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.

It's early days and much can and probably will change but who's looing like they're gonna get a healthy boost? We know lots of previously top tier armies are looking over their shoulders with trepidation at the moment, and the new Boyz on the block are feeling pretty confident, but who do you think (pure speculation obviously) will be dominating the tournaments?

Obviously the Orks seem to be looking healthy, lots of troops with the new run ability has got to be nice.

Personally I'm thinking the Black Templars might be a good bet. You can go foot-slogger/troop heavy if you like but with the possibility of a much more impressive Landraider (less to fear from anything less than strength 9, and less heavy weapons on the table to boot), and the fact that it's unlikely their codex will be hit by 'nerfbat' for a long time I think they look good. Especially if the new preferred enemy rule that the whole army can get is as good as it sounds.

I read Mauleed post that he thinks the Guard are gonna be winners, not sure I see the reasoning there but he often sees things that don't occur to me.

So what do you think, something's gotta fill the Nidzilla/mech skimmer shaped hole in the top tables...

Every army is getting a boost.

Whiners don't see the overall picture, all they see is their sacred cow getting the shaft.

My advice: Own every army. Then you're never boned.

Unless GW goes under. Or sells out to Hasbro-Mart.

Black Templar and other footslogging assault marine lists definately seem to get more good than bad. Their only disadvantage being that they now have to stand up to other armies tricks too eg Genestealers hiding behind gaunts.

Honestly Falcons were just no fun, my brother and I haven't played a 40k game in over a year (we've been trying a new game pretty much every time we meet + Hordes) but we'll be sure to give the new edition a go at some point.

Marines got a boost + landraiders are good now.

Necrons won't even know we changed editions. Monoliths are harder to kill.

Tyranids Kinda early but horde armies migh have some promise now that warriors can't be sniped away. Nidzilla seems fine, better via marching monsters.

Tau lost skimmers gained troop shields. I think they are going to throw back to 3rd ed with ground pounder list.

Dark Eldar hurt slightly, but there skimmers were already paper. No entanglement Is awesome for them. Might see a return to non WWP armies. probably not though.

Guard, there tanks aren't scoring any more. Mech Guard armies might be the new norm. I think it's kind of a zero sum gain for them.

orks are peachy keen

Stelek wrote:Or sells out to Hasbro-Mart.

Please tell me that was just a baseless joke and not even a rumour...

Just thinking about the 3 armies I own (Nurgle Chaos, Imperial Guard, Tyranids) they're all getting better.

Chaos: Land Raider = better, Rhinos don't entangle anymore (and PMs laugh at S4 hits with saves allowed from exploding). The deepstrike change doesn't hurt so bad as everything will come in off icons. The only bad thing is that Battlecannon templates will now wipe out PM squads 50% of the time (hit all under the template, no FNP from S8). But because of that, a Defiler in cover is looking pretty good...

Imperial Guard: Russ toughness is now great, and their battlecannons hit all under the template - can't complain. Sentinels in cover (or even walking behind tanks, shooting over them) get cover saves, awesome. Mech Guard (7+ Guard squads in Chimeras (in cover) shooting a heavy out the top) will actually be quite survivable, and any Chimeras still mobile by turn 5 can move up and dump troops on objectives in a parody of 4th-ed Skimmer land-grabs. Cameleoline just got sick (3+ saves in forests...heh)

Nids: Swarms of gaunts blocking LOS to Stealers - sign me up! Also granting cover saves to cheap Warriors (Toxin Sacs, Deathspitter), who can now walk among/behind the gaunts shooting barrages of S6 Deathspitter templates (with a Barbed Strangler in the mix?) over their heads. The decision as to which model to place forwards (to start the barrage with a large or small blast template) will be interesting...
VCs got a lot worse at taking out vehicles though. So did S4 Rending. But Barbed Stranglers that hit everything under the template are real nice against hordes. Mech Guard vs Nids will be interesting, but I think that Nids can give Orks a good run for their money...

