Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Blacksails wrote:

 EVIL INC wrote:

Not once did I ever dance around a fire naked or any of those things. I refuse to kill (beyond what annoyed me like flies and skeeters), heck, i didnt even fish because I didnt wanna kill/clean them.

Woosh.

Also, Azrael's age is proudly displayed in his profile info.

Old fart that he is.

LOL, A woosh because I'm too lazy to go to everyone's profile to scrutinize their age and information. Thats actually funny.Might as well woosh again because I didnt look yours up either.
Age is just a number Regardless of his age, i glanced and saw UK next to his name so assumed he wasnt in my hometown at that period of time regardless of his age.

No, the woosh was for your very serious reply about not actually dancing around fires or making sacrifices to Azrael's joke post.

 Blacksails wrote:
Clearly its the players fault and not the rules designers who, you know, made the rules and published it.

Damn those players for playing within the rules using lists and models they want! Curse them!

Just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should.

Just because the players can put in extra effort and fix your lazy and incompetent "game design" work doesn't mean that you should use that as a replacement for doing your job.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
Clearly its the players fault and not the rules designers who, you know, made the rules and published it.

Damn those players for playing within the rules using lists and models they want! Curse them!

Just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should.

I enjoy breaking games. I will fill this castle with watermelons or ragequit. There is no main quest.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
Clearly its the players fault and not the rules designers who, you know, made the rules and published it.

Damn those players for playing within the rules using lists and models they want! Curse them!

Just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should.

I agree. I don't think you should judge other players for how they choose to have fun, despite the fact that you could.

 Blacksails wrote:
No, the woosh was for your very serious reply about not actually dancing around fires or making sacrifices to Azrael's joke post.

That is not somethig you joke about. It is in poor taste to do so.

 EVIL INC wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
No, the woosh was for your very serious reply about not actually dancing around fires or making sacrifices to Azrael's joke post.

That is not somethig you joke about. It is in poor taste to do so.

It must be awful not having a sense of humour.

 Peregrine wrote:

Talys wrote:
This covers virtually all collectible games. If that's not your thing, there are many good board games.

There is no way around it: this is an expensive hobby to get into and excel in.

Except, as I said, this only applies to extreme cases where one player is limited to almost nothing and the other player isn't. Better games very quickly get rid of this problem once both players have at least a reasonable ability to buy new stuff, while 40k continues to have problems with it until you spend thousands of dollars on building a collection.

Talys wrote:
That's a very subjective statement. Personally, being someone who buys about half of the PP new releases and a quarter of the GW new releases, it is my personal opinion that new GW models are superior to new PP models. And, GW has far superior centerpiece models. There is nothing to compare with Voidraven, Revenant Titan, Baneblade, Treeman ancient, Wood elf Dragon, Nagash, etc. In other game universes, from a purely modelling perspective.

Yes, as you said, it's your subjective opinion. I'm glad you've admitted it now and backed off from your previous statement (which I was responding to in the post you quoted) that, from the point of view of someone who cares primarily about modeling and painting, GW's products are objectively superior.

And by "centerpiece" I'm talking about the difference between painting a whole plastic tactical squad vs. a single high-end resin character model, not just really big stuff. Most of GW's advantage in the modeling/painting side of the hobby depends on a "bigger is better" attitude that wants huge armies with huge models in them. If you instead want individual works of art then GW is a lot less appealing.

LOL. Way to twist words, dude. I said, what sculpt is better is subjective. You're the one who seems to think GW sculpts are mediocre -- yet your gallery and signature would seem to indicate that you like their product.

I said, GW is objectively superior of you want a high model count Scfi game, or a Scifi game where there are little units, big units, flying units, and so forth. That isn't just objective, it is a FACT. Another game of that scope does not exist. Name ONE other game that can look like a 3500 point table on an Imperialis board, with troops, tanks, artillery, jet bikes, bombers, copters and giant robots. I'd like to hear of just one.

