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It's the time again - how did the balance patch do? We're two weeks in, which means most games should be transitioned.

First the armies who won a GT:
IK
Necrons
Sisters
BT
Tau
Thousand Sons
Deathwatch
Sisters
BA
DA

Of the armies who didn't get any updates:

Daemons - 47% WR
GSC - 58% WR

Tyranids came in at 60% so seemingly not over-nerfed.
Admech improved to 39%, but is still potentially struggling.
Guard hit 43%, which is a big improvement.
Necrons only hit 46% despite their really strong secondaries.

BT, UM, WS, and IF all slumped into the 20s. Maybe they were getting held up by Oaths?

I've played one game with the balance patch, but it was Iron Hands successors vs Space Wolves successors, so the balance patch didn't effect our game so much. The removal in 'To the Last' was a huge benefit for my Wolfspear though, as my opponents army was built for that.

My suspicion (may not apply to the die hard, who are 20+ games deep and a mountain of mathhammer already) is that the secondary situation is confused and will need some refining before its clear how that's impacted faction meta. I think there's a lot of depth here (because your secondary selection should impact your list, which impacts your secondary selection, which...) but its hard to have a handle without experience.

I.E. kind of feel my DE are a bit worse than they were due to the changes. Still okay as a whole, the goodstuff is still the goodstuff, everything is fast etc - but its just harder to get VP than before. But that may be a case of changing secondaries around and getting used to it. Herd the Prey is probably dead now. (I mean you can probably get 10 points on it unless you are getting stuffed - but I'm not sure if that's enough.)

Clearly there's something odd because you've got the pros claiming Sisters are so broken, "pls don't nerf into the ground GW" etc getting only a 53% win rate (and 2 tournament wins - but still). Meanwhile Tyranids were meant to be a "good, not great" faction, but have that 60% win rate.

GSC & Daemons are interesting given how much the pros - and forums - have generally said they are completely screwed - but lo, 58%/47% win rate over a small but not that small number of games. Not clear they can reliably go the distance in a major tournament, but it would suggest they aren't auto-lose trash versus everything.

You could make the subject heading a little less... vague.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
You could make the subject heading a little less... vague.

Whoops...brain did it, but my hands did not - fixed!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Tyel wrote:
My suspicion (may not apply to the die hard, who are 20+ games deep and a mountain of mathhammer already) is that the secondary situation is confused and will need some refining before its clear how that's impacted faction meta. I think there's a lot of depth here (because your secondary selection should impact your list, which impacts your secondary selection, which...) but its hard to have a handle without experience.

I.E. kind of feel my DE are a bit worse than they were due to the changes. Still okay as a whole, the goodstuff is still the goodstuff, everything is fast etc - but its just harder to get VP than before. But that may be a case of changing secondaries around and getting used to it. Herd the Prey is probably dead now. (I mean you can probably get 10 points on it unless you are getting stuffed - but I'm not sure if that's enough.)

Clearly there's something odd because you've got the pros claiming Sisters are so broken, "pls don't nerf into the ground GW" etc getting only a 53% win rate (and 2 tournament wins - but still). Meanwhile Tyranids were meant to be a "good, not great" faction, but have that 60% win rate.

GSC & Daemons are interesting given how much the pros - and forums - have generally said they are completely screwed - but lo, 58%/47% win rate over a small but not that small number of games. Not clear they can reliably go the distance in a major tournament, but it would suggest they aren't auto-lose trash versus everything.

Yea, Sisters took the largest share of the top 5, but has "only" 53%. They're the third most played behind Crons then Nids.

It's going to be really difficult to decouple army power from scoring power now. Necrons seem super strong with all the crazy rerolls, but ultimately those lists are really light on units and it might just be the ease of secondary scoring that gets them the wins.

With the small data set I imagine there were people who managed to dodge bad matchups so the next few weeks will be interesting.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh also honorable mention to Iron Hands at 60%.

I've only played two games with Nephilim. Based on the changes, I opted to dust off the Necrons. I faced the new Chaos Marines and won one and lost one.

Necrons are much more interesting to play. Of note, I don't have the Silent King model. Warriors and Immortals are still really bad, but the change to Protocols and Secondaries have created very interesting games.

