I think we all can agree that competitive 40k is a mess right now. Harlequins are just bonkers and Tau/Custodes have to be brought down in line also, I don't think there is going to be any argument about that. But I am genuinely curious as to how many people are actually affected by the current tournament metagame.
Now, if you are a frequent tournament player you are obviously affected quite directly by this state of unbalance in competitive 40k, because everyone is there to win and is therefore trying to play the best, most abusive combinations possible to get an edge. I would only argue that most people who engage in this hobby and are actually playing, are not in the hyper competitive crowd who visit tournaments every weekend.
So my question is for these more casual players: do you actually face 9 voidweavers on a regular basis? Do people you play with mostly bring tooled up meta lists?
I am not trying to sugarcoat the current state of 40k by posing these questions btw, a balance patch is necessary. But I am still of the opinion that in a casual game, where both parties are trying to have a fun game with fun lists....there is still a lot of fun to be had in current 9th edition. The main thing I feel is that you have to engage and talk to people to make the game fun for both players, which I hope is a more positive message than the constant doom and gloom of competitive 40k these last months.
I play Harlequins, but I only play casually (I play other games like Infinity and ASOIAF in tournaments). For me, it's usually fine, because I run melee Twilight Harlequins anyway because that's what I want to do. I do get people who just go "Harlequins?! That's broken!" and essentially have the attitude that it's wrong for me to win a game.
I really like meganobz and am working on an ork army right now, but probably by the time my slow ass paints them it'll be a new edition and meganobz will suck.
My main opponent plays T'au and we did a couple of larger games vs my Deathwatch (Power with WYSIWYG). Needless to say, I got pasted in every single one. We moved onto a Crusade campaign and started off at 25 Power where I won my first game and again got pasted in the other two. That was about a month ago since we haven't had time to do our next game. T'au are very very good and I think the only unit that I haven't had an issue with is a single unit of Kroot. This opponent also has a very strong Necron army that also routinely annihilates me on the tabletop. I'm thinking this is possibly karma for me using Quad Mortars against Slaanesh Daemons for a large part of 8th where I was removing about 20 models a turn with just one unit.
I wish I could play more games, honestly, but I am not in a position to be able to do so… living out of boxes, my models and hobby stuff on the other side of Europe in shipping boxes waiting to be shipped… somewhere, looking like back to South Korea now, so that means driving back to Holland to repack into smaller boxes, prob have to leave stuff behind, give things away such as my airbrush compressor, probably less expensive to just buy a new one than ship this one, and paint booth… thing is heavy. Sad… but yeah, anyways,
If I was gaming then the so called meta would not affect me directly besides it being something for me to talk about at the gw store when I could and if back in Holland for a month or so will visit to watch others play a store event or something. Me, I tend to field what I have just finished painting plus… and as I am not into this edition much, small games like 500pts no strata no cp etc. If I had more time, I doubt that this would change, for me.
I was playing a double brother hood GK army, the way GW intended and advertised them to be played. Not being able to do it affteced me a lot.
Same with GW thinking that a 2pts drop fixs termintors in the GK codex.
I have a large number of DE, Eldar, harleqin, soups of those players, a much smaller group of factions. Mostly 1-2 players, and then some left over marine players, but they rarely play nowadays. On a regular basis the only people playing marines, both chaos or imperial, is me , one guy who plays DAs and one guy who plays BT. I have seen people playing other chapters in months. I don't think I have seen any people playing IG in 9th at all. Can't remember when last I saw someone play DG or 1ksons. There is also an ad mecha player and two ork players, but they only play games when there are events at the store. have not played them yet, as I don't want to pay entry fee to get farmed. So I would say I get impacted by the meta in a regular way.
My army got nerfed 4 times in 2 months while 4 of the most broken books ever printed get dropped.
There's a lot of anger there and it's entirely inescapable.
It also goes back 2 full codexes. With the exception of the new units, the 9th edition Sisters of Battle codex was a flat nerf on Sisters overall. Morvenn and Sacresancts just hid that fact.
So not only am I mad that my army is 100pts expensive for no reason, I'm ALSO mad that I can't use a strat to shoot inferno pistols out of deepstrike (despite multiple tau units having that capacity and WAY more firepower for FREE).
And that they changed a reduce AP by 1 aura to 'useless block of text that does nothing' at the same time they made custodes immune to mortal wounds.
And that they get rid of -1 AP on pistols and run and charge, but gave harlequins immunity to damage.
And that they eviscerated the exorcist, but made every tyranid monster almost impossible to kill.
And that they massively reduced out miracle dice generation, while also giving eldar BETTER miracle dice.
I acknowledge we have it better than a lot of other army but still, feth GW.
We have Custodes and Tau players in the local meta and playing games against either is not much fun. It's not just the power level. With Tau in particular, things just take forever to resolve due to the volume of dice.
Many armies feel like 8.5 SM did. That Codex was so overpowered it was difficult not to make broken armies with it. Tau and Custodes feel the same. It's like they're playing a different game to everyone else, so even the armies that aren't fully maxed out on all the broken stuff are still way too good.
We play neither competitive nor overly casual, people never discuss lists beforehand you just make yours and you'll see what you face once the armies hit the table.
The first time 9th felt a bit off was obviously my newer (DG) codex against the guys who still played 8th edition armies. But it seemed somewhat manageable after everyone got used to -1 dmg. Admech however was a real problem for a time because that codex just hit so hard. Again, we managed after a while though. But this time around with Tau I frankly see no hope for older/lesser powered Codexes. That book hits way too hard yet somehow also feels more durable then my own Death Guard. So even in a more casual setting these kind of high power level codexes are a problem. Older books just don't have the tools to deal with them/newer armies are priced waaay to aggressively.
Edit: Furthermore I'd like to add that especially with Tau, but with release Admech/DE too, the problems they cause in every level of play is partially because their lethality is just way to high. Even a more casual Tau list will annihilate half your army in a single turn if you are not careful. We play on pretty dense tables here but their mobility in combination with high fire (partially LOS ignoring) power is just way too much for other casual/fluffy lists too handle.
Karol wrote: I was playing a double brother hood GK army, the way GW intended and advertised them to be played. Not being able to do it affteced me a lot.
Same with GW thinking that a 2pts drop fixs termintors in the GK codex.
I have a large number of DE, Eldar, harleqin, soups of those players, a much smaller group of factions. Mostly 1-2 players, and then some left over marine players, but they rarely play nowadays. On a regular basis the only people playing marines, both chaos or imperial, is me , one guy who plays DAs and one guy who plays BT. I have seen people playing other chapters in months. I don't think I have seen any people playing IG in 9th at all. Can't remember when last I saw someone play DG or 1ksons. There is also an ad mecha player and two ork players, but they only play games when there are events at the store. have not played them yet, as I don't want to pay entry fee to get farmed. So I would say I get impacted by the meta in a regular way.
I know this won't help you, because your meta is pretty toxic, but just a reminder that the double brotherhood squash is a matched play rule- in fact, if I'm not mistaken, it's actually a Nachmund Matched play rule, meaning RAW, it only applies to the missions from CA Nachmund 2022.
Crusade would solve your problem, as would the Tempest of War Deck, as would literally any other Mission Pack. I know you'll never find people in your area who are willing to play anything except the current mission pack, but if you ever do, you'll be fine.
If there was just 1 faction that would dominate with a very particular list it would be one thing. But at this point you have number of codex's that simply have better data sheets across the board.
Like gants have str5 ap1 as their base line core unit. And they're the "meh" unit of the codex.
Competitive play is part of this edition of 40k's very DNA. In infects everything, even the last vestige of pure creativity left in 40k, that being the terrain they design, and therefore is unavoidable.
But that's more on a macro scale.
On a more month-to-month level, the meta isn't as intrusive. I don't give a gak if Harlis are the hot gak right now. I know that Voidweavers are amazing. I know that having 9 of them is incredibly powerful. I own 3, and I don't intend to get any others. I don't care what the meta is for them.
My problem is when the meta begins to impact later publications, when GW "balances" later books based on the performance of prior books. That's when the meta rears its ugly competitive head.
Guard player. Pretty much just going to collect and paint exclusively what I want from here on out. Not sure what I'll do gaming wise; I just moved to a new area and I don't know how competitive people here are or aren't, nor whether there are any narrative players or campaigns.
Probably for gaming I'll see if I can get anyone here into Horus Heresy, given I have enough stuff to make multiple armies.
No impact what so ever, because two reasons:
a) We have basically every army in our circle and all people play at least 3 armies so variety is there
b) No one chases the Meta, e.g. no 3-4 weapon crisis, no 6+ Voidweavers. And if an army is just too much we just agree to tune it and move on.
For me the last part especially is the life save and best advice I can think of for starting any wargames, check your local situation and only start if it fits what you are looking for otherwise you will get frustrated very bad.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Competitive play is part of this edition of 40k's very DNA. In infects everything, even the last vestige of pure creativity left in 40k, that being the terrain they design, and therefore is unavoidable.
I know that you believe this strongly- you say it often. And I'm willing to hear more about why you believe it as strongly as you do, and I believe I'm open minded here- I could be convinced of this truth by a compelling argument. The tournament scene clearly determines everything about Matched play; you don't have to convince me of that- I'm already there.
But I honestly cannot see how the tournament scene really affects Crusade games. The missions have progressive scoring, which is common with matched, but secondaries don't score VP, there are at least some asymmetrical missions; power level is the default system for list building, so it's been updated what, once? Twice? It seems to me that it takes some of the importance out of list building- or at least makes it super quick and painless. Heck, completing the bespoke narrative arcs is way more important to Crusade than winning individual games.
And it's even harder for me to see how the tournament scene affects Open play.
Even the article you link - yes, there's a quote in there that says they made some of their decisions based on matched play, but really? The terrain being tall enough to block LOS for standard infantry models and having a clearly identifiable footprint is something I've done for all my home made terrain since 1989, so really, I think that's just a spin Warcom put on Fronteris because they want Matched players to buy it. Nothing in the article actually screamed matched to me at all.
And even if it did, how the hell does that impact me when I'm using scratch built scenery?
If I played in public, I'd probably be closer to seeing it the way you do, but I feel like so many people who post on Dakka feel like playing in stores with strangers is the only way to play the game and it just isn't. It may be the easiest; it may be the most convenient and for some people I'll concede that the alternatives may be difficult enough that it FEELS like that's your only option. But it really isn't.
Like I said in the beginning- there might be something you could say to change my mind- I'm genuinely trying to understand the POV... But I just can't see it.
This is a general thing that I wish more people took into consideration.
My biggest issue with the 40k community right now is it is full of people who play maybe once every 2 months, but who still consume a lot of information about how the game is played, mostly though sites like goonhammer. This leads to incredibly skewed views on what the game is actually like to play currently and an almost obsessive focus on statistics by people who, honestly, don't really play the game enough to have an informed opinion on it.
I remember a few months ago last year, I was having a talk with someone on discord and he was complaining endlessly about playing Necrons against things like DE/Admech/Orks. I offered some advice on the stuff I had found useful when playing vs those armies in practice games or at events and then he sheepishly admitted he had never played vs ANY of them. Apparently there weren't even any DE or Ork players in his local area and like 2 Admech (who didn't run 120 skitarii lists anyway). This of course doesn't mean those armies weren't a problem in the wider scope of things but if you'll never, ever, experience them and you're not playing in a tournament environment, why does it affect you so much? And even in cases where you may have some of those types of armies floating around, if you're not playing on the similar kinds of boards (GW Open or WTC style etc) then that MASSIVELY changes how the game plays. Try playing vs pre-nerf DE on boards where they couldn't hide 9 raiders and you'd be surprised how fast that list archetype could fold vs certain non-broken armies.
Like I said, this doesn't mean that bad design and balance shouldn't be addressed, but people really need to not let themselves get so negged out about things that don't directly affect them. Most balance issues can be avoided fairly easily, either because they're on relatively unpopular armies (Harlequins) or because they require such a huge monetary investment that the list archetype will basically not be seen outside of comp events (Lucius Horde or Ork Buggy Spam). Where this does fall down is popular armies that are universally strong, to the point that the player has to actively play bad to even things out. Custodes are sitting in this area right now; very easy to collect and paint, relatively popular, quite braindead-strong and difficult to deal with for most casual/average players. Marines end of 8th and the first part of 9th were the same. The Castellan was the same in 8th. You will face a deluge of these armies at events and then likely a deluge of them in your local PUG's or what have you. These are the types of armies that can not only push people away from tournaments but also regular games too because they can be impossible to escape from.
It's why there's still plenty of complaining about Custodes despite their event winrate being pushed down to 55% recently. It doesn't matter if Harlequins are depressing them in tournaments if you're showing up to your local for a game and there's multiple people there who just want to unga bunga 9 bikes forward into you and nobody within 100 miles has ever seen a Harlequin model IRL.
(and this is to say nothing of how fun it is to play vs certain lists/armies. DE Goodstuff from last year was still a relatively enjoyable game for people because there was still plenty of interaction and stuff dying on both sides. This is in stark contrast to something like Tau now which will remove half your army from behind obscuring and if they do over-extend or position themselves badly then they have Crisis suit squads that can eat an entire army's worth of shooting and come out of it unscathed anyway. Insane tankability, un-interactivity, hyper lethality and crazy mobility are all bad combos to be on the receiving end of and it's something a lot of the problem lists of the edition have had in common)
Bosskelot wrote: (and this is to say nothing of how fun it is to play vs certain lists/armies. DE Goodstuff from last year was still a relatively enjoyable game for people because there was still plenty of interaction and stuff dying on both sides. This is in stark contrast to something like Tau now which will remove half your army from behind obscuring and if they do over-extend or position themselves badly then they have Crisis suit squads that can eat an entire army's worth of shooting and come out of it unscathed anyway. Insane tankability, un-interactivity, hyper lethality and crazy mobility are all bad combos to be on the receiving end of and it's something a lot of the problem lists of the edition have had in common)
The first time you play DE it was this, you said oh this isn't too bad. The second time, you try some new ideas out, oh, the same score as before. By the end of the third time though you realise it is a pointless game, sure you get to kill some stuff, but you still spent 2.5 hours losing a game (rather than playing a game).
What affects me is that I'm tired of the lack of direction at GW rules team.
As someone said, they can release an entire codex which is mostly a nerf (sisters), and go on releasing broken as f*** codexes a minute later(drukhari, ad mech, tau, custodes...).
There is no direction, no one is supervising this Gak, and authors are left to design however they wish, instead of what's good for the game.
This is nothing new, GW has always been like this.but that s infuriating to think a 30+ year old company doesn't learn from past mistakes and keep on doing this power creep crap.
I know this won't help you, because your meta is pretty toxic, but just a reminder that the double brotherhood squash is a matched play rule- in fact, if I'm not mistaken, it's actually a Nachmund Matched play rule, meaning RAW, it only applies to the missions from CA Nachmund 2022.
Crusade would solve your problem, as would the Tempest of War Deck, as would literally any other Mission Pack. I know you'll never find people in your area who are willing to play anything except the current mission pack, but if you ever do, you'll be fine.
No one plays non matched played games here. And from what I hear here and on other forums, aside for people that play crusade or some other sort of narrative/open games, matched played is more or less a given, same way rule of 3 was in 8th.
Try playing vs pre-nerf DE on boards where they couldn't hide 9 raiders and you'd be surprised how fast that list archetype could fold vs certain non-broken armies.
unless they go first. Plus it is a moot argument 9th, just like 8th requires a lot of terrain, because shoting is super deadly. People could probably take bad armies and if there was no terrain, and they went first, and the opponent wasn't siting on -1 to hit, -1 to dmg and/or inv save they would decimate the other side. But ain't the reality most people play. There is a ton of ruins, L shaped LoS blockers etc.
I know this won't help you, because your meta is pretty toxic, but just a reminder that the double brotherhood squash is a matched play rule- in fact, if I'm not mistaken, it's actually a Nachmund Matched play rule, meaning RAW, it only applies to the missions from CA Nachmund 2022.
Crusade would solve your problem, as would the Tempest of War Deck, as would literally any other Mission Pack. I know you'll never find people in your area who are willing to play anything except the current mission pack, but if you ever do, you'll be fine.
No one plays non matched played games here. And from what I hear here and on other forums, aside for people that play crusade or some other sort of narrative/open games, matched played is more or less a given, same way rule of 3 was in 8th.
Fair enough, but wouldn't it be possible to for example arrange for one evening where everybody agrees to bring more fun and experimental lists instead of going for competitive meta lists, so that armies who are struggling right now get to have a more fun time?
We did just that at my group recently and it was great fun. I brought this list and while custodes are still strong, it felt far from oppressive:
Detachment Type / Shield Host: Adeptus Custodes, Shadowkeepers
+ Stratagems +
Stratagem: Open the Vaults [-1CP]: Additional Relics
+ HQ +
Blade Champion:
(Shadowkeepers): Lockwarden, (Shadowkeepers): Statis Oubliette, 3. Superior Creation, Stratagem: The Emperor's Heroes, Stratagem: Victor of the Blood Games
Blade Champion:
Peerless Warrior, Stratagem: The Emperor's Heroes
Shield-Captain in Allarus Terminator Armor:
Impregnable Mind, Bane of Abominations, Castellan Axe, Praetorian Plate, Warlord
Fair enough, but wouldn't it be possible to for example arrange for one evening where everybody agrees to bring more fun and experimental lists instead of going for competitive meta lists, so that armies who are struggling right now get to have a more fun time?
most people playing at the store play on weekends and friday. I am not sure they would agree. In 9th and in 8th in my prior store it was hard to get a new player event day going, because it was taking time away from people wanting to play the game the normal way. And in 8th we actually had a lot of new players, aside even our store closing, in the new one after most 9th being through, we had fewer then 20 new players. In 8th when I started the first new player event had 23 people who just started.
Is worth asking though. Not sure if it would brough back people that quit or stopped playing. In the end the main problem with changing stuff here is that most people own 2000pts of an army, maybe a bit more. Specially if they are a new player, so a technical option of switching stuff up isn't impacting much in practic. And this shapes how the meta game looks like, as it does cause people to not buy in to bad armies, bad models etc.
In my local club, we play based on what each other have. However, we have a very competitive tournament crowd in our area, where you will expect to see the meta stuff. We play into that and do our best.
The folk in my club are not those to chase the Meta, as we don't have the time or money to do that.
I've been playing harlequins for nearly ten years and I don't own a single Voidweaver. I'm not going to go and spend $600 and buy none more of them, they'll get nerfed anyway.
Typically, if I happen to own an army which is very strong in the meta, I'll take a break and play another of my 3 armies for a while. I don't like playing the same thing everyone else is.
I did ok using orks against people fielding tau and custodes, although I haven't faced skew lists or meta chasers. In fact not a single voidweaver in any of my games so far.
Haven't had the pleasure to play against eldar, pure harlequins forces aside, yet.
I'm in the unfortunate situation of my Tau army, bought from the units that I think are really cool before the Tau codex was even out, is particularly meta.
I've yet to have a game last beyond round 3 without my opponent conceding or even a wipe, often turn 2 and once even turn 1 because they just didn't have enough left.
It's not a fun position to be in, and I've felt obligated to buy more units that I'm not as interested in, purely so I can have some more interesting games.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Competitive play is part of this edition of 40k's very DNA. In infects everything, even the last vestige of pure creativity left in 40k, that being the terrain they design, and therefore is unavoidable.
I know that you believe this strongly- you say it often. And I'm willing to hear more about why you believe it as strongly as you do, and I believe I'm open minded here- I could be convinced of this truth by a compelling argument. The tournament scene clearly determines everything about Matched play; you don't have to convince me of that- I'm already there.
But I honestly cannot see how the tournament scene really affects Crusade games.
And it's even harder for me to see how the tournament scene affects Open play.
Frankly, Open Play is a mode I've never seen anyone actually play. It's also explicitly "there are no rules" so you can always just get away with saying "do whatever you want".
The problem with Crusade is similar to what I mention above. The disparity in power level between old and new books is so big you often feel like you're playing a different game as Blood Angels vs, say, Tau. It doesn't matter if you're using points or PL, the result is an unbalanced mess because the raw power of the newer lists is on a whole other level. You could argue that Crusade games aren't so concerned about winning, so much as they are about completing Agendas etc, but if the basic game you're playing is a constant feels-bad moment it's still a crappy experience.
If I played in public, I'd probably be closer to seeing it the way you do, but I feel like so many people who post on Dakka feel like playing in stores with strangers is the only way to play the game and it just isn't. It may be the easiest; it may be the most convenient and for some people I'll concede that the alternatives may be difficult enough that it FEELS like that's your only option. But it really isn't.
Like I said in the beginning- there might be something you could say to change my mind- I'm genuinely trying to understand the POV... But I just can't see it.
So the initial buy in to playing w40k has to start with either buying a flat or house with sole intent to play w40k there, followed by getting friend to play with there ?
Yeah comparing to playing at the store or club, it very much does sound less easier. Basing the game around the less easier is not a good thing.
Because it starts to sound like Blackies description of how to get balanced and fun games in 9th. Play with a good codex, vs non meta game lists, not play against stuff that can't not be meta gamed . It is clearly possible to do to have fun, but it comes with so many ifs that it is not very realistic to expect to happen.
Bosskelot wrote: (and this is to say nothing of how fun it is to play vs certain lists/armies. DE Goodstuff from last year was still a relatively enjoyable game for people because there was still plenty of interaction and stuff dying on both sides. This is in stark contrast to something like Tau now which will remove half your army from behind obscuring and if they do over-extend or position themselves badly then they have Crisis suit squads that can eat an entire army's worth of shooting and come out of it unscathed anyway. Insane tankability, un-interactivity, hyper lethality and crazy mobility are all bad combos to be on the receiving end of and it's something a lot of the problem lists of the edition have had in common)
The first time you play DE it was this, you said oh this isn't too bad. The second time, you try some new ideas out, oh, the same score as before. By the end of the third time though you realise it is a pointless game, sure you get to kill some stuff, but you still spent 2.5 hours losing a game (rather than playing a game).
Or, if playing against DE is going to be a common enough thing, you adapt your list/playstyle....
Bosskelot wrote: This is a general thing that I wish more people took into consideration.
My biggest issue with the 40k community right now is it is full of people who play maybe once every 2 months, but who still consume a lot of information about how the game is played, mostly though sites like goonhammer. This leads to incredibly skewed views on what the game is actually like to play currently and an almost obsessive focus on statistics by people who, honestly, don't really play the game enough to have an informed opinion on it.
Really good post. I think this forum is particularly guilty of this, and I don't think it is a coincidence your post has been mostly ignored...
The monthly tournament at my FLGS is now won exclusively by Tau or Custodes (this next one will most likely be won by Eldar/Harlequins). My Black Templars went from winning events to 35% win rate before I even finished painting 2k points. I'll probably switch to Tyranids as they're quick to paint and look to be able to compete in the new meta. I just wish I could show up with my nostalgic power armor bois and have a chance at winning.
I have a suit heavy Tau army I can't really play in my clubs casual setting without stomping over most, or having to severe handicap myself (fortunately I have other armies to play)
And one of my regular opponents plays CWE. While he doesn't play 'meta' lists as CWE they are still very strong.
And other plays meta Custodes.
Yes, owning exactly the amount of models required to play a specific format, insisting to play that specific format and refusing to expand the collection further, is an issue. Always have been. Especially if such collections are somehow skew.
That's why I've always recommended new players to play only in formats that involve bringing half of their collections at most. And to avoid building skew lists, unless there's also the intention of getting a massive collection of models.
Codex creep is not so much a problem for top tournament players.
They can invest their competition profit (win) immediately into a new army and so have a chance to stay always on top.
Blackie wrote: That's why I've always recommended new players to play only in formats that involve bringing half of their collections at most. And to avoid building skew lists, unless there's also the intention of getting a massive collection of models.
40k is supremely expensive, as a new player you can't really afford to be buying a 4000pt army to be playing the common 2000pt format.
Even my 1000pt army was about as much money as I'm comfortable spending outright at the moment - that's not a large army even fielding 100% of everything.
Blackie wrote: That's why I've always recommended new players to play only in formats that involve bringing half of their collections at most. And to avoid building skew lists, unless there's also the intention of getting a massive collection of models.
40k is supremely expensive, as a new player you can't really afford to be buying a 4000pt army to be playing the common 2000pt format.
Even my 1000pt army was about as much money as I'm comfortable spending outright at the moment - that's not a large army even fielding 100% of everything.
As a new player I started playing the common format (1500 points during 3rd and 4th editions) after 3 years into the hobby, basically. I don't expect people to start the hobby and be prepared to play the standard format within days, weeks or even months. They should get there after a while.
Enjoy the hobby, learn how to play, how to play that faction, and paint the models properly. For the majority of people getting 1000 points of a faction, painting it all and mastering their rules takes several months at least. As you said the hobby is quite expensive and time consuming, demanding everything now is not healthy.
Blackie wrote: That's why I've always recommended new players to play only in formats that involve bringing half of their collections at most. And to avoid building skew lists, unless there's also the intention of getting a massive collection of models.
40k is supremely expensive, as a new player you can't really afford to be buying a 4000pt army to be playing the common 2000pt format.
Even my 1000pt army was about as much money as I'm comfortable spending outright at the moment - that's not a large army even fielding 100% of everything.
As a new player I started playing the common format (1500 points during 3rd and 4th editions) after 3 years into the hobby, basically. I don't expect people to start the hobby and be prepared to play the standard format within days, weeks or even months. They should get there after a while.
Enjoy the hobby, learn how to play, how to play that faction, and paint the models properly. For the majority of people getting 1000 points of a faction, painting it all and mastering their rules takes several months at least. As you said the hobby is quite expensive and time consuming, demanding everything now is not healthy.
I agree with that statement - but it seems to run counter to your suggestion to only bring half your army.
Collecting 1000pts of a faction would mean you're only playing 500pts, and there's not much to 500pt games.
I play in local tournaments, roughly one every two months. As such, I am voluntary swimming in waters that can have some sharks. Having said that, we are fairly chill and our tourneys do not contribute towards ITC standings so there is little reason for big sharks to spend a weekend in our little lagoon.
The effect of the metagame on me is more or less determined by Codex Roulette. There are about 40 players locally who play in our tourneys and attend our 40K gaming days (not always 40 at the same time mind you). Most of us have multiple armies. I think that the majority started in 6th or 7th Ed. We have about seven folks who had Tau armies, but there was only one Tau army at our 2021 Club Championships. By contrast, at our 2022 event we had five Tau armies. We have several Custodes players, so when they spike in power we all feel it. Ditto Drukhari. We don't seem to have any AdMech players, so that storm passed us by. We have several Harlie players and Eldar players (the former from 8th/early 9th and the latter from 6th through mid-8th) so their impact is certainly been felt.
At non-tourney games on a given Saturday most are trying out a new army unless their opponent has asked for a teaching game or a narrative game. So for the most part, I do feel changes in power levels of armies. This is moderated, though, by the more or less chill approach that most bring to our games.
The meta does not enter into my games of basement hammer which are primarily narrative in nature. Different setting.
Reading the forums, I do think that there are some folks whose interaction with the game seems to consist of watching battle reports and reading articles. They seem quite affected by the metagame, since they are only seeing the top tables. They seem to get quite worked up about the state of the game for...reasons?
Blackie wrote: Yes, owning exactly the amount of models required to play a specific format, is an issue.
My 2k list is about $1,000 and will take me around 6 months to fully paint. You're saying you expect me to spend $2,000 and a year painting before we can play casual games? And it's the competitive players that are ruining the game?
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TangoTwoBravo wrote: They seem to get quite worked up about the state of the game for...reasons?
You can't understand why some people would be upset about spending months and hundreds of dollars on an army, then flying halfway across the country with it, only to get stomped into the ground by the 4 new codexes that have come out since they started their army, through no fault of their own? Yea I can't imagine why that would leave a bad taste in anyone's mouth...
Blackie wrote: Yes, owning exactly the amount of models required to play a specific format, insisting to play that specific format and refusing to expand the collection further, is an issue. Always have been. Especially if such collections are somehow skew.
That's why I've always recommended new players to play only in formats that involve bringing half of their collections at most. And to avoid building skew lists, unless there's also the intention of getting a massive collection of models.
Okey. A new GK player buys 4 or 5 NDKs, 30 interceptors and the 10-15 strikes he needs for the normal GK army. How would you advice him to expend his army if there is nothing else in the codex worth taking, if he wants a working list. And at the same time his army is on the way down, power wise as he is facing armies like tau or eldar who just blow him off the table, with him not being able to do anything with the best and most optimal list he can build?
And this exercise can be done for any other mid to low tier army in the meta right now. You think if runs 1 or 2NDKs , starts taking termintors and termintor characters his gaming expiriance is going to improve?
the playing half the points is an even stranger advice. How is someone suppose to downgrade a knight army to 1k pts without making the lists even worse then it is at 2k pts? Play chaos with wardogs rebuying the entire faction? What about armies where the basic troop option is 200+pts and work horse units cost 300+pts. Those people are suppose to play non skew lists with 4 units when their opponents can cram 6 voids in to 540pts or run the same suit death star only with fewer troops?
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Toofast 804379 11339007 wrote:
My 2k list is about $1,000 and will take me around 6 months to fully paint. You're saying you expect me to spend $2,000 and a year painting before we can play casual games? And it's the competitive players that are ruining the game? .
Well at least it costs less, then having to buy a house or a flat just to play w40k as a prerequisit to play the game at fun level.
If I played in public, I'd probably be closer to seeing it the way you do, but I feel like so many people who post on Dakka feel like playing in stores with strangers is the only way to play the game and it just isn't. It may be the easiest; it may be the most convenient and for some people I'll concede that the alternatives may be difficult enough that it FEELS like that's your only option. But it really isn't.
Like I said in the beginning- there might be something you could say to change my mind- I'm genuinely trying to understand the POV... But I just can't see it.
So the initial buy in to playing w40k has to start with either buying a flat or house with sole intent to play w40k there, followed by getting friend to play with there ?
When you aren't locked into playing 2k matched, you can play a decent game on a coffee table in about an hour because 25PL games are an option.
Yeah comparing to playing at the store or club, it very much does sound less easier. Basing the game around the less easier is not a good thing.
Because it starts to sound like Blackies description of how to get balanced and fun games in 9th. Play with a good codex, vs non meta game lists, not play against stuff that can't not be meta gamed . It is clearly possible to do to have fun, but it comes with so many ifs that it is not very realistic to expect to happen.
I get this- I genuinely do; I even acknowledge it in the post you're quoting. I know that 2k Matched is the default standard for pick-up games.
My argument is that it is unfair to call a game "The tournament edition" just because enough people choose to play 2k matched that everyone else feels else like that's the only thing that's in the actual book. You can't judge the edition as if Crusade doesn't exist just because it isn't the default mode of play. GW has provided as much product support to non-tournament formats in this edition as they have for 2K Matched; there are more printed resources for Crusade than there are for Matched. They have done their part to provide viable alternatives for people- whether or not people choose to use those alternatives is beyond their control.
Reading the forums, I do think that there are some folks whose interaction with the game seems to consist of watching battle reports and reading articles. They seem quite affected by the metagame, since they are only seeing the top tables. They seem to get quite worked up about the state of the game for...reasons?
Honestly, that's pretty dismissive, and based solely on an assumption you've made about a wide swath of people.
Blackie wrote: Yes, owning exactly the amount of models required to play a specific format, is an issue.
My 2k list is about $1,000 and will take me around 6 months to fully paint. You're saying you expect me to spend $2,000 and a year painting before we can play casual games? And it's the competitive players that are ruining the game?
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TangoTwoBravo wrote: They seem to get quite worked up about the state of the game for...reasons?
You can't understand why some people would be upset about spending months and hundreds of dollars on an army, then flying halfway across the country with it, only to get stomped into the ground by the 4 new codexes that have come out since they started their army, through no fault of their own? Yea I can't imagine why that would leave a bad taste in anyone's mouth...
I'm talking about people who do not play but get worked up about the state of the metagame.
Reading the forums, I do think that there are some folks whose interaction with the game seems to consist of watching battle reports and reading articles. They seem quite affected by the metagame, since they are only seeing the top tables. They seem to get quite worked up about the state of the game for...reasons?
Honestly, that's pretty dismissive, and based solely on an assumption you've made about a wide swath of people.
You're all touching on exactly why the meta tournament environment has such a stranglehold on everything outside of it.
40k is grotesquely expensive for most people.
So when people get involved, they buy only what they absolutely need.
Most of the people I've butted heads with over the past 15 - 20 years wanting to run their tournament slag list in a for fun campaign setting is simply they do not have any other army BUT their skew list and aren't interested in buying armies to use in campaigns when the main event is tournament play. (of course the problem is they should also own that and realize that while thats fine, if others want to play other versions of the game and the individual doesn't want to purchase models for that type of game, that they should reasonably excuse themselves from also trying to participate in those other events)
I can't play casual games with my infantry Harlequins because every time I win it's because of my broken models and not because I outplayed my opponent. When they win obviously everything is fine.
My 2k list is about $1,000 and will take me around 6 months to fully paint. You're saying you expect me to spend $2,000 and a year painting before we can play casual games? And it's the competitive players that are ruining the game?