Now, the other issue. GW is an expensive game. If you don't have a thousand bucks, and another thousand every year, you probably will bitch about how the game is overpriced. There are much cheaper games. However, they suffer the same issue, though perhaps at a different scale: you need to buy more stuff to be competitive and as you 'progress' you will but more stuff to be better. This is the business model, unless it's a board game.

Talys wrote:
You're the one who seems to think GW sculpts are mediocre -- yet your gallery and signature would seem to indicate that you like their product.

You mean the same gallery that contains exactly zero "main GW" models? All of that is FW stuff, which is a very different kind of model.

I said, GW is objectively superior of you want a high model count Scfi game, or a Scifi game where there are little units, big units, flying units, and so forth.

That's not what you said. You made two separate points, one about model quality and one about scale. Let me re-post your own words for you:

Actually, objectively, the price per model and the number of available models in the 40k universe is better than other Scifi games. Plus, the models have interchangeable configurations, and may be posed.

So, if you are primarily or seriously interested in the hobby and wish to collect models, it is objectively superior. If your desire is to collect, build, and paint models, and have a context in which to play with them when you wish, 40k is, objectively, a better game.

See? Nothing about scale.

 Peregrine wrote:

Talys wrote:
You're the one who seems to think GW sculpts are mediocre -- yet your gallery and signature would seem to indicate that you like their product.

You mean the same gallery that contains exactly zero "main GW" models? All of that is FW stuff, which is a very different kind of model.

I said, GW is objectively superior of you want a high model count Scfi game, or a Scifi game where there are little units, big units, flying units, and so forth.

That's not what you said. You made two separate points, one about model quality and one about scale. Let me re-post your own words for you:

Actually, objectively, the price per model and the number of available models in the 40k universe is better than other Scifi games. Plus, the models have interchangeable configurations, and may be posed.

So, if you are primarily or seriously interested in the hobby and wish to collect models, it is objectively superior. If your desire is to collect, build, and paint models, and have a context in which to play with them when you wish, 40k is, objectively, a better game.

See? Nothing about scale.

Read on, buddy:

If your desire is to play a high model count (100+) Scifi game, or if you wish to mix infantry, vehicles, large creatures, and flying units, 40k is pretty much the only game, whether that's good or bad.


And I stand my original comments:

- If you wanted to buy 100 futuristic infantry sized models *to model*, GW has a lower average (mean) price per model compared with competitors
- If you wanted to buy 100 futuristic vehicle sized models *to model*, GW has a lower average (mean) price per model compared with competitors
- if you want to pose or customize models, GW gives you more options out of the box than any other company

Therefore:

Actually, objectively, the price per model and the number of available models in the 40k universe is better than other Scifi games. Plus, the models have interchangeable configurations, and may be posed.

My followup comment was that if your primary interest is modelling, 40k gives you a better modelling environment, and there is a context in which to play those models. That's all.

I did not make any statement in my original post as to whether, subjectively, one person might prefer models from one company or another company, because beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some people prefer Everblight to Necron. That's just preference.

Regarding ForgeWorld:

Okay, so you like modelling FW models and think they're superior to GW ones. If you ever want to *play* those models, it will be in a GW game, which was what I was getting at in the first place. I never said GW wrote better games; I said, that objectively, it's a better environment for modellers (like you); some of those modellers wish to play a game with their work, in which case 40k would objectively seem like the logical conclusion.

When FW or another company likes it starts making beautiful models for Hordes or Warmachines, and when WMH makes rules for large scale games, I will happily change my assessment. I have no loyalty to Games Workshop; they just happen to make the only product that fits my criteria.

Also, I have no idea if you're aware of this, but Forgeworld is a Games Workshop company.

Don't believe me? Read the copyright at the bottom of the Forgeworld page, which clearly states that "the Forge World" is a trademark of Games Workshop Ltd.

I can only speak for australia and say: If i wanted to buy 100 futuristic infantry sized models *to model*, GW has the highest average (mean) price per model compared with competitors.

