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 BroodSpawn wrote:
Karol, you do know not everyone is going to play the most optimised units all the time. They may not even have some of those in there collection, but they do have the Venoms so play them more.
It's not unrealistic.

You can't balance a game against people not having something. MtG tried that in its earliest days and that lead to the power 9 which are almost universally banned or restricted to this day. You have to balance as if everybody is going to run the best stuff and then use elegant design elements to ensure a smooth curve of power as those optimized elements drop away in casual play.

Karol wrote:
But do they play them over the raiders, specially when they get access to them over venoms?
The thing costs as much as a raider, in points and fits 11 models. I maybe get venoms for something like incubi, but I really struggle what points would have to be played for that to happen, because 6 raiders fit in to a 2000pts DE army perfectly. It is like a no brainer, same as draz+ 3 units of wrecks or succububs and 3 units of witchs.

I have 10 of each, I play different lists b.c I literally play every week and playing the same list week after week believe it or not gets boring for me and opponents that plays me multiple times. So yes I do, also while the Raider is generally better, I think its only better b.c the venom went up in points while changing its role of its guns at the same time, its basically just a worst Dis Cannon/HB now. Also Venoms are higher movement and smaller so easier to hide. Another problem with the venom is its Reliability to even do damage, Not core and less volume of shots as well as poor wounding means lower results.

Its not that Raiders are better for the points, its that Venoms are just not that good in general for their points. Raiders going up you might see 1 or 2 in a list but thats mostly to save points.

 vict0988 wrote:


No, by my logic SM infantry would be overpowered if Space Marines had a 70% win rate. Because they don't the logical assumption is that Space Marine vehicles that don't get used are underpowered. Come on, this is not that hard

They might not have 70%, but SM still get tons of high results in tournaments. Their winning rate not being extremely high (but still very good) is also a consequence of frequent mirror matches, which are more unlikely to happen than between drukhari armies.


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 Amishprn86 wrote:

Karol wrote:
But do they play them over the raiders, specially when they get access to them over venoms?
The thing costs as much as a raider, in points and fits 11 models. I maybe get venoms for something like incubi, but I really struggle what points would have to be played for that to happen, because 6 raiders fit in to a 2000pts DE army perfectly. It is like a no brainer, same as draz+ 3 units of wrecks or succububs and 3 units of witchs.

I have 10 of each, I play different lists b.c I literally play every week and playing the same list week after week believe it or not gets boring for me and opponents that plays me multiple times. So yes I do, also while the Raider is generally better, I think its only better b.c the venom went up in points while changing its role of its guns at the same time, its basically just a worst Dis Cannon/HB now. Also Venoms are higher movement and smaller so easier to hide. Another problem with the venom is its Reliability to even do damage, Not core and less volume of shots as well as poor wounding means lower results.

Its not that Raiders are better for the points, its that Venoms are just not that good in general for their points. Raiders going up you might see 1 or 2 in a list but thats mostly to save points.

Yeah, raiders are not OP or even undercosted. It's the combination of MSU DT wracks and raiders that is OP. Raiders could go up 5pts, which means very small changes to a 2000 points lists and they definitely don't worth more than 90 points. Instead of overpricing the raiders, restrict the options to allow just one special weapon every 5 wracks. Gun boats with 2 liquifiers instead of 4 shouldn't be that scary.

 Blackie wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:


No, by my logic SM infantry would be overpowered if Space Marines had a 70% win rate. Because they don't the logical assumption is that Space Marine vehicles that don't get used are underpowered. Come on, this is not that hard

They might not have 70%, but SM still get tons of high results in tournaments. Their winning rate not being extremely high (but still very good) is also a consequence of frequent mirror matches, which are more unlikely to happen than between drukhari armies.

No, it is not a consequence of frequent mirror matches. Look at BA, 48% win rate, relatively few matches against SM, lose against Drukhari and DG, win against Necrons and Tyranids. Externally it is a very balanced faction. What proof do you have otherwise? What SM faction have a win rate above 55%? Space Marines overall don't even break 50% win rate. You've clearly got a goal here and you are cherry-picking or inventing statistics whole-cloth to "prove" you are right. Space Marines just aren't an issue and Drukhari are clearly a problem.

