small elite lists.
I do like the concept and I like them much better if you've got a neutral third party curating the Open War cards instead of pulling randomly from the deck and hoping the RNG isn't going to screw over your army comp/matchup too badly.
the_scotsman wrote: ...I think someone earlier was talking about "Checkmate conditions" i.e. sudden death objectives that you can try to kind of suicidally achieve if you find yourself at a disadvantage.
The Open War cards they put out earlier in the edition have some of those, and I've played a few games that tried them out and found them to be interesting, though not universally.
as a couple examples:
Drive them Out: Starting in battle round 3, if you end your turn with no enemy units within your deployment zone, you win
Vendetta: If the enemy warlord is slain by your warlord, you win
Endure: If you aren't tabled at the end of battle round 5, you win
They were designed for imbalanced game scenarios, where one side either started with more models or had a powerful mechanic like infinitely respawning units, etc.
Also, several of the Objectives where a "sudden death" condition was baked in. There was one with objectives in the player's deployment zone, and if you ever held all 3 the game ended.
I think a mission set where starting midway through the game, say turn 3, a sudden death objective kicks on, maybe one that can only be achieved by whoever has the lowest victory point total at the time could be interesting.
The Open War sudden death conditions feel sort of half-baked to me because differing army comp can make them vary from trivially easy to nigh-useless. Of the three you've listed 1 appears to be a big middle finger to Guard and Tau (who have no reason to move forward after they've got a few objectives other than the risk of you drawing that card), 2 is trivial if you've got a fast melee Warlord and your opponent's Warlord isn't a tank (how are you going to prevent a Dawneagle Shield-Captain from reaching your Guard Senior Officer?), and 3 is impossible for Eldar (in my experience they either table you faster than that or get crushed faster than that), and trivial for spammy lists or skew lists fighting small elite lists.
I do like the concept and I like them much better if you've got a neutral third party curating the Open War cards instead of pulling randomly from the deck and hoping the RNG isn't going to screw over your army comp/matchup too badly.
That is for sure the biggest weakness of the Open War cards: They work REALLY well if you curate the mission carefully, and REALLY poorly as a pick up game random draw setup.But I have gotten a ton of mileage out of leveraging their mechanics and tweaking them for the various custom mission events I've organized.
Although, sometimes it is funny to put a faction in a "fish out of water" situation. I've played a Tau vs Guard game inspired by one of the recent scenarios where the Guard's big advantage was that the "Crush Them" stratagem was 0CP and could be used any number of times in a turn, and they had to break through the Tau lines and get off the board.
Yes, this is a reasonable criticism. Some lists are really hard to pick secondaries against, so I started building a list that could take more of the non-killing variety.
It certainly is daunting for someone who hasn't spent time thinking about it.
Yes agreed with this cirtisim as well. You really must have copies of an ITC mission pack to really play the game. Not hard to have if you have a printer but only serious tournament players who only play ITC will have these. Plus the phase where you pick your objectives is exceptionally daunting and can actually lose you the game if you chose the wrong ones....
It does seem really dumb that in what 40k really is...an encounter battle. How the heck can you be choosing your victory conditions? These should randomly determined and the result should apply to both players. IMO also they should focus less on killing enemy units and a lot more on capturing key points and holding key points. I'd also like to see interesting objectives like (slay that warlord) have a much bigger impact on the game.
Something I've wanted to test for a while is basically porting the missions over from Risk into 40K. It would work by having a deck of mission cards, each of which is a mission to hold some combination of 3 objective markers for a set number of turns (or the end of the game, whichever comes first).
Each player puts down 3 numbered objective markers, none of which can be in their deployment zone. Then they draw a mission card each. Players will not know which mission their opponent has. This would allow for feints, decoy manoeuvres etc. to keep your opponent guessing which objectives are actually your mission to hold.
Of course this would work much better with less lethality in the game to prevent tabling, and also possibly less units to make turns shorter allow for more turns in a game.
You could even use special markers for the objectives (communications array, guidance beacon etc.) which provide bonuses to the unit/army which holds it. This could serve to introduce real choices for the players. Player A needs objectives 1, 3 and 6 to complete their mission, but objective 2 will allow them to bring an extra unit in from reserves each turn. Does he commit forces to try and allow him to make use of more of his army more quickly but the casualties might weaken his forces in the short term? Or does he hold off assaulting objective 2 to keep his defence of 1 and 3 stronger and try to weather his opponents greater reinforcement numbers?
I think at the very least we could instantly port your idea into the game and just make changes so all objectives can't be in any deployment zones (it's just boring to start on an objective). Lower leathality would be great - I think that is something everyone wants. I know this from experience - when armies actually collide in 8th edition (this is mainly how me and my mates play at the flgs) no army can really maintain longer than 4 turns. If one side has a very strong turn 1 or 2 turn 3 tabling isn't even uncommon. I would actually enjoy a game where tabling was rare and you could actually maneuver a few units in front of an opponent and have them survive for a turn. I kind of like the idea of risk type objectives but like you said the game would need to be a lot longer turn wise for that to really work. I really like the idea of crucial objective giving you in game benefit to really discourage "spawn camping" .
Yes, this is a reasonable criticism. Some lists are really hard to pick secondaries against, so I started building a list that could take more of the non-killing variety.
It certainly is daunting for someone who hasn't spent time thinking about it.
Yes agreed with this cirtisim as well. You really must have copies of an ITC mission pack to really play the game. Not hard to have if you have a printer but only serious tournament players who only play ITC will have these. Plus the phase where you pick your objectives is exceptionally daunting and can actually lose you the game if you chose the wrong ones....