It doesn't help that most competitors will let me buy direct from them if they're located in another country. Or let me buy from 3rd party online retailers in another country that will probably offer me some form of discount. Also, the benefit of other companies' models is that you can pick and match the categories. Tanks from one company, infantry from another, fliers from a 3rd and so on. GW was the first company i encountered that was so retentive about using their models and only their models for their games.

Also, the poseability of most gw models is a furfee - to get things fitting right and looking natural, there's usually only a couple different variations that will actually work. Most of the 'modelability' comes if you play space marines. God help a modeler that likes eldar aspect warriors.

 Torga_DW wrote:
I can only speak for australia and say: If i wanted to buy 100 futuristic infantry sized models *to model*, GW has the highest average (mean) price per model compared with competitors.

It doesn't help that most competitors will let me buy direct from them if they're located in another country. Or let me buy from 3rd party online retailers in another country that will probably offer me some form of discount. Also, the benefit of other companies' models is that you can pick and match the categories. Tanks from one company, infantry from another, fliers from a 3rd and so on. GW was the first company i encountered that was so retentive about using their models and only their models for their games.

Also, the poseability of most gw models is a furfee - to get things fitting right and looking natural, there's usually only a couple different variations that will actually work. Most of the 'modelability' comes if you play space marines. God help a modeler that likes eldar aspect warriors.

What scifi game do you play that give you great prices on infantry and tanks?

The average box of 5-10 units in Canada is between $25-$40, discounted. That's $2.50 - $8 per model for troops to non-personality units. If you get them in a box set (like stormclaw or this week's deathstorm), or a starter box the price drops dramatically, closer to $2-$3 per model (you need to give some proportional credit for large models). Even undiscounted, it's only a buck more.

Heroes in 40k range, discounted, from $15 - $25 (add $5 undiscounted).

Tanks/transports, like wave serpent, lehman russ, raider, ravager range from $40 - $60 discounted (add $10 undiscounted).

Plus, there are often great deals for modellers. For instance, the box this week is superb (about $380 of models for $150 CAD; or $125 discounted). Stormclaw was so freaking amazing that it was out of this world. List price of $150, and there were so many sprues in the box I didn't know what to do with them. The $150 boxes even come with a couple of heroes, which are commonly proxied for other similarly geared heroes.

In WarMachines, which is really the only playable scifi wargame with a large selection of collectible models, with the exception of the starter box, it's almost impossible to get miniatures for less than $6 a piece, and that doesn't include any specialty units.

Poseability is highly important if you want to build convincing armies. There is no point in collecting dozens of basic Menoth units for display purposes, because they will all look the same.

With many -- MOST -- citadel troop models, there is an upper and lower torso (sometimes with male and female options), the lower torsos are different stances, and the weapons and head facing can be interchanged to give soldiers a relaxed look, an at-ready look, or an aiming-down-the-rifle look. Plus, there are a ton of weapon options. If modelling is your thing, you can paint a hundred space marine tacticals, and have the army poses not look repetitive.

You can also choose heads, which makes a huge difference in the model.

I agree that many Eldar models are woefully lacking in poseability, but you picked pretty much the only major faction that this is the case; this is partly because many of the models (especially the highly popular ones) are very dated.

If you look at Dark Eldar, on the other hand, take a look at a box of Kabalites, which is less than $30 (about $2.50 / model discounted), and consider the amazing modelling options available for that. Wyches, same thing. A cheap, $30 box gives you 10 highly customizable units, and you could buy 10 boxes, yet have little repetition. This goes for the vast majority of factions.

It is very cool to me that I can build a unit like a Dreadknight in many ways. It is much less cool that when I buy a Warjack, that's the only way it will ever be. At most, I might buy a second identical unit; I'll never buy five or six, since it's point less for game purposes, and I don't want clones for models.

 EVIL INC wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:
No, the woosh was for your very serious reply about not actually dancing around fires or making sacrifices to Azrael's joke post.

That is not somethig you joke about. It is in poor taste to do so.

Frankly, you're not really doing yourself any favours if you're applying for the job of "ultimate judge of what's funny."