Karol wrote:

You do see venoms at casual levels. Events =/= all causal lists.

I played a full termintor GK army in 8th ed, does it mean that in 8th people were playing GK termintor armies?

Well, by your own admission you were..... So yes.
Seriously though, yes, there were people playing GK termie forces in 8th. The owner of my most local shop is one of them.

Karol wrote:
I checked non english forums, and the DE forum. There don't seem to be much of an entice to run venoms, when raiders cost just as much and are better.

So? Just because the people posting aren't loving venoms doesn't erase them from everyone else's army.
Of the 4 Drukari forces I encounter in my circles & the local shops;
*One is merely the most recent Combat Patrol box - these are the kids 1st ever 40k models. So it's way too soon to know if he'll ever make use of a venom.
*One has no venoms. It was built ages ago in 3e when the DE were new. There were no venoms at that time. It's owner has never added more recent models.
*One has lots of venoms. No raiders at all. And to hear its owner go on they were quite good in a previous edition. (I think he means 8th. Could be 7th?)
*And the 4th has more venoms than raiders. Because it's owner simply likes how they look.
The people using the venoms seem to be having fun & like how their army is working, so....

 Canadian 5th wrote:

You can't balance a game against people not having something. MtG tried that in its earliest days and that lead to the power 9 which are almost universally banned or restricted to this day. You have to balance as if everybody is going to run the best stuff and then use elegant design elements to ensure a smooth curve of power as those optimized elements drop away in casual play.

This. I don't have the right words to tell it in the proper way. But to me it comes down to this. The claim that option A or B is good or bad, can't invalided by the fact that someone somewhere play or picks bad options. If we try that, then all talk about unit validity or being good or bad, can be discared by someone saying that they play a bad army vs other bad armies, and the problem does not exist for them, and by proxy this means it doesn't exist for others, because they can play vs bad armies too, at least in theory.

And also, if you play less powerful meta options....then nerfs wont really matter to yiu.

The nerfs proposed by TTT would increase the cost of my usual 2k de army by 45pts, affect none of my subfaction traits, none of the warlord traits or relics I use, and reduce my cp back down to what I get with every other army.

The horror?

Raiders really need to go up to 100pts each. Way too good for their points at 85 points. Fast, flying, have a dark lance, and can embarked units can shoot out of it is insane. Makes the impulsor look like hot garbage.

broxus wrote:
Raiders really need to go up to 100pts each. Way too good for their points at 85 points. Fast, flying, have a dark lance, and can embarked units can shoot out of it is insane. Makes the impulsor look like hot garbage.

The Impulsor was garbage when Raiders doing the same thing for years and no one complained. Make the Impulsor better, 80pts and the each upgrade just 5pts.

I mean, the main job an impulsor had was dumping a unit into rapid fire range. Yeah a raider does it better because it's cargo doesn't need to disembark at all to do most of it's job. The only tipping point being stratagems and the like.

cody.d. wrote:
I mean, the main job an impulsor had was dumping a unit into rapid fire range. Yeah a raider does it better because it's cargo doesn't need to disembark at all to do most of it's job. The only tipping point being stratagems and the like.

Melee units does, Incubi, Wyches, etc.. kabals other than a blaster or 2 are doing almost no damage. The problem is DT flamers, DT shouldn't have been added to the new book (as many DE players thought GW wouldn't do).

I mean people were running 4-6 Impulsor lists when it still was "only" 100 points with an invul and had the fly keyword.

Drop it down to 85, bring back fly, make the invul free and slap a free super-lasercannon on, people will bring back Impulsor lists too, even though it still wouldn't be rocking open topped. It's not rocket science.

Sunny Side Up wrote:
I mean people were running 4-6 Impulsor lists when it still was "only" 100 points with an invul and had the fly keyword.

Drop it down to 85, bring back fly, make the invul free and slap a free super-lasercannon on, people will bring back Impulsor lists too, even though it still wouldn't be rocking open topped. It's not rocket science.

And is there a problem if 2-3 is an average amount to take? It shouldn't be auto take for Marines b.c they can walk and have options, but it should at least be a viable option to use transports. For DE is not an option, even if you make the Raider 100pts you'll see 5+ transports no matter what.

