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DoctorZombie wrote: it wasn't such a big deal.

I lol'd

Going OT here, but I'm sure some folks would consider WWII a big deal, not to mention Napoleon and Europe, etc. Just saying... Either way, that has nothing to do with our sport of man-dollies.

DoctorZombie wrote:Why do people post threads like this? In history, armies have been considered unbeatable (German Wehrmacht, Napoleon's armies) then someone figured out a way to beat them, and it wasn't such a big deal. There are weak points in the GK codex, players just have identify them or come up with strategies to defeat them.

People post in threads like this in the hopes that the powers that be may one day address imbalances.

Yes, they are beatable, and yes, there are strategies that take advantage of their weaknesses, primarily mid-short range shooting and paying to be generalists. Just because they're beatable doesn't mean that we cannot hope for more stringent playtesting, and more consistent pricing models between various codexes.

Redbeard wrote:

DoctorZombie wrote:Why do people post threads like this? In history, armies have been considered unbeatable (German Wehrmacht, Napoleon's armies) then someone figured out a way to beat them, and it wasn't such a big deal. There are weak points in the GK codex, players just have identify them or come up with strategies to defeat them.

People post in threads like this in the hopes that the powers that be may one day address imbalances.

Yes, they are beatable, and yes, there are strategies that take advantage of their weaknesses, primarily mid-short range shooting and paying to be generalists. Just because they're beatable doesn't mean that we cannot hope for more stringent playtesting, and more consistent pricing models between various codexes.

There is nothing wrong with the points costs in the GK book. Paladins and Purifiers (the two best units) are well costed for what they do. Psyfleman Dreads while cheap are far from game breaking when in order to take them in large numbers you have to take much less in terms of troops which matter more. Henchmen are cheap but are also super easy KPs to get. DCA are shredded like paper dolls and aren't that inexpensive. The only issue I have with the entire dex is that you don't have to pay for Fortitude on the vehicles.

I don't understand how people can defend Grey Knights as a balanced codex. The book is vastly superior to most other 5th edition books. The units are cheaper and more powerful than their counterparts in other armies, and they have extremely powerful rules (psychic pilot has me tearing out my hair every game...). This isn't to say that GK are unbeatable, only that, all other things being equal, GK would win against the majority of the armies out there.

Redbeard wrote:People post in threads like this in the hopes that the powers that be may one day address imbalances.

Okay, his post was funny, but your post was hilarious. I thought we posted in these because we were bored and wanted to argue on the internet. I didn't ever think that we were posting for a better tomorrow.

Yes, they are beatable, and yes, there are strategies that take advantage of their weaknesses, primarily mid-short range shooting and paying to be generalists. Just because they're beatable doesn't mean that we cannot hope for more stringent playtesting, and more consistent pricing models between various codexes.

I agree with this in reference to every single book. Every codex out there is beatable and there are strategies to take advantage of their weaknesses. But, just because every codex is beatable doesn't mean we cannot hope for more stringent playtesting, and more consistent pricing models between various codexes.

/cheer Redbeard


Automatically Appended Next Post:

JB_Man wrote:I don't understand how people can defend Grey Knights as a balanced codex. The book is vastly superior to most other 5th edition books. The units are cheaper and more powerful than their counterparts in other armies, and they have extremely powerful rules (psychic pilot has me tearing out my hair every game...). This isn't to say that GK are unbeatable, only that, all other things being equal, GK would win against the majority of the armies out there.

Proof please. As we have brought up again and again, if GK are going to win 'all things being equal', why aren't they sweeping the tournament scene? That's kind of the definition of 'all things being equal'.

pretre wrote:
I thought we posted in these because we were bored and wanted to argue on the internet.

SShhhh, don't give away the secret. (wonder if my code is compiled yet).

I'd argue that the great strides GW made in producing better balanced armies in 5th edition is what makes the GKs so notably OP.