Any list with numbers is going to have a real advantage over more elite armies, with the way wound allocation and outnumbering is sounding. Thinking nids will adapt and continue to be totally frightening, but anybody running horde orks is going to be sitting pretty. Real solid army right now as is, but all those big ork mobs are going to just get stronger with RUN! in there, along with combat changes. Land Raiders get even harder for them, but ah well tank hammer ftw (and tank bustas get easier to control with LoS blocking).

And lobbas get boosted by the no-roll-to-hit-always-scatter thing for templates, unlike every race with BS3+

- Salvage

I am really liking my drop pod list. 800+ pts in troops is a good start, and skimmer nerfing will just make me that much better.

Godzilla I think is tgetting doinked by the inability to hurt high Av.

This is going to sound outlandish, but here's my prediction for tiering:

Top
Rhino rushing plaguemarines of some sort
Necron phalanx
Footslogging Orks
IG with 3 leman russes
Drop Pods

Mid
Monolith Necrons
Footslogging Eldar
Footslogging Tau
Footslogging Marines
IG horde
Mechanized IG

Low
Most everyone else.

I forgot that Chaos are actually going to be pretty good. They have some of the nicer basic troops out there.
Heh maybe the dev team has some idea what they are doing after all.........

Top tier will be whatever the wisdom of the Intarwebz acclaims it to be, and whatever the strategic perspicacity of the tournament circuit copy-pastes from the Intarwebz onto their army lists.

I see what you're saying Nurglitch, and I have to point out I have no idea what happens in US events (seems the majority of the population here on Dakka are colonials) but here in the UK the 'wisdom of the interwebs' is a fairly accurate reflection of whats doing well at any given point in the tournament scene. Obviously I have no proof but I was always under the impression that the 'intarwebz' took its lead from the tournaments and not the other way about. (could be wrong though... hmm, chicken and egg anyone?)

MrJones wrote:I see what you're saying Nurglitch, and I have to point out I have no idea what happens in US events (seems the majority of the population here on Dakka are colonials) but here in the UK the 'wisdom of the interwebs' is a fairly accurate reflection of whats doing well at any given point in the tournament scene. Obviously I have no proof but I was always under the impression that the 'intarwebz' took its lead from the tournaments and not the other way about. (could be wrong though... hmm, chicken and egg anyone?)

I think both internet analysts and tournament based players are able to do the odds and figure out what's underpriced and what the most powerful and broken builds are. It's not that hard to do. It may be chicken and egg, but the God who created both the chicken and the egg is broken and unbalanced army lists and poorly playtested rules. Once the Codexes are internally balanced and balanced against each other then there will be much less emphasis on tiers.

Asmodai wrote:

MrJones wrote:I see what you're saying Nurglitch, and I have to point out I have no idea what happens in US events (seems the majority of the population here on Dakka are colonials) but here in the UK the 'wisdom of the interwebs' is a fairly accurate reflection of whats doing well at any given point in the tournament scene. Obviously I have no proof but I was always under the impression that the 'intarwebz' took its lead from the tournaments and not the other way about. (could be wrong though... hmm, chicken and egg anyone?)

I think both internet analysts and tournament based players are able to do the odds and figure out what's underpriced and what the most powerful and broken builds are. It's not that hard to do. It may be chicken and egg, but the God who created both the chicken and the egg is broken and unbalanced army lists and poorly playtested rules. Once the Codexes are internally balanced and balanced against each other then there will be much less emphasis on tiers.

Let's not get too Zen here

And while internet analysis is good for volume of discussion and presentation of bizzarre alternative viewpoints (many names could be named...), it tends to overfocus on single-unit selections and forget that unit synergy is what makes things kick donkey. But yes, the most mathematically broken choices jump out in whatever medium.

