No chess clocks at Adepticon (couldn't even request one as far as I know). So one of the natural checks on hordes was removed. I don't think max points per game were as important as just winning all of your games, didn't all undefeated players make day 2?
Knights don't do well getting to objectives early game and just sitting on them (best, like other's have said controlling 1 and killing more/getting ITC secondaries). A lot of the points in Adepticon are scored by being on objectives at the beginning of turn 2 and staying on them as long as possible. Also it seems like knights bleed a lot of the specialized secondaries.
Hordes are the rock to the knight scissors. GSC and Orks are very good armies, eldar, DE and Yanarri are great regardless of the format. Match-ups matter.
Players placing the terrain is an interesting wrinkle which I think would impact ITC a fair amount. Not sure how you make it "fair" but something I think would help my my tourney games more dynamic.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I don't see how as a Deathwatch player I can build a PL list and NOT be overpowered. Everyone, pick up a storm shield and a combi plasma. Then, everyone take a Inferno pistol as the pistol option.
Vanguard vets for 5 points with SS/HTH? YES PLEASE.
Captains with Terminator armor, double melta powerfists? Sure.
This is why PL is situational, and should be regarded with caution.
The PL on Vets is pretty crazy fwiw. It feels like they're costed with 4 frag cannons as is.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I don't see how as a Deathwatch player I can build a PL list and NOT be overpowered. Everyone, pick up a storm shield and a combi plasma. Then, everyone take a Inferno pistol as the pistol option.
Vanguard vets for 5 points with SS/HTH? YES PLEASE.
Captains with Terminator armor, double melta powerfists? Sure.
This is why PL is situational, and should be regarded with caution.
The PL on Vets is pretty crazy fwiw. It feels like they're costed with 4 frag cannons as is.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I don't see how as a Deathwatch player I can build a PL list and NOT be overpowered. Everyone, pick up a storm shield and a combi plasma. Then, everyone take a Inferno pistol as the pistol option.
Vanguard vets for 5 points with SS/HTH? YES PLEASE.
Captains with Terminator armor, double melta powerfists? Sure.
This is why PL is situational, and should be regarded with caution.
The PL on Vets is pretty crazy fwiw. It feels like they're costed with 4 frag cannons as is.
Which is a core issue with how PL is designed.
I don't disagree, but given some additional restrictions on unit composition, I don't think its unworkable is all. I'd be very curious to see how kit limited would work out.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I don't see how as a Deathwatch player I can build a PL list and NOT be overpowered. Everyone, pick up a storm shield and a combi plasma. Then, everyone take a Inferno pistol as the pistol option.
Vanguard vets for 5 points with SS/HTH? YES PLEASE.
Captains with Terminator armor, double melta powerfists? Sure.
This is why PL is situational, and should be regarded with caution.
The PL on Vets is pretty crazy fwiw. It feels like they're costed with 4 frag cannons as is.
Which is a core issue with how PL is designed.
I don't disagree, but given some additional restrictions on unit composition, I don't think its unworkable is all. I'd be very curious to see how kit limited would work out.
Well, then you are admitting the PL version is flawed, because something so simplistic can't possibly be made fair when applied to something so complex as 40k. The fact is, Powerlevel is designed for people who don't know how to maths to be able to still play 40k. It's 40k for Goku, when 40k was designed for Gohan.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I don't see how as a Deathwatch player I can build a PL list and NOT be overpowered. Everyone, pick up a storm shield and a combi plasma. Then, everyone take a Inferno pistol as the pistol option.
Vanguard vets for 5 points with SS/HTH? YES PLEASE.
Captains with Terminator armor, double melta powerfists? Sure.
This is why PL is situational, and should be regarded with caution.
The PL on Vets is pretty crazy fwiw. It feels like they're costed with 4 frag cannons as is.
Which is a core issue with how PL is designed.
I don't disagree, but given some additional restrictions on unit composition, I don't think its unworkable is all. I'd be very curious to see how kit limited would work out.
Might be an improvement for points too. The codecies seem almost designed with this in mind!
Martel732 wrote: On the other hand, im not sure i like adepticon meta any better.
I'd be curious to see how informing one with the other would turn out. Adepticon always seems to let the problem of objectives being ruled by number of models without any sense of quality reach its natural conclusion. Changing it to PL seems like an interesting experiment. I'm curious if anyone has bothered to run a major event simply using the latest CA missions and see how that meta turns out.
Just use the CA 2018 missions and see what happens? Thats simple. Every GW Heat since its release and the GW Finals have just used the CA missions.
You know what the meta looks like by just looking at the Warhammer World finals.
I don't disagree, but given some additional restrictions on unit composition, I don't think its unworkable is all. I'd be very curious to see how kit limited would work out.
Might be an improvement for points too. The codecies seem almost designed with this in mind!
Well not all of them. With GK for example on units you don't want any upgrades. So if GKPL are some attempt at math crossbreeding of units with full upgrades and zero upgrades, the GKPL will always come up costing more, then what the GK player wants to see on his units.
Someone explained to me that the PL cost of units is done by some alegorithm that checks the unit costs with full upgrades and a non upgraded unit, then it gets divided by something and you get the PL cost of a unit.
The problems with such system start, when A your units have no upgrades or worse B they have a ton of upgrades that hike the PL cost of your units, but you would never want to take them in the first place, so you are over paying even more then you would with normal points.
Karol,
Originally, PL were *roughly* 1/20th or their Points - but only roughly. For instance, 5 naked Dire Avengers were 85 (!) points minimum, but were 3 PL, where 5 Banshees were ~65 points, but were 3 PL.
Then, points have changed many times - Codex, CA, eratta, etc. PL didn't change so much. So they further diverged.
@Nareik,
I know it's not, but please tell me this rash of "Please limit options to what's in-box!" was an April's Fools joke? I get that it would probably be a little more balanced, but at what cost?
Bharring wrote: Karol,
Originally, PL were *roughly* 1/20th or their Points - but only roughly. For instance, 5 naked Dire Avengers were 85 (!) points minimum, but were 3 PL, where 5 Banshees were ~65 points, but were 3 PL.
Then, points have changed many times - Codex, CA, eratta, etc. PL didn't change so much. So they further diverged.
@Nareik,
I know it's not, but please tell me this rash of "Please limit options to what's in-box!" was an April's Fools joke? I get that it would probably be a little more balanced, but at what cost?
I think the reason behind that is to prevent this gak where people need to buy multiple boxes or get 3rd party. Also, this is how AOS handles it.
But you also cut down on the kitbash potential immensely. They basically dropped 90% of Corsairs models from the game already. Autarchs are about as customizable as IoM Sarges now. And Havoks need to be remodelled/replaced.
I begrudgingly accept that argument as rational, but I'm afraid of all that I'll lose. I'd even need to resquad many of my Tac Marine heavies!
I think this may be a perfect example of where balance and freedom become a tradeoff. I'd rather have the freedom, but I understand those who would rather have the balance.
Well they aren't doing a very good job at it then considering you need to buy 4 boxs of havocks to have one units of rottor dudes, and you want 2-3 units of them.
What would be nice though is if the option in the box were actually good the way they are. That would be cool. Kind of a strange when GW tells you to be happy about a flamer and meltagun, when all is ever used are plasmas, or something like that.
Yeah, I don't think it's overall a good idea but it would also cut down on the amount of blatant min/maxing you see where its like oh this new kit came out, we mathed out that X weapon is the best choice, so go and kitbash/buy 3rd party to make a full squad of that. And potentially be easier to balance (see how AOS has very limited options).
I personally think the better idea would be to sell a weapon upgrade pack that has the additional options. So if the box came with let's say 1 Chainaxe ( ) the upgrade pack would have 4 additional Chainaxes as well as a few other weapons to round out the contents of the kit. It would certainly be better for GW than what happens now where they put out a kit with limited options, piss everyone off and business gets shifted to 3rd party to make up for it.
"Yeah, I don't think it's overall a good idea but it would also cut down on the amount of blatant min/maxing you see where its like oh this new kit came out, we mathed out that X weapon is the best choice, so go and kitbash/buy 3rd party to make a full squad of that. And potentially be easier to balance (see how AOS has very limited options)."
One thing that always felt somewhat beardy to me, but reasonable enough (especially since it was so important in 6E/7E not to mix squads) - not having a variety of Heavies in Dev squads. I don't want every squad to be exactly the same 4 Heavies, and I'd like 4 LCs/whatevers to be acceptable, but I'd also like to see more of a mix. But when I built my Devs (6E), that was such a terrible idea, that I didn't mix them.
I think I might resquad my Devs, due to this conversation. I've got enough Heavies, and it's not a major change.
But how to do you incentivise variance between forces? Make things closely balanced, so the points you pay are a reasonable tradeoff for each is one way. Another way is to make it so having at least one of any given weapon is more of an improvement than having a second one - but that's really hard to do ruleswise without basically dictating loadouts.
It's a hard question. But, somehow, GW seems to be doing reasonable-ish at it; mixed-weapon Dev squads are fairly common in 8th (relative to non-mixed Dev squads) - although mostly due to Signum/Cherub/Strat.
No mixed is really a holdover of previous editions where you couldn't split fire. Now that you can, it's less of an issue to have a squad with mixed weapons as long as the weapons complement each other, which usually means they have similar range and deal with similar targets.
For example, Autocannons and Missile Launchers work decently together and have similar roles (light anti-tank and some anti-infantry). Same potentially with Heavy Bolters and Autocannons (more anti-infantry focused). But like, you would probably not want to mix Heavy Bolters and Lascannons together as you're doing two different and unrelated roles.
That's my thought anyway. I honestly would not mind if they did go to fixed loadouts based on the contents of the kit. It would help them balance if they knew you could never take, for example, 4 lascannon in one squad but only 2.
Got some math to back that up? Every math I've seen lists frag as being worse because d6 hits doesn't accurately reflect what blast markers used to do.
Xenomancers wrote: We see a lot of the same names finishing top tier with the same armies. Nick is there with orks (same ole list). Sean with Ynnari (same ole list). There is only 1 castellan list in the top 10 which is kind of surprising. However - with practically nothing worth shooting at showing up in the top 10. No surprise really.
Also. GSC who are also broken BTW. Have combos that 1 shot any model in the game with mortal wounds if they pass a psychic test and can get within 18" of you. Also the democharge stratagem is officially busted. 10 d6str 8 ap-2 d3 damage shots hitting on likely 2's but for sure 3's. Yeah sorry...5 LR command tanks worth of firepower for 200ish points shouldn't even be possible.
I agree on the GSC points. THey are broken. But I think they will get some hits as Vanguard proliferate. Omni scramblers screw over blips real good, you can stop the Mental take over with a couple of well placed models to make it not do to much.
Xenomancers wrote: We see a lot of the same names finishing top tier with the same armies. Nick is there with orks (same ole list). Sean with Ynnari (same ole list). There is only 1 castellan list in the top 10 which is kind of surprising. However - with practically nothing worth shooting at showing up in the top 10. No surprise really.
Also. GSC who are also broken BTW. Have combos that 1 shot any model in the game with mortal wounds if they pass a psychic test and can get within 18" of you. Also the democharge stratagem is officially busted. 10 d6str 8 ap-2 d3 damage shots hitting on likely 2's but for sure 3's. Yeah sorry...5 LR command tanks worth of firepower for 200ish points shouldn't even be possible.
I agree on the GSC points. THey are broken. But I think they will get some hits as Vanguard proliferate. Omni scramblers screw over blips real good, you can stop the Mental take over with a couple of well placed models to make it not do to much.
I did murder GSC in ETC practice with ultra marines but that list is designed to do that. 3 units of infiltrators basically shuts GSC down. However - they are so expensive they really can't be taken in a competitive army outside of ETC. Like there is no way you can reasonably take them in a soup army.
Xenomancers wrote: We see a lot of the same names finishing top tier with the same armies. Nick is there with orks (same ole list). Sean with Ynnari (same ole list). There is only 1 castellan list in the top 10 which is kind of surprising. However - with practically nothing worth shooting at showing up in the top 10. No surprise really.
Also. GSC who are also broken BTW. Have combos that 1 shot any model in the game with mortal wounds if they pass a psychic test and can get within 18" of you. Also the democharge stratagem is officially busted. 10 d6str 8 ap-2 d3 damage shots hitting on likely 2's but for sure 3's. Yeah sorry...5 LR command tanks worth of firepower for 200ish points shouldn't even be possible.
I agree on the GSC points. THey are broken. But I think they will get some hits as Vanguard proliferate. Omni scramblers screw over blips real good, you can stop the Mental take over with a couple of well placed models to make it not do to much.
I did murder GSC in ETC practice with ultra marines but that list is designed to do that. 3 units of infiltrators basically shuts GSC down. However - they are so expensive they really can't be taken in a competitive army outside of ETC. Like there is no way you can reasonably take them in a soup army.