Some of the costs and meta shaking rules harken back to the bad old days. Five point psy-bolts on dreads? Cleansing flame for free on (essentially) a troop unit? Five point near immunity to shaken/stunned?

These are easily articulatable, and very obvious, shortcomings that really disappoint those of us that thought GW had turned a corner.

JB_Man wrote:I don't understand how people can defend Grey Knights as a balanced codex. The book is vastly superior to most other 5th edition books. The units are cheaper and more powerful than their counterparts in other armies, and they have extremely powerful rules (psychic pilot has me tearing out my hair every game...). This isn't to say that GK are unbeatable, only that, all other things being equal, GK would win against the majority of the armies out there.

First off the same thing has been said about EVERY 5th ed codex when it came out with the exception of Tyranids. But even in the Tyranids case, prior to the FAQ of idiocy, people said Tyranids were the most OP codex. It is natural in a game that has a progressive power band like 40k to have each subsequent book be more powerful than it's predecessors.

How are their units cheaper? SS and Terminators, their basic troops, are more expensive than their equivalents in the other Marine codices. Paladins and Purifiers are super expensive points wise, and are not cheaper than their equivalents. Psyfleman dreads are not cheaper than 4 Long Fangs with Missile Launchers. The Named Characters are either more expensive or on par with their equivalents in other codices, Draigo may be slightly under costed in comparison to Logan Grimnar. And I agree the idea that the vehicles get their abilities for free is pretty ludicrous.

pretre wrote:

JB_Man wrote:I don't understand how people can defend Grey Knights as a balanced codex. The book is vastly superior to most other 5th edition books. The units are cheaper and more powerful than their counterparts in other armies, and they have extremely powerful rules (psychic pilot has me tearing out my hair every game...). This isn't to say that GK are unbeatable, only that, all other things being equal, GK would win against the majority of the armies out there.

Proof please. As we have brought up again and again, if GK are going to win 'all things being equal', why aren't they sweeping the tournament scene? That's kind of the definition of 'all things being equal'.

Honestly? I think the problem isn't that GK are winning so much. I think that GK are just stupidly better at the new default tournament build: MSU with firepower transports. Purifiers in Resolute Razorbacks are better than any other razorspam. The problem is that all good tournament players know how to beat that army.

There are enough tricks, gimmicks, and bits of broken in the book to make it killer at mid level though. Take a skilled, knowledgable tournament player. The kind that goes 2-1 consistently, but rarely wins. That guy loves the GK book due to a deep bench of awesome. There are also wacky builds that flummox players that don't know the secret.

Now, take those same bits of broken, and give them to an elite tournament player, that also knows all the tricks. He's going to do very well with that book. But not all players are going to switch over. Hardly any "OP army of the year" won every event (except may Iron Warriors in their prime ), simply due to the fact that really good tournament players know that skill and experience with an army matter more than codex strength. So, GK, just like Wolves, or leafblower, or Nob Bikers, or VP denial eldar, or Nidzilla, or Assault Cannon Spam, or Iron Warriors, or rhino rush, etc., might be the best book yet, but still not win every event.

OverwatchCNC wrote:
Last time I checked IG can still take a significantly larger number of tanks than GK.

Within a normal points game? A few more, but I routinely see GK armies with double digits of armored units, not an entire order of magnitude more as I was discussing above.

IG is also one of the worst matchups for GK, so... I think your own example proves the previous point.

No, unless all you took away from my post was "moretanks=winrar!".

The point was that those powerful armies were defeated by bringing armies and pressures of far greater magnitude to bear with roughly similarly equipped troops even if not as well led. In 40k terms this would basically be like matching one army by fielding 5-20x as many points against it (e.g. matching a 2000pt army with an Apocalypse force), which is essentially what happened with Napoleon and the Wehrmacht.

Again, this point is made entirely moot by the fact that in 40k Chaos 3.5 and Orks were clearly more OP than GK are now.

chaos 3.5 maybe, Orks? Only if you were playing min/max las/plas SM armies in 4E without a speck of anti-horde firepower.

