Can someone call it? We have zero clue where GW is going now. IG squads are basically the same cost no matter what you put into them, Custodes are getting a "once per game" special rule that only effects specific units anyhow, Harlequins are barely touched, but Tau are nerfed, in that a SMS now has less accuracy than a HWT Mortar, a Tactical Marine is now somehow More durable than a Terminator, and DE are basically untouched.
We're already seeing people calling it quits in the Tactica threads over this "balance" patch. You can't balance your way out of 9th now. Just cut the life support and call the remaining codexes the start of 10th.
Only problem now is you can't artificially delay their release "due to COVID" or "Brexit" since the world has had 3 years to get that under control. Well except for the British, but they think Boris Johnson is still a capable leader of a nation, so I guess they can get a pass. They did it to themselves.
Oh wait, we now have WW3 for them to say is hurting shipping.
You know what? Just screw this all. Screw 10th. A new paid CA is coming out in two months anyway, where I'm sure everything will be fixed, and Trajann will now cost 110 points, but Voidreavers will cost 165 points per model. Because this game is a dead horse, that keeps popping it's pustules and farting out corpse gas in the form of "balance updates", and we keep paying to give it another kick.
A tac marine was already more durable then a terminator, save for DA ones. That goes for other marines too. 200pts of GK termis give you more wounds, more storm bolters, more melee attacks and more models at the cost of not having a +5inv.
9th died when someone designed the DE codex and then decided that it was okey to be the way it ended up to be in the actual book.
It is best compared with similar armies. Take BT or GK, and then compare them to how other marines are. Aside for DA and WS, the rules feel as if they were writen for another edition of the game.
What really gets up my craw about this balance sheet is rather than fixing anything that already exists they've just piled on more bloat and rules.
On top of that they've just given all power armoured factions (so like 90% of armies in the game by player count) an ability that's "feth your AP1". I really hate any and all rules that just hard counter abilities that you've got like that. At least when they're universal.
That's an awful lot of hyperbole for changes that will be a net benefit to the game. They barely touched Harlequins? Their best unit got a nearly 50% point increase. You really don't think space marines needed extra survivability in the current meta? The strongest, newest space marine chapter had a 31% win rate last week and gets countered even harder by the new tyranid codex. Proliferation of AP was the reason SM were suffering, so they did something to fix it. I would like to wait and see the tournament results over the next month or so before I cry "dAeD gAeM" over this dataslate. I especially like that GW saw the win rates for a couple big events and immediately said "ok, this is a problem, we need a balance patch out asap". Contrast this to earlier editions where an army would be broken for 2-3 years until they got a new codex or a new edition of the BRB was released. The changes aren't going to be perfect but it's far better than seeing Harlequins at 80%wr and space marines at 30% for 3 years straight.
What do you mean harlies did not get touched. The top harlequin army went up by 435. Most of the abusive stuff doesn't effect void weaver and star weavers that was making them broken. Death jester has been very heavily nerfed. Harlequin players are now wondering if they should even take death jesters. I am not complaining since point jump was justified and only affecting core is in line with other armies.
Toofast wrote: That's an awful lot of hyperbole for changes that will be a net benefit to the game. They barely touched Harlequins? Their best unit got a nearly 50% point increase. You really don't think space marines needed extra survivability in the current meta? The strongest, newest space marine chapter had a 31% win rate last week and gets countered even harder by the new tyranid codex. Proliferation of AP was the reason SM were suffering, so they did something to fix it. I would like to wait and see the tournament results over the next month or so before I cry "dAeD gAeM" over this dataslate. I especially like that GW saw the win rates for a couple big events and immediately said "ok, this is a problem, we need a balance patch out asap". Contrast this to earlier editions where an army would be broken for 2-3 years until they got a new codex or a new edition of the BRB was released. The changes aren't going to be perfect but it's far better than seeing Harlequins at 80%wr and space marines at 30% for 3 years straight.
The problem is not the attempt to balance and correct. The problem lies at more fundamental issues that they're trying to correct for, but correcting in a way that just exacerbates other issues that have already trending downwards.
Toofast wrote: That's an awful lot of hyperbole for changes that will be a net benefit to the game. They barely touched Harlequins? Their best unit got a nearly 50% point increase. You really don't think space marines needed extra survivability in the current meta? The strongest, newest space marine chapter had a 31% win rate last week and gets countered even harder by the new tyranid codex. Proliferation of AP was the reason SM were suffering, so they did something to fix it. I would like to wait and see the tournament results over the next month or so before I cry "dAeD gAeM" over this dataslate. I especially like that GW saw the win rates for a couple big events and immediately said "ok, this is a problem, we need a balance patch out asap". Contrast this to earlier editions where an army would be broken for 2-3 years until they got a new codex or a new edition of the BRB was released. The changes aren't going to be perfect but it's far better than seeing Harlequins at 80%wr and space marines at 30% for 3 years straight.
with harliquins getting over a 75% win rate no faction did well last week/ the last few weeks. Space marines were not the weakest codex. I will say this does make power armored armies all go from middle of the pack to strong, but in bringing them up they pushed those at the bottom even farther down. Necrons, Orks and GSC are probably hanging out a the bottom now with very little that can do anything against a marine army. look at the factions as a whoel and honestly i am not sure a ork list can beat a marine list, pick your worst marine units put em against an ork list and they still cannot do enough damage and will get shot down/ outmelee'd
I like the guard buffs though, brings em to more power without beign over the top, I think they just got into the middle of the pack for power.
harlequins barely touched? One of their strongest Aura got nerfed, their best datasheet got a huuuge point increase and their obnoxious sniper character also got nerfed.
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Karol wrote: A tac marine was already more durable then a terminator
Lol what the feth are you on about?
you heard it here first, 2W 3+ is more durable than 3W 2+ 5++
Necrons and GSC will be fine, it's Orks that will really struggle after this. Maybe they'll get to use more than 0-1 of their toys in the next balance pass.
Guardsmen getting auto wound on 6s is the dumbest, least internally consistent, least fluff-based balance decision I've seen this edition. Maybe that sounds dramatic, but when someone decides that Guardsmen with lasguns should be better at killing tanks than Intercessors, it's very clear that the guys writing the rules are trying to balance tournament win rates without regard for the verisimilitude or even just matching the fluff.
Two Infantry Squads rapid firing with FRFSRF can just about bracket a Leman Russ. What the feth?
catbarf wrote: Guardsmen getting auto wound on 6s is the dumbest, least internally consistent, least fluff-based balance decision I've seen this edition. Maybe that sounds dramatic, but when someone decides that Guardsmen with lasguns should be better at killing tanks than Intercessors, it's very clear that the guys writing the rules are trying to balance tournament win rates without regard for the verisimilitude or even just matching the fluff.
Two Infantry Squads rapid firing with FRFSRF can just about bracket a Leman Russ. What the feth?
This 1000%
They're too far into pure game design thinking and pulling further and further away from "representational" design thinking. It's really bad.
catbarf wrote: Guardsmen getting auto wound on 6s is the dumbest, least internally consistent, least fluff-based balance decision I've seen this edition. Maybe that sounds dramatic, but when someone decides that Guardsmen with lasguns should be better at killing tanks than Intercessors, it's very clear that the guys writing the rules are trying to balance tournament win rates without regard for the verisimilitude or even just matching the fluff.
Two Infantry Squads rapid firing with FRFSRF can just about bracket a Leman Russ. What the feth?
to be fair if it comes to game balance vs fluff i say go game balance 4/5 times. it is an abstract game, one could say a guad squad is 10 models representing 30 guardsman for the fluff. I don't want it disregarded entirley but even the fluff is so inconsistant that in some books as an example orks die in droves to las gun and in others they shrug off bolter hits and only removing the head does the job.
I do think this dataslate will make games slightly more even (until players find the next big F U, hello nids).
However, it's just bad writing, bad overall idea, bloat upon bloat.
Honestly,it's all part of the GW plan. Codex creep to hell....add "patches" to attempt to fix, then announce 10th edition to clean it up, and we'll rejoice because we think we want simplicity and it's what the game needs.... rinse and repeat, dollars keep coming in.
harlequins barely touched? One of their strongest Aura got nerfed, their best datasheet got a huuuge point increase and their obnoxious sniper character also got nerfed.
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Karol wrote: A tac marine was already more durable then a terminator
Lol what the feth are you on about?
you heard it here first, 2W 3+ is more durable than 3W 2+ 5++
Per point. He didn't say it but it's always implied. Durability is ALWAYS a per point metric.
catbarf wrote: Guardsmen getting auto wound on 6s is the dumbest, least internally consistent, least fluff-based balance decision I've seen this edition. Maybe that sounds dramatic, but when someone decides that Guardsmen with lasguns should be better at killing tanks than Intercessors, it's very clear that the guys writing the rules are trying to balance tournament win rates without regard for the verisimilitude or even just matching the fluff.
Two Infantry Squads rapid firing with FRFSRF can just about bracket a Leman Russ. What the feth?
to be fair if it comes to game balance vs fluff i say go game balance 4/5 times. it is an abstract game, one could say a guad squad is 10 models representing 30 guardsman for the fluff. I don't want it disregarded entirley but even the fluff is so inconsistant that in some books as an example orks die in droves to las gun and in others they shrug off bolter hits and only removing the head does the job.
The issue is that there are numerous other ways to address verious issues going on, that could have been more lore-consistent, and for some inexplicable reason they went with these ones.
Toofast wrote: That's an awful lot of hyperbole for changes that will be a net benefit to the game. They barely touched Harlequins? Their best unit got a nearly 50% point increase. You really don't think space marines needed extra survivability in the current meta? The strongest, newest space marine chapter had a 31% win rate last week and gets countered even harder by the new tyranid codex. Proliferation of AP was the reason SM were suffering, so they did something to fix it. I would like to wait and see the tournament results over the next month or so before I cry "dAeD gAeM" over this dataslate. I especially like that GW saw the win rates for a couple big events and immediately said "ok, this is a problem, we need a balance patch out asap". Contrast this to earlier editions where an army would be broken for 2-3 years until they got a new codex or a new edition of the BRB was released. The changes aren't going to be perfect but it's far better than seeing Harlequins at 80%wr and space marines at 30% for 3 years straight.
with harliquins getting over a 75% win rate no faction did well last week/ the last few weeks. Space marines were not the weakest codex. I will say this does make power armored armies all go from middle of the pack to strong, but in bringing them up they pushed those at the bottom even farther down. Necrons, Orks and GSC are probably hanging out a the bottom now with very little that can do anything against a marine army. look at the factions as a whoel and honestly i am not sure a ork list can beat a marine list, pick your worst marine units put em against an ork list and they still cannot do enough damage and will get shot down/ outmelee'd
I like the guard buffs though, brings em to more power without beign over the top, I think they just got into the middle of the pack for power.
If it makes you feel better, it didn't bring ALL power armored armies up. They're 6 for 6 on Sisters nerfs now.
It will probably improve the game balance, but that doesn't mean it isn't a disaster from a game design point of view. It's yet another document to layer on top of all your other documents, each of which adds new rules and bloat. And a lot of the fixes are just fundamentally stupid.
The -1AP thing is a perfect example of how much of a mess the game is. You put far too much AP in the game...so now you're compensating by giving certain factions something that reduces AP. Instead of just attacking the actual problem and getting rid of the excessive AP. Compensate for bad design with more bloat, rather than just fixing the bad design directly.
Or look at the indirect rule. We dolled out too much indirect that's too effective. So we'll nerf it with a universal rule that just makes it all worse, instead of just fixing the problematic indirect itself. Oh, and it's also not actually a universal rule, guard gets to ignore it because <reasons>. Oh and they also get to auto-wound on 6s to hit, something that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever no matter how you cut it. Because they suck, but again we can't be bothered to actually fix them.
We're at the stage of the edition where there are so many leaks springing up all over the place that they're so desperate for material to patch the existing leaks that they're stripping the parts of the boat that do work, which leads to new leaks, which leads to more stripping, and before long the entire boat is just a bunch of patches and nothing actually works any more.
Come on dude. There's "abstraction" and then there's "Lasguns auto-wounding a Warlord Titan on a 6".
lasguns on a titan is another one of those for the game to work part. my preferred solution is no lord of war units in games under 2001 points, but that breaks a codex out. If the guard player forgets to bring a shadowsword do they just have to auto lose to an titan/knight list? One of the things that brough on all these 6's always wound rules were those armies and issues where the game was breaking down and an army could lose in the list phase before putting a model down. do you remember the days of 3 wraighknights and eldar flyers being unbillable for a lot of codexes?
The thing is, it kinda isn't.
They go into excruciating detail to make sure everything is represented on the table. Down a grot with a pistol hanging out the side of a buggy.
They're trying to have a highly representative game mixed with these weird abstract mechanics and it's a horribly poisonous soup.
The thing is, it kinda isn't.
They go into excruciating detail to make sure everything is represented on the table. Down a grot with a pistol hanging out the side of a buggy.
They're trying to have a highly representative game mixed with these weird abstract mechanics and it's a horribly poisonous soup.
grotty the gunner is a nice model addition there is a lot of cute stuff like that for detail on a buggy. Ask any ork player how useful that is though and how often they even roll for the grot pistol. but as i said above i am more for game balance than 100% matching the inconsistent fluff. If we were being accurate to ork vehicles they would need a couple tables and you would mix and match weapons without being able to have 2 identical vehicles in the whole army like in gorka morka the vehicle and crew custom stuff. if lasguns have to wound titans to make the game work then that is how it needs to be
It's the most out of touch, laziest, most unbelievable change GW has made.
They could have ACTUALLY fixed things. It didn't even need to be a lot.
Revert some points hikes, reasses some stratagem costs, upgrade a couple of datasheets, fix a couple of army rules, and that, along with the nerfs, could have gotten us somewhere decent.
Instead they demonstrate that they have no idea how the game works and that no one at GW has ever even SEEN a Sisters of Battle army.
The thing is, it kinda isn't.
They go into excruciating detail to make sure everything is represented on the table. Down a grot with a pistol hanging out the side of a buggy.
They're trying to have a highly representative game mixed with these weird abstract mechanics and it's a horribly poisonous soup.
Thank you.
If you're going to make a game where you roll to see if a shot hits, then roll to see if that shot was damaging, then roll to see if it actually beat armor, then take individual casualties on a target unit, there is no place for highly abstract 'game-y' mechanics, and certainly not for inconsistent application such that the most basic infantry in the game can auto-wound anything in the game on a 6 but elite special forces operators can't because reasons.
So many things they could have done to give Guard a leg up, but they went with one that makes zero sense from any sort of internal consistency or lore standpoint.
The thing is, it kinda isn't.
They go into excruciating detail to make sure everything is represented on the table. Down a grot with a pistol hanging out the side of a buggy.
They're trying to have a highly representative game mixed with these weird abstract mechanics and it's a horribly poisonous soup.
Thank you.
If you're going to make a game where you roll to see if a shot hits, then roll to see if that shot was damaging, then roll to see if it actually beat armor, then take individual casualties on a target unit, there is no place for highly abstract 'game-y' mechanics, and certainly not for inconsistent application such that the most basic infantry in the game can auto-wound anything in the game on a 6 but elite special forces operators can't because reasons.
So many things they could have done to give Guard a leg up, but they went with one that makes zero sense from any sort of internal consistency or lore standpoint.
I agree that it's absolutely asinine and I don't even give a feth about the lore part.
So many changes in the datasheet make it obvious GW has no idea how this game works.
Only problem now is you can't artificially delay their release "due to COVID" or "Brexit" since the world has had 3 years to get that under control. Well except for the British, but they think Boris Johnson is still a capable leader of a nation, so I guess they can get a pass. They did it to themselves.
Oh wait, we now have WW3 for them to say is hurting shipping.
While I agree 100% that 9th is a hilariously bad game design and GW is trying to put out a dumpster fire with a truckload of gasoline, you should really look closer at how China are currently completely fethed up by Covid. You can't get anything out of China easily, container prices are through the roof and delays are counted in months. I wait for second wave of Etherfields kickstarter and it gets delayed and delayed again - either because print shops get closed due to lockdowns, or there are no containers to hunt for - in this particular case they managed to secure ones for some areas of the world but still wait for any free ones to Poland. And their whole Kickstarter profit has been eaten by print/shipping price hikes.
Ever wondered, why many of GW products now ship in generic white boxes?
Only problem now is you can't artificially delay their release "due to COVID" or "Brexit" since the world has had 3 years to get that under control. Well except for the British, but they think Boris Johnson is still a capable leader of a nation, so I guess they can get a pass. They did it to themselves.
Oh wait, we now have WW3 for them to say is hurting shipping.
While I agree 100% that 9th is a hilariously bad game design and GW is trying to put out a dumpster fire with a truckload of gasoline, you should really look closer at how China are currently completely fethed up by Covid. You can't get anything out of China easily, container prices are through the roof and delays are counted in months. I wait for second wave of Etherfields kickstarter and it gets delayed and delayed again - either because print shops get closed due to lockdowns, or there are no containers to hunt for - in this particular case they managed to secure ones for some areas of the world but still wait for any free ones to Poland. And their whole Kickstarter profit has been eaten by print/shipping price hikes.
Ever wondered, why many of GW products now ship in generic white boxes?
Stop making things in China. For all sorts of reasons which I won't get into here, because this isn't the place.
catbarf wrote: Guardsmen getting auto wound on 6s is the dumbest, least internally consistent, least fluff-based balance decision I've seen this edition. Maybe that sounds dramatic, but when someone decides that Guardsmen with lasguns should be better at killing tanks than Intercessors, it's very clear that the guys writing the rules are trying to balance tournament win rates without regard for the verisimilitude or even just matching the fluff.
Two Infantry Squads rapid firing with FRFSRF can just about bracket a Leman Russ. What the feth?
This 1000%
They're too far into pure game design thinking and pulling further and further away from "representational" design thinking. It's really bad.
We were literally just discussing this last night @ my FLGS & consensus agrees
H.B.M.C. wrote:
catbarf wrote: Two Infantry Squads rapid firing with FRFSRF can just about bracket a Leman Russ. What the feth?
Well allow me to retort.
*clears throat*
They're still just Damage 1.
Or, perhaps even:
The target still gets their save!
These are two "arguments" I've seen people put forward. Impressive.
Come on dude. There's "abstraction" and then there's "Lasguns auto-wounding a Warlord Titan on a 6".
But the humble Guardsmen needs to feel like they could take down a titan...which is just dumb. There should be things that are impervious to light weaponry. I'd rather them get a +1 to hit titanic stuff, cuz ya know it's freakin huge. But auto-wounding something T8/9 with S3 is a bit too far.
catbarf wrote: Two Infantry Squads rapid firing with FRFSRF can just about bracket a Leman Russ. What the feth?
Well allow me to retort.
*clears throat*
They're still just Damage 1.
Or, perhaps even:
The target still gets their save!
These are two "arguments" I've seen people put forward. Impressive.
Oh no! People are thinking about it!
So you're telling me that 120 points plus an HQ ( so about 155 ) does 6 wounds to a 150 point unit when they're within 12" of it. Oh no. The game is over. What Ever Will We Do? Surely no one has figured out how to kill T3 5+ before they get within 12". Dooooom.
catbarf wrote: Two Infantry Squads rapid firing with FRFSRF can just about bracket a Leman Russ. What the feth?
Well allow me to retort.
*clears throat*
They're still just Damage 1.
Or, perhaps even:
The target still gets their save!
These are two "arguments" I've seen people put forward. Impressive.
Oh no! People are thinking about it!
So you're telling me that 120 points plus an HQ ( so about 155 ) does 6 wounds to a 150 point unit when they're within 12" of it. Oh no. The game is over. What Ever Will We Do? Surely no one has figured out how to kill T3 5+ before they get within 12". Dooooom.
It's not concerns about whether or not that's gonna take over the competitive tournament scene.
It's the idea that they can is completely anathema to any idea of similitude that might be left.
Come on dude. There's "abstraction" and then there's "Lasguns auto-wounding a Warlord Titan on a 6".
lasguns on a titan is another one of those for the game to work part. my preferred solution is no lord of war units in games under 2001 points, but that breaks a codex out. If the guard player forgets to bring a shadowsword do they just have to auto lose to an titan/knight list? One of the things that brough on all these 6's always wound rules were those armies and issues where the game was breaking down and an army could lose in the list phase before putting a model down. do you remember the days of 3 wraighknights and eldar flyers being unbillable for a lot of codexes?
You realize right if you lose to titan you are literally worst 40k player ever? Titan is auto lose...you need to actively make sure you don"' score vp to vose. You literally need to move away from objectives. Literally refuse to score secondaries. and knights are hardly bogeyman. You don't need shadowsword.
So you're telling me that 120 points plus an HQ ( so about 155 ) does 6 wounds to a 150 point unit when they're within 12" of it. Oh no. The game is over. What Ever Will We Do? Surely no one has figured out how to kill T3 5+ before they get within 12". Dooooom.
I'm not sure if the angle you're taking is 'basic Guardsmen getting nearly 50% return against their least optimal target type is fine' or 'Leman Russes actually should be optimal targets for Guardsmen' but either way I would encourage you to sit down and have a long think about whether this is a good thing rather than continue to defend the trench you've dug.
So you're telling me that 120 points plus an HQ ( so about 155 ) does 6 wounds to a 150 point unit when they're within 12" of it. Oh no. The game is over. What Ever Will We Do? Surely no one has figured out how to kill T3 5+ before they get within 12". Dooooom.
I'm not sure if the angle you're taking is 'basic Guardsmen getting nearly 50% return against their least optimal target type is fine' or 'Leman Russes actually should be optimal targets for Guardsmen' but either way I would encourage you to sit down and have a long think about whether this is a good thing rather than continue to defend the trench you've dug.
Pretty much, my thing is, we should not be in a position where a las gun is even able to wound a tank.
So you're telling me that 120 points plus an HQ ( so about 155 ) does 6 wounds to a 150 point unit when they're within 12" of it. Oh no. The game is over. What Ever Will We Do? Surely no one has figured out how to kill T3 5+ before they get within 12". Dooooom.
Maybe you can explain why a squad of Guardsmen with Lasguns are better at tank killing than a squad of DEVASTATORS WITH LASCANNONS and why that's good for the game.
4x.666x.666x.666x3.5= 4.1
Heck, the 6 wounds is what 2 Multimeltas average within 12".
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ZebioLizard2 wrote: The usual dislikes 40k posters are doomposting, the ones who like it continue on. Dakka continues as usual really. New topic to argue over.
The AP change is the wrong solution for supposed AP bloat.
For one, ap0 is currently worthless in the game because no matter how much people want to be down on Marine winrates, 3+ armour saves are everywhere in the game and they become 2+ in cover. In that sort of game ap0 has no place unless it can mass shots to an absurd degree. All this change does is make ap1 act like ap0 so all those weapons and units that saw some improvements with their 9th codexes are going back on the shelf. This change lessens unit and list variety and won't massively increase Marine resilience because people will go back to teching hard into anti-Marine killing weaponry. Gauss Flayers were already not in a great spot compared to Reapers but now the comparison is even more laughable. Guardian units in CWE got a boost and had potential in the 9th book but now they're back to the bad old days of 8th where that ap0 Shuriken catapult made them dead weight. If anything I'll be more inclined to take specific anti-Marine weaponry in even my casual CWE lists because why run the risk of running a unit like Guardians or Windriders that are dangerously close to being worthless in that match-up? The Marine player could have just been facing some AP1 D1 weaponry but now I hope they enjoy massed AP3-4 D2-3 instead because it's weapon statlines that I know will actually do something.
At the end of the day it's better for the overall health of the game in terms of faction and unit variety to have someAP, at least within the current rules system (if cover rules get changed things might be different).
What the actual issues with AP bloat were the easy stacking of additional modifiers that could be far too common and far too widespread. Interestingly Marines are basically why we have this AP bloat in the first place; they started it with doctrines and statline improvements and their ubiquitous nature means that a lot of units in a lot of armies are useless against them if they don't have at least a little armour piercing capability, thereby necessitating a need to improve these units' weapons. Marines themselves will suffer from this as an entire armywide special rule of there's is now functionally worthless in the mirror match-up, or vs CSM or vs Sisters and already struggling units like both brands of Intercessors have their fancy AP1 weaponry negated.
The Mont'ka change was funnily enough the sort of solution that was needed; an army that got a lot of weapons AP improved with its codex (good!) also had an easy way to stack even more modifiers on top of that leading to absurdity of AFP's with AP2 (bad!). Why this works is that it gets to the core of the actual issue unlike Armour of Contempt or other AP bonus abilities that still leave a "lethality problem" existing within the game for factions that are not LSM, CSM or SoB.
Those devastators also don’t fall to a slight breeze. Guardsmen hordes aren’t going to be the problem, it’s gonna be ones camping in the back with free lascannon/snipers and obscured artillery now at a 2+ save and -1 to hit from non los stuff.
Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote: It was at least some of you guys who removed templates and the old s/t/Av system.
Both things can be bad. The old S/T system was just the current one but dumber, Templates were stupid and finicky and created tons of arguments, and the old AV system amounted to little more than 'if targeted, vehicles explode'.
Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote: Those devastators also don’t fall to a slight breeze. Guardsmen hordes aren’t going to be the problem, it’s gonna be ones camping in the back with free lascannon/snipers and obscured artillery now at a 2+ save and -1 to hit from non los stuff.
catbarf wrote: Guardsmen getting auto wound on 6s is the dumbest, least internally consistent, least fluff-based balance decision I've seen this edition. Maybe that sounds dramatic, but when someone decides that Guardsmen with lasguns should be better at killing tanks than Intercessors, it's very clear that the guys writing the rules are trying to balance tournament win rates without regard for the verisimilitude or even just matching the fluff.
Two Infantry Squads rapid firing with FRFSRF can just about bracket a Leman Russ. What the feth?
This 1000%
They're too far into pure game design thinking and pulling further and further away from "representational" design thinking. It's really bad.
Yeah, as someone who doesn’t really give a crap about win rates or metas or whatev, this really beefs it from a “Roleplay that gak” perspective for me. A really horrible, inelegant bit of rules patching. Hate it.
Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote: Those devastators also don’t fall to a slight breeze. Guardsmen hordes aren’t going to be the problem, it’s gonna be ones camping in the back with free lascannon/snipers and obscured artillery now at a 2+ save and -1 to hit from non los stuff.
That rationalization falls far short.
Considering that a big blob of ork boyz can be wiped by most lists nowadays, what’s going to make guardsmen any better at surviving.
Insectum7 wrote: Maybe you can explain why a squad of Guardsmen with Lasguns are better at tank killing than a squad of DEVASTATORS WITH LASCANNONS and why that's good for the game.
4x.666x.666x.666x3.5= 4.1
Heck, the 6 wounds is what 2 Multimeltas average within 12".
In fairness a squad of Guardsmen FRFSRFing within 12" averages about 3 wounds. So the Devastators do about 33% more damage.
Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote: Those devastators also don’t fall to a slight breeze. Guardsmen hordes aren’t going to be the problem, it’s gonna be ones camping in the back with free lascannon/snipers and obscured artillery now at a 2+ save and -1 to hit from non los stuff.
That rationalization falls far short.
Considering that a big blob of ork boyz can be wiped by most lists nowadays, what’s going to make guardsmen any better at surviving.
We're not talking about practical tournament list composition.
We're talking about the fact that a squad of Guardsmen with flashlights and a ubiquitous order are nearly as good at anti-tank duty as a squad of Devastators loaded up with lascannons.
It doesn't matter how they compare in durability; they should not be that similar in raw firepower.
Insectum7 wrote: Maybe you can explain why a squad of Guardsmen with Lasguns are better at tank killing than a squad of DEVASTATORS WITH LASCANNONS and why that's good for the game.
4x.666x.666x.666x3.5= 4.1
Heck, the 6 wounds is what 2 Multimeltas average within 12".
In fairness a squad of Guardsmen FRFSRFing within 12" averages about 3 wounds. So the Devastators do about 33% more damage.
Which is still fething stupid.
Oh I see, Daeds math was for 20 Guardsmen.
Yup, still dumb!
Automatically Appended Next Post: Tinfoil Hat Time!!
10th is just around the corner and they want to make 9th look as bad as possible so 10th is hailed as the second coming!
And ork nobz are able to… and my alpha can X in the lore…
The game is just about pure mechanical stuff at this point.
Have you also considered that lascannons just aren’t too great?
Run the numbers on some anti tank that’s actually good.
Guardsman range also caps out at around 24 inches, I can think of a lot of vehicle weapons that can stay well outside of that range.
Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote: And ork nobz are able to… and my alpha can X in the lore…
The game is just about pure mechanical stuff at this point.
Have you also considered that lascannons just aren’t too great?
Run the numbers on some anti tank that’s actually good.
Guardsman range also caps out at around 24 inches, I can think of a lot of vehicle weapons that can stay well outside of that range.
A squad of Guardsmen with Lasguns does as much damage as a Marine wielded Multimelta.
That explains all the news stories I've heard recently abou Ukranians defeating Russian tanks by running up to them with assault rufles. . .
Imperial Guard is utter dogshit. It is the worst army in the game by far, right now. Until they get a proper Codex, they need some ridiculous, overpowered buffs, to simply exist as an army to compensate with how garbage their 8th Codex is.
This is why Imperial Guard gets to ignore the new Indirect Fire Weapons. This is also why they get a ridiculous auto-wound on 6s to hit.
Yes, it is an ugly as sin bandaid. We know. I haven't met a single person, either here or elsewhere, who thinks it is a "sensible" fix. It's gross. But it's needed right now. And GW is not going to release a 5 pages long dataslate with more sensible fixes solely for IG when they already have a Codex (even a garbage one) and they are due for a new one with a small / medium waves of new models.
But sure, better have another sterile and useless discussion on the General subforum. It is already a trashbin afterall.
Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote: And ork nobz are able to… and my alpha can X in the lore…
The game is just about pure mechanical stuff at this point.
Have you also considered that lascannons just aren’t too great?
Run the numbers on some anti tank that’s actually good.
Guardsman range also caps out at around 24 inches, I can think of a lot of vehicle weapons that can stay well outside of that range.
A squad of Guardsmen with Lasguns does as much damage as a Marine wielded Multimelta.
A squad of guardsmen with officer support, inside 12" (so either walking up the board or in a transport) using frsrf chucks out out what, 1.48 damage?
1 marine with no doctrines, buffs or transports and a multimelta does 1.55 at 24"
Imperial Guard is utter dogshit. It is the worst army in the game by far, right now. Until they get a proper Codex, they need some ridiculous, overpowered buffs, to simply exist as an army to compensate with how garbage their 8th Codex is.
This is why Imperial Guard gets to ignore the new Indirect Fire Weapons. This is also why they get a ridiculous auto-wound on 6s to hit.
Yes, it is an ugly as sin bandaid. We know. I haven't met a single person, either here or elsewhere, who thinks it is a "sensible" fix. It's gross. But it's needed right now. And GW is not going to release a 5 pages long dataslate with more sensible fixes solely for IG when they already have a Codex (even a garbage one) and they are due for a new one with a small / medium waves of new models.
But sure, better have another sterile and useless discussion on the General subforum. It is already a trashbin afterall.
And they will continue to be garbage because of the removal of template.
Guard were decent because they relied on a template to deliver hits, now, their big guns and weapons need to roll to determine number of hits, which already is bad because rolling double 1s on a weapon sucks, then roll on their BS, which is 50/50, then roll to wound, then deal with saves.
you wanna make guard good? and decent? give them a higher floor for their multi shot weapons.
As a base, all their blast weapons should double results of 1 and 2 on dice rolls to determine number of hits.
catbarf wrote: Guardsmen getting auto wound on 6s is the dumbest, least internally consistent, least fluff-based balance decision I've seen this edition. Maybe that sounds dramatic, but when someone decides that Guardsmen with lasguns should be better at killing tanks than Intercessors, it's very clear that the guys writing the rules are trying to balance tournament win rates without regard for the verisimilitude or even just matching the fluff.
Two Infantry Squads rapid firing with FRFSRF can just about bracket a Leman Russ. What the feth?
I know 'Lasgun goes pewpew' doesn't have quite the same ring to it as 'Heavy Bolter go Brrrrrr' but maybe we can turn it into a meme regardless.
With most armies being infantry this would mean that armies that are made from majority skimmers and jetbikes, would be immune to most incoming fire power from other armies. And that is assuming all armies had any AA weapons or options to counter them with it. And am talking any options, even bad ones.