Certainly not. I'm saying that 2000 points is a very high format, it doesn't matter if that's also the most popular. Smaller games are possible and do exist. Actually they're highly recommended for people who are new to the hobby.
I'm expecting people to have a full painted 2000 points army and spend 1k in much more than 6 months. I'm expecting people who start the hobby to be ready for competitive games after years.
And yes, it's the competitive players that are ruining the game because only a competitive player would demand EVERYTHING NOW!!!! Today's mentality is that a dude watches a youtube channel about 40k games, where all games are 2000 points, all tables are full of amazing terrain, all players do know the game and multiple armies very well, and thinks that he can immediately do the same stuff. 6 months is a very short time to be there.
Now if you really have the interest and the cash go for it, but I don't expect the average hobbist to get a 2000 points army ready in such rush. In my experience people who do so are the first ones to leave.
Hecaton wrote: I can't play casual games with my infantry Harlequins because every time I win it's because of my broken models and not because I outplayed my opponent. When they win obviously everything is fine.
Well, I don't play casual games with tier 1 armies. GK were top tier for a while as are Harlies now. Similarly for Drukhari.
My opponents are pissed off if I run such an army which is better suited for competitive play or tourneys.
For casual play, I'm more into BA or Ultramarines and also the Eldar/CW which at least in my book are not top tier.
Hecaton wrote: I can't play casual games with my infantry Harlequins because every time I win it's because of my broken models and not because I outplayed my opponent. When they win obviously everything is fine.
What are the usual OpFor options in your group, Hecaton?
If everyone else is playing the likes of Guard, Daemons and Orks, I could kinda see their POV.
Hecaton wrote: I can't play casual games with my infantry Harlequins because every time I win it's because of my broken models and not because I outplayed my opponent. When they win obviously everything is fine.
Well, I don't play casual games with tier 1 armies. GK were top tier for a while as are Harlies now. Similarly for Drukhari.
My opponents are pissed off if I run such an army which is better suited for competitive play or tourneys.
For casual play, I'm more into BA or Ultramarines and also the Eldar/CW which at least in my book are not top tier.
Craftworlds are in the top four factions along with T'au and Custodes plus the craziness that is top tier Harlequins.
Personally, the current meta is affecting me by way of a huge explosion in popularity of Age of Sigmar or WHFB as an alternative to 40k in my store, which I am massively enjoying because its mostly just "people digging out their ancient old WHFB armies or doing zany conversion work and throwing down"
My GSG army is my 40k grots army with a few of the more fun and zany AOS units thrown in there (Love me a boingrot bounder...I was already using them as Stormboyz for 40k), I've got one buddy with a 15 year old almost all metal lizardman army, one with a chaos army, one with a skaven army, one guy going for Stormcast out of the new starter box and one guy with fairly new skeleton horde guys.
It's a fantastic time, basically 0 on a 1-10 competitiveness scale, and we're all having a blast.
In terms of 40k games: you can basically predict who's going to win with 100% accuracy based on which player has a more recent codex. Tau vs marines? Tau wins. Eldar vs GSC? Eldar wins. Admech vs Space Wolves? Admech wins. the games feel like foregone conclusions every time, and on average 40k has dipped down below 2 games being played per week with about 3 regular and 6-8 occasional players.
It doesnt really seem to matter that the armies being played are not tournament tier competitive armies. The tau player who is now utterly unstoppable is just playing a random mix of stuff, no big blobs of crisis suits or 5 broadsides or whatever.
the_scotsman wrote: Personally, the current meta is affecting me by way of a huge explosion in popularity of Age of Sigmar or WHFB as an alternative to 40k in my store, which I am massively enjoying because its mostly just "people digging out their ancient old WHFB armies or doing zany conversion work and throwing down"
Around me, Heresy is taking off, particularly with new rules on the horizon, and I've had impetus to get my Mechanicum painted up.
I would love to say that the competitive scene doesn't affect local metas, but everyone is plugged in to social media, everyone is at least dimly aware of meta shifts, broken units/armies, and general imbalance, and everyone is experiencing firsthand the lopsided nature of some of the codices. I don't build competitive armies but I've had two curbstomps now with the new Tyranids against my buddy's Death Guard, and it hasn't been fun.
I really don't mean to sound salty, but a new codex to my favorite faction catapulting them from a perpetual underdog to a front-runner (with lots of fun and flavorful options, no less) should have me excited, but... I'm just not.
My main army is Death Guard and I love to play with them, regardless of the meta. If they are weak compared to other armies (like now or most of 8th edition) I specifically ask for friendly or casual opponents at my club.
My alt is Ad Mech. I started collecting them in 7th because they had cool models and cool interesting rules. Their 8th edition codex was so bland that I quickly got bored and stopped playing them. I was still collecting them though because cool plastic is cool plastic. The 9th ediiton codex seems good but was also stupidly complex. I wasn't interested in playing their broken combos (didn't have the models anyway) and was having enough fun with my DG that I put off buying it. Now their rules have changed so much since the codex came out that it puts me off ever trying them.
the_scotsman wrote: Personally, the current meta is affecting me by way of a huge explosion in popularity of Age of Sigmar or WHFB as an alternative to 40k in my store, which I am massively enjoying because its mostly just "people digging out their ancient old WHFB armies or doing zany conversion work and throwing down"
Basically the exact same thing happened, but it started here with Psychic Awakening, got a small bump in players for 9th, but quickly diminished to nil.
LGS is all Sigmar, Star Wars, or Infinity now, with the occasional blood bowl, underworlds, or Necromunda. Even 5th-7th games and HH are poping in more often because the game is more fun.
Power creep is inevitable with a release cycle the way GW writes, but when your power creep is primarily in the form of rules that ignore other rules that ignore other rules ad infinitum it's no wonder the players have abandoned the rules system in favor of those that are perceived as more fair. Chaotic imbalance of 7th was more fun than the structured imbalanced that 9th currently is.
By catering to the tournament expectations GW have optimized the fun out of their game.
By catering to the tournament expectations GW have optimized the fun out of their game.
That's just it, GW hasn't catered to the tournament scene, GW has made the tournament scene into a marketing scam, the ITC team just hasn't realized the amount of egg on their faces because the entire tournament scene is just a bad joke right now.
I started Playing Tau when they were first released, mainly because i think Battlesuits are the coolest unit ever.
Shortly after that I had enough Crisis suits to field the full allowed 15 of them plus 2 Shas'o's the rest being filled in with whatever i wanted to play at the time. I've branched out to other armies, but Tau have always been my go to, mostly for the aesthetics and playstyle.
8th was rough as losing the jetpacks rule (move shoot move) really seriously hurt the playstyle of the army, but i soldiered through, consistently fielding as many crisis teams as i could get away with, with mixed to poor results.
When it comes to the current Meta with Tau, well, Crisis suits are awesome now, the best unit in the codex by a mile. they perform amazingly on the battlefield, and fielding lots of units of them is suddenly the 'meta' thing to do.
The choice is between playing a crisis heavy army and crushing all before me, OR playing other units more heavily which i don't want to do because I like the idea of crisis teams, if not the current execution.
Despite having played crisis heavy lists for 20 years, now i get accused of chasing the meta. I mean, seriously???
It affects me in the sense that I kind of just don't want to play. Custodes and Harlequins are two of my favorite factions. My boyfriend's favorite faction is between Sisters of Battle and Dark Angels. I'd like to play those two armies, but it wouldn't really be fair, would it? So we just do other things.
Doesn't really affect me any. I only play against a couple of friends and my son, very casually. We don't really chase the meta any - hell, I'm still working on the same Chaos Marines army that I started with the 6th edition starter set, and finally just finished painting some CSM termies that I think I built about 7 or 8 years ago...
The last time we really had an 'oh wow bloody hell' meta moment was when my mate built himself an eldar wraith host / jetbike army around 7th, when scatter lasers and D weapons were the thing. First game with it, he absolutely devastated me beyond all chance of recovery in turn 1 and tabled me turn 2. He was as shocked as I was, I think.
He's been through a good dozen armies since then though. I'm the slow collector and painter in our little group.
I played custodes in 4 games and trivially demolished 4 people. Like I didn't even have to try.
So I went and bought eldar, it's has more levers to tinker with to modulate its strength then custodes do (especially when limiting forgewrold purchases).
The lethality and complexity of the game have been amplified to what I feel is an unhealthy degree. It doesn't seem to favor casual engagement and participation anymore.
Void__Dragon wrote: It affects me in the sense that I kind of just don't want to play. Custodes and Harlequins are two of my favorite factions. My boyfriend's favorite faction is between Sisters of Battle and Dark Angels. I'd like to play those two armies, but it wouldn't really be fair, would it? So we just do other things.
But if you play with your boyfriend specifically it would be quite easy to tone down you Custodes/Harlequin list to make it more interesting, would it not? If you have the models so switch around for example, play Custodes without Jetbikes or Trajann. Pick a Shield Host that's not as meta like Dread Host. If you don't have the models to make a variety of lists at 2000p, play a 1500p game. And if all else fails, you can start with a 100p handicap.
I guess thats the whole point of making this thread: if you have the opportunity to constructively talk to your gaming partner/group, the meta should not affect your enjoyment of the game that much. Well, IF the goal is to have fun together and not to play competitively or practice for a tournament.
Toning down someone's list can still affect their enjoyment.
Let's use me as an example. I super love Baneblades. If we suddenly lived in a world where Baneblades were mindbreakingly overpowered, then:
1) my opponent's enjoyment is diminished because Baneblades are stupid good
2) my enjoyment is diminished because these kickass models I spent plenty of time on (and which are my favorites!) won't see the table.
TwinPoleTheory wrote: The lethality and complexity of the game have been amplified to what I feel is an unhealthy degree. It doesn't seem to favor casual engagement and participation anymore.
I agree in the lethality, disagree on complexity. Most of the game is now decided during list building, just like MTG is determined by deck building. For the most part in 40k you are just kinda along for the ride.
Backspacehacker wrote: I agree in the lethality, disagree on complexity. Most of the game is now decided during list building, just like MTG is determined by deck building. For the most part in 40k you are just kinda along for the ride.
Possibly, tracking 6 static objectives, 3 of my secondaries, 3 of my opponent's secondaries, the running point total, and trying to have a working knowledge of my opponent's updated rules and gotchas reminded me why I play sober these days.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Toning down someone's list can still affect their enjoyment.
Let's use me as an example. I super love Baneblades. If we suddenly lived in a world where Baneblades were mindbreakingly overpowered, then:
1) my opponent's enjoyment is diminished because Baneblades are stupid good
2) my enjoyment is diminished because these kickass models I spent plenty of time on (and which are my favorites!) won't see the table.
If you talk to your opponent before the game, he might be able to skew more AV firepower into his list instead of a more TAC build.
One problem though in a rock/paper/scissors environment is how much list tailoring do you want on both sides? Ideally enough so everyone has a close, fun game. But that’s not an easy feat to achieve.
As long as the opponents army is painted I'll play against some fancy tournament list.
Games are far more fun on a larger table/balanced armies/over a beer but as long as the visuals are there I'll have my marines get blown the feth out against some Eldar for some cool photos.
I don't play against grey tide or primed armies so that absolves me of most of the issues it seems people have here
Unit1126PLL wrote: Toning down someone's list can still affect their enjoyment.
Let's use me as an example. I super love Baneblades. If we suddenly lived in a world where Baneblades were mindbreakingly overpowered, then:
1) my opponent's enjoyment is diminished because Baneblades are stupid good
2) my enjoyment is diminished because these kickass models I spent plenty of time on (and which are my favorites!) won't see the table.
If you talk to your opponent before the game, he might be able to skew more AV firepower into his list instead of a more TAC build.
One problem though in a rock/paper/scissors environment is how much list tailoring do you want on both sides? Ideally enough so everyone has a close, fun game. But that’s not an easy feat to achieve.
I mean if I am talking to my opponent in advance I can just ask them to play the much better 4th edition, haha.
The whole attraction of current 40k is it is popular enough that a PUG has a reasonable chance of occuring on game night.
auticus wrote: Where I came from the tournament meta was also your casual meta.
You couldn't escape it.
^ This is how it is for me. The entire region; not just one LGS, but all of the LGS's throughout the whole region... It's tourney-hammer all day, every day. You either play tourney-hammer or you don't play at all. Ask a fellow player, anyone, for a narrative game and it's an immediate response of "Pass... I'm practicing for a tournament.".
Do people you play with mostly bring tooled up meta lists?
Yes! That is a big, resounding 'yes'. It's the only thing anyone brings to the table around here.
It is difficult to find fellow narrative players in my area. A lot of the narrative players have quit, turned to other games, because of the competitiveness that has turned W40K sour. Even now, I question staying involved and have begun selling off my backlog of projects. The competitive players are sadly blind to the damage they have done and to the damage they continue to do. They drive off players who just want to enjoy playing with their models. They drive off new players by pushing negative game experiences onto them. Communities are starting to dwindle and some have completely dried up. So many people want to push the blame onto GW for not enjoying 9th edition, but the reality is that it's the competitiveness that's making the game unenjoyable.
TwinPoleTheory wrote: The lethality and complexity of the game have been amplified to what I feel is an unhealthy degree. It doesn't seem to favor casual engagement and participation anymore.
I agree in the lethality, disagree on complexity. Most of the game is now decided during list building, just like MTG is determined by deck building. For the most part in 40k you are just kinda along for the ride.
If you disagree that 40k is absurdly complex on the tabletop ATM, I would encourage you to try teaching a new person who is not initiated to play.
"Ok, so here's our 500-point engagement. I've got my HQ character, a Techpriest Manipulus, and my troops unit, a unit of skitarii, and one squad of kataphron battle servitors"
"So we've got the distant forgeworlds sub-faction which I've chosen this trait A as my primary and this trait B as my tertiary. My manipulus has been upgraded to Logi, which means I can use a battle tactic stratagem for free once per turn, and also all friendly CORE units within 6" ignore AP-1 and AP-2 until I perform an action with the manipulus to change that ability to a different ability. Now, the Kataphrons aren't usually CORE, but i've got a warlord trait on the manipulus that allows them to become CORE for rules purposes temporarily, and also a Relic which allows me to select an enemy unit to fight last. Now, of course, by fight last, that means after all units have fought, unless you are under the effect of a Fight First rule which means we fight normally, but because of the sequencing I would still select the first unit during the fight normal fight subphase of your turn, so I would get to swing first if I selected you for that relic rule. The manipulus can also repair a friendly unit within 3" for D3 damage at the end of the movement phase, and can select a friendly unit in the Command Phase to grant them additional range and a point of AP. Are you following so far? So the skitarii have a stratagem..."
At the moment the largest effect is an increase in Custodes players.
Custodes are now probably the 3rd most played force in my area. (1st place: SM of assorted chapters/colors - because everyone has marines...., 2nd: Necrons - thank you Indomitus & a wave of really cool looking stuff)
Some of this is existing players switching/adding factions.
Some of this is new players who're hopping into the game. They looked at the price tags & went the time tested route of a high pt cost/low model count army in order to get up to speed without going completely broke. Good rules and the easy to accomplish basic paint scheme is also a draw for them.
After that is the effect I'm most happy to see: Tau back on the tables!
Until the new Codex landed? There hadn't been a single Tau model in play since I came back to 8th in the fall of 2018. The closest we came to seeing a Tau force was early 2021. One of the guys started building a force for the coming Crusade league. And then he caught Covid at work, was sidelined for a bit over a month, missed about 1/2 the Crusade, & opted not to jump in that late. Then the leagues switched to Kill Team 2 & Sigmar for awhile. So he put the project on hold until now.
Now? There's at least 4 Tau forces in play & at least 2 more being built. And the existing 4? Don't look anything like each other.
There also seems to be alot of interest in the coming Tyranids.
As long as the opponents army is painted I'll play against some fancy tournament list.
Games are far more fun on a larger table/balanced armies/over a beer but as long as the visuals are there I'll have my marines get blown the feth out against some Eldar for some cool photos.
I don't play against grey tide or primed armies so that absolves me of most of the issues it seems people have here
...except when I play a game against a tourney-hammer list, it doesnt matter what the models look like, the game plays absolutely nothing like the narrative of the 40k universe.
40k isnt supposed to be a setting about a bunch of cowardly wimps who cluster up behind obscuring terrain, waving flags and crouching in the mud, terrified of poking their heads out for fear of being evaporated in a single turn by the opposing team's weaponry. Space Marines aren't supposed to be vaporized the second they walk out into the open. Character duels arent supposed to end in 1 second as whichever participant in the duel charged unleashes a dozen attacks that re-rolll hits, re-roll wounds, deal exploding mortal wounds on a 6 to instantly kill their opponent. Huge unstoppable warmachines should not be effortlessly shattered by the first volley of firepower that's flung their way, before they even fire a single shot.
Warhammer 40,000 9th edition is a USELESS system for re-creating the background fiction of the warhammer 40,000 universe.
Go on - try to replicate Marneus Calgar's epic duel with the swarmlord. I'll save you the mathhammer - he dies. Instantly. Probably about twice over.
Set up a huge ork horde assaulting a skitarii strongpoint - watch 150 ork boyz melt like butter under a blowtorch during the first admech player's turn.
the_scotsman wrote: If you disagree that 40k is absurdly complex on the tabletop ATM, I would encourage you to try teaching a new person who is not initiated to play.
I would call the cops if I came across this in public.
"No, officer, he's on page 3 of the stratagems, you may need to call SWAT."
Honestly, the thing that really made it clear to me was playing AoS, some friends were playing around with PtG, I had never played before, but I play chaos, I have a bunch of daemons and such, I gave it a try. It's like night and day, it's like any designer with half a brain ended up on the AoS team and every idiot intern was banished to 40k.
TwinPoleTheory wrote: The lethality and complexity of the game have been amplified to what I feel is an unhealthy degree. It doesn't seem to favor casual engagement and participation anymore.
I agree in the lethality, disagree on complexity. Most of the game is now decided during list building, just like MTG is determined by deck building. For the most part in 40k you are just kinda along for the ride.
If you disagree that 40k is absurdly complex on the tabletop ATM, I would encourage you to try teaching a new person who is not initiated to play.
"Ok, so here's our 500-point engagement. I've got my HQ character, a Techpriest Manipulus, and my troops unit, a unit of skitarii, and one squad of kataphron battle servitors"
"So we've got the distant forgeworlds sub-faction which I've chosen this trait A as my primary and this trait B as my tertiary. My manipulus has been upgraded to Logi, which means I can use a battle tactic stratagem for free once per turn, and also all friendly CORE units within 6" ignore AP-1 and AP-2 until I perform an action with the manipulus to change that ability to a different ability. Now, the Kataphrons aren't usually CORE, but i've got a warlord trait on the manipulus that allows them to become CORE for rules purposes temporarily, and also a Relic which allows me to select an enemy unit to fight last. Now, of course, by fight last, that means after all units have fought, unless you are under the effect of a Fight First rule which means we fight normally, but because of the sequencing I would still select the first unit during the fight normal fight subphase of your turn, so I would get to swing first if I selected you for that relic rule. The manipulus can also repair a friendly unit within 3" for D3 damage at the end of the movement phase, and can select a friendly unit in the Command Phase to grant them additional range and a point of AP. Are you following so far? So the skitarii have a stratagem..."
My point to this would be.
Try teaching someone current 40k. Now try and teach them HH, or 7th ed.
If you disagree that 40k is absurdly complex on the tabletop ATM, I would encourage you to try teaching a new person who is not initiated to play.
Spoiler:
"Ok, so here's our 500-point engagement. I've got my HQ character, a Techpriest Manipulus, and my troops unit, a unit of skitarii, and one squad of kataphron battle servitors"
"So we've got the distant forgeworlds sub-faction which I've chosen this trait A as my primary and this trait B as my tertiary. My manipulus has been upgraded to Logi, which means I can use a battle tactic stratagem for free once per turn, and also all friendly CORE units within 6" ignore AP-1 and AP-2 until I perform an action with the manipulus to change that ability to a different ability. Now, the Kataphrons aren't usually CORE, but i've got a warlord trait on the manipulus that allows them to become CORE for rules purposes temporarily, and also a Relic which allows me to select an enemy unit to fight last. Now, of course, by fight last, that means after all units have fought, unless you are under the effect of a Fight First rule which means we fight normally, but because of the sequencing I would still select the first unit during the fight normal fight subphase of your turn, so I would get to swing first if I selected you for that relic rule. The manipulus can also repair a friendly unit within 3" for D3 damage at the end of the movement phase, and can select a friendly unit in the Command Phase to grant them additional range and a point of AP. Are you following so far? So the skitarii have a stratagem..."
I like how your example is basically tailormade to make things as complicated as possible by having the army be one of the more complex ones from the outset while also using custom Forge World traits and one of the most mealy-mouthed characters to date in the form of the Manipulus.
The key to doing any kind of introductory games, at any point in time in 40k's history, has always been starting small and building up. Your example isn't teaching anybody anything.
If you disagree that 40k is absurdly complex on the tabletop ATM, I would encourage you to try teaching a new person who is not initiated to play.
Been there, done that. Several times in the past few weeks in fact. And I expect to do it several more times soon.
It went relatively smoothly every time. The biggest hurdle any of the new players faced was remembering their own strats.
TwinPoleTheory wrote: The lethality and complexity of the game have been amplified to what I feel is an unhealthy degree. It doesn't seem to favor casual engagement and participation anymore.
I agree in the lethality, disagree on complexity. Most of the game is now decided during list building, just like MTG is determined by deck building. For the most part in 40k you are just kinda along for the ride.
People say this and then go 0-5 with tooled up turbo cheese all the time. Same with MTG actually.
List building is incredibly important (just like any game that allows you to construct your own force), but people over-estimate how important it is because they forget that eventually they're going to have to play against good players ALSO using powerful armies. I guarantee that you or I could do 100 matches against Sean Nayden or Nick Nanavati with both players using the exact same list and still lose 80 of them.
If you disagree that 40k is absurdly complex on the tabletop ATM, I would encourage you to try teaching a new person who is not initiated to play.
Spoiler:
"Ok, so here's our 500-point engagement. I've got my HQ character, a Techpriest Manipulus, and my troops unit, a unit of skitarii, and one squad of kataphron battle servitors"
"So we've got the distant forgeworlds sub-faction which I've chosen this trait A as my primary and this trait B as my tertiary. My manipulus has been upgraded to Logi, which means I can use a battle tactic stratagem for free once per turn, and also all friendly CORE units within 6" ignore AP-1 and AP-2 until I perform an action with the manipulus to change that ability to a different ability. Now, the Kataphrons aren't usually CORE, but i've got a warlord trait on the manipulus that allows them to become CORE for rules purposes temporarily, and also a Relic which allows me to select an enemy unit to fight last. Now, of course, by fight last, that means after all units have fought, unless you are under the effect of a Fight First rule which means we fight normally, but because of the sequencing I would still select the first unit during the fight normal fight subphase of your turn, so I would get to swing first if I selected you for that relic rule. The manipulus can also repair a friendly unit within 3" for D3 damage at the end of the movement phase, and can select a friendly unit in the Command Phase to grant them additional range and a point of AP. Are you following so far? So the skitarii have a stratagem..."
I like how your example is basically tailormade to make things as complicated as possible by having the army be one of the more complex ones from the outset while also using custom Forge World traits and one of the most mealy-mouthed characters to date in the form of the Manipulus.
The key to doing any kind of introductory games, at any point in time in 40k's history, has always been starting small and building up. Your example isn't teaching anybody anything.
Yeah, me giving an example of a 500-point game with 3 units sure was disingenuous
Nothing in 40k scales. At all. You play a 500-point intro game? You've got to deal with Relics, Warlord Traits, Doctrines, 2 subfaction rules, Auras, micro equipment options, CORE, Detachments, 3 pages of stratagems, all at once, and the lethality inherent in the system gets really REALLY stupid when you have your 1 unit (1/3 of your army) obliterate 1 of your opponent's units (1/3 of their army) in a single shooting attack. Which happens. A lot.
An intro game of Sigmar? None of that.
-Detachments? Optional. And if you do include them? They give you one, fairly easy to remember bonus.
-Command Abilities? Youre going to each have the same core set of 6 or so, 1-2 per phase, and you might, might have 1 leader character who adds 1 additional one, printed right on their datasheet.
-Relics? Warlord traits? 1 each, again, far less impactful than in 40k. No option to buy more for your units.
Subfactions? Maybe 1 with 1 rule. No real way to soup any allies in at the 500-point level because AOS actually has limits on that.
Hell - you can play an intro game of AOS on a table with NO TERRAIN if you want, and it FEELS LIKE A GAME instead of a hilarious elaborate practical joke you're playing on your friend where they go "no, no, seriously - what do you actually do with these little models? it's not this. Is it really this?"
You CAN introduce 40k by ignoring like 75% of the meaningless add-on rules layers. You can just bring 500 points of miniatures, and ignore Detachments. You can ignore CP and Strats. You can ignore subfactions/traits/relics/doctrines/preferred sandwich flavors.
But other games dont actually require you to do that, is the thing. Other games, you can just introduce someone by playing the game. And it works. Hell - what, 4 years ago? I could introduce someone to 40k without any of that needless crap - and that WAS the whole game!
Re: the complexity,
Being someone who just came back to the game after last playing during 5th edition, it definitely feels more complex. Back then, I think we always just played kill points (there were 5 of us in our college dorm that played together, so no clue about the LGS scene). I could be wrong, it's been a while...maybe there were objectives... I should go dig out the 5th edition rules again and check. Imperial Guard (my faction of choice) had orders, but strategems definitely weren't a thing. I feel like determining line of sight was simpler and terrain was waaay simpler for sure. On the other hand, the current reinforcement rules are simpler and gone are the days of scatter dice and templates (although I do miss my pie plates dearly). [edit: the post after mine also reminded me that vehicle armor and position is far simpler now] When I got back in I played a 500 point Imperial Guard vs (old) Tau match against my wife and taught her/learned the new edition. I think we would have been better off if we avoided strategems all together, but overall, it felt about on par with a moderately complex board game. My suggestion for teaching new folk is 500pt non-battleforged (thus cutting out all the strategems).
On the topic of the meta, I always play against the same opponent these days (one of my college friends) and we both like playing fluffy lists. So in terms of competitive meta? No impact on me personally as I don't play out in the wild. In terms of codex creep (which you may or may not feel is included in the term "meta")? Huge impact. I play guard and he plays thousand sons and eldar. I'm used to losing against him (he's better at the game than me and back in 5th eldar could do cruel things to vehicles), so I'm not bothered by losing to him now, but it'd be nice if I could at least make him work for it using the sort of army build I love (it's got to be getting a bit boring for him). I look at any secondary that requires me to remove a unit and immediately assume I will get very few points from it. A pair of tempestus scion squads with their tempestor prime in a valkyrie do most of the secondary objective work in my 1250pt list.
TwinPoleTheory wrote: The lethality and complexity of the game have been amplified to what I feel is an unhealthy degree. It doesn't seem to favor casual engagement and participation anymore.
I agree in the lethality, disagree on complexity. Most of the game is now decided during list building, just like MTG is determined by deck building. For the most part in 40k you are just kinda along for the ride.
If you disagree that 40k is absurdly complex on the tabletop ATM, I would encourage you to try teaching a new person who is not initiated to play.
"Ok, so here's our 500-point engagement. I've got my HQ character, a Techpriest Manipulus, and my troops unit, a unit of skitarii, and one squad of kataphron battle servitors"
"So we've got the distant forgeworlds sub-faction which I've chosen this trait A as my primary and this trait B as my tertiary. My manipulus has been upgraded to Logi, which means I can use a battle tactic stratagem for free once per turn, and also all friendly CORE units within 6" ignore AP-1 and AP-2 until I perform an action with the manipulus to change that ability to a different ability. Now, the Kataphrons aren't usually CORE, but i've got a warlord trait on the manipulus that allows them to become CORE for rules purposes temporarily, and also a Relic which allows me to select an enemy unit to fight last. Now, of course, by fight last, that means after all units have fought, unless you are under the effect of a Fight First rule which means we fight normally, but because of the sequencing I would still select the first unit during the fight normal fight subphase of your turn, so I would get to swing first if I selected you for that relic rule. The manipulus can also repair a friendly unit within 3" for D3 damage at the end of the movement phase, and can select a friendly unit in the Command Phase to grant them additional range and a point of AP. Are you following so far? So the skitarii have a stratagem..."
My point to this would be.
Try teaching someone current 40k. Now try and teach them HH, or 7th ed.
TBF, Horus Heresy and 7th were hard to teach because so many of the rules are so stupid. Also, the complexity they do have is purely topical. The old 7th edition rulebook required a player memorize 35 pages of rules (I counted, back in the day) just to be able to reach into their figure case, grab a model, place it on the table, and move it into cover. The easiest, most basic tactical decision you could possibly make, 35 pages of rules.
That extended to quite a lot of other aspects of those rulesets as well. 10 pages of rules for vehicle armor, only to realize that vehicles detonate like water balloons no matter where they get shot from. Another 10 pages for template rules, only to realize that template weapons are either completely worthless OR they kick out so MANY templates that you end up rolling fistfuls of dice regardless of where they land.
Dozens of pages and a big chart for assault rules, only to realize there isn't a SINGLE point of tactical interaction ANYWHERE in melee combat (challenges are so obviously either 'yes' or 'no' that they're not a tactical decision either.)
The tournament scene does infect everything I've seen. For a large portion of 9th my play group has been pretty well isolated and insulated from stores (mostly due to COVID, but we'll move on from that). Lately, though, we've been trying to counter that by playing narrative scenarios out at our local shops... just taking a table and having a lot of fun. We recruit based off of the experience we're making at the table, which isn't rooted in winning, losing, some grand epic narrative... just having a good time.
We're starting to bring in more players, no like huge explosion in our group... just one here or there. Like-minded people who play with us for the experience, and they understand what they're going to get out of the game going in. We're also around enough to know who just can't switch off, and we avoid them. We're not so desperate for a game that we'll throw down with someone who clearly has a different expectation of what they're getting out of the match.
I think a lot of the relaxed players got driven underground into their own little pods that slowly wither and die as life exerts its inevitable influence. And I just told me friends: we have a great time, we have great looking armies, why don't we share all of that instead of keeping it as some secret between ourselves. And sure enough, it's had at least a little impact on some of the other players around. Or at least shows a bit more of the original spirit of the game, that helps fight back against the current theme that seems to have the hobby in a deathgrip.
Yeah, me giving an example of a 500-point game with 3 units sure was disingenuous
No, you using Mechanicus with custom subfactions is disingenuous. You using a Manipulus with a Holy Order is disingenuous.
Nothing in 40k scales. At all. You play a 500-point intro game? You've got to deal with Relics, Warlord Traits, Doctrines, 2 subfaction rules, Auras, micro equipment options, CORE, Detachments, 3 pages of stratagems, all at once, and the lethality inherent in the system gets really REALLY stupid when you have your 1 unit (1/3 of your army) obliterate 1 of your opponent's units (1/3 of their army) in a single shooting attack. Which happens. A lot.
Sounds like it should be way easier to teach 40k then, since it's going to be over "in a single shooting attack".
An intro game of Sigmar? None of that.
-Detachments? Optional. And if you do include them? They give you one, fairly easy to remember bonus.
Uh, no they really don't. There are 6 different perks that the different Battalions in the main rulebook can give.
-Command Abilities? Youre going to each have the same core set of 6 or so, 1-2 per phase, and you might, might have 1 leader character who adds 1 additional one, printed right on their datasheet.
Or you might have a subfaction specific one. Or a Realm specific one. Or, or, or.
I mean there's a whole category called "Enhancements" that can apply specifically to heroes. Aspect of Azyr lumps 4 potential additional rules onto Stormcast Eternals heroes, for example.
-Relics? Warlord traits? 1 each, again, far less impactful than in 40k. No option to buy more for your units.
Yet.
Subfactions? Maybe 1 with 1 rule.
...are you for real?
Subfactions in AoS can outright affect the way your army is built, courtesy of "Battleline If..." units.
No real way to soup any allies in at the 500-point level because AOS actually has limits on that.
Other than y'know, things like the Stormkeep rules.
Hell - you can play an intro game of AOS on a table with NO TERRAIN if you want, and it FEELS LIKE A GAME instead of a hilarious elaborate practical joke you're playing on your friend where they go "no, no, seriously - what do you actually do with these little models? it's not this. Is it really this?"
You CAN introduce 40k by ignoring like 75% of the meaningless add-on rules layers. You can just bring 500 points of miniatures, and ignore Detachments. You can ignore CP and Strats. You can ignore subfactions/traits/relics/doctrines/preferred sandwich flavors.
Or you CAN introduce 40k by simply playing a Combat Patrol box, right out of the box.
But other games dont actually require you to do that, is the thing. Other games, you can just introduce someone by playing the game. And it works. Hell - what, 4 years ago? I could introduce someone to 40k without any of that needless crap - and that WAS the whole game!
Code One was Infinity's "intro game".
Their game was so needlessly pants on head idiotically complex they needed to make a whole separate game to make it suitable for introduction.
I can scale 40k down. I'm not a wizard or Thanos, snapping my will into existence. It just requires actually playing the damn game rather than trying to introduce someone to everything all at once.
Their game was so needlessly pants on head idiotically complex they needed to make a whole separate game to make it suitable for introduction.
