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 Blackie wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
To be clear, I was talking about the win rate from going first, not between factions. I.e. a 60% chance of the player going first winning. The discussion then seems to have moved on to faction vs faction winrate, but I was responding to earlier comments about the win rate for going first.

For balance between factions, any time a faction is going above a 60% win rate, or below a win rate in the low 40s, you've got a problem IMO.

No, I get it, it was about going first. But considering what armies? If any of the top SM lists goes first and has a 60% win rate against the best ork list I could field I'd love that Especially if I get the same rate by going first against the same list.

I think you're misunderstanding how statistics interact with one another. The 58% win rate for going first is not the chance of the best space marine army winning against the worst xenos army. It's the chance of the average army against the average army. You play your ork army against an identical ork army played by someone with identical skill; whoever goes first can expect to win 58 times out of 100.

A 60% win rate (or a 58% one, though it isn't quite as bad) for the player who goes first is massively problematic for a competitive game. Winning a tournament essentially comes down to an exercise of chance as to whether you roll above average on the roll to go first; someone who manages to go first every time stands a massively better chance of winning that tournament, and with a typical 6 match tournament, there absolutely will be people who roll hot and cold on that, there isn't enough repetitions to iron out the RNG. The person who rolls well for going first and wins the tournament going 6-0 could absolutely have ended up going 4-2 instead if they rolled less well for going first.

40k always has an element of chance, but when a single dice roll, with no counterplay, has such a large impact on who wins the game, it is no longer really competitive.

Now it's too early to say for sure there really is a 58% win rate. But it would absolutely be a big problem for the competitive game if the first-turn advantage was that large.

 CEO Kasen wrote:
You know, if this is the Most Playtested Edition... Imagine the crap they did catch.

I want a list of the stuff they axed for being broken. The stuff that'd make Tzeentch cross all 12.7^e eyes in utter bewilderment.

Well, if they did indeed play test with the new codexes then we're not "playing" 9th yet. The real judgement can begin in Oct/Nov. I'm afraid I'll be buying wine/horse tranquilizers in preparation for November though.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 CEO Kasen wrote:
You know, if this is the Most Playtested Edition... Imagine the crap they did catch.

I want a list of the stuff they axed for being broken. The stuff that'd make Tzeentch cross all 12.7^e eyes in utter bewilderment.

Well, if they did indeed play test with the new codexes then we're not "playing" 9th yet. The real judgement can begin in Oct/Nov. I'm afraid I'll be buying wine/horse tranquilizers in preparation for November though.

Unfortunately that will mean only two factions will be playing 9th while everyone else will still be playing 8th, barring another big errata. If more codexes are already ready to go then they should be released quickly in order to alleviate that problem.

And please don't do that.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 CEO Kasen wrote:
You know, if this is the Most Playtested Edition... Imagine the crap they did catch.

I want a list of the stuff they axed for being broken. The stuff that'd make Tzeentch cross all 12.7^e eyes in utter bewilderment.

Well, if they did indeed play test with the new codexes then we're not "playing" 9th yet. The real judgement can begin in Oct/Nov. I'm afraid I'll be buying wine/horse tranquilizers in preparation for November though.

That's a really weird take to me. GW released 9th without new codexes, so of course it can be evaluated based on that. "We released the game in a totally broken unbalanced state but just wait until we fix it, you can't judge us until we do because we based everything on stuff we haven't given you!" naturally prompts the response "well, why didn't you give us the stuff at release if we need that stuff for the game to be balanced?" To which of course there is no good answer, just a bunch of $$$ signs.

Similarly, if GW playtested the edition only with the new codexes, and not the old, that shows that the game wasn't actually playtested at all in the way it's being played now.

Not Online!!! wrote:
71 % for salamanders.
OH boi, and we indeed have no mirrors removed...
OHHHHH BOIIIIIIIIII

There were two Salamander players. They didn't mirror. It is a very small set of data.