I know you're going strictly Primaris but Scouts could do the same job, though they will get charged and die
Xenomancers wrote: We see a lot of the same names finishing top tier with the same armies. Nick is there with orks (same ole list). Sean with Ynnari (same ole list). There is only 1 castellan list in the top 10 which is kind of surprising. However - with practically nothing worth shooting at showing up in the top 10. No surprise really.
Also. GSC who are also broken BTW. Have combos that 1 shot any model in the game with mortal wounds if they pass a psychic test and can get within 18" of you. Also the democharge stratagem is officially busted. 10 d6str 8 ap-2 d3 damage shots hitting on likely 2's but for sure 3's. Yeah sorry...5 LR command tanks worth of firepower for 200ish points shouldn't even be possible.
I agree on the GSC points. THey are broken. But I think they will get some hits as Vanguard proliferate. Omni scramblers screw over blips real good, you can stop the Mental take over with a couple of well placed models to make it not do to much.
I did murder GSC in ETC practice with ultra marines but that list is designed to do that. 3 units of infiltrators basically shuts GSC down. However - they are so expensive they really can't be taken in a competitive army outside of ETC. Like there is no way you can reasonably take them in a soup army.
I know you're going strictly Primaris but Scouts could do the same job, though they will get charged and die
The big difference is the infiltrators just rule out the possibility of the charge in certain areas. Plus they are much more likely to survive a round of shooting.
Xenomancers wrote: We see a lot of the same names finishing top tier with the same armies. Nick is there with orks (same ole list). Sean with Ynnari (same ole list). There is only 1 castellan list in the top 10 which is kind of surprising. However - with practically nothing worth shooting at showing up in the top 10. No surprise really.
Also. GSC who are also broken BTW. Have combos that 1 shot any model in the game with mortal wounds if they pass a psychic test and can get within 18" of you. Also the democharge stratagem is officially busted. 10 d6str 8 ap-2 d3 damage shots hitting on likely 2's but for sure 3's. Yeah sorry...5 LR command tanks worth of firepower for 200ish points shouldn't even be possible.
I agree on the GSC points. THey are broken. But I think they will get some hits as Vanguard proliferate. Omni scramblers screw over blips real good, you can stop the Mental take over with a couple of well placed models to make it not do to much.
I did murder GSC in ETC practice with ultra marines but that list is designed to do that. 3 units of infiltrators basically shuts GSC down. However - they are so expensive they really can't be taken in a competitive army outside of ETC. Like there is no way you can reasonably take them in a soup army.
I know you're going strictly Primaris but Scouts could do the same job, though they will get charged and die
The big difference is the infiltrators just rule out the possibility of the charge in certain areas. Plus they are much more likely to survive a round of shooting.
Assuming Cults don't have multi-damage in droves of course. I'd also be worried on the TAC aspect there.
Martel732 wrote: Small blasts were terrible. Often, only one model was hit.
TFC was good. So was wyvern.
Which were good specifically because they hit multiple times and were very cheap compared to things.. And the TFC not counting as a vehicle helped it as well.
Everything else was bad because everyone spaced their models out as far as they could go.
Martel732 wrote: Small blasts were terrible. Often, only one model was hit.
TFC was good. So was wyvern.
Which were good specifically because they hit multiple times and were very cheap compared to things.. And the TFC not counting as a vehicle helped it as well.
Everything else was bad because everyone spaced their models out as far as they could go.
The Wyvern was basically guaranteed four hits with Shred, and TFCs were just super cheap and ignored LOS. Whirlwinds were bad though even with the Large Blast.
Martel732 wrote: Small blasts were terrible. Often, only one model was hit.
TFC was good. So was wyvern.
Which were good specifically because they hit multiple times and were very cheap compared to things.. And the TFC not counting as a vehicle helped it as well.
Everything else was bad because everyone spaced their models out as far as they could go.
If your able to perfectly space your models out at all times across the board you are not using enough terrain. The above rarely happened in my area because a well designed table will have funnel points and other terrain features that don't let you space a squad perfectly
Martel732 wrote: Small blasts were terrible. Often, only one model was hit.
TFC was good. So was wyvern.
Which were good specifically because they hit multiple times and were very cheap compared to things.. And the TFC not counting as a vehicle helped it as well.
Everything else was bad because everyone spaced their models out as far as they could go.
If your able to perfectly space your models out at all times across the board you are not using enough terrain. The above rarely happened in my area because a well designed table will have funnel points and other terrain features that don't let you space a squad perfectly
Small Blasts were mediocre even when all the models are touching base to base. Proper spacing just made them plain bad in all aspects.
Should I really be taking a weapon on the hope my opponent can't space at all?
The TFC was great because it had 4 shots, could play wound allocation gimmicks, could hurt or destroy light and medium vehicles with some ability, didnt need LoS and was cheap. The Wyvern was likewise cheap, had 4 shots, didnt need LoS, and had rerolls both to hit and wound. Small blasts outside of such units were definitely not generally terribly effective. While sometimes you could be given a great squishy target, most often you were lucky to hit more than a couple models even on a dead on hit with a small blast.
Sliding the topic back slightly, one thing I constantly see derided is how the extra randomness (e.g. Eternal War/Maelstrom missions) are bad and detract from a "balanced" game. Yet GW constantly pushes that those are, in fact, part of the balance to tone down extreme builds. This is a quote for AOS from a WHC article last year where they said they suggested the Realm of Battle rules to be used in tournaments (each realm has its own set of rules, for example, one reduces visibility to 12", one reduces movement, etc.):
The reason is actually quite simple, and it’s that the Pitched Battle Profiles in our publications, and more specifically the points values in the profiles, assume those rules are being used. This means that if they are removed, certain extreme army builds become much more viable. For example, if you don’t use the Realm of Battle rules, which include a chance that visibility in a battle can be greatly reduced, then extreme ‘gunline’ armies can be taken without any risk of fighting a battle that doesn’t allow them to fight at maximum effect.
On the other hand, when the Realm of Battle rules are used, players soon learn that it is in their best interests to leave the more extreme builds at home and take a more balanced force instead. The same principle applies to using all of the 12 matched play battleplans in the 2018 General’s Handbook.
As you can see the idea here is that the "imbalance" of getting a bad realm for your game which everyone hates is actually factored into the points by GW. While this quote is from an article on AOS I would not doubt that they do similar for 40k and price according to the idea you are using Eternal War or Maelstrom Missions (I'd actually love for them to talk about this in an article to find out exactly what they are intending to be used), which lends more credence to the idea that deviating from that (e.g. ITC Missions) is a big part of what allows those "extreme builds" to be taken without "any risk of fighting a battle that doesn't allow them to fight at maximum effort". GW clearly wants people to "leave the more extreme builds at home and take a more balanced force instead" and it seems to me that their missions are designed to encourage that; ignoring them is removing that counterpoint to the extreme builds and letting them run rampant, which is often what we see.
But that is not how it works with table top armies. It can work with games, but not with 700$ + costing armies.
I don't know much about AoS as it isn't really played around here, but if a faction skewed in to shoting exists in AoS then the fact that a mission or realm of battle exists that makes the army auto lose, just means that anyone who bought such an army is a sad panda, and anyone new will never pick up the army. Same happens if there is a melee only army or no magic army, and scenarios exist that require you to do the thing they are bad at or make their only good thing really bad.
It does on the other hand make good armies with a big selection of units more viable, because they can play with a little bit of this and that.
No idea what the AoS eldar are, but am sure that if an army that is super fast, super resilient and with strong psykers exists, then it is doing great under those rules. Specially if it has some type of rules like Inari have that lets them break the rules of the game.
Hard skew rules don't make people play with more balance or varied armies. They kill off all the weaker armies, and buff the really good armies in to high heavens of power.
Serious question, does AoS have a shoting only faction and if yes, how is it doing under the rules? Because am mostly speculating here.
Karol wrote: But that is not how it works with table top armies. It can work with games, but not with 700$ + costing armies.
I don't know much about AoS as it isn't really played around here, but if a faction skewed in to shoting exists in AoS then the fact that a mission or realm of battle exists that makes the army auto lose, just means that anyone who bought such an army is a sad panda, and anyone new will never pick up the army. Same happens if there is a melee only army or no magic army, and scenarios exist that require you to do the thing they are bad at or make their only good thing really bad.
It does on the other hand make good armies with a big selection of units more viable, because they can play with a little bit of this and that.
No idea what the AoS eldar are, but am sure that if an army that is super fast, super resilient and with strong psykers exists, then it is doing great under those rules. Specially if it has some type of rules like Inari have that lets them break the rules of the game.
Hard skew rules don't make people play with more balance or varied armies. They kill off all the weaker armies, and buff the really good armies in to high heavens of power.
Serious question, does AoS have a shoting only faction and if yes, how is it doing under the rules? Because am mostly speculating here.
Yes it does (Kharadron Overlords) and they are garbage but not for that reason. There are (were?) some crazy shooting heavy builds (think an Ultramarine Gunline). But that seems to be what GW is saying: Those missions/rules that "screw over" the shooting army (I don't think it's "auto lose") is intentional so you don't build an extreme gunline list and can play it without any disadvantage.
That's their entire point. You shoulnd't be able to take and play an extreme (gimmicky/netlist) build without any potential disadvantage to reel it in.
Karol wrote: I don't know much about AoS as it isn't really played around here, but if a faction skewed in to shoting exists in AoS then the fact that a mission or realm of battle exists that makes the army auto lose, just means that anyone who bought such an army is a sad panda, and anyone new will never pick up the army.
Quick correction here, Karol, as it has been bugging me for a while.
I am going to shoot Peregrine.
Wayniac is shooting at Martel732.
Last week, I was shot in the back by Bharring.
Ok, again I don't know enough about AoS. But to me this sounds strange. I will make a guess the army with the most utility units is the most dominant right?
Am guessing, mostly from the armies I saw skiming WD, that armies like khorn without magic are kind of a bad?
this kind of a means that if someone wants to have a fun and not face those, why even deploy, moments in life you have to not play a build that is not based an army that does everything well.
Unless it has some game breaking gimmick that lets it play solitare.
Also on pure human side of things, it would really suck if the only way to win an army was to get a random roll on a perfect scenario that buff your army and screws the opposing one. Losing is not fun, but winning pre game isn't very fun either, because it changes the whole game in to rolling of dice for 40 min. And again this means any army that is not perfect or mostly perfect would not be picked up, unless the new player gets cheated, or it is an older player and his army was good at some time in the past and now s nerfed.
Quick correction here, Karol, as it has been bugging me for a while.
I am going to shoot Peregrine.
Wayniac is shooting at Martel732.
Last week, I was shot in the back by Bharring.
Thanks, I doubt I will remember it though. It is not even that I don't care, I just can't memorise that stuff. You would be suprised but my grammar is actually better in English, then in Polish :( And on forums at least I don't get graded by how I write.
The idea is that over a series of games having the potential of getting a "bad" realm will influence your list and (at least in theory) push you towards an "all-comers" list rather than an extreme skew.
To bring this back around to 40k so we don't get too far off in discussing AOS, this is similar to why I think the Eternal War or even Maelstrom missions are better than the ITC missions. Having that chance you'll get that one mission (or many in Maelstrom I guess, although I personally don't care for those) that can reduce your gimmicky extreme netlist should mean you reel in the extreme builds and go for something more balanced to lessen the blow.
It means things that remove that fact are what empower the extreme builds since there is nothing to give them any potential drawback, and by GW's own admission (at least for AOS) that drawback is specifically there to discourage you from taking an extreme list.
[...]
Last week, I was shot in the back by Bharring.
You can't prove anything!
Side note; Karol, if you're from Poland, I assume your primary language is Polish? It doesn't show at all. From your writing, you come across as fully competent at English.
Automatically Appended Next Post: On the skew-happy balance; which is more balanced:
A) A situation where 60% of the games are a coin toss, but break 35/25 in favor of the "stronger" army over the "better" player
B) A situation where 20% of the games are a coin toss, but break 50/30 in favor of the "stronger" army over the "better player?
The first case is less likely to be decided by who has the "stronger" player, even if you factor out the games that come down to a coin toss. But in the second, you're much less likely to lose a game because the dice hate you.
I'm not arguing that 40k is either; I'm wondering about peoples' opinions. (This may be the first non-contrived scenario I've ever gotten to use "peoples'" accurately.)
[...]
Thanks, I doubt I will remember it though. It is not even that I don't care, I just can't memorise that stuff. You would be suprised but my grammar is actually better in English, then in Polish :( And on forums at least I don't get graded by how I write.
You (and everyone else) *does* get graded by how they write in forum posts. It's just not as formal as in school. A more coherent post gives more weight to the poster's argument.
Good form doesn't make a bad idea good, and bad form doesn't make a good idea bad, but the better form has more authority and does a better job of getting the point across.
