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I think we all can agree that competitive 40k is a mess right now. Harlequins are just bonkers and Tau/Custodes have to be brought down in line also, I don't think there is going to be any argument about that. But I am genuinely curious as to how many people are actually affected by the current tournament metagame.

Now, if you are a frequent tournament player you are obviously affected quite directly by this state of unbalance in competitive 40k, because everyone is there to win and is therefore trying to play the best, most abusive combinations possible to get an edge. I would only argue that most people who engage in this hobby and are actually playing, are not in the hyper competitive crowd who visit tournaments every weekend.

So my question is for these more casual players: do you actually face 9 voidweavers on a regular basis? Do people you play with mostly bring tooled up meta lists?

I am not trying to sugarcoat the current state of 40k by posing these questions btw, a balance patch is necessary. But I am still of the opinion that in a casual game, where both parties are trying to have a fun game with fun lists....there is still a lot of fun to be had in current 9th edition. The main thing I feel is that you have to engage and talk to people to make the game fun for both players, which I hope is a more positive message than the constant doom and gloom of competitive 40k these last months.

I play Harlequins, but I only play casually (I play other games like Infinity and ASOIAF in tournaments). For me, it's usually fine, because I run melee Twilight Harlequins anyway because that's what I want to do. I do get people who just go "Harlequins?! That's broken!" and essentially have the attitude that it's wrong for me to win a game.

I really like meganobz and am working on an ork army right now, but probably by the time my slow ass paints them it'll be a new edition and meganobz will suck.

My main opponent plays T'au and we did a couple of larger games vs my Deathwatch (Power with WYSIWYG). Needless to say, I got pasted in every single one. We moved onto a Crusade campaign and started off at 25 Power where I won my first game and again got pasted in the other two. That was about a month ago since we haven't had time to do our next game. T'au are very very good and I think the only unit that I haven't had an issue with is a single unit of Kroot. This opponent also has a very strong Necron army that also routinely annihilates me on the tabletop. I'm thinking this is possibly karma for me using Quad Mortars against Slaanesh Daemons for a large part of 8th where I was removing about 20 models a turn with just one unit.

I wish I could play more games, honestly, but I am not in a position to be able to do so… living out of boxes, my models and hobby stuff on the other side of Europe in shipping boxes waiting to be shipped… somewhere, looking like back to South Korea now, so that means driving back to Holland to repack into smaller boxes, prob have to leave stuff behind, give things away such as my airbrush compressor, probably less expensive to just buy a new one than ship this one, and paint booth… thing is heavy. Sad… but yeah, anyways,

If I was gaming then the so called meta would not affect me directly besides it being something for me to talk about at the gw store when I could and if back in Holland for a month or so will visit to watch others play a store event or something. Me, I tend to field what I have just finished painting plus… and as I am not into this edition much, small games like 500pts no strata no cp etc. If I had more time, I doubt that this would change, for me.

I was playing a double brother hood GK army, the way GW intended and advertised them to be played. Not being able to do it affteced me a lot.
Same with GW thinking that a 2pts drop fixs termintors in the GK codex.

I have a large number of DE, Eldar, harleqin, soups of those players, a much smaller group of factions. Mostly 1-2 players, and then some left over marine players, but they rarely play nowadays. On a regular basis the only people playing marines, both chaos or imperial, is me , one guy who plays DAs and one guy who plays BT. I have seen people playing other chapters in months. I don't think I have seen any people playing IG in 9th at all. Can't remember when last I saw someone play DG or 1ksons. There is also an ad mecha player and two ork players, but they only play games when there are events at the store. have not played them yet, as I don't want to pay entry fee to get farmed. So I would say I get impacted by the meta in a regular way.

Where I came from the tournament meta was also your casual meta.

You couldn't escape it.

My army got nerfed 4 times in 2 months while 4 of the most broken books ever printed get dropped.

There's a lot of anger there and it's entirely inescapable.

