Lately I've realized that my personal experience with balance in 40k 9th edition has been very contrary to what I've read on forums and heard talked about online, so I wanted to get some more thoughts on the matter.

To be VERY clear, this is a question about your average everyday player that does not go out and buy every list the tops the major tournaments, clearly armies that can end the game in turn one are imbalanced, but I'm talking about playing an army with whatever force you have personally collected over the years. How many of you Ork players actually have 3 dakkajets, and all those trucks and bikes just laying around that you would have thought to put in a list if it weren't for it crushing that tournament?

Just getting back into the hobby and playing in my first league in ages, I wanted to go with something that I thought would be super casual. Everyone says the Tau Codex is in rough shape right now, but they've always been one of my favorites thematically, so I took a bit of time to learn why. 9th is all about objectives and fighting for the midfield. With Tau's out of date rules, slow units, and weakness up close, it makes handling that very difficult, so I went with something that both countered that, and felt very fun and thematic to me, an all Kroot list. From everything I expected going into this, I thought I would get totally wrecked, learn a lot, and come back with a stronger army knowing more about the edition next time. That's not what happened; turns out, I'm crushing it, 5-0 with 4 games left in the league. (I've posted the army and match details in the army lists for any interested in what I run and who I've been up against.) For the TLDR, I've handily defeated Blood Angels, Guard Armour, Farsight Enclaves and Necrons. My only reasonably close game was against Custodes, but even then, it was by over 10 VP (and would have been more if I hadn't made a huge mistake due to general lack of experience).

Now certainly some of the lists I've been up against even I can tell aren't tournament grade (the Guard one in particular), but others seemed quite strong, and as the league goes on, I'm fighting better and better lists as it is partially rank based matchmaking. Which is what got me thinking, if I can walk into a league with only an intermediate understanding of 9th edition, play the memeist part of a widely believed to be very underpowered army and do this well, how imbalanced can the game actually be? Is it actually a matter of the armies being THAT unbalanced, or is it that people look to competitive tournament lists as their go to and measure everything against them? It seems to me if people are just building their own lists for their armies without chasing the meta, that the game is reasonably balanced.

So what do you all think, am I just a fluke, or have you had this kind of experience as well?

This anecdote is entirely meaningless. Even if you had all the necessary background information to make that valid data, it's too small a sample size to be useful. I played a Crusade league and after bringing moderately viable units annihilated my opposition so badly so consistently it killed the entire league. Does that automatically mean 40k is unbalanced?

As a side note all the armies you've defeated have serious problems atm, you aren't likely to see any of them at the top tables of an event.

Edit: The ones you defeated handily, that is. Farsight Enclaves are Tau, Necrons already have 'first codex disease', Blood Angels got shafted in their supplement which at this point is totally propped up by sanguinary guard (I know, I play them) and guard armour is just kinda bad.

The biggest standout for me is that it is an escalation league, with the 2000 point game being only the last.

At smaller points games, 9th edition is wholly different.

Last question is: what table sizes are you guys playing your games on?

There's an awful lot of people not contesting you midboard, which tells me either they are too slow to do so or aren't trying. If they're too slow to do so, make sure you're using the board sizes in the rulebook, as that can DRAMATICALLY affect the game's course.

Playing 750 on a 6x4 is going to give a high mobility army with lots of bodies a great advantage compared to playing 750 on a 44"x30" tiny board where there's barely enough room to maneuver without accidentally bumping into Close Combat.

For example, I'm fairly certain my Slaanesh Daemons 50pl Crusade list could do quite well - if we were playing on a tiny board.

 Ventus wrote:
This anecdote is entirely meaningless. Even if you had all the necessary background information to make that valid data, it's too small a sample size to be useful. I played a Crusade league and after bringing moderately viable units annihilated my opposition so badly so consistently it killed the entire league. Does that automatically mean 40k is unbalanced?

As a side note all the armies you've defeated have serious problems atm, you aren't likely to see any of them at the top tables of an event.

Edit: The ones you defeated handily, that is. Farsight Enclaves are Tau, Necrons already have 'first codex disease', Blood Angels got shafted in their supplement which at this point is totally propped up by sanguinary guard (I know, I play them) and guard armour is just kinda bad.

I think you missed the point. The reason I made this post is BECAUSE the sample size is so small. That's why I'm asking people who have played far more games than I have what their experience has been. How to you get a big sample size, ask a bunch of people.

True, they aren't top tier (really looking forward to a match vs AdMech or Drukari) but even so, Blood Angels are still Space Marines and Necrons aren't exactly dumpster tier. Also... Kroot.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
The biggest standout for me is that it is an escalation league, with the 2000 point game being only the last.

At smaller points games, 9th edition is wholly different.

Last question is: what table sizes are you guys playing your games on?

There's an awful lot of people not contesting you midboard, which tells me either they are too slow to do so or aren't trying. If they're too slow to do so, make sure you're using the board sizes in the rulebook, as that can DRAMATICALLY affect the game's course.

Playing 750 on a 6x4 is going to give a high mobility army with lots of bodies a great advantage compared to playing 750 on a 44"x30" tiny board where there's barely enough room to maneuver without accidentally bumping into Close Combat.

For example, I'm fairly certain my Slaanesh Daemons 50pl Crusade list could do quite well - if we were playing on a tiny board.

We've been following the recommended table size, so 30"x44" (Actually 30" x 48" since that's the table split in half) for games of 1000 points of less. When I hit the next bracket of 1500pts, it'll be 60"x48".

Points variance is part of balance too. Not everyone plays 2k points. So from a balance perspective, you'd want the game to play reasonably well at any points level, even if some armies might have a bit more of an edge in a particular bracket for one reason or another.

I have been playing my Black Templars a lot recently for obvious reasons. I do not play a meta-build or anything, just a primaris only BT and BT are not exactly tearing up the meta right now. Some of the games I have played are so one sided it is not even funny and that is against both 9th and 8th codexs. I am talking 72-34 level of stomping in one example where I crushed a Guard player. Now, I know that Guard are in a real bad place but my counter example is when I play my Daemons. Yeah, yeah, yeah I can hear the naysayers now but I am sorry, I do not run 5x KoS cause I really like my Bloodcrusher and Blood Throne blob cause it looks so awesome on the table. The only problem is I get shot off the table usually by the end of turn 2 in most of my games. Or when I play my Tyranids where it really feels like I spend an hour deploying out the swarm only to pick it back up over the next hour without really doing any dice rolling of my own, cause I don't even get armor saves against most armies. The fact that most armies I play against have no issue taking 120+ bodies off the table in two turns of shooting means that I can't even play my bugs unless I buy a bunch of monsters and play a list that I am not really interested in.

The game is horribly balanced but it isn't really codex to codex at this point, the core rules and how lethal the game is make it so that some armies can't even compete.

Arbiter_Shade wrote:
I have been playing my Black Templars a lot recently for obvious reasons. I do not play a meta-build or anything, just a primaris only BT and BT are not exactly tearing up the meta right now. Some of the games I have played are so one sided it is not even funny and that is against both 9th and 8th codexs. I am talking 72-34 level of stomping in one example where I crushed a Guard player. Now, I know that Guard are in a real bad place but my counter example is when I play my Daemons. Yeah, yeah, yeah I can hear the naysayers now but I am sorry, I do not run 5x KoS cause I really like my Bloodcrusher and Blood Throne blob cause it looks so awesome on the table. The only problem is I get shot off the table usually by the end of turn 2 in most of my games. Or when I play my Tyranids where it really feels like I spend an hour deploying out the swarm only to pick it back up over the next hour without really doing any dice rolling of my own, cause I don't even get armor saves against most armies. The fact that most armies I play against have no issue taking 120+ bodies off the table in two turns of shooting means that I can't even play my bugs unless I buy a bunch of monsters and play a list that I am not really interested in.

The game is horribly balanced but it isn't really codex to codex at this point, the core rules and how lethal the game is make it so that some armies can't even compete.

Thanks for your input. Your comment about Tyranids was exactly the kind of thing I was thinking about. An army that plays similar to mine but a player who's had different experiences with it. Have you tried shielding them with Catalyst for the 5+ FNP, and returning them with Endless swarm? If they get through that, they shouldn't have any issue taking out all the models I've got. That being said, I suppose being on essentially every objective turn 1 does help me out a lot, but you need some advantages to counter all the disadvantages. Also, is that a consistent every game / most games thing you experience, or just sometimes?

Totally agree about the lethality angle, even in games that are close, I feel like way to many models die way too fast.

Personally, I've been struggling with trying to figure out how to have a fun game against a friend of mine who's (very understandably) quite excited with the powerful new rules that his brand new adeptus mechanicus army has gotten after slowly buying and building it up over months. This is a guy who commits to a theme and deals with it no matter how poorly it plays and for two editions dealt with extremely unsatisfying, lackluster performance from a guard all-tanks army and a CSM all daemon engines army, so to build up his all-skitarii army and lo and behold it's now the super powerful mega codex of your dreams, it's tough to hold it against him.

But it is, regardless, EXTREMELY hard to set up a scenario or to pick an army against him that allows me to get anything out of the game that I want to get out of it.

If I play one of my less competitive armies, I get absolutely hosed off the board by turn 3. If I pick one of my more competitive armies, we both get absolutely hosed off the board by turn 3. There's no 'telling a story about the cool gak that this unit or that unit did over the course of the game' because simply nothing survives longer than taking a single action.

I'm going to be bringing just the absolute toughest most durability-skewed list I can possibly come up with to try and face him - thousand sons Rubrics and scarabs with all the durability spells paired with a Tzeentch daemon allied contingent featuring a big block of splitting horrors, Changeling, and the unkillable ultra-chicken with the durability warlord trait+relic+exalted trait.

Is this, strictly speaking, imbalanced? Theoretically no, because I could actually win and I know of other folks who have been able to beat him with less than tournament-quality lists (albeit other lists that have fared quite well with recent codexes) and I know I could probably set something up to beat him if I went more cutthroat with my Drukhari.

But it's really tough to find the fun. What secondaries should I take? Who cares, the game will be decided by turn 3. How should I try to deploy? Anything not set up behind Obscuring is dead turn 1, guaranteed. What parts of the list should I target? I MUST target this unit, then this unit, then this unit in order or they will instantly make their points back in a single round of attacks.

The shoe was on the other foot with him for such a long time (especially with that poor tank list that would just get these 200pt models instantly kersploded with a single lucky roll from a D6 damage weapon, or just perma-stunlocked if even one single model touched it in close combat) so I really really don't want to take away from the enjoyment of him having a period of getting to have a powerful army that gets to win games. I just wish GW would show just a modicum more restraint and try to pretend once in a while that the game isn't on a constant, rotating merry-go-round where if you've recently purchased a codex book, you're supposed to get to win your next 5-10 games, and if you've had your codex book for 2 years you should basically never get to win.

 the_scotsman wrote:
Personally, I've been struggling with trying to figure out how to have a fun game against a friend of mine who's (very understandably) quite excited with the powerful new rules that his brand new adeptus mechanicus army has gotten after slowly buying and building it up over months. This is a guy who commits to a theme and deals with it no matter how poorly it plays and for two editions dealt with extremely unsatisfying, lackluster performance from a guard all-tanks army and a CSM all daemon engines army, so to build up his all-skitarii army and lo and behold it's now the super powerful mega codex of your dreams, it's tough to hold it against him.

But it is, regardless, EXTREMELY hard to set up a scenario or to pick an army against him that allows me to get anything out of the game that I want to get out of it.

If I play one of my less competitive armies, I get absolutely hosed off the board by turn 3. If I pick one of my more competitive armies, we both get absolutely hosed off the board by turn 3. There's no 'telling a story about the cool gak that this unit or that unit did over the course of the game' because simply nothing survives longer than taking a single action.

I'm going to be bringing just the absolute toughest most durability-skewed list I can possibly come up with to try and face him - thousand sons Rubrics and scarabs with all the durability spells paired with a Tzeentch daemon allied contingent featuring a big block of splitting horrors, Changeling, and the unkillable ultra-chicken with the durability warlord trait+relic+exalted trait.

Is this, strictly speaking, imbalanced? Theoretically no, because I could actually win and I know of other folks who have been able to beat him with less than tournament-quality lists (albeit other lists that have fared quite well with recent codexes) and I know I could probably set something up to beat him if I went more cutthroat with my Drukhari.

But it's really tough to find the fun. What secondaries should I take? Who cares, the game will be decided by turn 3. How should I try to deploy? Anything not set up behind Obscuring is dead turn 1, guaranteed. What parts of the list should I target? I MUST target this unit, then this unit, then this unit in order or they will instantly make their points back in a single round of attacks.

The shoe was on the other foot with him for such a long time (especially with that poor tank list that would just get these 200pt models instantly kersploded with a single lucky roll from a D6 damage weapon, or just perma-stunlocked if even one single model touched it in close combat) so I really really don't want to take away from the enjoyment of him having a period of getting to have a powerful army that gets to win games. I just wish GW would show just a modicum more restraint and try to pretend once in a while that the game isn't on a constant, rotating merry-go-round where if you've recently purchased a codex book, you're supposed to get to win your next 5-10 games, and if you've had your codex book for 2 years you should basically never get to win.

First off, respect for sticking it out, he sounds like a cool guy and you too for continuing to play with him. I've known quite a few people over the years that are happy to do the stomping, but suddenly when the shoe is on the other foot, they can't take it themselves.

I think your last point hits home really well. Even if you can come up with a "balanced game" it doesn't really matter if you're having the exact same balanced game each time. This is a good counter-point to what I said too, even in casual play, if by their own skill or simple dumb luck, people do have the potential to come up with very powerful forces so long as the potential exists. Thanks for sharing.

That being said, with how fast the "merry go round" goes, do you think it's actually that the new codices are in general OP, or that they come out so fast that by the time people are used to fighting them and it levels out a bit, there is a new top dog? Your example seems very much the former, but I mean in general. One or the other, bit of both? I certainly feel that I do get an intangible benefit to running all Kroot because no one I've played has ever seen it before and doesn't know how to handle it.

A game with that many moving parts and different factions and units can never be truly balanced, but I don't find it so unbalanced as to be unplayable. Even when the outcome of the game is very one-sided, I'm not usually under the impression that the game was lost or won at the listbuilding step.

 Tawnis wrote:

First off, respect for sticking it out, he sounds like a cool guy and you too for continuing to play with him. I've known quite a few people over the years that are happy to do the stomping, but suddenly when the shoe is on the other foot, they can't take it themselves.

I think your last point hits home really well. Even if you can come up with a "balanced game" it doesn't really matter if you're having the exact same balanced game each time. This is a good counter-point to what I said too, even in casual play, if by their own skill or simple dumb luck, people do have the potential to come up with very powerful forces so long as the potential exists. Thanks for sharing.

That being said, with how fast the "merry go round" goes, do you think it's actually that the new codices are in general OP, or that they come out so fast that by the time people are used to fighting them and it levels out a bit, there is a new top dog? Your example seems very much the former, but I mean in general. One or the other, bit of both? I certainly feel that I do get an intangible benefit to running all Kroot because no one I've played has ever seen it before and doesn't know how to handle it.

Yeah, GW pretty clearly operates on a marketing principle of 'Manufactured Discontent.'

This is the reason why, for example, phone manufacturers removed the capability for users to replace the batteries from their phones and ship updates that both take up device storage space and cause the older generation phones to run more slowly. When you only get money from consumers switching over to the new thing you make (as is the case with any product that is not a by nature fleeting experience that someone ostensibly gets to own and keep) the incentive from the profit motive is to ensure that the more out of date a product is, the worse a user experience it should deliver.

There's a very good reason why every new edition of the game 'coincidentally' ends up designed to advantage a particular category of unit and disadvantage another category that was strong in the previous edition of the game, and why each wave of new codexes adds an additional rules layer that older books do not get anywhere near fair compensation for. You get your Chapter Traits with your new codex, until then, your opponent gets a Chapter Trait and you get nothing.

You get your Doctrine bonus with your new codex, until then, your opponent gets Doctrines and you get nothing.

You get your super-formation with your new codex, until then, your opponent gets super-formations and you get nothing.

It changes with each edition, but it's always there. And it's not IMPOSSIBLE to beat the stronger ffactions with the weaker ones...but they are made stronger and weaker very much on purpose.