It does seem really dumb that in what 40k really is...an encounter battle. How the heck can you be choosing your victory conditions? These should randomly determined and the result should apply to both players. IMO also they should focus less on killing enemy units and a lot more on capturing key points and holding key points. I'd also like to see interesting objectives like (slay that warlord) have a much bigger impact on the game.
Something I've wanted to test for a while is basically porting the missions over from Risk into 40K. It would work by having a deck of mission cards, each of which is a mission to hold some combination of 3 objective markers for a set number of turns (or the end of the game, whichever comes first).
Each player puts down 3 numbered objective markers, none of which can be in their deployment zone. Then they draw a mission card each. Players will not know which mission their opponent has. This would allow for feints, decoy manoeuvres etc. to keep your opponent guessing which objectives are actually your mission to hold.
Of course this would work much better with less lethality in the game to prevent tabling, and also possibly less units to make turns shorter allow for more turns in a game.
You could even use special markers for the objectives (communications array, guidance beacon etc.) which provide bonuses to the unit/army which holds it. This could serve to introduce real choices for the players. Player A needs objectives 1, 3 and 6 to complete their mission, but objective 2 will allow them to bring an extra unit in from reserves each turn. Does he commit forces to try and allow him to make use of more of his army more quickly but the casualties might weaken his forces in the short term? Or does he hold off assaulting objective 2 to keep his defence of 1 and 3 stronger and try to weather his opponents greater reinforcement numbers?
I think at the very least we could instantly port your idea into the game and just make changes so all objectives can't be in any deployment zones (it's just boring to start on an objective). Lower leathality would be great - I think that is something everyone wants. I know this from experience - when armies actually collide in 8th edition (this is mainly how me and my mates play at the flgs) no army can really maintain longer than 4 turns. If one side has a very strong turn 1 or 2 turn 3 tabling isn't even uncommon. I would actually enjoy a game where tabling was rare and you could actually maneuver a few units in front of an opponent and have them survive for a turn. I kind of like the idea of risk type objectives but like you said the game would need to be a lot longer turn wise for that to really work. I really like the idea of crucial objective giving you in game benefit to really discourage "spawn camping" .
That is 1000% the main reason I got so into apoc when it came out. It is a much, MUCH less deadly game overall (Unless you're a character...)
Yes, this is a reasonable criticism. Some lists are really hard to pick secondaries against, so I started building a list that could take more of the non-killing variety.
It certainly is daunting for someone who hasn't spent time thinking about it.
Yes agreed with this cirtisim as well. You really must have copies of an ITC mission pack to really play the game. Not hard to have if you have a printer but only serious tournament players who only play ITC will have these. Plus the phase where you pick your objectives is exceptionally daunting and can actually lose you the game if you chose the wrong ones....
It does seem really dumb that in what 40k really is...an encounter battle. How the heck can you be choosing your victory conditions? These should randomly determined and the result should apply to both players. IMO also they should focus less on killing enemy units and a lot more on capturing key points and holding key points. I'd also like to see interesting objectives like (slay that warlord) have a much bigger impact on the game.
Something I've wanted to test for a while is basically porting the missions over from Risk into 40K. It would work by having a deck of mission cards, each of which is a mission to hold some combination of 3 objective markers for a set number of turns (or the end of the game, whichever comes first).
Each player puts down 3 numbered objective markers, none of which can be in their deployment zone. Then they draw a mission card each. Players will not know which mission their opponent has. This would allow for feints, decoy manoeuvres etc. to keep your opponent guessing which objectives are actually your mission to hold.
Of course this would work much better with less lethality in the game to prevent tabling, and also possibly less units to make turns shorter allow for more turns in a game.
You could even use special markers for the objectives (communications array, guidance beacon etc.) which provide bonuses to the unit/army which holds it. This could serve to introduce real choices for the players. Player A needs objectives 1, 3 and 6 to complete their mission, but objective 2 will allow them to bring an extra unit in from reserves each turn. Does he commit forces to try and allow him to make use of more of his army more quickly but the casualties might weaken his forces in the short term? Or does he hold off assaulting objective 2 to keep his defence of 1 and 3 stronger and try to weather his opponents greater reinforcement numbers?
I think at the very least we could instantly port your idea into the game and just make changes so all objectives can't be in any deployment zones (it's just boring to start on an objective). Lower leathality would be great - I think that is something everyone wants. I know this from experience - when armies actually collide in 8th edition (this is mainly how me and my mates play at the flgs) no army can really maintain longer than 4 turns. If one side has a very strong turn 1 or 2 turn 3 tabling isn't even uncommon. I would actually enjoy a game where tabling was rare and you could actually maneuver a few units in front of an opponent and have them survive for a turn. I kind of like the idea of risk type objectives but like you said the game would need to be a lot longer turn wise for that to really work. I really like the idea of crucial objective giving you in game benefit to really discourage "spawn camping" .
That is 1000% the main reason I got so into apoc when it came out. It is a much, MUCH less deadly game overall (Unless you're a character...)
I enjoyed certain elements if apoc. The alternating detachments and casualties removing at the end of turns was great. The cards ruined it for me though. Also the balance was a lot worse than in 40k standard (that is saying a lot!) and things like being able to deep strike and take aim at the same time...I think it would be a good base for a 9th eddition game system. I didn't like the blast marker system ether.
Something I've wanted to test for a while is basically porting the missions over from Risk into 40K. It would work by having a deck of mission cards, each of which is a mission to hold some combination of 3 objective markers for a set number of turns (or the end of the game, whichever comes first).
Each player puts down 3 numbered objective markers, none of which can be in their deployment zone. Then they draw a mission card each. Players will not know which mission their opponent has. This would allow for feints, decoy manoeuvres etc. to keep your opponent guessing which objectives are actually your mission to hold.