My Grots have had three Nephilim games. 2wins/1loss
The changes to them were:

A slight re-organization detachment wise because of the CP loss.
Opponents insisting that my Kustom Jobz were now free. Ok....
The dumb rule about transports auto-destructing if deployed empty
The addition of 3 Runtherdz to solve the above problem - in the event that I decide the grots should start the game deployed on foot. Unlikely choice, but I greatly resent deployment choices being arbitrarily forced upon me.

The changes to my secondaries didn't really effect these three games on my end.
I know how they effected my two SM opponents.
They might have changed something for the Tau I lost to. But I'm not familiar with how his secondaries worked originally & a handful of secondary points wasn't really how he was winning the game....

Yeah I notice that for the most part those topping armies don't NEED Warlord Traits and Relics since they're just icing on the cake. Knights would definitely be the exception to it.

A little more time has passed.

This past weekend we had the following winners:

Ynnari
Necrons
Iron Hands
CW x 2
Sisters
DE
Nids
Harlies
GK
Night Lords

GSC average 50% with this past weekend at 59%.
Daemons @ 45% / 50%.
CSM seems to be settling in fairly well at 52 / 47, which only Bile and perhaps EC being on the sort end of the stick.
Mechanicus and Guard still suffer ( good evidence that giving CSM W2 earlier would have done nothing for the faction if even these factions can't float with the buffs given ).

The Necron domination hasn't arrived despite the pretty good run they had the prior weekend.

So, what is everyone here seeing? Any AM / Guard players with insight? Is it missions or something else?

Sort of unrelated but are people really okay with what is likely 6-month total shakeups to appease competitive players that will inevitably trickle down to any form of Matched Play? Especially when it's in a $50 book (pirating aside)? Most of this edition's direction seems to be making it 40k: ITC Edition

Wayniac wrote:
Sort of unrelated but are people really okay with what is likely 6-month total shakeups to appease competitive players that will inevitably trickle down to any form of Matched Play? Especially when it's in a $50 book (pirating aside)? Most of this edition's direction seems to be making it 40k: ITC Edition

I don't like the amount of change necessary to get us here. I do hope they learned enough from the process to prevent shake-ups like this. Obviously stuff like Necrons will require a whole new codex ( yay, $$$ ), but my expectation of GW is that they won't have to do this as much. Whether or not that happens...

Wayniac wrote:
Sort of unrelated but are people really okay with what is likely 6-month total shakeups to appease competitive players that will inevitably trickle down to any form of Matched Play? Especially when it's in a $50 book (pirating aside)? Most of this edition's direction seems to be making it 40k: ITC Edition

Nope. Not at all.
I do not like the rules shifting every couple of months. Not via these "Seasons", nor through half-baked balance patches & FAQs full of nonsense.

Fortunately I do not play tournaments. And the default at the local shops seems to be that you have to specify if you want to play a game with Nachmund/Nephlim/etc tourney pack rules. Otherwise it's base game.

The Nephlim pack was flat out rejected in the planning session for our current Escalation League.
It was put to a vote. It wasn't even close.

Lucky. I started going to a new store with a fairly inexperienced player base, and everyone thought Nephilim was the default until I pointed out that there's a difference between data slate updates (e.g. AoC) and the GT missions. They thought if you wanted any of those updates you had to use Nephilim. Incidentally, the fact that GT Nephilim has updated secondary objectives which were NOT updated elsewhere, meaning if you aren't using them you're using potentially outdated rules, doesn't sit well with me at all.

Wayniac wrote:
Lucky. I started going to a new store with a fairly inexperienced player base, and everyone thought Nephilim was the default until I pointed out that there's a difference between data slate updates (e.g. AoC) and the GT missions. They thought if you wanted any of those updates you had to use Nephilim. Incidentally, the fact that GT Nephilim has updated secondary objectives which were NOT updated elsewhere, meaning if you aren't using them you're using potentially outdated rules, doesn't sit well with me at all.

GT missions pack is going to be a hugely different game now compare to without. Also narrative is no longer as balance bc some of the "army balance updates" moved out of the Army FAQs and into the Dataslate which is not meant for narrative or even basic match play (which is not the same as GT). Players are now legally to GW rules can play 2 completely different Match Play Games..... I really hate how they are doing all of this.

As far as the GT rankings, sure it might be better balance but it doesn't feel better to me. I feel like i am more stuck into a cookie cutter build now and have less resources for tactics or niche rules such as that additional oddity Relic or stratagem that isn't strong but can come in handy, Now I need to by hyper efficient no matter what with less options.