I found, as a player of both 8th and 9th, that these editions were very heavy on the layered rules and light on the actual tactical decision-making. That is to say, decisions you'd expect to make playing a simulation of warfare aren't made. It comes down to whose list is better and who can remember their stratagems more often than not. Decision-making, thus, devolves into what is shooting what and little more. Maneuver is non-existent.

Oftentimes, units that you'd expect to be good - vehicles, for example - are broken the other way. As in, they're unplayably bad. The current Space Marine umbrella meta is foot infantry, not a mobile mechanized infantry list or anything of the sort.

Most of the games we have here are landslide wins.

Overall the OP is right, a normal 40K game (read: non-competitive garagehammer between friends is what I consider the usual 40K game) doesn't have the imbalance I've experienced in pre 8th edition. That being said, there are outliers or current problems in 9th, mostly based on the fact that GW didn't give anything to outdated, 8th edition codizes and this mostly hits CSM and Tau. CSM aren't even that bad but they just don't feel like CSM if you compare them to the loyalist scum that are just better at everything and make the veterans of the long war look like redshirts.

Tournaments feature a very narrow kind of 40K, forums focus on that kind of play because most data available are about those kinds of play and they are the most streamlined, basic versions of 40K so it's easy to draw conclusions. However, what happens in tournament play has little to do with what's going on in real life and most of that has to do with how the hobby works: People play what they've painted last, or bought recently, or what theme they made up, or what fits the narrative of the army/ mission/ campaign. Every now and then someone will throw in a "meta unit" he read about on the internet or sometimes the pendulum swings and a themed list becomes the meta (say you've played Evil sunz speedfreaks for ages and suddenly those became tournament material in 8th/ 9th).

 Tawnis wrote:

Arbiter_Shade wrote:
I have been playing my Black Templars a lot recently for obvious reasons. I do not play a meta-build or anything, just a primaris only BT and BT are not exactly tearing up the meta right now. Some of the games I have played are so one sided it is not even funny and that is against both 9th and 8th codexs. I am talking 72-34 level of stomping in one example where I crushed a Guard player. Now, I know that Guard are in a real bad place but my counter example is when I play my Daemons. Yeah, yeah, yeah I can hear the naysayers now but I am sorry, I do not run 5x KoS cause I really like my Bloodcrusher and Blood Throne blob cause it looks so awesome on the table. The only problem is I get shot off the table usually by the end of turn 2 in most of my games. Or when I play my Tyranids where it really feels like I spend an hour deploying out the swarm only to pick it back up over the next hour without really doing any dice rolling of my own, cause I don't even get armor saves against most armies. The fact that most armies I play against have no issue taking 120+ bodies off the table in two turns of shooting means that I can't even play my bugs unless I buy a bunch of monsters and play a list that I am not really interested in.

The game is horribly balanced but it isn't really codex to codex at this point, the core rules and how lethal the game is make it so that some armies can't even compete.

Thanks for your input. Your comment about Tyranids was exactly the kind of thing I was thinking about. An army that plays similar to mine but a player who's had different experiences with it. Have you tried shielding them with Catalyst for the 5+ FNP, and returning them with Endless swarm? If they get through that, they shouldn't have any issue taking out all the models I've got. That being said, I suppose being on essentially every objective turn 1 does help me out a lot, but you need some advantages to counter all the disadvantages. Also, is that a consistent every game / most games thing you experience, or just sometimes?

Totally agree about the lethality angle, even in games that are close, I feel like way to many models die way too fast.

A 5+++ doesn't do a great deal for ONE squad, if my opponent is really worried about it they can shot everything off the table then shoot the squad with catalyst when everything else is gone. Again, going back to Daemons, how good do you think a 5+ save is? Saving a third of all wounds means very little in the current state of the game.

Endless swarm is great, except that gaunts suck of all variety. Hormagaunts are worse off than Termagaunts in almost every way, why rely on 2A's hitting on 4's at S3 when I can have a unit that does S4 hits at 12" range and has 1A at S3 in melee? Both of which are T3 with a 6+ save. A squad of 30 Horagaunts kills about 1 Space Marine on the charge. Those same space marines, if it were a 5 man squad, kill roughly 3-4 gaunts when swinging back.

8th codexs can't really compete in the same game as 9th codexs, which should give an idea of how much lethality is being added to the game.

I think that you're experiencing a skew effect that people at that league aren't prepared to deal with either through their list or their tactics. You're using an aggressive ( pregame move ) obsec with superb morale and help from ethereals to keep them on the table. That isn't easy to deal with if they brought a bunch of big guns to deal with dreadnoughts.

At higher point levels they'll likely have the extra tools to deal with it more effectively.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
I think that you're experiencing a skew effect that people at that league aren't prepared to deal with either through their list or their tactics. You're using an aggressive ( pregame move ) obsec with superb morale and help from ethereals to keep them on the table. That isn't easy to deal with if they brought a bunch of big guns to deal with dreadnoughts.

At higher point levels they'll likely have the extra tools to deal with it more effectively.

Very true, though that door swings both ways. If I had the models to run 2k points, my list would add 9 more Knarloc Riders, 4 more Greater Knarlocs, 30 more Infantry, another Ethereal/Shaper Combo another pack of hounds 2 more Krootox and another extra shaper for the backline. This balances out the list a lot more and gives me some of the big punching power that I'm lacking. Sure the argument could be made that these are Legendary units and not current codex, but I'd counter that with the fact that as stated it's not tournament focused and, you know... Kroot.

Even if that wasn't the case the fact that I can bring a list that's from an old book that is supposed to be out of date and do well with it is kinda the point. Balance isn't just about the 2k games, balance matters at every point level, 500-3000 as that's what the game is supposed to be built for.

 Tawnis wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
I think that you're experiencing a skew effect that people at that league aren't prepared to deal with either through their list or their tactics. You're using an aggressive ( pregame move ) obsec with superb morale and help from ethereals to keep them on the table. That isn't easy to deal with if they brought a bunch of big guns to deal with dreadnoughts.

At higher point levels they'll likely have the extra tools to deal with it more effectively.

Balance isn't just about the 2k games, balance matters at every point level, 500-3000 as that's what the game is supposed to be built for.

wait you're serious



500 point games are not balanced - skew is the perfect example. Your anecdote even confirms this imbalance - running a skew list at 1kish and below.

Arbiter_Shade wrote:


A 5+++ doesn't do a great deal for ONE squad, if my opponent is really worried about it they can shot everything off the table then shoot the squad with catalyst when everything else is gone. Again, going back to Daemons, how good do you think a 5+ save is? Saving a third of all wounds means very little in the current state of the game.

Endless swarm is great, except that gaunts suck of all variety. Hormagaunts are worse off than Termagaunts in almost every way, why rely on 2A's hitting on 4's at S3 when I can have a unit that does S4 hits at 12" range and has 1A at S3 in melee? Both of which are T3 with a 6+ save. A squad of 30 Horagaunts kills about 1 Space Marine on the charge. Those same space marines, if it were a 5 man squad, kill roughly 3-4 gaunts when swinging back.

8th codexs can't really compete in the same game as 9th codexs, which should give an idea of how much lethality is being added to the game.

If you use them in units of 30, it's not bad. I know you're more vulnerable to blast, but still, I'd say the 5+ FNP on 30 models vs 10 is worth it. As someone who doesn't chase the meta, I honestly thought deamons would be pretty good. The 6+ FNP I get saves a surprising amount of bodies when you've got as many as I run.

True, though those are vanilla Hormagaunts. If you're going a Hormagaunt heavy list, you're probably Hive Fleet Hydra for re-roll hits if you outnumber your target. Or a custom hive fleet with Pack Hunter and Bio Metalic cysts, bringing you up to AP-2. There's also the additional -1 AP with the feral instincts stratagem. That will mince quite a few more marines.

Not trying to say you're wrong or anything, just thinking of my own experience with Tyranids this edition as I run gaunt heavy as well. (50 Termagaunts (10/10/30 split fleshborer/fleshborer/devourer, 60 Hormagaunts, 30 Gargoyles in my 1500 pt list.)




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Tawnis wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
I think that you're experiencing a skew effect that people at that league aren't prepared to deal with either through their list or their tactics. You're using an aggressive ( pregame move ) obsec with superb morale and help from ethereals to keep them on the table. That isn't easy to deal with if they brought a bunch of big guns to deal with dreadnoughts.

At higher point levels they'll likely have the extra tools to deal with it more effectively.

Balance isn't just about the 2k games, balance matters at every point level, 500-3000 as that's what the game is supposed to be built for.

wait you're serious



500 point games are not balanced - skew is the perfect example. Your anecdote even confirms this imbalance - running a skew list at 1kish and below.

I did say "supposed to"

I'm looking forward to my higher point games. I won't be able to run all Kroot as I don't have the models, but I've already got a plan for how I'm going to tackle it.

 Tawnis wrote:


I did say "supposed to"

I'm looking forward to my higher point games. I won't be able to run all Kroot as I don't have the models, but I've already got a plan for how I'm going to tackle it.

The game is "Supposed to" feel like absolute gak at 500pts.

You're "Supposed to" have to buy in 500$ of models to play a decent quality game. And then you're "Supposed to " be so sunk in to your investment that you'll defend the game still feeling hollow.

Or not, who cares, GW got your money already.

Whatever the edition, 40k has always been poorly balanced. Or can be. Doesn't really matter if it's outside of "competitive" or not.

But no, you're league experience isn't unique. In a Crusade/Escalation league it's possible to find some mix that works very well at lower levels & only gets better as it increases. And if it's something few involved are familiar with, like your Kroot? Bonus! Other forces only come on-line at higher lvs. Meanwhile though you've racked up plenty of wins.
My own Necrons are a good example. Sure, you have all these people claiming they aren't top tier tourney-wise, suffer from being one of the 1st codices, etc. But you know what? I'm not in a tourney. I'm playing against a meta of 10-20some known foes, many of whom I'm a better player than. And I have several mixes that'll do quite well as the force grows over the first 5-7 games (our Crusades are 12 games long). The next several games is where my being a better player starts actually factoring into my wins.
And then the last game or two is where I finally face something that gives me what I consider a good game.
In our last Crusade this was game #11 - vs a fully tooled up AdMech - we tied & game #12 - vs another Necron player - I lost by several VP.
Nobody will cry if I don't bring Necrons to the 5th Crusade....

I can only speak from 8th, as I haven't tried 9th.

With small games, without named characters the game plays "ok".

Until someone stumbles on some wombo-combo by accident (or a semi-diligent hunt).

The problem is the game is filled with unbalanced landmines all over the place and it's too easy to latch onto them and make them a part of your repertoire. Bigger games exasperate the problem because you can repeat and/or enlarge the combos.

 Tawnis wrote:

Arbiter_Shade wrote:


A 5+++ doesn't do a great deal for ONE squad, if my opponent is really worried about it they can shot everything off the table then shoot the squad with catalyst when everything else is gone. Again, going back to Daemons, how good do you think a 5+ save is? Saving a third of all wounds means very little in the current state of the game.

Endless swarm is great, except that gaunts suck of all variety. Hormagaunts are worse off than Termagaunts in almost every way, why rely on 2A's hitting on 4's at S3 when I can have a unit that does S4 hits at 12" range and has 1A at S3 in melee? Both of which are T3 with a 6+ save. A squad of 30 Horagaunts kills about 1 Space Marine on the charge. Those same space marines, if it were a 5 man squad, kill roughly 3-4 gaunts when swinging back.

8th codexs can't really compete in the same game as 9th codexs, which should give an idea of how much lethality is being added to the game.

If you use them in units of 30, it's not bad. I know you're more vulnerable to blast, but still, I'd say the 5+ FNP on 30 models vs 10 is worth it. As someone who doesn't chase the meta, I honestly thought deamons would be pretty good. The 6+ FNP I get saves a surprising amount of bodies when you've got as many as I run.

True, though those are vanilla Hormagaunts. If you're going a Hormagaunt heavy list, you're probably Hive Fleet Hydra for re-roll hits if you outnumber your target. Or a custom hive fleet with Pack Hunter and Bio Metalic cysts, bringing you up to AP-2. There's also the additional -1 AP with the feral instincts stratagem. That will mince quite a few more marines.

Not trying to say you're wrong or anything, just thinking of my own experience with Tyranids this edition as I run gaunt heavy as well. (50 Termagaunts (10/10/30 split fleshborer/fleshborer/devourer, 60 Hormagaunts, 30 Gargoyles in my 1500 pt list.)

Bringing Hormagaunts up to AP -2 by using the custom hive fleet still only kills one more space marine on average, maybe another wounded one. That also relies on somehow getting 30 T3 6+ models into 1" of the space marines.

My point is that your experience in your meta seems WILDLY different from what I have experienced. I've picked up 90+ gaunts a turn against guard, not exactly a meta army right now either. Against marines I usually lose about 50 per turn, which is better but even when I get to punch back I can barely scratch a space marine. Tyranids are in a bad place right now unless you go monster mash, I expect they will get better with their next codex but that doesn't help me for the past year or for the foreseeable future because I know that they are not coming by the end of the year and 2022 is going to be the year of Chaos apparently.

It is negligibly easy for armies to remove 1W low save bodies from the table. Orks at T5 with a 6+ are still easy enough to remove from the table AND they suffer horribly from morale. This edition of 40k has yet to show how horde type armies can work, cause so far they don't.

This is how I view balance:

There are only so many combinations of units one can make within a 2000 point army for each faction. If you measured the power/performance of each combination, you would get a power spread for each faction. Obviously I haven't done it but that is my thought excercise. You could see the quarter intervals of each faction, top 25% of a faction, the middle half of a faction, and the bottom 25% as well as the median power level.

The top 10% of each faction is where competitive lies and that's what's compared. But for the rest is where us filthy casual/narrative types lay.

From what I've seen, for some factions like Space marines and Mechanicus, their distributions are bunched up near their top quarter, and it's easier for the average army to be powerful. For other factions, their top quarter is more an outlier and the bulk of lists are not that powerful.

The median army list is far from equal across the board, IE the chance any two slapped together lists between 2 factions will be similar power wise is unlikely. That is how I see ot as unbalanced.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
This is how I view balance:

There are only so many combinations of units one can make within a 2000 point army for each faction. If you measured the power/performance of each combination, you would get a power spread for each faction. Obviously I haven't done it but that is my thought excercise. You could see the quarter intervals of each faction, top 25% of a faction, the middle half of a faction, and the bottom 25% as well as the median power level.

The top 10% of each faction is where competitive lies and that's what's compared. But for the rest is where us filthy casual/narrative types lay.

From what I've seen, for some factions like Space marines and Mechanicus, their distributions are bunched up near their top quarter, and it's easier for the average army to be powerful. For other factions, their top quarter is more an outlier and the bulk of lists are not that powerful.

The median army list is far from equal across the board, IE the chance any two slapped together lists between 2 factions will be similar power wise is unlikely. That is how I see it as unbalanced.

Arbiter_Shade wrote:


It is negligibly easy for armies to remove 1W low save bodies from the table. Orks at T5 with a 6+ are still easy enough to remove from the table AND they suffer horribly from morale. This edition of 40k has yet to show how horde type armies can work, cause so far they don't.

What's been working for me is not worrying about killing things, because you more-less can't. It's been about playing the objectives and putting yourself so far ahead on points that it doesn't matter if you die. If you can get on the objectives first turn and just hold on, then your golden. For what I know about Tyranids, I'd try this with Devourer Termagaunts backed up with Catalyst advancing up to gum up the objectives turn 1 and shooting any troop units they can see and just ignoring and taking your lumps from anything that's not obsec. Then Hormagaunts and Warriors bannering up objectives then thrown into the inevitable melee that will ensue. I'd go with Adaptive Exoskeleton for the 6++ for survivability and Hypermetabolic Acceleration to get on those objectives. Basically, how I've been paying my Kroot with the units swapped appropriately. The one thing you don't have is a cheap but durable ranged unit to take the place of the Krootox for holding backfield objectives, maybe a few Biovores, but at 50 points a piece, eh, that's a lot to invest and they're pretty squishy. Maybe just more warriors, the Deathspitters do have decent range, but that's really bogging down the Troop slot now.

Not saying it will work wonders by any means, just thinking how I'd play the list where the codex is at. Again, I've only ben playing the 1k bracket so far, so I can't speak to 2k from experience. Could easily be the weight of firepower is too heavy for this to work, but you really only need to hold on until the end of turn three for a solid shot at winning, then just focus on denying any primaries you can. Again, at least from my limited experience.