Martel732 wrote: If GW wants to restrict extreme buids, maelstrom is not the way to do it.
maelstrom I agree that's a bit too wonky. But I still fail to see the issue with Eternal War, since those potentials of getting the weird twist is exactly what would discourage extreme builds. The fact the ITC crowd is so against it sort of reinforced the point of why it should be the default, because the reason seems to be to PUSH the extreme builds rather than discourage them.
The idea that certain scenario rules - like reduced visibility or reduced movement, or whatever - balances the game is something that was proven incorrect over a decade ago when there was an outbreak of similar rules for scenarios in WH tournaments in an attempt to balance them. What actually happened was neutral, balanced builds ended up being affected by all of the scenarios while extreme builds were often only disadvantaged in one, which they may still be able to win anyway. The problem is that a well-rounded, balanced army suffers whatever penalty the scenario applies to the game, while a skewed army likely won't care except in one specific scenario.
Some pseudo-random element is good for gaming in general and I think the Maelstrom cards are the way to go but the specifics of those cards needs tweaking to avoid unlucky draws determining the winner.
Slipspace wrote: The idea that certain scenario rules - like reduced visibility or reduced movement, or whatever - balances the game is something that was proven incorrect over a decade ago when there was an outbreak of similar rules for scenarios in WH tournaments in an attempt to balance them. What actually happened was neutral, balanced builds ended up being affected by all of the scenarios while extreme builds were often only disadvantaged in one, which they may still be able to win anyway. The problem is that a well-rounded, balanced army suffers whatever penalty the scenario applies to the game, while a skewed army likely won't care except in one specific scenario.
Some pseudo-random element is good for gaming in general and I think the Maelstrom cards are the way to go but the specifics of those cards needs tweaking to avoid unlucky draws determining the winner.
You mean when everyone just ignored all the scenarios except the basic Pitched Battle because they didn't want to have to divide up their force or whatnot?
Somebody needs to tell GW then because they seem to be designing for the opposite and balancing around it such that NOT doing it is skewing things more and ignoring the fact they are determining points on the assumption that you are doing just that.
Slipspace wrote: The idea that certain scenario rules - like reduced visibility or reduced movement, or whatever - balances the game is something that was proven incorrect over a decade ago when there was an outbreak of similar rules for scenarios in WH tournaments in an attempt to balance them. What actually happened was neutral, balanced builds ended up being affected by all of the scenarios while extreme builds were often only disadvantaged in one, which they may still be able to win anyway. The problem is that a well-rounded, balanced army suffers whatever penalty the scenario applies to the game, while a skewed army likely won't care except in one specific scenario.
Some pseudo-random element is good for gaming in general and I think the Maelstrom cards are the way to go but the specifics of those cards needs tweaking to avoid unlucky draws determining the winner.
You mean when everyone just ignored all the scenarios except the basic Pitched Battle because they didn't want to have to divide up their force or whatnot?
Somebody needs to tell GW then because they seem to be designing for the opposite and balancing around it such that NOT doing it is skewing things more and ignoring the fact they are determining points on the assumption that you are doing just that.
I'm talking about specific tournament scenarios that were used around the UK at that time, not the way people generally played (which always struck me as stupid anyway since all the scenarios save Watchtower were fine). I'm not sure I believe GW when it comes to their comments about balancing around various random scenarios and conditions anyway. They've never managed to display much in the way of good judgement when it comes to balance so this plea that we're not doing it right is a bit hard to take seriously.
I have found scenariios have been quite excellent at balancing the game better, simply because if you have random scenarios that cut off the nose of certain types of extreme builds, that if you chose to run an extreme build that that could mean you roll a mission up that you are really not good at.
This has also caused rage and people do not like that.
auticus wrote: I have found scenariios have been quite excellent at balancing the game better, simply because if you have random scenarios that cut off the nose of certain types of extreme builds, that if you chose to run an extreme build that that could mean you roll a mission up that you are really not good at.
This has also caused rage and people do not like that.
That is exactly the point of contention here. On both points. That seems to be GW's desired approach but people fight against it.
Some pseudo-random element is good for gaming in general and I think the Maelstrom cards are the way to go but the specifics of those cards needs tweaking to avoid unlucky draws determining the winner.
Chapter Approved tends to do some solid things with the cards like "discard 6 before the game starts".
auticus wrote: I have found scenariios have been quite excellent at balancing the game better, simply because if you have random scenarios that cut off the nose of certain types of extreme builds, that if you chose to run an extreme build that that could mean you roll a mission up that you are really not good at.
This has also caused rage and people do not like that.
That is exactly the point of contention here. On both points. That seems to be GW's desired approach but people fight against it.
Unfortunately this has everything to do with how many games people play in a year or during tournaments. If you play once a month then it is only 12 games a year (just 2 repetitions of each Eternal War mission) - you can play that many M:tG games over a single weekend. So statistical balancing out scenarios will always be frowned upon... The workaround for this, at least for tournaments is to have a static set of missions that vary widely between rounds and every table plays the same mission as the rest each round. The top player has to do well in all scenarios, there is no luck factor, so it has to have TAC-enough list. To limit "hacking" set of missions pre-tournament TOs could publish a list of e.g. 24 different scenarios and then randomly choose one for every round just at the opening of the tournament, so you cannot optimize your build against top rounds in advance.
auticus wrote: I have found scenariios have been quite excellent at balancing the game better, simply because if you have random scenarios that cut off the nose of certain types of extreme builds, that if you chose to run an extreme build that that could mean you roll a mission up that you are really not good at.
This has also caused rage and people do not like that.
That is exactly the point of contention here. On both points. That seems to be GW's desired approach but people fight against it.
I think gw has the collective iq of a slime mold, so why would i care about their desires?
auticus wrote: I have found scenariios have been quite excellent at balancing the game better, simply because if you have random scenarios that cut off the nose of certain types of extreme builds, that if you chose to run an extreme build that that could mean you roll a mission up that you are really not good at.
This has also caused rage and people do not like that.
That is exactly the point of contention here. On both points. That seems to be GW's desired approach but people fight against it.
I think gw has the collective iq of a slime mold, so why would i care about their desires?
Martel732 wrote: Small blasts were terrible. Often, only one model was hit.
TFC was good. So was wyvern.
Which were good specifically because they hit multiple times and were very cheap compared to things.. And the TFC not counting as a vehicle helped it as well.
Everything else was bad because everyone spaced their models out as far as they could go.
The Wyvern was basically guaranteed four hits with Shred, and TFCs were just super cheap and ignored LOS. Whirlwinds were bad though even with the Large Blast.
With the reroll hits and wounds formation - they were pretty incredible. Typically my opponents went after them first.
Terrain/cover rules suck
Armor/AP rules suck
No templates sucks
Not a fan of WS no longer interacting, no Initiative, character rules, and invuls deciding the worth of a vehicle
2000 pt armies are ridiculous in size but that's not GW fault.
In fact most of what's changed from past editions is pretty poor to me.
But balance is better than ever at least so it's pprobably still a good edition. Also thank god for no formations, and psyker rules seem pretty fair... Although less fun imo.
Terrain/cover rules suck
Armor/AP rules suck
No templates sucks
Not a fan of WS no longer interacting, no Initiative, character rules, and invuls deciding the worth of a vehicle
2000 pt armies are ridiculous in size but that's not GW fault.
In fact most of what's changed from past editions is pretty poor to me.
But balance is better than ever at least so it's pprobably still a good edition. Also thank god for no formations, and psyker rules seem pretty fair... Although less fun imo.
I think im one of the very few people who loves that templates were removed
No more hour-long movement phase as everyone measures out an exact maximum separation of guys and no more being the third party guy that has to go to every table and make sure people moved the template exactly right and settle arguments of whether or not that template touched somebody's toe or not.
Templates are a great thing in theory but at least all the groups ive ever played in they caused nothing but arguments
Asmodios wrote: No more hour-long movement phase as everyone measures out an exact maximum separation of guys and no more being the third party guy that has to go to every table and make sure people moved the template exactly right and settle arguments of whether or not that template touched somebody's toe or not.
I'm tempted to agree. I don't think the "D# attacks" is the best alternative they could have gone with, but while it removes some spectacle from the game it also removes a lot of arguments.
Terrain/cover rules suck
Armor/AP rules suck
No templates sucks
Not a fan of WS no longer interacting, no Initiative, character rules, and invuls deciding the worth of a vehicle
2000 pt armies are ridiculous in size but that's not GW fault.
In fact most of what's changed from past editions is pretty poor to me.
But balance is better than ever at least so it's pprobably still a good edition. Also thank god for no formations, and psyker rules seem pretty fair... Although less fun imo.
I think im one of the very few people who loves that templates were removed
No more hour-long movement phase as everyone measures out an exact maximum separation of guys and no more being the third party guy that has to go to every table and make sure people moved the template exactly right and settle arguments of whether or not that template touched somebody's toe or not.
Templates are a great thing in theory but at least all the groups ive ever played in they caused nothing but arguments
Terrain/cover rules suck
Armor/AP rules suck
No templates sucks
Not a fan of WS no longer interacting, no Initiative, character rules, and invuls deciding the worth of a vehicle
2000 pt armies are ridiculous in size but that's not GW fault.
In fact most of what's changed from past editions is pretty poor to me.
But balance is better than ever at least so it's pprobably still a good edition. Also thank god for no formations, and psyker rules seem pretty fair... Although less fun imo.
Terrain Cover is nto great - needs at a minimum to move to the city fo death version.
Armour / Ap is good - problem is more the amount on high Ap weapons
Flamer templates good - rest were just a way to start arguments.....
WS is fine - the "interactions" before were minimal - almost everyone hit on a 4+ - even the most highly skilled fighters in the galaxy were hitting Grtechin on a 3+ Psyker rules in 7th were soo tedious - especially if you didn't have any.
Terrain/cover rules suck
Armor/AP rules suck
No templates sucks
Not a fan of WS no longer interacting, no Initiative, character rules, and invuls deciding the worth of a vehicle
2000 pt armies are ridiculous in size but that's not GW fault.
In fact most of what's changed from past editions is pretty poor to me.
But balance is better than ever at least so it's pprobably still a good edition. Also thank god for no formations, and psyker rules seem pretty fair... Although less fun imo.
I agree with all that. Furthermore - Heroic intervention is bad but it's better than challenges. Vehicals not being able to shoot if you touch them with a grot is also a terrible rule.
Terrain/cover rules suck
Armor/AP rules suck
No templates sucks
Not a fan of WS no longer interacting, no Initiative, character rules, and invuls deciding the worth of a vehicle
2000 pt armies are ridiculous in size but that's not GW fault.
In fact most of what's changed from past editions is pretty poor to me.
But balance is better than ever at least so it's pprobably still a good edition. Also thank god for no formations, and psyker rules seem pretty fair... Although less fun imo.
I agree on the terrain being bad, and with templates and blasts I'm neutral (small blasts are basically better now).
However I gotta disagree on the AP system being worst. If we were on a D8 system system, the modifying system, rather than the old "all or nothing" was a huge issue regarding the viability of several weapons and units. Certain weapon relics were terribad because they would be stuck at AP3-4. Now as -1 or 2 they have better use.
Granted relics should have a price now rather than the current system for that.
If GW thought that template weapons are a problem then giving the weapons or at least the pure anti swarm ones flat number of hits would be much better. A flamer should be 6 auto hits on infantry, and by all the gods it should not auto hit air planes.
Karol wrote: If GW thought that template weapons are a problem then giving the weapons or at least the pure anti swarm ones flat number of hits would be much better. A flamer should be 6 auto hits on infantry, and by all the gods it should not auto hit air planes.
In the far future of 40k mortars are able to pin point shoot at a low alltitude landing plane, flammer doing the same thing is about the least of your worries in regards to realism.
But i agree, that dedicated AA guns should be better then a freaking hellhound f.e.
Having returned to game from a few years hiatus I find all the rules of 8th to be a huge step forward in enjoying the game. Blast templates were funny but caused arguments and made the movement phase obnoxious, and I think the AP + armor interaction is brilliant.
Everything has been streamlined in a much more agreeable way for fun, as well as balance. I think its a win/win honestly.
There are some obnoxious things like units standing on top of buildings not being able to be charged and I do much prefer the cities of death terrain rules to standard. Also I think all tanks should be able to fall back from combat and still shoot, anything else just feels bad all around. It would also open up vehicles to having an interesting sort of tank shock/ramming dimension if you assaulted with them intentionally.
My only reason issue with ITC is that their missions remove anything to help discourage extreme builds and, in fact, encourage them more since it's mostly all points for killing gak. lot of it I like.
I actually rather like the terrain rules, but they are designed for terrain that GW doesn't really produce. The rules work great with large solid objects that block LOS surrounded by large rubble templates. Unfortunately, GW mostly makes broken wall sections covered with windows.