Savnock wrote:

Asmodai wrote:

MrJones wrote:I see what you're saying Nurglitch, and I have to point out I have no idea what happens in US events (seems the majority of the population here on Dakka are colonials) but here in the UK the 'wisdom of the interwebs' is a fairly accurate reflection of whats doing well at any given point in the tournament scene. Obviously I have no proof but I was always under the impression that the 'intarwebz' took its lead from the tournaments and not the other way about. (could be wrong though... hmm, chicken and egg anyone?)

I think both internet analysts and tournament based players are able to do the odds and figure out what's underpriced and what the most powerful and broken builds are. It's not that hard to do. It may be chicken and egg, but the God who created both the chicken and the egg is broken and unbalanced army lists and poorly playtested rules. Once the Codexes are internally balanced and balanced against each other then there will be much less emphasis on tiers.

Let's not get too Zen here

And while internet analysis is good for volume of discussion and presentation of bizzarre alternative viewpoints (many names could be named...), it tends to overfocus on single-unit selections and forget that unit synergy is what makes things kick donkey. But yes, the most mathematically broken choices jump out in whatever medium.

True. I was drinking Tazo's Zen tea, so that must have gotten reflected in my post.

Use of unit synergy is what separates tournament winners from also rans, along with use of terrain, match-ups and luck. Unfortunately, the metagame varies wildly from place to place (in terms of what armies are popular), each tournament has a different amount of terrain and different types and sizes, etc.

None of those things can be controlled or anticipated in advance - either by tournament players or by the pundits. Instead the discussion focuses on what factors are controllable - e.g. making sure you have enough heavy weapons, can survive a turn of hypothetical return fire, can move across a hypothetical table to secure an objective a certain distance away in a theoretical mission that might or might not exist who attempting to prevent the mythical MEQ from doing the same.

Everyone could make a 36 variants of each post (light, medium, heavy terrain x each army) with subparagraphs for each of the major builds for that army, but let's be honest. I'm posting on Dakka because I'm too lazy to start writing my essay that's due next week or finish painting up the Whirlwind on my coffee table. That doesn't bode well for me, or anyone else, going into more than a superficial analysis of the most likely outcomes.


Paragraph 1113.B.2.1 - In the event of emergency: It is always possible that a Grand Tournament or Rogue Trade Tournament will catch fire or be attacked by terrorists or a lone psychopath. Although Orks and to a lesser extent, Marines are already prepared for this eventuality (see Appendix B, paragraph 359), Eldar players face unique challenges. First, Grav-Tanks are generally not flame-retardant. Nor are they bullet proof (unless the steps in subparagraph 3253.B.1 have been followed). Use of the Falcon as a flotation advice is inadvisable, unless the liquid medium is pudding (para. 255) or jello (para. 256). On to addressing Eldar's unique challenges. The first topic is fire. Eldar are better off here than Tyranids or Orks, but worse off than Marines in terms of quick-packing. The proprietary of packing up your army before leaving has been much debated (see infra). Generally speaking, if the fire is only minor or electrical it is best to take easily flammable Codexes and rulebooks, but leave the models on the table. You should leave in an orderly manner after your opponent. It is possible that your opponent in fact set the fire and planned to remain to measure distances and make minor adjustments after the building was evacuated. You should not allow this to happen. Flame-retardant clothing is recommended (see Appendix Q). Terrorist attacks also poses significant challenges for the Eldar player. Eldar transfers include Taoist symbols. This will pose a challenge if the tournament is taken hostage by Taoist extremists as the symbols could be seen as sacrilegious. For this reason, it is advisable not to use those symbols. (Note: some players maintain these symbols provide luck or quantum fluctuations that affect die rolls. For a more thorough discussion see Appendix V: Religion and Superstition). The lone psychopath can also pose a challenge. Statistically, Eldar players are 24% more likely to suffer from mental illness than the general Warhammer 40,000 playing population (n24564). For this reason, the psychopath may attempt to bond with the Eldar player as a kindred spirit. This can be useful sometimes, but it places the Eldar player in great danger. Before a tournament, the player is well-advised to attend classes on hostage negotiation and criminal behavior. As always, the player should be able to defend themselves (see Paragraph 245325-Q on Self-Defence for Gamers and Appendix M - Are sidearms acceptable at the game table?).

