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Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Galas wrote:
As an ogre/minotaur player in fantasy/aos and custodes in 40k I'll admit that I love my infantry with a good bunch of wounds. And yeah, those armies work because they are the exceptions not the baseline. But whats the problem with the baseline of the game being heavy infantry with 2 wounds and squishy one with 1 (Ignoring all the variances , inmortals are 1w but in no way squishy), barring GW bad rules and codex release cicle?

Marines aren't the baseline though. Guard Infantry are since they're the regular folk. What you're confusing there is that the baseline = most popular.

Hmmm... No? Are gretchin the baseline because they are by fluff the most populous? In fantasy your baseline profile was T3 W1 because that was normal humans and elves and most stuff in the game, and also were some of the most popular armies. In warhammer 40k the medium is represented by Space Marines.

 Galas wrote:
The damage skew is avoided by point costs and having a more diverse range of statlines. Lucky for GW designers, models have wounds, toughtness and save to make enough varied profiles exactly to avoid the problem of one weapon being the best.
Sadly they have failed at that for 30 years so I doubt they will get it right this time.

They don't, though, not really.

Toughness doesn't matter. The wound chart is so simple that it's essentially irrelevant. T5, T4, whatever, I'm not worried about your toughness too much. My gun might go from a 4 to a 5, or a 2 to a 3, but that's not really going to change what gun I bring. The wound chart is far too simplistic to make toughness a truly significant factor. Look at the Fire Prism - one profile that's Strength 6, one that's Strength 9, one that's Strength 12. The AP goes up from -3, to -4, to -5. The damage goes from 1, to d3, to d6. You can't get too much more statistically variant than that. And do you know what the best profile is against all target types that exist in 40k? The middle one. Always better, no question. I don't need other guns.

AP doesn't matter either, because things have invuln saves. There are entire armies with invuln saves (harlies and Daemons), so any AP weapon is going to be overpaying against some target or another.

We're settling on a meta where the best gun is conveniently a Str 5+ multi-shot, low AP, D2+ weapon. I.e. we're settling into the 7th edition of mid-strength, high-ROF guns only this time there's a damage stat taped onto the side. Nothing's meaningfully different.

I would arguee low AP doesnt fly agaisnt 2+ marines in cover. But yeah, GW did a bunch of big changes to the game in 8th that they dont even understand all of their implications right now.

 Galas wrote:
I would arguee low AP doesnt fly agaisnt 2+ marines in cover. But yeah, GW did a bunch of big changes to the game in 8th that they dont even understand all of their implications right now.

You're right, I should've said mid AP (-2ish or so). But AP higher than -2 or -3 is largely wasted against many targets.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Galas wrote:
The damage skew is avoided by point costs and having a more diverse range of statlines. Lucky for GW designers, models have wounds, toughtness and save to make enough varied profiles exactly to avoid the problem of one weapon being the best.
Sadly they have failed at that for 30 years so I doubt they will get it right this time.

They don't, though, not really.

Toughness doesn't matter. The wound chart is so simple that it's essentially irrelevant. T5, T4, whatever, I'm not worried about your toughness too much. The wound chart is far too simplistic to make toughness a truly significant factor.

AP doesn't matter either, because things have invuln saves. There are entire armies with invuln saves (harlies and Daemons), so any AP weapon is going to be overpaying against some target or another.

We're settling on a meta where the best gun is conveniently a Str 5+ multi-shot, low AP, D2+ weapon. I.e. we're settling into the 7th edition of mid-strength, high-ROF guns only this time there's a damage stat taped onto the side. Nothing's meaningfully different.

AP is far from meaningless. ESP now with the reduction of 3++ saves. T is important but not important enough because str 5 can still wound T9 on a 5+. The real issue with T though is that GW was afriad to open the ceiling on higher T in game. T8 is pretty much the max on a unit under 900 points. There should be a lot more T9-10. Even T11/12 should exist and it should be added to units in the T8 range WITHOUT an increase in point costs. A lot of the str 9 and 10 weapons at that point would go up in str too. Make the gap bewetween str 5 and str 10 weapons more important.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Galas wrote:
The damage skew is avoided by point costs and having a more diverse range of statlines. Lucky for GW designers, models have wounds, toughtness and save to make enough varied profiles exactly to avoid the problem of one weapon being the best.
Sadly they have failed at that for 30 years so I doubt they will get it right this time.

They don't, though, not really.

Toughness doesn't matter. The wound chart is so simple that it's essentially irrelevant. T5, T4, whatever, I'm not worried about your toughness too much. The wound chart is far too simplistic to make toughness a truly significant factor.