And for people talking about SOB, yeah the Win rate is lower than what one would expect, they are still very easy to get secondaries, being 53% seems about right for now, in time I think they will either go up to 56% or stay the same even lower bc more and more people are trying them without much practice or more and more are going to learn to play them better and win more often. Also people are building or learning how to deal with them. Just like necrons. Necrons right now are the army to beat, they can easily win a GT so players needs to be ready for them, which makes it harder for them to win. All my lists for Events right now are "I am going to fight Marines, Sob, Necrons, and some type of Aeldari, and maybe Necrons or SoB again" with that in mind Yeah those 2 armies win rates will not show how strong they are IMO, but when in the hands of a very skilled player you can see why people were afraid of them at first.

CWE has troubles with Secondaries but can still annihilate you, Quins are still very strong too. DE the weakest of the 3 can handle Sob and some Necron lists as well as Marines, meaning they are in an ok spot (but very hard on secondaries). Aeldari is still able to be good but requires more skill play than Necrons, Sob, and Marines.

I think Nephilim have mostly been sensible changes. Whether I'd be happy if they throw it all out in a few months is unclear. But I assume they won't actually do that and are instead looking at iterative changes.

I think it is sort of "tournament hammer" - but not for the reasons usually brought up. I feel the game today is explicitly "secondary hammer". You need to design a list with a plan (or preferably "plans", to vary with opponent) to get those secondaries. Its fairly easy I think now to build a list which has reasonable internal synergy, and therefore comparative mathhammer etc, but there just isn't an obvious trio of secondaries you can reliably score high on. So even if the dice & game go in your favour you can sometimes end up capping out at say 70~ VP and lose to someone more consistently ticking them off.

Or at least I think that's the major limiter on DE being much higher in the pecking order at the moment. Tau are in the same boat.

Tyel wrote:
I think Nephilim have mostly been sensible changes. Whether I'd be happy if they throw it all out in a few months is unclear. But I assume they won't actually do that and are instead looking at iterative changes.

I think it is sort of "tournament hammer" - but not for the reasons usually brought up. I feel the game today is explicitly "secondary hammer". You need to design a list with a plan (or preferably "plans", to vary with opponent) to get those secondaries. Its fairly easy I think now to build a list which has reasonable internal synergy, and therefore comparative mathhammer etc, but there just isn't an obvious trio of secondaries you can reliably score high on. So even if the dice & game go in your favour you can sometimes end up capping out at say 70~ VP and lose to someone more consistently ticking them off.

Or at least I think that's the major limiter on DE being much higher in the pecking order at the moment. Tau are in the same boat.

Its actually much harder for many armies (Including all Aeldari) to build into secondaries, its some armies like Necrons and SoB that has it easier. With the removal of TTL and Stranglehold, as well as making some others harder to get it is making it more difficult for some match ups, you need to be actively trying to really deny secondaries more than ever before and sometimes you are literally not allow to stop them (AKA SoB), they just ... well work no matter what. Its why Admech and many marines are doing so bad now. DE is a little luckier as they can basically get a better Assassinate (its assassinate with +1VP per unit killed in melee).

My army has a 20% win rate in Nephilim season so I'm just going to sit this one out and play 30k

I just find the desire to double down on the comp style to be silly. Like when they first had the idea I thought it was great, to finally make a hard line separating regular matched play from COMPETITIVE matched play, where you may want extra things on top for tournaments but not for every pickup game at a local shop.

Instead, surprise surprise, they conflated the two and basically still seem to think matched play is tournament play, when it's not i.e. all competitive play is matched play but not all matched play is competitive play.

Toofast wrote:
My army has a 20% win rate in Nephilim season so I'm just going to sit this one out and play 30k

You have a 20% win rate?
Or that's what others have achieved?

If it's the latter, why's that matter for wether YOU play?

Question for Daed et al who pay attention to this sort of thing - and depending on if the data is available - how large a proportion of the top lists are you seeing taking a Relic and/or Warlord Trait under this mission pack, and does it vary much by faction?

 Dysartes wrote:
Question for Daed et al who pay attention to this sort of thing - and depending on if the data is available - how large a proportion of the top lists are you seeing taking a Relic and/or Warlord Trait under this mission pack, and does it vary much by faction?

Almost everyone does and the investments definitely vary from list to list. I'll pull up some examples when I get a moment.