Nah.

Lol! That must be some essay you're avoiding.

Barkeep, I'll have what he's having.

Asmodai wrote:Once the Codexes are internally balanced and balanced against each other then there will be much less emphasis on tiers.

A simpler explanation is that the armies are balanced and it's simply the prevalence of bad armchair analysis that gives credence to silly ideas like armies being "top tier".

Nurglitch wrote:A simpler explanation is that the armies are balanced and it's simply the prevalence of bad armchair analysis that gives credence to silly ideas like armies being "top tier".

Ok, as a guy who reads plenty of threads, I've noticed that you occaisionally let slip that maybe you're not 100% certain that there are power imbalances in the codex. What makes me curious is that I'd like to know to what extent you find that true. Do you think that all codices, past, present and future are perfectly balanced with regards to winnability? Do you think that any varients in power are minor enough to not be relevent?

In your dismissal of armchair analysis, you contest that Dakka's theory of list preeminance is mostly groupthink. Are we wrong? And if so, how do you know that all lists are balanced? Are you engaging in your own analysis, or have you extensively playtested all top teir army lists against DA, Daemonhunters, IG, old orks, and found them to be even?

In a hypothetical, lets say we were to take 1000 gamers, divide them into groups A and B, evening out intelligence, experience, general player skill, etc. among the groups. Group A will use Nidzilla, tri-falcon eldar, and new Orks. Group B will use DA, IG, and Old Orks. Assuming both sides got plenty of time to familiarize themselves with their lists, and all outside variables were kept constant, would you expect Group A to perform no better than group B?

If you've explained the reason for your dismissal and the process by which you've come to your conclusions in another thread, by all means link me to it.

Polonius: Your avatar truly represents the sagacity for which you are rightly famed. I believe that no rigorous analysis has been done with regard to whether codicies and the units told of within them are 'balanced'. Indeed no rigorous definition has been offered for that term, and no rigorous analysis employing that term has yet to be offered. In the absence of rigorous method one can quite reasonably expect results to not only be false, but misleading.

In my dismissal of armchair analysis I contest that where no rigorous method is employed the reasonable person errs on the side of caution and rejects the possible truth of any results. That reasonable person cannot reject all results, but that is simply because, as the principle of explosiveness tells us, the set of results would be transfinite and irregular, and thus unknowable.

Similarly one must reject the relevance of what is commonly known as 'play-testing', as the object in question is a mathematical structure and no empirical testing will avail one who wishes to explore such a structure and remark upon its properties with any accuracy.

In the absence of knowing whether all lists are balanced, but knowing that many lists and armies that are often considered unbalanced may be used effectively by a player that is skilled in the game of Warhammer 40k, the only reasonable conclusion is that when one does not find success with a particular army, one must eliminate the variables of luck, mission, skill, and the skill of one's opponents before supposing that the army itself is a crude instrument.

If we were to take 1000 gamers, and divide them into two equal groups, where one group used what are commonly considered the "top-tier" armies and one group used what are thus considered the "bottom tier" armies, I would not expect either group to perform better than another within the standard deviations. I would not expect this for two reasons:

The first reason is that the effectiveness of the armies would depend on the missions and terrain being used, as well as the skill of the players and the capacities inherent in the armies. Even if kept constant with regard to lucky, mission, and terrain, this sample would not avail us where the total product of the variables concerned requires consideration to assure the likelihood of truth in any conclusions.