Alex Harrison 5-1 (Super Captain on bike, 14 Aggressors, 3 Outriders, Speeder, Grav Devs w/ Pod, 9 Eradicators)
James McLean 3-2-1 (2 Invictors, 6 Outriders, 6 Eradiactors, 2 Levis)

Harrison played:
- T'au big suit heavy and no good means to hold objectives or do secondaries (literally 3 Riptides, 2 Ghostkeels, 3 Broadsides, and 3x5 Strikes) - 100 to 51
- 4 Knights and a War Dog - 64 to 35
- DG (3 PBCs and 9 PMs in a drill) & Nurglings (27 of them...) - 95 to 51
- Ultramarines w/ 10 Aggressors, 9 Bolter Inceptors, 9 Eradicators (*gasp*) - 100 to 43
- Mechanicus w/ a good variety of stuff - 100 to 46
- Custodes w/ Vindi, the bonkers SC, telemon, 4 bikes, 5 Venatari, 5 Allarus, 5 CG - loss 35 to 64

McLean played:
- DE w/ Incubi, Venoms, Drazhar, 9 Talos - loss 75 to 82
- BT w/ 3 Eradicators, LR Crusader, 5 Plasma Inceptors, Repulsor, 10 Assault Intercessors, - draw 77 to 77
- T'au w/ Coldstar, Fireblade, Shadowsun, 20 Strikes, 24 drones, 2 Riptides, 2 Ghostkeels - 70 to 67
- Eldar w/ 15 Avengers, 2 WS, 1 Falcon, 3 Prisms, 10 Wraithblades, Hemlock - 98 to 37
- AM w/ 3 TC, 50 IS, 3 HellH, 2 Manti. Wyvern, 3 Chim - 94 to 47
- Harlequins w/ 6x5 Troupe, 2 Jesters, Seer, Troupe Master, Solitaire, 11 Skyweavers, 4 Starweavers - loss 31 to 75

I would say 60/40 W/R for a faction would be really bad balance. 70/30 is extraordinarily terrible balance.

Perfect balance would be like 50/50. Decent balance might be as far as like 52/48. Acceptably might be like 55/45, though that's pushing it.


That said, sample size also has to be adequate.

I don't think there's ever been a time that faction balance was good enough that no faction had a 60% win rate. I would prefer if GW could get faction imbalance down to the 55%ish range, but since they've never done that before, it seems like wishful thinking.

Balancing first turn advantage is much easier than balancing 30+ factions against one another, however, and it impacts every single game, so we should be stricter on it. Anything more than a 55% win rate for going first (or going second, if you live in that alternative universe) is too much, and it really should be more in the 52%ish area.

Good point about the "using terrain wrong". If someone proposed to me that decent terrain = a big LOS blocking piece at the center of the board and some ruins scattered around the edges of the table, I'd think they'd be taking a piss.

Surely the idea of the whole terrain is to be placed on the table as to both mitigate as much alphastrike firing lanes as possible, while also placing some bits of terrain near the center of the board and around POI (objectives) so that they will offer cover from firing as well as offering places for assaulting units to beachead with as the hop along the board. If we're talking "balanced matched play pickup games", that is.

Looking at the 40K rulebook's terrain suggestion pics however make me feel like even GW book writers haven't really grasped this. Some of those are a bit ridiculous.

Well a solid 60/40 involving the best against the worst faction would be a huge improvement.

I had games in 7th and 8th in which I couldn't possibly win. Playing against competitive eldar or SM with 300 points of free stuff in 7th or Guilliman's UM vs index Orks/drukhari/SW are perfect examples of that.

A 0/100 rate unless insane dice rolling and unrealistic mistakes made by the opponent.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

yukishiro1 wrote:


Now it's too early to say for sure there really is a 58% win rate. But it would absolutely be a big problem for the competitive game if the first-turn advantage was that large.

Well 58% is slighty above the Chess win rate (52 to 56 according to Wiki), which is a perfectly balanced game as both players have exactly the same models on the table. So yeah, I'd call pretty balanced that 58%.

Going first should have been a gamble in 9th edition. Write on a piece of paper how many CP you gamble, your opponent does the same. The one with the most CP spent chooses if he goes first or second. If it's tied, roll off. Plain and simple, and also quite fluffy.

It didn't work in 8th because some armies had 10x more CP than others, but in 9th I can't see any problem with this.

As for my real game impressions : secondaries are too few and too unbalanced. We need more of them, and things like Psychic actions should be reworked entirely.

Terrain is ok, though the wording is so complicated that several readings are required.

 Nym wrote:
Going first should have been a gamble in 9th edition. Write on a piece of paper how many CP you gamble, your opponent does the same. The one with the most CP spent chooses if he goes first or second. If it's tied, roll off. Plain and simple, and also quite fluffy.

It didn't work in 8th because some armies had 10x more CP than others, but in 9th I can't see any problem with this.

As a thought exercise you should create a Chaos Daemon and a Tau list and see how much CP each side can/want to spend during list creation.

I'm enamoured with the idea that both players would score at the end of each battle round simultaneously.

