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

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:
TBH, I don't feel buckets full of sympathy for anyone that drops huge cash buying an entire army because they "look cool" and then discovers they aren't as "powerful" as they'd like. It seems to me that if they didn't bother to look into how that army actually plays before a huge investment then it's probably not that important to them....

Damn right! Feth those people who only got an army because they like the models (or even worse: the fluff)! Who do they think they are, just buying what they like without researching first wether or not the unit is viable in the current meta!?

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:
To be clear, if a rules change totally alters how an army players and makes them just suck at everything where as they didn't before (when the army was purchased), I'm not saying that's a good thing. That's bad. I think we can all agree on that. But is that what is happening?

GW constantly releasing/adjusting rules that shake up the internal an external balance of each faction is exactly what is happening for the past 20 years.

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:

The problem is that challenges in a computer game are wildly different from a challenge in a wargame. In a computer game you can easily switch whatever needs to be switched and you can play it over and over in a relatively short amount of game to master. You are at your home chugging at Tekken or Elden Ring in your own comfort having fun.

However, in 40k you buy into an expensive army that you have to collect and paint over a long period of time, and if you got the army for the rule of cool and not the "challenge" you are going to be bummed out. F.ex. I can't imagine there are a lot of happy Kruleboyz players in AoS right now as they've been bottom rung since the dawn of 3.0. That's before having to find a venue and a partner to play your game. They exist, but they probably did not buy into the army because it was bad(the models are however damn cool).

TBH, I don't feel buckets full of sympathy for anyone that drops huge cash buying an entire army because they "look cool" and then discovers they aren't as "powerful" as they'd like. It seems to me that if they didn't bother to look into how that army actually plays before a huge investment then it's probably not that important to them.

So which is it? Should people buy an army because it looks cool and not care about balance at all, leading to them constantly losing, sometimes for the duration of an edition? Or should they only invest in the most powerful armies regardless of whether they actually want to collect them?

Maybe the designers should strive to make all armies viable at least. Then, if we're very lucky they can try to make each unit viable within the right build. You're also ignoring the fact that for beginners it can be very difficult to determine what's good and what isn't, even with the internet. Eldar are a good example. They're often towards the top of the meta in most editions, but usually with some really esoteric build that doesn't match what a "traditional" army would look like. So if you want to collect Eldar you'll find plenty of info telling you they're good, then find you're constantly losing because you've dared to buy Guardians, Falcons and Rangers.

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:

I feel I'm slightly changing the subject here, but it's a reason I've generally stayed away from 40K for so long. GW seem to be sacrificing actually making a good game on the alter of the mighty dollar. 10 Editions of a game over a "short" (relatively) period of time is just a cash grab.

Ah yes, that "short" period of time known as (checks notes/memory) - 36 years.
Granted, here in the past 10 years or so the edition change has sped up a bit, but still....

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:
Mind you, that is mostly the community's fault for putting up with it. We can all complain until we're blue in the face on a nerd forum, but if everyone rushes out and buys (or even pre-orders) the new models and new edition then nothing will ever change.

Says the hypocrite whos' painting up a Primaris squad/force while pondering switching to a Chaos project....

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:
This is a good post and you make good points. I agree with most of it.

I have to take your word for it that the armies are "just bad" as-in "impossible to play effectively" as opposed to "difficult". "Impossible" here is not an exaggeration. If it is at all possible to play them well, even if it requires 4D-chess-like thinking, then they're not "bad" they're just "difficult". Which isn't "bad". If you get my drift.

I stand by my point that you can't make every army (not least every combination of options in every army) perfectly balanced with every other combination. If you require that, play chess. Making every combination in 40K perfectly balanced is not only not possible but not desireable, because it would remove the creative aspect and render choices meaningless. A battle between an army tailor-made to destroy heavy armour, and an army that is tailor made to be heavily armoured should not be "balanced". But I agree with your base point that if you've invested a lot of time and money into your hobby and GW change the rules to make them "bad" as in "impossible to play effectively against anyone - they just suck now" then that's not a good thing.

I feel I'm slightly changing the subject here, but it's a reason I've generally stayed away from 40K for so long. GW seem to be sacrificing actually making a good game on the alter of the mighty dollar. 10 Editions of a game over a "short" (relatively) period of time is just a cash grab. From what you are telling me, it's just not allowing enough time for the game to be properly "community tested" and then patched/polished. Instead it's a constant flow of new rules and new models that are not well thought-out.

Mind you, that is mostly the community's fault for putting up with it. We can all complain until we're blue in the face on a nerd forum, but if everyone rushes out and buys (or even pre-orders) the new models and new edition then nothing will ever change.

I've heard on the grapevine that 5th Edition is generally considered "the best". That was 5 editions ago!
..

3rd edition was the best when I played 3rd. Then 5th was the best when I played 5th. 6th and 7th were a chore. 8th was exciting, but not as good as my memories of 3rd and 5th. 9th surpassed every other edition for me, but again became really difficult to manage. 10th appears to contain what I enjoy about ninth in a more controlled fashion.

When someone says 5th was the best - it's not that 5th was the best balanced. There were so many issues. But people tend to be more willing to absolve GW of their sins that occurred during their nostalgia period than they are for those happening now. Some people just like the mechanics of 5th better along with the more simplified armies. I enjoy those mechanics, but I like what we have now more.

With the only data I have available to me I can look and see that last weekend the tournament wins were from : Sisters, Craftworld, Daemons x2, Custodes, Iron Hands, and Knights. The week before was Votann x2, Knights, Daemons, Space Wolves, Drukhari, Tyranids, Iron Hands x3, Craftworld, and Orks.

Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Is it close enough? Yes, and the transition into 10th SHOULD help them make it better. Whether or not it will remains to be seen. I don't expect the launch to be smooth at all, but GW has pretty clearly demonstrated that they're learning - at least to my eyes.

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:
perfectly balanced

You keep using this phrase and it's purely a straw man. Nobody's asking for 'perfect' balance.

There is a vast gulf between 'you can take literally any mishmash of units and upgrades and expect a 50% win rate against any other army' (which is nonsense, nobody wants that, stop saying it) and 'oh, you chose Dark Eldar? Enjoy losing 90% of your games, it's a challenge' (which is bs).

Somewhere in between those extremes is a game state where every faction has the potential to be viable on the tabletop with at least a couple of build archetypes, where your choice of army or ability to min-max doesn't make the actual game a foregone conclusion, and balance-adjacent mechanics like sideboards, scenarios, and objectives can counteract skew matchups. That's what competent designers push for.

This isn't a videogame where an underpowered joke character is fun to play every once in a while, and then go back to what you were doing. This is a tabletop wargame where people put major investment into their armies, and an army can go from powerful to '''challenge''' overnight at the whims of GW. Furthermore, if you're expecting players to research the (current) competitive meta to ascertain the relative power of a faction they're interested in and then construct a list to maximize its power, you're not the casual player you think you are.

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:
It's just not possible nor desireable to create a game that involves a) tailoring your force with creative choices; b) dice and randmoness; AND c) every combination being perfectly balanced against every other combination.

It's entirely possible if you drop the 'perfectly balanced' shtick and pay attention to what people actually want, rather than presenting this false dichotomy where either you reduce the game to chess-like symmetry or you deliberately make some factions worse than others.

I mean, other games have managed this just fine. 9th is pretty damn close too.

ccs wrote:

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:

I feel I'm slightly changing the subject here, but it's a reason I've generally stayed away from 40K for so long. GW seem to be sacrificing actually making a good game on the alter of the mighty dollar. 10 Editions of a game over a "short" (relatively) period of time is just a cash grab.

Ah yes, that "short" period of time known as (checks notes/memory) - 36 years.

Granted, here in the past 10 years or so the edition change has sped up a bit, but still....

In a far longer period, D&D has gone through half that number of editions. And many people think it peaked at 2nd Edition anyway. And yes, the past 10 years the edition change has sped up. A lot. If you really believe this is not at least partly for $$$ then I dunno what to tell you.

ccs wrote:

Says the hypocrite whos' painting up a Primaris squad/force while pondering switching to a Chaos project....

Take it easy. I said "we". As in, including me. To whatever extent that applies because I'm not painting any Primaris marines. I'm painting a regular tactical squad and it's the first one I've ever bought, so you're wrong anyway.

Slipspace wrote:
So which is it? Should people buy an army because it looks cool and not care about balance at all, leading to them constantly losing, sometimes for the duration of an edition? Or should they only invest in the most powerful armies regardless of whether they actually want to collect them?

I guess it depends what's most important to them. Collecting cool miniatures or winning games of Warhammer 40K. As a side-note, while I accept that some sides are "unbalanced", I am skeptical that there is any side that is "constantly losing" all the time.

Slipspace wrote:
You're also ignoring the fact that for beginners it can be very difficult to determine what's good and what isn't, even with the internet. Eldar are a good example. They're often towards the top of the meta in most editions, but usually with some really esoteric build that doesn't match what a "traditional" army would look like. So if you want to collect Eldar you'll find plenty of info telling you they're good, then find you're constantly losing because you've dared to buy Guardians, Falcons and Rangers.

"Beginners can't win with the more complex and strategic armies that aren't 'traditional'". I care not. It's not a good argument. Note: I am a beginner.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

a_typical_hero wrote:
Damn right! Feth those people who only got an army because they like the models (or even worse: the fluff)! Who do they think they are, just buying what they like without researching first wether or not the unit is viable in the current meta!?

I never said there was anything wrong with that. In fact, I think the opposite. I think it's really cool. I just think it's a bit rich to buy an army for the models/fluff and then complain that they're not simple and easy to win with on the table just because you personally like how the models look.

 catbarf wrote:

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:
perfectly balanced

You keep using this phrase and it's purely a straw man. Nobody's asking for 'perfect' balance.

It's not really a strawman, because it's my entire point! I also made the case that it can be fun to play with an "team" that is more complex and difficult to master because it can be rewarding.

These are not strawman arguments because they're the point I started with originally. You are arguing against my assertion, not the other way around.

 catbarf wrote:

Somewhere in between those extremes is a game state where every faction has the potential to be viable on the tabletop with at least a couple of build archetypes, where your choice of army or ability to min-max doesn't make the actual game a foregone conclusion, and balance-adjacent mechanics like sideboards, scenarios, and objectives can counteract skew matchups. That's what competent designers push for.

I agree with that. The strawman is pretending that I'm saying "some armies should be not viable on the tabletop with any build archetype" or "you should be able to min-max and make games a forgone conclusion". Of course I am not saying that. That's silly.

I'm just saying perfect balance isn't going to happen and nor should it. That's my point. Not a strawman. If you agree, then great.

 catbarf wrote:
'oh, you chose Dark Eldar? Enjoy losing 90% of your games, it's a challenge

Do Dark Eldar really lose 90% of their games, even in the hands of a player who has mastered their tactics? They're just so un-balanced that no matter how good a "General" you are, you will only win 1-in-10 games? (assumedly through pure luck)?