To me this is really the most balanced edition for non tournament players. In my experience with older editions (8th and 7th in particular) pre-game fixes to put both lists on the same league had to be more frequent and more significant than now.

Of course I'm only considering failry TAC lists and average/reasonable collections of models. Extremely skew lists lead to extreme results, as always. I flat out ignore results for lists involving 18 buggies or 4-5 planes as I would never play with or against those, regardless of how good/bad they are.

Biggest downside of 9th (but still much better than 8th) is the volume of dice that is too high, plus tools to enhance the results. Less dice, less ways to fix the results and the game would be much better, at the moment it's too much the game of averages.

In a small/local meta player skill is the biggest determinant of winning games. Arguably this has always been the case but 9th's missions probably exaggerate the effect. Its however far harder to describe what makes a player "good" than why faction/list X is stronger than faction Y.

The fact you have an odd list may also effect your opponents decision making.

At competetive tournaments you can assume most placing players know what they are doing. So the faction probabilities - and therefore imbalances - start to shine through as you measure the outcomes of all such games.

No game based on dice rolls can ever be truly balanced. Similarly, No game based on a foundation of 'universal' in-game unit costs and values that ignore context can ever be balanced either.

Is 40k balanced outside of competitive play?

Yes, and no. With caveats.

40k is modular. Individual lists can be made tens of thousands of different ways. Some things match up relatively well. If you approach a game right and are willing to collaborate and 'list-match', there's no reason your games can't be balanced. You may need to step outside of some constraints though (eg more points for one side or ignore some over the top advantage for the other) to acheive this and you need to appreciate this puts a lot of the onus on the front end ie the players.

On the other hand, go in blind put, put the wrong things up against each other (eg list tailoring, or fielding what amounts to the other armies' 'silver bullet,) and there's every chance you'll have a one sided stomping, irregardless of whether it's a top table tournament game or a casual beer hammer and bbq type game.

As long as you can find a like minded opponent, then yes 40k can be quite balanced and reasonable. Communicate with your opponent before the game is key, discuss what army you'll use and any problematic units you may or may not want. EG, if I was to bring Mortarion to a friendly match I'd let my opponent know ahead of time and I'd happily leave the big guy at home if he felt it would ruin the game.

All bets are off for blind pick up games and tournaments but outside of those you just need to be lucky enough to know someone who isn't a jerk.

As a side note, I think the 9th edition codexs are looking pretty decent from a balance point of view. Out of 9 codexs and 5 supplements we only have 2 being noteworthy as too strong (Ad Mech and Dark Eldar) and 1 being noteworthy as too weak (necrons). Not too bad by GW's standards.

-Guardsman- wrote:
A game with that many moving parts and different factions and units can never be truly balanced, but I don't find it so unbalanced as to be unplayable. Even when the outcome of the game is very one-sided, I'm not usually under the impression that the game was lost or won at the listbuilding step.

I definitely thing the business model/cycle of new rules (rule edition + codecies) and new miniature releases means that you have a continuous pressure wave of 'latest and greatest' that people feel they need to invest in and buy more miniatures. This priority for GW comes above the priority of them making the game balanced (and therefore suited for tournament play. )

Believe James Hewitt said as much in those social media posts a while back, although the truth has been evident for many years now (and I would say at least going back to 3rd or 4th edition) to anyone who has played the games. Also, its important to mention that many other games manage to have a far better semblance of balance and can produce 'fair' tournament play. GW themselves have managed it in the past with other games they have released. So for it to be 'broken' for so long, you have to think it is the consequence of a deliberate decision, or at least evidence that balancing the game isn't a priority at all.

The problem is of course is that if balance isn't a concern at all, and the ball has been struck so hard and so wildly that not only has it missed the goal but it has gone into the crowd up on the third tier, that 'casual' players aren't able to get along with the game, let alone tournament netlisters, because the balancing issues are so egregious.

 Pacific wrote:
Also, its important to mention that many other games manage to have a far better semblance of balance and can produce 'fair' tournament play. GW themselves have managed it in the past with other games they have released.

I don't disagree but it must be stated though that 'better' is somewhat relative (you say it well - the 'semblance' of balance). even those games commonly regarded as 'better' balanced, even like warmachine or x-wing often also boiled down to a handful of lists that dominated over others. Every game has 'trap' choices, 'crutch' choices, poor synergies and 'go to' lists. Ttgs are rough, limited systems- I've never come across a game that could handle the requirements demanded of it in the name of achieving the mythical 'balance'.

It should also be noted you tend to get 'better' balance in games with less moving parts and smaller rosters (less factions, units etc) as a game with 2 factions each of 4 unit/loadout choices will be easier to balance than a game with 30 factions each of thirty units. Fine for a new game or boxed game but after even a handful of expansions this won't last. And games/businesses need to those expansions or else they die. Now, as useful as that is, I can't imagine ones popularity being very high if they turned round and tried to make illegal 99% of 40ks current roster across all factions in the name of 'balance' - there'll be lots of angry players out there.

Deadnight wrote:
No game based on dice rolls can ever be truly balanced.

No game can be balanced period, at least not in the way people tend to use it on here in the "perfect balance, every factions has a 50/50 win rate" form of balance. Even Chess has a slight skew to white because it gets the first turn.

But you're trying to excuse 40k because of the random nature of dice even that isn't true. War Of The Ring has dice literally dictate what actions you can take on your turn AND uses dice to determine combat and last time I checked the skew was a 56% win rate for Shadow. Saying 40k cannot be balanced is absolutely fair. There are just too many models and too many factions to make it a balanced game but this doesn't mean that GW shouldn't TRY to balance it as much as possible.

Honestly this leads back into the discussions about how to make the "Three Ways To Play" more distinct. If Matched was basically the defacto "tournament mode" GW could have a much easier time by introducing a separate, smaller/tighter army lists specifically for Matched play and leaving all the stuff not included in the Matched army lists available for Open where balance is less of a consideration. No ones models are deleted, better balance is achieved for those inclined that way, people will still complain but at least we can say "if you care about balance play Matched".

40k would be vastly more balanced than it currently is if GW wasn't actively trying to make it imbalanced. Like, we understand that is the goal state, right? nobody actually believes GW is not shooting for factions to have roughly a 55% winrate out of the gate with a new book that decays to around 40% just before a new codex comes out?

At the very least they wouldnt open every single edition with a brand new mechanic that one faction gets and nobody else gets any kind of compensation for, right? We're not seriously under the delusion that "LOL you'll get your chapter tactics and Stratagems rules when your codex comes out nerd until then eat gak" in 8e was "balanced"?

 the_scotsman wrote:


At the very least they wouldnt open every single edition with a brand new mechanic that one faction gets and nobody else gets any kind of compensation for, right?

Honestly I think unique faction mechanics can work, GW is just awful at it. They hit on some good ideas occasionally (miracle dice) but in other factions it feels like an afterthought or underutilized or they're leaning on when it worked in 4th Ed.

I truly hope that when The Old World finally launches GW took some ideas from Creative Assembly and Total War: Warhammer because some of the stuff they came up with for faction mechanics is incredibly fluffy and great mechanically.

The biggest issue for me WRT balance is that GW's business model actively discourages it (as the_scotsman has pointed out).

A game designer invested in making the game both narrative (in a fictional world) and balanced would approach the affair with a clear idea of the interactions in their head that they wish to model.

"Communications network? Nah, our wargame will handwave that."
"Kinetic force-on-force combat? Yeah, let's throw that in."
"Command and Control? Largely not but maybe with some flavor"

etc. etc.

They would also have some idea of how they want those interactions to play out (The Aeldari should achieve their victories by cunning and their plays should look short, violent, and majestic - they "love it when a plan comes together", while Imperial Guard should achieve victories by brute doggedness. Rather than make "plays" the Imperial Guard should focus on the mission and hand and show up with a willingness to pay a high price but achieve victory in the end, etc etc).

Then, with a clear picture painted of:
1) What types of mechanics are needed
2) What identities there are for factions

the game designer can build his game, ensuring the core mechanics focus on the areas he desires and the faction mechanics are minute, cost points, and nudge (don't FORCE!) the faction in the desired direction. You could even achieve faction identity through points costs (i.e. aeldari bikes are cheap, and their grav tanks are similarly priced but trade armor and firepower for speed, whilst Imperial Guard infantrymen and tanks are cheap and rugged but lack finesse and mobility by comparison).

Unfortunately, this is I think how GW used to think, but they've bought into their own universe, as it were.

The whole 40k setting used to be "balanced". In general, there were some bolter-porn/Gaunt's Ghosts type books where there were heroes and one faction was clearly the bettererestest, but the lore was (on the whole) intended to be balanced between the factions. The whole setting was pinned on a knife edge.

But now, the lore is imbalanced, and you can no longer anchor the game in the lore (even if GW were still trying that, which I believe they are not).

 Tawnis wrote:
I think you missed the point. The reason I made this post is BECAUSE the sample size is so small. That's why I'm asking people who have played far more games than I have what their experience has been. How to you get a big sample size, ask a bunch of people.

True, they aren't top tier (really looking forward to a match vs AdMech or Drukari) but even so, Blood Angels are still Space Marines and Necrons aren't exactly dumpster tier. Also... Kroot.

Let me take what I said a step further: no amount of anecdotes makes for a viable dataset.

Whether those armies are dumpster tier I guess depends on how many books you're letting in. Like the last GT wins analysis Goon did for October all four of those forces were back to back among the very worst performers. I can tell you personally I have many thousands of points of Blood Angels which are virtually always larping as White Scars these days, unless I'm really committed to breaking out the Sanguinary Guard or the Libby Dread.

Nah, I mean it's just simpler than that. GW just comes up with a blanket advantage that you get to have over the factions that don't yet have a new edition book.

and then when they're done with an edition worth of books, they put out new 'not-codexes' that also give out bonuses for no cost to various factions purely so you'll buy the book and to bump up that faction's winrate.

There's no deep-seated lore-based reason behind it, it's not them 'getting high on their own supply' it's the fact that they have so many potential units and kits to keep stocked that if they didnt control demand based on codex production they'd lose more sales due to stuff being out of stock.

They make kits for a faction when that faction's codex comes out, and if you dont make sure the codex is a strong one comparative to other factions, you will fail to make those sales.

So they build in planned obsolescence to army books. Plain and simple.Every time a new edition comes out ande you see a rule and go 'hey, that seems like it would work really really badly with X faction or X type of unit" yes. That is on purpose. that is intentional.

When the 8E thousand sons book came out, all the 7E Rubric based models had very little rules support in terms of stratagems and fancy rules comparative to the AOS units they ported over into 40k.

Then when the 9E thousand sons book came out, despite none of those AOS units being particularly in the meta at all, they handed down hefty hefty nerfs to Tzaangors, Shamans and Skyfires.

Because if you bought in with the 8e book you probably had a bunch of those units. So now they want you to buy other units.

 Tawnis wrote:

If I had the models to run 2k points, my list would add... 4 more Greater Knarlocs,

I love Kroot, and wish they had all the old models back in their range in fresh new plastic.

I was under the impression that 9th ed rules for greater Knarlocs no longer existed. Are you houseruling, or do you know something I don't?

He may have meant Great Knarlocs which are legends models.

 Ventus wrote:

 Tawnis wrote:
I think you missed the point. The reason I made this post is BECAUSE the sample size is so small. That's why I'm asking people who have played far more games than I have what their experience has been. How to you get a big sample size, ask a bunch of people.

True, they aren't top tier (really looking forward to a match vs AdMech or Drukari) but even so, Blood Angels are still Space Marines and Necrons aren't exactly dumpster tier. Also... Kroot.

Let me take what I said a step further: no amount of anecdotes makes for a viable dataset.

Whether those armies are dumpster tier I guess depends on how many books you're letting in. Like the last GT wins analysis Goon did for October all four of those forces were back to back among the very worst performers. I can tell you personally I have many thousands of points of Blood Angels which are virtually always larping as White Scars these days, unless I'm really committed to breaking out the Sanguinary Guard or the Libby Dread.

As I said in the OP, this is specifically NOT in regards to tournaments and highly competitive play. I have no disillusions about the game being imbalanced at the highest levels of play. I'm talking about two people picking models from their collection that they like or feel is thematic or whatever and having a go at each other. Are the rules so badly imbalanced that even then the game is dramatically skewed, or do people actually have to work and put effort in to break it? From my experience with Kroot, no it's not, but I wanted to hear what other people had to say.

If you've had the experience at your local meta of everyone being super competitive and not being able to play your Blood Angels, that's just as anectodical as my example. As for the tournament results everyone knows and agrees on those and wasn't the point of this thread.



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PenitentJake wrote:

 Tawnis wrote:

If I had the models to run 2k points, my list would add... 4 more Greater Knarlocs,

I love Kroot, and wish they had all the old models back in their range in fresh new plastic.

I was under the impression that 9th ed rules for greater Knarlocs no longer existed. Are you houseruling, or do you know something I don't?

Yes, using the Legends rules, since it is a casual league, it was allowed. They're actually pretty OP at 65pts IMHO.

I'm not sure how a skew list going completely undefeated at small points in a league setting on tables of indeterminate size and with legends models is evidence of "balance"

It's like saying "oh yeah, chess is more balanced than you think, we just use the play option where you flip a coin to see whether white or black goes first instead of it always being white."

Cool- didn't know they made it to Legends!

Thanks guys!

(Now if only I had some models....)

 the_scotsman wrote:
Nah, I mean it's just simpler than that. GW just comes up with a blanket advantage that you get to have over the factions that don't yet have a new edition book.

and then when they're done with an edition worth of books, they put out new 'not-codexes' that also give out bonuses for no cost to various factions purely so you'll buy the book and to bump up that faction's winrate.

There's no deep-seated lore-based reason behind it, it's not them 'getting high on their own supply' it's the fact that they have so many potential units and kits to keep stocked that if they didnt control demand based on codex production they'd lose more sales due to stuff being out of stock.

They make kits for a faction when that faction's codex comes out, and if you dont make sure the codex is a strong one comparative to other factions, you will fail to make those sales.

So they build in planned obsolescence to army books. Plain and simple.Every time a new edition comes out ande you see a rule and go 'hey, that seems like it would work really really badly with X faction or X type of unit" yes. That is on purpose. that is intentional.

When the 8E thousand sons book came out, all the 7E Rubric based models had very little rules support in terms of stratagems and fancy rules comparative to the AOS units they ported over into 40k.

Then when the 9E thousand sons book came out, despite none of those AOS units being particularly in the meta at all, they handed down hefty hefty nerfs to Tzaangors, Shamans and Skyfires.

Because if you bought in with the 8e book you probably had a bunch of those units. So now they want you to buy other units.

i really doubt that its a nerf that was given because of their stock. GW intended for cultists/tzaangors/poxwalkers to be chaff for the actual marines in the list but fethed up in 8th. So we get their nerfed version in 9th and now the legions actually use legionnaires and i think most people are glad they can now use Rubrics/scarabs without being into meme territory

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:
Nah, I mean it's just simpler than that. GW just comes up with a blanket advantage that you get to have over the factions that don't yet have a new edition book.

and then when they're done with an edition worth of books, they put out new 'not-codexes' that also give out bonuses for no cost to various factions purely so you'll buy the book and to bump up that faction's winrate.

There's no deep-seated lore-based reason behind it, it's not them 'getting high on their own supply' it's the fact that they have so many potential units and kits to keep stocked that if they didnt control demand based on codex production they'd lose more sales due to stuff being out of stock.

They make kits for a faction when that faction's codex comes out, and if you dont make sure the codex is a strong one comparative to other factions, you will fail to make those sales.

So they build in planned obsolescence to army books. Plain and simple.Every time a new edition comes out ande you see a rule and go 'hey, that seems like it would work really really badly with X faction or X type of unit" yes. That is on purpose. that is intentional.

When the 8E thousand sons book came out, all the 7E Rubric based models had very little rules support in terms of stratagems and fancy rules comparative to the AOS units they ported over into 40k.

Then when the 9E thousand sons book came out, despite none of those AOS units being particularly in the meta at all, they handed down hefty hefty nerfs to Tzaangors, Shamans and Skyfires.