AP doesn't matter either, because things have invuln saves. There are entire armies with invuln saves (harlies and Daemons), so any AP weapon is going to be overpaying against some target or another.

We're settling on a meta where the best gun is conveniently a Str 5+ multi-shot, low AP, D2+ weapon. I.e. we're settling into the 7th edition of mid-strength, high-ROF guns only this time there's a damage stat taped onto the side. Nothing's meaningfully different.

AP is far from meaningless. ESP now with the reduction of 3++ saves. T is important but not important enough because str 5 can still wound T9 on a 5+. The real issue with T though is that GW was afriad to open the ceiling on higher T in game. T8 is pretty much the max on a unit under 900 points. There should be a lot more T9-10. Even T11/12 should exist and it should be added to units in the T8 range WITHOUT an increase in point costs.

Eh? I mean, sure, I guess. But things like Meltaguns will then have to become strength 12 to meet their preferred targets (i.e. Land Raiders). I mean I guess it makes AT weapons more AT-y, but even in that realm, damage is far more important. Doubling the wounds on a Baneblade would make it far tougher IMO than doubling the toughness. Heck, quadrupling the toughness would be worse than doubling the wounds (well maybe that's a bit of hyperbole but still).

Wounds is really the most significant durability stat - arguably so much so that it drowns out the other stats.

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Galas wrote:
The damage skew is avoided by point costs and having a more diverse range of statlines. Lucky for GW designers, models have wounds, toughtness and save to make enough varied profiles exactly to avoid the problem of one weapon being the best.
Sadly they have failed at that for 30 years so I doubt they will get it right this time.

They don't, though, not really.

Toughness doesn't matter. The wound chart is so simple that it's essentially irrelevant. T5, T4, whatever, I'm not worried about your toughness too much. The wound chart is far too simplistic to make toughness a truly significant factor.

AP doesn't matter either, because things have invuln saves. There are entire armies with invuln saves (harlies and Daemons), so any AP weapon is going to be overpaying against some target or another.

We're settling on a meta where the best gun is conveniently a Str 5+ multi-shot, low AP, D2+ weapon. I.e. we're settling into the 7th edition of mid-strength, high-ROF guns only this time there's a damage stat taped onto the side. Nothing's meaningfully different.

AP is far from meaningless. ESP now with the reduction of 3++ saves. T is important but not important enough because str 5 can still wound T9 on a 5+. The real issue with T though is that GW was afriad to open the ceiling on higher T in game. T8 is pretty much the max on a unit under 900 points. There should be a lot more T9-10. Even T11/12 should exist and it should be added to units in the T8 range WITHOUT an increase in point costs. A lot of the str 9 and 10 weapons at that point would go up in str too. Make the gap bewetween str 5 and str 10 weapons more important.

It's almost as though GW doesn't actually understand the wounding chart they created


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Galas wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

 Galas wrote:
As an ogre/minotaur player in fantasy/aos and custodes in 40k I'll admit that I love my infantry with a good bunch of wounds. And yeah, those armies work because they are the exceptions not the baseline. But whats the problem with the baseline of the game being heavy infantry with 2 wounds and squishy one with 1 (Ignoring all the variances , inmortals are 1w but in no way squishy), barring GW bad rules and codex release cicle?

Marines aren't the baseline though. Guard Infantry are since they're the regular folk. What you're confusing there is that the baseline = most popular.

Hmmm... No? Are gretchin the baseline because they are by fluff the most populous? In fantasy your baseline profile was T3 W1 because that was normal humans and elves and most stuff in the game, and also were some of the most popular armies. In warhammer 40k the medium is represented by Space Marines.

Even if they're populous they're not the regular human.

They don't need to be a regular human to be the baseline. That just means regular humans are below the baseline.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I would arguee low AP doesnt fly agaisnt 2+ marines in cover. But yeah, GW did a bunch of big changes to the game in 8th that they dont even understand all of their implications right now.

You're right, I should've said mid AP (-2ish or so). But AP higher than -2 or -3 is largely wasted against many targets.

This is why I find calls for vehicles (like the monolith) to have 5+ invulns ridiculous. It just makes las cannons no more effective than missile launchers (barring the point of S vs T8). More tough models with higher toughness or 2+/1+ armor I think would be good, especially to make lighter firepower less likely to chip wounds and making dedicated anti-tank more necessary.

Ail-Shan wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I would arguee low AP doesnt fly agaisnt 2+ marines in cover. But yeah, GW did a bunch of big changes to the game in 8th that they dont even understand all of their implications right now.