The second reason is that the number of moves in any particular game between any players would be very very large as well, so we could not know whether the players used the armies well since we have abstracted away what it means to use an army well as a product of skill. Essentially such a hypothetical situation would be a ridiculous waste of time and effort, and yield misleading results. But what else can you expect with the misapplication of the methods of empirical science?

In the meantime, and in the absence of the resources to misapply the scientific method it seems that players must misuse the methods of pure science, in particular according to the fallacies of argumentum ad populum, appeal to authority, question-begging, appeals to prejudice, and all the traditional fallacies of reasoning beloved of internet forum users.

hmm, interesting post. I'm really not sure if I should respond tit-for-tat, replying to each idea, or if I should respond in a manifesto.

I guess before I respond fully, I'd like more elaboration on your ideas. You said that you would expect my hypothetical test would not show either group to have an advantage. This was due, you claimed, to external variables (missions, skill, luck) as well as by claiming that such a test is a misapplicaiton of empirical science. I'm not a scientist, but I've always assumed that the way to test a hypothesis (that certain armies perform better than others) was to do what you can control external variables so that the only independent variable was that being tested. I tried to be clear, but maybe I wasn't enough. I'm suggesting that we take an arbitrarily large number of gamers, have them play a large number of games against the other group, and try to normalize as many variables as possible. Have the gamers play every mission in the BGB, GTs, Ard Boys, etc. Make the groups large and random to reduce a skill gap. Have them play large numbers of games to minimize the effects of luck.

Would such an experiment yeild valid results? If not, why not? If not, how would you construct an experiemnt to test this? And if you cannot test this hypothesis, even hypothetically, then are you saying that it is unknowable?

Look, I'm the first to admit that differences in how an army is constructed is more vital to success then what list it's drawn from, and that how a game is played is more vital then either. I want to assure you that I'm not arguing that list constructions, and use of power codices, is the #1 key to 40k success.

You repeatedly claim that missions, terrain, etc. play a huge factor. I've played 40k in a few cities now, in a bunch of stores, and while terrain and missions are factors, most seem to revolve around a central core (3-5 pieces of large, LOS blocking terrain, a few scattered peices of smaller terrain, most missions drawn from the BGB) rather than more exotic tables and scenarios. What interests me is that IIRC you've stated that your group uses all kinds of interesting missions, table set ups, etc. If so, then the difference between armies sharply drop off compared to the differecne between mission. It's possible that there is an observer bias here, namely that you don't see the effect, so you assume it's not there.

Finally, you spend a decent amount of time in your post discussing "Truth," and while you never use the term "opinion," it's insinuated that you view the groupthink as opinion and are rejecting it for not being truth. that's perfectly valid and uncompromising. Your goal is to show that the accepted wisdom of the internet is less reliable than is claimed. Your post above can be nitpicked, and I might do so later after you clarify some things, but you clearly have some grasp on truth, empiricism, and logic. Which is why it seems odd to me that your posts aren't "keep in mind that there is no evidence that top teir lists perform better," but instead read more like "there are no top tier lists" or "so called top tier lists do not perform better." It's a subtle difference, but it's the difference between lack of evidence (which you ably point out) and evidence of a lack (which is even more noticable).

Anyways, I think we're probably on a more closer page then I thought at first, although I'm curious to see exactly how rigorously you contest that all lists are perfectly blaanced.

"Similarly one must reject the relevance of what is commonly known as 'play-testing', as the object in question is a mathematical structure and no empirical testing will avail one who wishes to explore such a structure and remark upon its properties with any accuracy."

So in your estimation, empirical research on this topic is worthless?

I disagree with that. It can certainly be misleading, but the proper use of empirical research combined with mathematical norms is most likely to create satisfactory results.

These results are reflected in the placement of 'top-tier' armies at tournaments. If you accept that the goal here is to create army lists that win tournaments, then it's evident that the method is working. Rather than deny reality, it's more productive to examine why they win.