If this is really the case, then I agree with you. That sucks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

3rd edition was the best when I played 3rd. Then 5th was the best when I played 5th. 6th and 7th were a chore. 8th was exciting, but not as good as my memories of 3rd and 5th. 9th surpassed every other edition for me, but again became really difficult to manage. 10th appears to contain what I enjoy about ninth in a more controlled fashion.

When someone says 5th was the best - it's not that 5th was the best balanced. There were so many issues. But people tend to be more willing to absolve GW of their sins that occurred during their nostalgia period than they are for those happening now. Some people just like the mechanics of 5th better along with the more simplified armies. I enjoy those mechanics, but I like what we have now more.

With the only data I have available to me I can look and see that last weekend the tournament wins were from : Sisters, Craftworld, Daemons x2, Custodes, Iron Hands, and Knights. The week before was Votann x2, Knights, Daemons, Space Wolves, Drukhari, Tyranids, Iron Hands x3, Craftworld, and Orks.

Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Is it close enough? Yes, and the transition into 10th SHOULD help them make it better. Whether or not it will remains to be seen. I don't expect the launch to be smooth at all, but GW has pretty clearly demonstrated that they're learning - at least to my eyes.

Good post!

a_typical_hero wrote:

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:
TBH, I don't feel buckets full of sympathy for anyone that drops huge cash buying an entire army because they "look cool" and then discovers they aren't as "powerful" as they'd like. It seems to me that if they didn't bother to look into how that army actually plays before a huge investment then it's probably not that important to them....

Damn right! Feth those people who only got an army because they like the models (or even worse: the fluff)! Who do they think they are, just buying what they like without researching first wether or not the unit is viable in the current meta!?

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:
To be clear, if a rules change totally alters how an army players and makes them just suck at everything where as they didn't before (when the army was purchased), I'm not saying that's a good thing. That's bad. I think we can all agree on that. But is that what is happening?

GW constantly releasing/adjusting rules that shake up the internal an external balance of each faction is exactly what is happening for the past 20 years.

As seems to be the days theme, that's strawmanning his argument.

He's not saying 'feth anyone who doesn't research before they buy' he's saying 'people who buy A LOT without researching likely are more invested in how much they LIKE the army, rather than it's 'meta power level' and will likely have fun with the army even if it's only 'okay' on the tabletop.

ERJAK 809777 11535744 wrote:

As seems to be the days theme, that's strawmanning his argument.

He's not saying 'feth anyone who doesn't research before they buy' he's saying 'people who buy A LOT without researching likely are more invested in how much they LIKE the army, rather than it's 'meta power level' and will likely have fun with the army even if it's only 'okay' on the tabletop.

The thing is, the only army in w40k that is always at worse okey, are eldar. If you pick the wrong army, and it is bad, then it is going to be real bad. On top of that it gets progresivly bad the more armies are okey or good. Playing a 30% win rate army in to a 50-60% win rate army just isn't fun. You practicaly don't get to play at all, because the otherside will just over power you with more powerful rules, cost efficiency of units etc.

I have my doubts that the number of people who bought their army knowing it was bad, is larger then new players waking up to a mid edition world of marines being bad. And new players really do like marines and want to play them.

This guy is apparently saying knights reroll ALL hits and wounds of 1. Pretty terrible if true. I'm not sure why you'd ever choose the other option.

https://youtu.be/hGzEmryhVMU?t=3905

 Daedalus81 wrote:
This guy is apparently saying knights reroll ALL hits and wounds of 1. Pretty terrible if true. I'm not sure why you'd ever choose the other option.

https://youtu.be/hGzEmryhVMU?t=3905

That was in the article.
The other option is +1 to Move, Advance, and Charge.

 catbarf wrote:


There is a vast gulf between 'you can take literally any mishmash of units and upgrades and expect a 50% win rate against any other army' (which is nonsense, nobody wants that, stop saying it)

Well wants or expects? Maybe not ANY mishmash, but most reasonably fluffy thematic mishmashes yeah. The 10 Smash Captain Mishmash should probably fail more often, but the (Ravenguard or otherwise) Spearhead AOR? I "want" each faction to have at least a couple if not more generic theme builds. Infantry, Tank, Mechanized Infantry for Guard, Demi/Company and Spear of Macragge for UM, Various solo/combo wings for DA? Jump/Terminator/Speeder for Blood Angesl? Bikes and Mech Infantry for White Scars, Psychics and Black Guardians for Ulthwe, Pirates and/or Wraithbone for Iyanden? and so on. I expect each faction will be lucky to get the first effective list, let alone a second that isn't a meta/FAQ/Update -corrected deviation from the first.

Karol wrote:

ERJAK 809777 11535744 wrote:

As seems to be the days theme, that's strawmanning his argument.

He's not saying 'feth anyone who doesn't research before they buy' he's saying 'people who buy A LOT without researching likely are more invested in how much they LIKE the army, rather than it's 'meta power level' and will likely have fun with the army even if it's only 'okay' on the tabletop.

The thing is, the only army in w40k that is always at worse okey, are eldar. If you pick the wrong army, and it is bad, then it is going to be real bad. On top of that it gets progresivly bad the more armies are okey or good. Playing a 30% win rate army in to a 50-60% win rate army just isn't fun. You practicaly don't get to play at all, because the otherside will just over power you with more powerful rules, cost efficiency of units etc.

I have my doubts that the number of people who bought their army knowing it was bad, is larger then new players waking up to a mid edition world of marines being bad. And new players really do like marines and want to play them.