The problem with the auto wound on 6s thing isn't that it's particularly good, it's that it's unbelievably stupid. It says really bad things about the design studio that that is all they could think of to try to make guard slightly less terrible - or really bad things about their superiors if they could think of other things that they weren't allowed to do.
People should expect better. This isn't five guys in their basement any more. It's a premium product produced by a company worth billions with an annual turnover in the hundreds of millions.
Tittliewinks22 wrote: I think it's time WH40k implements a rock paper scissors type weaponry, or more akin to pokemon types weakness/resistance/neutral.
Anti-Infantry
Anti-Tank
Anti-Air (or speed?)
Infantry should be immune to Anti-Air, Neutral to Anti-Tank, and Weak to Anti-Infantry.
Tanks should be immune to Anti-Infantry and weak to Anti-Tank, and neutral to Anti-Air
Air/Fast targets(bikes/skimmers etc) should be immune to Anti-Tank, Neutral to Anti-Infantry, and Weak to Anti-Air.
I do not see how to encourage take all comers lists in any method other than something like this.
Just use the system from Apocalypse (the latest edition) as a base for a newer edition.
They stabbed me in my brain. I think I took psychic damage on this one.
I'm already not a fan of this everything can wound everything gak. But this.... IG auto-wounding everything on to-hit rolls of 6.... WTF? NO!
Tittliewinks22 wrote: I think it's time WH40k implements a rock paper scissors type weaponry, or more akin to pokemon types weakness/resistance/neutral.
Anti-Infantry
Anti-Tank
Anti-Air (or speed?)
Infantry should be immune to Anti-Air, Neutral to Anti-Tank, and Weak to Anti-Infantry.
Tanks should be immune to Anti-Infantry and weak to Anti-Tank, and neutral to Anti-Air
Air/Fast targets(bikes/skimmers etc) should be immune to Anti-Tank, Neutral to Anti-Infantry, and Weak to Anti-Air.
I do not see how to encourage take all comers lists in any method other than something like this.
What you are describing is more or less how the old AP and wounding system worked.
AP3 was anti infentry with mediocre amount of shorts
Ap2 was anti elite light vehicle with few shots
AP1 was anti heavy vehicle with usually 1 or 2 shots.
The issue became the sheer volume of AP3 and AP2 that was available to field in large volumes.
AV system prevented you from being able to wound vehicles if your weapons were not strong enough. Because you had to roll your STR + a D6, if it could not equal or beat the AV it did nothing, meaning AV over 10 was immune to S3 weapons, AV 11 immune to S4 waepons ect ect.
yukishiro1 wrote: The problem with the auto wound on 6s thing isn't that it's particularly good, it's that it's unbelievably stupid. It says really bad things about the design studio that that is all they could think of to try to make guard slightly less terrible - or really bad things about their superiors if they could think of other things that they weren't allowed to do.
People should expect better. This isn't five guys in their basement any more. It's a premium product produced by a company worth billions with an annual turnover in the hundreds of millions.
Do any changes at the end of an edition matter though? IG will get a new codex, and in a short time after we get a new codex, new marine books etc. 6-12 months ago, this may have been big. But right now it is just more LoL stuff. It ain't more broken , in the powerful meaning of the word, then other good factions have.
Tittliewinks22 wrote: I think it's time WH40k implements a rock paper scissors type weaponry, or more akin to pokemon types weakness/resistance/neutral.
Anti-Infantry
Anti-Tank
Anti-Air (or speed?)
Infantry should be immune to Anti-Air, Neutral to Anti-Tank, and Weak to Anti-Infantry.
Tanks should be immune to Anti-Infantry and weak to Anti-Tank, and neutral to Anti-Air
Air/Fast targets(bikes/skimmers etc) should be immune to Anti-Tank, Neutral to Anti-Infantry, and Weak to Anti-Air.
I do not see how to encourage take all comers lists in any method other than something like this.
Just use the system from Apocalypse (the latest edition) as a base for a newer edition.
Some_Call_Me_Tim wrote: And ork nobz are able to… and my alpha can X in the lore…
The game is just about pure mechanical stuff at this point.
Have you also considered that lascannons just aren’t too great?
Run the numbers on some anti tank that’s actually good.
Guardsman range also caps out at around 24 inches, I can think of a lot of vehicle weapons that can stay well outside of that range.
A squad of Guardsmen with Lasguns does as much damage as a Marine wielded Multimelta.
A squad of guardsmen with officer support, inside 12" (so either walking up the board or in a transport) using frsrf chucks out out what, 1.48 damage?
1 marine with no doctrines, buffs or transports and a multimelta does 1.55 at 24"
It's a little apples to oranges.
It was already apples to oranges when light rifle fire is being compared to premiere AT weapons. We shouldn't be anywhere near where we are in the relationship between the two.
That explains all the news stories I've heard recently abou Ukranians defeating Russian tanks by running up to them with assault rufles. . .
Right....
What, "I don't want no war in my wargame"?
There was a point when the game gave a lot more priority to being more realistic in certain ways. Heck, let's not even say "realistic" lest someone shout "but 40k isnt real!!". We can go with "lore accurate" even. When was the last time you read a story where Guardsmen were relying on their Lasguns to damage heavily armored vehicles?
What you are describing is more or less how the old AP and wounding system worked.
AP3 was anti infentry with mediocre amount of shorts
Ap2 was anti elite light vehicle with few shots
AP1 was anti heavy vehicle with usually 1 or 2 shots.
The issue became the sheer volume of AP3 and AP2 that was available to field in large volumes.
Eh. That wasn't the only issue. It was always weird that AP4 weapons, which were sometimes anti-vehicle weapons like autocannons, were strong enough to completely ignore more powerful imperial armor and advanced (tau) or heavy ('eavy armor) alien armor, but it was just as bad at penetrating power armor as a humble lasgun. And it was weird that my dire avengers (Sv4+) could shut down 50% of incoming flamer wounds, but they got no save at all against heavy flamer wounds because of 1 extra point of AP. Plus, heavy infantry like marines basically didn't care about cover except when being hit by AP3 or better attacks, and then they were almost as squishy (or even less squishy point for point) than a guardsman.
I like how the current system rewards every point of Armor, save bonus, and AP (except when one is extreme enough for the other to be wasted). It makes marines want to use cover. It makes autocannons better at punching through armor than stubbers. I feel like the current AP system would be fine if we just ditched doctrines, some of the recent AP buffs, etc.
AV system prevented you from being able to wound vehicles if your weapons were not strong enough. Because you had to roll your STR + a D6, if it could not equal or beat the AV it did nothing, meaning AV over 10 was immune to S3 weapons, AV 11 immune to S4 waepons ect ect.
This, in turn, meant that an army that spammed vehicles was essentially immune to large chunks of the enemy army; especially if that army wasn't Strength 4 base. (And didn't have krak grenades which essentially make your whole squad A1 S6 in some editions). So if your eldar army spent 500 points on basic troops with S4 weapons, you basically had 500 points less offense in your list whenever you played against a tank-heavy enemy list. This in turn drove you to avoid taking many of the units in your codex because you had to prioritize your anti-tank options to deal with the enemy parking lot.
Marine players were less affected by all this because every non-vehicle in their army could punch nearly every vehicle in the game to death, plus they had krak grenades, plus they could give sergeants anti-tank melee weapons.
Also, this meant that an adamantine lance of knights army was immune to everything S6 or less in front of it, everything S5 or less behind it, and was immune to anything S6 or less in melee. This, in turn, meant that big chunks of your army basically did nothing but hop on objectives and wait to die without fighting back. Some players consider this to be the height of tactical decision making and a perfectly good way to play 40k.
So you're telling me that 120 points plus an HQ ( so about 155 ) does 6 wounds to a 150 point unit when they're within 12" of it. Oh no. The game is over. What Ever Will We Do? Surely no one has figured out how to kill T3 5+ before they get within 12". Dooooom.
I'm not sure if the angle you're taking is 'basic Guardsmen getting nearly 50% return against their least optimal target type is fine' or 'Leman Russes actually should be optimal targets for Guardsmen' but either way I would encourage you to sit down and have a long think about whether this is a good thing rather than continue to defend the trench you've dug.
Problem is that it appears that your math was wrong.
So, 3 wounds is what they'll do. Or have I missed something? I think rather you should put this into a practical application instead of modeling bowling ball scenarios.
Because you should have to consider building lists around having some sort of anti armor.
If your list is getting creamed because it could not deal with armor....welll....bring anti armor.
Ah, but see, the current edition makes me bring anti-armor. While my small arms fire can technically hurt vehicles, it doesn't do so very efficiently. I'd be at a big disadvantage if I didn't bring at least some anti-armor.
What ye olde system generally did was make me value anti-armor to the exclusion of most of my non-anti-armor options. Which lead to less list diversity and meant that I was basically playing at a disadvantage if I wanted to field something that wasn't really good at fighting tanks. You should feel just as comfortable taking a flamer as you do a meltagun. I like fielding fire dragons, but I don't want to max out on fire dragons and no longer have room for banshees.
TBF, it's valid (and not uncommon) for people to prefer the AV system. I just personally found it to be less interesting/interactive/to encourage spam lists that reduced list variety/frustrating when I wasn't allowed to use half my army against a mechanized list.
So, 3 wounds is what they'll do. Or have I missed something? I think rather you should put this into a practical application instead of modeling bowling ball scenarios.
Probably a brain fart, but I'm not following some of those values. Is FRFSRF double the lasgun shots or just +1 shot? Assuming the former...
20 bodies = 78 shots (no lasguns allowed on sergeants, right?).
78 shots = 36 hits.
12 of those hits are 6s, so 12 saves to make.
24 remaining hits means 4 wounds.
4+12 = 16 saves to make.
16 saves means you fail 2.67 saves for a total of 2.67 damage. So nevermind. I don't follow your math, but we get to the same place assuming FRSRF is double shots. (Even less if it's only +1 shots.)
So yeah, I think even after this buff, lasguns fall into that realm of, "Statistically so inefficient that it's probably not a problem." Like, sure, somewhere in the world, someone is going to kill a landraider with a single volley of lasguns; but most of the time lasguns will remain an efficient choice for dealing with tanks. What little damage they do can probably be chalked up to hitting gaps left by stronger weapons, chipping away at the exposed parts of the vehicle, etc. An imperial knight has some metal cords on its calves that are thinner than guardsman's wrist. We can probably agree that those cables are important and that they'll start to break if they get hit by enough lasgun shots, yes? That's the sort of thing lasguns are doing to vehicles.
EDIT: tbf, a guard squad will probably do slightly more damage now that they can take free wargear, but I imagine most of us are okay with lascannons and plasmaguns hurting vehicles.)
Daedalus81 wrote: So you're telling me that 120 points plus an HQ ( so about 155 ) does 6 wounds to a 150 point unit when they're within 12" of it. Oh no. The game is over. What Ever Will We Do? Surely no one has figured out how to kill T3 5+ before they get within 12". Dooooom.
As usual, you just don't get it, and aren't taking in what people are saying.
Try reading what people are saying and the reasons why this rule feels wrong on a conceptual level rather that mathmathmathing your way into knots again.
So, 3 wounds is what they'll do. Or have I missed something? I think rather you should put this into a practical application instead of modeling bowling ball scenarios.
Probably a brain fart, but I'm not following some of those values. Is FRFSRF double the lasgun shots or just +1 shot? Assuming the former...
20 bodies = 78 shots (no lasguns allowed on sergeants, right?).
78 shots = 36 hits.
12 of those hits are 6s, so 12 saves to make.
24 remaining hits means 4 wounds.
4+12 = 16 saves to make.
16 saves means you fail 2.67 saves for a total of 2.67 damage. So nevermind. I don't follow your math, but we get to the same place assuming FRSRF is double shots. (Even less if it's only +1 shots.)
So yeah, I think even after this buff, lasguns fall into that realm of, "Statistically so inefficient that it's probably not a problem." Like, sure, somewhere in the world, someone is going to kill a landraider with a single volley of lasguns; but most of the time lasguns will remain an efficient choice for dealing with tanks. What little damage they do can probably be chalked up to hitting gaps left by stronger weapons, chipping away at the exposed parts of the vehicle, etc. An imperial knight has some metal cords on its calves that are thinner than guardsman's wrist. We can probably agree that those cables are important and that they'll start to break if they get hit by enough lasgun shots, yes? That's the sort of thing lasguns are doing to vehicles.
EDIT: tbf, a guard squad will probably do slightly more damage now that they can take free wargear, but I imagine most of us are okay with lascannons and plasmaguns hurting vehicles.)
Flipside: If the argument is "The damage is so insignificant", why not return to a paradigm where they can't hurt it at all. It sure would save a lot of rolling!
Flipside: If the argument is "The damage is so insignificant", why not return to a paradigm where they can't hurt it at all. It sure would save a lot of rolling!
Good point and fair question. Answer: Because of the things that aren't guardsmen/lasguns. I like where things like shuriken weapons sit where they're still pretty bad at killing vehicles, but they do well enough to feel like they're contributing. If I positively had to kill a rhino with shuriken catapults, I could do it; killing off my bright lances and fire dragons doesn't mean I have to spend the rest of the taking hits without retaliation. Or more commonly, my dire avengers won't kill a rhino, but they'll save me from having to put an extra bright lance into it to finish it off.
Similarly, things like inferno bolts that are meant to chew through marine armor seem like they should be able to contribute against tanks. My wave serpents probably shouldn't be able to sit still and completely ignore heavy bolters. Nurgle daemons should be allowed to hurt vehicles without relying entirely on soul grinders and HQs. In a game where it's easy to build a skew list (even if you're just trying to put together a thematic casual list), letting every unit participate in the core engagement (fighting) is preferable to not.
So, 3 wounds is what they'll do. Or have I missed something? I think rather you should put this into a practical application instead of modeling bowling ball scenarios.
Probably a brain fart, but I'm not following some of those values. Is FRFSRF double the lasgun shots or just +1 shot? Assuming the former...
20 bodies = 78 shots (no lasguns allowed on sergeants, right?).
78 shots = 36 hits.
12 of those hits are 6s, so 12 saves to make.
24 remaining hits means 4 wounds.
4+12 = 16 saves to make.
16 saves means you fail 2.67 saves for a total of 2.67 damage. So nevermind. I don't follow your math, but we get to the same place assuming FRSRF is double shots. (Even less if it's only +1 shots.)
So yeah, I think even after this buff, lasguns fall into that realm of, "Statistically so inefficient that it's probably not a problem." Like, sure, somewhere in the world, someone is going to kill a landraider with a single volley of lasguns; but most of the time lasguns will remain an efficient choice for dealing with tanks. What little damage they do can probably be chalked up to hitting gaps left by stronger weapons, chipping away at the exposed parts of the vehicle, etc. An imperial knight has some metal cords on its calves that are thinner than guardsman's wrist. We can probably agree that those cables are important and that they'll start to break if they get hit by enough lasgun shots, yes? That's the sort of thing lasguns are doing to vehicles.
EDIT: tbf, a guard squad will probably do slightly more damage now that they can take free wargear, but I imagine most of us are okay with lascannons and plasmaguns hurting vehicles.)
Flipside: If the argument is "The damage is so insignificant", why not return to a paradigm where they can't hurt it at all. It sure would save a lot of rolling!
How much damage does a marine with a Lascannon do to the Russ? Also insignificant I imagine by this standard!
Let's see...
Roughly .5 wounds? Wow, a squad of men with assault rifles is roughly equal to three of the Imperium's primary ranged anti-tank guns.
Just like how three men with AK-47s are just as effective against tanks as one man with a Javelin. Checks out.
Flipside: If the argument is "The damage is so insignificant", why not return to a paradigm where they can't hurt it at all. It sure would save a lot of rolling!
Good point and fair question. Answer: Because of the things that aren't guardsmen/lasguns. I like where things like shuriken weapons sit where they're still pretty bad at killing vehicles, but they do well enough to feel like they're contributing. If I positively had to kill a rhino with shuriken catapults, I could do it; killing off my bright lances and fire dragons doesn't mean I have to spend the rest of the taking hits without retaliation. Or more commonly, my dire avengers won't kill a rhino, but they'll save me from having to put an extra bright lance into it to finish it off.
Similarly, things like inferno bolts that are meant to chew through marine armor seem like they should be able to contribute against tanks. My wave serpents probably shouldn't be able to sit still and completely ignore heavy bolters. Nurgle daemons should be allowed to hurt vehicles without relying entirely on soul grinders and HQs. In a game where it's easy to build a skew list (even if you're just trying to put together a thematic casual list), letting every unit participate in the core engagement (fighting) is preferable to not.
Great! So presuming this basic idea of letting even basic infantry contribute something, I'd like to point out the older rules under the old AV paradigm where basic infantry armed even with Frag Grenades could assault and potentially harm a vehicle by planting grenades in vulnerable areas (always counting as hitting the rear armor of a vehicle). Additionally, allowing infantry AT specialists or squad leaders to carry much better AT grenades for even more spectacular effect.
Imo there are much smarter ways to go about achieving your desired goal than what GW has given us.
So, 3 wounds is what they'll do. Or have I missed something? I think rather you should put this into a practical application instead of modeling bowling ball scenarios.
Probably a brain fart, but I'm not following some of those values. Is FRFSRF double the lasgun shots or just +1 shot? Assuming the former...
20 bodies = 78 shots (no lasguns allowed on sergeants, right?).
78 shots = 36 hits.
12 of those hits are 6s, so 12 saves to make.
24 remaining hits means 4 wounds.
4+12 = 16 saves to make.
16 saves means you fail 2.67 saves for a total of 2.67 damage. So nevermind. I don't follow your math, but we get to the same place assuming FRSRF is double shots. (Even less if it's only +1 shots.)
So yeah, I think even after this buff, lasguns fall into that realm of, "Statistically so inefficient that it's probably not a problem." Like, sure, somewhere in the world, someone is going to kill a landraider with a single volley of lasguns; but most of the time lasguns will remain an efficient choice for dealing with tanks. What little damage they do can probably be chalked up to hitting gaps left by stronger weapons, chipping away at the exposed parts of the vehicle, etc. An imperial knight has some metal cords on its calves that are thinner than guardsman's wrist. We can probably agree that those cables are important and that they'll start to break if they get hit by enough lasgun shots, yes? That's the sort of thing lasguns are doing to vehicles.
EDIT: tbf, a guard squad will probably do slightly more damage now that they can take free wargear, but I imagine most of us are okay with lascannons and plasmaguns hurting vehicles.)
I didn't bother with the sarge so I did a round 80.
80 shots of which 1 in 6 will auto-wound = 13.36 then those go to armor = 2.2
80 shots that hit on 4s and 5s = 26.6 with 6s to wound = 4.4 and then armor = 0.7
Maybe you can explain why a squad of Guardsmen with Lasguns are better at tank killing than a squad of DEVASTATORS WITH LASCANNONS and why that's good for the game.
4x.666x.666x.666x3.5= 4.1
Heck, the 6 wounds is what 2 Multimeltas average within 12".
Again with this absolute nonsense.
For one - CB's math was wrong.
For two - lascannons don't have to be within 12".
For the cost of two IS and a commander you can get a squad of eradiators with a MM. Put those within 12" instead of arbitrarily choosing two MM.
Daedalus81 wrote: So you're telling me that 120 points plus an HQ ( so about 155 ) does 6 wounds to a 150 point unit when they're within 12" of it. Oh no. The game is over. What Ever Will We Do? Surely no one has figured out how to kill T3 5+ before they get within 12". Dooooom.
As usual, you just don't get it, and aren't taking in what people are saying.
Try reading what people are saying and the reasons why this rule feels wrong on a conceptual level rather that mathmathmathing your way into knots again.
I'm responding to someone complaining about the math. I don't give a gak about your purity test gotcha.
Maybe you can explain why a squad of Guardsmen with Lasguns are better at tank killing than a squad of DEVASTATORS WITH LASCANNONS and why that's good for the game.
4x.666x.666x.666x3.5= 4.1
Heck, the 6 wounds is what 2 Multimeltas average within 12".
Again with this absolute nonsense.
For one - CB's math was wrong.
For two - lascannons don't have to be within 12".
For the cost of two IS and a commander you can get a squad of eradiators with a MM. Put those within 12" instead of arbitrarily choosing two MM.
I was responding to this :
Daedalus81 wrote: So you're telling me that 120 points plus an HQ ( so about 155 ) does 6 wounds to a 150 point unit when they're within 12" of it. Oh no. The game is over. What Ever Will We Do? Surely no one has figured out how to kill T3 5+ before they get within 12". Dooooom.
In which it appeared you claimed they managed 6 wounds.
Kinda funny about the IG. 60 points is basically a power level. haha. but what to bring in a squad? maybe a Lascannon and something for the Sgt. Can't think of a special I know I'd get excited for instead of a lasgun. What's funny is at 60 points I feel I have to bring the heavy weapons, which I don't really feel all that excited to do it feels more like it's required due to the packaging.
Meh.
I've enjoyed the argument about the 6+ always wound stuff. because it's still largely irrelevant to the target unit it would have been better if it were 2 wounds or count as two hits, maybe maybe not. At first I thought it was good but it's less dice to roll at the next step so I'm less excited about it after some thought. will it help? Sure but probably less than expected.
Yeah that's sort of the hilarious drum beat for me.
It makes guardsmen slightly more effective against enemy infantry, and HUGELY AMAZINGLY more effective against enemy tanks, compared to how they were before.
Like an old squad against Marines did something like 2 wounds with FRFSRF. The new squad does 3. About a 50% increase.
Against a Predator tank, the old squad did 1. The new squad does roughly 3 (2.66), for a 300% damage increase.
It makes guardsmen slightly more effective against enemy infantry, and HUGELY AMAZINGLY more effective against enemy tanks, compared to how they were before.
Like an old squad against Marines did something like 2 wounds with FRFSRF. The new squad does 3. About a 50% increase.
Against a Predator tank, the old squad did 1. The new squad does roughly 3 (2.66), for a 300% damage increase.
And with no Ap and average roll the tank is probably unscathed. But it might encourage the Sm player to field a techmarine. doubtful but maybe.
It makes guardsmen slightly more effective against enemy infantry, and HUGELY AMAZINGLY more effective against enemy tanks, compared to how they were before.
Like an old squad against Marines did something like 2 wounds with FRFSRF. The new squad does 3. About a 50% increase.
Against a Predator tank, the old squad did 1. The new squad does roughly 3 (2.66), for a 300% damage increase.
And with no Ap and average roll the tank is probably unscathed. But it might encourage the Sm player to field a techmarine. doubtful but maybe.
I included the tank's save into the maths. On average, a predator is more than 25% dead to a guard squad within 12"
Insectum7 wrote: Great! So presuming this basic idea of letting even basic infantry contribute something, I'd like to point out the older rules under the old AV paradigm where basic infantry armed even with Frag Grenades could assault and potentially harm a vehicle by planting grenades in vulnerable areas (always counting as hitting the rear armor of a vehicle). Additionally, allowing infantry AT specialists or squad leaders to carry much better AT grenades for even more spectacular effect.
Imo there are much smarter ways to go about achieving your desired goal than what GW has given us.
Maybe I'm misremembering, or maybe that predates me. From what I recall when I started in 5th, frags ("assault grenades") couldn't be used to hurt vehicles. Krak grenades could (basically giving each model a single attack at S6), but krak grenades were kind of rare outside of marine units (who were already S4 and could thus threaten most vehicles rear armor already). But I started with craftworlders, and they didn't have anti-vehicle grenades on anything other than swooping hawks and fire dragons. (And maybe autarchs?) So once my dedicated anti-tank units were dead, I was basically stuck doing donuts with my vehicles until the game ended. And heaven forbid you got trapped in combat with a walker.
You're right about there being other ways to let all units contribute. I just want to point out that there were still units that couldn't contribute against skew lists (like imperial knights) as of the last edition to use the AV system (7th). I'm open to change. Maybe that means giving all S3 armies abundant sources of anti-vehicle damage. Maybe that means lowering rear AV to 9 instead of 10. Maybe something else entirely. I just don't want to go back to matches where it's literally impossible for most of my army to do damage.
What is now more dangerous to a max squad of intercessors?
A. A fully loaded Chimera 60+60( max squad of Troops with a HWT) and a HB is 128 pts.
OR
B. 4 Scout Sentinels with Multi-lasers? 35x4 is 140 points
I'm trying to do the math on this and honestly asking. Did they just make laser-arrays deadly?
Someone can double check me on this, as I do my calculations a little....differently.
as far as the latter case:
12 shots, hitting on 4s means 6 hits. Assuming 2 rolls are 6's, then that's two auto wounds. Out of the 4 remaining, that's 3s to wound which, rounded down means 2 additional wounds.
3+ save against 4 ap 0 wounds rounded up means a whole 1 damage.
(I always round down "my" side and round up the "opponent")
For the former case:
Assuming loadout of Chimera is: Multi-Laser, Heavy Bolter, and Storm Bolter
Assuming: Infantry Squad loadout is: Sgt Bolter, Plasma, HWT with Heavy Bolter*, rest lasguns.
Assuming: rapid-fire range, no orders, Infantry Squad disembarked that turn (counts as moving). No faction bonuses applied.
Storm Bolter+Bolter: 3 hits, 1 auto wound and 1 regular wound
Lasgun: 14 shots, 7 hits, 2 auto wounds and 1 regular wound (5 hits, 5+ to wound rounded down= 1 wound)
Multi-Laser: 1 hit, 1 wound**
Plasma: 2 shots, overcharged, 1 hit, Assuming 1 wound (2+ to wound)
Heavy Bolters: 1 hit each, as HWT is at -1 to hit and rounding down Chimera's hit roll, 1 auto wound, other one misses**
Net wounds: 6 ap0 D1, 1 ap0 D2, 1 ap-1 D2
Unsaved wounds: 2, 4 if either the Plasma or Heavy Bolter wounds go through, so I'll average this to 3 wounds, resulting in 1.5 dead Marines.
*rounding down, single Lascannon hitting on 4+ always misses, and the Autocannon with my method would do 1 hit and no wounds.
**I think it's a little unfair here that both the Multi-Laser and Heavy Bolter just straight miss, so in the spirit of "lowering", I'll make the Multi-Laser wound here
warhead01 wrote: Kinda funny about the IG. 60 points is basically a power level. haha. but what to bring in a squad? maybe a Lascannon and something for the Sgt. Can't think of a special I know I'd get excited for instead of a lasgun. What's funny is at 60 points I feel I have to bring the heavy weapons, which I don't really feel all that excited to do it feels more like it's required due to the packaging.
Meh.
I feel like plasma guns are the go-to special weapon, no? Same range as your lasguns. Good against a wide variety of targets. Cheap enough on a guardsman that you don't care if it gets hot. Although you could maybe pull off some tricky attacks with a meltagunner; especially advancing a tallarn squad out of a chimera. Catch an enemy character at an unexpected angle and see if you get lucky. I feel like lascannons and autocannons are probably my first picks for the heavy weapons. The former for a lucky damage spike. The latter for slightly more consistency.
Apprehensive as I am about free point, it is kind of exciting to be looking at troop squad wargear again.
yukishiro1 wrote: Works on Scions too as far as I can tell, contrary to what GH and some other places have suggested. Which makes the hotshot lasguns very good.
It makes guardsmen slightly more effective against enemy infantry, and HUGELY AMAZINGLY more effective against enemy tanks, compared to how they were before.
Like an old squad against Marines did something like 2 wounds with FRFSRF. The new squad does 3. About a 50% increase.
Against a Predator tank, the old squad did 1. The new squad does roughly 3 (2.66), for a 300% damage increase.
If GW were to take another stab at this rule change, I could see them changing it to not work against monsters and vehicles. Get rid of some of the weirdness while still helping against other targets. Not that I love the auto-wound rule in general. Seems like an attempt to reduce dice rolling that mostly just shrinks your to-wound pool.
If GW were to take another stab at this rule change, I could see them changing it to not work against monsters and vehicles. Get rid of some of the weirdness while still helping against other targets. Not that I love the auto-wound rule in general. Seems like an attempt to reduce dice rolling that mostly just shrinks your to-wound pool.
LOL, this literally is what some of the scrubs in this very thread have been saying FRFSRF should be for lasguns.
So you're telling me that 120 points plus an HQ ( so about 155 ) does 6 wounds to a 150 point unit when they're within 12" of it. Oh no. The game is over. What Ever Will We Do? Surely no one has figured out how to kill T3 5+ before they get within 12". Dooooom.
I'm not sure if the angle you're taking is 'basic Guardsmen getting nearly 50% return against their least optimal target type is fine' or 'Leman Russes actually should be optimal targets for Guardsmen' but either way I would encourage you to sit down and have a long think about whether this is a good thing rather than continue to defend the trench you've dug.
Problem is that it appears that your math was wrong.
So, 3 wounds is what they'll do. Or have I missed something? I think rather you should put this into a practical application instead of modeling bowling ball scenarios.
You're right. In the moment I forgot that Russes have been patched to have 2+ saves.
So sub in Onagers, or Predators, or Defilers, or Hammerheads, or Knights, or pretty much any other heavy armored vehicle in the game, because the point is not about Leman Russes specifically- basic Guardsmen with nothing but lasguns shouldn't be getting better returns against vehicles than they do against infantry, fer chrissakes.
As far as Guardsmen wounding on 6s to hit...you guys went to the extreme example righ away...why? T8 2+ armor isn't what they will be shooting into, its units more similar to my T5 (and below) Orkz and other units.
Pre "update" 80 shots against a unit of Ork boyz (why are you taking ork boyz? ) is 40 hits, 13.3 wounds and 11ish dead Boyz.
Now with this new rule its 80 shots = 20.3 dead Boyz. Thats 180pts of dead Orkz from significantly less Guardsmen in a single round of shooting. And of course that doesn't include their FREE heavy weapon/special weapon they now get.
Personally I think this is way too far in terms of buffing Imperial guard. I think they needed some serious help, but Auto-wounding on 6s, their new free weapons rules and other stuff just makes them push well above mid tier and straight into 2nd tier at worst.
But more than that, I am concerned with the Power armor ignores the 1st -1AP. Now my best weapons against most armies are completely useless against Marines. My Big choppas just became useless and my Choppas are going back to how they used to be in 8th.
So now GW has removed Ork horde build entirely through lack of support characters, rules, buffs, stratagems etc, they nerfed their morale and there durability, they increased their price by 22% and only gave them T5 to compensate for it. At this point my Alphork strike list is effectively dead, and other orkz Speed Waaagh builds are dead, our indirect fire units are completely useless, why am I going to pay points for a unit that hits on 6s and gives my enemy +1 armor?
I would just really love for GW to hire a damn Ork player to be on their staff and review their rules so they can understand how it will horribly impact my Army as opposed to doing all the above and saying "BUT T5!"
Insectum7 wrote: Great! So presuming this basic idea of letting even basic infantry contribute something, I'd like to point out the older rules under the old AV paradigm where basic infantry armed even with Frag Grenades could assault and potentially harm a vehicle by planting grenades in vulnerable areas (always counting as hitting the rear armor of a vehicle). Additionally, allowing infantry AT specialists or squad leaders to carry much better AT grenades for even more spectacular effect.
Imo there are much smarter ways to go about achieving your desired goal than what GW has given us.
Maybe I'm misremembering, or maybe that predates me. From what I recall when I started in 5th, frags ("assault grenades") couldn't be used to hurt vehicles. Krak grenades could (basically giving each model a single attack at S6), but krak grenades were kind of rare outside of marine units (who were already S4 and could thus threaten most vehicles rear armor already). But I started with craftworlders, and they didn't have anti-vehicle grenades on anything other than swooping hawks and fire dragons. (And maybe autarchs?) So once my dedicated anti-tank units were dead, I was basically stuck doing donuts with my vehicles until the game ended. And heaven forbid you got trapped in combat with a walker.
You're right about there being other ways to let all units contribute. I just want to point out that there were still units that couldn't contribute against skew lists (like imperial knights) as of the last edition to use the AV system (7th). I'm open to change. Maybe that means giving all S3 armies abundant sources of anti-vehicle damage. Maybe that means lowering rear AV to 9 instead of 10. Maybe something else entirely. I just don't want to go back to matches where it's literally impossible for most of my army to do damage.
So iirc, it was 4th ed specifically that did the Frags count as S4 against vehicles thing.
We're on the same page about a poor balance implementation of Superheavies in 7th. I'd do anumber of things about that specifically. That said I do think it should be a viable tactic to take out AT units and then have relative impunity, however I'd give more units more options especially using the Grenade route, and I'd look for other ways to make skewing Vehicles a dangerous idea in general.