At the end of battle round might have been a much better solution, combined with something like "primary objective VPs cannot be scored on turn 1"

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
71 % for salamanders.
OH boi, and we indeed have no mirrors removed...
OHHHHH BOIIIIIIIIII

There were two Salamander players. They didn't mirror. It is a very small set of data.

Alex Harrison 5-1 (Super Captain on bike, 14 Aggressors, 3 Outriders, Speeder, Grav Devs w/ Pod, 9 Eradicators)
James McLean 3-2-1 (2 Invictors, 6 Outriders, 6 Eradiactors, 2 Levis)

Harrison played:
- T'au big suit heavy and no good means to hold objectives or do secondaries (literally 3 Riptides, 2 Ghostkeels, 3 Broadsides, and 3x5 Strikes) - 100 to 51
- 4 Knights and a War Dog - 64 to 35
- DG (3 PBCs and 9 PMs in a drill) & Nurglings (27 of them...) - 95 to 51
- Ultramarines w/ 10 Aggressors, 9 Bolter Inceptors, 9 Eradicators (*gasp*) - 100 to 43
- Mechanicus w/ a good variety of stuff - 100 to 46
- Custodes w/ Vindi, the bonkers SC, telemon, 4 bikes, 5 Venatari, 5 Allarus, 5 CG - loss 35 to 64

McLean played:
- DE w/ Incubi, Venoms, Drazhar, 9 Talos - loss 75 to 82
- BT w/ 3 Eradicators, LR Crusader, 5 Plasma Inceptors, Repulsor, 10 Assault Intercessors, - draw 77 to 77
- T'au w/ Coldstar, Fireblade, Shadowsun, 20 Strikes, 24 drones, 2 Riptides, 2 Ghostkeels - 70 to 67
- Eldar w/ 15 Avengers, 2 WS, 1 Falcon, 3 Prisms, 10 Wraithblades, Hemlock - 98 to 37
- AM w/ 3 TC, 50 IS, 3 HellH, 2 Manti. Wyvern, 3 Chim - 94 to 47
- Harlequins w/ 6x5 Troupe, 2 Jesters, Seer, Troupe Master, Solitaire, 11 Skyweavers, 4 Starweavers - loss 31 to 75

Then why post the results with the implication that they provide some evidence one way or another? And if you're interested in the largest possible sample size, why not present the overall average winrate of all the MEQ armies combined with no mirror matches removed - 57.2%? Why just post it all up with the heavy implication being "this means marines are fine and balanced"?

You know, if this is the Most Playtested Edition... Imagine the crap they did catch.

This is the best post I've seen on Dakka in a very long time and I'm upset I didn't think of saying it!

When they said the 8th ed books would be compatible, I called BS and I think we're starting to see that. Like Daed suggested earlier in the thread, I suspect this was all play tested w/9th ed codexes. This makes sense because they likely hadn't planned on releasing the new edition and the first two books so far apart. I think Corona screwed up the schedule for them.

At the time I said the 8th ed books would likely be compatible only in the loosest sense, and yeah, it looks like that's what's happening. I've noticed a pattern as well where people with 5 or fewer games in LOVE it, and then, the more they play, the more things they start to run into and they end up at the same conclusion my group came to - i.e. - this doesn't feel right. So hopefully the 9th ed books fix it.

I would say 60/40 W/R for a faction would be really bad balance. 70/30 is extraordinarily terrible balance.

Again folks - that percentage is 60/40 for the player who got the first turn. NOT the faction percentage. Those numbers are pretty similar to what my group found as well (after around 120-130 games across 20 players), although we DID find it gets a bit better if you start to make the table bigger again, but YMMV. We hit the pause button on 9th before testing too many more games at the larger table size, but were starting to find that the smaller recommended sizes ... weren't working as well.

Tycho wrote:

Again folks - that percentage is 60/40 for the player who got the first turn. NOT the faction percentage. Those numbers are pretty similar to what my group found as well (after around 120-130 games across 20 players), although we DID find it gets a bit better if you start to make the table bigger again, but YMMV. We hit the pause button on 8th before testing too many more games at the larger table size, but were starting to find that the smaller recommended sizes ... weren't working as well.

Seems like more space allows more maneouvre and actual tactical skill to shine through and neuters through skill the first turn advantage .

yes but how can they sell the KT boards/mats if the 40k table isn't just two four stuck together

the_scotsman wrote:

Spoiler:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
71 % for salamanders.
OH boi, and we indeed have no mirrors removed...
OHHHHH BOIIIIIIIIII

There were two Salamander players. They didn't mirror. It is a very small set of data.