It also goes back 2 full codexes. With the exception of the new units, the 9th edition Sisters of Battle codex was a flat nerf on Sisters overall. Morvenn and Sacresancts just hid that fact.

So not only am I mad that my army is 100pts expensive for no reason, I'm ALSO mad that I can't use a strat to shoot inferno pistols out of deepstrike (despite multiple tau units having that capacity and WAY more firepower for FREE).

And that they changed a reduce AP by 1 aura to 'useless block of text that does nothing' at the same time they made custodes immune to mortal wounds.

And that they get rid of -1 AP on pistols and run and charge, but gave harlequins immunity to damage.

And that they eviscerated the exorcist, but made every tyranid monster almost impossible to kill.

And that they massively reduced out miracle dice generation, while also giving eldar BETTER miracle dice.

I acknowledge we have it better than a lot of other army but still, feth GW.

We have Custodes and Tau players in the local meta and playing games against either is not much fun. It's not just the power level. With Tau in particular, things just take forever to resolve due to the volume of dice.

Many armies feel like 8.5 SM did. That Codex was so overpowered it was difficult not to make broken armies with it. Tau and Custodes feel the same. It's like they're playing a different game to everyone else, so even the armies that aren't fully maxed out on all the broken stuff are still way too good.

We play neither competitive nor overly casual, people never discuss lists beforehand you just make yours and you'll see what you face once the armies hit the table.
The first time 9th felt a bit off was obviously my newer (DG) codex against the guys who still played 8th edition armies. But it seemed somewhat manageable after everyone got used to -1 dmg. Admech however was a real problem for a time because that codex just hit so hard. Again, we managed after a while though. But this time around with Tau I frankly see no hope for older/lesser powered Codexes. That book hits way too hard yet somehow also feels more durable then my own Death Guard. So even in a more casual setting these kind of high power level codexes are a problem. Older books just don't have the tools to deal with them/newer armies are priced waaay to aggressively.
Edit: Furthermore I'd like to add that especially with Tau, but with release Admech/DE too, the problems they cause in every level of play is partially because their lethality is just way to high. Even a more casual Tau list will annihilate half your army in a single turn if you are not careful. We play on pretty dense tables here but their mobility in combination with high fire (partially LOS ignoring) power is just way too much for other casual/fluffy lists too handle.

Karol wrote:
I was playing a double brother hood GK army, the way GW intended and advertised them to be played. Not being able to do it affteced me a lot.
Same with GW thinking that a 2pts drop fixs termintors in the GK codex.

I have a large number of DE, Eldar, harleqin, soups of those players, a much smaller group of factions. Mostly 1-2 players, and then some left over marine players, but they rarely play nowadays. On a regular basis the only people playing marines, both chaos or imperial, is me , one guy who plays DAs and one guy who plays BT. I have seen people playing other chapters in months. I don't think I have seen any people playing IG in 9th at all. Can't remember when last I saw someone play DG or 1ksons. There is also an ad mecha player and two ork players, but they only play games when there are events at the store. have not played them yet, as I don't want to pay entry fee to get farmed. So I would say I get impacted by the meta in a regular way.

I know this won't help you, because your meta is pretty toxic, but just a reminder that the double brotherhood squash is a matched play rule- in fact, if I'm not mistaken, it's actually a Nachmund Matched play rule, meaning RAW, it only applies to the missions from CA Nachmund 2022.

Crusade would solve your problem, as would the Tempest of War Deck, as would literally any other Mission Pack. I know you'll never find people in your area who are willing to play anything except the current mission pack, but if you ever do, you'll be fine.

If there was just 1 faction that would dominate with a very particular list it would be one thing. But at this point you have number of codex's that simply have better data sheets across the board.

Like gants have str5 ap1 as their base line core unit. And they're the "meh" unit of the codex.

Competitive play is part of this edition of 40k's very DNA. In infects everything, even the last vestige of pure creativity left in 40k, that being the terrain they design, and therefore is unavoidable.

But that's more on a macro scale.