I'd like to see templates change from d3 attack rolls that each cause a wound roll to 1 attack roll that causes d3 wounds when it hits. Maybe something additional like +1 to hit vs units or something.
Wayniac wrote: That is exactly the point of contention here. On both points. That seems to be GW's desired approach but people fight against it.
People fight it because "your army is overpowered and wins a lot of one-sided games, until you randomly hit the nerf mission where it auto-loses" is a fundamentally bad approach to balance.
Wayniac wrote: That is exactly the point of contention here. On both points. That seems to be GW's desired approach but people fight against it.
People fight it because "your army is overpowered and wins a lot of one-sided games, until you randomly hit the nerf mission where it auto-loses" is a fundamentally bad approach to balance.
Whether or not that is the case it appears to be how GW balances.
Your next line will be: Then they are incompetent buffoons who should be fired.
Yes. We know. But that still doesn't change that's what they are doing and NOT following suit skews things. It might skew it in an acceptable fashion, of course, but it still changes the game because you're not playing the way that they are balancing.
In the far future of 40k mortars are able to pin point shoot at a low alltitude landing plane, flammer doing the same thing is about the least of your worries in regards to realism.
But i agree, that dedicated AA guns should be better then a freaking hellhound f.e.
It has nothing to do with realism. It just blocks the design space, plus makes the possibily of an accidental flamer suddenly becoming a god AA gun possible.
Wayniac wrote: That is exactly the point of contention here. On both points. That seems to be GW's desired approach but people fight against it.
People fight it because "your army is overpowered and wins a lot of one-sided games, until you randomly hit the nerf mission where it auto-loses" is a fundamentally bad approach to balance.
Whether or not that is the case it appears to be how GW balances.
Your next line will be: Then they are incompetent buffoons who should be fired.
Yes. We know. But that still doesn't change that's what they are doing and NOT following suit skews things. It might skew it in an acceptable fashion, of course, but it still changes the game because you're not playing the way that they are balancing.
Ok, but GW idea of balance seems to be two people owning 20000 pts of probably 3-4 different armies. And of course the official GW terrain. And both adjust their list to what ever the opposing player wants to play, what scenario is played etc. As soon as the game is two people playing with 2000pts of the lists they own, and they can't change a thing, because those 2000 is what they bought, And they tried to buy the best 2000pts they could get, if suddenly a scenario screws one person over big time, they will just not play with such a rule.
Wayniac wrote: Whether or not that is the case it appears to be how GW balances.
And that is why third-party missions are so popular, because GW refuses to publish better ones.
Your next line will be: Then they are incompetent buffoons who should be fired.
Yep. Add one more reason to the list.
Yes. We know. But that still doesn't change that's what they are doing and NOT following suit skews things. It might skew it in an acceptable fashion, of course, but it still changes the game because you're not playing the way that they are balancing.
Well yes, of course it's going to skew the game. Everything skews the game unless you exactly duplicate GW's armies and terrain setups. The question is if it changes the game in a good way, and eliminating GW's poor mission design is a good change.
Terrain/cover rules suck
Armor/AP rules suck
No templates sucks
Not a fan of WS no longer interacting, no Initiative, character rules, and invuls deciding the worth of a vehicle
2000 pt armies are ridiculous in size but that's not GW fault.
In fact most of what's changed from past editions is pretty poor to me.
But balance is better than ever at least so it's pprobably still a good edition. Also thank god for no formations, and psyker rules seem pretty fair... Although less fun imo.
I think im one of the very few people who loves that templates were removed
No more hour-long movement phase as everyone measures out an exact maximum separation of guys and no more being the third party guy that has to go to every table and make sure people moved the template exactly right and settle arguments of whether or not that template touched somebody's toe or not.
Templates are a great thing in theory but at least all the groups ive ever played in they caused nothing but arguments
Fair enough. Tho I feel like this could have been mitigated with a mandatory base-to-base coherency rule for movement, though that might come with issues of its own.
Maybe it was an improvement. I still dislike the change from a fun perspective. Though, that might be more because "random number of shots" is a terrible alternative.
Terrain/cover rules suck
Armor/AP rules suck
No templates sucks
Not a fan of WS no longer interacting, no Initiative, character rules, and invuls deciding the worth of a vehicle
2000 pt armies are ridiculous in size but that's not GW fault.
In fact most of what's changed from past editions is pretty poor to me.
But balance is better than ever at least so it's pprobably still a good edition. Also thank god for no formations, and psyker rules seem pretty fair... Although less fun imo.
I agree on the terrain being bad, and with templates and blasts I'm neutral (small blasts are basically better now).
However I gotta disagree on the AP system being worst. If we were on a D8 system system, the modifying system, rather than the old "all or nothing" was a huge issue regarding the viability of several weapons and units. Certain weapon relics were terribad because they would be stuck at AP3-4. Now as -1 or 2 they have better use.
Granted relics should have a price now rather than the current system for that.
The AP system is very problematic currently because the unit and weapon profiles were not originally designed with that system in mind. High armor units (MEQs and TEQs) would laugh off most of the anti infantry weapons because they generally ranges from AP6 to AP4 but those few specialist weapons like the hotshot lasgun where sorta scary to MEQ as it could bypass the armor. Good AP weapons took out the more heavily armored units but good cover really negated the effectiveness of those weapons while good AP weapons where overkill vs T shirt or flak (aka cardboard) armor as it was a huge waste of the weapons potential but those weak AP weapons could still chew through their weak armor. Most cover ignoring weapons where weak on AP as they are designed to chew through light armor infantry that rely on cover but aren't any more effective against high armor units that just take the armor save against weak AP attacks.
In 8th it's basically having more AP is better and it cuts through cover the same as it does armor. High AP weapons might overkill through weak armor (say plasma vs boyz) but even a guardsman in cover is not a waste of AP for a -3 AP weapons (which was the equivalent of AP3 or AP2 in past editions). Ignore cover weapons basically are a situational -1 AP modifer. Basically the specialty and niche value of a lot of weapons got reduced to a more bacis "this kills this much" end result that varies far less from situation to situation as those weapons did back in 7th. This combined with the IMO inferior str vs toughness setup, wound inflation, interveining cover, and general removal of all USRs, firing arcs, area effect weapons, closest casualty, etc has reduced a lot of critical thinking when it comes to the shooting phase.
Terrain/cover rules suck
Armor/AP rules suck
No templates sucks
Not a fan of WS no longer interacting, no Initiative, character rules, and invuls deciding the worth of a vehicle
2000 pt armies are ridiculous in size but that's not GW fault.
In fact most of what's changed from past editions is pretty poor to me.
But balance is better than ever at least so it's pprobably still a good edition. Also thank god for no formations, and psyker rules seem pretty fair... Although less fun imo.
I agree on the terrain being bad, and with templates and blasts I'm neutral (small blasts are basically better now).
However I gotta disagree on the AP system being worst. If we were on a D8 system system, the modifying system, rather than the old "all or nothing" was a huge issue regarding the viability of several weapons and units. Certain weapon relics were terribad because they would be stuck at AP3-4. Now as -1 or 2 they have better use.
Granted relics should have a price now rather than the current system for that.
The AP system is very problematic currently because the unit and weapon profiles were not originally designed with that system in mind. High armor units (MEQs and TEQs) would laugh off most of the anti infantry weapons because they generally ranges from AP6 to AP4 but those few specialist weapons like the hotshot lasgun where sorta scary to MEQ as it could bypass the armor. Good AP weapons took out the more heavily armored units but good cover really negated the effectiveness of those weapons while good AP weapons where overkill vs T shirt or flak (aka cardboard) armor as it was a huge waste of the weapons potential but those weak AP weapons could still chew through their weak armor. Most cover ignoring weapons where weak on AP as they are designed to chew through light armor infantry that rely on cover but aren't any more effective against high armor units that just take the armor save against weak AP attacks.
In 8th it's basically having more AP is better and it cuts through cover the same as it does armor. High AP weapons might overkill through weak armor (say plasma vs boyz) but even a guardsman in cover is not a waste of AP for a -3 AP weapons (which was the equivalent of AP3 or AP2 in past editions). Ignore cover weapons basically are a situational -1 AP modifer. Basically the specialty and niche value of a lot of weapons got reduced to a more bacis "this kills this much" end result that varies far less from situation to situation as those weapons did back in 7th. This combined with the IMO inferior str vs toughness setup, wound inflation, interveining cover, and general removal of all USRs, firing arcs, area effect weapons, closest casualty, etc has reduced a lot of critical thinking when it comes to the shooting phase.
That's why I'm for moving to a D8 system like I said. Modifiers simply make more sense and, with some exceptions of course, the modifiers are shockingly done okay.
Wayniac wrote: That is exactly the point of contention here. On both points. That seems to be GW's desired approach but people fight against it.
People fight it because "your army is overpowered and wins a lot of one-sided games, until you randomly hit the nerf mission where it auto-loses" is a fundamentally bad approach to balance.
Whether or not that is the case it appears to be how GW balances.
That assumes you a) believe that, and b) have any confidence in GW's ability to balance the game under those conditions (or at all). I think a lot of the resistance to those kinds of extreme scenarios (or Realm rules in AoS) comes from the fact that most people don't actually believe GW when they say they balance around them and wouldn't have much faith in their ability to balance around those scenarios even if they did. This mainly comes from experience, as pointed out by Peregrine above.
I would equally ask why we accept GW's answer when experience shows it's a bad way to balance the game, and doesn't even work anyway?
Wayniac wrote: That is exactly the point of contention here. On both points. That seems to be GW's desired approach but people fight against it.
People fight it because "your army is overpowered and wins a lot of one-sided games, until you randomly hit the nerf mission where it auto-loses" is a fundamentally bad approach to balance.
Whether or not that is the case it appears to be how GW balances.
That assumes you a) believe that, and b) have any confidence in GW's ability to balance the game under those conditions (or at all). I think a lot of the resistance to those kinds of extreme scenarios (or Realm rules in AoS) comes from the fact that most people don't actually believe GW when they say they balance around them and wouldn't have much faith in their ability to balance around those scenarios even if they did. This mainly comes from experience, as pointed out by Peregrine above.
I would equally ask why we accept GW's answer when experience shows it's a bad way to balance the game and doesn't even work anyway?
Because they still write the game, and that's what they feel does work and continues to do it. So it's all we have to go on when we consider how they are balancing things. Besides, I agree with them in some ways: It's a common thing in games to have the matchup that you hope to avoid because it reduces your extreme build. I honestly find nothing wrong with the idea of baking that in to discourage those sort of builds. Sure you can do it, but if you get that match or matches where your gimmick is disadvantaged you only have yourself to blame for bringing a gimmick list in the first place.
Wayniac wrote: That is exactly the point of contention here. On both points. That seems to be GW's desired approach but people fight against it.
People fight it because "your army is overpowered and wins a lot of one-sided games, until you randomly hit the nerf mission where it auto-loses" is a fundamentally bad approach to balance.
Its a bit like pointless debates over how to decide the best all-round athlete. The GW approach is similar to the Decathlon/Heptathlon approach in athletics of having a wide range of challenges which if you over-specialise in some you will lose out in others and fail to win. Sure a pure sprinter can enter a Decathlon/Heptathlon but they will not win it - which hits your measure of "overpowered" in some events and "nerfed" in other events but is simply how they approach design for finding the best overall.
The ITC by contrast is like observing that the single best event for finding the best overall athlete is one with both running and jumping so they decide on the 400m hurdles. Then to find the best overall athlete they just keep running 400m hurdles races until they have a winner. Totally different philosophy to finding the best overall. None of the events are any different so none of them "nerf" anyone and of course they all include both running and jumping so a pure sprinter will not be "overpowered" in any of the races.
Which you prefer is a matter of taste. Personally I find the ITC mission set dull, I have spent one weekend playing an event with a previous version of it and was so damn bored that I nearly lost my final game due to not being interested enough. I honestly would have preferred to be working overtime. So having tried it I know where my preference lies and what my taste in mission packs is.
ITC is a triathlon: some variety in events, but still focused on speed and endurance.
An ideal mission set is a decathlon: variety in events that may favor one athletic build over another, with the average winner being a well-rounded athlete.
GW runs a weird decathlon where they decided that running is too powerful so there's an extra event where you have to crawl 100m without using your legs, and the fastest runners in previous events have to drag extra weight, and then there's a poetry contest because it makes a good story.
The second sounds more fun. Ultimately I think the issue here is the desire to have your list be almost 100% of the factor in how you win and remove any other randomness. I would bet most of that type would get rid of dice too if they could.
Bottom line is the ITC missions cater to listbuilding where you don't want or care to build a balanced force, you want to theory/math it out and pick only the most optimal choices, usually based around some extreme min/max gimmick, and never want there to be a drawback. Everything about the ITC missions tries to remove any drawback for listbuilding a particular way. There is nothing "well rounded" about it, in fact ITC missions discourage well-rounded anything. You focus on two things, and two things only, to the exclusion of all else.