I have a vague recollection that the 2nd edition might have had something remotely resembling this. I mean randomised secret objectives. Or maybe I'm imagining it, I'm not sure...
Yoyoyo wrote: CP generation should be looked at too. Taking min troops to overcharge killy units is part of the problem.
I feel like it isn't the issue it used to be. Marines lists are very low CP these days. Its the strats that got stronger and need to be tied to the strength of the model they'e used on (e.g. Duty Eternal should cost 2 on a Levi).
Yoyoyo wrote: CP generation should be looked at too. Taking min troops to overcharge killy units is part of the problem.
I feel like it isn't the issue it used to be. Marines lists are very low CP these days. Its the strats that got stronger and need to be tied to the strength of the model they'e used on (e.g. Duty Eternal should cost 2 on a Levi).
It is a great stratagem. but why should half damage stratagem for 1 unit cost 2 cp when there are strats for +1str and +1 damage for ryza plasma and emperors children noise marines? These stratagems cause more than double damage. Plus - you can always elect not to shoot things that have the duty eternal buff. IMO defensive stratagems should cost less than offensive ones. Or at the very least should cancel each other out for total damage. Also since it rounds up it often only reduces by 1/3.
Though there really shouldn't be a lot of situations where you can stack defensive stratagems. Like eldar with -1 to hits up to -3 is just silly. It can literally start to mean you can't take damage...that is OP. Really it would be nice if there was a cap on how many abilties could be applied to a unit. Perhaps 1 defensive and 1 offensive MAX that wasn't on your data sheet.
Yoyoyo wrote: CP generation should be looked at too. Taking min troops to overcharge killy units is part of the problem.
I feel like it isn't the issue it used to be. Marines lists are very low CP these days. Its the strats that got stronger and need to be tied to the strength of the model they'e used on (e.g. Duty Eternal should cost 2 on a Levi).
It is a great stratagem. but why should half damage stratagem for 1 unit cost 2 cp when there are strats for +1str and +1 damage for ryza plasma and emperors children noise marines? These stratagems cause more than double damage. Plus - you can always elect not to shoot things that have the duty eternal buff. IMO defensive stratagems should cost less than offensive ones. Or at the very least should cancel each other out for total damage. Also since it rounds up it often only reduces by 1/3.
Though there really shouldn't be a lot of situations where you can stack defensive stratagems. Like eldar with -1 to hits up to -3 is just silly. It can literally start to mean you can't take damage...that is OP. Really it would be nice if there was a cap on how many abilties could be applied to a unit. Perhaps 1 defensive and 1 offensive MAX that wasn't on your data sheet.
So, a unit with the IRON HANDS keyword would not be allowed to use any defensive stratagem or psyhic power, because it already has 1 defensive ability (The CT?)
Because IIRC The situation you're complaining about is 1 chapter tactic, 1 strat, and 1 Datasheet ability.
It is a great stratagem. but why should half damage stratagem for 1 unit cost 2 cp when there are strats for +1str and +1 damage for ryza plasma and emperors children noise marines? These stratagems cause more than double damage. Plus - you can always elect not to shoot things that have the duty eternal buff. IMO defensive stratagems should cost less than offensive ones. Or at the very least should cancel each other out for total damage. Also since it rounds up it often only reduces by 1/3.
Though there really shouldn't be a lot of situations where you can stack defensive stratagems. Like eldar with -1 to hits up to -3 is just silly. It can literally start to mean you can't take damage...that is OP. Really it would be nice if there was a cap on how many abilties could be applied to a unit. Perhaps 1 defensive and 1 offensive MAX that wasn't on your data sheet.
GK pay 1CP for a +5 chance to save wounds only from a MW from spell powers source, after their vehicle loses wounds from a MW spell. 2CP for duty eternal makes sense to me.
It is a great stratagem. but why should half damage stratagem for 1 unit cost 2 cp when there are strats for +1str and +1 damage for ryza plasma and emperors children noise marines? These stratagems cause more than double damage. Plus - you can always elect not to shoot things that have the duty eternal buff. IMO defensive stratagems should cost less than offensive ones. Or at the very least should cancel each other out for total damage. Also since it rounds up it often only reduces by 1/3.
Though there really shouldn't be a lot of situations where you can stack defensive stratagems. Like eldar with -1 to hits up to -3 is just silly. It can literally start to mean you can't take damage...that is OP. Really it would be nice if there was a cap on how many abilties could be applied to a unit. Perhaps 1 defensive and 1 offensive MAX that wasn't on your data sheet.
GK pay 1CP for a +5 chance to save wounds only from a MW from spell powers source, after their vehicle loses wounds from a MW spell. 2CP for duty eternal makes sense to me.
Unless my codex is out of date, the stratagem is actually
"Use when a GREY KNIGHTS VEHICLE suffers a mortal wound. Roll a D6 for that and every subsequent mortal wound the vehicle suffers that phase. On a 5+ the wound is not lost."
So it's any phase, and you don't just have to tank the first wound that allows you to use the strat. You could use it against MW spam in the shooting phase from wrath of mars or haywire or something if you wanted.
It is a great stratagem. but why should half damage stratagem for 1 unit cost 2 cp when there are strats for +1str and +1 damage for ryza plasma and emperors children noise marines? These stratagems cause more than double damage. Plus - you can always elect not to shoot things that have the duty eternal buff. IMO defensive stratagems should cost less than offensive ones. Or at the very least should cancel each other out for total damage. Also since it rounds up it often only reduces by 1/3.
Though there really shouldn't be a lot of situations where you can stack defensive stratagems. Like eldar with -1 to hits up to -3 is just silly. It can literally start to mean you can't take damage...that is OP. Really it would be nice if there was a cap on how many abilties could be applied to a unit. Perhaps 1 defensive and 1 offensive MAX that wasn't on your data sheet.