N3 infinity was already much less complex than current 40k. N4 and Code one made the game even more simple.
40k right now IS the hardest game to learn. hell, even as a semi-veteran, i have a harder time than ever parsing the codexes and understanding how every part moves
OP: To an extent it does. One LGS has more tourney minded folks and my games there tend to be quite challenging. At the other LGS, there are much fewer tourney players and I don't see the extreme Meta builds (flavor of the month armies).
Regarding teaching 40K.
I've actually been teaching my 15 y.o. son how to play 40K. To be honest, there is a LOT of layers in this game, by design. However, there was no reason to go all in the first few games. We've gradually increased in points and complexity each game. Below is how I opted to tackle the complexity issue to try and have fun games.
-I build the armies (I own them and he's using my Dark Angels). This allows a bit of control to not skew one army over another and to introduce various unit types.
-The games so far have been 750 pts., 750 pts., 1000 pts., 1250 pts.
-First game, no stratagems. Second and third game, just the basic rulebook stratagems. Fourth game, using some of the Codex stratagems.
-First two games were just force vs force. Third and fourth games utilized 2022 GT Missions, but only selected one Secondary Objective.
-He painted his first model (Dark Angels Lieutenant) to add to the collection. Now, as I type, he is learning the basics of airbrushing on a Repulsor tank. He was bugging me to be able to get the tank painted for the next game.
-Next game will be 1500 points.
The game is quite complex with all the layers, but it can be introduced in phases. I whole heartedly agree if I threw him into the game with a full 2000 point army with all the rules, I'd like see him go back to play X-Box instead of learning about the GW hobby. I've had a blast over the decades playling 40K and pretty stoked to see him getting into it.
There are several ways to teach 40K, I'm sure. This happened to work for me and circumstances are always unique to each individual. Phasing in complexity helped quite a bit.
If you feel the need to throw out 90% of the rules in an intro game, it's a complex game.
Whether that complexity is good or bad is a separate discussion. There's certainly something to be said for cool and fluffy rules.
But...
I've played games that have as much tactical depth as 40k that I can present all the rules to a player in their first game and have them using them.
They might not be using them effectively, because the depth comes from positioning and set ups and stuff, but they'll know all the rules.
In 40k you cannot throw the book at someone because their brain will simply melt.
I'm a seasoned wargamer who can handle information quite efficiently in general, yet I still need to keep my nose in the book playing because I can't keep everything I need in my head, it's too much.
kirotheavenger wrote: If you feel the need to throw out 90% of the rules in an intro game, it's a complex game.
Whether that complexity is good or bad is a separate discussion. There's certainly something to be said for cool and fluffy rules.
But...
I've played games that have as much tactical depth as 40k that I can present all the rules to a player in their first game and have them using them.
They might not be using them effectively, because the depth comes from positioning and set ups and stuff, but they'll know all the rules.
In 40k you cannot throw the book at someone because their brain will simply melt.
I'm a seasoned wargamer who can handle information quite efficiently in general, yet I still need to keep my nose in the book playing because I can't keep everything I need in my head, it's too much.
There is a lot to the game, I agree. That's why I didn't utilize everything. To be fair, when I learned how to play Rogue Trader in the late 80's, I'm fairly certain I didn't use all the rules back then. Not a big deal really. What's cool is I can literally play a very basic game of 40K or I can play more complex games in larger tourneys (which I do). It's fun and I've really enjoyed 9th edition.
kirotheavenger wrote: If you feel the need to throw out 90% of the rules in an intro game, it's a complex game.
Whether that complexity is good or bad is a separate discussion. There's certainly something to be said for cool and fluffy rules.
But...
I've played games that have as much tactical depth as 40k that I can present all the rules to a player in their first game and have them using them.
They might not be using them effectively, because the depth comes from positioning and set ups and stuff, but they'll know all the rules.
In 40k you cannot throw the book at someone because their brain will simply melt.
I'm a seasoned wargamer who can handle information quite efficiently in general, yet I still need to keep my nose in the book playing because I can't keep everything I need in my head, it's too much.
yeah, even teaching infinity doesnt throw out nearly as much stuff as 40k.
First game : no hacking, no fireteams
Second game : hacking
third game: everything
every game after : git gud and develop strategies that work
the_scotsman wrote: If you disagree that 40k is absurdly complex on the tabletop ATM, I would encourage you to try teaching a new person who is not initiated to play.
"Ok, so here's our 500-point engagement. I've got my HQ character, a Techpriest Manipulus, and my troops unit, a unit of skitarii, and one squad of kataphron battle servitors"
"So we've got the distant forgeworlds sub-faction which I've chosen this trait A as my primary and this trait B as my tertiary. My manipulus has been upgraded to Logi, which means I can use a battle tactic stratagem for free once per turn, and also all friendly CORE units within 6" ignore AP-1 and AP-2 until I perform an action with the manipulus to change that ability to a different ability. Now, the Kataphrons aren't usually CORE, but i've got a warlord trait on the manipulus that allows them to become CORE for rules purposes temporarily, and also a Relic which allows me to select an enemy unit to fight last. Now, of course, by fight last, that means after all units have fought, unless you are under the effect of a Fight First rule which means we fight normally, but because of the sequencing I would still select the first unit during the fight normal fight subphase of your turn, so I would get to swing first if I selected you for that relic rule. The manipulus can also repair a friendly unit within 3" for D3 damage at the end of the movement phase, and can select a friendly unit in the Command Phase to grant them additional range and a point of AP. Are you following so far? So the skitarii have a stratagem..."
My point to this would be.
Try teaching someone current 40k. Now try and teach them HH, or 7th ed.
My sudden moment of 'what on earth is going on with 40K?' clarity came when I had a local new player try HH and then try 9th, and the latter gave him a lot more trouble.
Horus Heresy is unnecessarily complex in the core mechanics (particularly unit types and vehicles), and the USRs aren't laid out in an especially intuitive way, but he was able to mostly play along just by checking Battlescribe when necessary and being reminded about core rules. Whereas when we got to 40K it was constantly flipping back and forth to understand how doctrines work, how subfaction traits work, what stratagems he could use, what warlord traits and relics units had, and what auras were active, and he clearly was having a hard time understanding the capabilities of adversary units. We dramatically pared down the rules for the next game- but we didn't have to do that for a 1000pt HH game.
Scotsman makes a great point that nothing scales in 40K. In a 1000pt HH game we didn't have to deal with the complexity of monstrous flying creature rules, Rites of War, or all the layered rules of Primarchs. Just playing a smaller game means lesser complexity. 40K doesn't work that way; the complexity comes from things that are present regardless of what scale you play at.
kirotheavenger wrote: If you feel the need to throw out 90% of the rules in an intro game, it's a complex game. Whether that complexity is good or bad is a separate discussion. There's certainly something to be said for cool and fluffy rules. But...
I've played games that have as much tactical depth as 40k that I can present all the rules to a player in their first game and have them using them. They might not be using them effectively, because the depth comes from positioning and set ups and stuff, but they'll know all the rules.
In 40k you cannot throw the book at someone because their brain will simply melt.
I'm a seasoned wargamer who can handle information quite efficiently in general, yet I still need to keep my nose in the book playing because I can't keep everything I need in my head, it's too much.
yeah, even teaching infinity doesnt throw out nearly as much stuff as 40k.
First game : no hacking, no fireteams Second game : hacking third game: everything every game after : git gud and develop strategies that work
What you're meaning to say is, in reality: First game: no hacking, no fireteams, no sectorials, no real interactions between things. Second game: hacking gets introduced. Third game: Camo, MSV Beyond that: Git gud and netlist.
But, again, this also feels like it goes back to a lack of someone who actually can teach a wargame. And for what it's worth? You shouldn't be paring back one game while just dumping everything for another game out there. I wouldn't ever try to teach someone something by just throwing them in.
If you're teaching someone who has ZERO reference point for a wargame? Don't just dump it all on them. Stagger it out.
Scotsman makes a great point that nothing scales in 40K. In a 1000pt HH game we didn't have to deal with the complexity of monstrous flying creature rules, Rites of War, or all the layered rules of Primarchs. Just playing a smaller game means lesser complexity. 40K doesn't work that way; the complexity comes from things that are present regardless of what scale you play at.
The complexity comes from players and what they tend to do, not from "things that are present regardless of what scale you play at". And by this, yes I am taking shots at anyone who suggests you need to memorize everything in a codex or the rules. There's nothing preventing you from making a cheat sheet, index cards, or using things like the datacards.
If I'm teaching someone the game? I'm not throwing a full 1500 point list at them the first game. I'm not throwing a Mechanicus list with a Magos, Servitors, etc in it. I'm also not going to make them write their own list to start with. I'm going to ask them what they have and what they want to learn first, then write a list accordingly or help them write their list to match what they want to do.
Also not gonna enforce WYSIWYG because who the hell does that in an intro game?
Hecaton wrote: I can't play casual games with my infantry Harlequins because every time I win it's because of my broken models and not because I outplayed my opponent. When they win obviously everything is fine.
Well, I don't play casual games with tier 1 armies. GK were top tier for a while as are Harlies now. Similarly for Drukhari.
My opponents are pissed off if I run such an army which is better suited for competitive play or tourneys.
For casual play, I'm more into BA or Ultramarines and also the Eldar/CW which at least in my book are not top tier.
It's the only army I have together right now. Working on orks.
But you're implying that I did something wrong, and I didn't. I bought an army I enjoy thematically and am playing it in not the most busted way possible. But because GW couldn't balance a perfect sphere on flat ground, I get grief for it.
Hecaton wrote: I can't play casual games with my infantry Harlequins because every time I win it's because of my broken models and not because I outplayed my opponent. When they win obviously everything is fine.
What are the usual OpFor options in your group, Hecaton?
If everyone else is playing the likes of Guard, Daemons and Orks, I could kinda see their POV.
A lot of space marines, who are the ones who have an issue with my army choice the most, some Tau and Necrons.
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Tittliewinks22 wrote: By catering to the tournament expectations GW have optimized the fun out of their game.
They have not catered to tournament players. I love playing in minis tournaments and I don't feel catered to - I can't trust the balance.
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Tiberias wrote: I guess thats the whole point of making this thread: if you have the opportunity to constructively talk to your gaming partner/group, the meta should not affect your enjoyment of the game that much. Well, IF the goal is to have fun together and not to play competitively or practice for a tournament.
You're implying that playing a game to win is not having fun. That's absolute bull. I find scrubby "participation trophy" kind of play absolutely unfun, and I respect opponents who do their best to outthink and outplay me. Toning things down to equalize for player skill is the most braindead way to play 40k I can think of - a minis game should feel like a battle of wits. Infinity or ASOIAF often does. 40k almost never does.
Other people have fun playing other ways; I like narrative sorts of things a lot. I like the setting, after all, and it's cool to develop characters for your armies. But this idea that the only proper way to have fun is by re-balancing the game is absolute bunk. How about GW balance it right from the start so I don't have to spend time becoming an amateur game designer?
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Kanluwen wrote: What you're meaning to say is, in reality:
First game: no hacking, no fireteams, no sectorials, no real interactions between things.
Second game: hacking gets introduced.
Third game: Camo, MSV Beyond that: Git gud and netlist.
There's a lot less netlisting in Infinity than in 40k, kid.
Tiberias wrote: I guess thats the whole point of making this thread: if you have the opportunity to constructively talk to your gaming partner/group, the meta should not affect your enjoyment of the game that much. Well, IF the goal is to have fun together and not to play competitively or practice for a tournament.
You're implying that playing a game to win is not having fun. That's absolute bull. I find scrubby "participation trophy" kind of play absolutely unfun, and I respect opponents who do their best to outthink and outplay me. Toning things down to equalize for player skill is the most braindead way to play 40k I can think of - a minis game should feel like a battle of wits. Infinity or ASOIAF often does. 40k almost never does.
Other people have fun playing other ways; I like narrative sorts of things a lot. I like the setting, after all, and it's cool to develop characters for your armies. But this idea that the only proper way to have fun is by re-balancing the game is absolute bunk. How about GW balance it right from the start so I don't have to spend time becoming an amateur game designer?
God you are so full of yourself it's actually unbelievable. Btw how long until you derail the thread by starting to accuse people again of being fascists because they play an imperium faction and enjoy the lore? Seen it so often it's basically a given with you.
How is talking to a person before the game and agreeing to not bring tooled up meta lists akin to a participation trophy? You still have to play against the person an win.
I also did not imply that winning is not fun. The feth did you get that from again? The point is that playing against harlequin void weavers with guard is a forgone conclusion and not fun for the guard player....you can try to remedy that at least in a friendly game by talking to the person you are playing with and maybe agreeing that the Harlequin player tries out a more experimental list, that maybe even specifically plays badly into guard. Guard player actually gets to play the game, Harlequin player doesn't win by default. How is that concept so difficult to understand?
How is talking to a person before the game and agreeing to not bring tooled up meta lists akin to a participation trophy?
If my opponent would tell me that he is not going to use certain grabs , because he is a head+ higher then me, I would either think he is trying to play match ups or trying to pre game make me angry, by making fun of me. Plus the whole argument only works if all or most players own big collections, maybe even multiple armies. If most or everyone has close to what is the avarge match played game for given edition, an opponent may not have models to replace the good ones. And in some cases like DE gunboats full of troops, I don't even know if someone could replace them with something.
Guard player actually gets to play the game, Harlequin player doesn't win by default. How is that concept so difficult to understand?
If the other side doesn't play to their best ability, and plays on purpose then it not playing. those it either pretending to play or something like grand parents letting you win at chess or vist.
There's a lot less netlisting in Infinity than in 40k
But that is because in infinity taking one less optimal option doesn't cripple the army. People even play less efficient armies, because the "bad" ones in most cases still allow you to play. If someone builds a demi company of marines or a footslogger harlequin army with no vehicles, they are not going to have a good time playing. And the difference between a good and bad option in a codex is huge. Just to use my factions strikes and termintors as an example.
How is talking to a person before the game and agreeing to not bring tooled up meta lists akin to a participation trophy?
If my opponent would tell me that he is not going to use certain grabs , because he is a head+ higher then me, I would either think he is trying to play match ups or trying to pre game make me angry, by making fun of me. Plus the whole argument only works if all or most players own big collections, maybe even multiple armies. If most or everyone has close to what is the avarge match played game for given edition, an opponent may not have models to replace the good ones. And in some cases like DE gunboats full of troops, I don't even know if someone could replace them with something.
Guard player actually gets to play the game, Harlequin player doesn't win by default. How is that concept so difficult to understand?
If the other side doesn't play to their best ability, and plays on purpose then it not playing. those it either pretending to play or something like grand parents letting you win at chess or vist.
Geez what kind of hellhole do you live in? If you play a game with a friend and you know your army has a 75%winrate and your buddy's army has a 30% winrate because it's still an 8th Ed codex for example....so you both agree that the person with the 75% winrate army takes a more experimental or fun list so that both actually get to play the game, you still have to actually play the game! How is that letting the other person win or making fun of them?
And the limited collection argument is moot in this specific example, because you can actually play 1500p or 1000p games....even 1250p games. Shocking I know.
Umbros wrote: Why do you engage with Karol in these ways - don't take the bait!
I'm just sick of this BS reasoning by parts of the community. People complain about the meta, about the game being too lethal and too unbalanced and at the same time the very same people complain about participation trophies when you suggest that at least for friendly games you can actually try to do something about it, so that the game may even be enjoyable for both parties?! Come the feth on.
Umbros wrote: Why do you engage with Karol in these ways - don't take the bait!
I'm just sick of this BS reasoning by parts of the community. People complain about the meta, about the game being too lethal and too unbalanced and at the same time the very same people complain about participation trophies when you suggest that at least for friendly games you can actually try to do something about it, so that the game may even be enjoyable for both parties?! Come the feth on.
on here it's pretty much only Karol that's pretending the community is like that, 99% of people ive played would much rather accomodate to a weaker army and have a real game than curbstomp a noob with a meta list
My army has no chance against Crusher Stampede, Harlequins, Custards, Eldar, Tau. I have a chance albeit slight, against Drukhari and Ad-Mech.
So the game is fairly boring at the competitive level since if you aren't playing one of the above mentioned armies you really don't have much of a chance to win.
There are a lot more people that have crushing communities than you may believe.
Its just that most people just aren't interested in the forum drama or conflict so just keep their mouth shut about it.
Competitive groups exist, and flourish, in many areas and in those groups people don't play down to others. They expect others to up their game instead.
They also won't deviate from 2000 points because thats not tournament standard, and "friendly games" are to a lot of people a tuning game to practice for the next tournament.
Thats exactly the community I left and one reason i sold all my gw stuff off. You either chased the meta with them or you didn't get any games in.
auticus wrote: There are a lot more people that have crushing communities than you may believe.
Its just that most people just aren't interested in the forum drama or conflict so just keep their mouth shut about it.
Competitive groups exist, and flourish, in many areas and in those groups people don't play down to others. They expect others to up their game instead.
They also won't deviate from 2000 points because thats not tournament standard, and "friendly games" are to a lot of people a tuning game to practice for the next tournament.
Thats exactly the community I left and one reason i sold all my gw stuff off. You either chased the meta with them or you didn't get any games in.
Isn't that a bit of a black and white fallacy? It can't just be either pure competitive or let's play crusade. I refuse to believe that there are no competitive communities who won't "play down" to others or deviate from 2000p.
Edit: and what's preventing a FLGS from introducing and evening "anti-meta" with purposefully experimental and fun lists in addition to having competitive events? Worst thing that could happen is that people actually have fun and attract new players who might be dissuaded by the apparently extremely toxic competitive scene.
"playing down" to others requires immense knowledge of the game.
Two new players, one picks up Khorne Daemons and the other Custodes.
Even without running any jetbikes, the Custodes army will just crush the Khorne army. "Playing down" requires essentially not playing custodes - which is what I was trying to illustrate earlier with Baneblades.
Asking people to play down is telling them to switch armies because the army is too good, which is exactly as sinful as asking people to play up and telling them to switch armies because the army is too bad.
The real solution is for the game developer to balance their game, and allow players to buy what is cool, instead of forcing the players to buy models based on their game performance. Because that's what this is. Either the bad player must buy good models to update their army, or the good player must buy bad models to update theirs.
In my experience, folks preparing for a tourney are not looking to stomp a casual player. They are looking to practice under tourney conditions. As such, I find that even folks who play in tourneys are prepared to tone things down when asked or aware of the situation. Now, they may find that their table time is too limited so they focus on tourney prep games. There is nothing wrong with that. I play in local tourneys and I am happy to adjust since what exactly am I fighting for on a given Saturday pick-up game?
We put pick-up games on hold during COVID as all matches had to be pre-arranged due to contact tracing requirements. We were able, therefore, to determine what the other player was looking for before the game. It was fairly straightforward with no drama. Its an effective practice to avoid major mismatches.
At a pickup game I am thinking about 70% competitiveness in terms of list tuning. I am prepared to tune it down for a new or returning player.
At tourneys, if you have an off-meta army then the magic of Swiss Pairing should give you better games as the rounds progress. In any case, you probably know going in what you are in for. Doesn't always work out, but we Marine players joked before our last tourney that we'd only ever have to face Tau and Custodes in the first round and then they could have fun bashing each other for top honours while we fought each other at the "kids' tables" for the wooden spoon.
Isn't that a bit of a black and white fallacy? It can't just be either pure competitive or let's play crusade. I refuse to believe that there are no competitive communities who won't "play down" to others or deviate from 2000p.
We can nitpick it and call it logical fallacy all day long. Thats fine. At the end of the day, if one can't find games that they enjoy it doesn't matter if its a logical fallacy. They can't find games they enjoy and don't want to go through the hassle of fighting to get games that aren't super competitive.
I'm sure that there are competitive communities that will play down - and here's the thing - I NEVER SAID THAT ALL COMPETITIVE COMMUNITIES WERE LIKE THAT - I said that the one I came out of was like that. Because its great if you come from a community that plays down or knows what for-fun is, I applaud you! And everyone that has that. Thats great! If you don't have that though - you have an uphill nasty battle of trying to get people to play in a non competitive casual / for-fun way in a very competitive region - there is a lot of gamer politics and turf wars to get through that to a lot of people isn't really worth it. The juice isn't really worth the squeeze, and having a great community 100 miles away in a different town is wonderful - except no one really expects people to up and move just to have a better gaming group.
Edit: and what's preventing a FLGS from introducing and evening "anti-meta" with purposefully experimental and fun lists in addition to having competitive events?
They would have been boycotted by the competitive player group that was massive, and lost a lot of business, so they didn't involve themselves in gaming drama and just let people play however they wanted on their tables so long as they were spending money. This did happen and did cause the stores that tried that to end up getting rid of their tabletop gaming stock, because the competitive gamers were the lion's share of the business (the only store in that area immune seemed to be the GW store which had a 60 minute table limit so few people actually played there, they just bought stuff)
TLDR - when you have to fight and politic to get fun games in - its not worth the effort to some people. I did it for 20+ years, and that included being screamed at, my facebook hacked, being challenged to fight in the parking lot for "teaching players wrong", and all other kinds of drama i'd never repeat again just to play narrative 40k/warhammer which lit a powder keg to the very deep competitive playing group that took offense to public games being played like that.
The group that was very popular where I left would never play down. Ever. They expected you to play up or go home. They say it all the time on their discord. I sat there and watched two players in that group come to the store, unpack, and the one guy go "i can't beat your list, i didn't bring the right list, do you want to do something else?" and they played xwing instead, because the concept of the other guy toning down was the equivalent of a moderate to severe insult to those people that would cost you opponents and being part of the community.
Isn't that a bit of a black and white fallacy? It can't just be either pure competitive or let's play crusade. I refuse to believe that there are no competitive communities who won't "play down" to others or deviate from 2000p.
We can nitpick it and call it logical fallacy all day long. Thats fine. At the end of the day, if one can't find games that they enjoy it doesn't matter if its a logical fallacy. They can't find games they enjoy and don't want to go through the hassle of fighting to get games that aren't super competitive.
I'm sure that there are competitive communities that will play down - and here's the thing - I NEVER SAID THAT ALL COMPETITIVE COMMUNITIES WERE LIKE THAT - I said that the one I came out of was like that. Because its great if you come from a community that plays down or knows what for-fun is, I applaud you! And everyone that has that. Thats great! If you don't have that though - you have an uphill nasty battle of trying to get people to play in a non competitive casual / for-fun way in a very competitive region - there is a lot of gamer politics and turf wars to get through that to a lot of people isn't really worth it. The juice isn't really worth the squeeze, and having a great community 100 miles away in a different town is wonderful - except no one really expects people to up and move just to have a better gaming group.
Edit: and what's preventing a FLGS from introducing and evening "anti-meta" with purposefully experimental and fun lists in addition to having competitive events?
They would have been boycotted by the competitive player group that was massive, and lost a lot of business, so they didn't involve themselves in gaming drama and just let people play however they wanted on their tables so long as they were spending money. This did happen and did cause the stores that tried that to end up getting rid of their tabletop gaming stock, because the competitive gamers were the lion's share of the business (the only store in that area immune seemed to be the GW store which had a 60 minute table limit so few people actually played there, they just bought stuff)
TLDR - when you have to fight and politic to get fun games in - its not worth the effort to some people. I did it for 20+ years, and that included being screamed at, my facebook hacked, being challenged to fight in the parking lot for "teaching players wrong", and all other kinds of drama i'd never repeat again just to play narrative 40k/warhammer which lit a powder keg to the very deep competitive playing group that took offense to public games being played like that.
The group that was very popular where I left would never play down. Ever. They expected you to play up or go home. They say it all the time on their discord. I sat there and watched two players in that group come to the store, unpack, and the one guy go "i can't beat your list, i didn't bring the right list, do you want to do something else?" and they played xwing instead, because the concept of the other guy toning down was the equivalent of a moderate to severe insult to those people that would cost you opponents and being part of the community.
Jesus fething christ, that sounds horrible. That community sounds like it's mainly made up of douchebags.
My typical opponent plays Guard, Grey Knights and Imperial Fist.
I have Black Templars, CSM, Daemons, Tyranids, Death Guard, GSC, Thousand Sons, Chaos Knights, Orks, Ad Mech, Sisters and Necrons.
We run the absolute gamut of the meta spread and it can be infuriating trying to get an even slightly fun game. My Black Templars pretty much walk over any army he puts up even though they are not a very powerful army. Chaos is in such a place that I don't even want to play them against any of the above. Been playing with the new Nid codex in a couple of games and even his nastiest Grey Knights list has no chance against it.
Now, we can get some decent games with Thousand Sons and Grey Knights, Death Guard vs IG can be pretty decent if I don't go too crazy with my list and Necrons can actually go well against any of his armies.
This game is an absolute mess of garbage codexs that leaves me feeling like there are different tiers you have to play certain armies against with no possible games between the tiers being anything but a curb stomping. A meta list for Harlies or a for fun list of Harlies is still in a different league than a CSM list. I can not for the life of me understand people who see 40k as a battle of wits between two players, that is like saying that the middle school football team should just play better to beat the NFL team.
Isn't that a bit of a black and white fallacy? It can't just be either pure competitive or let's play crusade. I refuse to believe that there are no competitive communities who won't "play down" to others or deviate from 2000p.
We can nitpick it and call it logical fallacy all day long. Thats fine. At the end of the day, if one can't find games that they enjoy it doesn't matter if its a logical fallacy. They can't find games they enjoy and don't want to go through the hassle of fighting to get games that aren't super competitive.
I'm sure that there are competitive communities that will play down - and here's the thing - I NEVER SAID THAT ALL COMPETITIVE COMMUNITIES WERE LIKE THAT - I said that the one I came out of was like that. Because its great if you come from a community that plays down or knows what for-fun is, I applaud you! And everyone that has that. Thats great! If you don't have that though - you have an uphill nasty battle of trying to get people to play in a non competitive casual / for-fun way in a very competitive region - there is a lot of gamer politics and turf wars to get through that to a lot of people isn't really worth it. The juice isn't really worth the squeeze, and having a great community 100 miles away in a different town is wonderful - except no one really expects people to up and move just to have a better gaming group.
Edit: and what's preventing a FLGS from introducing and evening "anti-meta" with purposefully experimental and fun lists in addition to having competitive events?
They would have been boycotted by the competitive player group that was massive, and lost a lot of business, so they didn't involve themselves in gaming drama and just let people play however they wanted on their tables so long as they were spending money. This did happen and did cause the stores that tried that to end up getting rid of their tabletop gaming stock, because the competitive gamers were the lion's share of the business (the only store in that area immune seemed to be the GW store which had a 60 minute table limit so few people actually played there, they just bought stuff)
TLDR - when you have to fight and politic to get fun games in - its not worth the effort to some people. I did it for 20+ years, and that included being screamed at, my facebook hacked, being challenged to fight in the parking lot for "teaching players wrong", and all other kinds of drama i'd never repeat again just to play narrative 40k/warhammer which lit a powder keg to the very deep competitive playing group that took offense to public games being played like that.
The group that was very popular where I left would never play down. Ever. They expected you to play up or go home. They say it all the time on their discord. I sat there and watched two players in that group come to the store, unpack, and the one guy go "i can't beat your list, i didn't bring the right list, do you want to do something else?" and they played xwing instead, because the concept of the other guy toning down was the equivalent of a moderate to severe insult to those people that would cost you opponents and being part of the community.
Jesus fething christ, that sounds horrible. That community sounds like it's mainly made up of douchebags.
The sad part is, the communities like this really are not douchebags, its just most people want to play games, and most people will simply go with the, well i would rather play then not play, so they fall into the meta chasing scene to play games. No one wants to set up just to remove models, so they also chase the metas, and it just becomes the standard.
current 40k, has attracted literally the worst kind of fandom at this point, its the hard core MTG style players that are just aweful to deal with. 40k has been netorious for not the greatest community, but up until now it was mostly filled with socially awekward people, and the occasionally guard sperg. now its filled with hyper competative people who take pushing dollies around a table way to seriously, and a lot of people are swept into that because its either play like taht, or dont play.
Its why im looking greatly forward to HH, as HH has a bigger emphasis on fluff and narrative then it does over sweaty tournament lists.
I have not been in the hobby as long as many here, but i have been in it since 6th, about mid 6th, and i have never ever seen the game this awful, i have never seen the community this bad.
Kanluwen wrote:And by this, yes I am taking shots at anyone who suggests you need to memorize everything in a codex or the rules. There's nothing preventing you from making a cheat sheet, index cards, or using things like the datacards.
I'm all for play aids, but if we're at the point where the best advice is to accept not being able to remember the rules and keep play aids on hand, that's a huge problem. Particularly when you have to DIY play aids to keep track of things like Custodes ka'tahs.
I never had to spend 3rd-5th with my nose in the book because there was too much stuff to remember, or constantly having to be reminded by my opponent of abilities that his units have because there's too much to keep straight. I've played games of Horus Heresy, even, where we didn't have to check a rulebook more than once per turn. For the most part I could do that in 8th- except when there was contention over specific wording, eg re-roll any vs re-roll failed- but not with 9th Ed codices.
I really don't think it can be overstated how much easier the game would be to track without stratagems, changing turn-by-turn faction mechanics, warlord traits, or relics. It's the layers upon layers of mechanics with no organic play aids or WYSIWYG that drive complexity. It might seem like a totally separate complaint from metas and balance, but I don't think it's realistic for GW to effectively be able to balance the game while the game is as complicated as it is.
Unit1126PLL wrote:"playing down" to others requires immense knowledge of the game.
Quoting for emphasis because this is way more of an issue than people take it to be.
I've heard rebuttals along the lines of 'nah man, it's fair, you just played wrong' more than once. Not everyone is on the same page as far as balance.
Isn't that a bit of a black and white fallacy? It can't just be either pure competitive or let's play crusade. I refuse to believe that there are no competitive communities who won't "play down" to others or deviate from 2000p.
We can nitpick it and call it logical fallacy all day long. Thats fine. At the end of the day, if one can't find games that they enjoy it doesn't matter if its a logical fallacy. They can't find games they enjoy and don't want to go through the hassle of fighting to get games that aren't super competitive.
I'm sure that there are competitive communities that will play down - and here's the thing - I NEVER SAID THAT ALL COMPETITIVE COMMUNITIES WERE LIKE THAT - I said that the one I came out of was like that. Because its great if you come from a community that plays down or knows what for-fun is, I applaud you! And everyone that has that. Thats great! If you don't have that though - you have an uphill nasty battle of trying to get people to play in a non competitive casual / for-fun way in a very competitive region - there is a lot of gamer politics and turf wars to get through that to a lot of people isn't really worth it. The juice isn't really worth the squeeze, and having a great community 100 miles away in a different town is wonderful - except no one really expects people to up and move just to have a better gaming group.
Edit: and what's preventing a FLGS from introducing and evening "anti-meta" with purposefully experimental and fun lists in addition to having competitive events?
They would have been boycotted by the competitive player group that was massive, and lost a lot of business, so they didn't involve themselves in gaming drama and just let people play however they wanted on their tables so long as they were spending money. This did happen and did cause the stores that tried that to end up getting rid of their tabletop gaming stock, because the competitive gamers were the lion's share of the business (the only store in that area immune seemed to be the GW store which had a 60 minute table limit so few people actually played there, they just bought stuff)
TLDR - when you have to fight and politic to get fun games in - its not worth the effort to some people. I did it for 20+ years, and that included being screamed at, my facebook hacked, being challenged to fight in the parking lot for "teaching players wrong", and all other kinds of drama i'd never repeat again just to play narrative 40k/warhammer which lit a powder keg to the very deep competitive playing group that took offense to public games being played like that.
The group that was very popular where I left would never play down. Ever. They expected you to play up or go home. They say it all the time on their discord. I sat there and watched two players in that group come to the store, unpack, and the one guy go "i can't beat your list, i didn't bring the right list, do you want to do something else?" and they played xwing instead, because the concept of the other guy toning down was the equivalent of a moderate to severe insult to those people that would cost you opponents and being part of the community.
Jesus fething christ, that sounds horrible. That community sounds like it's mainly made up of douchebags.
The sad part is, the communities like this really are not douchebags, its just most people want to play games, and most people will simply go with the, well i would rather play then not play, so they fall into the meta chasing scene to play games. No one wants to set up just to remove models, so they also chase the metas, and it just becomes the standard.
current 40k, has attracted literally the worst kind of fandom at this point, its the hard core MTG style players that are just aweful to deal with. 40k has been netorious for not the greatest community, but up until now it was mostly filled with socially awekward people, and the occasionally guard sperg. now its filled with hyper competative people who take pushing dollies around a table way to seriously, and a lot of people are swept into that because its either play like taht, or dont play.
Its why im looking greatly forward to HH, as HH has a bigger emphasis on fluff and narrative then it does over sweaty tournament lists.
I have not been in the hobby as long as many here, but i have been in it since 6th, about mid 6th, and i have never ever seen the game this awful, i have never seen the community this bad.
Even though I don't play official 40K for a couple of years now, the sad reality of what this game became in 9th affects even me - just last week my group grew by yet another escapee from the official ruleset. Exactly due to what you, auticus and others describe happened to their communities.
And there is another impact the current meta has on me - there is an increase of game design/40k redesign threads on dakka, same as it was during the late 7th, that I can "harvest" for good ideas
Unit1126PLL wrote:"playing down" to others requires immense knowledge of the game.