The GW missions have listbuilding but have built-in twists to discourage always bringing the most optimal, extreme force because if you do, there's a chance you could get a mission that has a drawback for it which someone who brought a more balanced force would not face because its not an "eggs in one basket" approach.
Playing with GW missions, the same type of min/max still happens. The difference is that the parameters are not the same, so you get different types of min/max.
GW missions don't really discourage twink play, they just encourage a different type of twink play.
AoS has this great scenario where nothing can come in from reserves; it all must start on the board. Throws a wrench into alpha-stike builds and provides a reason for them to go a bit less heavy on the reserves and round their list out a bit. The realm rules seem to be trying this, but too often it is ham-fisted and can completely destroy game balance rather than favoring more rounded lists. An example would be the feature that removes all rend (AP). Saves tend to be worse in AoS and rend less common, but you get the idea. Another feature restricts the range of all shooting and magic to 6". And so on. There are plenty of decent features scattered around too but the presence of game-breaking ones pushes people away from using them at all. A problem when they are supposed to be basic rules and points are supposedly balanced around them.
Jesus, such a scenario in w40k would be horrible. GK whole movment is based around being deep struck from reservs, worse they pay for those abilities. And if they can't alfa strike at least something on the turn they drop down, then they don't really have a valid way to win. they can't melee their opponents down, they are too few of them with two few attacks for that. And stright up shot out just won't work with an army with almost only bolter weapons.
A scenario when you can't drop in from reservs and your casting is restricted by those realm thingies, would be a huge kick in the nads for a GK player. Why even try to play such a game then, other then the opponent having easy points in a store event or something.
Karol wrote: Jesus, such a scenario in w40k would be horrible. GK whole movment is based around being deep struck from reservs, worse they pay for those abilities. And if they can't alfa strike at least something on the turn they drop down, then they don't really have a valid way to win. they can't melee their opponents down, they are too few of them with two few attacks for that. And stright up shot out just won't work with an army with almost only bolter weapons.
A scenario when you can't drop in from reservs and your casting is restricted by those realm thingies, would be a huge kick in the nads for a GK player. Why even try to play such a game then, other then the opponent having easy points in a store event or something.
Grey Knights sound like their day in the sun has come and gone, maybe they should be squatted. Putting the old man out of his misery?
That doesn't really much to people who never played in 5th ed. Plus punishing a faction mechanics for something that happened decades ago seems strange.
I understand why the mechanics could generate more random results, but most games are about limiting the random aspect of it. No one is going to go after the 1 in a 1000 move, hoping that it will maybe just work this time.
For such a system to work, and generate multiple armies from multiple factions, all or at least most of the codex would have to be very flexible with a lot of very good options. And by good I mean good good, not good if stars allign in a proper way.
And 4th ed.. my "instant kill you even if you're supposed to be immune to instant death" Grandmasters were so much fun. I think my 4th ed GK army with 3 Land Raiders full of GK was the most fun army I've ever played.
Martel732 wrote: I didn't do much 4th, actually. Even less when I got a WD codex.
That WD codex gets a bum rap, but it was overall a net positive for us. If GW had printed an actual codex at that time, we would have gotten stuck with an inferior codex for all of 5th edition like the Dark Angels did. Regardless of what you think of Matt Ward, that later codex was objectively superior to anything we had or could of gotten at the time.
Oddly enough, I found Ward's codices were rather well balanced for game play (as much as GW generally gets, at any rate). They were just absolutely atrocious on fluff. Phil Kelly tended to make over wrought codices in balance, but was rather good in the fluff (even though, they tended to continue some atrocious naming). Robin Cruddace couldn't be bothered to make a decent codex at all. It was either over wrought if he liked the army or a bland boring mess if he didn't.
Oddly enough, I found Ward's codices were rather well balanced for game play (as much as GW generally gets, at any rate). They were just absolutely atrocious on fluff. Phil Kelly tended to make over wrought codices in balance, but was rather good in the fluff (even though, they tended to continue some atrocious naming). Robin Cruddace couldn't be bothered to make a decent codex at all. It was either over wrought if he liked the army or a bland boring mess if he didn't.
5th Ed GK, and WHFB Daemons were not balanced at all
That said, he actually made fun interesting rules that captured the feel of the army in the game. If he wrote all the dexes, and they were al balanced around his measure, might actually be good.
Then again, didn't he like half-ass the armies he didn't really care bout, and made his favorites really strong?
Karol wrote: Jesus, such a scenario in w40k would be horrible. GK whole movment is based around being deep struck from reservs, worse they pay for those abilities. And if they can't alfa strike at least something on the turn they drop down, then they don't really have a valid way to win. they can't melee their opponents down, they are too few of them with two few attacks for that. And stright up shot out just won't work with an army with almost only bolter weapons.
A scenario when you can't drop in from reservs and your casting is restricted by those realm thingies, would be a huge kick in the nads for a GK player. Why even try to play such a game then, other then the opponent having easy points in a store event or something.
You seem to have missed the point a little. I think NinthMusketeer was pointing out that the realm rules range from reasonable (no Deep Strike, which is probably fine in the context of AoS) to really stupid, like restricting shooting and magic to effectively nothing. Both wouldn't necessarily be in play at the same time and there was no suggestion to use those exact rules in 40k. Somehting like restricted Deep Strike might actually be interesting in 40k. Probably not completely restricted, but maybe in turn 2 you can only DS more than 12" away (or 15"-D6) and in turn 3 you can DS normally. One of my big problems with DS at the moment is how it went from dangerous risk/reward in previous editions to pinpoint accurate, guaranteed placement in 8th, so something to disrupt it might be interesting. It might even force players to reconsider whether to DS at all.
One of the more enjoyable scenarios from CA2017 was Recon, which split your forces into 3 parts and randomly determined which part would deploy in the first turn. That was a good disruptive scenario that still made player decisions important but also forced them to alter what was often a fairly static battle plan.
Martel732 wrote: I didn't do much 4th, actually. Even less when I got a WD codex.
That WD codex gets a bum rap, but it was overall a net positive for us. If GW had printed an actual codex at that time, we would have gotten stuck with an inferior codex for all of 5th edition like the Dark Angels did. Regardless of what you think of Matt Ward, that later codex was objectively superior to anything we had or could of gotten at the time.
Oh yeah, that DA codex was very, fun ? Only being able to take squads of 5 or 10 marines, boy howdy sure felt good. All the bland, flavorless feels of that book. I played a ton of it, man, did it feel bad. I remember too at the time being told by everyone " Hey, just hang in there, when the new marine codex drops it'll all make sense. " Guess what happened ? It. Never. Made. Sense.
nareik wrote: Poetry contests in sporting competitions might sound rediculous, but it was a part of the modern Olympics.
Baron Coupertain (forgive my spelling) envisioned it as a place for gentlemanly competition between polymaths.
That's interesting, actually. Was not aware.
On that note with Warhammer, GW's intent in their tournaments has always been to showcase the HOBBY as a whole, not just one part of it. This is why tournaments always used to factor in Painting, Generalship, Sportsmanship, and Composition; to make sure that the person who best represented the hobby as a whole came out the overall winner rather than someone who only focused on one aspect. This is also why awards like Best Painted, Best General and Best Sportsman (not sure if that one is still around) existed; to give a token reward to the people who might excel at one point but not all of them.
Personally, I loved it. The person who brought a cheesy filth army to curb stomp people may have won all their games and might win Best General, but they would likely be dinged on Comp and, usually, Sportsmanship (those sorts of people are usually the rules lawyer/argumentative types) so would be eliminated from the running for overall winner. As it should be. The winner of a Warhammer tournament should be the person who exemplifies all aspects of the hobby, not just the person who can make the filthiest list and win all their games.
Wayniac wrote: The person who brought a cheesy filth army to curb stomp people may have won all their games and might win Best General, but they would likely be dinged on Comp and, usually, Sportsmanship (those sorts of people are usually the rules lawyer/argumentative types)
Oh the projection. By all accounts, Nick Nanavati is possibly one of the hobbiest nicest people. In fact I think I could say the same for most the top players in the game.
If you don't vibe with competitive it's fine, but theres zero reason to gak on people who just enjoy competing.
Wayniac wrote: The person who brought a cheesy filth army to curb stomp people may have won all their games and might win Best General, but they would likely be dinged on Comp and, usually, Sportsmanship (those sorts of people are usually the rules lawyer/argumentative types)
Oh the projection. By all accounts, Nick Nanavati is possibly one of the hobbiest nicest people. In fact I think I could say the same for most the top players in the game.
If you don't vibe with competitive it's fine, but theres zero reason to gak on people who just enjoy competing.
My point is that's what the Comp score was meant to do. The person who brought an army designed only to win, would get their comp score low and be prevented from winning the tournament overall (although they would still likely get Best General). As it should be, because designing the most min/maxed army does NOT best represent the hobby.
You seem to have missed the point a little. I think NinthMusketeer was pointing out that the realm rules range from reasonable (no Deep Strike, which is probably fine in the context of AoS) to really stupid, like restricting shooting and magic to effectively nothing. Both wouldn't necessarily be in play at the same time and there was no suggestion to use those exact rules in 40k. Somehting like restricted Deep Strike might actually be interesting in 40k. Probably not completely restricted, but maybe in turn 2 you can only DS more than 12" away (or 15"-D6) and in turn 3 you can DS normally. One of my big problems with DS at the moment is how it went from dangerous risk/reward in previous editions to pinpoint accurate, guaranteed placement in 8th, so something to disrupt it might be interesting. It might even force players to reconsider whether to DS at all.
One of the more enjoyable scenarios from CA2017 was Recon, which split your forces into 3 parts and randomly determined which part would deploy in the first turn. That was a good disruptive scenario that still made player decisions important but also forced them to alter what was often a fairly static battle plan.
I must have understood it wrong then. I thought that some stuff come from terrain or scenario rules in AoS, and then you get an over laping realm thingy, which I w40k terms could be something like different planets. If I was wrong I still even a single change like that is enough to break an army.
Not saying those scenarios can't be fun, for some armies, specially the flexible ones. But if someone cuts up my army in 3 parts and I get the wrong parts on the wrong turn, then we may as well not be playing turn 1. GK to work need something they can't do right now, which is deep strike everything on the same turn. Spreading it over 3 turns, just makes it easier, if that is possible, for the opponent to kill off the army. There just isn't enough stuff to play with in a GK army for such limitation do not have huge effect. If a unit of termintors drop turn 1, but the draigo that is suppose to buff them drops turn 3, then he probably isn't buffing anything. Plus the termintors now without their re-rolls can't perform their job, and there is no unit that can replace them.
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Wayniac 773029 10405970 wrote:
My point is that's what the Comp score was meant to do. The person who brought an army designed only to win, would get their comp score low and be prevented from winning the tournament overall (although they would still likely get Best General). As it should be, because designing the most min/maxed army does NOT best represent the hobby.
That is like saying the sportsman with the best physical and mental capacity shouldn't work, because there is more to sport then just the competition. No one actualy believes that. Not even the sports official or the people that sponsor sport.
My point is that's what the Comp score was meant to do. The person who brought an army designed only to win, would get their comp score low and be prevented from winning the tournament overall (although they would still likely get Best General). As it should be, because designing the most min/maxed army does NOT best represent the hobby.
That is like saying the sportsman with the best physical and mental capacity shouldn't work, because there is more to sport then just the competition. No one actualy believes that. Not even the sports official or the people that sponsor sport.
Warhammer is not a sport, despite people trying to turn it into a sport. It is a hobby. The person who best exemplifies the hobby should be the overall winner.
yeah Comp score was/is pointless. Overall should be based on Battle points, appearance, and sportsmanship.
If you play well, your army looks good, and you don't act like a douche, you win the overall. How your army is composed doesn't have much to do with that (other than being part of appearance).
It was certainly gamed, along with sportsmanship. Ironically though it was mostly gamed by "teams" of hyper-competitive people who would go to an event and try to slag everyone else to raise their own standings (e.g. an agreement to give everyone other than their own people 0s in both). At least from what was said back in the days when it was eliminated.
I actually, in all honesty, like the way the official GWGT does it with the "favorite army" thing. It seems like a good compromise between not caring about anything but winning games (which as I have stated I feel should NOT be the only thing that matters in Warhammer as it's a social hobby at its core, not a sport) and putting too much on "You beat me and I'm butthurt so I'm going to give you 0s"
Well I kind of a do get them. I did once caused an inujry in my weight class just so two people from my school go through to regionals, because the person that couldn't wrestle was removed from placings at the event.
Wayniac wrote: It was certainly gamed, along with sportsmanship. Ironically though it was mostly gamed by "teams" of hyper-competitive people who would go to an event and try to slag everyone else to raise their own standings (e.g. an agreement to give everyone other than their own people 0s in both). At least from what was said back in the days when it was eliminated.