GK pay 1CP for a +5 chance to save wounds only from a MW from spell powers source, after their vehicle loses wounds from a MW spell. 2CP for duty eternal makes sense to me.
GK have the worst stratagems in the entire game. No standard to go by. All marines have that ability though. The ability to save against mortal wounds is special because mortal wounds are special. It works the whole phase I believe also.
So it's any phase, and you don't just have to tank the first wound that allows you to use the strat. You could use it against MW spam in the shooting phase from wrath of mars or haywire or something if you wanted.
Well if it works like that, then it is better. Am still not sure what vehicles other then dreadnoughts GK use a lot though. And those in general hide out of line of sight.
I thought it only worked on smite and other psychic powers, and only after the first psychic power targeted and proced it effect. At least that is how it was explained to me. Not big difference for my rhinos, as they die fast anyway.
Its been covered, but ITC is a massive skew on the base game, and I think this is becoming more and more obvious. IMO at least the secondaries need to be changed so the positional ones are more of a rational choice with more armies. Or possibly there needs to be some variation to boost "hold more" over kill more.
I just feel too many games go "I'm going to get hold something, I'm going to get kill something, I'm hopefully going to get kill more and in doing so I'm going to get at least 2 secondaries that are about killing. Then because your stuff is dead, and my units are tough rather than a melange of MSU, you get fewer and fewer points and eventually collapse by turn 3 while I mop up hold more/kills more/everything".
I feel outside ITC - and especially if you include Maelstrom - the game is a lot softer. Not that Marines/Eldar etc are not "good" (killing stuff is almost always better than being killed) - but there is a bit more variance in the game. You can have units which would be horrible in ITC due to giving up secondaries/kill more so easily - but it doesn't matter.
Arguably you might say in Maelstrom - even with the deck building - there is too much variance, as an army that seems to be getting absolutely pasted just ticks through the points while the other guy gets a duff draw. Which you may or may not find fun - but its certainly less "I'm just playing out my statistical superiority, pls remove your models as I coast to victory".
Really though I wouldn't expect GW to take any urgent action until at least summer - possibly beyond. They will want to give the changes in CA a reasonable run out. I have to think Marine nerfs are going to be in CA20 - but then I'd have thought Crimson Hunter Exarchs would be nerfed into oblivion so...
The additional CP based on the str/size of the unit seems a good idea to me and is used in other strategems for sure (off the top of my head the terrible DA strat that lets termies shoot the turn the land for 2 cp for 5, 3 cp for 6+). Hell, increase the relic tax to "any strategems spent on a unit with the relic keyword cost an additional CP." Or you could change it to be +1 cp when used on any dreadnought with a wounds characteristic of 10+. More value = more cost.
But these are the types of small quality of life changes that GW just seems incapable of anticipating and implementing because they just don't give a feth (it has to be the only answer).
I mean the # of levi dreads seen at top tables is negligible (1 out of 13 winning SM lists) though and not contributing significantly to the imbalance of marines (at least as far as I've seen the data parsed out).
Tyel wrote: Its been covered, but ITC is a massive skew on the base game, and I think this is becoming more and more obvious.
The data presented throughout this thread strongly suggests that this is not true in the slightest.
IMO at least the secondaries need to be changed so the positional ones are more of a rational choice with more armies. Or possibly there needs to be some variation to boost "hold more" over kill more.
You can easily build a durable army that is capable of taking advantage of non-killing based secondaries.
Really though I wouldn't expect GW to take any urgent action until at least summer - possibly beyond. They will want to give the changes in CA a reasonable run out. I have to think Marine nerfs are going to be in CA20 - but then I'd have thought Crimson Hunter Exarchs would be nerfed into oblivion so...
There won't be point changes, but if marine dominance is solidified at LVO despite CA and recent PAs then we I'm highly confident we'll see some sort of errata in March.
Tyel wrote: Its been covered, but ITC is a massive skew on the base game, and I think this is becoming more and more obvious.
The data presented throughout this thread strongly suggests that this is not true in the slightest.
.
Surely the dramatically different performance of many sub-factions or factions in ITC and non-ITC tournements is a clear indication that a (sub-)factions armies effectiveness may be heavily dependent on whether it is operating in ITC environment or not?
Tyel wrote: Its been covered, but ITC is a massive skew on the base game, and I think this is becoming more and more obvious.
The data presented throughout this thread strongly suggests that this is not true in the slightest.
.
Surely the dramatically different performance of many sub-factions or factions in ITC and non-ITC tournements is a clear indication that a (sub-)factions armies effectiveness may be heavily dependent on whether it is operating in ITC environment or not?
Different game scenarios for eternal war missions will favor certain armies as well. Terrain types will also favor certain armies. Like vs tau or IF when facing opponents on heavily terrained boards....it is basically an automatic loss. Heavy LOS blocking vs AM spamming manicores and basilisks...auto lose. There is a lot going into it.
Different game scenarios for eternal war missions will favor certain armies as well. Terrain types will also favor certain armies. Like vs tau or IF when facing opponents on heavily terrained boards....it is basically an automatic loss. Heavy LOS blocking vs AM spamming manicores and basilisks...auto lose. There is a lot going into it.
Nothing of this contradicts ITC skewing the results. The game cannot be balance based on someone's houserules, how bloody hard can this be to understand!
Different game scenarios for eternal war missions will favor certain armies as well. Terrain types will also favor certain armies. Like vs tau or IF when facing opponents on heavily terrained boards....it is basically an automatic loss. Heavy LOS blocking vs AM spamming manicores and basilisks...auto lose. There is a lot going into it.
