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Yea I wish for secondaries that aren't auto-take.

It's sort of just a feel good mechanic to punish certain things, but only for one side of the equation.

I do hope that with the psychic phase changing so much that abhor won't be as abusive. Tomorrow should reveal some of that dynamic.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
Yea I wish for secondaries that aren't auto-take.

It's sort of just a feel good mechanic to punish certain things, but only for one side of the equation.

I do hope that with the psychic phase changing so much that abhor won't be as abusive. Tomorrow should reveal some of that dynamic.

oh psychic reveal is tomorrow? yeah can't wait to get a taste of how Thousand Sons are gonna work now

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Assassination, Bring it Down, Abhor the Witch and No Prisoners are examples of rules that punish skew in AoO.

oh sure, its not like the factions that would give max points on those just accept it and play these lists anyway.

I'm not about to bring tzaangors instead of marines in my thousand sons
I'm not about to not bring my sorcerers in my thousand sons
I'm not about to not bring vehicles in my admech

You'd be more likely to bring a balanced list if you care about winning. The anti-skew secondaries are only a concern when your opponent can score more than they would on the best alternative secondary they could take, let's assume that is Raise the Banners which your opponents army is unsuited for and would on average yield 6 VP, pretty bad, but maybe the best choice available. But then you march up with your list with 9 vehicles and your opponents average yield on Bring Them Down is 10 VP. By bringing a more measured number of vehicles, like 5, you might be able to bring down the average VP yield of Bring Them Down to 6 VP, the same as Raise the Banners would have gotten the opponent, effectively you get no downside to bringing 5, but a big downside to bringing 9. Thousand Sons and Imperial Knights are not the intended recipient of the anti-skew secondaries, because they are meant to skew so their points have to account for that fact.

 vict0988 wrote:

ccs wrote:
The opponent being able to pick optimal secondaries is hardly a deterrent. If Bring It Down was? Then you'd never see a Knights list.

If laws deterred crime there would be no criminals.

get over yourself, this is a wargame with varied factions that play differently, just because one book is written to spam a certain type of unit doesn't suddenly make it a crime, wtf kind of comparison is that

It's an analogy to show the flaw in the logic of the post I was responding to, I believe the meaning of my post would be clearer if you didn't snip out what I was responding to. Laws can stop SOME crime without stopping ALL crime. Secondaries can stop SOME spam without stopping ALL spam. If you wanted to stop ALL spam you'd need a ban, not a deterrent. Just like the low points efficiency is a deterrent to bringing some units, does not mean that nobody will ever bring those units with low points efficiency and you seeing a unit being brought by one person does not disprove that the unit is inefficient and generally unpopular because of it. That Knights players in the analogy were criminals was just a happy accident.

 vict0988 wrote:

You'd be more likely to bring a balanced list if you care about winning.

oh yeah, if i want to win with thousand sons, i should have at least 50% of my army be tzangors and vehicles

(after reading the rest of your comment : )

So what is abhor the witch for if not for TS and GK?

 vict0988 wrote:

ccs wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

ccs wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
Bringing a competitive list to a casual event or game night is something you see in every hobby, even the ones without tournaments. Like the MTG Elder Dragon Highlander format, maybe someone comes from a group where more competitive (deck)lists are the norm. Maybe the player is just stupid. I'd say it's a win if the player at least has the wherewithal to know that they should ask first and then you're free to say no.

Racerguy180 wrote:
The base game, easy as that.

What is the base game? Only War mission? It's not balanced at all and skew isn't disincentivised, sounds like a bad plan to me.

Whatever you think skew is, it isn't disincentivized in current the tourney pack (AoO) anyways. Or any of the previous ones.....

Assassination, Bring it Down, Abhor the Witch and No Prisoners are examples of rules that punish skew in AoO.

The opponent being able to pick optimal secondaries is hardly a deterrent. If Bring It Down was? Then you'd never see a Knights list.

If laws deterred crime there would be no criminals.

So you're making my point for me.

Wayniac wrote:
This is actually a good point, and makes it even stupider that the GT book tends to sell out instantly and not even be reprinted, so like you literally CANNOT get it after pre-order despite it being intended for gaming.

They did a second print run of Arks of Omen GT pack which I took advantage of over a month ago. It is in stock on the UK GW website and on some third party sites. The third party site I used had none in stock but ordered it in and it arrived a week later but a week earlier than a direct order model kit.