Because if you bought in with the 8e book you probably had a bunch of those units. So now they want you to buy other units.

i really doubt that its a nerf that was given because of their stock. GW intended for cultists/tzaangors/poxwalkers to be chaff for the actual marines in the list but fethed up in 8th. So we get their nerfed version in 9th and now the legions actually use legionnaires and i think most people are glad they can now use Rubrics/scarabs without being into meme territory

Yep. It was definitely a mistake they made in 8th, the way that they made a big list of stratagems and the one for tzaangors was 'Fight twice for 2cp' and the one for rubrics was 'deal d3 mortal wounds when the squad leader dies for 2cp.' That was a feth-up. GW did not intend for players with existing rubric-based collections to purchase 30 tzaangors and 6 skyfires and a Shaman for their army because they were strong in 8th.

Arbiter_Shade wrote:


Bringing Hormagaunts up to AP -2 by using the custom hive fleet still only kills one more space marine on average, maybe another wounded one. That also relies on somehow getting 30 T3 6+ models into 1" of the space marines.

I was thinking a lot about this yesterday as I think its a wonderful example about how experience with factors beyond 2 individual units warp peoples perceptions of those units themselves and their balance against each other. To show this, it's time for some Mathhammer!

Taking two units with the exact same points value. 30 Hormagaunts and 9 Intercessors both equal 180 points. To make it a bit more like it would be on the tabletop, we'll say that the Hormagaunts have AP-2 from the hive tactics and are protected by Catalyst at all times whereas the Space Marines can re-roll all their hit and wound rolls. We'll give the space marines 1 full round of shooting before they get into melee. (This could obviously be 2 on the table, but that's more depended of first turn advantage not anything with the specific models.) There's a lot of rounding involved here so the actual numbers could swing a bit either way, but here is the gist of it:

Intercessors shoot killing 7 Hormagaunts: (23-9) M Turn
Hormagaunts charge and attack killing 2.5 rounded down (23-7) T Turn
Intercessors attack back killing 5: (18-7)(Hormagaunts loose re-roll W of 1 due to less than 20 models.) T Turn
Hormagaunts attack killing 2: (18-5) M Turn
Intercessors attack back killing 4: (14-5) M Turn
Intercessors attack killing 4: (10-5) T turn
Hormagaunts attack killing 1.5 rounded up (10-3) T turn
Hormagaunts attack killing 1 rounded down (10-2) M turn
Intercessors attack killing 2: (8-2) M turn
Intercessors attack killing 2: (6-2) T turn
Hormagaunts attack killing 1 rounded up (6-1) T turn
Hormagaunts attack killing 0.5 rounded down (6-1) M turn
Intercessor attacks killing 1 (5-1) M turn
Intercessor attacks killing 1 (4-1) T turn
Between two attacks, the Hormagaunts likely chip off that last wound.

This obviously takes a lot of liberties, you're not going to be casting catalyst on a unit when it gets really low, but by the same token, SM's could loose their re-rolls, or an overwatch shooting could have swung the balance, ect... There's not perfect way to stay how units will stack up given all the variables, but on a stat to stat basis with some simple modifiers, these two units seem pretty even. So is it actually that the units themselves are imbalanced or other external factors. I hear all the time Space marines used as the way to measure killing power being like "oh I can only kill 2-3 marines in an attack". That's still 40-60 points off that table, if a single unit can do that it's about right. It's not broken, but it's well matched.

Any flaw in my logic from those who know more than I?





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 Unit1126PLL wrote:
I'm not sure how a skew list going completely undefeated at small points in a league setting on tables of indeterminate size and with legends models is evidence of "balance"

It's like saying "oh yeah, chess is more balanced than you think, we just use the play option where you flip a coin to see whether white or black goes first instead of it always being white."

Well I did state it was casual and Legends are allowed in casual play. Also, do you really think a 65 point model that got instantly deleted in 2 of my 5 games and did nothing, really swung the balance of the list? If I was running 3-4 yeah, I'd give you that for sure. It's the only reasonable anit tank target, so it's not like the firepower would be more effective if I put other models in it's place.

 Tawnis wrote:

Intercessors shoot killing 7 Hormagaunts: (23-9) M Turn
Hormagaunts charge and attack killing 2.5 rounded down (23-7) T Turn
Intercessors attack back killing 5: (18-7)(Hormagaunts loose re-roll W of 1 due to less than 20 models.) T Turn

Hormagaunts attack killing 2: (18-5) M Turn
Intercessors attack back killing 4: (14-5) M Turn

Intercessors attack killing 4: (10-5) T turn
Hormagaunts attack killing 1.5 rounded up (10-3) T turn

Hormagaunts attack killing 1 rounded down (10-2) M turn
Intercessors attack killing 2: (8-2) M turn

Intercessors attack killing 2: (6-2) T turn
Hormagaunts attack killing 1 rounded up (6-1) T turn

Hormagaunts attack killing 0.5 rounded down (6-1) M turn
Intercessor attacks killing 1 (5-1) M turn

Intercessor attacks killing 1 (4-1) T turn
Between two attacks, the Hormagaunts likely chip off that last wound.

This obviously takes a lot of liberties, you're not going to be casting catalyst on a unit when it gets really low, but by the same token, SM's could loose their re-rolls, or an overwatch shooting could have swung the balance, ect... There's not perfect way to stay how units will stack up given all the variables, but on a stat to stat basis with some simple modifiers, these two units seem pretty even. So is it actually that the units themselves are imbalanced or other external factors. I hear all the time Space marines used as the way to measure killing power being like "oh I can only kill 2-3 marines in an attack". That's still 40-60 points off that table, if a single unit can do that it's about right. It's not broken, but it's well matched.

Any flaw in my logic from those who know more than I?

Biggest issue I see is that it's 7 rounds of combat, or 4 turns of the game. It's basically impossible for both units to sit there, with both themselves and whatever support they have going unmolested, for 4 turns straight.

Plus, Psychic Powers (Catalyst) are way less reliable than ... well, the usual source of SM wound-and-hit rerolls... there really isn't a consistent one anymore so I guess it's just a made up buff?

 Tawnis wrote:
Any flaw in my logic from those who know more than I?

My math says 9 Intercessors with full re-rolls get 18 shots, 16 hits, 14.22 wounds, and then 9.5 kills thanks to Catalyst. That's a subtle difference but it changes the eventual outcome.

When the Marines hit back in melee, 7 Intercessors- if they still have full re-rolls- should have 21 attacks, 18.66 hits, 16.6 wounds, 13.83 unsaved, and then 9.2 kills. After the first turn, the Hormagaunts should be down to around 11 models, not 18. The Hormagaunts eventually lose.

Remember that you need to choose specific traits as your subfaction bonus in order to get that AP-2. You weren't giving the Marines a subfaction bonus, let alone Doctrines. Make the Marines Black Templars and the Hormagaunts have a very bad day.

Catalyst on a big unit of Hormagaunts every turn is generally unlikely. You can only use Catalyst once per turn so there are usually going to be better candidates, and it's not guaranteed to succeed. But Marines don't have easy access to full re-rolls all the time, either.

Getting a big unit of Hormagaunts all into melee is difficult, even with 6" pile-in.

All in all I don't think this reflects real-world conditions very well. The more likely outcome is that two units of Intercessors concentrate fire and obliterate the unit of Hormagaunts outright before it makes it into melee.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Tawnis wrote:

Intercessors shoot killing 7 Hormagaunts: (23-9) M Turn
Hormagaunts charge and attack killing 2.5 rounded down (23-7) T Turn
Intercessors attack back killing 5: (18-7)(Hormagaunts loose re-roll W of 1 due to less than 20 models.) T Turn

Hormagaunts attack killing 2: (18-5) M Turn
Intercessors attack back killing 4: (14-5) M Turn

Intercessors attack killing 4: (10-5) T turn
Hormagaunts attack killing 1.5 rounded up (10-3) T turn

Hormagaunts attack killing 1 rounded down (10-2) M turn
Intercessors attack killing 2: (8-2) M turn

Intercessors attack killing 2: (6-2) T turn
Hormagaunts attack killing 1 rounded up (6-1) T turn

Hormagaunts attack killing 0.5 rounded down (6-1) M turn
Intercessor attacks killing 1 (5-1) M turn

Intercessor attacks killing 1 (4-1) T turn
Between two attacks, the Hormagaunts likely chip off that last wound.

This obviously takes a lot of liberties, you're not going to be casting catalyst on a unit when it gets really low, but by the same token, SM's could loose their re-rolls, or an overwatch shooting could have swung the balance, ect... There's not perfect way to stay how units will stack up given all the variables, but on a stat to stat basis with some simple modifiers, these two units seem pretty even. So is it actually that the units themselves are imbalanced or other external factors. I hear all the time Space marines used as the way to measure killing power being like "oh I can only kill 2-3 marines in an attack". That's still 40-60 points off that table, if a single unit can do that it's about right. It's not broken, but it's well matched.

Any flaw in my logic from those who know more than I?

Biggest issue I see is that it's 7 rounds of combat, or 4 turns of the game. It's basically impossible for both units to sit there, with both themselves and whatever support they have going unmolested, for 4 turns straight.

Plus, Psychic Powers (Catalyst) are way less reliable than ... well, the usual source of SM wound-and-hit rerolls... there really isn't a consistent one anymore so I guess it's just a made up buff?

It would actually be the end of turn 5. Remember, each unit will get to attack on each players turn, that's twice per round of combat. You are totally right about the units going unmolested, but I was talking about 2 in a vacuum, issues with other units would be down to those units themselves.

I was thinking Captain/ LT. re-rolls but SM can do so much stuff there isn't really a "generic" way to go about it. They would loose the re-rolls at some point, but like the gaunts would loose catalyst, but I kept them all for consistency's sake.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 catbarf wrote:

 Tawnis wrote:
Any flaw in my logic from those who know more than I?

My math says 9 Intercessors with full re-rolls get 18 shots, 16 hits, 14.22 wounds, and then 9.5 kills thanks to Catalyst. That's a subtle difference but it changes the eventual outcome.

When the Marines hit back in melee, 7 Intercessors- if they still have full re-rolls- should have 21 attacks, 18.66 hits, 16.6 wounds, 13.83 unsaved, and then 9.2 kills. After the first turn, the Hormagaunts should be down to around 11 models, not 18. The Hormagaunts eventually lose.

Remember that you need to choose specific traits as your subfaction bonus in order to get that AP-2. You weren't giving the Marines a subfaction bonus, let alone Doctrines. Make the Marines Black Templars and the Hormagaunts have a very bad day.

Catalyst on a big unit of Hormagaunts every turn is generally unlikely. You can only use Catalyst once per turn so there are usually going to be better candidates, and it's not guaranteed to succeed. But Marines don't have easy access to full re-rolls all the time, either.

Getting a big unit of Hormagaunts all into melee is difficult, even with 6" pile-in.

All in all I don't think this reflects real-world conditions very well. The more likely outcome is that two units of Intercessors concentrate fire and obliterate the unit of Hormagaunts outright before it makes it into melee.

18 shots at BS 3+ hits 12 times, re-rolling half the misses (3) makes 14 hits.

gak, right I forgot Shock Assault. I blame bloat.

True, but then you'd; have to factor in a second unit of Hormagaunts and you're more-less back where you started.

You're right that I didn'r do the doctrines, I kinda the the re-rolls stand in for that. There are so many that coming up with an actual baseline is basically impossible.

 Tawnis wrote:


It would actually be the end of turn 5. Remember, each unit will get to attack on each players turn, that's twice per round of combat. You are totally right about the units going unmolested, but I was talking about 2 in a vacuum, issues with other units would be down to those units themselves.

I was thinking Captain/ LT. re-rolls but SM can do so much stuff there isn't really a "generic" way to go about it. They would loose the re-rolls at some point, but like the gaunts would loose catalyst, but I kept them all for consistency's sake.

Right, that's... what I said. 4 turns, 7 rounds. Could be end of Turn 5, too (I had trouble getting the rounds distinguished in your big wall).

Essentially you're positing a scenario that can never exist and that the hormagaunts lose anyways (as Catbarf pointed out; I didn't actually check the math to see if you remembered everything).

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Tawnis wrote:


It would actually be the end of turn 5. Remember, each unit will get to attack on each players turn, that's twice per round of combat. You are totally right about the units going unmolested, but I was talking about 2 in a vacuum, issues with other units would be down to those units themselves.

I was thinking Captain/ LT. re-rolls but SM can do so much stuff there isn't really a "generic" way to go about it. They would loose the re-rolls at some point, but like the gaunts would loose catalyst, but I kept them all for consistency's sake.

Right, that's... what I said. 4 turns, 7 rounds. Could be end of Turn 5, too (I had trouble getting the rounds distinguished in your big wall).

Essentially you're positing a scenario that can never exist and that the hormagaunts lose anyways (as Catbarf pointed out; I didn't actually check the math to see if you remembered everything).

Yup, you're right, I misread that, my apologies.

The point I was trying to make in clearly far too roundabout a way was that, I think those two units are fairly close to balanced against each other and that it is more the external factors that you've pointed out that are the cause of issues. Maybe it wasn't even a point worth making at the end of the day, it was just something I thought of when comparing the two units.

 Tawnis wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Tawnis wrote:


It would actually be the end of turn 5. Remember, each unit will get to attack on each players turn, that's twice per round of combat. You are totally right about the units going unmolested, but I was talking about 2 in a vacuum, issues with other units would be down to those units themselves.

I was thinking Captain/ LT. re-rolls but SM can do so much stuff there isn't really a "generic" way to go about it. They would loose the re-rolls at some point, but like the gaunts would loose catalyst, but I kept them all for consistency's sake.

Right, that's... what I said. 4 turns, 7 rounds. Could be end of Turn 5, too (I had trouble getting the rounds distinguished in your big wall).

Essentially you're positing a scenario that can never exist and that the hormagaunts lose anyways (as Catbarf pointed out; I didn't actually check the math to see if you remembered everything).

Yup, you're right, I misread that, my apologies.

The point I was trying to make in clearly far too roundabout a way was that, I think those two units are fairly close to balanced against each other and that it is more the external factors that you've pointed out that are the cause of issues. Maybe it wasn't even a point worth making at the end of the day, it was just something I thought of when comparing the two units.

No problem.

Just don't think of the external factors as "external". 9th edition is ALL ABOUT those external factors like stratagems, buff auras, etc.

Typically space marine intercessors are used as a baseline unit for comparison because in practice about 50% of your games of warhammer 40,000 are going to be against primarily space marine lists and primaris marines are at this point (in my experience at least) pretty well integrated as the main marines you'll be up against.

if you take a unit, say, Howling Banshees, and you look at its performance against space marines in close combat (wheras those space marines are effective out to 30" range) then, sure, maybe 10 howling banshes costing 140pts charging into 10 primaris space marines costing 200pts and removing 2.5 models (40pts off the board, a ~28% points return) seems fairly reasonable in a vacuum, if you just look at that one snapshot of that one single instant of the game and don't consider any other factor.

Such as: What happens if instead of the eldar going first the marines go first and shoot those banshees at 30" range?

Or: what happens if some other unit that charged was more critical, and those marines counter-assault against the banshees before they get to attack?

Or: What happens right after that in the combat, when the 8 marines swing back with their 25 attacks and return 29% of their points value in your turn.

 the_scotsman wrote:
Typically space marine intercessors are used as a baseline unit for comparison because in practice about 50% of your games of warhammer 40,000 are going to be against primarily space marine lists and primaris marines are at this point (in my experience at least) pretty well integrated as the main marines you'll be up against.

if you take a unit, say, Howling Banshees, and you look at its performance against space marines in close combat (wheras those space marines are effective out to 30" range) then, sure, maybe 10 howling banshes costing 140pts charging into 10 primaris space marines costing 200pts and removing 2.5 models (40pts off the board, a ~28% points return) seems fairly reasonable in a vacuum, if you just look at that one snapshot of that one single instant of the game and don't consider any other factor.

Such as: What happens if instead of the eldar going first the marines go first and shoot those banshees at 30" range?

Or: what happens if some other unit that charged was more critical, and those marines counter-assault against the banshees before they get to attack?

Or: What happens right after that in the combat, when the 8 marines swing back with their 25 attacks and return 29% of their points value in your turn.

Exactly. You can say they're Webway striking to get in range, or you could say they get shot to bits way before hand.