The decisions made during a game of 40K are usually relatively simple. It can be assumed that all expert players will be able to intelligently deploy their army, choose the right priority targets, etc. This mitigates the impact of the individual player's skills.

What else explains the empirical results? Luck, in the grand scale can be abstracted into probability. 40K involves many, many dice being rolled. The standard deviation for rolling 1d6 and saving on a 5+ is huge, but when you do so for a unit of 30 Gaunts, the results are very likely to fall within a narrow range. Outliers are possible, but are rare enough to be safely discounted.

Thus, finite mathematics and probability calculations in general should provide some idea of whether any given list will perform better than the same list assuming no change in terms of player skill or environment.

Army lists can play a role in this too. Suppose a Blood Angels Space Marine is 10 points and it is identical in every way to a Dark Angels Space Marine except that the Dark Angels Space Marine costs 20 points. Would you expect the Blood Angels player with twice as many identical models to do better than the Dark Angels player assuming all other factors are equal? If yes, then you've admitted that it is possible for an army list to be better than another army list. Although the discrepancies are rarely that dramatic, they certainly exist and are provable.

As a parallel, the game Go has used handicapping the number of pieces available for centuries as a way of compensating for player skill. 40K does the same thing with the Grey Knights (as an example) whose points cost exceeds what their strengths and weaknesses might otherwise suggest.

Another factor that cannot be ignored is the flexibility of the list and the availability of powerful units. For example, if the Imperial Guard had access to no other guns besides S3 Lasguns, they would have severe trouble competing against lists with tanks and high toughness models. I think that's almost self-evident. From that we learn that availability of heavy weapons is a necessary component to make a powerful list. Armies in which those weapons are extremely rare will tend to be less powerful than those with cheap and ready access to them.

We have acknowledged that a list with cheaper and better units is more powerful and more likely to win than a list with more expensive and worse units.

'Balance' is defined by Merriam-Webster's dictionary as "equality between the totals of the two sides of an account". In the context of gaming, we can treat this as meaning an equal chance of winning if all other factors are equal. As demonstrated, it is entirely possible for one list to be more powerful than another list within those limitations. As such it is possible that some lists could be unbalanced.

How do we decide what is balanced? By using the very techniques that are employed on this board: empirical research (play-testing) combined with mathematical analysis.

Neither of them is sufficient by itself, but the combination of the two allows us to form and test hypotheses and form valid conclusions.

Because empirical science is the only valid epistemological framework for finding truth. Yup. that's not narrow minded at all.

Asmodai wrote:

'Balance' is defined by Merriam-Webster's dictionary as "equality between the totals of the two sides of an account". In the context of gaming, we can treat this as meaning an equal chance of winning if all other factors are equal. As demonstrated, it is entirely possible for one list to be more powerful than another list within those limitations. As such it is possible that some lists could be unbalanced.

How do we decide what is balanced? By using the very techniques that are employed on this board: empirical research (play-testing) combined with mathematical analysis.

Neither of them is sufficient by itself, but the combination of the two allows us to form and test hypotheses and form valid conclusions.

IMO, Balance in 40k is meant to work as Rock-Paper-Scissors. The difference being that if general list A is meant to beat general list B most of the time, list B may be altered to improve results against list A at the cost of other matchups.

I don't really understand why playtesting results are so crucial or regarded so highly in this game. In this game, optimization is possible, and contrary to what seems to be popular belief, optimization has nothing to do with preferred play-style.

i.e.- If I play to attend a tournament and I know that the other armies present are (just for example, of couse)
10% Tau
20% Eldar
30% Space Marines
20% Orks
20% Tyranids

There is exactly ONE optimal list for my army. If the optimal list ends up being weakest against Tau and I play Tau all 3 rounds, that doesn't mean that I didn't take the optimal list for the tournament.

Da Boss wrote:Because empirical science is the only valid epistemological framework for finding truth. Yup. that's not narrow minded at all.