I now wonder whether Nephilim actually had a second print run and if it being out of stock was a forum talking point rather than the reality.

 vict0988 wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Assassination, Bring it Down, Abhor the Witch and No Prisoners are examples of rules that punish skew in AoO.

oh sure, its not like the factions that would give max points on those just accept it and play these lists anyway.

I'm not about to bring tzaangors instead of marines in my thousand sons
I'm not about to not bring my sorcerers in my thousand sons
I'm not about to not bring vehicles in my admech

You'd be more likely to bring a balanced list if you care about winning. The anti-skew secondaries are only a concern when your opponent can score more than they would on the best alternative secondary they could take, let's assume that is Raise the Banners which your opponents army is unsuited for and would on average yield 6 VP, pretty bad, but maybe the best choice available. But then you march up with your list with 9 vehicles and your opponents average yield on Bring Them Down is 10 VP. By bringing a more measured number of vehicles, like 5, you might be able to bring down the average VP yield of Bring Them Down to 6 VP, the same as Raise the Banners would have gotten the opponent, effectively you get no downside to bringing 5, but a big downside to bringing 9. Thousand Sons and Imperial Knights are not the intended recipient of the anti-skew secondaries, because they are meant to skew so their points have to account for that fact.

I assure you A) I care about winning, B) that I will not be bringing less vehicles in my Grot army just because my opponent can & will take Bring It Down.
(for the record? There's only 5-6 non-vehicle choices in my list. 3 characters & 2-3teams of 10xGrots. Everything else is a vehicle.)
I don't care that they will take this secondary. I will counter it by reducing their ability to kill my vehicles.

EightFoldPath wrote:
I now wonder whether Nephilim actually had a second print run and if it being out of stock was a forum talking point rather than the reality.

I remember checking for Nephilim at several points over it's lifespan and could never grab a copy - not even on eBay.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:



oh yeah, if i want to win with thousand sons, i should have at least 50% of my army be tzangors and vehicles

(after reading the rest of your comment : )

So what is abhor the witch for if not for TS and GK?

In order to have such handicaps or similar limitations, the armies in case would have to be well above avarge powerful. But then again, GW just nerfed Imperial Fists that are at under 30% win rate, so who knows what esotheric and narrative driven , and by that I mean in studio narrative and not in lore of the game narrative, choices are driving the minds of the design studio.

I’ve never understood this idea. The only people that a changing rule set applies to are competitive tournament players. This year my gaming group are all at an age where we are having families and don’t have time to play competitively. We have gotten along fine playing lists out of the books and haven’t bought any tournament packs like arks in a long time. None of the changes effect us at all just like they don’t matter to Timmy/Johnny or anyone else. Meanwhile if you are in the tournament scene you get to play in a shifting meta where you won’t have to deal with the same broken list for years. I’d also argue that tournament meta in the long run actually helps casual gamers as you get a tighter more balanced game over time, which everyone benefits from. This seems to be what’s happening with 10th and you can see many of the changes both casual and competitive gamers have been asking for getting merged into 1 cleaner better edition

EightFoldPath wrote:


I now wonder whether Nephilim actually had a second print run and if it being out of stock was a forum talking point rather than the reality.

Nephilim never had a second run and many sales rep were informing stores there would be no second run when asked.

Asmodios wrote:
I’ve never understood this idea. The only people that a changing rule set applies to are competitive tournament players. This year my gaming group are all at an age where we are having families and don’t have time to play competitively. We have gotten along fine playing lists out of the books and haven’t bought any tournament packs like arks in a long time. None of the changes effect us at all just like they don’t matter to Timmy/Johnny or anyone else. Meanwhile if you are in the tournament scene you get to play in a shifting meta where you won’t have to deal with the same broken list for years. I’d also argue that tournament meta in the long run actually helps casual gamers as you get a tighter more balanced game over time, which everyone benefits from. This seems to be what’s happening with 10th and you can see many of the changes both casual and competitive gamers have been asking for getting merged into 1 cleaner better edition

If you're not actively using the current competitive tournament rules, but the balance is being adjusted based on events that do use those rules, then there's no guarantee that your experience as a casual player is actually being improved by those adjustments. They might be inapplicable, based on restrictions and capabilities that don't apply to your game.