I really recommend you avoid a little known movie starring two nobodies called Dan Akroyd and Tom Hanks from 'our' era (I'm 37 in a little over a month) called Dragnet, if you found my little joke in poor taste, that will have you spitting feathers!

Thats the beautiful thing about non-gw games: you don't need to buy the specific model for the specific game. Want just one example? Wargames factory greatcoat troopers. I'm sadly eyeballing the unfinished ones sitting next to me on the desk right now, and they model extremely well. Cost per model? $1.22. Heads are poseable, come with multiple head variants, comes with multiple weapon variants, fits almost any gaming system including games workshop games.

Let me say that again: $1.22 per model. $21.95 for a box of 18. The prices you list as amazing is just amazing to me. What is the point of building convincing armies if they're not convincing in the game?

I get that you seem to be a modeller, but its not an army you're building its a hypothetical abstract that isn't based on what an army in the game would actually be. People don't buy dozens of menoth basic units for display purposes if they're looking to build a convincing army. They buy the units needed to form an effective army, thats what forms a convincing army.

I'll give you that games workshop has updated the majority of their lines. But sisters of battle are the next obvious example that springs to mind.

 Torga_DW wrote:
Thats the beautiful thing about non-gw games: you don't need to buy the specific model for the specific game.

To be fair here, you don't have to use GW models to play GW games either, unless you're playing in a GW store. Since GW is the only games designer/publisher with their own network of brick and mortar stores, you can't really compare GW not allowing you to use non-GW models in a GW store to another company which doesn't even have a store to stop you playing with other models anyway.

If you build an IG army using WW2 models, you can assemble an army incredibly cheap.

 Torga_DW wrote:
Thats the beautiful thing about non-gw games: you don't need to buy the specific model for the specific game. Want just one example? Wargames factory greatcoat troopers. I'm sadly eyeballing the unfinished ones sitting next to me on the desk right now, and they model extremely well. Cost per model? $1.22. Heads are poseable, come with multiple head variants, comes with multiple weapon variants, fits almost any gaming system including games workshop games.

Let me say that again: $1.22 per model. $21.95 for a box of 18. The prices you list as amazing is just amazing to me. What is the point of building convincing armies if they're not convincing in the game?

I get that you seem to be a modeller, but its not an army you're building its a hypothetical abstract that isn't based on what an army in the game would actually be. People don't buy dozens of menoth basic units for display purposes if they're looking to build a convincing army. They buy the units needed to form an effective army, thats what forms a convincing army.

I'll give you that games workshop has updated the majority of their lines. But sisters of battle are the next obvious example that springs to mind.

Oh, I see what you mean. Wargames Factory is useful to get units to substitute, but they have a very, very limited scifi collection (I mean, you can't seriously compare it to the possibilities in 40k....). The difference in possible units is... orders of magnitude. I'm happy to give them and other companies my business too; they just don't pump out enough new stuff or have large enough libraries to keep me occupied.

I get what you're saying about buying units needed to form an effective army, but that's not quite true. I build far larger armies than I could actually ever play, especially in 25mm base troops, because they look so damn good when you have rows of them -- like Warhammer Fantasy Battle movement tray style. For the new release this week (deathstorm) I am buying 4 boxes (and I will paint pretty much every model in at least 3 of those boxes), even though there is no logical way I could ever field 3-4x anything included there.

I know I'm not unique in this, as my local gaming stores have a few people who have ordered multiple copies of deathstorm, and it's sure as heck not to build armies of genestealers, tyranid warriors, legion of the damned, or lord almighty... more terminators.

Regarding Sorroritas... those models are so old that you can't even buy most of them anymore. The codex is ancient, and I haven't seen anyone play more than a squad or two of them for kicks... I don't think, ever. I guess I'm saying, think that's a bit of an edge case I think the most legitimate complaint of dated, boring-looking models is Eldar, especially given that they are so crazy popular.

And, you're absolutely correct. I'm more modeler than game player, although I have a very nice gaming setup in my home, and have friends over to play at least a couple of times a month.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:
Just because you can do something doesn't mean that you should.

