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It seems as if there's a constant debate going on about how unbalanced the various 40k and WHFB armies are. That they are unbalanced is pretty much a fact, though. Now, my question is: why do gamers even need to put up with this kind of thing? Apparently Warmachine/Hordes players don't have this problem; one army is as good as any other. That's fine, but I'm not ever going to play Warmachine. I love GW's games too much, as do most of the wargamers I know! So, why not reward our loyalty and give us more balanced armies, GW?

Because they are a models company first, and a games company second.

Their rules support buying their newest models, or buying many quite expensive kits (such as valks, etc) by giving them really good rules for a relatively cheap in-game points cost.

Because, as you've just said yourself, you love the games too much regardless. Why would they change anything if you're buying their products anyway?

Besides, overpowered armies and units sell more. A balanced army is only going to be bought by people genuinely interested in it's asthetics, whereas if every new army is designed as the next overpowered dairy-packed face-stomper they'll also sell a lot of models to the tournie players who need to remain competitive and the bandwagoners.

OK, but as a company who attract a very loyal fanbase, they are assured of a certain base amount of profit, so why not throw the fanbase a bone and at least try to balance things a bit more. Like I said, Privateer Press are doing that.

Orky-Kowboy wrote:OK, but as a company who attract a very loyal fanbase, they are assured of a certain base amount of profit, so why not throw the fanbase a bone and at least try to balance things a bit more. Like I said, Privateer Press are doing that.

Not really. Privateer Press has it's own problems, which is why we are going through a large rules revamp. They had a constant power creep for 5 years, and players had to keep up with their faction and buying models or you got left behind and creamed in tournament play. The larger the pool of players in your area, the more you need to keep up, and change your army to adapt to new stuff coming out.

I stand corrected, but my central point still stands: why can't GW, as a concession to their fanbase, attempt to introduce more balance to their games? The fanbase is generally so loyal that it seems cynical to exploit us by constantly dangling the newest and latest uber-army in front of our noses. I mean, they have a captive market fer frag's sake! Treat us better, is what I'm saying.

Well, the fanbase isn't exactly loyal. WE, the veteran gamers of a few years, are loyal. But GW makes a lot of it's money from 13 year olds who are only into the game for a couple of years. In this case it's the hot new thing that sells, so every three months they release an even BETTER army and all the kids change their minds and buy the new models....

I agree, this way the people who jump on the bandwagon for the new army are just doing it for the models rather than a lack of tactical skill requiring them to have the free advantage that comes with the new slightly stronger update.

Edit: Aimed at OK's last post.

I think the reward of being a long-time 40k/WHFB player is being a good player.

I'd rather face off against a new player or an unskilled FOTM-Bandwagon-Jumper than a skilled player with any army. Except maybe Necrons, which brings me to my next point.

If you've been playing for a while you probably have more than one army. Odds are that at some point your codex gets updated and you already own the new Uber army. I have 5000 points of Necrons stirring in their tombs as we speak!

Yeah, yeah Dark Eldar players. We know.

Am with you on this Orky
As a newb to 40K I don't get it either.

As for selling well surely if the models are good enough, and it has been said that GW are primarily model based, then there would be no probs selling with balanced armies.

Also if the Armies were balanced it could be argued that they would sell more of the less popular ones.

Being cynical it looks like they constantly do this so they sell new rules books and codices and figures and...

There are some kids for sure that ust buy the models with no intention of playing. Inevitably it is the SM's. but again if they sell to this market whether the rules are balanced or not makes no odds, so they may as well be balanced.

Orky-Kowboy wrote:I stand corrected, but my central point still stands: why can't GW, as a concession to their fanbase, attempt to introduce more balance to their games? The fanbase is generally so loyal that it seems cynical to exploit us by constantly dangling the newest and latest uber-army in front of our noses. I mean, they have a captive market fer frag's sake! Treat us better, is what I'm saying.