I actually, in all honesty, like the way the official GWGT does it with the "favorite army" thing. It seems like a good compromise between not caring about anything but winning games (which as I have stated I feel should NOT be the only thing that matters in Warhammer as it's a social hobby at its core, not a sport) and putting too much on "You beat me and I'm butthurt so I'm going to give you 0s"
The advantage of the 'favourite' system is it is harder to misuse as a competitive tool.
When you have to rate every opponent you get to gank their scores and give no extra points at all. At least with the favourite system you are forced to give points out, even if you may 'game' the system by awarding your favourite game to someone who is a competitive non-factor.
This way, it's most important that you're not the *worst* person they meet. You can still be a raging donkey-cave, just make sure they believe everyone else they played was *worse*!
I get that it may be better than a straight-up rating if it's a concern, but it has some drawbacks, too.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Overall should be W/L/D before score.
In my last tournament, I got 2nd after going undefeated, even having beaten the actual victor, because I won that game 3:2 and they got more points in their other matches than I did.
Wayniac wrote: The person who brought a cheesy filth army to curb stomp people may have won all their games and might win Best General, but they would likely be dinged on Comp and, usually, Sportsmanship (those sorts of people are usually the rules lawyer/argumentative types)
Oh the projection. By all accounts, Nick Nanavati is possibly one of the hobbiest nicest people. In fact I think I could say the same for most the top players in the game.
If you don't vibe with competitive it's fine, but theres zero reason to gak on people who just enjoy competing.
My point is that's what the Comp score was meant to do. The person who brought an army designed only to win, would get their comp score low and be prevented from winning the tournament overall (although they would still likely get Best General). As it should be, because designing the most min/maxed army does NOT best represent the hobby.
And why doesn't it best represent the hobby? Why is hobby quality defined by losing games more frequently?
Wayniac wrote: The person who brought a cheesy filth army to curb stomp people may have won all their games and might win Best General, but they would likely be dinged on Comp and, usually, Sportsmanship (those sorts of people are usually the rules lawyer/argumentative types)
Oh the projection. By all accounts, Nick Nanavati is possibly one of the hobbiest nicest people. In fact I think I could say the same for most the top players in the game.
If you don't vibe with competitive it's fine, but theres zero reason to gak on people who just enjoy competing.
My point is that's what the Comp score was meant to do. The person who brought an army designed only to win, would get their comp score low and be prevented from winning the tournament overall (although they would still likely get Best General). As it should be, because designing the most min/maxed army does NOT best represent the hobby.
And why doesn't it best represent the hobby? Why is hobby quality defined by losing games more frequently?
Because, despite the fact you only seem to care about competitive gaming and winning, the hobby is more than winning games.
My point is that's what the Comp score was meant to do. The person who brought an army designed only to win, would get their comp score low and be prevented from winning the tournament overall (although they would still likely get Best General). As it should be, because designing the most min/maxed army does NOT best represent the hobby.
That is like saying the sportsman with the best physical and mental capacity shouldn't work, because there is more to sport then just the competition. No one actualy believes that. Not even the sports official or the people that sponsor sport.
It's more saying that who we choose to honor the most highly isn't necessarily the one who can run up the highest technical metric - even if that metric is points or W/L ratio.
Most people would rather celebrate the guy who did well and is fun to be around over the guy who did slightly better but is toxic to deal with.
Wayniac wrote: The person who brought a cheesy filth army to curb stomp people may have won all their games and might win Best General, but they would likely be dinged on Comp and, usually, Sportsmanship (those sorts of people are usually the rules lawyer/argumentative types)
Oh the projection. By all accounts, Nick Nanavati is possibly one of the hobbiest nicest people. In fact I think I could say the same for most the top players in the game.
If you don't vibe with competitive it's fine, but theres zero reason to gak on people who just enjoy competing.
My point is that's what the Comp score was meant to do. The person who brought an army designed only to win, would get their comp score low and be prevented from winning the tournament overall (although they would still likely get Best General). As it should be, because designing the most min/maxed army does NOT best represent the hobby.
And why doesn't it best represent the hobby? Why is hobby quality defined by losing games more frequently?
Because, despite the fact you only seem to care about competitive gaming and winning, the hobby is more than winning games.
So having a powerful list means it isn't painted well? Having a powerful list means you can't be a nice guy and fun to play against? Just what part of the hobby is missing from a powerful list, and why is it important?
Well if you have all of them then you shouldn't need to worry, would you? It's only the types who bring some "powerful list" that doesn't adhere to any of the background, are jerks, and are 3 colors minimum that has to worry about being kicked out of the running for Best Overall and may have to be content with Best General.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Oh yeah, because three minimum colors is worse than human sacrifice and all that.
Looks like no Necron player will ever be scored well unless they like making them look like clowns!
Necrons don't seem to have an issue with this now, why would they? Besides, doesn't your precious ITC require 3 color minimum at its events? Don't pretend you don't know what I was referring to. The type of model that's like prime one color, add a splash of a second to the gun, paint the base flat brown and call it 3 colors min to play in the event.
Wayniac wrote: Well if you have all of them then you shouldn't need to worry, would you? It's only the types who bring some "powerful list" that doesn't adhere to any of the background, are jerks, and are 3 colors minimum that has to worry about being kicked out of the running for Best Overall and may have to be content with Best General.
Except the context here is discussing comp scoring and comp scoring is purely a penalty for having a strong list, ignoring any other factors. Don't move the goalposts and act as if it has anything to do with sportsmanship or painting.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Oh yeah, because three minimum colors is worse than human sacrifice and all that.
Looks like no Necron player will ever be scored well unless they like making them look like clowns!
Necrons don't seem to have an issue with this now, why would they? Besides, doesn't your precious ITC require 3 color minimum at its events? Don't pretend you don't know what I was referring to. The type of model that's like prime one color, add a splash of a second to the gun, paint the base flat brown and call it 3 colors min to play in the event.
Only two colors: silver and green! Too bad it doesn't fit your definition of well painted huh?
Wayniac wrote: That does fit. it's not slopped together.
And again, I feel comp scores are great. They reign in extreme builds WHICH IS THE ENTIRE fething POINT BECAUSE THIS IS A HOBBY NOT A SPORT.
The problem I have with comp scores is they tend to actually rein in whatever the comp system creator dislikes, which may or may not be what you want to nerf. Depending on how they're implemented they don't even rein in extreme armies, they just shift the goalposts for what counts as an extreme army. Swedish Comp for WH was a great example of that - hugely complex, did a good job of removing the most abusive builds from non-comped WH, but simultaneously created a whole host of just as abusive builds within its own rules due to the way it warped the meta.
Why is it that winning is the only thing that matters?
Why is it that if the larger fanbase is generally happy and playing games (and buying models) that only the views of the hper-competitive matter?
Why is this topic on '40k being in a generally good place' focusing so much on 'ITC decress this to be bad and unbalanced, so all of 40k is bad an unbalanced'?
On second thought maybe we need MORE comp. We could have painting comp where you get penalties for having too many characters/banners/etc because they give too much space to use advanced painting techniques, and bonuses for bringing necrons and their limited options for painting. We could have sportsmanship penalties for each beer you drink because drinking and not caring makes it too easy to be relaxed towards the game, and bonuses for having rule arguments because you took on the challenge of having sportsmanship even during conflict.
BroodSpawn wrote: Why is it that winning is the only thing that matters?
Why is it that if the larger fanbase is generally happy and playing games (and buying models) that only the views of the hper-competitive matter?
Why is this topic on '40k being in a generally good place' focusing so much on 'ITC decress this to be bad and unbalanced, so all of 40k is bad an unbalanced'?
Because ITC skews the balance due to having their own missions that reward listbuilding instead of trying to reign in extreme builds (which the GW missions, especially CA18, do via twists in each mission). This then spiraled into whether or not that's a good thing.
Martel732 wrote: I still find ca2018 woefully inadequate. Maybe itc can adopt them and add secondaries? Hordes need a downside.
You know, with all due respect, your counterpoint to everything seems to be "but Hordes". ITC doesn't give a downside to Hordes other than having secondaries that, again, just focus on killing gak. Which is part of the whole problem; ITC *only* focuses on two things, so you see lists that are optimized around doing two things. Which is why you see what you see at major ITC events and not any major non-ITC events.
Slayer-Fan123 wrote: Oh yeah, because three minimum colors is worse than human sacrifice and all that.
Looks like no Necron player will ever be scored well unless they like making them look like clowns!
Necrons don't seem to have an issue with this now, why would they? Besides, doesn't your precious ITC require 3 color minimum at its events? Don't pretend you don't know what I was referring to. The type of model that's like prime one color, add a splash of a second to the gun, paint the base flat brown and call it 3 colors min to play in the event.
Only two colors: silver and green! Too bad it doesn't fit your definition of well painted huh?
Peregrine wrote: Err, what? That's at least three colors: body, gun, and the hose thing on the gun. Plus more colors on the base, and any highlighting.
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Wayniac wrote: That does fit. it's not slopped together.
And again, I feel comp scores are great. They reign in extreme builds WHICH IS THE ENTIRE fething POINT BECAUSE THIS IS A HOBBY NOT A SPORT.
Again, why is being bad at winning an essential part of the hobby? Why do "extreme builds" need to be penalized?
That's rediculous in this context and really depends on how you define colour. Does the bone or brown on the base count?
I guess you can lump brown and bone together as one is the shade of the other. Then discount either as they are on the base.
The gold and silver should count, but I suppose those are materials not colours.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Double post; I also guarantee you that 'black' is not 'black' in terms of the complete absence of colour. The pigment will still reflect some light.
It will not be colourless either through the light, pigment nor perception models of colour.
Peregrine wrote: Err, what? That's at least three colors: body, gun, and the hose thing on the gun. Plus more colors on the base, and any highlighting.
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Wayniac wrote: That does fit. it's not slopped together.
And again, I feel comp scores are great. They reign in extreme builds WHICH IS THE ENTIRE fething POINT BECAUSE THIS IS A HOBBY NOT A SPORT.
Again, why is being bad at winning an essential part of the hobby? Why do "extreme builds" need to be penalized?
Black isn't under the definition of a color.
That is the most nitpicky thing I've seen on Dakka yet, which is saying something.
Also, Black in this context is a color, as it's a category type of paint used and in this context it's not really "colors" but paints used.
Martel732 wrote: Undercosted models are a big deal. Especially large numbers of them.
Moving away from the other circular topic, what do you think is undercosted? And why do you feel the GW missions don't affect them but ITC does?
I may have asked this before, I don't remember but you seem to always bring up hordes and undercosted models so I'm curious what you actually think is undercosted and what you feel an appropriate cost is for those.
Peregrine wrote: Err, what? That's at least three colors: body, gun, and the hose thing on the gun. Plus more colors on the base, and any highlighting.
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Wayniac wrote: That does fit. it's not slopped together.
And again, I feel comp scores are great. They reign in extreme builds WHICH IS THE ENTIRE fething POINT BECAUSE THIS IS A HOBBY NOT A SPORT.
Again, why is being bad at winning an essential part of the hobby? Why do "extreme builds" need to be penalized?
Black isn't under the definition of a color.
I'd never heard that ITC had a formal definition of what constitutes a 'color'.
Or are you trying to be techical? Because, while Black is not a color, pigminting (such as painting) something to be black actually requires pigminting with *every color* such that none reflect. So, an area painted Black is certainly painted different colors than the non-black areas.
Further, even ignoring black for random reasons, there's still way more than 3 colors on that model.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Serious question: do most events with modelling rules (WYSIWYG, 3-color, etc) have verbage for Rule of Cool? Like, don't they allow you to clear variances from the letter of the rule with the TO - so that Rule of Cool wins out?
GW doesn't value a model's actual existence, imo. They block deep strike, block movement (since movement is before shooting), and can numerically overwhelm objectives. I personally would use guardsmen at 4 ppm even if they had no weapons at all, because I can't get such cheap board control any other way. With T3 and 5+, killing them is a chore at their price point.
Most units in the 4-7 point range I would consider to be undercosted the way 8th edition plays. Especially guardsmen, kabalites, and plaguebearers.
GW had their chance to cheapen marines and other elite troops. They largely declined. This means the dominance of cheapos will continue.
Giving me access to butcher's bill and reaper as a way to recoup some of the value I'm losing by playing a marine-heavy list is simply not available in CA 2018 missions.
Having a huge model count of models you don't care about because you weren't forced to invest the appropriate amount points in them in the first place is a great way to overcome each wrinkle that CA 2018 throws out.
I also find that ITC terrain does help me about 60% of the time, which is better than getting my expensive BA shot to death through windows.
Update:
To avoid the GSC biker fiasco, I just re-read all the CA 2018 missions. Hordes provide a huge advantage in most of the missions. The wrinkles are cute, but don't trump the pure brute force of cost efficiency.