All I was trying to say is that when someone just says X unit is bad in comparison to marines, it's more that the myriad of external factors propping up those units and those that support them are the major contributing factor to that, not necessarily the units themselves which (at least to me) has always seemed the implication.

 Tawnis wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:
Typically space marine intercessors are used as a baseline unit for comparison because in practice about 50% of your games of warhammer 40,000 are going to be against primarily space marine lists and primaris marines are at this point (in my experience at least) pretty well integrated as the main marines you'll be up against.

if you take a unit, say, Howling Banshees, and you look at its performance against space marines in close combat (wheras those space marines are effective out to 30" range) then, sure, maybe 10 howling banshes costing 140pts charging into 10 primaris space marines costing 200pts and removing 2.5 models (40pts off the board, a ~28% points return) seems fairly reasonable in a vacuum, if you just look at that one snapshot of that one single instant of the game and don't consider any other factor.

Such as: What happens if instead of the eldar going first the marines go first and shoot those banshees at 30" range?

Or: what happens if some other unit that charged was more critical, and those marines counter-assault against the banshees before they get to attack?

Or: What happens right after that in the combat, when the 8 marines swing back with their 25 attacks and return 29% of their points value in your turn.

Exactly. You can say they're Webway striking to get in range, or you could say they get shot to bits way before hand.

All I was trying to say is that when someone just says X unit is bad in comparison to marines, it's more that the myriad of external factors propping up those units and those that support them are the major contributing factor to that, not necessarily the units themselves which (at least to me) has always seemed the implication.

That's true. I'm just pointing out the fact of the matter: Armies that aren't marines will be fighting marines a huge percentage of the time. Stuff gets compared to marines because the single most common scenario setup in 40k is 'you have to kill a bunch of space marines.'

Becuase space marines are nearly half of the armies that exist in the game, and a couple technically not marine armies (sisters, custodes, necrons to some extent) work similarly enough mechanically to marines that the weapons that work vs marines also work vs them.

It's part of why the drukhari codex hit the meta like a sack of bricks. Nobody was prepared for them. Nobody was taking transports, nobody was taking t3 melee infantry, nobody was taking weapons for T6 4+ 5++ vehicles. they're crazy OP as hell and NOBODY has any of the tools to counter them.

 Tawnis wrote:
18 shots at BS 3+ hits 12 times, re-rolling half the misses (3) makes 14 hits.

gak, right I forgot Shock Assault. I blame bloat.

True, but then you'd; have to factor in a second unit of Hormagaunts and you're more-less back where you started.

You're right that I didn'r do the doctrines, I kinda the the re-rolls stand in for that. There are so many that coming up with an actual baseline is basically impossible.

You don't re-roll half the misses. You re-roll all the misses, and 2/3 of the re-rolls will hit. So 18 shots, 12 hit on the first go. Then you re-roll the 6 misses, and 4 hit. That's 12 + 4 = 16 hits. A straight 3+ is a 66.7% chance of success; a 3+ with a re-roll is an 88.9% chance of success (multiply the 33.3% chances of failure together and you get 11.1%; reciprocal of an 11.1% chance of failure is a 88.9% chance of success). 18 * 0.889 = 16.

My point re: two units of Intercessors was that your opponent can afford to ignore other threats turn 1 (and potentially turn 2 as well) to concentrate fire on the Hormagaunts and destroy them. The only reason Genestealer bomb worked was because it got you into melee without ever being shot. It's not two units of Intercessors versus two units of Hormagaunts, it's two units of Intercessors versus a unit of Hormagaunts and a unit of Termagants/Hive Guard/Warriors/whatever, and the damage you can inflict with that second unit going unmolested will not outweigh losing all the Hormagaunts in one go.

I've tried to make Hormagaunts work, but either you lean so hard into them that you suffer for being cripplingly over-invested in S3 non-shooting units, or your army has enough other stuff that your opponent can prioritize killing the Hormagaunts before they get into combat (or reduce them at range, then crush them in melee- they're not that scary, even at AP-2) and then deal with the rest.

Or your opponent just slams a unit of Wyches into them and they get taken apart. Far better offensive output and more durable for the points. I know the point of this thought experiment is to make Hormagaunts usable, but they're a solid example of a unit that just doesn't work like it should.

 Tawnis wrote:
As I said in the OP, this is specifically NOT in regards to tournaments and highly competitive play. I have no disillusions about the game being imbalanced at the highest levels of play. I'm talking about two people picking models from their collection that they like or feel is thematic or whatever and having a go at each other. Are the rules so badly imbalanced that even then the game is dramatically skewed, or do people actually have to work and put effort in to break it? From my experience with Kroot, no it's not, but I wanted to hear what other people had to say.

If you've had the experience at your local meta of everyone being super competitive and not being able to play your Blood Angels, that's just as anectodical as my example. As for the tournament results everyone knows and agrees on those and wasn't the point of this thread.

So I guess the premise is flawed if you think competitive play can be siloed off and doesn't directly represent a lot of elements that are going to materialize at the casual level. The point I am trying to make is that you played a series in which a bunch of dumpster armies with dumpster lists (BA repulsor yikes) played each other, and I imagine in that very specific context it didn't feel particularly imbalanced. But even a bad list from a strong army book can annihilate a lot of what the weaker armies can plop on the table. Fluffy Grey Knights will turn fluffy Chaos Space Marines into soup 10 out of 10 games.

 Ventus wrote:

 Tawnis wrote:
As I said in the OP, this is specifically NOT in regards to tournaments and highly competitive play. I have no disillusions about the game being imbalanced at the highest levels of play. I'm talking about two people picking models from their collection that they like or feel is thematic or whatever and having a go at each other. Are the rules so badly imbalanced that even then the game is dramatically skewed, or do people actually have to work and put effort in to break it? From my experience with Kroot, no it's not, but I wanted to hear what other people had to say.

If you've had the experience at your local meta of everyone being super competitive and not being able to play your Blood Angels, that's just as anectodical as my example. As for the tournament results everyone knows and agrees on those and wasn't the point of this thread.

So I guess the premise is flawed if you think competitive play can be siloed off and doesn't directly represent a lot of elements that are going to materialize at the casual level. The point I am trying to make is that you played a series in which a bunch of dumpster armies with dumpster lists (BA repulsor yikes) played each other, and I imagine in that very specific context it didn't feel particularly imbalanced. But even a bad list from a strong army book can annihilate a lot of what the weaker armies can plop on the table. Fluffy Grey Knights will turn fluffy Chaos Space Marines into soup 10 out of 10 games.

So then where would the line be for you? Do I have to beat Drukhari/AdMech, I certainly hope to face some later. Do I have to beat the top tier Druhari/AdMech lists? Do I have to beat that bonkers Ork turn 1 list. These aren't lists that people see at a casual level, many people play what they own which is often what they think is cool / thematic. If a release has a few broken combos that blow everything apart, does that make the whole codex OP, or just those units? Obviously there will always be some degree of variance, but if the broad balance is there, does it effect the local meta that much if you don't have meta chasers in it?

If a specific codex is broadly much more powerful than another, your example is an apt one, a Fluffy Grey Knighst army would demolish the fluffy Chaos Space Marine army 10/10. My point is that's exactly what I thought going into this, their armies would demolish my fluffy Kroot army 10/10, and they haven't been. So, why not? IMHO it's because even though I'm using a codex that's way out of date and should be leagues behind the others, I'm doing it in a drastically different way that is countering many of the flaws that the codex has.

There is a lot of consensus out there of broadly what units are good and what units are trash for the various armies, but if everyone ascribes to that without thinking of WHY people think that, is that actual imbalance, or perceived imbalance? Again I'm speaking on a casual level, not a competitive one where the imbalance is very clear to see.

I don't have an actual answer for this, hence the thread asking what other people think.

So you are asserting that 40k IS balanced, but the community doesn't want to think outside the box the way you did?

And if they did so, the game would be way more balanced?

 catbarf wrote:


You don't re-roll half the misses. You re-roll all the misses, and 2/3 of the re-rolls will hit. So 18 shots, 12 hit on the first go. Then you re-roll the 6 misses, and 4 hit. That's 12 + 4 = 16 hits. A straight 3+ is a 66.7% chance of success; a 3+ with a re-roll is an 88.9% chance of success (multiply the 33.3% chances of failure together and you get 11.1%; reciprocal of an 11.1% chance of failure is a 88.9% chance of success). 18 * 0.889 = 16.

I'm obviously missing something, why re-roll all and not 1's? You can clearly tell, I've only played a few dozen games of 9th. XD

My point wasn't that they were viable in the meta, I was trying to say that the baseline units themselves are fairly comparable and it's external factors be it Doctines, supporting units, chapter tactics, stratagems, ect that are more what's unbalancing things than the actual units themselves. I suppose it was an unnecessary tangent and fairly subjective at that, how do you even determine "baseline" when there are so many different army options, especially for Space Marines, and if there are so many options, what does baseline even matter.

I concede defeat on this point.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
So you are asserting that 40k IS balanced, but the community doesn't want to think outside the box the way you did?

And if they did so, the game would be way more balanced?

I'm considering the possibility that by nature any game would suffer from this.

I don't know the answer. I wouldn't say it's balanced, but I don't think anything ever can be perfectly balanced, even Chess favors white's FTA. I'm asking if at a casual level, people think it's balanced enough. At the moment, I do, but that could change over time as I gain more experience.

I grew up on Magic the Gathering and I remember back playing kitchen table magic with friends when everything felt pretty balanced because we just did whatever we thought was fun/cool. As I got a little older and went to more tournaments I learned a lot about deckbuilding and strategy, while some very glaring exceptions, the game often felt fairly balanced so long as your deck was well thought out and put together. But then we got to a point where so much information was online that everyone started netdecking all the top lists and only playing those or slight refinements of those which were the only ones considered good. I never did that, I would always homebrew my own decks and I could go toe to toe with the big names, putting in some solid showings at major tournaments even though I never won any of them. They were all decks no one had seen or thought to build because everyone was so focused on the big names and big players that always posted results in the top 8 of major tournaments.

It made me wonder after playing my Kroot if 40k was similar in that regard.

 the_scotsman wrote:

That's true. I'm just pointing out the fact of the matter: Armies that aren't marines will be fighting marines a huge percentage of the time. Stuff gets compared to marines because the single most common scenario setup in 40k is 'you have to kill a bunch of space marines.'

Becuase space marines are nearly half of the armies that exist in the game, and a couple technically not marine armies (sisters, custodes, necrons to some extent) work similarly enough mechanically to marines that the weapons that work vs marines also work vs them.

Those weapons that work so well vs SM? They do just fine vs anyone who's not a SM. If I can kill a SM I can kill whatever you've brought....

 the_scotsman wrote:

It's part of why the drukhari codex hit the meta like a sack of bricks. Nobody was prepared for them. Nobody was taking transports, nobody was taking t3 melee infantry, nobody was taking weapons for T6 4+ 5++ vehicles. they're crazy OP as hell and NOBODY has any of the tools to counter them.

I don't think my Drukhari opponent from our last Crusade league would agree with you.

I think this all depends on your local meta really. If your meta is less competitive and more into painting and modeling, then when they design an army list and field it, its based on the "rule of cool".

If your meta has competitive players (not necessarily tournament attending players), but they read the internet and are highly aware of the meta, then you will see and face much more competitive lists.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
I think this all depends on your local meta really. If your meta is less competitive and more into painting and modeling, then when they design an army list and field it, its based on the "rule of cool".

If your meta has competitive players (not necessarily tournament attending players), but they read the internet and are highly aware of the meta, then you will see and face much more competitive lists.

Of, it was a competitive enough Drukari wich/raider list. Probably not top tourney caliber but definitely not just "Rule of Cool".
I will say that I'm not really familiar with all the DE subfactions, strats, etc though. So I have no idea if he could've picked something better or used what he had better/different in that regard.

40k is balanced in a few senses of the word (a large percentage of Codexes are capable of competing at the tournament level, and a wide range of lists are capable of competing at the tournament level). It is not at all balanced in the definition of the word I usually use, which is all units and options in the game are worth using. I stopped playing 40k with the current rules because I found myself getting tabled in 2-3 turns in casual games against people I'd asked to bring soft lists, and getting told both in person and here on Dakka that the fundamental problem was that I'd bought the wrong models and if I went out and spent more money I could have a good time.

Sure, it's great for GW that the community has internalized that message to such a degree that they'll gatekeep other players' participation with it, but to me the fundamental bar in whether I consider a minis game "balanced" is whether I can use models I like without worrying about whether I'm signing up to lose every game by buying the wrong models, and on that front I find GW has completely failed. (Before you tell me "yeah, but just wait for your 9e Codex!" I've a) tried that and it really didn't work (AdMech are super hardcore if you buy 100% different models from anything I own, and Deathwatch fell flat on their face and remain a slightly more complicated way of playing Space Marines with no Chapter Tactics), and b) I equate "you can play for half to a third of every edition depending on when your Codex is released, unless you buy different models!" to "if you want to keep playing buy different models!")

 the_scotsman wrote:


That's true. I'm just pointing out the fact of the matter: Armies that aren't marines will be fighting marines a huge percentage of the time. Stuff gets compared to marines because the single most common scenario setup in 40k is 'you have to kill a bunch of space marines.'

Becuase space marines are nearly half of the armies that exist in the game, and a couple technically not marine armies (sisters, custodes, necrons to some extent) work similarly enough mechanically to marines that the weapons that work vs marines also work vs them.

It's part of why the drukhari codex hit the meta like a sack of bricks. Nobody was prepared for them. Nobody was taking transports, nobody was taking t3 melee infantry, nobody was taking weapons for T6 4+ 5++ vehicles. they're crazy OP as hell and NOBODY has any of the tools to counter them.

Only if you're referring to casual gaming against strangers.

If you know in advance what you're going to face you compare to that specific faction, regardless of how popular SM are. If you are a tournament player you choose an army that can defeat the factions with the highest WRs, like the ork player that tabled the drukhari one. Rock/paper/scissor attitude is a gamble, which has always been a thing at events, while TAC lists (aka anti marines lists, as the most common opponent to face) only exist in a limited environment.

Now SM aren't the top dogs so at tournaments many players are tailoring their lists to counter ad mech or drukhari, not SM because they need the chance to beat those while against SM they'd still have a chance with their "tailored against T3 bodies and T6 vehicles" list.

Everyone had the tools to counter drukhari, they just were unprepared in the first place as long as the codex was new and after that they decided to avoid tailoring against them for many reasons, the easiest one being the desire to design their lists to counter the most common factions rather than the most powerful ones.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AnomanderRake wrote:

It is not at all balanced in the definition of the word I usually use, which is all units and options in the game are worth using.

I don't think it's realistic to expect that when some armies have 100-150 or even more datasheets. In 3rd the armies with the largest rosters had something like 30, and all named characters banned outside fun games that required the opponent's permission. People want super heroes, flyers, tanks, super tanks etc... now, possibily multiples of them. It's sad and the only reason why I may prefer an older edition but it's the reality.

Some warmachine factions have 100 seperate sheets.
Even the smallest faction is doing well for faction variety and probably better than the smallest ones for 40k.
And they still manage a more satisfying balance than 40k has.

Balance itself also should include factions having access to all the elements to run a balanced army.
Something 40k fails at without even factoring in a pure balance on the table top.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
It is not at all balanced in the definition of the word I usually use, which is all units and options in the game are worth using. )

Youre not wrong but you are using a harsh metric Rake. I think its a bit self defeating personally but I think it's evident we both come from different experiences.

Personally I also find it a bit misleading. As I see it, context is key. Something can be incredibly broken in one context and utterly useless in another.

My take on it would be Not all units and options in the game are worth using all of the time, against every opponent/list variation and under all circumstances. And I'm OK with that. Ttgs are limited systems, thru can only hold so much weight.

It's why I value game-building and the collaborative approach so highly.

Balance can mean very different things and players use it in very different ways.

MtG is considered a balanced game by its players, and yet 40K makes a 1000% better work at balance than it.

Different expectations.

Spoletta wrote:
Balance can mean very different things and players use it in very different ways.

Absolutely- happy to acknowledge this.

Some folks want to turn up to a game 'blind' and have it work right out of the box.

Totally fair.

