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I have heard a lot of complaining when I met with my friend and his war hammer buddies who just finished a tourney. They were talking about how broken these armies were and how their games weren't fair. So question to you, are they just b1tching because they lost (they play Orks, skaven and WoC) or are their really broken armies so that by bringing them to the table your being unfair?
Just for the record I remember them complaining about daemons, and brettonians and Vc. But specifically on a daemons player that cleaned them out and took 1st.

It's not certain armies being too good, more that the recent Army Books (VC, Daemons, etc.) were released with one power level in mind, while others (e.g. Orcs & Goblins) were released with another power level in mind. It's like they come from different games.

so in order for everything to be balanced all the army books have to be released at the same time and written generally by the same people?

Pretty much....

admittedly i haven´t played daemons or vampires recently but i would think they are just being whiny.

there are always going to be power hungry players who will try to exploit an army.

leighr3029 wrote:admittedly i haven´t played daemons or vampires recently but i would think they are just being whiny.

there are always going to be power hungry players who will try to exploit an army.

Play them first, and then judge if they are being whiny.

thedarkside69 wrote:so in order for everything to be balanced all the army books have to be released at the same time and written generally by the same people?

Or they could just be consistent in the power levels they strife for when writing armybooks. Playtesting would be nice as well.

What it comes down to in the end is the ability for people to hange their tactics when playing against different armies. Also people need to build their armies to take on a wide variety of other opponents. This is something that I don't see happenning with most people who complain about certain armies. Daemons are far from unbeatable and if you realy know how to deal with them you should have little to no problem wining games against them.

Just because you *can* win doesn't mean the armies are balanced. All other things being equal, daemons have a big advantage on most armies, for example. The problem with Daemons and VC in particular is that many of their builds require some pretty specific counters that most take all comers lists don't have.

Their is a reason why Daemons, VC, and and DEs are consistently showing top level performances in tournaments. It doesn't mean it is impossible to win with other armies, of course, but these books have significant advantages right now. I wonder how many posters have played alot of games against these lists in a competitive environment.....

Daemons as a whole could probably use some toning down. Ward saves being negated by magic, no multiple icons, and a more normal crumbling would go a long way to bringing them inline.

VC's main problems lie in certain item combination and magic overload. The problem is that without magic VC are pretty lackluster. A common (but far from universal) consensus is that other than Invocation, multiple casting of the same spell should be trimmed.

DEs are actually just about perfect save for some pretty silly things like Shadestar and S7 throwing stars. The stars are pretty easy to address- either change Manbane to never needs better than a 3+ to wound or stars do not benefit from poisons that modify STR/always use users base STR.

The problem, of course, is that there will always be silly things and top dogs. If you fixed these three, then what about STank/Waltar? Bret RAF? etc.

I more or less concur with jmurph.

A lot of armies have a lot of trouble dealing with the tournament level lists that DoC, VC and DE can pump out while still being flexible enough to take on other armies. Also doesn't help that building to counter one of these three may 'cause you to be weak against another. These three lists tend to be able to take eachother on, more-or-less, without losing too much potency against other lists.

I think a lot of issues could be resolved by slight points adjustments (some DE items, I'm looking at you) or just some restrictions on magic/other combinations.

Agree +1 with the above 2.

I pretty much only play at tourneys and daemons and VC, when taken at even average 'awesomeness' can beat most opponents, DE's are still pretty fragile and can be dragged down. HEs are about perfect, primarily because ASF works best on infantry and most people only take 2-3 units of infantry.


Daemons were designed, it seemess for 10 year olds to win games with, anything that they needed they got... BT about 100-150 undercosted, screamers able to zig-zag fly, fantastic icons, which they can take multiples of, abilities which aren't negated by other items which nerf magic items. Worst of all is that Immune to psychology is not factored into the price.

VC: Again immune to psych not factored into cost, 3-4 items need severe restrictions/ upping in price, some of the stackability of bloodline powers and items is so blatantly overpowered it was spotted about 1 minute after the army book was released as 'must haves'. Also the ability to just keep casting invocation on 1d6 at 3+ (know all spells, +1 to cast) to burn dispel dice and scrolls and then punch through with a big spell at the end, without much chance of your general miscasting (as he is rolling 1d6) is infuriatingly annoying.