Alex Harrison 5-1 (Super Captain on bike, 14 Aggressors, 3 Outriders, Speeder, Grav Devs w/ Pod, 9 Eradicators)
James McLean 3-2-1 (2 Invictors, 6 Outriders, 6 Eradiactors, 2 Levis)

Harrison played:
- T'au big suit heavy and no good means to hold objectives or do secondaries (literally 3 Riptides, 2 Ghostkeels, 3 Broadsides, and 3x5 Strikes) - 100 to 51
- 4 Knights and a War Dog - 64 to 35
- DG (3 PBCs and 9 PMs in a drill) & Nurglings (27 of them...) - 95 to 51
- Ultramarines w/ 10 Aggressors, 9 Bolter Inceptors, 9 Eradicators (*gasp*) - 100 to 43
- Mechanicus w/ a good variety of stuff - 100 to 46
- Custodes w/ Vindi, the bonkers SC, telemon, 4 bikes, 5 Venatari, 5 Allarus, 5 CG - loss 35 to 64

McLean played:
- DE w/ Incubi, Venoms, Drazhar, 9 Talos - loss 75 to 82
- BT w/ 3 Eradicators, LR Crusader, 5 Plasma Inceptors, Repulsor, 10 Assault Intercessors, - draw 77 to 77
- T'au w/ Coldstar, Fireblade, Shadowsun, 20 Strikes, 24 drones, 2 Riptides, 2 Ghostkeels - 70 to 67
- Eldar w/ 15 Avengers, 2 WS, 1 Falcon, 3 Prisms, 10 Wraithblades, Hemlock - 98 to 37
- AM w/ 3 TC, 50 IS, 3 HellH, 2 Manti. Wyvern, 3 Chim - 94 to 47
- Harlequins w/ 6x5 Troupe, 2 Jesters, Seer, Troupe Master, Solitaire, 11 Skyweavers, 4 Starweavers - loss 31 to 75

Then why post the results with the implication that they provide some evidence one way or another? And if you're interested in the largest possible sample size, why not present the overall average winrate of all the MEQ armies combined with no mirror matches removed - 57.2%? Why just post it all up with the heavy implication being "this means marines are fine and balanced"?

57% en bloc with 28% "mirror" which will be 1 /1 so about 28% of the win losses would be irrelevant...
Meaning if you go by rough estimate and eliminate a possible 28% chance of a mirror you'd end up with an average winrate against non-marines off about 60%?

 -Ekko- wrote:

 vipoid wrote:

 -Ekko- wrote:
How did GW playtest 9th?

By claiming that they had playtested it and expecting their playerbase to just take their word for it, despite all evidence to the contrary.

So they really didn't? I read somewhere here on Dakka (i don't remember which thread) that they asked some tourney guys to do it.

Supposedly they do invite and receive playtesters, but they've no problem ignoring/tossing out their feedback if they don't want to agree with it - supposedly they were warned about Iron Hands, but GW wanted to keep them how they were due to flavour or somesuch, then there's ye olde sales department who've put their fingers in the, "Hmm, but could you make the Wraithknight OP because Sales?" before now and presumably (hello Space Marines) aren't any less hands-on than before.

Seems like more space allows more maneouvre and actual tactical skill to shine through and neuters through skill the first turn advantage

Exactly. We didn't test this enough but my purely anecdotal and completely unscientific hypothesis is that there will turn out to be a "sweet spot" - too big or too small will tend to favor player 1, but something closer to the middle will balance this out a bit. But who knows. Only time will tell. lol

yukishiro1 wrote:
I don't think there's ever been a time that faction balance was good enough that no faction had a 60% win rate. I would prefer if GW could get faction imbalance down to the 55%ish range, but since they've never done that before, it seems like wishful thinking.

Balancing first turn advantage is much easier than balancing 30+ factions against one another, however, and it impacts every single game, so we should be stricter on it. Anything more than a 55% win rate for going first (or going second, if you live in that alternative universe) is too much, and it really should be more in the 52%ish area.

Pre SM-2.0 IIRC think the highest was like 56%, though some of the lowest like BA were at like 32%.

And there was nobody close to having 30% of the field in one faction, the most common army was imperial soup at 18%, and even adding that to the next most common Imperial faction gets you 23%.