On a more month-to-month level, the meta isn't as intrusive. I don't give a gak if Harlis are the hot gak right now. I know that Voidweavers are amazing. I know that having 9 of them is incredibly powerful. I own 3, and I don't intend to get any others. I don't care what the meta is for them.

My problem is when the meta begins to impact later publications, when GW "balances" later books based on the performance of prior books. That's when the meta rears its ugly competitive head.

Guard player. Pretty much just going to collect and paint exclusively what I want from here on out. Not sure what I'll do gaming wise; I just moved to a new area and I don't know how competitive people here are or aren't, nor whether there are any narrative players or campaigns.

Probably for gaming I'll see if I can get anyone here into Horus Heresy, given I have enough stuff to make multiple armies.

No impact what so ever, because two reasons:
a) We have basically every army in our circle and all people play at least 3 armies so variety is there
b) No one chases the Meta, e.g. no 3-4 weapon crisis, no 6+ Voidweavers. And if an army is just too much we just agree to tune it and move on.

For me the last part especially is the life save and best advice I can think of for starting any wargames, check your local situation and only start if it fits what you are looking for otherwise you will get frustrated very bad.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Competitive play is part of this edition of 40k's very DNA. In infects everything, even the last vestige of pure creativity left in 40k, that being the terrain they design, and therefore is unavoidable.

I know that you believe this strongly- you say it often. And I'm willing to hear more about why you believe it as strongly as you do, and I believe I'm open minded here- I could be convinced of this truth by a compelling argument. The tournament scene clearly determines everything about Matched play; you don't have to convince me of that- I'm already there.

But I honestly cannot see how the tournament scene really affects Crusade games. The missions have progressive scoring, which is common with matched, but secondaries don't score VP, there are at least some asymmetrical missions; power level is the default system for list building, so it's been updated what, once? Twice? It seems to me that it takes some of the importance out of list building- or at least makes it super quick and painless. Heck, completing the bespoke narrative arcs is way more important to Crusade than winning individual games.

And it's even harder for me to see how the tournament scene affects Open play.

Even the article you link - yes, there's a quote in there that says they made some of their decisions based on matched play, but really? The terrain being tall enough to block LOS for standard infantry models and having a clearly identifiable footprint is something I've done for all my home made terrain since 1989, so really, I think that's just a spin Warcom put on Fronteris because they want Matched players to buy it. Nothing in the article actually screamed matched to me at all.

And even if it did, how the hell does that impact me when I'm using scratch built scenery?

If I played in public, I'd probably be closer to seeing it the way you do, but I feel like so many people who post on Dakka feel like playing in stores with strangers is the only way to play the game and it just isn't. It may be the easiest; it may be the most convenient and for some people I'll concede that the alternatives may be difficult enough that it FEELS like that's your only option. But it really isn't.

Like I said in the beginning- there might be something you could say to change my mind- I'm genuinely trying to understand the POV... But I just can't see it.

This is a general thing that I wish more people took into consideration.

My biggest issue with the 40k community right now is it is full of people who play maybe once every 2 months, but who still consume a lot of information about how the game is played, mostly though sites like goonhammer. This leads to incredibly skewed views on what the game is actually like to play currently and an almost obsessive focus on statistics by people who, honestly, don't really play the game enough to have an informed opinion on it.

I remember a few months ago last year, I was having a talk with someone on discord and he was complaining endlessly about playing Necrons against things like DE/Admech/Orks. I offered some advice on the stuff I had found useful when playing vs those armies in practice games or at events and then he sheepishly admitted he had never played vs ANY of them. Apparently there weren't even any DE or Ork players in his local area and like 2 Admech (who didn't run 120 skitarii lists anyway). This of course doesn't mean those armies weren't a problem in the wider scope of things but if you'll never, ever, experience them and you're not playing in a tournament environment, why does it affect you so much? And even in cases where you may have some of those types of armies floating around, if you're not playing on the similar kinds of boards (GW Open or WTC style etc) then that MASSIVELY changes how the game plays. Try playing vs pre-nerf DE on boards where they couldn't hide 9 raiders and you'd be surprised how fast that list archetype could fold vs certain non-broken armies.