What about DoC vs ratling gun spam? Of course, it's only the lower tier Skaven army, so would it be considered cheezy anymore against Demons or Vampires?

ZF-

Any army has a hard tive vs ratling gun spam, however with ward saves that stay vs magical attacks, I'd still be going for the daemons.

gonads, dont forget that ratling guns do blow up pretty often, and with spam lists they tend to go down quickly.

JD21290 wrote:gonads, dont forget that ratling guns do blow up pretty often, and with spam lists they tend to go down quickly.

The downside of being a varmint, I guess.

ZF-

i allways seem to think its possible to get max. shots from them, allthough ive never done it yet

In theory, 21 is possible, but then so is a lottery jackpot. 15 (6+5+4) is probably the best achievable result.

ZF-

I would say that a well designed DoC list would have a significant advantage over ratling gun spam. Flamers can roast them, Khorne dogs and fliers can charge them, Tzeentchy magic can hit them, BTs can terror/charge/eat them, etc. And all it takes is one fighty unit in the line to roll it up and overrun to the next. The Skaven player would be relying on lucky rolls to keep his head above water- not a very reliable tactic.

On huge problem with VC and DoC that W_G points out is how powerful ItP/Unbreakable really is, especially combined with any kind of killy ability. In a game where psychology can cause panic and collapse a line, cause flight from combat, etc. the ability to completely ignore these is a huge advantage. VC supposedly counteract this with a reliance on a general that crumbles the army if it dies. But they can protect said general either directly (a count is one of the toughest characters in the game) or indirectly by raising new units, replenishing/increasing existing units, etc. And the relatively poor fighting skills of units can similarly be negated with magic and items, and their resilience further increased. This is not really an issue with fodder like skeletons, but regenerating, hatred WS 7 black knights is another matter entirely!

Similarly for DoC, but instead of being able to replenish, and unlike VC troops, they are very powerful combatants and can pack speed, shooting, magic, etc. into the list without really sacrificing anything. This list is really badly thought out, IMHO.

DEs just need some relatively minor adjustments and would be very good but wouldn't be OTT.

Looking at tourney results just confirms for me what a screw up these lists were. Sad, too, b/c WHFB was looking pretty balanced prior to this. I just wish GW would look for stupid combos that seem to keep popping up. It's indicative of a serious playtesting issue.

@jmurph - clearly, everyone who runs these combos are just "playing it wrong and not like the beer & pretzels gaming that it should be played like" .

I still insist that come the next wave of tournaments, we're gonna see lots of stego-rush Lizardmen armies join in the Top Tier.

Jin wrote:I still insist that come the next wave of tournaments, we're gonna see lots of stego-rush Lizardmen armies join in the Top Tier.

...with multiple EotG, as well.

I have to agree that WHFB has apparently succumbed to 40k's greatest drawback: Codex Creep.

I have no problems with playing any army. I agree that the daemons seem to have no weakest and the DE are a very solid army. Without the ring of whatever, and mages getting to roll for extra power die.

I'm actually cool with Power of Darkness, because it can burn you. However, it's not likely going to be an issue since you can throw as many dice as you want - just watch out for Miscasts!

Manfred von Drakken wrote:I have to agree that WHFB has apparently succumbed to 40k's greatest drawback: Codex Creep.

There definitely is a little bit of that, but again, I think it's mainly just oversight of certain builds/combos that cause certain lists to become dominating.

I mean, minus the Stego-spam and EotG-spam, the Lizardmen book looks decently competitive, but not too overpowering. The DE book is pretty well balanced over all, minus several critical items being underpriced. VC's issues are somewhat similar, though their army obviously has to rely on magic.

The DoC book, in my opinion, is the only one of the Top 3 that actually comes off as really unbalanced to me. Too many special abilities that are simply not reflected in the points of the units. Also, having an army that pretty much always gets a save against 95% of attacks is rather daft. The majority of the units just come off as way too undercosted compared to other armies.