Part of why a lot of casual players follow competitive trends is the perception that each new iteration is better balanced and a better play experience than what came before. In my experience if you want to play without using new tournament-intended restrictions (eg RO3 in 8th when it was specifically a tournament recommendation and not a core rule), people often think you're trying to exploit the rules to an unfair advantage.

In my experience there are four broad categories of games. There are the games at the big tournaments with ITC rankings at stake. We also have the games at local tourneys. Then we have the pick-up games at FLGS. Finally, we have the games between friends and family. I think that GW making balance adjustments based on those major tournament results benefits the first three groups and has minimal effect on the last.

Close friends and family playing games will do what they want. They may or may not be tracking the balance updates, and being friends and family they can more easily come up with mutually agreeable game conditions. They are happy to try "narrative" missions with or without the permission of GW. So while the Rule of Three might be a thing, two close friends may not care when they play each other and come up with their own structure.

Players at major tournaments definitely benefit from balance updates, although GW can still make mistakes. As long as GW makes an honest effort they will go along. Players at the majors are expecting a tough game - they are not just swimming with the sharks they are might also be one of the sharks.

Players at local tournaments also benefit from the balance updates. The updates do mean that new or returning players have to be up to speed on the changes, but it can help with a positive experience. Signing up for a tourney usually means reading a player pack that will spell out that balance updates are or are not in effect. So the terms are known.

People playing pick-up games do benefit from balance updates. These are the "wild west" games where maybe you have a try-hard who has a tough list that rocks up against a stranger who has a starter set. The updates can mean that a new or returning player might not know about them so I recognize that its a barrier. On the other hand, balance updates reduce the chances of complete curb stomps. So to me its a net positive.

The same people can play all four types of games, although its unlikely that a player from the big tourneys will be looking for pick-up games to sharpen their skills.

GW making the attempt to balance based off tournament results helps keep the community somewhat together, and friends can always choose to go their own way with the rules.

The problem is how they balance things. They do some in house testing. DG get good results with their new codex, and then almost every balance patch DG get nerfed over and over again, even while they are way beyond the top or even the middle pack as far as win rates go.

They balanace armies from the second half of an edition with other armies from the second half of the edition. And then wonder why armies from the first half, aka marines, are doing "not so good" and blame it on noobs and confusion with plethora of units etc

And to people that don't know it generats anger, because a designer can then say "we didn't think that custodes would be that hard" or "Votan weren't that tough, in testing", but the armies they were testing them were the likes of pre nerf CWE.

I am no longer a new player, but neither am I a veteran of multiple decades. But I do see certain paterns, which just seem to be company policy or how projects get managed at the company. Each new edition is 2-3 books of streamlining, "fixing the old problems" when sometimes the old problems don't exist, because the rules that caused them no longer exist.

For 10th I hope that GW is not going to be going crazy hard after armies like necron or custodes, just because they did good in 9th. That maybe IF or RG will have some fun time playing their armies, this time around. That tau get their suit armies and IG can build an army without Kasarkin that are impossible to get hold of. Ah and that DA won't end up being sub 30% win rate all 10th, because they ended up being a good terminator list, with no help of player skills, but just GW rules making them good and fun to play.

The issue there, Karol, is that they barely do testing and, when they do, it's seemingly in some odd "try out this small bit" way rather than full on testing. I've even heard from playtesters external that they are basically given very specific things to test, and it's never stuff like listbuilding where they could get feedback on broken combos. It'll be like the sort of testing that should be done as a computer simulation, not an actual game played.

Otherwise yeah, that's the issue in a nutshell. They'll test later books against other later books (I would bet a lot of it is the new books they're working on too, to kill two birds with one stone), not against various books to illustrate that while like Votann might be fine against upcoming codexes, it's completely broken against like early books.

And, IMHO worst of all as I've complained about a few times, is that every balance patch looks literally like a kneejerk reaction to whatever has been doing well the previous quarter's tournament circuit, without actually understanding the whys, just "This is doing too well, and tournament players aren't happy, let's nerf it and move on".

It's part of the same issue that's plagued them forever: Balance updates are generally ONLY small tweaks and points, nothing else. So if a unit is bad because its rules just need to be reworked, it will never happen because they won't do full reworks in the balance updates, even though they could (e.g. reprint the updated datasheet)

To be fair balance should be small tweaks. The issue is compounded by the fact that every 3 years now they throw all the previous rules and balance out the window and start over with a new edition.

When you add all the various elements together its almost amazing that the game is as well balanced as it is; considering how much is against it at so many levels.