But even in the Tyranids case, prior to the FAQ of idiocy, people said Tyranids were the most OP codex.

O_o there were some issues with the Doom of Malantai, but certainly it wasn't making waves like other armies. I don't recall any of the butthurt we see over books like GK and SW's with the DE release. As much as people have issues with IG you don't see threads like this about them, though you do quite often with GK's and SW's.

In general, space marine books recieve more complaints for being OP than non-space marine, due to the ease of building the armies.

A purifier/razorback heavy GK army is one of the cheaper armies to build (TL-AC arms for dreadnoughts aside), and is also quick to paint due to low model count and simple paint scheme.

Compare that to a mech-vet IG force, which requires a large investment of both money and time.

Polonius wrote:In general, space marine books recieve more complaints for being OP than non-space marine, due to the ease of building the armies.

A purifier/razorback heavy GK army is one of the cheaper armies to build (TL-AC arms for dreadnoughts aside), and is also quick to paint due to low model count and simple paint scheme.

Compare that to a mech-vet IG force, which requires a large investment of both money and time.

This is a big reason no doubt, though the very focused nature of IG (practically pure shooting with one phase routinely essentially being an auto-loss phase) and lack of action hero factor also plays a role I'm sure

EDIT: I also just realized I have about 1700pts of generic loyalist Space Marine models of which I have no idea how I've accumulated and didn't realize I had until I did a mental inventory...

Vaktathi wrote:focused nature of IG (practically pure shooting with one phase routinely essentially being an auto-loss phase)

Vaktathi, Strakenguard. Strakenguard, Vaktathi. Looks like you guys haven't met previously.

OverwatchCNC wrote:First off the same thing has been said about EVERY 5th ed codex when it came out with the exception of Tyranids. But even in the Tyranids case, prior to the FAQ of idiocy, people said Tyranids were the most OP codex. It is natural in a game that has a progressive power band like 40k to have each subsequent book be more powerful than it's predecessors.

Sad thing is?

There has been a progressive power creep in the game. I think the moment it went SM, SW, BA, GKs....well, that there is creep in action which each more 'recent' SM codex being significantly stronger than its predecessors. We can expect Chaos Legions to be so WTFbroken that you instawin games (because it's technically a SM codex of sorts) or gimped to all hell worse than the current CSM codex (because it's Chaos).

But thank you for making me chuckle. Tyranids....never considered OP. Ever. You can do silly, silly things with Tyranids if you try. But it pales in the face of the sillier things.

pretre wrote:

Vaktathi wrote:focused nature of IG (practically pure shooting with one phase routinely essentially being an auto-loss phase)

Vaktathi, Strakenguard. Strakenguard, Vaktathi. Looks like you guys haven't met previously.

A *very* niche build that often necessitates leaving out many of the more popular/powerful options in the book, and is neutered by killing a single command squad. You're generally talking about nearly 900pts between two blobs and your HQ after PW's and sufficient squads and commissars before adding any guns or other upgrades.

Vaktathi wrote:A *very* niche build that often necessitates leaving out many of the more popular/powerful options in the book, and is neutered by killing a single command squad.

Umm. I don't know that you are familiar with Strakenguard at all, or foot guard in general, but that's kind of OT for this post, so I'll let it be.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

DarkStarSabre wrote:There has been a progressive power creep in the game. I think the moment it went SM, SW, BA, GKs....well, that there is creep in action which each more 'recent' SM codex being significantly stronger than its predecessors. We can expect Chaos Legions to be so WTFbroken that you instawin games (because it's technically a SM codex of sorts) or gimped to all hell worse than the current CSM codex (because it's Chaos).

I'm not sure if you're serious or not.

BA was less powerful than SW and we're finding out so is GK. More toys/wacky stuff, yes. More powerful, no. Codex Creep is a half OMG NEW STUFF syndrome and half actual increase in powers between editions.

pretre wrote:

DoctorZombie wrote: it wasn't such a big deal.