Personally I think no game can accommodate the players. Our approach is generally 'what stuff would we like to use/do we think would lead to an interesting match up' and then build the game/scenario around that to accommodate the stuff we want to take. And whatever front end stuff is required is generally stuff we're happy to do. Ymmv.

Spoletta wrote:
Balance can mean very different things and players use it in very different ways.

MtG is considered a balanced game by its players, and yet 40K makes a 1000% better work at balance than it.

Different expectations.

Thanks for the bolded part, I needed a laugh this morning.

 Dysartes wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
Balance can mean very different things and players use it in very different ways.

MtG is considered a balanced game by its players, and yet 40K makes a 1000% better work at balance than it.

Different expectations.

Thanks for the bolded part, I needed a laugh this morning.

You are welcome, thanks for confirming my point

Spoletta wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
Balance can mean very different things and players use it in very different ways.

MtG is considered a balanced game by its players, and yet 40K makes a 1000% better work at balance than it.

Different expectations.

Thanks for the bolded part, I needed a laugh this morning.

You are welcome, thanks for confirming my point

Pretty sure WotC playtests Magic cards that come out. And they listen to feedback-GW fails at one of those two.

As for Anomander's point, I'll expand on it with my own thoughts.

A well-balanced 40k would not mean that any list of X points has a 50/50 chance of beating any list of X points. Obviously, player skill should be a factor, even if nothing else is.
But if 40k was at least approaching good balance, every unit would have use in SOME list. There wouldn't be any units where the response is "Don't take that," or "Always take that."

My ideal 40k would have a perfectly optimized list have a 60% win rate at most against a list built with basic competency. List-building can be a part of the game, but it should virtually never be a deciding factor.

Deadnight wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
It is not at all balanced in the definition of the word I usually use, which is all units and options in the game are worth using. )

Youre not wrong but you are using a harsh metric Rake. I think its a bit self defeating personally but I think it's evident we both come from different experiences.

Personally I also find it a bit misleading. As I see it, context is key. Something can be incredibly broken in one context and utterly useless in another.

My take on it would be Not all units and options in the game are worth using all of the time, against every opponent/list variation and under all circumstances. And I'm OK with that. Ttgs are limited systems, thru can only hold so much weight.

It's why I value game-building and the collaborative approach so highly.

Part of the problem is that GW feels that for something to work in 40k it has to be able kill stuff. If it can't kill or make other things kill better then it has no use.

If (for example) they turned Venomthropes into a pure utility unit and concentrated entirely on their ability to obscure friendly models from enemy fire while making them dangerous to approach it would make them a really interesting unit if done correctly and would give them more options to balance a unit outside of outright damage potential. Loads of armies have units that SHOULD be a utility unit but have weapons strapped onto them they have no use for.

ccs wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

That's true. I'm just pointing out the fact of the matter: Armies that aren't marines will be fighting marines a huge percentage of the time. Stuff gets compared to marines because the single most common scenario setup in 40k is 'you have to kill a bunch of space marines.'

Becuase space marines are nearly half of the armies that exist in the game, and a couple technically not marine armies (sisters, custodes, necrons to some extent) work similarly enough mechanically to marines that the weapons that work vs marines also work vs them.

Those weapons that work so well vs SM? They do just fine vs anyone who's not a SM. If I can kill a SM I can kill whatever you've brought....

The point he was making was about efficiency. Take a Leman Russ for instance since it has a mountain of options. The Executioner Plasma Cannon will be far more efficient at taking out marines at Heavy D6, Str8 AP-3 D2, whereas something like the Punisher Gattling Cannon at Heavy 20 Str5 AP0 D1 will be better at taking out T3 low Sv single wound models. If you're too kitted out to take on High Save multi wound models across your entire army, you loose a lot of efficiency/value at removing low tough, low sv, single wound models.


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 AnomanderRake wrote:

Sure, it's great for GW that the community has internalized that message to such a degree that they'll gatekeep other players' participation with it, but to me the fundamental bar in whether I consider a minis game "balanced" is whether I can use models I like without worrying about whether I'm signing up to lose every game by buying the wrong models, and on that front I find GW has completely failed. (Before you tell me "yeah, but just wait for your 9e Codex!" I've a) tried that and it really didn't work (AdMech are super hardcore if you buy 100% different models from anything I own, and Deathwatch fell flat on their face and remain a slightly more complicated way of playing Space Marines with no Chapter Tactics), and b) I equate "you can play for half to a third of every edition depending on when your Codex is released, unless you buy different models!" to "if you want to keep playing buy different models!")

While I don't disagree, I think there is at least one fairly sizable contributing factor to this that GW can't really do anything about and that is game length. Here's what I mean:

I referenced this before, but back when I played magic competitively, I would homebrew all my own deck and did very well with them even though they were seen nowhere else in the meta. This is because you could knock out a game of magic in about 15 minutes most of the time, that meant I could play a dozen or so games in an evening. I could test my idea over and over, refining how it worked and how to execute it, over a few weeks I could play against friends who had meta decks to see how it stacked up against the field and tweak it accordingly until it hit the perfect sweet spot that I was happy with.

In 40k, you can't really do this. Games are so long that you can usually only get a single game in a night, unless you're a hardcore tournament grinder, who has the time to play so much 40k that you could do this much practicing and tweaking of your army/build? Coming up with my Kroot list that just happens to be really good was just as much luck as skill, I went with an idea that I thought sounded fun and studied the gak out of it and what it could do to make the best possible version I could, and it happened to work out really well; but I wasn't experienced enough to know for sure that it would. A lot of people want to go for the "sure thing" they don't want to loose over and over again to finally figure out how to get the version of the army they want to play to work when by the time they do, there are probably 4-6 new codices out, a bunch of FAQ's, buff and nurfs, and suddenly everything has changed putting them back to square one.

Sadly I can't think of a way that this could change as the length of the game is a fundamental part of 40k itself.

 Tawnis wrote:
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 AnomanderRake wrote:

Sure, it's great for GW that the community has internalized that message to such a degree that they'll gatekeep other players' participation with it, but to me the fundamental bar in whether I consider a minis game "balanced" is whether I can use models I like without worrying about whether I'm signing up to lose every game by buying the wrong models, and on that front I find GW has completely failed. (Before you tell me "yeah, but just wait for your 9e Codex!" I've a) tried that and it really didn't work (AdMech are super hardcore if you buy 100% different models from anything I own, and Deathwatch fell flat on their face and remain a slightly more complicated way of playing Space Marines with no Chapter Tactics), and b) I equate "you can play for half to a third of every edition depending on when your Codex is released, unless you buy different models!" to "if you want to keep playing buy different models!")

While I don't disagree, I think there is at least one fairly sizable contributing factor to this that GW can't really do anything about and that is game length. Here's what I mean:

I referenced this before, but back when I played magic competitively, I would homebrew all my own deck and did very well with them even though they were seen nowhere else in the meta. This is because you could knock out a game of magic in about 15 minutes most of the time, that meant I could play a dozen or so games in an evening. I could test my idea over and over, refining how it worked and how to execute it, over a few weeks I could play against friends who had meta decks to see how it stacked up against the field and tweak it accordingly until it hit the perfect sweet spot that I was happy with.

In 40k, you can't really do this. Games are so long that you can usually only get a single game in a night, unless you're a hardcore tournament grinder, who has the time to play so much 40k that you could do this much practicing and tweaking of your army/build? Coming up with my Kroot list that just happens to be really good was just as much luck as skill, I went with an idea that I thought sounded fun and studied the gak out of it and what it could do to make the best possible version I could, and it happened to work out really well; but I wasn't experienced enough to know for sure that it would. A lot of people want to go for the "sure thing" they don't want to loose over and over again to finally figure out how to get the version of the army they want to play to work when by the time they do, there are probably 4-6 new codices out, a bunch of FAQ's, buff and nurfs, and suddenly everything has changed putting them back to square one.

Sadly I can't think of a way that this could change as the length of the game is a fundamental part of 40k itself.

Well, GW could increase points values across the board so that 2000pts involves fewer miniatures. They could cut back on rolls/re-rolls to speed up each turn. They could actually change the length of the game directly (after all, it's not an unspoken convention that the game ends after 5 rounds). This'd be a bit more difficult to enforce, but they could also try to "focus" the game down from 2000pts to 1500 or 1000 or something as well. Granted, most of those are things that would need further work to ensure it doesn't break the game or that people just ignore the changes, but I'm not sure how you can say that game length is somehow immutable and that GW can't do anything to influence it.

I've been playing 9ed with a friend and we're only playing Open Play, usually around 1000pts. So, no Stratagems, no Command Points, no Secondaries, and with armies we already own full of whatever models we like the look of that week.

It's swingier than previous editions, but it's fine. Nobody is tabling anyone in Turn 1, nobody is trying to optimise the army, nobody is searching for the best combo. We're just playing Warhammer like it's meant to be played - have a beer, move your models around, make cool stuff happen.

In my opinion, playing a game like this 'competitively' is fething stupid. All you end up doing is breaking the game. If you play casually (and I mean casually), then it's fine.

 waefre_1 wrote:

Well, GW could increase points values across the board so that 2000pts involves fewer miniatures. They could cut back on rolls/re-rolls to speed up each turn. They could actually change the length of the game directly (after all, it's not an unspoken convention that the game ends after 5 rounds). This'd be a bit more difficult to enforce, but they could also try to "focus" the game down from 2000pts to 1500 or 1000 or something as well. Granted, most of those are things that would need further work to ensure it doesn't break the game or that people just ignore the changes, but I'm not sure how you can say that game length is somehow immutable and that GW can't do anything to influence it.

True, and I certainly think that's a good direction to go, but over the years we've been seeing the opposite. Longer games, more points, more dice.

Even if they did all that though, say it reduced the game length by half (a very optimistic estimate) that would still not create the vast replicability required to do serious list testing without a massive time investment.

 ArbitorIan wrote:
I've been playing 9ed with a friend and we're only playing Open Play, usually around 1000pts. So, no Stratagems, no Command Points, no Secondaries, and with armies we already own full of whatever models we like the look of that week.

It's swingier than previous editions, but it's fine. Nobody is tabling anyone in Turn 1, nobody is trying to optimise the army, nobody is searching for the best combo. We're just playing Warhammer like it's meant to be played - have a beer, move your models around, make cool stuff happen.

In my opinion, playing a game like this 'competitively' is fething stupid. All you end up doing is breaking the game. If you play casually (and I mean casually), then it's fine.

Sure. The only question I'd have is just like... if you're not using Stratagems, Command Points, or Secondaries, then what does the 9th edition of the game actually add for you? Stratagems, secondaries, relics, traits...all that is almost all of what sets 9th apart from any other edition.

 Tawnis wrote:

ccs wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:

That's true. I'm just pointing out the fact of the matter: Armies that aren't marines will be fighting marines a huge percentage of the time. Stuff gets compared to marines because the single most common scenario setup in 40k is 'you have to kill a bunch of space marines.'

Becuase space marines are nearly half of the armies that exist in the game, and a couple technically not marine armies (sisters, custodes, necrons to some extent) work similarly enough mechanically to marines that the weapons that work vs marines also work vs them.

Those weapons that work so well vs SM? They do just fine vs anyone who's not a SM. If I can kill a SM I can kill whatever you've brought....

The point he was making was about efficiency. Take a Leman Russ for instance since it has a mountain of options. The Executioner Plasma Cannon will be far more efficient at taking out marines at Heavy D6, Str8 AP-3 D2, whereas something like the Punisher Gattling Cannon at Heavy 20 Str5 AP0 D1 will be better at taking out T3 low Sv single wound models. If you're too kitted out to take on High Save multi wound models across your entire army, you loose a lot of efficiency/value at removing low tough, low sv, single wound models.

What leads you to think I wouldn't have put enough Dakka on that Russ (or its companions) via sponsons, the hull mount, & the pintel? Or that I wouldn't run a mix of say 2 Executioner plasmas & 1 Punisher? And of course there's the rest of the army/infantry....

 the_scotsman wrote:

 ArbitorIan wrote:
I've been playing 9ed with a friend and we're only playing Open Play, usually around 1000pts. So, no Stratagems, no Command Points, no Secondaries, and with armies we already own full of whatever models we like the look of that week.

It's swingier than previous editions, but it's fine. Nobody is tabling anyone in Turn 1, nobody is trying to optimise the army, nobody is searching for the best combo. We're just playing Warhammer like it's meant to be played - have a beer, move your models around, make cool stuff happen.

In my opinion, playing a game like this 'competitively' is fething stupid. All you end up doing is breaking the game. If you play casually (and I mean casually), then it's fine.

Sure. The only question I'd have is just like... if you're not using Stratagems, Command Points, or Secondaries, then what does the 9th edition of the game actually add for you? Stratagems, secondaries, relics, traits...all that is almost all of what sets 9th apart from any other edition.

Hmm no, I have to disagree there.

8th/9th has first of all a very peculiar damage/wound system which really sets it apart from other editions.

Other features of those editions are:

- Vehicles based on thoughness
- Different Look out Sir rules
- Different morale rules
- Different cover system
- Move characteristic
- Different initiative system
- Different wound table
- Very different AP system
- ... and many more

8th/9th edition are really night and day compared to previous ones.
Now, one could say that there is very little difference between 8th and 9th if you remove stratagems, detachments and objectives.

 ArbitorIan wrote:
I've been playing 9ed with a friend and we're only playing Open Play, usually around 1000pts. So, no Stratagems, no Command Points, no Secondaries, and with armies we already own full of whatever models we like the look of that week.

It's swingier than previous editions, but it's fine. Nobody is tabling anyone in Turn 1, nobody is trying to optimise the army, nobody is searching for the best combo. We're just playing Warhammer like it's meant to be played - have a beer, move your models around, make cool stuff happen.

In my opinion, playing a game like this 'competitively' is fething stupid. All you end up doing is breaking the game. If you play casually (and I mean casually), then it's fine.

Play warhammer how you want to play it because there is no "meant to be played". GW actually makes new stuff better so it will sell more so I think that GW is actually more focussed on the competitive players.

I like playing competitive because it is not challenging to simply roll some dice around. There is a reason that people are more into chess then into monopoly. Saying that competitive play is stupid is really weird because then you don't get..well... "people" I guess. We are competitive by nature and for good reason.

This kind of discussion always pops-up on forums and it get's tiresome at some point.

Deadnight wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
It is not at all balanced in the definition of the word I usually use, which is all units and options in the game are worth using. )

Youre not wrong but you are using a harsh metric Rake. I think its a bit self defeating personally but I think it's evident we both come from different experiences.

Personally I also find it a bit misleading. As I see it, context is key. Something can be incredibly broken in one context and utterly useless in another.

My take on it would be Not all units and options in the game are worth using all of the time, against every opponent/list variation and under all circumstances. And I'm OK with that. Ttgs are limited systems, thru can only hold so much weight.

It's why I value game-building and the collaborative approach so highly.

Maybe it's a harsh metric, but in my experience everyone else making miniatures games has gotten there way better than GW has, by the simple expedient of doing edition changes only when they need to, rather than on a regular rotation because it's part of their business model.

I also want to stress that I don't think units shouldn't have bad matchups, they absolutely should. I think everything should be useful at least some of the time, and there's a lot of stuff in 40k that's never useful under any circumstances.


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 Blackie wrote:
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 AnomanderRake wrote:

It is not at all balanced in the definition of the word I usually use, which is all units and options in the game are worth using.

I don't think it's realistic to expect that when some armies have 100-150 or even more datasheets. In 3rd the armies with the largest rosters had something like 30, and all named characters banned outside fun games that required the opponent's permission. People want super heroes, flyers, tanks, super tanks etc... now, possibily multiples of them. It's sad and the only reason why I may prefer an older edition but it's the reality.

Infinity does a lot better with ~80 datasheets per main faction (and much more complicated rules). Warmachine does a lot better with ~80-90 cards plus mercs/minions per main faction.

I think it's perfectly realistic to expect the game to continue functioning with Flyers and Superheavies when we've seen GW make them function perfectly fine before. The problem has never been that Flyers exist, the problem has always been that GW chose to introduce them as Skimmers in 5th and gave them appropriate statlines/costs for that role (e.g. 12/12/10 Valkyrie as a Skimmer for 100pts, when it was 11/11/10 and 175pts as a Flyer in 4th), and never bothered to correct back when they brought in the Flyer rules, so the Flyers have the statlines of tanks. The problem has never been that Superheavies exist, the problem has always been that GW's determined to shoehorn them into too-small games. Superheavies in 30k (outside the Knights list, yes, I know that still exists) where they're subject to the 25% rule and you get one in your army period end of discussion (before you point out the Leviathan detachment that's explicitly permission-use) are perfectly fine, trying to make a Knights Codex function in 1,000pt games has never been remotely fine.

