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This came up in another thread about WFB vs. 40K but kind of got lost in the shuffle. I thought other people might be interested in seeing this analysis as it shows the relative imbalance in WFB vs. 40K.

http://confoundingblog.wordpress.com/2009/02/26/is-warhammer-balanced/

Yes, true, but the point of the argument is that Fantasy is less balanced than 40K, which that shows. Your point actually works in favor of that argument as it shows that Fantasy is even more skewed as there is more army diversity. Marines are heavily represented in 40K, but they are not a top ranking army in tournaments in most cases. They form a baseline more than anything else.

NO_SUCH_LUCK wrote:chess is perfectly balanced

Nope, it is not. If you go first you have better odds of winning. No game is perfectly balanced that I know of.

This data is not unquestionable, of course not, but it gives a good picture that falls in line with what, to me at least, is obvious. Fantasy has less balance within it's system than 40K does.

When tournaments are dominated by a small amount of armies in Fantasy, where you have a lot more army variety, and all of those armies are tier 1, you know you have a problem.

I agree, and the concept of power scale is one that some people just don't get.

But when you consider the sheer amount of variables in these games, it would be pretty damn hard to do a totally comprehensive study. I think this is good for a baseline though, and probably as good as one could hope for.

This study was taken in the context of tournament play.

If you make a list to avoid imbalances in the armybook, then yeah, of course things will be OK. But that is not something you can quantify and it is sort of a given.

But when you play a game competitively, things are way out of wack.

That is true, I didn't think of that. I was only considering board games.