I lol'd

Going OT here, but I'm sure some folks would consider WWII a big deal, not to mention Napoleon and Europe, etc. Just saying... Either way, that has nothing to do with our sport of man-dollies.

I'm just saying though, when the Whermacht was defaeted at Stalingrad, it showed the the Germans could be defeated. Same thing with the Grey Knights or any "overpowered" codex. Any codex is defeatable, you just have find out the best way.
And I realize my word choice wasn't the best, I didn't mean deconstruct Napoleon or WWII.

pretre wrote:Automatically Appended Next Post:

DarkStarSabre wrote:There has been a progressive power creep in the game. I think the moment it went SM, SW, BA, GKs....well, that there is creep in action which each more 'recent' SM codex being significantly stronger than its predecessors. We can expect Chaos Legions to be so WTFbroken that you instawin games (because it's technically a SM codex of sorts) or gimped to all hell worse than the current CSM codex (because it's Chaos).

I'm not sure if you're serious or not.

BA was less powerful than SW and we're finding out so is GK. More toys/wacky stuff, yes. More powerful, no. Codex Creep is a half OMG NEW STUFF syndrome and half actual increase in powers between editions.

It's not proper unless you include the relevant meme related picture.

And some parts are considerably more broken than other parts, the newer the codex gets. Mind you, so do the naming conventions.

I'll never forgive them for Wolf Wolfborn, riding his giant wolf with the saga of the wolf and his wolf claws and wolf tail talisman while serving the space wolves, wolf wolf wolf wolf.....

DoctorZombie wrote:
I'm just saying though, when the Whermacht was defaeted at Stalingrad, it showed the the Germans could be defeated.

yes, through astronomically insane/stupid strategic orders (not allowed to conduct maneuver warfare, not allowed to break out, etc), incorrect information given to ground commanders, and massive numerical and materiel advantage on the part of the soviets.

In 40k terms, it'd be like taking a Mechvets IG army that wasn't allowed to redeploy units or maneuver around the table or dash for objectives, forcing it to dismount and fight close combats against a platoons IG army with three times the number of points in a City Fight table. War is inherently unbalanced, we are talking a tabletop wargame where balanced forces are key, and when armies aren't, the recourse that real life would take isn't available.

@Redbeard

I think it is completely unreasonable to think similar units should be costed similarly between codexes *IF* you understand that GW's mission is to make money and sell models, not to produce the most balanced game possible.

If similar units had similar costs across codexes, then armies would largely look the same. If havocs were priced cheap enough to balance them compared to long fangs, now every chaos army would have 3x havocs. From a consumer stand point, people don't often want to play armies that play almost identically. Why would I want to play chaos if the army functions very, very similarly to my space wolves?

Then why include havocs/other devs? These units are included for a sense of completeness in terms of fluff and because, even while overcosted to other options in their respective books, they give people additional options (more purchasing opportunities, if someone hates tanks for example) via a unit that likely has low incremental investment costs.

I'd ask you this. Why is it bad if long fangs are cheaper than havocs? From a design perspective it makes sense as it stops armies from becoming carbon copies. From a production perspective it makes sense, because it gives people more buying options at low marginal investment. From a fluff perspective it (probably) makes sense as it reflects the differing abilities the respective units (assume GW is reflecting the difference in training/equipment/whatever).


In short, you have to recognize there are very, very practical reasons to not balance individual units across books. I think when you look at GW from a business that *MUST* create a game that is changing and not intended to iterate until it achieves perfection, you'll start to see some (definitely not all) of their decisions actually make a lot of sense.


EDIT: @All Posters. Unless you can show, via tournament data and not personal anecdote, that GKs have more top finishes (in terms of battle scores) at GTs than other armies, you're pretty much just spouting off baseless nonsense.

Leenus wrote:@Redbeard

I think it is completely unreasonable to think similar units should be costed similarly between codexes *IF* you understand that GW's mission is to make money and sell models, not to produce the most balanced game possible.