Nothing of this contradicts ITC skewing the results. The game cannot be balance based on someone's houserules, how bloody hard can this be to understand!
its difficult to understand because you havent explained why not.
To be fair, the game isn't balanced via the base rules either. So a more accurate claim would be "the game is not balanced based on any rules, so use the rules you prefer".
its difficult to understand because you havent explained why not.
Why not?
JFC, should be pretty self evident!. They're not gonna balance it based my houserules either. ITC creates their own missions and houserules, GW doesn't control what ITC does, GW cannot be held responsible for rules that they did not write themselves. It would be utterly absurd situation if GW had to change the game based on issues caused by someone's houserules. And at any model that third party could issue new houserules and GW had to change the game again. Utter lunacy! GW writes the rules, missions and points. And they're not perfect and that's on GW. But if you alter the game by houserules, then you have no grounds for complaining if there are issues. Like if you buy a new car and it breaks down, you have a valid complaint against the manufacturer. But if the car breaks down after you have first taken it apart and jury rigged and modified with all sorts of parts from dubious sources, then it hardly is the manufacturer's fault if there are problems.
Different game scenarios for eternal war missions will favor certain armies as well. Terrain types will also favor certain armies. Like vs tau or IF when facing opponents on heavily terrained boards....it is basically an automatic loss. Heavy LOS blocking vs AM spamming manicores and basilisks...auto lose. There is a lot going into it.
Nothing of this contradicts ITC skewing the results. The game cannot be balance based on someone's houserules, how bloody hard can this be to understand!
its difficult to understand because you havent explained why not.
Why not?
Because they are house rules that most people don't use?
Do we need another reason?
flandarz wrote: To be fair, the game isn't balanced via the base rules either.
It isn't but that's not the point. ITC is not how the game is supposed to be played, it is not GW's fault if the game is not balanced in that format. Now the game not being balanced with CA missions either is GW's fault. GW issues new missions in every CA, and this is part of their balancing efforts. And in every book the missions have been better than in the previous one, so they're doing something right. However, a major tournament organisation promoting their own houserules is an issue, as it makes much more difficult for GW to obtain useful data on the CA missions and know what works and what doesn't. So basically ITC makes balancing the game harder for GW.
its difficult to understand because you havent explained why not.
Why not?
JFC, should be pretty self evident!. They're not gonna balance it based my houserules either. ITC creates their own missions and houserules, GW doesn't control what ITC does, GW cannot be held responsible for rules that they did not write themselves. It would be utterly absurd situation if GW had to change the game based on issues caused by someone's houserules. And at any model that third party could issue new houserules and GW had to change the game again. Utter lunacy! GW writes the rules, missions and points. And they're not perfect and that's on GW. But if you alter the game by houserules, then you have no grounds for complaining if there are issues. Like if you buy a new car and it breaks down, you have a valid complaint against the manufacturer. But if the car breaks down after you have first taken it apart and jury rigged and modified with all sorts of parts from dubious sources, then it hardly is the manufacturer's fault if there are problems.
GW sends reps to almost every major ITC event, asking players about their armies and what works well and what doesn't, speaking to top players, and hired half of their ITC staff for their playtest team.
But you just keep telling yourself whatever you need to. It's "pretty self evident" after all.
its difficult to understand because you havent explained why not.
Why not?
JFC, should be pretty self evident!. They're not gonna balance it based my houserules either. ITC creates their own missions and houserules, GW doesn't control what ITC does, GW cannot be held responsible for rules that they did not write themselves. It would be utterly absurd situation if GW had to change the game based on issues caused by someone's houserules. And at any model that third party could issue new houserules and GW had to change the game again. Utter lunacy! GW writes the rules, missions and points. And they're not perfect and that's on GW. But if you alter the game by houserules, then you have no grounds for complaining if there are issues. Like if you buy a new car and it breaks down, you have a valid complaint against the manufacturer. But if the car breaks down after you have first taken it apart and jury rigged and modified with all sorts of parts from dubious sources, then it hardly is the manufacturer's fault if there are problems.
GW sends reps to almost every major ITC event, asking players about their armies and what works well and what doesn't, speaking to top players, and hired half of their ITC staff for their playtest team.
But you just keep telling yourself whatever you need to. It's "pretty self evident" after all.
It is though, asking itc players for balance is like asking a german for directions in china.
Tyel wrote: Its been covered, but ITC is a massive skew on the base game, and I think this is becoming more and more obvious. IMO at least the secondaries need to be changed so the positional ones are more of a rational choice with more armies. Or possibly there needs to be some variation to boost "hold more" over kill more.
I just feel too many games go "I'm going to get hold something, I'm going to get kill something, I'm hopefully going to get kill more and in doing so I'm going to get at least 2 secondaries that are about killing. Then because your stuff is dead, and my units are tough rather than a melange of MSU, you get fewer and fewer points and eventually collapse by turn 3 while I mop up hold more/kills more/everything".
I feel outside ITC - and especially if you include Maelstrom - the game is a lot softer. Not that Marines/Eldar etc are not "good" (killing stuff is almost always better than being killed) - but there is a bit more variance in the game. You can have units which would be horrible in ITC due to giving up secondaries/kill more so easily - but it doesn't matter.
Arguably you might say in Maelstrom - even with the deck building - there is too much variance, as an army that seems to be getting absolutely pasted just ticks through the points while the other guy gets a duff draw. Which you may or may not find fun - but its certainly less "I'm just playing out my statistical superiority, pls remove your models as I coast to victory".
Really though I wouldn't expect GW to take any urgent action until at least summer - possibly beyond. They will want to give the changes in CA a reasonable run out. I have to think Marine nerfs are going to be in CA20 - but then I'd have thought Crimson Hunter Exarchs would be nerfed into oblivion so...