 Overread wrote:
To be fair balance should be small tweaks. The issue is compounded by the fact that every 3 years now they throw all the previous rules and balance out the window and start over with a new edition.

When you add all the various elements together its almost amazing that the game is as well balanced as it is; considering how much is against it at so many levels.

You would think, yet there are plenty of games with as much or more "complexity" as 40k (which IMHO isn't even real complexity. Choice of a dozen weapon upgrades isn't meaningful choices, it's bloat) that seemingly have no issue getting way closer. Then you have GW which adds unnecessary junk to 40k and uses that as an excuse for why they can't balance it, but also choose to do random meta shakeups for the tournament players every 6 months by trying to act like a seasonal approach works in a tabletop wargame.

Wayniac wrote:

 Overread wrote:
To be fair balance should be small tweaks. The issue is compounded by the fact that every 3 years now they throw all the previous rules and balance out the window and start over with a new edition.

When you add all the various elements together its almost amazing that the game is as well balanced as it is; considering how much is against it at so many levels.

You would think, yet there are plenty of games with as much or more "complexity" as 40k (which IMHO isn't even real complexity. Choice of a dozen weapon upgrades isn't meaningful choices, it's bloat) that seemingly have no issue getting way closer. Then you have GW which adds unnecessary junk to 40k and uses that as an excuse for why they can't balance it, but also choose to do random meta shakeups for the tournament players every 6 months by trying to act like a seasonal approach works in a tabletop wargame.

I wasn't even really thinking of complexity in things like weapon or gear choices. I was more thinking about how they do their limited public testing; the attitudes of the staff behind the rules; the rework every 3 years; the fact that codex are designed by two separate teams and evolve through an edition so that those at the start and those at the end can be quite different; esp when those at the end are starting to sometimes include bits for the new edition and such.

Ergo all the mechanical parts that work against building a balanced game system

Wayniac wrote:

 Overread wrote:
To be fair balance should be small tweaks. The issue is compounded by the fact that every 3 years now they throw all the previous rules and balance out the window and start over with a new edition.

When you add all the various elements together its almost amazing that the game is as well balanced as it is; considering how much is against it at so many levels.

You would think, yet there are plenty of games with as much or more "complexity" as 40k (which IMHO isn't even real complexity. Choice of a dozen weapon upgrades isn't meaningful choices, it's bloat) that seemingly have no issue getting way closer. Then you have GW which adds unnecessary junk to 40k and uses that as an excuse for why they can't balance it, but also choose to do random meta shakeups for the tournament players every 6 months by trying to act like a seasonal approach works in a tabletop wargame.

That's just marketing. Truth is they don't want to balance the game, even if such a thing was possible (itsnot). 'Change', as opposed to 'improvement' is better for the bottom line.

Wayniac wrote:
And, IMHO worst of all as I've complained about a few times, is that every balance patch looks literally like a kneejerk reaction to whatever has been doing well the previous quarter's tournament circuit, without actually understanding the whys, just "This is doing too well, and tournament players aren't happy, let's nerf it and move on".

It's part of the same issue that's plagued them forever: Balance updates are generally ONLY small tweaks and points, nothing else. So if a unit is bad because its rules just need to be reworked, it will never happen because they won't do full reworks in the balance updates, even though they could (e.g. reprint the updated datasheet)

Units and armies shouldn't be getting rules reworks in balance dataslates, they should get that in their next codex. GW shouldn't be doing a public playtest of 4 different iterations of the Necron Warriors datasheet over the course of a year, that's not what I'm playing 40k for. If I was writing the Necrons codex or testing it while in early development then going through different iterations of lots of datasheets would be expected. The number of broken datasheets is basically zero, Rhinos (and transports in general) are not broken, they can ferry troops to different parts of the battlefield and increase the mobility of your army. Rhinos might be bad because of a pts cost that is too high, giving them extra Toughness is not a solution to them being bad and it won't make them much better at performing their role, Rhinos are already pretty tough relative to Space Marines. It might make the game more fun and true to fluff and miniatures to increase the Toughness of Rhinos, but it's not necessary in a "errata within 3 months" way. Balance updates should only be points. Everything else should be done during rules writing for the codex and if it hasn't been done by the time the codex is sent to print then it's too late and we should just wait for the next one, at most it's 5 years.

 vict0988 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
And, IMHO worst of all as I've complained about a few times, is that every balance patch looks literally like a kneejerk reaction to whatever has been doing well the previous quarter's tournament circuit, without actually understanding the whys, just "This is doing too well, and tournament players aren't happy, let's nerf it and move on".