Quoting for emphasis because this is way more of an issue than people take it to be.
I've heard rebuttals along the lines of 'nah man, it's fair, you just played wrong' more than once. Not everyone is on the same page as far as balance.
Anecdotal, but this was among the things that crashed our gaming groups' attempt to play 9th.
Half our games were lopsided stompfests that we didn't see coming at all. We wanted to play Crusade - we didn't ultimately get anywhere near it, because if we couldn't balance a typical 40K game, what the hell were all those relics and honors and Requisition Points going to do?
There was one other longtime 40K veteran and friend with us; Despite having known various iterations of the game and each other for decades, the two of us had an inordinate amount of difficulty agreeing on what constituted an appropriate amount of tailoring between a specific 9th Ed. codex and an 8th Ed. codex to ensure a fair contest, and unlike with the completely new players, we both thought we knew better. For purposes of this thread it doesn't really matter who was right;(me) the ensuing arguments from that difference in perception drained our enthusiasm and turned off the new players being confronted with increasing walls of jargon in the Discord.
Now, indeed, I'm with Nou - the metagame is mostly affecting me by increasing interest in other games.
Unit1126PLL wrote: "playing down" to others requires immense knowledge of the game.
Two new players, one picks up Khorne Daemons and the other Custodes.
Even without running any jetbikes, the Custodes army will just crush the Khorne army. "Playing down" requires essentially not playing custodes - which is what I was trying to illustrate earlier with Baneblades.
Asking people to play down is telling them to switch armies because the army is too good, which is exactly as sinful as asking people to play up and telling them to switch armies because the army is too bad.
No, it really isn't.
If you get asked to not use a Baneblade for a game guess what? You're not being told to "switch armies". You're just being asked to not use a Baneblade for a game.
The real solution is for the game developer to balance their game, and allow players to buy what is cool, instead of forcing the players to buy models based on their game performance. Because that's what this is. Either the bad player must buy good models to update their army, or the good player must buy bad models to update theirs.
The real solution is to actually be open to expanding how you play.
Stuff like the Theater of Wars from Pariah go a long way towards making games more enjoyable. For all the whining I saw when AoS first dropped, the refusal to touch things like the Realm rules was ridiculous.
If you get asked to not use a Baneblade for a game guess what? You're not being told to "switch armies". You're just being asked to not use a Baneblade for a game.
Ok.
What if I thought Baneblades were cool and don't have enough for 2k? I hope my opponent likes 1400 points games only.
Or, more pertinently, what would you suggest the Custodes player do to make it fun for the Khorne Daemons player in the example that you both quoted and ignored?
Kanluwen wrote: The real solution is to actually be open to expanding how you play.
Stuff like the Theater of Wars from Pariah go a long way towards making games more enjoyable. For all the whining I saw when AoS first dropped, the refusal to touch things like the Realm rules was ridiculous.
One can choose to expand from a balanced foundation as well as from an unbalanced one, so this isn't an argument that imbalance is preferable. If anything, expanding on a balanced foundation is easier because you can trust the game designer to have - oh, I don't know, built a mission that doesn't just outright prevent invulnerable saves from being taken?
Furthermore, one should not be forced to include yet more rules on top of the Matched Play rules to have an even game. In fact, the entire point of matched play as I recall is to have balanced games.
Tiberias wrote: God you are so full of yourself it's actually unbelievable. Btw how long until you derail the thread by starting to accuse people again of being fascists because they play an imperium faction and enjoy the lore? Seen it so often it's basically a given with you.
I'm calling the police, we know who's been vandalizing all those scarecrows.
In all seriousness, act your age, show me the proper respect, and we can continue to have a conversation.
Tiberias wrote: How is talking to a person before the game and agreeing to not bring tooled up meta lists akin to a participation trophy? You still have to play against the person an win.
It requires way more effort. At least with Harlequins, I can choose not to run Voidweavers, but if someone has Custodes, and his opponet is playing, say, Imperial Guard, how do you talk before a game to have a fun game? You essentially can't, and that's GW's fault. Moreover, you can run into big problems with players who are just terrible at the game and who insist that any army they lose to is terrible and needs to be toned down.
Tiberias wrote: I also did not imply that winning is not fun.
When you said that if your goal was playing competitively it can't be having fun.
Tiberias wrote: The point is that playing against harlequin void weavers with guard is a forgone conclusion and not fun for the guard player....you can try to remedy that at least in a friendly game by talking to the person you are playing with and maybe agreeing that the Harlequin player tries out a more experimental list, that maybe even specifically plays badly into guard. Guard player actually gets to play the game, Harlequin player doesn't win by default. How is that concept so difficult to understand?
What if the balance isn't clear? What if players have different ideas about balance? You need a common ground that has a reasonable level of fairness, and GW fails to provide that, which is why GW is bad at game design, and it's why the current metagame negatively affects my play experience.
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Unit1126PLL wrote: Or, more pertinently, what would you suggest the Custodes player do to make it fun for the Khorne Daemons player in the example that you both quoted and ignored?
If you get asked to not use a Baneblade for a game guess what? You're not being told to "switch armies". You're just being asked to not use a Baneblade for a game.
Ok.
What if I thought Baneblades were cool and don't have enough for 2k? I hope my opponent likes 1400 points games only.
Why is it so necessary for you to be able to take a massive warmachine for a learning game?
Or, more pertinently, what would you suggest the Custodes player do to make it fun for the Khorne Daemons player in the example that you both quoted and ignored?
More pertinently, explain how someone decides to play only Khorne Daemons without coaxing?
It's not like they have or have had their own unique Codex. They're part of C: Daemons.
Kanluwen wrote: The real solution is to actually be open to expanding how you play.
Stuff like the Theater of Wars from Pariah go a long way towards making games more enjoyable. For all the whining I saw when AoS first dropped, the refusal to touch things like the Realm rules was ridiculous.
One can choose to expand from a balanced foundation as well as from an unbalanced one, so this isn't an argument that imbalance is preferable. If anything, expanding on a balanced foundation is easier because you can trust the game designer to have - oh, I don't know, built a mission that doesn't just outright prevent invulnerable saves from being taken?
Tough gak, I guess?
If only there were other armies that would suffer the same issue from Invulnerable Saves being turned off. Or maybe, just maybe, you chose a wildly skewing example of an old, outdated book which has been a skew since day bloody one of being a separate codex to play a "gotcha!" scenario.
Anyways, Banner of the World Dragon says Ta!
Furthermore, one should not be forced to include yet more rules on top of the Matched Play rules to have an even game. In fact, the entire point of matched play as I recall is to have balanced games.
Nah. You don't get to play that crap.
Matched Play had missions that outright called out what rules to use for the mission. People would choose to ignore them, then whine about the missions being unbalanced.
If you get asked to not use a Baneblade for a game guess what? You're not being told to "switch armies". You're just being asked to not use a Baneblade for a game.
Ok.
What if I thought Baneblades were cool and don't have enough for 2k? I hope my opponent likes 1400 points games only.
Why is it so necessary for you to be able to take a massive warmachine for a learning game?
Or, more pertinently, what would you suggest the Custodes player do to make it fun for the Khorne Daemons player in the example that you both quoted and ignored?
More pertinently, explain how someone decides to play only Khorne Daemons without coaxing?
It's not like they have or have had their own unique Codex. They're part of C: Daemons.
Okay. You missed the point but let's try to lead the horse to water:
Allow them to take any units from Codex: Chaos Daemons. Not even just Khorne. They can play straight undivided.
Kanluwen wrote: The real solution is to actually be open to expanding how you play.
Stuff like the Theater of Wars from Pariah go a long way towards making games more enjoyable. For all the whining I saw when AoS first dropped, the refusal to touch things like the Realm rules was ridiculous.
One can choose to expand from a balanced foundation as well as from an unbalanced one, so this isn't an argument that imbalance is preferable. If anything, expanding on a balanced foundation is easier because you can trust the game designer to have - oh, I don't know, built a mission that doesn't just outright prevent invulnerable saves from being taken?
Tough gak, I guess?
If only there were other armies that would suffer the same issue from Invulnerable Saves being turned off. Or maybe, just maybe, you chose a wildly skewing example of an old, outdated book which has been a skew since day bloody one of being a separate codex to play a "gotcha!" scenario.
But like, GW designed and published this book. It exists in the game. Right now. It isn't old and outdated, it is literally the current set of rules for an entire faction in the game. If anyone "gotcha'd" anyone else, it was the game designers making Chaos Daemons into a standalone faction that has the tools to compete - that is to say, the game is shoddily designed.
Furthermore, one should not be forced to include yet more rules on top of the Matched Play rules to have an even game. In fact, the entire point of matched play as I recall is to have balanced games.
Nah. You don't get to play that crap.
Yes sir, next time I make an argument I will make sure to clear it with the Kanluwen Wins Arbitration Bureau to make sure it meets standards.
Matched Play had missions that outright called out what rules to use for the mission. People would choose to ignore them, then whine about the missions being unbalanced.
I am waiting for the point to be made, but go on. I am curious what you mean with regards to the invulnerable save ignoring mission.
If you get asked to not use a Baneblade for a game guess what? You're not being told to "switch armies". You're just being asked to not use a Baneblade for a game.
Ok.
What if I thought Baneblades were cool and don't have enough for 2k? I hope my opponent likes 1400 points games only.
Why is it so necessary for you to be able to take a massive warmachine for a learning game?
Or, more pertinently, what would you suggest the Custodes player do to make it fun for the Khorne Daemons player in the example that you both quoted and ignored?
More pertinently, explain how someone decides to play only Khorne Daemons without coaxing?
It's not like they have or have had their own unique Codex. They're part of C: Daemons.
Because they're the only demons I have?
OK, they see a lot more play in AoS. But now & then they make a cameo 40kwise....
I think he does, and every time you try to say he can't it shows that the things you say can't stand up to scrutiny. How about do more listening, less typing, as it's clear your opinions aren't based on reality.
It's the only army I have together right now. Working on orks.
But you're implying that I did something wrong, and I didn't. I bought an army I enjoy thematically and am playing it in not the most busted way possible. But because GW couldn't balance a perfect sphere on flat ground, I get grief for it.
Definitely not your fault, but I don't believe that someone who doesn't sound as a meta chaser is now unstoppable and wins everytime. It's certainly possible that you won 4 times in a row and I definitely believe you when you say so, but your opponents aren't doomed. I doubt you can spam 4+ voidweavers if you bought the army thematically AND before the codex release, I doubt you even have more than 1 or 2. Dropping the voidweavers from 6-9 to 1-3 and replacing them with bikes, toys for the troupes and maybe additional HQs tones down the army by a large margin. Armies like necrons and SM can definitely manage the clowns then, assuming they can field reasonably optimized lists.
I don't know what your list is and what your opponents field and their skills, but I've already defeated both custodes and harlequins using my (non army of renown) orks. Simply my opponents didn't spam the OP custodes jetbikes and the two harlie guys had 0 and 1 voidweavers respectively, since the model has always been the worst unit in the codex before the current codex and such players didn't expand their collections just because they got a new codex. Even using my full firstborn Space Wolves I had a close game with the clowns, lost but not by much.
Both harlequins and custodes are elite armies that can be massively OP but also not. Custodes in particular have lots of garbage options in their codex. Even bloody land raiders.
Tiberias wrote: God you are so full of yourself it's actually unbelievable. Btw how long until you derail the thread by starting to accuse people again of being fascists because they play an imperium faction and enjoy the lore? Seen it so often it's basically a given with you.
I'm calling the police, we know who's been vandalizing all those scarecrows.
In all seriousness, act your age, show me the proper respect, and we can continue to have a conversation.
Show you the proper respect?! With all the strawmen you've built and baseless accusations you've thrown around on this very forum? You have got to be kidding me. We can talk about politeness, but respect is earned and you have done everything in your power over multiple threads in this forum to not be worthy of any respect. fething delusional...
Tiberias wrote: How is talking to a person before the game and agreeing to not bring tooled up meta lists akin to a participation trophy? You still have to play against the person an win.
It requires way more effort. At least with Harlequins, I can choose not to run Voidweavers, but if someone has Custodes, and his opponet is playing, say, Imperial Guard, how do you talk before a game to have a fun game? You essentially can't, and that's GW's fault. Moreover, you can run into big problems with players who are just terrible at the game and who insist that any army they lose to is terrible and needs to be toned down.
Then you know little about Custodes. I play them, one of my best firends plays Guard. You can tone down a Custodes list by going mostly infantry and sisters, throwing in an assassin here and there.
Before you start building strawmen again, nobody said GW wasn't at fault here btw. And yes, trying to have a game with friends where both parties have fun requires more effort. So what? Better than wallowing in self pity about the meta and pointing fingers at GW for how bad the game is....we all know that they messed up, that's not the fething point.
Tiberias wrote: I also did not imply that winning is not fun.
When you said that if your goal was playing competitively it can't be having fun.
It's deliciously ironic the way you purposefully misconstrue other peoples words and then have the gall to demand respect. Utterly obnoxious.
Tiberias wrote: The point is that playing against harlequin void weavers with guard is a forgone conclusion and not fun for the guard player....you can try to remedy that at least in a friendly game by talking to the person you are playing with and maybe agreeing that the Harlequin player tries out a more experimental list, that maybe even specifically plays badly into guard. Guard player actually gets to play the game, Harlequin player doesn't win by default. How is that concept so difficult to understand?
What if the balance isn't clear? What if players have different ideas about balance? You need a common ground that has a reasonable level of fairness, and GW fails to provide that, which is why GW is bad at game design, and it's why the current metagame negatively affects my play experience.
That's why you would have to talk to people beforehand. Shocking, I know.
Players are now arguing over list tailoring to be meta busting or list tailoring in order to play the game.
40KRT - DM led. Discussion before game over what rules to be used or changed.
Arguments abound but games played.
2nd Ed - No DM interaction GW still assumes players discuss and debate before games.
Arguments abound but games played.
3rd to 6th? - Its busted, poor writing exposes rifts between comp and casual - Did I say GW still writes poor rules?
7th onward
GW introduces paid for errata and corrections to their paid for rules.
9th
The comp scene is actively involved in trying to make busted rules playable - yeah, GW still gonna GW.
We pay for the privilege.
The meta doesn't affect me of my small group of core players.
My son is looking forwards to abusing the new nid codex against my wolves and our friends Dark Angels.
Basic rulebooks, codexes and the more important corrections I can scrape off the web for the above are all we need to enjoy the game. We try and ignore the most busted parts of the game for the sake of keeping games moving.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Toning down someone's list can still affect their enjoyment.
Let's use me as an example. I super love Baneblades. If we suddenly lived in a world where Baneblades were mindbreakingly overpowered, then:
1) my opponent's enjoyment is diminished because Baneblades are stupid good
2) my enjoyment is diminished because these kickass models I spent plenty of time on (and which are my favorites!) won't see the table.
You forgot Nr.3.
my enjoyment suffers because a unit (or even faction) is so busted ruleswise that i just don't want to field it to have a fight on my hand in a wargame. (too strong or too weak)
Personally and a friendly reminder, fw legends is also a 9th edition spawn from the main GW rules studio no less. Beyond being of course just an excercise in diversion, legends that is, it is indicative of the 0 coordination between ruleswriters that has granted us this mess in the first place and a clear highlighting in quality between authors that care about the faction they write about (f.e. GSC) compared to authors that just had to do a faction (cue Ork dex) and the "not even worth the effort " class that is f.e. R&H / Elysians legends.
And before you go legends not meant to be competitive, mind i remind you that obsec didn't work for R&H troops before they HAD to update atleast that one again, and it is STILL a 9th edition "product", so even if you just wanted a functional last hurrah for the faction, that wasn't granted to you, theres a reason why you don't see any other R&H players anymore.
So pray tell me how that faction had even a chance to partake in the game when it couldn't even hold an objective? And even now, after they had to go back and silently fixed up FW legends in that regard, have you taken a look at the list? because no matter what f.e. I and my opponents do to make the game actually enjoyable that just ruleswise is not a possibility short of houserulling or a handicap so severe depending upon faction that the time required is not worth it, in essence being now a dead army.
Sure, we players have a responsibility to make our own fun with the game, afterall personell factor is important and in general beyond GW's controll.
However we shouldn't use that to excuse GW's BS.
F.e. we now know that squats are coming, after what 2 decades not being part of the game, basically the majority of its existence? Another faction that they need to "balance", yet we lost just recently 3 factions more or less?!?
Its stuff like that, that certainly doesn't help and is just highlighting even more the favouritism and lack of general care that is endemic in the rulesdesign team at this stage.
same with the 2W chaos marines, no they even had the audacity "joke" about that, as a chaos player, that is now bound if the rumors are correct and the jumppack lord going to last chance, to lose even more options, i found that "joke " so hillarious that i am now honestly at a point where i just would (and indeed do) play any old edition, even 6th / 7th because whilest i may need to prepare and negotiate some things with my opposite on the other table end, atleast the factions i play were able to be represented AND there are far more equal pikes in these rather than 9th.
Chances are that Chaos players will be back to the point we constantly find ourselves: Playing Loyalists as 'Counts As' to better represent our chosen Legions.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Chances are that Chaos players will be back to the point we constantly find ourselves: Playing Loyalists as 'Counts As' to better represent our chosen Legions.
Ironically it would also give us access to more "old tech" that we should have but don't.
But i find that status quo personally, especially after IA13 , legion supplement or the 3.5 dex not acceptable in any shape or form, and i for one am fed up.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Chances are that Chaos players will be back to the point we constantly find ourselves: Playing Loyalists as 'Counts As' to better represent our chosen Legions.
Ironically it would also give us access to more "old tech" that we should have but don't.
But i find that status quo personally, especially after IA13 , legion supplement or the 3.5 dex not acceptable in any shape or form, and i for one am fed up.
Now, now. It isn't like being a bunch of ancient super soldiers from the dawn of the Imperium wielding equally ancient weapons was one of the original design concepts for the faction. Oh, wait......
H.B.M.C. wrote: Chances are that Chaos players will be back to the point we constantly find ourselves: Playing Loyalists as 'Counts As' to better represent our chosen Legions.
Honestly, after 30 years, GW has broken me, I've been selling off all my CSM stuff, keeping just TS stuff and anything I can use for double duty in AoS. The design and marketing of the game is utterly toxic, the only reason I'm even keeping my TS stuff is because it's my prettiest army and to provide something for my friends to shoot off the table. I know the CSM dex will be good, probably even OP for a month or two, but I just want out of the cycle.
auticus wrote: If one enjoys OnePageRules then absolutely.
If one desires more from their games then, continue down the path of creation instead of shackling oneself to rulesets they do not like.
Well its easier to get a community going if everyone agrees on one ruleset. making some custom in-house ruleset will make it a lot harder for any community to grow than having a ruleset available for everyone easily
At this juncture "building a community" is not always the answer.
"Building a community" can often just be more of the same - building one ruleset to bludgeon people with.
One Page Rules is a custom in-house ruleset. Yet people have built "communities" around it.
I'm not interested in a ruleset that is accepted globally - I'm interested in a ruleset that makes me look forward to painting and playing with my models.
This is of course all anecdotal but my local group of 15-20 players that regularly took turns hosting events at their homes is effectively dead since early 9th edition. It varies from casual players to those that attend tournaments regularly and we were able to hold everything from narrative events to team tournaments all through 8th edition with a healthy turnout, even covid didn’t stop us. Now we’re lucky to get 3 or 4 people to come out to a pre scheduled game day. People just don’t want to deal with the bs on the table, especially the more casual players that can’t keep up with the rules churn. A local aosgt just sold out on the first day and the 40k side is only half full after almost a month.
I hate to be hyperbolic but at least locally, it feels like when mk3 warmachine dropped
auticus wrote: At this juncture "building a community" is not always the answer.
"Building a community" can often just be more of the same - building one ruleset to bludgeon people with.
One Page Rules is a custom in-house ruleset. Yet people have built "communities" around it.
I'm not interested in a ruleset that is accepted globally - I'm interested in a ruleset that makes me look forward to painting and playing with my models.
Exactly this. I don't attend big tournaments, I don't even play anyone from outside my town. So why should we (my group) try to keep up with the "globally accepted ruleset"? My guess is that the vast majority of 40k players is in the exactly same spot of local only gaming. My group has freed itself from GW when we decided not to switch to 8th and then we just gradually shaped the game that was now ours exactly how we like it.
One thing that I always had a hard time understanding about many 40k players - most games are played 1 on 1. Why the hell so many people think that this game only works if you have multiple opponents to play against instead of truly befriend just one or two people you enjoy playing with and enjoy the game instead of constantly complain about GW, toxic community etc?
I get people who travel a lot, so the main appeal of 40k to them is the availability of games anywhere they go. But the rest?
Kommisar wrote: This is of course all anecdotal but my local group of 15-20 players that regularly took turns hosting events at their homes is effectively dead since early 9th edition. It varies from casual players to those that attend tournaments regularly and we were able to hold everything from narrative events to team tournaments all through 8th edition with a healthy turnout, even covid didn’t stop us. Now we’re lucky to get 3 or 4 people to come out to a pre scheduled game day. People just don’t want to deal with the bs on the table, especially the more casual players that can’t keep up with the rules churn. A local aosgt just sold out on the first day and the 40k side is only half full after almost a month.
I hate to be hyperbolic but at least locally, it feels like when mk3 warmachine dropped
So if you had 15-20 people happily playing everything from narratives to tourneys using 8e, & Covid didn't stop you, why don't you just continue doing what you were doing?
Kommisar wrote: This is of course all anecdotal but my local group of 15-20 players that regularly took turns hosting events at their homes is effectively dead since early 9th edition. It varies from casual players to those that attend tournaments regularly and we were able to hold everything from narrative events to team tournaments all through 8th edition with a healthy turnout, even covid didn’t stop us. Now we’re lucky to get 3 or 4 people to come out to a pre scheduled game day. People just don’t want to deal with the bs on the table, especially the more casual players that can’t keep up with the rules churn. A local aosgt just sold out on the first day and the 40k side is only half full after almost a month.
I hate to be hyperbolic but at least locally, it feels like when mk3 warmachine dropped
So if you had 15-20 people happily playing everything from narratives to tourneys using 8e, & Covid didn't stop you, why don't you just continue doing what you were doing?
Because we can say "Just use old rules" all day long that wont make it popular, or a thing. There is a sort of stigma to using older rules, that a lot of people cant get over. Mostly because you are looked at like an unsupported leaper.
The other thing is, that group is most likely also not the only outlet of gaming they have. You can get get burned out and burned in general outside of the group and that will still effect the want and desire to play the game.
I agree that if it worked, keeping doing it, but at the same time, i also get why it dropped.
Big issues for myself are:
1) local scene one player buys an expansipn as it up powers their army, this creates an arms race.
2) every latest release is badly balanced and then toned down. Its become prolithic with the game such that some players are no longer looking forward to updates (imperial knoght player recently said that he'll get no games for a month).
3) players are online, its hard to separate what is innocent "i like the unit" from "this is overpowered hur hur." It creates bad blood. A good friend of mine has struggled to find fun games with his custodes because his list happened to be very close to tounament builds.
All issues can be discussed and resolved, but when you are busy and see gaming buddies at a weekly club there isn't always time to discuss how to fix the latest rules mess up.
I get people who travel a lot, so the main appeal of 40k to them is the availability of games anywhere they go. But the rest?
The biggest draw to play 40k and AOS is the massive built in community. Many players do love the rules or claim to, but many hate the rules but stick around BECAUSE OF the massive community (my own anecdotal experience is most 40k and sigmar players I have ever known or played with didn't really like the rules but loved the community - the rules were just the price you paid to enjoy the community)
* competitive players enjoy the deep pool of players to test against. Only having 1-2 players means not having a lot of players to tune against.
* competitive players love large events. Placing high at a 200 player event carries a lot more prestige, youtube subscribers, twitch subscribers, and other opportunities than winning an 8 player event that no one cares about. The more players, the bigger the events, the more prestige in the events.
* casual players enjoy having a variety of opponents and armies to play against.
* it feels good to know you're playing a game that has hundreds of thousands of players alongside you. It makes you feel your $1000 army investment and hours in painting are safe and won't be killed off like with smaller games.
* the more players in the game, the more "alive" the game feels - the more new content you can look forward to. Home based rules don't have any of that.
* playing unsupported versions or dead version is actively avoided by many if not most players.
Yep a competition that no one watches and few if anyone participate in means nothing. Doesn't even have to involved gaming either. Having the best painted army in a 100+ people AoS event, and having the best painted army in a 12 man Infinity event, is not the same.
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Sureshot05 wrote: Big issues for myself are:
1) local scene one player buys an expansipn as it up powers their army, this creates an arms race.
2) every latest release is badly balanced and then toned down. Its become prolithic with the game such that some players are no longer looking forward to updates (imperial knoght player recently said that he'll get no games for a month).
3) players are online, its hard to separate what is innocent "i like the unit" from "this is overpowered hur hur." It creates bad blood. A good friend of mine has struggled to find fun games with his custodes because his list happened to be very close to tounament builds.
All issues can be discussed and resolved, but when you are busy and see gaming buddies at a weekly club there isn't always time to discuss how to fix the latest rules mess up.
No, not all things can be resolved by talking. If a custodes or harli or DE players had a prior codex army, and took that unoptimised army to play vs something like IG or most marines marines, then no amount of talking can change the power difference between armies. The 8th best, but still weak, GK army was NDKs and power armoured units. The actually powerful for a time GK army , pre the brotherhood nerfs, consisted of the same models. And running something else didn't make the army just a bit less powerful, it made the army really bad, and some stuff like fast moving resilient heavy weapon platforms like NDKs have no replacement in the GK codex. A harli player can have 3 voids, what was legal under old books, and troups in transports plus some bikes and his army going to outclass most of the casual lists played right now.
Current metagame doesn't affect us, nor do we 'chase the meta dragon'.
Collaborative game-building all the way; we have no interest in 'list-building-for-advantage'.
Aside from the Infinity models on my desk im repainting after three years of having them stripped and bagged, and a smattering of old wmh models ive not painted any non-gw figures in a long long time . And I'm genuinely not bothered about that fact. Aside from the occasional foray into bolt action, all the games I've enjoyed playing have been gw ones these last 5 years.
Blackie wrote: Definitely not your fault, but I don't believe that someone who doesn't sound as a meta chaser is now unstoppable and wins everytime. It's certainly possible that you won 4 times in a row and I definitely believe you when you say so, but your opponents aren't doomed. I doubt you can spam 4+ voidweavers if you bought the army thematically AND before the codex release, I doubt you even have more than 1 or 2. Dropping the voidweavers from 6-9 to 1-3 and replacing them with bikes, toys for the troupes and maybe additional HQs tones down the army by a large margin. Armies like necrons and SM can definitely manage the clowns then, assuming they can field reasonably optimized lists.
I own 2 voidweavers atm, I've never run more than 1 in a game. But the point is, if I win a game, since I'm playing Harlequins, other players assume that it's because of how broken my army is, so the meta is negatively affecting my casual play.
Blackie wrote: Both harlequins and custodes are elite armies that can be massively OP but also not. Custodes in particular have lots of garbage options in their codex. Even bloody land raiders.
Yes but if someone is like "Custodes are cool, imma run these big golden guys" and another player is like "IG are cool, imma run some tanks and infantry" they cannot have a good game.
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Tiberias wrote: Show you the proper respect?! With all the strawmen you've built and baseless accusations you've thrown around on this very forum? You have got to be kidding me. We can talk about politeness, but respect is earned and you have done everything in your power over multiple threads in this forum to not be worthy of any respect. fething delusional...
You came in here insulting me first. Get off your gak.
Tiberias wrote: How is talking to a person before the game and agreeing to not bring tooled up meta lists akin to a participation trophy? You still have to play against the person an win.
Tiberias wrote: Then you know little about Custodes. I play them, one of my best firends plays Guard. You can tone down a Custodes list by going mostly infantry and sisters, throwing in an assassin here and there.
What if they don't own any SoS or Assassins because the former were only added to the codex recently and the latter have always been optional? Then they can't really have a good game without house ruling extensively - which is an unreasonable ask for a game that charges a lot for rulebooks. You need to start holding GW to task here.
Tiberias wrote: Before you start building strawmen again, nobody said GW wasn't at fault here btw. And yes, trying to have a game with friends where both parties have fun requires more effort. So what? Better than wallowing in self pity about the meta and pointing fingers at GW for how bad the game is....we all know that they messed up, that's not the fething point.
You immediately followed your statement saying nobody isn't saying GW's at fault with a statement that it's wrong to blame GW for the current situation. That's an incredibly two-faced comment.
It's deliciously ironic the way you purposefully misconstrue other peoples words and then have the gall to demand respect. Utterly obnoxious.
Don't ask me to believe contradictory statements *within the same paragraph* and we can talk about respect. You find it obnoxious that I actually expect you to say things that make sense, and expect you to say accurate things to earn the right to be called correct. I bet it's frustrating.
That's why you would have to talk to people beforehand. Shocking, I know.
This is a meaningless statement. I've played against players who run nothing but Firstborn armies that might have been good in previous editions, and insist that anything that their army is weak against is overpowered. If I talk to them, I'll get stuff like "Harlequins are just too fast, I need multiple turns of unopposed shooting against them to be fair." and "Having objectives in the midfield is unfair because it means I have to run to where Harlequins can kill me. They should have to run towards my gunline."
What do you do about takes like that? You can't really come to a consensus with them. If the rules for 40k weren't so trash, it wouldn't matter, because these people would be playing a reasonably fair game to begin with.
So GW's gakky rules writing is messing with my ability to get a game and enjoy the armies I find thematically interesting.
Tiberias wrote: God you are so full of yourself it's actually unbelievable. Btw how long until you derail the thread by starting to accuse people again of being fascists because they play an imperium faction and enjoy the lore? Seen it so often it's basically a given with you.
I'm calling the police, we know who's been vandalizing all those scarecrows.
In all seriousness, act your age, show me the proper respect, and we can continue to have a conversation.
Show you the proper respect?! With all the strawmen you've built and baseless accusations you've thrown around on this very forum? You have got to be kidding me. We can talk about politeness, but respect is earned and you have done everything in your power over multiple threads in this forum to not be worthy of any respect. fething delusional...
Tiberias wrote: How is talking to a person before the game and agreeing to not bring tooled up meta lists akin to a participation trophy? You still have to play against the person an win.
It requires way more effort. At least with Harlequins, I can choose not to run Voidweavers, but if someone has Custodes, and his opponet is playing, say, Imperial Guard, how do you talk before a game to have a fun game? You essentially can't, and that's GW's fault. Moreover, you can run into big problems with players who are just terrible at the game and who insist that any army they lose to is terrible and needs to be toned down.
Then you know little about Custodes. I play them, one of my best firends plays Guard. You can tone down a Custodes list by going mostly infantry and sisters, throwing in an assassin here and there.
Before you start building strawmen again, nobody said GW wasn't at fault here btw. And yes, trying to have a game with friends where both parties have fun requires more effort. So what? Better than wallowing in self pity about the meta and pointing fingers at GW for how bad the game is....we all know that they messed up, that's not the fething point.
Tiberias wrote: I also did not imply that winning is not fun.
When you said that if your goal was playing competitively it can't be having fun.
It's deliciously ironic the way you purposefully misconstrue other peoples words and then have the gall to demand respect. Utterly obnoxious.
Tiberias wrote: The point is that playing against harlequin void weavers with guard is a forgone conclusion and not fun for the guard player....you can try to remedy that at least in a friendly game by talking to the person you are playing with and maybe agreeing that the Harlequin player tries out a more experimental list, that maybe even specifically plays badly into guard. Guard player actually gets to play the game, Harlequin player doesn't win by default. How is that concept so difficult to understand?
What if the balance isn't clear? What if players have different ideas about balance? You need a common ground that has a reasonable level of fairness, and GW fails to provide that, which is why GW is bad at game design, and it's why the current metagame negatively affects my play experience.
That's why you would have to talk to people beforehand. Shocking, I know.
If the answer is "Buy and paint worse units to have a fairer game", that's not super compelling dude.
Like, I play custodes, but I don't own any sisters yet. I don't even own that many guards. I own 21 jetbikes because I thought they were the coolest unit in the codex, but you can't even do 2000 points of just jetbikes currently and, like, 19 jetbikes and a guy on foot ruins the whole theme of the meme. So when I line units up using what I have, it's terminators, 3 by 3 guard, some jetbikes and some dreadnoughts (I own one of each), and I don't feel particular need to rush out and buy all the sister of silence so I can play a fairer game. I don't even dislike SoS, I'm literally just waiting for them to finally release the patrol so I can get SoS and some guard to make into sags.
Sometimes the levers the games give you to balance things are poor. Instead of jamming myself into a mass of expensive models I wasn't passionate for, I bought an entirely different army (also so I could stop playing imperium v imperium games against space marines).
H.B.M.C. wrote: Chances are that Chaos players will be back to the point we constantly find ourselves: Playing Loyalists as 'Counts As' to better represent our chosen Legions.
I doubt this considering the leaks.
auticus wrote: At this juncture "building a community" is not always the answer.
"Building a community" can often just be more of the same - building one ruleset to bludgeon people with.
