Found this buried at the bottom of a warcom metawatch article.
So, what’s next for our favourite pantomime killers? Rest assured that the Warhammer Studio is aware that this particular comedy is at present slightly too divine. Several senior members of the Warhammer 40,000 team were at AdeptiCon to watch things unfold, and the next Balance Dataslate is coming with appropriate fixes next week.
You can therefore expect imminent tweaks and changes to the Harlequins in particular – they’ll remain an awesome faction, but other factions will find them more fun to play against, and Aeldari players will see them support a wider variety of army lists in competitive settings.
That’s not all you’ll find in the Balance Dataslate – stay tuned to the Warhammer Community website for more news on that soon. In the meantime, we believe crafty players can come up with creative solutions to our little clown infestation…
So, they realise they screwed up, and will push out a nerf to them next week.
Given this is the balance dataslate, whatever they are doing is NOT a points adjustment based change (They reserve that for their seasons thing), but an actual rules change to the units.
Things that happened in the last dataslate, as a reference:
-Limited aircraft number to 2 models at 2k in matched play.
-Removal of CORE form Talos, added it to a large number of necron units.
-Added "One each" rule to ork buggies.
-Improved the LRBT save to 2+ and modifed the orders rules
-Gave Knights obsec and counts as 5/10 models ability.
So, what do you guys think they will do to detune the harlies back down to merely bloody good level?
I'd love to see them limit vehicle squadrons to 0-1 selections for the entire game. They've tried it multiple times now and it has led to skew issues.
A 0-1 Voidweaver selection per army still allows players to get to the magical number of 3 without the resulting skew of 9 + garbage lists. I think Squadrons were thought to provide a little more flexibility to using those slots, like getting 3 Voidweavers in a Patrol or allowing other HS options (provided they exist, but Ork buggies are still a thing that would benefit from the lens of getting additional FA options with a set of 3 buggies in 1 slot).
But, no good deed goes unpunished, and this is why we're not allowed to have nice things. I think the mask is off (pun intended) and we're going to see the buggy treatment make a visit to the murder clowns.
Purifying Tempest wrote: I'd love to see them limit vehicle squadrons to 0-1 selections for the entire game. They've tried it multiple times now and it has led to skew issues.
A 0-1 Voidweaver selection per army still allows players to get to the magical number of 3 without the resulting skew of 9 + garbage lists. I think Squadrons were thought to provide a little more flexibility to using those slots, like getting 3 Voidweavers in a Patrol or allowing other HS options (provided they exist, but Ork buggies are still a thing that would benefit from the lens of getting additional FA options with a set of 3 buggies in 1 slot).
But, no good deed goes unpunished, and this is why we're not allowed to have nice things. I think the mask is off (pun intended) and we're going to see the buggy treatment make a visit to the murder clowns.
Weren't Squads of vehicles originally Apocalypse things? I remember a long time ago there were all of these boxes of tanks that featured three copies of said tank and had Apoc on the box. I think this was around fifth edition?
GW's idea of what rules it gives away for free and what it charges for and how this ties in with their view of seasons is confused and confusing.
But really - just because the February Balance Sheet didn't include points (because want to sell you CA, its totally worth it for tweaking about 3 units per faction, honest) doesn't mean they will do the same in this one. Its very easy to go "yeah hats off we screwed up, the Voidweaver is now 110-120 points." It should really just be in the Eldar Codex FAQ.
Other options are more explicit nerfs. So for example Starweavers and Voidweavers could drop to only a 5++ rather than a 4++. Which might prompt some tears - but its what a Venom has. Which seems to prompt a "No but you see the Venom is overcosted, because its not currently in that 1% pool of datasheets crushing tournaments" from the competitive crowd, but they should just be overruled if you don't want the 7th edition style tier gap between armies to remain.
There is nothing wrong with the new stuff always being the best stuff, this is the case in almost every game example card games. If you want to have a higher chance of winning you have to use the meta cards.
The true problem is that the best players always choose to use the new stuff which makes the increase in power seem oppressive.
Anyone can look at the list of players at the event and what armies they selected and you will know the top tables before the games even started.
It is a bandwagon issue amongst competitive players that is causing tournament stats to look insane.
Jarms48 wrote: I hope it’s not just Harlequins. I hope there’s some Tau and Custode nerfs too.
Maybe instead of constant nerfs, they should consider reversing previous nerfs to make the older codexes powerful again. There's a load of Space Marine nerfs from points raises which could easily bring the faction back in line.
You can therefore expect imminent tweaks and changes to the Harlequins in particular – they’ll remain an awesome faction, but other factions will find them more fun to play against, and Aeldari players will see them support a wider variety of army lists in competitive settings.
Just what we need. A DE liquifire style nerf, which this time will let Eldar run multiple builds in a competitive setting. How many faction did even have more then one build at the same tim that was good?
Togusa wrote: "iF yOu LeT tHe CoMpEtItIVe PlAyErS bAlaNcE tHe GaMe It WiLl Be BeTtEr"
So how are we liking that now that we've seen the game become more of a mess than it arguable ever has been?
This is one of the dumbest sentiments ever expressed on Dakka.
You are literally the only person ON THE PLANET who apparently thinks that competitive players actually have any say in balancing the game.
Many people feel like competitive players are being 'catered too' (it's barely even pandering, in reality) but you're the only person out of touch with reality enough to even suggest that competitive players are actually a meaningful voice in GW's game balance. ESPECIALLY during launches.
What community playtesters they DO use are constantly, AGGRESSIVELY ignored by the rules writers(per multiple sources from literally every product launch).
Jarms48 wrote: I hope it’s not just Harlequins. I hope there’s some Tau and Custode nerfs too.
Maybe instead of constant nerfs, they should consider reversing previous nerfs to make the older codexes powerful again. There's a load of Space Marine nerfs from points raises which could easily bring the faction back in line.
They need both. Tau, Custodes, and Harlequins need signifcant nerfs at the same time they need to revert nerfs on SM, DG, Sisters, ETC.
Only doing one or the other won't change anything. Harlequins make full power ironhands look like guard.
Togusa wrote: "iF yOu LeT tHe CoMpEtItIVe PlAyErS bAlaNcE tHe GaMe It WiLl Be BeTtEr"
So how are we liking that now that we've seen the game become more of a mess than it arguable ever has been?
Many people feel like competitive players are being 'catered too' (it's barely even pandering, in reality) but you're the only person out of touch with reality enough to even suggest that competitive players are actually a meaningful voice in GW's game balance. ESPECIALLY during launches.
Jarms48 wrote: I hope it’s not just Harlequins. I hope there’s some Tau and Custode nerfs too.
Maybe instead of constant nerfs, they should consider reversing previous nerfs to make the older codexes powerful again. There's a load of Space Marine nerfs from points raises which could easily bring the faction back in line.
They need both. Tau, Custodes, and Harlequins need signifcant nerfs at the same time they need to revert nerfs on SM, DG, Sisters, ETC.
Only doing one or the other won't change anything. Harlequins make full power ironhands look like guard.
I suspect you may be the idiot. It is very well documented that GW balance is driven heavily by tournament results and very little by playtester. Point and case is that if it were the latter which was the most important, they wouldn't be released so broken. They are however quick to swing the nerf bat after major tournament wins as that represents a significant amount of data for them to base the nerfs upon. Where else would they get that amount of info? Watching youtube games? Do you clubs submit your game results to GW directly??
As for not doing anything - so you claim. Fact was however that the factions on release were powerful and then nerfed. Want to restore balance? the counter to nerfs are buffs. Maybe then they could return armies to their actual point values in some case and make their codexes valid again.
You can therefore expect imminent tweaks and changes to the Harlequins in particular – they’ll remain an awesome faction, but other factions will find them more fun to play against, and Aeldari players will see them support a wider variety of army lists in competitive settings.
Just what we need. A DE liquifire style nerf, which this time will let Eldar run multiple builds in a competitive setting. How many faction did even have more then one build at the same tim that was good?
Togusa wrote: "iF yOu LeT tHe CoMpEtItIVe PlAyErS bAlaNcE tHe GaMe It WiLl Be BeTtEr"
So how are we liking that now that we've seen the game become more of a mess than it arguable ever has been?
It'd be a lot worse TBH hahahaha
True. Now, most armies are at least okeyish for 2-3 months. In 8th there were books that came out and made no sense existing within the 8th rule and meta setting.
I like some of the funny stuff playtesters say about how it works. For DE they tested DE with some of the new rules , but with weapons having old stats, so dark lances were doing d6D. And they even told the GW side that they think that the codex is going to be very good. And then when the book came out they saw all the updated gun stats and points costs, and were mind blown. Made for some very fun YT videos to watch.
CKO wrote: There is nothing wrong with the new stuff always being the best stuff, this is the case in almost every game example card games. If you want to have a higher chance of winning you have to use the meta cards.
The true problem is that the best players always choose to use the new stuff which makes the increase in power seem oppressive.
Anyone can look at the list of players at the event and what armies they selected and you will know the top tables before the games even started.
It is a bandwagon issue amongst competitive players that is causing tournament stats to look insane.
This is utterly nonsensical.
1. The new stuff isn't always the best stuff. The last few codexes have been wildly OP, but before that Necrons were barely an upgrade, SM was more of a side-grade, and the 9th ed Sisters book was a straight up down-grade. It's even worse if you go kit by kit.
2. The new stuff always being the best stuff is bad. I don't feel like I should have to elaborate on why every new release being immediately superior to previous releases is bad and that it isn't even the case in most TCGs.
3. The best players always use the best stuff. In every game. Always. Magic players use the best cards, League of Legends players use the best champions, Professional athletes use the best equipment and support staff. That's a baseline expectation of competition. Blaming players for using good units is like blaming NFL teams for hiring naturally athletic people. Try saying: 'The biggest problem with professional sports is that all the best teams hire young, athletic, guys in excellent shape!' out loud just to see how silly you sound.
4. Let's say it is a bandwagon issue that's causing the stats to skew as badly as they are...so? What would that change? How is 'the best units in the game are so good that every competitive player is bandwagoning on them and winning 75% of games' result in a meaningfully different outcome than 'the best units in the game are so good that EVERYBODY who uses them can win 65% of their games, regardless of their skill level.'?
Togusa wrote: "iF yOu LeT tHe CoMpEtItIVe PlAyErS bAlaNcE tHe GaMe It WiLl Be BeTtEr"
So how are we liking that now that we've seen the game become more of a mess than it arguable ever has been?
Many people feel like competitive players are being 'catered too' (it's barely even pandering, in reality) but you're the only person out of touch with reality enough to even suggest that competitive players are actually a meaningful voice in GW's game balance. ESPECIALLY during launches.
Jarms48 wrote: I hope it’s not just Harlequins. I hope there’s some Tau and Custode nerfs too.
Maybe instead of constant nerfs, they should consider reversing previous nerfs to make the older codexes powerful again. There's a load of Space Marine nerfs from points raises which could easily bring the faction back in line.
They need both. Tau, Custodes, and Harlequins need signifcant nerfs at the same time they need to revert nerfs on SM, DG, Sisters, ETC.
Only doing one or the other won't change anything. Harlequins make full power ironhands look like guard.
I suspect you may be the idiot. It is very well documented that GW balance is driven heavily by tournament results and very little by playtester. Point and case is that if it were the latter which was the most important, they wouldn't be released so broken. They are however quick to swing the nerf bat after major tournament wins as that represents a significant amount of data for them to base the nerfs upon. Where else would they get that amount of info? Watching youtube games? Do you clubs submit your game results to GW directly??
As for not doing anything - so you claim. Fact was however that the factions on release were powerful and then nerfed. Want to restore balance? the counter to nerfs are buffs. Maybe then they could return armies to their actual point values in some case and make their codexes valid again.
Do you even read any of the balance changes? "Where does it come from?!?!?" THEIR BUTTS. 90% of GW's balance changes, especially release books, come from their butts.
People who feel like competitive players are being 'catered to' are, like you, simply not paying attention to what's actually happening.
GW's emergency balance changes are driven by ONLY EXTREMELY egregious tournament results, even then it's a total crapshoot if they'll make any changes that are actually helpful.
GW's points changes are driven by some arcane spreadsheet someone put together on their lunch break 8 months before the book releases.
GW's FAQ changes are driven by...honestly, there doesn't seem to be any driving force behind their FAQs. Remain stationary doesn't work coming out of transports. Why? No one knows. Literally no plausible reason for that.
GW's actual releases seem to be built entirely off of finding what playtesters identify as too power and then dropping it's point cost.
The rest is them throwing darts. Or did you think Deathshroud terminators needed a nerf?
None of that means competitive players have any say in how the balance of the game looks. GW making wild swings in roughly the direction of significant balance issues identified by tournament results
Undoing nerfs is necessary in some cases, but A. Only 2 factions (admech and drukhari) would be anywhere near where Tau, Custodes, and Harlequins are now even at full power and B. Moving the game to that level of power is just as bad as the current imbalance is.
Maybe instead of constant nerfs, they should consider reversing previous nerfs to make the older codexes powerful again. There's a load of Space Marine nerfs from points raises which could easily bring the faction back in line.
While I completely agree that basically every army except Tau, Custodes, and Harlies should have their points reversed from what GW changed in CA2022 it won’t make them content with those mentioned factions. It will certainly help though.
Custodes wrote:Change Trait 1 of the Magna Imperator shield host fighting style to read: 'Each time a model in a unit with this trait would lose a wound as a result of a mortal wound, roll one D6: on a 5+, that wound is not lost.'
The Emperor's Auspice: Change the cost of this Stratagem to ‘2CP/3CP’
Arcane Genetic Alchemy: Change the cost of this Stratagem to ‘2CP/3CP’
Harlequins wrote:Change the first bullet point of the Characterisation - Blaze of Light to read: ‘Each time an attack is made against a unit with this characterisation, if the attacking model is more than 24" away, an unmodified hit roll of 1-3 for that attack fails, irrespective of any abilities that the weapon or the model making that attack may have.’
Change the unit size of Voidweavers to: ‘1-2 models’.
Capricious Reflections: Change the cost of this Stratagem to ‘2CP’
Genestealer Cults wrote:Add the Core keyword to the Keywords section of the following datasheets: Aberrants, Goliath Truck.
Tau Empire wrote:Change the last bullet point from the Wargear section of the following datasheets - Crisis Battlesuits, Crisis Bodyguards and Broadside Battlesuits to read: ‘This unit can be equipped with up to two of the following, in any combination (Power Rating +1): 1 Gun Drone; 1 Marker Drone; 1 Shield Drone (pg 94-97).’
Remove the Core keyword from the Keywords section of the Broadside Battlesuit datasheet.
Togusa wrote: "iF yOu LeT tHe CoMpEtItIVe PlAyErS bAlaNcE tHe GaMe It WiLl Be BeTtEr"
So how are we liking that now that we've seen the game become more of a mess than it arguable ever has been?
This is one of the dumbest sentiments ever expressed on Dakka.
You are literally the only person ON THE PLANET who apparently thinks that competitive players actually have any say in balancing the game.
Many people feel like competitive players are being 'catered too' (it's barely even pandering, in reality) but you're the only person out of touch with reality enough to even suggest that competitive players are actually a meaningful voice in GW's game balance. ESPECIALLY during launches.
What community playtesters they DO use are constantly, AGGRESSIVELY ignored by the rules writers(per multiple sources from literally every product launch).
Jarms48 wrote: I hope it’s not just Harlequins. I hope there’s some Tau and Custode nerfs too.
Maybe instead of constant nerfs, they should consider reversing previous nerfs to make the older codexes powerful again. There's a load of Space Marine nerfs from points raises which could easily bring the faction back in line.
They need both. Tau, Custodes, and Harlequins need signifcant nerfs at the same time they need to revert nerfs on SM, DG, Sisters, ETC.
Only doing one or the other won't change anything. Harlequins make full power ironhands look like guard.
I totally believe you. They don't listen to the Frontline people at all.
Togusa wrote: "iF yOu LeT tHe CoMpEtItIVe PlAyErS bAlaNcE tHe GaMe It WiLl Be BeTtEr"
So how are we liking that now that we've seen the game become more of a mess than it arguable ever has been?
The competitive players aren't the ones that released 4 codexes in a row in a totally broken state. The competitive players are the ones saying "hey, uh, this is no fun even when I'm winning because it's like playing basketball against a 5 year old unless the enemy has the same codex. Please fix." If we were balancing it for casual play, voidweavers could just remain broken because nobody is buying 9 of them for garagehammer with their buddies on board game night.
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CKO wrote: There is nothing wrong with the new stuff always being the best stuff, this is the case in almost every game example card games. If you want to have a higher chance of winning you have to use the meta cards.
You can play with cards the minute you open the pack or buy the single. Same with video game characters, if my favorite hero gets nerfed or a new OP one comes out, I just click a different spot on the screen during hero selection. If that were the case with Warhammer, that type of balancing would be fine. When you have to build and paint the models, flavor of the week metas are awful. Players in a competitive environment are always going to play whatever gives them the best chance to win. If the game designer is halfway competent at their job, "whatever gives them the best chance to win" will be more than 1 codex spamming the max amount of 1 specific unit and using 1 specific army-wide trait. It is not the player's fault that GW is either completely incompetent at balancing or chooses sales over gameplay.
Purifying Tempest wrote: I'd love to see them limit vehicle squadrons to 0-1 selections for the entire game. They've tried it multiple times now and it has led to skew issues.
So, because they released Voidweaver rules that you can't deal with in your precious tournies, people running multiple squadrons of Sentinels/Killa Kanz/Grot tanks/Mek Gunz (even though thats just a bad idea)/GSC ridge runners/land speeders/SoB Penitent Engines/etc etc etc should be punished?
And yes, people DO play these things. Maybe not in a tourney, but certainly in casual play.
You need:
• To target the changes to the problem units.
• Restrict the changes to applying to tourney play. Wich is not the same as casual matched play.
CKO wrote: There is nothing wrong with the new stuff always being the best stuff, this is the case in almost every game example card games. If you want to have a higher chance of winning you have to use the meta cards.
Sure if you apply stupid game designer style who cares not for balance.
I suspect you may be the idiot. It is very well documented that GW balance is driven heavily by tournament results and very little by playtester. Point and case is that if it were the latter which was the most important, they wouldn't be released so broken. They are however quick to swing the nerf bat after major tournament wins as that represents a significant amount of data for them to base the nerfs upon. Where else would they get that amount of info? Watching youtube games? Do you clubs submit your game results to GW directly??.
If they wanted balance they wouldn't need tournament stats. 40k isn't complex game. It's dead easy with elementary school kid who can read english able to create best lists and spot issues.
Gw could fix 99%+ issues by just reading through codex pre-release.
But balance is bad for profit margin. Shifting imbalance meanwhile good. Guess you can tell what gw goes for...
Togusa wrote: "iF yOu LeT tHe CoMpEtItIVe PlAyErS bAlaNcE tHe GaMe It WiLl Be BeTtEr"
So how are we liking that now that we've seen the game become more of a mess than it arguable ever has been?
The competitive players aren't the ones that released 4 codexes in a row in a totally broken state. The competitive players are the ones saying "hey, uh, this is no fun even when I'm winning because it's like playing basketball against a 5 year old unless the enemy has the same codex. Please fix." If we were balancing it for casual play, voidweavers could just remain broken because nobody is buying 9 of them for garagehammer with their buddies on board game night.
Yeah. If anything, this is getting fixed (hopefully) in record time because of competitive players. Shame they didn't pass the book around more (or listen) beforehand.
xerxeskingofking wrote:Found this buried at the bottom of a warcom metawatch article.
On the other hand, this isn't right either. This wasn't 'buried' at the bottom of the article. The entire point of the article was a reassurance that they know (now) that its borked and fix is coming. It might well end up being insufficient (or a mis-aimed overreaction), but an entire article about how badly they messed things up isn't 'burying' the fix announcement.
Purifying Tempest wrote: I'd love to see them limit vehicle squadrons to 0-1 selections for the entire game. They've tried it multiple times now and it has led to skew issues.
You sure you're not a GW rules writer? 'Cause massive sweeping changes to fix specific problems is exactly what they would do.
If the problem is Voidthingies, then fix Voidthingies. Don't feth over every other type of vehicle squadron because one unit is too powerful.
This is exactly the attitude that caused GW to limit all aircraft because Ork and AdMech aircraft were too powerful. "Sorry, Mr. Air Cav Guard player, because the Ork planes have just too much dakka, you can't play your army anymore! Sucks to be you!""That's a real shame Mr. Deathwatch player, but because an AdMech player wiped his opponent off the board with his techno-jets before that player even had their first turn your airborne assault in Blackstars will have to wait, because you can only bring two now. Guess you'd better sell the other ones you bought! ".
Rumor is that voidweaver squads are going to 1-2 (down from 3) and the prismatic cannon is going up by 10 points. If true, this seems like a nice and tidy fix.
mokoshkana wrote: Rumor is that voidweaver squads are going to 1-2 (down from 3) and the prismatic cannon is going up by 10 points. If true, this seems like a nice and tidy fix.
That looks like a good change. Maybe we will see some haywire voidweaver. Haywire is good but not good as prismatic cannon.
Togusa wrote:"iF yOu LeT tHe CoMpEtItIVe PlAyErS bAlaNcE tHe GaMe It WiLl Be BeTtEr"
So how are we liking that now that we've seen the game become more of a mess than it arguable ever has been?
Problem here is simply if you don't have someone that coordinates changes and a dev team that plays the game, it will be a mess no matter what
and we are still off the mess 7th edition was
Togusa wrote:Weren't Squads of vehicles originally Apocalypse things?
those were a thing to allow tank heavy armies that were otherwise restricted by the force org chart, but stayed after the limitation of the FOG was gone
Custodes wrote:Change Trait 1 of the Magna Imperator shield host fighting style to read: 'Each time a model in a unit with this trait would lose a wound as a result of a mortal wound, roll one D6: on a 5+, that wound is not lost.'
The Emperor's Auspice: Change the cost of this Stratagem to ‘2CP/3CP’
Arcane Genetic Alchemy: Change the cost of this Stratagem to ‘2CP/3CP’
Harlequins wrote:Change the first bullet point of the Characterisation - Blaze of Light to read: ‘Each time an attack is made against a unit with this characterisation, if the attacking model is more than 24" away, an unmodified hit roll of 1-3 for that attack fails, irrespective of any abilities that the weapon or the model making that attack may have.’
Change the unit size of Voidweavers to: ‘1-2 models’.
Capricious Reflections: Change the cost of this Stratagem to ‘2CP’
Genestealer Cults wrote:Add the Core keyword to the Keywords section of the following datasheets: Aberrants, Goliath Truck.
Tau Empire wrote:Change the last bullet point from the Wargear section of the following datasheets - Crisis Battlesuits, Crisis Bodyguards and Broadside Battlesuits to read: ‘This unit can be equipped with up to two of the following, in any combination (Power Rating +1): 1 Gun Drone; 1 Marker Drone; 1 Shield Drone (pg 94-97).’
Remove the Core keyword from the Keywords section of the Broadside Battlesuit datasheet.
Let's see if any of this turns out to be true...
This is the Hellstorm fan dataslate. Not legit.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
mokoshkana wrote: Rumor is that voidweaver squads are going to 1-2 (down from 3) and the prismatic cannon is going up by 10 points. If true, this seems like a nice and tidy fix.
mokoshkana wrote: Rumor is that voidweaver squads are going to 1-2 (down from 3) and the prismatic cannon is going up by 10 points. If true, this seems like a nice and tidy fix.
10 points is insulting. The Voidweaver can take a 30 point increase and still be the best vehicle in the game by a significant margin.
I know it's not been railed against on any discussions I've seen but frankly I'm hoping there are some changes to the custodes shield host traits, specifically emissaries imperiatus. Frankly their traits seem completely BS to me. Always fights first and ignore any modifiers to hit and wound on any attacks (so shooting and melee) is pretty obnoxious. They'd be powerful abilities in a katah but as permanent additions they really hamstring a decent selection of tactics and codex stratagems and I'm not sure they make the game fun.
mokoshkana wrote: Rumor is that voidweaver squads are going to 1-2 (down from 3) and the prismatic cannon is going up by 10 points. If true, this seems like a nice and tidy fix.
10 points is insulting. The Voidweaver can take a 30 point increase and still be the best vehicle in the game by a significant margin.
Exactly. 10 points might be ok if they were also capped to max 3 models per army, like they've alywas been before. But the models well worth 120-130 points each.
mokoshkana wrote: Rumor is that voidweaver squads are going to 1-2 (down from 3) and the prismatic cannon is going up by 10 points. If true, this seems like a nice and tidy fix.
That looks like a good change. Maybe we will see some haywire voidweaver. Haywire is good but not good as prismatic cannon.
Why would that happen?
Anyone currently running squadrons of 3 is already fine with spending that amount of pts. Now they'd just be spending +10 pts per remaining weaver & reinvesting the remaining pts into the next best thing
I see a lot of people talking about Voidweavers but can I just point out:
85pt Venom:
M16" BS3+ S5 T5 W6 Sv4+, capacity 6
5++ against shooting, -1 to hit against shooting
6 S2 AP-1 D2 shots with Poison 4+
80pt Starweaver:
M16" BS3+ S5 T5 W6 Sv4+, capacity 6
4++ against everything, -1 to hit against everything, hit rolls against it can't be rerolled
6 S6 AP-1 D2 shots
Automatically Advances 6"
Yep, I can see why the Starweaver needed to be 5pts cheaper, to account for its superior guns and better defences.
Purifying Tempest wrote: I'd love to see them limit vehicle squadrons to 0-1 selections for the entire game. They've tried it multiple times now and it has led to skew issues.
A 0-1 Voidweaver selection per army still allows players to get to the magical number of 3 without the resulting skew of 9 + garbage lists. I think Squadrons were thought to provide a little more flexibility to using those slots, like getting 3 Voidweavers in a Patrol or allowing other HS options (provided they exist, but Ork buggies are still a thing that would benefit from the lens of getting additional FA options with a set of 3 buggies in 1 slot).
But, no good deed goes unpunished, and this is why we're not allowed to have nice things. I think the mask is off (pun intended) and we're going to see the buggy treatment make a visit to the murder clowns.
Yes, because Guard and their mighty Sentinel and Leman Russ squadrons are so game breaking and OP that the game needs a blanket one-size-fits-all solution to address this.
Tyel wrote: GW's idea of what rules it gives away for free and what it charges for and how this ties in with their view of seasons is confused and confusing.
But really - just because the February Balance Sheet didn't include points (because want to sell you CA, its totally worth it for tweaking about 3 units per faction, honest) doesn't mean they will do the same in this one. Its very easy to go "yeah hats off we screwed up, the Voidweaver is now 110-120 points." It should really just be in the Eldar Codex FAQ.
Other options are more explicit nerfs. So for example Starweavers and Voidweavers could drop to only a 5++ rather than a 4++. Which might prompt some tears - but its what a Venom has. Which seems to prompt a "No but you see the Venom is overcosted, because its not currently in that 1% pool of datasheets crushing tournaments" from the competitive crowd, but they should just be overruled if you don't want the 7th edition style tier gap between armies to remain.
95 pt starweavers and 120 pt voidweavers are a start, but I don't think you can really get to balance without a rules change. I think they need to lose the -1 to hit no re-roll buff (doesn't entirely make sense to me that the bigger slower star/voidweavers are harder to hit than the smaller faster skyweavers in any case). Another potential rules change that would benefit greatly is to limit the Light Saedaths key ability to infantry (and skyweavers, since they are kinda underpowered/overpriced by comparison) so that the star and voidweavers don't get the benefit of transhuman to-hit. I just really hope they don't overcorrect on this and completely nerf Light (or Harlequins) as a whole.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Change the first bullet point of the Characterisation - Blaze of Light to read: ‘Each time an attack is made against a unit with this characterisation, if the attacking model is more than 24" away, an unmodified hit roll of 1-3 for that attack fails, irrespective of any abilities that the weapon or the model making that attack may have.
Ugh, that would be awful, render the entire power useless and just reinforce its use on boats as opposed to the infantry that its actually there to benefit. Boats will just continue to sit at long range plinking away with their longer range weapons.
As an aside, restricting Voidweavers to 1-2 per unit instead of 1-3 won't change much. Many of the top performing lists are only running 6 and still posting crazy win rates.
Rumor is that voidweaver squads are going to 1-2 (down from 3) and the prismatic cannon is going up by 10 points. If true, this seems like a nice and tidy fix.
I really think Voidweavers need to be up 30-45 pts, don't think 10 is going to cut it, but we'll see. I'm not convinced that capping them to 6 is going to change anything based on what I've seen locally. Starweavers need to be up 15pts minimum. Putting Voidweavers up to 120 and Starweavers up to 95 would mean most lists are going to have to cut 3 Voidweavers or 4 Starweavers (or some combination thereof) in order to maintain the rest of their list (or they make steep cuts elsewhere to maintain their weavers).
Fast moving, hard hitting, versatile profiles on inexpensive units have always been so bad in 40k who could have foreseen this would backfire? Clearly this needed to be tested by the community before the noble design team could act.
stratigo wrote: Venoms paying for the sins of editions past sadly.
Exactly. Never forget that GW still tries to 'fix' problems with the rules that haven't been problems for editions. It's why Flying Hive Tyrants still suffer, and it's why Venoms will continue to suffer.
I thought about it, and honestly... after some thought... I'm pretty comfortable sitting with vehicle squadrons getting a check put on them. I'm not some tournament player, I'm not a filthy casual getting clubbed at tournaments either, but I have watched those two players interact and seen how utterly soul crushing it was for a player in a pick up game to get a match up against a copy of the Adepticon winning list. That's not going to be a happy experience, probably for either player unless the net-list player is a bit sadistic.