As for Eldar, looking back at my 2nd ed book Guardians could take Frag and Krak. Personally I'd distribute grenades among Aspect Warriors, and in particular Haywire or something reasonable to Exarchs too.
I'm pretty positive we could find a way to reach agreement, generally.
Tyran wrote: Guard should have been 6s to hit inflict an additional hit.
Still an extremely powerful buff, but not as lore breaking as autowounding on 6s.
That being said, I do consider the dataslate a mostly improvement for the game, with only the Guard stuff being particularly stupid.
Reasonably sure to a fairly big extent that Orkz just went from Mid tier to bottom tier in a single "balance Patch" that literally didn't even change anything on them specifically. Pretty epic of GW to pull that one off.
Insectum7 wrote: Great! So presuming this basic idea of letting even basic infantry contribute something, I'd like to point out the older rules under the old AV paradigm where basic infantry armed even with Frag Grenades could assault and potentially harm a vehicle by planting grenades in vulnerable areas (always counting as hitting the rear armor of a vehicle). Additionally, allowing infantry AT specialists or squad leaders to carry much better AT grenades for even more spectacular effect.
Imo there are much smarter ways to go about achieving your desired goal than what GW has given us.
Maybe I'm misremembering, or maybe that predates me. From what I recall when I started in 5th, frags ("assault grenades") couldn't be used to hurt vehicles. Krak grenades could (basically giving each model a single attack at S6), but krak grenades were kind of rare outside of marine units (who were already S4 and could thus threaten most vehicles rear armor already). But I started with craftworlders, and they didn't have anti-vehicle grenades on anything other than swooping hawks and fire dragons. (And maybe autarchs?) So once my dedicated anti-tank units were dead, I was basically stuck doing donuts with my vehicles until the game ended. And heaven forbid you got trapped in combat with a walker.
You're right about there being other ways to let all units contribute. I just want to point out that there were still units that couldn't contribute against skew lists (like imperial knights) as of the last edition to use the AV system (7th). I'm open to change. Maybe that means giving all S3 armies abundant sources of anti-vehicle damage. Maybe that means lowering rear AV to 9 instead of 10. Maybe something else entirely. I just don't want to go back to matches where it's literally impossible for most of my army to do damage.
It's a little fuzzy now but I recall those grenades counting as a ST4 attack so 4+D6 would get you rear armour on some/most vehicles but it's been ages so it may have been limited to only working on AV 10 as I can't recall the specifics of older close combat again vehicles accurately.
It makes guardsmen slightly more effective against enemy infantry, and HUGELY AMAZINGLY more effective against enemy tanks, compared to how they were before.
Like an old squad against Marines did something like 2 wounds with FRFSRF. The new squad does 3. About a 50% increase.
Against a Predator tank, the old squad did 1. The new squad does roughly 3 (2.66), for a 300% damage increase.
And with no Ap and average roll the tank is probably unscathed. But it might encourage the Sm player to field a techmarine. doubtful but maybe.
I included the tank's save into the maths. On average, a predator is more than 25% dead to a guard squad within 12"
Didn't realize you had, I'm not a math guy. I just see my usual opponent passing every save almost every time I think I have the upper hand in nearly every game over the last 20 years. You'd think his lick would run out but he just rolls better. It's disgusting.
I can't be overly impressed by an infantry squad putting a couple of auto wounds in, Ya it'll help but that squad is probably hamburger after that. I super hate 9th. and edition so good it needs continual updates because they couldn't be bothered to do a better job from the word go.
yukishiro1 wrote: Works on Scions too as far as I can tell, contrary to what GH and some other places have suggested. Which makes the hotshot lasguns very good.
Scions don't have the <regimental> key word.
They do, though. MILITARUM TEMPESTUS is their <Regiment> keyword. See the 8th edition codex:
"Units with the MILITARUM TEMPESTUS keyword treat this as their <REGIMENT> keyword in all respects
And the Nachmund FAQ:
Q: Can I include Militarum Tempestus units in the same army as units from another Regiment (e.g. Cadian)?
A: Yes. Though Militarum Tempestus is a sub-faction keyword, it is not a keyword that is selected by the player (i.e. it is not presented within angular brackets), and so is exempt from the rules that require every unit that has a selectable keyword to have the same selectable keyword. Note though that if the Militarum Tempestus units are using the Ordo Tempestus rules from Psychic Awakening: The Greater Good (which gives them the <Tempestus Regiment> keyword), then all Militarum Tempestus units from your armymust be from the same Tempestus Regiment.
In other words, MILITARUM TEMPESTUS is their <REGIMENT>, so they get it. What's somewhat unclear (my read is no, but some people seem to think otherwise) is whether you still get it if you have a mixed scion and normal guard army. But you definitely get it if you have a 100% scion force.
Tempestus cannot also have Regiment. That's like saying Blood Angels can also be Ultra Marines. Scions are a sub faction basically. Their regiment is specific to them.
Read the post directly above yours. MILITARUM TEMPESTUS is their <REGIMENT> and is treated as such "in all respects." Hence they get the bonus (at least if your army doesn't have any units from other regiments).
locarno24 wrote: If its 'on any 6 to hit', isn't that also going to skew tanks in favour of the gatling gun leman russ variant?
I've wondered before if these would have been go-to tanks given being able to shoot while locked in combat. The jumped out at me at the start of 9th as a tank I would defiantly wish to field just for that.
Unfortunately I've never given it a try and just sold my 4 Russ's yesterday.
9th still reminds me a lot of 2nd in a lot of ways. Tanks are hit or miss on the table for example. Loads of damage output. That sort of thing.
I'm all for anything getting me a little more use from my squads as their life expectancy is so low and if it gets AM players to play more aggressively then good. Having thought on this for a day my mood has changed from I don't want to play anymore 9th to I might be up to giving it another game or two.
yukishiro1 wrote: Read the post directly above yours. MILITARUM TEMPESTUS is their <REGIMENT> and is treated as such "in all respects." Hence they get the bonus (at least if your army doesn't have any units from other regiments).
Just so I understand you, you're saying it's currently legal to have Cadian Gorgonnes, with exploding AND autowounding 6's? Or Cadian Iotan Dragons? With Re-rolling 1's 24" Hotshot Lasguns?
You do know that's wrong, right? Because if that were the case, they wouldn't need their very OWN commanders to issue orders. They could just get orders from any Company Commander, instead of A Tempestor. But they can't. Because they are VERY OBVIOUSLY Seperate units. Sort of like how this DOESN'T INCLUDE Commissars or Bullgryns.
yukishiro1 wrote: Read the post directly above yours. MILITARUM TEMPESTUS is their <REGIMENT> and is treated as such "in all respects." Hence they get the bonus (at least if your army doesn't have any units from other regiments).
Just so I understand you, you're saying it's currently legal to have Cadian Gorgonnes
No, he's saying that MILITARUM TEMPESTUS is explicitly treated as a keyword replacement for REGIMENT, and no provision in the rules is given to replace it with anything else.
But if you are playing a MILITARUM TEMPESTUS detachment, then per PA: The Greater Good you also get the TEMPESTUS REGIMENT keyword, which can be replaced with only the Tempestus regiments given in a specific list.
So you have the MILITARUM TEMPESTUS keyword- which is treated as a REGIMENT keyword- and then you can also have the IOTAN GORGONNES keyword, which is a replacement for the wholly separate TEMPESTUS REGIMENT keyword. You can't take CADIANS as a keyword, but you do count as having a REGIMENT.
yukishiro1 wrote: Read the post directly above yours. MILITARUM TEMPESTUS is their <REGIMENT> and is treated as such "in all respects." Hence they get the bonus (at least if your army doesn't have any units from other regiments).
Just so I understand you, you're saying it's currently legal to have Cadian Gorgonnes, with exploding AND autowounding 6's? Or Cadian Iotan Dragons? With Re-rolling 1's 24" Hotshot Lasguns?
You do know that's wrong, right? Because if that were the case, they wouldn't need their very OWN commanders to issue orders. They could just get orders from any Company Commander, instead of A Tempestor. But they can't. Because they are VERY OBVIOUSLY Seperate units. Sort of like how this DOESN'T INCLUDE Commissars or Bullgryns.
No. Read what I actually said. MILITARUM TEMPESTUS is their <regiment>. Of course they can't be Cadian too, that'd be having two regiments.
Scions have MILITARUM TEMPESTUS as their <regiment> in the exact same was that Creed has CADIAN as his regiment.
No, he's saying that MILITARUM TEMPESTUS is explicitly treated as a keyword replacement for REGIMENT, and no provision in the rules is given to replace it with anything else.
But if you are playing a MILITARUM TEMPESTUS detachment, then per PA: The Greater Good you also get the TEMPESTUS REGIMENT keyword, which can be replaced with only the Tempestus regiments given in a specific list.
So you have the MILITARUM TEMPESTUS keyword- which is treated as a REGIMENT keyword- and then you can also have the IOTAN GORGONNES keyword, which is a replacement for the wholly separate TEMPESTUS REGIMENT keyword. You can't take CADIANS as a keyword, but you do count as having a REGIMENT.
Clear as mud.
Yeah, it's awkward for sure. Basically, the Scion sub-factions are actually sub-sub-factions, something that to my knowledge doesn't exist anywhere else in the game.
MILITARUM TEMPESTUS is the <regiment> of all Scions. Then they additionally have this other keyword that gives them a specialization - Gorgonnes, etc. But their <regiment> is MILITARUM TEMPESTUS, and so they get the 6s to hit from the new dataslate if your army is pure scions.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: ...Because this game is a dead horse, that keeps popping it's pustules and farting out corpse gas in the form of "balance updates", and we keep paying to give it another kick...
I keep telling people that all the problems with 8th/9th are the exact same problems as the problems with 7th (too many bespoke rules invalidating the core rules, faction bloat, sub-faction bloat, new-Codex-wins, horribly uneven distribution of models, scale creep, power creep, no design space that all the books are written towards, endless rules churn prioritizing getting new players into the game over retaining old players...), and they kept not believing me, though I think we're starting to see all the "no, GW's turned over a new leaf!" people starting to realize that they really never did after two editions of the same old crap.
If GW were to take another stab at this rule change, I could see them changing it to not work against monsters and vehicles. Get rid of some of the weirdness while still helping against other targets. Not that I love the auto-wound rule in general. Seems like an attempt to reduce dice rolling that mostly just shrinks your to-wound pool.
LOL, this literally is what some of the scrubs in this very thread have been saying FRFSRF should be for lasguns.
No. It should stay exactly as it is.
You probably shouldn't be calling other people in this thread "scrubs" considering you're an avowed PL player.
If GW were to take another stab at this rule change, I could see them changing it to not work against monsters and vehicles. Get rid of some of the weirdness while still helping against other targets. Not that I love the auto-wound rule in general. Seems like an attempt to reduce dice rolling that mostly just shrinks your to-wound pool.
LOL, this literally is what some of the scrubs in this very thread have been saying FRFSRF should be for lasguns.
No. It should stay exactly as it is.
You probably shouldn't be calling other people in this thread "scrubs" considering you're an avowed PL player.
I'm not sure that using a different army building method determines if someone is a scrub or not. If the art of war guys started playing with PL sometimes would they become scrubs?
If GW were to take another stab at this rule change, I could see them changing it to not work against monsters and vehicles. Get rid of some of the weirdness while still helping against other targets. Not that I love the auto-wound rule in general. Seems like an attempt to reduce dice rolling that mostly just shrinks your to-wound pool.
LOL, this literally is what some of the scrubs in this very thread have been saying FRFSRF should be for lasguns.
No. It should stay exactly as it is.
You probably shouldn't be calling other people in this thread "scrubs" considering you're an avowed PL player.
I'm not sure that using a different army building method determines if someone is a scrub or not. If the art of war guys started playing with PL sometimes would they become scrubs?
Utterly irrelevant to my point about Kan's rank hypocrisy.
If GW were to take another stab at this rule change, I could see them changing it to not work against monsters and vehicles. Get rid of some of the weirdness while still helping against other targets. Not that I love the auto-wound rule in general. Seems like an attempt to reduce dice rolling that mostly just shrinks your to-wound pool.
LOL, this literally is what some of the scrubs in this very thread have been saying FRFSRF should be for lasguns.
No. It should stay exactly as it is.
You probably shouldn't be calling other people in this thread "scrubs" considering you're an avowed PL player.
I'm not sure that using a different army building method determines if someone is a scrub or not. If the art of war guys started playing with PL sometimes would they become scrubs?
Utterly irrelevant to my point about Kan's rank hypocrisy.
Given you chose to attack him for using PL of all things.
AnomanderRake wrote: ... though I think we're starting to see all the "no, GW's turned over a new leaf!" people starting to realize that they really never did after two editions of the same old crap.
Sadly they've been replaced by the "Wait and see!" crowd.
AnomanderRake wrote: ... though I think we're starting to see all the "no, GW's turned over a new leaf!" people starting to realize that they really never did after two editions of the same old crap.
Sadly they've been replaced by the "Wait and see!" crowd.
Its a perpetual cycle of these "this codex is OBVIOUSLY balanced against newer codexes so OF COURSE older codexes are weaker".
AnomanderRake wrote: ... though I think we're starting to see all the "no, GW's turned over a new leaf!" people starting to realize that they really never did after two editions of the same old crap.
Sadly they've been replaced by the "Wait and see!" crowd.
Its a perpetual cycle of these "this codex is OBVIOUSLY balanced against newer codexes so OF COURSE older codexes are weaker".
And the perpetual cycle of people playing 40k for an edition or two and quitting because they realize that GW's whole approach to game design is completely screwed, only to be replaced by a new crop of people insisting that "no, no, we must play 40k for all its flaws because nobody plays anything else!"
If GW were to take another stab at this rule change, I could see them changing it to not work against monsters and vehicles. Get rid of some of the weirdness while still helping against other targets. Not that I love the auto-wound rule in general. Seems like an attempt to reduce dice rolling that mostly just shrinks your to-wound pool.
LOL, this literally is what some of the scrubs in this very thread have been saying FRFSRF should be for lasguns.
No. It should stay exactly as it is.
You probably shouldn't be calling other people in this thread "scrubs" considering you're an avowed PL player.
I'm not sure that using a different army building method determines if someone is a scrub or not. If the art of war guys started playing with PL sometimes would they become scrubs?
If GW were to take another stab at this rule change, I could see them changing it to not work against monsters and vehicles. Get rid of some of the weirdness while still helping against other targets. Not that I love the auto-wound rule in general. Seems like an attempt to reduce dice rolling that mostly just shrinks your to-wound pool.
LOL, this literally is what some of the scrubs in this very thread have been saying FRFSRF should be for lasguns.
No. It should stay exactly as it is.
You probably shouldn't be calling other people in this thread "scrubs" considering you're an avowed PL player.
I'm not sure that using a different army building method determines if someone is a scrub or not. If the art of war guys started playing with PL sometimes would they become scrubs?
Utterly irrelevant to my point about Kan's rank hypocrisy.
Given you chose to attack him for using PL of all things.
Nah see, if someone uses PL? To Hecaton(someone from the official Infinity forums who just so happened to start posting here after I stopped posting there), apparently it means they don't understand how the game works. It totally means that! And I guess I should feel bad for enjoying my time playing games these days rather than worrying about what's "optimal".
It doesn't take number-crunching to make "OMG awesome" lists to know what is good or what is not good in an army. Mathhammer isn't the whole game, list-building isn't a skill, and actually ensuring your opponent has as much fun as you do is more important than a win.
yukishiro1 wrote: It 100% works if the Scions are the only <regiment> units in your army.
Does it have to be a PURE Refiment though? I had a force of half Dragons and half Jackals. I'd hate to pick just ONE.
For that particular rule? No, because they're still all from the same <regiment>, which is MILITARUM TEMPESTUS. Since the Dragons and Jackals aren't <Regiment> keywords, you're ok.
But the new Chapter Approved has a thing in the FAQ saying you can't mix different Scion flavors period if you're using the Grand Tournament battlepack:
Note though that if the Militarum Tempestus
units are using the Ordo Tempestus rules from Psychic Awakening:
The Greater Good (which gives them the <Tempestus Regiment>
keyword), then all Militarum Tempestus units from your army
must be from the same Tempestus Regiment.
WAR ZONE NACHMUND
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Is the real Hobby painting? Or making youtube Battle reports? Because that is most assuredly not DEAD. But neither is it the real Hobby.
It's complaining about the GW an the most recent broken/underpeforming thing in multiple forum topics.
Some have said the recent codeces (incl. Nids) make sense in a pre DE/Admech fix test world, and I'm inclined to give that some merit. They need to be fixed and have been to a number of degrees. It's far from ideal, but not all doom and gloom.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Is the real Hobby painting? Or making youtube Battle reports? Because that is most assuredly not DEAD. But neither is it the real Hobby.
It's complaining about the GW an the most recent broken/underpeforming thing in multiple forum topics.
Some have said the recent codeces (incl. Nids) make sense in a pre DE/Admech fix test world, and I'm inclined to give that some merit. They need to be fixed and have been to a number of degrees. It's far from ideal, but not all doom and gloom.
Constantly balancing things against whatever is currently most powerful is how power creep happens and why armies who came earlier like Necrons and SM get left behind. Then when Necrons are balanced to the new power level and start decimating DE and AdMech its the whole same set of problems. Now Necrons are the problem and older codexes in the power creep cycle now need to be stronger and the cycle continues. Drip feeding rules written at different stages of a games lifecycle is not a good design philosophy and there is no reason to ever do it other than financial gain (which is all GW is interested in). GW just cannot understand basic game design and has no interest in doing so as long as people keep buying the minis,
At this point I'm fully expecting Chaos and Imperial Guard to be the next big leaps in power creep, akin to DE and AdMech, so all codexes from that point will be from that level, and everything will just keep escalating (except for Orks) until GW need to reboot the game again, but people will keep making the same excuses like "discuss it with your opponent" or "well it works for MY group" or "at least they're TRYING to fix the game, remember when we'd go years without an FAQ or errata?".
Honestly I think 50% of people on this forum just need to bugger off and leave 40k for people that enjoy the game, wah wah that bad man has nerfed my tournament army, now I can't be a dick to all those casual players.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Is the real Hobby painting? Or making youtube Battle reports? Because that is most assuredly not DEAD. But neither is it the real Hobby.
It's complaining about the GW an the most recent broken/underpeforming thing in multiple forum topics.
Some have said the recent codeces (incl. Nids) make sense in a pre DE/Admech fix test world, and I'm inclined to give that some merit. They need to be fixed and have been to a number of degrees. It's far from ideal, but not all doom and gloom.
Constantly balancing things against whatever is currently most powerful is how power creep happens and why armies who came earlier like Necrons and SM get left behind. Then when Necrons are balanced to the new power level and start decimating DE and AdMech its the whole same set of problems. Now Necrons are the problem and older codexes in the power creep cycle now need to be stronger and the cycle continues. Drip feeding rules written at different stages of a games lifecycle is not a good design philosophy and there is no reason to ever do it other than financial gain (which is all GW is interested in). GW just cannot understand basic game design and has no interest in doing so as long as people keep buying the minis,
Given that they seem to make efforts to avoid it I'd say that they understand it. They also understand that the way they're doing things makes them more $ than if they practiced good game design.
Rolsheen wrote: Honestly I think 50% of people on this forum just need to bugger off and leave 40k for people that enjoy the game, wah wah that bad man has nerfed my tournament army, now I can't be a dick to all those casual players.
Imagine people wanting to discuss things they're unhappy with in their hobby. Absolutely disgusting. It's like the 40k community isn't some monolithic hugbox or something.
Constantly balancing things against whatever is currently most powerful is how power creep happens and why armies who came earlier like Necrons and SM get left behind. Then when Necrons are balanced to the new power level and start decimating DE and AdMech its the whole same set of problems. Now Necrons are the problem and older codexes in the power creep cycle now need to be stronger and the cycle continues. Drip feeding rules written at different stages of a games lifecycle is not a good design philosophy and there is no reason to ever do it other than financial gain (which is all GW is interested in). GW just cannot understand basic game design and has no interest in doing so as long as people keep buying the minis,
But SM and necrons were never left behind, they have been and still are solid mid tiers in casual gaming, maybe even strong ones. They just couldn't keep up with the most powerful and spammy builds, those who are constantly corrected and that represent a tiny fraction of the games.
Frequent changes help preventing those kind of oppressive lists to show up outside tournaments. They are actually the reason why armies like SM and Necrons AREN'T left behind.
Consider orks, they did get several nerfs at this point. But how did those nerfs actually affect the vast majority of the ork players? The only unit that really changed significantly was the squigbuggy, now utterly useless. And that's not even a significant problem when the codex has 4 alternative buggies and a very large roster. But not many were playing tons of buggies and/or tons of planes before. For the vast majority of ork players what did work on the codex's launch still works.
Given that they seem to make efforts to avoid it I'd say that they understand it. They also understand that the way they're doing things makes them more $ than if they practiced good game design.
Rolsheen wrote: Honestly I think 50% of people on this forum just need to bugger off and leave 40k for people that enjoy the game, wah wah that bad man has nerfed my tournament army, now I can't be a dick to all those casual players.
You think the people who don't like this update are just tournament players?
I have seen the opposite, the casual players hate it while the tournament crowed praise it
But I understand that 40k is for everyone but those who don't like how GW tries to fix it
So either you like what GW is doing or leave and play something else....
kodos wrote: I have seen the opposite, the casual players hate it while the tournament crowed praise it
But I understand that 40k is for everyone but those who don't like how GW tries to fix it
So either you like what GW is doing or leave and play something else....
I did leave. Doesn't mean I can't have a bitch about it while I'm trapped under a sleeping puppy.
Of course you cannot, because you make those that are still happy about the direction GW is taking sad (as they might realise that it all happened before and we should know what happens next)
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Is the real Hobby painting? Or making youtube Battle reports? Because that is most assuredly not DEAD. But neither is it the real Hobby.
It's complaining about the GW an the most recent broken/underpeforming thing in multiple forum topics.
Some have said the recent codeces (incl. Nids) make sense in a pre DE/Admech fix test world, and I'm inclined to give that some merit. They need to be fixed and have been to a number of degrees. It's far from ideal, but not all doom and gloom.
Constantly balancing things against whatever is currently most powerful is how power creep happens and why armies who came earlier like Necrons and SM get left behind. Then when Necrons are balanced to the new power level and start decimating DE and AdMech its the whole same set of problems. Now Necrons are the problem and older codexes in the power creep cycle now need to be stronger and the cycle continues. Drip feeding rules written at different stages of a games lifecycle is not a good design philosophy and there is no reason to ever do it other than financial gain (which is all GW is interested in). GW just cannot understand basic game design and has no interest in doing so as long as people keep buying the minis,
At this point I'm fully expecting Chaos and Imperial Guard to be the next big leaps in power creep, akin to DE and AdMech, so all codexes from that point will be from that level, and everything will just keep escalating (except for Orks) until GW need to reboot the game again, but people will keep making the same excuses like "discuss it with your opponent" or "well it works for MY group" or "at least they're TRYING to fix the game, remember when we'd go years without an FAQ or errata?".
Invest in a chess set then.
Modern game rules a constantly evolving; Stagnation is death. This creates a number of problems with rule balances and production timetables, so we have these patches when things go wrong.
I have to wonder how you'd react to successful modern day war games, or tabletop games in general, having very little power creep, and remaining fairly balanced. Because they exist. 40k doesn't have to have constantly powercrept rules to evolve. More rules for making your army your own would be enough to make people want to get more.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Is the real Hobby painting? Or making youtube Battle reports? Because that is most assuredly not DEAD. But neither is it the real Hobby.
It's complaining about the GW an the most recent broken/underpeforming thing in multiple forum topics.
Some have said the recent codeces (incl. Nids) make sense in a pre DE/Admech fix test world, and I'm inclined to give that some merit. They need to be fixed and have been to a number of degrees. It's far from ideal, but not all doom and gloom.
Constantly balancing things against whatever is currently most powerful is how power creep happens and why armies who came earlier like Necrons and SM get left behind. Then when Necrons are balanced to the new power level and start decimating DE and AdMech its the whole same set of problems. Now Necrons are the problem and older codexes in the power creep cycle now need to be stronger and the cycle continues. Drip feeding rules written at different stages of a games lifecycle is not a good design philosophy and there is no reason to ever do it other than financial gain (which is all GW is interested in). GW just cannot understand basic game design and has no interest in doing so as long as people keep buying the minis,
At this point I'm fully expecting Chaos and Imperial Guard to be the next big leaps in power creep, akin to DE and AdMech, so all codexes from that point will be from that level, and everything will just keep escalating (except for Orks) until GW need to reboot the game again, but people will keep making the same excuses like "discuss it with your opponent" or "well it works for MY group" or "at least they're TRYING to fix the game, remember when we'd go years without an FAQ or errata?".
Invest in a chess set then.
Modern game rules a constantly evolving; Stagnation is death. This creates a number of problems with rule balances and production timetables, so we have these patches when things go wrong.
This is one of those posts that I try to respond to, but can't because there's too much wrong with it and I don't know where to start.
TheBestBucketHead wrote: I have to wonder how you'd react to successful modern day war games, or tabletop games in general, having very little power creep, and remaining fairly balanced. Because they exist. 40k doesn't have to have constantly powercrept rules to evolve. More rules for making your army your own would be enough to make people want to get more.
Everytime this comes up I always remember how when Dreadball died the creators said the problem was that it was too balanced which meant that the longer you played the better you'd get and there was no balancing factor to offset that experience difference between players.
TheBestBucketHead wrote: I have to wonder how you'd react to successful modern day war games, or tabletop games in general, having very little power creep, and remaining fairly balanced. Because they exist. 40k doesn't have to have constantly powercrept rules to evolve. More rules for making your army your own would be enough to make people want to get more.
Everytime this comes up I always remember how when Dreadball died the creators said the problem was that it was too balanced which meant that the longer you played the better you'd get and there was no balancing factor to offset that experience difference between players.
Do you mean Guildball? Because I remember the creators blaming the death of that on the community as well, though not in the way you put it. It was much as how people view Warmachine, they claimed the community was too competitively minded, so it was difficult to start because you'd spend your first few years losing every game. Nothing at all to do with "our game is just too well balanced".
That said SFG just aren't that good at writing rules.
TheBestBucketHead wrote: I have to wonder how you'd react to successful modern day war games, or tabletop games in general, having very little power creep, and remaining fairly balanced. Because they exist. 40k doesn't have to have constantly powercrept rules to evolve. More rules for making your army your own would be enough to make people want to get more.
Everytime this comes up I always remember how when Dreadball died the creators said the problem was that it was too balanced which meant that the longer you played the better you'd get and there was no balancing factor to offset that experience difference between players.
Do you mean Guildball? Because I remember the creators blaming the death of that on the community as well, though not in the way you put it. It was much as how people view Warmachine, they claimed the community was too competitively minded, so it was difficult to start because you'd spend your first few years losing every game. Nothing at all to do with "our game is just too well balanced".
That said SFG just aren't that good at writing rules.
Ah, that's the game. It was a few years ago so I got the Blood Bowl clones mixed up.
Found the quote:
Be careful what you wish for. We set out to make the cleanest, most balanced miniatures game you could play at that time. And we achieved this hands down, flat out, nailed it!
Guild Ball truly was a competitive player’s dream. It rewarded player skill and experience, with a very flat probability curve to minimize variance. The competitive scene grew and grew.
But this ended up hurting the lifespan of the game.
Guild Ball became the type of game where you win your first game (demo) and then lose the next 100 games. When matched against a lesser skilled or inexperienced opponent, a better player would simply win the vast majority of games.
As the competitive scene began to dominate, the design space for wilder, more ‘fun’ elements began to shrink. New minis were either ‘OP’ or ‘trash-tier’ the second they were announced. Why take a new model when model XYZ already filled the role?
The style of gameplay changed to low-risk, ultra-conservative play where the ball was often deliberately side-lined.
And I can see that GW has tried to avoid falling into the same trap, but obviously the fact they don't perfectly smooth out their rules has caused some people to chaffe. Other people enjoy that sort of grit because it makes them feel clever when they find ways to mash rules together in ways the devs didn't intend.
So, it was both perfectly balanced, to the point that the better player won the vast majority of the time, but new models were trash or OP? Not only was it so perfectly balanced that it was the competitive player's dream, where the competitive scene just grey and grew, there ended up only really being one way of playing? I need to know more about the game besides the fact that the devs think it was perfect.
Edit: Oh gosh, I used their instead of there. I'm sorry.
TheBestBucketHead wrote: So, it was both perfectly balanced, to the point that the better player won the vast majority of the time, but new models were trash or OP? Not only was it so perfectly balanced that it was the competitive player's dream, where the competitive scene just grey and grew, their ended up only really being one way of playing? I need to know more about the game besides the fact that the devs think it was perfect.
Sounds like bad marketing on their end if you ask me and a lot more blaming of the players. Sounds familiar...
TheBestBucketHead wrote: So, it was both perfectly balanced, to the point that the better player won the vast majority of the time, but new models were trash or OP? Not only was it so perfectly balanced that it was the competitive player's dream, where the competitive scene just grey and grew, their ended up only really being one way of playing? I need to know more about the game besides the fact that the devs think it was perfect.
The irony is that their team *came out of competitive Warmahordes* so really should have known better.
As I said, SFG are a very middling company. They make most of their money from video game to board game adaptations which end up being either mostly ignored (Devil May Cry, Horizon: Zero Dawn), okay (Resident Evil) or just straight up terrible without house rules (Dark Souls). They especially have a reputation for poorly written rulebooks. Currently the Dark Souls TTRPG is getting a lot of negative buzz for being a mess of errors and typos and their most recently delivered kickstarter (Bardsung) is getting flak for poorly laid out rules.
I'm very doubtful that Guildball was as balanced as they claim.
Sim-Life wrote: As I said, SFG are a very middling company. They make most of their money from video game to board game adaptations which end up being either mostly ignored (Devil May Cry, Horizon: Zero Dawn), okay (Resident Evil) or just straight up terrible without house rules (Dark Souls). They especially have a reputation for poorly written rulebooks. Currently the Dark Souls TTRPG is getting a lot of negative buzz for being a mess of errors and typos and their most recently delivered kickstarter (Bardsung) is getting flak for poorly laid out rules.
I'm very doubtful that Guildball was as balanced as they claim.
Guildball 1) had no list-building or customizability of any kind at launch, which makes testing a lot easier, and 2) was made by people who thought the Warmachine people calling Skarre's horns attack "great rack" was the greatest joke in history, and the puns in unit/ability names get really old within minutes. It was perhaps the most triumphant example in history of people saying to themselves "let's all make a game we'd really like to play!" and completely forgetting that someone other than them might want to play it someday.
There is a point that a game being too balanced starts hurting the game's income, as experienced players lose any desire to buy more models. 40k isn't even close to that point, but theoretically you want (as a company) to have a dynamic imbalance that forces even experience players to constantly buy new miniatures while still being balanced enough to avoid a player exodus.
Platuan4th wrote: Oh look, a thread proclaiming the death of 40K. Must be a day from the past 20+ years ending in y.
Every time an individual player personally gets fed up and decides to quit for the first time they feel like their outrage is more justified than the outrage of all the players who came before, and figure that because they're outraged that must mean there's something sufficiently wrong with the game for lots of people to quit. Let them hang around for a few edition cycles and watch the newbies dismiss them as frustrated old farts who don't know what they're talking about because GW has changed and everything's going to be fine now, and they'll be grouchy and jaded too.
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Tyran wrote: There is a point that a game being too balanced starts hurting the game's income, as experienced players lose any desire to buy more models. 40k isn't even close to that point, but theoretically you want (as a company) to have a dynamic imbalance that forces even experience players to constantly buy new miniatures while still being balanced enough to avoid a player exodus.
Speaking as an experienced player who detests the current rules but does still occasionally buy new models the fact that there's a back catalogue of old rules and homebrew material to play around with doesn't hurt either.
As to "too balanced" I think games get stale when they reach an equilibrium of imbalance where everyone knows what to take and what not to take. Games that are very balanced are perfectly capable of remaining exactly the same and not growing stale for a long, long time (the rules of chess have barely changed in 1,500 years). That's not to say that a balanced game isn't capable of growing stale, or that all games that are balanced must turn into chess, I don't personally like chess very much, but I also don't think you can equate balance to stagnation.
Tyran wrote: There is a point that a game being too balanced starts hurting the game's income, as experienced players lose any desire to buy more models. 40k isn't even close to that point, but theoretically you want (as a company) to have a dynamic imbalance that forces even experience players to constantly buy new miniatures while still being balanced enough to avoid a player exodus.