If similar units had similar costs across codexes, then armies would largely look the same. If havocs were priced cheap enough to balance them compared to long fangs, now every chaos army would have 3x havocs. From a consumer stand point, people don't often want to play armies that play almost identically. Why would I want to play chaos if the army functions very, very similarly to my space wolves?

Then why include havocs/other devs? These units are included for a sense of completeness in terms of fluff and because, even while overcosted to other options in their respective books, they give people additional options (more purchasing opportunities, if someone hates tanks for example) via a unit that likely has low incremental investment costs.

I'd ask you this. Why is it bad if long fangs are cheaper than havocs? From a design perspective it makes sense as it stops armies from becoming carbon copies. From a production perspective it makes sense, because it gives people more buying options at low marginal investment. From a fluff perspective it (probably) makes sense as it reflects the differing abilities the respective units (assume GW is reflecting the difference in training/equipment/whatever).


In short, you have to recognize there are very, very practical reasons to not balance individual units across books. I think when you look at GW from a business that *MUST* create a game that is changing and not intended to iterate until it achieves perfection, you'll start to see some (definitely not all) of their decisions actually make a lot of sense.


EDIT: @All Posters. Unless you can show, via tournament data and not personal anecdote, that GKs have more top finishes (in terms of battle scores) at GTs than other armies, you're pretty much just spouting off baseless nonsense.

QFT Couldn't have said it better myself!

Your edit is Quoted For Absolute Truth QFAT.

Balancing the books by balancing every unit in every codex to equivalent units in the other codices would make for a very boring game. If you want a game where each side is perfectly balanced in terms of units, play chess.

Leenus wrote:
I'd ask you this. Why is it bad if long fangs are cheaper than havocs? From a design perspective it makes sense as it stops armies from becoming carbon copies.

At the expense of balance, that's bad game design.

From a fluff perspective it (probably) makes sense as it reflects the differing abilities the respective units (assume GW is reflecting the difference in training/equipment/whatever).

A more capable unit with supposedly greater experience is reflected by being cheaper?

EDIT: @All Posters. Unless you can show, via tournament data and not personal anecdote, that GKs have more top finishes (in terms of battle scores) at GTs than other armies, you're pretty much just spouting off baseless nonsense.

Tournament data is not universally available, and the results are not universally comparable depending on attendance, unit/army allowances, points level, comp, and matching. There is no set tournament standard for any of these things. For instance if first round pairings are determined by judges estimation of army strength rather than being randomly determined, a lot of power lists end up mutually knocking each other out, so you often get a lot of "uncompetitive" armies winning such events because the power lists were all matched turn 1 and got lots of draws and minors with relatively few major/massacre results. Likewise, you may see lots of "Codex: X marines" at an event even though most of the armies using that book are counts-as and people may think an event was flooded with X Marines where in reality they're just generic marine armies using whatever list is the best at the time.

Leenus wrote:
EDIT: @All Posters. Unless you can show, via tournament data and not personal anecdote, that GKs have more top finishes (in terms of battle scores) at GTs than other armies, you're pretty much just spouting off baseless nonsense.

So, if you compile statistics that are not available, and you agree with the rigor of the collection (as well as what tournaments to include), only then are we not spouting baseless nonesense?

Let me teach you something about proving a point. Something is "baseless" if there is no evidence to support it. To demand one specific type of evidence might make sense when trying to set a higher burden of proof, but that's not the same thing as being "baseless."

You also are ignoring the distinction between "overpowered" and "winning the most tournaments." An overpowered codex may not win as many tournaments as another army, but only because the base of players is lower due to external reasons.

That said, didn't somebody post a graph showing the armies that qualified for hard boys semis? IIRC GK were the top dog there.

Vaktathi wrote:Tournament data is not universally available,

No, but we have a great deal of it available on the intertubes.

and the results are not universally comparable depending on attendance, unit/army allowances, points level, comp, and matching.