The "picking the wrong" army bit is irrelevant in my book. You have to be able to pick a bad army - without that option, you can't pick a good one either. So if we remove that "if you build them wrong" bit, you're basically saying that "Eldar are only okay" and "marines are easier to play". I'm okay with that.

I'm old-school, but waaay back in the day I remember people complaing that Wood Elves sucked in Bloodbowl. They couldn't block to create holes so you needed to three of them to gang up just to take down one orc and their nimble/athletic abilities were underpowered and didn't compensate for their squishiness. Then people figured out how to actually play them. They started making their moves in the right order, don't "gang up" to make blocks - avoid blocks! - players started dodging their remaining linesmen out of base-contact with the opposition at the end of their turn. Suddenly they were over-powered. "How can I win against Wood Elves when I have a bashy team and they leave me no opportunity to block on my turn? That's all my team can do! It's unfair!

In fact, I remember one dude making - just for fun - an entire team full of zombies. No big guys, no star players, no special abilities. Just an entire roster full of pleb zombies. And he kicked butt too. Just because he'd really mastered the order of his blocks, and his players' positions to maximise the percentages on each turn. Then people started complaining that zombies are over-powered. lolz.

Fast forward a few decades: "wow these Eldar models are cool ... I've never played a game before, but I'm going to buy an entire army and I already have a plan for them, they're going to be called The Tyranid Headbutters! My strategy is for them to stand firm in melee and headbutt Tyranids in the mouth! ... ... aww this army sucks. I never win! With such cool models they should kick ass more! GW need to balance the rules!"

(P.S. I'm joking. That's intentionally exaggerated to be funny).


...

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
This guy is apparently saying knights reroll ALL hits and wounds of 1. Pretty terrible if true. I'm not sure why you'd ever choose the other option.

https://youtu.be/hGzEmryhVMU?t=3905

That was in the article.
The other option is +1 to Move, Advance, and Charge.

The point is that the rule does not allow all rerolls of 1, but just a sigle reroll of 1 the way it is written. But it isn't clear at all so there is quite the debate going on.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
This guy is apparently saying knights reroll ALL hits and wounds of 1. Pretty terrible if true. I'm not sure why you'd ever choose the other option.

https://youtu.be/hGzEmryhVMU?t=3905

The other option has an easier deed. The first one can be actively negated by the opponent if he so decides.

If the re-roooll all/each thing is true. Then Rex is going to be in every knight army, will tank shock all the time for 0CP, and do a gazilion of wounds to vehicles, monsters and units.

Karol wrote:
If the re-roooll all/each thing is true. Then Rex is going to be in every knight army, will tank shock all the time for 0CP, and do a gazilion of wounds to vehicles, monsters and units.

There might be edge cases where this matters, but the majority of units will be turned to paste by freedom's hand without spending a CP.

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:

Karol wrote:

ERJAK 809777 11535744 wrote:

As seems to be the days theme, that's strawmanning his argument.

He's not saying 'feth anyone who doesn't research before they buy' he's saying 'people who buy A LOT without researching likely are more invested in how much they LIKE the army, rather than it's 'meta power level' and will likely have fun with the army even if it's only 'okay' on the tabletop.

The thing is, the only army in w40k that is always at worse okey, are eldar. If you pick the wrong army, and it is bad, then it is going to be real bad. On top of that it gets progresivly bad the more armies are okey or good. Playing a 30% win rate army in to a 50-60% win rate army just isn't fun. You practicaly don't get to play at all, because the otherside will just over power you with more powerful rules, cost efficiency of units etc.

I have my doubts that the number of people who bought their army knowing it was bad, is larger then new players waking up to a mid edition world of marines being bad. And new players really do like marines and want to play them.

The "picking the wrong" army bit is irrelevant in my book. You have to be able to pick a bad army - without that option, you can't pick a good one either. So if we remove that "if you build them wrong" bit, you're basically saying that "Eldar are only okay" and "marines are easier to play". I'm okay with that.

[spoiler]I'm old-school, but waaay back in the day I remember people complaing that Wood Elves sucked in Bloodbowl. They couldn't block to create holes so you needed to three of them to gang up just to take down one orc and their nimble/athletic abilities were underpowered and didn't compensate for their squishiness. Then people figured out how to actually play them. They started making their moves in the right order, don't "gang up" to make blocks - avoid blocks! - players started dodging their remaining linesmen out of base-contact with the opposition at the end of their turn. Suddenly they were over-powered. "How can I win against Wood Elves when I have a bashy team and they leave me no opportunity to block on my turn? That's all my team can do! It's unfair!

In fact, I remember one dude making - just for fun - an entire team full of zombies. No big guys, no star players, no special abilities. Just an entire roster full of pleb zombies. And he kicked butt too. Just because he'd really mastered the order of his blocks, and his players' positions to maximise the percentages on each turn. Then people started complaining that zombies are over-powered. lolz.

The fact that some people are bad at the game does not make it less true that there are options that are truly overcosted for no good reason because GW makes mistakes. With a global competitive community it doesn't take more than a year to find out that Wood Elves are bad is a myth as one guy in Australia wins a slew of events and tells people the steps to win with them on his Youtube channel. Staying in the dark can be fun, I really enjoyed the start of 8th despite its rocky balance because my group decided not to log in to the global Warhammer hivemind and none of us were committed enough to do any mathhammer either so we just kind of stumbled around and tried things out, but despite that we quickly realised that Monoliths were awful, there was no secret tech to be found, it was just a bad unit because it was terribly overcosted.