It's part of the same issue that's plagued them forever: Balance updates are generally ONLY small tweaks and points, nothing else. So if a unit is bad because its rules just need to be reworked, it will never happen because they won't do full reworks in the balance updates, even though they could (e.g. reprint the updated datasheet)

Units and armies shouldn't be getting rules reworks in balance dataslates, they should get that in their next codex. GW shouldn't be doing a public playtest of 4 different iterations of the Necron Warriors datasheet over the course of a year, that's not what I'm playing 40k for. If I was writing the Necrons codex or testing it while in early development then going through different iterations of lots of datasheets would be expected. The number of broken datasheets is basically zero, Rhinos (and transports in general) are not broken, they can ferry troops to different parts of the battlefield and increase the mobility of your army. Rhinos might be bad because of a pts cost that is too high, giving them extra Toughness is not a solution to them being bad and it won't make them much better at performing their role, Rhinos are already pretty tough relative to Space Marines. It might make the game more fun and true to fluff and miniatures to increase the Toughness of Rhinos, but it's not necessary in a "errata within 3 months" way. Balance updates should only be points. Everything else should be done during rules writing for the codex and if it hasn't been done by the time the codex is sent to print then it's too late and we should just wait for the next one, at most it's 5 years.

Hard disagree. Units are more than just 'points'. Adjustments to units are more than just points. It's just as legitimate to nudge a unit with an extra rule, stat change or equipment shuffle if theyre not working as intended. Or the inverse. They did ir frequently in warmschine/hordes where overperforming models got a kicking to their spells/feats etc or had abilities changed. Points were often the least/last changed.

And waiting 5 years for a fix is foolish.

Wayniac wrote:
And, IMHO worst of all as I've complained about a few times, is that every balance patch looks literally like a kneejerk reaction to whatever has been doing well the previous quarter's tournament circuit, without actually understanding the whys, just "This is doing too well, and tournament players aren't happy, let's nerf it and move on"

And what, pray tell, out of the many balance changes in the dataslates have been excessively kneejerk.

You obviously play very little of the actual game, tournament play or otherwise, so how can you state anything is an overreaction?

Around this time last year I was witnessing Custodes players in casual games getting the same issues as end of 8th Marine armies; nobody wanted to play them because they were just getting steamrolled by incredibly large golden boys turning off every buff and A-moving across the battlefield and tabling people by turn 3. If something is an issue in comp, it will be an issue outside of it too. You can always avoid those problem things in friendly games, but this still doesn't mean they should be unchanged.

Deadnight wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
And, IMHO worst of all as I've complained about a few times, is that every balance patch looks literally like a kneejerk reaction to whatever has been doing well the previous quarter's tournament circuit, without actually understanding the whys, just "This is doing too well, and tournament players aren't happy, let's nerf it and move on".

It's part of the same issue that's plagued them forever: Balance updates are generally ONLY small tweaks and points, nothing else. So if a unit is bad because its rules just need to be reworked, it will never happen because they won't do full reworks in the balance updates, even though they could (e.g. reprint the updated datasheet)

Units and armies shouldn't be getting rules reworks in balance dataslates, they should get that in their next codex. GW shouldn't be doing a public playtest of 4 different iterations of the Necron Warriors datasheet over the course of a year, that's not what I'm playing 40k for. If I was writing the Necrons codex or testing it while in early development then going through different iterations of lots of datasheets would be expected. The number of broken datasheets is basically zero, Rhinos (and transports in general) are not broken, they can ferry troops to different parts of the battlefield and increase the mobility of your army. Rhinos might be bad because of a pts cost that is too high, giving them extra Toughness is not a solution to them being bad and it won't make them much better at performing their role, Rhinos are already pretty tough relative to Space Marines. It might make the game more fun and true to fluff and miniatures to increase the Toughness of Rhinos, but it's not necessary in a "errata within 3 months" way. Balance updates should only be points. Everything else should be done during rules writing for the codex and if it hasn't been done by the time the codex is sent to print then it's too late and we should just wait for the next one, at most it's 5 years.