Tycho wrote:

Seems like more space allows more maneouvre and actual tactical skill to shine through and neuters through skill the first turn advantage

Exactly. We didn't test this enough but my purely anecdotal and completely unscientific hypothesis is that there will turn out to be a "sweet spot" - too big or too small will tend to favor player 1, but something closer to the middle will balance this out a bit. But who knows. Only time will tell. lol

I think too big will not favour player one but much more how lists are built , on occaision me and a DKoK mate did run grudge matches where the deployment zones were on the long 8 foot side, making artillery really, really deadly. Same for factions that have alot of movement shenanigans which will shine on such tables because they can easier isolate and slink away with parts of someones armies.

yukishiro1 wrote:
I don't think there's ever been a time that faction balance was good enough that no faction had a 60% win rate. I would prefer if GW could get faction imbalance down to the 55%ish range, but since they've never done that before, it seems like wishful thinking.

Balancing first turn advantage is much easier than balancing 30+ factions against one another, however, and it impacts every single game, so we should be stricter on it. Anything more than a 55% win rate for going first (or going second, if you live in that alternative universe) is too much, and it really should be more in the 52%ish area.

Um. Yes.

Basically all of 8th Edition prior to Codex Space Marines 2.0 had no faction above 60% (though deep-dive analysis of very specific lists like the "Castellan List" did find some).

All the things people thought of as super-overpowered in earlier 8th like Poxblossom or Ynnari or so peaked at 57%, 58% at the very worst.

Though data is more limited, no faction seems to have ever crossed the 60% mark in 7th Edition either.

Not Online!!! wrote:

Tycho wrote:

Again folks - that percentage is 60/40 for the player who got the first turn. NOT the faction percentage. Those numbers are pretty similar to what my group found as well (after around 120-130 games across 20 players), although we DID find it gets a bit better if you start to make the table bigger again, but YMMV. We hit the pause button on 8th before testing too many more games at the larger table size, but were starting to find that the smaller recommended sizes ... weren't working as well.

Seems like more space allows more maneouvre and actual tactical skill to shine through and neuters through skill the first turn advantage .

It also seems like space, or lack thereof, drastically changes the potential of certain armies and units, as well. Space does not specifically translate into skill, but space does allow more ranged-oriented units to perform closer to their peak while shoving melee-oriented units into a garbage pail. With one whole facet of the game relegated to niche status, it is much easier to plan to beat the other... and you see alpha-strike rich mathhammer armies throwing buckets of dice at each other until the other is removed from the table.

Again, we're complaining about the framework but not seeing the difference between the parameters and problems.

In fencing, you need to change how you fight when you get past the tip being the main weapon... thrusting vs slashing is a major technical difference in the sport. I wonder if we could compile some results on "bigger table" vs "recommended table" preferences and then look at the units those players prefer, I know it won't be a total overlap in "big table" players shun melee units and "small table" players shun static gunline units... but I bet there would be a fair bit of overlap.

And I think, personally, movement and tactics become more critical when space is not a given. Placement of units, and the threats they are exposed to, becomes much more relevant when there is less room for placement/movement error. There's no place to effectively hide and forget about certain units and just assume they'll always be outputting in the shooting phase. I saw, and used to my advantage, a lot of this. Killing a Fire Prism in 8th edition was a CHORE, and it wasn't even one of the nastiest units that could take advantage of large "untouchable" sections of the map that were obscured from reprisal... its largest claim to fame was 60" gun vs 48" vs many of the threats that wanted to answer it. It was a rather non-interactive game of "I sit here" and "you can't hit me from there". That's tactical, sure, but like the basest level of tactics. I'm 6' tall and use a rapier with a nearly 4' long blade... sure someone who clocks in at 5'8" with a blade in the 3.5' range is going to have massive problems with me... doesn't mean that "more reach requires years of study and carefully executed tactics". The smaller table isn't about dumbing down tactics, it is about expanding the list to viable units because melee was getting railed in 8th. There were so many coaster units because they were just flat out excluded due to space (much like how 12" of reach can almost exclude many fighters from competition through no fault of their own, and those that CAN compete require A TON more knowledge and effort than the "gifted" fighter). I look at Harlequin-esque units (Howling Banshees?) as being the main benefactors of this, and look at how nasty Harlequins became seemingly out of nowhere (they weren't BAD before, in all fairness).