PS, I never seen that many on the table or in any list every, i have seen a couple but never more than 3.

Hmmm.

Based on the latest round of tournament results I'm tempted to say "Nature is healing" just to upset everyone. Looking at say the Maryland Open you would conclude DE are probably the best faction in the game right now (even if they didn't win the tournament as a whole) - but its unclear they are breaking the game as much as some posts in the thread would indicate.

Maybe a meta can bloom.

(In before DE have dominated some tournaments this weekend just gone, I can also see that too.)

Sunny Side Up wrote:
I mean people were running 4-6 Impulsor lists when it still was "only" 100 points with an invul and had the fly keyword.

Drop it down to 85, bring back fly, make the invul free and slap a free super-lasercannon on, people will bring back Impulsor lists too, even though it still wouldn't be rocking open topped. It's not rocket science.

I never saw anyone run 4 to 6 impulsors. And that was when they had a 4++ and the edition was way more shooty.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

broxus wrote:
Raiders really need to go up to 100pts each. Way too good for their points at 85 points. Fast, flying, have a dark lance, and can embarked units can shoot out of it is insane. Makes the impulsor look like hot garbage.

The Impulsor was garbage when Raiders doing the same thing for years and no one complained. Make the Impulsor better, 80pts and the each upgrade just 5pts.

If Impulsors go to 80 pts, what about Rhinos? Tau Devilfish? I would rather transports had rules to make their costs than be just pointed cheaper and cheaper. AS weird as it is to say, I do miss firing points.

Raiders need to be 90 base, Book of Rust just errat'ed to hell and DT heavily nerfed and then see how the game looks.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:
I mean people were running 4-6 Impulsor lists when it still was "only" 100 points with an invul and had the fly keyword.

Drop it down to 85, bring back fly, make the invul free and slap a free super-lasercannon on, people will bring back Impulsor lists too, even though it still wouldn't be rocking open topped. It's not rocket science.

And is there a problem if 2-3 is an average amount to take? It shouldn't be auto take for Marines b.c they can walk and have options, but it should at least be a viable option to use transports. For DE is not an option, even if you make the Raider 100pts you'll see 5+ transports no matter what.

PS, I never seen that many on the table or in any list every, i have seen a couple but never more than 3.

Well..... Nowadays any space marine walking on foot that is not Ironhand / in Chief Apothercary protection range will instantly perished in the face of DT flamer spam anyway.........


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 Daedalus81 wrote:

Sunny Side Up wrote:
I mean people were running 4-6 Impulsor lists when it still was "only" 100 points with an invul and had the fly keyword.

Drop it down to 85, bring back fly, make the invul free and slap a free super-lasercannon on, people will bring back Impulsor lists too, even though it still wouldn't be rocking open topped. It's not rocket science.

I never saw anyone run 4 to 6 impulsors. And that was when they had a 4++ and the edition was way more shooty.

I think during SM codex Edition 8.5 there was White Scar and Space Wolves who use more than 4 Impulsors with 4++ to transport Intercessor and upgraded veteran intercessors accross the field. Usually they jump out T2, fire like 18 shots then make a easy charge to make 19 attacks (25 for veteran intercessor).

I think the nerf of Impulsor in 9th is due to the presence of Assault Intercessor and BGV. But anyway, Raider is much better in every aspects.

Neophyte2012 wrote:

I never saw anyone run 4 to 6 impulsors. And that was when they had a 4++ and the edition was way more shooty.

I think during SM codex Edition 8.5 there was White Scar and Space Wolves who use more than 4 Impulsors with 4++ to transport Intercessor and upgraded veteran intercessors accross the field. Usually they jump out T2, fire like 18 shots then make a easy charge to make 19 attacks (25 for veteran intercessor).

I think the nerf of Impulsor in 9th is due to the presence of Assault Intercessor and BGV. But anyway, Raider is much better in every aspects.

Impulsors allow you to disembark after the Impulsor has moved, but if you do you cannot charge that turn. Putting Assault Intercessors into Impulsors does not make much sense. Black Templars have a Stratagem that allows them to get into combat without charging.

I remember seeing Skari playing a game against Space Wolves Impulsor spam on TTS.