Sure, there's plenty of examples of units that get hurt by that (P.Engines, LRBT, whatever), but there's plenty more that have just been problematic from the start: Buggies, Voidweavers, roaming bands of P.Engines were even a bit of an issue earlier in the life of the AS Codex. Ironstriders also had their moment of fun in the sun with lots of Ad Mech lists running a (un)healthy swath of chicken walkers.
The best part is, if me and my friends don't see a problem with any of those units and a player really wants to play his 9 LRBT army... why would we deny him? It is easy enough to say: yeah, play whatcha want, we don't mind.
But tournament players? That's a different beast and such compromises can't really be made. The experiment has been tried a few times to pretty, immediate, disastrous results. Allowing an army to skew that hard on 1 unit within the rules creates the potential that 1 points swing or one weapon modification makes a huge problem for a large portion of the game, especially at the highest levels. Yikes. You're just sitting on a box of grenades every time they touch those dataslates.
At least in my world, we're free to ignore rules when it suits the flavor of the game someone wants to play (or when something stupid like this happens).
Wow, folks are really trying to nerf harlequins into oblivion.
Starweavers and Venoms don't cost the same because they aren't the same. They exist in different armies with different rules. Harlequins have EIGHT units in their entire arsenal. They need to have something that pops.
mokoshkana wrote: Wow, folks are really trying to nerf harlequins into oblivion.
Starweavers and Venoms don't cost the same because they aren't the same. They exist in different armies with different rules. Harlequins have EIGHT units in their entire arsenal. They need to have something that pops.
You're right. They aren't the same: they're strictly better. When better units cost less, the whole points system falls apart.
They need to carry their weight, not be blatantly overpowered.
They very obviously need nerfs, we're not talking about a margin of error that can be factored to a few people getting a bad nights sleep and playing badly. They've universally knocked the entire table over and consistently broke the game in one of the worst possible displays on record. There is no hiding that there is a problem here, its just a question of whether GW will correctly identify and fix what's wrong, rather than flailing wildly with the 'unintended consequences' button.
stratigo wrote: Venoms paying for the sins of editions past sadly.
Exactly. Never forget that GW still tries to 'fix' problems with the rules that haven't been problems for editions. It's why Flying Hive Tyrants still suffer, and it's why Venoms will continue to suffer.
I still discover new nerfs for the dark reapers every time i look at their datasheet lol
mokoshkana wrote: Wow, folks are really trying to nerf harlequins into oblivion.
Starweavers and Venoms don't cost the same because they aren't the same. They exist in different armies with different rules. Harlequins have EIGHT units in their entire arsenal. They need to have something that pops.
Yeaaa...but...it pops waaaay too much and they can easily soup. I'm willing to bet that any dataslate changes will ( at best ) place Harlies into a background detachment that just drags along whatever the optimum number of Voidweavers would be.
mokoshkana wrote: Wow, folks are really trying to nerf harlequins into oblivion.
Starweavers and Venoms don't cost the same because they aren't the same. They exist in different armies with different rules. Harlequins have EIGHT units in their entire arsenal. They need to have something that pops.
You're right. They aren't the same: they're strictly better. When better units cost less, the whole points system falls apart.
They need to carry their weight, not be blatantly overpowered.
They very obviously need nerfs, we're not talking about a margin of error that can be factored to a few people getting a bad nights sleep and playing badly. They've universally knocked the entire table over and consistently broke the game in one of the worst possible displays on record. There is no hiding that there is a problem here, its just a question of whether GW will correctly identify and fix what's wrong, rather than flailing wildly with the 'unintended consequences' button.
At 2000 points, things should be equal, but comparing unit A to unit B for points X is not feasible. Points are not 1 to 1 across factions. This has never and will never be the case. So a starweaver and a venom are not the same. Venoms can be unlocked for 40 points with kabalites or wracks. Starweavers can be unlocked for 65pts with a troupe (or 50 with voidreavers after the initial detachment tax has been paid).
I am on board with them being reigned in a bit, but lets not throw the baby out with the bath water and take them from hero to zero.
mokoshkana wrote: Wow, folks are really trying to nerf harlequins into oblivion.
Starweavers and Venoms don't cost the same because they aren't the same. They exist in different armies with different rules. Harlequins have EIGHT units in their entire arsenal. They need to have something that pops.
Yeaaa...but...it pops waaaay too much and they can easily soup. I'm willing to bet that any dataslate changes will ( at best ) place Harlies into a background detachment that just drags along whatever the optimum number of Voidweavers would be.
Allies have and will always be a problem. There is no way to balance two things that interact with one another. The traveling player rule should be narrative/open only.
it's typical GW, here is a unit that performed decently before. But, let's throw on a new rule just for good measure!
starweaver should remain as is with a small 5 pt bump due to shuricannon stat boost, but drop the silly no rerolls to hit against it.
As for Voidweaver, same as above except slightly higher bump in points, particularly to the prismatic cannon. If points correct, squadrons won't be an issue.
Oh, and Troupes need Core added.
I'd also then drop Mirror architect to Core only, thus affecting only bikes and Troupes.
mokoshkana wrote: Wow, folks are really trying to nerf harlequins into oblivion.
Starweavers and Venoms don't cost the same because they aren't the same. They exist in different armies with different rules. Harlequins have EIGHT units in their entire arsenal. They need to have something that pops.
You're right. They aren't the same: they're strictly better. When better units cost less, the whole points system falls apart.
They need to carry their weight, not be blatantly overpowered.
They very obviously need nerfs, we're not talking about a margin of error that can be factored to a few people getting a bad nights sleep and playing badly. They've universally knocked the entire table over and consistently broke the game in one of the worst possible displays on record. There is no hiding that there is a problem here, its just a question of whether GW will correctly identify and fix what's wrong, rather than flailing wildly with the 'unintended consequences' button.
At 2000 points, things should be equal, but comparing unit A to unit B for points X is not feasible. Points are not 1 to 1 across factions. This has never and will never be the case. So a starweaver and a venom are not the same
I don't agree at all. If SUM(A)=2000 and SUM(B)=2000, there has to be consistency in costs, otherwise you're really getting A=2000+X and B=2000-Y. It hasn't ever been perfect, but it requires at least attempting to get it right (and obviously they didn't even try here)
And its utter nonsense with two units so closely related. Its the same chassis with better special rules (literally +1 invulnerable save, and it also works in melee) and gun. Very obviously, costing less is an unacceptable answer.
You're effectively arguing that if you a Space Marine Rhino and Chaos Space Marine Rhino and they're otherwise the same, the Chaos Rhino should cost _less_ if you give it a havoc launcher.
Venoms can be unlocked for 40 points with kabalites or wracks. Starweavers can be unlocked for 65pts with a troupe (or 50 with voidreavers after the initial detachment tax has been paid).
I'm not sure why you're jumping into unit based discounts. The problem is the starweaver is better than the venom but costs less. Whatever you're saying here isn't what's in either codex (and makes it cheaper, which would be absolutely the wrong direction), so has nothing to do with the problem.
I am on board with them being reigned in a bit, but lets not throw the baby out with the bath water and take them from hero to zero.
Great. That wasn't on the table. But it should have a cost that reflects its abilities- and since its strictly better than other light vehicles of the same type, it should cost more. That isn't complicated or tossing babies.
You're effectively arguing that if you a Space Marine Rhino and Chaos Space Marine Rhino and they're otherwise the same, the Chaos Rhino should cost _less_ if you give it a havoc launcher.
TBF... that should be Rhino (with Space Marine Rules) and a Chaos Rhino (with Chaos Space Marine Rules). A unit in a vacuum can be perfectly balanced... until you start tossing in sympathetic rules, a la Custodies and the power of their Strats.
No idea, that is why I put forth a question. I don't ask rethorical questions.
Rumor is that voidweaver squads are going to 1-2 (down from 3) and the prismatic cannon is going up by 10 points. If true, this seems like a nice and tidy fix.
Which means armies are going to run 3 units of 2 each. even with -1 per squadron and a 10pts drop, then things are too awesome not to use.
I don't think so. It's just a hilarious way to poke at bandwagoners.
Be a GK player in 8th. Build the army properly, unlike me, and have 3 NDKs and 2 GMs in it with strikes and interceptors. Army is really bad anyway for most of 8th ed. In 9th it reverts to its pre PA status, specially your power armoured unit. Codex comes out and your army is finaly fun to play. Nerf bat, take this evil bandwagoner, this will teach you to play WAAC armies.
It is like one guy who started marines in 8th with me. Picked IH, had horrible time entire edition, then army becomes the WAAC doom machine, because he must have been guided by a prophetic vision starting his w40k collecting with a Dark Empire and 2 Know No Fear halfs. People sure did show him what they think about WAAC bandwagoners, mostly refusing to play against him. Even those that a month before that were tabling him.
mokoshkana wrote: Rumor is that voidweaver squads are going to 1-2 (down from 3) and the prismatic cannon is going up by 10 points. If true, this seems like a nice and tidy fix.
10 points is insulting. The Voidweaver can take a 30 point increase and still be the best vehicle in the game by a significant margin.
Exactly. 10 points might be ok if they were also capped to max 3 models per army, like they've alywas been before. But the models well worth 120-130 points each.
Are you sure they are worth as a Razorback?
Maybe I did never realize how powerful a Razorback is....
mokoshkana wrote: Rumor is that voidweaver squads are going to 1-2 (down from 3) and the prismatic cannon is going up by 10 points. If true, this seems like a nice and tidy fix.
10 points is insulting. The Voidweaver can take a 30 point increase and still be the best vehicle in the game by a significant margin.
Exactly. 10 points might be ok if they were also capped to max 3 models per army, like they've alywas been before. But the models well worth 120-130 points each.
Are you sure they are worth as a Razorback?
Maybe I did never realize how powerful a Razorback is....
The logic is broken units are fine if you can't use a lot of them. That makes also zero sense.
Togusa wrote: "iF yOu LeT tHe CoMpEtItIVe PlAyErS bAlaNcE tHe GaMe It WiLl Be BeTtEr"
So how are we liking that now that we've seen the game become more of a mess than it arguable ever has been?
Gonna agree this was a pretty bad take on the issue. Competitive players have zero input on the game balance except that they are effectively doing the playtesting AFTER release which is a bit bassackwards. I do think competitive players have a bit of input in that regard, i mean, Drukhari/Ad-Mech sat at the top of the meta for almost a year before being dethroned very recently by Custards and Tau and now Harlies/Eldar. Those players were actively screaming "ORKZ IZ OP! NERF!" So yea, maybe they do have some input, but not in the way you are thinking.
I suspect you may be the idiot. It is very well documented that GW balance is driven heavily by tournament results and very little by playtester. Point and case is that if it were the latter which was the most important, they wouldn't be released so broken. They are however quick to swing the nerf bat after major tournament wins as that represents a significant amount of data for them to base the nerfs upon. Where else would they get that amount of info? Watching youtube games? Do you clubs submit your game results to GW directly??
As for not doing anything - so you claim. Fact was however that the factions on release were powerful and then nerfed. Want to restore balance? the counter to nerfs are buffs. Maybe then they could return armies to their actual point values in some case and make their codexes valid again.
Yes, its driven by Tournament results...which is actually a good thing, GW has never been more responsive to game imbalance....ever. Keep in mind, they are fixing a problem they themselves created because they don't want to hire full time Playtesters and listen to them. But that doesn't mean that its the tournament scene that is coming out with these ridiculous rules. Nope, that falls firmly on the mentally challenged game devs. You know, the ones who listened to the competitive players that a 90pt Rukkatrukk was OP! with its average 3.5 S5 AP-2 2dmg hits a turn and said ...yes, OP bad. And nerfed it into oblivion and then proceeded to create voidweavers which with just their secondary guns average 4 S6 Ap-2 2dmg hits a turn (Shuriken) while also making the maingun head and shoulders better, the model faster and more durable and layering on even more rules to make it broken.
If they wanted balance they wouldn't need tournament stats. 40k isn't complex game. It's dead easy with elementary school kid who can read english able to create best lists and spot issues.
Gw could fix 99%+ issues by just reading through codex pre-release.
But balance is bad for profit margin. Shifting imbalance meanwhile good. Guess you can tell what gw goes for...
I mean..its slightly harder than that, but not nearly as hard that they should be coming out with the power differences we are seeing. Anyone with half a brain could have taken 2 seconds to look at the Voidweaver, compared it to current 9th edition units and said...yes, 120pts minimum. With the main gun, 130pts. Instead they said "90 seems like a good starting point" I mean...it literally is the exact same price as Ork buggies but is better in every single way imaginable. You can't accidentally do that.
mokoshkana wrote: Wow, folks are really trying to nerf harlequins into oblivion.
Starweavers and Venoms don't cost the same because they aren't the same. They exist in different armies with different rules. Harlequins have EIGHT units in their entire arsenal. They need to have something that pops.
Bud, starweavers and Voidweavers are broken levels of OP. It doesn't matter that this detachment style army only has 8 datasheets, i'm sorry that is irrelevant. Your units should not be head and shoulders better point for point than everyone else just because you only have fewer choices.
Venoms are noticeably worse than Starweavers, go compare those Starweavers to 70pt Trukkz if you really want to see how stupid it is. That Trukk has a single big shoota 3 shots at S5 no AP hitting on 5s. it has no durability boosts except -1dmg to S7 and below, its noticeably slower and has no synergy with basically anything in the codex except to act as either a mobile bunker OR a delivery system for trukkboyz. So for 10pts you are getting what amounts to 2 better versions of a Heavy Bolter (a 10pt weapon in and of itself) -1 to hit and a 4+ invuln. Yeah they need to cost a LOT MORE than they currently do.
Starweavers are almost identical to how they have been throughout 9th. The shuriken got upgraded but that's true on most new datasheets now (all shuriken weapons). The only thing added was the inability to reroll against it. So you think that one rule makes it super OP?
Drop that rule, add 5 points per shuriken (as all platforms basically have) and it's done. Voidweavers are a different story.
mokoshkana wrote: Wow, folks are really trying to nerf harlequins into oblivion.
Starweavers and Venoms don't cost the same because they aren't the same. They exist in different armies with different rules. Harlequins have EIGHT units in their entire arsenal. They need to have something that pops.
You're right. They aren't the same: they're strictly better. When better units cost less, the whole points system falls apart.
Thats not how point systems work.
mokoshkana wrote: At 2000 points, things should be equal, but comparing unit A to unit B for points X is not feasible. Points are not 1 to 1 across factions. This has never and will never be the case. So a starweaver and a venom are not the same. Venoms can be unlocked for 40 points with kabalites or wracks. Starweavers can be unlocked for 65pts with a troupe (or 50 with voidreavers after the initial detachment tax has been paid).
This.
bullyboy wrote: it's typical GW, here is a unit that performed decently before. But, let's throw on a new rule just for good measure!
starweaver should remain as is with a small 5 pt bump due to shuricannon stat boost, but drop the silly no rerolls to hit against it.
As for Voidweaver, same as above except slightly higher bump in points, particularly to the prismatic cannon. If points correct, squadrons won't be an issue.
Oh, and Troupes need Core added.
I'd also then drop Mirror architect to Core only, thus affecting only bikes and Troupes.
I think Blaze of Light or whatever its called gets dropped to Core only - theres too many stacking defensive buffs on the Starweavers/Voidweavers which are throwing them out of whack, making them -1 to hit, no rerolls allowed and they can't be hit on an unmodified 1-3, plus having a 4+ invul save. Its a lot.
I think Starweavers do need much more than a 5 pt bump though. 10-15 is my target.
mokoshkana wrote: Wow, folks are really trying to nerf harlequins into oblivion.
Starweavers and Venoms don't cost the same because they aren't the same. They exist in different armies with different rules. Harlequins have EIGHT units in their entire arsenal. They need to have something that pops.
You're right. They aren't the same: they're strictly better. When better units cost less, the whole points system falls apart.
They need to carry their weight, not be blatantly overpowered.
They very obviously need nerfs, we're not talking about a margin of error that can be factored to a few people getting a bad nights sleep and playing badly. They've universally knocked the entire table over and consistently broke the game in one of the worst possible displays on record. There is no hiding that there is a problem here, its just a question of whether GW will correctly identify and fix what's wrong, rather than flailing wildly with the 'unintended consequences' button.
At 2000 points, things should be equal, but comparing unit A to unit B for points X is not feasible. Points are not 1 to 1 across factions. This has never and will never be the case. So a starweaver and a venom are not the same
I don't agree at all. If SUM(A)=2000 and SUM(B)=2000, there has to be consistency in costs, otherwise you're really getting A=2000+X and B=2000-Y. It hasn't ever been perfect, but it requires at least attempting to get it right (and obviously they didn't even try here)
And its utter nonsense with two units so closely related. Its the same chassis with better special rules (literally +1 invulnerable save, and it also works in melee) and gun. Very obviously, costing less is an unacceptable answer.
You're effectively arguing that if you a Space Marine Rhino and Chaos Space Marine Rhino and they're otherwise the same, the Chaos Rhino should cost _less_ if you give it a havoc launcher.
It doesn't matter if you don't agree, the principles of game design pretty much say otherwise. Your logic also doesn't make sense, points are balanced in aggregate, SUM(A) = SUM(B). There is no +X or -Y, because for every +X in SUM(A) there is also a -X, likewise for every -Y in SUM(B) there is also a +Y. I.E. a Venom might be +X relative to the Starweavers -Y, but the -X that is Kabalites counterbalances this against the +Y that is the Harlequin Troupe - especially keeping in mind that the Venom and the Starweaver are "post-tax" units that can only be unlocked after spending points on another unit to begin with. Then add on top of that the "unpriced upgrades" such as Saedaths and Kabals/Cults/Covens, Strategems, artifacts, psychic powers, aura abilities, etc.
I'm not sure why you're jumping into unit based discounts. The problem is the starweaver is better than the venom but costs less. Whatever you're saying here isn't what's in either codex (and makes it cheaper, which would be absolutely the wrong direction), so has nothing to do with the problem.
Come on, you're not this dense. You have to buy the unit before you can buy the Starweaver or the Venom, as they are dedicated transports and can't be fielded independently. In this case, the price of the Starweaver isn't 80 pts to the Venoms 85 pts, its 145 pts to the Venoms 125 pts once you factor in the cost of the mandatory minimum unit tax. I.E. the Starweaver is effectively 20 pts more expensive than the Venom is - and yes this *IS* how points systems work.
I think Blaze of Light or whatever its called gets dropped to Core only - theres too many stacking defensive buffs on the Starweavers/Voidweavers which are throwing them out of whack, making them -1 to hit, no rerolls allowed and they can't be hit on an unmodified 1-3, plus having a 4+ invul save. Its a lot.
Hard pass on making chapter tactics work only on core. This means it would litterally only affect bikes in the codex.
As a CSM player, having my legion trait not affect everything really makes my coex feel clunky (among other things obviously).
I would up the points before thinking about changing the rest of the codex
Come on, you're not this dense. You have to buy the unit before you can buy the Starweaver or the Venom, as they are dedicated transports and can't be fielded independently. In this case, the price of the Starweaver isn't 80 pts to the Venoms 85 pts, its 145 pts to the Venoms 125 pts once you factor in the cost of the mandatory minimum unit tax. I.E. the Starweaver is effectively 20 pts more expensive than the Venom is - and yes this *IS* how points systems work.
Come on, you're not this dense. You have to compare the units... Kabalites are nowhere near as good at either melee, shooting or defense than troupes
It doesn't matter if you don't agree, the principles of game design pretty much say otherwise. Your logic also doesn't make sense, points are balanced in aggregate, SUM(A) = SUM(B). There is no +X or -Y, because for every +X in SUM(A) there is also a -X, likewise for every -Y in SUM(B) there is also a +Y. I.E. a Venom might be +X relative to the Starweavers -Y, but the -X that is Kabalites counterbalances this against the +Y that is the Harlequin Troupe - especially keeping in mind that the Venom and the Starweaver are "post-tax" units that can only be unlocked after spending points on another unit to begin with. Then add on top of that the "unpriced upgrades" such as Saedaths and Kabals/Cults/Covens, Strategems, artifacts, psychic powers, aura abilities, etc.
That only works if you are required to take -y. As they aren't people just take op stuff. Sorry. Your logic sucks and been proven wrong in practice.
I think Blaze of Light or whatever its called gets dropped to Core only - theres too many stacking defensive buffs on the Starweavers/Voidweavers which are throwing them out of whack, making them -1 to hit, no rerolls allowed and they can't be hit on an unmodified 1-3, plus having a 4+ invul save. Its a lot.
Hard pass on making chapter tactics work only on core. This means it would litterally only affect bikes in the codex.
As a CSM player, having my legion trait not affect everything really makes my coex feel clunky (among other things obviously).
I would up the points before thinking about changing the rest of the codex
The assumption is troupes will be FAQd to be core. Just because one specific doctrine might affect core only doesn't mean that others will, CSM will be fine. Either way, it seems pretty likely that Voidweaves/Starweavers will be losing some of their defensive tech no matter what, the problem here exceeds what can be solved by a points adjustment.
Come on, you're not this dense. You have to compare the units... Kabalites are nowhere near as good at either melee, shooting or defense than troupes
Right, which is why the Harlequins + Starweaver cost 20 pts more than the Kabalites + Venom. Duh. But to say that Kabalites aren't as good as Troupes pretty dumb argument because Kabalites in a Venom are used differently from Harlequins a Starweaver, and in that sense Kabalites are actually better at shooting than Harlequins are because the Venom can sit at longer range and have the Kabalites fire their longer range weapons from it in relative safety, whereas in order for the Harlequins to do the same they have to enter closer range where they and the Voidweaver lose the benefit of Blaze of Light unless your positioning is impeccable and you manage to neutralize any potential threats before they have an opportunity to attack you. The melee and defensive advantages of the Harlequins themselves mater for little with the way they are being used, as most players are using the Starweavers/Voidweavers as mobile gunboats and avoiding disembarking the Harlequins from them until they've shot most of the opposing army to shreds to the point that they don't pose much of a threat to the Harlequins anymore.
That only works if you are required to take -y. As they aren't people just take op stuff. Sorry. Your logic sucks and been proven wrong in practice.
Errr... no? In this scenario the "-Y", i.e. the Starweaver, is the OP stuff, which you aren't required to take but want to take, but is counterbalanced by the non-OP Harlequin Troupe which you *must* take in order to take the Starweaver. The logic works fine.
mokoshkana wrote: Wow, folks are really trying to nerf harlequins into oblivion.
Starweavers and Venoms don't cost the same because they aren't the same. They exist in different armies with different rules. Harlequins have EIGHT units in their entire arsenal. They need to have something that pops.
Bud, starweavers and Voidweavers are broken levels of OP. It doesn't matter that this detachment style army only has 8 datasheets, i'm sorry that is irrelevant. Your units should not be head and shoulders better point for point than everyone else just because you only have fewer choices.
Venoms are noticeably worse than Starweavers, go compare those Starweavers to 70pt Trukkz if you really want to see how stupid it is. That Trukk has a single big shoota 3 shots at S5 no AP hitting on 5s. it has no durability boosts except -1dmg to S7 and below, its noticeably slower and has no synergy with basically anything in the codex except to act as either a mobile bunker OR a delivery system for trukkboyz. So for 10pts you are getting what amounts to 2 better versions of a Heavy Bolter (a 10pt weapon in and of itself) -1 to hit and a 4+ invuln. Yeah they need to cost a LOT MORE than they currently do.
The entire game is filled with unit X being better than unit Y for fewer points. It is LITERALLY how they design the game. They make things cheap in order to sell models. It doesn't matter whether it is right or wrong, this is how they "balance" the game.
I haven't played with my Harlequins yet in 9ed (outside of a wandering players patrol in my first of two CWE games), but after looking at the voidweaver last night, I think an easy fix is to remove blast from the Prismatic cannon in addition to dropping the squad size and increasing the cost of the prismatic cannon. Being 3d3 shots with blast makes it stupidly effective at dealing with 6+ units sized.
mokoshkana wrote: Wow, folks are really trying to nerf harlequins into oblivion.
Starweavers and Venoms don't cost the same because they aren't the same. They exist in different armies with different rules. Harlequins have EIGHT units in their entire arsenal. They need to have something that pops.
Yeaaa...but...it pops waaaay too much and they can easily soup. I'm willing to bet that any dataslate changes will ( at best ) place Harlies into a background detachment that just drags along whatever the optimum number of Voidweavers would be.
So if they background detachment it, they can only take 4 (at the proposed squad reduction change) in a patrol detachment without losing army rules. If they take 6, then they'd be giving up a host of CWE/DE rules, and two extra voidweavers aren't that good.
I haven't played with my Harlequins yet in 9ed (outside of a wandering players patrol in my first of two CWE games), but after looking at the voidweaver last night, I think an easy fix is to remove blast from the Prismatic cannon in addition to dropping the squad size and increasing the cost of the prismatic cannon. Being 3d3 shots with blast makes it stupidly effective at dealing with 6+ units sized.
blast does litterally nothing until you get to 11+ model squads (which no one plays because of coherency) for the voidweaver
I haven't played with my Harlequins yet in 9ed (outside of a wandering players patrol in my first of two CWE games), but after looking at the voidweaver last night, I think an easy fix is to remove blast from the Prismatic cannon in addition to dropping the squad size and increasing the cost of the prismatic cannon. Being 3d3 shots with blast makes it stupidly effective at dealing with 6+ units sized.
Doesn't blast not help at all at 6 models? You've already got a minimum of 3. Yes, it helps at 11 though. I don't think Blast is the issue here but I could be wrong.
mokoshkana wrote: Wow, folks are really trying to nerf harlequins into oblivion.
Starweavers and Venoms don't cost the same because they aren't the same. They exist in different armies with different rules. Harlequins have EIGHT units in their entire arsenal. They need to have something that pops.
Yeaaa...but...it pops waaaay too much and they can easily soup. I'm willing to bet that any dataslate changes will ( at best ) place Harlies into a background detachment that just drags along whatever the optimum number of Voidweavers would be.
mokoshkana wrote: So if they background detachment it, they can only take 4 (at the proposed squad reduction change) in a patrol detachment without losing army rules. If they take 6, then they'd be giving up a host of CWE/DE rules, and two extra voidweavers aren't that good.
I'm not sure the soup topic is really worth discussing much here in terms of avoiding Voidweaver nerfs -- the truly degenerate Harlequins lists don't need to soup right now.
oni wrote: Vehicle squadrons continue to be an issue. There's no need to haver them anymore.
Again, no.
Ork buggies and voidweavers were the only ones that were an issue.
Voidweavers would still overperform even if you could only take 3 in a list.
To their point squadrons turn balancing on it's head. 3 Voidweavers? No matter how powerful they'll have a much more limited impact. Same goes for 3 squigbuggies. It's also part of why they made DPs the "same" sheet back in 8th.
You also had Mek Gunz ( whose leadership makes them think twice now ). Into the future you risk LRBTs getting out of hand when they get buffed. If the get T9 and you can take 9 of them PLUS TCs, well...it's going to be stupid.
Without squadrons you can have units that might be a little OP, but that work within context of the army. With them it becomes a lot harder to prevent spam and find that tipping point between uber glass cannon and brick.
Right, which is why the Harlequins + Starweaver cost 20 pts more than the Kabalites + Venom. Duh. But to say that Kabalites aren't as good as Troupes pretty dumb argument because Kabalites in a Venom are used differently from Harlequins a Starweaver, and in that sense Kabalites are actually better at shooting than Harlequins are because the Venom can sit at longer range and have the Kabalites fire their longer range weapons from it in relative safety, whereas in order for the Harlequins to do the same they have to enter closer range where they and the Voidweaver lose the benefit of Blaze of Light unless your positioning is impeccable and you manage to neutralize any potential threats before they have an opportunity to attack you. The melee and defensive advantages of the Harlequins themselves mater for little with the way they are being used, as most players are using the Starweavers/Voidweavers as mobile gunboats and avoiding disembarking the Harlequins from them until they've shot most of the opposing army to shreds to the point that they don't pose much of a threat to the Harlequins anymore.
Bad logic, your argument is now that Harlequins+Starweaver cost 20pts more than the kabalites and venom and therefore its fine because kabalites are good at ranged compared to harlequins and starweaver. Ok well lets do a comparison.
Kabalites + Venom = 115pts. 125 if you upgrade to the splinter cannon which...obviously you will. You end up with 6 splinter cannon shots and 5 Splinter Rifle shots, strength is basically irrelevant Cannon ends up with 4 hits, and 2 wounds at -1AP the rifles end up with 3.3 hits and 1.6 wounds at no AP. Against a 3+ save target the cannon works out to 2dmg the rifles work out to 0.5 So grand total against any target T3-T8 is 2.5dmg
The Starweaver with troupe inside is 145pts, At the same 24' range it gets 6 shots, 4 hits and against T3 its 3.3 wounds, against T4-5 its 2.6, T6 its 2, and against T7-8 its 1.33 Its also -1 AP and 2 dmg except on 6s to wound its -3AP. Against 3+ armor T3 = 3.3 wounds with a 55% chance of more thanks to shuriken, T4-5 its 2.6dmg with a 43% chance of more dmg thanks to shuriken, against T6 its 2dmg with a 33% chance of more dmg thanks to shuriken and finally at T7-8 its 1.33 dmg on average with 22% chance of extra dmg thanks to shuriken.
So right off the bat...not really. T3-T5 the Starweaver is better at ranged combat, at T6 its 0.5dmg worse and at T7-8 its 1.17dmg worse.