Nephilim made me drop GT packs altogether, if i ever need to pick secondaries i'll snap lol.

I've been playing exclusively Tempest of War and OPR these days (with a growing interest in other games like SW:Legions, Battletech, Malifaux, Horus Heresy)

 Amishprn86 wrote:

GT missions pack is going to be a hugely different game now compare to without. Also narrative is no longer as balance bc some of the "army balance updates" moved out of the Army FAQs and into the Dataslate which is not meant for narrative or even basic match play (which is not the same as GT). Players are now legally to GW rules can play 2 completely different Match Play Games..... I really hate how they are doing all of this.

Are you sure about the dataslate not applying to non-GT Matched? Because it says it's for universal matched play right at the top of the page....

Wayniac wrote:
Sort of unrelated but are people really okay with what is likely 6-month total shakeups to appease competitive players that will inevitably trickle down to any form of Matched Play? Especially when it's in a $50 book (pirating aside)? Most of this edition's direction seems to be making it 40k: ITC Edition

IMHO, a "seasons" approach is the thing that makes a persistent edition possible.

If you aren't going to use a "seasons" approach to support a persistent edition, you're better off not using seasons at all. You don't need two separate sources of churn.

Personally, I prefer seasons to hard edition resets.

ccs wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

GT missions pack is going to be a hugely different game now compare to without. Also narrative is no longer as balance bc some of the "army balance updates" moved out of the Army FAQs and into the Dataslate which is not meant for narrative or even basic match play (which is not the same as GT). Players are now legally to GW rules can play 2 completely different Match Play Games..... I really hate how they are doing all of this.

Are you sure about the dataslate not applying to non-GT Matched? Because it says it's for universal matched play right at the top of the page....

Sorry Correct, But its not for open or narrative (I miss remembered it).

PenitentJake wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
Sort of unrelated but are people really okay with what is likely 6-month total shakeups to appease competitive players that will inevitably trickle down to any form of Matched Play? Especially when it's in a $50 book (pirating aside)? Most of this edition's direction seems to be making it 40k: ITC Edition

IMHO, a "seasons" approach is the thing that makes a persistent edition possible.

If you aren't going to use a "seasons" approach to support a persistent edition, you're better off not using seasons at all. You don't need two separate sources of churn.

Personally, I prefer seasons to hard edition resets.

Ehm you will still have edition changes in 40k. Nothing changes except another book comes periodically to change imbalance to another form of imbalance

Exactly. This is just "how do we shake an extra $50 from our customers" approach. It's not a persistent edition at all. I honestly feel the seasonal approach to not work with tabletop. this isn't league of legends or Diablo.

PenitentJake wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
Sort of unrelated but are people really okay with what is likely 6-month total shakeups to appease competitive players that will inevitably trickle down to any form of Matched Play? Especially when it's in a $50 book (pirating aside)? Most of this edition's direction seems to be making it 40k: ITC Edition

IMHO, a "seasons" approach is the thing that makes a persistent edition possible.

If you aren't going to use a "seasons" approach to support a persistent edition, you're better off not using seasons at all. You don't need two separate sources of churn.

Personally, I prefer seasons to hard edition resets.

I'm so confused. Don't you not use the so-called seasons? (I.e. the Chapter Approved Mission Packs and rule changes?)

 Amishprn86 wrote:

ccs wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

GT missions pack is going to be a hugely different game now compare to without. Also narrative is no longer as balance bc some of the "army balance updates" moved out of the Army FAQs and into the Dataslate which is not meant for narrative or even basic match play (which is not the same as GT). Players are now legally to GW rules can play 2 completely different Match Play Games..... I really hate how they are doing all of this.

Are you sure about the dataslate not applying to non-GT Matched? Because it says it's for universal matched play right at the top of the page....

SOrry Correct, But its not for open or narrative (I miss remembered it).

I guess that makes my job simpler for Open Play games. But wow that's a huge swing for our various Necron players now. Damn.
We had a kid really love the changes and start Necrons after seeing a game with an always on Command Protocol. It really screws over folks with no Nobles (why the Royal Warden doesn't have it, I'll never understand).
We burned grocery money so the kids could get into 40k on a Recruit box.

It's just so weird these aren't positioned as actual errata/balance updates for the whole game. I mean, as I said I had new people confused that they weren't just part of the GT pack, to where they thought they had to use GT missions if they wanted to use these updates.