You do see this in online shooters though, where a static gamestate grows stale and only the next release shakes things up again.
GW embracing intentional "perfect imbalance" isn't wrong, the problem is their business model still being tied to physical books makes it impossible to really keep the game up to speed in a timely manner.
Sim-Life wrote: As I said, SFG are a very middling company. They make most of their money from video game to board game adaptations which end up being either mostly ignored (Devil May Cry, Horizon: Zero Dawn), okay (Resident Evil) or just straight up terrible without house rules (Dark Souls). They especially have a reputation for poorly written rulebooks. Currently the Dark Souls TTRPG is getting a lot of negative buzz for being a mess of errors and typos and their most recently delivered kickstarter (Bardsung) is getting flak for poorly laid out rules.
I'm very doubtful that Guildball was as balanced as they claim.
Guildball 1) had no list-building or customizability of any kind at launch, which makes testing a lot easier, and 2) was made by people who thought the Warmachine people calling Skarre's horns attack "great rack" was the greatest joke in history, and the puns in unit/ability names get really old within minutes. It was perhaps the most triumphant example in history of people saying to themselves "let's all make a game we'd really like to play!" and completely forgetting that someone other than them might want to play it someday.
I am pretty sure I can claim the world record of losing Guildball the in the fewest moves. I had a Hunters team and played a Fisherman's team. I think between both of our model placements and where the ball kept landing, it was a shut out in the least amount of actions to possibly end a game.
It's been more than half-a-decade, so I don't remember much about how to play. But I remember getting only like a couple of actions that didn't do anything before the game was over. My opponent said what happened was like one in a million, but even winning a couple of games before this one (that's why I was playing the Fisherman player who I think was the best in the store); I wasn't impressed by the game. And never played it again.
It's not like I don't like sports miniatures games. I still really enjoy the original Dreadball. The only minis game I ever played a tournament in. My impression of Guildball was its theme was weakly laid over the mechanics, and it often had too much brawl and not enough sport. That, and it was immensely fiddly tedious with model placement.
Tyran wrote: There is a point that a game being too balanced starts hurting the game's income, as experienced players lose any desire to buy more models. 40k isn't even close to that point, but theoretically you want (as a company) to have a dynamic imbalance that forces even experience players to constantly buy new miniatures while still being balanced enough to avoid a player exodus.
You do see this in online shooters though, where a static gamestate grows stale and only the next release shakes things up again.
GW embracing intentional "perfect imbalance" isn't wrong, the problem is their business model still being tied to physical books makes it impossible to really keep the game up to speed in a timely manner.
Successful online shooters don't keep things fresh by deliberately rotating imbalance; they keep things fresh by adding content and fixing existing imbalances to open new viable options.
A static, tired game state is the result of no new content and sufficient imbalance that there are right and wrong choices and, thus, only a few ways to 'actually' play.
Tyran wrote: There is a point that a game being too balanced starts hurting the game's income, as experienced players lose any desire to buy more models. 40k isn't even close to that point, but theoretically you want (as a company) to have a dynamic imbalance that forces even experience players to constantly buy new miniatures while still being balanced enough to avoid a player exodus.
You do see this in online shooters though, where a static gamestate grows stale and only the next release shakes things up again.
GW embracing intentional "perfect imbalance" isn't wrong, the problem is their business model still being tied to physical books makes it impossible to really keep the game up to speed in a timely manner.
Successful online shooters don't keep things fresh by deliberately rotating imbalance; they keep things fresh by adding content and fixing existing imbalances to open new viable options.
A static, tired game state is the result of no new content and sufficient imbalance that there are right and wrong choices and, thus, only a few ways to 'actually' play.
I mean what they often do is release a new game with different gear. Or at least that's the CoD/Battlefield model.
I'm not saying they can't make the game work without a shifting meta, but when leaning into competitive trying to keep the game from being solve and staying solved is important to keep the game from being too stale, which seems to be why GW has taken the design approach they have. It's not one that works without a living digital ruleset, but it's what they've adopted.
Yeah, but that is the difference between people playing shoters which are half as old as me, or older, and which are still popular. And something like series games, where every year or two years you practically buy more or less the same game. Often with fewer and fewer options each time, but more seson passes, more DLC etc.
GW does exactly that same. They are making all marine players buy 2 books, just to sell them two books. This isn't even a power thing, like the campaigne books etc Oddly enough it makes makes money the same as battlefields do, and has the same level of quality, when you actually get to play the game.
For me, the thing that makes the game last is when every build is a viable option. This allows us to reorganize our armies in many different configurations.
If you're trying to keep the game alive by changing which build is viable as often as possible, you still aren't giving people the tool they need to actually keep the game alive for the greatest possible length of time.
Karol wrote: Yeah, but that is the difference between people playing shoters which are half as old as me, or older, and which are still popular. And something like series games, where every year or two years you practically buy more or less the same game. Often with fewer and fewer options each time, but more seson passes, more DLC etc.
GW does exactly that same. They are making all marine players buy 2 books, just to sell them two books. This isn't even a power thing, like the campaigne books etc Oddly enough it makes makes money the same as battlefields do, and has the same level of quality, when you actually get to play the game.
Yeah it feels like the mandates that the books dept needs to make money(source: Rob the Honest Wargamer) has only gotten worse this edition.
Karol wrote: Yeah, but that is the difference between people playing shoters which are half as old as me, or older, and which are still popular. And something like series games, where every year or two years you practically buy more or less the same game. Often with fewer and fewer options each time, but more seson passes, more DLC etc.
And what do you think a company prefers? A game its playerbase bought once or one that the playerbase buys once every 2 years plus DLC and season passes?
There is a reason Valve has pretty much stopped making videogames and prefers to be a game platform rather than a game producer.
PenitentJake wrote: For me, the thing that makes the game last is when every build is a viable option. This allows us to reorganize our armies in many different configurations.
If you're trying to keep the game alive by changing which build is viable as often as possible, you still aren't giving people the tool they need to actually keep the game alive for the greatest possible length of time.
For once I agree with this. When I player I tried to theme my lists (Nidzilla, Flying Circus, vanguard organisms, Necron barge navy, kanoptek army etc). Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't but it was usually clear in the game what units worked and what didn't (lictor spam didn't work btw). Its what killed the game for me. My meta is a "casual but make some effort to win" one so if a unit was flawed then theming lists around their...theme just felt bad.
If GW made an effort to make internal balance as important as external then I'd probably still be playing the game and it gives me reasons to buy multiples of units beyond just buying them for the sake of buying them, which I refuse to do (anymore).
PenitentJake wrote: For me, the thing that makes the game last is when every build is a viable option. This allows us to reorganize our armies in many different configurations.
If you're trying to keep the game alive by changing which build is viable as often as possible, you still aren't giving people the tool they need to actually keep the game alive for the greatest possible length of time.
For once I agree with this. When I player I tried to theme my lists (Nidzilla, Flying Circus, vanguard organisms, Necron barge navy, kanoptek army etc). Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't but it was usually clear in the game what units worked and what didn't (lictor spam didn't work btw). Its what killed the game for me. My meta is a "casual but make some effort to win" one so if a unit was flawed then theming lists around their...theme just felt bad.
If GW made an effort to make internal balance as important as external then I'd probably still be playing the game and it gives me reasons to buy multiples of units beyond just buying them for the sake of buying them, which I refuse to do (anymore).
It's nice to be on the same page with you every now and again. There are almost always at least some points in your posts that I agree with, but we seldom line up clearly the way we do this time around.
Cherish the moment brother- I'm sure we'll be back to arguing tomorrow. LOL
PenitentJake wrote: For me, the thing that makes the game last is when every build is a viable option. This allows us to reorganize our armies in many different configurations.
If you're trying to keep the game alive by changing which build is viable as often as possible, you still aren't giving people the tool they need to actually keep the game alive for the greatest possible length of time.
For once I agree with this. When I player I tried to theme my lists (Nidzilla, Flying Circus, vanguard organisms, Necron barge navy, kanoptek army etc). Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't but it was usually clear in the game what units worked and what didn't (lictor spam didn't work btw). Its what killed the game for me. My meta is a "casual but make some effort to win" one so if a unit was flawed then theming lists around their...theme just felt bad.
If GW made an effort to make internal balance as important as external then I'd probably still be playing the game and it gives me reasons to buy multiples of units beyond just buying them for the sake of buying them, which I refuse to do (anymore).
You could give every thing the same statline and same special rules, that would make everything even. The probem is you move away from that the margin of error increases and better/worse options appear. GW is particularly at the but even their best book of this edition was 'solved' quickly.
In the short term this'll breathe life back into the game. In the long term it's just another layer of badly designed rules on top of the existing layers, and it will actually make things worse in the long run, not better. AoC in particular is a complete mess in terms of what it does to the game, except at the very immediate level of "makes bad factions better." It is going to come back to haunt them for sure. The solution to the proliferation of high AP was to retune AP values, not to devalue low AP values.
Tyran wrote: There is a point that a game being too balanced starts hurting the game's income, as experienced players lose any desire to buy more models. 40k isn't even close to that point, but theoretically you want (as a company) to have a dynamic imbalance that forces even experience players to constantly buy new miniatures while still being balanced enough to avoid a player exodus.
You do see this in online shooters though, where a static gamestate grows stale and only the next release shakes things up again.
GW embracing intentional "perfect imbalance" isn't wrong, the problem is their business model still being tied to physical books makes it impossible to really keep the game up to speed in a timely manner.
Successful online shooters don't keep things fresh by deliberately rotating imbalance; they keep things fresh by adding content and fixing existing imbalances to open new viable options.
A static, tired game state is the result of no new content and sufficient imbalance that there are right and wrong choices and, thus, only a few ways to 'actually' play.
Just almost a decade ago the first Halo had a thriving multiplayer community. That's zero options too.
If GW made an effort to make internal balance as important as external then I'd probably still be playing the game and it gives me reasons to buy multiples of units beyond just buying them for the sake of buying them, which I refuse to do (anymore).
I wish GW was better at this, but for internal balance to actually come they'd need to make point updates every 6 weeks or so. Just to incrementally balance out the codexes internally as well as externally,
Sadly I don't see that happening as GW really likes the twice a year point updates approach.
If GW made an effort to make internal balance as important as external then I'd probably still be playing the game and it gives me reasons to buy multiples of units beyond just buying them for the sake of buying them, which I refuse to do (anymore).
I wish GW was better at this, but for internal balance to actually come they'd need to make point updates every 6 weeks or so. Just to incrementally balance out the codexes internally as well as externally,
Sadly I don't see that happening as GW really likes the twice a year point updates approach.
The problem is to update more frequently we'd need a dedicated balancing team whose whole job was making adjustments, and the rules would need to be in a dedicated digital format that was updated immediately with public notices about changes.
On a different note I was listening to the recent Look Out Sir! Adepticon episode and one of the things they touched on was that maybe bringing tournament play under the GW umbrella might be a source of some of the issues the community is having. When tournaments were left to shape their own fun and the game was more focused on the larger chunk of the player base in a way the game in a lot of ways was healthier, and I don't think they're exactly wrong on that. It really feels like we need a tournament team seperate from the main 40k team who handles that side of the hobby while the rules writers focus on the things they're good at instead of focusing on competetive.
And as I was writing that I had a random thought: maybe the delay on giving CSM 2 wounds was because they were considering rolling wound counts back on Marines in the future as a possible fix and where playtesting out that versus the current 2 wound meta.
PenitentJake wrote: For me, the thing that makes the game last is when every build is a viable option. This allows us to reorganize our armies in many different configurations.
If you're trying to keep the game alive by changing which build is viable as often as possible, you still aren't giving people the tool they need to actually keep the game alive for the greatest possible length of time.
For once I agree with this. When I player I tried to theme my lists (Nidzilla, Flying Circus, vanguard organisms, Necron barge navy, kanoptek army etc). Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't but it was usually clear in the game what units worked and what didn't (lictor spam didn't work btw). Its what killed the game for me. My meta is a "casual but make some effort to win" one so if a unit was flawed then theming lists around their...theme just felt bad.
If GW made an effort to make internal balance as important as external then I'd probably still be playing the game and it gives me reasons to buy multiples of units beyond just buying them for the sake of buying them, which I refuse to do (anymore).
You could give every thing the same statline and same special rules, that would make everything even. The probem is you move away from that the margin of error increases and better/worse options appear. GW is particularly at the but even their best book of this edition was 'solved' quickly.
Viable is not the same as optimal. I use this example a lot in discussions but when I played Warmahordes I used sub-optimal warcasters because I found it fun to make them viable via army list and player skill. You don't really get that in 40k. If I take an army with loads of lictors its going to be almost impossible to make it viable because the internal balance is just THAT bad.
Not giving CSM 2 wounds is 100% just because GW doesn't believe in giving out free stuff. That's what you have to buy the codex for. If you have to wait two years because they didn't bother to put the codex out until then, well, suck it up. Or better yet, buy another army in the meantime. That's the "solution" GW likes best.
Even putting out these balance patches is a huge thing for them. I am 100% sure there were voices among the higher-ups that were adamantly opposed to the idea of periodic balance patches precisely because they give out free stuff that should be monetized instead.
If GW made an effort to make internal balance as important as external then I'd probably still be playing the game and it gives me reasons to buy multiples of units beyond just buying them for the sake of buying them, which I refuse to do (anymore).
I wish GW was better at this, but for internal balance to actually come they'd need to make point updates every 6 weeks or so. Just to incrementally balance out the codexes internally as well as externally,
Sadly I don't see that happening as GW really likes the twice a year point updates approach.
The problem is to update more frequently we'd need a dedicated balancing team whose whole job was making adjustments, and the rules would need to be in a dedicated digital format that was updated immediately with public notices about changes.
On a different note I was listening to the recent Look Out Sir! Adepticon episode and one of the things they touched on was that maybe bringing tournament play under the GW umbrella might be a source of some of the issues the community is having. When tournaments were left to shape their own fun and the game was more focused on the larger chunk of the player base in a way the game in a lot of ways was healthier, and I don't think they're exactly wrong on that. It really feels like we need a tournament team seperate from the main 40k team who handles that side of the hobby while the rules writers focus on the things they're good at instead of focusing on competetive.
How would that work? Rules that don't affect everybody create a mess. 'This is more balanced, but not for you' is just such a bizarre take on game design, and waste of time for designers and players.
What people need to do is stop pretending the 'different types of play' are really distinct or that these issues are coming out of nowhere, rather than being a part of the problem they've always had- they don't create or ignore long term design plans, and change course mid-edition.
Space Marines need to be made more better than other factions has been a repeated, deliberate action multiple times since Rogue Trader. They're very open and unapologetic about it, so overcorrecting armor saves to block the AP that counters the increase to two wounds is entirely expected.
Maybe not in such a clunky and hamfisted fashion, but they've blocked themselves on point values correcting problems (there isn't any more room to move), so we get this kind of thing.
And as I was writing that I had a random thought: maybe the delay on giving CSM 2 wounds was because they were considering rolling wound counts back on Marines in the future as a possible fix and where playtesting out that versus the current 2 wound meta.
No.
Just... no.
There would be no way to handle that debacle with any sort of positive PR. They wouldn't do it. (Even if they were inclined to, which I'm positive they're not- Marines are Better is a company goal)
Also, they've already promised chaos marines 2 wounds, one recently at the end of the adepticon preview. That was the end-of-the-show 'hype.' They're definitely not playtesting that.
Platuan4th wrote: Oh look, a thread proclaiming the death of 40K. Must be a day from the past 20+ years ending in y.
Every time an individual player personally gets fed up and decides to quit for the first time they feel like their outrage is more justified than the outrage of all the players who came before, and figure that because they're outraged that must mean there's something sufficiently wrong with the game for lots of people to quit. Let them hang around for a few edition cycles and watch the newbies dismiss them as frustrated old farts who don't know what they're talking about because GW has changed and everything's going to be fine now, and they'll be grouchy and jaded too.
Nice try, but that was more a comment about how people have been doomsaying the imminent death of 40K for nigh on 30 years and continue to be so epicly WRONG.
I wonder if the number of people that do hang around for more editions, specialy if they are not having fun, is bigger then the number of people that start the game wait for the codex, then wait for the FAQ, then CA, then another CA, to finaly see next edition rules make their stuff unfun for them to just quit. I wonder which group is bigger over all. Would be crucial to finding out who the focus group for the hobby is, from GW points of view.
Space Marines need to be made more better than other factions has been a repeated, deliberate action multiple times since Rogue Trader. They're very open and unapologetic about it, so overcorrecting armor saves to block the AP that counters the increase to two wounds is entirely expected.
Odd that it does not show up in the rules though. In 8th most marine armies were bad till 2.0 came out, and then we soon entered 9th and the first books out were marine ones, which mostly focused on nerfing, removing and side grading rules from the 2.0/PA era. From stories people tell about other editions, it was practicaly the same in every other edition too. Marines get more books, more models, rule changes, yet they still aren't the best army, not to mention armies.
On a different note I was listening to the recent Look Out Sir! Adepticon episode and one of the things they touched on was that maybe bringing tournament play under the GW umbrella might be a source of some of the issues the community is having. When tournaments were left to shape their own fun and the game was more focused on the larger chunk of the player base in a way the game in a lot of ways was healthier, and I don't think they're exactly wrong on that. It really feels like we need a tournament team seperate from the main 40k team who handles that side of the hobby while the rules writers focus on the things they're good at instead of focusing on competetive.
I don't necessarily disagree, but I think it's complicated.
A part of the problem is that many of the people complaining about the impact of the tournament scene upon the game should just STOP PLAYING ONLY THE PART OF THE GAME THAT IS DESIGNED FOR TOURNAMENTS.
When I person tells me they have no choice because that's the only thing that is played in their stores, I get that and I feel for those players, but it leaves me with questions- the main one being "Does everyone at the store feel the way you do?"
If so, why is it so hard to get someone to do something different?
How would that work? Rules that don't affect everybody create a mess. 'This is more balanced, but not for you' is just such a bizarre take on game design, and waste of time for designers and players.
What people need to do is stop pretending the 'different types of play' are really distinct
I disagree with this- I feel like the ways to play are distinct- the three modes serve entirely different purposes. Matched play is designed to be the balanced tournament vehicle; Crusade is designed to be escalation campaign play and Open is designed to be a place where anything is possible. Viewed in these terms, 3 modes is a great idea. The fan base for this game is so large and diverse that multiple modes of play is really the only way they can hope to satisfy as many people as they need to.
If it wasn't for Crusade, I would not be playing 9th. Crusade made the game closer to what I wanted- I've said it before: I've wanted Crusade since 1989. The times in the history of 40k where the game was at its best for me were the additions that came closest to the ideal- the rulebooks that contained Kill Team and Combat Patrol and the roughest sketch of a generic progression system were my favourite version until 9th. Players like me are very much a minority, but we do exist.
In some older threads, people talked about even creating a fourth mode, or updating one of the existing modes to better satisfy those looking for casual pick-up games. The Matched Play deck was a good idea to try and make Matched go further, but I think that the frequency of balance patches for matched prevents it from really doing that.
Pretty much every update we've seen is matched only, and until now that has worked really well: I hated the Aircraft changes and the mixed detachment changes, but it was fine because none of those actually affected my games at all. But these changes are different- they are still list as Matched play changes, but for perhaps the first time this edition, that doesn't really work because the changes actually affect unit rules, which are supposed to be common to all modes of play. VH can't have different order traits in Crusade than they do in Matched.
On a different note I was listening to the recent Look Out Sir! Adepticon episode and one of the things they touched on was that maybe bringing tournament play under the GW umbrella might be a source of some of the issues the community is having. When tournaments were left to shape their own fun and the game was more focused on the larger chunk of the player base in a way the game in a lot of ways was healthier, and I don't think they're exactly wrong on that. It really feels like we need a tournament team seperate from the main 40k team who handles that side of the hobby while the rules writers focus on the things they're good at instead of focusing on competetive.
I don't necessarily disagree, but I think it's complicated.
A part of the problem is that many of the people complaining about the impact of the tournament scene upon the game should just STOP PLAYING ONLY THE PART OF THE GAME THAT IS DESIGNED FOR TOURNAMENTS.
When I person tells me they have no choice because that's the only thing that is played in their stores, I get that and I feel for those players, but it leaves me with questions- the main one being "Does everyone at the store feel the way you do?"
If so, why is it so hard to get someone to do something different?
I agree on that as well. Locally one of our narrative players has complained about the game but refuses to play anything but the GT mission packs at 2k because "it's the most balanced" over literally doing anything else. I've tried talking to them about trying all sorts of stuff (leaving out stratagems, playing smaller games, ect) and in the end they refused only to latch onto One Page Rules for doing the very things I offered to try with them to see if we could make the game more fun for them.
It feels like some people just can't accept the game outside of how GW markets it.
Insectum7 wrote: This balance hurts non-tourney peoole too. Should Space Marines be so invulnerable to the weapons of so many other troops? Methinks not.
I don't think anyone is arguing for that. At most people are arguing that their armies should "feel like" the lore presents them, but that creates some problems when balance is concerned at times.
Insectum7 wrote: This balance hurts non-tourney peoole too. Should Space Marines be so invulnerable to the weapons of so many other troops? Methinks not.
I don't think anyone is arguing for that. At most people are arguing that their armies should "feel like" the lore presents them, but that creates some problems when balance is concerned at times.
I don't think the two are mutually exclusive, and I think GW is doing a particularly poor job of it.
Insectum7 wrote: This balance hurts non-tourney peoole too. Should Space Marines be so invulnerable to the weapons of so many other troops? Methinks not.
I am a non-tourney person. I don't think I have played another opponent that had an army more pillow-fisted than my CSM. And I've done okay for myself versus space marines despite that. Thanks for trying to look out for us, but I think we'll be okay. With Armor of Contempt, we non-tourny folk might just have to get used to playing all 5 turns of games again.
Adherance to PL is generally stink-smell of CAAC, which there is nothing wrong with inherently but also means said CAAC player generally doesn't care about game balance because of PL's side effects.
Whereas a player using points can both talk about game balance *and* control the fun of the game. It's a bit like that age old stormwind fallacy people talk about in RPG's and other tabletops.
@hecaton, while list building is a skill, it's also the least "interactive" use of "skill" in 40k. I'd personally love to see less gotchas in list creation (Which is where better external balance comes into play, and where a more granular scaling of "cost" comes into play... see where I'm going?).
Edit: Why does Dakka think I'm from thailand lmao, I have my country set to Australia....
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Rolsheen wrote: Honestly I think 50% of people on this forum just need to bugger off and leave 40k for people that enjoy the game, wah wah that bad man has nerfed my tournament army, now I can't be a dick to all those casual players.
Show me where on a doll those tournament players hurt you.
Insectum7 wrote: This balance hurts non-tourney peoole too. Should Space Marines be so invulnerable to the weapons of so many other troops? Methinks not.
I don't think anyone is arguing for that. At most people are arguing that their armies should "feel like" the lore presents them, but that creates some problems when balance is concerned at times.
I don't think the two are mutually exclusive, and I think GW is doing a particularly poor job of it.
Totally agree, and it's a massive shame it's happening like that too.
One of my personal best examples was back in 8e how GW nerfed Warlocks, boosting them from iirc 80 points for a squad to like 250 points for a squad.
All because of a tournament where people were taking individual Warlocks to spam runes on making jetbikes faster.
A good friend of mine just looked at his list, went ?WTF? as they died to a 100 point stormboy squad and stopped playing.
Nah see, if someone uses PL? To Hecaton(someone from the official Infinity forums who just so happened to start posting here after I stopped posting there), apparently it means they don't understand how the game works. It totally means that! And I guess I should feel bad for enjoying my time playing games these days rather than worrying about what's "optimal".
Don't let that ego get out of control. I've been posting here (not under this account, lost my old password and email) since the early 2000's when I was in high school. Me coming here had nothing to do with you.
lol, okay. That's why you keep showing up in threads where I've been posting, explicitly to try to pick fights? Constantly trying to start crap?
If you can go a WHOLE WEEK without posting in a thread I'm active in, I'll believe you.
What you should feel bad about is calling people who have a better understanding of this game, or any other, than you "scrubs."
And you should feel bad for assuming that using points is somehow "a better understanding of this game".
I've definitely played with PL when doing Crusade or whatever, but iirc you *exclusively* play with PL (though I'm guessing you play rarely if at all). And that lack of broader understanding of the game makes it laughable when you try to call out other players for having a lesser understanding of the game.
Right, because I need to use points to know that the plasmas are gud, yeah?
And frankly? Having a winning list doesn't mean you cannot be a scrub.
Kanluwen wrote: It doesn't take number-crunching to make "OMG awesome" lists to know what is good or what is not good in an army. Mathhammer isn't the whole game, list-building isn't a skill, and actually ensuring your opponent has as much fun as you do is more important than a win.
List-building is definitely a skill. You can be good or bad at it, and you can get better with practice. You've played 40k and Infinity, so I know you know this unless you're deeper in denial than I thought. You should say what you mean - that listbuilding *shouldn't* be something you can gain an advantage with in-game. But stating it explicitly would invite ridicule, so you're trying to amble at the idea sideways.
bUt iT's NoT yOuR LiSt iT's YoU!1!
List-building is not a skill. You do not need to be some kind of savant to know what options are good and what options are bad.
And your last statement about fun isn't true. Some people only have fun if they beat their opponent, and will cheat to do so, and will taunt their opponent during the game. They will stop having fun if they're losing. It's nobody's responsibility to make sure those people have fun.
so your counterpoint is that "your opponent might be a twit, thus you should never endeavor to try to ensure both players have fun"?
PenitentJake wrote: A part of the problem is that many of the people complaining about the impact of the tournament scene upon the game should just STOP PLAYING ONLY THE PART OF THE GAME THAT IS DESIGNED FOR TOURNAMENTS.
The shoddy codex balancing and power creep isn't just a tournament problem.
Eonfuzz wrote: Adherance to PL is generally stink-smell of CAAC, which there is nothing wrong with inherently but also means said CAAC player generally doesn't care about game balance because of PL's side effects.
Whereas a player using points can both talk about game balance *and* control the fun of the game.
Wildly disagree.
I don't need to use points to be able to tell what a "better option" weapon might be. Points does nothing for balance, other than to artificially add another layer of "optimizing" to everything because your list does not become necessarily based upon what you like or what you might want to field but rather you become subject to min/max issues.
Edit: Why does Dakka think I'm from thailand lmao, I have my country set to Australia....
It looks at your IP address not your set country, IIRC.
Tyran wrote: There is a point that a game being too balanced starts hurting the game's income, as experienced players lose any desire to buy more models. 40k isn't even close to that point, but theoretically you want (as a company) to have a dynamic imbalance that forces even experience players to constantly buy new miniatures while still being balanced enough to avoid a player exodus.
You do see this in online shooters though, where a static gamestate grows stale and only the next release shakes things up again.
GW embracing intentional "perfect imbalance" isn't wrong, the problem is their business model still being tied to physical books makes it impossible to really keep the game up to speed in a timely manner.
Successful online shooters don't keep things fresh by deliberately rotating imbalance; they keep things fresh by adding content and fixing existing imbalances to open new viable options.
A static, tired game state is the result of no new content and sufficient imbalance that there are right and wrong choices and, thus, only a few ways to 'actually' play.
I mean what they often do is release a new game with different gear. Or at least that's the CoD/Battlefield model.
I'm not saying they can't make the game work without a shifting meta, but when leaning into competitive trying to keep the game from being solve and staying solved is important to keep the game from being too stale, which seems to be why GW has taken the design approach they have. It's not one that works without a living digital ruleset, but it's what they've adopted.
Now that I'm home I want to talk a little more about how tabletop gaming compares to videogames in terms of keeping things fresh. This isn't really meant to be argumentative, more an observation.
Back in the day, up until the mid-2000s, you had multiplayer shooters where all the content was available from the outset. Doom, Unreal Tournament, Quake, Counter-Strike, Halo, all the classic franchises worked the same way: A server can run any map, you can play any game type, you can use any weapon, all the content is available to you right from the outset. It gets stale when you're so used to all the weapons and all the maps that it becomes a dull and same-y experience, unless you really enjoy that experience in which case you become one of the die-hards. Sometimes these games got expansion packs that added new content, or patches that address balance, but sometimes not.
Similarly I think it's safe to say that most wargames are/were designed as cohesive, one-off experiences. Historical miniature wargames are generally intended to be complete from the outset; the sorts of games Warlord or TooFatLardies produce are intended to be 'final', with changes made either to improve balance or add content, but not 'living' wargames. The game gives you rules, you assemble the forces needed to play those rules, and off you go. It becomes stale when you stop supplying new forces to try, stop playing new scenarios, and stop making new terrain or playing with new people. Honestly, compared to classic shooters, I'd say wargames have a lot more going for them in terms of keeping things fresh.
In the mid-2000s PC gaming started to adopt player progression, particularly the Call of Duty and Battlefield franchises. Now you didn't just have a variety of maps and scenarios; you also were drip-fed new weapons and equipment as you played. In theory these didn't give you an advantage over other players, just sidegrade options, but that wasn't always the case- and people complained bitterly when high-level gear was flat-out superior. But the idea was that the starting gear would give you a curated, simple way to play, and then as you got more familiar with the game you were given all these whizz-bang accessories to try out and 'grow into'.
I think GW's tried to apply a similar model to 40K, though for marketing reasons in addition to longevity. 40K has more support than ever for starting with a single squad (Kill Team), expanding to a small force (Combat Patrol), and ultimately progressing up to the very expensive 2000pt army. They also have Crusade, which more directly applies a progression system to your army. Just as CoD4 used that experience bar and drip-feed of New Stuff to drive you to keep playing, Crusade offers the promise of new battle honors to keep you coming back even if you and your friends are using the exact same set of models as last time.
Now the current trend is seasons, where games rotate in large amounts of new content on a timed basis. Progression mechanisms are used to access some of it, enticing players who have burned out to return and start grinding to get the new stuff, while continuing players get new carrots on the end of the stick to keep playing. Throughout all this, there's ongoing balance improvement. The common practice is not churn for the sake of churn, but adjustment as new content affects the balance of existing content, or just general improvement to legacy content. The important thing from a business standpoint is that there is heavy use of monetization, particularly of cosmetics, so that the constant drip of New Stuff is associated with a constant drip of continued revenue from existing players.
Is GW doing this? Absolutely. Books like Vigilus and Psychic Awakening are a perfect example. They add new content for existing factions and/or new scenarios to try, and you pay for the privilege. PA in particular added novel mechanics to existing factions, and was tied into adding new models as well, so there was that drive to get New Stuff for your particular faction. Buy the new Chapter Approved to get the new balance updates and missions. Buy the New Stuff to keep playing.
At no point in here is there any concept of a game being 'too balanced', needing deliberate imbalance to keep things fresh. Some companies actually put a lot of time and effort into making their games as balanced as possible- Valve, for example, playtested the hell out of Team Fortress 2 to make every class feel equally useful on launch. But once developers start adding new content, then balance tweaks and even major gameplay changes are needed to make it all fit, as well as improve on things that were deemed acceptable for release but not as fun or interesting as they could be. And problems start to crop up. Ostensibly positive gameplay changes hurt balance. New content renders old content obsolete, or interacts with it in unanticipated ways. The game starts to bloat out of control, and its old virtues of simplicity and balance are usurped by the financial drive to add more New Stuff, despite the best efforts of the developers. Eventually active development ends, the game state is frozen, and they move on to another project- leaving behind a half-broken game and dissatisfied fans. But if it's not a total trainwreck by the end, they'll probably buy the sequel.
Put bluntly: I don't think there's any credibility to the idea that GW deliberately rotates the meta to make people buy things, or that they don't want balance because people would be bored. I am much more inclined to attribute the pendulum swings to a design team struggling to tread water while under the pressure of a business decision to constantly release more, more more New Stuff because that's what makes them more money. Then there's the stupid print media release schedule hanging like an albatross around their necks, to say nothing of the difficulty of gathering reliable data or playtesting a game that may not actually look or play the same in consumers' homes as it does in the studio (see: terrain, and how little of it players tend to use). The question of whether they seek balance or deliberate slight imbalance is ultimately irrelevant, as they can't manage to achieve either under these conditions (though before anyone jumps down my throat about it- yes, they could be doing a lot better than they are). And we're never going to see a balanced state of 9th Ed, because this ends the same way it does for games: A new edition will be released, legacy content will be purged, and the cycle will begin again.
