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With all this talk about the eldar codex, and discussions about what would happen to the tau one, I thought I'd throw my $0.02 out there.


The easiest way to fix this within your gaming groups is to not be horrible to each other. Agree with each other not to run "broken" lists. The point of this game is for the enjoyment of all, so lets make it that way.


I play tau, always have. With the advent of the 6th addition codex, I saw a lot of anti-tau hate, especially once the more broken combos were discovered (riptide+buffmander, taudar, ect.), but that never really happened with my group. Because we realized as a group that those sorts of lists make the games less fun for everybody. The person who is playing them and the person who is against them.

We've do this with MTG all the time. Some of the people who play with my group go to big tounements, and have some decks that can kill you in 3 turns, but they don't use them against people who's decks aren't as good. There are some extremely broken rules in MTG (a good dredge deck is practically unstoppable in the right hands), but that is fun for no one.


Having no chance at winning is just as boring as having no chance at loosing. If we, as a community, just don't build these borken lists, than we can all enjoy this game we love so much.


And there you have it. My probably poorly thought out, possibly too rational to ever be accepted, answer.

Unfortunately, not everyone is reasonable in pick up games.

I don't think you'll find friendly games are the problem...

People have rather wildly differing definitions of "reasonable".

Unfortunately, with 40k, it's also not as easy to adjust armies as it is a deck with MTG. With Magic, most cards are a few cents, maybe a couple of bucks. With 40k, units are $25-150 each and have an intensive investment of time and effort in painting, and swapping units and list builds isn't super easy for everyone.

 Vaktathi wrote:
People have rather wildly differing definitions of "reasonable".

I think this is the crux of matter. Is it reasonable if your army has a 95% chance of winning? 92%? 87%? Obviously this is tough to calculate, but self-nerfing doesn't do much good unless the OP codex player has a good chance of losing. IMHO, the stronger army should only have a 67% chance of winning, or less.

If Humans were capable of being decent to each other on a regular basis, then our history would be written quite differently.

The biggest problem with this concept is forgetting two factors; firstly the average human being isn't always that decent, but more over the power players who jump for this kind of codex don't always release what they are doing to their opposition, because they find sole enjoyment in the hoppy by winning, and someone else crippling there capabilites to hinder this is the one being inconsiderate

 Vaktathi wrote:
People have rather wildly differing definitions of "reasonable".

This.

OP, your post is not too rational, but then again, understanding different people enjoy things differently is probably too rational for you.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
People have rather wildly differing definitions of "reasonable".

This.

OP, your post is not too rational, but then again, understanding different people enjoy things differently is probably too rational for you.

Sure, but there is no need to be rude

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
People have rather wildly differing definitions of "reasonable".

This.

OP, your post is not too rational, but then again, understanding different people enjoy things differently is probably too rational for you.

Sure, but there is no need to be rude

If you're referring specifically to my comment, then understand that its literally the exact same thing you put at the end of your post.

If its about the general attitude of be nice to your opponent, then sure, but its such a vague thing to define that so long as both players agree, then you're good. The problem, however, is getting to that agreement if both players have a different understanding of what fluffy, fun, or casual means.

In other words, its all well and good to post online and say 'Just be nice!' as a way to work around the broken codices/units, but the reality is that many people will either be turning down games, or playing one sided games where one of the players is not happy.

Different strokes and all that.

The gray area of 'rational' and 'irrational' is too wide and the power levels between codexes are too large.
That's why if the codexes were better balanced, the gray area wouldn't be so wide and there wouldn't be so many problems. "Close enough" is often good enough. But that's hard to do now.

 Rippy wrote:
Unfortunately, not everyone is reasonable in pick up games.

Pretty much. Not everyone has a stable group of cool people to play with. Never mind competitive play, clear rules and game balance are critical even for casual play between players who aren't familiar with each other. People are pissed at the unbalance that currently exists in 40k because it makes for very one-sided pickup games. If I show up at my FLGS with my fluffy Saim-Hann list, I can just effortlessly stomp players. If I show up with my fluffy Thousand Sons list, I get stomped right back. That's a problem even for a Beer & Pretzels game.

What's with the super preachy mood on Dakka lately? I've never seen so many people pontificating about the most idiotic stuff. Like there is some sort of moral crisis because an OP codex was released. It's completely off-putting. Sign of the times, I guess.

 Silverthorne wrote:
What's with the super preachy mood on Dakka lately? I've never seen so many people pontificating about the most idiotic stuff. Like there is some sort of moral crisis because an OP codex was released. It's completely off-putting. Sign of the times, I guess.

It's because I'm secretly the pope.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Silverthorne wrote:
What's with the super preachy mood on Dakka lately? I've never seen so many people pontificating about the most idiotic stuff. Like there is some sort of moral crisis because an OP codex was released. It's completely off-putting. Sign of the times, I guess.

It's because I'm secretly the pope.

Pope? Religion? Reasonable? What mockery is this?

The only way a game can be "fair, fun, balanced, polite" is by using my superior intellect and making two armies with the understanding my opponent can pick either one he likes.

Unfortunately, I am not allowed to pick models for my opponent so I will never have the game I would want with a GW product.

So we are down to what each person deems "acceptable", it is a bit like herding cats as others have pointed out so well.

OP, I agree with your intent, what others have pointed out is some people like to ratchet up the challenge and tend to get disappointed when their opponent is only looking for a narrative.

Maybe you have better luck, but I HAVE NO IDEA how competitive or how much to nerf my force to play a stranger and try to get a close game.
The pushy little voice in me says "Shoot for a win! " while the nice "why can't we get along?" voice says "Make it fun! Winning is not that important! ".