Fast forward a few decades: "wow these Eldar models are cool ... I've never played a game before, but I'm going to buy an entire army and I already have a plan for them, they're going to be called The Tyranid Headbutters! My strategy is for them to stand firm in melee and headbutt Tyranids in the mouth! ... ... aww this army sucks. I never win! With such cool models they should kick ass more! GW need to balance the rules!"

(P.S. I'm joking. That's intentionally exaggerated to be funny).

You say you're not straw-manning but this is the exact gak you've been called out on already, why don't you stop? Nobody is asking for Fire Dragons to be good against a swarm of Termagants, but it'd be nice if the flamer upgrade for the Exarch made them more pts-efficient vs Termagants. If the flamer on the Exarch is too expensive then taking a flamer might be strictly better against Termagants, but it'd still be a terrible inclusion in any army because the unit would be less pts-efficient against everything by taking the flamer. Nobody is going to prevent you from building intentionally bad lists, do whatever you want.

 vict0988 wrote:

Fast forward a few decades: "wow these Eldar models are cool ... I've never played a game before, but I'm going to buy an entire army and I already have a plan for them, they're going to be called The Tyranid Headbutters! My strategy is for them to stand firm in melee and headbutt Tyranids in the mouth! ... ... aww this army sucks. I never win! With such cool models they should kick ass more! GW need to balance the rules!"

(P.S. I'm joking. That's intentionally exaggerated to be funny).

You say you're not straw-manning but this is the exact gak you've been called out on already, why don't you stop? Nobody is asking for Fire Dragons to be good against a swarm of Termagants, but it'd be nice if the flamer upgrade for the Exarch made them more pts-efficient vs Termagants. If the flamer on the Exarch is too expensive then taking a flamer might be strictly better against Termagants, but it'd still be a terrible inclusion in any army because the unit would be less pts-efficient against everything by taking the flamer. Nobody is going to prevent you from building intentionally bad lists, do whatever you want.

In this case, you've obviously replied before reading the whole post. The last sentence in particular.

 vict0988 wrote:
The fact that some people are bad at the game does not make it less true that there are options that are truly overcosted for no good reason because GW makes mistakes. With a global competitive community it doesn't take more than a year to find out that Wood Elves are bad is a myth as one guy in Australia wins a slew of events and tells people the steps to win with them on his Youtube channel. Staying in the dark can be fun, I really enjoyed the start of 8th despite its rocky balance because my group decided not to log in to the global Warhammer hivemind and none of us were committed enough to do any mathhammer either so we just kind of stumbled around and tried things out, but despite that we quickly realised that Monoliths were awful, there was no secret tech to be found, it was just a bad unit because it was terribly overcosted.

I'm not saying that GW doesn't make mistakes or that it's not true that units are "over-costed". That is a strawman.

The example with the BloodBowl Wood Elves was to point out that the argument, "beginners buys an entire army because models are cool, loses a lot of games, ergo GW needs to 'balance' things" is not necessarily true. And some folk actually did suggest that hypothetical.


...

I think the issue is that "wow I never knew that" was common in a pre-internet era, where whole experiences of gaming might be just 20 people.

Today Power is usually identified once codexes are leaked. There are still arguments, but they tend to be "this is broken and far too good"/"I don't think its that powerful." Its more or less unheard of for a unit to be seen as terrible then become good without GW changing the game.

Tyel wrote:
I think the issue is that "wow I never knew that" was common in a pre-internet era, where whole experiences of gaming might be just 20 people.

Today Power is usually identified once codexes are leaked. There are still arguments, but they tend to be "this is broken and far too good"/"I don't think its that powerful." Its more or less unheard of for a unit to be seen as terrible then become good without GW changing the game.

Yeah that's a fair point.

Although I'd be remiss not to point out that if people are arguing as to whether it's too powerful or not, then it's probably not "super obviously broken bad". That would leave no room for argument.

It would be interesting to see tournament statistics. That is (I assume) the best players playing thier most ideal armies with the best strategies. Simply which army won wouldn't be good enough, it would need to be a ratio of played:won for every faction; if one faction only wins 10% of tournaments but is actually only even entered 5% of the time, that would make it twice as good as one should expect.

I'm skeptical that, in the hands of a skillful and experienced player, any one army is going to almost always lose because their rules are just so handicapped. Maybe though. (?). I also think it's telling that folk are so concerned that their armies are "not powerful enough". Nobody seems concerned that their army is "too powerful" and needs "balancing" in the opposite direction.

I guess the whole argument has been about "just how much fluctuation are your prepared to accept between armies"? I suspect for me that is slightly higher than for some others for reasons discussed.

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I think the issue is that "wow I never knew that" was common in a pre-internet era, where whole experiences of gaming might be just 20 people.

Today Power is usually identified once codexes are leaked. There are still arguments, but they tend to be "this is broken and far too good"/"I don't think its that powerful." Its more or less unheard of for a unit to be seen as terrible then become good without GW changing the game.

Yeah that's a fair point.

Although I'd be remiss not to point out that if people are arguing as to whether it's too powerful or not, then it's probably not "super obviously broken bad". That would leave no room for argument.

It would be interesting to see tournament statistics. That is (I assume) the best players playing thier most ideal armies with the best strategies. Simply which army won wouldn't be good enough, it would need to be a ratio of played:won for every faction; if one faction only wins 10% of tournaments but is actually only even entered 5% of the time, that would make it twice as good as one should expect.