Up until VC release every army could turn up with an allcomers list with their own spin on it to a tourney and be competative.

This is the reat danger of not bothering to playtest to any great extent.

Give the army books to regular tournament gamers, lets say the top 3 from the UKGT each year, (sign nondisclosure contracts etc) and the rubbish bits will be fixed in a few minutes, or at least the designers will have to give a very valid reason to keep them.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:Up until VC release every army could turn up with an allcomers list with their own spin on it to a tourney and be competative.

Not Orcs.

I just got through reading all the codexes (yeah I have no life ) and I find that they are all pretty even. But I agree with all the people above me who have posted complaints about daemons, they are definitely unfair and should be toned down. Other armys that stand out are DE (Thats why I started playing them) HE and VC, but it doesn't mean their rigged.
And anyway one of my friends warhammer buddies has decided to start daemons after bitching about it so hes just a whiny hypocrite anyways. So thanks to all the people that voted in the poll.
And finally any ogres players out there deserve props for dealing with by far the most underpowered codex there is. :(

Gobbla wrote:

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:Up until VC release every army could turn up with an allcomers list with their own spin on it to a tourney and be competative.

Not Orcs.

I beg to differ.

With only 1 practice game vs new lizardmen my Night Goblins (with only 9 fanatics) managed at the last tourney a month ago..

Draw vs new Lizardmen (2 stegadons with EOTG and tenihuini riding one of them)
Draw vs daemons, multi god, 4 heralds
Small Loss to Dwarfs (800 point turnaround when I failed a breaktest and reroll on the last rolls of the game)
Small loss to DEs (with 40 shades )
Massacre win vs empire cav army... complete with Karl Franz on horse and STANK.

Now I know what the hell I am doing with them I think I could probably win 3-4 in a 5 game tourney, admittedly they will unlikely be massacres but you can win with O&G.

I do agree however that animosity is a built in way to ensure that O&G have very little chance of ever being top tier.


Also last year the colonial GT in the US was won by common goblins.

Ogres can be great, you just have to play them in a way that is completely against what the designers want.

At 2250 points...
Tyrant with tenderiser and 3 maneaters with handguns
3 butchers- 1 bangstick, 2 dispel scrolls
3 units 3 iron guts with bellowers (butchers go here)
2 units 3 basic bulls with bellower in each
1 Rhinox cav, with warbanner and upgrades
trappers
2 units 2 leadbelchers

Any points left over spend on what you want.

1 Banner in entire army, no core to army, 5 hammer units, and when buffed by the stubborn gut magic spell they suddenly become anvil units.
The key is the butchers, when the 'buffs' start stacking up turn 2-3 the ogres units are nigh on unstoppable.

Ogres are pretty nasty with lots of Butchers. The guy I regularly play against brings a Tryrant and 3 butchers in a 2250 list. Couple units of Iron Guts, lots of bare bone bulls, and plenty of maneaters. Gut magic in numbers is painful to deal with.

I can see the possibility of an imbalance in certain armies, but most games come down to tactics and dice rolling. You can give a newbie a GT winning daemon army and they would still lose. It comes down to practice, practice, and practice. If you think you're going to face a bunch of daemon, vc, etc... prepare for it. All armies have ways of dealing with the psychology and magic factors.

A good ol cannon ball can do wonders of course.

barlio wrote:I can see the possibility of an imbalance in certain armies, but most games come down to tactics and dice rolling. You can give a newbie a GT winning daemon army and they would still lose. It comes down to practice, practice, and practice.

True, but it's pointless to compare the balance of army books without assuming that both players are of the same moderate to good skill level. Skill obviously plays a really important role in the effectiveness of an army, but you have to factor that out to make a worthwhile comparison.

barlio wrote:If you think you're going to face a bunch of daemon, vc, etc... prepare for it. All armies have ways of dealing with the psychology and magic factors.

Yes, all armies have ways of dealing with these things to a certain extent, but depending on the army, it may really hamper their ability to deal with other aspects of the game as well.