"Quantity has a Quality All Its Own " - Allied Interdependence Newsletter No. 13, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 21 June 1979 - Thomas A. Callaghan Jr. (No, not Stalin)
The uptick for IG/AM armies and Orks does seem to support the flooding of bodies is a viable tactic.
The trick is just getting enough effective wounds out to thin the hordes which works equally well on units of quality.
The mass of Ork melee attacks is testament enough: I rarely see anything survive melee with them (30-man squad) for more than a turn
Anything approximating an assault cannon seems to pay for itself by typically being at least +1 of the toughness of the target and an AP -1 at least which makes all the difference BUT 24" range always places it in the "you get one shot at this" zone except of course, bubble-wrap helps.
Thinking of the Leman Russ "Punisher" gun that fires twice and of course the "Stormlord" as the kings of throwing out a wall of lead.
Too many times I see the IG/AM "1st rank fire! 2nd rank fire" (gets eaten), "Second squad, 1st rank fire! 2nd rank fire!".
Too many other weapons tend to have the 2D6 or the more impressive 3D6 hits which is rather limited.
Auto-hits are nice but start falling into the 8" to 16" range which is a one-shot wonder.
Wow lots to read :0
I just throw some of my current thoughts in
I think good place is kinda just BS, good in that it’s at bare minimum.
But I think they have 3 issues. Balance still seems to suck. Both internal and external to a lot of codex and the army’s you can build.
But I think more of an issue is that from a narrative and game view it still sucks. They have factions and groups of army’s that do not even seem to built to play the same game.
Knights and hordes with no real thought to the way they interact than trying to make them all act the same.
Low effort, but lots of words come to mind for a lot of there stuff. They need to get there game design into the design for what minis get produced more I would think.
I also think the game is in a bit of a Narrative mess, things like The +marines should have been a upgrade in narrative only. Having the same rules as normal space marines, maybe some new units. But pulling them in as the same under the rules.
Still plenty of sales I am sure, and a better way to support the line from a design point I think.
Martel732 wrote: With added bonuses like kabalites ignore toughness for *6* points.
I actually struggled so hard vs DE kabalites because of this as a Nidzilla player, he would just drown my Trygon in splinter fire. (My Tyrannofex doesn't mind with its 2+ so much, since its normally wounded on 4's and 3's by anti tank anyway).
Next games night I brought in Hydra swarm to give it a try, he drew against me again (random matches, tries to keep your list All Comers and helps prevent tailoring, you just sometimes draw the short straw where both players are free to discuss themselves "Will this be fair/enjoyable") he brought same warrior heavy list vs my frankly stupid number of terms, hormas and a smattering of Devilgaunts.
He literally couldn't kill enough and it was the first time in... well ages my gaunts were wounded on a 4+. hormagaunts actually made it to CC for once! (I mean, they died horribly because Lilith heroic'd into them and was a blender) but they did it!
Other hand, oh god yes double everything's point values and adjust from there, we NEED granularity in this game, we're so hyper cramped at the bottom scale it corrupts the view the whole way up!
To avoid the GSC biker fiasco, I just re-read all the CA 2018 missions. Hordes provide a huge advantage in most of the missions. The wrinkles are cute, but don't trump the pure brute force of cost efficiency.
Hordes are viable in CA18 missions but do not dominate. The winning list at the largest CA18 format tournament (the GT finals) had I think less than 50 models on the table. It got there by beating out the Eldar Flyer spam list which is resolutely not a horde list.
I don't have a problem with hordes being viable in the game, they are just one of many viable approaches with the CA18 missions. The risk with hordes is slow play, so long as tournaments keep on top of the slow play issue hordes are fine and fit into the normal power range or tournament armies. If your games go to 5 or 6 turns you should be able to beat a horde list if you brought the tools to do so. I find that most horde lists have a certain critical mass below which they are vulnerable to being taken apart quite quickly; it is slow work but it can be done.
Martel732 wrote: With added bonuses like kabalites ignore toughness for *6* points.
It's a good thing and a bad thing, really. You may "ignore Toughness" but it only works on non-vehicle models, so while splinter fire is really good against Tyranids and Daemons it's no better than S4 against Marines and no better than S3 against anyone with T3 chaff.
Threads like these make me feel like I am missing something. If the game is not in a better place (I guess we're talking balance wise) what was the reason for "streamlining" the game?
ik0ner wrote: Threads like these make me feel like I am missing something. If the game is not in a better place (I guess we're talking balance wise) what was the reason for "streamlining" the game?
To try to make the game better (and ultimately sell more books and models). Note the word try. Some people will see it as a success, many do in fact, but you can't please everyone. Just because some people don't think the game is better it doesn't mean they failed. It just means some people don't like it.
ik0ner wrote: Threads like these make me feel like I am missing something. If the game is not in a better place (I guess we're talking balance wise) what was the reason for "streamlining" the game?
Frankly it is better balanced. BUT alas also a lot more exploitable due to shared CP and stratagems.
It also does not help that you often need multiple documents to get all the rules (In case of chaos Space marines 2 books now... atleast.)
There are also other issues, like morale again not really working on units that were intended to have morale as a drawback. (basically msu spam makes nearly all units immune to morale), this leads especially in the case of IG squads and Neophyts to a lot of annoyment.
Also balancing atm seems to go torwards the outliers, take a look at the new oblits and you realise that the unit now needs more support then ever to do it's job, support it may well never get ue to the supporting charachter in the best case beein a footslogging sorcerer... and it still eats CP like a anthill food in general.
THere are also some lists that neeed to be looked at, GK and a lot of FW index lists and units that just plain simply might aswell not exist anymore.
Stratagems and Auras are also an issue. Half the SM and CSM equipment is constantly costet as if Abbadon or Rowboat babysits them for the full rerolls. Any other subfaction there pays the price. Armies like BA basically pay the bill for the abuse of the auras, other then that BA could abuse a lot of shenanigans themselves mostly centered around smashcaptains.
There is also an issue with granularity, the design space is atm jut too cramped. It would go a long way if pts prices would double and then stuff would get balanced. because as it stands esecially in the lower point bracket you can't move units around accordingly without moving alot of other units around. Consequently i feel that has also to do with the race to bigger things fielded in regular matches which made a lot of the staples of lists before going down a race to the bottom pts wise in order to be even considerable.
The new wounding chart also has a lot of issues, and is easily exploitable, cue Votwl.
Ice_can wrote: The new wounding chart wouldn't have been so bad if they had trippled Strength and Toughness values.
It also really would benefit from the introduction of a D12 system for improved granularity.
I understand the benefits of using a d8/10/12, but honestly it is never ever going to happen. The d6 is as iconic to Warhammer as Power Armour is, and they know it.
Ice_can wrote: The new wounding chart wouldn't have been so bad if they had trippled Strength and Toughness values.
It also really would benefit from the introduction of a D12 system for improved granularity.
I understand the benefits of using a d8/10/12, but honestly it is never ever going to happen. The d6 is as iconic to Warhammer as Power Armour is, and they know it.
I honestly think d6 is allright, but for granularity sake atleast double the points and then rebalance.
But i sometimes feel like they think we are unable to count past 2000.
Ice_can wrote: The new wounding chart wouldn't have been so bad if they had trippled Strength and Toughness values.
It also really would benefit from the introduction of a D12 system for improved granularity.
I understand the benefits of using a d8/10/12, but honestly it is never ever going to happen. The d6 is as iconic to Warhammer as Power Armour is, and they know it.
This is why I'm hopeful that 40kApoc is a good game and we can just let 8th edition be the introduction or casual play 40k as it has some very fundamental issues caused by the insistence that it use exclusively D6's.
ik0ner wrote: Threads like these make me feel like I am missing something. If the game is not in a better place (I guess we're talking balance wise) what was the reason for "streamlining" the game?
Because your reading DakkaDakka, an inexhaustible mine of salt.
Player participation, and as a result sales, are up a lot in 8th compared to 7th so the game being in a better place is pretty undeniable.
Also, look outside of ITC and you will see very diverse rankings, yet the people playing a non-GW format that significantly warps the meta keep complaining that GW is doing it wrong.
ik0ner wrote: Threads like these make me feel like I am missing something. If the game is not in a better place (I guess we're talking balance wise) what was the reason for "streamlining" the game?
Because your reading DakkaDakka, an inexhaustible mine of salt.
Player participation, and as a result sales, are up a lot in 8th compared to 7th so the game being in a better place is pretty undeniable.
Also, look outside of ITC and you will see very diverse rankings, yet the people playing a non-GW format that significantly warps the meta keep complaining that GW is doing it wrong.
Internal balance is kind of terrible in most codexes though.
ik0ner wrote: Threads like these make me feel like I am missing something. If the game is not in a better place (I guess we're talking balance wise) what was the reason for "streamlining" the game?
Because your reading DakkaDakka, an inexhaustible mine of salt.
Player participation, and as a result sales, are up a lot in 8th compared to 7th so the game being in a better place is pretty undeniable.
Also, look outside of ITC and you will see very diverse rankings, yet the people playing a non-GW format that significantly warps the meta keep complaining that GW is doing it wrong.
Internal balance is kind of terrible in most codexes though.
In most cases yes and external balance is even worse. I'm getting a very strong WOTC D&D 3.5 vibe from GW. Let me explain, time for a story: Back in D&D 3.5, there were a lot (and I do mean a lot) of extra books. These books had additional rules and additional prestige classes that were available for use. It was long suspected and later confirmed that WOTC was only balancing these books under the assumption you were using that book and the Player's Handbook/DMG/MM. Not that you were using the dozen+ splatbooks. As a result, you saw "Character Optimization" that was borderline ridiculous, combining several books together in tiny pieces in order to, in theory, make some insane character that could do hundreds of damage in one attack, was immortal, could use Wish at will and the like. Now this being D&D, all of this was theory and was often stated to be theory only, never intended for play (because the DM could just deny it).
GW seems to be doing the same thing in a way. They seem to be balancing codexes without considering soup codexes. Guard on their own, for example, is a very strong codex but not completely broken. When you throw in minimal squads of Guard (i.e. Loyal 32) alongside a Knight Castellan and 3 Smash Captains, it becomes one of those ridiculous combos that shouldn't even be intended to work the way it works, but because GW isn't seeming to notice that if you give one codex very strong stratagems on the assumption that they will have limited CP (this seems to be the case with Knights for all intents and purposes) then allowing them a way to get lots of CP is going to "break" it.
ik0ner wrote: Threads like these make me feel like I am missing something. If the game is not in a better place (I guess we're talking balance wise) what was the reason for "streamlining" the game?
Because your reading DakkaDakka, an inexhaustible mine of salt.
Player participation, and as a result sales, are up a lot in 8th compared to 7th so the game being in a better place is pretty undeniable.
Also, look outside of ITC and you will see very diverse rankings, yet the people playing a non-GW format that significantly warps the meta keep complaining that GW is doing it wrong.
Internal balance is kind of terrible in most codexes though.
In most cases yes and external balance is even worse. I'm getting a very strong WOTC D&D 3.5 vibe from GW. Let me explain, time for a story: Back in D&D 3.5, there were a lot (and I do mean a lot) of extra books. These books had additional rules and additional prestige classes that were available for use. It was long suspected and later confirmed that WOTC was only balancing these books under the assumption you were using that book and the Player's Handbook/DMG/MM. Not that you were using the dozen+ splatbooks. As a result, you saw "Character Optimization" that was borderline ridiculous, combining several books together in tiny pieces in order to, in theory, make some insane character that could do hundreds of damage in one attack, was immortal, could use Wish at will and the like. Now this being D&D, all of this was theory and was often stated to be theory only, never intended for play (because the DM could just deny it).
GW seems to be doing the same thing in a way. They seem to be balancing codexes without considering soup codexes. Guard on their own, for example, is a very strong codex but not completely broken. When you throw in minimal squads of Guard (i.e. Loyal 32) alongside a Knight Castellan and 3 Smash Captains, it becomes one of those ridiculous combos that shouldn't even be intended to work the way it works, but because GW isn't seeming to notice that if you give one codex very strong stratagems on the assumption that they will have limited CP (this seems to be the case with Knights for all intents and purposes) then allowing them a way to get lots of CP is going to "break" it.
Hey leave my frenzied berserker / tempest kobold fighter with improved critical, keen weapons and dual scimitars alone ok? Guy was just dealing criticals on a roll dice of 11+, adding +16 damage for every attack point he cut off from using power attack. He was definitely fair!
Martel732 wrote: With added bonuses like kabalites ignore toughness for *6* points.
I am curious why we haven't seen a whole lot of the Kabalite spam style lists in any of the recent events. On paper, as you say - kabalites seem like a steal. But besides the occasional list that brings 3 for a CP battery it doesn't seem like people are taking them in any numbers. The preferred Aeldari spam troop seems to be Guardians, where they deep strike out of the sky in 20 man blobs and shred something. Or Wyches, which surprises me even more.