The problem you have with that is the inherent selection bias in tournaments. Good players gravitate to the good armies and leave the bad armies at home. Combine that with the sheer number of armies in the game now, and it's really difficult to pick out the lucky outliers from the indicators of some hidden power that hasn't been picked up on yet. In some ways, tracking the rise and fall of a given army's popularity in tournaments might be a better indicator of their actual strength.

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:

I'm skeptical that, in the hands of a skillful and experienced player, any one army is going to almost always lose because their rules are just so handicapped. Maybe though. (?). I also think it's telling that folk are so concerned that their armies are "not powerful enough". Nobody seems concerned that their army is "too powerful" and needs "balancing" in the opposite direction.

The first part happened at the recent end-of-season GW grand tournament involving the top 8 players from their tournament circuit. Richard Siegler - generally accepted as one of the best 40k players - took Crimson Fists - generally accepted as among the worst armies in the game - and lost every game without so much as a chance of victory. GW's balance is so bad there are always armies that are just unable to compete, often because they're either overpriced or their rules are so bad as to be non-functional.

Plenty of people point out how good the best armies are, including those that play them. During the Dark Eldar or Tyranid dominance in 9th I think the vast majority of people playing those armies would have accepted they were overpowered. There may be specific disagreements over what exactly needs fixing and how, but on the whole there's usually broad agreement.

would suggest the mark of a reasonably balanced game is that a player skilled in the art of playing it is fething good at winning with any of the games factions

accepting if you try to build a bad list you can generally succeed regardless

and ask yourself this with 40k, how often have you seen your army, seen the enemies army and said to yourself "I know how this one is going" and been right? (good or bad result), the game shouldn't be won in the list building phase but it appears is often is

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

Fast forward a few decades: "wow these Eldar models are cool ... I've never played a game before, but I'm going to buy an entire army and I already have a plan for them, they're going to be called The Tyranid Headbutters! My strategy is for them to stand firm in melee and headbutt Tyranids in the mouth! ... ... aww this army sucks. I never win! With such cool models they should kick ass more! GW need to balance the rules!"

(P.S. I'm joking. That's intentionally exaggerated to be funny).

You say you're not straw-manning but this is the exact gak you've been called out on already, why don't you stop? Nobody is asking for Fire Dragons to be good against a swarm of Termagants, but it'd be nice if the flamer upgrade for the Exarch made them more pts-efficient vs Termagants. If the flamer on the Exarch is too expensive then taking a flamer might be strictly better against Termagants, but it'd still be a terrible inclusion in any army because the unit would be less pts-efficient against everything by taking the flamer. Nobody is going to prevent you from building intentionally bad lists, do whatever you want.

In this case, you've obviously replied before reading the whole post. The last sentence in particular.

You are satirising wargamers complaining about the rules being imbalanced, I got that, it is based on a misconception that gamers want perfect balance and your silly belief that "the game is actually never that imbalanced you just have to git gud by playing them how they are designed to be played instead of going oops all Monoliths when you're really supposed to only take one and use it to support your infantry and then Necrons are actually really good and armies without Monoliths are actually worse than the ones with it, but you silly banana thought you could win with only Monoliths, that's like trying to use Dark Reapers as a melee unit haha what a dummy."

 vict0988 wrote:
The fact that some people are bad at the game does not make it less true that there are options that are truly overcosted for no good reason because GW makes mistakes. With a global competitive community it doesn't take more than a year to find out that Wood Elves are bad is a myth as one guy in Australia wins a slew of events and tells people the steps to win with them on his Youtube channel. Staying in the dark can be fun, I really enjoyed the start of 8th despite its rocky balance because my group decided not to log in to the global Warhammer hivemind and none of us were committed enough to do any mathhammer either so we just kind of stumbled around and tried things out, but despite that we quickly realised that Monoliths were awful, there was no secret tech to be found, it was just a bad unit because it was terribly overcosted.

I'm not saying that GW doesn't make mistakes or that it's not true that units are "over-costed". That is a strawman.

The example with the BloodBowl Wood Elves was to point out that the argument, "beginners buys an entire army because models are cool, loses a lot of games, ergo GW needs to 'balance' things" is not necessarily true. And some folk actually did suggest that hypothetical.


...

The point is sometimes there isn't a single viable strategy in which Monoliths can be included, sometimes a whole codex is filled with units that cannot be included in a viable strategy. Monoliths being unviable in a list without units they're meant to support is fine, no complaints, a noob might accidentally buy such an army, it is what it is. A noob buys a Monolith, various units that it's supposed to be good with that Monolith and a few other units and gets told Necrons are trash actually and they have one viable build which is 2 or 3 Tesseract Vaults supported by Doomsday Arks, so the only units you can use is your Troops, but don't take more than the minimum required and then one of your 3 Characters to fill a minimum slot. This is what people are complaining about and you keep getting lost in people trying to melee with their Dark Reapers or forgetting to get a transport for their Screaming Banshees.

The "picking the wrong" army bit is irrelevant in my book. You have to be able to pick a bad army - without that option, you can't pick a good one either. So if we remove that "if you build them wrong" bit, you're basically saying that "Eldar are only okay" and "marines are easier to play". I'm okay with that.

That is not true. 9th starts. Two guys pick up harlequins and GK. No codex for 9th for a long time, for both. One buys troups, skimers and characters and the other buys troops, tanks and HQs sold by GW. One will end up with an army close to what was considered to be the meta list till DE came out, and the other better bought strikes and not terminators for his infantry otherwise his fun will be in the negatives.