But I want soft, spammable cheap units to have a downside. In CA 2019, there is no downside to these units.
its difficult to understand because you havent explained why not.
Why not?
JFC, should be pretty self evident!. They're not gonna balance it based my houserules either. ITC creates their own missions and houserules, GW doesn't control what ITC does, GW cannot be held responsible for rules that they did not write themselves. It would be utterly absurd situation if GW had to change the game based on issues caused by someone's houserules. And at any model that third party could issue new houserules and GW had to change the game again. Utter lunacy! GW writes the rules, missions and points. And they're not perfect and that's on GW. But if you alter the game by houserules, then you have no grounds for complaining if there are issues. Like if you buy a new car and it breaks down, you have a valid complaint against the manufacturer. But if the car breaks down after you have first taken it apart and jury rigged and modified with all sorts of parts from dubious sources, then it hardly is the manufacturer's fault if there are problems.
GW sends reps to almost every major ITC event, asking players about their armies and what works well and what doesn't, speaking to top players, and hired half of their ITC staff for their playtest team.
But you just keep telling yourself whatever you need to. It's "pretty self evident" after all.
It is though, asking itc players for balance is like asking a german for directions in china.
GW sends reps to almost every major ITC event, asking players about their armies and what works well and what doesn't, speaking to top players, and hired half of their ITC staff for their playtest team.
But you just keep telling yourself whatever you need to. It's "pretty self evident" after all.
Why isn't it? ITC is a houseruled version of the game, with changes from the base rules. Why is this so hard to understand from the pro-ITC people? You are playing a version of the game that was born out of necessity years ago, but now just fractures the playerbase. Even if we pretend the missions aren't an issue, it's still dividing the playerbase. And yet only for 40k. ITC for AOS doesn't feth around with the missions or add extra rules, they only track scoring.
GW sends reps to almost every major ITC event, asking players about their armies and what works well and what doesn't, speaking to top players, and hired half of their ITC staff for their playtest team.
But you just keep telling yourself whatever you need to. It's "pretty self evident" after all.
They send reps to all major tournaments.
That's literally what I just said. All major tournaments are either ITC or ETC (another set of houserules for play).
I has been explained, you just have a comprehension problem.
You have a critical thinking problem.
All you've explained so far is why you believe games workshop couldn't possibly be balancing with ITC in mind. But they are, and ITC is balancing based on GW's game design, and you insist this can't possibly result in a balance game, so you really need to explain why.
Different game scenarios for eternal war missions will favor certain armies as well. Terrain types will also favor certain armies. Like vs tau or IF when facing opponents on heavily terrained boards....it is basically an automatic loss. Heavy LOS blocking vs AM spamming manicores and basilisks...auto lose. There is a lot going into it.
Nothing of this contradicts ITC skewing the results. The game cannot be balance based on someone's houserules, how bloody hard can this be to understand!
its difficult to understand because you havent explained why not.
Why not?
Because they are house rules that most people don't use?
Do we need another reason?
Yes, because saying "it cannot be balanced because I don't like it", isn't actually a reason, it just highlights your personal bias in the matter.
Nitro Zeus wrote: All you've explained so far is why you believe games workshop couldn't possibly be balancing with ITC in mind. But they are, and ITC is balancing based on GW's game design, and you insist this can't possibly result in a balance game, so you really need to explain why.
They can either balance it for their own missions or for the ITC missions. They're too different that they could effectively do them both, at leas to the degree tournament players want. And balancing the game for missions they do not themselves control, would be insane. It would mean poorer balance for missions GW sells people for real money, and it would mean that at any moment ITC can issue a new set of houserules and all GW's work goes out of the window anyway.
Tyel wrote: Its been covered, but ITC is a massive skew on the base game, and I think this is becoming more and more obvious.
The data presented throughout this thread strongly suggests that this is not true in the slightest.
.
Surely the dramatically different performance of many sub-factions or factions in ITC and non-ITC tournements is a clear indication that a (sub-)factions armies effectiveness may be heavily dependent on whether it is operating in ITC environment or not?
Iron Hands and Custom Craftworlds still dominate. Everyone else is just fighting over scraps.
Nitro Zeus wrote: All you've explained so far is why you believe games workshop couldn't possibly be balancing with ITC in mind. But they are, and ITC is balancing based on GW's game design, and you insist this can't possibly result in a balance game, so you really need to explain why.
They can either balance it for their own missions or for the ITC missions. They're too different that they could effectively do them both, at leas to the degree tournament players want. And balancing the game for missions they do not themselves control, would be insane. It would mean poorer balance for missions GW sells people for real money, and it would mean that at any moment ITC can issue a new set of houserules and all GW's work goes out of the window anyway.
Their missions had been an unbalanced, swingy, non-manipulable RNG fest, that you could not effectively balance a game with as many variables as 40k has in regards to. That's why ITC missions exist in the first place. Just making balanced armies is enough for ITC armies to function. There was no balance applied towards GW''s own rules for competitive play, the majority of their rules are clearly marked at casual players, and thus remained unbalanced. The only stylee play that they attempted to apply any balance towards was for competitive play, for which their missions were not intended for and remained completely unbalanced in relation to and did not work for this setting, so it makes sense that balancing around ITC results and hiring ITC staff for the playtest team, was the route that they did choose. Which they objectively did, that's not really an opinion, it's a fact, we know that this happened. How much they actually listened to their balance team is another question, as the sales department comes first, but you know.