One Page Rules is a custom in-house ruleset. Yet people have built "communities" around it.
I'm not interested in a ruleset that is accepted globally - I'm interested in a ruleset that makes me look forward to painting and playing with my models.
Yes, all you introverted nerds out there should go create a ruleset and then force people to play it!
Blackie wrote: Definitely not your fault, but I don't believe that someone who doesn't sound as a meta chaser is now unstoppable and wins everytime. It's certainly possible that you won 4 times in a row and I definitely believe you when you say so, but your opponents aren't doomed. I doubt you can spam 4+ voidweavers if you bought the army thematically AND before the codex release, I doubt you even have more than 1 or 2. Dropping the voidweavers from 6-9 to 1-3 and replacing them with bikes, toys for the troupes and maybe additional HQs tones down the army by a large margin. Armies like necrons and SM can definitely manage the clowns then, assuming they can field reasonably optimized lists.
I own 2 voidweavers atm, I've never run more than 1 in a game. But the point is, if I win a game, since I'm playing Harlequins, other players assume that it's because of how broken my army is, so the meta is negatively affecting my casual play.
Blackie wrote: Both harlequins and custodes are elite armies that can be massively OP but also not. Custodes in particular have lots of garbage options in their codex. Even bloody land raiders.
Yes but if someone is like "Custodes are cool, imma run these big golden guys" and another player is like "IG are cool, imma run some tanks and infantry" they cannot have a good game.
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Tiberias wrote: Show you the proper respect?! With all the strawmen you've built and baseless accusations you've thrown around on this very forum? You have got to be kidding me. We can talk about politeness, but respect is earned and you have done everything in your power over multiple threads in this forum to not be worthy of any respect. fething delusional...
You came in here insulting me first. Get off your gak.
Tiberias wrote: How is talking to a person before the game and agreeing to not bring tooled up meta lists akin to a participation trophy? You still have to play against the person an win.
Tiberias wrote: Then you know little about Custodes. I play them, one of my best firends plays Guard. You can tone down a Custodes list by going mostly infantry and sisters, throwing in an assassin here and there.
What if they don't own any SoS or Assassins because the former were only added to the codex recently and the latter have always been optional? Then they can't really have a good game without house ruling extensively - which is an unreasonable ask for a game that charges a lot for rulebooks. You need to start holding GW to task here.
Tiberias wrote: Before you start building strawmen again, nobody said GW wasn't at fault here btw. And yes, trying to have a game with friends where both parties have fun requires more effort. So what? Better than wallowing in self pity about the meta and pointing fingers at GW for how bad the game is....we all know that they messed up, that's not the fething point.
You immediately followed your statement saying nobody isn't saying GW's at fault with a statement that it's wrong to blame GW for the current situation. That's an incredibly two-faced comment.
It's deliciously ironic the way you purposefully misconstrue other peoples words and then have the gall to demand respect. Utterly obnoxious.
Don't ask me to believe contradictory statements *within the same paragraph* and we can talk about respect. You find it obnoxious that I actually expect you to say things that make sense, and expect you to say accurate things to earn the right to be called correct. I bet it's frustrating.
That's why you would have to talk to people beforehand. Shocking, I know.
This is a meaningless statement. I've played against players who run nothing but Firstborn armies that might have been good in previous editions, and insist that anything that their army is weak against is overpowered. If I talk to them, I'll get stuff like "Harlequins are just too fast, I need multiple turns of unopposed shooting against them to be fair." and "Having objectives in the midfield is unfair because it means I have to run to where Harlequins can kill me. They should have to run towards my gunline."
What do you do about takes like that? You can't really come to a consensus with them. If the rules for 40k weren't so trash, it wouldn't matter, because these people would be playing a reasonably fair game to begin with.
So GW's gakky rules writing is messing with my ability to get a game and enjoy the armies I find thematically interesting.
Harlequings are actually broken without voidweaver spam. They're a strong army on every axis, void weavers are just the tip top nonsense. So, there is, in fact, a good chance you are winning games, especially if you are playing casually, just because you have harlies.
You mean like their "BEST IN GAME SNIPER"? Or are you talking about their psyker who makes almost everyone elses look like trash? Or are you talking about their bikes which aren't considered good by Harly standards but which smoke check almost everyone else?
What if I thought Baneblades were cool and don't have enough for 2k? I hope my opponent likes 1400 points games only.
Or, more pertinently, what would you suggest the Custodes player do to make it fun for the Khorne Daemons player in the example that you both quoted and ignored?
This was challenging- a lot of my go-to solutions really don't work for Guard or Daemons, because they don't have bespoke Crusade content yet. I checked a few sources really quickly looking for ideas- I wanted to do something around a ritual and altars of skulls, but I can't find altar of skulls rules anywhere. So I think what I would do instead is find two or three warp related theatres of war and link them to game outcomes (whether that takes the form of victory conditions or it's linked to the achievement of specific secondaries/ agendas). This would represent the ritual taking place over the span of multiple games; as the phases of the ritual are completed, additional Theatre of war effects are activated, but the Imperial player can undo previously activated Theatres as well, so there's a real push/ pull to the narrative.
I'd also build in story triggers that would draw the attention of the Ordo Malleus, so that certain missions would require the Inquisitor to appear as an Imperial Agent to achieve a specific Investigation type secondary/ agenda while the Custodes were responsible for keeping the enemy at bay long enough for the Inquisitor to get the job done.
The baneblade is very interesting to me- I didn't deep dive here either, but what I started thinking about was the BL Baneblade novel where all the characters are the baneblade crew. I've never read the book, but the premise sounded so cool, I always wanted to bring it to a table. I don't know if there is a baneblade chasis variant with a transport capacity, but my idea for the baneblade fan would be that sort of idea. I don't know, maybe use a baneblade as a base of operations for a handful of kill/ fire teams- in some of the spin-off KT games, you could use it as terrain. That's asking a lot of our hypothetical players- KT isn't just an alternate way to play, it's a whole other game, but it's what I'd do. Even if you don't take it that far, the principle is that if a player loves baneblades that much, you make them the anchor of the narrative and choose your missions, agendas/ secondaries to highlight that aspect of the force. You'd also need one or two pieces of terrain that could literally block LOS to the whole model, barring visibility reduction theatres of war.
As for Custodes, well, funny enough I'm actually interested in them for the first time ever, but not for the reason other people are interested. I would play them as either part of a Torchbearer Fleet using the White Dwarf Crusade rules, as a pure SoS force (with or without an attached Hereticus Inquisitor depending on Mission), or a mixed Aleya/ Valerian Talons force. As such, any games against MY Custodes would be interesting and less likely to be OP. Getting generic SoSHq, the decoupling of Aleya and Valerian and Prosecutors as troops were the three best things to happen to the Custodes dex in 9th, but of course we only ever talk about 2k matched here, so no one else cares.
Again, I know you're looking for PUG 2k matched solutions and I understand why it's important to be able to do that. I'm not enough of a matched player to even know whether or not any 2k matched solutions exist, and that is a problem that needs to be remedied. Hopefully the upcoming dataslate fix and the new codices for those factions still waiting will go some distance to remedying the situation.
But if either of our theoretical players are ever able to actually stray outside the boundaries of the lowest common denominator of 40k formats, and try something that ISN'T 2k Matched, I assure you there is plenty of potential to provide very engaging and mutually enjoyable games.
Tiberias wrote: Show you the proper respect?! With all the strawmen you've built and baseless accusations you've thrown around on this very forum? You have got to be kidding me. We can talk about politeness, but respect is earned and you have done everything in your power over multiple threads in this forum to not be worthy of any respect. fething delusional...
You came in here insulting me first. Get off your gak.
Tiberias wrote: How is talking to a person before the game and agreeing to not bring tooled up meta lists akin to a participation trophy? You still have to play against the person an win.
Tiberias wrote: Then you know little about Custodes. I play them, one of my best firends plays Guard. You can tone down a Custodes list by going mostly infantry and sisters, throwing in an assassin here and there.
What if they don't own any SoS or Assassins because the former were only added to the codex recently and the latter have always been optional? Then they can't really have a good game without house ruling extensively - which is an unreasonable ask for a game that charges a lot for rulebooks. You need to start holding GW to task here.
Again, never said GW isn't to blame or should not be scrutinized. If someone doesn't have the collection you can play smaller games for example. If a custodes player bought only jetbikes and Trajann for example in 8th because those were the coolest models to them, then thats a situation you can't remedy in this example, sure....I didn't claim it solves EVERYTHING for everyone.
What irks me is that you seem to be opposed to the general concept, so you hang yourself on to specific examples and then condemn the whole thing. But it's no surprise really, you always do this.
Tiberias wrote: Before you start building strawmen again, nobody said GW wasn't at fault here btw. And yes, trying to have a game with friends where both parties have fun requires more effort. So what? Better than wallowing in self pity about the meta and pointing fingers at GW for how bad the game is....we all know that they messed up, that's not the fething point.
You immediately followed your statement saying nobody isn't saying GW's at fault with a statement that it's wrong to blame GW for the current situation. That's an incredibly two-faced comment.
Great example of you purposefully misconstruing other peoples words to make an intellectually dishonest point, yet again. I did not say it's wrong to blame GW, I said it's better to try to do something about it, at least in friendly games, instead of wallowing in self pity about the situation until GW releases a balance slate or something.
So again, real slow this time: suggesting something might be better or more useful in a given situation than x does not equal doing x or saying x is wrong, terrible or immoral.
Everyone here can read your previous posts and knows you're bullshitting.
Everyone can do the same with your posts, over multiple threads, where you've made staggeringly intellectually dishonest comments to further your points...you are not fooling anyone.
It's deliciously ironic the way you purposefully misconstrue other peoples words and then have the gall to demand respect. Utterly obnoxious.
Don't ask me to believe contradictory statements *within the same paragraph* and we can talk about respect. You find it obnoxious that I actually expect you to say things that make sense, and expect you to say accurate things to earn the right to be called correct. I bet it's frustrating.
I guess you can interpret everything as contradictory as long as you want to further your point.
That's why you would have to talk to people beforehand. Shocking, I know.
This is a meaningless statement. I've played against players who run nothing but Firstborn armies that might have been good in previous editions, and insist that anything that their army is weak against is overpowered. If I talk to them, I'll get stuff like "Harlequins are just too fast, I need multiple turns of unopposed shooting against them to be fair." and "Having objectives in the midfield is unfair because it means I have to run to where Harlequins can kill me. They should have to run towards my gunline."
What do you do about takes like that? You can't really come to a consensus with them. If the rules for 40k weren't so trash, it wouldn't matter, because these people would be playing a reasonably fair game to begin with.
So GW's gakky rules writing is messing with my ability to get a game and enjoy the armies I find thematically interesting.
Yeah again, so you really, really understand it this time: GW is to blame, but you can still try to talk to people and come to a consensus about how to maaaybe have a bit more fun and not be miserable pushing toy soldiers across a table....and the times it didn't work for you are as anecdotal as the multitudes of times it worked great for me....it doesn't mean the concept has no merit, I'd even suggest it's just freaking common sense to at least try to make the best of that situation and have fun.
The leaks show that I can't take Berzerkers anymore. Yet Space Wolves, Black Templars and Blood Angels might be able to better rep my Khorne-based Chaos army.
Tiberias, your comment isn't worth replying to line by line. You, again, are contradicting yourself and refusing to cop to what you're saying. You want to castigate everyone who doesn't perform an ad hoc rebalancing of 40k before every game, but you don't want any of the smoke when called out on how cumbersome that is. That's childish.
I don't want to have to rebalance the game every Friday night for a few hours before I spend a few hours playing the game. GW's supposed to do that for me. And you say it's wrong to criticize them, get off it. The meta is not fine, and it's fine to point that out.
Hecaton wrote: Tiberias, your comment isn't worth replying to line by line. You, again, are contradicting yourself and refusing to cop to what you're saying. You want to castigate everyone who doesn't perform an ad hoc rebalancing of 40k before every game, but you don't want any of the smoke when called out on how cumbersome that is. That's childish.
I don't want to have to rebalance the game every Friday night for a few hours before I spend a few hours playing the game. GW's supposed to do that for me. And you say it's wrong to criticize them, get off it. The meta is not fine, and it's fine to point that out.
Learn to read comprehensively. I clarified my point multiple times now regarding GW...two times in the last post even, yet you still purposefully misconstrue my words.
I don't want to castigate anyone. But what I will do relentlessly is hold you, you specifically, to the BS you are spewing rather constantly.
Before I answer the question I would like to say, I remember a time when powerful codexes were released and there was no chance in hell you would even see an attempt by GW to balance it! GW has improved in that area by 100%, literally going from unresponsive to Balanced Dataslates and FAQs. Which is a vast improvement that sometimes seems as if only players who played in earlier editions can appreciate because there was a time when it did not exist. How do you complain when you know the company is constantly trying to improve the quality of matched play games via Balanced Dataslates and Faqs? Yes, they will make mistakes but you must give them time to attempt to fix it. There was a time when tournament organizers were the ones trying to balance the game and it was somewhat of a mess as the rulings varied depending on the tournament you went to. Now every tournament is the same, I don't have to worry about one judge ruling something differently from my local judge.
To answer the question, the metagame doesn't bother me at all, I will adapt. In my mind, there will always usually be S-tier armies and I don't care if it is the newest codex. I recently got back into 40k after taking a break with corona out there. I won my first local tournament with Necrons with the final round being against Tau and, I plan to go to a bigger tournament using Astra Militarum. I believe player skill is the most important ingredient in the competitive scene. I will acknowledge that you can buy the new stuff and have a high win rate because of it and not skill.
I do not like hearing about 65% winning percentages at events which means there is a list out there that doesn't require a lot to win with. Those numbers are caused when average players can not overcome the various overpowered upgrades of the new codex. There is a problem when both players are of equal skill compete but the end results do not show that because the codex gives one player an advantage.
Hecaton wrote: Remember, World Eaters are getting their own book at some point.
Which is all well and good for those wanting to play World Eaters. But for those of us who just want to keep using Cult Troops in our Chaos armies, we're just gak outta luck. Well, except for Noise Marines, but Noise Marines are also gak out of luck as well, given they're a resin conversion kit for a model that GW doesn't even produce anymore.
First they took away our Daemons. Now our Cult Troops. Why do they hate us?
Tiberias wrote: Learn to read comprehensively. I clarified my point multiple times now regarding GW...two times in the last post even, yet you still purposefully misconstrue my words.
I don't want to castigate anyone. But what I will do relentlessly is hold you, you specifically, to the BS you are spewing rather constantly.
You clarified your point, but it's an absolutely boneheaded and contradictory statement *in a thread where critique of the current meta is invited.*
Go bother OP for making this thread and how it's wrongthink if you're so obsessed with the idea.
I own 2 voidweavers atm, I've never run more than 1 in a game. But the point is, if I win a game, since I'm playing Harlequins, other players assume that it's because of how broken my army is, so the meta is negatively affecting my casual play.
That's something common unfortunately. I got the same reactions when I played orks during the period in which buggy and planes spam outraged competitive players, even if I actually played with 5 buggies, each of a differents kind and no planes at all.
Yes but if someone is like "Custodes are cool, imma run these big golden guys" and another player is like "IG are cool, imma run some tanks and infantry" they cannot have a good game.
I think it is possible. I played orks in 7th, the absolute bottom tier of the edition, and I had great games against an eldar player who didn't want to field a single bike or D weapon platform. Those IG and custodes players cannot have a good game assuming they can't change anything or anything significant in their lists. Which is also something that always has been an issue in friendly games and the reason why I suggest people to avoid playing with their entire collection and/or to build skew lists. Custodes for example can bring lots of garbage units and can be toned down significantly just by avoiding a named character and lots of bikes.
CKO wrote: Before I answer the question I would like to say, I remember a time when powerful codexes were released and there was no chance in hell you would even see an attempt by GW to balance it! GW has improved in that area by 100%, literally going from unresponsive to Balanced Dataslates and FAQs. Which is a vast improvement that sometimes seems as if only players who played in earlier editions can appreciate because there was a time when it did not exist. How do you complain when you know the company is constantly trying to improve the quality of matched play games via Balanced Dataslates and Faqs? Yes, they will make mistakes but you must give them time to attempt to fix it. There was a time when tournament organizers were the ones trying to balance the game and it was somewhat of a mess as the rulings varied depending on the tournament you went to. Now every tournament is the same, I don't have to worry about one judge ruling something differently from my local judge.
To answer the question, the metagame doesn't bother me at all, I will adapt. In my mind, there will always usually be S-tier armies and I don't care if it is the newest codex. I recently got back into 40k after taking a break with corona out there. I won my first local tournament with Necrons with the final round being against Tau and, I plan to go to a bigger tournament using Astra Militarum. I believe player skill is the most important ingredient in the competitive scene. I will acknowledge that you can buy the new stuff and have a high win rate because of it and not skill.
I do not like hearing about 65% winning percentages at events which means there is a list out there that doesn't require a lot to win with. Those numbers are caused when average players can not overcome the various overpowered upgrades of the new codex. There is a problem when both players are of equal skill compete but the end results do not show that because the codex gives one player an advantage.
Doing better than nothing at all is literally the faintest praise you can give to GW.
As for player skill vs list, I think the numbers speak for themselves. Oppressive books like DE, AdMech, Tau, Custodes and Harlequins (God, that's a depressingly long list of broken gak) consistently manage, or managed, 65% win rates or above, across all levels of the game. This isn't because average players overwhelmingly played against broken armies, which is a ridiculous statement. It's because those armies are broken and give an instant power boost to anyone using them. In fact, given these win rates come from tournament data, it's more likely that average or worse players end up facing fewer of these top tier lists because they're languishing towards the middle or bottom tables where list variety is greater.
Player skill obviously plays a part, but the most important thing in determining player success overall is what list they're running. There's a reason the most successful players tend to be the ones who have access to multiple armies and can switch to new ones at a moment's notice. If player skill was a more important factor in success we'd see far more outliers at the top than we currently do.
Tiberias wrote: Learn to read comprehensively. I clarified my point multiple times now regarding GW...two times in the last post even, yet you still purposefully misconstrue my words.
I don't want to castigate anyone. But what I will do relentlessly is hold you, you specifically, to the BS you are spewing rather constantly.
You clarified your point, but it's an absolutely boneheaded and contradictory statement *in a thread where critique of the current meta is invited.*
Go bother OP for making this thread and how it's wrongthink if you're so obsessed with the idea.
Huh? This is starting to take on hilarious levels of ridiculousness....I started this thread you complete dingleberry. Nothing I said about GW was contradictory, you just made that up in your head...again.
Maybe if I use less words:
GW at fault for messy balance, critiquing GW fine....maybe even better though to try to do someting about it and talk to people to try to have more fun in this messy state of game.
Calling me boneheaded there is borderline slapstick, love it.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I'm allowed to not know exactly what either of you are arguing about?
Hecaton is basically saying that because I suggested that it might be better to try to talk to people before a game to maybe turn down stronger factions a bit so that a Guard player for example might get to have a bit more fun (especially in friendly games) by taking more experimental and fun lists for example and/or playing smaller games, I am also absolving GW of all blame for this mess and that I'm somehow not ok with people criticizing GW.
See Hecaton doesn't really read the posts they are responding to comprehensively, but probably flies over them and makes up gotcha moments in their mind. And I'm calling them out on their BS, especially because of their tendency to literally accuse people who play imperium factions and like imperium lore as actual real life fascists in multiple threads.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I'm allowed to not know exactly what either of you are arguing about?
Hecaton is basically saying that because I suggested that it might be better to try to talk to people before a game to maybe turn down stronger factions a bit so that a Guard player for example might get to have a bit more fun (especially in friendly games) by taking more experimental and fun lists for example and/or playing smaller games, I am also absolving GW of all blame for this mess and that I'm somehow not ok with people criticizing GW.
See Hecaton doesn't really read the posts they are responding to comprehensively, but probably flies over them and makes up gotcha moments in their mind. And I'm calling them out on their BS, especially because of their tendency to literally accuse people who play imperium factions and like imperium lore as actual real life fascists in multiple threads.
You're pissed off at me for stuff I said in another thread to the point that you're grossly misrepresenting me here. Get off it. You don't have anything worthwhile to add here.
It's GW's fault the rules and balance suck, and players shouldn't be expected to do GW's job for them, that's unreasonable.
What does "talking before a game" even look like. "Run this list of underpowered models or I won't play you?" What do you do if your opponent wants to run a list you think is gonna beat yours with no effort? Or if they insist you nerf your list to the point where they can just steamroll you, as some scrubby CAAC players insist? That basically shows that 40k can't handle pick up games, which is something worth complaining about.
Also, the Imperium is intentionally evocative of fascism, if you think it's unironically heroic you learned the wrong lesson.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I'm allowed to not know exactly what either of you are arguing about?
Hecaton is basically saying that because I suggested that it might be better to try to talk to people before a game to maybe turn down stronger factions a bit so that a Guard player for example might get to have a bit more fun (especially in friendly games) by taking more experimental and fun lists for example and/or playing smaller games, I am also absolving GW of all blame for this mess and that I'm somehow not ok with people criticizing GW.
See Hecaton doesn't really read the posts they are responding to comprehensively, but probably flies over them and makes up gotcha moments in their mind. And I'm calling them out on their BS, especially because of their tendency to literally accuse people who play imperium factions and like imperium lore as actual real life fascists in multiple threads.
You're pissed off at me for stuff I said in another thread to the point that you're grossly misrepresenting me here. Get off it. You don't have anything worthwhile to add here.
It's GW's fault the rules and balance suck, and players shouldn't be expected to do GW's job for them, that's unreasonable.
What does "talking before a game" even look like. "Run this list of underpowered models or I won't play you?" What do you do if your opponent wants to run a list you think is gonna beat yours with no effort? Or if they insist you nerf your list to the point where they can just steamroll you, as some scrubby CAAC players insist? That basically shows that 40k can't handle pick up games, which is something worth complaining about.
Nono don't get me wrong, I'm also very much pissed off about the drivel you posted in this thread. And I did not misinterpret you one bit, you however almost elevate it to an artform. Problem is you do it purposefully to win an argument.
Also how purposefully dense can you actually be? I never even insinuated that that you should start a conversation about this by saying "Run this list of underpowered models or I won't play you" thats not how a conversation between two reasonable people usually starts. Well maybe it is for you, don't know.
I'm playing Tau, vs Necrons.
This Tau army predates the codex, it's a themed list of all the units I think are awesome. Mechanised infantry supported by mobile armoured and battlesuit assets. It just so happens that every unit is "high B tier" at a minimum in the new codex.
I have barely 1000pts, only about 970 before frivolous upgrades.
My opponent is playing Necrons. I don't know what a meta Necron army looks like, but I'm pretty sure he didn't pick units based on meta performance.
I knew it would be a slaughter, but I decided I'd actually try and give them a turn, I basically didn't use any abilities or strategems and left about a quarter of my list at the back to not do anything.
I still got an easy win without any significant casualties myself by turn 2.
How the hell are we supposed to have a quick discussion balancing that?
I can't run a weaker list because I'm fielding everything I own, running smaller games wouldn't help because my units are all that good, even not using my abilities didn't help all that much.
Balance is fethed beyond the point of players reasonably balancing them.
Well I have switched to Kill team, so not at all. But for those still playing some of the people at the club will turn up with the tweaked armies and some, especially newer players won't. We let the 40k suffers arrange games amongst themselves and from the outside looking in it seems the games are horrifically one sided.
But 40k doesn't have a culture of balancing sides to missions pre game like a lot of wargames (what you have got an army my can't touch, ok, 25% extra to you, these tweaked objectives etc.). They game GT scenario games with GT rules, and don't seem to enjoy it. A lot of new faces seem to only come once, which is sad, but as far as I can tell that is the game now.
3rd to 6th? - Its busted, poor writing exposes rifts between comp and casual - Did I say GW still writes poor rules?
5th edition was a solid foundation. It just needed a good FAQ to iron out things like allocating wounds to multi-wound models. A cross the board increase on cheap vehicles. Then a nerf for Grey Knights and Space Wolves.
Honestly, if 5th edition had the same support 9th has today it would have been the perfect edition with the old ruleset.
I'm playing Tau, vs Necrons.
This Tau army predates the codex, it's a themed list of all the units I think are awesome. Mechanised infantry supported by mobile armoured and battlesuit assets. It just so happens that every unit is "high B tier" at a minimum in the new codex.
I have barely 1000pts, only about 970 before frivolous upgrades.
My opponent is playing Necrons. I don't know what a meta Necron army looks like, but I'm pretty sure he didn't pick units based on meta performance.
I knew it would be a slaughter, but I decided I'd actually try and give them a turn, I basically didn't use any abilities or strategems and left about a quarter of my list at the back to not do anything.
I still got an easy win without any significant casualties myself by turn 2.
How the hell are we supposed to have a quick discussion balancing that?
I can't run a weaker list because I'm fielding everything I own, running smaller games wouldn't help because my units are all that good, even not using my abilities didn't help all that much.
Balance is fethed beyond the point of players reasonably balancing them.
It's nothing different than older editions though.
The point of balance in something as wide as 40k is that each faction should have solid odds to compete each other. Factions, not lists. 40k is not a game in which random X points of a faction MUST be on par against same X points of another faction, and then it's entirely down to players skills or luck, never has been.
For what is worth there's always open play and house rules to help with that, and I believe that players that want to field themed lists should look at those type of games, rather than matched which is aimed at competitive gaming instead. And competitive gaming requires updating players' rosters. Maybe not every month or every year, but at some point players are supposed to expand their collections, unless their collections are already designed on having a bit of everything rather than being themed, spammy or focussed around a flavour of the month. And that's a good thing since it helps keeping the overall balance in check. Themed lists are always hard to play in competitive gaming, for their own nature.
But 1000 points of tau vs 1000 points of necrons, or even higher formats involving the same factions, can definitely result in pretty close and balanced games.
I agree that skew lists shouldn't necessarily be competitive.
But neither me nor my opponent were playing skew and both had pretty balanced lists.
He had a brick of Warriors, a unit of Immortals, some Wraiths, floaty Destroyers, and a Praetorian walker.
I had a battlesuit commander and battlesuits, a fireblade and two units of firewarriors, pathfinders, a devilfish, and a hammerhead.
It feels like for that to have been a fair game I'd have had to skew into all the crap units. That's the opposite of what it should be.
I know 40k has never had good balance, and I hesitate to comment too much on the balance of 5th because I was but a sapling feeling my way into the game at the time, I didn't start to understand what was going on until 6th/7th and I certainly won't defend their balance.
But that's almost besides the point "balance has always been bad" does not excuse the present problem.
I've never been involved in any activity where some effort on my part was not required.
We have a role to play too. We are part of the equation. Especially when gw is so blasé about not bothering. Id like to think we are better than that. And especially when we all want something slightly different out of our games.
Gw absolutely bear responsibility for not balancing the game, though to be fair there is only so much that can be expected without negative consequences- ttgs are limited systems and can't hold much weight. players are also absolutely responsible when they take all of the broken things exclusively, especially where they're not appropriate, doubling down and inflicting them on their peers and then saying 'there was nothing i could or should have done'. Yes, hun there was. You are not without power. And with power comes responsibility. players should approach games with an understanding they play a role in it too, and have some of the respinsibility for their enjoyment and also that of the folks across thr table, but again with the caveat that players can only be expected to do so much, both with a broken system and a game provider that doesn't really care.
For me, not all things are workable all the time, under all circumstances and against every match up. If it looks a poor fit see if it can be tweaked, if not consider an alternative.
kirotheavenger wrote: But that's almost besides the point "balance has always been bad" does not excuse the present problem.
Its sort of splitting hairs - but I suspect your issue isn't balance exactly - but lethality.
Because yes - its very hard to build a Tau army that doesn't rip people to bits if they can't hide from you.
You can take a bunch of Piranhas and Ghostkeels and sure, its not as competitive - but it still still tend to tear people up if you get to shoot first.
I'd like to see a Necron list annihilate my Tau in two turns no matter how hard they were trying.
If the problem was lethality alone factions would see even distribution in tournaments. That is very much not the case.
I beat Tau with Necrons in the last round of a tournament to win the tournament. I charged multiple units by turn 2 and it broke the Tau players back. Minus 1 to hit and minus 1 to wound stratagems helped me survive their first turn of shooting. Wraiths being able to charge after falling back and maximizing terrain coverage due to the ability to move through everything as if it wasn't there.
I didn't annihilate the Tau player by turn two but turn 3 we called it. Every army can compete and I will be putting that theory to test when I use Astra Militarum at my next tournament later on this month.
I'd like to see a Necron list annihilate my Tau in two turns no matter how hard they were trying.
If the problem was lethality alone factions would see even distribution in tournaments. That is very much not the case.
Well you could perform the experiment by marching your Tau into no-mans land, and then letting the Necrons jump out from their ruins to shoot/charge you and see what happens. I think you'd lose a lot.
But yes. Its not hard to observe that crisis suits are just better than destroyers. That a hammerhead is just better than a Triarch Stalker. That basic Fire Warriors and Pathfinders are probably better than Necron Warriors and certainly immortals. The Tau units are generally faster so tend to get the jump. They also do more damage due to much better internal synergy. All of which means they are much easier to play and should expect to win the matchup.
I see that Hecaton is proudly stepping into BaconCatBug’s shoes on this one
Maybe this will help.
In all sorts of iterations of the following sentence: ”You can’t expect GW to fix your gaming experience for you”, the ‚can’t expect’ part does not mean, that it is forbidden, or that GW is absolved of all guilt, or that is all on the players, etc. What it means is that in the last 30 years GW has proven again and again, that they won’t deliver. And it doesn’t matter if they won’t because they don’t know how, are not willing or are straight up evil and lure oblivious players into 40k just to make them miserable. The reality of this game is that if you don’t like the way it works then the only way for you to improve your own enjoyment of the game is to work with the other player towards that common goal - enjoyment for both parties.
What Tiberias is trying hard to relay to you is that if you are in a place when the game breaks under it’s own weight you can either sit and complain, waiting for GW to fix the game, or you can try to work out some rough patches so you can play and enjoy your time while you wait for GW to fix the game.
Unit1126PLL wrote: No, because I can respect someone's bodily choices to harm themselves as long as they don't harm me.
Not really sure why GW's 2 player game being trash for one or the other player has anything to do with that.
I understand you but the enjoyment of the game responsibility falls directly upon the players playing the game not GW. If a player wants their friend who isn't a tournament player to enjoy the game do not bring a tournament list. The player knows that their friend just got into the game and his options are few.
Is it GW's fault when a player takes 3 Crisis suit units against a new player? I feel the Tau player made the decision to take the enjoyment out of the game.
At tournaments you know players want to win and will bring whatever gives them the best chance to win. Do not go to a tournament with high expectations if you know you cannot beat the top armies, and it is not your fault that you have a bad match-up against the new shiny stuff.
Is it GW's fault when a player takes 3 Crisis suit units against a new player? I feel the Tau player made the decision to take the enjoyment out of the game.
I don't entirely disagree with you on this, but I would argue GW is also partially responsible for reducing the enjoyment as it would be nice if taking 3 crisis suit units against a new player wasn't a problem (presumably, taking 3 units of crisis suits would prevent you from having answers for other units or objectives that the other player might be able to exploit as a potential path to victory, which you might try to counter via tactical decisions)
Looking at the other side of the coin though: I really like the aesthetics of the leman russ vanquisher. I would love to take a leman russ vanquisher. I don't take a leman russ vanquisher because the leman russ demolisher (or apparently the battlecannon) are one of the few options if you want to do decent damage with guard (there's others, but not many). Taking a vanquisher will reduce my fun because it will hamper my ability to impact the game (I'm not bothered by losing tbh, so long as I had an impact), but on the other hand, I'm sad because I want to take this cool unit. I would say GW is taking the enjoyment out in this situation, not either player. I can't think of a single instance where the vanquisher is the answer (although I will gladly be wrong on this).
Of course, if GW somehow makes the vanquisher the most OP unit, I'd leave it out if that's what it took to have fun games, but I'd still be sad because I'd love to take it. And again, that loss of fun would be on GW's shoulders.
I guess in the end, it's GW taking the fun out of certain match ups first, and then (in your example) the 3 crisis suit unit player not moderating their list that's allowing that loss of fun for their opponent to continue (not saying it's right or wrong). (And of course not bringing crisis suits might make it less fun for the tau player, which I would put on GW's shoulders, just like with my example).
(Also, while lurking around dakka, the phrase "fight, fight, fight, kiss, kiss, kiss" keeps springing to mind and I felt the need to share)
The leaks show that I can't take Berzerkers anymore. Yet Space Wolves, Black Templars and Blood Angels might be able to better rep my Khorne-based Chaos army.
World eaters are getting their own army, and the marks all actually do meaningful gak now to buff your chaos marines.
Hecaton wrote: Tiberias, your comment isn't worth replying to line by line. You, again, are contradicting yourself and refusing to cop to what you're saying. You want to castigate everyone who doesn't perform an ad hoc rebalancing of 40k before every game, but you don't want any of the smoke when called out on how cumbersome that is. That's childish.
I don't want to have to rebalance the game every Friday night for a few hours before I spend a few hours playing the game. GW's supposed to do that for me. And you say it's wrong to criticize them, get off it. The meta is not fine, and it's fine to point that out.