Ive asked this question myself from time to time, and before the thread gets flamed i'll try and give you my interpritation. GW is a company in buisness to sell its minis. Its main income ive heard (though i have never seen a shread of proof) is thru young buyers, that get mom or dad to buy them an army. The young kids getting into the hobby are the target for GW's business statagy, and the Vets apperently dont bring in enough to be a consideration as they have already bought an army or 3, paints, brushes, etc.... with that said, why is GW apperently so blase towards the fans? because it doent factor in the fans we dont exist or are ignored inside of the GW buisness statagy. or we factor in to little to warrent considerations.
(or for a educated guess: doesnt want vets around to screw with the marketing stragety, ie: informing the young buyers about other mini companies, other products, the best armies, or the worst. think about it, would GW appretiate vets telling the perspective buyers of a new and improved army that its rules are weak? its models rubbish? no, the vets get in the way. we skew the numbers)
another point is to look at the game from the fluff, game play, side. all the armies work, but not everyone is able to win consistantly (ogres for example) the fans dont have any imput into making an army more hard or less so, so GW does what it feels will sell the army the best. that means rich background, purdy minis, and marketing stragity. i dout they go into it thinking about how winable or balanced an army will be when they revamp it. also there is no fan input during the revamping, this means that the development teams exist ina bubble when making a new codex or armybook. they dont see the Fans biting at the bit waiting and hoping that the next version is better than ever. and lets face it everyone has a different opinion about what they would like, its easier for GW to stay aloft and just get on with buisness, rather than trying to please anyone. i dout it would work even if they tried.
so really it comes down to what you think they should do for the fans and the reality of their business model. the 2 are vastly different for whatever reason.

I can't speak for WHFB's issues, but as for 40K, all of the codices designed with some inkling of the current 5th edition rules set (besides the Dark Angels) are IMHO pretty well balanced against each other. It is only some of the codices designed around previous iterations of the game that now suffer because the master rules changes in the game have negatively affected them.

I think this is perfectly natural to expect in any game that is slowly updated over the years with new rules slowly rolled out with each army release.


Now, as to why GW doesn't simply 'wipe away' all their codices/army books when they redo the core rules, it is because that concept is extremely unpopular with many gamers AND because a codex/army book is a tool to help sell an army. And even an outdated codex/army book with pictures and painting guides, etc is better tool to help sell an army than a master 'gets you by' army list for every race in a rulebook.


Such is the nature of the beast that has been created by such a large and expansive game that has constant revisions to keep gamers interested.

Warmachine was able to do it because they have relatively few factions so they were able to completely re-vamp every army at once and put an extreme rush on getting out the force books. Having their races split between two games (Warhmachine and Hordes) also allows them to split that revamp in two as well (which is what they're doing).

If Warmachine and Hordes continues to add armies to both their games they will reach a point where revamping the whole rules set as they've done with Mk2 probably won't be feasible again.

Hawkins wrote:

Orky-Kowboy wrote:I stand corrected, but my central point still stands: why can't GW, as a concession to their fanbase, attempt to introduce more balance to their games? The fanbase is generally so loyal that it seems cynical to exploit us by constantly dangling the newest and latest uber-army in front of our noses. I mean, they have a captive market fer frag's sake! Treat us better, is what I'm saying.

Ive asked this question myself from time to time, and before the thread gets flamed i'll try and give you my interpritation. GW is a company in buisness to sell its minis. Its main income ive heard (though i have never seen a shread of proof) is thru young buyers, that get mom or dad to buy them an army. The young kids getting into the hobby are the target for GW's business statagy, and the Vets apperently dont bring in enough to be a consideration as they have already bought an army or 3, paints, brushes, etc.... with that said, why is GW apperently so blase towards the fans? because it doent factor in the fans we dont exist or are ignored inside of the GW buisness statagy. or we factor in to little to warrent considerations.
(or for a educated guess: doesnt want vets around to screw with the marketing stragety, ie: informing the young buyers about other mini companies, other products, the best armies, or the worst. think about it, would GW appretiate vets telling the perspective buyers of a new and improved army that its rules are weak? its models rubbish? no, the vets get in the way. we skew the numbers)
another point is to look at the game from the fluff, game play, side. all the armies work, but not everyone is able to win consistantly (ogres for example) the fans dont have any imput into making an army more hard or less so, so GW does what it feels will sell the army the best. that means rich background, purdy minis, and marketing stragity. i dout they go into it thinking about how winable or balanced an army will be when they revamp it. also there is no fan input during the revamping, this means that the development teams exist ina bubble when making a new codex or armybook. they dont see the Fans biting at the bit waiting and hoping that the next version is better than ever. and lets face it everyone has a different opinion about what they would like, its easier for GW to stay aloft and just get on with buisness, rather than trying to please anyone. i dout it would work even if they tried.
so really it comes down to what you think they should do for the fans and the reality of their business model. the 2 are vastly different for whatever reason.