The game is imbalanced by nature/design I would say. A casual player with a 500pt list is going to lose to a Meta list of Custodes, no matter what the casual does.

GW tries to mask this by stating the almighty d6 decides, not the list. And that is partially true. A player who rolls statistically unlikely numbers of 6s will win against a meta list who rolls an unlikely number of 1s.

But in the long run, Metas will always beat casual. Thats baked into the game.

 the_scotsman wrote:
Personally, I've been struggling with trying to figure out how to have a fun game against a friend of mine who's (very understandably) quite excited with the powerful new rules that his brand new adeptus mechanicus army has gotten after slowly buying and building it up over months. This is a guy who commits to a theme and deals with it no matter how poorly it plays and for two editions dealt with extremely unsatisfying, lackluster performance from a guard all-tanks army and a CSM all daemon engines army, so to build up his all-skitarii army and lo and behold it's now the super powerful mega codex of your dreams, it's tough to hold it against him.

But it is, regardless, EXTREMELY hard to set up a scenario or to pick an army against him that allows me to get anything out of the game that I want to get out of it.

If I play one of my less competitive armies, I get absolutely hosed off the board by turn 3. If I pick one of my more competitive armies, we both get absolutely hosed off the board by turn 3. There's no 'telling a story about the cool gak that this unit or that unit did over the course of the game' because simply nothing survives longer than taking a single action.

I'm going to be bringing just the absolute toughest most durability-skewed list I can possibly come up with to try and face him - thousand sons Rubrics and scarabs with all the durability spells paired with a Tzeentch daemon allied contingent featuring a big block of splitting horrors, Changeling, and the unkillable ultra-chicken with the durability warlord trait+relic+exalted trait.

Is this, strictly speaking, imbalanced? Theoretically no, because I could actually win and I know of other folks who have been able to beat him with less than tournament-quality lists (albeit other lists that have fared quite well with recent codexes) and I know I could probably set something up to beat him if I went more cutthroat with my Drukhari.

But it's really tough to find the fun. What secondaries should I take? Who cares, the game will be decided by turn 3. How should I try to deploy? Anything not set up behind Obscuring is dead turn 1, guaranteed. What parts of the list should I target? I MUST target this unit, then this unit, then this unit in order or they will instantly make their points back in a single round of attacks.

The shoe was on the other foot with him for such a long time (especially with that poor tank list that would just get these 200pt models instantly kersploded with a single lucky roll from a D6 damage weapon, or just perma-stunlocked if even one single model touched it in close combat) so I really really don't want to take away from the enjoyment of him having a period of getting to have a powerful army that gets to win games. I just wish GW would show just a modicum more restraint and try to pretend once in a while that the game isn't on a constant, rotating merry-go-round where if you've recently purchased a codex book, you're supposed to get to win your next 5-10 games, and if you've had your codex book for 2 years you should basically never get to win.

Could see if you can get a third player and play a match of KTD600. At least you can play smaller lists and make him split his shooting and strategy up.

KTD600:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/801635.page

ccs wrote:


What leads you to think I wouldn't have put enough Dakka on that Russ (or its companions) via sponsons, the hull mount, & the pintel? Or that I wouldn't run a mix of say 2 Executioner plasmas & 1 Punisher? And of course there's the rest of the army/infantry....

It was just an example. When list building you have to balance how much of what type of weapon you need to take on various threats. It's a delicate balance and even if you hit it right like what you said with 2 Executioner's / 1 Punisher, your Executioners will still be killing far fewer points value of models against 3T, low Sv 1W units than it would against something like Space Marines. That's all that was being said.

That is one of the factors that has helped me a lot with my Kroot, the bigger guns just aren't very efficient against my army.

Thread question, the answer is yes. The datasheets in codexes are imbalanced against each other. The codexes are imbalanced against each other. 2,000 points on 60"x44" matched play is the least imbalanced game type. 500 and 1,000 points on any board size are extremely imbalanced.

The hidden thread question. No Tawnis you are not the 40k messiah. You have 12 games of 9th per your own posts and at least 5 of those have been at 750~1,000 points using an infantry spam skew list. Your opponents were woefully unprepared for the "gear check" you gave them. All you have really done is highlight how badly imbalanced the list building step of the game can be and as a result how easy it is to show up for a game against a random opponent that you can't win, as well as reaffirm how badly imbalanced small points games are.

Question for you. If you played any of those five opponents again using the same lists on both sides and for statsitical purposes say you played a further 9 games against each one, what do you think your win/loss record would be? 50-0? If you cloned yourself to ensure the player skill on both sides was equal and then played a further 50 games would the kroot skew win another 50? Does that sound like a balanced game?

Yeah I was kind of confused by the dual premise:

"My army has a 100% win rate, therefore 40k may be balanced!"

EightFoldPath wrote:
Thread question, the answer is yes. The datasheets in codexes are imbalanced against each other. The codexes are imbalanced against each other. 2,000 points on 60"x44" matched play is the least imbalanced game type. 500 and 1,000 points on any board size are extremely imbalanced.

The hidden thread question. No Tawnis you are not the 40k messiah. You have 12 games of 9th per your own posts and at least 5 of those have been at 750~1,000 points using an infantry spam skew list. Your opponents were woefully unprepared for the "gear check" you gave them. All you have really done is highlight how badly imbalanced the list building step of the game can be and as a result how easy it is to show up for a game against a random opponent that you can't win, as well as reaffirm how badly imbalanced small points games are.

Question for you. If you played any of those five opponents again using the same lists on both sides and for statsitical purposes say you played a further 9 games against each one, what do you think your win/loss record would be? 50-0? If you cloned yourself to ensure the player skill on both sides was equal and then played a further 50 games would the kroot skew win another 50? Does that sound like a balanced game?

Yeah, I wasn't saying anything like that. I've been very clear about how small a sample size is for this, it was an oddity enough to make me curious how everyone else thought about it and what experiences they had.

Okay, but how do you distinguish that from different units having varied strengths and weaknesses? If every unit in every army is equally good against everything, sure that would be balanced, but it wouldn't be fun. Perhaps your right and this is all indicative of poor list building / bad matchups, that's one of the things I was wondering about. The other questions was, I guess a roundabout way of asking how much stock do you put in what units are expected to be good / bad? People would always say "oh Kroot are terrible, their total dumpster tier, never take them" but in this thread now that I've actually won a few games with them, it's all "oh well of course you won, those armies were all bad." Well, if the army I'm playing is bad and the army they're playing is bad, shouldn't that be more-less balanced? One of the things I highlighted in a previous post was that this isn't some magic super list, there are a lot of tactical and strategic decisions that effected the outcome of those games. Yeah, the Guard matchup was all list, that was super imbalanced as my army was essentially the perfect counter to his, but not so with the other 4.

I'm not sure, if I had the time, I would honestly love to find out. If I had to guess, against the guard player 10/10, like I said, that was a horrible matchup for him. Does that make the Guard vs Tau matchup in general horribly imbalanced, no I don't think so. If he'd taking a bunch of infantry instead of two or three of those tanks, I'd say it would have been much closer. The others, yeah I think once they'd learned how my list played and how I liked to play it, I think they would be much closer as well.

My point was never that Kroot were super powerful, it's that every time I've ever done well with a "sub-par" army, all I ever hear is "oh, you just got lucky," or insert any other dismissal of it being relevant because it's contrary to what is accepted as the norm. So this time I provided some evidence that an army that is considered very underpowered could do well against the field and asked the question, is it simply because I'm playing casual and not competitive that things seem more balanced. (Again I say balanced because even though I'm 5-0 I do attribute a lot of that to the fact that no one has seen the list before and don't adapt fast enough on the fly to what I'm doing.)

So in your opinion, what does it take to prove a point about something balanced or imbalanced? How many games, how much evidence. Is it even something a single person could ever possibly provide? It's not exactly easy to get mass metrics outside of competitive environments. Hence this thread and the question.


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 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah I was kind of confused by the dual premise:

"My army has a 100% win rate, therefore 40k may be balanced!"

As I said above, I attribute the win rate to as many things that are related to the list as not. My point was that it's something that everyone said is terrible, horribly underpowered, everything else is so much stronger. Yet here I am doing well with it. So how much stock should be put in what is "understood" to be balanced or imbalanced? Is it list based, is it X factor based, is there some other bias, or is it actually imbalanced? I thought asking around would help determine that.

Yes it is unbalanced, but the fallacy is in people implying it is any less balanced than prior editions. When in fact even the worst ninth edition codex, Necrons, is still a much more satisfying codex to play than Sisters of Battle 5e WD or the Tyranids codex. And unlike every prior edition but 8th, every army will actually get a codex this edition. I'm not saying that better balance shouldn't be pushed for.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Yes it is unbalanced, but the fallacy is in people implying it is any less balanced than prior editions.

Is it a fallacy? I don't know of many editions where one side can be wiped from the board turn one on multiple occasions.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Yes it is unbalanced, but the fallacy is in people implying it is any less balanced than prior editions.

Is it a fallacy? I don't know of many editions where one side can be wiped from the board turn one on multiple occasions.

Not only that. Shouldn't we expect some progress as well? GW have more resources than ever, more ways to track data and they also have DECADES of more experience so saying it was equally bad as earlier editions is setting the bar so low you need to dig a hole in the ground to find it. If old editions were so bad then the game now, decades later, should be at a point even the biggest critics of the game would laugh at trying to defend the current edition by saying "it was bad 20 years ago as well".

It is like saying we shouldn't speak out when billion dollar video game companies make gakky and buggy games because back when games were on floppy disks and had a single developer there were also bugs. My standard is higher now than it was when I started this hobby and so it should be for everyone.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Yes it is unbalanced, but the fallacy is in people implying it is any less balanced than prior editions.

Is it a fallacy? I don't know of many editions where one side can be wiped from the board turn one on multiple occasions.

In 7th and especially 8th it was much easier than now, as lethality in the shooting phase was definitely higher in those editions. In 5th and 6th could have happened as well thanks to some codexes that were incredibly more powerful than the average ones and mechanics that allow things to be instant killed: even a land raider could blow up to a single shot.

In fact a turn 1 tabling (or something close to it) never happened in one of my 9th edition games so far, but it happened a lot in 7th, 8th and a couple of times in 5th. Never played 6th.

4th is okay though!

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Void__Dragon wrote:
Yes it is unbalanced, but the fallacy is in people implying it is any less balanced than prior editions.

Is it a fallacy? I don't know of many editions where one side can be wiped from the board turn one on multiple occasions.

If both armies at the table have the capacity to wipe the other off the board, the problem isn't balance- it's lethality.

I'm not saying it's good that both armies can turn one delete their enemy, it certainly isn't. But as long as both have the capacity, they are technically balanced.

the_scotsman wrote:

 ArbitorIan wrote:
I've been playing 9ed with a friend and we're only playing Open Play, usually around 1000pts. So, no Stratagems, no Command Points, no Secondaries, and with armies we already own full of whatever models we like the look of that week.

It's swingier than previous editions, but it's fine. Nobody is tabling anyone in Turn 1, nobody is trying to optimise the army, nobody is searching for the best combo. We're just playing Warhammer like it's meant to be played - have a beer, move your models around, make cool stuff happen.

In my opinion, playing a game like this 'competitively' is fething stupid. All you end up doing is breaking the game. If you play casually (and I mean casually), then it's fine.

Sure. The only question I'd have is just like... if you're not using Stratagems, Command Points, or Secondaries, then what does the 9th edition of the game actually add for you? Stratagems, secondaries, relics, traits...all that is almost all of what sets 9th apart from any other edition.

The only thing in that list that sets 9ed apart is Secondaries. Stratagems, Relics, Command Points were all in 8ed. So for me. There's not as much difference between 8ed and 9ed than for some. But obviously there's a huge difference between 8ed/9ed and previous editions of the game, where the core rules were WAY clunkier.

The usual complaint about 9ed is that it's bloated because of all the add-on rules. Open Play is just as valid as Matched Play, and solves that issue.

shogun wrote:

 ArbitorIan wrote:
I've been playing 9ed with a friend and we're only playing Open Play, usually around 1000pts. So, no Stratagems, no Command Points, no Secondaries, and with armies we already own full of whatever models we like the look of that week.

It's swingier than previous editions, but it's fine. Nobody is tabling anyone in Turn 1, nobody is trying to optimise the army, nobody is searching for the best combo. We're just playing Warhammer like it's meant to be played - have a beer, move your models around, make cool stuff happen.

In my opinion, playing a game like this 'competitively' is fething stupid. All you end up doing is breaking the game. If you play casually (and I mean casually), then it's fine.

Play warhammer how you want to play it because there is no "meant to be played". GW actually makes new stuff better so it will sell more so I think that GW is actually more focussed on the competitive players.

I like playing competitive because it is not challenging to simply roll some dice around. There is a reason that people are more into chess then into monopoly. Saying that competitive play is stupid is really weird because then you don't get..well... "people" I guess. We are competitive by nature and for good reason.

This kind of discussion always pops-up on forums and it get's tiresome at some point.

There absolutely is a way the game is 'meant to be played' and that doesn't stop you doing what you want with it. Look at the battle reports published by GW, even on WH+. Even when they play Matched Play, they're not optimising their lists to the level you see in 'competitive play'.

And if you try and play this game competitively, you break it. Most of the posts here are about how broken X is. How, if you optimise the army, the game ends in a turn and there's nothing the opponent could do. How, if you stack up all the combos then things are unkillable. Competitive 40k isn't a careful balance of thinking ahead and outwitting your opponent like chess, it's an exercise in revising til you can find the best way to exploit loopholes and break the game better than your opponent, then waiting for it to be nerfed when GW realise, because they didn't think of that combo.

And why didn't they spot it? Cos they don't playtest the games for that.

You can absolutely play the game however you want. You can play 'optimised lists' and play 'competitively'. If you do, you break the game. If you don't, the game works much better. Because that's how the people designing 40k are playing it.

EDIT: Just to address your other point, if one of the things you define yourself by is 'being good at a board game', even to the point of breaking and making unfun the actual game in the name of CHALLENGE, that's fine. As you say, humans can be overcompetitive and have got overcompetitive about stupider things than toy soldiers. But if it's challenge you want, optimising your army with every possible exploit so you can wipe your opponent off the board asap is the opposite of that. Competitive 40k is about finding the strongest combo so that the game is less challenging.

For me, this is hobby, and how much fun I get out of a game isn't really tied to challenge or skill or any of that. I have a job I need to be good at, I want a hobby where it doesn't matter how good I am.

But that's not really the point of my post. I'm saying that if you DO want challenge and skill and competition and balance in your board games, there are absolutely games out there suited for that, and 40k isn't one of them.

 ArbitorIan wrote:


You can absolutely play the game however you want. You can play 'optimised lists' and play 'competitively'. If you do, you break the game. If you don't, the game works much better. Because that's how the people designing 40k are playing it.

EDIT: Just to address your other point, if one of the things you define yourself by is 'being good at a board game', even to the point of breaking and making unfun the actual game in the name of CHALLENGE, that's fine. As you say, humans can be overcompetitive and have got overcompetitive about stupider things than toy soldiers. But if it's challenge you want, optimising your army with every possible exploit so you can wipe your opponent off the board asap is the opposite of that. Competitive 40k is about finding the strongest combo so that the game is less challenging.

100% agree, I've played 40k for over 20 years with the same attitude of yours towards the game. But I also accepted that a lot of people consider it heresy, they try every possible way to break the game (or any other game) and complain if that's possible.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ArbitorIan wrote:


For me, this is hobby, and how much fun I get out of a game isn't really tied to challenge or skill or any of that. I have a job I need to be good at, I want a hobby where it doesn't matter how good I am.

This summarizes it perfectly.

 Blackie wrote:

 ArbitorIan wrote:


For me, this is hobby, and how much fun I get out of a game isn't really tied to challenge or skill or any of that. I have a job I need to be good at, I want a hobby where it doesn't matter how good I am.

This summarizes it perfectly.