The problem with this is that the basic game rules compel you to seek victory. What you [Ìi]do[/i] during a game is most commonly work to defeat your opponent. These are incentives for analysing the rules and the army book to find the most useful options and then compose them into the most useful list given the circumstances. Playing to win is not a character flaw, it's what the fundamental game rules are based on. There may be room for moral victories in narrative campaigns but those are less common than just plain games due to requiring more time and effort.

Any game designers who introduce official rules that by design require informal agreements to stop the game from going sour aren't doing their jobs right.

Where do people get this 100+ models nonsense? Most 40k lists for typical games are like 30-40 unless you're pkeying a guard, ork or nid horde and frequently less just a lot of vehicles to make it look impressive.

 Blacksails wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:


Exactly, everything is within the rules, the players have chosen to take those rules and use them to create the best armies possible.

What makes you think that they wouldn't do the same within any structure that did exist. As all the threads from pre-Unbound 40k complaining about balance can prove, it was perfectly possible to build a similarly unbalanced army within the framework of the FOC. I can't imagine that all these players had a sudden change of mindset as soon as Unbound was introduced and went out to buy all these lists just to win games. They are sure to have held the same mindset before 7th, all Unbound does is allow them to take it further, which, given what was possible before, is not a huge leap.

Imbalance could be considered the cause of this, but not Unbound.

If the game was well structured, well written, and well balanced, we wouldn't have to lay any blame anywhere. There would be no pointing of fingers, no accusation of WAAC, no complaining people try to win too hard. There would just be players playing a game.

When the rules leave exploits or poor balance, players will inevitably gravitate towards stronger combinations. Let's face it, most people don't enjoy getting beaten over and over again. So in the case of 40k, a divide gets created between so called fluffy players and competitive players, where each looks down on the other. Players get blamed for problems in the game when the issue stems from the rules. When the issue stems from the rules, the only people to blame are the people who created the rules.

While you're correct people will be in the mindset to win regardless of how well or poorly the rules are written, a well written and balanced game wouldn't have the problem surface where players are getting trounced for bringing a certain selection of miniatures.

Unbound only made the balance issues worse in the game. Blaming players for using Unbound within its rules and indeed spirit is the last thing you should be doing. Blame the developers for releasing such a shoddy product. Don't look down on those who enjoy the game differently than you.

I find the whole player shaming and blaming nonsense to only make the issue even worse. This particular complaint could be avoided had Unbound never seen the light of day. In its place, you'd have a complaint about how powerful Eldar are, or some other list/codex, but again, those are products of poor writing and not inherent to players being donkey-caves.

The only time a player causes a problem is when the problem is independent of the rules. A loud, rude, obnoxious, smelly, dorito covered guy who touches your models, breaks models, and makes games unpleasant is a player problem. Jimmy from the store who likes his 5 IK list is not a player problem.

I'd have to disagree on the first sentiment, about how balance would fix things.

The first is, even with a perfectly balanced rule set, perfectly balanced codecies, there would ALWAYS be finger pointing and there will ALWAYS be claims that someone is a WAAC player. Because let's face it, even then, there ARE people who power game. People WILL find ways to get the most power out of their army possible, no matter what. And in the eye of many, that is WAAC. And to be fair, I don't think perfect balance is even possible. Power shifts in virtually every game. You can't have perfect balance in a continually evolving game.

Some armies will always trounce another army. Because that tends to be how games work when you make factions. Some factions will be counter picks to others. Perhaps in a perfect balanced game, the trouncing wouldn't be so bad, but in theory, the army designed to take out yours should be winning more often then not, if player skill is equal. In some cases, the loser will call out the other as a WAAC or cheesy player. At least, that's what happens in 40k. I don't see much of this attitude in many other games. (Major exception being Heroclix, where the crying is abound left and right).