So if we want balance to be sufficiently achievable that 'deliberate imbalance' is even worth discussion, then getting away from the codex creep and the constant cycle of one-upmanship is a basic requirement. The moving target of balance in a changing game state where by the time you get any useful data it's too late to change the next codex is just not reasonable. I think it is possible to simultaneously work towards balance and release New Stuff to keep people excited and keep the game fresh, but that New Stuff has to be primarily additive content- rules for new theaters of war, new campaigns, new Crusade content, new (optional, with opponent's permission) armies of renown, new mission packs, new tournament packs, stuff that you can choose to add on to your game rather than something that forcibly changes your play experience (unless you outright reject the concept of New Stuff altogether). As long as there's a relatively static 'core' game, that's something that can be iterated upon without constantly having to catch up with changes to the game state. That said, if you add new units (let alone factions) mid-edition that's going to shake things up; but at least it would be more controlled and manageable than the current approach of a whole faction's worth of upset every few months plus all the other content.
Of course, as long as people keep buying stuff under the current model, there's no incentive to change.
PenitentJake wrote: A part of the problem is that many of the people complaining about the impact of the tournament scene upon the game should just STOP PLAYING ONLY THE PART OF THE GAME THAT IS DESIGNED FOR TOURNAMENTS.
The shoddy codex balancing and power creep isn't just a tournament problem.
While not untrue, if you unhook your gaming from the competitive part of the game you can do things to level the playing field like comping poor armies points (or having strong armies take a handicap), engineer missions that give advantages to the weaker army (such as free reinforcements for instance), ect.
When you don't lock yourself into strictly playing the GT mission side of the game and embrace the sandbox the game has a lot more options.
And yes, this doesn't fix pick up games with random strangers unless you're the one offering to take a handicap for their benefit, but in local clubs or groups it's not impossible to hash this stuff out with people you play with regularly if it helps make the game more fun for everyone.
Though I'm going to bet someone is going to tell me that talking to their group is impossible and they only play the hardest baby seal clubbing lists they can and honestly at that point maybe it's time to start a new group and see if you can't find some more casual people who want to play with you instead.
Tyran wrote: There is a point that a game being too balanced starts hurting the game's income, as experienced players lose any desire to buy more models. 40k isn't even close to that point, but theoretically you want (as a company) to have a dynamic imbalance that forces even experience players to constantly buy new miniatures while still being balanced enough to avoid a player exodus.
You do see this in online shooters though, where a static gamestate grows stale and only the next release shakes things up again.
GW embracing intentional "perfect imbalance" isn't wrong, the problem is their business model still being tied to physical books makes it impossible to really keep the game up to speed in a timely manner.
Successful online shooters don't keep things fresh by deliberately rotating imbalance; they keep things fresh by adding content and fixing existing imbalances to open new viable options.
A static, tired game state is the result of no new content and sufficient imbalance that there are right and wrong choices and, thus, only a few ways to 'actually' play.
I mean what they often do is release a new game with different gear. Or at least that's the CoD/Battlefield model.
I'm not saying they can't make the game work without a shifting meta, but when leaning into competitive trying to keep the game from being solve and staying solved is important to keep the game from being too stale, which seems to be why GW has taken the design approach they have. It's not one that works without a living digital ruleset, but it's what they've adopted.
Now that I'm home I want to talk a little more about how tabletop gaming compares to videogames in terms of keeping things fresh. This isn't really meant to be argumentative, more an observation.
Back in the day, up until the mid-2000s, you had multiplayer shooters where all the content was available from the outset. Doom, Unreal Tournament, Quake, Counter-Strike, Halo, all the classic franchises worked the same way: A server can run any map, you can play any game type, you can use any weapon, all the content is available to you right from the outset. It gets stale when you're so used to all the weapons and all the maps that it becomes a dull and same-y experience, unless you really enjoy that experience in which case you become one of the die-hards. Sometimes these games got expansion packs that added new content, or patches that address balance, but sometimes not.
Similarly I think it's safe to say that most wargames are/were designed as cohesive, one-off experiences. Historical miniature wargames are generally intended to be complete from the outset; the sorts of games Warlord or TooFatLardies produce are intended to be 'final', with changes made either to improve balance or add content, but not 'living' wargames. The game gives you rules, you assemble the forces needed to play those rules, and off you go. It becomes stale when you stop supplying new forces to try, stop playing new scenarios, and stop making new terrain or playing with new people. Honestly, compared to classic shooters, I'd say wargames have a lot more going for them in terms of keeping things fresh.
In the mid-2000s PC gaming started to adopt player progression, particularly the Call of Duty and Battlefield franchises. Now you didn't just have a variety of maps and scenarios; you also were drip-fed new weapons and equipment as you played. In theory these didn't give you an advantage over other players, just sidegrade options, but that wasn't always the case- and people complained bitterly when high-level gear was flat-out superior. But the idea was that the starting gear would give you a curated, simple way to play, and then as you got more familiar with the game you were given all these whizz-bang accessories to try out and 'grow into'.
I think GW's tried to apply a similar model to 40K, though for marketing reasons in addition to longevity. 40K has more support than ever for starting with a single squad (Kill Team), expanding to a small force (Combat Patrol), and ultimately progressing up to the very expensive 2000pt army. They also have Crusade, which more directly applies a progression system to your army. Just as CoD4 used that experience bar and drip-feed of New Stuff to drive you to keep playing, Crusade offers the promise of new battle honors to keep you coming back even if you and your friends are using the exact same set of models as last time.
Now the current trend is seasons, where games rotate in large amounts of new content on a timed basis. Progression mechanisms are used to access some of it, enticing players who have burned out to return and start grinding to get the new stuff, while continuing players get new carrots on the end of the stick to keep playing. Throughout all this, there's ongoing balance improvement. The common practice is not churn for the sake of churn, but adjustment as new content affects the balance of existing content, or just general improvement to legacy content. The important thing from a business standpoint is that there is heavy use of monetization, particularly of cosmetics, so that the constant drip of New Stuff is associated with a constant drip of continued revenue from existing players.
Is GW doing this? Absolutely. Books like Vigilus and Psychic Awakening are a perfect example. They add new content for existing factions and/or new scenarios to try, and you pay for the privilege. PA in particular added novel mechanics to existing factions, and was tied into adding new models as well, so there was that drive to get New Stuff for your particular faction. Buy the new Chapter Approved to get the new balance updates and missions. Buy the New Stuff to keep playing.
At no point in here is there any concept of a game being 'too balanced', needing deliberate imbalance to keep things fresh. Some companies actually put a lot of time and effort into making their games as balanced as possible- Valve, for example, playtested the hell out of Team Fortress 2 to make every class feel equally useful on launch. But once developers start adding new content, then balance tweaks and even major gameplay changes are needed to make it all fit, as well as improve on things that were deemed acceptable for release but not as fun or interesting as they could be. And problems start to crop up. Ostensibly positive gameplay changes hurt balance. New content renders old content obsolete, or interacts with it in unanticipated ways. The game starts to bloat out of control, and its old virtues of simplicity and balance are usurped by the financial drive to add more New Stuff, despite the best efforts of the developers. Eventually active development ends, the game state is frozen, and they move on to another project- leaving behind a half-broken game and dissatisfied fans. But if it's not a total trainwreck by the end, they'll probably buy the sequel.
Put bluntly: I don't think there's any credibility to the idea that GW deliberately rotates the meta to make people buy things, or that they don't want balance because people would be bored. I am much more inclined to attribute the pendulum swings to a design team struggling to tread water while under the pressure of a business decision to constantly release more, more more New Stuff because that's what makes them more money. Then there's the stupid print media release schedule hanging like an albatross around their necks, to say nothing of the difficulty of gathering reliable data or playtesting a game that may not actually look or play the same in consumers' homes as it does in the studio (see: terrain, and how little of it players tend to use). The question of whether they seek balance or deliberate slight imbalance is ultimately irrelevant, as they can't manage to achieve either under these conditions (though before anyone jumps down my throat about it- yes, they could be doing a lot better than they are). And we're never going to see a balanced state of 9th Ed, because this ends the same way it does for games: A new edition will be released, legacy content will be purged, and the cycle will begin again.
So if we want balance to be sufficiently achievable that 'deliberate imbalance' is even worth discussion, then getting away from the codex creep and the constant cycle of one-upmanship is a basic requirement. The moving target of balance in a changing game state where by the time you get any useful data it's too late to change the next codex is just not reasonable. I think it is possible to simultaneously work towards balance and release New Stuff to keep people excited and keep the game fresh, but that New Stuff has to be primarily additive content- rules for new theaters of war, new campaigns, new Crusade content, new (optional, with opponent's permission) armies of renown, new mission packs, new tournament packs, stuff that you can choose to add on to your game rather than something that forcibly changes your play experience (unless you outright reject the concept of New Stuff altogether). As long as there's a relatively static 'core' game, that's something that can be iterated upon without constantly having to catch up with changes to the game state. That said, if you add new units (let alone factions) mid-edition that's going to shake things up; but at least it would be more controlled and manageable than the current approach of a whole faction's worth of upset every few months plus all the other content.
Of course, as long as people keep buying stuff under the current model, there's no incentive to change.
I think you nailed it on the head and said more clearly things I was trying to communicate but couldn't do as well while also just expanding it much further than I'd thought.
And yes, I think I agree 110%, especially about the release cycle of New Stuff.
Insectum7 wrote: This balance hurts non-tourney peoole too. Should Space Marines be so invulnerable to the weapons of so many other troops? Methinks not.
I don't think anyone is arguing for that. At most people are arguing that their armies should "feel like" the lore presents them, but that creates some problems when balance is concerned at times.
I don't think the two are mutually exclusive, and I think GW is doing a particularly poor job of it.
Yeah. It is something 40k seems to have been really bad about in 9th. Much worse than any other point I can recall. Balance I (sadly) remember worse times, but as far as narrative theme/immersion goes? 40k is at its worst in that regard. For me anyways.
Eonfuzz wrote: Adherance to PL is generally stink-smell of CAAC, which there is nothing wrong with inherently but also means said CAAC player generally doesn't care about game balance because of PL's side effects.
Whereas a player using points can both talk about game balance *and* control the fun of the game.
Wildly disagree.
I don't need to use points to be able to tell what a "better option" weapon might be. Points does nothing for balance, other than to artificially add another layer of "optimizing" to everything because your list does not become necessarily based upon what you like or what you might want to field but rather you become subject to min/max issues.
Yeah so that's where people go 404 does not compute.
Basically a multimelta is a better option than a bolter, so to stop someone going all multimeltas there *must* be a cost associated with that unit.
I know you can handwave this by saying "dont do it", but you could theoretically play the below game:
Tommy "DEVASTATOR" McFluffy, an army filled with devastators all with bolters and bolters
versus
Spike McMulta, an army filled with devestators with multimeltas and plasma
Power Level shows they are two equal armies, Points do not.
Who would win?
I don't need to use points to be able to tell what a "better option" weapon might be. Points does nothing for balance, other than to artificially add another layer of "optimizing" to everything because your list does not become necessarily based upon what you like or what you might want to field but rather you become subject to min/max issues.
Yeah so that's where people go 404 does not compute.
Yeah, and that's where I say PEBKAC.
Basically a multimelta is a better option than a bolter, so to stop someone going all multimeltas there *must* be a cost associated with that unit.
I know you can handwave this by saying "dont do it", but you could theoretically play the below game:
Tommy "DEVASTATOR" McFluffy, an army filled with devastators all with bolters and bolters
versus
Spike McMulta, an army filled with devestators with multimeltas and plasma
Power Level shows they are two equal armies, Points do not.
Who would win?
Why are these examples always so objectively terrible?
Who is taking Devastators with Bolters?
Or is this the new "Archaon isn't unique so everyone is going to run a bunch of Archaons"?
Under PL, I can put Inferno Pistols on all my Sister Superiors for no cost over someone who doesn't.
For me? I put bolt pistols on for fluff, as my Order didn't have lots of expensive equipment as a lore point (no vehicles either). I literally played a game with someone who DID put all inferno Pistols on their Superiors.
I don't need to use points to be able to tell what a "better option" weapon might be. Points does nothing for balance, other than to artificially add another layer of "optimizing" to everything because your list does not become necessarily based upon what you like or what you might want to field but rather you become subject to min/max issues.
Yeah so that's where people go 404 does not compute.
Yeah, and that's where I say PEBKAC.
Basically a multimelta is a better option than a bolter, so to stop someone going all multimeltas there *must* be a cost associated with that unit.
I know you can handwave this by saying "dont do it", but you could theoretically play the below game:
Tommy "DEVASTATOR" McFluffy, an army filled with devastators all with bolters and bolters
versus
Spike McMulta, an army filled with devestators with multimeltas and plasma
Power Level shows they are two equal armies, Points do not.
Who would win?
Why are these examples always so objectively terrible?
Who is taking Devastators with Bolters?
Or is this the new "Archaon isn't unique so everyone is going to run a bunch of Archaons"?
Right, I can see why Hecaton has resolved to just throw insults.
You're clearly a bad faith actor. Carry on.
While not untrue, if you unhook your gaming from the competitive part of the game you can do things to level the playing field like comping poor armies points (or having strong armies take a handicap), engineer missions that give advantages to the weaker army (such as free reinforcements for instance), ect.
I'm not interested in re-balancing the game for GW, to be honest. I'd rather play other games in which I don't have to do that. If I was doing that my efforts would be better spent in, I dunno, developing my own wargame.
ClockworkZion wrote: When you don't lock yourself into strictly playing the GT mission side of the game and embrace the sandbox the game has a lot more options.
Eonfuzz wrote: Adherance to PL is generally stink-smell of CAAC, which there is nothing wrong with inherently but also means said CAAC player generally doesn't care about game balance because of PL's side effects.
Whereas a player using points can both talk about game balance *and* control the fun of the game.
Wildly disagree.
I don't need to use points to be able to tell what a "better option" weapon might be. Points does nothing for balance, other than to artificially add another layer of "optimizing" to everything because your list does not become necessarily based upon what you like or what you might want to field but rather you become subject to min/max issues.
Yeah so that's where people go 404 does not compute.
Basically a multimelta is a better option than a bolter, so to stop someone going all multimeltas there *must* be a cost associated with that unit.
I know you can handwave this by saying "dont do it", but you could theoretically play the below game:
Tommy "DEVASTATOR" McFluffy, an army filled with devastators all with bolters and bolters
versus
Spike McMulta, an army filled with devestators with multimeltas and plasma
Power Level shows they are two equal armies, Points do not.
Who would win?
The sentiment is that points are so badly balanced that players must self-balance to get a matching game, so if you are already doing it might as well use the simpler numbers since either way they are at best rough guidelines.
After all, the points say 2k of guardsmen is evenly matched against 2k of Tau. Who would win!?
Curious about your thoughts on how well the campaign books achieve that "optional" status from your perspective. From mine, I feel like they've done a better job of being optional than the PA books.
I've always thought that getting this right was an integral part of building the infrastructure for a persistent edition.
The shoddy codex balancing and power creep isn't just a tournament problem.
True.
The angst over matched play updates, however, IS typically a matched play only problem.
As I said in another post though, this most recent update, while billed as a Matched Play update doesn't really work that way- some of these updates are more like unit level changes as opposed to game changes like the number of aircraft an army is allowed to bring, or whether or not an army can be composed of detachments from different subfactions.
It muddies the water a bit, and I would say THIS update seems to affect other modes of play more than the other updates we've seen so far.
Perhaps what needs to happen is a deep look at the game along historical contexts. For the life of me the bread and butter of any army was your Basic Soldier and there is nothing to suggest that this will ever change. Foot Soldiers are cheap to train and equip in any army and the most common. They hold ground, defend and attack. If we revert to percentages say 50% of your army is troops then we reduce the elite, fast attack and heavy spam that is prevalent now
Tyran wrote: There is a point that a game being too balanced starts hurting the game's income, as experienced players lose any desire to buy more models. 40k isn't even close to that point, but theoretically you want (as a company) to have a dynamic imbalance that forces even experience players to constantly buy new miniatures while still being balanced enough to avoid a player exodus.
You do see this in online shooters though, where a static gamestate grows stale and only the next release shakes things up again.
GW embracing intentional "perfect imbalance" isn't wrong, the problem is their business model still being tied to physical books makes it impossible to really keep the game up to speed in a timely manner.
Successful online shooters don't keep things fresh by deliberately rotating imbalance; they keep things fresh by adding content and fixing existing imbalances to open new viable options.
A static, tired game state is the result of no new content and sufficient imbalance that there are right and wrong choices and, thus, only a few ways to 'actually' play.
I mean what they often do is release a new game with different gear. Or at least that's the CoD/Battlefield model.
I'm not saying they can't make the game work without a shifting meta, but when leaning into competitive trying to keep the game from being solve and staying solved is important to keep the game from being too stale, which seems to be why GW has taken the design approach they have. It's not one that works without a living digital ruleset, but it's what they've adopted.
Now that I'm home I want to talk a little more about how tabletop gaming compares to videogames in terms of keeping things fresh. This isn't really meant to be argumentative, more an observation.
Back in the day, up until the mid-2000s, you had multiplayer shooters where all the content was available from the outset. Doom, Unreal Tournament, Quake, Counter-Strike, Halo, all the classic franchises worked the same way: A server can run any map, you can play any game type, you can use any weapon, all the content is available to you right from the outset. It gets stale when you're so used to all the weapons and all the maps that it becomes a dull and same-y experience, unless you really enjoy that experience in which case you become one of the die-hards. Sometimes these games got expansion packs that added new content, or patches that address balance, but sometimes not.
Similarly I think it's safe to say that most wargames are/were designed as cohesive, one-off experiences. Historical miniature wargames are generally intended to be complete from the outset; the sorts of games Warlord or TooFatLardies produce are intended to be 'final', with changes made either to improve balance or add content, but not 'living' wargames. The game gives you rules, you assemble the forces needed to play those rules, and off you go. It becomes stale when you stop supplying new forces to try, stop playing new scenarios, and stop making new terrain or playing with new people. Honestly, compared to classic shooters, I'd say wargames have a lot more going for them in terms of keeping things fresh.
In the mid-2000s PC gaming started to adopt player progression, particularly the Call of Duty and Battlefield franchises. Now you didn't just have a variety of maps and scenarios; you also were drip-fed new weapons and equipment as you played. In theory these didn't give you an advantage over other players, just sidegrade options, but that wasn't always the case- and people complained bitterly when high-level gear was flat-out superior. But the idea was that the starting gear would give you a curated, simple way to play, and then as you got more familiar with the game you were given all these whizz-bang accessories to try out and 'grow into'.
I think GW's tried to apply a similar model to 40K, though for marketing reasons in addition to longevity. 40K has more support than ever for starting with a single squad (Kill Team), expanding to a small force (Combat Patrol), and ultimately progressing up to the very expensive 2000pt army. They also have Crusade, which more directly applies a progression system to your army. Just as CoD4 used that experience bar and drip-feed of New Stuff to drive you to keep playing, Crusade offers the promise of new battle honors to keep you coming back even if you and your friends are using the exact same set of models as last time.
Now the current trend is seasons, where games rotate in large amounts of new content on a timed basis. Progression mechanisms are used to access some of it, enticing players who have burned out to return and start grinding to get the new stuff, while continuing players get new carrots on the end of the stick to keep playing. Throughout all this, there's ongoing balance improvement. The common practice is not churn for the sake of churn, but adjustment as new content affects the balance of existing content, or just general improvement to legacy content. The important thing from a business standpoint is that there is heavy use of monetization, particularly of cosmetics, so that the constant drip of New Stuff is associated with a constant drip of continued revenue from existing players.
Is GW doing this? Absolutely. Books like Vigilus and Psychic Awakening are a perfect example. They add new content for existing factions and/or new scenarios to try, and you pay for the privilege. PA in particular added novel mechanics to existing factions, and was tied into adding new models as well, so there was that drive to get New Stuff for your particular faction. Buy the new Chapter Approved to get the new balance updates and missions. Buy the New Stuff to keep playing.
At no point in here is there any concept of a game being 'too balanced', needing deliberate imbalance to keep things fresh. Some companies actually put a lot of time and effort into making their games as balanced as possible- Valve, for example, playtested the hell out of Team Fortress 2 to make every class feel equally useful on launch. But once developers start adding new content, then balance tweaks and even major gameplay changes are needed to make it all fit, as well as improve on things that were deemed acceptable for release but not as fun or interesting as they could be. And problems start to crop up. Ostensibly positive gameplay changes hurt balance. New content renders old content obsolete, or interacts with it in unanticipated ways. The game starts to bloat out of control, and its old virtues of simplicity and balance are usurped by the financial drive to add more New Stuff, despite the best efforts of the developers. Eventually active development ends, the game state is frozen, and they move on to another project- leaving behind a half-broken game and dissatisfied fans. But if it's not a total trainwreck by the end, they'll probably buy the sequel.
Put bluntly: I don't think there's any credibility to the idea that GW deliberately rotates the meta to make people buy things, or that they don't want balance because people would be bored. I am much more inclined to attribute the pendulum swings to a design team struggling to tread water while under the pressure of a business decision to constantly release more, more more New Stuff because that's what makes them more money. Then there's the stupid print media release schedule hanging like an albatross around their necks, to say nothing of the difficulty of gathering reliable data or playtesting a game that may not actually look or play the same in consumers' homes as it does in the studio (see: terrain, and how little of it players tend to use). The question of whether they seek balance or deliberate slight imbalance is ultimately irrelevant, as they can't manage to achieve either under these conditions (though before anyone jumps down my throat about it- yes, they could be doing a lot better than they are). And we're never going to see a balanced state of 9th Ed, because this ends the same way it does for games: A new edition will be released, legacy content will be purged, and the cycle will begin again.
So if we want balance to be sufficiently achievable that 'deliberate imbalance' is even worth discussion, then getting away from the codex creep and the constant cycle of one-upmanship is a basic requirement. The moving target of balance in a changing game state where by the time you get any useful data it's too late to change the next codex is just not reasonable. I think it is possible to simultaneously work towards balance and release New Stuff to keep people excited and keep the game fresh, but that New Stuff has to be primarily additive content- rules for new theaters of war, new campaigns, new Crusade content, new (optional, with opponent's permission) armies of renown, new mission packs, new tournament packs, stuff that you can choose to add on to your game rather than something that forcibly changes your play experience (unless you outright reject the concept of New Stuff altogether). As long as there's a relatively static 'core' game, that's something that can be iterated upon without constantly having to catch up with changes to the game state. That said, if you add new units (let alone factions) mid-edition that's going to shake things up; but at least it would be more controlled and manageable than the current approach of a whole faction's worth of upset every few months plus all the other content.
Why isn't there an eye roll orkmoji?
In case you weren't aware of this, GW has been operating under this exact formulae since beforeFPS games were a thing. Rogue Trader came out & they promptly set about releasing more & more content be it in dedicated 40k books or the pages of WD, changing how the game worked, adding new stuff, and occasionally some errata & FAQs. Some good, some bad, some.... And before RT? They were already doing it with WHFB 1st & 2nd edition. They did not adopt any of this from the video game industry.
catbarf wrote: Of course, as long as people keep buying stuff under the current model, there's no incentive to change.
Oh this again....
{shrugs} Look, as long as they keep making new models that I want & I find the price acceptable they'll keep getting $ from me. However they interpret "Got x$ from CCS."? Not my concern.
I'm sure I'm not alone in this stance.
While not untrue, if you unhook your gaming from the competitive part of the game you can do things to level the playing field like comping poor armies points (or having strong armies take a handicap), engineer missions that give advantages to the weaker army (such as free reinforcements for instance), ect.
I'm not interested in re-balancing the game for GW, to be honest. I'd rather play other games in which I don't have to do that. If I was doing that my efforts would be better spent in, I dunno, developing my own wargame.
ClockworkZion wrote: When you don't lock yourself into strictly playing the GT mission side of the game and embrace the sandbox the game has a lot more options.
Of course, but the core imbalance remains.
I won't dictate how others can have their fun but this refusal to step one foot outside of the strict framework of matched play and try open play or even narrative and make the game fun by giving up a slavish devotion to what is clearly a broken format is a bit baffling to me. It's like getting a whole sandbox to play on but insisting on only playing in the sand that smells like pee.
ClockworkZion wrote: ...I won't dictate how others can have their fun but this refusal to step one foot outside of the strict framework of matched play and try open play or even narrative and make the game fun by giving up a slavish devotion to what is clearly a broken format is a bit baffling to me. It's like getting a whole sandbox to play on but insisting on only playing in the sand that smells like pee.
The fundamental problem with open/narrative play is that they're still using the same Codexes as matched play (stats, special rules, points costs, PL costs, etc., etc.), which means you're subject to the same endless parade of bloat, power creep, and general mess that makes matched play horrible, but then you get told "oh, no, this is narrative, as long as you can make up a good story about why you got tabled in two turns it's all fine!"
ClockworkZion wrote: ...I won't dictate how others can have their fun but this refusal to step one foot outside of the strict framework of matched play and try open play or even narrative and make the game fun by giving up a slavish devotion to what is clearly a broken format is a bit baffling to me. It's like getting a whole sandbox to play on but insisting on only playing in the sand that smells like pee.
The fundamental problem with open/narrative play is that they're still using the same Codexes as matched play (stats, special rules, points costs, PL costs, etc., etc.), which means you're subject to the same endless parade of bloat, power creep, and general mess that makes matched play horrible, but then you get told "oh, no, this is narrative, as long as you can make up a good story about why you got tabled in two turns it's all fine!"
Hell, if Narrative play had a genuine attempt at story telling I'd love to try it.
Sadly "crusades" is the most bland pile of crap I've ever seen. LMAO, one tesla rifle in a squad gets +1 to hit against air units? Feth off.
ClockworkZion wrote: ...I won't dictate how others can have their fun but this refusal to step one foot outside of the strict framework of matched play and try open play or even narrative and make the game fun by giving up a slavish devotion to what is clearly a broken format is a bit baffling to me. It's like getting a whole sandbox to play on but insisting on only playing in the sand that smells like pee.
The fundamental problem with open/narrative play is that they're still using the same Codexes as matched play (stats, special rules, points costs, PL costs, etc., etc.), which means you're subject to the same endless parade of bloat, power creep, and general mess that makes matched play horrible, but then you get told "oh, no, this is narrative, as long as you can make up a good story about why you got tabled in two turns it's all fine!"
Hell, if Narrative play had a genuine attempt at story telling I'd love to try it.
Sadly "crusades" is the most bland pile of crap I've ever seen. LMAO, one tesla rifle in a squad gets +1 to hit against air units? Feth off.
Narrative is about telling your own stories. Crusade is just a tool to allow you to show growth and give you narrative goals to pursue in doing so.
And yes, to respond to AnonmanderRake: it's not perfectly balanced. That was the whole point about doing things beyond just slapping equivalently pointed forces on the table and rolling dice. Narrative play is a system that requires effort to get good stories out of and approaching it like matched play is a mistake.
IronBob wrote: Perhaps what needs to happen is a deep look at the game along historical contexts. For the life of me the bread and butter of any army was your Basic Soldier and there is nothing to suggest that this will ever change. Foot Soldiers are cheap to train and equip in any army and the most common. They hold ground, defend and attack. If we revert to percentages say 50% of your army is troops then we reduce the elite, fast attack and heavy spam that is prevalent now
Let me think about that for a moment. Hmmm.... Yeah, I'll pass.
Why? Because I've played for years under such/similar restrictions in previous editions. Grew bored of that long ago. The 8e+ detachment system is wonderful. If I WANT to go troop heavy I can. And I do with some of my forces. Other times? If I have an idea/theme/just want to switch it up? All I have to do is spend the CP.
And some things just aren't possible if the Troops slot must be filled. Go ahead, tell me 1) how I'd field a pure Necron Destroyer cult (there are no Destroyer units in the troops section), 2) WHY I shouldn't be able to do this? And BTW? My Destroyers can hold objectives just fine. Even without ObSec.
Hell, even GW figured out that the 3e-7e FoC limitations couldn't accommodate various thematic armies. Such as Deathwing, Ravenwing, bike heavy White Scars, Iyanden, tank companies.... And so they set about making al kinds of exceptions to the force chart by swapping what slots things were in.
PenitentJake wrote: It muddies the water a bit, and I would say THIS update seems to affect other modes of play more than the other updates we've seen so far.
Yup. The local Crusade league immediately adopted it in the middle of their league.
I won't dictate how others can have their fun but this refusal to step one foot outside of the strict framework of matched play and try open play or even narrative and make the game fun by giving up a slavish devotion to what is clearly a broken format is a bit baffling to me. It's like getting a whole sandbox to play on but insisting on only playing in the sand that smells like pee.
No, it's not. The whole sandbox has been pissed in by an incontinent elephant and we're swimming in it, but you're saying if I pump out the urine and replace the sand I can have a sandbox to play in. Or... I can go play in another sandbox.
Narrative is *just* as screwed up as matched play, because the core imbalance is persistent across all game modes.
PenitentJake wrote: It muddies the water a bit, and I would say THIS update seems to affect other modes of play more than the other updates we've seen so far.
Yup. The local Crusade league immediately adopted it in the middle of their league.
I won't dictate how others can have their fun but this refusal to step one foot outside of the strict framework of matched play and try open play or even narrative and make the game fun by giving up a slavish devotion to what is clearly a broken format is a bit baffling to me. It's like getting a whole sandbox to play on but insisting on only playing in the sand that smells like pee.
No, it's not. The whole sandbox has been pissed in by an incontinent elephant and we're swimming in it, but you're saying if I pump out the urine and replace the sand I can have a sandbox to play in. Or... I can go play in another sandbox.
Narrative is *just* as screwed up as matched play, because the core imbalance is persistent across all game modes.
Narrative is only as screwed as the rest if you treat it like a strict system and not a toolset and take a step outside of the pee corner.
You know what? I give up. Enjoy your wallowing in your pee sand. I can't convince you, just like I can't convince anyone who has decided that GW's ruleset is an ironclad law on how to play rather than a framework meant to be worked with while you craft the experience to make both players happy instead of just mashing armies into each other to see whose brain is the most wrinkled in the list writing stage.
Narrative is about telling your own stories. Crusade is just a tool to allow you to show growth and give you narrative goals to pursue in doing so.
And yes, to respond to AnonmanderRake: it's not perfectly balanced. That was the whole point about doing things beyond just slapping equivalently pointed forces on the table and rolling dice. Narrative play is a system that requires effort to get good stories out of and approaching it like matched play is a mistake.
Specifically, how do you do this? Because this sounds like a handwave of a solution, and the upthread comment about "how many times can we tell the story of being tabled in 2 turns" becomes very relevant.
PenitentJake wrote: It muddies the water a bit, and I would say THIS update seems to affect other modes of play more than the other updates we've seen so far.
Yup. The local Crusade league immediately adopted it in the middle of their league.
As did the one I'm in.
Slightly annoying to my Gretchin crewed Lobbas. AoC though? It'll save a few wounds, but it's not going to be enough to save them vs all my other assorted Gunz & Grot Tanks.
Back to the Infantry Squad with Lasguns vs Marine with Lascannon shooting at a tank... that isn't a fair comparison.
Because the Lascannon is not good at killing tanks.
A Grav-cannon (which is 5 points cheaper each) is actually better at killing everything (regardless of toughness) as long as it has a 3+ base save or better (and/or doesn't have -1 damage). Granted, -1 damage seems to be more common. Same AP at -3. Is 18" extra range worth +5 points? Maybe, but that is up to you.
Sure, the Grav-cannon only wounds on 5+ for T6-8, but double the shots and that averages the same number of wounds as the Lascannon. Grav-Cannon only does 2 damage compared to 3.5 average on the Lascannon... but again, double the shots (to 4 now, which the Grav-Cannon has) and you are comparing 3.5 to 4.
Against T8 2+ (w/AoC)
Grav-cannon: 4 shots at (2/3 accuracy) x (1/3 wound) x (1/2 save) x (2 damage) = 0.89 damage
vs
Lascannon: 1 shot at (2/3) accuracy x (2/3 wound) x (1/2 save) x (3.5 damage) = .78 damage
Narrative is about telling your own stories. Crusade is just a tool to allow you to show growth and give you narrative goals to pursue in doing so.
And yes, to respond to AnonmanderRake: it's not perfectly balanced. That was the whole point about doing things beyond just slapping equivalently pointed forces on the table and rolling dice. Narrative play is a system that requires effort to get good stories out of and approaching it like matched play is a mistake.
Specifically, how do you do this? Because this sounds like a handwave of a solution, and the upthread comment about "how many times can we tell the story of being tabled in 2 turns" becomes very relevant.
Did you ignore my entire post about crafting different scenarios? Taking points handicaps? Giving free units back to weaker army?