More importantly to this useless scenario, a DE player isn't going to use a Venom as a mobile firing platform to protect a small squad of kabalites, hes generally rushing them forward to get into CC as quickly as possible, and usually is using wracks not kabalites. So yes a Starweaver is better than a Venom point for point and when you put units in them, the starweaver is still better in most scenarios
That only works if you are required to take -y. As they aren't people just take op stuff. Sorry. Your logic sucks and been proven wrong in practice.
Errr... no? In this scenario the "-Y", i.e. the Starweaver, is the OP stuff, which you aren't required to take but want to take, but is counterbalanced by the non-OP Harlequin Troupe which you *must* take in order to take the Starweaver. The logic works fine.
Err....Yes? and t hose Harlequins Troupes are also OP compared to similar points value of other troops. Yeah Kabalites are better at ranged combat because and only because they have ranged 24' guns while the troupes only have access to pistols. But what happens to those numbers when the 2 units get into CC? A Troupe has 5 attacks without any buffs, hitting on 3s at S3 -1AP. And for 1CP they average 2-3 Mortal wounds against their target with Harlequins kiss. How do those Kabalites do? 11 attacks at S3 no AP. Not as good I would say.
mokoshkana wrote: The entire game is filled with unit X being better than unit Y for fewer points. It is LITERALLY how they design the game. They make things cheap in order to sell models. It doesn't matter whether it is right or wrong, this is how they "balance" the game.
I have lots of datasheets in my codex, if you are saying the game is balanced based on forcing me to take a few bad units to compensate for the OP ones...well you've never played competitive 40k. My Burna's and Nobz are horrible, so I don't take them. Instead I take 3 units of Kommandos who are somewhat competitive, even after GW did their best to screw them over. I have Killa Kanz, Bonebreakers and Gunwagonz, they are terrible, that makes up for my Mek gunz being good right? No, I don't take the bad stuff, I just take 3 units of Mek gunz.
It is ok for a unit to be slightly better pt for pt than comparable units if it also has a downside or the other unit is better in some other way, in this case...that isn't happening, Starweavers are just better than any other transport in the game right now, and they don't pay a realistic points value for the difference.
Again, a Starweaver is 10pts more expensive than a Trukk.
Trukk is Movement 12 compared to the Starweavers 16
Trukk is WS5 to the Starweavers 3
Trukk is BS5 to the Starweavers 3
Trukk is S6(5-4) to the Starweavers S5
Trukk is T6 to the Starweavers T5
Trukk has 10 wounds to the Starweavers 6
Trukk has 3 attacks to the Starweavers 4
Trukk is LD6 to the Starweavers 8.
Trukk has 3 S5 shots no AP 1dmg to the Starweavers 6 S6 shots -1AP 2dmg (Shuriken)
Trukk has no invuln to the Starweavers 4+ Invuln
Trukk does not have a -1 to hit modifier to the Starweavers -1 to hit AND no re-rolls to hit
So the starweaver is significantly faster, significantly better at ranged combat, significantly better in CC, has units that actively want to be transported, very durable vs almost everything in the game with its -1 to hit, no re-rolls and 4+ invuln. All of that for 10ppm More than a Trukk. So yes its too good for its points value compared to a Trukk.
mokoshkana wrote: I haven't played with my Harlequins yet in 9ed (outside of a wandering players patrol in my first of two CWE games), but after looking at the voidweaver last night, I think an easy fix is to remove blast from the Prismatic cannon in addition to dropping the squad size and increasing the cost of the prismatic cannon. Being 3d3 shots with blast makes it stupidly effective at dealing with 6+ units sized.
Blast does nothing to fix the Voidweaver. Almost nobody is running squads of 10+ so there is no point to the blast rule on the weapon, and in most circumstances, its still better to hit the target with the 2 shot profile anyway. How strong is that 2 shot profile btw? Oh yeah, S12 -4AP and 2D3 dmg. Not bad for a model with a 90pt price tag, thank god its the only gun it has right? Oh yeah, its also got what amounts to 2 Heavy bolters that are just better. The Shuriken cannons should honestly be about 30pts for just those 2 weapons, the Prismatic is better than a 20pt Lascannon by far, so hitting it with a 25pt price tag would be fair in my opinion. So thats 55pts out of the 90 it costs in just 2 weapons. In order for my Trukkz to get a 5+ Invuln save I have to buy a 20pt ugprade (Fortress on Wheels) You get a 4+ invuln save, you also get native -1 to hit and its also blindingly fast. yeah, just changing the maingun isn't going to fix how broken this unit is. I am going to laugh my ass off though when GW does their balance update and taps it ever so lovingly with the nerf hammer, giving it something ridiculous like a 5-10pt price increase while they were happy to slap the Rukkatrukk with a 20pt price hike and non-competitive units like the Beastboss on Squigosaur with a 35pt price hike.
bullyboy wrote: Starweavers are almost identical to how they have been throughout 9th. The shuriken got upgraded but that's true on most new datasheets now (all shuriken weapons). The only thing added was the inability to reroll against it. So you think that one rule makes it super OP?
Drop that rule, add 5 points per shuriken (as all platforms basically have) and it's done. Voidweavers are a different story.
See above for a points/stats comparison between a Trukk and a Starweaver and get back to me if you think the biggest difference between those 2 units is the no re-rolls and 5 more points.
oni wrote: Vehicle squadrons continue to be an issue. There's no need to haver them anymore.
Again, no.
Ork buggies and voidweavers were the only ones that were an issue.
Voidweavers would still overperform even if you could only take 3 in a list.
Tired of this nonsensical argument. Ork buggies were nowhere near broken and you can easily prove this by a few different factors. 1: Top players will always migrate towards the most OP armies out at the moment. Nanavati has played orkz in the past (8th) when he thought they were the best faction out at the time. Not many if any top players changed to orkz. In comparison though, a lot of brand new Ad-mech and Drukhari armies appeared. And now with Harlequins out a lot of Space Clown armies.
Broken armies with issues have 65%+ win rates week after week. Orkz didn't achieve that. They had a week or a tournament here or there where they did exceptionally well but that was it. Compare that to Drukhari and now Harlequins dominating entire weekends week after week.
And finally, a basic comparison. Against a Space Marine, the most broken, OP Buggy in the entire game was the Squigbuggy, if you buffed it with Freeboota proc (Kill an enemy unit) AND it was the Speed WAAAGH turn it works out to 10.5 shots, 5.25 hits, 3.5 wounds at -3AP for 2.91 failed saves and 3 Dead Marines. That is a single Rukkatrukk with a once a game buff, At half range and after his army proc'd the best kulture for them.
A Single Voidweaver right now using the secondary weapons profile averages 6 shots at S5 -3AP 1dmg and 6 shots at S6 -1AP 2dmg. That works out to 4 hits for each one, 2.66 wounds for each one and the big gun gets 2.2dmg and the little gun gets 2.66dmg So without a single buff, literally NOT 1 BUFF, not even using the Shuriken rule, no re-rolls, no +1 to hit/wound no stratagems, no once a game buffs etc this thing averages 2 dead Marines a turn. But hey, its not like Harlequins have an abundance of re-rolls to hit or wound...i mean something stupid like a rule called "Luck of the Laughing God" or some such nonsense. That only slightly increases the dmg output, especially if you choose to shoot at a big target and use the main weapon profile which is S12 -4AP 2D3 dmg, so you almost guarantee 2 hits a turn and 2 wounds a turn for 8dmg on average....but lets not even get into that portion.
The "you have to compare X+Y to A+B" argument would make sense if there was *any* fat in the Harlequins roster.
Instead:
Voidweaver - best vehicle in the game.
Starweaver - best transport in the game.
Troupes are probably the best troops in the game.
The bikes are excellent.
And finally, the inevitable 4 man of Troupe Master, Shadowseer, Death Jester and Solitaire have to be up there for the best bunch of characters a list could have.
Its surely not surprising why this faction is scoring a 75% win rate in tournaments.
There's usually no fat in any top tier armies. That tends to be what makes them top tier. Unless you go looking for it - there is no tax in any half way sensible Harlequins list.
By comparison some kablites in a venom is a bad unit in a fairly priced (which means mediocre) transport. The Venom was fine up until about 3 months ago - but apparently is overcosted for... reasons. The Starweaver is just better. And now the whole Harlequin range is.
Open question from someone with no stake or to be honest particular knowledge of the Modern Game?
How effective are these regular patches? I know many folk for a long while wanted more regular balance patches. But I’m also aware that getting what you want isn’t necessarily getting what you wanted. After all, they could be done monthly, but if they only jump up and down on broken bits whilst calling your Mum a slag, what’s the point?
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Open question from someone with no stake or to be honest particular knowledge of the Modern Game?
How effective are these regular patches? I know many folk for a long while wanted more regular balance patches. But I’m also aware that getting what you want isn’t necessarily getting what you wanted. After all, they could be done monthly, but if they only jump up and down on broken bits whilst calling your Mum a slag, what’s the point?
They aren't effective for the most part. They are generally stupid with a few accidental buffs/nerfs that make sense.
Case and point, The last one nerfed the Beastboss on squigosaur with a 35pt price hike...it wasn't used in competitive games already, the 35pt price hike just ensured nobody would use it. But its ok, they realized they were heavy handed there and hit our only competitive CC option with a 20% increase in cost. But hey that's fine because they simultaneously gave us 5pt price cuts on Meganobz and Killakanz which made them....still bad.
Semper, you have a Trukk problem, not a starweaver problem. Nobody was bitching about starweavers throughout 9th and they were 80pts. Remove the reroll rule, bump points by 5pts per shuricannon and you are done. Pure and simple. Anything else and it goes too far.
Voidweaver get similar treatment (points bumps for shuricannons) plus additional charge for prismatic cannon and things get better.
I’d also make mirror architect core only (as long as troupes get core).
mokoshkana wrote: The entire game is filled with unit X being better than unit Y for fewer points. It is LITERALLY how they design the game. They make things cheap in order to sell models. It doesn't matter whether it is right or wrong, this is how they "balance" the game.
I have lots of datasheets in my codex, if you are saying the game is balanced based on forcing me to take a few bad units to compensate for the OP ones...well you've never played competitive 40k. My Burna's and Nobz are horrible, so I don't take them. Instead I take 3 units of Kommandos who are somewhat competitive, even after GW did their best to screw them over. I have Killa Kanz, Bonebreakers and Gunwagonz, they are terrible, that makes up for my Mek gunz being good right? No, I don't take the bad stuff, I just take 3 units of Mek gunz.
Competitive 40k is a joke. When army A can go first and remove 25%+ percent of army B before Army B has a single chance to act, balance is already out the window.
I've been playing CWE since the end of 6ed, and every time a codex comes out there is a nice healthy mixture of OP stuff and complete trash. It more or less changes from codex to codex, but the internal balance is never there. That is across all armies. This isn't a game designed to be competitive, its designed to sell models.
As to your other points, you chose a HORDE army, which will have weight of dice. When you lost infantry models, you don't really care because you have a lot of them. Elite armies don't have bodies all over the place.
Vehicle squadrons more or less exist only because of the limitations that arise from the force org chart and rule of three. The majority of squadroned models are light vehicles that individually bring minimal capability relative to other options that they might be competing with for precious elites/fast/heavy slots, etc. For example, if you could only bring a single Killa Kan per Heavy Support slot, then they would almost never get fielded because why on earth would you waste one of your precious few heavy support slots in your army list on 1 killa kan, when that same heavy support slot could instead be used to take a deff dreads, mek gunz, battlewagons, gunwagons, kill rigs, lootas, etc. A single killa kan, no matter how well priced, just won't deliver that much capability to the table relative to the other options that the same slot unlocks. Thus, they are available in squadrons because collectively multiple Killa Kans together can deliver capability comparable to what the other options in that slot unlock. Similarly, Eldar Vypers and War Walkers would probably almost never be fielded if they were one model per Fast Attack slot, because there are much better uses for the FA slot within the army list. Likewise, things like Leman Russ squadrons exist because it was quickly realized that guard needed better FOC economy in order to be able to field a capable list - you couldn't have guard tie up their 3 heavy support choices to field 3 leman russes - for one thing thats not enough leman russes, but it also prevents them from using those slots to also field Hydras, Manticores, Basilisks/artillery pieces, heavy weapons teams, and other units that are basically essential to the army being able to effectively compete and function.
Since rule of three was introduced however, I think they have been misapplying the underlying logic behind what should and shouldn't be squadroned in order to circumvent the army building limitations imposed by that restriction, which I think is where some of the problems with them come from. Like, I don't think the Voidweaver really needs to be fieldable in squadrons because it can pack a lot of punch for a light vehicle (though some of the other Aeldari HS options that it would be competing with in a "soup" list might remove a single Voidweaver from consideration vs other uses for the HS slot), but if you were building a mono-Harlequin army you have no other Heavy Support options, so rule of 3 imposes a pretty severe list-building consequence on you that can only be bypassed by squadroning the vehicles to allow a Harlequin player to spend points on additional models - or introducing a new Heavy Support choice for the army. Effectively it would cap the Harlequins at only ever being able to spend a max of 270 pts on heavy support choices (whereas you can spend over 700 points on Fast choices before locking out, likewise HQ is good for over 500 pts, only elites is really comparable but you can easily spend in excess of 300 pts on death jesters and a solitaire with upgrades. Basically being limited to 1 Voidweaver/slot would be extremely detrimental to Harlequin listbuilding (epecially above 2000 pts, if you're playing the 3000 pt Onslaught game size you've maxed out your HS slots at 360pts for 4 Voidweavers and the entire FOC sans Troops at around 2100-2200 pts incl. upgrades to take max Troupe Masters/Shadow weavers/Death Jesters + 1 Solitaire., leaving you with only Troupes and Starweavers to spend your remaining points on). So, they need to be able to field more than the cap allowed by rule of three... but being able to field 3 per slot probably isn't the correct answer either.
In short, killing vehicle squadrons creates more problems than it solves. FOC slots are effectively another form of points system, even though the community doesn't generally treat it as such. Changing the FOC economy of a unit by changing its unit type (i.e. Heavy Support to Elites) or altering the size of the unit can have much bigger impacts on balance than most people realize.
EviscerationPlague wrote: So is Trajaan fine and doesn't need a point increase because he has limitations (HAS to be the Warlord) and you can have a limited number of him?
Thats a different discussion. What we're discussing is whether or not points comparisons between Starweavers and Venoms - which are essentially two almost identical units - are valid. Thats altogether different from discussing whether a given unit is overpowered/undercosted or not.
Bad logic, your argument is now that Harlequins+Starweaver cost 20pts more than the kabalites and venom and therefore its fine because kabalites are good at ranged compared to harlequins and starweaver. Ok well lets do a comparison.
Kabalites + Venom = 115pts. 125 if you upgrade to the splinter cannon which...obviously you will. You end up with 6 splinter cannon shots and 5 Splinter Rifle shots, strength is basically irrelevant Cannon ends up with 4 hits, and 2 wounds at -1AP the rifles end up with 3.3 hits and 1.6 wounds at no AP. Against a 3+ save target the cannon works out to 2dmg the rifles work out to 0.5 So grand total against any target T3-T8 is 2.5dmg
The Starweaver with troupe inside is 145pts, At the same 24' range it gets 6 shots, 4 hits and against T3 its 3.3 wounds, against T4-5 its 2.6, T6 its 2, and against T7-8 its 1.33 Its also -1 AP and 2 dmg except on 6s to wound its -3AP. Against 3+ armor T3 = 3.3 wounds with a 55% chance of more thanks to shuriken, T4-5 its 2.6dmg with a 43% chance of more dmg thanks to shuriken, against T6 its 2dmg with a 33% chance of more dmg thanks to shuriken and finally at T7-8 its 1.33 dmg on average with 22% chance of extra dmg thanks to shuriken.
So right off the bat...not really. T3-T5 the Starweaver is better at ranged combat, at T6 its 0.5dmg worse and at T7-8 its 1.17dmg worse.
Talk about bad logic. Your argument is basically that the Starweavers + Harlequins are worse than a Venom + Kabalites, even though the Starweaver/Harlies cost 20 pts more and - by your own math - are worse against half of the potential profiles they might target. Spend the remaining 20pts on the Venom/Kabalites to bring them to points parity on a splinter cannon on the unit, a shredder, and I dunno, a phantasm grenade launcher and suddenly the Venom system is better than the Starweaver system against pretty much everything.
You've also failed to take into account the other capabilities available to both armies. In Drukhari those Kabalites can be given dark lances, blasters, etc. You have literally dozens of other options across HQ, Elites, Troops, Fast, and Heavy choices to also field other long range heavy weapons and other capabilities far more powerful than anything the Harlequins can field. On the flip side, Harlequins have basically no other long range heavy weapon options other than the Voidweaver (aside from the max 3 Death Jesters you can field or the Skyweavers which, yay more shuricannons and haywire blasters), and any of the weapon options you can give the Harlequins riding the Starweaver can't be fired from a safe distance. Likewise, they have limited recourse in melee to take down heavier targets other than spending CP to activate Harlequin Kiss/Embrace/Caress weapons to dish mortal wounds, etc. In essence, Harlequins need cost-effective access to tools like Starweavers to make up for shortfalls in other parts of their list.
More importantly to this useless scenario, a DE player isn't going to use a Venom as a mobile firing platform to protect a small squad of kabalites, hes generally rushing them forward to get into CC as quickly as possible, and usually is using wracks not kabalites. So yes a Starweaver is better than a Venom point for point and when you put units in them, the starweaver is still better in most scenarios
I've seen plenty of DE players using their Venoms as gunboats for their kabalites, not sure why you would insist otherwise. As for Wracks, they are (or at least were until recently, not sure if they've been nerfed further in the last couple months) one of the most points efficient units in the entire game, so I'm really not sure you're making the argument that you think you're making.
Err....Yes? and t hose Harlequins Troupes are also OP compared to similar points value of other troops. Yeah Kabalites are better at ranged combat because and only because they have ranged 24' guns while the troupes only have access to pistols. But what happens to those numbers when the 2 units get into CC? A Troupe has 5 attacks without any buffs, hitting on 3s at S3 -1AP. And for 1CP they average 2-3 Mortal wounds against their target with Harlequins kiss. How do those Kabalites do? 11 attacks at S3 no AP. Not as good I would say.
Not sure what any of this has to do with the actual quote you responded to, which was about the value and relation of Starweaver relative to the Harlequin Troupe. In this case you're comparing a 65 pt unit (really more like 70 since you evidently spent 5 pts to get a Harlequins kiss) against a unit that would presumably be 30 pts cheaper since you didn't indicate any unit upgrades for them - again, bad logic, I would certainly hope a unit that costs 75% more would have a good time in that situation. The simple solution to your "useless scenario" is that the Kabalites remain embarked on their boat so that the Harlequin players can't charge them directly. If we must fight, then I'm going to insist on parity, so the unit has a splinter cannon, shredder, and phantasm grenade launcher as we indicated before - since you dropped an extra 5 points on a harlequins kiss lets also give the Sybarite a power sword. If I'm being charged then I'm going to spend a CP for overwatch, that should get me about .75 dead Harlequins before you have an opportunity to swing by my math (not including Power From Pain or other abilities, etc.), not game-changing, I'll still lose the unit, but I'll feel better about it. If the situation is reversed though (since you indicated 11 S3 attacks), before we charge we're going to shoot - because I spent those points on those weapons and I want to use them, so thats approx. 3.1 dead Harlequins, and then I kill another ~2 on the charge, thereby wiping the squad - again not including any benefits or bonuses to either side from power from pain, etc. Good trade.
So the starweaver is significantly faster, significantly better at ranged combat, significantly better in CC, has units that actively want to be transported, very durable vs almost everything in the game with its -1 to hit, no re-rolls and 4+ invuln. All of that for 10ppm More than a Trukk. So yes its too good for its points value compared to a Trukk.
But you aren't comparing a trukk to a starweaver, you're comparing a trukk of boyz to a starweaver of players, because you can neither field the Trukk nor the Starweaver without a unit to ride in it. In this case the 145 pt starweaver + 5 harlequins (no upgrades) is being compared to a Trukk + whatever unit you can stick in it for comparable cost (can't do boyz because you only have pts for 8 of them but you have to field a min unit of 10). If you really wanted to keep it apples to apples pts wise, you're looking at 3 Starweavers + 15 Harlequins (again, no upgrades) vs 3 Trukks + 30 boyz + 45 more pts of upgrades (not sure what to do with it, Kombi-Skorcha + Big Shoota per squad?). It would be situational, but the Orks can win.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Open question from someone with no stake or to be honest particular knowledge of the Modern Game?
How effective are these regular patches? I know many folk for a long while wanted more regular balance patches. But I’m also aware that getting what you want isn’t necessarily getting what you wanted. After all, they could be done monthly, but if they only jump up and down on broken bits whilst calling your Mum a slag, what’s the point?
Not really effective at all, I don't think they are looking beyond faction v faction winrates with their data, i.e. they don't have the granularity of knowing what units were included in lists or how they performed on the table beyond recognizing that certain units were very obviously covered in a large number of lists because they can see them on the tables everywhere. This explains why certain units which are obviously very visible might get hit with a stick while one-off characters or units with a less distinctive table presence sometimes go unnoticed. As such they are basing all their balancing decisions around getting factions closer to 50% WR, which is great - but in many cases leaves entire sections of a codex unplayable and suffering from poor internal balance issues.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Open question from someone with no stake or to be honest particular knowledge of the Modern Game?
How effective are these regular patches? I know many folk for a long while wanted more regular balance patches. But I’m also aware that getting what you want isn’t necessarily getting what you wanted. After all, they could be done monthly, but if they only jump up and down on broken bits whilst calling your Mum a slag, what’s the point?
They sort of work(ed).
The 1st dataslate nerfed Orks (success but badly done), DE (fail) and AdMech (success) and buffed Knights (success), Necrons (partial success), CSM/Guard (fail).
The 2nd dataslate nerfed DE again (success).
The now twice yearly planned CA/MFM combo number 1 (Nachmund) also improved things, just slowly/incrementally.
The issues have been:
The new codexes that came out are too strong, making the succcesful nerfs look stupid and the buffs almost irrelevant.
The nerf to Orks is awful game design. Maybe the next MFM points update will come out and the six month physical book lag time will finally catch up and they will up the cost of all buggies and then remove the dataslate change.
The nerf to Aircraft was 50:50 good/bad design. It protects from undercosted aircraft being spammed, but just stop doing that and it will be fine.
They haven't addressed many other weak factions.
The 3rd dataslate will really tell us how (or if) these work.
IgnoreLOS shooting. Like aircraft, it doesn't NEED a rule limiting it, just stop undercosting it. But will this be dataslate 3's clunky fix?
Death Guard/Sisters - will they get new rules similar to Necrons?
Space Marines - do they join the above even though there must be a codex on the way?
Thousand Son/Grey Knights - will they get any love or will they nerf the factions above enough that they become 'competitive' again.
AdMech/Orks - similar to TS/GK but need less love. Yes I know the Ork codex is full of trash and needs points reductions on a ton of units.
Harlequins - require a massive nerf.
Eldar/Tau/Custodes - require a solid nerf.
Tyranids - are they bold enough to pre nerf the new codex?
Knights - are they bold(er) enough to pre nerf the codex after nids?
It will be interesting to see if they bring forward points from the next MFM (1st dataslate style) or just do points of their own, or if they are truly limited to adding/removing rules/keywords.
If so, maybe Harlequins will get a new rule:
All Plays Are Tragedies - At the start of each battle round your opponent also gets a set of luck dice, they can use them to force you to re-roll your succesful hits, wounds, saves.
bullyboy wrote: Semper, you have a Trukk problem, not a starweaver problem. Nobody was bitching about starweavers throughout 9th and they were 80pts. Remove the reroll rule, bump points by 5pts per shuricannon and you are done. Pure and simple. Anything else and it goes too far.
Voidweaver get similar treatment (points bumps for shuricannons) plus additional charge for prismatic cannon and things get better.
I’d also make mirror architect core only (as long as troupes get core).
You start there and then monitor next events.
I'll be blunt, I never played a competitive Harlequins list pre codex...probably because they weren't broken OP and being chased by all of the meta (except that fusion spam they had for a bit), but in there 8th edition codex were they 4+ invuln, -1 to hit in all phases? Also, lets talk about those Shuriken cannons, they gained -1AP AND they doubled in dmg. TO put that another way, against Marines (Assuming no shuriken proc for either weapon) the OLD shuriken cannon got 3 shots, 2 hits, 1.33 wounds and did a grand total of.... 0.44dmg to a Marine. The new Shuriken cannon does 3 shots, 2 hits 1.33 wounds and a grand total of....1.33dmg For those bad at math, that is 3x as much as before. So please explain to me why their basic gun tripling its dmg output is worth only 5pts per gun? ATM the Shuriken is I believe a 5pt upgrade, At least on the Vyper it is, on most platforms its free. Ironically, the significantly worse heavy Bolter is a 10pt upgrade for most factions, case and point, the IG infantry squad can take 1 in a heavy weapon's team for 10pts, its 15pts on the leman russ, for SM's its 10pts on a tac squad and 15pts each on a Predator. But for some reason, on Harlies and Eldar, the Shuriken cannon which is +1S AND has a special ability to proc the AP to -3, its somehow only 5pts. Its almost like...its dramatically under priced for what it does and needs to be priced closer to 10-15pts not 5.
And again, I brought up trukkz because its my factions version of the Starweaver, someone else brought up Venoms, want to compare it to Rhinos? How about Chimeras or Necron Ghost Ark's? I can go through every faction if you really want, the point being that the starweaver is honestly the best, most under priced transport currently in the game.
mokoshkana wrote: Competitive 40k is a joke. When army A can go first and remove 25%+ percent of army B before Army B has a single chance to act, balance is already out the window.
I've been playing CWE since the end of 6ed, and every time a codex comes out there is a nice healthy mixture of OP stuff and complete trash. It more or less changes from codex to codex, but the internal balance is never there. That is across all armies. This isn't a game designed to be competitive, its designed to sell models.
As to your other points, you chose a HORDE army, which will have weight of dice. When you lost infantry models, you don't really care because you have a lot of them. Elite armies don't have bodies all over the place.
The irony of your statement here is astounding. For starters, the first premise you put out "competitive 40k is a joke" ...well its a board game with a winner and a loser, by its very existence its competitive, so if its a joke than the game can't be saved and should be scrapped because its garbage. That isn't the case though, its just incompetent rules writers.
Next thing, you've been playing CWE since 6th, you have been playing arguably the most broken army edition to edition ever. 6th they were top dogs, 7th they were top dogs, 8th they were top dogs and now here we are in 9th and its looking like they are yet again top dogs.
Next argument "its designed to sell models" I can prove you wrong with a host of examples, but lets go with my current favorite example...Kommandos. GW finally released a good plastic Kommando model for the first time ever. I know of almost no ork players who owned ANY Kommandos prior to this except home made kommandos because the old FineCrap models were garbage and too expensive. GW gave us the rules for the new kommandos and they were actually competitive, awesome right? Well here is the kicker, THE NEW MODEL WASNT EVEN OUT YET! And the best part, right before they released the new model for sale, THEY NERFED THE RULES MAKING THEM 20% WORSE! LOL. GW is a successful company in spite of itself, rather than because of itself.
And finally, I chose a Horde army...Orkz aren't Horde in 9th, in fact, in 8th they were only Horde when the meta shifted so dramatically that the only way to have a chance of winning was to flood objectives with cheap disposable bodies and hope for the best. In 9th we had Buggy spam which was good for a bit, and our current top build is the AoR which is Speed Freakz so low model count high maneuverability. Orkz are routinely fielding fewer infantry models than Custodes and harlequins. I am the exception to that rule with my Alphork strike list, but even I admit against new Tau, Custodes, Harlies, Eldar and even Crusher stampede...it just doesn't stand a chance. So if you don't play competitive, maybe you shouldn't comment on competitive since you don't know what you are talking about by your own admission?
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Open question from someone with no stake or to be honest particular knowledge of the Modern Game?
How effective are these regular patches? I know many folk for a long while wanted more regular balance patches. But I’m also aware that getting what you want isn’t necessarily getting what you wanted. After all, they could be done monthly, but if they only jump up and down on broken bits whilst calling your Mum a slag, what’s the point?
They sort of work(ed).
The 1st dataslate nerfed Orks (success but badly done), DE (fail) and AdMech (success) and buffed Knights (success), Necrons (partial success), CSM/Guard (fail).
The 2nd dataslate nerfed DE again (success).
The now twice yearly planned CA/MFM combo number 1 (Nachmund) also improved things, just slowly/incrementally.
The issues have been:
The new codexes that came out are too strong, making the succcesful nerfs look stupid and the buffs almost irrelevant.
The nerf to Orks is awful game design. Maybe the next MFM points update will come out and the six month physical book lag time will finally catch up and they will up the cost of all buggies and then remove the dataslate change.
The nerf to Aircraft was 50:50 good/bad design. It protects from undercosted aircraft being spammed, but just stop doing that and it will be fine.
They haven't addressed many other weak factions.
The 3rd dataslate will really tell us how (or if) these work.
IgnoreLOS shooting. Like aircraft, it doesn't NEED a rule limiting it, just stop undercosting it. But will this be dataslate 3's clunky fix?
Death Guard/Sisters - will they get new rules similar to Necrons?
Space Marines - do they join the above even though there must be a codex on the way?
Thousand Son/Grey Knights - will they get any love or will they nerf the factions above enough that they become 'competitive' again.
AdMech/Orks - similar to TS/GK but need less love. Yes I know the Ork codex is full of trash and needs points reductions on a ton of units.
Harlequins - require a massive nerf.
Eldar/Tau/Custodes - require a solid nerf.
Tyranids - are they bold enough to pre nerf the new codex?
Knights - are they bold(er) enough to pre nerf the codex after nids?
It will be interesting to see if they bring forward points from the next MFM (1st dataslate style) or just do points of their own, or if they are truly limited to adding/removing rules/keywords.