 Gir Spirit Bane wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

broxus wrote:
Raiders really need to go up to 100pts each. Way too good for their points at 85 points. Fast, flying, have a dark lance, and can embarked units can shoot out of it is insane. Makes the impulsor look like hot garbage.

The Impulsor was garbage when Raiders doing the same thing for years and no one complained. Make the Impulsor better, 80pts and the each upgrade just 5pts.

If Impulsors go to 80 pts, what about Rhinos? Tau Devilfish? I would rather transports had rules to make their costs than be just pointed cheaper and cheaper. AS weird as it is to say, I do miss firing points.

Raiders need to be 90 base, Book of Rust just errat'ed to hell and DT heavily nerfed and then see how the game looks.

Some needs to go down, some needs new rules.

Win rates for DE so far --

WR # of Games 4/10 - 84.6 26 4/24 - 70.2 129 5/01 - 69.8 139 5/08 - 60.0 30 5/15 - 66.7 141

The games from 5/1 forward would have been impacted by the limited FAQ. 5/8 should certainly be considered an odd outlier. Is the 3% drop FAQ related or adaptation? I wonder if we'll ever see the Charadon FAQ and what impact that would have.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Win rates for DE so far --

WR # of Games 4/10 - 84.6 26 4/24 - 70.2 129 5/01 - 69.8 139 5/08 - 60.0 30 5/15 - 66.7 141

The games from 5/1 forward would have been impacted by the limited FAQ. 5/8 should certainly be considered an odd outlier. Is the 3% drop FAQ related or adaptation? I wonder if we'll ever see the Charadon FAQ and what impact that would have.

That data for May 8th is less accurate than the data for other weeks because so few games were played; the same goes for April 10th.

In addition, you should be data gathered from more sources. For example, Goonhammer gathers their data from the ITC Battle App to get as much data as possible. This will give a more nuanced view of how DE are doing across that app's user base.

40Kstats pulls from multiple sources. I don't think they miss much in terms of GT. Maybe some RTTs fall off the radar.

 Amishprn86 wrote:


And is there a problem if 2-3 is an average amount to take? It shouldn't be auto take for Marines b.c they can walk and have options, but it should at least be a viable option to use transports. For DE is not an option, even if you make the Raider 100pts you'll see 5+ transports no matter what.

PS, I never seen that many on the table or in any list every, i have seen a couple but never more than 3.

Quite the opposite. For Marines, the Impulsor doesn't counter their main weakness of being a more elite, lower-model count army. If anything, it aggravates it a little. So it should be relatively cheaper.

The Raider directly patches the alleged main weakspot of the army of being fragile, T3 glass-cannon models. It should be relatively more expensive. Filling the main weakspot of your army should come at a premium, not a discount.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
40Kstats pulls from multiple sources. I don't think they miss much in terms of GT. Maybe some RTTs fall off the radar.

40stats will pull from locals as long as it has tournament in the name. They're not exactly reliable.

Sunny Side Up wrote:

Quite the opposite. For Marines, the Impulsor doesn't counter their main weakness of being a more elite, lower-model count army. If anything, it aggravates it a little. So it should be relatively cheaper.

The Raider directly patches the alleged main weakspot of the army of being fragile, T3 glass-cannon models. It should be relatively more expensive. Filling the main weakspot of your army should come at a premium, not a discount.

Following that logic, Marines shouldnt be able to do anything better than average, Tau should never be able to function outside the shooting phase, Orks should never be able to function outside the combat phase, and Thousand Suns should'nt be able to function outside the psychic phase because all the units that can do those things (shoring up the "alleged main weakspot") ought to be prohibitively priced.

We've seen that movie before. In some cases we're watching it right now. The outcome is gak.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
40Kstats pulls from multiple sources. I don't think they miss much in terms of GT. Maybe some RTTs fall off the radar.

Yes, but those only tell us about balance at tournaments. I usually care the most about tournament balance, but given the minuscule pool of games played each week at that level, we need far more data for it to be worth a damn.

Got a hold of the ITC Battles App data. This is just under 1,200 games with mirrors removed. Lots of interesting data to pick through. More to follow.




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This set of tables might be a little confusing at first. I'm too lazy to join them directly right now.