Same thing with a new BA player. Loads up on the poster units for the faction and somehow through luck this ends up being the way to get a good marine army in 9th ed. If his friend at the same time starts Imperial Fists, then he is not going to have a fun time vs any army. And marines are not an easy army to play most of the time, unless the ease somehow comes from the fact that most of them are getting farmed by non marine armies. The investment in to a functioning list is also very diffferent. A marine player in 8th had to rebuy his army in 9th, if he wanted to army to function. Meanwhile a GK player, especialy one that bought the good options (power armoured units) is playing the same strikes+interceptors+NDK army he has been playing since 8th, and potentialy also 7th edition.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 vict0988 wrote:

The point is sometimes there isn't a single viable strategy in which Monoliths can be included, sometimes a whole codex is filled with units that cannot be included in a viable strategy. Monoliths being unviable in a list without units they're meant to support is fine, no complaints, a noob might accidentally buy such an army, it is what it is. A noob buys a Monolith, various units that it's supposed to be good with that Monolith and a few other units and gets told Necrons are trash actually and they have one viable build which is 2 or 3 Tesseract Vaults supported by Doomsday Arks, so the only units you can use is your Troops, but don't take more than the minimum required and then one of your 3 Characters to fill a minimum slot. This is what people are complaining about and you keep getting lost in people trying to melee with their Dark Reapers or forgetting to get a transport for their Screaming Banshees.

It is not even that. Everyone can buy bad models or have models made bad. It shouldn't happen, but it does. And it is true that with GW, and how much it costs, doing research is VERY much advised. And if a noob doesn't know it, then the community should really explain it to him. Maybe not what units he should buy, but the over all mechanics how the game works outside of the actual game, at the list building/collecting level. What should never happen is stuff like, and models in your patrol/start collecting box are bad, you do not want to buy them. Something like the DG patrol box, should not exist. A marine players should not start to think how to take minimal troops and avoid that what should be his army core. An ork or tyranids player shouldn't look at 2000 different HQs and then know that he is ever going to take 2 of them , or in the case of tyranids a flyrants and nothing else ever.

Or to make it really simple. Models that you buy with real life cash , ones you like, should not make you feel bad about the game and you shouldn't suddenly look for love of painting or writing stories about your army, to somehow compensate for the lack of fun in game.

leopard wrote:
ask yourself this with 40k, how often have you seen your army, seen the enemies army and said to yourself "I know how this one is going" and been right? (good or bad result), the game shouldn't be won in the list building phase but it appears is often is

I disagree with this. I think it should. Before you roll your eyes to the back of your head, let me explain.

I don't think you should see their army and be like "Ah ... orcs. And I have tau (whatever) ... well I'm definitely going to lose this, orcs beat tau like rock beats scissors". That's not good, and if that happens, then imo there needs to be some balancing of the rules. Is that what you're talking about? If yes, then I agree. Is no, then read on.

If you're talking about actual specific army lists, then I don't agree. For example, you've built an army the specializes in one thing, and it happens your opponents army specializes in oblitering that thing, then I think it's fair enough. "Ah gak, my all-tank army is going to struggle against his anti-tank patrol ... I know how this is going to go" ... and it goes that way. The problem is, that if that doesn't happen, it means the game is so "balanced" that no choices you make really matter. Anti-tank weapons? Why bother? A squad of plebs with flashlights will do exactly the same job as long as they "cost" the same amount of points. It removes all creative choice and personal style from the game and reduces it to "how many points did you spend? Doesn't matter on what, they all do the same gak in the end". I don't think that's the type of game anyone wants.

One solution to this problem is to build an army list that is versatile. Not one based on "cool models" (for example, I'm not sure if that's a point you made personally, but others have).



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Karol wrote:

Or to make it really simple. Models that you buy with real life cash , ones you like, should not make you feel bad about the game and you shouldn't suddenly look for love of painting or writing stories about your army, to somehow compensate for the lack of fun in game.

I kind of agree. I just don't think that "you bought the model with real life cash" is relevant. Buying a model makes you entitled to own that bit of plastic and nothing else.

But I do think if some model or unit is hopeless broken ... like you bought an anti-tank unit ... but it can't destroy tanks ... then that should be fixed. But I think that should be fixed whether you bought the model or not.

Losing in the list building phase is more to do with a given army having consistently poor units/rules compared to an army that has consistently good units/rules and is just a different way of saying one person has lost before the game has even begun. It's not a problem with "Cool vs Good" or meta lists but rather an army being much better as just a basic force.

40k also has a model bloat problem. It's one of the pink elephants in the room, especially with Space Marine players.

I have found AoS to be a more forgiving game when it comes to building your force as many armies just don't have a plethora of models to choose from so overall balance and overlapping is less. The factions that do have a plethora(Stormcast f.ex.) of units has a ton of rotten units no one picks.

leopard wrote:

and ask yourself this with 40k, how often have you seen your army, seen the enemies army and said to yourself "I know how this one is going" and been right? (good or bad result), the game shouldn't be won in the list building phase but it appears is often is

A few times. And mostly in my favor.
For ex:
For most of last year I ran a Grot Tank force (grot tanks, grot Mega-Tanks, Kanz, every thing else with the gretchin ky, 1 ork warboss, a Wazbomb, & a few trucks full of grots).
Any time I faced a Knight player? I was positive that I'd completely dominate & wreck him. I was wrong twice. Once it came down to how the mission objectives were placed. The other time the dice just weren't rolling in my favor at all (one of those games where you can't hit/wound/damage or save - makes winning real hard no matter what you're facing....)