I don't know that I've ever seen a drukhari list that spams 6ppm troop bodies to swamp objectives do particularly well, at least not like Guard, Chaos Pre-nerfs cultists or Tau lists spam troops. Mostly if Kabalites are brought in they are used as venom-borne anti-infantry damage units.
Martel732 wrote: With added bonuses like kabalites ignore toughness for *6* points.
I am curious why we haven't seen a whole lot of the Kabalite spam style lists in any of the recent events. On paper, as you say - kabalites seem like a steal. But besides the occasional list that brings 3 for a CP battery it doesn't seem like people are taking them in any numbers. The preferred Aeldari spam troop seems to be Guardians, where they deep strike out of the sky in 20 man blobs and shred something. Or Wyches, which surprises me even more.
I don't know that I've ever seen a drukhari list that spams 6ppm troop bodies to swamp objectives do particularly well, at least not like Guard, Chaos Pre-nerfs cultists or Tau lists spam troops. Mostly if Kabalites are brought in they are used as venom-borne anti-infantry damage units.
Because splinter rifles are hilariously bad against guardsmen stock, nearly any other armies basic infantry gun will wound on 3's (excluding guard vs guard match ups) and I am not aware of any real buffs you can make to Splinter Rifles to help in that role. Splinter rifles kill high toughness relying models (non vehicle of course) fairly well but struggle to recoup their cost as quickly on expendable low T guys (and the wielder is himself a low toughness glass cannon, DE wouldn't have it any other way!), in fact the ONLY time I've seen grots/rippers not be wounded on 4's are directly from these weapons!
Plus it's not really just the Kabalites, they really do seem to operate in the DE way best with Raiders and wyches suit Venoms a lot more.
I think painting and modeling should be separate complitely from battling, it shouldnt interfere with peoples final scores in certain events. ( By no means would I allow unpainted armies tough)
It is no doubt part of the hobby, and should be part of any major event, but a persons final score shouldnt be determined by one.
Scoring sportsmanship should not be the opponents opinion, as it is in most of the cases BIASED, You can t take out the human factor, no matter how objective you think you are.
As the hobby grows, I really think the gaming aspect of warhammer 40000 should be even focused more. I got into the hobby because I played the dawn of war games, I loved them all, except the 3. part, because I felt like it was
over simplyfied. Because of this, I was looking into the table game for more in depth and fun gameplay. I look at assembling and painting as a necessity, but I m by no mean an artist, and its by no mean the reason for me to stay in the hobby.
Looking at everything from a gaming standpoint, I would be most pleased if GW actually switched from written rules and codexes to actual electrical formats, that they could update on a monthly basis. This way there wouldnt be such a fuss about balance, and peple wouldnt need to wait ages for changes. Just think of video games, where a bad balance can ruin everyones gameplay. I belive same goes for 40k even if you play at a not SUUUUUPER competitive environment. You want to play, but it would be nice to win sometimes aswell, and not just by sheer luck, but by skill.
In order to get to this point I feel GW really needs to work on those rules, to get a mostly balanced, developing game, that GW can update regularly, without making their codexes obsolete. I know a lot of people like hard copy which is fine, and it should be done for narrative and such.
I would even go as far as saying, GW could still do hard copies for those, who would like to have them, but should have an online datasheet and rules page where they would update regardless.
This way everyone could have what they need, and the community wouldnt need to alter the rules themselves.
Talking about what I d love to see:
- CP farming addressed
- Balance offending and too stronKKK factions nerfed ( looking at you IG)
- Certain abuse, like - to hit stacking addressed
- Certain datasheets updated ( vanilla SM, if you make it cheaper it will be auto take, if you leave it like that its just NYEH, neeeds overhaul)
- Giving factions, ESPECIALLY early factions more ways to play ( SM, Admech) to make them more in depth
- Overperforming units and stratgems addressed ( Castellan is very hard to balance because of what it brings to the table if fed cp, but in a pure knight list its just OK)
Martel732 wrote: With added bonuses like kabalites ignore toughness for *6* points.
I am curious why we haven't seen a whole lot of the Kabalite spam style lists in any of the recent events. On paper, as you say - kabalites seem like a steal. But besides the occasional list that brings 3 for a CP battery it doesn't seem like people are taking them in any numbers. The preferred Aeldari spam troop seems to be Guardians, where they deep strike out of the sky in 20 man blobs and shred something. Or Wyches, which surprises me even more.
I don't know that I've ever seen a drukhari list that spams 6ppm troop bodies to swamp objectives do particularly well, at least not like Guard, Chaos Pre-nerfs cultists or Tau lists spam troops. Mostly if Kabalites are brought in they are used as venom-borne anti-infantry damage units.
Their transports are so dope there's no reason to do this.
Martel732 wrote: With added bonuses like kabalites ignore toughness for *6* points.
I am curious why we haven't seen a whole lot of the Kabalite spam style lists in any of the recent events. On paper, as you say - kabalites seem like a steal. But besides the occasional list that brings 3 for a CP battery it doesn't seem like people are taking them in any numbers. The preferred Aeldari spam troop seems to be Guardians, where they deep strike out of the sky in 20 man blobs and shred something. Or Wyches, which surprises me even more.
I don't know that I've ever seen a drukhari list that spams 6ppm troop bodies to swamp objectives do particularly well, at least not like Guard, Chaos Pre-nerfs cultists or Tau lists spam troops. Mostly if Kabalites are brought in they are used as venom-borne anti-infantry damage units.
Their transports are so dope there's no reason to do this.
This is part of it, yeah. Kabalites on foot are good and complaints about poison weaponry always seem overblown to me, but the biggest force multiplier you can give to a Kabalite squad is throwing it in a transport instead of just adding more bodies.
I think the bigger issue is that if you want to spam infantry, you're probably going to be playing another army like Guard or Orks.
Martel732 wrote: With added bonuses like kabalites ignore toughness for *6* points.
I am curious why we haven't seen a whole lot of the Kabalite spam style lists in any of the recent events. On paper, as you say - kabalites seem like a steal. But besides the occasional list that brings 3 for a CP battery it doesn't seem like people are taking them in any numbers. The preferred Aeldari spam troop seems to be Guardians, where they deep strike out of the sky in 20 man blobs and shred something. Or Wyches, which surprises me even more.
I don't know that I've ever seen a drukhari list that spams 6ppm troop bodies to swamp objectives do particularly well, at least not like Guard, Chaos Pre-nerfs cultists or Tau lists spam troops. Mostly if Kabalites are brought in they are used as venom-borne anti-infantry damage units.
Their transports are so dope there's no reason to do this.
Do you see venom spam sweeping tournament after tournament?
The issue with kabalites is there is limited synergy beyond putting reroll 1s to hit and wound on them. This isn't nearly as flexible as guard orders, or the various ways you can boost fire warriors. As a result if you run into wraithguard or Nidzilla or someone spamming T5 infantry its happy days. Against say T3 infantry+mech its nothing special.
There is also an issue that while one archon is good value (imo anyway), a second one feels like a tax, and a third+Drazhar is horrendous. By contrast Guard+Tau easily fill in their HQ slots with cheap and useful characters.
You could get round this by taking 20 man units, which also boosts things like lightning reflexes, but then you have no way to really deal with morale (until very late game anyway).
Martel732 wrote: With added bonuses like kabalites ignore toughness for *6* points.
I am curious why we haven't seen a whole lot of the Kabalite spam style lists in any of the recent events. On paper, as you say - kabalites seem like a steal. But besides the occasional list that brings 3 for a CP battery it doesn't seem like people are taking them in any numbers. The preferred Aeldari spam troop seems to be Guardians, where they deep strike out of the sky in 20 man blobs and shred something. Or Wyches, which surprises me even more.
I don't know that I've ever seen a drukhari list that spams 6ppm troop bodies to swamp objectives do particularly well, at least not like Guard, Chaos Pre-nerfs cultists or Tau lists spam troops. Mostly if Kabalites are brought in they are used as venom-borne anti-infantry damage units.
Their transports are so dope there's no reason to do this.
Do you see venom spam sweeping tournament after tournament?
The issue with kabalites is there is limited synergy beyond putting reroll 1s to hit and wound on them. This isn't nearly as flexible as guard orders, or the various ways you can boost fire warriors. As a result if you run into wraithguard or Nidzilla or someone spamming T5 infantry its happy days. Against say T3 infantry+mech its nothing special.
There is also an issue that while one archon is good value (imo anyway), a second one feels like a tax, and a third+Drazhar is horrendous. By contrast Guard+Tau easily fill in their HQ slots with cheap and useful characters.
You could get round this by taking 20 man units, which also boosts things like lightning reflexes, but then you have no way to really deal with morale (until very late game anyway).
Also the Archon can't buff from a vehicle, which is obnoxious.
I have to say - most DE players are just net listers. It's not hard to figure out that flayed skull is the army you should be running them with. Maybe with a flyer wing of void ravens as black heart to get Agents of Vect.
Flayed skull rerolls 1's to hit from inside transports and also gives you ignore cover on them to in addition to all fly units. This includes ravagers...The damage boost from this buff is in a lot of cases more than 50% more damage. Losing 6+ FNP on your vehicles only really isn't a big deal.
ik0ner wrote: Threads like these make me feel like I am missing something. If the game is not in a better place (I guess we're talking balance wise) what was the reason for "streamlining" the game?
Frankly it is better balanced.
BUT alas also a lot more exploitable due to shared CP and stratagems.
It also does not help that you often need multiple documents to get all the rules (In case of chaos Space marines 2 books now... atleast.)
There are also other issues, like morale again not really working on units that were intended to have morale as a drawback. (basically msu spam makes nearly all units immune to morale), this leads especially in the case of IG squads and Neophyts to a lot of annoyment.
Also balancing atm seems to go torwards the outliers, take a look at the new oblits and you realise that the unit now needs more support then ever to do it's job, support it may well never get ue to the supporting charachter in the best case beein a footslogging sorcerer... and it still eats CP like a anthill food in general.
Spoiler:
THere are also some lists that neeed to be looked at, GK and a lot of FW index lists and units that just plain simply might aswell not exist anymore.
Stratagems and Auras are also an issue. Half the SM and CSM equipment is constantly costet as if Abbadon or Rowboat babysits them for the full rerolls. Any other subfaction there pays the price. Armies like BA basically pay the bill for the abuse of the auras, other then that BA could abuse a lot of shenanigans themselves mostly centered around smashcaptains.
There is also an issue with granularity, the design space is atm jut too cramped. It would go a long way if pts prices would double and then stuff would get balanced. because as it stands esecially in the lower point bracket you can't move units around accordingly without moving alot of other units around. Consequently i feel that has also to do with the race to bigger things fielded in regular matches which made a lot of the staples of lists before going down a race to the bottom pts wise in order to be even considerable.
The new wounding chart also has a lot of issues, and is easily exploitable, cue Votwl.
Xenomancers wrote: I have to say - most DE players are just net listers. It's not hard to figure out that flayed skull is the army you should be running them with. Maybe with a flyer wing of void ravens as black heart to get Agents of Vect.
Flayed skull rerolls 1's to hit from inside transports and also gives you ignore cover on them to in addition to all fly units. This includes ravagers...The damage boost from this buff is in a lot of cases more than 50% more damage. Losing 6+ FNP on your vehicles only really isn't a big deal.
Not sure on this. The 6+++ is effectively a 20% toughness upgrade for vehicles. Rerolling 1s to hit with rapid fire weapons is a 16.6% damage upgrade, which ravagers don't get. If you are sniping out say Marines who are hunkered down on an objective (which I think is becoming more the norm in CA18 missions, although its still table dependent) then its very good. If you are typically not hitting things with cover then its a bit more marginal. Go through say the top lists at Adepticon and its not obvious where it would have really helped.
If you were going venom spam (or raider spam, although I don't think that's a thing) then Flayed skull is probably worth thinking about. If you were going to footslog - with foot archons on hand - then poisoned tongue might be worth thinking about. Or Obsidian rose to try and get those rapid fire/out of rapid fire crossovers.
Really though the issue - much like Tau Sept imo - is that Blackheart has all the goodies. You want Labyrinthine Cunning - its better than the other warlord traits. You probably want Living Muse - its better than the other relics. And you 100% want AoV, because its a meta defining ability. You probably want to have a spearhead of ravagers, possibly with two flyers. They all get reroll 1s to hit, reroll ones to wound and getting just a bit above average on a 5++/6+++ can massively swing a game.
This might be cookie cutter, but I think its just objectively better than many other options. But then I don't really understand how say Sean Nayden's list works (looking at all those wyches). Or rather I can see how you might play it, but I don't see how people don't just blow holes in it, but he's a lot better player than I am.
) the upgrade pack would have 4 additional Chainaxes as well as a few other weapons to round out the contents of the kit. It would certainly be better for 