You're right, I should've said mid AP (-2ish or so). But AP higher than -2 or -3 is largely wasted against many targets.

This is why I find calls for vehicles (like the monolith) to have 5+ invulns ridiculous. It just makes las cannons no more effective than missile launchers (barring the point of S vs T8). More tough models with higher toughness or 2+/1+ armor I think would be good, especially to make lighter firepower less likely to chip wounds and making dedicated anti-tank more necessary.

If marine metal boxes get them (impulsor), why shouldn't a hyper advanced Necron construct? This is the problem with the invuln paradigm. Invulns cheat people out of AP they paid for. And it makes the unit difficult to cost, and it makes high AP weapons difficult to cost.

I would arguee that what many people is saying, is that GW did some changes for 8th like the wound table changes (That is basically made to work with much bigger differences in strengh tand toughtness values) and damage stats, but then kept other stats unchanged, making a middle ground that doesnt work properly.

For example, with how the Wound table is made, you need strenght and toughtness values from 3 to probably 18, because the higher you go, the even bigger you need to be to make a difference. The old to wound table was enough for a much more limited system, and specially now with vehicles having the same statlines as normal units.

The same goes for wound values. With damage going from "always 1" to stuff like 1d6 damage, 1d6+2 damage, 1d3+3, or stuff like thunder hammers flat 3 damage, the changes to the wound values of most stuff was just insufficient. Specially for vehicles.

GW should decide, if they want small stats, they should go back to the old paradigms. But if they really want to continue the path they have started, they should abandon all past ideas and embrace the new systems they have implemented in their full power.

SecondTime wrote:

Ail-Shan wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I would arguee low AP doesnt fly agaisnt 2+ marines in cover. But yeah, GW did a bunch of big changes to the game in 8th that they dont even understand all of their implications right now.

You're right, I should've said mid AP (-2ish or so). But AP higher than -2 or -3 is largely wasted against many targets.

This is why I find calls for vehicles (like the monolith) to have 5+ invulns ridiculous. It just makes las cannons no more effective than missile launchers (barring the point of S vs T8). More tough models with higher toughness or 2+/1+ armor I think would be good, especially to make lighter firepower less likely to chip wounds and making dedicated anti-tank more necessary.

If marine metal boxes get them (impulsor), why shouldn't a hyper advanced Necron construct? This is the problem with the invuln paradigm. Invulns cheat people out of AP they paid for. And it makes the unit difficult to cost, and it makes high AP weapons difficult to cost.

Invunes should not exist (except for in melee and be rare). AP should be reblanced around that.

Shhh.... you'll attract the "5++ isn't a big deal!" crowd.

Never mind the fact that I'm sure that 5++ played its part in the rules for the eradicators.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Xenomancers wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Galas wrote:
The damage skew is avoided by point costs and having a more diverse range of statlines. Lucky for GW designers, models have wounds, toughtness and save to make enough varied profiles exactly to avoid the problem of one weapon being the best.
Sadly they have failed at that for 30 years so I doubt they will get it right this time.

They don't, though, not really.

Toughness doesn't matter. The wound chart is so simple that it's essentially irrelevant. T5, T4, whatever, I'm not worried about your toughness too much. The wound chart is far too simplistic to make toughness a truly significant factor.

AP doesn't matter either, because things have invuln saves. There are entire armies with invuln saves (harlies and Daemons), so any AP weapon is going to be overpaying against some target or another.

We're settling on a meta where the best gun is conveniently a Str 5+ multi-shot, low AP, D2+ weapon. I.e. we're settling into the 7th edition of mid-strength, high-ROF guns only this time there's a damage stat taped onto the side. Nothing's meaningfully different.

AP is far from meaningless. ESP now with the reduction of 3++ saves. T is important but not important enough because str 5 can still wound T9 on a 5+. The real issue with T though is that GW was afriad to open the ceiling on higher T in game. T8 is pretty much the max on a unit under 900 points. There should be a lot more T9-10. Even T11/12 should exist and it should be added to units in the T8 range WITHOUT an increase in point costs.

Eh? I mean, sure, I guess. But things like Meltaguns will then have to become strength 12 to meet their preferred targets (i.e. Land Raiders). I mean I guess it makes AT weapons more AT-y, but even in that realm, damage is far more important. Doubling the wounds on a Baneblade would make it far tougher IMO than doubling the toughness. Heck, quadrupling the toughness would be worse than doubling the wounds (well maybe that's a bit of hyperbole but still).

Wounds is really the most significant durability stat - arguably so much so that it drowns out the other stats.