The irony there is that empirical science isn't particularly interested in truth. Science is a game of "King of the Hill," where the goal is to prove the top theory wrong. The longer and more capably a theory resists being disproven, the more generally accepted it becomes. Few scientists would use the word "truth," of course.

That's the view presented by Karl Popper, who said that science must be falsifiable to be true science, meaning if there was no way to disprove a theory (like the flying spaghetti monster) it could not be sceince, while something that can be disproven (like, say, the concept that two units of mass will attract each other across space, i.e. gravity) is science, because all you need to do is show that the theory is wrong (by finding two peice of matter totally uninterested in each other, or, funnily enough, by pigs flying).

There is also the idea that science is not such a race, but rather a generally accepted group of laws, theories, principles and procedures that Thomas Kuhn labeled a paradigm. This paradigm (for example, Newtonian motion or the idea that organisms evolve by passing down traits) allows for tons of work to be done. The paradigm is accepted because it allows for useful science to be done, and will be kept until so many problems with it emerge that it must be discarded and a new paradigm will replace it (Kuhn's most famous example is Copernicus writing that the planets go around the sun, rather than the other way. The original paradigm wasn't bad, it's just that over time Copernicus's was better.)

How does any of this apply to 40k? Well, Popper would say that a controlled study were to show that absent outside variables, army list construction had no discernable impact on success, it would certainly challenge the theory that some lists are top teir. Kuhn would say that the paradigm of more powerful codices allowing for better success allows for a certain amount of work to be done in determining the how to succeed at tournaments. This paradigm would persist until there were a better paradigm that better explained why people win in 40k.

Just out of curiosity, do any of you have any solid test cases to list, or are you merely emmisaries of convoluted speach? I'd be interested to hear what kind of study you would set up that would be inclusive enough to ascertain an army listst superiority over another.

Vaelar wrote:Just out of curiosity, do any of you have any solid test cases to list, or are you merely emmisaries of convoluted speach? I'd be interested to hear what kind of study you would set up that would be inclusive enough to ascertain an army listst superiority over another.

Well, let's not get confused over the issues here. I'm not saying you could test to find out the strongest army possible (although it could be possible). I'm advocating for the position that there are "stronger" and "weaker" codices, and the way to test that would be to simply have "strong" and "weak" lists play each other, taking pains to balance player skill, terrain, and missions.

Polonius: I'm pretty up to date on what science is actually
I find some of Nurglitch's posts to be highly amusing though.

Polonius: I can assure you that I have checked for observer bias. A unit's performance will depend upon the terrain it is played in and the mission which it is used to achieve. A unit of bikes, for example, will perform differently depending on the amount and arrangement of difficult terrain, such as the difference between a forest and a desert, and where they need to be on the board to 'solve' the mission, such as where they need to capture an object, destroy an objective, or exit the border via some board edge. One of the things my group does is cut the missions to fit the armies, so we either choose the mission first and then design the armies, or we take the armies and figure out what would be an equal match.

Certainly when I used to play in Halifax's Rogue Battalion game club and the odd tournament in a local independent retailer called Odyssey 2000 I noticed that there were certain habits that people had for setting up boards and choosing missions that would eventually appear to make some armies preferable to others. The game my brother and I played, him to much greater success as he eventually won a Canadian Grand Tournament back in 3rd edition, was deliberately playing armies and troops that the consensus on the internet and around town had dubbed weak.

The interesting thing that I found, in particular, was that people weren't just narrow in their army selection and ideas about board set-up, but also about their application of armies to missions and board set-ups. They were, as the consensus on the internet continues to be, highly risk adverse and they could not understand how my brother and I (particularly my brother) could win games by choosing actions that were risky, either because the actions were inherently risky or because the material employed made them risky (and occasionally both).

In fact that's the reason my current group plays like it does, because we were all sick of the internet game where people played armies rather than games. Since we all know each other and play at each other's places, and none of us have large collections, we take the time and effort to make the games about more than just the troops.