Sure. But again, 40k isn't a universally comparable game, units aren't universally comparable outside of armies, etc.

There is no set tournament standard for any of these things. For instance if first round pairings are determined by judges estimation of army strength rather than being randomly determined, a lot of power lists end up mutually knocking each other out, so you often get a lot of "uncompetitive" armies winning such events because the power lists were all matched turn 1 and got lots of draws and minors with relatively few major/massacre results.

This is a rare tournament setup that someone would do comp this way, but I suppose it could happen. Most tournaments use random pairings.

Likewise, you may see lots of "Codex: X marines" at an event even though most of the armies using that book are counts-as and people may think an event was flooded with X Marines where in reality they're just generic marine armies using whatever list is the best at the time.

I don't even know what you are saying here. Are you saying the organizers would report results that are inconsistent because the army is painted a different color?

Seriously, if the claim is that X is overpowered, the only way to evaluate that is to look at tournament results. I guess we could have a massive poll of everyone's pickup games, but that would just be silly. At least tournament results are competitive and publicly available. Heck, throw out the comp events if you want, there is still no evidence of GK sweeping the nation.

Leenus wrote:
I think it is completely unreasonable to think similar units should be costed similarly between codexes *IF* you understand that GW's mission is to make money and sell models, not to produce the most balanced game possible.

This has been my assertion throughout the thread, I believe I do understand that this is GWs mission. I also believe that the best way to sell more models, overall, is to avoid losing players who get burnt out because they never win due to choosing the 'wrong' book or unit.

If similar units had similar costs across codexes, then armies would largely look the same. If havocs were priced cheap enough to balance them compared to long fangs, now every chaos army would have 3x havocs.

I disagree with you here. The reason that SW players take 3x Long Fangs, rather than Predators, Whirlwinds, Vindicators or Land Raiders is that Long Fangs are priced poorly in comparison to those other choices.

Good design calls for comparing units to similar units in other codexes, as well as other competing units in the same codex.

What's more, other codexes have different options. Space Marines can field a Thunderfire cannon, Chaos can run Obliterators, and Blood Angels can run Storm Ravens.

There are two tools available to designers when it comes to designing army lists. One is Cost, and the other is Availability. But, Cost is also a factor in balance, whereas availability plays a much smaller role in whether something is balanced.

From a consumer stand point, people don't often want to play armies that play almost identically. Why would I want to play chaos if the army functions very, very similarly to my space wolves?

Then why include havocs/other devs? These units are included for a sense of completeness in terms of fluff and because, even while overcosted to other options in their respective books, they give people additional options (more purchasing opportunities, if someone hates tanks for example) via a unit that likely has low incremental investment costs.

But, at some level, all space marine armies, including Chaos ones, do play similarly, because they're all MEQ. That's their single-largest defining attribute.

I think your logic is flawed, because you're ignoring the premise that it's a game, and the primary concept in points-based game design is that equal points should equate to a fair fight. If GW wants to make armies different, they should focus on tweaking availability, but pricing it correctly, as opposed to making sub-optimal units for the reason of padding a book that doesn't need them, which is what you're arguing in favour of.

If you include havoks, but make them sub-optimal, the real-world effect on game play is no different from not including them. People will learn, either from experience or from forums, that they're not good, whereas the other armies equivalent units are. People who have bought them will feel ripped off, and perhaps GW is immune from bad feelings, but I think not - and people do stop playing when they consistently cannot win with the models they've bought.

I'd ask you this. Why is it bad if long fangs are cheaper than havocs? From a design perspective it makes sense as it stops armies from becoming carbon copies. From a production perspective it makes sense, because it gives people more buying options at low marginal investment. From a fluff perspective it (probably) makes sense as it reflects the differing abilities the respective units (assume GW is reflecting the difference in training/equipment/whatever).