But then my Grot Tank force is a perfect example of the paper to a low model count big vehicle list (like knights!) rock.
Virtually everything I field sports high str/good ap/multi-shot anti-tank weapons. And I can field A LOT of this stuff....

But that's my specific army. It's only 1 of many ways you could build Orks. I'm just the weirdo who opted for 99% grot stuff.
I don't look at Codex: Orks vs Knights & say I know how the match will go, I look at my Grot Tank list vs Knights & think that.

 The Pig-Faced Orc wrote:

leopard wrote:
ask yourself this with 40k, how often have you seen your army, seen the enemies army and said to yourself "I know how this one is going" and been right? (good or bad result), the game shouldn't be won in the list building phase but it appears is often is

I disagree with this. I think it should. Before you roll your eyes to the back of your head, let me explain.

I don't think you should see their army and be like "Ah ... orcs. And I have tau (whatever) ... well I'm definitely going to lose this, orcs beat tau like rock beats scissors". That's not good, and if that happens, then imo there needs to be some balancing of the rules. Is that what you're talking about? If yes, then I agree. Is no, then read on.

If you're talking about actual specific army lists, then I don't agree. For example, you've built an army the specializes in one thing, and it happens your opponents army specializes in oblitering that thing, then I think it's fair enough. "Ah gak, my all-tank army is going to struggle against his anti-tank patrol ... I know how this is going to go" ... and it goes that way. The problem is, that if that doesn't happen, it means the game is so "balanced" that no choices you make really matter. Anti-tank weapons? Why bother? A squad of plebs with flashlights will do exactly the same job as long as they "cost" the same amount of points. It removes all creative choice and personal style from the game and reduces it to "how many points did you spend? Doesn't matter on what, they all do the same gak in the end". I don't think that's the type of game anyone wants.

One solution to this problem is to build an army list that is versatile. Not one based on "cool models" (for example, I'm not sure if that's a point you made personally, but others have).



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Karol wrote:

Or to make it really simple. Models that you buy with real life cash , ones you like, should not make you feel bad about the game and you shouldn't suddenly look for love of painting or writing stories about your army, to somehow compensate for the lack of fun in game.

I kind of agree. I just don't think that "you bought the model with real life cash" is relevant. Buying a model makes you entitled to own that bit of plastic and nothing else.

But I do think if some model or unit is hopeless broken ... like you bought an anti-tank unit ... but it can't destroy tanks ... then that should be fixed. But I think that should be fixed whether you bought the model or not.

Apple is in the business of selling smart phones. A smart phone can go on the internet, make calls and send texts. If the phone on release is broken, Apple has failed to deliver on the agreed delivery of a working smart phone, you weren't agreeing to pay for a hunk of metal and glass, but a smart phone. When Apple decided to slow down old smart phones, they were fined.

When you buy a Warhammer miniature you are buying a game piece, not just a hunk of plastic, Games Workshop cannot deliver a faulty product and they cannot ruin the product you bought later on by deliberately or through gross negligence giving it an unfairly high pts cost.

What you are doing is wrong, by protecting the bad practices GW engages in and trying to obfuscate the issues GW have had with game balance and playing it off as player mistakes instead of the often obvious mistakes GW have made. Stuff like increasing the pts cost of units that cost 3-4 to 5, 5 to 6, 6 to 8, 7 to 9 and 8 to 11 and increasing the pts cost of everything else by 25% instead of looking at what units were actually worth with the new missions at the start of 9th was not okay. GW fethed up and supporting that kind of practice is hurting yourself and fellow consumers.

You know that Wood Elves are better than Goblins in Blood Bowl, it's not down to players playing Goblins wrong the Goblins just aren't good enough, but how much better do they need to be? I'd say a 55% win rate for Wood Elves and 45% win rate for Goblins would be enough to ensure that competitive players are rewarded for skillful play with their Wood Elves and not encouraged to rely too much on luck by playing Goblins. If that difference is 60% vs 35% then something is way off base and GW should fix it and saying that Goblins just need to never take 2 of their 5 player options and instead rely on some kind of Star Player for a 40% win rate is white knighting that I don't know why you'd engage in.

I can not help but realize acutely that The Pig-Faced Orc is a self described new player because their arguments make little sense in the history of 40k. I've been playing since 3rd, not the oldest of grognards but been around a bit, and I can tell you with absolute honesty that there have been times in 40ks history where you could tell what the outcome of a game was going to be based on the armies independent of the list.

7th Orcs vs 7th Space marines is one of the more jarring examples I can remember. Space Marines could get hundreds of free points worth of stuff and Orcs...didn't even get a formation until they got a supplement and even then it was god awful. 9th edition is less extreme than that but I know an Imperial Fist player and generally I can tell how his game is going to go purely based on what army he is facing off against. I fully agree that 9th edition is far more balanced than the game has been in the past but it is by no means even close to balanced.

Nurgle Daemons are my personal little pet peeve with the editions balance. Nurgle Daemons are never going to have a strong showing because they suck pretty hard. The best Nurgle list is just throwing as many GUO's and Soulgrinders into a list that you can possibly fit and out existing your enemy, which is no fun. With the advent of so many weapons dealing insane amounts of damage all of a sudden that list became less and less viable. I love my Nurgle Daemons, I can have fun with them and even win matches but only because I play them against people that I know are not playing competitive list. If I bring Nurgle Daemons to a tournament I am going to have middling success at best and get rolled by the top table armies.

Nurgle Daemons are a bit different from bigger problems - mono god armies just lack variety in general. Though the other issues still apply.