Please stop chalking all of the problems up to parameter changes. Different is not necessarily a problem unless you fail to adapt and your tactics are crap now. There could be a problem with first-turn advantage, I'm not certain there is one, however... all of our first turns have been conservative movement to blunt counter-attacks from exposed positioning after movement. Many games, we're rolling to NOT go first, but we're hardly poster boys for the most competitive environments and will surely be dismissed as ignorant as a result. But saying that the smaller table requires a smoother brain to operate and passing it off as fact is just... flat out wrong. It requires MORE tactics and sophistication to effectively move around on a smaller map, and your clever use of terrain can be the difference in the game. Games where people don't effectively maneuver could surely look like some crazy dogpile in the middle or some odd silliness, and sure... that looks brain dead, but consider that the new gunline standard game.

the_scotsman wrote:

Then why post the results with the implication that they provide some evidence one way or another? And if you're interested in the largest possible sample size, why not present the overall average winrate of all the MEQ armies combined with no mirror matches removed - 57.2%? Why just post it all up with the heavy implication being "this means marines are fine and balanced"?

I posted results so people can see what the details are, because the game is "in a totally broken unbalanced state" - especially when we take one Salamanders player who went 5-1 and a another who went 3-2-1 and go craaazy about it. We're literally looking at one guy who goes 5-1 most of the time as our barometer.

Then people abuse the concept of a mirror match. Do you really think BT w/ a LR Crusader, Repulsor, and Assault Intercessors is a mirror match to two Levis, two Invictors, 6 Eradicators, and 6 Outriders? What happens when CSM go W2? Does it have power armor? Mirror match, check!

Some missions lean heavy on first turn advantage. Was that the armies or the players or the mission or the terrain? When you have only basic three tournaments you can't even rule any of those factors out, but we don't talk about these things. That would make us a white knight! *shudders* Did anyone else feel that?

And nowhere do I imply marines are fine.

Please stop chalking all of the problems up to parameter changes. Different is not necessarily a problem unless you fail to adapt and your tactics are crap now.

Right. "Get GUUD!". Got it. lol

I have said, in literally every post, that I THINK there's a problem and that, so far the data supports my observation, but that we probably need to wait and see what the 9th ed books do, and for the scene to really get rolling again before making a real call on that, while also providing suggestions for others to try things we have had success with.

Your response basically follows nearly the exact pattern I mentioned earlier, only you jumped right to the final step "Stop sucking, 9th is different, your tactics blow ..."

See, the issue here is, I could just as easily say, "Your opponents probably brought crappy lists if you're playing on that smaller table size and they didn't just blow you away turn 1. You probably aren't playing against very good players.", but I have not (and will not) ever do that because I don't know. I've simply said "Hey - we feel like maybe "X" is a thing, but aren't sure. Here's some things we found to help with it. We also feel like maybe this rule set doesn't work well w/the 8th ed books so we're reserving final judgement." On top of that, our suggestion (slightly larger table size), isn't even a "house rule". It's literally part of the rules that the table can be bigger, so I'm not sure how that suggestion would be "changing the parameters". But you write 3 paragraphs about fencing or some such to simply suggest we need to stop sucking. lol

Purifying Tempest wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Tycho wrote:

Again folks - that percentage is 60/40 for the player who got the first turn. NOT the faction percentage. Those numbers are pretty similar to what my group found as well (after around 120-130 games across 20 players), although we DID find it gets a bit better if you start to make the table bigger again, but YMMV. We hit the pause button on 8th before testing too many more games at the larger table size, but were starting to find that the smaller recommended sizes ... weren't working as well.

Seems like more space allows more maneouvre and actual tactical skill to shine through and neuters through skill the first turn advantage .

It also seems like space, or lack thereof, drastically changes the potential of certain armies and units, as well. Space does not specifically translate into skill, but space does allow more ranged-oriented units to perform closer to their peak while shoving melee-oriented units into a garbage pail. With one whole facet of the game relegated to niche status, it is much easier to plan to beat the other... and you see alpha-strike rich mathhammer armies throwing buckets of dice at each other until the other is removed from the table.

and here you are allready wrong, considering Infiltrational tactics, be they deepstrike, or other such exist galore, also lest we forget the humble transport vehicle which is through the parameters given more often then not a hinderance to movement. Also let's not pretend that this isn't what is happening right now and completly ignoreing the fact that melee alpha striking is just as prevalent. Regardless of board size

Again, we're complaining about the framework but not seeing the difference between the parameters and problems.

In fencing, you need to change how you fight when you get past the tip being the main weapon... thrusting vs slashing is a major technical difference in the sport. I wonder if we could compile some results on "bigger table" vs "recommended table" preferences and then look at the units those players prefer, I know it won't be a total overlap in "big table" players shun melee units and "small table" players shun static gunline units... but I bet there would be a fair bit of overlap.

I agree with this as stated in my second post, however, range management is also a facet of stratgey, your analogy assumes both players want to field a sabre, what do you do with factions without a sabre but a pike instead.