It's bad because it violates the primary rule of balance, that two functionally equivalent armies should be priced equivalently. Look, you can argue that Chaos doesn't rely on long-range weapons, and base this assertion on the fact that havoks are overpriced. But that's an excuse for poor design. If chaos doesn't rely on long-range shooting, this shouldn't be an option for me, or it should be a restricted (0-1) option. The fact that I'm allowed to take three units of havoks and you're allowed to take three units of Long Fangs means that if we both do, we should have a fair game, your unit shouldn't be so much cheaper (and more effective) that you get an extra squad as well.

There is a better way to make the armies different than to make them unbalanced. You want to reflect the difference in training and equipment and 'whatever' - okay, what if Chaos Havoks can only take 2 heavy weapons, as their armouries aren't equipped for more. What if Chaos Havoks are only BS3, to represent less training at long-range fire (but, get a points reduction as well). There's no fluff explanation you can offer that cannot be better represented by changing something besides the cost of the unit.

In short, you have to recognize there are very, very practical reasons to not balance individual units across books. I think when you look at GW from a business that *MUST* create a game that is changing and not intended to iterate until it achieves perfection, you'll start to see some (definitely not all) of their decisions actually make a lot of sense.

But, I believe that if you look at success over time, games that are balanced are more successful than those that are not. If I'm a new player, and I walk into GW, I don't know what the newest army is, I just know which one catches my eye. Woe be me if it's Tau or Chaos today. I plunk down the hundreds of dollars required to play this game, and I lose. And I lose again. I give up. Or maybe I don't. Maybe I go on the internet and ask why aren't I winning, and I get told, sorry, you bought the wrong army, they suck. And I get disillusioned and I walk away, and that's that. Try telling someone who just dropped a grand on an army that they need to drop another grand before they can win a game and see if they want to remain your customer.

You want to super-power the newest shiniest thing to drive sales of the newest stuff - that's a business decision, and it's one that works if you're interested in a short term burn&churn operation. It isn't a good one if you want to build goodwill among your customers and hope to build a long-term customer base. But looking at falling sales and rising prices and it seems that the short-term is what's on GWs mind.

And GW doesn't have to create a game that is constantly changing, because the game isn't their primary sales goal, the miniatures are. Sexy miniatures will sell, unless they have really crap rules (see: Possessed Marines). Sexy rules will sell sub-par miniatures, but they rarely make a miniature that needs super powers to sell. What's more, balanced rules will see more even sales.

Let's consider Dark Eldar. What do we see in all the lists people post. Venoms. Ravagers. Maybe some Raiders. Min sized troops. What don't we see a lot of: Incubi, Grotesques, Mandrakes, Reaver bikers, Taloses. Someone had to sculpt the talos. The reaver bikers need a mold just like the venoms do. Why don't we see those? Is GW, being run as a business, not wanting to sell those models too? We don't see them because their rules pale in comparison to OMG!!! 12 poison shots on a venom. It's an example of where lack of balance is actually hurting the sales of models. If the DE codex were balanced, I could pick the models that I thought were coolest (definitely including those bikers) and still play an even game.

I changed my mind. GK must be overpowered. But so are all marine armies. I'm deeply disturbed that Marines have a better shooting attack than Genestealers at only a couple points difference. Where IS the balance?

(I might be being satirical, but I've noticed that there is a lack of comparison of Marine/Xenos armies when these threads come up, as if we consider 'game balance' to mean all marine books are meant to be identical.)

pretre wrote:]
No, but we have a great deal of it available on the intertubes.

Again, inconsistent and lacking a unifying common structure for each event.

Sure. But again, 40k isn't a universally comparable game, units aren't universally comparable outside of armies, etc.

To some extent, but given that in 40k we have multiple armies that share 80-90% or more of their statlines/wargear/vehicles/rules with most of their differences being minor wargear swaps, they are in many cases easier than comparing events as their are literally direct copy/paste equivalents or very nearly so. An event playing with a composition component at 1500pts with 4 rounds that's a relatively local event will have a much different result in most cases than a non-comp'd event at 2500pts with 3 rounds at a national level.