If so, maybe Harlequins will get a new rule:
All Plays Are Tragedies - At the start of each battle round your opponent also gets a set of luck dice, they can use them to force you to re-roll your succesful hits, wounds, saves.
I would add on that CA2022 compounded some of these issues by changing points around in ways that were hilariously out of touch with the modern game, exacerbating how stupid all the 'balance' changes seemed when the next 3 (possibly 4) codexes made every nerf every army that was already available at that time received seem idiotic in retrospect.
Talk about bad logic. Your argument is basically that the Starweavers + Harlequins are worse than a Venom + Kabalites, even though the Starweaver/Harlies cost 20 pts more and - by your own math - are worse against half of the potential profiles they might target. Spend the remaining 20pts on the Venom/Kabalites to bring them to points parity on a splinter cannon on the unit, a shredder, and I dunno, a phantasm grenade launcher and suddenly the Venom system is better than the Starweaver system against pretty much everything.
Bud, I am using the scenario created by others above, don't flaw my logic by using the stated scenario. As far as points parity, go for it I don't give a damn, but you won't win against harlies by keeping a venom at max range with splint shots flicking out, especially since your entire army is -1 to hit
chaos0xomega wrote: You've also failed to take into account the other capabilities available to both armies. In Drukhari those Kabalites can be given dark lances, blasters, etc. You have literally dozens of other options across HQ, Elites, Troops, Fast, and Heavy choices to also field other long range heavy weapons and other capabilities far more powerful than anything the Harlequins can field. On the flip side, Harlequins have basically no other long range heavy weapon options other than the Voidweaver (aside from the max 3 Death Jesters you can field or the Skyweavers which, yay more shuricannons and haywire blasters), and any of the weapon options you can give the Harlequins riding the Starweaver can't be fired from a safe distance. Likewise, they have limited recourse in melee to take down heavier targets other than spending CP to activate Harlequin Kiss/Embrace/Caress weapons to dish mortal wounds, etc. In essence, Harlequins need cost-effective access to tools like Starweavers to make up for shortfalls in other parts of their list.
If you really want to make this argument that the Starweaver with a troupe is worse or at least as good as the venom with kabalites you can simply look at tournament results to be proven wrong. Last GT I was at was completely dominated by Harlies, Tau, Custards and new Eldar. DE didn't even make a top 10 appearance. And those Harly players were absolutely bringing Troupes in Starweavers. And again i'll point out that "They have to be OP because of shortfalls in other places" is a really dumb argument.
chaos0xomega wrote: I've seen plenty of DE players using their Venoms as gunboats for their kabalites, not sure why you would insist otherwise. As for Wracks, they are (or at least were until recently, not sure if they've been nerfed further in the last couple months) one of the most points efficient units in the entire game, so I'm really not sure you're making the argument that you think you're making.
So you've been to a host of GT's where the DE player forgoes scoring objectives with his troop choices to sit back and fire kabalites...ok. I'm going to assume they lost horribly.
chaos0xomega wrote: Not sure what any of this has to do with the actual quote you responded to, which was about the value and relation of Starweaver relative to the Harlequin Troupe. In this case you're comparing a 65 pt unit (really more like 70 since you evidently spent 5 pts to get a Harlequins kiss) against a unit that would presumably be 30 pts cheaper since you didn't indicate any unit upgrades for them - again, bad logic, I would certainly hope a unit that costs 75% more would have a good time in that situation. The simple solution to your "useless scenario" is that the Kabalites remain embarked on their boat so that the Harlequin players can't charge them directly. If we must fight, then I'm going to insist on parity, so the unit has a splinter cannon, shredder, and phantasm grenade launcher as we indicated before - since you dropped an extra 5 points on a harlequins kiss lets also give the Sybarite a power sword. If I'm being charged then I'm going to spend a CP for overwatch, that should get me about .75 dead Harlequins before you have an opportunity to swing by my math (not including Power From Pain or other abilities, etc.), not game-changing, I'll still lose the unit, but I'll feel better about it. If the situation is reversed though (since you indicated 11 S3 attacks), before we charge we're going to shoot - because I spent those points on those weapons and I want to use them, so thats approx. 3.1 dead Harlequins, and then I kill another ~2 on the charge, thereby wiping the squad - again not including any benefits or bonuses to either side from power from pain, etc. Good trade.
Again, if you think this scenario in the game will work out like this, by all means take some DE to the field against a harlequins list. Get back to me with the results, i'm sure the competitive meta is just a bunch of numpties and its actually you piloting those OP Kabalites/Venoms that would knock harlequins down from their 75%+ win/loss rate.
chaos0xomega wrote: But you aren't comparing a trukk to a starweaver, you're comparing a trukk of boyz to a starweaver of players, because you can neither field the Trukk nor the Starweaver without a unit to ride in it. In this case the 145 pt starweaver + 5 harlequins (no upgrades) is being compared to a Trukk + whatever unit you can stick in it for comparable cost (can't do boyz because you only have pts for 8 of them but you have to field a min unit of 10). If you really wanted to keep it apples to apples pts wise, you're looking at 3 Starweavers + 15 Harlequins (again, no upgrades) vs 3 Trukks + 30 boyz + 45 more pts of upgrades (not sure what to do with it, Kombi-Skorcha + Big Shoota per squad?). It would be situational, but the Orks can win.
Same point as above, but since i play orkz and have played a very similar scenario to this (was 2 trukkz with trukkboyz vs 2 Starweavers with troupes) i can tell you as a matter of fact those orkz lose. Of course the difference is that those trukkz never even reach combat to disgorge their passengers anyway because the Voidweavers kill them before they leave deployment zone but that is neither here nor there. Trust me when I say you don't want to compare a Harlequin Troupe to an Ork boyz mob, its a bit onesided to say the least.
GW have deemed that the new shuricannon is worth +5pts on its existing platforms (look at all aeldari vehicles with it). No reason starweaver should be penalized more than others.
SemperMortis wrote: So if you don't play competitive, maybe you shouldn't comment on competitive since you don't know what you are talking about by your own admission?
I'm just going to cut to the chase on this one. I know what a balanced game looks like, and this isn't it. I'm sorry my exterior take (relative to the 40k tourney scene) rubs you the wrong way.
The game has never, and will never be balanced. They couldn't balance it with X factions, so why would they add new factions and expect it to be balanced. This is a MODEL company. They don't care about balance. Everything is just for show to keep the money rolling in.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Open question from someone with no stake or to be honest particular knowledge of the Modern Game?
How effective are these regular patches? I know many folk for a long while wanted more regular balance patches. But I’m also aware that getting what you want isn’t necessarily getting what you wanted. After all, they could be done monthly, but if they only jump up and down on broken bits whilst calling your Mum a slag, what’s the point?
They offer notable benefit. Bear in mind the level of hyperbole and lack of nuance is worse than ever.* So while they are a significant improvement over what we had before, it is still merely a dent to just how bad balance is, and that triggers dissatisfaction. Many individuals are unwilling to process or express nuanced opinions, so any level of dissatisfaction turns into the thing being 1-star totally awful garbage that does nothing.
Put in other words; if it doesn't fix the majority of problems in the game all at once many people will react as though it does nothing.
*Personal rule of thumb; ignore reactions that are 100% positive or 100% negative, read the remainder to get an actual assessment on a given release/development.
SemperMortis wrote: So if you don't play competitive, maybe you shouldn't comment on competitive since you don't know what you are talking about by your own admission?
I'm just going to cut to the chase on this one. I know what a balanced game looks like, and this isn't it. I'm sorry my exterior take (relative to the 40k tourney scene) rubs you the wrong way.
The game has never, and will never be balanced. They couldn't balance it with X factions, so why would they add new factions and expect it to be balanced. This is a MODEL company. They don't care about balance. Everything is just for show to keep the money rolling in.
Balance isn't an on/off switch, it is a gradient. More balance is *good* for sales, because it is good for gameplay. Poor balance may sell extra models now but it drives people away from the game. Selling extra of the meta option will never make up for selling less of everything else.
GW only gets away with having balance this bad because of popularity inertia, and even then it is abundantly clear that past improvements have always led to increases in popularity and overall sales.
bullyboy wrote: GW have deemed that the new shuricannon is worth +5pts on its existing platforms (look at all aeldari vehicles with it). No reason starweaver should be penalized more than others.
Despite my arguments that the comparison between Venoms and Starweavers is improper and baseless, I would argue that at 90 points its probably still too cheap and that the built in 4++, 6" auto-advance, and Mirage Launchers justify a 5-10 pt hike on their own.
Again, if you think this scenario in the game will work out like this, by all means take some DE to the field against a harlequins list. Get back to me with the results, i'm sure the competitive meta is just a bunch of numpties and its actually you piloting those OP Kabalites/Venoms that would knock harlequins down from their 75%+ win/loss rate.
Never said I piloted anything to success, but, well, I have people with names like "TJ Lannigan" and "Sean Nayden" in my local meta, so Ive certainly seen what an actual competitive meta looks like and what actual competitive players do, so... theres that.
oni wrote: Vehicle squadrons continue to be an issue. There's no need to haver them anymore.
Sorry Guard. I guess there’s no need to take basilisks, hydras, wyverns, leman russes, hellhounds, etc anymore. First flyers now squadrons.
I like the implication that the problem is in people being able to take 9 of the thing, not that the thing should never have been worth taking 9 of in the first place.
bullyboy wrote: GW have deemed that the new shuricannon is worth +5pts on its existing platforms (look at all aeldari vehicles with it). No reason starweaver should be penalized more than others.
Despite my arguments that the comparison between Venoms and Starweavers is improper and baseless, I would argue that at 90 points its probably still too cheap and that the built in 4++, 6" auto-advance, and Mirage Launchers justify a 5-10 pt hike on their own.
But if 90pts is still too cheap then why were there not so many complaints about the pre codex starweaver that was 80pts, 4++, auto advance 6", -1 to hit (ranged only), and often loaded with 5-6 fusion pistols that can shoot after boat had advanced 22"?
granted, it's now -1 to hit in assault too, but I haven't heard anyone really complaining that this is the issue.
+5pts per shuricannon is the standard currently and is fine on the starweaver.
remove no rerolls to hit, there was no need for that rule (codex creep as GW does best).
-1 to hit is fine in assault too, definitely not game breaking.
Before the codex, you could also make them be 6" further away with a shadowseer, so that's not really new either.
Is the starweaver good? Yes. Is it broken? I don't think so. Are other transports poor in comparison..yes, and many of us have called for points drops on them because they don't get used (Immolators, rhinos, trukks, etc)
I'm curious to see what GW do next week, but if you nerf the starweaver into the ground, then kiss goodbye to the faction.
Skyweavers were nerfed a little (still a decent unit IMHO) and Voidweaver was buffed way too much (but it needed something as no one ever took them before)
NinthMusketeer wrote: I like the implication that the problem is in people being able to take 9 of the thing, not that the thing should never have been worth taking 9 of in the first place.
That’s not the issue, it’s about saving detachment slots. I could take up to 3 of something and be able to take other things.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I like the implication that the problem is in people being able to take 9 of the thing, not that the thing should never have been worth taking 9 of in the first place.
Then it's a problem that should be solved on a unit-by-unit basis, not in an across-the-board-for-all-factions basis.
oni wrote: Vehicle squadrons continue to be an issue. There's no need to haver them anymore.
Sorry Guard. I guess there’s no need to take basilisks, hydras, wyverns, leman russes, hellhounds, etc anymore. First flyers now squadrons.
There's no need to take 9 leman russes + 3 HQ leman russes for a themed army. Even without the squadron option, under the current detachment system, a guard player can bring: 3 HQ tanks, 3 hellhounds, 3 basilisks, 3 wyverns, 3 hydras, 3 manticores, 3 deathstrikes and 3 leman russes. Plus chimeras and eventual LoW tanks. That's a massive amount of tanks (24 or more!!!!) a guard player could still bring. He simply just couldn't spam the same kind of tank anymore, which conveniently is always the best one.
I'm curious to see what GW do next week, but if you nerf the starweaver into the ground, then kiss goodbye to the faction.
Skyweavers were nerfed a little (still a decent unit IMHO) and Voidweaver was buffed way too much (but it needed something as no one ever took them before)
They'd just be on par with the vast majority of the other factions then. Skyweavers are good.
I agree that voidweaver needed a buff, but making them this cheap and allowing to bring 9 is insane. They need to get back to max 3 and get a significant point hike. 3 voidweavers for 120-130 points each would still be a very good deal.
Sorry but limiting to max 3 isn't balancing things. It's just pathetically trying to mask imbalance.
Fix the balance and there's no issue with 9 leman russ, 9 voidreavers etc.
But that would require rule makers to actually want balance and for that you need to separate rule makers from model maker so there isn't incentive to use rules to sell models.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: Open question from someone with no stake or to be honest particular knowledge of the Modern Game?
How effective are these regular patches? I know many folk for a long while wanted more regular balance patches. But I’m also aware that getting what you want isn’t necessarily getting what you wanted. After all, they could be done monthly, but if they only jump up and down on broken bits whilst calling your Mum a slag, what’s the point?
They're pretty useless, IMO. I think this is mainly because GW are constantly having to do emergency surgery to fix the latest utterly busted gakshow they've created. If the game was more balanced in general they'd have more time to do the subtle nudging of units and abilities required to make the game more balanced. As it is, they spend too much time trying to undo their obvious mistakes, then throw out weird buffs like 2+ save on the LRBT, which is nice and all, but hardly fixing the problem.
There's also the issue that GW balances using both the printed CA points updates and the digital dataslate. The points updates are instantly out of date, but even then they don't seem to be addressing things that were an issue months ago. They seem fairly random. For example, we just don't see SM vehicles at all, beyond Dreads (and even then, only 2 different types of Dreads) but the last points update did nothing to fix that. Necron Triarch Praetorians are bad, especailly compared to Lychguard. Again, no real help there. Part of the problem is likely the sheer number of datasheets they need to consider, but that's a problem of GW's making so I'm not too sympathetic to that.
Then we have the digital balance dataslates, that just don't seem to really understand the game and often feel quite random in their focus. Many solutions are poorly thought out, like the blanket 0-2 on Flyers. With the way they write about the game I have no confidence GW even understands the problems so they have basically no chance of fixing them. Compare that to how FFG used to talk about balance fixes in X-Wing and it's night and day. Hell, even reading the new release articles for the two systems you notice that FFG would actually highlight meaningful weaknesses and restrictions alongside the positives, while GW articles are basically all "look how big these numbers are!"
Blackie wrote: There's no need to take 9 leman russes + 3 HQ leman russes for a themed army.
Says who? Putting aside the fact that Tank Commanders will be 0-1 per detachment like every other main commander come the new Guard Codex, 1 Commander + 9 Russes is a Russ Company. That seems perfectly fine to me.
0-1 per detachment still means up to 3 in a common 2000 points game. Does a tank based AM army have to be a "russ" company though? Or can it just be a "tank" company instead? I mean does an army of leman russes HAVE to be a thing?
Speed freaks armies didn't need to bring 9 squigbuggies and 9 scrapjets to be "themed". All the buggies were good and sticked to the lore. Plus koptas, warbikes, flyers, wagons and even infantries in trukks/wagons. All 100% themed. Stormboyz even.
Not sure if GW takes back the option of taking 3x3 Voidweavers.
Taking a bit the sting out of this unit would suffice.
Have a look at the Talos, where 3x3 are still possible.
There's no need to take 9 leman russes + 3 HQ leman russes for a themed army. Even without the squadron option, under the current detachment system, a guard player can bring: 3 HQ tanks, 3 hellhounds, 3 basilisks, 3 wyverns, 3 hydras, 3 manticores, 3 deathstrikes and 3 leman russes. Plus chimeras and eventual LoW tanks. That's a massive amount of tanks (24 or more!!!!) a guard player could still bring. He simply just couldn't spam the same kind of tank anymore, which conveniently is always the best one.
Here's the issue with that. Limited detachment slots and CP cost. You only get 3 FA slots and 3 HS slots in a Battalion. So if I want 3 Hydras, 3 Basilisks, and 3 Leman Russes then I need to now take 3 Battalions, at a cost of 6 CP. Great... Another nerf for Guard.
To even take all of the units in your example I have to take 3 Spearheads to get 18 HS slots. Even better, now I've just spent 9 CP...
Also, entire armies of Leman Russ tanks have been a thing since 3rd edition. Starting with GW's Armoured Company list. Then continued in the FWIA books all the way up to 7th edition.
I really don't think at this point it matters much. The game is no doubt getting new players but I see lots turn up, work up to their first big game, see it go horribly and drift away.
Yes, 10 Russes are actually a thing. In fact, they are outright the only way to run a fluffy Armored Company - the Imperial Guard organizes it's troops into mono-type regiments without Combined Arms (including tank types). The only exception afaik are Siege Regiments.
Hellhounds and Russes can MAYBE be mixed in a regiment - there is precious little fluff on how Hellhounds exist except that they are fielded in reconnaissance companies along Salamanders. But there is no evidence to suggest such mixing (between Russes and Hellhounds) afaik; but also no evidence against it. However, they will NEVER be fielded in a mixed Company with Leman Russes, though they may be attached as a Battlegroup (see below).
There is also evidence of mixing Baneblades and Russes within the same regiment, but NEVER within the same company (given that 1-5 Baneblades is an entire Company in a regiment's TO&E).
Every other unit type would be in a different regiment - though they can sometimes be attached to other regiment types in a Battlegroup. However, not everyone should be forced to play a Battlegroup if they don't want to.
Sorry to the Sisters of Battle players out there that wanted to use their new but trash units of Paragon Warsuits. Just being a vehicle means that can't squad up anymore.
Broadsides are completely fine though even though they're almost twice as tough with better guns for less points just because they happen to be Infantry rather than a Vehicles.
Honestly it's weird to see 40k balance debates or balance debates from primarily 40k players and see things like "limiting availability is not a form of balancing".
It's a take that I really only see from the 40k crowd or when talking about 40k, because it's definitely a balancing lever that a number of other games use to good effect.
Blackie wrote: Does a tank based AM army have to be a "russ" company though? Or can it just be a "tank" company instead? I mean does an army of leman russes HAVE to be a thing?
Blackie wrote: Even without the squadron option, under the current detachment system, a guard player can bring: 3 HQ tanks, 3 hellhounds, 3 basilisks, 3 wyverns, 3 hydras, 3 manticores, 3 deathstrikes and 3 leman russes. Plus chimeras and eventual LoW tanks. That's a massive amount of tanks (24 or more!!!!) a guard player could still bring. He simply just couldn't spam the same kind of tank anymore, which conveniently is always the best one.
3 heavy slots in a battalion, 5 heavy slots in a brigade, 6 in a spearhead.
More than one detachment will cost CP regardless of detachment type. So you can get 11 heavies IF you're willing to burn 1HQ and 3 Troops tax to take the Brigade over the Battalion and 3 CP for the extra Spearhead.
Still not a bad deal if you want to field a tank company, but lets not pretend there's no cost to squeezing so many tanks into a list without squadron rules.
tneva82 wrote: Sorry but limiting to max 3 isn't balancing things. It's just pathetically trying to mask imbalance.
Fix the balance and there's no issue with 9 leman russ, 9 voidreavers etc.
But that would require rule makers to actually want balance and for that you need to separate rule makers from model maker so there isn't incentive to use rules to sell models.
Nonsense. Even balanced things can be broken while spammed. Three tanks might not be a problem, but when entire enemy army is 12 tanks presenting wall of T9 2+ save rendering 95% enemy weapons virtually useless save for AT guns the tanks will blow off board the first turn no amount of point shifting will manage to correct that. Unless you postulate AI dynamically balancing points on both sides on the fly depending on army and terrain configuration.
And I like the stupid conspiracy theory is still alive. That's why say Reivers and primaris grav tanks, new, expensive minis, always had garbage rules because GW wanted to sell them. Or why primaris still have no melee weapon access reducing their effectiveness and sales appeal. Oh wait Gee, it must be sales tactic, and not just Phil Kelly being incompetent rules writer who always buffs his pet army into the stratosphere, after all it's not like he did the exact same thing in 8th, 7th, 6th, etc, etc, edition befor-- oh wait
Blackie wrote: 0-1 per detachment still means up to 3 in a common 2000 points game. Does a tank based AM army have to be a "russ" company though? Or can it just be a "tank" company instead? I mean does an army of leman russes HAVE to be a thing?
Speed freaks armies didn't need to bring 9 squigbuggies and 9 scrapjets to be "themed". All the buggies were good and sticked to the lore. Plus koptas, warbikes, flyers, wagons and even infantries in trukks/wagons. All 100% themed. Stormboyz even.
Considering that Leman Russes are the only actual *tank* in the Guard army list that isn't a superheavy/forgeworld option? The argument can be made about Hellhounds/Devil Dogs/Bane Wolves, but those would really be classified as fire support vehicles more than tanks. Everything else is a self propelled artillery piece/gun, etc. Lets not forget that there are also 7 different Leman Russ variants (more if you include Forgeworld) and that by capping at 1/HS slot you've guaranteed that nobody will ever field anything other than 1 type of them because you've turned the HS slot into the most limited resource in that entire codex.
Matt.Kingsley wrote: Sorry to the Sisters of Battle players out there that wanted to use their new but trash units of Paragon Warsuits. Just being a vehicle means that can't squad up anymore.
Broadsides are completely fine though even though they're almost twice as tough with better guns for less points just because they happen to be Infantry rather than a Vehicles.
Makes perfect sense to me.
Lets not forget Carnifexes, living battle tanks, but not actually tanks, so totally not a problem to be able to bring 9 of them using 3 heavy support slots. Even better, theres 3 different carnifex datasheets, so 27 carnifexes are on the table - 30 if you include the stone crushers from forgeworld which are a fourth datasheet, 31 if you include Old One Eye. But they aren't a vehicle so they won't get punished.
tneva82 wrote: If something is OP it's OP whether you have 1 or 9. It's still too good for points.
If OP stuff is 0-1(it can be OP because you can have only 1! Common stupid noob game designer defence) then it's just auto take.
Meanwhile get the rules and points right and it's irrelevant whether you have 1 or 9. It's balanced either way.
Limit is just used to hide the problems by lazy game designer who can't be arsed to do his job and balance things properly.
Yes and no, there are balanced playstyles that can be built around the concept of having a limited core of high-efficiency unit types that are supported by underperforming gak-tier chaff, but when you do something like that you need to commit to the idea that the limited core is going to be a mandatory requirement that you build the army around rather than something that will be competing against other choices. Its not a concept that would necessarily work in most 40k armies/the game in general, though it is a design concept used in certain other games.
ccs wrote: Don't I keep hearing from some of you that vehicles are trash this edition & don't last long enough?
Maybe the vehicles that are exceptions that prove the point have something to do with it? Venoms, raiders, starweavers and voidweavers are all vehicles, which are generally bad yes, but also have several combinations of very powerful rules that make them good despite being vehicles.
Irbis wrote: Nonsense. Even balanced things can be broken while spammed. Three tanks might not be a problem, but when entire enemy army is 12 tanks presenting wall of T9 2+ save rendering 95% enemy weapons virtually useless save for AT guns the tanks will blow off board the first turn no amount of point shifting will manage to correct that. Unless you postulate AI dynamically balancing points on both sides on the fly depending on army and terrain configuration.
I don't think that 12 tanks is all that good from a practical stand point. They are approx. 4" across meaning you take up 48"+ of your deployment zone which is usually OK until you hit the diagonal deployment scenerios. Then, unless you're fighting on planet bowling ball there are all these pesky terrain things that block movement and/or LoS. So chances are not all of your tanks are going to be doing much on your turn. Then there's the minor fact that your opponent also has terrain to hide in/behind. Oh, and you have not Ob Sec so it's kind of hard to hold objectives. And lastly your opponent is only bringing light arms and melee weapons to the table (because nobody brings heavy weapons or vehicles of their own to a game).
Also you have a small typo- Leman Russ are T8 not T9.
chaos0xomega wrote: Never said I piloted anything to success, but, well, I have people with names like "TJ Lannigan" and "Sean Nayden" in my local meta, so Ive certainly seen what an actual competitive meta looks like and what actual competitive players do, so... theres that.
I think GW should probably be very cautious about "squadroning" anything worth more than about 80 points. (And real 80 points, not "90 but should be 120+).
Right now it doesn't much matter that people can spam Guard Tanks, or Carnifex, because they are both kind of bad. But in a world where this isn't the case, the fact people can go "fine, I'm sinking 75-80% of my points into those" has obvious issues.
By contrast sinking 750~ points into one datasheet is certainly a chunk - but you are having to take other stuff.
Rihgu wrote: Honestly it's weird to see 40k balance debates or balance debates from primarily 40k players and see things like "limiting availability is not a form of balancing".
It's a take that I really only see from the 40k crowd or when talking about 40k, because it's definitely a balancing lever that a number of other games use to good effect.
Warmahordes - always max units / if you don't pick the right caster some units can be total pants
Infinity - Availability "stat" that governs how many you can take
Chain of Command - you pick historically accurate platoon for the period
40K is likely the only game that offers such a wide variety of list building choices and they suffer for it.
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Tyel wrote: I think GW should probably be very cautious about "squadroning" anything worth more than about 80 points. (And real 80 points, not "90 but should be 120+).
Right now it doesn't much matter that people can spam Guard Tanks, or Carnifex, because they are both kind of bad. But in a world where this isn't the case, the fact people can go "fine, I'm sinking 75-80% of my points into those" has obvious issues.
By contrast sinking 750~ points into one datasheet is certainly a chunk - but you are having to take other stuff.
The size and mobility of the model matters. LRBTs might be potentially brutal ( with updates ), but are unable to move through terrain or fly so many would be visible. Voidweavers can jump a whole bunch of terrain and "alpha" strike as it were. So the ceiling for LRBTs will bit a bit lower than Voids. ooLOS stuff like Manticores have the chance to get way out of hand since they can ignore terrain in a similar way to Voids, but will not hold the board in the same fashion.
Daedalus81 wrote: 40K is likely the only game that offers such a wide variety of list building choices and they suffer for it.
Yeah. If only the Force Org Chart meant something and you couldn't just add more slots of whatever you want for virtually no actual cost...
It certainly needs some attention. Some armies simply don't care about the imposed "tax". I almost feel like the cost of all strats should double. Less use - more care in spending CP.
I would consider 40k limited in variety in list building because of the FOC limits which is also a reason for the bad balance
the variety comes from the many available units, not from the list building possibilities, as faction with limited choices in the slots suffer from it and don't have any variation
if there is only 1 support, elite, assault unit there is no variation, while other games would let you take 1 support for each troop or similar and give much more freedom in list building
those games just have less units, so don't need to balance an infinity amount of possible lists against each other
40k has a legacy limitation of units from 3rd, which was a balance tool to avoid spam-lists but at the same time needed to be handled carefully as it could mess with faction balance (as if 1 faction has good units in all slots, but another all good units in 1 slot the faction balance was off even if points and rules were identical)
this problem was solved by adding more different charts to chose from, but only for those factions that already had enough choices
I think there should be one FOC, and that it should scale with the pre-existing 4 game sizes. Adding additional slots should be possible beyond that, but only for hefty CP costs (ie. you're spending an abstracted strategic resource to requisition something beyond the normal scope of your army, the exact kind of thing CP/strats are meant to represent, rather than y'know, which tank gets to fire its smoke launchers this turn).
Then the "Armies of Renown" concept could be expanded on a Codex basis (rather than herpy derpy DLC books) to allow for the more specialised forces (Ravenwing, Iyadnen, Armoured Companies, Seeding Swarms, Air Cav, Speed Freakz, etc.).
Daedalus81 wrote: It certainly needs some attention. Some armies simply don't care about the imposed "tax". I almost feel like the cost of all strats should double. Less use - more care in spending CP.
Wouldn't that just result in what people were doing by the end of 8th: Just ignoring most of the strats and saving the few points they had for the most effective ones, which in a lot of cases was just the command re-roll, thereby defeating the entire purpose of the strat system as no one had enough CP to make use of the 3 fething pages of strats that each book has?
H.B.M.C. wrote: I think there should be one FOC, and that it should scale with the pre-existing 4 game sizes.
Out of interest, what becomes of Dark Eldar in this system?
(Since they're currently built with a requirement of 2-3 detachments just to function like a normal army.)
Didn't they loose HQ options or something? I mean DE used to operate using the old FOC, from 3rd through 6th prior to Formations. Seems like DE ought to be FOC-able again then.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I think there should be one FOC, and that it should scale with the pre-existing 4 game sizes. Adding additional slots should be possible beyond that, but only for hefty CP costs (ie. you're spending an abstracted strategic resource to requisition something beyond the normal scope of your army, the exact kind of thing CP/strats are meant to represent, rather than y'know, which tank gets to fire its smoke launchers this turn).
Then the "Armies of Renown" concept could be expanded on a Codex basis (rather than herpy derpy DLC books) to allow for the more specialised forces (Ravenwing, Iyadnen, Armoured Companies, Seeding Swarms, Air Cav, Speed Freakz, etc.).
Daedalus81 wrote: It certainly needs some attention. Some armies simply don't care about the imposed "tax". I almost feel like the cost of all strats should double. Less use - more care in spending CP.
Wouldn't that just result in what people were doing by the end of 8th: Just ignoring most of the strats and saving the few points they had for the most effective ones, which in a lot of cases was just the command re-roll, thereby defeating the entire purpose of the strat system as no one had enough CP to make use of the 3 fething pages of strats that each book has?
So I want to riff on this a bit.