Like I said, this doesn't mean that bad design and balance shouldn't be addressed, but people really need to not let themselves get so negged out about things that don't directly affect them. Most balance issues can be avoided fairly easily, either because they're on relatively unpopular armies (Harlequins) or because they require such a huge monetary investment that the list archetype will basically not be seen outside of comp events (Lucius Horde or Ork Buggy Spam). Where this does fall down is popular armies that are universally strong, to the point that the player has to actively play bad to even things out. Custodes are sitting in this area right now; very easy to collect and paint, relatively popular, quite braindead-strong and difficult to deal with for most casual/average players. Marines end of 8th and the first part of 9th were the same. The Castellan was the same in 8th. You will face a deluge of these armies at events and then likely a deluge of them in your local PUG's or what have you. These are the types of armies that can not only push people away from tournaments but also regular games too because they can be impossible to escape from.

It's why there's still plenty of complaining about Custodes despite their event winrate being pushed down to 55% recently. It doesn't matter if Harlequins are depressing them in tournaments if you're showing up to your local for a game and there's multiple people there who just want to unga bunga 9 bikes forward into you and nobody within 100 miles has ever seen a Harlequin model IRL.

(and this is to say nothing of how fun it is to play vs certain lists/armies. DE Goodstuff from last year was still a relatively enjoyable game for people because there was still plenty of interaction and stuff dying on both sides. This is in stark contrast to something like Tau now which will remove half your army from behind obscuring and if they do over-extend or position themselves badly then they have Crisis suit squads that can eat an entire army's worth of shooting and come out of it unscathed anyway. Insane tankability, un-interactivity, hyper lethality and crazy mobility are all bad combos to be on the receiving end of and it's something a lot of the problem lists of the edition have had in common)

 Bosskelot wrote:
(and this is to say nothing of how fun it is to play vs certain lists/armies. DE Goodstuff from last year was still a relatively enjoyable game for people because there was still plenty of interaction and stuff dying on both sides. This is in stark contrast to something like Tau now which will remove half your army from behind obscuring and if they do over-extend or position themselves badly then they have Crisis suit squads that can eat an entire army's worth of shooting and come out of it unscathed anyway. Insane tankability, un-interactivity, hyper lethality and crazy mobility are all bad combos to be on the receiving end of and it's something a lot of the problem lists of the edition have had in common)

The first time you play DE it was this, you said oh this isn't too bad. The second time, you try some new ideas out, oh, the same score as before. By the end of the third time though you realise it is a pointless game, sure you get to kill some stuff, but you still spent 2.5 hours losing a game (rather than playing a game).

What affects me is that I'm tired of the lack of direction at GW rules team.

As someone said, they can release an entire codex which is mostly a nerf (sisters), and go on releasing broken as f*** codexes a minute later(drukhari, ad mech, tau, custodes...).

There is no direction, no one is supervising this Gak, and authors are left to design however they wish, instead of what's good for the game.

This is nothing new, GW has always been like this.but that s infuriating to think a 30+ year old company doesn't learn from past mistakes and keep on doing this power creep crap.

PenitentJake 804379 11337811 wrote:

I know this won't help you, because your meta is pretty toxic, but just a reminder that the double brotherhood squash is a matched play rule- in fact, if I'm not mistaken, it's actually a Nachmund Matched play rule, meaning RAW, it only applies to the missions from CA Nachmund 2022.

Crusade would solve your problem, as would the Tempest of War Deck, as would literally any other Mission Pack. I know you'll never find people in your area who are willing to play anything except the current mission pack, but if you ever do, you'll be fine.

No one plays non matched played games here. And from what I hear here and on other forums, aside for people that play crusade or some other sort of narrative/open games, matched played is more or less a given, same way rule of 3 was in 8th.