It actually mostly looks like he has an axe to grind because you called out fascists on this forum before.
Hecaton wrote: Remember, World Eaters are getting their own book at some point.
Which is all well and good for those wanting to play World Eaters. But for those of us who just want to keep using Cult Troops in our Chaos armies, we're just gak outta luck. Well, except for Noise Marines, but Noise Marines are also gak out of luck as well, given they're a resin conversion kit for a model that GW doesn't even produce anymore.
First they took away our Daemons. Now our Cult Troops. Why do they hate us?
The rumor is that you can actually keep cult troops, the datasheets just aren't in the book.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I'm allowed to not know exactly what either of you are arguing about?
Tiberias has a political based butthurt and is using this topic as an excuse to yell loudly at hecaton is what I get from the exchange.
CKO wrote: Is it GW's fault when a player takes 3 Crisis suit units against a new player? I feel the Tau player made the decision to take the enjoyment out of the game.
My wife doesn't like Tau infantry so has a Tau army almost entirely composed of suits and drones. Crisis Suits are the mainstay, and previously that wasn't oppressive at all. She's not choosing to 'take the enjoyment out of the game', she's choosing to play with an army that was never built for competitive effectiveness to begin with.
Okay, I guess she's just not supposed to play Tau against a new player, so she'll instead take her Drukhari, and- Oh. Nope. That's going to be a bad game too.
So, is it GW's fault when a player who owns two armies and has never pursued particularly competitive builds finds that they can't have a fun, fair, and casual game anymore? You tell me.
Is it GW's fault when a player takes 3 Crisis suit units against a new player? I feel the Tau player made the decision to take the enjoyment out of the game.
Whose fault is it that someone running 3 crisis suits takes the fun out of the game? What if that person just started playing and happens to like crisis suits? This whole "blame the player because I'm a GW fanboi" logic falls apart pretty quickly when you realize there's more than 1 possible motivation for someone to take crisis suits, voidweavers, or custodes jetbikes.
Hecaton wrote: Remember, World Eaters are getting their own book at some point.
Which is all well and good for those wanting to play World Eaters. But for those of us who just want to keep using Cult Troops in our Chaos armies, we're just gak outta luck. Well, except for Noise Marines, but Noise Marines are also gak out of luck as well, given they're a resin conversion kit for a model that GW doesn't even produce anymore.
First they took away our Daemons. Now our Cult Troops. Why do they hate us?
The rumor is that you can actually keep cult troops, the datasheets just aren't in the book.
Right. "You want to run some Berzerkers in your Black Legion warband? That'll be another $55 for another codex for one datasheet. Want some Rubrics too? That'll be another $55 for one datasheet, again. Oh, and you want some Plague Marines too? Big spender, aren't you?"
And none of them get Legion traits either. Definitely not an optimal solution.
Hecaton wrote: Remember, World Eaters are getting their own book at some point.
Which is all well and good for those wanting to play World Eaters. But for those of us who just want to keep using Cult Troops in our Chaos armies, we're just gak outta luck. Well, except for Noise Marines, but Noise Marines are also gak out of luck as well, given they're a resin conversion kit for a model that GW doesn't even produce anymore.
First they took away our Daemons. Now our Cult Troops. Why do they hate us?
The rumor is that you can actually keep cult troops, the datasheets just aren't in the book.
Right. "You want to run some Berzerkers in your Black Legion warband? That'll be another $55 for another codex for one datasheet. Want some Rubrics too? That'll be another $55 for one datasheet, again. Oh, and you want some Plague Marines too? Big spender, aren't you?"
And none of them get Legion traits either. Definitely not an optimal solution.
Why are they just dismantling Chaos armies, feth.
Remember the days when Legions, Daemons, Cults and Renegades were all in one $25 paperback? Gosh that was back when individual CSMs could be buffed to be better than loyalists too, when the trade of loyalty/discipline for individual power was totally a thing and a great theme.
Insectum7 wrote: Why are they just dismantling Chaos armies, feth.
Remember the days when Legions, Daemons, Cults and Renegades were all in one $25 paperback? Gosh that was back when individual CSMs could be buffed to be better than loyalists too, when the trade of loyalty/discipline for individual power was totally a thing and a great theme.
They've been telegraphing this for years at this point. It's part of the reason I've been selling off most of my CSM stuff, it's obvious that a) most of my mixed stuff is not going to work together in any manner like it has in the past and b) CSM is finally expanding into at least half a dozen different, distinct codex army lists that will not play nicely together.
In other words, to my fellow traitors who have advocated for more (myself included), careful what you wish for, you might get it.
Hecaton wrote: Remember, World Eaters are getting their own book at some point.
Which is all well and good for those wanting to play World Eaters. But for those of us who just want to keep using Cult Troops in our Chaos armies, we're just gak outta luck. Well, except for Noise Marines, but Noise Marines are also gak out of luck as well, given they're a resin conversion kit for a model that GW doesn't even produce anymore.
First they took away our Daemons. Now our Cult Troops. Why do they hate us?
The rumor is that you can actually keep cult troops, the datasheets just aren't in the book.
Right. "You want to run some Berzerkers in your Black Legion warband? That'll be another $55 for another codex for one datasheet. Want some Rubrics too? That'll be another $55 for one datasheet, again. Oh, and you want some Plague Marines too? Big spender, aren't you?"
And none of them get Legion traits either. Definitely not an optimal solution.
Why are they just dismantling Chaos armies, feth.
Remember the days when Legions, Daemons, Cults and Renegades were all in one $25 paperback? Gosh that was back when individual CSMs could be buffed to be better than loyalists too, when the trade of loyalty/discipline for individual power was totally a thing and a great theme.
That last sentence of yours is what happened. That happened once, and gw has made Chaos pay for it ever since. You might think it was a great theme, but they don't.
There's a certain amount of responsibility on both sides.
1 - GW should present a fairly balanced game, which they have not. They're not even close
2 - Players should understand the environment they are playing in, and set their expectations accordingly
Without #1, #2 is pretty much impossible. Taken to extremes (like it is today with Harlies), it's just not fun in any environment to show up and get wiped off the table turn 1/2, regardless of the army you're playing. If all the armies can wipe the other player turn 1 with indirect fire, then there's no point in even buying models, just show up, each player rolls a die and whoever gets highest wins, then everybody goes home. The game is almost this bad right now. Once you're in a fairly equitable state, then player skill gets involved, whether it be at the meta level, or an individual match level.
#2 - if you're a new player, when agreeing to a game with your opponent, you should say "I'm new at this, can we make it a learning game". If you're opponent says no "I'm going to crush your hopes and spirit", find another game. If you go to LVO as a new player, you should expect to have your handed to you. That doesn't mean you can't have that conversation with your opponent saying "hey, I'm new to the tournament scene, yadda yadda" and turn it into a fun game, but you should still expect to lose.
But again, having that conversation is almost pointless unless #1 happens. You can't have a fun game if every 100 point of my army is equivalent to 500 of your, or even 200/150/50. You're still a Storm Giant in a land of pygmies.
You'll notice I said almost, because if the points are way out of whack like they are today, then it really takes a meaningful conversation about points, use of strats, terrain, army lists, etc., where are off these are considered and agreed upon by both players at the same time to make an equitable match. But it's a nigh thing to go to any FLGS for a pick-up game and have that conversation. If you want to go to any tournament or any pick-up game and stand a fair chance, #1 is 90% of that equation. The proof is in SoCal, where an unknown Orks player just about tabled the #1 DE player in the world in 1 turn (which GW then waaaaayyyy over-reacted to).
Yeah - both sides need held accountable at all times.
GW needs to continue have their nose rubbed in the burning garbage they produce and held accountable (they have not ever been held accountable, people still shovel money their way so why change?)
And players who go to casual night / campaign day / playing someone that says they dont want to play with adepticon lists that show up with adepticon lists to those type of games need to be outed as well.
The whole "gw says i can do it so thats how they intend" or "git gud" doesn't fly.
Tournaments, tournament tuning games, leagues, etc... those are the place for your git gud list. Outside of that, if you intentionally go to games where the event states its not for those lists and you jackhammer those lists in anyway - that type of player needs to be policed by their respective community.
I would argue that the only reason there's a vast difference between a fluffy casual list and a cutthroat competitive 'git gud' tournament list to begin with is because GW isn't writing good rules.
In a good system you'd take a fluffy army because that's what works well on the tabletop because fluff and crunch are aligned.
CKO wrote: When do we start holding players accountable for taking the broken stuff?
Pretty much never, and I'm being serious. That's on GW.
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nou wrote: What Tiberias is trying hard to relay to you is that if you are in a place when the game breaks under it’s own weight you can either sit and complain, waiting for GW to fix the game, or you can try to work out some rough patches so you can play and enjoy your time while you wait for GW to fix the game.
Getting mad that people talk about the situation in a *thread dedicated to this* is just pointlessly insulting. Get off your gak. Make a separate thread about "how do you tweak the game for balance.' I'm guessing you won't actually have much to talk about, because you don't actually do it, just use it as a handwavey explanation whenever someone complains about balance, but the offer is there.
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CKO wrote: Is it GW's fault when a player takes 3 Crisis suit units against a new player? I feel the Tau player made the decision to take the enjoyment out of the game.
Get off your gak. Who's to say the Tau player knows crisis suits are off the chain? They might be new as well. GW presented the game with a points/PL system which implies balance, it's not players' fault for taking them at face value when they don't know better. Stop getting salty at the dude across the table from you and start demanding better of GW.
That last sentence of yours is what happened. That happened once, and gw has made Chaos pay for it ever since. You might think it was a great theme, but they don't.
Well they don't want anything that takes away the protagonization of their precious loyalist marines.
The following is from Goonhammer and represents the only currently successful Sisters build. It's outpaced every other previous option by miles in the current meta:
4th – Justin Moore – Adepta Sororitas: The struggling Sisters put up a 4-1 performance, with Justin running Vahl + 30 Valorous Heart Sacresants, two squads of storm bolter Dominions, and some melta Rets plus Celestine.
Notice something about this setup? EVERY SINGLE UNIT except Celestine received at least 1 significant nerf in the CA2022 and the balance patch. Retributors received FOUR.
Yet, here we are. The only reasonably competitive build sisters have, very nearly maxes out on the most nerfed units. Because they have to. Nothing else in the book works anymore because the entire army was built around combining Convictions and using Morvenn and Sacresancts as a central pivot.
Increasing the price of Sacresancts just meant that you're forced to max out on sacresancts in order to get enough staying power to make the objective game possible. Increasing the points on Dominions doesn't make you not take dominions, it just means you've got less options outside of that. Increasing the price on Morvenn just makes the army smaller.
So you end up with changes that create a mono-build faction where half the units in the book might as well not exist.
Paragon Warsuits went down THIRTY points and they actually see even LESS play than they did previously. Meanwhile Sacresancts went UP 10 points per 5 and people immediately maxed out 3 units of them. A FIFTY point swing in Paragon's favor vs 1 unit of 10 Sacresancts saw them go from a rare tech choice to absolutely zero representation.
All of the point changes were clearly intended to help smooth out the internal balance of the book (assuming there WAS a logical intention, this is the only one that makes any sense) and all they ended up doing was making EXTERNAL balance worse to the point where the army no longer had room for more flexible options.
Hecaton wrote: Remember, World Eaters are getting their own book at some point.
Which is all well and good for those wanting to play World Eaters. But for those of us who just want to keep using Cult Troops in our Chaos armies, we're just gak outta luck. Well, except for Noise Marines, but Noise Marines are also gak out of luck as well, given they're a resin conversion kit for a model that GW doesn't even produce anymore.
First they took away our Daemons. Now our Cult Troops. Why do they hate us?
The rumor is that you can actually keep cult troops, the datasheets just aren't in the book.
Right. "You want to run some Berzerkers in your Black Legion warband? That'll be another $55 for another codex for one datasheet. Want some Rubrics too? That'll be another $55 for one datasheet, again. Oh, and you want some Plague Marines too? Big spender, aren't you?"
And none of them get Legion traits either. Definitely not an optimal solution.
Why are they just dismantling Chaos armies, feth.
Remember the days when Legions, Daemons, Cults and Renegades were all in one $25 paperback? Gosh that was back when individual CSMs could be buffed to be better than loyalists too, when the trade of loyalty/discipline for individual power was totally a thing and a great theme.
That last sentence of yours is what happened. That happened once, and gw has made Chaos pay for it ever since. You might think it was a great theme, but they don't.
It wasn't even just once iirc. It was a good constant from 2nd ed through to the end of 4th-ish. I can't speak to Rogue Trader but I'd guess it's similar.
Insectum7 wrote: Why are they just dismantling Chaos armies, feth.
Remember the days when Legions, Daemons, Cults and Renegades were all in one $25 paperback? Gosh that was back when individual CSMs could be buffed to be better than loyalists too, when the trade of loyalty/discipline for individual power was totally a thing and a great theme.
They've been telegraphing this for years at this point. It's part of the reason I've been selling off most of my CSM stuff, it's obvious that a) most of my mixed stuff is not going to work together in any manner like it has in the past and b) CSM is finally expanding into at least half a dozen different, distinct codex army lists that will not play nicely together.
In other words, to my fellow traitors who have advocated for more (myself included), careful what you wish for, you might get it.
Aww, don't sell, man. It means if GW does get it right again you'll have to rebuy everything to enjoy it. It also means you won't have the army for playing older editions or alternative rulesets.
CKO wrote: When do we start holding players accountable for taking the broken stuff?
Pretty much never, and I'm being serious. That's on GW.
Oh it's pretty easy outside your tourney scene. At the extreme you just decline to play the guy with the {insert thing/army/rule(s) your currently howling about}. But before it reaches that point is where the conversations occur about what types of games/missions/scenarios/any house rules/handicaps etc you want to use. Maybe you can work something out. Maybe you can't & it defaults to "No Thanks".
Guy with the {crap} get's "No Thanks" often enough odds are he'll get the message.
CKO wrote: When do we start holding players accountable for taking the broken stuff?
Pretty much never, and I'm being serious. That's on GW.
Oh it's pretty easy outside your tourney scene. At the extreme you just decline to play the guy with the {insert thing/army/rule(s) your currently howling about}. But before it reaches that point is where the conversations occur about what types of games/missions/scenarios/any house rules/handicaps etc you want to use. Maybe you can work something out. Maybe you can't & it defaults to "No Thanks".
Guy with the {crap} get's "No Thanks" often enough odds are he'll get the message.
How dare someone like the look of Tau!
How dare someone think that space murder clowns are cool!
How dare they like something that's also good!
Seriously-it shouldn't be "You picked Faction X, you're not gonna get games because they're OP" or "You picked Faction Y, you need a 25% handicap just to have a good game."
CKO wrote: When do we start holding players accountable for taking the broken stuff?
Pretty much never, and I'm being serious. That's on GW.
Oh it's pretty easy outside your tourney scene. At the extreme you just decline to play the guy with the {insert thing/army/rule(s) your currently howling about}. But before it reaches that point is where the conversations occur about what types of games/missions/scenarios/any house rules/handicaps etc you want to use. Maybe you can work something out. Maybe you can't & it defaults to "No Thanks".
Guy with the {crap} get's "No Thanks" often enough odds are he'll get the message.
How dare someone like the look of Tau!
How dare someone think that space murder clowns are cool!
How dare they like something that's also good!
Seriously-it shouldn't be "You picked Faction X, you're not gonna get games because they're OP" or "You picked Faction Y, you need a 25% handicap just to have a good game."
Well it IS.
GW game or otherwise, outside the tourney scene it's always been this way. And it always will be.
My hope had always been that Chaos (being, you know.... Chaotic) would have greater soup capacity than any other army of the game, and that GW would lean into it and actually make this versatility a design feature.
The Eldar dex has some soup flexibilities built into it. It serves as an example of the types of solutions they could bring to chaos, though I'd say chaos should have even more of these adjustments- they are the OG warband army.
What I can say- and it isn't a perfect solution, because book bloat is a thing- there will likely berules in WD or campaign supplements that allow chaos forces to combine in different ways. The Disciples of Be'Lakor, for example, is one such list that already exists.
There aren't any other specific Chaos lists that do this yet... But Vigilous alone gave us Armies of Faith, which allows you to combine Marines, Sisters and Guard. And there's a new Vigilus book coming, so I'd expect it to have the dark mirror arrangement for Chaos.
At least, that's an expectation I would have... But GW has taught me to be careful about having high... Or even reasonable expectations. Any time I try to hard to think about about what something in the pipeline might look like, I usually find myself at least somewhat let down by the result.
I like Admech. I love their look. I hate their vehicles. If I ran an Admech army, I'd likely run a mostly infantry army with like 6 kastellan robots, tons of skitarii rangers, and some tech priests with an armiger or two. I don't know if any of this is overpowered, or will be, or was. If I picked these units, painted them, and then played them, and I dominated every battle, or was dominated every battle, I wouldn't have fun at all, and that's not on me. But, if I look up a meta list and purposefully dominate every single fight I go into, that is on me.
Insectum7 wrote: Aww, don't sell, man. It means if GW does get it right again you'll have to rebuy everything to enjoy it. It also means you won't have the army for playing older editions or alternative rulesets.
1 - In many ways, this is exactly what we asked for over many years.
2 - This is business 101, GW was eventually going to hire some competent MBAs.
Sides, I'm keeping my TS stuff (it's my best painted stuff) and my daemons since I can play them in AoS also. I'm still going to be able to play, I'm just selling my CSM stuff when it's most valuable, before the new codex, while speculation is high, before the inevitable nerfbat apocalypse.
Insectum7 wrote: Aww, don't sell, man. It means if GW does get it right again you'll have to rebuy everything to enjoy it. It also means you won't have the army for playing older editions or alternative rulesets.
1 - In many ways, this is exactly what we asked for over many years.
Sure seems like a "monkeys paw" type of situation.
Insectum7 wrote: Aww, don't sell, man. It means if GW does get it right again you'll have to rebuy everything to enjoy it. It also means you won't have the army for playing older editions or alternative rulesets.
1 - In many ways, this is exactly what we asked for over many years.
Sure seems like a "monkeys paw" type of situation.
"I like the look of the army. I'll.. huh, well, all this stuff is super expensive. I guess I'll get a start collecting or combat patrol for the army. Heck, I'll toss in a unit I REALLY like, too."
Next month:
"I had a ton of fun, but I want to expand my army. Let me try..."
They normally expand out horizontally across the codex, trying new units and models.
Very rarely do you see someone going:
"I'm playing Harlequins and I'll just impulse buy 9 Voidweavers and call it a day."
People who do that have put time into reading up on what they're getting into, and they may even have looked in far enough to know that if you want to beat face with your hefty investment... you need to get these pieces, in triplicate. I don't believe THOSE players are playing in the spirit of the game. I think THOSE players are kinda THAT GUY in training.
But I go back to:
Most of this is because so many people just can't switch off. They're stuck in some Top 4 Competition death spiral in their heads and take that out on everyone they come across. I can say with much certainty that as a new player I was SUPER worried about going so deep into 1 model that I would be stuck with a bunch of stuff that just didn't work... no matter how cool they looked.
Typically, you know when you're crossing a line. Especially when you're playing 1 Voidweaver, then 3, and then 7, and finally 9. You know when you're crossing a line, and if you were at 3... you know it was really strong and bordering on a bit too punishing. Yet so many people here reject the agency of saying: maybe I shouldn't put in those next 6. And we've cultured a community that is so petrified of speaking our feelings out to the other. I've gotten into so many of those games where on turn 1 I just shook hands and pulled my army off of the table. I was a hour into the game, getting rolled stupidly hard because my casual list was ill prepared for whatever level of crap a competition player wanted to "test". Obviously we had no common understanding of what we wanted out of that game, and I'm not going to let it ruin my day. If people don't want to play against me because I refuse to get clubbed in a PUG, so be it... at least I won't find my time torturous. But we all know that's not how the scenario will really play out. I think in the face of such shoddy writing, it is graceful to excuse someone for lucking into a powerful list... so long as they're willing to say "Yeah, that was a little ugly, let's not do that again." and at least pay lip service into acknowledging that there was a problem and maybe concessions are in order. But if it becomes a pattern where someone just lucked into a super powerful army one month after lucking into the previously meta army... 6 months after lucking into...
Sometimes you gotta ask - is this guy just always lucky and has an army prepped for every situation? Or is "luck" just being bludgeoned as a scapegoat.
Also... with all the commenting on poop internal balancing and so many garbage units in codices. I find it really hard to believe that top tier players with overtuned armies couldn't find a way to have a softer touch with their local gaming group. Handicap doesn't strictly have to be against points... it could literally be bringing less optimized units just to have a more engaging and fair game with the person getting demolished. Tell 'em, "Hey, I noticed this unit keeps doing WAY too much. I wanted to try something else, give you a break from the same old stuff." A graceful way of saying "This unit is overtuned, and your army sucks, so I won't play it."
You know how many times I tabled my Stormbolter Dominions for Flamer Dominions against my friend's EC list? Yeah, we both knew that Blessed Bolts literally erasing squads in mortals alone was way too much for his codex to handle. I didn't make him beg me to not bring them, we both laughed and said "not yet, these are just... not yet." I'll play them against just about everything else, but I have the decency to NOT vs. Chaos Space Marines. And he thanked me. He feels a little bad I have to play down and cannot dole out the harshness, but we BOTH have a better game when I do. We talked about it, talked through it, and neither of us felt slighted in the end that GW has difficulty writing rules.
Edit:
I've been a top tourney player in card games. I've also been a fencer as well as an instructor.
When I go to local game nights as a card player... sure, I'll bring my regional deck, but I keep it in the box. If someone wants to test something competitively, I have it to get that engagement. But at the game, I'll simply play some combination of "fun looking jank" that makes me chuckle. Literally the "for the luls" decks. I'll even take a round Loss to switch to a different deck if someone wanted a more serious engagement. The W and L means nothing, especially at the local level. The purpose of the Locals scene is to grow the game, to be welcoming and inviting, and show the bright side of the game for the newer people curious about getting in. Going wide open isn't really showing a good face to new players, cromping the hope out of people is not how you get new players.
It was the same in fencing, only I was more in control of my level of play and could shift it whenever I needed to. I barely went 50% against a novice. It isn't fair, it isn't fun, and even dunking on them doesn't teach them anything meaningful... just makes them feel bad. You save that for when someone gets a little uppity and needs to be reminded that there's far superior skill out there, and to respect that skill and approach the art with a bit more grace and less self-importance.
In both arenas... you feel out the competition level... and then you set your bar there. As your group gets better, you get better. You try to bring them up with you, but make sure to stop when someone peaks... and never forget where you came from and just how daunting it is to get there.
I hate the mentality of "if you're going to play in this league, you better expect to lose and lose hard for awhile."
That stupid gatekeeping kills communities and hobbies by shutting out new people. Have some courtesy and humility. Those two traits will get you so much further with newer players and sustaining your passion than that extra W at your local gaming store.
Insectum7 wrote: Aww, don't sell, man. It means if GW does get it right again you'll have to rebuy everything to enjoy it. It also means you won't have the army for playing older editions or alternative rulesets.
1 - In many ways, this is exactly what we asked for over many years.
Sure seems like a "monkeys paw" type of situation.
How delightfully apropos for Chaos.
*Snort* We get the Chaos Spawn result of codexes, sure.
It turning into a professional sport has made it what it is today though.
You're right - some people just can't turn it off. Especially when they are chasing that dragon of whatever it is in their head they will get if they can top place an LVO or Adepticon.
PenitentJake wrote: My hope had always been that Chaos (being, you know.... Chaotic) would have greater soup capacity than any other army of the game, and that GW would lean into it and actually make this versatility a design feature.
This, only Daemons rather than Clowns:
And then do the same thing for Death Guard/1kSons/etc., but they can only take Daemons with the <Nurgle>/<Tzeentch>/etc. keywords.
Oh it's pretty easy outside your tourney scene. At the extreme you just decline to play the guy with the {insert thing/army/rule(s) your currently howling about}. But before it reaches that point is where the conversations occur about what types of games/missions/scenarios/any house rules/handicaps etc you want to use. Maybe you can work something out. Maybe you can't & it defaults to "No Thanks".
Guy with the {crap} get's "No Thanks" often enough odds are he'll get the message.
Or maybe he doesn't have enough money to re-buy his entire army because he bought the "wrong" units that his local playgroup doesn't like, even if they're his favorite.
My experience is that declining will happen more often than not, and if you ask someone what models they're bringing before a game, they're going to think you're going to try to counterpick them or something. I've never heard of this as you describe it happening, and given how people like you basically don't use specifics when you talk about it it implies to me that it basically doesn't happen. When we're talking pickup games, I just play against the people with the overpowered armies less, I don't ask them to change their stuff up.
Well it IS.
GW game or otherwise, outside the tourney scene it's always been this way. And it always will be.
Nah. The community has never been more aware of how imbalanced things are than now. It's a different time than 2005.
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Purifying Tempest wrote: I hate the mentality of "if you're going to play in this league, you better expect to lose and lose hard for awhile."
That stupid gatekeeping kills communities and hobbies by shutting out new people. Have some courtesy and humility. Those two traits will get you so much further with newer players and sustaining your passion than that extra W at your local gaming store.
I always tell my opponents if I'm not going full force for some reason. Maybe I'm trying a new faction for a while, or an experimental list design, or I know they're still learning. That way they know - and you can sort the people who want to grow from the people who just want the win and are going to whine until they get it. The important thing is to have a growth mentality, no matter how good you start or how fast you learn.
Unit1126PLL wrote: No, because I can respect someone's bodily choices to harm themselves as long as they don't harm me.
Not really sure why GW's 2 player game being trash for one or the other player has anything to do with that.
I understand you but the enjoyment of the game responsibility falls directly upon the players playing the game not GW.
So... you're saying that it's the players' fault for not enjoying a GW product?
Gods, imagine if the real world worked that way: "Steam, I want a refund for this PVP video game, I didn't enjoy it." "Sorry bud, maybe your opponents should've thought of your enjoyment more. No refunds."
CKO wrote: If a player wants their friend who isn't a tournament player to enjoy the game do not bring a tournament list. The player knows that their friend just got into the game and his options are few.
Is it GW's fault when a player takes 3 Crisis suit units against a new player? I feel the Tau player made the decision to take the enjoyment out of the game.
It's the player's "fault" for bringing 3 crisis suit units, but it's GW's fault that bringing 3 Crisis Suit units is so bad.
"Buy and play what you think is cool" isn't a sin. If a player thinks 3 crisis suit units is cool and buys and plays them, he isn't sinning.
If his opponent doesn't enjoy the game, then GW is at fault for making the experience of playing against 3 units of crisis suits unenjoyable.
CKO wrote: At tournaments you know players want to win and will bring whatever gives them the best chance to win. Do not go to a tournament with high expectations if you know you cannot beat the top armies, and it is not your fault that you have a bad match-up against the new shiny stuff.
Buuuuuuuuut the point of a tournament is to compete, to test player skill. What army you bring has nothing to do with player skill - unless you are ready to claim that choosing an army is player skill. If you are willing to go that far, then I'd say that you've pretty much put a bullet in "buy and paint what you think is cool".
PenitentJake wrote: My hope had always been that Chaos (being, you know.... Chaotic) would have greater soup capacity than any other army of the game, and that GW would lean into it and actually make this versatility a design feature.
This, only Daemons rather than Clowns:
And then do the same thing for Death Guard/1kSons/etc., but they can only take Daemons with the <Nurgle>/<Tzeentch>/etc. keywords.
So demons would be includable in any faction? i'd be down for that, total chaos victory :p
ERJAK wrote: So, another rant about how stupid GW balance is:
The following is from Goonhammer and represents the only currently successful Sisters build. It's outpaced every other previous option by miles in the current meta:
4th – Justin Moore – Adepta Sororitas: The struggling Sisters put up a 4-1 performance, with Justin running Vahl + 30 Valorous Heart Sacresants, two squads of storm bolter Dominions, and some melta Rets plus Celestine.
Notice something about this setup? EVERY SINGLE UNIT except Celestine received at least 1 significant nerf in the CA2022 and the balance patch. Retributors received FOUR.
Yet, here we are. The only reasonably competitive build sisters have, very nearly maxes out on the most nerfed units. Because they have to. Nothing else in the book works anymore because the entire army was built around combining Convictions and using Morvenn and Sacresancts as a central pivot.
Increasing the price of Sacresancts just meant that you're forced to max out on sacresancts in order to get enough staying power to make the objective game possible. Increasing the points on Dominions doesn't make you not take dominions, it just means you've got less options outside of that. Increasing the price on Morvenn just makes the army smaller.
So you end up with changes that create a mono-build faction where half the units in the book might as well not exist.
Paragon Warsuits went down THIRTY points and they actually see even LESS play than they did previously. Meanwhile Sacresancts went UP 10 points per 5 and people immediately maxed out 3 units of them. A FIFTY point swing in Paragon's favor vs 1 unit of 10 Sacresancts saw them go from a rare tech choice to absolutely zero representation.
All of the point changes were clearly intended to help smooth out the internal balance of the book (assuming there WAS a logical intention, this is the only one that makes any sense) and all they ended up doing was making EXTERNAL balance worse to the point where the army no longer had room for more flexible options.
So that guy beat...
Tau, CW, CW & Harlies, and BT. He lost to CW 68 to 79.
If those nerfs weren't present what do you think the list would look like? Because I'm betting it'd be relatively the same with more stuff.
This sort of tells me the nerfs were appropriate and that other changes need to be made to bring the rest of the codex in line.
And Vlad, I'm pretty sure HBMC was meaning specifically for CSM (and spin-offs), rather than as a universal rule.
I know, i was making a joke on the fact that RAW, travelling players lets you add a patrol of clowns to any army, not just aeldari ones
I'm probably missing something here - just checked the mini-rulebook, and it references the need for an Army Faction keyword to make an army Battle-Forged, with the latter being a state required for Travelling Players.
I don't have the new Eldar book to hand, but I'd be surprised if the Clown keywords allowed for that to happen.
CKO wrote: So you want to use 3 crisis suit units against the guy that bought a patrol box, a dreadnaught, and incursors and the outcome is GW's fault. Gotcha!
Why shouldn't those two armies be able to compete with one another, if the points are equal?
CKO wrote: So you want to use 3 crisis suit units against the guy that bought a patrol box, a dreadnaught, and incursors and the outcome is GW's fault. Gotcha!
Yes. The points are equal - if it's not balanced its GW's fault.
CKO wrote: So you want to use 3 crisis suit units against the guy that bought a patrol box, a dreadnaught, and incursors and the outcome is GW's fault. Gotcha!
Why shouldn't those two armies be able to compete with one another, if the points are equal?
In magic, if we both bring decks, right? Mine is worth $500 yours is worth $20, who wins? Is it the company's fault that both decks followed all the rule guidelines but one is clearly better than the other.
CKO wrote: So you want to use 3 crisis suit units against the guy that bought a patrol box, a dreadnaught, and incursors and the outcome is GW's fault. Gotcha!
the start collecting box came with 3 crisis suits, most tau player (no matter how casual they are) have multiple squads of crisis.
Points have never been for balance in gw games, they are for structure to min max within. They are the boundaries for the box to build in and nothing more.
CKO wrote: Is it the company's fault that both decks followed all the rule guidelines but one is clearly better than the other.
Yes.
You're not really making a good case for yourself by comparing 40K to a game that is transparently pay-to-win, or at least pay-to-compete. But Magic doesn't pretend that every card is equally good and valid, either, or that as long as you and your opponent have the same size deck it'll be a fair game.
CKO wrote: So you want to use 3 crisis suit units against the guy that bought a patrol box, a dreadnaught, and incursors and the outcome is GW's fault. Gotcha!
Why shouldn't those two armies be able to compete with one another, if the points are equal?
In magic, if we both bring decks, right? Mine is worth $500 yours is worth $20, who wins? Is it the company's fault that both decks followed all the rule guidelines but one is clearly better than the other.
Is money the official balancing mechanism for Magic, the way points are the balancing mechanism for 40k? (Hint: the answer is the opposite of yes).
Magic lacks a balancing mechanism like 40k does, and explicitly is unbalanced in "no holds barred" (i.e. no format) settings.
If you think 40k should ALSO be explicitly unbalanced in a similar manner, just say so. It's fine for a game to be unbalanced. It just means it needs to not LIE about it.
CKO wrote: So you want to use 3 crisis suit units against the guy that bought a patrol box, a dreadnaught, and incursors and the outcome is GW's fault. Gotcha!
Why shouldn't those two armies be able to compete with one another, if the points are equal?
Hecaton wrote:
CKO wrote: So you want to use 3 crisis suit units against the guy that bought a patrol box, a dreadnaught, and incursors and the outcome is GW's fault. Gotcha!
Yes. The points are equal - if it's not balanced its GW's fault.
In theory - sure. Equal points, equal game.
In practice, with asymmetrically designed units and missions, beyond a hypothetical game of 2 factions with 2 units each, or dramatically limiting the scale/scope of the game, this quickly becomes unachievable. Youre asking for a single, universal unit of 'value' to account for every variation. There's a word for that - 'impossible'. How much is an anti tank gun worth against an army of tanks on planet bowling ball versus an army of grots on a jungle board with no los. Unless the game/unit has self-mutating points values that can account for the units taken alongside, the units against, the mission, the terrain, as well as unmeasurable things like player skill, player attention/alertness etc, the notion that universal.points values can do what you insist they should do is based on very shaky ground.