My take on Unbound is it can be a fun variant for list building, and helps newer players actually get in a game, even if they might not own all the required models to decently fill a CAD. It also just lets people throw things on the table and have a good time. But with all good and fun things, there will be people to abuse the power it can give. Granted, those players ARE just as entitled to bring whatever they want to the table. Be it nothing but Boyz or nothing but C'tans or what have you. Though those players also have to understand that bringing something so powerful is not going to be fun for their opponent either, specifically when it's a casual game. When there are prizes on the line, I don't expect anyone to play their weaker lists so not to hurt feelings. That's the point of a competition, to do your best to win (Without cheating of course).

TL;DR, Balance is great and all, but it really won't mean a thing in the long run. Yes, closer games maybe, but the power gamer will always exist and do their best to break the meta. Unbound or not. Unbound can be fun. Only play unbound with people you like and understand what you are willing to play against. You are not obligated to play toy soldiers with anyone.

My take on Unbound is it can be a fun variant for list building, and helps newer players actually get in a game, even if they might not own all the required models to decently fill a CAD.

How does one buy 1500pts of models and not have a legal army, even if someone was picking units at random it shouldn't happen.

The issue though is that Unbound doesn't restrict anything and puts the pressure on the players. Since you are technically allowed to field nothing but C'tans, it then makes your opponent (i.e. the guy who will refuse to play you) the jerk/TFG for not playing you with a legal army, even though your "legal" army is ridiculous and wouldn't result in a fun game.

That's the issue I have with Unbound. It's pure lazy design to allow everything and tell the community to enforce its own rules, because while people will generally accept the rules saying that you can't do X, they are generally less accepting of "Don't do X" because some random person doesn't like it. It's almost like appeal to authority. It's fine if the government says that X isn't allowed, but not when Joe Sixpack says it because Joe Sixpack is just a regular person with no authority.

Same thing with Unbound. GW saying that you can't field six Riptides is fine because it comes from the people who are making the rules, with the authority to determine what's best for their game (even if in practice it turns out badly because of that). Bob at the FLGS saying that six Riptides is crap and he won't play you makes Bob seem like a whiny jerk who doesn't want to play your perfectly legal army because he's afraid that you'll curbstomp him with it, and that's the problem; that six Riptides *are* a perfectly legal army by the rules, therefore anyone who doesn't want to play you doesn't want to play by the rules but wants to add their own restrictions without the authority to do so.

Makumba wrote:

My take on Unbound is it can be a fun variant for list building, and helps newer players actually get in a game, even if they might not own all the required models to decently fill a CAD.

How does one buy 1500pts of models and not have a legal army, even if someone was picking units at random it shouldn't happen.

I'll give you an example from my mistakes starting 40k. When I initially got started, I wasn't 100% clear on army building. I didn't own the BRB, and I was foolish and didn't notice the CAD in my Codex, so I started to buy models without buying the proper requirements to fill a CAD. So, unbound would have been nice to play, since I didn't have more than 500 points.

Also, if you seriously think anyone buys 1500 points of models in a sitting to get going, you're insane. By the time you get to 1500 you should be fine to fill a CAD, unless you made severely poor purchase choices.

It still doesn't negate the statement that unbound can be fun if done properly, and allow low model count players to play a little bit. (Without needing to buy Kill Team rules, which honestly, is a bad concept for 40k. It's OK at best, and boring at worst)

Melevolence wrote:


TL;DR, Balance is great and all, but it really won't mean a thing in the long run. Yes, closer games maybe, but the power gamer will always exist and do their best to break the meta. Unbound or not. Unbound can be fun. Only play unbound with people you like and understand what you are willing to play against. You are not obligated to play toy soldiers with anyone.

Errr, no.

We have real, functioning examples of games with far better balance.

Yes, there will always be power levels, but those will be determined first and foremost by the ability of the player, and not the collection of their models. Further, the difference between the best, most min-maxed list and one built with models a person loves with far less thought will be close enough that the two can enjoy the game and the primary determinant of the matches outcome will be player actions on the table top.