Hard disagree. Units are more than just 'points'. Adjustments to units are more than just points. It's just as legitimate to nudge a unit with an extra rule, stat change or equipment shuffle if theyre not working as intended. Or the inverse. They did ir frequently in warmschine/hordes where overperforming models got a kicking to their spells/feats etc or had abilities changed. Points were often the least/last changed.

And waiting 5 years for a fix is foolish.

It is not reasonable to remember 30 pieces of errata, but you don't need to remember points, you can just look at them when you need to make a list and then forget about them. You're not going to be able to fine-tune the balance of a tabletop game unit by changing its stats and abilities like you can with points and you don't risk ruining the feel of a unit or faction. There is no guarantee that any change made is going to improve the design of a unit, often times it'll just be different, rather than superior or inferior. Like the Harlequin Voidweaver, is it's design better now with a 5++ and an absurd weapon option? Not really. Do I want GW to go through a couple more public iterations to try to get a better Voidweaver datasheet before going back to one of the older versions? Heck no. Having rules change also means you have to re-learn how to use those units, when unit goes from a buff stick to an assassin you can't use it in the same kinds of armies any longer. Changing anything but pts first when changing pts is an option seems silly, I don't know what could convince me otherwise, Warmachien doing it just makes me think the Warmachine designers had some silly design decisions. As far as I understand some silly design decisions lead to Warmachine falling off as well so I don't know what I'm supposed to take from it.

 vict0988 wrote:
Units and armies shouldn't be getting rules reworks in balance dataslates, they should get that in their next codex. GW shouldn't be doing a public playtest of 4 different iterations of the Necron Warriors datasheet over the course of a year, that's not what I'm playing 40k for.

What *are* you playing 40k for, then? Because you'd rather the game be broken then fixed?

 vict0988 wrote:

It is not reasonable to remember 30 pieces of errata, but you don't need to remember points, you can just look at them when you need to make a list and then forget about them.

What, and you can't read the changed stats/rules right next to the points cost? You cant have a codex/tablet open? The points cost isn't the only thing you read in a profile when you're making a list -saying its fine to adjust because you dont have to remember the number is a ridiculous take..

 vict0988 wrote:

I You're not going to be able to fine-tune the balance of a tabletop game unit by changing its stats and abilities like you can with points and you don't risk ruining the feel of a unit or faction.

Course you can. It's happened throughout the games history. How many times have units been buffed with +1a , +1wound, +1bs, other things. Remember when assault termies came from obscurity because they got a 3+ inv. Save back in fifth? Sometimes you need more than 'fine tuning'.

 vict0988 wrote:

IThere is no guarantee that any change made is going to improve the design of a unit, often times it'll just be different, rather than superior or inferior.

Sane can be said for points. Ive often argued you can make a crap unit even cheaper, for example but it begs the question - why take the cheaper crap unit for a tiny bit less when you can take something better?10pt fire warriors going to 9pts was the perfect example.

And different is fine too.

 vict0988 wrote:

Like the Harlequin Voidweaver, is it's design better now with a 5++ and an absurd weapon option?

^remembers marines getting two wounds and going from 15pts to 14....^ I know which I prefer.

 vict0988 wrote:

I Do I want GW to go through a couple more public iterations to try to get a better Voidweaver datasheet before going back to one of the older versions? Heck no.

And being stuck with a badly costed unit for 5 years like the bad old days isn't the improvement. If ot helps improve balance I'm all for it.

 vict0988 wrote:

. Having rules change also means you have to re-learn how to use those units, when unit goes from a buff stick to an assassin you can't use it in the same kinds of armies any supposed to take from it.

Such massive role changes aren't the norm. A unit getting +1a doesnt mesn yoy need relearning, but it is better st doung what it shoukd br doung, right? And re-learning stuff happens with eveey new codex and edition. The one constant in the universe is change. The wise adapt.

 vict0988 wrote:

. Changing anything but pts first when changing pts is an option seems silly, I don't know what could convince me otherwise, .

Opening your mind helps (just kidding, by the way if it isnt obvious) :p but seriously, take a step back and consider a different perspective on it. Maybe its just because ive played some ganes you havent (like wmh, probably others too) that just means i habe a different experience and point of reference than you. But you write off wmh for example without ever playing it or understanding its value. It's a short sighted view and ultimately you are the one that loses out. There's something that can be gleaned from eveey gam3 and everything done differently. What games have you played if I may ask? Points adjustments have their place. Undeniably. Bit it's just one lever. There's a lot more that goes into designing a unit than that. Again, pointing to wmh, clipping a warcasters feat for example did a lot more to reign them in than change their warjack points.

 vict0988 wrote:

Warmachien doing it just makes me think the Warmachine designers had some silly design decisions. As far as I understand some silly design decisions lead to Warmachine falling off as well so I don't know what I'm supposed to take from it.