You are right about wound totals. The sad truth of the matter is light guns are far too effective at killing tanks ATM and something needs to be done about it.

Many solutions possible.
Give anti tank weapons more d3+3 type profiles* vs vehicals/monsters
Increase T on mosnters/vehicals and str of anti tank weapons.
increase wound totals on vehicals/monsters.

bring back armor facings but leave off hull points because this was a solved problem in 4th and 5th

Nah nothing can be done.

The magic vehicle table was cancer, though.

I will also add that T5 W3 SV2+4++ custodes have not been a problem for 3 years. The balance problems around marines are not the statlines but the point costs associated with them, the durability and the damage output.

Now, if we talk about design paradigms and how the game should be designed, I believe we are too fast to say it should be one way or another. The reality is that both ways can work without a problem. The problem of course is GW.

 Galas wrote:
I will also add that T5 W3 SV2+4++ custodes have not been a problem for 3 years. The balance problems around marines are not the statlines but the point costs associated with them, the durability and the damage output.

Now, if we talk about design paradigms and how the game should be designed, I believe we are too fast to say it should be one way or another. The reality is that both ways can work without a problem. The problem of course is GW.

Because Custodes effectively don't shoot for their cost. They shoot a little, but that volume of fire can be ignored for the model cost.

SecondTime wrote:

 Galas wrote:
I will also add that T5 W3 SV2+4++ custodes have not been a problem for 3 years. The balance problems around marines are not the statlines but the point costs associated with them, the durability and the damage output.

Now, if we talk about design paradigms and how the game should be designed, I believe we are too fast to say it should be one way or another. The reality is that both ways can work without a problem. The problem of course is GW.

Because Custodes effectively don't shoot for their cost. They shoot a little, but that volume of fire can be ignored for the model cost.

You act as though Heavy Intercessors shoot well for their cost though.

I didn't say a thing about them. I haven't even contemplated that unit.

SecondTime wrote:
I didn't say a thing about them. I haven't even contemplated that unit.

Why you think people are complaining about the T5 W3 paradigm in this thread and others?

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

SecondTime wrote:
I didn't say a thing about them. I haven't even contemplated that unit.

Why you think people are complaining about the T5 W3 paradigm in this thread and others?

I thought it was mostly about 2W marines in general rather than 3W. I'm not happy about the Heavy Intercessors mind you but at least they seem to be somewhat more fairly priced than current Tacs and Intercessors.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:

SecondTime wrote:
I didn't say a thing about them. I haven't even contemplated that unit.

Why you think people are complaining about the T5 W3 paradigm in this thread and others?

I haven't seen that in this thread. Gravis is a different discussion to me.

Surely everyone's not bothered about Heavy Intercessors because *they don't exist yet*. Unless someone's playing on the computer, or using tokens, its a bit hard to judge.

I suspect they will be a problem even if its a bit early to say. Mainly because there is a real lack of 3 damage weapons and even if there were there is obvious opportunity to play around with FNPs. Against T4/T5 targets the shooting is more or less a wash compared to regular intercessors.

The downside is in assault - but that might not matter so much.

Certainly if you think the issue is that 2 wound Marines don't die quick enough, these are not going to be better for you. Although maybe they are starting to get to the points where you just spam close range melta. Be a shame if lots of factions didn't have that...

But hey, as shown about 6 pages ago, the future may belong to Grav Cannon tacticals. (There are some downsides when you move, but otherwise its probably a legitimate argument.)

 Galas wrote:
As an ogre/minotaur player in fantasy/aos and custodes in 40k I'll admit that I love my infantry with a good bunch of wounds. And yeah, those armies work because they are the exceptions not the baseline. But whats the problem with the baseline of the game being heavy infantry with 2 wounds and squishy one with 1 (Ignoring all the variances , inmortals are 1w but in no way squishy), barring GW bad rules and codex release cicle?

No the Baseline for each faction is the standard line infantry.

Imperium: Guard
Orks: Boyz
Tyranids: Gaunts
Dark Eldar: Kabalites
Tau: Fire Warriors
Necrons: Warriors

etc

Marines are elite special forces.

They sure don't play or feel like those to be honest. If they were that, then a 50-100 marines should be able to wipe out a regiment of IG or few thousand strong warband of orcs.

And if marines are played like an normal army, then for marines a 2W dude with t4 is the basic trooper. Something elite for marines is something like a bladeguard marine.

dhallnet wrote:
A player spamming broken stuff to win and another creating a decent list out of stuff you're expected to pick anyway, is extremely different. Borderline obvious. And one is actually quite clearly stating he's not here to fool around.