Well said and very true. Wish things were different, though.

Well, lately with the new 5th ed codices, they've been doing their best to remedy balance issues.

Not just that, but for games like 40k, balance is really a sidenote. I play Tau, and they're pretty much touted as being the second weakest army next to Necrons (not flaming 'crons or anything, just repeating what's been said). And I've played against and beaten pretty much everything out there (except DE Wyches and new BA) And how did I do it? Was it some kind of sick Tau weapon or unit? No. Part of it is understanding my army's limitations and capabilities and work with it and around it. The second part is knowing what you're up against and knowing their limitations and capabilities as well and exploit it. The third part is luck.

The point I'm trying to make is that army balance is irrelevant. Anyone who has a firm understanding of how their army works, is a decent tactician, and the dice favor, can potentially beat anything.

Though, I definitely wouldn't mind a new Tau codex soon.

40k is balanced. There are a couple codices on the weaker end of things (necrons, daemons, csm) but they can still compete. And you are always going to have slight imbalances. GW has been doing a very good job of this in the past year.

WHFB is starting to become balanced. There are still some older codices that need to be updated but when they are I have little doubt they will be brought up to par.

GW has become a gaming first company. It's just that they need a few years to update everything.

I would be willing to bet money that 8th ed for WHFB pretty much balances all armies again outside of 1-2 outliers that will need new books.

Treat us better, is what I'm saying.

I don't want to sound too bleak about it, but no big business gives a damn about any customer beyond what green that customer is willing to part with, and loyalty is just a cash extracting tool like any other, a point you illustrated perfectly already:

I love GW's games too much, as do most of the wargamers I know!

Such is life.

People griped about GW 20 years ago.
People gripe about them now.

There's your balance.)

But seriously, it's not nearly as easy as everyone thinks to 'just balance a game', and then put out new codices with new troop types, and updated rules. Do I wish there were some changes in the current rules? Yes. But I still like the game better than any other game that I've played.

And there's a huge thing to consider: Sales would suck in the year or so it took to 'balance the game'. Soon as word got out about Warmachine/Hordes going to a new system, sales dropped in half at my store. WM went down to nearly nothing for a couple of monhts, which is where Hordes is right now. No one wants to put money into an army/models when you don't know what the rules are going to be soon.

Warhammer 40k 5th edition = probably the most balanced ruleset GW has ever come up with
Warhammer Fantasy 7th ed = is suffering terribly from codex creep and daemonic infestation (lets see if 8th ed can fix that)

I think the new 40k codices have shown that GW can have exciting, seemingly over the top new releases that do not disrupt game balance (they may shift the meta-game but thats different). Of course, conversly, the newest Fantasy release (beastmen) has shown that they can put out some real dogs to (though again it might be better after 8th ed).

And it always amuses me that people try to point to Warmachine/Hordes as a shining light of game balance, where in my experience the previous edition was about as unbalanced as you can get and required a huge amount of memorization of all the games power units and their often unique abilities. While the new edition has fixed some of this it is still a game many models are essentially special characters and the list of universal special rules that everyone "needs" to know is several pages long. And any game that can end on turn 2 because of one mistake/miscalculation, I have a hard time calling balanced.

Orky-Kowboy wrote:I stand corrected, but my central point still stands: why can't GW, as a concession to their fanbase, attempt to introduce more balance to their games? The fanbase is generally so loyal that it seems cynical to exploit us by constantly dangling the newest and latest uber-army in front of our noses. I mean, they have a captive market fer frag's sake! Treat us better, is what I'm saying.

That would require a lot of time and effort. Loads of playtesting, which slows down the production time.