And it's not like you can't come up with story reasons for one side to be out numbered, or for the weaker army to be reinforced. That's easy stuff off the top of my head as examples.
Kaied wrote: Because the Lascannon is not good at killing tanks.
You're saying that like it's not a problem.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
ClockworkZion wrote: Did you ignore my entire post about crafting different scenarios?
And do you playtest said scenarios for balance ahead of time? Do you have any of these scenarios written up that you could show me? Because in my Crusade league the TO made "narrative" scenarios that were horribly unbalanced and noninteractive.
ClockworkZion wrote: Taking points handicaps? Giving free units back to weaker army?
"Ah, looks like I killed your army on turn 2. Just respawn them, I want to kill them again."
Specifically what are solutions? How many points did you give players extra? When did you decide this? How did you decide how many points to give? (How much testing/how did you do it?)
ClockworkZion wrote: And it's not like you can't come up with story reasons for one side to be out numbered, or for the weaker army to be reinforced. That's easy stuff off the top of my head as examples.
Never said anything of the sort. Like I said, I'm asking for specifics.
Narrative is about telling your own stories. Crusade is just a tool to allow you to show growth and give you narrative goals to pursue in doing so.
And yes, to respond to AnonmanderRake: it's not perfectly balanced. That was the whole point about doing things beyond just slapping equivalently pointed forces on the table and rolling dice. Narrative play is a system that requires effort to get good stories out of and approaching it like matched play is a mistake.
Specifically, how do you do this? Because this sounds like a handwave of a solution, and the upthread comment about "how many times can we tell the story of being tabled in 2 turns" becomes very relevant.
Warning: What I'm about to say may sound quite radical to some of you....
1st, & most importantly, you discuss it with the people you're playing with. It's NOT a tourney. Changes can be made.
2nd: I would recommend playing your 1st Crusade as printed. This is so everyone can get practical experience with how it's supposed to work mechanics wise.
Make it small - say start at 25pl rosters & only play until you reach the 50pl point. Take notes during this initial Crusade. What works, what doesn't, things you liked/didn't, ideas....
3rd: Then run a 2nd, bigger, Crusade. Start by having a group discussion. Do you have things that need changing? Added? Deleted? Want more campaign structure? etc etc etc. Might be that you have to do some horse trading & compromising.
Ex: In our current Crusade? I was more than happy to vote for the CSM player to have 2w for his marines - in exchange for being able to make Makari &/or The Red Gobbo on squig my Warlord (I'm playing a Grot list. And by Ork Crusade rules named characters cannot be the warlord. Well, there's no generic Grot character....)
Warning: What I'm about to say may sound quite radical to some of you....
1st, & most importantly, you discuss it with the people you're playing with. It's NOT a tourney.
You misunderstand what I'm asking. I'm asking for a specific implementation of how that went. How many extra points/PL did the weaker player get? How did your reinforcement rules work, etc?
Because you say it's not perfectly balanced, and that's fine. But how is it that both players are unsure if they can complete their objectives or not in an approximately fair way?
Tyran wrote: There is a point that a game being too balanced starts hurting the game's income, as experienced players lose any desire to buy more models. 40k isn't even close to that point, but theoretically you want (as a company) to have a dynamic imbalance that forces even experience players to constantly buy new miniatures while still being balanced enough to avoid a player exodus.
You do see this in online shooters though, where a static gamestate grows stale and only the next release shakes things up again.
GW embracing intentional "perfect imbalance" isn't wrong, the problem is their business model still being tied to physical books makes it impossible to really keep the game up to speed in a timely manner.
Successful online shooters don't keep things fresh by deliberately rotating imbalance; they keep things fresh by adding content and fixing existing imbalances to open new viable options.
A static, tired game state is the result of no new content and sufficient imbalance that there are right and wrong choices and, thus, only a few ways to 'actually' play.
I mean what they often do is release a new game with different gear. Or at least that's the CoD/Battlefield model.
I'm not saying they can't make the game work without a shifting meta, but when leaning into competitive trying to keep the game from being solve and staying solved is important to keep the game from being too stale, which seems to be why GW has taken the design approach they have. It's not one that works without a living digital ruleset, but it's what they've adopted.
Now that I'm home I want to talk a little more about how tabletop gaming compares to videogames in terms of keeping things fresh. This isn't really meant to be argumentative, more an observation.
Back in the day, up until the mid-2000s, you had multiplayer shooters where all the content was available from the outset. Doom, Unreal Tournament, Quake, Counter-Strike, Halo, all the classic franchises worked the same way: A server can run any map, you can play any game type, you can use any weapon, all the content is available to you right from the outset. It gets stale when you're so used to all the weapons and all the maps that it becomes a dull and same-y experience, unless you really enjoy that experience in which case you become one of the die-hards. Sometimes these games got expansion packs that added new content, or patches that address balance, but sometimes not.
Similarly I think it's safe to say that most wargames are/were designed as cohesive, one-off experiences. Historical miniature wargames are generally intended to be complete from the outset; the sorts of games Warlord or TooFatLardies produce are intended to be 'final', with changes made either to improve balance or add content, but not 'living' wargames. The game gives you rules, you assemble the forces needed to play those rules, and off you go. It becomes stale when you stop supplying new forces to try, stop playing new scenarios, and stop making new terrain or playing with new people. Honestly, compared to classic shooters, I'd say wargames have a lot more going for them in terms of keeping things fresh.
In the mid-2000s PC gaming started to adopt player progression, particularly the Call of Duty and Battlefield franchises. Now you didn't just have a variety of maps and scenarios; you also were drip-fed new weapons and equipment as you played. In theory these didn't give you an advantage over other players, just sidegrade options, but that wasn't always the case- and people complained bitterly when high-level gear was flat-out superior. But the idea was that the starting gear would give you a curated, simple way to play, and then as you got more familiar with the game you were given all these whizz-bang accessories to try out and 'grow into'.
I think GW's tried to apply a similar model to 40K, though for marketing reasons in addition to longevity. 40K has more support than ever for starting with a single squad (Kill Team), expanding to a small force (Combat Patrol), and ultimately progressing up to the very expensive 2000pt army. They also have Crusade, which more directly applies a progression system to your army. Just as CoD4 used that experience bar and drip-feed of New Stuff to drive you to keep playing, Crusade offers the promise of new battle honors to keep you coming back even if you and your friends are using the exact same set of models as last time.
Now the current trend is seasons, where games rotate in large amounts of new content on a timed basis. Progression mechanisms are used to access some of it, enticing players who have burned out to return and start grinding to get the new stuff, while continuing players get new carrots on the end of the stick to keep playing. Throughout all this, there's ongoing balance improvement. The common practice is not churn for the sake of churn, but adjustment as new content affects the balance of existing content, or just general improvement to legacy content. The important thing from a business standpoint is that there is heavy use of monetization, particularly of cosmetics, so that the constant drip of New Stuff is associated with a constant drip of continued revenue from existing players.
Is GW doing this? Absolutely. Books like Vigilus and Psychic Awakening are a perfect example. They add new content for existing factions and/or new scenarios to try, and you pay for the privilege. PA in particular added novel mechanics to existing factions, and was tied into adding new models as well, so there was that drive to get New Stuff for your particular faction. Buy the new Chapter Approved to get the new balance updates and missions. Buy the New Stuff to keep playing.
At no point in here is there any concept of a game being 'too balanced', needing deliberate imbalance to keep things fresh. Some companies actually put a lot of time and effort into making their games as balanced as possible- Valve, for example, playtested the hell out of Team Fortress 2 to make every class feel equally useful on launch. But once developers start adding new content, then balance tweaks and even major gameplay changes are needed to make it all fit, as well as improve on things that were deemed acceptable for release but not as fun or interesting as they could be. And problems start to crop up. Ostensibly positive gameplay changes hurt balance. New content renders old content obsolete, or interacts with it in unanticipated ways. The game starts to bloat out of control, and its old virtues of simplicity and balance are usurped by the financial drive to add more New Stuff, despite the best efforts of the developers. Eventually active development ends, the game state is frozen, and they move on to another project- leaving behind a half-broken game and dissatisfied fans. But if it's not a total trainwreck by the end, they'll probably buy the sequel.
Put bluntly: I don't think there's any credibility to the idea that GW deliberately rotates the meta to make people buy things, or that they don't want balance because people would be bored. I am much more inclined to attribute the pendulum swings to a design team struggling to tread water while under the pressure of a business decision to constantly release more, more more New Stuff because that's what makes them more money. Then there's the stupid print media release schedule hanging like an albatross around their necks, to say nothing of the difficulty of gathering reliable data or playtesting a game that may not actually look or play the same in consumers' homes as it does in the studio (see: terrain, and how little of it players tend to use). The question of whether they seek balance or deliberate slight imbalance is ultimately irrelevant, as they can't manage to achieve either under these conditions (though before anyone jumps down my throat about it- yes, they could be doing a lot better than they are). And we're never going to see a balanced state of 9th Ed, because this ends the same way it does for games: A new edition will be released, legacy content will be purged, and the cycle will begin again.
So if we want balance to be sufficiently achievable that 'deliberate imbalance' is even worth discussion, then getting away from the codex creep and the constant cycle of one-upmanship is a basic requirement. The moving target of balance in a changing game state where by the time you get any useful data it's too late to change the next codex is just not reasonable. I think it is possible to simultaneously work towards balance and release New Stuff to keep people excited and keep the game fresh, but that New Stuff has to be primarily additive content- rules for new theaters of war, new campaigns, new Crusade content, new (optional, with opponent's permission) armies of renown, new mission packs, new tournament packs, stuff that you can choose to add on to your game rather than something that forcibly changes your play experience (unless you outright reject the concept of New Stuff altogether). As long as there's a relatively static 'core' game, that's something that can be iterated upon without constantly having to catch up with changes to the game state. That said, if you add new units (let alone factions) mid-edition that's going to shake things up; but at least it would be more controlled and manageable than the current approach of a whole faction's worth of upset every few months plus all the other content.
Why isn't there an eye roll orkmoji?
In case you weren't aware of this, GW has been operating under this exact formulae since beforeFPS games were a thing. Rogue Trader came out & they promptly set about releasing more & more content be it in dedicated 40k books or the pages of WD, changing how the game worked, adding new stuff, and occasionally some errata & FAQs. Some good, some bad, some.... And before RT? They were already doing it with WHFB 1st & 2nd edition. They did not adopt any of this from the video game industry.
catbarf wrote: Of course, as long as people keep buying stuff under the current model, there's no incentive to change.
Oh this again....
{shrugs} Look, as long as they keep making new models that I want & I find the price acceptable they'll keep getting $ from me. However they interpret "Got x$ from CCS."? Not my concern.
I'm sure I'm not alone in this stance.
Here's why it's a problem, even if it's not YOUR problem.
If GWs practices are too consumer-unfriendly, it drives people away to other products or pastimes, ultimately hurting the 40k community. If you're all good to play in isolation, good for you. But driving customers away still hurts other people who, like you, might still enjoy the product, because their local community will be less vibrant. I've seen it happen a number of times. It's in everybody's interest to have 40k be enjoyable for a large segment of would-be fans. So even if you're totally fine with the way things are going, you should still lend an ear to to those who are being driven away.
Case in point: I don't play many armies, but I definitely want the fans and players of other armies to be actively engaged locally, because it makes the community better and gives me a wider variety of opponents. When I don't see Ork armies with lots of boys, it's dissapointing for me even though I don't play orks. When Eldar players don't show up because they're annoyed at how little damage their Dire Avengers do to Space Marines, that takes something away from the community as well.
Let me think about that for a moment. Hmmm.... Yeah, I'll pass.
Why? Because I've played for years under such/similar restrictions in previous editions. Grew bored of that long ago. The 8e+ detachment system is wonderful. If I WANT to go troop heavy I can. And I do with some of my forces. Other times? If I have an idea/theme/just want to switch it up? All I have to do is spend the CP.
And some things just aren't possible if the Troops slot must be filled. Go ahead, tell me 1) how I'd field a pure Necron Destroyer cult (there are no Destroyer units in the troops section), 2) WHY I shouldn't be able to do this? And BTW? My Destroyers can hold objectives just fine. Even without ObSec.
Hell, even GW figured out that the 3e-7e FoC limitations couldn't accommodate various thematic armies. Such as Deathwing, Ravenwing, bike heavy White Scars, Iyanden, tank companies.... And so they set about making al kinds of exceptions to the force chart by swapping what slots things were in.
I think the issue with this line of thinking is that many themed armies, by their very nature, end up being extreme skew armies that are rarely fun to play against (especially on a regular basis).
For example, a Leman Russ tank company is a themed army but, by it's very nature, is all but immune to small arms fire. Even if the opponent ultimately wins, it's unlikely to feel rewarding because having most of your units sit around, twiddling their thumbs, just isn't fun. Whereas, if the IG player had to include a set amount of troops, then he could still run an armoured company (putting said troops in Chimeras or Tauroxes), but now his opponent actually has some potential targets for his anti-infantry weapons.
To me at least, it would seem wiser if some of the more skew-y theme lists were reserved for narrative/open play games. Indeed, this would seem to be the point of such games - to open the possibility of unconventional armies that aren't really suitable for matched play but which might be fun to experiment with every now and again (and when both players know exactly what they're in for).
That said, I also agree with you that some theme lists should be viable. Where I disagree is that the 'anything goes' approach to detachments and list-building is the best way to accomplish this. Instead, I think it would be wiser to take an approach similar to that of AoS - wherein taking the relevant HQ for that theme as your Warlord makes one of your themed units Troops. To take your Destroyer Cult example, taking a Lokhust Lord or Skorpekh Lord as your Warlord could make Ophydian Destroyers count as troop choices.
Obviously each theme would have to be looked at on an individual basis but the overall idea would be to find a balance between permitting as many of them as possible, whilst also discounting the few that are liable to cause issues with skew.
Narrative is only as screwed as the rest if you treat it like a strict system and not a toolset and take a step outside of the pee corner.
You know what? I give up. Enjoy your wallowing in your pee sand. I can't convince you, just like I can't convince anyone who has decided that GW's ruleset is an ironclad law on how to play rather than a framework meant to be worked with while you craft the experience to make both players happy instead of just mashing armies into each other to see whose brain is the most wrinkled in the list writing stage.
Okey. I but still the assumption that people will just waste their own money, just so other can have fun, while they can just play vs armies that are more or less on the same power level in the same time, is a bit hopeful to say the least. It it stops working the moment people stop being the best of best friends, and just act normal.
I think the issue with this line of thinking is that many themed armies, by their very nature, end up being extreme skew armies that are rarely fun to play against (especially on a regular basis).
My personal issue with the FOC is that it worked in 3rd, when armies had 30 datasheets including multiple troops and no more than 3-4 different elite, FA and HS. A "complete" collection of models could never break the FOC once. Now he have armies with dozens of datasheets but a handful of troops and "complete" collections of models are would be hard to play with such restrictions. Not to mention the imbalance between troop choices and tools to bypass the FOC such as squadrons.
Something like the old FOC would work under WHFB types of rosters, in which pretty much every infantry barred the really armoured ones and the bikes are troops. With the current codexes many armies would need 20ish datasheets under the troop section. For orks, for example, at least units such as warbikes, burnaboyz, kommandos, lootas, tankbustas, squig riders, stormboyz should be troops. Probably nobz, meganobz, koptas, flash gtiz too. Leaving characters for elites and large vehicles for FA and HS.
Or maybe just re-shape the old FOC into something closer to what we have, with 0-5 or 0-6 Elites, FA, HS.
But overall I'm with ccs, I love the current system and I think it works great. I would have wanted it in 5th, 7th and 8th (didn't play 6th). Of all the issues of 9th edition I don't think there's even one that involves the detachment system. Even most of the OP skew lists of 9th wouldn't actually break the old FOC. When squigbuggies were OP people could still field 9, same with the current and the old detachment system.
Even most of the OP skew lists of 9th wouldn't actually break the old FOC.
With the way squadrons work. The eldar/harli lists would look identical to the way they look right now. But for my army with 3 elites and 2 HQ slots, I wouldn't be able to play half the support characters I run. It all boils down to if an army has or doesn't have squadrons and if it has good troops. Marines for example run minimal troops and max out elits and FA, with just 3 slots for each and a limit to 2 HQ they wouldn't be able to run their armies at all. And they are hardly the OP skew lists in 9th.
Insectum7 wrote: If GWs practices are too consumer-unfriendly, it drives people away to other products or pastimes, ultimately hurting the 40k community. If you're all good to play in isolation, good for you. But driving customers away still hurts other people who, like you, might still enjoy the product, because their local community will be less vibrant. I've seen it happen a number of times. It's in everybody's interest to have 40k be enjoyable for a large segment of would-be fans. So even if you're totally fine with the way things are going, you should still lend an ear to to those who are being driven away.
I agree and I've seen it. In 98' and so one for a while GW dictated to shops what they must order to have an account. This was the case and the local game shop that became my home away from home simply refused to order or participate with GW. Other games which were more affordable and honestly more interesting took over. We played a lot of Warzone and Chronopia. They didn't get into GW products until after 2000 or 2001. The lack of GW had no downside for them that I ever heard about and they were usually packed on the week ends with MGT and role playing games so use table top wargames struggled to get a table.
Narrative is only as screwed as the rest if you treat it like a strict system and not a toolset and take a step outside of the pee corner.
You know what? I give up. Enjoy your wallowing in your pee sand. I can't convince you, just like I can't convince anyone who has decided that GW's ruleset is an ironclad law on how to play rather than a framework meant to be worked with while you craft the experience to make both players happy instead of just mashing armies into each other to see whose brain is the most wrinkled in the list writing stage.
Okey. I but still the assumption that people will just waste their own money, just so other can have fun, while they can just play vs armies that are more or less on the same power level in the same time, is a bit hopeful to say the least. It it stops working the moment people stop being the best of best friends, and just act normal.
No one is saying matched play shouldn't be better, but with it being the corner of the sandbox all the local cats have peed in right now my point is that if you want to have fun, it probably ain't going to be there. Now if it's better in the future, great, but GW has adopted the churn of a game like League of Legends to try and keep competitive balanced and interesting with little thought how the rest of the community has to play with it (and maybe this is a knock on effect of the management seeking to support competitive more directly because they see it as profitable).
I'm not saying everyone has to play narrative either, I'm just saying that if you do, there are options beyond playing it completely as presented to you out of the core rulebook. Just because GW hasn't handed us a narrative toolbox (like say a mission generator, or tips on asymmetrical missions) doesn't mean we're forbidden from ever stepping outside of the realms of "2,000 point GT Missions" that the community seems so fond of defaulting to despite often complaining about how stale or frustrating that is.
ccs wrote:Why isn't there an eye roll orkmoji?
In case you weren't aware of this, GW has been operating under this exact formulae since beforeFPS games were a thing. Rogue Trader came out & they promptly set about releasing more & more content be it in dedicated 40k books or the pages of WD, changing how the game worked, adding new stuff, and occasionally some errata & FAQs. Some good, some bad, some.... And before RT? They were already doing it with WHFB 1st & 2nd edition. They did not adopt any of this from the video game industry.
I apologize if I gave the impression that I was arguing GW is slavishly following the videogame industry, that was not my intent. Although if you don't think there's any cross-pollination between tabletop and digital, you really ought to check out GDC sometime.
But yes, GW has always added new content to the game. They've always had this rolling release cycle of codices, and they've always added new (though typically optional or FAQ-oriented) stuff in WD.
What they haven't historically done is release codices this rapidly, while also changing the rules every three months, while also changing points at least yearly, while releasing new tournament rules that fundamentally shape the tournament scene, while also releasing spin-off expansions like Psychic Awakening that become part of core rules. The game is also a lot more complex, with more factions and more units, than it was twenty or even ten years ago.
I'm not complaining that GW is being more proactive about balance, but the rapidity of this release cycle and focus on selling you content besides your codex are relatively new things, and make it increasingly different to target any stable state of the game. That's just how it is.
ClockworkZion wrote:I won't dictate how others can have their fun but this refusal to step one foot outside of the strict framework of matched play and try open play or even narrative and make the game fun by giving up a slavish devotion to what is clearly a broken format is a bit baffling to me. It's like getting a whole sandbox to play on but insisting on only playing in the sand that smells like pee.
I like narrative games! But it takes a lot of work to actually balance two forces, particularly if you're using atypical battlefield conditions to shake up the gameplay. The benefit of good balance to begin with is that it's much easier to set up atypical or narrative scenarios and have a decent idea of how it should go. I also find it's very common to have two players with different ideas of the state of the game and what balance looks like, so you get disagreements over what actually needs to be done to balance a game, and that can lead to hurt feelings.
So I really don't blame anyone who would rather not assume the mantle of game designer/playtester and would prefer to just play the rules as written or find another game. Especially if their play experience is primarily pick-up games, so building narrative scenarios has an extra social hurdle of finding someone interested in playing it.
ClockworkZion wrote:I won't dictate how others can have their fun but this refusal to step one foot outside of the strict framework of matched play and try open play or even narrative and make the game fun by giving up a slavish devotion to what is clearly a broken format is a bit baffling to me. It's like getting a whole sandbox to play on but insisting on only playing in the sand that smells like pee.
I like narrative games! But it takes a lot of work to actually balance two forces, particularly if you're using atypical battlefield conditions to shake up the gameplay. The benefit of good balance to begin with is that it's much easier to set up atypical or narrative scenarios and have a decent idea of how it should go. I also find it's very common to have two players with different ideas of the state of the game and what balance looks like, so you get disagreements over what actually needs to be done to balance a game, and that can lead to hurt feelings.
So I really don't blame anyone who would rather not assume the mantle of game designer/playtester and would prefer to just play the rules as written or find another game. Especially if their play experience is primarily pick-up games, so building narrative scenarios has an extra social hurdle of finding someone interested in playing it.
Yeah, I won't pretend it's easy but I see it as a small price to pay to ensure everyone gets to have fun over chasing how many wins I can get.
And by god I wish it was a better system and had more tools in it, but I'm at the point that I'd rather make the effort to find a way to have a good game over taking the trash fire that is matched play and assuming that the game will be fair if you drop 2k of Guard against 2k of literally anything else at this point.
ClockworkZion wrote:I won't dictate how others can have their fun but this refusal to step one foot outside of the strict framework of matched play and try open play or even narrative and make the game fun by giving up a slavish devotion to what is clearly a broken format is a bit baffling to me. It's like getting a whole sandbox to play on but insisting on only playing in the sand that smells like pee.
I like narrative games! But it takes a lot of work to actually balance two forces, particularly if you're using atypical battlefield conditions to shake up the gameplay. The benefit of good balance to begin with is that it's much easier to set up atypical or narrative scenarios and have a decent idea of how it should go. I also find it's very common to have two players with different ideas of the state of the game and what balance looks like, so you get disagreements over what actually needs to be done to balance a game, and that can lead to hurt feelings.
So I really don't blame anyone who would rather not assume the mantle of game designer/playtester and would prefer to just play the rules as written or find another game. Especially if their play experience is primarily pick-up games, so building narrative scenarios has an extra social hurdle of finding someone interested in playing it.
Yeah, I won't pretend it's easy but I see it as a small price to pay to ensure everyone gets to have fun over chasing how many wins I can get.
And by god I wish it was a better system and had more tools in it, but I'm at the point that I'd rather make the effort to find a way to have a good game over taking the trash fire that is matched play and assuming that the game will be fair if you drop 2k of Guard against 2k of literally anything else at this point.
I saw this argument over and over again during those years and it's hard to not think that maybe, just maybe, there is an inherent sociological problem to pick-up culture? The one of treating the opponent as an NPC not worthy of any accommodation to ensure their fun? From what many people report, pick-up culture in many places, especially those overly competitive ones and in times of the greatest impact of "list building as a skill" games of "matched, 2000pts, current GT" sound more like two people playing solitaires on the same table being angry at each other, that the other one is taking up their table space. If I were to start my 40k adventure right now, introduced to the game by one of the more competitive posters on this forum, I would run the hell away from not only the game, but most importantly, the straight up toxic community, because from reading dakka reports, 40k almost never sounds like a fun game and an enjoyable pass time activity. Instead it is described as an utterly miserable, self degrading addiction.
BlackoCatto wrote: Jeez, Guard get a little help in a bad edition for them and the forums catch on fire.
The forum likes to catch fire a lot.
I won't claim that the change for guard is "thematic" but god damn did they need something to stop being the worst army in the game. Now they'll tie with the second worst army with the game.
Insectum7 wrote: I genuinely wonder if a better fix would have been simply "Reduce the AP of ALL weapons by 1."
No, because then it would screw up stats of balanced ones like most of SM guns (yes, I know it's difficult concept for xeno players, but not everyone's book is a factory of Gorgonzola, you know) and would do nothing to bring up the durability of factions that were supposed to have better, all encompassing armour than mooks with slightly thicker t-shirt who also now get 3+ save for some inane non-reason now. GW managed to hit two issues with one strike, kudos for that.
Insectum7 wrote: Maybe you can explain why a squad of Guardsmen with Lasguns are better at tank killing than a squad of DEVASTATORS WITH LASCANNONS and why that's good for the game.
I like how you cherrypicked really bad unit and act like IG being now better than crap is the problem, not SMDevs being terrible.
Let's compare IG squad to usual Harlequin/DE/Eldar infantry cheese or Tau crisis suits, never mind commanders, equivalent points THEN tell me with a straight face it's IG that are the problematic unit. I am waiting.
yukishiro1 wrote: The -1AP thing is a perfect example of how much of a mess the game is. You put far too much AP in the game...so now you're compensating by giving certain factions something that reduces AP. Instead of just attacking the actual problem and getting rid of the excessive AP. Compensate for bad design with more bloat, rather than just fixing the bad design directly.
But then the amount of saltworks explosion from xenos players their utterly broken cheese was reigned in and is now "just" very good instead of 'I win on list building stage LOL' OP would probably create new Eye of Terror, and GW probably doesn't want that problem. Yes, it's their fault but that was probably least problematic thing they could have done - and funnily enough, it also slightly reined in things like orkstodes or saves inflation on xeno models (why eldar street sweepers and juvenile gangsters went from hitting on 4+ and 5+ save to better stats than elites of other factions, again?) so it's pretty elegant solution all told.
Also, I like how people supposedly caring about ""verisimilitude"" now complain faction that is described as literal walking tanks shrugging off shoots that kill mere mortals is no longer less durable than T3 mooks and can actually now save a few more shots. Oh no, muh ""verisimilitude"" was all good when they less durable than orks, not when they actually resemble fluff SM a bit more, eh?
catbarf wrote: Guardsmen getting auto wound on 6s is the dumbest, least internally consistent, least fluff-based balance decision I've seen this edition. Maybe that sounds dramatic, but when someone decides that Guardsmen with lasguns should be better at killing tanks than Intercessors, it's very clear that the guys writing the rules are trying to balance tournament win rates without regard for the verisimilitude or even just matching the fluff.
So, army famous for weight of fire getting a few shots through bits of armor already weakened by previous damage somehow ""breaks verisimilitude"" even though that's literally how they deal with every single well armored foe in every single bit of IG fluff, but orkstodes, all the OP gak taudar do including laughable nonsense that is their most busted weapons capable of killing literal gods with ease (Emperor was stupid chasing webway, he should have initiated Railgun project instead to kill Chaos real dead, hurr durr), and chaffiest tyranids all lugging heavy bolters (not to mention other insane stuff that breaks the fluff to bits Tyranids now have) does not?
*slow clap*
I especially like xenos players crying what used to be glass hammers is no longer straight upgrade in durability over SM and that tiny buff SM got somehow makes them OP when in reality SM will probably go from 30% winrate to 35% while broken xeno gak goes from 70-80% to 65-75%. Oh no, the world is ending, SM no longer are removed from table like orks (except they still are to usual taudar AT spam, but SHHH on that inconvenient truth)
Two Infantry Squads rapid firing with FRFSRF can just about bracket a Leman Russ. What the feth?
Let's see, ignoring usual theoryhammer issue of said squads somehow teleporting within 9 inches of Russ while Russ player sits there for 5 rounds doing nothing while they crawl into range, they can do 74 shots, do 12 wounds through guaranteed hits (plus ~3 from the rest of shooting) for a grand total of 2.5 wounds that will get through 2+ save, assuming Russ isn't in cover.
That privilege costs you 120 pts in squads and 35 for a commander. Should I point out what 155 points Tau tank can do to Russ? Or any other 155 points of utterly broken gak xenos now bring? Comparing 2.5 wounds to that is, well, I have no words
And the crying over lasguns doing anything is especially comical after months of blatant xeno smug lies how railguns are totes balanced and harmless because they don't technically """killl""" a knight, ignoring knight on last 2 wounds is as good as dead anyway and in any case, unit worth 1/3 to 1/4 of knight points effectively removing it in a single shooting phase is a complete and utter travesty of balance. But no, railguns are not a problem (insert usual other liexcuse "we have so much more far more broken stuff in Tau book railguns are totes bad bro and totally not 5x better unit than anything found in Imperial books, git gud"), it's 2.5 las wounds that are now the BIGGEST PROBLEM EVER
ClockworkZion wrote:I won't dictate how others can have their fun but this refusal to step one foot outside of the strict framework of matched play and try open play or even narrative and make the game fun by giving up a slavish devotion to what is clearly a broken format is a bit baffling to me. It's like getting a whole sandbox to play on but insisting on only playing in the sand that smells like pee.
I like narrative games! But it takes a lot of work to actually balance two forces, particularly if you're using atypical battlefield conditions to shake up the gameplay. The benefit of good balance to begin with is that it's much easier to set up atypical or narrative scenarios and have a decent idea of how it should go. I also find it's very common to have two players with different ideas of the state of the game and what balance looks like, so you get disagreements over what actually needs to be done to balance a game, and that can lead to hurt feelings.
So I really don't blame anyone who would rather not assume the mantle of game designer/playtester and would prefer to just play the rules as written or find another game. Especially if their play experience is primarily pick-up games, so building narrative scenarios has an extra social hurdle of finding someone interested in playing it.
Yeah, I won't pretend it's easy but I see it as a small price to pay to ensure everyone gets to have fun over chasing how many wins I can get.
And by god I wish it was a better system and had more tools in it, but I'm at the point that I'd rather make the effort to find a way to have a good game over taking the trash fire that is matched play and assuming that the game will be fair if you drop 2k of Guard against 2k of literally anything else at this point.
I saw this argument over and over again during those years and it's hard to not think that maybe, just maybe, there is an inherent sociological problem to pick-up culture? The one of treating the opponent as an NPC not worthy of any accommodation to ensure their fun? From what many people report, pick-up culture in many places, especially those overly competitive ones and in times of the greatest impact of "list building as a skill" games of "matched, 2000pts, current GT" sound more like two people playing solitaires on the same table being angry at each other, that the other one is taking up their table space. If I were to start my 40k adventure right now, introduced to the game by one of the more competitive posters on this forum, I would run the hell away from not only the game, but most importantly, the straight up toxic community, because from reading dakka reports, 40k almost never sounds like a fun game and an enjoyable pass time activity. Instead it is described as an utterly miserable, self degrading addiction.
Sounds like you're reading too many internet horror stories.
What you're describing matches no one in my own experience. I've met some crappy TFGs, but nothing like the nightmare land you describe.
ClockworkZion wrote: Did you ignore my entire post about crafting different scenarios? Taking points handicaps? Giving free units back to weaker army?
And it's not like you can't come up with story reasons for one side to be out numbered, or for the weaker army to be reinforced. That's easy stuff off the top of my head as examples.
No real need for that, narrative isn't balanced by any means, but it's fun and losing isn't a bit deal since you still make progress. I mean, half the narrative games I've played in AoS/40k I don't even try to win, the difference in progress between winning and losing is pretty minor. WAAC is going to suck no matter the format.
I think the problem is that some people think like you, and I happen to think like that too, while others claim that the difference between the casual and the WAAC army is vast.
BlackoCatto wrote: Jeez, Guard get a little help in a bad edition for them and the forums catch on fire.
The forum likes to catch fire a lot.
I won't claim that the change for guard is "thematic" but god damn did they need something to stop being the worst army in the game. Now they'll tie with the second worst army with the game.
It's not Guard getting some help I mind. It's Guard getting that help from non-sense rules & exceptions.
Sure, if we ignore the fact that a heavy bolter has range 36" over the fleshborer 18", 3 shots instead of 1 and damage 2 instead of 1. And also assuming it is a fleshborer unit and not a devourer or spinefist one.
Using that that logic a battle cannon and a missile launcher are the same thing, or a plasma gun and a Riptide's ion accelerator, because apparently strength and AP are the only things that matter.