This is about when Peregrine can step in and say it should not be up to us if GW can make decent rules... which they are too "inept" to do.

 DanielBeaver wrote:
. Never mind competitive play, clear rules and game balance are critical even for casual play between players who aren't familiar with each other.

Moreso, IMO.

At least in competitive play, you have an impartial adjudicator to keep things straight, and where things are particularly broken they can potentially be 'fixed' before any models hit the table.

That's not the case in casual pick-up games. You're at the mercy of your opponent's attitude to the game, and that's something that is quite often not apparent until you're already playing. It sucks when you have an otherwise enjoyable game that suddenly takes an unexpected southwards turn when you discover at the bottom of turn 5 that you both have very, very different ideas on how something should work that makes a massive difference to how the game plays out.

 Silverthorne wrote:
What's with the super preachy mood on Dakka lately? I've never seen so many people pontificating about the most idiotic stuff. Like there is some sort of moral crisis because an OP codex was released. It's completely off-putting. Sign of the times, I guess.

Just wait till the annual report comes out in a few months.

The problem is that with Eldar you can be the nicest guy in the world, make a list that doesn't spam the overly powered units, and still have a better than fair chance of stomping your opponent.

I think you'd have to be spamming Storm Guardians on foot without any support, in other words deliberately throwing the game, in order for some armies to have a chance.

Now I don't play Eldar, but if I did (prior to this Codex) it would have been a Saim Han Windrider host. The imagery of an army so fast is its major selling point. Now, a player would have to deliberately limit themselves in order to not engage in a one sided beatdown.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

I play tau, always have. With the advent of the 6th addition codex, I saw a lot of anti-tau hate, especially once the more broken combos were discovered (riptide+buffmander, taudar, ect.), but that never really happened with my group. Because we realized as a group that those sorts of lists make the games less fun for everybody. The person who is playing them and the person who is against them.

This all sounds fine and easy solution for everyone, until you go beyond a cursory glance.
Just bought a model/unit and spent the time painting and modeling it nice and now want to field it? You need permission to use it.
If you tell someone they can't, you'll probably feel like a jerk for ruining their fun. If you tell them they can use it, now you have to face units you don't want to.

With Tau specifically I've seen hate for EVERY staple unit.
So if I want to play a game that will appease someone I can't have a pre made list. I can expect to be told I shouldn't take a buffcommander, Triptide, Riptide, FW Tides, Broadsides, Firewarriors, or Pathfinders/Markerdrones or any combination thereof.

I'm not even joking, look up the threads. You'll see hate for how broken JSJ is and how a psykerless army doesn't deserve buffs to their nearly armywide BS3.

90% of the problems with this or any game can be solved by playing with a good group of likeminded people. I've almost never dealt with any of the flavor of the month queso in my gaming group, and those guys tended to tone it down next time after realizing they were using some overpowered stuff. I've dealt with some of that stuff in tournaments but generally even there I've played against friendly folks who just want to take their favorite army out for a few games, and they're not out to cut any throats.

Someone just suggested you be nice to each other. Good job nailing him up boys.

Mustela wrote:
Someone just suggested you be nice to each other. Good job nailing him up boys.

Well, he did imply people were too stupid/crazy to understand the concept with the last line in the OP. That probably set things on this whole course.

Mustela wrote:
Someone just suggested you be nice to each other. Good job nailing him up boys.

That's cute, but the point was that his suggestion doesn't solve the problem.

Look at the 'pickup' thread down the page. We apparently disagree substantially on what is 'reasonable'.

Its certainly possible. My meta does it. All the time. But it doesn't seem like its possible when reading these boards.

 JimOnMars wrote:
I think this is the crux of matter. Is it reasonable if your army has a 95% chance of winning? 92%? 87%? Obviously this is tough to calculate, but self-nerfing doesn't do much good unless the OP codex player has a good chance of losing. IMHO, the stronger army should only have a 67% chance of winning, or less.

It's reasonable if and only if your army has roughly a 50% chance of winning, presupposing that we don't take player skill into account. That's what the points system is supposed to effect.

I'm all for it. I recently sent an email to my gaming group if they wouldn't mind allowing me to run the wraith host detachment with 2 wraithlords instead of lord and knight. I'm an Iyanden player but i also understand how nasty the knight is for the points and don't want to always put him on the table. This gives a reasonable alternative and just happens to hit 1000pts exactly. So now I just need to figure out how to expand to 1500pts with harlequin additions. The games should be more fun and I still get to use my Iyanden formation.

Bharring wrote:
Look at the 'pickup' thread down the page. We apparently disagree substantially on what is 'reasonable'.

Its certainly possible. My meta does it. All the time. But it doesn't seem like its possible when reading these boards.

Reasonable is an inherently subjective word. Games like this need objective boundaries, not subjective.

bullyboy wrote:
I'm all for it. I recently sent an email to my gaming group if they wouldn't mind allowing me to run the wraith host detachment with 2 wraithlords instead of lord and knight. I'm an Iyanden player but i also understand how nasty the knight is for the points and don't want to always put him on the table. This gives a reasonable alternative and just happens to hit 1000pts exactly. So now I just need to figure out how to expand to 1500pts with harlequin additions. The games should be more fun and I still get to use my Iyanden formation.

An alternative is that you could take the wraithknight, but purposefully run your list at 50 less points (950 instead of 1000), to make up for the undercostedness of the wraithknight.

 Crimson Devil wrote:
If Humans were capable of being decent to each other on a regular basis, then our history would be written quite differently.

This is how I feel about the matter being discussed. But sadly not everyone that one will meet while gaming is going to be reasonable and willing to take anything but a TFG list