This is a rare tournament setup that someone would do comp this way, but I suppose it could happen. Most tournaments use random pairings.

It's not universal, but it's not super uncommon, I know there is a big LA event that does that (forgot the name off the top of my head) another PacNW one that does, and lots of regional events that do that sort of thing, matching what the organizers see as like powered armies against each other.

I don't even know what you are saying here. Are you saying the organizers would report results that are inconsistent because the army is painted a different color?

I'm saying that you get a false impression of the size of the actual playerbase for an army and that yes, mis-reporting does occur (I remember playing in a league a couple years ago where the "BT" player that won the event used C:SM with Vulkan all the way through the league with his templar painted models and was recorded as a "Black Templars" army as opposed to a "C:Space Marines" army in rankings)

Seriously, if the claim is that X is overpowered, the only way to evaluate that is to look at tournament results.

It's a component yes, but it's by no means the *only* thing, especially given the wide range of events at national/regional/local levels and varying data available and low sample sets for most events it cannot be taken as the sole arbiter. It can be part of the argument but not the entire argument since they aren't by any means carried out in a consistent manner with consistently available data.

If you wanna see true codex imbalance, then let's compare the kabalite warrior to the eldar guardian. For one point more per model you get +1ws, +1BS, +1I, pfp, night vision, and a gun that shoots twice as far.

Ban Dark Eldar! They are the most OP codex in the last ten years!

Vaktathi wrote: It's a component yes, but it's by no means the *only* thing, especially given the wide range of events at national/regional/local levels and varying data available and low sample sets for most events it cannot be taken as the sole arbiter. It can be part of the argument but not the entire argument since they aren't by any means carried out in a consistent manner with consistently available data.

I simply disagree. If it was overpowered and didn't show up in competitive tournament results, it wouldn't matter that it was overpowered since it would then only be overpowered in theory but not in practice.

Redbeard wrote:[
A general rule of game design is that people complain far more if you ever reduce anything than if you boost things. People will always complain about nerfing. You'll hear far less complaints about over-boosting - even in this thread there are plenty of people arguing that GK are not overpowered, or, at least not overly over powered. At least Blizzard did the right thing and made that nerf.

The only comment of yours i disagree with. Every game i've ever played, people complain far more about things they perceive as overpowered (usually because they get killed by them) than people complain about nurfs, and that seems to be true across the board or game system. Black Vice, the AWP, noob tubes, shamans, dks, RMP arena builds, resto druids, grey knights, long fangs, whatever.

After shamans got their nurf back in the golden age of wow, nobody really complained about it until they all got stuck healing poorly in MC, but that was a gearing issue. There's a time for things to get their nurf and usually by the time that nurf happens the guys who've enjoyed being OP kind of know that their gak was OP so it's not as big a deal. The fact is, as a CSM player, I'm going to play the army I like regardless of whether its winning. Sure, I'd like it if a squad of LC havocs that sit fallow on my shelf were made viable and cost effective, but if it never is, it never is. I have a habit of picking underdog armies (like my wraith eldar) so I suppose I don't complain about it being underpowered. I have plagues and zerkers and demon princes and kharns. I can win with those.

There's an interesting phenomenon that even when something gets a huge nurf (such as the noob tube did in mw3) , people who complained about them in mw2 still complain about them even though it's much harder to get kills with them now. This is reflected in the fact that people hate dying in games. You could run around with a knife in mw2, and it took skill and cunning to get kills at close range against guys who could kill you at any range, yet you still got called an NJF when you got tac knife kills. For some reason, they nurfed knifing too (but made akimbo better??)

I guess there's a strong case to be made for saying something that might not be as OP as someone thinks it is, also, usually by the person using it because in any unbalanced game system, there will be a rock paper scissors phenomenon to a greater or lesser degree. If you want a game with balanced armies, play chess, where the only disadvantage you have is going second. Armies can be made more homogenous over time, but if you want units with different rules, there will always be imbalances.