In certain editions green tide orks were great, and also incredibly fluffy. So, to make it very clear, sometimes armies are very powerful in an incidental fashion, where just choosing whatever is very powerful, and other factions need to list tailor or squeeze every bit of power out of their faction to stand a chance. This is where "just play narrative" breaks down, because narrative players tend to not have a highly granular understanding of the rules to make that kind of assessment.

dhallnet wrote:
If one's most powerful build is simply middle of the road for another faction, we have issues.

That is the case, and we do have issues.

dhallnet wrote:
Again unless you believe you can achieve a state of balance where there is no build more powerful than others, no it doesn't fix anything. I also fail to understand how bad balance justify cheating or bad sportsmanship (but wanting to win above all doesn't, strangely) but whatever. Yes, more balance is something to look after but the mindset of the players will always be important too (and seems to be the issue in what you just listed here btw : no reason to cheat or always buy the next hot stuff if you're the kind of guy playing to tell the praise of your captain).

The reason it creates a system of cheating and bad sportsmanship, is if a game is decided mostly by codex power level and list matchups, there's nothing you can do on the table to win via expertise or smart play. This makes people feel powerless, and people recognize the inherent unfair nature of it. It's the same reason why crime is higher in kleptocracies and states with low social trust; nobody thinks the ostensible authority is playing fair, so why should they? GW is the authority in this context, and is playing favorites to the point where you can't count on a fair game, so why should an individual player feel obligated to play fair when GW won't? This pushes people who were on the fence about sportsmanship over the edge, since giving up any advantage on the table is just a fools' errand, because you can't overcome it by "getting gud."


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Galas wrote:
As an ogre/minotaur player in fantasy/aos and custodes in 40k I'll admit that I love my infantry with a good bunch of wounds. And yeah, those armies work because they are the exceptions not the baseline. But whats the problem with the baseline of the game being heavy infantry with 2 wounds and squishy one with 1 (Ignoring all the variances , inmortals are 1w but in no way squishy), barring GW bad rules and codex release cicle?

No the Baseline for each faction is the standard line infantry.

Imperium: Guard
Orks: Boyz
Tyranids: Gaunts
Dark Eldar: Kabalites
Tau: Fire Warriors
Necrons: Warriors

etc

Marines are elite special forces.

No. Astartes are the most-played faction in the game, and the game is balanced around them. They are the baseline.

 Galas wrote:
I will also add that T5 W3 SV2+4++ custodes have not been a problem for 3 years. The balance problems around marines are not the statlines but the point costs associated with them, the durability and the damage output.

There are two significant factors to Custodes.

1. As noted, their shooting is minimal. Additionally, they lack board footprint, with the minimum size on their units being significantly more expensive than even Marines. These are both critical weaknesses that offset the inherently skewed nature of their multi-wound and strong-invuln statlines. In any engagement they show up in, they have the implicit advantage of being universally non-optimal target profiles, while simultaneously having the implicit weaknesses of lacking shooting and board control. Contrast this with Marines where they have much better shooting and significantly better board control, avoiding those weaknesses.

2. Custodes aren't anywhere close to the most popular faction- if they were, people would skew to counter them, which in turn would probably be great for some of the non-Custodes factions that would then be non-optimal targets for meta weapons, while Custodes would perpetually feel underpowered.

Basically the Custodes statline has the potential to be an issue, but because they're a niche faction with significant weaknesses that they have no way to overcome, they're kept in check. It's exactly the same for Knights- all-Knights is a skew list that benefits significantly from being skew, but having zero board control in an edition focused on objectives is a crippling weakness. If Knights were by far the most popular faction and could count their remaining wounds as that number of obsec models for the purpose of controlling objectives, the game would break wide open overnight. Obviously Marines represent much less skew than that, but the underlying issues are still there.

Edit: Hecaton is right about the baseline. Any concept of 'baseline' that doesn't reflect the fact that people tailor lists around countering the most common statline of the most commonly played faction is just debating semantics; Marines are the yardstick against which everything else is judged.

 catbarf wrote:


Edit: Hecaton is right about the baseline. Any concept of 'baseline' that doesn't reflect the fact that people tailor lists around countering the most common statline of the most commonly played faction is just debating semantics; Marines are the yardstick against which everything else is judged.

Also, it's very clear that GW balances around this idea, given they've even put articles on their community site on the topic.

The statline doesn't matter, its statline for points.

You can change nothing about Custodes at all, except give them a 10-15% points reduction, and they'd very quickly be winning every tournament and flooding every store.

Just as Marines would probably cease to be an issue if everything went up 10-15%.