(not to mention other insane stuff that breaks the fluff to bits Tyranids now have) does not?
Such as? I'm not sure you are particularly knowledgeable about Tyranid fluff.
Sounds like you're reading too many internet horror stories.
What you're describing matches no one in my own experience. I've met some crappy TFGs, but nothing like the nightmare land you describe.
Try playing a noob IF army, when your two friends decided to pick up tau, because they like mecha suits, and custodes, because of the gilding and byzantine character. And the opposit can be just as bad, 4 friends, first three pick csm, IG and some sort of marines, and then the last one likes the sleak look of eldar. There is not going to be much enjoyment in either group, if they started in 9th ed.
There is a lot of talk about play what you want when you start w40k, even pick stuff based on what to paint, before even knowing the rules or playing any games. But then when it comes to actually playing the game, there is suddenly a whole list of 101 things you and your opponent have to do in order to make a non tournament game be fun. Also a game shouldn't require you to really like reading books, painting and assembling the models to make it worthwhile. And funny enough GW does make games like that. With AoS you can litterally ignore the lore, never read a book and you can still enjoy a game of AoS with your Lumineth Lords.
Sure, if we ignore the fact that a heavy bolter has range 36" over the fleshborer 18", 3 shots instead of 1 and damage 2 instead of 1. And also assuming it is a fleshborer unit and not a devourer or spinefist one.
How much do 3 guants with the fleshborers cost? Also ranges in w40k, specially on fast moving stuff only matter if you have a weapon with a 12 or lower range.
BTW a heavy weapons team is cheaper, and have way better damage output because damage 2.
I still do not understand why Space Marines players are losing their mind over fleshborers. 1 Bs4+ S5 ap-1 D1 shot for 7 points is not particularly impressive.
BTW a heavy weapons team is cheaper, and have way better damage output because damage 2.
I still do not understand why Space Marines players are losing their mind over fleshborers. 1 Bs4+ S5 ap-1 D1 shot for 7 points is not particularly impressive.
many space marine players on here want movie marines. A single marine should be able to solo the swarmlord or ghaz , while a captain should be able to take on both at once without taking a wound. The NPC factions are not allowed to have nice things because it might hurt the marine player feelings and thus sales.
as a reminder they freaked out with 20+ page posts about how OP ork boyz were going to be at T5 and with a (now useless against them due to their whining) -1ap choppa. nevermind that ork boyz were useless outside one sigble small squad with a 1 per detachment restriction.
ClockworkZion wrote: ...I won't dictate how others can have their fun but this refusal to step one foot outside of the strict framework of matched play and try open play or even narrative and make the game fun by giving up a slavish devotion to what is clearly a broken format is a bit baffling to me. It's like getting a whole sandbox to play on but insisting on only playing in the sand that smells like pee.
The fundamental problem with open/narrative play is that they're still using the same Codexes as matched play (stats, special rules, points costs, PL costs, etc., etc.), which means you're subject to the same endless parade of bloat, power creep, and general mess that makes matched play horrible, but then you get told "oh, no, this is narrative, as long as you can make up a good story about why you got tabled in two turns it's all fine!"
Hell, if Narrative play had a genuine attempt at story telling I'd love to try it.
Sadly "crusades" is the most bland pile of crap I've ever seen. LMAO, one tesla rifle in a squad gets +1 to hit against air units? Feth off.
Narrative is about telling your own stories. Crusade is just a tool to allow you to show growth and give you narrative goals to pursue in doing so.
And yes, to respond to AnonmanderRake: it's not perfectly balanced. That was the whole point about doing things beyond just slapping equivalently pointed forces on the table and rolling dice. Narrative play is a system that requires effort to get good stories out of and approaching it like matched play is a mistake.
You knew I'd show up eventually if people talked enough $#!+ about Crusade... It's like saying Candyman in the mirror. LOL
And look, I know I can't make anyone like something that they've either tried and genuinely not liked, or used their superpowers of projection to determine in advance that they wouldn't like it even if they tried it- I also won't bother trying to figure out which of you fall into each of those camps. But let's go down this rabbit hole now that you've opened the door.
First, to address Rake: The most important fundamental difference between Crusade and other forms of 40k is that through Agendas, Crusade provides goals that are not linked to victory conditions. This makes enjoyment of the game less dependent upon winning, which in turn diminishes somewhat the importance of imbalance. Crusade also provides somewhere in the neighbourhood of 3x as many missions as matched, and many of them are asymmetrical. Missions like this are a great way to help a weaker army in its performance against a broken one.
And note: I'm not saying that balance isn't important; I'm not saying the elements of Crusade I've just spoken about are a perfect fix. What I am saying is that these two key components of the Crusade system, which do not appear in other game modes somewhat offset the negativity that many of you see in matched play. I'd also like to point out that some of the sledge-hammer fixes that many have complained about recently, like limitations on aircraft for everybody, or the prohibition against bringing more than one subfaction to battle, do not exist in Crusade, which allows more freedom to build an army that you might like. Combining subfactions is really good material for a narrative- why are the factions agreeing to ally? Who reached out to whom, and how did they do it?
And losses ARE a part of your story. If my sisters got tabled in a game, I'd bring back a number of units as Repentia in the subsequent battle, because that's fluffy AF and fun. If my DE got tabled? That begins the vendetta- my units would develop grudges against specific enemy units- I think it's the second Charadon mission pack that has the grudge rules, but even without rules, there are ways to enact a grudge on the table... But again, it involves not giving a damn about the win, but instead focusing all of your attention on the target of your grudge.
All of these things sound like a more fun way to deal with a loss- or even a series of them- than bitching about it for days in every online echo chamber of game-hate that I can find, but again, you do you bro.
As for Eonfuzz: if all you talk about is the +1 to hit Aircraft, then yes, I suppose it's fair to say that isn't a story, but you can't deny that there are narrative elements that you are ignoring in order to prove the point. Minimally, the unit that receives the upgrade has to do something to earn it. That's the bare minimum established by the rules of the game. It's also fair to say that any battlefield success achieved as a result of that upgrade becomes part of the story. So minimally, just according the bare rules of the game, you've got: "Thanks to their discovery of the ariel targetting array at Bunker Gamma III on the Deathworld Faustus Sigma IX, squad Nero VI was able to thwart the psychic terror of the Hemlock Wraithfighter in its attempt to destroy our holy Techno Magos Deridian Alpha with vile Xenos witchery."
Now when I Crusade, we pick our upgrades so that we can tell better stories. So for me, I'd only go for an anti-aircraft upgrade if the unit in question had a particular game established grudge against aircraft- like maybe they were wiped out once upon a time in a bombing run. Also, I would connect the Agendas that the squad uses to achieve the necessary experience to the tech in question- so if it's the salvage component of Admech Crusade rules that pays for the upgrade, I'd make sure that at least some of the salvaged vehicles were aircraft. Finally, once I have the upgrade, we would fight our way back to the army that included the bomber that set the whole damn story in motion and send it to hell.
But sure, if you prefer to be a blaise hipster and call it nothing more than +1 to hit vs. aircraft so that you can "win" an argument on the internet, that's your prerogative, but it shouldn't come as any surprise which of us has more fun playing the game.
And Rake, for the 25000 dollar bonus question, exactly how many games would I have to win to tell that story? For those of you playing along at home, if you guessed Zero, you're a winner. I could tell that entire storyline while getting soundly curbstomped by harlequins for months. I'm still going to do a dance of joy when squad Nero IV pisses on the flaming wreckage of that bomber so they can salvage it for parts which will become a chapter in the next story.
Finally Clockwork- I checked the thread on another tab, and there's been a whole page of responses that went up after I started this response. I haven't read them yet, but I've done this dance often enough to know how this ends: if you say anything remotely positive about 40k on Dakka, even if you hedge it with qualifiers to demonstrate empathy with those who have a negative opinion and even if you agree with and validate some of their anger, they won't be content with that and allow for the possibility that you can still enjoy the game. Eventually you and I, after trying our hardest to offer a different perspective in the hopes that we can improve the play experience for others, will fall silent under the chorus of people who won't be happy until everyone agrees that this is the worst edition ever. Until the next edition, when they won't be happy until we all say that's the worst edition.
But for now, we can take Bunker Gamma III on the Deathworld of Fautus Sigma Nine and see what's inside. Because just like 40k, we don't have to win in order to amuse ourselves on Dakka. And it's a good thing, because right now Those Who Play Only 2k Matched Yet Hate the Whole Game are overpowered, and the People Who Find a Way could use a balance update.
Platuan4th wrote: Oh look, a thread proclaiming the death of 40K. Must be a day from the past 20+ years ending in y.
Every time an individual player personally gets fed up and decides to quit for the first time they feel like their outrage is more justified than the outrage of all the players who came before, and figure that because they're outraged that must mean there's something sufficiently wrong with the game for lots of people to quit. Let them hang around for a few edition cycles and watch the newbies dismiss them as frustrated old farts who don't know what they're talking about because GW has changed and everything's going to be fine now, and they'll be grouchy and jaded too.
Nice try, but that was more a comment about how people have been doomsaying the imminent death of 40K for nigh on 30 years and continue to be so epicly WRONG.
Well there have been a couple periods over those years where they've hemorrhaged players and their stock price plummeted. The game wasn't dead but it wasn't the most played/bought tabletop wargame for the first time in its existence. I remember Xwing and WMH outselling 40k at all my local stores for a couple years. GW got rid of Kirby and his team and got back on track for awhile. Now we have 9th which is probably the worst state the game has ever been in in terms of balance and rules bloat. Coincidentally, my local store is now having an Infinity night for the first time since the pandemic started. I'm seeing the same trends now as I was the last time around, 40k tournament attendance plummets (my FLGS has a monthly 40k tournament, they used to have 32 players, the next one was reduced to 14 spots because of lack of demand), other games start becoming popular (everyone is playing Bloodbowl or Infinity now), stock price dropping, websites heavily sponsored by GW become openly critical... The game isn't dead and it won't die any time soon but GW will do a lot worse financially unless they fix it.
NinthMusketeer wrote: The sentiment is that points are so badly balanced that players must self-balance to get a matching game, so if you are already doing it might as well use the simpler numbers since either way they are at best rough guidelines.
After all, the points say 2k of guardsmen is evenly matched against 2k of Tau. Who would win!?
That sentiment is wrongheaded, because PL is just "points, but less granular and less accurate."
When you care about re-balancing things, switching to the less accurate measure of relative power is just making things harder for yourself. If you have dyscalculia, then that's another story.
You are confusing accuracy and precision; points are precise, they are not accurate. Removed - rule #1 please
catbarf wrote: Guardsmen getting auto wound on 6s is the dumbest, least internally consistent, least fluff-based balance decision I've seen this edition. Maybe that sounds dramatic, but when someone decides that Guardsmen with lasguns should be better at killing tanks than Intercessors, it's very clear that the guys writing the rules are trying to balance tournament win rates without regard for the verisimilitude or even just matching the fluff.
So, army famous for weight of fire getting a few shots through bits of armor already weakened by previous damage somehow ""breaks verisimilitude"" even though that's literally how they deal with every single well armored foe in every single bit of IG fluff, but orkstodes, all the OP gak taudar do including laughable nonsense that is their most busted weapons capable of killing literal gods with ease (Emperor was stupid chasing webway, he should have initiated Railgun project instead to kill Chaos real dead, hurr durr), and chaffiest tyranids all lugging heavy bolters (not to mention other insane stuff that breaks the fluff to bits Tyranids now have) does not?
*slow clap*
I especially like xenos players crying what used to be glass hammers is no longer straight upgrade in durability over SM and that tiny buff SM got somehow makes them OP when in reality SM will probably go from 30% winrate to 35% while broken xeno gak goes from 70-80% to 65-75%. Oh no, the world is ending, SM no longer are removed from table like orks (except they still are to usual taudar AT spam, but SHHH on that inconvenient truth)
I have two Guard armies and play them more than xenos, you absolute clown.
'Getting a few shots through bits of armor already weakened by previous damage' is how you characterize 'failing an armor save'. I question how much fluff you've read if you interpret massed lasgun fire as 'how they deal with every single well armored foe in every single bit of IG fluff' and somehow missed all the bits about tanks, artillery, heavy weapons teams, and meltaguns. THOSE are how the Guard deals with heavily armored enemies. Lasguns being massed to inflict credible damage to tanks has never been part of the lore. Guardsmen being more effective at damaging light vehicles than Tactical Marines has absolutely never been part of the lore.
If I were halfway as faction-biased as you seem to think I am, I would be ecstatic that a single squad of un-upgraded Scions can now plausibly bracket a tank in a single round of shooting. But I'm not, because it's a stupid rule.
Also, I think everyone would appreciate if you could try to make at least one post that isn't ranting about how everything you disagree with is 'laughable' or 'crying', or alternatively just get therapy if this forum is your redirected outlet for pent-up aggression.
Well technically if you overloaded the battery on a lasgun you should get off one very strong shot, before it melting or exploding.
I don't whole immertion thing. It as if people tried to really act out what is going on in the battle. It is a game in runs on abstractions. Only thing I care about with rule like +6 auto wounds, if someone tested it and checked if there are no problems. If there are no infinite damage loops, some wierd interactions with stuff from outside of the codex etc. If there are no such problems and the lasguns aren't doing an auto wound on a +4, for some reason, who cares how the thing is called and how it is in lore explained.
Being lore accurate is not as important as not messing up the game. That is why in sports we have age and weight classes. Because no one wants to see a 6 foot 16y old beat up a 4"8 one kid of same age.
NinthMusketeer wrote: You are confusing accuracy and precision; points are precise, they are not accurate. Removed
No I'm not. Points are both more precise (granular) *and* more accurate, as they differentiate between, say, a devastator squad with no heavy weapons vs. one with 4.
NinthMusketeer wrote: You are confusing accuracy and precision; points are precise, they are not accurate. Removed
No I'm not. Points are both more precise (granular) *and* more accurate, as they differentiate between, say, a devastator squad with no heavy weapons vs. one with 4.
Maybe this will help - are you measuring distances in milimeters, or are inches sufficient enough? And if better granularity means better balance, then why you do not advocate for increasing granularity tenfold and play 20000pts games? The balance would obviously be ten times better.
You know, there is a reason why some smart people invented terms like measurement accuracy and measurement precision and significant figures and defined them as completely independent qualities of measurement. If you don't know what those terms mean, then wiki is your friend.
Better granularity doesn't necessarily equate to perfect balance but provides more opportunity for balance. Hands down the stupidest argument I've heard for PL is that "points are unbalanced anyway hurr durr". Well then certainly taking a system based on points, and then giving extra models or upgrades absolutely free, is always going to be worse. More granularity doesn't mean more balance but less granularity certainly leads to more room for abuse.
Toofast wrote: Better granularity doesn't necessarily equate to perfect balance but provides more opportunity for balance. Hands down the stupidest argument I've heard for PL is that "points are unbalanced anyway hurr durr". Well then certainly taking a system based on points, and then giving extra models or upgrades absolutely free, is always going to be worse. More granularity doesn't mean more balance but less granularity certainly leads to more room for abuse.
Tell me what the difference is between spending 60 pts for a Guard squad with all options costing zero pts vs spending 3PL on them.
Toofast wrote: Better granularity doesn't necessarily equate to perfect balance but provides more opportunity for balance. Hands down the stupidest argument I've heard for PL is that "points are unbalanced anyway hurr durr". Well then certainly taking a system based on points, and then giving extra models or upgrades absolutely free, is always going to be worse. More granularity doesn't mean more balance but less granularity certainly leads to more room for abuse.
Oh, I agree that GW's PLs are terribly executed. But the question is, given the parameters of the core system, how much granularity is actually necessary and meaningful at the same time. 2000 'units' is an overkill in a system with so much swing in utility of units/upgrades from matchup to matchup and first turn advantage commonly reaching 50%. With 50% damage output you can field 1333pts against 2000pts army and if you go first then the game is still an equal matchup of 1333 pts. With most upgrades/wargear/whatever costing 5pts you are not really using 2000 'units' system anyway, you are using 400 'units' system in majority of cases. 40k pts could be easily denominated to 100-200 'units' system without loosing any meaningful granularity.
Toofast wrote: Better granularity doesn't necessarily equate to perfect balance but provides more opportunity for balance. Hands down the stupidest argument I've heard for PL is that "points are unbalanced anyway hurr durr". Well then certainly taking a system based on points, and then giving extra models or upgrades absolutely free, is always going to be worse. More granularity doesn't mean more balance but less granularity certainly leads to more room for abuse.
Tell me what the difference is between spending 60 pts for a Guard squad with all options costing zero pts vs spending 3PL on them.
Cool, now lets do that for every other squad in the game that didn't get blanket free upgrades as a bandaid.
Primaris crusader squad:
11 models with pistol/chainsword is 20PL or 199 points
20 models with bolt rifles, 2x power fist, 2x pyreblaster, pyre pistol on the sgt and sigismund's seal relic is also 20PL...or 433 points
What a fantastic balancing mechanism when those 2 squads cost the exact same amount to add to your list. I'm sure this will take off as the best and one true way to play 40k any day now.
This is a pretty clear example of why PL is geared towards little timmy who just got a couple boxes of models and hasn't really read the codex but wants to push his toy soldiers around and make laser noises. If people can't see that just because it isn't a bold subtext paragraph on the first page of the rulebook, I don't think I can help them either.
Platuan4th wrote: Oh look, a thread proclaiming the death of 40K. Must be a day from the past 20+ years ending in y.
Every time an individual player personally gets fed up and decides to quit for the first time they feel like their outrage is more justified than the outrage of all the players who came before, and figure that because they're outraged that must mean there's something sufficiently wrong with the game for lots of people to quit. Let them hang around for a few edition cycles and watch the newbies dismiss them as frustrated old farts who don't know what they're talking about because GW has changed and everything's going to be fine now, and they'll be grouchy and jaded too.
Nice try, but that was more a comment about how people have been doomsaying the imminent death of 40K for nigh on 30 years and continue to be so epicly WRONG.
Well there have been a couple periods over those years where they've hemorrhaged players and their stock price plummeted. The game wasn't dead but it wasn't the most played/bought tabletop wargame for the first time in its existence. I remember Xwing and WMH outselling 40k at all my local stores for a couple years. GW got rid of Kirby and his team and got back on track for awhile. Now we have 9th which is probably the worst state the game has ever been in in terms of balance and rules bloat. Coincidentally, my local store is now having an Infinity night for the first time since the pandemic started. I'm seeing the same trends now as I was the last time around, 40k tournament attendance plummets (my FLGS has a monthly 40k tournament, they used to have 32 players, the next one was reduced to 14 spots because of lack of demand), other games start becoming popular (everyone is playing Bloodbowl or Infinity now), stock price dropping, websites heavily sponsored by GW become openly critical... The game isn't dead and it won't die any time soon but GW will do a lot worse financially unless they fix it.
7th was still worse. Ninth is definitely not going in the right direction but 7th was still worse. 200 pages of core rules that literally never came up and 50pt blue horrors that could shrug off 1850pts of Tau Shooting.
One of The 'best' points systems Ive come across was warmachine/hordes. It went from gw-esque in mk1 to minimalist and less granular in mk2.
Juggernaut went from 131pts to 7pts; things like that. Games went from 500 ot 750pte to 35 or 50.
Mk3 opened it up a bit further but its still broadly held to the less granular approach.
There's more to it than just 'less granular numbers' but as a unit of measure it was absolutely solid. And it was easy to math.
Todays lesson in a nutshell kids. Don't dismiss 'less granular' out of hand.
Warmachine also has no options. You took things as is. That makes a huge difference in a system.
Weapon and command add-ons are about the only exception, and some of them felt real bad after the changeover. A full point for a rocket launcher (or whatever) after the changeover seemed pointlessly expensive, when the base unit was 4 pts for 6 models and 6 pts for 10.
Also, 'easy to math' is... interesting. One of my most memorable moments with Mk2 was my opponent pulling out a calculator for a 15 point warjack brawl (basically just the warcaster & 3 jacks).
I've never felt quite so embarrassed for another person, when he (with a mechanical device) failed to add -6, 5, 7 and 9 together..
Toofast wrote: Better granularity doesn't necessarily equate to perfect balance but provides more opportunity for balance. Hands down the stupidest argument I've heard for PL is that "points are unbalanced anyway hurr durr". Well then certainly taking a system based on points, and then giving extra models or upgrades absolutely free, is always going to be worse. More granularity doesn't mean more balance but less granularity certainly leads to more room for abuse.
Tell me what the difference is between spending 60 pts for a Guard squad with all options costing zero pts vs spending 3PL on them.
Cool, now lets do that for every other squad in the game that didn't get blanket free upgrades as a bandaid.
Primaris crusader squad:
11 models with pistol/chainsword is 20PL or 199 points
20 models with bolt rifles, 2x power fist, 2x pyreblaster, pyre pistol on the sgt and sigismund's seal relic is also 20PL...or 433 points
What a fantastic balancing mechanism when those 2 squads cost the exact same amount to add to your list. I'm sure this will take off as the best and one true way to play 40k any day now.
This is a pretty clear example of why PL is geared towards little timmy who just got a couple boxes of models and hasn't really read the codex but wants to push his toy soldiers around and make laser noises. If people can't see that just because it isn't a bold subtext paragraph on the first page of the rulebook, I don't think I can help them either.
This right here is why I hate the point-mongers who purposefully create strawmen to chastise the system.
Sure, a Crusader Squad with 11 models is 20 power level. Got it.
Put in the odd circumstance that you purposely choose to break the system (for the worst) you get: 5 Neophytes, 5 Initiates, and 1 Sword Brother (194 points for 20 PL)
Conversely, if you have maybe half a brain...
11 Initiates, 8 Neophytes, 1 Sword Brother (356 points for the same 20 PL)
OR (let me blow your mind here)
Drop a single Initiate and it becomes 178 points for 10PL
THEN you add in upgrades for squad size:
+5 Pyre Pistol, +10 Power Fist so 15 for the 10 model squad, +25 for the max size?
Which means... you're MUCH MORE LIKELY to come out with 193 points for 10 PL or 381 points for 20PL?
Both of those are just on the shy side of fair if you go with the 20:1 ratio, and I'd probably lobby that they should be 9/18PL instead of 10/20... but whatever, splitting hairs at that point. But good lord, the initial argument was so bombastic that it is to the point of intentionally misleading to make your argument sound like what a normal person would do.
Also, still love how the argument for/against power level assumes one person is munchkining and the other person is dragging knuckles and drooling on themselves.
If you aren't drooling on yourself then you should be capable of making a list using points. It's not a strawman to point out how easily broken PL is. It's a great system to get a new player putting models on the table with the least amount of time and knowledge necessary. Beyond that it fails as a game balancing mechanic.
Toofast wrote: Better granularity doesn't necessarily equate to perfect balance but provides more opportunity for balance.
And when GW makes use of that opportunity many PL supporters will be happy to go back.
Toofast wrote: If you aren't drooling on yourself then you should be capable of making a list using points. It's not a strawman to point out how easily broken PL is. It's a great system to get a new player putting models on the table with the least amount of time and knowledge necessary. Beyond that it fails as a game balancing mechanic.
You'll need to accept that the point is above the level of intellectual capacity you are applying, otherwise it will seem frustrating and irrational because you have chosen not to understand it.
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Purifying Tempest wrote: Also, still love how the argument for/against power level assumes one person is munchkining and the other person is dragging knuckles and drooling on themselves.
Toofast wrote: Better granularity doesn't necessarily equate to perfect balance but provides more opportunity for balance. Hands down the stupidest argument I've heard for PL is that "points are unbalanced anyway hurr durr". Well then certainly taking a system based on points, and then giving extra models or upgrades absolutely free, is always going to be worse. More granularity doesn't mean more balance but less granularity certainly leads to more room for abuse.
Tell me what the difference is between spending 60 pts for a Guard squad with all options costing zero pts vs spending 3PL on them.
Cool, now lets do that for every other squad in the game that didn't get blanket free upgrades as a bandaid.
Primaris crusader squad:
11 models with pistol/chainsword is 20PL or 199 points
20 models with bolt rifles, 2x power fist, 2x pyreblaster, pyre pistol on the sgt and sigismund's seal relic is also 20PL...or 433 points
What a fantastic balancing mechanism when those 2 squads cost the exact same amount to add to your list. I'm sure this will take off as the best and one true way to play 40k any day now.
This is a pretty clear example of why PL is geared towards little timmy who just got a couple boxes of models and hasn't really read the codex but wants to push his toy soldiers around and make laser noises. If people can't see that just because it isn't a bold subtext paragraph on the first page of the rulebook, I don't think I can help them either.
Your 11 man squad should only cost you 15pl. Unless the Russians haven't kept the entry up to date, in wich case rant on.
In the end it really doesn't matter if we count pts or pl. Games are played, fun is had, & we do it all again next week.
Your 11 man squad should only cost you 15pl. Unless the Russians haven't kept the entry up to date, in wich case rant on.
In the end it really doesn't matter if we count pts or pl. Games are played, fun is had, & we do it all again next week.
I'm at work so I just pulled up my app and the primaris crusader datasheet says: "If this unit contains 11 or more models, it has Power Rating 20"
I have two Guard armies and play them more than xenos, you absolute clown.
Also, I think everyone would appreciate if you could try to make at least one post that isn't ranting about how everything you disagree with is 'laughable' or 'crying', or alternatively just get therapy if this forum is your redirected outlet for pent-up aggression.
There's nothing intellectually wrong with PL, it just moves the imbalance to a different area.
Obviously its a bit silly that 11 guys costs the same as 15 or 20... but that just means everyone will run 15 or 20 and not 11. In much the same way people will always take the best special weapons rather than not.
While the dream is points can resolve these issues - it has to be recognised that GW has often failed, and many datasheets are "solved" for want of a better word. You can take bad options - and the points are there to provide some sort of illusion of justification - but if you are a creature of pure maths, you won't.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Yeah. The point was never about the concept or an assertion that PL are balanced. Just that less math is preferable to more math.
You could save yourself some time and remove all the math by just placing however many models will fit in your deployment zone and whoever makes the best laser noises or Ork waaaggghhh wins the game. I believe those were the core rules for AoS for a brief period. I think some of the commenters here were the target audience for that version of the game but for some reason it didn't last very long...
NinthMusketeer wrote: Yeah. The point was never about the concept or an assertion that PL are balanced. Just that less math is preferable to more math.
You could save yourself some time and remove all the math by just placing however many models will fit in your deployment zone and whoever makes the best laser noises or Ork waaaggghhh wins the game. I believe those were the core rules for AoS for a brief period. I think some of the commenters here were the target audience for that version of the game but for some reason it didn't last very long...
My understanding of AoS from the beginning was with out points costs you'd simply agree on the number and variety of units for a game and bring in your collection because it was all about picking a counter unit to a deployed unit from you entire available collection. The yelling nonsense just shows how much contempt GW has for players who have been collecting for a long time and still want to play. Who ever came up with that needed their writing privileges revoked.
as as much as I would like a change away from points, and I do think it is possible, I say that these granular points are not granular enough in the age of army building apps. There's no reason to not use fraction of a point where applicable across every codex and set the point just one time. Even on paper it would be completely doable.
as as much as I would like a change away from points, and I do think it is possible, I say that these granular points are not granular enough in the age of army building apps. There's no reason to not use fraction of a point where applicable across every codex and set the point just one time. Even on paper it would be completely doable.
I disagree tremendously.
It is nice that apps exist for those who like to use them. GW definitely should double down on apps and get good at designing them.
But making the game dependent upon their use is another thing entirely. There's a cool concept known as Universal Design; it started with architecture, and has been adopted by other industries- particularly education. Essentially what it boils down to is that you design things in such a way that they can be used by the greatest number of people. So in architecture, we get wheelchair accessible houses as a default build; in education, we get lesson plans that are designed with learners who have special needs in mind.
Three ways to play, arguably, is a step toward universal design.
Making both good books and good apps would be another example of universal design.
A system that REQUIRES an app is no better than a system for which no app exists- it just screws a different audience.
I am furious that you NEED a cellphone to spend Tim Hortons reward points or to play their roll up the rim game. It is an example of ridiculous, backwards thinking which will only serve to alienate a portion of the customer base. Had the App been optional, I would have praised them for being forward thinking.
The only thing you should NEED a phone for is phone calls- and honestly? You shouldn't even need one for that- phone calls from a laptop are just as viable. This is not to say that you shouldn't be able to do everything on your phone too- I'm fine with that. It's the phone being NECESSARY to do things that I object to.
catbarf wrote: Guardsmen getting auto wound on 6s is the dumbest, least internally consistent, least fluff-based balance decision I've seen this edition. Maybe that sounds dramatic, but when someone decides that Guardsmen with lasguns should be better at killing tanks than Intercessors, it's very clear that the guys writing the rules are trying to balance tournament win rates without regard for the verisimilitude or even just matching the fluff.
So, army famous for weight of fire getting a few shots through bits of armor already weakened by previous damage somehow ""breaks verisimilitude"" even though that's literally how they deal with every single well armored foe in every single bit of IG fluff, but orkstodes, all the OP gak taudar do including laughable nonsense that is their most busted weapons capable of killing literal gods with ease (Emperor was stupid chasing webway, he should have initiated Railgun project instead to kill Chaos real dead, hurr durr), and chaffiest tyranids all lugging heavy bolters (not to mention other insane stuff that breaks the fluff to bits Tyranids now have) does not?
*slow clap*
I especially like xenos players crying what used to be glass hammers is no longer straight upgrade in durability over SM and that tiny buff SM got somehow makes them OP when in reality SM will probably go from 30% winrate to 35% while broken xeno gak goes from 70-80% to 65-75%. Oh no, the world is ending, SM no longer are removed from table like orks (except they still are to usual taudar AT spam, but SHHH on that inconvenient truth)
I have two Guard armies and play them more than xenos, you absolute clown.
'Getting a few shots through bits of armor already weakened by previous damage' is how you characterize 'failing an armor save'. I question how much fluff you've read if you interpret massed lasgun fire as 'how they deal with every single well armored foe in every single bit of IG fluff' and somehow missed all the bits about tanks, artillery, heavy weapons teams, and meltaguns. THOSE are how the Guard deals with heavily armored enemies. Lasguns being massed to inflict credible damage to tanks has never been part of the lore. Guardsmen being more effective at damaging light vehicles than Tactical Marines has absolutely never been part of the lore.
If I were halfway as faction-biased as you seem to think I am, I would be ecstatic that a single squad of un-upgraded Scions can now plausibly bracket a tank in a single round of shooting. But I'm not, because it's a stupid rule.
Also, I think everyone would appreciate if you could try to make at least one post that isn't ranting about how everything you disagree with is 'laughable' or 'crying', or alternatively just get therapy if this forum is your redirected outlet for pent-up aggression.
You have come to the place many of us who have gone back to older editions of the game have. yes in the lore an infantry small arm is not what the IG use to deal with big monsters are heavy armor. but the current game is more "game" and less Napoleonic wargame/satire that it was originally intended to be.
If you want the game to be more thematic and less about tournament balance you have to switch rule sets. rather it be picking your favorite edition, doing a hybrid "best of edition" like some of us have done, or use something like one page rules puts out.
As an old gamer not into the tournament scene i am more interested in "my dudes" fight epic battles in the 40K universe the way they should in lore, or a close proximation of it, for an epic fun battle against an opponent. not worrying about rather unit b is worth X points compared to a comparative unit B from a different factions army that is worth Y points for it's durability or lethality output.
There has to be some abstracts in the game of course because it is a game with core mechics. however GW has gotten to the point that HBMC already pointed out elsewhere, it isn't just bad rules writing, or incompetent rules writing. they have fethed this up so bad they are just throwing things against the wall trying to make something work to the point it is negligent rules writing.
For a very large group of players 9th ed isn't a fun edition of the game. that combined with the behavior of GW towards their own fanbase in many areas has driven players to seek alternatives. As a classic battletech player as well, the new interest it has brought to that game is a positive for me.
Maybe this will help - are you measuring distances in milimeters, or are inches sufficient enough? And if better granularity means better balance, then why you do not advocate for increasing granularity tenfold and play 20000pts games? The balance would obviously be ten times better.
You know, there is a reason why some smart people invented terms like measurement accuracy and measurement precision and significant figures and defined them as completely independent qualities of measurement. If you don't know what those terms mean, then wiki is your friend.