Why is it so difficult for you guys to separate your personal bias from your arguments? For what it's worth, I'm massive supporter of the new CA missions. I've been encouraging everywhere I know to pick them up, made multiple large posts promoting them on Reddit, and literally bought a copy of CA for my FLGS to encourage people here to make CA missions the current standard. I'm a big fan of them and hope that ITC missions die.
On Chapter Tactics they've defended their place in the past by stating that they only intend to fill a gap between GW's rules writing and competitive play, that definitely did exist in the past with GW's awful missions. But now I think that's no longer the case and we have official missions that serve that role, so hopefully they stay true to their claim and support that. There's no reason that ITC can't just keep their scoreboard and tournament support running without needing their official missions to be pushed.
So yeah, I'm pretty anti-ITC. But this concept that ITC couldn't possibly be better for balance because "it's homebrew rules!" is just absurdity that needs a better explanation. The difference between ITC missions and the new CA missions is like the least relevant factor towards the outcome of games right now while we have factions like SM going dumb out here. They aren't balanced for any sort of missions, they are just unbalanced, so let's stop pretending that homebrew rules are somehow holding back balance or responsible for that travesty.
Nitro Zeus wrote: All you've explained so far is why you believe games workshop couldn't possibly be balancing with ITC in mind. But they are, and ITC is balancing based on GW's game design, and you insist this can't possibly result in a balance game, so you really need to explain why.
They can either balance it for their own missions or for the ITC missions. They're too different that they could effectively do them both, at leas to the degree tournament players want. And balancing the game for missions they do not themselves control, would be insane. It would mean poorer balance for missions GW sells people for real money, and it would mean that at any moment ITC can issue a new set of houserules and all GW's work goes out of the window anyway.
Their missions had been an unbalanced, swingy, non-manipulable RNG fest, that you could not effectively balance a game with as many variables as 40k has in regards to. That's why ITC missions exist in the first place. Just making balanced armies is enough for ITC armies to function. There was no balance applied towards GW''s own rules for competitive play, the majority of their rules are clearly marked at casual players, and thus remained unbalanced. The only stylee play that they attempted to apply any balance towards was for competitive play, for which their missions were not intended for and remained completely unbalanced in relation to and did not work for this setting, so it makes sense that balancing around ITC results and hiring ITC staff for the playtest team, was the route that they did choose. Which they objectively did, that's not really an opinion, it's a fact, we know that this happened. How much they actually listened to their balance team is another question, as the sales department comes first, but you know.
Why is it so difficult for you guys to separate your personal bias from your arguments? For what it's worth, I'm massive supporter of the new CA missions. I've been encouraging everywhere I know to pick them up, made multiple large posts promoting them on Reddit, and literally bought a copy of CA for my FLGS to encourage people here to make CA missions the current standard. I'm a big fan of them and hope that ITC missions die.
On Chapter Tactics they've defended their place in the past by stating that they only intend to fill a gap between GW's rules writing and competitive play, that definitely did exist in the past with GW's awful missions. But now I think that's no longer the case and we have official missions that serve that role, so hopefully they stay true to their claim and support that. There's no reason that ITC can't just keep their scoreboard and tournament support running without needing their official missions to be pushed.
The funny thing is they do exactly this for AOS. They don't change missions, it's "Use the General's Handbook". THey should have done the same thing for 40k from the first Chapter Approved.
Their missions had been an unbalanced, swingy, non-manipulable RNG fest, that you could not effectively balance a game with as many variables as 40k has in regards to. That's why ITC missions exist in the first place. Just making balanced armies is enough for ITC armies to function. There was no balance applied towards GW''s own rules for competitive play, the majority of their rules are clearly marked at casual players, and thus remained unbalanced. The only stylee play that they attempted to apply any balance towards was for competitive play, for which their missions were not intended for and remained completely unbalanced in relation to and did not work for this setting, so it makes sense that balancing around ITC results and hiring ITC staff for the playtest team, was the route that they did choose. Which they objectively did, that's not really an opinion, it's a fact, we know that this happened. How much they actually listened to their balance team is another question, as the sales department comes first, but you know.
Yes, there are ITC people in the playtest team. If they want experienced gamers from the USA, that is pretty much what happens.
Why is it so difficult for you guys to separate your personal bias from your arguments? For what it's worth, I'm massive supporter of the new CA missions. I've been encouraging everywhere I know to pick them up, made multiple large posts promoting them on Reddit, and literally bought a copy of CA for my FLGS to encourage people here to make CA missions the current standard. I'm a big fan of them and hope that ITC missions die.
On Chapter Tactics they've defended their place in the past by stating that they only intend to fill a gap between GW's rules writing and competitive play, that definitely did exist in the past with GW's awful missions. But now I think that's no longer the case and we have official missions that serve that role, so hopefully they stay true to their claim and support that. There's no reason that ITC can't just keep their scoreboard and tournament support running without needing their official missions to be pushed.
So yeah, I'm pretty anti-ITC. But this concept that ITC couldn't possibly be better for balance because "it's homebrew rules!" is just absurdity that needs a better explanation. The difference between ITC missions and the new CA missions is like the least relevant factor towards the outcome of games right now while we have factions like SM going dumb out here. They aren't balanced for any sort of missions, they are just unbalanced, so let's stop pretending that homebrew rules are somehow holding back balance or responsible for that travesty.
You agree with me on what should happen. And I have never said that ITC missions are badly balanced, I say they're differently balanced! But the official missions should be the benchmark. If they're bad, GW should release better ones, and they have.
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Wayniac wrote: The funny thing is they do exactly this for AOS. They don't change missions, it's "Use the General's Handbook". THey should have done the same thing for 40k from the first Chapter Approved.
Martel732 wrote: I still don't think GW missions are good enough, though. What about that point?
Well if that was the general consensus, then they would need to do better in the next CA. And they would need playtest and tournament data to support that. Though because this is you, I am afraid it might be impossible for them to meet your expectations.