First of all, since most of the posters here only play 2k games, you are used to always being able to include up to 3 detachments in an army. Most of us don't do that, because we always have to pay CP for the other two detachments, even if they are Patrols/ Battalions/ Brigades. Instead, we do our best to cram as many units as we can into the one detachment that is going to refund its CP cost.
We're also used to having quite a few CP- I think you get 12 for a 2k game? Or is it 9? I haven't actually played a 2k game yet.
But in 25PL games, you're only getting 3 CP (plus one per turn), so swapping a Patrol for a Spearhead leaves you with nothing- and in a 25PL game you're only allowed to include a single detachment.
At 1k points, or 50PL you can take up to two detachments, but you only get 6 CP- so if you want to include a second detachment, sure you can, but its going to cost you half of your CPs if you do... So again, most of us don't.
Onslaught is bonkers- up to four detachments, and enough CP that taking two is very feasible... But how many of us are actually playing onslaught?
Detachments are also important for organizing the components of your army- Like if you're playing Dark Angels, you want detachments instead of a single FOC, because you can organize the army into Ravenwing, Deathwing, Greenwing... So it's fluffy. If you're not playing 2022 CA Matched, this can also be a way to keep the subfactions of your army organized as they would be in an actual deployment. I'm a Crusader, and I have three Orders of Sororitas on my planet- the OoOML are the defenders of the Church, the Sacred Rose protect and maintain the Schola Progenum Facility and the Bloody Rose are responsible for the Penitent Legion. Most often, these forces deploy in their own 25PL armies.
But when there are larger threats, they can combine, and when they do it isn't just for the benefit of rules that you want to keep them in their individual detachments- you want to do it because that's the story of how they would fight. The Warlord would coordinate with the commanders of the other two detachments, and every soldier in the army would take orders from HER specific commander, based on the agreed upon battle plan.
If the detachment system creates imbalance in competitive play, fine- go ahead and change your matched play rules to whatever you want them to be. It doesn't matter to me, because matched play as a whole feels like a tire fire to me. But leave Crusade alone, because detachments are storytelling tools that help me understand the relationships between the units in my armies and the way their command system functions. A single FOC doesn't allow me to capture the intrigue that can occur between detachments when you're building a narrative campaign. So for example, a GSC corrupts one Senior Officer. That's going to mean that the GSC can exert influence through that officer... But only upon the detachment to which that officer belongs. See? Fluff. How do you do that with a single FOC no matter how balanced a game experience it provides?
And I've seen it said in other posts that 40k doesn't scale. And certainly, it doesn't scale as well as it could and certainly improvements are possible. But table size, number of secondaries/ agendas, detachments and CPs very much DO scale. So messing with any of those systems undermines the scaling that IS present in the game.
chaos0xomega wrote: Never said I piloted anything to success, but, well, I have people with names like "TJ Lannigan" and "Sean Nayden" in my local meta, so Ive certainly seen what an actual competitive meta looks like and what actual competitive players do, so... theres that.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Wouldn't that just result in what people were doing by the end of 8th: Just ignoring most of the strats and saving the few points they had for the most effective ones, which in a lot of cases was just the command re-roll, thereby defeating the entire purpose of the strat system as no one had enough CP to make use of the 3 fething pages of strats that each book has?
Hmm? I don't think so. 8th was the CP smorgasbord. Some Custodes lists start with 1CP. Pushing the costs up means they're forced to make sacrifices. Even someone who now starts with 8 could start with 4 and instead of being able to do four things might only be able to do two.
It would cut down on the ability to push a lot of power into strats.
I think a change like that would hurt armies with better units more even if it hurts everyone at the same level. It would certainly change my decision making.
H.B.M.C. wrote: I think there should be one FOC, and that it should scale with the pre-existing 4 game sizes. Adding additional slots should be possible beyond that, but only for hefty CP costs (ie. you're spending an abstracted strategic resource to requisition something beyond the normal scope of your army, the exact kind of thing CP/strats are meant to represent, rather than y'know, which tank gets to fire its smoke launchers this turn).
Then the "Armies of Renown" concept could be expanded on a Codex basis (rather than herpy derpy DLC books) to allow for the more specialised forces (Ravenwing, Iyadnen, Armoured Companies, Seeding Swarms, Air Cav, Speed Freakz, etc.).
Daedalus81 wrote: It certainly needs some attention. Some armies simply don't care about the imposed "tax". I almost feel like the cost of all strats should double. Less use - more care in spending CP.
Wouldn't that just result in what people were doing by the end of 8th: Just ignoring most of the strats and saving the few points they had for the most effective ones, which in a lot of cases was just the command re-roll, thereby defeating the entire purpose of the strat system as no one had enough CP to make use of the 3 fething pages of strats that each book has?
Nope. Firstly the 7th Ed FoC didn't scale. It was always the same. Secondly formations weren't separate FoCs, they were just free rules + free rules with an extra side of free rules.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Nope. Firstly the 7th Ed FoC didn't scale. It was always the same. Secondly formations weren't separate FoCs, they were just free rules + free rules with an extra side of free rules.
You're not entirely wrong. I do think though some of the formations were fun and just that the large ones were lame. I'd have proposed 1 Formation per CAD you had.
Insectum7 wrote: Yeah I'd say that Formations as a concept, and some of the execution, was quite positive.
Some though. . . . Wow. Never again.
For example, I LOVED the CSM for the Terminator Annihilation Force. Give your Chaos Lord the relic Flamer (I can't remember the name anymore) for fluffy goodness. The 1st Company for Loyalist scum going in to focus on a dangerous target in particular? Awesome.
Some were just stupid though. Eldar getting free BS5/WS5 was silly.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Nope. Firstly the 7th Ed FoC didn't scale. It was always the same. Secondly formations weren't separate FoCs, they were just free rules + free rules with an extra side of free rules.
Depending on Army that was true. The Ork ones were just trash.
So, not gonna lie. Saying this "game" is improved by balance, and that GW is interested in that concept, is about as "head in sand" as you can possibly get. If we go by facts alone, this entire premise is easily dismissed.
1. GW has heavily ratcheted up the imbalance since day 1, between non-9th factions, and 9th factions.
2. GW has spent all of 9th drip feeding content and rules to consumers.
3. GW created a style of gameplay in 9th that favored cheap spamable "CORE" units on objectives.
4. The majority of factions in 40k did not know what units had OBSEC for the majority of this edition.
Given these 4 statements lead us to two possible logical outcomes.
1. GW is completely incompetent at making a balanced game, a game they've been making for the past 20+ years.
OR
2. GW doesn't care at all about balance, and this is simply the best possible way to keep the neck beared pay pigs slavering at the tough every month when they ring the dinner bell and promise that the next batch of slop will have more "balance".
The fact this forum exists is proof of this concept. Why do you think GW didn't announce Chaos Marines are now 2W each? Because they knew if they could keep you arguing on forums and reddits for 2 whole years, you'd be first in line to anger buy the dumb book when it drops in the middle of 2022.
It would have taken literally a single sentence on the FAQ page.
But you know what's more important than balance?
Fixing Multi-meltas
Fixing Necrons
Fixing Sisters point issues
Fixing opDE Fixing misprinted weapon loadouts for SM captains
Making Custodes Cost less
Racial Justice! (Agree with this one)
Just Say NO to Nazis! (Agree with this one)
Ork Codex mistakes
Ork Nerfs
Scions were worded wrong somehow
Custodes need clearer wording
GSC day 1 codex re-write
NIDS
SQUATS!
And now, in April 2022, we are finally told, 3 years after release, that Chaos Marines are finally getting the 2 Wound buff.
But yes, Balance is a BIIIIIIIIG Priority for GW.
And the farts from my mud cave are whats keeping Abadon in the Eye of Terror.
Insectum7 wrote: Yeah I'd say that Formations as a concept, and some of the execution, was quite positive.
Some though. . . . Wow. Never again.
For example, I LOVED the CSM for the Terminator Annihilation Force. Give your Chaos Lord the relic Flamer (I can't remember the name anymore) for fluffy goodness. The 1st Company for Loyalist scum going in to focus on a dangerous target in particular? Awesome.
Some were just stupid though. Eldar getting free BS5/WS5 was silly.
I though WSBS 5 encouraging more Aspect Warriors was one of the good ones, personally. #DidntPlayEldar either
Insectum7 wrote: Yeah I'd say that Formations as a concept, and some of the execution, was quite positive.
Some though. . . . Wow. Never again.
For example, I LOVED the CSM for the Terminator Annihilation Force. Give your Chaos Lord the relic Flamer (I can't remember the name anymore) for fluffy goodness. The 1st Company for Loyalist scum going in to focus on a dangerous target in particular? Awesome.
Some were just stupid though. Eldar getting free BS5/WS5 was silly.
I though WSBS 5 encouraging more Aspect Warriors was one of the good ones, personally. #DidntPlayEldar either
Some Aspect Warriors were already REALLY good though, and just gets overlooked because Wriathknights and Scatterbikes. Chaos Terminators were just fairly good (as were Van/Sternguard). Both Formations were heavily limiting as well for unit choice compared to the Aspect Shrine.
Insectum7 wrote: Warp Spiders were a War Spider problem, not a Formation one though. That's the salient point here, imo.
Hard disagree. Fire Dragons, Dark Reapers, and Spears (though some say I would be overreacting with the latter) were all silly with the extra BS too. Eldar shooting was just that good, period. Those things are just overlooked because if the even BETTER shooting otherwise, Warp Spiders not counted!
Also the lack of requirements for that broken a benefit were badly written. At least Skyhammer made you use the bad Assault Marines, but MAN imagine if they were competent.
Blackie wrote: Being able to skew something in the first place can be an issue, or part of the issue.
you litterally just said that even with a limit of 3 of each model, you could still bring 24 tanks lol. And now youre blaming squadrons for skew?
Because it's unlikely that all those kinds of tanks are good or OP. If one specific tank is OP and you can field it 9-12 times that's a problem. So both tank based lists would be skew but the one with more variety should likely be less problematic.
It's the same concept about ork buggies. I loved the patch since it prevents players from spamming the best buggy countless times but still allows lists that are heavy on buggies. 9 scrapjets + 9 squigbuggies were an abomination, but something like 7-9 buggies of 4-5 different kinds is cool. I wouldn't mind lists that are heavy on tanks, just not the same tank spammed countless times. Which conveniently is always the best tank, and justified with fluff reasons.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Nope. Firstly the 7th Ed FoC didn't scale. It was always the same. Secondly formations weren't separate FoCs, they were just free rules + free rules with an extra side of free rules.
Depending on Army that was true. The Ork ones were just trash.
Free rules doesn't automatically mean good rules, though - it just means you're probably not going to see the ones with "bad free rules" used as often.
We in effect traded free rules for required units to stratagems for required units with less restrictions on specific units. So free rules to free rules.
SemperMortis wrote: Depending on Army that was true. The Ork ones were just trash.
Necrons didn't even get one from memory. Or was that 8th edition specialist detachments? Or both?
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EviscerationPlague wrote: You're not entirely wrong. I do think though some of the formations were fun and just that the large ones were lame. I'd have proposed 1 Formation per CAD you had.
Wouldn't have done much to the most problematic ones. You'd just see a Loyal 32 situation. Take the minimum amount of units in the CAD and then maximise your Formation units. Something like the free SM transports, you'd probably just go from 600 points of free Razorbacks. To 400 points of free Razorbacks.
SemperMortis wrote: Depending on Army that was true. The Ork ones were just trash.
Necrons didn't even get one from memory. Or was that 8th edition specialist detachments? Or both?
Uh...Necrons were the first to get them, and it was broken. The Decurion was the template for all the formations that followed, to the point where it wasn't uncommon to refer to the rules as Decurion-style army building. Necrons didn't get anything similar in 8th.
Back to Voidweavers - GW will never do this, but maybe the fix is as simple as giving Troupes core and then saying you may only field 1 Voidweaver unit for every 500pts spent on units with the Core keyword. At that point you're investing ~1000pts into Troupes and Skyweaver Jetbikes just to unlock the ability to field 2 units of Voidweavers (which would bring you up to about 1500-1600 pts assuming no price hikes), effectively capping them at 6 max per 2000pt list - and you still haven't bought any HQ/Elites or any Starweaver transports either.
It would force a huge shift/change to Harlequin listbuilding. In practical terms I doubt most Harlequins players would ever actually field more than one unit of Voidweavers after this type of change because it would require way more investment into infantry and jetbikes than many players seem interested in - the sample list on Warcom for example only had 471 pts invested into Troupes, and therefore wouldn't be able to field Voidweavers at all.
Yeah... I don't think you've thought this through.
Yes? All of these do jobs that can be done by more interesting units, and most of these are taken simply because we HAVE TO. Thats not actual choice, and most often just ends up being "take the cheapest option".
If there is no more mandatory troops, you can rework these units to be more than basic bitches and therefore , interesting
Or they could just rework them to be interesting units rather than deleting them?
Personally, I'm all for more limited unit selection. Limitations are excellent for balance. You can't just load up on all the best units if there are more limits on the units you can actually take. Then you have to try and build the best combination of compulsory and discretionary units. The big problem here is GW hasn't shown a deft enough hand at knowing how to do the other things to make such a scheme work correctly.
Insectum7 wrote: Warp Spiders were a War Spider problem, not a Formation one though. That's the salient point here, imo.
Hard disagree. Fire Dragons, Dark Reapers, and Spears (though some say I would be overreacting with the latter) were all silly with the extra BS too. Eldar shooting was just that good, period. Those things are just overlooked because if the even BETTER shooting otherwise, Warp Spiders not counted!
Also the lack of requirements for that broken a benefit were badly written. At least Skyhammer made you use the bad Assault Marines, but MAN imagine if they were competent.
Yeah, well, I'm just not going to see hitting on 2s rather than 3s as all that busted, sorry. While Skyhammer was so abusive that even when people rolled out their hardest armies, I still never used Skyhammer in response. It felt that wrong.
Yeah... I don't think you've thought this through.
Yes? All of these do jobs that can be done by more interesting units, and most of these are taken simply because we HAVE TO. Thats not actual choice, and most often just ends up being "take the cheapest option".
If there is no more mandatory troops, you can rework these units to be more than basic bitches and therefore , interesting
No way. I love troops. People that see troops as a tax are terribly mistaken imo.
Besides, Troops arent even mandatory these days. You can take your Vanguards and Spearhead detatchments and all that.
TBH I wish Troops were more mandatory, they should be 50% of your required points spend, IMO. Hate seeing armies that are built around spamming all the cool toys with no consideration towards the baseline grunts that actually do most of the fighting.
chaos0xomega wrote: TBH I wish Troops were more mandatory, they should be 50% of your required points spend, IMO. Hate seeing armies that are built around spamming all the cool toys with no consideration towards the baseline grunts that actually do most of the fighting.
While 50% is extreme, I do agree with your overall point.
Daedalus81 wrote: Warmahordes - always max units / if you don't pick the right caster some units can be total pants
Infinity - Availability "stat" that governs how many you can take
Chain of Command - you pick historically accurate platoon for the period
40K is likely the only game that offers such a wide variety of list building choices and they suffer for it.
Well in reality a lot of the choices are false or pointless. Like a lot of the small 1/2 point upgrades where if there are multiple it is normally simple calculation to see the optimum one.
And GW have made rulesets with plenty of choice but better balance. I normally hark back to Epic at this point but I can take a chapter/battle company/any combination of troops. While there are a few things you should be doing, for example taking all tactical marines would kinda work - but really you would need AA and a few other things to counter enemy specialists - you are broadly free to get what you want within some competitive constraints, which are designed to encourage a force that matches the fluff and presumably the reason you want to play it.
chaos0xomega wrote: TBH I wish Troops were more mandatory, they should be 50% of your required points spend, IMO. Hate seeing armies that are built around spamming all the cool toys with no consideration towards the baseline grunts that actually do most of the fighting.
While 50% is extreme, I do agree with your overall point.
I would settle for a slightly reduced minimum, but it needs to be over 1/3rd
alextroy wrote: Or they could just rework them to be interesting units rather than deleting them?
Personally, I'm all for more limited unit selection. Limitations are excellent for balance. You can't just load up on all the best units if there are more limits on the units you can actually take. Then you have to try and build the best combination of compulsory and discretionary units. The big problem here is GW hasn't shown a deft enough hand at knowing how to do the other things to make such a scheme work correctly.
That's also a much bigger handicap to a smaller faction. Custodes only have so many datasheets so the more compulsory choices you have, the more similar their lists are going to look. Eldar and space marines wouldn't be bothered because they have 100+ datasheets.
chaos0xomega wrote: TBH I wish Troops were more mandatory, they should be 50% of your required points spend, IMO. Hate seeing armies that are built around spamming all the cool toys with no consideration towards the baseline grunts that actually do most of the fighting.
While 50% is extreme, I do agree with your overall point.
I would settle for a slightly reduced minimum, but it needs to be over 1/3rd
Rather than limit it to troops, I'd say make a minimum amount of Core units. That way maybe some factions would need to be adjusted from troops toward whatever their faction identity is based upon (for example making bikes core for Ravenwing or White Scars, or making wraith constructs core for Iyanden Eldars.).
chaos0xomega wrote: TBH I wish Troops were more mandatory, they should be 50% of your required points spend, IMO. Hate seeing armies that are built around spamming all the cool toys with no consideration towards the baseline grunts that actually do most of the fighting.
That would very greatly deprive me of options. (and that will cause me to both spend & play less)
Sometimes being heavy on troops is what I'm envisioning & in the mood for. Lord knows I own plenty of Guard infantry squads, use Necron Warriors & Immortal frequently, my DA force would be almost un-fieldable without them (my force is built on a core of 4 Tac squads), & I'm never leaving my SW Grey Hunters out of the battle....
Other times?
For ex;
* I love playing my Necron Destroyer cult list. There are no troops with the Destroyer KW though. :( Get GW to make me a destroyer KW troop & I'll buy it + play it.
* Recently I just built a Gretchin KW themed force. Virtually everything available to Grots is in either the fast or heavy slots. Sure, there's Gretchin as Troops (and I do have & use 4 squads of them). But spending 1k pts on Troops Gretchin would be 1) a colossal waste of $, 2) a very quick route to a loss. Grots on foot = poor fighters. Apparently they're cunning enough to realize this & compensate by going mekanized with large amounts of grot tanks, Kanz, & gunz....
* BTW, speaking of tanks.... Who do you imagine does the fighting in an Imperial Guard Tank Reg.?
Spoiler:
The tanks! Of wich none are "troops" on the FoC/detachment charts)
On the topic of unit selection: I would like a system that gave a set of resources like in RTS X Food
Y Metals
Z Fuel
Then each unit would have costs (x,y,z...)
Players could then mix high Food units with high Fuel units etc.
SemperMortis wrote: Depending on Army that was true. The Ork ones were just trash.
Necrons didn't even get one from memory. Or was that 8th edition specialist detachments? Or both?
Literally the opposite is true. Necrons had the "Decurion" which was so dramatically OP compared to anything else at the time that every other "super" formation was referred to as the Decurion style formation.
As far as balancing Void's by forcing you to take core...no. Fix the damn units so they are balanced. The entire premise also falls apart when you realize that Troupes are also already some of the best troops in the game, not to mention everything else that gets core. Just across the board no. Its just annoying that GW doesn't playtest any of their damn armies before release, or hire a faction specific SME to check the codex before release. Having 1 guy on staff who knows orkz really really well could have saved them from having to look stupid putting out a bad codex with units/gear that is illegal to use by its own existence. Not to even touch on the fact that they nerfed/buffed the wrong units and made the aforementioned illegal units...ILLEGAL AGAIN! lol.
Its weird seeing people just through hoops to try and make a completely broken Voidweaver not actually break the game through limits and what not instead of *shock* simply assigning it a point value that is more balanced.
Why is just making them 150 points not an option? Why make things complicated? The voidweaver is not some sort of weird combination of rules and skew that a simple point cost can't balance it.
Its just a mobile, good gun with a bunch of special rules to make its seemingly flimsy body tough. With an absurdly low points cost.
Ordana wrote: Its weird seeing people just through hoops to try and make a completely broken Voidweaver not actually break the game through limits and what not instead of *shock* simply assigning it a point value that is more balanced.
Why is just making them 150 points not an option? Why make things complicated? The voidweaver is not some sort of weird combination of rules and skew that a simple point cost can't balance it.
Its just a mobile, good gun with a bunch of special rules to make its seemingly flimsy body tough. With an absurdly low points cost.
Fun exercise, Against a T8 2+ save vehicle, 150pts of Deffkoptas gets 12 shots, 4 hits, 2 wounds and a grand total of 3dmg.
At 150pts the Voidweaver would get 2 shots for 1.33 hits, 0.88 wounds, 0.74 go through after saves for 2.96dmg The shurikens fire off 6 shots, 4 hits, 1.33 wounds for 0.88dmg.
So 150pts of Deffkoptas average 3dmg a turn against T8 2+ save, the Voidweaver with its prismatic averages 3.84 if it was nerfed to 150pts.
Ohh, and if you just say "the Prismatic cannon is the problem!" The haywire cannon averages 4 shots, 2.66 hits, 1.33 wounds (1/3rd of those wounds become D3 mortals) for 2.66dmg bringing it to 3.55dmg
To put it another way for simplicity sake. A single Voidweaver right now AVERAGES MORE dmg per turn against vehicles than 150pts of Deffkoptas. And that is without any buffs like kulture/strats/re-rolls/Laughing god/faction etc.
Ordana wrote: Its weird seeing people just through hoops to try and make a completely broken Voidweaver not actually break the game through limits and what not instead of *shock* simply assigning it a point value that is more balanced.
Why is just making them 150 points not an option? Why make things complicated? The voidweaver is not some sort of weird combination of rules and skew that a simple point cost can't balance it.
Its just a mobile, good gun with a bunch of special rules to make its seemingly flimsy body tough. With an absurdly low points cost.
The fear would be that the optimal choice goes from 9 voidweavers to 0 because 1-8 can never be optimal.
You would need "concave" preferences in people. like... u(X,Y)= X^alpha*Y^(1-alpha)
Ordana wrote: Its weird seeing people just through hoops to try and make a completely broken Voidweaver not actually break the game through limits and what not instead of *shock* simply assigning it a point value that is more balanced.
Why is just making them 150 points not an option? Why make things complicated? The voidweaver is not some sort of weird combination of rules and skew that a simple point cost can't balance it.
Its just a mobile, good gun with a bunch of special rules to make its seemingly flimsy body tough. With an absurdly low points cost.
Fun exercise, Against a T8 2+ save vehicle, 150pts of Deffkoptas gets 12 shots, 4 hits, 2 wounds and a grand total of 3dmg.
At 150pts the Voidweaver would get 2 shots for 1.33 hits, 0.88 wounds, 0.74 go through after saves for 2.96dmg The shurikens fire off 6 shots, 4 hits, 1.33 wounds for 0.88dmg.
So 150pts of Deffkoptas average 3dmg a turn against T8 2+ save, the Voidweaver with its prismatic averages 3.84 if it was nerfed to 150pts.
Ohh, and if you just say "the Prismatic cannon is the problem!" The haywire cannon averages 4 shots, 2.66 hits, 1.33 wounds (1/3rd of those wounds become D3 mortals) for 2.66dmg bringing it to 3.55dmg
To put it another way for simplicity sake. A single Voidweaver right now AVERAGES MORE dmg per turn against vehicles than 150pts of Deffkoptas. And that is without any buffs like kulture/strats/re-rolls/Laughing god/faction etc.
So make it 175 points? You completely missed the point they were trying to make.
Harlequins are also quite a small faction in terms of unit choices. So yeah people are gonna take the best thing for competitive games, and since there are so few choices only a few will be stand out and as a result list diversity will suffer.
It's hard to ballance a faction like that, if you nerf the good units too much, or limit what units can be taken, there will just not be enough left to make a strong army. Obviously their intent is that harlequins are a supporting faction to other Aeldari, but they still have to be worth taking instead of just going full Eldar or Dark Eldar.
M0ff3l wrote: Harlequins are also quite a small faction in terms of unit choices. So yeah people are gonna take the best thing for competitive games, and since there are so few choices only a few will be stand out and as a result list diversity will suffer.
Even a faction with billions of choices would min-max
M0ff3l wrote: Harlequins are also quite a small faction in terms of unit choices. So yeah people are gonna take the best thing for competitive games, and since there are so few choices only a few will be stand out and as a result list diversity will suffer.
Even a faction with billions of choices would min-max
IMHO this is a bit of a fallacy.
The only reason to min-max is if you have a unit that can accomplish everything and do everything and be everything. In 40k, of course, it is easy for a unit to do this - all you have to do is kill and not be killed.
But in other games, combined arms is encouraged because units have roles. For example, you wouldn't spam anti-tank guns in COC because, while they are fantabulous at killing tanks, they don't help you in the same ways that an Infantry Field Gun, an HMG, a flamethrower, etc. all do.
So instead of a support allocation that is "the best thing, as many as I can get" you typically see a mixed or balanced support allocation, because the definition of the best thing changes as the situation on the tabletop evolves.
Ordana wrote: Its weird seeing people just through hoops to try and make a completely broken Voidweaver not actually break the game through limits and what not instead of *shock* simply assigning it a point value that is more balanced.
Why is just making them 150 points not an option? Why make things complicated? The voidweaver is not some sort of weird combination of rules and skew that a simple point cost can't balance it.
Its just a mobile, good gun with a bunch of special rules to make its seemingly flimsy body tough. With an absurdly low points cost.
I think half of it is that GW is unlikely to adjust points in the slate so they have to get fixed by some other avenue until July.
M0ff3l wrote: Harlequins are also quite a small faction in terms of unit choices. So yeah people are gonna take the best thing for competitive games, and since there are so few choices only a few will be stand out and as a result list diversity will suffer.
Even a faction with billions of choices would min-max
If most (or all for sake of argument) units in a codex are on a similar power level, and there are enough choices, there will be build diversity just in terms of playstyle and strategy. Yeah people will minmax, but it wont be 9x voidweaver in every list. Some would run 9 of something else, or a mix of 3 different things. Point values limit the amount of things you can take, and if there are enough powerful options that provide different gameplay, list variety will be better for it, it's just really hard to do that for factions that have like 4 non character kits.
The main point I'm trying to make, if they limit voidweavers to 1 unit per army, what are harlequins gonna take instead?
M0ff3l wrote: Harlequins are also quite a small faction in terms of unit choices. So yeah people are gonna take the best thing for competitive games, and since there are so few choices only a few will be stand out and as a result list diversity will suffer.
Even a faction with billions of choices would min-max
IMHO this is a bit of a fallacy.
The only reason to min-max is if you have a unit that can accomplish everything and do everything and be everything. In 40k, of course, it is easy for a unit to do this - all you have to do is kill and not be killed.
But in other games, combined arms is encouraged because units have roles. For example, you wouldn't spam anti-tank guns in COC because, while they are fantabulous at killing tanks, they don't help you in the same ways that an Infantry Field Gun, an HMG, a flamethrower, etc. all do.
So instead of a support allocation that is "the best thing, as many as I can get" you typically see a mixed or balanced support allocation, because the definition of the best thing changes as the situation on the tabletop evolves.
Except than you'd just find a way to min-max that. Because then you'd min-max what best possible combined arms you'd have. What anti-tank is the best? What does the best against infantry? What tank is the best against X Y and Z? Does Y infantry deal with anti-tank and flamers better then Z? You can easily min-max a combined arms force because unless there is a lack of choice. There will always be choices that may or may not be better.
Ordana wrote: Its weird seeing people just through hoops to try and make a completely broken Voidweaver not actually break the game through limits and what not instead of *shock* simply assigning it a point value that is more balanced.
Why is just making them 150 points not an option? Why make things complicated? The voidweaver is not some sort of weird combination of rules and skew that a simple point cost can't balance it.
Its just a mobile, good gun with a bunch of special rules to make its seemingly flimsy body tough. With an absurdly low points cost.
Fun exercise, Against a T8 2+ save vehicle, 150pts of Deffkoptas gets 12 shots, 4 hits, 2 wounds and a grand total of 3dmg.
At 150pts the Voidweaver would get 2 shots for 1.33 hits, 0.88 wounds, 0.74 go through after saves for 2.96dmg The shurikens fire off 6 shots, 4 hits, 1.33 wounds for 0.88dmg.
So 150pts of Deffkoptas average 3dmg a turn against T8 2+ save, the Voidweaver with its prismatic averages 3.84 if it was nerfed to 150pts.
Ohh, and if you just say "the Prismatic cannon is the problem!" The haywire cannon averages 4 shots, 2.66 hits, 1.33 wounds (1/3rd of those wounds become D3 mortals) for 2.66dmg bringing it to 3.55dmg
To put it another way for simplicity sake. A single Voidweaver right now AVERAGES MORE dmg per turn against vehicles than 150pts of Deffkoptas. And that is without any buffs like kulture/strats/re-rolls/Laughing god/faction etc.
Deffkoptas (and most ork shooting really) are bad examples because they lose 50% effectiveness vs Xweavers. You'd want to compare them against a bigger variety and accept that Voidweavers are a particularly good counter to ork shooting. Orks, in general, should be restructured into a combined arms faction, but that's ork balance for you.
There's also a matter of practicality. A harlie player only has a choice of units in the HQ (2) and Elite (2) slots so unless he wants to buy a lot of troupes he really doesn't have a lot of choice but to bring in as many void weavers as points allow. There's also the problem of just how many units he can really use in a game. How many troupes do you really want on the battlefield. If you take a battalion then he can have both of his unique HQs, only 4 Elites max (but 2-3 is the practical limit), after taking 3 Troop choices he can spend points on FA and Hvy. If he loads up on FA then people will start complaining about Skyweaver spam.