Now, precision, truth, and logic are parts of my area of specialization as a philosopher, the philosophies of science and mind, and I like to think I know a thing or two about them and the ways they have been construed. One of the usual things that I've learned in the course of my post-graduate work (and that really I should have picked up during my undergraduate work) is that if there is no evidence for a particular position, then it's useful to consider games with a different framework of positions that may be supported by the evidence.

Hence I am not merely saying that there is no evidence that 'top tier lists' perform better, I am saying that the Warhammer game in which people talk about there being a 'top tier' of armies is a stupid one and an illusory one. Much like games about physics involving phlogiston, as a classic example, are stupid games and physicists have fortunately moved on to more effective games that yield more truthful results about the material inputed into those game structures.

Asmodai: In my opinion empirical research on the subject of whatever 'balance' might be in the game of Warhammer 40k would be about as useful as empirical research into the truth-value of statements like '2+2=4' in conventional decimal arithmetic. Games are mathematical structures and the only useful way they can be treated is via the methods of mathematics and logic. Certainly this admits the possibility of applying computer science to the computation of these structures, but this will not be sitting around watching trained monkeys play the game, but using computers to crunch the set of possible problem spaces in the game. The application of statistics will merely give us the values to input into particular problem spaces and combinatorial game theory will have to provide the structure of those space.

In addition, the more I think of Nurglitch's post I keep coming up with questions.

It seems to me that Internet wisdom has the strongest lists picked, not because they are inherently better, but because they perform better in the missions gamers regularly face on terrain that they normally use. If you look at the five basic missions, all but one require some mobility. All require having at least a few durable units. One has the armies start 18" from each other, others 24". All give points for kills, but just as many points exist in objectives.

Assuming you were to build army lists for those missions, or scenarios derived from those missions, a certain list of requirements emerges: mobile elements, some long range shooting, the ability to fight for objectives, units that won't evaporate quickly, scoring units that can contest objectives, etc.

Based on those needs, many of the Top Tier army choices make more sense. Everything in a nidzilla army can move, often with fleet. Everything in a tri-falcon eldar army, barring the autarch, is a mobile scoring unit. Both have some, but not overwhelming long range fire power.

I could go on, but this leads to an obvious question: assuming gaming groups and tournament organizers tend to stay within the general area of those sorts of missions, is it unreasonable to assume that some armies are superiour than others? While you're not eliminating missions as a variable, it's bounded fairly tightly.

Well then, what you need to do is start questioning your own reasoning and asking yourself: "If it seems to be this way, what might I be missing out, or what would be the case if I were wrong about something?" I mean if those things just seem that way to you it will be useful to check if the way they seem reflects the way they are.

You may also want to look up inductive fallacies and study up on them.

Except, I don't currently need to question my reasoning. I'm getting the results that I expect. I'm not getting the results you expect. I don't see why I"m the one with a problem.

Can you say that codices are perfectly balanced, such that there is never an inherent advantage to be gained by army list construction?

If you can say that, then we can work on disproving that. If you can't, it means we merely disagree on where to draw the line as to the importance of army lists.

Finally, while I post when I can, please don't simply tell me to study up on something. If I make an error, point it out, or at least provide a link. When people were discussing copyrights, I didn't simply say, "learn up on IP," I tried to teach them something.

I'm hearing what you're saying, and I"m trying to understand and explain my position. I get the feeling that you're simply ignoring or deflecting anything I say, such that it seems your saying "there is no way you can convince me, there is no evidence that will sway me, and I know that I am correct." If that's the case, then that's fine, but there's no sense in discussing anything further.

Finally, phlogiston was abandoned because it was displaced by a better theory. In it's time, it was a decent enough theory that worked better than the one before it, and it also led to productive results. Maybe there is a better theory for 40k than top teir armies, but nobody has put one forward, and for many people, it's yeidling useful results.