Even in those games with drastically reduced scale/scope (eg infinity - about 15 doods per side and everything is a slight variation on 'guy in flak armour or carapace armour with an autogun or a heavy stubber' and old school 'rending') or which had other balance structures inbuilt (eg warmachine with multiple lists, multiple win conditions, the pendulum massively skewed to damage infliction than survival), balance is more limited than most folks actuslly care to admit to.
A further issue is based on the business perspective which is based on adding new waves to the game. New stuff sells, and represents the largest chunk of revenue. You want your game to live, it needs to grow. In order to grow, balance will suffer, sooner rather than later. (I'm also not going into the cynical business area of a 'new' edition to 'fix' stuff - in my experience companies rather have 'changes' implemented than 'improvements'. Gw are terrible for this, other companies like corvis beli, warlord and pp are not much better, nor do they have the sheer size of player base which will quickly expose and magnify any issues to the nth degree).
Any 'solution' or 'balance structure' that will help mitigate these balance issues probably won't be based around the traditional notion of 'universal' points value. You need to look at other alternative approaches aa well, like privateer press' warcaster game. And even then, at best you'll have 'good enough' and if you push too hard all these systems break. Ttgs are limited systems and can only hold so much weight. People need to remember that.
Don't conflate wanting better balance with wanting perfect balance.
There are plenty of other games with points systems (or currency systems, or a system where you pay "x amount of one thing" per unit) that are both more balanced and therefore more expansive than 40k, in terms of what you can buy.
In those games you can TRULY buy and play what you like, without any remorse because it is too bad or too good.
I'm all for 'better' balance but in my experience when people start to dig deep and actually describe what 'better' balance looks like, there is often so little daylight between the two that they might as well be the same thing. Couple this with the fact that the 'better' that is offered (by whoever) is often bitterly received and often regarded as falling short of what is demanded. Its why I always state ttgs are limited systems, you can only expect so much from them.
And like I said when it comes to actually 'paying the price' in your game of choice, when people see what 'better' will cost them, they very quickly stop wanting it and resort back to complaining from their armchairs.
I mean, one example of something that could be done is cut the roster down. Less things in the game, less things to balance, right? Say, let's get rid of armoured vehicles entirely. That'll reduce the scale and reduce the scope. And I doubt treadheads like yourself will be all too pleased either. :p I mean I've seen a lot of balance structures brought forward and I've seen nearly every one generate its own salt mine of hate.
There are plenty of other games with points systems (or currency systems, or a system where you pay "x amount of one thing" per unit) that are both more balanced and therefore more expansive than 40k, in terms of what you can buy.
In those games you can TRULY buy and play what you like, without any remorse because it is too bad or too good.
No.
I've played a lot of those games too (bolt action, warmachine/hordes, infinity more than others and that... is half true at best*, and thats giving the benefit of the doubt. What actually happens is these games are played by vastly smaller communities and issues are often given a free pass because they're 'not gw'.
All games have crutches, traps and go to units and if any of them were played by a community the size of 40k, instead of who actuslly plays them, and you'd see very little difference in the volume of complaints regarding balance.
'You can truly buy and play what you like'? Nice slogan, but it falls short in the real world. 'These units are negative play experiences and maybe consider not taking them' is just as true for epic haley or gaspy in wmh (well, mk2 at least) as it is 40ks custodes or whatever is currently broken in 40k. I mean hell, wmhs khador back in mk2 was defined by their absolute inability to run Jack heavy and to make their heavy infantry men o war units workable. What was it people wanted for all of mk2 that they didn't get?
*historicals maybe are better than most but even there there are issues or people will complain about how 'everything is a human with a spear or a bow and I'm not interested'. Yes I've seen that doozy here more than once.
I'm all for 'better' balance but in my experience when people start to dig deep and actually describe what 'better' balance looks like, there is often so little daylight between the two that they might as well be the same thing. Couple this with the fact that the 'better' that is offered (by whoever) is often bitterly received and often regarded as falling short of what is demanded. Its why I always state ttgs are limited systems, you can only expect so much from them.
And like I said when it comes to actually 'paying the price' in your game of choice, when people see what 'better' will cost them, they very quickly stop wanting it and resort back to complaining from their armchairs.
I mean, one example of something that could be done is cut the roster down. Less things in the game, less things to balance, right? Say, let's get rid of armoured vehicles entirely. That'll reduce the scale and reduce the scope. And I doubt treadheads like yourself will be all too pleased either. :p I mean I've seen a lot of balance structures brought forward and I've seen nearly every one generate its own salt mine of hate.
I wouldn't mind at all if tanks went to Apoc only and 40k turned into KT. I don't hate malifaux for not having tanks
I do, however, think some less drastic steps could be taken that could improve balance.
Let me ask you straight: are there things that could be done, or could have been done, to improve the state of balance in 40k? Or do you truly believe that, given the scale of the game, modern 40k is absolutely the best balanced that any human could ever make it?
If you can answer that question, I think we will go a long way to solving our disagreement.
There are plenty of other games with points systems (or currency systems, or a system where you pay "x amount of one thing" per unit) that are both more balanced and therefore more expansive than 40k, in terms of what you can buy.
In those games you can TRULY buy and play what you like, without any remorse because it is too bad or too good.
No.
I've played a lot of those games too (bolt action, warmachine/hordes, infinity more than others and that... is half true at best, and thats giving the benefit of the doubt. What actually happens is these games are played by vastly smaller communities and issues are often given a free pass because they're 'not gw'.
All games have crutches, traps and go to units and if any of them were played by a community the size of 40k, instead of who actuslly plays them, and you'd see very little difference in the volume of complaints regarding balance.
'You can truly buy and play what you like'? Nice slogan, but it falls short in the real world. 'These units are negative play experiences and maybe consider not taking them' is just as true for epic haley or gaspy in wmh (well, mk2 at least) as it is 40ks custodes or whatever is currently broken in 40k.
40k 4th edition was better balanced than the current mess. And it's the same game, just earlier.
One example, I can come up with a few more but they're less relevant to the experience of the players here (Chain of Command is the first one on my list).
auticus wrote: Yep player / army selection is in fact seen as gittin gud. Army list building is one of the primary skills.
That clashes with what's commonly told around here - i.e. that players should "build / buy / paint what is cool."
OFC I know that currently army building is a player skill, but don't say that too loud.
Nobody is saying to buy what you think is cool if you're trying to play in tournaments. It's usually "unless you want to play in tournaments and care about being super competitive, buy what you think is cool and it will be meta eventually"
Unit1126PLL wrote: [
I wouldn't mind at all if tanks went to Apoc only and 40k turned into KT. I don't hate malifaux for not having tanks
Malifaux was designed with that drastically smaller scale/scope in the first place, like I said. Its quite a diffirent thing to take something thats been in the game for thirty years and cut it. Some people don't mind it, dome people won't play it. Goes back to what I said.
And by apoc, I assume you mean that 'not proper 40k game' that no one really plays any more? How often is it brought up that one of the biggest draws of 40k is its one game with everything, one community - the notion that 'i can raje my list to any flgs in the country anf get a game'. Formats is quite divisive, we all know the community will settle on 'proper 40k, now without tanks' as per my hyperbolic example and your tanks that you love in any flgs setting aint in it, and are paperweights. Sure 40k might be easier to balance now, is the price worth it?
I do, however, think some less drastic steps could be taken that could improve balance.
Let me ask you straight: are there things that could be done, or could have been done, to improve the state of balance in 40k? Or do you truly believe that, given the scale of the game, modern 40k is absolutely the best balanced that any human could ever make it?
If you can answer that question, I think we will go a long way to solving our disagreement.
We don't disagree much. I just don't think pointing to other games as 'better' helps- they're limited systems after all. I've never seen a 'better' game that was also not torn apart by its own players and I've never seen a 'better' game accepted as 'good enough' either. And respectfully if 40k was as 'good' as these games you'd not see much difference regarding the negative Internet traffic. And it still won't solve the original point of points values always coming out right.
I absolutely agree some drastic steps could be taken regardimg 40k. I personally favour drastically reducing the scale/size to a couple of squads, a hero or two and nothing bigger than a dreadnought (see my wmh heritage?) Rein in the massive damage and alphastriking. Burn strategems/relics to the ground and burn the ashes again. And try and reduce dice rolling by 50 to 75%. Id also like a 'command resource' like infinities 'orders' that also factors in morale. That said my thinking regarding 40k goes back to the 'look' of the game back in 2nd to 4th rather than its current look. Game design has moved on since and gamers today in my experience want different stuff to old grognards like us.
That said will it be enough to count as 'good enough'? Sure it might be 'better' but that won't stop the community ripping it to shreds snd making out its the worst thing ever and that 9th in actual fact was better.
Unfortunately a lot of the decisions I would implement would peeve a lot of people right off. And 40k for thr most part is like a space hulk - its a ten thousand year old mess of accumulated debris. The truth is there is only do much that can be done and only do much thst csn realistically be expected. I'd honestly settle less for balance and more for 'cleaner' rules with less in-game 'clutter' and a lot less dice rolling.
40k 4th edition was better balanced than the current mess. And it's the same game, just earlier.
One example, I can come up with a few more but they're less relevant to the experience of the players here (Chain of Command is the first one on my list).
And th3 cold hard truth is 4th ed 40k was quite awful.
4th ed had iron warriors. And nike lords. Respectfully while 4th is still my favourite edition lets not pretend. I remember the internet lighting up with issues regarding 4th back then. That's not exactly helping your point.
And Chain of command is the next game I'm looking to play/learn. I've actually heard some very good and very interesting things about it. I think its the kind of game my guys would love to play.
My Blood Angels have been shelved and I only play boardgames and MESBG now. Wish 40k were more like their lotr game.
I main Rivendell and unless buying just pointless numbers of banners or basic captains on foot it isn't really possible to even build a really bad list. But I can still tailor the army quite heavily depending on point levels, meta and fun. Against a newer player I wouldn't lean much on magic, all ranged knights or use the 3 mounted elven lords in the same list. Not because they are much stronger than a more all rounded list but they are much more tricky to play against and require that the opponent knows some tactics to counter it or they could get crushed.
We don't really build much caring about how strong a list is against anyone but what matters is if we think our opponent capable of handling it and making it a good game. Not this BS of having to take weak units or weak armies just to not crush the opponent.
Nobody is saying to buy what you think is cool if you're trying to play in tournaments. It's usually "unless you want to play in tournaments and care about being super competitive, buy what you think is cool and it will be meta eventually"
The problem is the "eventually" in human time. Unless GW puts everything on top of its head in 10th ed, I don't see how the units I like I.e, terminators, paladins, terminator characters could ever be better then then heroes in NDK, NDKs and power armoured troops. They would have to the termintors the DA treatment and even then I am not sure, if it would beat out being faster and with actually good range guns.
Just to add to the excelent points Deadnight listed above, let’s not forget, that 40k competitive players DO NOT want balance, they actively DEMAND imbalance and just obscure this desire by calling it „list building skill”. As long as „a bunch of assorted units should lose to carefully planned army” remains to be a value in a game, there will be problems of seal clubbing the newbies, there will be problems of „this cool looking unit means I auto lose/win”, and the more listbuilding should matter, the bigger this problem will be. We’ve been over this many times over - „nobody expects perfect balance, just good enough” in reality means something different entirely - „we expect just a right amount of imbalance, not too little, not too much”.
Now about „4th ed was vastly better balanced and this is the same game but older” is a false statement altogether - 2nd ed, 4th ed, 8th ed, those games basically share only the name and models. You can’t really say that because some design elements like d6 and hit/wound/save are constant, they are the same game. They all result in a vastly different gameplay and feel, and attract different playerbase.
About balance and what can be done to improve it - there are many mechanics that are utilised in various games that improve balance and exactly none of them can easily be ported to 40k, but not because of game design limitations, but because of the community resistance and false beliefs about „balance through points”. Just two examples that keep appearing - sideboards and gradual deployment/„summoning” of units from collection, not army list. Both of those cause gak storms and both are great balancing tools at game designer disposal. There are more, like sensibly implemented stratagems, end of round damage resolution, etc, but all of them „are not 40k”. Just look at the „your somewhat realistic ideal 40k” thread and the limitations put on the excersise.
The bottom line - the biggest obstacle to fix 40k is the rut the community is in.
Hecaton wrote: Remember, World Eaters are getting their own book at some point.
Which is all well and good for those wanting to play World Eaters. But for those of us who just want to keep using Cult Troops in our Chaos armies, we're just gak outta luck. Well, except for Noise Marines, but Noise Marines are also gak out of luck as well, given they're a resin conversion kit for a model that GW doesn't even produce anymore.
First they took away our Daemons. Now our Cult Troops. Why do they hate us?
The rumor is that you can actually keep cult troops, the datasheets just aren't in the book.
Right. "You want to run some Berzerkers in your Black Legion warband? That'll be another $55 for another codex for one datasheet. Want some Rubrics too? That'll be another $55 for one datasheet, again. Oh, and you want some Plague Marines too? Big spender, aren't you?"
And none of them get Legion traits either. Definitely not an optimal solution.
Ha I keep forgetting people pay for the rulebooks.
GW's habit of demanding people spend 200 dollars on books before they even play is really dumb. Especially since they also demand you pay a monthly fee to use all of those digitally in a sub par program that is often just incorrect
nou wrote: Just to add to the excelent points Deadnight listed above, let’s not forget, that 40k competitive players DO NOT want balance, they actively DEMAND imbalance and just obscure this desire by calling it „list building skill”. As long as „a bunch of assorted units should lose to carefully planned army” remains to be a value in a game, there will be problems of seal clubbing the newbies, there will be problems of „this cool looking unit means I auto lose/win”, and the more listbuilding should matter, the bigger this problem will be. We’ve been over this many times over - „nobody expects perfect balance, just good enough” in reality means something different entirely - „we expect just a right amount of imbalance, not too little, not too much”.
Now about „4th ed was vastly better balanced and this is the same game but older” is a false statement altogether - 2nd ed, 4th ed, 8th ed, those games basically share only the name and models. You can’t really say that because some design elements like d6 and hit/wound/save are constant, they are the same game. They all result in a vastly different gameplay and feel, and attract different playerbase.
About balance and what can be done to improve it - there are many mechanics that are utilised in various games that improve balance and exactly none of them can easily be ported to 40k, but not because of game design limitations, but because of the community resistance and false beliefs about „balance through points”. Just two examples that keep appearing - sideboards and gradual deployment/„summoning” of units from collection, not army list. Both of those cause gak storms and both are great balancing tools at game designer disposal. There are more, like sensibly implemented stratagems, end of round damage resolution, etc, but all of them „are not 40k”. Just look at the „your somewhat realistic ideal 40k” thread and the limitations put on the excersise.
The bottom line - the biggest obstacle to fix 40k is the rut the community is in.
Not true, you're making a blanket statement that is probably true for a few meta chasers, but all of the competitive players I know of have a favorite faction and want to play that faction. Case in point, https://www.goonhammer.com/editorial-how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-play-drukhari. They switch to the latest meta army because they have to in order to compete. So your whole cause-and-effect is backwards. Furthermore, as ancedotal evidence, if you watch the 40k channels on youtube, all the playtesters are petitioning GW to fix the balance.
Sideboards aren't a great balancing mechanism in a tournament scene, they're just a way of list tailoring for specific opponents to provide an advantage. One of the balancing mechanisms in the game is "TAC". If you can't deal with knights and deal with 100 guardsmen, then you won't get very far in a tournament. However, if Tau can tailor their list to either take 100 S4 indirect shots, or tons of railguns, or tons of S6 AP0 shots as needed, then those types of lists aren't gatekeepers anymore, we're in a worse boat than we are now.
However, I think you're dead-on with "sensibly implemented stratagems". Strats right now just dial everything up to 12 on units that are already dialed up to 11. It's just pure unadulteraded gak right now.
Wanting list building being a skill explicitly is a desire for imbalance. Almost nobody will say that, but thats exactly what they are looking for.
Otherwise you could assemble a 2000 point list and your opponent could assemble a 2000 point list and know that the two things are in the same ballpark so long as they were 2000 points.
List building as a skill means having the skill (which is in most cases primary school math skill) to figure out which items are not worth their point cost and which items are worth more than their point cost, and then hemming in on those things.
================================
In tournament environments this is fine.
The problem is that tournament environment often is also casual environment for a lot of groups so buying what you think looks cool and play with that is a great idea in theory but can be utterly ruined in practice if you don't have the kind of group that you can do that with.
So at least for me I hold GW's bad balance accountable and I don't want list building to be a heavy factor in the game.
Why can't GW just give each army a potential army list you can build, but test and optimise it with one specific build in mind. This way the same book would have a working army for people that have to actually play the game, and those that want to pick stuff at random would have the option too.
Karol wrote: Why can't GW just give each army a potential army list you can build, but test and optimise it with one specific build in mind. This way the same book would have a working army for people that have to actually play the game, and those that want to pick stuff at random would have the option too.
I'm not sure what this would fix or how it would fix anything.
auticus wrote: Wanting list building being a skill explicitly is a desire for imbalance. Almost nobody will say that, but thats exactly what they are looking for.
Otherwise you could assemble a 2000 point list and your opponent could assemble a 2000 point list and know that the two things are in the same ballpark so long as they were 2000 points.
List building as a skill means having the skill (which is in most cases primary school math skill) to figure out which items are not worth their point cost and which items are worth more than their point cost, and then hemming in on those things.
================================
In tournament environments this is fine.
The problem is that tournament environment often is also casual environment for a lot of groups so buying what you think looks cool and play with that is a great idea in theory but can be utterly ruined in practice if you don't have the kind of group that you can do that with.
So at least for me I hold GW's bad balance accountable and I don't want list building to be a heavy factor in the game.
I don't want list-building to be a skill. At least, not any major skill.
I'm okay with there being bad lists, but basic competency with the system should let you know when you're building a bad list. It should be really flipping obvious when you're doing something stupid-like taking, say, three Chaplains, three units of Servitors, and three Drop Pods for your entire list. If that list is bad, even against an equal points list, that's okay. But when a basic battalion of Space Marines or Guard or whatever are bad... That's a problem.
nou wrote: Just to add to the excelent points Deadnight listed above, let’s not forget, that 40k competitive players DO NOT want balance, they actively DEMAND imbalance and just obscure this desire by calling it „list building skill”. As long as „a bunch of assorted units should lose to carefully planned army” remains to be a value in a game, there will be problems of seal clubbing the newbies, there will be problems of „this cool looking unit means I auto lose/win”, and the more listbuilding should matter, the bigger this problem will be. We’ve been over this many times over - „nobody expects perfect balance, just good enough” in reality means something different entirely - „we expect just a right amount of imbalance, not too little, not too much”.
Now about „4th ed was vastly better balanced and this is the same game but older” is a false statement altogether - 2nd ed, 4th ed, 8th ed, those games basically share only the name and models. You can’t really say that because some design elements like d6 and hit/wound/save are constant, they are the same game. They all result in a vastly different gameplay and feel, and attract different playerbase.
About balance and what can be done to improve it - there are many mechanics that are utilised in various games that improve balance and exactly none of them can easily be ported to 40k, but not because of game design limitations, but because of the community resistance and false beliefs about „balance through points”. Just two examples that keep appearing - sideboards and gradual deployment/„summoning” of units from collection, not army list. Both of those cause gak storms and both are great balancing tools at game designer disposal. There are more, like sensibly implemented stratagems, end of round damage resolution, etc, but all of them „are not 40k”. Just look at the „your somewhat realistic ideal 40k” thread and the limitations put on the excersise.
The bottom line - the biggest obstacle to fix 40k is the rut the community is in.
actual competitive players want the joy of matching skill across the table and that is more fun when games are balanced and your choices are what decides the outcome.
its the "competitive" player that isn't actually good enough to win on his own skill and generally stuck at the upper mid tier of a tournament ranking (because he loses to the actually good players) who wants an unbalanced list to club baby seals with.
Karol wrote: Why can't GW just give each army a potential army list you can build, but test and optimise it with one specific build in mind. This way the same book would have a working army for people that have to actually play the game, and those that want to pick stuff at random would have the option too.
They do. They often give you several. They have for years & many editions and across several games (40k/Sigmar/WHFB). Or do you think that is pure happenstance that certain "builds" just conveniently fit nicely into 2k pts (or whatever the norm is for the time the book is published)?
Of course then they'll go feth around with the pt values etc while claiming "better balance".
Ordana wrote: actual competitive players want the joy of matching skill across the table and that is more fun when games are balanced and your choices are what decides the outcome.
its the "competitive" player that isn't actually good enough to win on his own skill and generally stuck at the upper mid tier of a tournament ranking (because he loses to the actually good players) who wants an unbalanced list to club baby seals with.
Exalted, and I wish more people understood that not everyone who's interest in 40k as a game is a meta chasing, WAAC donkey cave
Ordana wrote: actual competitive players want the joy of matching skill across the table and that is more fun when games are balanced and your choices are what decides the outcome.
its the "competitive" player that isn't actually good enough to win on his own skill and generally stuck at the upper mid tier of a tournament ranking (because he loses to the actually good players) who wants an unbalanced list to club baby seals with.
Ordana wrote: actual competitive players want the joy of matching skill across the table and that is more fun when games are balanced and your choices are what decides the outcome.
its the "competitive" player that isn't actually good enough to win on his own skill and generally stuck at the upper mid tier of a tournament ranking (because he loses to the actually good players) who wants an unbalanced list to club baby seals with.
Exalted, and I wish more people understood that not everyone who's interest in 40k as a game is a meta chasing, WAAC donkey cave
Ordana, youre not wrong, but just... be careful with statements like this.
This ridks going down the road of 'othering' - talking about 'true' competitive players embodying all these wonderful positive traits and 'competitives' that dont who are presented as the real bogeymen who are the real villains of the community is often a double edged sword thay allows folks to handwave away any notions of personal responsibility, accountability or awareness of the effects and consequences on others of the lists they bring to the board.
I mean he'll, I am a competitive player. Give me a list and watch me do the absolute best I can with it (unless of course if I'm playing against someone who I think deserves the win a bit more). I love list-building. As a narrative player who subscribes to the idea of 'game-building', making fair lists collaboratively is a skill, what you won't see me or mine do, or champion is blind, 'list-building-for-advantage'. In that way lies the dark side...
The issue is that listbuilding sort of covers two different things.
There is just stacking as much mathhammer advantage as you can. Most people I think don't actually like this - or consider it especially skillful. Mainly because its all on the internet... seemingly almost hours after a codex drops these days.
But there is also just building a list with the various missions, secondaries and likely opponents in mind.
So for example - take Siegler's last LVO winning list.
Its not especially skewed. You've got 4 characters. 2 big blocks of troops. 2 small units of troops. One small unit of elite shooty guys. 3 bigger units of punchy guys. 3 chickenwalkers (sorry Semper) and 2 tanks.
But the point is those units all have an explicable purpose. You've got anchor units, chaff units, counter charge/pressure units. Cornering/long range output units. The mathhammer is very good (which realistically tends to be a thing in most upper half tournament list) - but the game plan has been thought about. This is usually the case with all competitive lists - even as the pool of viable options may be narrowed down by overpowered mathhammer.
Its not really surprising - even before we get into rules imbalance - that this forward planning has an advantage over someone who has just gone "uh... I've just grabbed whatever cos I liked them". And realistically I think it should.
The problem is its often hard the separate the two out. I mean someone might have a plan if they show up with ye old cliche of 3 blinged out 10 man tactical squads (with obligatory rhinos), a devastator squad, some assault marines, a unit of terminators, a dreadnaught, a predator and 5~ characters. But odds are they didn't. That's just what they'd collected.
Now you could take that list and try and work out a plan. And if you do you'll probably do better than if you don't. But its hard to separate out the two.
I think that in a system where 2000 points vs 2000 points SHOULD BE IN THE SAME BALLPARK that the player that puts more thought in their list is still going to have the advantage because they simply put more thought into their list.
The lists however are mathematically in the same ballpark with each other.
The lists where a 2000 point list functions at the power of a 5000 point list vs another 2000 point list is the issue that I think needs to die in a fire and where a lot of players enjoy and see as a skill (being able to take their 2000 point box and make it weigh like a 5000 point box).
nou wrote: Just to add to the excelent points Deadnight listed above, let’s not forget, that 40k competitive players DO NOT want balance, they actively DEMAND imbalance and just obscure this desire by calling it „list building skill”. As long as „a bunch of assorted units should lose to carefully planned army” remains to be a value in a game, there will be problems of seal clubbing the newbies, there will be problems of „this cool looking unit means I auto lose/win”, and the more listbuilding should matter, the bigger this problem will be. We’ve been over this many times over - „nobody expects perfect balance, just good enough” in reality means something different entirely - „we expect just a right amount of imbalance, not too little, not too much”.
Now about „4th ed was vastly better balanced and this is the same game but older” is a false statement altogether - 2nd ed, 4th ed, 8th ed, those games basically share only the name and models. You can’t really say that because some design elements like d6 and hit/wound/save are constant, they are the same game. They all result in a vastly different gameplay and feel, and attract different playerbase.
About balance and what can be done to improve it - there are many mechanics that are utilised in various games that improve balance and exactly none of them can easily be ported to 40k, but not because of game design limitations, but because of the community resistance and false beliefs about „balance through points”. Just two examples that keep appearing - sideboards and gradual deployment/„summoning” of units from collection, not army list. Both of those cause gak storms and both are great balancing tools at game designer disposal. There are more, like sensibly implemented stratagems, end of round damage resolution, etc, but all of them „are not 40k”. Just look at the „your somewhat realistic ideal 40k” thread and the limitations put on the excersise.
The bottom line - the biggest obstacle to fix 40k is the rut the community is in.
actual competitive players want the joy of matching skill across the table and that is more fun when games are balanced and your choices are what decides the outcome.
its the "competitive" player that isn't actually good enough to win on his own skill and generally stuck at the upper mid tier of a tournament ranking (because he loses to the actually good players) who wants an unbalanced list to club baby seals with.
Well, in my experience such "truly competitive" players... stay away from 40k and seek more symmetrical games that are vastly better suited for that kind of competition. As a former competitive Bridge player I can assure you, no iteration of 40K have ever got close to proper mind sport. So, while I most definitely agree, that such difference exists in wide gaming context, in practice vast majority of 40k competitive players are "competitive".
Agreed. IMO, a "perfect" system would have every unit viable, but you'd still need to build towards synergy of the units and have as good of an answer to different scenarios as possible: while bad lists can still happen, the winner would be determined by who made the best in-game decisions, with the units and synergy they brought, to maximize the effectiveness of what they brought in relation to the scenario and objectives and minimize the effectiveness of the opponent's units as such.
Today was listening too one of my fav podcasts, walking dogs, and one of the co hosts confessed that it had taken him a while, but he realized recently the overtly competitive bent taken by WarCom articles and suggested that it was not so good, because people get the impression that what is cool about a model or unit or faction is the buffs, the table-top in-game performance in the current so-called meta, rather than the background, the artwork, the story and what each model or unit or faction bring to the table in this way..
Point being, the so-called meta affects everyone, and the hobby, and is effectively corrosive, reductive, and counter to the spirit of both the game and the community that supports it.
Have to say that I agree with this assessment, completely. GW management should be ashamed.
Well, in my experience such "truly competitive" players... stay away from 40k and seek more symmetrical games that are vastly better suited for that kind of competition. As a former competitive Bridge player I can assure you, no iteration of 40K have ever got close to proper mind sport. So, while I most definitely agree, that such difference exists in wide gaming context, in practice vast majority of 40k competitive players are "competitive".
True. Only thing tournament players hate is a cheap to get and easy to play army. Confusing rules overlaps, noob bashing, super expensive armies from factions that struggle to have a non tournament build etc those things are okey. But as soon as a tournament army consists of 40-50 intercessors and 3 dreadnoughts with the point and click game play, suddenly it is a world ending event. Tournament players just don't want to run in to a mirror game 1 and lose it on a go first roll or some random stuff, they have no control, to Jimmy Myfirsttournament.
Well, in my experience such "truly competitive" players... stay away from 40k and seek more symmetrical games that are vastly better suited for that kind of competition. As a former competitive Bridge player I can assure you, no iteration of 40K have ever got close to proper mind sport. So, while I most definitely agree, that such difference exists in wide gaming context, in practice vast majority of 40k competitive players are "competitive".
True. Only thing tournament players hate is a cheap to get and easy to play army. Confusing rules overlaps, noob bashing, super expensive armies from factions that struggle to have a non tournament build etc those things are okey. But as soon as a tournament army consists of 40-50 intercessors and 3 dreadnoughts with the point and click game play, suddenly it is a world ending event. Tournament players just don't want to run in to a mirror game 1 and lose it on a go first roll or some random stuff, they have no control, to Jimmy Myfirsttournament.
I don't think ANYONE wants to lose simply because they lost the first-turn roll off.
jeff white wrote: Point being, the so-called meta affects everyone, and the hobby, and is effectively corrosive, reductive, and counter to the spirit of both the game and the community that supports it.
That's basically what I said in my first post in this thread:
The meta affects everyone, even those that do not play competitively, because GW bases their rules changes on the meta, because they've gone all in on tournament gaming this edition.
H.B.M.C. wrote: That's basically what I said in my first post in this thread:
The meta affects everyone, even those that do not play competitively, because GW bases their rules changes on the meta, because they've gone all in on tournament gaming this edition.
Que someone saying "but 9th edition isn't good for tournament players", completely missing the point...
JNAProductions wrote: I don't think ANYONE wants to lose simply because they lost the first-turn roll off.
That doesn't sound fun for anyone involved.
yes, but there is a difference between your side losing because durning a football match the other side got the best player on the entier street in their team, and Germany ending up in a death group, while Brasil easily sails through easy opponents in all stages of an event. Losing a game to me, is not fun, but it doesn't put in question what I am doing with my time or money. For a tournament player this is rather different. And as I said, the last thing any tournament player wants, is to get an influx of noobs who can suddenly win vs the best tournament players, just by the virtue of an army being easy to get and to play.
nou wrote: Just to add to the excelent points Deadnight listed above, let’s not forget, that 40k competitive players DO NOT want balance, they actively DEMAND imbalance and just obscure this desire by calling it „list building skill”.
I play competitively, I play literally one faction and only one faction. I DO WANT balance. I ACTIVELY Demand it in fact. I have taken the time to write to GW, talked with their staff via e-mail and on their community site. I participate in their polls and surveys and do the community survey as well so that my input is seen.
You are taking a wonderfully broad brush and painting every competitive player as TFGWAAC douche canoes. Sorry but I have been to countless tournaments over the last decade and some change and beyond maybe 2-3 players the other thousands of players have been polite, cordial and fun to play with and against. 40k is in its essence a competitive game, just like the vast majority of games in existence, there is a winner and a loser. The competitive/tournament scene just increases the competitive level for players to test their LIST BUILDING and playing ability.
Now, competitive players will almost universally advocate for their favorite army the hardest. I mean, I write posts here about Orkz all the damn time, others do the exact same for Tau, Marines, Grey Knights etc. But again, beyond a few posters in here, nobody wants the game to be horribly imbalanced in favor of their army. The two worst game's I have ever played was against Tau Players, both were at Tournaments. Against the first Tau player I felt really bad because I had brought a list that just destroyed his army by the end of turn 3. I kept apologizing to him that GW had written him a terrible codex to play this edition and he kept saying its fine and just play the mission to get points. On the flipside, in 7th I played against a Tau player who almost completely tabled me Top of turn 2 because of how broken the power imbalance was between the two factions. That guy did the exact same thing I did and I likewise said, its just the bad design of the game and lets keep going for points.
A game in which you blow out your opponent isn't fun. Its kind of a let down honestly, and if you are on the receiving end of a blow out, its really deflating because you can just see that there was literally nothing you could have done differently to change the outcome, GW just screwed up that badly and the game isn't functional when your two armies meet.
In my opinion the best games are the close ones, even if the score isn't necessarily that close. I lost to a Custards player at a GT where he absolutely decimated me on the score sheet, I mean it wasn't even close, something like 65 to 17. But at the end of the battle we were both laughing hysterically because of the pure shenanigans that had happened on the table. The game ended turn 4 with me having a Mek gun, a trukk and a really confused Warboss sitting near the center and him having 5 infantry models of various types scattered around the board.
One the one hand, while I don't know you or your 'game', i'll happily accept what you say. Reading your anecdotes I think we'd have a lot of common ground in describing what an 'enjoyable' game looks like.
And yet, on the other hand, auticus always comes to mind with regard to his 'balanced aos' rules set he made back when aos was just out and it didn't have any kind of a points system. And while I can't speak for him, iirc most of thr complaints he received for his efforts were along the lines of 'it's too balanced, list building doesn't matter any more'. And when push came to shove and gw provided 'official' (and flawed, far more flawed than some of the community efforts) rules, auticus and his peers' efforts were unceremoniously dumped by the community.
In my experience, 'official' rules count for far more to the community than 'good' rules, irregardless of the balance or lack thereof within. I also do not think nou is wrong when he says essentially that while a lot of people say they want balance, what they actually want is the 'illusion of balance' and a system that can be manipulated and exploited.