But wouldn't it be more balanced. A more granular points system, would mean there could be differentiatin in points for stuff which now has flat the same points. Suddenly a heavy bolter in a marine chapter that can make it do more D, shot more times, fire it on the move without penality, get access to special ammo would and could have a different cost then an army in which it is just a X shots, Y D and Z AP, and that is it. And it could be done for everything technically indentical unit type, special rules could be actually calculated and coralation could be made between cost and and efficiency, depending on access of something in an army. Deep strikes option for an army that has it on every unit, and has no plasma/heavy weapon option, would not cost the same as lets say an army which could consist of 30 deep striking hellblasters combat squading on arrival.
Tyel wrote:While the dream is points can resolve these issues - it has to be recognised that GW has often failed, and many datasheets are "solved" for want of a better word.
The phrase that most comes to mind for me is 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater'.
Yes, GW has often failed to appropriately price out different options, but I don't think that means assigning them all zero value is an improvement. There's some merit to the argument that points disguise the reality that you're going to have to converge towards parity on your own; but I've never felt like PL got me closer than points to start with, just that it was a lot quicker to put together an army under PL.
Maybe a Blaster isn't really worth the same as a Heat Lance, but at least under points they're both valued at more than the default Shardcarbine. And at least the guy carrying it has a value, too, rather than being tied to fixed increments.
I mean, this isn't an unsolvable problem. PL certainly could take wargear into account, or more granular increments of models. And points have also been going in a bad direction with decidedly unequal wargear choices being made equal-cost (see: Tyranid Warriors). Because ultimately they're both points systems, just structured a bit differently. So I really don't understand why people sometimes talk in absolutes about points versus PL.
aphyon wrote:You have come to the place many of us who have gone back to older editions of the game have. yes in the lore an infantry small arm is not what the IG use to deal with big monsters are heavy armor. but the current game is more "game" and less Napoleonic wargame/satire that it was originally intended to be.
If you want the game to be more thematic and less about tournament balance you have to switch rule sets. rather it be picking your favorite edition, doing a hybrid "best of edition" like some of us have done, or use something like one page rules puts out.
That is, unfortunately, the conclusion I've been slowly coming to. Two of my buddies have been running the Raid on Kastorel-Novem campaign from one of the Imperial Armour books using 5th Ed rules, and it's been fun to watch. My only hangup with 5th Ed is that the Tyranids book really sucked, and while I do generally prefer 4th/5th Ed for my Guard armies (one of which is really a R&H army, and those rules are tons of fun), I like to bring out the 'Nids from time to time.
OPR's Grimdark Future has been fun though. A bit sparse, but plays quickly and my wife has a much better time with it than 9th Ed.
NinthMusketeer wrote: You are confusing accuracy and precision; points are precise, they are not accurate. Removed
No I'm not. Points are both more precise (granular) *and* more accurate, as they differentiate between, say, a devastator squad with no heavy weapons vs. one with 4.
Maybe this will help - are you measuring distances in milimeters, or are inches sufficient enough? And if better granularity means better balance, then why you do not advocate for increasing granularity tenfold and play 20000pts games? The balance would obviously be ten times better.
You know, there is a reason why some smart people invented terms like measurement accuracy and measurement precision and significant figures and defined them as completely independent qualities of measurement. If you don't know what those terms mean, then wiki is your friend.
Ehh??? It's more like measuring with centimeters or inches vs feet.
Good luck describing the exact dimensions of a table using whole numbers.
Centimeter wont be exact, but by sure it'll be closer than feet.
nou wrote: Maybe this will help - are you measuring distances in milimeters, or are inches sufficient enough? And if better granularity means better balance, then why you do not advocate for increasing granularity tenfold and play 20000pts games? The balance would obviously be ten times better.
This is wrongheaded. When you use a tape to measure a 6" move, you're not measuring 6 inches with no decimal place of precision. You're measuring as close to the 6" mark as you can. The same is true if you use a centimeter tape. So you're not super clear on how precision actually applies to real-world measurements.
nou wrote: You know, there is a reason why some smart people invented terms like measurement accuracy and measurement precision and significant figures and defined them as completely independent qualities of measurement. If you don't know what those terms mean, then wiki is your friend.
I'm highly aware of what those terms are, and much more familiar with them then you are. PL is both *less accurate* and *less precise* than points. I'm not saying points are perfect - but they're better than PL for balance, because it's more accurate.
Tell me what the difference is between spending 60 pts for a Guard squad with all options costing zero pts vs spending 3PL on them.
What's the difference between paying 95 points for a Big Mek w/ Mega Armor vs. 6 PL for it?
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NinthMusketeer wrote: Yeah. The point was never about the concept or an assertion that PL are balanced. Just that less math is preferable to more math.
Some of us like math. And prefer that we can get more balanced by doing some.
Tyel wrote:While the dream is points can resolve these issues - it has to be recognised that GW has often failed, and many datasheets are "solved" for want of a better word.
The phrase that most comes to mind for me is 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater'.
Yes, GW has often failed to appropriately price out different options, but I don't think that means assigning them all zero value is an improvement. There's some merit to the argument that points disguise the reality that you're going to have to converge towards parity on your own; but I've never felt like PL got me closer than points to start with, just that it was a lot quicker to put together an army under PL.
Maybe a Blaster isn't really worth the same as a Heat Lance, but at least under points they're both valued at more than the default Shardcarbine. And at least the guy carrying it has a value, too, rather than being tied to fixed increments.
I mean, this isn't an unsolvable problem. PL certainly could take wargear into account, or more granular increments of models. And points have also been going in a bad direction with decidedly unequal wargear choices being made equal-cost (see: Tyranid Warriors). Because ultimately they're both points systems, just structured a bit differently. So I really don't understand why people sometimes talk in absolutes about points versus PL.
aphyon wrote:You have come to the place many of us who have gone back to older editions of the game have. yes in the lore an infantry small arm is not what the IG use to deal with big monsters are heavy armor. but the current game is more "game" and less Napoleonic wargame/satire that it was originally intended to be.
If you want the game to be more thematic and less about tournament balance you have to switch rule sets. rather it be picking your favorite edition, doing a hybrid "best of edition" like some of us have done, or use something like one page rules puts out.
That is, unfortunately, the conclusion I've been slowly coming to. Two of my buddies have been running the Raid on Kastorel-Novem campaign from one of the Imperial Armour books using 5th Ed rules, and it's been fun to watch. My only hangup with 5th Ed is that the Tyranids book really sucked, and while I do generally prefer 4th/5th Ed for my Guard armies (one of which is really a R&H army, and those rules are tons of fun), I like to bring out the 'Nids from time to time.
OPR's Grimdark Future has been fun though. A bit sparse, but plays quickly and my wife has a much better time with it than 9th Ed.
We prefer using the 4th ed codex for nids as it better represent their adaptability. we just reverse "import" newer bugs into the old codex framework. I.E. using the new points cost for the new units but the rules for the gear/upgrades from the core 4th ed book. It is very cross compatible as with many codexes through GWs history often saw use halfway through the next editions because of GWs release policy
OPR's Grimdark Future has been fun though. A bit sparse, but plays quickly and my wife has a much better time with it than 9th Ed.
My wife enjoyed early 8th but found the extra layers of rules in 9th to be cumbersome, so when we played we often omitted doctrine-equivalents & stratagems. How much faster of a game would you consider OPR? We typically played 500pt games for 60-90 minutes. Then we found a copy of Blackstone Fortress and found that to be a much more fun way to pass the time during lockdowns.
Tell me what the difference is between spending 60 pts for a Guard squad with all options costing zero pts vs spending 3PL on them.
What's the difference between paying 95 points for a Big Mek w/ Mega Armor vs. 6 PL for it?
In isolation of context there isn't a difference, they're both made up values assigned to a made up profile in a fictional game. Both can be balanced to one degree or another against other made up numbers
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NinthMusketeer wrote: Yeah. The point was never about the concept or an assertion that PL are balanced. Just that less math is preferable to more math.
Some of us like math. And prefer that we can get more balanced by doing some.
Just not that much more balanced. If tac marines came in "unit of 10, with 1 special weapon and 1 heavy weapon. Weapon options for sargeant" 200 points with some minor points on a couple of bits of gear or 10 PL there's a negligible volume of difference suddenly.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Yeah. The point was never about the concept or an assertion that PL are balanced. Just that less math is preferable to more math.
You could save yourself some time and remove all the math by just placing however many models will fit in your deployment zone and whoever makes the best laser noises or Ork waaaggghhh wins the game. I believe those were the core rules for AoS for a brief period. I think some of the commenters here were the target audience for that version of the game but for some reason it didn't last very long...
Unfortunately that is only fun when one applies the same level of intelligence you are to this conversation.
But, the ultimate irony in bringing that up is almost all of the gameplay during that era happened under one of the fan-comps that did provide points. And no edition of Warhammer has ever been as balanced as what fans came up with inside of a year.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Unfortunately that is only fun when one applies the same level of intelligence you are to this conversation.
The guy you're quoting made a sarcastic point, but the implied point was smarter and more thought-out than anything you've said in this thread. It anticipates your argument and scathingly disproves it.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Unfortunately that is only fun when one applies the same level of intelligence you are to this conversation.
The guy you're quoting made a sarcastic point, but the implied point was smarter and more thought-out than anything you've said in this thread. It anticipates your argument and scathingly disproves it.
We get it, you don't understand the argument and don't want to. You've made that pretty clear.
What's the difference between paying 95 points for a Big Mek w/ Mega Armor vs. 6 PL for it?
Big difference.
6PL Big mek might have KFF, Killsaw and Grot Oiler which costs 40 points, aka 40ish % more than the 95 points model's cost, if you consider points. It's like making it cost 8-9PL if he takes that gear.
One of The 'best' points systems Ive come across was warmachine/hordes. It went from gw-esque in mk1 to minimalist and less granular in mk2.
Juggernaut went from 131pts to 7pts; things like that. Games went from 500 ot 750pte to 35 or 50.
Mk3 opened it up a bit further but its still broadly held to the less granular approach.
There's more to it than just 'less granular numbers' but as a unit of measure it was absolutely solid. And it was easy to math.
Todays lesson in a nutshell kids. Don't dismiss 'less granular' out of hand.
Warmachine also has no options. You took things as is. That makes a huge difference in a system.
Indeed, and im not sure if you're trying ti argue against something I didn't say?
Please note the underlined bits. It's more complicated than 'less granular is better' but my point wasn't about that, it was illustrating that some of the best balanced systems out there were less granular systems, not more granular systems.
You could make every space marine cost 40,000 points if you wanted, but it still won't make it a 'better' system.
Doesn't warmachine have unit attachments and unit special weapons which are bought from a separate points pull, which on top of that is modified based on what theme list someone plays?
What's the difference between paying 95 points for a Big Mek w/ Mega Armor vs. 6 PL for it?
Big difference.
6PL Big mek might have KFF, Killsaw and Grot Oiler which costs 40 points, aka 40ish % more than the 95 points model's cost, if you consider points. It's like making it cost 8-9PL if he takes that gear.
Your math is off. Remember, 1 PL ~20 points. The 95 point MegaMek I'm describing has a TP Blasta and no KFF. If you give him the KFF he clocks in around 120. But this is my point about PL being less accurate - he should only cost 5 PL if he's 95 points.
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NinthMusketeer wrote: We get it, you don't understand the argument and don't want to. You've made that pretty clear.
No, your argument was pretty clear - you want simpler arithmetic and don't care if it has the knockoff consequence of wrecking game balance. That's worth criticizing.
Karol wrote: Doesn't warmachine have unit attachments and unit special weapons which are bought from a separate points pull, which on top of that is modified based on what theme list someone plays?
you have
.warcaster/warlock
.warjack/warbeast
.units
.unit attachments
.solos
.battle engines
.colossals
.each is bought separately for points and has field allowance restrictions (limit to the number that can be taken in an army)
the exception being warjacks/warbeasts and casters/warlocks-
the casters are free with a certain number of free points to bring the jacks/beasts for free. you can bring more than the free points allow but you must pay for them in overall army points.
What you are mostly thinking of is unit attachments, and some solos that stay in command range of a unit to give them special abilities.
Themed lists are restricted lists that give effectively "free models" similar to how 7th ed 40K did formations (i prefer not to use them so i can take the models i like to use).
Your math is off. Remember, 1 PL ~20 points. The 95 point MegaMek I'm describing has a TP Blasta and no KFF. If you give him the KFF he clocks in around 120. But this is my point about PL being less accurate - he should only cost 5 PL if he's 95 points.
I did my math based on percentages rather than the actual PL/points conversion. 95 points compared to 135 and 6 PL compared to 8-9 PL. The increase is the same percentages. And +2PL (the jump from 6PL to 8PL) would match the +40points hike that the big mek gets when maxing out his upgrades.
I know that PL are less accurate though, to the point that most of the points costs are based assuming the unit did take most of, if not all, the expensive gear. There is a significant difference between a big mek with TP (the 95 points one) and a big mek with KFF (the 6PL or 115 points one) in terms of gameplay and also price, by using points.
catbarf wrote: The phrase that most comes to mind for me is 'throwing the baby out with the bathwater'.
Yes, GW has often failed to appropriately price out different options, but I don't think that means assigning them all zero value is an improvement. There's some merit to the argument that points disguise the reality that you're going to have to converge towards parity on your own; but I've never felt like PL got me closer than points to start with, just that it was a lot quicker to put together an army under PL.
Maybe a Blaster isn't really worth the same as a Heat Lance, but at least under points they're both valued at more than the default Shardcarbine. And at least the guy carrying it has a value, too, rather than being tied to fixed increments.
I mean, this isn't an unsolvable problem. PL certainly could take wargear into account, or more granular increments of models. And points have also been going in a bad direction with decidedly unequal wargear choices being made equal-cost (see: Tyranid Warriors). Because ultimately they're both points systems, just structured a bit differently. So I really don't understand why people sometimes talk in absolutes about points versus PL.
Not sure its adding much but I broadly agree with you. Especially if PL were to factor in wargear, you'd basically just have a points system divided by 20. There would be some biting points - but there are already.
Points should be better - but require GW to review them holistically. And I think there's a lot of evidence that they want to move on from that.
What's the difference between paying 95 points for a Big Mek w/ Mega Armor vs. 6 PL for it?
Big difference.
6PL Big mek might have KFF, Killsaw and Grot Oiler which costs 40 points, aka 40ish % more than the 95 points model's cost, if you consider points. It's like making it cost 8-9PL if he takes that gear.
Your math is off. Remember, 1 PL ~20 points. The 95 point MegaMek I'm describing has a TP Blasta and no KFF. If you give him the KFF he clocks in around 120. But this is my point about PL being less accurate - he should only cost 5 PL if he's 95 points.
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NinthMusketeer wrote: We get it, you don't understand the argument and don't want to. You've made that pretty clear.
No, your argument was pretty clear - you want simpler arithmetic and don't care if it has the knockoff consequence of wrecking game balance. That's worth criticizing.
If you assume that the points costs of units overall are correct, then indeed, a MegaMek should be 5 PL. But the thing is, most points costs just aren't correct and they never will be. Partially because GW just isn't that competent, but far more importantly because it's actually pretty much impossible to balance a game with way too many options like 40k has. Another issue is that in 40k, the rules try to include far too much granularity for the size of the games (like seriously, do we need to differentiate a dozen varieties of the same basic weapon or make differences between swords, clubs, axes, and all that?)
There's a reason why most other games don't use 2000 points for armies or warbands and that is because that just gives fake granularity that the designers can't actually work around. Of course, it runs into the issue that some pieces of equipment are much better than others (plasma vs grenade launchers for instance) but that only really means that more has to be done to differentiate them. Which, if points no longer are the absolute focus, should be much easier. It would also help if GW moved on from giving every little detail on a model rules. They could do with much more abstraction.
aphyon wrote:We prefer using the 4th ed codex for nids as it better represent their adaptability. we just reverse "import" newer bugs into the old codex framework. I.E. using the new points cost for the new units but the rules for the gear/upgrades from the core 4th ed book. It is very cross compatible as with many codexes through GWs history often saw use halfway through the next editions because of GWs release policy
I might give that a shot. Though in some cases I may end up homebrewing new rules- eg Tyrannofexes being AP4 never sat right with me.
The Red Hobbit wrote:My wife enjoyed early 8th but found the extra layers of rules in 9th to be cumbersome, so when we played we often omitted doctrine-equivalents & stratagems. How much faster of a game would you consider OPR? We typically played 500pt games for 60-90 minutes. Then we found a copy of Blackstone Fortress and found that to be a much more fun way to pass the time during lockdowns.
Still faster than even no-stratagem, no-doctrine 8th/9th. I mean, feel free to have a look at the core rules and army lists. The rules reference sheet with USRs is one page, double-sided, with reasonably normal sized text, and the army lists are one page double-sided as well. Gameplay involves a lot less rolling than 40K and general resolution is faster. It does slow down a bit due to analysis paralysis in the AA system, but a game is four turns, so it ends up going pretty quickly.
1000pts of GDF is 500-750pts of 40K, and takes under an hour in my experience. It's not a super deep game, but it feels like a wargame and keeps both players involved.
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Dolnikan wrote: If you assume that the points costs of units overall are correct, then indeed, a MegaMek should be 5 PL. But the thing is, most points costs just aren't correct and they never will be. Partially because GW just isn't that competent, but far more importantly because it's actually pretty much impossible to balance a game with way too many options like 40k has. Another issue is that in 40k, the rules try to include far too much granularity for the size of the games (like seriously, do we need to differentiate a dozen varieties of the same basic weapon or make differences between swords, clubs, axes, and all that?)
There's a reason why most other games don't use 2000 points for armies or warbands and that is because that just gives fake granularity that the designers can't actually work around. Of course, it runs into the issue that some pieces of equipment are much better than others (plasma vs grenade launchers for instance) but that only really means that more has to be done to differentiate them. Which, if points no longer are the absolute focus, should be much easier. It would also help if GW moved on from giving every little detail on a model rules. They could do with much more abstraction.
Maybe the points are wrong and the Mek shouldn't be cheaper with certain wargear; but maybe the points are wrong and the Mek with that loadout actually should be cheaper still, and clock in at 4PL or whatever. And if we're comparing KFF and no KFF, then there's a difference in power there that ought to be accounted for in some fashion. Otherwise it's not actually a choice.
The underlying point is that wargear can drastically affect the value of a model, but PL currently makes no provision for representing that. Points costs may not always get the value right, but that doesn't mean that setting the value of all wargear to 0 produces a better outcome.
I like the push towards sidegrade options, so that if 40Khas to represent swords vs axes vs clubs (because I agree, that's too much minutiae for the scale of the game) then at least they can all be equivalent cost, but significant straight upgrades are commonplace in 40K and the lack of representation is a major impediment to balancing under PL. The granularity isn't 'fake', it exists, but it isn't nearly as beneficial to balancing as just representing power-altering options would be.
One of The 'best' points systems Ive come across was warmachine/hordes. It went from gw-esque in mk1 to minimalist and less granular in mk2.
Juggernaut went from 131pts to 7pts; things like that. Games went from 500 ot 750pte to 35 or 50.
Mk3 opened it up a bit further but its still broadly held to the less granular approach.
There's more to it than just 'less granular numbers' but as a unit of measure it was absolutely solid. And it was easy to math.
Todays lesson in a nutshell kids. Don't dismiss 'less granular' out of hand.
Warmachine also has no options. You took things as is. That makes a huge difference in a system.
Indeed, and im not sure if you're trying ti argue against something I didn't say?
Please note the underlined bits. It's more complicated than 'less granular is better' but my point wasn't about that, it was illustrating that some of the best balanced systems out there were less granular systems, not more granular systems.
No, I'm arguing against what you did say: Yes, it is 'more to it,' there are a lot of complications. And part of that is having more moving parts. In a system where you only take units 'as is,' you can get away with simple and low points. When each unit can have 0-15 options, and they have a wildly varied effect on the game, you can't do that.
Also, with smaller point values, each mistake by the devs in costing units has a larger effect on the game. As much as people like to quibble, if a single space marine is 20 or 22 points rather 21, the over all effect on a 1500 or 2000 point game is pretty minor. If heavy warjack is 7 but really should be 10, it matters a lot.
Voss wrote: No, I'm arguing against what you did say: Yes, it is 'more to it,' there are a lot of complications. And part of that is having more moving parts. In a system where you only take units 'as is,' you can get away with simple and low points. When each unit can have 0-15 options, and they have a wildly varied effect on the game, you can't do that.
Also, with smaller point values, each mistake by the devs in costing units has a larger effect on the game. As much as people like to quibble, if a single space marine is 20 or 22 points rather 21, the over all effect on a 1500 or 2000 point game is pretty minor. If heavy warjack is 7 but really should be 10, it matters a lot.
Well, costing a warjack at 7 when it should be 10 is like costing a Marine at 20pts when it should be 28pts, or costing the warjack at 70 when it should be 100. That's a proportionality issue that holds true regardless of where you set the granularity.
I'm inclined to think that you could easily reduce all points costs by a factor of 5, and do an end run around the reduced granularity by:
-Assigning costs of units based on increments of some number of models (smaller than PL does),
-Giving unit-wide wargear costs based on the same increments, and
-Rounding one-off upgrades as needed.
So maybe a unit of Tyranid Warriors costs 5pts apiece, you can give them all Adrenal Glands at 1pt for every 3 models, and a Venom Cannon upgrade is 1pt. Tempestus Scions can be 9pts for every 5 models, with flamers/GLs/HSVGs costing 1pt apiece and melta/plasma costing 2pts.
Granularity of per-model costs is preserved by tying the points cost to multiple models, and upgrades are essentially rounded to the nearest 5pts (which seems about as granular as GW has been able to effectively do). Pretty simple.
No, I'm arguing against what you did say: Yes, it is 'more to it,' there are a lot of complications. And part of that is having more moving parts. In a system where you only take units 'as is,' you can get away with simple and low points. When each unit can have 0-15 options, and they have a wildly varied effect on the game, you can't do that.
Um...
Youre not arguing 'against' what I said. If you were, you'd be saying less granularity is terrible, more granularity is better. You're not saying that.
Lets try again. What I did say is low granular points can work, look to wmh but it's a bit more complicated than that... We're actually not in disagreement here. You say it yourself.
I've always acknowledged that there's other factors at play voss, and you're mischaracterizing my position unfairly if you want to claim I'm not saying that and i really dont appreciate it if you are. I just didn't want to dig down intp it because (a) it's going off topic, and (b) there are a lot more aspects to it that I didn't want to get into at the time- again, i said what I said because I think its short sighted to just claim 'more granularity is better'.
Also, with smaller point values, each mistake by the devs in costing units has a larger effect on the game. As much as people like to quibble, if a single space marine is 20 or 22 points rather 21, the over all effect on a 1500 or 2000 point game is pretty minor. If heavy warjack is 7 but really should be 10, it matters a lot.
Youre not wrong, but in my experience playing wmh for about 15 years, being over or under by a point mattered a hell of a lot less[i] than, say, taking stryker over haley 2, or strakhov over butcher3, or taking winter guard without Joe rather than with. As you say, there's more to it.
Voss wrote: No, I'm arguing against what you did say: Yes, it is 'more to it,' there are a lot of complications. And part of that is having more moving parts. In a system where you only take units 'as is,' you can get away with simple and low points. When each unit can have 0-15 options, and they have a wildly varied effect on the game, you can't do that.
Also, with smaller point values, each mistake by the devs in costing units has a larger effect on the game. As much as people like to quibble, if a single space marine is 20 or 22 points rather 21, the over all effect on a 1500 or 2000 point game is pretty minor. If heavy warjack is 7 but really should be 10, it matters a lot.
Well, costing a warjack at 7 when it should be 10 is like costing a Marine at 20pts when it should be 28pts, or costing the warjack at 70 when it should be 100. That's a proportionality issue that holds true regardless of where you set the granularity.
I'm inclined to think that you could easily reduce all points costs by a factor of 5, and do an end run around the reduced granularity by:
-Assigning costs of units based on increments of some number of models (smaller than PL does),
-Giving unit-wide wargear costs based on the same increments, and
-Rounding one-off upgrades as needed.
So maybe a unit of Tyranid Warriors costs 5pts apiece, you can give them all Adrenal Glands at 1pt for every 3 models, and a Venom Cannon upgrade is 1pt. Tempestus Scions can be 9pts for every 5 models, with flamers/GLs/HSVGs costing 1pt apiece and melta/plasma costing 2pts.
Granularity of per-model costs is preserved by tying the points cost to multiple models, and upgrades are essentially rounded to the nearest 5pts (which seems about as granular as GW has been able to effectively do). Pretty simple.
This right here, what Voss wrote, is a perfect illustration of the biggest flaw of overly granular point systems - they make people believe, that it is possible to pinpoint the cost of a model/weapon/wargear to +/- 1 point, when the real in-game value of an item swings at least an order of magnitude higher than this depending on mission and matchup context. The more universal the item is, the less swing there is, the more specialised the item is, the more swing there is. And no, "pinpointing to the average" is not possible either, because the boundaries you are calculating such average for change with "the meta", which in turn change with "the average" you assign to items.
@ catbarf: As I've wrote it above, granularity of around 100-200 units is perfectly workable in 40k and even currently, the real granularity of large swathes of the point system in 40k is 400 units, not 2000 units - 5pts increments are a standard since many editions ago and in many, many cases upgrades that are 1-2 pts per model must be taken for all models in the squad, so you still pay multiples of 5pts for them.
going down to +/- 1 point is impossible for 40k, simply because random damage weapons exist
how to you calculate D6 damage weapons, points per average damage because on 100 games the points will be right?
points on maximum possible damage? (what GW has done for long)
points for minimum possible damage?
does it make a difference which unit takes the weapons, should every additional similar weapon cost more because the chance to do the average amount of damage is higher the more you take?
40k has the illusion of balance via points on a fine granularity by adding single points to wargear
and now people believe that there is no other way without breaking the not existing balance of 40k
for the game itself, it won't matter of those are single points, steps of 5 or 10, 2000 points or 20
the balance were such details would make sense is not there in the first place
Whether a "unit" should be 100 or 101 points is likely to be incidental. But if individual models should be 10 - but one is priced at 11, and another is priced at 9 - this can start to have a significant impact. If that spread is replicated across a 2k army, I'm effectively playing a faction with 2200 points and you are playing a faction with 1800. Its not surprising that my win percentage is much higher as a result. If you could bring an extra unit or two - and I had to leave a unit or two behind, it would have a massive impact on the game.
kodos wrote: going down to +/- 1 point is impossible for 40k, simply because random damage weapons exist
how to you calculate D6 damage weapons, points per average damage because on 100 games the points will be right?
points on maximum possible damage? (what GW has done for long)
points for minimum possible damage?
does it make a difference which unit takes the weapons, should every additional similar weapon cost more because the chance to do the average amount of damage is higher the more you take?
40k has the illusion of balance via points on a fine granularity by adding single points to wargear
and now people believe that there is no other way without breaking the not existing balance of 40k
for the game itself, it won't matter of those are single points, steps of 5 or 10, 2000 points or 20
the balance were such details would make sense is not there in the first place
That is another of the great many reasons why 2000 units make no practical sense, yes.
Wouldn't be issues of one wargear option being better than another if every option was viable in a specific niche. But I guess asking for actual balance outside of "points adjustments" is too much for the GW skeleton crew to handle.
Should just adopt AoS point system. Its more align to 40kPL than 40k points, but the larger number allows for a little more granularity.
aphyon wrote:We prefer using the 4th ed codex for nids as it better represent their adaptability. we just reverse "import" newer bugs into the old codex framework. I.E. using the new points cost for the new units but the rules for the gear/upgrades from the core 4th ed book. It is very cross compatible as with many codexes through GWs history often saw use halfway through the next editions because of GWs release policy
I might give that a shot. Though in some cases I may end up homebrewing new rules- eg Tyrannofexes being AP4 never sat right with me.
It is hard to use the 4th ed codex for nids because a) half of my nid army doesn't have 4th ed rules and b) even the 4th ed codex struggles to work in the 5th ruleset. Good luck facing a vehicle list when the venom cannon is unable to make pens and it is nearly impossible to kill vehicles with glancing hits.
Personally if I had to play using 5th rules, I would prefer to reverse engineer the new 9th ed datasheets to work in 5th.
The swinging of value between games is very important and I think is a huge issue for 40k.
Almost all armies in 40k inherently skew some way - look at a Space Marine army and show me some light infantry. Or heavy infantry in a Guard list - no Ogryns don't count because they're a very different target profile than Astartes.
Or even to the further extremes like Knights, which are about as skewed in one direction as it's possible to get.
It even makes TAC lists problematic as a TAC list won't have enough of the relevant anti-profile if it encounters the corresponding skew.
The Power Level computation of MOST units is some sort of median between their base kit and their max kit. What that normally turns into is that if you barebones a unit, you're losing out on the ratio... and if you max a unit, you may be able to "game" the system some to get a slight boost to your ratio.
Having built PL armies frequently, I'll tell you there's some units that just never come to that true 20:1 ratio, and there's some units that can mock it. Before the PL Adjustment sheet, it was literally impossible to get 20:1 on the Sisters' tanks, they were 1PL too high and would come in 5 to 15 points below the ratio. Then they did a points and PL adjustment and they're coming in around or just over the 8PL cost they sport when converted to points. Normally, the big units with less flexibility are fairly close... like normally within 1PL and normally for the worse.
However, there is a dark side of that:
A basic BSS costs 3 PL (I think they should be 4, but they cost 3... whatever). I think with a Simulacrum, Combi-melta, and Multi-melta, they're coming in at like 90 points, which puts them between 4 and 5 PL. Which means if I make those squads, I do get a little boost... but I dunno how significant that is across the course of the game, but having the spot MM here and there does... stuff... by definition. They still largely have the role of muddling around and trying to get me some ObSec while being able to toss a couple of shots down range. I feel that troops and ObSec have a bit of a diminished value in Crusade, too, since normally the games have fewer (if any) objectives and the agendas are pretty much what you're working on.
Then there is the "weird" cases, which I doubt are very weird at all, when players choose "sub-optimal" load outs so the units can serve a role. I believe my Heavy Bolter Retributors lose out on the PL:points ratio, but I tend to not care at all because they make up for that after deployment with their ROLE. I also think role-based squads pop up a bit more in Crusade or PL games because you're not trying to "cut points here to boost points there".
Is it breakable? Absolutely. But I'd argue it is breakable in the same way that bringing 5 naked BSS girls in order to shift 40 points into Retributors to afford the upgrade from Heavy Bolters to Multi-melta breaks point games and makes stuff inanely difficult to balance. The trim-and-bloat style of list building is just a swingy version of PL... only in PL it could be argued that instead of all that strength being diverted into a super-cereal core of units designed to do the work, the power is by nature divided more evenly over the army.
I doubt it will ever work for GTs or massive events with rewards on the line, but I'd definitely applaud them a bit for sticking with it, refining it, and not abandoning it after 8th edition. I think a few more passes and it will be passable (like adding PL increases for pricy upgrades to specific units - like they did with Daemon Prince wings). Lascannons are "good" (read as: expensive), so you take a PL hit for running it... but the basic squad may actually drop a point or two in PL (especially something like Retributors, who are basic sisters before upgrades, but cost 6PL instead of 3). There's definitely room for more improvement, and maybe they're ready to ditch points by 10th, who knows. I honestly doubt they'll ever unify matched play and narrative play under that same umbrella, though, so stressing about it is overly pointless. And even if they do unify the systems... what can we do about it? Play on playa, or fuss in dakka about current edition rules when you haven't played in 3-4 editions. GW living rent free!
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Changed some capitalization to prevent colon+character emojis, lol... silly ratio formatting.
I also wanted to add: My HB Rets, the sub-optimal unit that they are... lots of player would probably argue that they're frustrating and one of my better units in the game. Some things cannot be quantified when the role is matched well with a need.
Still faster than even no-stratagem, no-doctrine 8th/9th. I mean, feel free to have a look at the core rules and [url=https://webapp.onepagerules.com/game-systems/grimdark-future]army lists[url]. The rules reference sheet with USRs is one page, double-sided, with reasonably normal sized text, and the army lists are one page double-sided as well. Gameplay involves a lot less rolling than 40K and general resolution is faster. It does slow down a bit due to analysis paralysis in the AA system, but a game is four turns, so it ends up going pretty quickly.
1000pts of GDF is 500-750pts of 40K, and takes under an hour in my experience. It's not a super deep game, but it feels like a wargame and keeps both players involved.
Oh I didn't realize it was AA as well. Thanks we'll have to check it out one day.
) is 40 hits, 13.3 wounds and 11ish dead Boyz.
- but using it in response to one of catbarf's posts would be an error in judgement.