Just for math's sake - 2HQs+ 3Elites + 3TroopsI(3*6)= 629pts w/o options. 18 skyweaver (the max)=810 w/o options. Total 1439 points. If you spend 200 point on options you still hae 371 points left over (about 3 Starweavers). What's a harlie player to do?
alextroy wrote: Or they could just rework them to be interesting units rather than deleting them?
Personally, I'm all for more limited unit selection. Limitations are excellent for balance. You can't just load up on all the best units if there are more limits on the units you can actually take. Then you have to try and build the best combination of compulsory and discretionary units. The big problem here is GW hasn't shown a deft enough hand at knowing how to do the other things to make such a scheme work correctly.
That's also a much bigger handicap to a smaller faction. Custodes only have so many datasheets so the more compulsory choices you have, the more similar their lists are going to look. Eldar and space marines wouldn't be bothered because they have 100+ datasheets.
You say this like it somehow isn’t true today. Despite their smaller unit selections, Custodes and Harlequins are doing just fine. As always, the devil is in the details.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: There's also a matter of practicality. A harlie player only has a choice of units in the HQ (2) and Elite (2) slots so unless he wants to buy a lot of troupes he really doesn't have a lot of choice but to bring in as many void weavers as points allow. There's also the problem of just how many units he can really use in a game. How many troupes do you really want on the battlefield. If you take a battalion then he can have both of his unique HQs, only 4 Elites max (but 2-3 is the practical limit), after taking 3 Troop choices he can spend points on FA and Hvy. If he loads up on FA then people will start complaining about Skyweaver spam.
Just for math's sake - 2HQs+ 3Elites + 3TroopsI(3*6)= 629pts w/o options. 18 skyweaver (the max)=810 w/o options. Total 1439 points. If you spend 200 point on options you still hae 371 points left over (about 3 Starweavers). What's a harlie player to do?
Again, the problem isn't 'spamming' 9 voidweavers. its that the voidweaver is insane for 90 points and could easily be 150 points for the stats, rules and gun it gives you. Its a broken unit for its cost no matter if you run 1, 9 or anywhere in between.
M0ff3l wrote: Harlequins are also quite a small faction in terms of unit choices. So yeah people are gonna take the best thing for competitive games, and since there are so few choices only a few will be stand out and as a result list diversity will suffer.
Even a faction with billions of choices would min-max
IMHO this is a bit of a fallacy.
The only reason to min-max is if you have a unit that can accomplish everything and do everything and be everything. In 40k, of course, it is easy for a unit to do this - all you have to do is kill and not be killed.
But in other games, combined arms is encouraged because units have roles. For example, you wouldn't spam anti-tank guns in COC because, while they are fantabulous at killing tanks, they don't help you in the same ways that an Infantry Field Gun, an HMG, a flamethrower, etc. all do.
So instead of a support allocation that is "the best thing, as many as I can get" you typically see a mixed or balanced support allocation, because the definition of the best thing changes as the situation on the tabletop evolves.
Except than you'd just find a way to min-max that. Because then you'd min-max what best possible combined arms you'd have. What anti-tank is the best? What does the best against infantry? What tank is the best against X Y and Z? Does Y infantry deal with anti-tank and flamers better then Z? You can easily min-max a combined arms force because unless there is a lack of choice. There will always be choices that may or may not be better.
Except they have different roles because the game rules are about more than just killing... which was my point. The best anti-tank can mean: 1) Rawly, the best a killing a tank. 2) The best at deterring and constraining a tank's maneuver. (because there are ways to do this more easily and quickly and cheaply than just killing it) 3) The best at coming out ahead in a firefight with a tank. (because sometimes protecting yourself is more important than killing the enemy, and a prolonged firefight is preferable to death) 4) The best at constraining a tank's firepower. (because there are ways to do this more easily and quickly and cheaply than just killing it)
The best against infantry can mean: 1) The best at killing infantry 2) the best at suppressing infantry (because there are ways to do this more easily and quickly and cheaply than just killing it) 3) the best at coming out ahead in a firefight with infantry (because sometimes protecting yourself is more important than killing the enemy, and a prolonged firefight is preferable to death)
etc.
Combined with the actual weapon statline differences (e.g. ranges, degree of ignoring cover, durability of the carrying unit, maneuverability of the carrying unit), this can mean that your battle plan may be best served by a mortar to drop smoke on a tank and blind it to keep it from shooting well, rather than just buying the biggest, baddest, and most expensive anti-tank option in your support list.
Yes? All of these do jobs that can be done by more interesting units, and most of these are taken simply because we HAVE TO. Thats not actual choice, and most often just ends up being "take the cheapest option".
If there is no more mandatory troops, you can rework these units to be more than basic bitches and therefore , interesting
I am not sure that is always possible. Why pay Xpts for a strike when paying 3-4pts more gives you an interceptors with double the movment, extra rule interactions, but same weapon and psychic power load outs.
If a marine player could play with intercessors only with jump packs at 20pts, no one would be running the regular ones.
Except they have different roles because the game rules are about more than just killing... which was my point.
well not in w40k. The void weaver is deadly to heavy infantry, tanks, light vehicles, medium infantry, characters, monsters and by virtue of number of shots and the change to shurikan rules it kills light infantry very well too. Plasma was like that in 8th.
As far as balancing Void's by forcing you to take core...no. Fix the damn units so they are balanced. The entire premise also falls apart when you realize that Troupes are also already some of the best troops in the game, not to mention everything else that gets core. Just across the board no. Its just annoying that GW doesn't playtest any of their damn armies before release, or hire a faction specific SME to check the codex before release. Having 1 guy on staff who knows orkz really really well could have saved them from having to look stupid putting out a bad codex with units/gear that is illegal to use by its own existence. Not to even touch on the fact that they nerfed/buffed the wrong units and made the aforementioned illegal units...ILLEGAL AGAIN! lol.
There are two ways to "fix" a unit - you either change their cost or you change their rules. Its a net zero sum game, changing cost is not inherently better or worse than changing rules. There are sometimes good reasons to change one property instead of the other, but fundamentally it achieves the same thing. In other words, there is nothing that makes my solution any more or less of a "fix" than any other, because at its base all what it is is a change in cost, one which is much more dramatic than what is likely realistically achievable by increasing points cost on the voidweaver directly.
Its an effective solution because if Troupes were really as busted as you think they are everyone would be fielding 60+ of them, yet most lists aren't even fielding 30 (and when I posted a thread about a foot horde so that I could squeeze 60 of them into a list without spending 1000 pts on starweavers alone, the response was effectively that Troupes on foot could never survive long enough to be meaningful). There is not "everything else that gets core" - the only Harlequins unit with Core currently is Skyweavers (which are already regarded as the worst unit in the entire army and grossly overcosted for what little they bring to the table), so we are quite literally talking about needing to invest hundreds of points into units which *should* already be plentiful in Harlequins armies (in that they are the only two units that aren't characters or vehicles), yet aren't because they are being outshined by other options.
Realistically, this means you're spending 510 points to get 6 units of 5 Harlequins with an embrace, kiss, and 2 fusion pistols each, and then another 480pts to get 6 starweavers (given the apparent distaste for fielding Troupes on foot, and then 270 for 3 Voidweavers, and you're at 1260 pts, and you haven't bought any HQs, Death Jesters, or Solitaires yet, and to even get 3 more Voidweavers into the list is going to effectively cost youa minimum of another 770 pt (270 for the voidweavers + 500 for the core tax)swhich would put you over the 2000 pt limit on its own - you're balancing the army by putting a pretty hard cap to the amount of Voidweavers people can field while encouraging armies th at look more fluffy. If people take a min-max approach to this, then they are fielding Troupes on foot which are suboptimal and/or they are fielding Skyweavers which are even more suboptimal (armies with Skyweavers had a sub-50% win rate at Adepticon), and even then you're spending a minimum of 1540 pts to field 6 voidweavers - you aren't going to get any more than that in a 2000 pt list, and in this example you haven't bought a single starweaver, and you have yet to purchase a single HQ, Solitaire, Death Jester, etc.
This is basically what "fixing" looks like, its the same result you're going to get if you nerf Voidweavers rules or hike up the cost on them directly, the only thing that differs is the means by which you get there. If you just tack 50 pts onto a voidweaver you're probably only bringing 6 of them because thats a 840pt investment (+30 over the cost of bringing 9 currently) and you still need to buy your troops, hqs, and elites. If you leave cost the same and nerf their rules, you're probably still taking at least 6 of them because they are the only reliable source for what they bring to the Harlequin army but they probably won't be good enough to justify maximum investment but you will still need to take enough of them to make up for their reduced effectiveness. In both cases armies with 9 of the things are still possible, and while they may not be as points efficient as they are currently, 9 voidweavers will still pose many problems to many armies to an extent that would require a much more substantial rewrite of not just the Voidweavers rules but Harlequins as a whole And it kills two birds with one stone because Starweavers are also a problem, mainly in that they are overly spammable alongside voidweavers, but if you're investing 500 points into Troupes and Skyweavers for every 3 Voidweavers you're not going to have a ton of points to buy starweavers with, and if you're trying to max out starweavers you're not going to have a ton of points to spend on voidweavers either. Its pretty hard to argue that a method which quite literally forces you to balance the number of broken units you are fielding against eachother is not an effective means of balancing the army.
Ordana wrote: Its weird seeing people just through hoops to try and make a completely broken Voidweaver not actually break the game through limits and what not instead of *shock* simply assigning it a point value that is more balanced.
Why is just making them 150 points not an option? Why make things complicated? The voidweaver is not some sort of weird combination of rules and skew that a simple point cost can't balance it.
Its just a mobile, good gun with a bunch of special rules to make its seemingly flimsy body tough. With an absurdly low points cost.
I think half of it is that GW is unlikely to adjust points in the slate so they have to get fixed by some other avenue until July.
Aye - so far the only points released we've seen came with the first Dataslate, IIRC - one as a "preview" for GSC, and the other as a day 1 patch for Custodes, IIRC, both of which were brought forwards from the MFM that was to follow shortly afterwards.
The other question, of course, is whether Eldar units will have been out long enough to get caught up in the next MFM - I have no idea when things would be locked down for that publication.
I am looking forwards to see what new Ork units get nerfed, though - should be amusing.
Lets take a look at Necrons
You have Overlords with buffs to core units.
But these buffs are too weak compared to just take more models.
So cutting Overlords makes the list better.
40K needs better combos if it wants diverse lists.
Manchild 1984 wrote: Lets take a look at Necrons
You have Overlords with buffs to core units.
But these buffs are too weak compared to just take more models.
So cutting Overlords makes the list better.
40K needs better combos if it wants diverse lists.
It's quite a bit different these days. I never wanted a Phaeron, but with the CORE updates I'm quite tempted. The other problem is getting models into range. Mathematically more models might be better ( haven't done the math ), but you won't get all those models on to one target as easily.
Manchild 1984 wrote: Lets take a look at Necrons
You have Overlords with buffs to core units.
But these buffs are too weak compared to just take more models.
So cutting Overlords makes the list better.
40K needs better combos if it wants diverse lists.
It's quite a bit different these days. I never wanted a Phaeron, but with the CORE updates I'm quite tempted. The other problem is getting models into range. Mathematically more models might be better ( haven't done the math ), but you won't get all those models on to one target as easily.
Phaeron might be better then a 2nd Overlord.
I would fill minimal HQ with Cryptekhs if I had the good ones (gonna wait for balance datasheet)
It's quite a bit different these days. I never wanted a Phaeron, but with the CORE updates I'm quite tempted. The other problem is getting models into range. Mathematically more models might be better ( haven't done the math ), but you won't get all those models on to one target as easily.
Overlord is 95+ options. Can easily cost 10 Necron Warriors. Those Necrons Warriors have more damage output all day long
As long as you take a Resurrection Orb, you can raise up enough points worth of models to make the Overlord recuperate most of its cost with just that.
You get the +1 To hit
+1" Movement
and your warlord traits.
I wouldn't ever take a second Overlord as other HQ options have other more useful buffs that a second ress orb just won't make up for losing.
Deffkoptas (and most ork shooting really) are bad examples because they lose 50% effectiveness vs Xweavers. You'd want to compare them against a bigger variety and accept that Voidweavers are a particularly good counter to ork shooting. Orks, in general, should be restructured into a combined arms faction, but that's ork balance for you.
I agree, but that is why I used a static T8 2+ model as the target as opposed to each other so that way the -1 to hit and the 4+ invuln didn't skew the results. The point I was making is that on a dmg output level the Voidweaver, even nerfed by 66% to 150pts is still out performing a similar value of Deffkoptas. I'll gladly admit deffkoptas are better in melee, but the point stands still that they dramatically outperform koptas at ranged combat and barring Custodes/Tau/Harlequins/Eldar I don't really think the deffkopta is over priced either, I just think those armies and units are under priced. Which is even more apparent, especially in the mindset of their players when they make statements like this
chaos0xomega wrote: the only Harlequins unit with Core currently is Skyweavers (which are already regarded as the worst unit in the entire army and grossly overcosted for what little they bring to the table),
A Skyweaver is 5pts cheaper than a Deffkopta, instead of 2D3 rokkitz hitting on 5s it gets a Shuriken cannon and a Star Bolas, but hits on 3s instead of 5s. Against that same T8 2+ vehicle the Skyweaver averages 1dmg a turn, A single deffkopta averages...wait for it....1dmg Which is more durable? Well the Kopta is T5 with a 4+ save, the Skyweaver is T4 with a 4+ invuln no re-roll attacks against it and -1 to hit in combat. Its also faster and has advance/charge as a rule baked into it.
Is the skyweaver better than a deffkopta...meh, I think they are incredibly similar, i'd give the edge to the Skyweaver thanks to its plethora of rules and bonuses and under normal (expected) army wide rules its fairly dangerous and durable. So at worst its the same as a deffkopta which is considered one of the BEST units in the Ork codex, and the harly players refer to it as "grossly overcosted for what little they bring to the table".
Few people compare their stuff down the power ladder. just like post football match no one cars that the team that just lot 3:0 could anihilate a division 5 team 0:20.
It says more about the state of deathkoptas, then what ever skyweavers are bad or good for harlequins.
The bare minimum of what this balance slate should change are:
1. It should revert all points increases from CA 2022 (possibly excluding DE)
2. It should revert all Custodes points drops from CA2022.
3. It should have significant nerfs to EVERY harlequin unit except skyweavers.
4. It should have significant nerfs to Tau suits and vehicles, as well as mont'ka. Special mention to anything that ignores LoS.
5. It should have significant nerfs to Custodes, specifically Trajann and Emperors children but anything on a jetbike needs some amount of reining in.
6. It needs to offer compensatory buffs to factions that were negatively impacted by general game rule changes, as well as armies that are struggling but unlikely to see a codex anytime soon. Examples: Any of the myriad of terrible Ork units, everything about Deathguard, Sisters of Battle, specifically their shooting units and walkers. Guard, maybe even if their codex IS coming out soon.
"Skyweavers are terrible". Wait.... Didn't several people come second or at least place with a bunch of them over the last two weekends?
"Oh yeah? Second? Pfft. Can't be that good then. What did they lose to?" "Well... other Harlequin Players with 9 Voidweavers."
"See! Trash."
SemperMortis wrote: I agree, but that is why I used a static T8 2+ model as the target as opposed to each other so that way the -1 to hit and the 4+ invuln didn't skew the results. The point I was making is that on a dmg output level the Voidweaver, even nerfed by 66% to 150pts is still out performing a similar value of Deffkoptas. I'll gladly admit deffkoptas are better in melee, but the point stands still that they dramatically outperform koptas at ranged combat and barring Custodes/Tau/Harlequins/Eldar I don't really think the deffkopta is over priced either, I just think those armies and units are under priced. Which is even more apparent, especially in the mindset of their players when they make statements like this
I've got Harlequins and orks going (still working on the orks) so I guess I qualify as both.
I disagree that the mindset of Harlequin players is off; in my experience both Tau and Harlequins players have been very sober about the power level of their codex. It's been Custodes players who are in denial.
Voidweavers are underpriced, but I think the appropriate range is 110-120, not 150. I'm willing to negotiate with that on further examination though. But I think the optimal weapon for attacking them is actually heavy flamer-type weapons. Those have the nice side effect of being good against clown infantry too.
Uh...Necrons were the first to get them, and it was broken. The Decurion was the template for all the formations that followed, to the point where it wasn't uncommon to refer to the rules as Decurion-style army building. Necrons didn't get anything similar in 8th.
Must have been thinking of 8th then. The point is formations were terrible. Specialist detachments weren’t so bad, there could have been some balance of GW just increased the CP cost for taking the better ones.
Manchild 1984 wrote: Lets take a look at Necrons
You have Overlords with buffs to core units.
But these buffs are too weak compared to just take more models.
So cutting Overlords makes the list better.
40K needs better combos if it wants diverse lists.
Honestly, I’d just rather Necron HQ’s to get some point drops.
bullyboy wrote: They didn’t specify a day for this, did they?
Nope, just "this week". You'd think they'd want to get it out early enough so that everyone can adjust before the weekend tournaments and such, but it's gw, so who knows.
bullyboy wrote: They didn’t specify a day for this, did they?
Nope, just "this week". You'd think they'd want to get it out early enough so that everyone can adjust before the weekend tournaments and such, but it's gw, so who knows.
It's a month ahead of schedule. I doubt they had it written before that announcement.
How much time do they need to write a pdf file?
Lets say with decision making, someone actually writing it, then someone proofing if it is writen correctly and if it had to move around different departaments, then it is maybe 3-4 days. And they knew what rules they gave void weavers months in advance.
bullyboy wrote: They didn’t specify a day for this, did they?
Nope, just "this week". You'd think they'd want to get it out early enough so that everyone can adjust before the weekend tournaments and such, but it's gw, so who knows.
It's a month ahead of schedule. I doubt they had it written before that announcement.
They've had time to consider what to do with Custodes and Tau for a while, so Harlequins should be the only thing that requires "emergency" decisions. I seriously doubt that this will do anything besides whack those particular three moles. The question is just how, and how hard.
Karol wrote: How much time do they need to write a pdf file?
Lets say with decision making, someone actually writing it, then someone proofing if it is writen correctly and if it had to move around different departaments, then it is maybe 3-4 days. And they knew what rules they gave void weavers months in advance.
They wrote the CW book more than 6 months ago. That info long since left their purview until it became a problem upon release.
Really? non of the testers and no one at the studio didn't look at void weavers, specially with the limited number of model combination harlis have, and asked the question "what happens if I take 9 of those". I could imagine this happening If I was designing a game with my mom, but not a company with 30+ years of expiriance and designers who have been working on games for decades.
Most of the designers haven't been working on games for decades. Theres 1-2 who have been there between 20-30 years, 3-4 who have been there 10-20 years, and then a larger number of younger and less experienced designers.
GW business development has been making the right choices for years (as has been evidenced by sales and profits) and they have nothing to do with competitive balance, testing, or tournaments.
Karol wrote: Really? non of the testers and no one at the studio didn't look at void weavers, specially with the limited number of model combination harlis have, and asked the question "what happens if I take 9 of those". I could imagine this happening If I was designing a game with my mom, but not a company with 30+ years of expiriance and designers who have been working on games for decades.
Couldn't tell you. I don't know if the testers got those rules and gave them the thumbs up or if they had different points or some other confluence of variables.
It isn't a stretch for someone to look at a DE Raider and see it getting ( at that time ) a single D3+3 shot for 85 points to turn around and say that something with 4 fewer wounds and less toughness would be ok at 90 points. The Prismatic cannon being 2D3 damage is also a little "worse" than D3+3, so adding a shot may not have seemed horrible.
TwinPoleTheory wrote: GW business development has been making the right choices for years (as has been evidenced by sales and profits) and they have nothing to do with competitive balance, testing, or tournaments.
That is patently false. Several rules writers have left GW and stated publicly that their hands were tied on certain balancing decisions because the accountants were using rules to push sales of models. What you say would only be true if the rules writers had no influence from higher ups and full autonomy to write the rules as they see fit.
TwinPoleTheory wrote: GW business development has been making the right choices for years (as has been evidenced by sales and profits) and they have nothing to do with competitive balance, testing, or tournaments.
That is patently false. Several rules writers have left GW and stated publicly that their hands were tied on certain balancing decisions because the accountants were using rules to push sales of models. What you say would only be true if the rules writers had no influence from higher ups and full autonomy to write the rules as they see fit.
TwinPoleTheory wrote: GW business development has been making the right choices for years (as has been evidenced by sales and profits) and they have nothing to do with competitive balance, testing, or tournaments.
That is patently false. Several rules writers have left GW and stated publicly that their hands were tied on certain balancing decisions because the accountants were using rules to push sales of models. What you say would only be true if the rules writers had no influence from higher ups and full autonomy to write the rules as they see fit.
Source?
I'm not going to dig up years old tweets but sure I'll play along. Here's from an article published in Goonhammer...
"So, we all worked on the End Times books, but at the same time we knew that there was work being done behind the scenes, in a locked room, which we were not allowed to go into but could occasionally peek into, where they had a bunch of people like John Blanche, Alan Merrett, we had various higher ups... So then AoS finally left “the room” and came out to us. Jervis Johnson had been working on it in the room, so he headed up the rules design. But he was under a lot of pressure from the other people who had been in that room for a long time where a lot of the decisions had been made about exactly what it was going to be and how it was going to work and what it would have and wouldn’t have, a lot of the decisions had been made above a rules level (remember, it’s miniatures then setting then rules), which then impacted on the rules. "
So Jervis was in a room with the higher ups brainstorming a bunch of ideas for AoS. The other rules writers weren't even allowed in the room during these conversations. Then Jervis sits down with the junior rules writers and says "Ok we're making AoS but it has to be this way and that way, it has to include x, y, and z, because the corporate suits in those closed door meetings demand it for model sales."
This isn't some big secret, it's common knowledge that rules are sometimes written to sell models with balance being an afterthought if they even think about it at all. Guys like James Hewitt in that interview are just confirming what anyone with a half a brain would realize from playing the game for a couple editions and keeping up with the new codexes that get released. It's not some revelation, it's like walking around all day smelling poop and then finding some on the bottom of your shoe.
TwinPoleTheory wrote: GW business development has been making the right choices for years (as has been evidenced by sales and profits) and they have nothing to do with competitive balance, testing, or tournaments.
That is patently false. Several rules writers have left GW and stated publicly that their hands were tied on certain balancing decisions because the accountants were using rules to push sales of models. What you say would only be true if the rules writers had no influence from higher ups and full autonomy to write the rules as they see fit.
I think perhaps you're not reading what I wrote the right way or I've failed horribly in communicating, either of which is possible, but in short, I agree with you. Business development is happy, because sales and profits are up (they have been for awhile), this has nothing to do with rules, balance, tournaments, or testing, these decisions are correct from the perspective of business development (sell more stuff, get more customers).
Some other gems from the same interview, AoS became a mess of close combat at the center of the table every game because they literally wrote the entire 4 page core ruleset based only on the models that came in the boxed starter game. Because "that's what we were told to do". In a game with 20 factions and infinite possible army combinations, they based their entire ruleset on a few units from 2 factions in the starter set.
"Now, when you think about the contents of that core box, it is all infantry, with short range weaponry. The only ranged attack in there is the hammers being thrown, so the rules were written around close up engagement with no ranged combat at all. Because that’s what we were told to do.
And it got to this point where there was this sudden mad dash. There was this huge long development period, behind closed doors, and then suddenly, it all had to be done yesterday. And so, there was no time to consider questions like: Right, how does ranged combat work? How does a massed ranged army function? What does it do? How are you dealing with different types of units? Y’know, combined arms… That all became… “just get it done”.
Also, there were two or three edicts from on high which impacted the rules in a big way, and one of them was “Bases don’t count, ignore bases”. Which was weird. But that was the thing they wanted to do because they, the people at the top, said not every model has a base, so we can’t say that bases are a thing. And we don’t want to restrict people’s modelling. There was a big drive at that time to pull the game away from the hands of the gamers, so to speak, and make it more about collecting and modelling.
Especially when then, someone up high then got spooked during that 11th hour dash and said “actually, no. Add in some sudden death mechanics, so that if one side is horribly outnumbered, it has a chance to make a last stand” we said “ok, can we use number of wounds rather than number of models, as one dragon is not outnumbered by three goblins”. “Nope, using wounds is too much like using points, just use number of models”.
And so, our hands were tied. By this very imposing upper team, who had the complete say on everything."
After reading this, it's not surprising at all that GW games are horrible for balance. You have accountants who have never played a game of Warhammer telling the rules writers how to write the rules.
Toofast wrote: . . .
After reading this, it's not surprising at all that GW games are horrible for balance. You have accountants who have never played a game of Warhammer telling the rules writers how to write the rules.
I want to be fair to accountants here and say that it's very likely actual accountants had nothing to do with those decisions. But yes, not designer/s either. Some dumb manager who either doesn't play the game or only does so in a very superficial way.
Toofast wrote: . . .
After reading this, it's not surprising at all that GW games are horrible for balance. You have accountants who have never played a game of Warhammer telling the rules writers how to write the rules.
I want to be fair to accountants here and say that it's very likely actual accountants had nothing to do with those decisions. But yes, not designer/s either. Some dumb manager who either doesn't play the game or only does so in a very superficial way.
I would also add that it has been 7 years since AoS was released and at the time Kirby was leading the company. Now, that's not to say that everything is peachy at GWHQ, but 7 years is a long time in the industry so we have no idea how things are done right now.
GW is a very opaque company and often hard to get recent information from it. I think the last twitter thread was from one of the AT designers that I remember.
Karol wrote: Really? non of the testers and no one at the studio didn't look at void weavers, specially with the limited number of model combination harlis have, and asked the question "what happens if I take 9 of those".
I can imagine the conversation went something like this:
Guy #1: "Great! We'll make a quick xxx$ as everyone* rushes to buy 9 of them! Good job {fill in name}!" (*everyone being defined as mostly tourney players) Guy #2: "But.... aren't we making these things horribly broken by doing this?"
Guy #3: "Don't worry about it {fill in name}. It'll only be for a month or two & largely only in tournaments because we'll just "fix" them with the next Balance Slate."
Rest of group: "LoL. Yeah, stupid players, buying the rules effective models right away...."
Some one else: "Plus those idiots actually praise us for releasing these Balance Slates! It's a win/win! We get that sweet sweet sales boost AND everyone thinks we're fixing the game."
Guy #1: "Ok, that about wraps it up. For next meeting everyone think about wich Tyranid unit to do this song & dance with."
I'm fairly sure that the op voidweaver spam wasn't intended. Overlooked, yes, but not intended.
I'm sure the balance dataslate is coming this soon, because they saw the results from adepticon (which is public and wildly seen) and went into crisis control.
Warhammer 40k is never going to be balanced, just due to how many dataslates and rules interactions there are. There will always be a boogeyman, once harlequins get adjusted, it'll just be something else.
40k isn't really designed to be a tournament game, and gw doesn't advertise it as such. They only advertise one of their games as a competitive focused game.
Granted, I would like all the factions to be roughly on the same page.
Karol wrote: Really? non of the testers and no one at the studio didn't look at void weavers, specially with the limited number of model combination harlis have, and asked the question "what happens if I take 9 of those".
I can imagine the conversation went something like this:
Guy #1: "Great! We'll make a quick xxx$ as everyone* rushes to buy 9 of them! Good job {fill in name}!" (*everyone being defined as mostly tourney players) Guy #2: "But.... aren't we making these things horribly broken by doing this?"
Guy #3: "Don't worry about it {fill in name}. It'll only be for a month or two & largely only in tournaments because we'll just "fix" them with the next Balance Slate."
Rest of group: "LoL. Yeah, stupid players, buying the rules effective models right away...."
Some one else: "Plus those idiots actually praise us for releasing these Balance Slates! It's a win/win! We get that sweet sweet sales boost AND everyone thinks we're fixing the game."
Guy #1: "Ok, that about wraps it up. For next meeting everyone think about wich Tyranid unit to do this song & dance with."
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tneva82 wrote: You are sayinj they are more stupid than most stupid first grader. As even those would see the problem void reavers would be...
So what is it? GW is so stupid they couldn't figure it out before they went to print or GW is so insidious they make a diabolical plan to sell a single kit? Gotta pick a lane.
So what is it? GW is so stupid they couldn't figure it out before they went to print or GW is so insidious they make a diabolical plan to sell a single kit? Gotta pick a lane.
So what is it? GW is so stupid they couldn't figure it out before they went to print or GW is so insidious they make a diabolical plan to sell a single kit? Gotta pick a lane.
No you don't: Incompetent Malice!
And I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you rotten kids!
Gadzilla666 wrote: Is "rushed, overworked, and underpaid" a viable explanation? Or are we stuck arguing over malice or stupidity?
Stuck with malice and stupidity according to the internet even though it would be pretty hard to both be too stupid to balance the Voidweaver and ALSO make it busted maliciously.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Is "rushed, overworked, and underpaid" a viable explanation? Or are we stuck arguing over malice or stupidity?
Stuck with malice and stupidity according to the internet even though it would be pretty hard to both be too stupid to balance the Voidweaver and ALSO make it busted maliciously.
I don't think that tneva82 (making the stupidity argument) and ccs (making the malice argument) constitute "the internet".
The Eldar codex is a BIG book. I think it's entirely possible that changes to the Voidweaver were made after playtesting, and then never playtested, due to time constraints, similar to the change to the Dark Lance damage profile. Or that it was never sufficiently playtested at all. But that doesn't let gw off of the hook. It just means that the corporate leadership of the company needs to invest more into their rules writing and playtesting staff.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Is "rushed, overworked, and underpaid" a viable explanation? Or are we stuck arguing over malice or stupidity?
Its certainly a factor in the grand scheme of things, But I wonder how rushed overworked and underpayed you have to be to miss the Voidweaver being stupid for 90 points.