You aren't the only people playing and different people want different things from the game. But let me ask, how does the people who DO want better balance and games based on skill hurt the way you play? If anything it makes the game better for you as well because it makes more fluffy lists more viable so they can compete with the competitive lists.

Also I hate how often quotes break on this site.

 Sim-Life wrote:

You aren't the only people playing and different people want different things from the game.

I know, that's why I said that I've accepted that other people may want different thing. I just wish they could understand and accept that as well though.

 Sim-Life wrote:

But let me ask, how does the people who DO want better balance and games based on skill hurt the way you play? If anything it makes the game better for you as well because it makes more fluffy lists more viable so they can compete with the competitive lists.

I think there's always room for improvement. Always. So a better balance and a game based on skill could be welcome, as long as the overall experience is still good 40k, and that's entirely subjective.

If you want more fluffy lists being more viable just talk to your opponent, tone down or up something (if necessary) and here you go. And there are several competitive lists that are already quite fluffy, or viceversa. The less pre-game talk is required on average, the better the edition is. At the moment me and my regular opponents, who aren't meta chasers even if they have huge collections of models, spend close to no time to pre-arrange lists, while even in 8th we had to fix a lot of things before playing, and that's massive for us.

 Sim-Life wrote:

You aren't the only people playing and different people want different things from the game. But let me ask, how does the people who DO want better balance and games based on skill hurt the way you play? If anything it makes the game better for you as well because it makes more fluffy lists more viable so they can compete with the competitive lists.

Also I hate how often quotes break on this site.

So. Pushing for better balance is absolutely fine, but I don't think a competitive balanced game that actually relies on skill is possible with 40k. It's too big and sprawling, and every time more armies, units or options are added it gets harder to balance. The only way to realistically balance it would be to reduce all the extra options and combos and make is as simple as, say, Apocalypse, or a general Historical game where all troops have one of three different 'qualities'.

I would argue that a lot of competitive players wouldn't want that, though, because it would remove the ability to combo up your armies, find the rules exploit and break the game.

In terms of how it affects us, it's currently pretty difficult to find a game in a lot of places unless you're playing Matched Play. If you're new to 40k, and search for info, you're presented with people talking about it like some sort of sport. There's an overwhelming impression that Matched Play is the 'default' way to play, which affects everyone. Competitive local metas only playing at 'broken level' turns 40k into an arms race - which makes the game more expensive, places a huge barrier to entry on new players, removes tons of models, armies and variety from tables as 'garbage', and overwhelmingly fills conversation spaces with negative complaining about balance in a game that was never designed to be balanced in that environment.

You must have played family board games where one person is taking it WAY too seriously and ruining it for everyone else? That.

Sim-Life 801727 11250308 wrote:
But let me ask, how does the people who DO want better balance and games based on skill hurt the way you play?

It depends though, doesn't it.

I mean, wanting better balance is one thing. Things can always be better. But lets also be realistic. Ttgs are limited systems, they can only hold so much weight, there will always be imbalance, especially with the 'new wave sells' nature of the industry. A lot of people who want better balance seem to deliberately ignore this.

I mean, how much imbalance are you happy to accept and accommodate because that is the best case scenario here. will things ever be good enough that the people who want 'better balance' will ever be satisfied? I suspect the answer is moving goalposts.

And if they're not, and all the resultant chatter is negative, that also hurts my hobby experience.

Sim-Life 801727 11250308 wrote:
If anything it makes the game better for you as well because it makes more fluffy lists more viable so they can compete with the competitive lists.

Does it? It depends what shape it takes and What balance looks like, surely.

Pp did a decent enough job with steamroller, but every balance fix had its issues and I can imagine if thry were ported to 40k, the community would riot.

What happens when 'balance' looks like making 90% of unit choices illegal (smaller rosters, easier to balance)? What happens when player choice is removed entitely and armies are preset/predetermined. What happens when 'balance' looks like homogenization and everything not a titan or more gets a generic 'chaff' unit profile? 3 extreme, and unrealistic scenarios for sure, but put forward solely to demonstrate that balance often demands its pound of flesh - there is a price to pay, and frankly its not always worth it for folks. and even then, it'll never really be good enough to satisfy, so people will still be complaining about exploits and issues etc.
.

 ArbitorIan wrote:


In terms of how it affects us, it's currently pretty difficult to find a game in a lot of places unless you're playing Matched Play. If you're new to 40k, and search for info, you're presented with people talking about it like some sort of sport. There's an overwhelming impression that Matched Play is the 'default' way to play, which affects everyone.

So much this. I've said it several times before- certain nomenclature from online MMOs have started to bleed into 40k, and it is skewing people's perceptions. Referring to games as "the match" or "matches" and calling the board itself "the map". All such things were not in the tabletop gamer lexicon as recently as a decade ago, yet you see people online using that terminology pretty much everywhere. Even WMH, with it's OTT competitive crowd never, ever used those terms in the times the PP forums were a thing. This is like an exclusively 40k problem for some reason and it stems from the people trying to make it some kind of an IRL MMO IMO.

 ArbitorIan wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

You aren't the only people playing and different people want different things from the game. But let me ask, how does the people who DO want better balance and games based on skill hurt the way you play? If anything it makes the game better for you as well because it makes more fluffy lists more viable so they can compete with the competitive lists.

Also I hate how often quotes break on this site.

So. Pushing for better balance is absolutely fine, but I don't think that's possible in 40k. It's too big and sprawling. The only way to realistically balance it would be to reduce all the extra options and combos and make is as simple as, say, Apocalypse, or a general Historical game where all troops have one of three different 'qualities'.

Infinity and Warmachine generally managed a good balance with most factions having 80 or so options in main faction, maybe more. I started counting the models available to Khador and gave up at around 50 and that was mostly just warjacks and warcasters. I say generally because I admit, some options in an army were basically never used in the overall meta when I played, but I played in a tournament focused meta so had to go along with that. Even then I preferred to play what would be considered underdog lists against people with far more experience and practice and still did pretty okay (I came 6th in a Masters tournament once, I think I would have done better had I not drawn one of the best players in the world at the time in my second round.)

I would argue that a lot of competitive players wouldn't want that, because it would remove the ability to combo up your armies, find the rules exploit and break the game. But it would be more balanced.

The idea that competitive players want to have exploits built into the game is ludicrous and you would lose that argument. You're talking about That Guy/WAAC players. They exist regardless of the balance of the game, however a more balanced game makes it harder for them to be That Guy.

In terms of how it affects us, it's currently pretty difficult to find a game in a lot of places unless you're playing Matched Play. If you're new to 40k, and search for info, you're presented with people talking about it like some sort of sport. There's an overwhelming impression that Matched Play is the 'default' way to play, which affects everyone. Competitive local metas only playing at 'broken level' turns 40k into an arms race - which makes the game more expensive, places a huge barrier to entry on new players, removes tons of models, armies and variety from tables as 'garbage', and overwhelmingly fills conversation spaces with negative complaining about balance in a game that was never designed to be balanced in that environment.

You must have played family board games where one person is taking it WAY too seriously and ruining it for everyone else? That.

Okay so again you've confused That Guy/WAAC players with competitive players. You're also confusing "good enough balance" with "bad balance". A LACK of balance removes models, results in arms races. Matched Play being the default is the symptom of 40k players sticking very rigidly to the "official" rules and trying to make things standardised for faster set ups. The fault is also in the mechanics of the games because there are no ssytems in place to reward skillful play or clever timinig (despite what some defenders on here will claim).

And here is what I keep saying, the way GW has individual rules with unique names is actually a GREAT system for achieving balance over a game the size of 40k, because tweaking one rule on a unit does not effect similar rules on other units. If GW wanted to, they could easily patch up issues on a rule-by-rule basis until everything was more or less useable, however they make too much money from selling CA and Codexes to actually want to go to the effort of doing that. They just shave off or add a fairly arbitrary number of points every year with CA and call it a day. If the rules don't work you're just gak out of luck, wait till the next $50 book gets released in a few years and hope for the best.

Hot damn Arbitorlan, I broke my exalt button on ya today!

 ArbitorIan wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:

You aren't the only people playing and different people want different things from the game. But let me ask, how does the people who DO want better balance and games based on skill hurt the way you play? If anything it makes the game better for you as well because it makes more fluffy lists more viable so they can compete with the competitive lists.

Also I hate how often quotes break on this site.

So. Pushing for better balance is absolutely fine, but I don't think a competitive balanced game that actually relies on skill is possible with 40k. It's too big and sprawling, and every time more armies, units or options are added it gets harder to balance. The only way to realistically balance it would be to reduce all the extra options and combos and make is as simple as, say, Apocalypse, or a general Historical game where all troops have one of three different 'qualities'.

I would argue that a lot of competitive players wouldn't want that, though, because it would remove the ability to combo up your armies, find the rules exploit and break the game.

In terms of how it affects us, it's currently pretty difficult to find a game in a lot of places unless you're playing Matched Play. If you're new to 40k, and search for info, you're presented with people talking about it like some sort of sport. There's an overwhelming impression that Matched Play is the 'default' way to play, which affects everyone. Competitive local metas only playing at 'broken level' turns 40k into an arms race - which makes the game more expensive, places a huge barrier to entry on new players, removes tons of models, armies and variety from tables as 'garbage', and overwhelmingly fills conversation spaces with negative complaining about balance in a game that was never designed to be balanced in that environment.

You must have played family board games where one person is taking it WAY too seriously and ruining it for everyone else? That.

This might be the best i have read on dakka in a long time. It is exactly how i feel about the way 40k is transforming.

I would never be able to type it this well.

 Sim-Life wrote:
Okay so again you've confused That Guy/WAAC players with competitive players. You're also confusing "good enough balance" with "bad balance". A LACK of balance removes models, results in arms races. Matched Play being the default is the symptom of 40k players sticking very rigidly to the "official" rules and trying to make things standardised for faster set ups. The fault is also in the mechanics of the games because there are no ssytems in place to reward skillful play or clever timinig (despite what some defenders on here will claim).

Part of the problem is when local players get dedicated to the tournament meta, where every single game, even a random pick up, is considered training for the next tournament. It is where That Guy shines the brightest, so people play in to that, even inadvertently. When I was first trying to get in to 40K, I played very few games because most of the people were only playing games of tournament size (and I could barely pull off a Classic Kill Team or two) or had specifically arranged such games before hand for tournament training.

So it goes a bit beyond just being the "That Guy" scenario.

 Sim-Life wrote:
And here is what I keep saying, the way GW has individual rules with unique names is actually a GREAT system for achieving balance over a game the size of 40k, because tweaking one rule on a unit does not effect similar rules on other units. If GW wanted to, they could easily patch up issues on a rule-by-rule basis until everything was more or less useable, however they make too much money from selling CA and Codexes to actually want to go to the effort of doing that. They just shave off or add a fairly arbitrary number of points every year with CA and call it a day. If the rules don't work you're just gak out of luck, wait till the next $50 book gets released in a few years and hope for the best.

As opposed to just updating one document and being done?

The idea of USRs isn't a problem on its own. It is when they are either poorly written (aka Independent Character) or somewhat recursive by just being two or more other USRs in the mix (aka Zealot). Where unique rules become a problem is where those small differences make one more powerful in that rule. That makes it harder to balance over all, especially when those unique rules are multiples in every unit across hundreds of units.

 Charistoph wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
Okay so again you've confused That Guy/WAAC players with competitive players. You're also confusing "good enough balance" with "bad balance". A LACK of balance removes models, results in arms races. Matched Play being the default is the symptom of 40k players sticking very rigidly to the "official" rules and trying to make things standardised for faster set ups. The fault is also in the mechanics of the games because there are no ssytems in place to reward skillful play or clever timinig (despite what some defenders on here will claim).

Part of the problem is when local players get dedicated to the tournament meta, where every single game, even a random pick up, is considered training for the next tournament. It is where That Guy shines the brightest, so people play in to that, even inadvertently. When I was first trying to get in to 40K, I played very few games because most of the people were only playing games of tournament size (and I could barely pull off a Classic Kill Team or two) or had specifically arranged such games before hand for tournament training.

So it goes a bit beyond just being the "That Guy" scenario.

 Sim-Life wrote:
And here is what I keep saying, the way GW has individual rules with unique names is actually a GREAT system for achieving balance over a game the size of 40k, because tweaking one rule on a unit does not effect similar rules on other units. If GW wanted to, they could easily patch up issues on a rule-by-rule basis until everything was more or less useable, however they make too much money from selling CA and Codexes to actually want to go to the effort of doing that. They just shave off or add a fairly arbitrary number of points every year with CA and call it a day. If the rules don't work you're just gak out of luck, wait till the next $50 book gets released in a few years and hope for the best.

As opposed to just updating one document and being done?

The idea of USRs isn't a problem on its own. It is when they are either poorly written (aka Independent Character) or somewhat recursive by just being two or more other USRs in the mix (aka Zealot). Where unique rules become a problem is where those small differences make one more powerful in that rule. That makes it harder to balance over all, especially when those unique rules are multiples in every unit across hundreds of units.

To your first point, its possibly for a tournament focused meta to have casual players still able to compete, thats what balance is. I said in a thread, maybe this one that when we played Warmachine my local meta tended to play what would be considered underdog lists in the overall tournament meta but we all still managed to do well because the game had good balance and rewarded skillful play, good timing and creativity.

To your second I'm not sure you understood my point? The reason unique rules are potentially great for balance is BECAUSE they are unique. Sure currently GW uses different names for the same rule but thats because they haven't taken advantage of the system they created. Look at the current deep strike rules. Lets pretend Sanguinary Guard are OP because they can too consistently charge after deep striking (lets call the rule Pretty Boys In The Sky) in combination with other army rules (strats, auras whatever) and lictors are garbage at charging after deep striking (Gribbly In The Trees) because they have no way to buff their charge range so they consistently fail.

Both rules read something like:
This unit can set up in blah blah blah 9" away from enemies.

All GW needs to do is put out an errata saying:
Pretty Boys In The Sky
Change this rule to blah blah blah 11"away from enemies.

Gribbly In The Trees
Change this rule to blah blah blah 6" away from enemies.

You fix both rules with no knock on effects to other units to worry about because everyones deep strike rule is named differently, so no other units become OP/UP

As to USRs, GW aren't going back to USRs unless we get another reboot edition, so lets not pretend thats going to happen, its not worth discussing how the whole situation could be resolved by making the rule Deep Strike (X")

This is why rules should be scalable.

Deep Strike (X) - At the end of the player's Movement Phase during the 2nd, 3rd or 4th Battle Round, units with this rule may be placed anywhere on the table as long as they are not placed on impassible terrain, terrain that the unit would not normally be able to traverse, and not any closer than X" from enemy models.

Then you can have your fancy-named special rules without the need to restate things:

Pretty Boys In The Sky - Sanguinary Guard are good at falling, but often land further away because reasons. This unit has Deep Strike (11).

Gribbly In The Trees - Lictors are wicked stealthy, yo! This unit has Deep Strike (6).

Sim-Life wrote:To your first point, its possibly for a tournament focused meta to have casual players still able to compete, thats what balance is. I said in a thread, maybe this one that when we played Warmachine my local meta tended to play what would be considered underdog lists in the overall tournament meta but we all still managed to do well because the game had good balance and rewarded skillful play, good timing and creativity.

Oh, I know a tournament meta can have causal players. I was just saying that when it takes over, it tends to ruin the casual experience. It is one of the things that helped kill the local WMH scene (along with PP pulling off some GW shenanigans). When I hear someone literally say, "We only play Steamroller here.", I know that the local group is the problem.

Sim-Life wrote:As to USRs, GW aren't going back to USRs unless we get another reboot edition, so lets not pretend thats going to happen, its not worth discussing how the whole situation could be resolved by making the rule Deep Strike (X")

H.B.M.C. kind of pointed out the easiest fix to that. However, it wouldn't take another reboot edition to install USRs again. There weren't that many in 3rd Edition, but it was in 6th and 7th Edition where it really got out of control. And it was the unique special rules, particularly tied to Formations, which caused a LOT of the problems.

The problem isn't the concept of Unique versus Universal, it is the team that puts them together and how much they care about establishing their rules. I have often said, and I still maintain this somewhat (if only because I'm nowhere as deep in to GW products atm), that a lot of GW's decisions are not game-based, but product-based when not being decided by a room full of drunk monkeys and a dart board.