I see that some posters haven’t understood what I wrote - competitive 40k players demand the list building to be a skill important for the game. In order for the list building to be a skill, there has to be at least some internal imbalance. „Just the right amount, not too little, not too much”, exactly as I wrote.
From my experience competitve players start to complain about balance in two cases - the internal imbalance is so large, that competitive choices are so obvious, that there is no fun in numbers crunching and newbies lacking „the skill” of a vereran player can club baby seals just as easily; or when external imbalance is so large, that everybody play the same few factions, so the tournaments are boring due to not being varied enough. Many times in various threads over the years I saw the definition of „good enough” as „each faction has at least one valid tournament build” underlined by „assorted random units should not be a valid tournament list”.
The most curious case is describing listbuilding skill as „building lists with proper synnergies should be rewarded”, which in reality means only that you want the internal imbalance to be there in significant amount, you just want it not to be too obvious and require a basic understanding of how the game works. Those synnergies are not created or invented by the player - they are right there in the sources, waiting to be identified, embedded in the point efficiency differences, just spread over the combo of unit/aura/relic/subfaction trait/stratagem/whatever.
So again: if you want list building to be a skill, then you desire the imbalance to exist.
Ordana wrote: its the "competitive" player that isn't actually good enough to win on his own skill and generally stuck at the upper mid tier of a tournament ranking (because he loses to the actually good players) who wants an unbalanced list to club baby seals with.
This is the take. You see the same thing in the competitive MtG scene. The players who hit their competitive plateau and languish in the top 8-but-never-1st zone love to go to FNMs and prereleases looking to stomp
the more casual elements those two events attract. They're also the exact type of player who rages hard when the stars align and they lose to a random pile.
nou wrote: I see that some posters haven’t understood what I wrote - competitive 40k players demand the list building to be a skill important for the game. In order for the list building to be a skill, there has to be at least some internal imbalance. „Just the right amount, not too little, not too much”, exactly as I wrote.
From my experience competitve players start to complain about balance in two cases - the internal imbalance is so large, that competitive choices are so obvious, that there is no fun in numbers crunching and newbies lacking „the skill” of a vereran player can club baby seals just as easily; or when external imbalance is so large, that everybody play the same few factions, so the tournaments are boring due to not being varied enough. Many times in various threads over the years I saw the definition of „good enough” as „each faction has at least one valid tournament build” underlined by „assorted random units should not be a valid tournament list”.
The most curious case is describing listbuilding skill as „building lists with proper synnergies should be rewarded”, which in reality means only that you want the internal imbalance to be there in significant amount, you just want it not to be too obvious and require a basic understanding of how the game works. Those synnergies are not created or invented by the player - they are right there in the sources, waiting to be identified, embedded in the point efficiency differences, just spread over the combo of unit/aura/relic/subfaction trait/stratagem/whatever.
So again: if you want list building to be a skill, then you desire the imbalance to exist.
You're painting with a very broad brush, and confusing balance with strategy & tactics.
- wanting a particular dice roll to be good means you want imbalance
- wanting to play absolutely whatever unit you want without regard to your opponent or the missions is wanting imbalance
- wanting to play white in Chess is wanting imbalance
- placement of models on the table is wanting imbalance (making charges longer, out of LOS so they can't be shot, etc.)
But none of that means you want an imbalanced game. Nobody wants a game where you spend $$hundreds/thousands, lots of time assembling and painting models, then each players rolls 1 die and the game ends.
List building is a skill, just like planning 2-3-4 turns in advance, just like Richard Siegler plans out the entire game before he gets to the table. That's not imbalance, that's tactics. Designing a list to be able to do multiple secondaries is tactics (well, strategy really). Building a list to score primary points on missions is strategy.
That's different than imbalance, where you pick an army to table your opponent on turn 1, or pick a random assortment of units that do nothing (like an entire list of drop pods) and still expect to have a decent chance of winning.
JNAProductions wrote: I don't think ANYONE wants to lose simply because they lost the first-turn roll off.
That doesn't sound fun for anyone involved.
yes, but there is a difference between your side losing because durning a football match the other side got the best player on the entier street in their team, and Germany ending up in a death group, while Brasil easily sails through easy opponents in all stages of an event. Losing a game to me, is not fun, but it doesn't put in question what I am doing with my time or money. For a tournament player this is rather different. And as I said, the last thing any tournament player wants, is to get an influx of noobs who can suddenly win vs the best tournament players, just by the virtue of an army being easy to get and to play.
Which is exactly what we have right now. There's countless anecdotes of people who barely know how to play 40k showing up with their new custodes army and winning a 30+ player GT. The same is happening with Harlequins now which went from a high skill army to "LUL my voidweavers go brrrr".
I think there's some conflict over "listbuilding as a skill" and what it means.
Obviously it means different things to different people.
There is definitely a large chunk of people that want listbuilding as a skill to mean to take your point allocation and make it weigh as much as you possibly can and make it function beyond the point allocation by finding out the synergies and combos that make 2000 points function as double its value.
To be able to do that means things have to be imbalanced to allow for that, as the other end of the line is tighter balance, in which case a 2000 point list vs another 2000 point list against two equal opponents will be a tight game.
Then there are these other variations of list building as a skill which is spending time wiht your list to assign roles and understand the list and building a list that works well with itself.
Its still a 2000 point list, its just one that the author knows a lot about and put thought in and will beat another 2000 point list where the player has not thought about any of those things.
Which is to say that the player that put more thought into his 2000 point list has more skill than the player that just showed up and threw stuff down on the table and threw down. Which to me should result in the player that put more thought into the list as having an edge.
But not the likes we see in GW games where one person is playing casual sportball and the other person showed up with the all star elite sportball professional team and both have the "2000 point list" tag stuck to it. We all here understand exactly what that means.
That is the Listbuilding As a Skill we are discussing.
And yes as pointed out above with the Azyr point system for AOS... it got hammered by the community tournament players for being too boring because it was too balanced and listbuilding didn't account for much, because they could throw a 2000 point list together and have to them the same chances of their buddy throwing a 2000 point list together, which was seen as bad. (THIS WAS THE GOAL OF AZYR IN THE FIRST PLACE SO MISSION ACCOMPLISHED - and this was only a point system - no rules of the game or changing warscrolls which were still as assorted as they are today)
They were especially aggressive about shitposting against that system because at the time there was an official point system coming and it was said that the top three or so were being considered and that Azyr was allegedly one of those three systems. The system that won had built in purposely imbalanced elements (monsters were pointed much cheaper on purpose to encourage people using monsters, this was a black and white fact as they posted it in black and white on their forum - that they did it and why they did it - and it was embraced by the tournament community (who claimed to want balance but embraced imbalance) and embraced by GW (because they could sell those monster kits that no one wanted because in warhammer fantasy a single 100 point cannonball could eliminate your nasty 500 point dragon - so people stayed away from monsters).
(and no i'm not saying it had PERFECT balance - not even close it had its flaws like any system - but we did achieve a great outcome where mostly you could build two lists and have it come down to player skill instead of combo-chaining-list-building skill)
It was an eye opening experience for me as a game designer as up to that point thats what I thought points were supposed to be for. The game and the players within the game had changed drastically over the years and I hadn't caught on to that.
There have been enough people in this very forum over the years (40k and AOS) that have been VERY aggressive in their posts about how a system where you could just throw down 2000 points and have the same chance of winning as another person who threw down 2000 points was an abomination.
It could be that they were just over generalizing and their points got lost in their aggressive posts, I'm sure there is more common ground between players like me and players like them that internet communication and posturing defeats sadly.
auticus wrote: I think there's some conflict over "listbuilding as a skill" and what it means.
Obviously it means different things to different people.
/snip
There have been enough people in this very forum over the years (40k and AOS) that have been VERY aggressive in their posts about how a system where you could just throw down 2000 points and have the same chance of winning as another person who threw down 2000 points was an abomination.
Not really, there are 2 very distinct things that you're trying to use interchangeably. One is actively trying to hack the system, the other is improving oneself to be better within the system. While a person can be doing both, they are not one and the same.
40K used to be just 'last man standing wins', no objectives, secondaries etc. that required any skill. Nobody used to move in 2nd edition because all the shooting models were always on overwatch. If there is no movement requirements, no primary/secondary objectives and the armies are all fairly balanced, then those people complaining are probably right, as they could just be playing chess.
However, none of that is true in modern 40k. This game should be won in the movement phase. If it wasn't so lethal, it would be, and player skill would be king (working within the system). However, the game is so brokenly lethal, that finding the broken combos trumps player skill, so that's where people are gravitating (hacking the system). Put another way, 'hacking' is where people go when they've reached their skill cap, or when skill doesn't matter.
The thing is people have been hacking the game in the listbuilding phase since at least 3rd edition when I started.
I dont think you'll ever get rid of that totally but its main cause is simply undercost abilities that tournament players hone in on and maximize.
Going all the way back to a 3rd edition blood angels marine costing 15 points, the same as a Dark angels marine and same as an Ultramarine, except that the Dark Angels paid 15 points a model to not be able to move at all if they rolled a 1 for their squad because they were stubborn, the Ultramarine had no extra abilities, and the Blood Angel had +1S +1I and access to turbo charged rhinos that moved extra AND had the option to take a couple power weapons additional.
The color of one's model basically painted itself in that edition (space wolves were a close second with true grit and their armory access giving them toys to play with to help erase people easier).
(thats just one example from a litany of examples in every edition stretching back to the early days)
The lethality of the game is certainly a big negative aspect for a lot of people, but is also a big positive for a great number of other people because they want to get as many games in as possible and to do that you need stuff to die fast.
If the game wasn't as lethal, the listbuilding would change from minmaxing lethality to minmaxing mobility and objective capping, as it was in sigmar when I left GW finally in 2019 (so if it changed today I don't know about it) where one min/maxed mobility combined with mortal wound spam and if you had it the ability to spam summoning free extra models that the community somehow absurdly believes was "baked in" to the points cost of the already underpriced hero models doing the spam summoning.
auticus I will never understand why you spend so much time talking about GW games given your lack of any recent experience with them. Move on! It has to be healthier for you.
Because everyone around me plays them and I enjoy talking about game design - even the really obviously bad game designs. I find the 40k and AOS phenomenon fascinating from a game designer standpoint because the rules and design are just so bad but its still so successful that I really love discussing to find out more on why that is and just talk about that phenomenon in general to apply to the games I work on in my professional day to day.
auticus wrote: Because everyone around me plays them and I enjoy talking about game design - even the really obviously bad game designs. I find the 40k and AOS phenomenon fascinating from a game designer standpoint because the rules and design are just so bad but its still so successful that I really love discussing to find out more on why that is and just talk about that phenomenon in general to apply to the games I work on in my professional day to day.
Seconded - discussing about bad game design can even be a better learning experience than discussing good game design. You can borrow an already solved solution about a thing or two from good design, but with bad design, you're motivated to be creative and the discussion itself can turn in a good brainstorming exercise.
@brainpsyk: what is discussed here is nothing controversial or heretical. It is a piece of game design knowledge, which is commonly utilised by designers to target specific audience.
List building is a skill, just like planning 2-3-4 turns in advance, just like Richard Siegler plans out the entire game before he gets to the table. That's not imbalance, that's tactics. Designing a list to be able to do multiple secondaries is tactics (well, strategy really). Building a list to score primary points on missions is strategy.
But he doesn't do that. He plays a ton of training games vs known and expected match ups, so he doesn't have to rethink stuff each game. There are probably very few moments in games where he actually has to think. And it is probably limited to stuff like drasticly over or under avarge rolls. Or match ups that have split way of playing, for example what ever he gets or doesn't get first turn. It is like in sports most of the time you don't think, if you think the opponent is going to choke you out, all the training you do durning camps etc are there to limit the number of times where you have to think what to do in this or that situation.
Umbros wrote: auticus I will never understand why you spend so much time talking about GW games given your lack of any recent experience with them. Move on! It has to be healthier for you.
My wish is that he writes these posts because he knows how much I, for one, enjoy reading them. Dude is a treasure, patient as a saint. Maybe reason enough.
auticus wrote: Points have never been for balance in gw games, they are for structure to min max within. They are the boundaries for the box to build in and nothing more.
No, they're stated in designers notes and so on to represent their power/utility.
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nou wrote: Just to add to the excelent points Deadnight listed above, let’s not forget, that 40k competitive players DO NOT want balance, they actively DEMAND imbalance and just obscure this desire by calling it „list building skill”. As long as „a bunch of assorted units should lose to carefully planned army” remains to be a value in a game, there will be problems of seal clubbing the newbies, there will be problems of „this cool looking unit means I auto lose/win”, and the more listbuilding should matter, the bigger this problem will be. We’ve been over this many times over - „nobody expects perfect balance, just good enough” in reality means something different entirely - „we expect just a right amount of imbalance, not too little, not too much”.
I think there are some toxic elements of the community, sure, but after hanging out with tournament players this weekend, what they want is for each faction to have multiple thematic builds and for win and loss rates to be constrained within the 45%-55% bracket.
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auticus wrote: Wanting list building being a skill explicitly is a desire for imbalance. Almost nobody will say that, but thats exactly what they are looking for.
For internal imbalance, sure. Not external imbalance.
It can also be a matter of synergy - every unit can be viable if it requires in-list synergy to function.
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jeff white wrote: Today was listening too one of my fav podcasts, walking dogs, and one of the co hosts confessed that it had taken him a while, but he realized recently the overtly competitive bent taken by WarCom articles and suggested that it was not so good, because people get the impression that what is cool about a model or unit or faction is the buffs, the table-top in-game performance in the current so-called meta, rather than the background, the artwork, the story and what each model or unit or faction bring to the table in this way..
Point being, the so-called meta affects everyone, and the hobby, and is effectively corrosive, reductive, and counter to the spirit of both the game and the community that supports it.
Have to say that I agree with this assessment, completely. GW management should be ashamed.
Ashamed that they make such shoddy rules, you mean?
No, they're stated in designers notes and so on to represent their power/utility.
Yeah but no. Designer notes also state matched play is the balanced mode of play. We all know how much BS that is.
People use points as a structure to minmax within. Not as a balancing tool. Many tournament style players are not interested in a balanced game, because listbuilding is about building the most imbalanced list that has an advantage over your opponent. Points SHOULD be about how powerful something is so that when I come to the table with a 2000 point list, I have 2000 points of power and you have 2000 points of power, but thats not what listbuilding is about today or been about for over a decade now. Its about taking those 2000 points and making them function like 4000 - 5000 points.
They are wanting imbalance. We can nitpick and say "ACTUALLY its just internal imbalance not external imbalance..." and thats fine go right ahead. Imbalance to me is imbalance. Its garbage internal or external.
Someone stating they want external balance so that all factions have a 45-55% win rate so long as there is a viable build within is still very much anti what I want out of a game, because they are saying its ok to have gak builds and units that are not viable - you just have to be "skilled" enough to not take those.
Every unit. Every single unit. Every LAST unit in a codex should be viable.
It can also be a matter of synergy - every unit can be viable if it requires in-list synergy to function.
That is not applicable to GW games in terms of the reality. Every unit is most certainly not viable no matter what you do with it in 40k or sigmar.
As a general rule of designer intent - yes thats a great thing to strive for. GW fails very hard at this.
auticus wrote: The thing is people have been hacking the game in the listbuilding phase since at least 3rd edition when I started.
I dont think you'll ever get rid of that totally but its main cause is simply undercost abilities that tournament players hone in on and maximize.
Going all the way back to a 3rd edition blood angels marine costing 15 points, the same as a Dark angels marine and same as an Ultramarine, except that the Dark Angels paid 15 points a model to not be able to move at all if they rolled a 1 for their squad because they were stubborn, the Ultramarine had no extra abilities, and the Blood Angel had +1S +1I and access to turbo charged rhinos that moved extra AND had the option to take a couple power weapons additional.
The color of one's model basically painted itself in that edition (space wolves were a close second with true grit and their armory access giving them toys to play with to help erase people easier).
(thats just one example from a litany of examples in every edition stretching back to the early days)
The lethality of the game is certainly a big negative aspect for a lot of people, but is also a big positive for a great number of other people because they want to get as many games in as possible and to do that you need stuff to die fast.
If the game wasn't as lethal, the listbuilding would change from minmaxing lethality to minmaxing mobility and objective capping, as it was in sigmar when I left GW finally in 2019 (so if it changed today I don't know about it) where one min/maxed mobility combined with mortal wound spam and if you had it the ability to spam summoning free extra models that the community somehow absurdly believes was "baked in" to the points cost of the already underpriced hero models doing the spam summoning.
There are some people that will always try to do that, until you get a game like Chess/Checkers, where each faction is absolutely identical. But you're dead on, the main source of that is points & faction imbalance > skill.
Totally agree on today's level of lethality, it's just over the top. I did like the level early last year, before DE came out. If you exposed too much you got wiped out. Not enough and you couldn't hold the objective.
Tyel wrote: Its not really surprising - even before we get into rules imbalance - that this forward planning has an advantage over someone who has just gone "uh... I've just grabbed whatever cos I liked them". And realistically I think it should.
Spot-on. My ideal isn't for listbuilding to be completely irrelevant, to where throwing darts at a board to pick your army is a viable approach- and I don't think anyone really wants that to begin with. It's more that I would love for army-building to be about, as you say, building a game plan.
If listbuilding were all about forward planning, constructing a force that synergizes well together and covers all its mission-relevant needs, and not about taking good units while avoiding bad ones, the difference in effectiveness between a typical casual list and a top-tier competitive one would be much slimmer. At that point your listbuilding is fundamentally about strategy and tactics, not about min-maxing.
8th Ed. ITC Missions and the 9th Ed. Missions they inspired reward list planning more than ever, though. They are much more similar in basic structure then previous missions. And fixed secondaries you have knowledge off at list-building obviously affect that.
Throwing out stuff that you "know" and can build for such as To The Last or Psychic Actions in favour of a randomised system that forces you to be "ready for anything" and shaking up the primary more in line of previous missions, sometimes only end-game-scoring, sometimes-progressive, sometimes kill-point focussed, sometimes kill-points are irrelevant, etc.. by its very nature takes emphasis away from list-building and places it on quick thinking and skill at the table in the moment.
auticus wrote: Because everyone around me plays them and I enjoy talking about game design - even the really obviously bad game designs. I find the 40k and AOS phenomenon fascinating from a game designer standpoint because the rules and design are just so bad but its still so successful that I really love discussing to find out more on why that is and just talk about that phenomenon in general to apply to the games I work on in my professional day to day.
It's actually a great case study on how you can have the worst product at the highest prices and still be the biggest seller in the market because of ubiquity, kind of like Apple. I have moved around a lot and everywhere I've ever been, including a deployment, I could find people to play 40k. I played WMH a lot when it was a popular tournament game, but moved to a new state and there's 0 WMH players here or even stores that carry it. We have a decent Infinity group here so I can play that. If I move somewhere else, they won't play WMH or Infinity so I'll have to play 40k or go to Battletech or whatever the niche game of choice is in that town. 40k might be the worst game in the history of games, but I would rather play 40k with a group of friends than push WMH models around on my kitchen island by myself. Also the quality of the models keeps people in the hobby even when the game is terrible. PVC and metal models are awful to work with compared to GWs plastics. I really couldn't find the motivation to paint my WMH stuff because the models were so bad they were just game pieces to me. Infinity is still 90% metal. I think GW has already captured too much marketshare and become too popular in pop culture for another company to really establish themselves and get to the same level.
That was the same thing I had to grapple with. Play the game and shovel money at GW for a game that I hated because my community were all wanting to be pro-gamers, or stick to games with few, if any, players.
Thats kind of how I've become more and more into solo gaming lol.
However - I've been hit with the bug to want to paint some gw models again - I just have nothing to use them in - so my game studio is working on a ruleset that I can at least enjoy and motivates me to want to play with them again.
I agree that for a long time now GW could basically walk out, take a giant crap on stage, put googly eyes in said crap and sell it as a poopmaris space marine and it would still sell.
As an aside too fast, I never had an issue with metals.
Corvus beli's are some of the best in the industry - I'm repainting my ariadna and yu-jing stiff after having them.stripped and bagged for about 3 years now, and im really enjoying it. Seriously tempted to buy some frontoviks and the new kazak starter as a painting project.
And pp's had their charms. I wanted to buy some 'pre-modern' pieces of theirs for a wee project of mine (so riflemen and artillery, with men o war being the 'tanks') and bought some of the ugly old metal trenchers. Gawd, they're ugly. Buuuuut... a decent paint job on them and they become remarkably charming wee models and the 'ugly' is away. Now ro be fair I've seen only a handful of pp models since the female totem hunter from minicrate that made me go ooh, but quite a few of their older ones still have some charm.
I don't mind the sculpts as much as the actual quality of the minis. The mold lines were just awful and the material isn't easy to clean up. I had to carve them away with a hobby knife and resculpt detail. After the first model I did that, I decided it wasn't worth it and just slapped them together with minimal cleanup.
auticus wrote: Yeah but no. Designer notes also state matched play is the balanced mode of play. We all know how much BS that is.
It's not bs from the people actually writing the rules. They might be incompetent, but it's what they think.
auticus wrote: People use points as a structure to minmax within. Not as a balancing tool.
Who is people? Why are you making this grandiose claim with no evidence? You act like you're privy to some secret knowledge about game design, and are making condescending and insulting points to people who understand what you're saying and have evidence to not believe it.
auticus wrote: Many tournament style players are not interested in a balanced game, because listbuilding is about building the most imbalanced list that has an advantage over your opponent.
Even if your conclusion is true, it doesn't follow from your premise. "Balance" can mean a lot of things; players can want the meanest, most optimized space marine list they can make to be a fair fight with the meanest, most optimized Tyranid list their friend makes.
auticus wrote: Points SHOULD be about how powerful something is so that when I come to the table with a 2000 point list, I have 2000 points of power and you have 2000 points of power, but thats not what listbuilding is about today or been about for over a decade now. Its about taking those 2000 points and making them function like 4000 - 5000 points.
And the reason for that is incompetence on the part of the underpaid, underqualified designers that GW hires, not because their philosophy of points is as you say.
auticus wrote: They are wanting imbalance. We can nitpick and say "ACTUALLY its just internal imbalance not external imbalance..." and thats fine go right ahead. Imbalance to me is imbalance. Its garbage internal or external.
Well if are incapable of understanding the difference, leave the conversation to people who do have that level of insight.
auticus wrote: Someone stating they want external balance so that all factions have a 45-55% win rate so long as there is a viable build within is still very much anti what I want out of a game, because they are saying its ok to have gak builds and units that are not viable - you just have to be "skilled" enough to not take those.
Nobody's saying that there should be non-viable units. gak builds, sure - you should have to build for synergy in your list, or have a plan to deal with the enemy's army. If your opponent goes tank-heavy and you bring nothing but the tools for killing infantry, that means the game isn't "balanced," internally, but maybe it shouldn't be.
auticus wrote: Every unit. Every single unit. Every LAST unit in a codex should be viable.
Nobody's saying that, so have fun arguing against scarecrows.
auticus wrote: That is not applicable to GW games in terms of the reality. Every unit is most certainly not viable no matter what you do with it in 40k or sigmar.
As a general rule of designer intent - yes thats a great thing to strive for. GW fails very hard at this.
Well in a hypothetically more balanced version of 40k, it *would* be possible, so it's very applicable to GW games, and you trying to ignore it is just your attempt to have your boneheaded arguments called out.
Well if are incapable of understanding the difference, leave the conversation to people who do have that level of insight.
Well in a hypothetically more balanced version of 40k, it *would* be possible, so it's very applicable to GW games, and you trying to ignore it is just your attempt to have your boneheaded arguments called out.
Once the conversation goes into this toilet level of garbage, the best I can say to you is agree to disagree. Thanks for your input. Your discussion skills are... quite extraordinary.
When you are ready to have an actual conversation and not resort to bullshittery and alpha keyboard warrior posturing, let me know.
Well, I can’t take all my ork planes I’ve had for a while, and running two scrapjets is a massive pain now. Oh yea, my hordes are also complete garbage and any shooting rerolls are gone because comp players complained.
Actually, I think every unit should be viable (as in, there should be a reasonable situation where there's a reason to take that unit). All units won't always be viable for all situations (e.g., AT units against a list with no tanks), but all the units should have a viable use. If their only use is to gum up the works, the points cost should be very low to reflect that imho. If the unit is good at everything, the points cost should reflect that as well. And if they only do one thing well (e.g., AT), that too should be reflected in the points.
Now with the number of units available to some factions, there might be multiple units that fill the same roll with varying degrees of success and, again, the points system should be able to address that as well.
As someone with zero game dev experience, 40k seems like a devs worst nightmare to balance. I remember thinking the same thing about StarCraft: three factions with completely different units that behaved very different from one another. Compare to something like age of empires: a bunch of factions, but the vast majority of the units were identical between factions, so balancing the factions came down to making sure the handful of unique faction traits fell in line with those of the other factions (and for units, most of the unique units were some riff on an existing unit). I'm sure even that is nontrivial. Expanding to the scale of 40k ... I can't imagine how hard it would be to even figure out a starting point for balance. And just to be clear, I'm not saying GW is off the hook (we know they can do better... we've seen them do better... I really want them to do better).
Once the conversation goes into this toilet level of garbage, the best I can say to you is agree to disagree. Thanks for your input. Your discussion skills are... quite extraordinary.
When you are ready to have an actual conversation and not resort to bullshittery and alpha keyboard warrior posturing, let me know.
You're the one who tried to big league me with his "Actually, the game wasn't intended to work this way..." when there's evidence the contrary. Accusing me of "alpha keyboard warrior" posturing when I pointed out you weren't making sense is projection and deflection; you're the one who's making arguments with the sole purpose of making yourself look good rather than contributing to the discussion.
I disagree, and as long as you continue to make bonehead arguments with no basis in fact, that are purely performative argumentation to fuel your ego, I won't agree with you.
Feel free to disagree. All of this other stuff you are going on about about "fueling my ego" etc is comedy.
If you want to discuss without resorting to personal attacks and alpha bad assery, cool. If you want to continue down the path of personal attacks because you disagree - cool. You'll go to the ignore pile /shrug/
I'm sure you are a very impressive specimen but once personal attacks start getting slung, there is no discussion to be had. Only a rabid shaking of the top ropes and chest puffing. Discussion boards are already full of that.
auticus wrote: Feel free to disagree. All of this other stuff you are going on about about "fueling my ego" etc is comedy.
If you want to discuss without resorting to personal attacks and alpha bad assery, cool. If you want to continue down the path of personal attacks because you disagree - cool. You'll go to the ignore pile /shrug/
I'm sure you are a very impressive specimen but once personal attacks start getting slung, there is no discussion to be had. Only a rabid shaking of the top ropes and chest puffing. Discussion boards are already full of that.
It's incredibly patronizing and disrespectful to act like you know better than other people, and then when presented with evidence to the contrary go "Imma ignore that and say you're wrong anyway."
You aren't factually correct about the purpose of points as intended by the rules writers, and you're intentionally conflating internal and external balance with the goal of saying that tournament players don't want fair games. It's all BS and you deserve to get called out on it.
The fact that you perceive anyone who won't go along with your invalid and inaccurate claims as "alpha posturing" just tells me that you need some more humility about your own faculties.
Never quoted myself before, but given the toxicity of the last few exchanges, maybe this bears repeating.
jeff white wrote: Today was listening too one of my fav podcasts, walking dogs, and one of the co hosts confessed that it had taken him a while, but he realized recently the overtly competitive bent taken by WarCom articles and suggested that it was not so good, because people get the impression that what is cool about a model or unit or faction is the buffs, the table-top in-game performance in the current so-called meta, rather than the background, the artwork, the story and what each model or unit or faction bring to the table in this way..
Point being, the so-called meta affects everyone, and the hobby, and is effectively corrosive, reductive, and counter to the spirit of both the game and the community that supports it.
Have to say that I agree with this assessment, completely. GW management should be ashamed.
Curious to hear if anyone can name that podcast. Hint: most recent episode, I think number 94.
@Hecaton: the thing is, you only think you have provided the evidence on the contrary, while the reality is, that you seem to not even understand on what level the discussion is happening. The fun thing is, that you have, probably unconsciously, substituted „desire imbalance” with „don’t want a fair game”, went rampage to prove auticus wrong, but have in fact proven him right in the process…
jeff white wrote: suggested that it was not so good, because people get the impression that what is cool about a model or unit or faction is the buffs, the table-top in-game performance in the current so-called meta, rather than the background, the artwork, the story and what each model or unit or faction bring to the table in this way..
Different people are going to prioritize those things differently, and none of them are wrong. I am primarily interested in how a model performs on the tabletop. I don't really care about background or story as I never found any of the background/story material for 40k to be all that inspiring. It's a fantastic SETTING, but the actual stories within that setting range from amazing to high schooler 4chan fanfic levels, and the majority are in the latter category. Someone who will never play a game and just wants to paint cool models will have totally opposite priorities, and that's fine. I'm not going to drive to someone's house, kick down the door, and put a gun to their head while they gather up their army so I can drag them down to the FLGS for the monthly tournament. Similarly, they aren't stopping me from buying and painting 9 voidweavers to club all the baby seals in my local meta. I actually think it's refreshing for a company that makes a tabletop wargame and charges hundreds of dollars for rules of said tabletop wargame to acknowledge that it exists and a model isn't just something to paint and set on your shelf. Maybe in a couple years that focus will translate to a decent ruleset and better balance.
nou wrote: @Hecaton: the thing is, you only think you have provided the evidence on the contrary, while the reality is, that you seem to not even understand on what level the discussion is happening. The fun thing is, that you have, probably unconsciously, substituted „desire imbalance” with „don’t want a fair game”, went rampage to prove auticus wrong, but have in fact proven him right in the process…
No. Auticus made statements which were wrong at the most base level, the factual. I definitely understand the "level the discussion is happening," more than you or Auticus.
And yes, Auticus was saying that tournament players didn't want a fair game, to make himself seem like a saint by comparison. It wasn't unconscious on my part, I understood the sleight of word Auticus was trying to pull - he was trying to say that his own custom tournament rules set was balanced and that nobody would just accept how right he was because they're all evil. He's done it before.
nou wrote: @Hecaton: the thing is, you only think you have provided the evidence on the contrary, while the reality is, that you seem to not even understand on what level the discussion is happening. The fun thing is, that you have, probably unconsciously, substituted „desire imbalance” with „don’t want a fair game”, went rampage to prove auticus wrong, but have in fact proven him right in the process…
No. Auticus made statements which were wrong at the most base level, the factual. I definitely understand the "level the discussion is happening," more than you or Auticus.
And yes, Auticus was saying that tournament players didn't want a fair game, to make himself seem like a saint by comparison. It wasn't unconscious on my part, I understood the sleight of word Auticus was trying to pull - he was trying to say that his own custom tournament rules set was balanced and that nobody would just accept how right he was because they're all evil. He's done it before.
Maybe this will help to clarify things a bit on why it doesn't matter if we are talking about internal or external balance:
"Competitive players desire imbalance" is not an insult in the first place, which many posters have a hard time understanding. The "just right amount" of imbalance provides a necessary space for competitive players, like you seem to be yourself, for the pleasure of finding best units/builds/synergies to even exist - you need the sandbox to build sand castles. Now on top of this, competitive players may say, that they want external balance as well, but that is also not entirely true, again, by the same sandbox requirement - they want to be able to identify better or worse factions and better or worse builds inside. Of course, this should not be too obvious, so all factions should stay close, but not exactly on par with each other, "just the right amount".
There is exactly zero controversy in any of this. None.
Now, "competitive players want a fair game" is also not as obvious as you may think, because there is a catch in this sentence - a "fair game" to the typical competitive 40k player means that they expect the other player to have the exact same approach to the game as they have - the "git gud" expectation of playing in the same sandbox of internal imbalance with the goal of identifying units/builds/synergies, so they can have "a challenge of the list building skill". But both those players "wanting a fair game" understand it as "first min/max the hell out of the 'just right amount of imbalance', then test if we both have done it to a decent standard".
This may all look like a fine game design goal and whatnot, but is actually the root cause for seal clubbing, because it doesn't matter at all, if the imbalance which causes a newbie with a Combat Patrol to loose all games because Combat Patrol units are gak is internal or external. Casual players are fethed up by both kinds of imbalance just the same. Focus hard on the following example - player A and player B both play the same faction, both draw units from the same source, but when presented with a choice between unit A and unit B, which fill the same role, one chooses A, the other chooses B, both do so for aesthetic reasons. Repeat that with all roles to fill. Both of them have legal 2000 lists drawn from the same codex, so there is no consideration of external balance whatsoever, but if one of those players just so happened to choose only "competitive choices" and the other "sub par choices", then the game is not fair, is broken, is an imbalanced gakshow, etc... Now realise, that competitive players, including yourself, openly desire, that unit A and unit B should not be on par, there should be a skill in identifying which of them is viable and which of them is not. Without this fundamental difference, with the perfect interchangeability of those units, there is no sandbox to listbuild in.
marketing scam, the ITC team just hasn't realized the amount of egg on their faces because the entire tournament scene is just a bad joke right now.
We get the Chaos Spawn result of codexes, sure.