TwinPoleTheory wrote: GW business development has been making the right choices for years (as has been evidenced by sales and profits) and they have nothing to do with competitive balance, testing, or tournaments.
That is patently false. Several rules writers have left GW and stated publicly that their hands were tied on certain balancing decisions because the accountants were using rules to push sales of models. What you say would only be true if the rules writers had no influence from higher ups and full autonomy to write the rules as they see fit.
Source?
I'm not going to dig up years old tweets but sure I'll play along. Here's from an article published in Goonhammer...
"So, we all worked on the End Times books, but at the same time we knew that there was work being done behind the scenes, in a locked room, which we were not allowed to go into but could occasionally peek into, where they had a bunch of people like John Blanche, Alan Merrett, we had various higher ups... So then AoS finally left “the room” and came out to us. Jervis Johnson had been working on it in the room, so he headed up the rules design. But he was under a lot of pressure from the other people who had been in that room for a long time where a lot of the decisions had been made about exactly what it was going to be and how it was going to work and what it would have and wouldn’t have, a lot of the decisions had been made above a rules level (remember, it’s miniatures then setting then rules), which then impacted on the rules. "
So Jervis was in a room with the higher ups brainstorming a bunch of ideas for AoS. The other rules writers weren't even allowed in the room during these conversations. Then Jervis sits down with the junior rules writers and says "Ok we're making AoS but it has to be this way and that way, it has to include x, y, and z, because the corporate suits in those closed door meetings demand it for model sales."
This isn't some big secret, it's common knowledge that rules are sometimes written to sell models with balance being an afterthought if they even think about it at all. Guys like James Hewitt in that interview are just confirming what anyone with a half a brain would realize from playing the game for a couple editions and keeping up with the new codexes that get released. It's not some revelation, it's like walking around all day smelling poop and then finding some on the bottom of your shoe.
Do you have any evidence that isn't almost a decade old and coming from pre-reformation GW? How do you explain new models coming out with terrible rules? Can you point out anything that demonstrates such corporate meddling in rules and isn't most easily explained by incompetence?
It is a theory I am willing to be convinced on, but every time I've pushed for actual backing I get stuff that is either out of date, pure speculation, or simply false.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Is "rushed, overworked, and underpaid" a viable explanation? Or are we stuck arguing over malice or stupidity?
Stuck with malice and stupidity according to the internet even though it would be pretty hard to both be too stupid to balance the Voidweaver and ALSO make it busted maliciously.
I don't think that tneva82 (making the stupidity argument) and ccs (making the malice argument) constitute "the internet".
The Eldar codex is a BIG book. I think it's entirely possible that changes to the Voidweaver were made after playtesting, and then never playtested, due to time constraints, similar to the change to the Dark Lance damage profile. Or that it was never sufficiently playtested at all. But that doesn't let gw off of the hook. It just means that the corporate leadership of the company needs to invest more into their rules writing and playtesting staff.
Yeah, corporate is fully capable of influencing design without literally coming in and telling them what units should be good or not. That explanation falls within both razors, and thereby is the default assumption to make.
I want to be fair to accountants here and say that it's very likely actual accountants had nothing to do with those decisions. But yes, not designer/s either. Some dumb manager who either doesn't play the game or only does so in a very superficial way.
Yeah, I play minis games with a bunch of accountants and IRS agents and none of them would feth up things like that.
NinthMusketeer wrote: It is a theory I am willing to be convinced on, but every time I've pushed for actual backing I get stuff that is either out of date, pure speculation, or simply false.
The goal of business development is to sell new releases to existing customers and bring in new customers, a general directive will exist to this end, but it's not going to dictate things at an individual unit level. Consequently, some will be hit and miss, but the general idea will be to err on the side of making new releases as attractive as possible, thus influencing the rules, this is not a perfect science and misses will occur. But 'sell more to the customer base' and 'bring in new customers' will always be the goal. You're right in that it's not some mustache twirling cabal cackling about retiring on Harlequin sales, but the idea that balance or even competition is anywhere in the business plan is unlikely. Radical deviations will be addressed post release, there's no incentive to spend a lot of time and money on a testing phase that could impact a release schedule.
At the end of the day, you can't argue with the results, GW has enjoyed a lot of success over the past several years, profits and sales are up, the business is expanding into new areas, there's no business imperative to change direction really.
I'd be curious to hear a real business reason for missing a ship date in the interests of game balance, especially for a game that relies so heavily on books printed and kits manufactured months in advance.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Is "rushed, overworked, and underpaid" a viable explanation? Or are we stuck arguing over malice or stupidity?
For the designers, yes. The buck stops with someone, though, and that person is either malicious or stupid.
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NinthMusketeer wrote: Do you have any evidence that isn't almost a decade old and coming from pre-reformation GW? How do you explain new models coming out with terrible rules? Can you point out anything that demonstrates such corporate meddling in rules and isn't most easily explained by incompetence?
It is a theory I am willing to be convinced on, but every time I've pushed for actual backing I get stuff that is either out of date, pure speculation, or simply false.
This is goalpost moving.
Provide evidence that the company culture has changed. There were models coming out with terrible rules around the time the quote is describing, as well. The Wraithknight is the other well-known one where corporate just dropped the points value.
I think the modern trend has been that new models have underwhelming rules. People had aneurisms over Eradicators when the previews started, but if the Primaris' rules writers were issued a brief to make the line overpowered to sell models then they did a fantastically poor job. The two big releases of 9th (Primaris and Necrons) all had fairly ho-hum rules.
I think that there is, no doubt, corporate pressure to keep to the Codex release schedule. Time is a finite resource, and even the smartest people will make mistakes under time constraints. Perhaps various Codex teams simply ran out of time to get real play-testing before they had to ship the book? Do we really think that Notthingham was sitting on a surplus of Voidreavers and that the writers were told "Make this book sell Voidreavers with bonkers rules or its back to the street with the lot of you!"
Doesn't excuse the Harlequins, but I wonder if the Nottingham folks play a different 40K game in their closed garden?
Anyhoo. Looking forward to what the Easter Buggie will bring us.
Toofast wrote: . . .
After reading this, it's not surprising at all that GW games are horrible for balance. You have accountants who have never played a game of Warhammer telling the rules writers how to write the rules.
I want to be fair to accountants here and say that it's very likely actual accountants had nothing to do with those decisions. But yes, not designer/s either. Some dumb manager who either doesn't play the game or only does so in a very superficial way.
I would also add that it has been 7 years since AoS was released and at the time Kirby was leading the company. Now, that's not to say that everything is peachy at GWHQ, but 7 years is a long time in the industry so we have no idea how things are done right now.
GW is a very opaque company and often hard to get recent information from it. I think the last twitter thread was from one of the AT designers that I remember.
I'll give you that, but judging by the state of the 4 newest codexes on release, it seems like they're still using that methodology for rules. 9 voidweavers is broken because literally nobody at GW ever thought to playtest that list. They probably took 1 in a small Harlequin detachment as part of an eldar army using a mix of all their units, only playtested it against custodes, tau, and tyranids, and said "yup, good to go, ship it!" If a rules writer or playtester raised their hand and said "wait a minute, why don't we try this skew list because it seems like that unit would be really powerful", they were quickly shot down by higher ups, told to quit wasting time and get back to playtesting with just what's in the eldritch omens box.
I think that new models tend to sell themselves pretty well given the amount of positive comments they get on social media and the like. I think the meta chasing tournament scene tends to overvalue itself when it comes to how much they are putting into the company.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Is "rushed, overworked, and underpaid" a viable explanation? Or are we stuck arguing over malice or stupidity?
Stuck with malice and stupidity according to the internet even though it would be pretty hard to both be too stupid to balance the Voidweaver and ALSO make it busted maliciously.
I don't think that tneva82 (making the stupidity argument) and ccs (making the malice argument) constitute "the internet".
The Eldar codex is a BIG book. I think it's entirely possible that changes to the Voidweaver were made after playtesting, and then never playtested, due to time constraints, similar to the change to the Dark Lance damage profile. Or that it was never sufficiently playtested at all. But that doesn't let gw off of the hook. It just means that the corporate leadership of the company needs to invest more into their rules writing and playtesting staff.
I'm in several FB groups and reddit frequently. The amount of people claiming the new ( and terrible ) Tzaangor AOR was a ploy to sell Tzaangors was off the hook.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Is "rushed, overworked, and underpaid" a viable explanation? Or are we stuck arguing over malice or stupidity?
Its certainly a factor in the grand scheme of things, But I wonder how rushed overworked and underpayed you have to be to miss the Voidweaver being stupid for 90 points.
I mentioned it earlier, but no one seemed to take it up. How stupid was the Raider at 85? Does a VW, which has fewer wounds at 5 points more seem absurd at that point? People used to have 6 or 7 Raiders running around.
TwinPoleTheory wrote: there's no incentive to spend a lot of time and money on a testing phase that could impact a release schedule.
That's it right there. They need releases and they need them on a schedule. It needs to go to print to slot it in time regardless of where they are in any sort of testing process. The bean counters aren't going to hold up the show to make sure things are right. Look at Cyberpunk 2077 or any other half-released video game in recent years.
Hecaton wrote: The Wraithknight is the other well-known one where corporate just dropped the points value.
The only documented case where a person in "a position of authority ( who has since left )" had an opinion on a single model and no others.
When "The Eldar codex was designed at a time when we were told to make things a) exciting and interesting and b) reflect the narrative at all costs."
And "As I say, though those days are over "
Which sounds more to me like someone wanted the Wraithknight to be "exciting and interesting" rather than corporate handing down an edict.
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Dai wrote: I think that new models tend to sell themselves pretty well given the amount of positive comments they get on social media and the like. I think the meta chasing tournament scene tends to overvalue itself when it comes to how much they are putting into the company.
Agreed. See people pledging to buy Squats. No rules needed.
Insectum7 wrote: I tend not to blame the actual designers, because they aren't the bosses.
But they are the ones writing the rules. They have to have accountability of that.
They do, but it's a little like programmers. They know bugs exist, but management moves forward anyway. It's doubly worse when you're dealing in a physical product.
Hecaton wrote: The Wraithknight is the other well-known one where corporate just dropped the points value.
The only documented case where a person in "a position of authority ( who has since left )" had an opinion on a single model and no others.
When "The Eldar codex was designed at a time when we were told to make things a) exciting and interesting and b) reflect the narrative at all costs."
And "As I say, though those days are over "
Which sounds more to me like someone wanted the Wraithknight to be "exciting and interesting" rather than corporate handing down an edict.
Again, goalpost moving. We know it happened. Like what probably happened with the Ork codex - the goal was not to provide Ork players with a fun experience, the goal was to sell Beast Snagga models, and punish them if they didn't buy them.
Insectum7 wrote: I tend not to blame the actual designers, because they aren't the bosses.
But they are the ones writing the rules. They have to have accountability of that.
Potentially to very little degree. If they can't playtest enough, for example. Or if their time is spent wasted in droll meetings instead of at their desk working. At the end of the day it's the responsibility of management to ensure a quality product (if they care). The individual designers matter, sure, but it's management who decides what to prioritize from a product perspective. If a designer is downright bad, it's also on management to replace them with a better designer.
Hecaton wrote: Again, goalpost moving. We know it happened. Like what probably happened with the Ork codex - the goal was not to provide Ork players with a fun experience, the goal was to sell Beast Snagga models
So that's why Snaggas were so amazing? There's been literal dozens of them. Dozens, I say!
and punish them if they didn't buy them
So you infer that nerfing buggies was punishment for not buying snaggas?
Hecaton wrote: Again, goalpost moving. We know it happened. Like what probably happened with the Ork codex - the goal was not to provide Ork players with a fun experience, the goal was to sell Beast Snagga models
So that's why Snaggas were so amazing? There's been literal dozens of them. Dozens, I say!
and punish them if they didn't buy them
So you infer that nerfing buggies was punishment for not buying snaggas?
I'm sure they intended for those players to buy more of something.
Insectum7 wrote: Potentially to very little degree. If they can't playtest enough, for example. Or if their time is spent wasted in droll meetings instead of at their desk working. At the end of the day it's the responsibility of management to ensure a quality product (if they care). The individual designers matter, sure, but it's management who decides what to prioritize from a product perspective. If a designer is downright bad, it's also on management to replace them with a better designer.
How many playtest games with 9 void weavers, old liquifires etc does one need to know that this things are or were bad for the game? A large chunk of the community knows if, even before playing any games with or against them.
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ccs 804430 11344113 wrote:
I'm sure they intended for those players to buy more of something.
This has to be a policy for only some books. For example if anyone played GK under 8th ed, then his amy consisted of 4 NDKs, draigo and strikes and interceptors. Termintors, tanks etc were bad. Special characters aside for Voldus and Draigo were not run. 9th ed codex made the GK lists consists of 5, later 4 NDKs, so no buying happens. Loads of strikes and 20-30 interceptors. So the same models. On top of that Voldus were made bad. Crow was locked behind big box for a long time, but not many GK players cared, because his rules were bad.
Insectum7 wrote: Potentially to very little degree. If they can't playtest enough, for example. Or if their time is spent wasted in droll meetings instead of at their desk working. At the end of the day it's the responsibility of management to ensure a quality product (if they care). The individual designers matter, sure, but it's management who decides what to prioritize from a product perspective. If a designer is downright bad, it's also on management to replace them with a better designer.
How many playtest games with 9 void weavers, old liquifires etc does one need to know that this things are or were bad for the game? A large chunk of the community knows if, even before playing any games with or against them.
No idea. But maybe they didn't test with enough, or maybe the player wasn't enough the competetive sort, or maybe the big boss said "Make it cheap! We have a box set we want to move off the shelves!"
The point is really that the inner workings of a company can be very convoluted and opaque. It's not fair to just jump on an individual designer because there may have been variables completely out of their control, and it's important to remember that higher-ups are calling the shots, as well as defining the environment that people have to work in.
Insectum7 wrote: Potentially to very little degree. If they can't playtest enough, for example. Or if their time is spent wasted in droll meetings instead of at their desk working. At the end of the day it's the responsibility of management to ensure a quality product (if they care). The individual designers matter, sure, but it's management who decides what to prioritize from a product perspective. If a designer is downright bad, it's also on management to replace them with a better designer.
How many playtest games with 9 void weavers, old liquifires etc does one need to know that this things are or were bad for the game? A large chunk of the community knows if, even before playing any games with or against them.
No idea. But maybe they didn't test with enough, or maybe the player wasn't enough the competetive sort, or maybe the big boss said "Make it cheap! We have a box set we want to move off the shelves!"
The point is really that the inner workings of a company can be very convoluted and opaque. It's not fair to just jump on an individual designer because there may have been variables completely out of their control, and it's important to remember that higher-ups are calling the shots, as well as defining the environment that people have to work in.
Some things should just be apparently obvious. Think about the Iron Hand supplement
in the past: tests were not allowed in house, the baordgame designers explicit said that they did it in secret at home
often the first draft of rules were used and at least once the points were adjusted to make the desired amount of models fit into a standard game
"now": external testers do not get the full rules and/or different drafts to test
we don't know if the actual rules are ever tested/played before release
we also know that the different "teams" don't know what the others are working on going so far that 2 different lists for points for the same product are around at the same time
thing is even if there is a proper testing of new releases, that they need to be backwards compatible with broken factions released before screws the whole process over
unless every faction gets a balance update each time a new one is released
No idea. But maybe they didn't test with enough, or maybe the player wasn't enough the competetive sort, or maybe the big boss said "Make it cheap! We have a box set we want to move off the shelves!"
The point is really that the inner workings of a company can be very convoluted and opaque. It's not fair to just jump on an individual designer because there may have been variables completely out of their control, and it's important to remember that higher-ups are calling the shots, as well as defining the environment that people have to work in.
I don't know how it works in other countries, but here if you are resposible for something, you are responsible for it. If you don't want to be responsible for stuff, then pick a job with less or no responsibility. And there is also no way there is just one dude working on the book, and no one not even the head of the design team took a glance at it. Someone has to review those thing. And again we are talking here about people who had been in the industry for decades and the biggest table top company in the world, that exists for more then 6 months.
"now": external testers do not get the full rules and/or different drafts to test
we don't know if the actual rules are ever tested/played before release
This. I remember seeing a playtester saying before Ad-Mech released when they playtested them their lascannons were still D6. Not D3 + 3.
No idea. But maybe they didn't test with enough, or maybe the player wasn't enough the competetive sort, or maybe the big boss said "Make it cheap! We have a box set we want to move off the shelves!"
The point is really that the inner workings of a company can be very convoluted and opaque. It's not fair to just jump on an individual designer because there may have been variables completely out of their control, and it's important to remember that higher-ups are calling the shots, as well as defining the environment that people have to work in.
I don't know how it works in other countries, but here if you are resposible for something, you are responsible for it.
Is the designer responsible for bad design? Or is the lead designer responsible for giving that much responsibility to a single designer? Or is the overall manager responsible for not providing adequate time for playtesting? Or was the project producer at fault for scheduling so little time for the project, due to a scheduling conflict with shipping? Or was it a higher-up giving bad direction to a team who knows better, but is powerless to do anything about it because of lousy cooperate culture? Whos responsible for broken cooperate culture?
Big teams making stuff have all sorts of ways that things can get really screwed up along the way.
There is an easy way to check, if someone is responsible for something. It is a fan project, you work for free etc? the responsibility is limited, if there even is any. But if you take money, if you have a contract , take a scholarship or have sponsors then you are 100% responsible for what you do and what happens. Now other people can be responsible for things too. Earth is not a one person per plant being responsible place. But everything else, aka there was too much work, I was pushed etc is just excusses. And if someone can't do the job properly, then they should leave and make space for people that can do it.
And again how much playtesting is needed to look at the void weaver with 2 cannons and the gun of death to know it is very powerful, maybe oppresively so. And that is before seeing how many points it costs.
Try going to your sports trainer or boss, and explaining to them that the work is not done or is done bad, you take no responsibility for it, because it is other people foult. And you are working under contract. That is how small children behave, and I say this as someone who isn't 18 yet.
What is next, I felt so bad about the coof, that I couldn't work properly and there for the rules I wrote at home aren't that good? That is a 2.0 version of dog ate my homework.
Mmm, Karol, you've found the reasoning behind the phenomena where, if something goes bad on a project, the manager can blame it on one small contributor or team and let them go. But if the project goes well, said manager can of course claim the responsibility was all theirs, and receive a pat on the back and forthcoming bonuses.
Ive explained to my boss that my work is suffering due to my own mental health problems on a few occasions and they have empathised and done all they can to help, this is a key way of keeping a happy and more productive work force.
Lets look at it another way, video games. Horrible company treats staff horrendously as often is the case, long hours, poor management, rushed release. Who is at fault for a game being a buggy mess on release?
Karol, your assignment is to write a musical score for a movie. I can't screen it for you, I wont even tell you the genre, or give you a copy of the script. You have a budget of $10 to hire musicians. You have three days. If it's not good, not only will I fire you from the firm, but I'll blacklist you and you'll never work in this town again.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Is "rushed, overworked, and underpaid" a viable explanation? Or are we stuck arguing over malice or stupidity?
Stuck with malice and stupidity according to the internet even though it would be pretty hard to both be too stupid to balance the Voidweaver and ALSO make it busted maliciously.
I don't think that tneva82 (making the stupidity argument) and ccs (making the malice argument) constitute "the internet".
The Eldar codex is a BIG book. I think it's entirely possible that changes to the Voidweaver were made after playtesting, and then never playtested, due to time constraints, similar to the change to the Dark Lance damage profile. Or that it was never sufficiently playtested at all. But that doesn't let gw off of the hook. It just means that the corporate leadership of the company needs to invest more into their rules writing and playtesting staff.
I'm in several FB groups and reddit frequently. The amount of people claiming the new ( and terrible ) Tzaangor AOR was a ploy to sell Tzaangors was off the hook.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Is "rushed, overworked, and underpaid" a viable explanation? Or are we stuck arguing over malice or stupidity?
Its certainly a factor in the grand scheme of things, But I wonder how rushed overworked and underpayed you have to be to miss the Voidweaver being stupid for 90 points.
I mentioned it earlier, but no one seemed to take it up. How stupid was the Raider at 85? Does a VW, which has fewer wounds at 5 points more seem absurd at that point? People used to have 6 or 7 Raiders running around.
If the Voidweaver had a single shot you might have a point, but it has double the shots of a Raider, and an extremely powerful alternate fire mode, 2 extra anti infantry guns, a better invul safe aswell as -1 hit and no re-roll hits
There is no way that list compares to -5 points and a transport capacity.
I wonder if they'll do what they did for the AoS balance update, where there isn't points changes, but a bounty system on killing trouble units. That'd be funny.
I think its sort of exaggerated as a great gotcha against 40k. Although it does make sense.
Basically people assume GW had a concept of a unit, write some rules and give it a points value.
Whereas in reality, they had a model, with a certain identifiable RRP. So say its £25 (now about £33) which means they want it to be 100 points. Well its going to be 100 points. Rules designers could then be cool or boring - with a preference for cool - but this doesn't change the fact that its going to be 100 points, because GW was then married to around 4~ points per £1 spent. (With some outsiders.)
Gadzilla666 wrote: Is "rushed, overworked, and underpaid" a viable explanation? Or are we stuck arguing over malice or stupidity?
Stuck with malice and stupidity according to the internet even though it would be pretty hard to both be too stupid to balance the Voidweaver and ALSO make it busted maliciously.
I don't think that tneva82 (making the stupidity argument) and ccs (making the malice argument) constitute "the internet".
The Eldar codex is a BIG book. I think it's entirely possible that changes to the Voidweaver were made after playtesting, and then never playtested, due to time constraints, similar to the change to the Dark Lance damage profile. Or that it was never sufficiently playtested at all. But that doesn't let gw off of the hook. It just means that the corporate leadership of the company needs to invest more into their rules writing and playtesting staff.
I'm in several FB groups and reddit frequently. The amount of people claiming the new ( and terrible ) Tzaangor AOR was a ploy to sell Tzaangors was off the hook.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Is "rushed, overworked, and underpaid" a viable explanation? Or are we stuck arguing over malice or stupidity?
Its certainly a factor in the grand scheme of things, But I wonder how rushed overworked and underpayed you have to be to miss the Voidweaver being stupid for 90 points.
I mentioned it earlier, but no one seemed to take it up. How stupid was the Raider at 85? Does a VW, which has fewer wounds at 5 points more seem absurd at that point? People used to have 6 or 7 Raiders running around.
If the Voidweaver had a single shot you might have a point, but it has double the shots of a Raider, and an extremely powerful alternate fire mode, 2 extra anti infantry guns, a better invul safe aswell as -1 hit and no re-roll hits
There is no way that list compares to -5 points and a transport capacity.
Aye, it's a bad comparison. A Raider is a transport, which pays for its transport capacity and for being Open Topped, and it only has one (albeit a very good one) gun. Voidweavers are pure gunboats, with more firepower and no transport capacity. The more apt comparison is the Ravager, which is currently 130 PPM with three Dark Lances, but has had a fairly recent points cut. If I remember correctly, back when Raiders were 85 PPM, a Ravager was 140 PPM? 145? And more importantly, they don't come 3 per HS slot.
Aye, it's a bad comparison. A Raider is a transport, which pays for its transport capacity and for being Open Topped, and it only has one (albeit a very good one) gun. Voidweavers are pure gunboats, with more firepower and no transport capacity. The more apt comparison is the Ravager, which is currently 130 PPM with three Dark Lances, but has had a fairly recent points cut. If I remember correctly, back when Raiders were 85 PPM, a Ravager was 140 PPM? 145? And more importantly, they don't come 3 per HS slot.
Yeah, this is where I come up. A Voidweaver fires less AT shots than a Ravager but has alternate fire modes and shuriken cannons that make up for it. It has fewer wounds but a 4++ and a -1 and no-rerolls so that's basically a wash too. If Voidweavers were to get nerfed to 130 PPM, I would think that was harsh but fair given just how strongly they (and the army) have overperformed. If you're bringing 3 of them, that won't completely break your back either.
Hecaton wrote: The Wraithknight is the other well-known one where corporate just dropped the points value.
The only documented case where a person in "a position of authority ( who has since left )" had an opinion on a single model and no others.
When "The Eldar codex was designed at a time when we were told to make things a) exciting and interesting and b) reflect the narrative at all costs."
And "As I say, though those days are over "
Which sounds more to me like someone wanted the Wraithknight to be "exciting and interesting" rather than corporate handing down an edict.
Again, goalpost moving. We know it happened. Like what probably happened with the Ork codex - the goal was not to provide Ork players with a fun experience, the goal was to sell Beast Snagga models, and punish them if they didn't buy them.
how to tell somebody is just pulling something from thin air. beast snagga boyz were terrible on launch and are terrible now.
the new model that was actually good were good on release were squig riders and squig bosses, but their synergy is not great with the strongest clans so buggy spam was and still is the only real competitive build sadly.
Tthe Killrig got so much "its too OP" comments from reviewers and the community when the codex was released that before the model was even released it got a nerfed. I think that was a enw one for GW a pre model for sale nerf, killrig spoiler alert was not game breaking at its not really taken now.
OK, so the 'it's all a GW scheme' people still have no basis for their argument beyond speculation, got it. Figured that hadn't changed, but good to confirm once in a while.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Is "rushed, overworked, and underpaid" a viable explanation? Or are we stuck arguing over malice or stupidity?
Stuck with malice and stupidity according to the internet even though it would be pretty hard to both be too stupid to balance the Voidweaver and ALSO make it busted maliciously.
I don't think that tneva82 (making the stupidity argument) and ccs (making the malice argument) constitute "the internet".
The Eldar codex is a BIG book. I think it's entirely possible that changes to the Voidweaver were made after playtesting, and then never playtested, due to time constraints, similar to the change to the Dark Lance damage profile. Or that it was never sufficiently playtested at all. But that doesn't let gw off of the hook. It just means that the corporate leadership of the company needs to invest more into their rules writing and playtesting staff.
I'm in several FB groups and reddit frequently. The amount of people claiming the new ( and terrible ) Tzaangor AOR was a ploy to sell Tzaangors was off the hook.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Is "rushed, overworked, and underpaid" a viable explanation? Or are we stuck arguing over malice or stupidity?
Its certainly a factor in the grand scheme of things, But I wonder how rushed overworked and underpayed you have to be to miss the Voidweaver being stupid for 90 points.
I mentioned it earlier, but no one seemed to take it up. How stupid was the Raider at 85? Does a VW, which has fewer wounds at 5 points more seem absurd at that point? People used to have 6 or 7 Raiders running around.
If the Voidweaver had a single shot you might have a point, but it has double the shots of a Raider, and an extremely powerful alternate fire mode, 2 extra anti infantry guns, a better invul safe aswell as -1 hit and no re-roll hits
There is no way that list compares to -5 points and a transport capacity.
Aye, it's a bad comparison. A Raider is a transport, which pays for its transport capacity and for being Open Topped, and it only has one (albeit a very good one) gun. Voidweavers are pure gunboats, with more firepower and no transport capacity.
Aside, I can't help but think that people put far too much value on Open Topped.
It's useful for all of one unit in the DE book... which happens to also be one of the worst units in the codex.
Are people perhaps thinking of the old rules, which used to provide bonuses to melee units as well as shooting ones?
NinthMusketeer wrote: OK, so the 'it's all a GW scheme' people still have no basis for their argument beyond speculation, got it. Figured that hadn't changed, but good to confirm once in a while.
because it is easier to believe the company you give 1000s of dollars has a hidden scheme to mess things up, rather than the company you gave 1000s of dollars is an incompetent and don't know what they are doing
Gadzilla666 wrote: Is "rushed, overworked, and underpaid" a viable explanation? Or are we stuck arguing over malice or stupidity?
Stuck with malice and stupidity according to the internet even though it would be pretty hard to both be too stupid to balance the Voidweaver and ALSO make it busted maliciously.
I don't think that tneva82 (making the stupidity argument) and ccs (making the malice argument) constitute "the internet".
The Eldar codex is a BIG book. I think it's entirely possible that changes to the Voidweaver were made after playtesting, and then never playtested, due to time constraints, similar to the change to the Dark Lance damage profile. Or that it was never sufficiently playtested at all. But that doesn't let gw off of the hook. It just means that the corporate leadership of the company needs to invest more into their rules writing and playtesting staff.
I'm in several FB groups and reddit frequently. The amount of people claiming the new ( and terrible ) Tzaangor AOR was a ploy to sell Tzaangors was off the hook.
Gadzilla666 wrote: Is "rushed, overworked, and underpaid" a viable explanation? Or are we stuck arguing over malice or stupidity?
Its certainly a factor in the grand scheme of things, But I wonder how rushed overworked and underpayed you have to be to miss the Voidweaver being stupid for 90 points.
I mentioned it earlier, but no one seemed to take it up. How stupid was the Raider at 85? Does a VW, which has fewer wounds at 5 points more seem absurd at that point? People used to have 6 or 7 Raiders running around.
If the Voidweaver had a single shot you might have a point, but it has double the shots of a Raider, and an extremely powerful alternate fire mode, 2 extra anti infantry guns, a better invul safe aswell as -1 hit and no re-roll hits
There is no way that list compares to -5 points and a transport capacity.
Aye, it's a bad comparison. A Raider is a transport, which pays for its transport capacity and for being Open Topped, and it only has one (albeit a very good one) gun. Voidweavers are pure gunboats, with more firepower and no transport capacity.
Aside, I can't help but think that people put far too much value on Open Topped.
It's useful for all of one unit in the DE book... which happens to also be one of the worst units in the codex.
Are people perhaps thinking of the old rules, which used to provide bonuses to melee units as well as shooting ones?