That's a very reductive take. Pp had some great designers.

Pp made some pretty bone headed decisions especislly in mk3, and I have very little time for matt Wilson - but back in mk2 they were among the movers and shakers in the industry. They were the 'second game' forcehat? 5? 10 years? Some of the concepts that went into wmh were absilutely ahead of their time and were genuinely very clever ans well executed. Mk2 was a breath of fresh air and a great step forward, both frim mk1 and other wargames of the era. Public playtest, feedback absorbed, a better expansion path for the games than the codex format, frequent errata that attempted to clip the wings of thr power pieces (epic haley, gaspy, sorscha - looking at you)..ateamroller and orgsnised play had sone fantastic vslue. A hell of a lot of what you take for granted now was more or less pioneered by them in some ways in mk2.

And the point to take away was generally speaking the gsme was pretty decently balanced. They did a very reasonable job of maintaining that. Snd it wasn't always with nudimg points costs.

 Bosskelot wrote:


And what, pray tell, out of the many balance changes in the dataslates have been excessively kneejerk.

You obviously play very little of the actual game, tournament play or otherwise, so how can you state anything is an overreaction?

Around this time last year I was witnessing Custodes players in casual games getting the same issues as end of 8th Marine armies; nobody wanted to play them because they were just getting steamrolled by incredibly large golden boys turning off every buff and A-moving across the battlefield and tabling people by turn 3. If something is an issue in comp, it will be an issue outside of it too. You can always avoid those problem things in friendly games, but this still doesn't mean they should be unchanged.

DG changes all of them. 8th starting with GW designers saying how OP GK are and how they have to be reined only for GK to be the worse faction in 8th for longest. Nerfs to IF in the last balance updated. The faction with under 30% win rate. GW often "fixes" problems from prior editions in next edition, which most often means nerfs to marines. Or fixes problems that are no longer problems, they rain nerfs on builds or armies that no longer are played etc. While at the same time being able to ignore stuff for an entire edition or explain extremly low win rates, with "it is just noobs playing yellow marines".

Karol wrote:

 Bosskelot wrote:


And what, pray tell, out of the many balance changes in the dataslates have been excessively kneejerk.

You obviously play very little of the actual game, tournament play or otherwise, so how can you state anything is an overreaction?

Around this time last year I was witnessing Custodes players in casual games getting the same issues as end of 8th Marine armies; nobody wanted to play them because they were just getting steamrolled by incredibly large golden boys turning off every buff and A-moving across the battlefield and tabling people by turn 3. If something is an issue in comp, it will be an issue outside of it too. You can always avoid those problem things in friendly games, but this still doesn't mean they should be unchanged.

DG changes all of them. 8th starting with GW designers saying how OP GK are and how they have to be reined only for GK to be the worse faction in 8th for longest. Nerfs to IF in the last balance updated. The faction with under 30% win rate. GW often "fixes" problems from prior editions in next edition, which most often means nerfs to marines. Or fixes problems that are no longer problems, they rain nerfs on builds or armies that no longer are played etc. While at the same time being able to ignore stuff for an entire edition or explain extremly low win rates, with "it is just noobs playing yellow marines".

A couple questions --

1) Can you provide the source of where GW said GK are OP and need to be reigned in?
2) In what way did GW directly nerf IF?

 Daedalus81 wrote:

2) In what way did GW directly nerf IF?

INB4 : muh AoC

Hecaton wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
Units and armies shouldn't be getting rules reworks in balance dataslates, they should get that in their next codex. GW shouldn't be doing a public playtest of 4 different iterations of the Necron Warriors datasheet over the course of a year, that's not what I'm playing 40k for.

What *are* you playing 40k for, then? Because you'd rather the game be broken then fixed?