And I think, personally, movement and tactics become more critical when space is not a given. Placement of units, and the threats they are exposed to, becomes much more relevant when there is less room for placement/movement error. There's no place to effectively hide and forget about certain units and just assume they'll always be outputting in the shooting phase. I saw, and used to my advantage, a lot of this. Killing a Fire Prism in 8th edition was a CHORE, and it wasn't even one of the nastiest units that could take advantage of large "untouchable" sections of the map that were obscured from reprisal... its largest claim to fame was 60" gun vs 48" vs many of the threats that wanted to answer it. It was a rather non-interactive game of "I sit here" and "you can't hit me from there". That's tactical, sure, but like the basest level of tactics. I'm 6' tall and use a rapier with a nearly 4' long blade... sure someone who clocks in at 5'8" with a blade in the 3.5' range is going to have massive problems with me... doesn't mean that "more reach requires years of study and carefully executed tactics". The smaller table isn't about dumbing down tactics, it is about expanding the list to viable units because melee was getting railed in 8th. There were so many coaster units because they were just flat out excluded due to space (much like how 12" of reach can almost exclude many fighters from competition through no fault of their own, and those that CAN compete require A TON more knowledge and effort than the "gifted" fighter). I look at Harlequin-esque units (Howling Banshees?) as being the main benefactors of this, and look at how nasty Harlequins became seemingly out of nowhere (they weren't BAD before, in all fairness).

Both situations lead to more skill involved , it's just diffrent, with knowing and avoiding movement on larger boards in order to force an engagement on your terms, and in smaller boards just like you described. Also here the fencing runs AGAIN into an issue, you assume you can or should balance such a game around fencing and yes, i am sorry but the smaller table was dumbing down tactics, by the removal of a place transports or shooktroops or non cheap arty had overall.

Please stop chalking all of the problems up to parameter changes. Different is not necessarily a problem unless you fail to adapt and your tactics are crap now. There could be a problem with first-turn advantage, I'm not certain there is one, however... all of our first turns have been conservative movement to blunt counter-attacks from exposed positioning after movement. Many games, we're rolling to NOT go first, but we're hardly poster boys for the most competitive environments and will surely be dismissed as ignorant as a result. But saying that the smaller table requires a smoother brain to operate and passing it off as fact is just... flat out wrong. It requires MORE tactics and sophistication to effectively move around on a smaller map, and your clever use of terrain can be the difference in the game. Games where people don't effectively maneuver could surely look like some crazy dogpile in the middle or some odd silliness, and sure... that looks brain dead, but consider that the new gunline standard game.

GIT GUD, without taking criticism honestly is prime giveaway of not understanding criticism levied against something. Especially in lieu of me clearly stating that other types of boards definetly lead to a vastly diffrent performance of units, but in your fevour to attack the criticism you failed to read that comment seemingly

Tactics to be able to adapt f.e. need the option to be adapted in the first place, i will remind you to the first time flyers got introduced, most armies had NOT a single option to adapt meaningfully in regards to counter play for a simple lack of friendly airsuport options or AA.

Your tactics don't blow, they're antiquated.

People start to "blow" when they refuse to adapt and instead take pitchforks and torches to burn the place down instead of growing with the game.

"Blowing" is using the same age-old tactics and complaining that they don't work anymore instead of finding out WHY they don't, and how to develop tactics that DO work.

No, instead of moving forward, I see a lot of complaining about terrain and/or board size instead of saying: huh, maybe I don't need to sit in the corner out of line of sight with 120" of distance without line-of-sight.

I'm not even saying the players are sucking, I'm saying the tactic of sitting in the far back and complaining about the table size because deployment zones are more exposed now... instead of doing anything constructive like saying: "hey guys, TFC may have problems now. What's a suitable replacement in a world where the boards are much smaller." That attitude sucks. And there's a lot of that out here while people wait for "better" players to figure out the new environment.

But sure, mischaracterize my statements and intents to justify the "9th is garbage" attitude. Turn the content into a personal attack on you instead of what it was meant to be. This is why there is so little constructive talk around here anymore, just incendiary flame articles where people draw lines and point thinly-veiled insults at each other.

We get it, a large portion of people here think 9th is a dumpster fire, and that 40K has been since 3rd edition. I don't know why people continually let GW abuse you with it for 20 years, but obviously there is some comfort in bringing for that vitriol... perhaps the internet is just an outlet for it. But literally: I see the same group of people going around pounding their chest that they're basically be forced to play in a hobby they hate. Makes no sense at all. Just a lot of bluster, in my opinion.