It isn't so much how much value we put on it, but how much gw puts on it. It's an ability that they obviously put some value onto, and contributes to the Raider's price, but not the Voidweaver's or Ravager's, which is one of the reasons the Raider is a bad comparison to the Voidweaver. And gw does tend to overvalue transport capacity and abilities associated with it, even if those abilities are no longer existent. See: Land Raiders.
Insectum7 wrote: Potentially to very little degree. If they can't playtest enough, for example. Or if their time is spent wasted in droll meetings instead of at their desk working. At the end of the day it's the responsibility of management to ensure a quality product (if they care). The individual designers matter, sure, but it's management who decides what to prioritize from a product perspective. If a designer is downright bad, it's also on management to replace them with a better designer.
How many playtest games with 9 void weavers, old liquifires etc does one need to know that this things are or were bad for the game? A large chunk of the community knows if, even before playing any games with or against them.
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I'm sure they intended for those players to buy more of something.
This has to be a policy for only some books. For example if anyone played GK under 8th ed, then his amy consisted of 4 NDKs, draigo and strikes and interceptors. Termintors, tanks etc were bad. Special characters aside for Voldus and Draigo were not run. 9th ed codex made the GK lists consists of 5, later 4 NDKs, so no buying happens. Loads of strikes and 20-30 interceptors. So the same models. On top of that Voldus were made bad. Crow was locked behind big box for a long time, but not many GK players cared, because his rules were bad.
I don't think grey knight army construction has changed meaningfully since at least 7th.
When someone really wants a good perspective on how good the voidy is, they should compare it to a space marine tank. Star weaver or any of the good transports in 9th vs Impulsor always makes me chuckle.
Thats a problem with space marine tanks more than it is a problem with the Star/Voidweavers though. Space Marine tanks are widely regarded as being trash tier, underpowered, and overpriced.
IIRC the play testers in Nottingham just use the studio models to play. I don't have a citation, it's just something I think I remember reading in a WD. If that's the case then I doubt that the studio has 9 void weavers sitting in a display case (probably only have 3 or so). That would explain why nobody at HQ caught the problem. I have no idea why outside playtest groups wouldn't see the problem unless GW limits them to testing with the same models HQ has available.
They use staff armies to playtest (as well as sometimes studio armies? From what I understand the studio rarely actually builds/paints a single entirely cohesive army so I doubt thats what they are using to playtest unless they are using armies painted in a mixture of different colors, etc.). IIRC theres a requirement for each member of the design team (and certain other departments/roles) to collect and paint an army of a certain points value more or less for this purpose.
Daedalus81 wrote: So that's why Snaggas were so amazing? There's been literal dozens of them. Dozens, I say!
Pre-points hike Kill Rig was pretty sweet. Could see it being one of those "dictated from on high" balancing issues.
Daedalus81 wrote: So you infer that nerfing buggies was punishment for not buying snaggas?
More the state of Boyz. Gotta get people to buy those Beast Snaggas models.
Doesn't seem to be working for the Snaggas. Surely they could have dropped the points on them, but they didn't. Why?
Kill Rig was a red herring for the community. Just like the Nobs on Smashas. Everyone got their underwear in a twist over the math, but in the end they were no big deal.
Half the problem is the community creates this idea that models are pushed without contextualizing them into actual games and data. Everyone is going to run triple kill rigs! They're so amazing! crickets
And you'll still ignore the units that aren't beast snaggas that got really great. Your logic is entirely inconsistent.
I don't think grey knight army construction has changed meaningfully since at least 7th.
The end of sub-faction soup in CA: Nachmund 2022 was a big deal. People used to dual-brotherhood MOSTLY to get the 2nd GMNDK, but it meant that they had two detachments, each with their own Brotherhood trait.
Now that you can't do that (In Nachmund Matched Play Games), people are going single detachment again, meaning a) the army has more CP b) there is only one Brotherhood Trait in the Army and c) of course, only one GMNDK.
I don't know that that hits YOUR bar for meaningful change, but it certainly hits a lot of people's bar.
Gadzilla666 wrote: It isn't so much how much value we put on it, but how much gw puts on it. It's an ability that they obviously put some value onto, and contributes to the Raider's price, but not the Voidweaver's or Ravager's, which is one of the reasons the Raider is a bad comparison to the Voidweaver. And gw does tend to overvalue transport capacity and abilities associated with it, even if those abilities are no longer existent. See: Land Raiders.
People are underselling Trueborn a bit. Does "ignore hit roll modifiers" get past Light?
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Leo_the_Rat wrote: IIRC the play testers in Nottingham just use the studio models to play. I don't have a citation, it's just something I think I remember reading in a WD. If that's the case then I doubt that the studio has 9 void weavers sitting in a display case (probably only have 3 or so). That would explain why nobody at HQ caught the problem. I have no idea why outside playtest groups wouldn't see the problem unless GW limits them to testing with the same models HQ has available.
Yes, but there are supposed to be all these external playtesters as well. What the heck are they doing and where is their feedback going? It feels mostly like lip service as GW rushes books out the door.
Daedalus81 wrote: People are underselling Trueborn a bit. Does "ignore hit roll modifiers" get past Light?
I don't think so, because "Light" isn't a modifier. It's just a rule. Sort of an invulnerable for hit rolls. You'd need a rule that specifically ignores "Light" and similar rules.
Yes, but there are supposed to be all these external playtesters as well. What the heck are they doing and where is their feedback going? It feels mostly like lip service as GW rushes books out the door.
I think it's hit and miss, just based on what I can glean from Tabletop Tactics various commentaries. They complained about Dd6 for Necrons, but were told "that's what Command Rerolls are for", and it made it into the codex. The same complaints were listened to for Dark Lances, but TT never got to playtest the actual change to Dd3+3. Then, recently, Chef seemed to imply that changes had been made to Battle Focus based on their feedback. So, sometimes they listen, sometimes they don't, and sometimes when they do they don't playtest the changes, probably because of time constraints and printing schedules.
Insectum7 wrote: Potentially to very little degree. If they can't playtest enough, for example. Or if their time is spent wasted in droll meetings instead of at their desk working. At the end of the day it's the responsibility of management to ensure a quality product (if they care). The individual designers matter, sure, but it's management who decides what to prioritize from a product perspective. If a designer is downright bad, it's also on management to replace them with a better designer.
How many playtest games with 9 void weavers, old liquifires etc does one need to know that this things are or were bad for the game? A large chunk of the community knows if, even before playing any games with or against them.
Nick Nannavati couldn't tell and neither could any of the other people Goonhammer brought on to discuss the new codex before release. You should be able to tell after 1 playtest with 9 Voidweavers, at the very least you should be able to tell that it's something to continue testing and taking notes about their performance in lists where you bring 1-3.
Dai wrote: Ive explained to my boss that my work is suffering due to my own mental health problems on a few occasions and they have empathised and done all they can to help, this is a key way of keeping a happy and more productive work force.
Lets look at it another way, video games. Horrible company treats staff horrendously as often is the case, long hours, poor management, rushed release. Who is at fault for a game being a buggy mess on release?
Workers also have to quit working for companies that don't treat them right or allow them to do their craft right. Even if you put balance 100% on management there are a tonne of issues with how the designers design the game. Faction-secondaries in the "tournament" mission pack, decreased impact of primary objectives making faction secondaries even more impactful, free Chapter Tactics, faction Stratagems, free Relics, no Chapter Tactics for LOW Auxiliaries, CORE, Command Phase, Abhor the Witch, unique ability names instead of USR, re-roll auras, removing VEHICLE counter-play and incentives for melee weapons on Dreadnoughts by enabling them to shoot in melee, slow rolling being the default, Tesseract Vault unable to fall back and use its powers, Deceiver and Obyron no fun in 9th, Reanimator easier to kill than Spyder, 16 abilities on Silent King, Monolith melee>Seraptek melee, Daemons and Thousand Sons Stratagems being usable on units outside the codex (NEVERBORN would have been a unique faction keyword and there is no distinction between the DAEMON keyword and the DAEMON faction keyword)).
There is pretty much no way any of the above issues are due to anything but designers being bad at their jobs. You can say they were pressed for time but GW has had issues with badly designed rules forever and they used to produce way less content.
NinthMusketeer wrote: OK, so the 'it's all a GW scheme' people still have no basis for their argument beyond speculation, got it. Figured that hadn't changed, but good to confirm once in a while.
Just 30 years of watching GW do this. Though the Bait & Switch "For Balance!" changes shortly after release are a new twist.
It isn't so much how much value we put on it, but how much gw puts on it. It's an ability that they obviously put some value onto, and contributes to the Raider's price, but not the Voidweaver's or Ravager's, which is one of the reasons the Raider is a bad comparison to the Voidweaver. And gw does tend to overvalue transport capacity and abilities associated with it, even if those abilities are no longer existent. See: Land Raiders.
How about Stompa, Nautz, Battlewagonz and Trukk as well
Some genius decided the Stompa and the Nautz needed to be transports and priced them based upon how useful those transports would be! which is to say...not useful in the slightest, you could literally remove the entire transportation ability from them and the unit wouldn't get any worse.
As far as battlewagonz and trukkz, those are the open topped variants and good lord almighty are they paying a premium for those abilities. The irony being that GW prices them aggressively because open topped transport, but then on the specialist variants (Gunwagon/Bonebreaka) which lose most of that transportation capacity and open topped, they still somehow cost significantly more.
Battlewagon = 105pts, no guns, T7, 20 transportation capacity. In CC its 6 attacks base at WS5 S8 no AP. If you pay 15pts, bringing it to a whopping 120pts, it gets S9 AP-2 2dmg and WS2+ And if you pay 15pts more it can have "Ard Case" which is T8 but you lose open topped.
So 135pts gets you a 20 person transport at T8 with 6 S9 AP-2 2dmg attacks. Not bad, not great, but not bad. 20pts less and it might be competitive
Bonebreaker = 160pts This is a battlewagon with a DeffRolla and "Ard Case" already on it (135pts) however, it loses 40% of its transport capacity but gains D6 attacks....on the charge only. So you get to pay 25pts to lose 40% of your transport capacity and gain a conditional D6 attacks.
I would love for someone to justify how that makes any damn sense in the slightest. You pay 25pts on an already over priced model to LOSE transport capacity but gain a situational D6 attacks. So on average, you gain 3-4 attacks every other turn. So 25pts for 1.5-2 attacks a turn on average. Not exactly what I would call a good investment.
Leo_the_Rat wrote: IIRC the play testers in Nottingham just use the studio models to play. I don't have a citation, it's just something I think I remember reading in a WD. If that's the case then I doubt that the studio has 9 void weavers sitting in a display case (probably only have 3 or so). That would explain why nobody at HQ caught the problem. I have no idea why outside playtest groups wouldn't see the problem unless GW limits them to testing with the same models HQ has available.
if that is true that is likely one of the problems right there. This is a tabletop miniatures company and has been for 40 years. If by this point they don't have max sized units for everything barring maybe new stuff, they are wrong. Its not exactly a new concept that "OP" comes along with "spam". Voidweaver is OP, so do players take 1 or 2? No they take 9 the most allowed. Custodes bikes are broken...so they take maybe 1 squad of 3? No, they take 3 squads of 3. etc etc. So with that in mind you have to have max sized units to playtest the game. If a unit mathematically looks broken, run max size, and test it.
And the supreme Irony behind the whole nonsense is that GW has the easiest access to massive amounts of player feedback. They could just scroll through youtube, facebook or even on here and learn more about balance issues than their playtesters could have hoped to learn.
Hecaton wrote: Again, goalpost moving. We know it happened. Like what probably happened with the Ork codex - the goal was not to provide Ork players with a fun experience, the goal was to sell Beast Snagga models, and punish them if they didn't buy them.
Pre-points hike Kill Rig was pretty sweet. Could see it being one of those "dictated from on high" balancing issues.
More the state of Boyz. Gotta get people to buy those Beast Snaggas models.
if you are going to push a model you need to give it good rules, beastsnaggas didn't get good rules. They got mediocre rules which was demonstrated by the fact that they were massively out performed by almost every other 9th edition army in the game at the time of their release, and since then its only gotten worse (tau, custards, Harlies, Eldar, etc). So they managed to yet again take NEW ork units, give them mediocre to bad rules and then get surprised when they don't sell as much as they thought they would.
Pre-points hike the kill rig saw SOME but not much, competitive play. It was for the most part a beautifully distracting model with mediocre ranged output for its price, some ok psychic powers and was pretty good in CC. Post Price hike, its the exact same just worse. Pre points hike it was borderline competitive, not all the way into that meta but close, post, its just a for fun unit.
As far as Beastsnaggas....they are the exact same as boyz just with base S5 and a 6+ invuln as opposed to 6+ armor. They also have their beast snagga rule which gives them +1 to hit against vehicles and monsters but that isn't exactly a big deal since almost all of our buffing characters give +1 to hit already.
So, if they really wanted to push Beastsnaggas over regular boyz they should have given them a lot more meaningful rules/buffs that make them competitive in a meta where infantry dies in droves unless they are custodes/harlies with 4+ invulns and -1 to hit. Personally i think this was GW's fault for massively overvaluing the durability buff of T5.
People are underselling Trueborn a bit. Does "ignore hit roll modifiers" get past Light?
Not really. Ignore all hit roll modifiers would be fantastic . . . on a different unit. (And no, they don't get past Light.)
Indeed, even the Trueborn of the past would have adored such a rule. The current Trueborn? Not so much.
To understand why, you first need to understand the problems with Kabalites. Their basic weapons are, to put it frankly, dismal. Poison 4+ on a AP0 D1 weapon is simply not useful. Bear in mind, this was the profile they had back when Carnifexes had just 4 wounds. Now a Carnifex has more than twice that number of wounds, yet the gun remains unchanged. Not only that, but toughness matters far less than it once did - so always wounding on a 4+ provides minimal advantage even over the ordinary Bolter (and Kabalites have neither Bolter Discipline nor Doctrines to improve it). Plus, with so many Monsters having 2+ armour saves (and most other T5+ units having multiple wounds apiece), there are very few targets against which they can inflict meaningful damage. Not only that but they get no bonuses against Infantry (and are actually worse than Bolters against T3 targets), so even as a basic, anti-infantry weapon they suck.
And bear in mind that, despite supposedly being the richest and best-equipped Kabalites shy of the Archons themselves, Trueborn can't replace these weapons willy-nilly. So at least 6/10 members of the unit will be wielding these pieces of crap. Though more likely 7/10 as the sergeant has nothing useful to replace his gun with.
So what about special weapons? Well, a 10-man unit can take two Blasters. Only problem is that Blasters are still stuck at the D1d6 profile, despite just being more portable Dark Lances. So they're mediocre at best. Same goes for the Shredder, which seems to be a gun in search of a target.
Lastly, the squad can take a single Heavy weapon. Sorry, I meant a single Dark Lance because no one with more than a single brain cell is going to take the sack of crap that is the Splinter Cannon. And the Dark Lance is a perfectly fine weapon . . . so long as the unit wielding it never moves an inch. If, on the other hand, they happen to belong to a mobile army then it becomes decidedly less good (at least on Infantry). Reminder: I'm talking exclusively about Kabalites here - I'll get to Trueborn shortly.
Oh, but that's not actually the last thing, is it? Because if this squad wants any hope of living past the enemy's first turn then they'll also need a transport, so that's another 100pts added to their cost. It does at least get them another Dark Lance, though.
Anyway, the final cost is 115pts for the Kabalites and another 105pts for the Raider. That's 220pts for 2 good guns (one of which get -1 to hit if the Raider has the temerity to use any of its 14" movement), 2 mediocre guns and 7 guns that aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
But we were actually talking about Trueborn, weren't we? So let's consider what Trueborns get us. Well, they have BS2+ and don't suffer modifiers to hit. The former is great, naturally. The latter is a little more dependant on what army they happen to be facing, though still nice to have. For them, it only helps one of their weapons (albeit the best one). The problem, however, is that they are still stuck with the exact same loadout as Kabalites. That is, they can only get one Dark Lance (though they can at least move and fire it without penalty) and 2 crummy Blasters. The rest are just going to be basic Splinter Rifles. So they have awesome aiming skills . . . yet barely any decent weapons with which to use them.
Furthermore, Trueborn pay a not-insignificant price for these bonuses. First you need a 70pt Archon, who is already a tax unit and also has no synergy with the Trueborn because some blistering fethwit on the design team gave him an aura that doesn't work inside transports. Then the Archon-tax needs to take an additional 15pt tax to facilitate the Trueborn. Then the Trueborn themselves need to pay an additional 3 points per model (30pts for the unit) as a third tax. Including the Archon, that brings the final cost of the unit to 335pts. That's an awful lot to pay for 2 Dark Lance and 2 Blaster shots, even if some of them are at BS2+.
Even if you remove the cost of the Archon, that's still 250pts. Meanwhile, 2 Ravagers cost just 10pts more and those will get you 6 Dark Lance shots.
Put simply, Trueborn are simply too expensive and inefficient for what they actually bring.
145 points for 10 bodies, 2 blasters and a dark lance. Hitting on 2s. Ignore modifiers. Buy a raider for them to move around in and you are laughing. If the raider dies they can spill out as a bunch of obsec bodies etc. Whether its better than 2 ravagers can be debated - but arguably it shouldn't explicitly be, that's what internal balance is about.
I also think calling an archon a tax is pushing it. I know you hate the cookie cutter builds Vipoid - but you can easily make a choppy Archon who again, is definitely "fine".
The issue is just that fine - "the band formerly known as good" isn't cutting it in the 2022 era.
NinthMusketeer wrote: OK, so the 'it's all a GW scheme' people still have no basis for their argument beyond speculation, got it. Figured that hadn't changed, but good to confirm once in a while.
because it is easier to believe the company you give 1000s of dollars has a hidden scheme to mess things up, rather than the company you gave 1000s of dollars is an incompetent and don't know what they are doing
I work in a corporation a thousand times the size of GW, and the degree of incompetent management I have seen would be hilarious if one can forget we are talking about one of the most complex, expensive, dangerous yet ubiquitous commercial machines pretty much anyone can (and arguably needs to) buy.
To be honest with that context, it is even hard to be mad at GW, at least their incompetence is unlikely to kill someone.
I don't think grey knight army construction has changed meaningfully since at least 7th.
The end of sub-faction soup in CA: Nachmund 2022 was a big deal. People used to dual-brotherhood MOSTLY to get the 2nd GMNDK, but it meant that they had two detachments, each with their own Brotherhood trait.
Now that you can't do that (In Nachmund Matched Play Games), people are going single detachment again, meaning a) the army has more CP b) there is only one Brotherhood Trait in the Army and c) of course, only one GMNDK.
I don't know that that hits YOUR bar for meaningful change, but it certainly hits a lot of people's bar.
That's a lot of words for "instead of 5 NDKs, we bring 4NDKs". Which, interestingly, definitely doesn't hit my bar. Especially when we're talking in the context of 'GW pushing new unit sales'.
NinthMusketeer wrote: OK, so the 'it's all a GW scheme' people still have no basis for their argument beyond speculation, got it. Figured that hadn't changed, but good to confirm once in a while.
because it is easier to believe the company you give 1000s of dollars has a hidden scheme to mess things up, rather than the company you gave 1000s of dollars is an incompetent and don't know what they are doing
I work in a corporation a thousand times the size of GW, and the degree of incompetent management I have seen would be hilarious if one can forget we are talking about one of the most complex, expensive, dangerous yet ubiquitous commercial machines pretty much anyone can (and arguably needs to) buy.
To be honest with that context, it is even hard to be mad at GW, at least their incompetence is unlikely to kill someone.
I do contract work with a well known river company, supposedly the biggest, most efficient retail juggernaut in existence currently. The idiocy I've seen...The fact that they manages to deliver ANY packages, let alone millions, is an absolute miracle.
NinthMusketeer wrote: OK, so the 'it's all a GW scheme' people still have no basis for their argument beyond speculation, got it. Figured that hadn't changed, but good to confirm once in a while.
Just 30 years of watching GW do this. Though the Bait & Switch "For Balance!" changes shortly after release are a new twist.
There's also 30 years of GW releasing garbage models and leaving them garbage for their entire lifespan. The Repulsor, for example, has been absolute doggak since day 1. The only time it was good was an accident. They let the intern put out the Ironhands supplement without looking at it first. Even then, that still only lasted like a month and a half.
People are underselling Trueborn a bit. Does "ignore hit roll modifiers" get past Light?
Not really. Ignore all hit roll modifiers would be fantastic . . . on a different unit. (And no, they don't get past Light.)
Indeed, even the Trueborn of the past would have adored such a rule. The current Trueborn? Not so much.
To understand why, you first need to understand the problems with Kabalites. Their basic weapons are, to put it frankly, dismal. Poison 4+ on a AP0 D1 weapon is simply not useful. Bear in mind, this was the profile they had back when Carnifexes had just 4 wounds. Now a Carnifex has more than twice that number of wounds, yet the gun remains unchanged. Not only that, but toughness matters far less than it once did - so always wounding on a 4+ provides minimal advantage even over the ordinary Bolter (and Kabalites have neither Bolter Discipline nor Doctrines to improve it). Plus, with so many Monsters having 2+ armour saves (and most other T5+ units having multiple wounds apiece), there are very few targets against which they can inflict meaningful damage. Not only that but they get no bonuses against Infantry (and are actually worse than Bolters against T3 targets), so even as a basic, anti-infantry weapon they suck.
And bear in mind that, despite supposedly being the richest and best-equipped Kabalites shy of the Archons themselves, Trueborn can't replace these weapons willy-nilly. So at least 6/10 members of the unit will be wielding these pieces of crap. Though more likely 7/10 as the sergeant has nothing useful to replace his gun with.
So what about special weapons? Well, a 10-man unit can take two Blasters. Only problem is that Blasters are still stuck at the D1d6 profile, despite just being more portable Dark Lances. So they're mediocre at best. Same goes for the Shredder, which seems to be a gun in search of a target.
Lastly, the squad can take a single Heavy weapon. Sorry, I meant a single Dark Lance because no one with more than a single brain cell is going to take the sack of crap that is the Splinter Cannon. And the Dark Lance is a perfectly fine weapon . . . so long as the unit wielding it never moves an inch. If, on the other hand, they happen to belong to a mobile army then it becomes decidedly less good (at least on Infantry). Reminder: I'm talking exclusively about Kabalites here - I'll get to Trueborn shortly.
Oh, but that's not actually the last thing, is it? Because if this squad wants any hope of living past the enemy's first turn then they'll also need a transport, so that's another 100pts added to their cost. It does at least get them another Dark Lance, though.
Anyway, the final cost is 115pts for the Kabalites and another 105pts for the Raider. That's 220pts for 2 good guns (one of which get -1 to hit if the Raider has the temerity to use any of its 14" movement), 2 mediocre guns and 7 guns that aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
But we were actually talking about Trueborn, weren't we? So let's consider what Trueborns get us. Well, they have BS2+ and don't suffer modifiers to hit. The former is great, naturally. The latter is a little more dependant on what army they happen to be facing, though still nice to have. For them, it only helps one of their weapons (albeit the best one). The problem, however, is that they are still stuck with the exact same loadout as Kabalites. That is, they can only get one Dark Lance (though they can at least move and fire it without penalty) and 2 crummy Blasters. The rest are just going to be basic Splinter Rifles. So they have awesome aiming skills . . . yet barely any decent weapons with which to use them.
Furthermore, Trueborn pay a not-insignificant price for these bonuses. First you need a 70pt Archon, who is already a tax unit and also has no synergy with the Trueborn because some blistering fethwit on the design team gave him an aura that doesn't work inside transports. Then the Archon-tax needs to take an additional 15pt tax to facilitate the Trueborn. Then the Trueborn themselves need to pay an additional 3 points per model (30pts for the unit) as a third tax. Including the Archon, that brings the final cost of the unit to 335pts. That's an awful lot to pay for 2 Dark Lance and 2 Blaster shots, even if some of them are at BS2+.
Even if you remove the cost of the Archon, that's still 250pts. Meanwhile, 2 Ravagers cost just 10pts more and those will get you 6 Dark Lance shots.
Put simply, Trueborn are simply too expensive and inefficient for what they actually bring.
250pts for 2 upgraded lascanons and a fast moving transpor are considered bad? I guess it right. Gives one a unit comperation perspective too.
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vict0988 wrote: Nick Nannavati couldn't tell and neither could any of the other people Goonhammer brought on to discuss the new codex before release. You should be able to tell after 1 playtest with 9 Voidweavers, at the very least you should be able to tell that it's something to continue testing and taking notes about their performance in lists where you bring 1-3.
I mean lets even ignore the example of 9 voids, assume that play tester played with pre build list that maybe had 1 or even non, although that does rise the question how did they play test harlequins, because testing them like that is a bit like testing GKs without NDKs, how anyone think that a gunboat with top speed, multiple defence buffs and 3 heavy weapons, of which each one is at least good, should cost around 100pts. Specially considering how they costed, more or less every other vehicle in the game, and correcting for stuff like dragoons etc which they had to "fix". how many years of playtesting is it required form someone to say something along the line of , Guys someone missed and 1 before the 90 in the print drag, and I think that at 190pts the void weavers maybe a bit too pricy, lets drop them to 140pts .
NinthMusketeer wrote: OK, so the 'it's all a GW scheme' people still have no basis for their argument beyond speculation, got it. Figured that hadn't changed, but good to confirm once in a while.
because it is easier to believe the company you give 1000s of dollars has a hidden scheme to mess things up, rather than the company you gave 1000s of dollars is an incompetent and don't know what they are doing
Yeah. It creates a bad guy, to which negative feelings of resentment and irritation can be directed without needing to justify it. Of course GW corporate could very much demand better rules quality (and reward such with appropriate pay) but does not. Yet that still leaves them as incompetent rather than outright malicious, so isn't as attractive as an object of blame.
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tneva82 wrote: (and majority of sales happens at start anyway)
I've still yet to see a shred of evidence backing the 'majority sales in the first year' claim, nor do I understand how so many buy into something so clearly absurd.
Well marines are the biggest faction, they come out first and have the most players. So being out makes GW earn more money, and they are probably the only faction with enough players to sell everything no mater good or bad. for other factions you can check what sells. Dragoons will be gone in a mili second, same as raiders. On the other hand a box of GK terminators or a those 1ksons beastman will never get sold out.
tneva82 wrote: (and majority of sales happens at start anyway)
I've still yet to see a shred of evidence backing the 'majority sales in the first year' claim, nor do I understand how so many buy into something so clearly absurd.
That's pretty common in this sector of retail. Things like boardgames, video games, tabletop wargames are all like that. If you ever listen to an earnings call from a retailer like that, they'll tell you. They have all the data and they're not going to lie to investors about something like that.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I've still yet to see a shred of evidence backing the 'majority sales in the first year' claim, nor do I understand how so many buy into something so clearly absurd.
We have seen sales numbers on individual model kits and codex only during the chapterhouse case
and there was a clear picture that sales outside the year of release were 0 (or close to 0) with Tactical Marines being the only exception, as those sold each time a Marine Codex was released (not just with the generic one)
outside of this, only rumours from Interviews with (Former) GW people
tneva82 wrote: Gw has no need to make new units op as they sell anyway(and majority of sales happens at start anyway).
What gw needs is op units changing. If game was balanced people could just focus on learning to play rather than buy new units.
By minimizing skill factor and maximizing on changing what's opatmgw gets tournament try-hards by new units to stay "competive".
You're talking about a terribly small population there. GW is absolutely not reliant on try-hards - most of whom will likely buy second hand, borrow, print or already own the models.
tneva82 wrote: Gw has no need to make new units op as they sell anyway(and majority of sales happens at start anyway).
What gw needs is op units changing. If game was balanced people could just focus on learning to play rather than buy new units.
By minimizing skill factor and maximizing on changing what's opatmgw gets tournament try-hards by new units to stay "competive".
You're talking about a terribly small population there. GW is absolutely not reliant on try-hards - most of whom will likely buy second hand, borrow, print or already own the models.
this!
As what some stores would consider a "whale" or at least a consistent customer I just buy a kit or box set a month of what looks interesting. I like building and panting models so it more has to do with what catches my eye in the 40k universe. I run and participate in narrative games and campaigns and have talked with and helped out multiple local gaming stores build up terrain as I have also been 3d printing for many years. its anecdotal info but locally its the dozens of people buying 1-3 kits/boxes monthly that makes it worth keeping a good stock. They sell some stuff to faction specific players on codex releases and model releases. Those types usually are more likely to show up to weekly game days and such, but that is not where they are making the most money.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I've still yet to see a shred of evidence backing the 'majority sales in the first year' claim, nor do I understand how so many buy into something so clearly absurd.
We have seen sales numbers on individual model kits and codex only during the chapterhouse case
and there was a clear picture that sales outside the year of release were 0 (or close to 0) with Tactical Marines being the only exception, as those sold each time a Marine Codex was released (not just with the generic one)
outside of this, only rumours from Interviews with (Former) GW people
Uh-huh - no-one starts an army over a year after a 'dex or army book drops, no-one starts the game with an older faction because they like the look of it, etc, etc.
I can buy that sales in year 2 or 3 are lower than year 1, but a claim of "0 (or close to 0)"? That's straight-up bull-pucky...
It might not be a zero but it's a fraction of the sales on release. The first 2 weeks a new kit is out, the respective subreddits/facebook groups/forums for that faction are FLOODED with pictures of people who have painted the new kits. A year later, those same kits are like 1% of the content. It's not surprising, it happens in every similar industry. Majority of book, CD, and movie sales are on release. Same with video games. It would be surprising if that weren't the case for tabletop wargames considering the similarity to those other sectors of retail and the overlap in demographics.
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