What they seem to imply is that DE wins more games if they go second against most opponents. Take AdMech. Of the 13 games they won DE had gone first 10 times out of 13. Of the 17 games DE won vs Admech the DE player had gone first only 10 times out of 17.

( These are only games where they recorded who went first and games from April 10th forward )

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:


And is there a problem if 2-3 is an average amount to take? It shouldn't be auto take for Marines b.c they can walk and have options, but it should at least be a viable option to use transports. For DE is not an option, even if you make the Raider 100pts you'll see 5+ transports no matter what.

PS, I never seen that many on the table or in any list every, i have seen a couple but never more than 3.

Quite the opposite. For Marines, the Impulsor doesn't counter their main weakness of being a more elite, lower-model count army. If anything, it aggravates it a little. So it should be relatively cheaper.

The Raider directly patches the alleged main weakspot of the army of being fragile, T3 glass-cannon models. It should be relatively more expensive. Filling the main weakspot of your army should come at a premium, not a discount.

I think your logic is not correct.
The issue with the impulsors, having in mind the nerfs it received, is the same like all others less than T8 vehicles without invulnerable. Simple multi-melta is too good and effective, vehicles just die to easy and and without the need to invest more points. Transport just cant handle the damage and fulfill their main role, to be annoying and give protection to units.
Sisters have the best melta and that is one of the reasons they are top army.
Multi-melta is not point effective vs good invulnerable saves and storm shield is the perfect profile to counter it.
Mathematically you need 7 more shots to kill bladeguard squad with transuman, than raider with lighting fast and from the math people did Raider is pretty point effective vs melta.
Autocannons are probably even less effective vs power armor.
So units like bladeguard and shield guard are practically invulnarable to range shooting, because armies simple don`t have cheap 2-3 AP D3 weapons. Custodes also have 1+ 3++ and they can even stop rerolls and that enhance the issue.
Glass hammer factions without the damage to punch effectively though such profile will be totally useless, unless such units get up in price or start paying for the free stormshield upgrade.

Back on the topic. Why would you spend 100 pts for Impulsor instead of just getting unit of bladeguard, that are tougher to kill and have times the killing power ?
Impulsor could be 100 pts(with the invul) and people will not take it, because storm shield + transuman is super broken for its points and drop pod is more reliable system for delivering most of the shooting units.

Sterling191 wrote:

Following that logic, Marines shouldnt be able to do anything better than average, Tau should never be able to function outside the shooting phase, Orks should never be able to function outside the combat phase, and Thousand Suns should'nt be able to function outside the psychic phase because all the units that can do those things (shoring up the "alleged main weakspot") ought to be prohibitively priced.

We've seen that movie before. In some cases we're watching it right now. The outcome is gak.

No. But a really strong close combat unit should be a bit more pricey for Tau, as it directly plugs an overall weakness in the army. Whereas strong shooting should be cheap and plentiful. Thus players can lean into the strengths of the armies and be rewarded, or opt to plug the main weakness, but at a slightly higher cost for the same close combat punch as a close combat-focussed army (which in turn would pay more for a very strong shooting unit).

Thereby you preserve the overall character of an army. If the Tau close-combat unit was super-cheap "because" Tau need it more as a non-cc army, you'd essentially flip their "strengths/weaknesses profile and turn them into a close combat army, given they now have an undercosted cc unit.

Sunny Side Up wrote:

No. But a really strong close combat unit should be a bit more pricey for Tau, as it directly plugs an overall weakness in the army. Whereas strong shooting should be cheap and plentiful. Thus players can lean into the strengths of the armies and be rewarded, or opt to plug the main weakness, but at a slightly higher cost for the same close combat punch as a close combat-focussed army (which in turn would pay more for a very strong shooting unit).

Thereby you preserve the overall character of an army. If the Tau close-combat unit was super-cheap "because" Tau need it more as a non-cc army, you'd essentially flip their "strengths/weaknesses profile and turn them into a close combat army, given they now have an undercosted cc unit.

This is an absurd philosophy. If you don't want Tau to have strong melee options the solution isn't to give Tau strong melee options, overcost them, and then undercost their shooting units. The end result there is that the badly priced melee units wont be run, and the underpriced shooting units will be run even more, functionally exacerbating two separate issues.

That you somehow think overcosting a unit will somehow make it viable is insane.