I don't think GW are in the habit of releasing broken datasheets and I don't think they should start doing it, the Voidweaver wasn't broken when it hit like a wet noodle or kicked like a mule, it just was and it needed two different pts costs to balance it depending on what rules it had, no matter whether you turn the wet noodle into a kicking mule or vice versa you still need a fair pts cost. Chapter Tactics, Relics and WL traits don't have pts but if a Relic or WL trait is broken like the Ironstone in 8th, it could just get a pts cost. Has nerfing the Necrons go-to ObSec Chapter Tactic actually improved anything? There were already alternatives that were almost as good and now we just have ten fewer combinations because Nihilakh is strictly better than ObSec on its own. Harlequin units can be broken whether they have a 4++ or a 5++, the game was way too lethal, how about increasing pts costs so there are fewer tougher killer clowns instead of making them even more squishy and letting them keep their lethality? Then we have the beta Born Soldiers for AM which was just painfully anti-fluff making lasguns anti-tank and still didn't make AM competitive, I'd gladly have waited 10 years for that rule to be implemented and instead seen actually effective pts changes. I see rules change after rules change failing to make the right difference and ending up in roughly the same place because even if you nerf the relic or the Chapter Tactic, you've still got tier 1, 2, 3 and 4 versions of each, so GW would have to balance the whole thing at once or GW is still just spinning their wheels getting nowhere fast. Designing in ways where people aren't locked out of playing "their" faction by creating rules like AM have for Chapter Tactics is also a great idea, because you won't have dedicated fans of Born Soldiers like you do dedicated Catachan fans.

Deadnight wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

It is not reasonable to remember 30 pieces of errata, but you don't need to remember points, you can just look at them when you need to make a list and then forget about them.

What, and you can't read the changed stats/rules right next to the points cost? You cant have a codex/tablet open? The points cost isn't the only thing you read in a profile when you're making a list -saying its fine to adjust because you dont have to remember the number is a ridiculous take..

I'm sorry but I wouldn't play 2k pts against you if you're having to reference every single rule and stat you use. Maybe you need a teaching game? I'm quite good at those, just read the core rules and your army rules and we'll have plenty of time to look up stats when we play 500 pts

I don't read the Doomsday Ark datasheet every 3 months to check whether it has had any changes, that'd be silly. What's the chance that I'd actually notice it got CORE by looking at the datasheet? I read the datasheet when I first got hands on the codex and then maybe a couple of additional times and that's it, any future changes don't get filed into my knowledge of what a Doomsday Ark is but in my errata knowledge about Necrons. The number of times I have needed the Doomsday Ark datasheet has been extremely tiny and usually because I'd be looking for one specific thing, so again, I wouldn't see that it'd gotten CORE.

 vict0988 wrote:

I You're not going to be able to fine-tune the balance of a tabletop game unit by changing its stats and abilities like you can with points and you don't risk ruining the feel of a unit or faction.

Course you can. It's happened throughout the games history. How many times have units been buffed with +1a , +1wound, +1bs, other things. Remember when assault termies came from obscurity because they got a 3+ inv. Save back in fifth? Sometimes you need more than 'fine tuning'.

Terminators were bad in 5th though, either I am forgetting something or they were even worse in 4th. I don't know what unit you're talking about that went from being imbalanced and then became balanced because of a rules change. Giving Firstborn an extra wound did not make them balanced, it just changed the feel of the faction. It made them more balanced than they were previously because the 9th edition pts values were a PL psy-op made by the knife-ear podcast /sarcasm.

And being stuck with a badly costed unit for 5 years like the bad old days isn't the improvement. If ot helps improve balance I'm all for it.

I advocate for annual pts updates, the thing I am arguing against is giving Gretchin +1 S in January, +1 BS in April and then -1 BS in June and Dense Cover for nearby Orks in Orktober. Just change their pts once to 4,5 or 3,5 and wait a year to see how it pans out. For example, I think Gretchin should be T2, but I'd rather GW wait until 10th to change Gretchin to T2 because it'd just be another errata to remember and another thing that makes the physical codexes unreliable which is unfair to paying costumers even if they get a free app code with their physical codex.

I completely agree with vict here.

Rules changes should be very few and far between and preferably only at set intervals every few years like a new codex or if they go the WM/H or MESBG route of a single book release a year with new rules for more than one faction at a time.

Remembering what rules or data sheets have changed all the time is just confusing and forces people to constantly look up things because they can't really be sure if it has stayed the same since last time the played with/against X.

Point changes and missions can be done much more often though. Everyone uses BattleScribe or similar to build lists anyway so no real need to remember the exact points for most players. Changing them only changes how efficient a unit is and not how a unit works. If it still isn't doing what the designers want then they can work on a fix behind the scenes until the next codex update.