I think you're falling into the trap of 'perfect balance'. Yes, there will always be imbalances. You're not trying to make things perfect, or mirror match everything. It will always be possible to build a gakky list, but the idea is that a player who makes the effort to find even the smallest amount of synergy and cover their bases for a variety of targets and abilities will be able to function on the table top where their skill and ability will ultimately determine the outcome.

The difference being 40k, where a fluffy stormtrooper army in Tauroxes will get wiped by an Eldar player using Serpents almost every time, assuming players are of equal skill.

Melevolence wrote:

 Blacksails wrote:

 Paradigm wrote:


Exactly, everything is within the rules, the players have chosen to take those rules and use them to create the best armies possible.

What makes you think that they wouldn't do the same within any structure that did exist. As all the threads from pre-Unbound 40k complaining about balance can prove, it was perfectly possible to build a similarly unbalanced army within the framework of the FOC. I can't imagine that all these players had a sudden change of mindset as soon as Unbound was introduced and went out to buy all these lists just to win games. They are sure to have held the same mindset before 7th, all Unbound does is allow them to take it further, which, given what was possible before, is not a huge leap.

Imbalance could be considered the cause of this, but not Unbound.

If the game was well structured, well written, and well balanced, we wouldn't have to lay any blame anywhere. There would be no pointing of fingers, no accusation of WAAC, no complaining people try to win too hard. There would just be players playing a game.

When the rules leave exploits or poor balance, players will inevitably gravitate towards stronger combinations. Let's face it, most people don't enjoy getting beaten over and over again. So in the case of 40k, a divide gets created between so called fluffy players and competitive players, where each looks down on the other. Players get blamed for problems in the game when the issue stems from the rules. When the issue stems from the rules, the only people to blame are the people who created the rules.

While you're correct people will be in the mindset to win regardless of how well or poorly the rules are written, a well written and balanced game wouldn't have the problem surface where players are getting trounced for bringing a certain selection of miniatures.

Unbound only made the balance issues worse in the game. Blaming players for using Unbound within its rules and indeed spirit is the last thing you should be doing. Blame the developers for releasing such a shoddy product. Don't look down on those who enjoy the game differently than you.

I find the whole player shaming and blaming nonsense to only make the issue even worse. This particular complaint could be avoided had Unbound never seen the light of day. In its place, you'd have a complaint about how powerful Eldar are, or some other list/codex, but again, those are products of poor writing and not inherent to players being donkey-caves.

The only time a player causes a problem is when the problem is independent of the rules. A loud, rude, obnoxious, smelly, dorito covered guy who touches your models, breaks models, and makes games unpleasant is a player problem. Jimmy from the store who likes his 5 IK list is not a player problem.

I'd have to disagree on the first sentiment, about how balance would fix things.

The first is, even with a perfectly balanced rule set, perfectly balanced codecies, there would ALWAYS be finger pointing and there will ALWAYS be claims that someone is a WAAC player. Because let's face it, even then, there ARE people who power game. People WILL find ways to get the most power out of their army possible, no matter what. And in the eye of many, that is WAAC. And to be fair, I don't think perfect balance is even possible. Power shifts in virtually every game. You can't have perfect balance in a continually evolving game.

Some armies will always trounce another army. Because that tends to be how games work when you make factions. Some factions will be counter picks to others. Perhaps in a perfect balanced game, the trouncing wouldn't be so bad, but in theory, the army designed to take out yours should be winning more often then not, if player skill is equal. In some cases, the loser will call out the other as a WAAC or cheesy player. At least, that's what happens in 40k. I don't see much of this attitude in many other games. (Major exception being Heroclix, where the crying is abound left and right).

My take on Unbound is it can be a fun variant for list building, and helps newer players actually get in a game, even if they might not own all the required models to decently fill a CAD. It also just lets people throw things on the table and have a good time. But with all good and fun things, there will be people to abuse the power it can give. Granted, those players ARE just as entitled to bring whatever they want to the table. Be it nothing but Boyz or nothing but C'tans or what have you. Though those players also have to understand that bringing something so powerful is not going to be fun for their opponent either, specifically when it's a casual game. When there are prizes on the line, I don't expect anyone to play their weaker lists so not to hurt feelings. That's the point of a competition, to do your best to win (Without cheating of course).