You may love GW's products. but GW doesn't love you. Love doesn't keep their lights on and more models being produced. Money does. So they'll take the money, because it allows them to exist, and your love they aren't really that interested in. It would be nice if you loved them, but that's more icing than a part of the cake.

The answer to the OP's question has more than sufficiently been answered so I really can't add anything to that. What I can add is that I still enjoy and have fun playing WH40k despite any balance issues.

I do not love the company which is why I won't part with $50 for a new set of Chaos Termies ($10 per plastic model is not appropriate imho). But I have fun modding, painting, and playing the game and the community that comes from playing the game. Sadly though, my reserves of unpainted models daily grows smaller...sigh...those CSM termies are starting to look like a deal. :/

P.S. edited so much because I can't think straight...

Orky-Kowboy wrote:It seems as if there's a constant debate going on about how unbalanced the various 40k and WHFB armies are. That they are unbalanced is pretty much a fact, though. Now, my question is: why do gamers even need to put up with this kind of thing? Apparently Warmachine/Hordes players don't have this problem; one army is as good as any other. That's fine, but I'm not ever going to play Warmachine. I love GW's games too much, as do most of the wargamers I know! So, why not reward our loyalty and give us more balanced armies, GW?

There seems to be a magic myth about "balance" within strategy games.

When you start bringing in abilities and mechanics that aren't simply just straight up numbers, you lose the ability to balance different forces versus each other.

Warhammer 40k involves too many variables to be able to fully balance, and "loads and loads" of playtesting isn't going to mean gak.

The only way you could balance the codex, rules ; game would be to write a program to generate 50% win/loss rates versus every basic mechanic. You would need a baseline stat, (Marines), and everything would have to be sufficiently point-costed relative to how well they would perform against marines.

Then you have issues of cover *sometimes* being had, user error in movement (The average turn an unmounted assault unit arrives at an enemy unit 24 inches away for assault is turn 3 running), critical fails [1] always being misses throwing off math and the like.

I don't have any faith the Company, let alone any of you reading this thread could *actually* balance the books even just based on hard numerical values. DO you think GWS is even remotely that dedicated to achieving balance? Or even capable of actually pulling off such a herculean feat?

My personal opinion is : 40k is balanced. Every Codex has units and the capacity to deal with anything else the other books have.

Extreme examples don't invalidate that claim. Some parts are weaker than others, and some stronger but for the most part the win rates between two players of similar skill don't deviate wildly. Regardless of army.

(my opinion)

GW is a model company, they pretty much lost contact with the actual gaming community. so it is obvious that they promote codex creep to keep the kool aid drinkers stocked with the newest, prettiest and "ardest" models.

What does balence mean to the OP?

What does it mean to you?

There are many different opinions of what "Balence" means to the Game community.

I don't think I want a standardized, across the board dumbing down of the armies. There are enough out there that they all need to be different in thier own way.

NOW then....

You figure out what armies they are, make it know to the whole player base, ands support them as such, and that will fix a large batch of the prevailent issues out there.

There's a lot of good points being made here, perhaps somewhat surprisingly. As for me:
-yes, I think the Codex creep is real
-yes, I believe that the reason for this is GW targeting kids with big allowances as their main source of income, veterans be damned
-for the most part, no I don't think the unbalance is quite as rampant as people think.

Any veteran who doesn't believe kids are the major market factor need only spend some time in the stores in my area.

The now defunct GW was constantly filled with munchkins with thousands of points of models and not a single pot of paint among them who spent more time talking about what they were gonna buy when mommy and daddy picked them up than what their units were doing that turn.

The LGS is like the graveyard for armies of munchkins passed. When mommy and daddy eventually rebel against the amount of money they're expected to spend every time Timmy's WH ADD kicks in, the owner's there to come to their rescue, buying their old armies for about what it would cost to buy one new unit.

I'd say this is a perfect setup for anyone who plays an army more than a few months old, but he sells the old, terribly assembled and painted models for pretty much the same price as new stuff.

As far as balance, I'd put my money on the skilled player with an out of date list over the kid with the latest super-army any day. Take all the OP units you want, not knowing how to use them properly usually ends in failure and humiliating, tear-filled losses.