Martel732 wrote: I still don't think GW missions are good enough, though. What about that point?
Because neither is ITC, you just like being able to pick and choose your secondaries so you can avoid part of the game.
You mean like how you can pick and choose your maelstrom deck now and avoid part of the game?
Scotsman is the only person who had a legitimate argument against ITC's learning curve, but the rest of these are just baseless accusations not supported by data.
Martel732 wrote: What part of the game? And I like to choose things whenever possible instead of randomizing.
Yeah, well maybe you should next skip the die rolls too. Perhaps even the game altogether. Just create a math formula which compares lists and tells which one wins.
Their missions had been an unbalanced, swingy, non-manipulable RNG fest, that you could not effectively balance a game with as many variables as 40k has in regards to. That's why ITC missions exist in the first place. Just making balanced armies is enough for ITC armies to function. There was no balance applied towards GW''s own rules for competitive play, the majority of their rules are clearly marked at casual players, and thus remained unbalanced. The only stylee play that they attempted to apply any balance towards was for competitive play, for which their missions were not intended for and remained completely unbalanced in relation to and did not work for this setting, so it makes sense that balancing around ITC results and hiring ITC staff for the playtest team, was the route that they did choose. Which they objectively did, that's not really an opinion, it's a fact, we know that this happened. How much they actually listened to their balance team is another question, as the sales department comes first, but you know.
Yes, there are ITC people in the playtest team. If they want experienced gamers from the USA, that is pretty much what happens.
That's not even remotely true. The ITC staff had like a single top player inside of it, being Geoff Robinson (RIP). Basically any other top player in the game would not have any other involvement in writing the ITC rules. When they selected multiple people from that staff to be employees, it tells you that this is specifically what they were looking for.
Martel732 wrote: I still don't think GW missions are good enough, though. What about that point?
Well if that was the general consensus, then they would need to do better in the next CA. And they would need playtest and tournament data to support that. Though because this is you, I am afraid it might be impossible for them to meet your expectations.
Or just let ITC handle it because GW can't write or help themselves when it comes to loopholes.
Martel732 wrote: What part of the game? And I like to choose things whenever possible instead of randomizing.
Yeah, well maybe you should next skip the die rolls too. Perhaps even the game altogether. Just create a math formula which compares lists and tells which one wins.
Daedalus81 wrote: You can easily build a durable army that is capable of taking advantage of non-killing based secondaries.
I can't agree I'm afraid.
Of these, Recon is probably the most common - and depending on your army, sure. To some extent I guess all factions (and arguably all armies) can have a crack at this but yeah, some have it easier than others.
But the rest?
I feel Behind Enemy Lines is a trap that you are only getting if you are heavily winning the combat war (at which point you could have taken almost anything that isn't physically impossible to score.)
Ditto but even more on Ground Control (hope you have the units left and the can scatter them around the table before the end of the game - obviously doable if its a walkover, not so much if it isn't.)
King of the Hill is clearly meant to be a sort of alternative take on Recon, but despite notionally requiring 2 units rather than 4, the additional limiting factors make it more annoying to achieve. If you can do this, you could have got Recon... so take that instead? You could go for both, but then you are getting really fiddly on which units need to go where, and your opponent can probably mess with you.
Its a cliche to say Engineers is "hide in a magic box, hope they don't have ignore LOS shooting" - but not by much. If you don't have resilient troops - and many factions don't really - this is a liability you can lose early on (say turn 3) for a fairly small amount of aggression if you can't hide, and against some factions even if you can.
I don't really get Martel's point that "soft spammable units should have a downside". They typically do anyway - as stratagems and buffs often effect units, the bigger the unit the bigger the multiplier. This is to some extent (by accident by design) mitigated by morale, depending on unit/faction.
ITC skews the meta because you have to build lists with an eye to scoring and denying secondaries that do not exist in the base game. I don't really see how this can be argued as inconsequential.
Its undoubtedly true that units which are good in ITC tend to be good in the base game, because they are mathematically superior at doing damage or taking damage (or often both) to other options, but that doesn't remove the above fact. You shouldn't (IMO anyway) look at a list and go "hmm, not sure I should take X or Y, because its an easy gangbusters (etc) for my opponent". That unit may have problems anyway - but they are different problems. This exacerbates faction imbalance.
Its undoubtedly true that units which are good in ITC tend to be good in the base game, because they are mathematically superior at doing damage or taking damage (or often both) to other options, but that doesn't remove the above fact. You shouldn't (IMO anyway) look at a list and go "hmm, not sure I should take X or Y, because its an easy gangbusters (etc) for my opponent". That unit may have problems anyway - but they are different problems. This exacerbates faction imbalance.
This never stopped bullgryns, or large amounts of IS, or many other "vulnerable scoring" units even after they introduced fixes for the "9 man" and so on. The idea that people create these lists that are so impossible to score secondaries against as well as strong as top lists is a bit of a canard.
Now, TJ Lannigan runs Magnus, DPs, PBCs, and PBs. When he faces marines he puts all his troops into deepstrike, because how do you easily score kills against a bunch of T8 5+++ models with S7 or worse shooting? Is that not the sort of intelligent play we would want out of game?
You could make the case that IS are in decline, because marine snipers can remove CCs with ease, but AM have Ogryn Bodyguards, so that's not the whole story there (more that AM players are possibly fleeing to Marines).
That's not really enough in my experience. ITC evidently feels the same. 150 guardsmen still autowin vs BA in CA 2019.
Do BA not have Eliminators? I literally cannot conceive how BA can't surmount IS spam or how even such a list can survive the very strong horde removal of centurions from other lists.