TL;DR, Balance is great and all, but it really won't mean a thing in the long run. Yes, closer games maybe, but the power gamer will always exist and do their best to break the meta. Unbound or not. Unbound can be fun. Only play unbound with people you like and understand what you are willing to play against. You are not obligated to play toy soldiers with anyone.

The problem is that you're talking of better balance like it's some unproven theory that we don't know about. But there are several games that do this very thing and are quite successful at it. Yes, someone will always complain, but you can't ignore the growing number of legitimate complaints about GW's rules. Other games manage complex faction interactions while still maintaining faction viability. Example: Khador has a 'roughly' equal chance of winning against legion. Like you said, some lists will trounce others, but the degree is less than 40k where some armies just don't stand a chance.

Also, I had no idea what RunicFin was saying.
As Orson Scott Card once told me, "When a reader is confused about something you wrote, it's you, the writer's fault for not being clear enough. Don't try to defend it, just fix it."

I still maintain a more dynamic approach to FAQs and Errata would make a huge difference, it doesn't take a genius to see that the most frequent units and codexes cited as the cause of people's frustrations are comparatively small in the context of the number of factions and units in the game.

If the top 25% were toned down, and the bottom 25% buffed a little, the game would be immeasurably better. It wouldn't take a ground up rebuild to simply make the game more even.

It would be nice to see GW make the attempt if nothing else.

WayneTheGame wrote:
Where do people get this 100+ models nonsense? Most 40k lists for typical games are like 30-40 unless you're pkeying a guard, ork or nid horde and frequently less just a lot of vehicles to make it look impressive.

I just poked into the Lists section.

From the top --

Dark Angels [2000] - 66 models
CSM [1850] - 60 models
GK [1850] - 20 models
CSM[1850] - 55 models plus fortifications
Orks[1500] - 97 models

I just counted the first 5 that appeared, which are very average-ish sized armies (GK armies are always small model count). Any 3000+ game will easily land you well over 100 models.

Talys wrote:

I just counted the first 5 that appeared, which are very average-ish sized armies (GK armies are always small model count). Any 3000+ game will easily land you well over 100 models.

The number of people that actually regularly play 3000+ games is incredibly small.

PhantomViper wrote:

Talys wrote:

I just counted the first 5 that appeared, which are very average-ish sized armies (GK armies are always small model count). Any 3000+ game will easily land you well over 100 models.

The number of people that actually regularly play 3000+ games is incredibly small.

Pickup games, yes, for sure. Just transporting the units to the store is a lot of work. But planned games in groups, and preplanned scenarios, 100 units is quite common (at least for us), and 2,500-4,500 points is also common.

Of course, our gaming window is 6-12 hours, much longer than you'd hang out at an FLGS for, and there is a secure place to store your models you don't want to shuffle back and forth. But, we usually do more than just play a 40k game. There might be XB1, a WMH or Malifaux game -- or even continue on our RPG (where we can burn 12 hours and still be at the same place we started hahaha).

Talys wrote:

PhantomViper wrote:

Talys wrote:

I just counted the first 5 that appeared, which are very average-ish sized armies (GK armies are always small model count). Any 3000+ game will easily land you well over 100 models.

The number of people that actually regularly play 3000+ games is incredibly small.

Pickup games, yes, for sure. Just transporting the units to the store is a lot of work. But planned games in groups, and preplanned scenarios, 100 units is quite common (at least for us), and 2,500-4,500 points is also common.

Of course, our gaming window is 6-12 hours, much longer than you'd hang out at an FLGS for. But, we usually do more than just play a 40k game. There might be XB1, a WMH or Malifaux game -- or even continue on our RPG (where we can burn 12 hours and still be at the same place we started hahaha).

At my FLGS 2000 pts is the limit without special permission. Anything more just takes waaaay too long.