Do people really think it's that easy to "balance" a complex game like 40K? Do people who make these complaints have any idea how hard it is to reconcile assault versus shooting? Weapon ranges, strengths, AP, rate of fire? Number of attacks with all potential combinations of special characters, skills, wargear? Accounting for the effects of dozens of special rules that tweak the basic gameplay? Vehicle armor and damage tables versus toughness/wound/save? Making a point system "consistent" when you have everything from a gretchin to a C'Tan and everything in-between? All this for a game settled by d6 rolls? Accounting for widely different army styles and how they interact with other units in their forces?

The point is that there are an impossibly large number of factors to consider try to balance through point costs for simple "fairness," and then also having to account for the different attitudes of potential players, the casual gamer, the fluff hobbyist, the min/max powergame tourney player. You can't balance it all and please everyone. It's impossible. Some stuff will invariably be over-powered, under-powered, and just right, and the hope is that the net result of a given codex is that, overall, it ends up within an acceptable range of all right. The vast majority of them do this, and if there are tiers, it's because how certain army combos work at different point levels and how each person perceives it based upon what they have played against. I'm convinced that most armies are, on paper, relatively close to each other, but that when people compete on different levels, one being a casual gamer another a curb-stomping power gamer, it gives the impression that one army is broken and other weak. Not the case. It comes down to general, luck, and matchup, probably in that order. I've seen enough good players of most army types to know this is the case, at least in my experience.

If it's so hard to balance, why not make the game less complex? Quit making special rules that defy logic so that little Johnny will rush right out and buy the newest do-dad that you purposefully designed as an OP, rule breaking, monster so that they would rush out and buy it.

Oh wait, it's GW and they're a company and they want little Johnny's money. They'll keep writing rules and then making units to break those rules as long as little Johnny's parents have money.

I belive its because there portraying real lilfe. Real life there is no Balance between armies.

Legion wrote:

Treat us better, is what I'm saying.

I don't want to sound too bleak about it, but no big business gives a damn about any customer beyond what green that customer is willing to part with, and loyalty is just a cash extracting tool like any other, a point you illustrated perfectly already:

Business does care, but as they get larger and their customer base gets louder and larger the ability of the customer to communicate discontent is diluted. The fact an individual doesn't like how GW chose to balance elements of a new codex shouldn't ruin the fun of other people who enjoy the rest of it. Because a company has to consider the entirety of its customer base unhappiness has to be overwhelming. Its only in that situation that a company can react. I think the real problem is that players have an unrealistic expectation of GW and gaming companies. Players should only expect something to be playable, beyond that it is a personal judgement on quality and your choice to buy. If it was good enough for you to buy and you then make demands on balance and GW support you're asking for more than you paid for. From GW's perspective asking for additional FAQ and support is no different than asking for a free miniature. It costs them money. Game balance is much the same way, from their perspective, the effort and cost it takes to "balance" the game becomes disporportionately higher as you attempt to get more "balanced" so they instead settle for a less finanically destructive threshold for balance. GW doesn't shoot for the player expected "balanced" game, they shoot for balanced enough.

agnosto wrote:

Oh wait, it's GW and they're a company and they want little Johnny's money. They'll keep writing rules and then making units to break those rules as long as little Johnny's parents have money.

Do you really want a game where you just set up two lines of troops, one shooting and one close combat - and then over the course of 3 turns remove models from the assault troops while the shooting ones stand still. Then on turn 3-4, start removing shooting troops for the rest of the game?

It's either we want varied game-play and different mechanics, or we just flip a coin to see who wins?

Given the complex nature of any game such as this (as Skarboy helped point out), don't you think GWS has done a damn good job at it? I bet you they don't even have professional play-testers, or budget for them and all their testing are developers getting in pick-up games.

I'm no GWS apologist, and I don't fully subscribe to the idea that it's our job as players to fix problems with the game with houserules, but considering everything - you either enjoy the game as it is or you're in the wrong hobby.

For what they are, I personally think the rules are fine.

Orky-Kowboy wrote:It seems as if there's a constant debate going on about how unbalanced the various 40k and WHFB armies are. That they are unbalanced is pretty much a fact, though.

Huh? While WFB is a mess, 40k isn't too bad.