Try playing vs pre-nerf DE on boards where they couldn't hide 9 raiders and you'd be surprised how fast that list archetype could fold vs certain non-broken armies.

unless they go first. Plus it is a moot argument 9th, just like 8th requires a lot of terrain, because shoting is super deadly. People could probably take bad armies and if there was no terrain, and they went first, and the opponent wasn't siting on -1 to hit, -1 to dmg and/or inv save they would decimate the other side. But ain't the reality most people play. There is a ton of ruins, L shaped LoS blockers etc.

Karol wrote:

PenitentJake 804379 11337811 wrote:

I know this won't help you, because your meta is pretty toxic, but just a reminder that the double brotherhood squash is a matched play rule- in fact, if I'm not mistaken, it's actually a Nachmund Matched play rule, meaning RAW, it only applies to the missions from CA Nachmund 2022.

Crusade would solve your problem, as would the Tempest of War Deck, as would literally any other Mission Pack. I know you'll never find people in your area who are willing to play anything except the current mission pack, but if you ever do, you'll be fine.

No one plays non matched played games here. And from what I hear here and on other forums, aside for people that play crusade or some other sort of narrative/open games, matched played is more or less a given, same way rule of 3 was in 8th.

Fair enough, but wouldn't it be possible to for example arrange for one evening where everybody agrees to bring more fun and experimental lists instead of going for competitive meta lists, so that armies who are struggling right now get to have a more fun time?

We did just that at my group recently and it was great fun. I brought this list and while custodes are still strong, it felt far from oppressive:

Fair enough, but wouldn't it be possible to for example arrange for one evening where everybody agrees to bring more fun and experimental lists instead of going for competitive meta lists, so that armies who are struggling right now get to have a more fun time?

most people playing at the store play on weekends and friday. I am not sure they would agree. In 9th and in 8th in my prior store it was hard to get a new player event day going, because it was taking time away from people wanting to play the game the normal way. And in 8th we actually had a lot of new players, aside even our store closing, in the new one after most 9th being through, we had fewer then 20 new players. In 8th when I started the first new player event had 23 people who just started.

Is worth asking though. Not sure if it would brough back people that quit or stopped playing. In the end the main problem with changing stuff here is that most people own 2000pts of an army, maybe a bit more. Specially if they are a new player, so a technical option of switching stuff up isn't impacting much in practic. And this shapes how the meta game looks like, as it does cause people to not buy in to bad armies, bad models etc.

In my local club, we play based on what each other have. However, we have a very competitive tournament crowd in our area, where you will expect to see the meta stuff. We play into that and do our best.

The folk in my club are not those to chase the Meta, as we don't have the time or money to do that.

I've been playing harlequins for nearly ten years and I don't own a single Voidweaver. I'm not going to go and spend $600 and buy none more of them, they'll get nerfed anyway.

Typically, if I happen to own an army which is very strong in the meta, I'll take a break and play another of my 3 armies for a while. I don't like playing the same thing everyone else is.

I did ok using orks against people fielding tau and custodes, although I haven't faced skew lists or meta chasers. In fact not a single voidweaver in any of my games so far.

Haven't had the pleasure to play against eldar, pure harlequins forces aside, yet.

I'm in the unfortunate situation of my Tau army, bought from the units that I think are really cool before the Tau codex was even out, is particularly meta.
I've yet to have a game last beyond round 3 without my opponent conceding or even a wipe, often turn 2 and once even turn 1 because they just didn't have enough left.

It's not a fun position to be in, and I've felt obligated to buy more units that I'm not as interested in, purely so I can have some more interesting games.

PenitentJake wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Competitive play is part of this edition of 40k's very DNA. In infects everything, even the last vestige of pure creativity left in 40k, that being the terrain they design, and therefore is unavoidable.

I know that you believe this strongly- you say it often. And I'm willing to hear more about why you believe it as strongly as you do, and I believe I'm open minded here- I could be convinced of this truth by a compelling argument. The tournament scene clearly determines everything about Matched play; you don't have to convince me of that- I'm already there.