Purifying Tempest wrote:
Your tactics don't blow, they're antiquated.

People start to "blow" when they refuse to adapt and instead take pitchforks and torches to burn the place down instead of growing with the game.

"Blowing" is using the same age-old tactics and complaining that they don't work anymore instead of finding out WHY they don't, and how to develop tactics that DO work.

No, instead of moving forward, I see a lot of complaining about terrain and/or board size instead of saying: huh, maybe I don't need to sit in the corner out of line of sight with 120" of distance without line-of-sight.

I'm not even saying the players are sucking, I'm saying the tactic of sitting in the far back and complaining about the table size because deployment zones are more exposed now... instead of doing anything constructive like saying: "hey guys, TFC may have problems now. What's a suitable replacement in a world where the boards are much smaller." That attitude sucks. And there's a lot of that out here while people wait for "better" players to figure out the new environment.

But sure, mischaracterize my statements and intents to justify the "9th is garbage" attitude. Turn the content into a personal attack on you instead of what it was meant to be. This is why there is so little constructive talk around here anymore, just incendiary flame articles where people draw lines and point thinly-veiled insults at each other.

We get it, a large portion of people here think 9th is a dumpster fire, and that 40K has been since 3rd edition. I don't know why people continually let GW abuse you with it for 20 years, but obviously there is some comfort in bringing for that vitriol... perhaps the internet is just an outlet for it. But literally: I see the same group of people going around pounding their chest that they're basically be forced to play in a hobby they hate. Makes no sense at all. Just a lot of bluster, in my opinion.

AGAIN, some armies have not the tools for that.

Your tactics don't blow, they're antiquated.

Let me ask you - what are my tactics? What are the tactics of the other players in my group? What do the tables look like? Surely, if you know the tactics are "antiquated", then you must also know the composition of the armies as well as the points levels at play? You've likely also perused the tourney's that lead to that 60/40 split, studied those tactics as well and determined that they are also using antiquated tactics? Additionally, you've also solved for the meta of the different locales and established that, since the tourney results we do have are from pretty vastly different parts of the globe and yet all lead to similar conclusions (so far that is - as I keep saying there IS a trend but it's WAY too early to call it a legit "thing" that needs to be dealt with), that the entire world, is, generally speaking, running antiquated tactics and that your group is the sole source of cutting edge game play at this point?

I mean, it COULD very well be, but you don't have the info needed to really know.

See, you've made a pretty strong declarative statement without any of the info you would have needed in order to make that statement, which leads me to really not trust most of what you're saying. Especially since I've been very careful to NOT make a definitive "we've definitely solved it and it is for sure a problem" kind of statement.

IDK why this triggers people so hard (it never has i the past but I suppose that's the times we live in), but you at least need to ask some questions before diving in like that. lol

EDIT:

But sure, mischaracterize my statements and intents to justify the "9th is garbage" attitude.

Talk about mischaracterizing lol I actually haven't seen too many people say that. Look at my posts - they can generally be summarized as "I don't think they delivered on "xyz" but didn't expect them to. Our little group feels as though 9th doesn't quite feel "right" with the 8th ed books so we really need to give it a chance with those books and some more time w/more games before deciding." I think that's a pretty fair statement, and one held by many in this thread (or at least the sentiment that what we have right now ISN'T what GW intended 9th to be). I've also mentioned things I think they did right. This is all vastly different from "We THINK there may be some issues so 9th is trash."

Tycho wrote:

Your tactics don't blow, they're antiquated.

IDK why this triggers people so hard (it never has i the past but I suppose that's the times we live in), but you at least need to ask some questions before diving in like that. lol

Because this prevailing attitude about how much the game is garbage is a terrible way to keep the game going. Not being constructive and just saying "it is broke, not worth playing" and so on makes you a terrible AMBASSADOR for the game. New people see this place and probably run screaming from the hobby. And that all stems from the same attitude of griping instead of growing.

Lots of people claim to "love" the game so much and they just get emotional when things fail to meet their demanding expectations... and they tear it to the ground and make it look like a prison sentence instead of a hobby. Just step back and contemplate how bad these negative attitudes look to the outside world and people looking in. Even people in other hobbies on this forum who take the pulse of 40K now and then to decide if they want to start. Running them right off.

And I had almost 6 pages of people discussing this, that, and the other. In a forum of hundreds of threads... with a prevailing attitude coming from a solid core of people. This thread started constructive, but has since descended into "GW sucks at everything they do" and "most playtested edition ever, lul" screeching again. This is why we can't have nice things.