But I honestly cannot see how the tournament scene really affects Crusade games.

And it's even harder for me to see how the tournament scene affects Open play.

Frankly, Open Play is a mode I've never seen anyone actually play. It's also explicitly "there are no rules" so you can always just get away with saying "do whatever you want".

The problem with Crusade is similar to what I mention above. The disparity in power level between old and new books is so big you often feel like you're playing a different game as Blood Angels vs, say, Tau. It doesn't matter if you're using points or PL, the result is an unbalanced mess because the raw power of the newer lists is on a whole other level. You could argue that Crusade games aren't so concerned about winning, so much as they are about completing Agendas etc, but if the basic game you're playing is a constant feels-bad moment it's still a crappy experience.

PenitentJake 804379 11337866 wrote:

If I played in public, I'd probably be closer to seeing it the way you do, but I feel like so many people who post on Dakka feel like playing in stores with strangers is the only way to play the game and it just isn't. It may be the easiest; it may be the most convenient and for some people I'll concede that the alternatives may be difficult enough that it FEELS like that's your only option. But it really isn't.

Like I said in the beginning- there might be something you could say to change my mind- I'm genuinely trying to understand the POV... But I just can't see it.

So the initial buy in to playing w40k has to start with either buying a flat or house with sole intent to play w40k there, followed by getting friend to play with there ?

Yeah comparing to playing at the store or club, it very much does sound less easier. Basing the game around the less easier is not a good thing.
Because it starts to sound like Blackies description of how to get balanced and fun games in 9th. Play with a good codex, vs non meta game lists, not play against stuff that can't not be meta gamed . It is clearly possible to do to have fun, but it comes with so many ifs that it is not very realistic to expect to happen.

EightFoldPath wrote:

 Bosskelot wrote:
(and this is to say nothing of how fun it is to play vs certain lists/armies. DE Goodstuff from last year was still a relatively enjoyable game for people because there was still plenty of interaction and stuff dying on both sides. This is in stark contrast to something like Tau now which will remove half your army from behind obscuring and if they do over-extend or position themselves badly then they have Crisis suit squads that can eat an entire army's worth of shooting and come out of it unscathed anyway. Insane tankability, un-interactivity, hyper lethality and crazy mobility are all bad combos to be on the receiving end of and it's something a lot of the problem lists of the edition have had in common)

The first time you play DE it was this, you said oh this isn't too bad. The second time, you try some new ideas out, oh, the same score as before. By the end of the third time though you realise it is a pointless game, sure you get to kill some stuff, but you still spent 2.5 hours losing a game (rather than playing a game).

Or, if playing against DE is going to be a common enough thing, you adapt your list/playstyle....

 Bosskelot wrote:
This is a general thing that I wish more people took into consideration.

My biggest issue with the 40k community right now is it is full of people who play maybe once every 2 months, but who still consume a lot of information about how the game is played, mostly though sites like goonhammer. This leads to incredibly skewed views on what the game is actually like to play currently and an almost obsessive focus on statistics by people who, honestly, don't really play the game enough to have an informed opinion on it.

Really good post. I think this forum is particularly guilty of this, and I don't think it is a coincidence your post has been mostly ignored...

The monthly tournament at my FLGS is now won exclusively by Tau or Custodes (this next one will most likely be won by Eldar/Harlequins). My Black Templars went from winning events to 35% win rate before I even finished painting 2k points. I'll probably switch to Tyranids as they're quick to paint and look to be able to compete in the new meta. I just wish I could show up with my nostalgic power armor bois and have a chance at winning.

I have a suit heavy Tau army I can't really play in my clubs casual setting without stomping over most, or having to severe handicap myself (fortunately I have other armies to play)

And one of my regular opponents plays CWE. While he doesn't play 'meta' lists as CWE they are still very strong.
And other plays meta Custodes.

So yes, the imbalance in 40k effects me.